by H M Sealey
The Wolf grunts and disappears to give orders to his men. River stares at her mother.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding you. You didn’t honestly think I believed Kat Summerday’s story that you’d committed suicide? Far too neat. So we just tracked you down.”
“Tracked me?”
Diana laughs, that same pretty, tinkly laugh that now seems grotesquely out of place. “I wouldn’t have bothered giving you the Morning After Jab darling. That was a GPS.” She leans forward and kisses River’s cheek. “Thank you for showing me that Kat can’t be trusted, and for coming here. Somebody here works for Family Matters and frankly, I can’t be bothered with isolating the culprit. The Wolves can just destroy it all. Such a tragedy. Since Zeb Jourdete is my biggest competitor, I can’t say I’ll miss him.”
“You – you’re a trader too?” River asks, no longer bothering to hide her emotions and instead allowing them to show in her expression.
“Oh yes. It’s such a lucrative business.”
From one of the other doors, Nicky and Zeb are herded outside. Zeb is clinging to his wife’s arm, stumbling.
“My,” Diana gazes at him with contempt. “What happened to you Zeb?”
Zeb mumbles something incoherent, I think Nicky might have given him a lot of whisky on top of the painkillers.
“An accident.” Nicky explains, to which Diana roars with laughter.
“Hard to do that accidentally. Ah well, it’s a pity he won’t see this place burn.”
The Wolves start bringing up the slaves. The girls all look terrified, most of them are crying, a few are making a fuss and one or two clearly can’t walk. They must be ones Jeb had cut. They’re pale and sick looking, moaning with pain every time they move.
“Since when are you anything to do with the Wolves mum?” River asks, dumbfounded. After all that, after having the GPS dug out of my arm, we’re still trapped by exactly the same technology. What was the point?
Diana cocks her head to one side in a little-girl way.
“Oh darling, did you think they came from the BSI?”
“They do come from the BSI. Everyone knows that. It’s only your stupid government that denies it.”
Diana lowers her voice, but its deliberately loud enough to be heard. “Here’s a little secret River. The Wolves are nothing to do with the BSI.”
Confusion settles in River’s already devastated eyes. “You mean your government’s actually telling the truth?”
Diana preens and twists a piece of her blonde hair around her fingers. “Let me explain something darling. About ten years ago there was a little civil war over in the BSI. We didn’t let the media report on it of course, the media only reports what it’s told. We wanted to keep the narrative that it was all honour killings and stoning over there. Then the Reformists took power and they wanted to start talks about reintegrating Britain.”
“Really?” I think that shocks us both. Nobody has ever suggested that the country would be better if if we reconciled. It’s one of those things that would be unthinkable to voice.
“Really darling. The problem is, if we integrate the BSI and Old Britain again, we’ll lose the Border, and I need the Border.”
Diana draws herself even closer to River, circling her so she can touch the back of River’s neck and whisper softly in her ear like a demon on her shoulder. “So I hit on the idea of the Wolves. Fierce Islamic warriors striking fear into the hearts of everyone they attack, unstoppable, a force of nature tearing through civilisation! Of course, NuTru couldn’t come out and accuse them of being from the BSI since they’re not, but we made sure there was enough evidence to link them in peoples’ minds. That way the government simultaneously shows unequivocal support for the BSI whilst sending out the Wolves to terrify the people.”
I can barely believe she’s admitting to manipulating everybody like this.
“We need to keep the country frightened of the BSI you see.” Diana explains. “So that any future referendums will be sure to keep the countries separate.”
“You total bitch.” River snarls.
“Oh it’s clever darling, can’t you see that? I have great affection for Islam. After all, the ESI has practically wiped out Christianity from western Europe.”
“Just as you’ve done from Old Britain?”
“I dislike bronze-age values. Why not use one set of primitives to wipe out another?”
“Then who are the Wolves?” River asks the question that’s on my own lips. “Where do they come from?”
