by Keri Lake
Some have said Szolen is a myth, as just about every city was demolished with the spread of the Dredge pathogen. I believe it’s there, though. Where else would boys, like the one standing before me, wearing a smug grin as he accepts the proffered drink, learn to become so accustomed to others waiting on him?
Certainly isn’t like that out in the Deadlands. There, a boy who doesn’t know how to fetch his own water dies of thirst. Simple as that.
Eyes on me, he sets the cup to his mouth, while I wait to collect it from him. Casting my gaze away, I try to ignore the obnoxious gulp of his throat, as he guzzles the drink all at once. When it’s gone, he hands the cup to me. “Another.”
Tight-lipped and quiet, I nod and shuffle across the room to fill it again.
Standing at the sink, I watch the stream of water pour out of the spigot, and at the first brush across my neck, I freeze, the water spilling over the sides and splashing into the basin.
“I’ve not seen you before.” His whisper tickles my ear, and not in a good way. “How is that?”
“Not sure. I’ve been here quite a while now.”
“I’ve been assigned to B wing.” A soft caress to my arm startles my muscles, and I drop the cup into the basin with a clang. “Clumsy girl. Pick it up. Fill it again.”
“I’m Alpha Project.” Those three words have been my saving grace over the last few years, because for whatever reason, every soldier knows to stay away from the girls assigned to Alpha Project.
“And?”
Except this one, it seems.
His fingers skate lower, as he draws a line from my shoulder to my bicep and across to my breast. “Your tits were the first thing I noticed. Big and fleshy.” The moment his hand cups my breast, I hold my breath, my whole body falling into paralysis. This doesn’t happen to me. Every soldier knows Alpha subjects are off limits.
“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t do this.”
“I’ve a raid this afternoon. My first. I was hoping for some good luck.” His massaging of my flesh doesn’t cease, while he takes hold of my hand and guides it behind my back. A sizable bulge greets my fingertips when he smashes my hand against it. I flex my arm to tug it away from him, but he holds it steady, rubbing my hand over the fabric. “That’s it.” A shaky breath blasts from his mouth, falling hard against my neck. His fingers curl into my breast, massaging in the same strokes as my hand against his groin. “Give it a squeeze.”
“No.” Lip trembling, I try to hold back tears. I’ve heard about these encounters from the other girls.
Don’t fight it, they warned, as if I’d ever be subject to it. As if any soldier would be stupid enough to proposition an Alpha subject. The mere mention of my assignment typically results in instant disinterest, and I’ve never had to explain, nor endure, the humiliation of such a thing.
Until now.
Sharp pain radiates over my flesh with the digging of his nails, and I whimper, capping the scream cocked at the back of my throat. I heard of a girl who screamed for help once. One who reported her attacker to the Barrack Leader. The next night, she was stolen from her bunk and gang raped in the basement.
I don’t dare protest. Instead, I do as he insists, squeezing the bulge through the fabric, until his torment lessens, and he lets out a moan.
“Just like that, girl. A bit more.” His hips rub hard against my pants, his grip growing tight. Tighter. So tight, he bends my body over the sink, and I’m staring at our reflection in the bottom of the basin. His eyes are screwed shut, mouth gaping with his moans, nails digging into my breast, while he forces me to rub him through his pants.
Finally, he shudders a breath, and his body follows suit, shivering against my back. The dampness of his pants wets my palm, where he grinds his crotch into my hand, as though smearing the fluid gathered on the other side of the fabric. He allows me to release him, but his hand doesn’t immediately fall away. He bends around my body, leaning in to suck my nipple through the fabric of my shirt, and I hate the sensation of his mouth on me. Like a child, suckling at its mother.
He gives one pinch and straightens himself. “You belong to me, girl. Anyone else tries to touch you, you tell them you belong to Dean, understand?”
Tears blurring my eyes, I nod. Four years, I’ve managed to avoid this. Four years, I’ve belonged only to myself, and now, I’m the entertainment to a Legion soldier named Dean.
Hand trembling, I push a strand of hair behind my ear, as Medusa leads me into Valdys’s cell.
“You will make the effort this time.” Her voice seems colder, more harsh than usual, and I wonder what she earns from this. If there’s reward in store for her, if this little experiment is a success.
I can still smell the Legion officer on my skin. A nauseating scent of whatever soap he uses to wash. I tried to scrub it away in the kitchen earlier, but it’s in my clothes and my hair, clinging to me like a nightmare I can’t wish away. The scent turns my stomach as I enter the Alpha’s room, praying my mind can be distracted for just a few moments. Just a brief reprieve when I don’t have to hear those excited breaths in my ear, and feel the soldier’s hand pressed against mine, while forcing me to squeeze his cock.
I can’t imagine Roz enjoying such a thing with Kenny. I found the whole act repulsive. Standing just inside the entrance, I take a moment to gather myself and breathe. Before I fall into my usual spot against the wall, the shadows across the room stir into motion, and seconds later, Valdys comes into view, his big, imposing body looking tense and poised with irritation, his shoulders bunched forward. Perhaps he’s grown tired of these visits as much as I have.
He silently accosts me, and I gasp at the moment he’s standing over me, shrinking me. He hasn’t done this since our first meeting.
My mind slips into those moments from before, stood at the kitchen sink, feeling helpless and violated, and the thought that today might be the day Valdys does the same.
His helmet drags over my skin, the sound of his sniffing forced and abrupt. He lifts my hand, the same hand that stroked the soldier earlier, and he sniffs it, before throwing it to the side. The cold iron scrapes over my swollen breast, and I flinch at the tenderness where I was handled so roughly before. I want to crawl into myself and die right now, as Valdys somehow finds all of my invisible wounds, sniffing them out like shadows of pain, searching for explanation. Through the helmet, his eyes stare back at me, cold and dark, deep as waters, in which I fear to swim. With a grunt, he pushes off of me, kicking me back two steps, only exacerbating the horrid feelings of shame that won’t leave my head. Tears slip down my cheeks when he finally retreats to his shadows, leaving me as useless as I felt earlier today.
Minutes pass in silence, until the door clicks open, and the tension in my chest eases. I can finally go back to my room, my safe place, my bed, and unleash the tears I’ve fought to hold back since the moment that soldier touched me.
Legion officers enter the room with guns strapped across their chests.
More officers wait in the corridor, alongside Medusa, who waves me out.
“Come, girl,” she says. “Wait out here.”
Wiping tears from wet cheeks, I pad out of the room and into the corridor, just like the last time, and wait by Titus’s door.
With a shake of her head, Medusa tugs me away. “You’ll not be going into Titus’s room today.”
Leading me down the hallway, Medusa doesn’t so much as look back at me, and a sense of dread hits the pit of my stomach. Maybe she knows about the soldier. Maybe he told her what happened in the kitchen, that I performed sexual acts on him. Maybe it was a test to see if I’d allow him to use me that way.
Oh, God.
As we step into the elevator, I watch Legion soldiers lead Valdys out of the room, his body big and threatening, even surrounded by so many. Perhaps I ruined the experiment, and Valdys is no longer necessary. Maybe I’m no longer necessary, just like the girl assigned to Titus.
Every muscle in my body is shaking while I stan
d there, waiting for some explanation to magically appear. The elevator door finally closes, and I swallow past the dryness in my throat, lifting my gaze to Medusa.
“Is something wrong?” My voice is small and weak, brimming with the tears I still haven’t shed.
“There’s been a change of plans.”
Change of plans. Change of mind. Change of subjects. My mind races with the meaning of her words, losing to the confusion that knocks me off balance.
“Am I … in trouble?”
Stern eyes, more vacant than before, fall on me only briefly, before she turns back toward the elevator doors. “That’s yet to be seen.”