I listen to all this from my place of relative safety by the big tree, but there are Wolves prowling so I don’t think I’ll stay invisible for very long. I strain my ears to hear Diana’s response. Everyone in Old Britain thought they were an Islamic threat, even when we tried to convince ourselves they weren’t, even when we were admonished for believing stereotypes and scare stories – stereotypes and scare stories perpetuated by the same government who shamed us for believing them. I can’t believe Diana Lamont would be so cynical as to deliberately deepen the division between the cultures just for her own gain. Don’t the people on either side of the Border matter to her at all?
Diana turns back to one of the men and runs her hand along his arm.
“These gentlemen – not that they’re anything of the sort – come from the prisons darling. They’re the testosterone-filled men who refuse to embrace feminism, the ones we couldn’t change. The ones who tried to go their own way, afflicted by chronic sexism. It seemed such a shame to let all that masculinity rot. So I recruited them. Now they can be men, they can have their guns, cars and any women they catch. They dress like the Islamic State did and the BSI gets the blame. Don’t you think they’re amazing?”
“All this just to make people suspicious of the BSI?”
“Well, that and all the stories we leak. The floggings and the beheadings. And, of course, there’s the bonus that they can sell the people they take captive and become self-funding The spoils of victory. It makes good economic sense.”
River’s gone past disgust now, way past. I think she’s almost laughing at the absurdity of the whole situation.
“But you sell them to yourself?” River’s voice is a high, incredulous squeak. “You’re a bloody trader!”
“Only some of them. Some of them go to the other Traders. I wouldn’t want to seem discriminatory.”
“All those things you said about the barbarity of men. All those classes on internalised misogyny. And now you’re sending men out to rape and kill because it makes economic bloody sense!”
Diana’s blue eyes narrow, I don’t know why, I’m quite certain she doesn’t feel shame for what she’s doing. “I like men like this darling. Brutes who take what they want. They just don’t fit in with the society I want to build. Some people just don’t respond to all the re-education in the world.”
“You’re truly sick.”
Diana steps back and gazes around her. Other people are brought out of the house, some dead, some alive, some in a state between the two. I wince as more windows are smashed and guns are fired.
“So River, would you like to tell me who you came to see? Who here is a part of the elusive Family Matters, and who is just unfortunate enough to be involved in a Wolf attack?”
“You’re going to kill a lot of people mother.” River is trembling, either with revulsion or fear or both. I glance down at my own hand in the dark, clutching my salvaged pistol, and I realise I’m shaking too.
“I’m going to remove a dangerous, terrorist threat to the country.” Diana declares. “And this is just a perfect location you’ve chosen. It will forever associate Family Matters with slavery. Twin evils. Karma darling.”
I try to count the Wolves, but they move like oil on water, dark bodies shifting around, already looting the house. One of the Wolves seizes Missy by the hair and starts to drag her towards the trucks as if she’s a bag of potatoes. She screams and tries to fight him but he’s too strong.
There’s a man on the steps of the house clutching a body, he lays it on the floor and races down the steps.
“Missy! Let her go you bastard!”
One of the Wolves stops him with a blow to the head with the butt of his rifle. The crack of metal against bone resounds and the man collapses onto the gravel. Missy screams again.
“Dai!”
The Wolf hauls Missy up, over his shoulder and Missy carries on kicking but he doesn’t even notice. The long, black clothing she wears wraps around her like a sack, preventing her from fighting back at all.
“I like it when they struggle!” The Wolf chuckles, and this comment causes Missy’s scream to increase until her voice breaks into a ragged, desperate croak.
That’s when I do something really stupid. I step out from behind the tree and cover the twenty feet to the first van as softly as I can. Most of the Wolves are in the house now, smashing furniture and taking anything even remotely valuable. The trucks are deserted except for the biggest into which the Wolves are herding the girls. Except they’re doing more than herding, their groping hands tear at clothing as they grab breasts and backsides, and they toss out the lewdest comments I’ve ever heard outside a television drama.