Chapter 13
Four years ago
Nights are hardest in this place. During the day, I have the distraction of things constantly moving. Bodies being wheeled through the halls--to surgery, to the incinerator. I can spot the difference, because the incinerator-bound bodies are usually covered by a sheet. Then there’s the observation of familiar faces that don’t show up for supper the next day, or whose bed goes empty, before being quickly filled by a new face.
The occasional fight breaks out, and that’s always somewhat engrossing, particularly when subjects are dragged off and never seen after.
But nights are something else. Nights are when this place goes pitch black. When the cries bleed through the walls. Nights are when I miss my sister’s giggles and whispers, and I’m left thinking too much about what will happen to the two of us.
I have nightmares about it, and sometimes, I swear those screams sound like my sister, but then I see her at supper the next day, and all is okay again.
Until night.
“Hey! Girl!” The whispered voice belongs to the girl in the bunk next to me. The freckly one who attacked me the first day here. Some call her Lee, others Neela. Some by her number that I’ve since forgotten. Aside from some occasional glares, she hasn’t bothered me since that day in the yard, but at the first brush against my arm, my muscles tense, and I twist around in my bed, hands balled to a fist and ready to swing out.
“You work in the kitchen, right?”
Staring into the blackness with confusion she undoubtedly can’t see, I nod. “Yeah.”
“You’ll bring us two pieces of bread. After supper tomorrow.”
Stealing bread from the kitchen is one of the worst offences, and results in severe punishment. I know this, because the kitchen leader told me at least a half dozen times during my first day on the job. So, why the hell would I risk my butt for this girl?
“What do I get out of that?”
“Protection. You need people in this place. I know boys here. And older girls. Girls who know your sister.”
I freeze at that, hope blooming inside my chest. Even if I can’t be physically near Bryani, perhaps I can still offer her a watchful eye, even if it isn’t mine. “Her barracks?”
“Yeah. My friend works transport. Down there all the time. You bring the two of us bread each night, I’ll make sure you and your sister are looked after.”
Contemplating this for a moment, I mentally weigh the consequences of stealing against the real possibility that someone could hurt my sister. “It’s a deal,” I whisper back. “They’ll be under your pillow.”
I glance around the kitchen for any sign of the guards, or kitchen leader, and tuck the chunks of bread into the waistband of my pants. If this place doesn’t want anyone stealing food, they shouldn’t make it so easy. Anyone ambitious enough could clear the place out, if they wanted to, and were willing to face whatever punishment that would follow. I clean the drain catch, staring down at the soft pieces of bread and bits of soggy, wet beans. Even this would fill someone’s stomach, if they were hungry enough, and I don’t scoff at the idea.
That could very well be me.
I spill the sodden food into the compost bin that has begun to smell, permeating through the kitchen.
A hand taps my shoulder, and I startle, turning to see my kitchen leader standing behind me. Slightly taller and lean, she often wears a smile, in spite of this place. I can’t imagine why, seeing as she carries more scars than any woman I’ve seen here.
“Congratulations, you’ve made it through the first week of kitchen duty,” she says, and crosses her arms. “Make sure you grab an extra piece of bread before you go tonight.”
Something slides down my leg, creeping it’s way along my thigh, to my shin, and I stiffen in horror, as it occurs to me the piece of bread I grabbed has wriggled loose.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I never asked you. Where’d you come from?”
The bread falls to the floor, but doesn’t seem to break her attention, and I use my feet to slide it behind me. “I’m sorry?”
“Your hive. Where did you come from?”
“Northeast. Far. My hive was raided.”
“Ragers?”
I nod, crossing my arms in front of me to be sure the other piece of bread still sits tucked in my waistband. “A horde.”
“A horde came through my hive, as well.” Her gaze lowers from mine, and she frowns. “You plan to take that with you?”
A zap of terror winds down my spine, and rolling my shoulders back, I try to think of an excuse for why I’d hide the bread.
She bends forward and nabs the drain catch from my fingers. “Not sure what use this would be.” She chuckles and pats me on the shoulder. “I’ll take it back to the sink for you. Have a good night.”
“Have a … good night.” As she walks off, I lower myself to the floor and pick up the piece of bread, scraping off the small bits of dirt, before tucking it back into my band. The breath that shivers out of me carries all the tension of the last five minutes.
Once back at the barracks, I slip the bread beneath Neela’s pillow when the other girls aren’t looking, and crawl into my bed.
Minutes later, Neela and her friend return to the barracks, eyes on me, as they make their way to their bunk. Reaching under her pillow, Neela smiles and gives a nod.
I nod in return.
“Light’s out!” Medusa calls from the door of the barracks, and she performs her usual sweep, eyes scanning for anything unusual. By the time she reaches our end of the room, she pauses, trailing her gaze over our beds in the most harrowing twenty seconds of my life.
“No talking tonight,” she says, before retreating back into the hallway, closing the door behind her.
In the blackness of the room, I blow out a shaky breath and close my eyes.
Chapter 14
Present day
* * *
Medusa leads me past a guard, and into a room I’ve never been to before. A large screen sits on a cart of some sort, at the head of a circular table. Medusa points to one of the chairs at the table, and I sit down, my knees knocking together.
Men in white lab coats file in, some of their faces familiar from my weekly checkups. Others, I’ve never seen before. Why would they be here? Why am I here?
As the table becomes crowded, my nerves kick into high alert, and somehow, I feel smaller.
Medusa takes a seat beside me, and the low hum of chatter fills the room, the occasional glance in my direction setting my teeth on edge.
Doctor Ericsson is the last to enter, and he makes his way to a chair beside the screen. “Gentleman.” His beady eyes fall on me, and he smiles. “And ladies, our troops are en route to a hive we’ve been following for a while now. For years, they’ve acted as allies, but as I understand, they’ve grown increasingly belligerent. It seems they’ve taken sides with the band of rebels who refer to themselves as Skulls. These rebels are responsible for the attacks on our Legion officers, led by, what we think, might be a former Alpha who escaped the compound a few years back. We’ve taken the liberty of planting a camera on one of our soldiers, in hopes of getting a good look at the rebels. I’ve not had the opportunity to review this footage yet, as it was turned over by one of the surviving officers who fled the attack. Our Alpha, Valdys, managed to take out
some of the rebels, as well as a few of the members of the hive. And as I understand, he was the first to come upon the officer who filmed the attack.” Turning away, he flips on the screen, and my stomach sinks at the sight of the soldier who cornered me earlier in the day. “This is officer Dean Griffin who was recently assigned to B wing.”
The smile on the officer’s face disappears, as he tugs his mask over his head, and the camera switches from him to a view of the desert, setting my stomach at ease. Lines of Legion soldiers, all dressed in black, march across the sand toward a mountain off in the distance. I squint my eyes, trying to discern why the landmark seems so familiar to me.
Dryness hits the back of my throat, and I cough, drawing Doctor Ericsson’s attention, who points to Medusa. “Get her a glass of water, will you?”
Water.
The soldiers make their way up a path in the mountain, the heavy breaths of Dean, as he climbs up the rock, twisting my gut. Ahead of him, I catch sight of Valdys, who turns just long enough to make me wonder why he’s so seemingly intrigued by the camera. Once on the other side of the mountain, the men march their way toward a circle of tents set in the clearing. One I’ve seen before.
Familiar.
Men come pouring out of the tents like hot water raining on a hill of ants, and the camera begins to shake, as I presume Dean sets off on a dead run.
Chaos breaks. In the camera’s view, over Dean’s shouts and sickening heavy breaths, we watch as Legion soldiers attack the hive. Gunfire echoes. Women and children scream. In the distance, I see some kind of animal swipe out at a soldier.