The man holding Missy disappears into the shadows and throws her down onto her back.
“Please!” Missy begs. “Please don’t!” She’s sobbing with the sort of terrified despair that used to fill my soul every night. “Don’t do this. Not again. I can’t bear it again.”
She meets his eyes bravely. “Why?” She asks as the big man straddles her.
There’s a brief pause. “You ever been to prison?” He says. Missy shakes her head.
“N – no.”
“All my life I was told I’m wrong. Defective. Every thought in my head, every urge in my body. I realised being a man itself was illegal and I was ashamed of being one. In prison I met other men like me and I got to realise there’s nothing wrong with us. We’re not defective. Society is.”
“I think it is too.” Missy tries to push him backwards, to force him away from her.
“So I got thinking, doesn’t matter what I do. I can’t make society any more broken so I might as well enjoy the Hell out of my life while I can.”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Thing is, when I was a kid I read books about knights rescuing princesses. Then I was taught rescuing princesses was bad. They can rescue themselves and I was wrong to think it was good. So I stopped caring about them, since they don’t need me.”
Missy sobs as he starts to tear her long, black clothing aside.
“What’re you wearing woman, a binsack?”
“Stop it!” I think she scratches her face because I hear a quick exclamation of pain and see a splash of red on Missy’s nails as he forces her hands down and holds them there.
“Hey, you’re the princess that doesn’t need saving. I wouldn’t like to be fucking sexist or nothing.”
I cross the gravel as softly as I can, the Wolf is preoccupied with Missy, he growls at her to shut the fuck up as she continues to fight him. Then, to my horror, he raises his fist and hits her hard.
“Go on then!” He snarls. “Rescue yourself! Show me that you can do every fucking thing a man can do! Prove the crap that gender is a social construct!”
I swallow, step forwards and press the gun I took from the old man against the back of his head.
“Let her go.” I command.”
The man pauses but doesn’t comply.
“Go on.” I say, forcing my voice to sound strong. “Get off her.”
“You’re not one of us?”
“No. I don’t believe in raping or looting.”
“That’s what men do.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Yeah? Ever looked at the rape stats? Ever noticed how bad they got ever since they started teaching men they were broken?”
I have looked at the rape statistics and he’s absolutely right. Violent crime has sky-rocketed in the last fifty years.
“That’s ‘cos these leftie bastards took everything away from men. They banned guns in the playground. They stopped us playing with cars and trains. They stuck us in fucking tutus to get in touch with our inner girl! They even disbanded the army. Everything they did they told us we weren’t needed, that we were bad and wrong. That we had to change. And then the ESI floods Europe and there are no men left to fight. Russia’s never gonna fall to the ESI, they still got proper men over there.”
“Proper men don’t rape women.”
“Yeah, well, no such thing as men and women is there? Not according to the bastards in charge. Only there is a difference, as this bitch is about to find out.”
“I said to let. Her. Go.” I tighten my finger on the trigger, I don’t know how to shoot or even if it’s loaded.
“You gonna shoot me man?”
“Yes.” I lie, wishing my hands weren’t shaking quite so violently.
“Go on then.” He’s grinning, even hidden by a mask I know he’s grinning. “You haven’t got the guts. You’re one of them. Poodles. You’ve been whipped into shape and learned your place and your place is apologising for even being born with a dick! Bet you’ve never fired a gun in your life. Bet you’ve never even held one you sad wanker. Why don’t you fuck back off over the border and find a safe space? Leave me to do what I’m made to do.”
Missy squeals and there’s a terrible crack, like thunder. My whole arm seems to explode with fire that sends an earthquake through my body.
The man slides silently on top of Missy with a thud of dead meat, even in the dark I can see the hole in the back of his head where the bullet went through. There’s blood and broken bits of skull and tissue on the ground, patches of dark shadow, barely red in this light.
Missy sobs and I don’t move other than to tremble. I can’t even speak. I just shot a man. I’m a killer. A murderer.
I drop the gun, never wanting to touch it ever again and I fall onto my knees. Missy wriggles out from beneath the Wolf’s body, gasping with shock and relief.
“Josh…?”
“I…..killed him….”
“Josh?”
“I killed him.” I say again, even my voice sounds wrong. All around me I can hear glass breaking and wild screams of triumph and glee, but inside everything is utterly still, silent.
“Thank you.” Missy whispers into my ear, tears choking her words. “Thank you for saving me.”
~
~ Thirty-One ~
Elsie
The Wolves crash through the house, I hear their voices and the sounds of turmoil coming closer and I hold Hajjah tightly. I’m scared. It’s like listening to a pack of lions and waiting to feel their claws.
Finally the door is thrown open and half a dozen black-clad men with only their eyes showing pour into the room. Asim picks up the wine bottle Hajjah used to poison Kit and brandishes it like a club. I don’t hunt for a weapon, I know the rules, I know the law. Never confront the Wolves. Never fight them. Missy confronted them and look what happened to her.
Strong arms grab me and I see Asim launch himself forward, meaning to shatter the bottle over the head of the man holding me. He doesn’t get very far before a Wolf uses his gun to smash Asim’s jaw. I watch him fall to the floor in blood and pain before the Wolf snatches the bottle, pops the cork with his thumb and pulls down his balaclava to allow him to gulp the liquid thirstily. I wonder how long it’ll be before the Assisted Suicide drugs work on him too?
Baraq gives a groan as he’s dragged out of bed.
“The Doctor said not to move him!” I cry, restrained by the man whose hands are tight around my body. “You’ll tear his stitches!”
“Yeah, I’ve got my orders too. Everyone out.” The man holds a gun on Baraq. “You get up, or you die. Your choice.”
Baraq, holding his hands in the air, clambers out of bed, bearing the pain from his unhealed wound.
The man holding me gives
me a huge shove across the room, away from the door.
“I’ll follow you guys.” He says, throwing me onto the bed so hard I gasp. “Just give me ten minutes here first.”
He lands on top of me, hands pawing at my clothing. I can’t move, he’s too heavy.
“Stop it!” Hajjah rushes at the man, striking his back with both fists. She says something in another language, Arabic I suppose, but nobody seems to care. “Leave her alone! She’s just a girl!”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m not gonna leave her alone.”
One of the Wolves hits Hajjah hard, before grabbing her and hauling her out of the room.
“Hey!” Another wolf glares at the man on top of me. “Not right now. Get her out with the others. You can fuck her as long as you want afterwards.”
“Oh come on!” The man whose face is so close to mine I could bite his nose, looks up in annoyance. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“They’re torching this place, so get the Hell outside.”
The Wolf, to my relief, climbs off me, grabs me by the arm, and drags me from the room.
The house looks awful, vases and windows are shattered, furniture is being broken to pieces, piled into bonfires in the middle of rooms, carpets and curtains are torn up. The Wolf half throws me down the stairs, and as we move, we pass the Wolf who drank the wine sitting on the bottom step.
“You okay, you lazy bastard?” The one holding me grunts.
“Sure. Just a bit dizzy. Give me a couple of seconds.”
I don’t feel at all upset that he’s dying. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway. What’s the point in telling him?
Outside there are trucks, their headlights like blazing dragon-eyes, lighting up the whole area. A thick plume of smoke is already escaping the door closest to the cellars where the slaves are kept. Trembling, I search for Hajjah and Asim. Hajjah is crumpled on the steps nearby, shaking with terror, her clothing is torn and there’s a bruise developing over her eye and cheek. Asim is crouching over what I think is a body, but I don’t know whose because I can only see the feet. The Wolf lets me go and I scramble down the stone steps to Asim’s side.