by Norah Wilson
“What choice do you have?”
Where are ya, whores? The Reprobate’s words rang in her mind. She closed her eyes against the horror of the attack, against the thought of what he would have done to her. Or, oh God, to Zophia! When she opened them, Kallem was staring at her.
“I’m going with you,” he said, in that flat voice.
“Is that a threat, soldier?”
Tense silence stretched between them as they eyed each other, until Zophia suddenly spoke. “North! We’re heading north, sol—Kallem.”
“Zophia!” Maree hissed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trusting him, Maree. Like he said, what choice do we have? Do we just wait around for more Reprobates to come again? We know nothing of this outside wor—”
“I’ll keep you safe,” Maree said. “I’d give my life to it.”
“And who will keep you safe?” Zophia let out a breath, visibly softening as she sighed. “Maree, I’d give my life for you too. We escaped that compound to be together. To find a different life. And we may actually have a chance to do that now that we’re outside the gate. But we’ll have a better chance if we trust this one. If we let him help us.”
Maree wet her lips, weighing her sister’s words and balancing them with her own fear. She knew so much more than Zophia of the ways of men. And yet, the look in her wise sister’s eyes…
“Yes, north,” Maree finally said. She’d tell him little, as little as possible for now.
“Where?”
“To So—”
“Just north!” Maree’s tone was sharp and warning as she interrupted her sister. “We travel by night, by the north star.”
“And pray the sky’s clear.” Biting her lip, Zophia glanced upward.
Maree followed her gaze. Already the sky was covered with clouds. The cover might blow over by nightfall, but chances were not good.
Kallem reached into the rucksack on the ground. From a small side pocket, he pulled out a circular metal disc. “This will help,” he said. “This will lead the way. It’s a—”
“Compass.” Maree let out a long breath. The Prophet had showed her one once. Another time when he’d been on one of his needle binges and hadn’t watched so very closely what he was doing. Hadn’t realized the woman he’d just torn into was truly observing all that he did. Stocking the information away. A compass was a powerful instrument. One they could use.
“I’ll get you north,” Kallem said. “Let me take you in that direction, at least today.”
“Give me the compass,” Maree stated. “If you really want to help us—”
“And wander around in these woods myself? Hoping for cloudless nights so I can find my own way by the stars? I don’t think so.”
Maree sat silently. Thinking. Deciding. Her stomach churned with the reality that she had little choice.
“It’ll be fine,” Zophia said. “Remember, there’s security in numbers. We’ll just let Kallem lead us north for a while. Just till…just till we’re safer. Just until we’re past the worst of it.”
She looked at her sister. Violence sickened Zophia. It always had. She was still shaken from the Reprobate’s attack on Maree. If the soldier could offer her some sense of comfort, at least for a short time, maybe she should allow it. Slowly, Maree nodded. “All right. Just until we’re past the worst of it, Kallem. Then you leave us.”
He snapped the compass closed, nodded, and began packing up their makeshift camp.
Silently, Maree finished her meal. Yes, she’d let Kallem go with them, but only for a little while. She wouldn’t lead him anywhere near Society Three. Most soldiers didn’t believe in it—a place where women could be safe. Could rule. Could live. But she believed. She had to. And dammit, she’d seen the map.
Though kind-hearted Zophia might trust him, Maree was a harder sell.
Maree bent to collect the empty ration wrappers—hers and Zophia’s—and turned to hand them to Kallem to store in his rucksack. But when she looked up, Zophia was helping Kallem wind a piece of clean gauze bandage around his powerful bicep. As she secured the bandage, she laid her hand upon the gauze-covered wound as if trying to somehow heal the gashes the knife had made, and Maree’s stomach lurched at the sight.
“Zophia!”
Zophia dropped her hand and turned to Maree, her eyes questioning.
An innocent, Zophia would have no idea what cruelty her touch, her kindness, might be met with. Maree would have to speak to her. For now, she handed Zophia the empty ration packages. “Put these in the rucksack with the others.”
Zophia turned to do as her sister bid her, and Maree met Kallem’s eyes over her gracefully bent back. His grey eyes were flat and inscrutable.
She’d kill him if he hurt Zophia. Kill him if he took her as soldiers were known to take everything they wanted. Somehow, she would kill him if he crossed them. And she let that promise shine from her eyes.
Something flickered in his stare—something almost like admiration—but then it was gone. “We have to go,” he announced.
Zophia had finished with his rucksack, and he shrugged the heavy weight of it onto his back, then shouldered the rifle. With a glance at his compass, he nodded toward a large birch tree. “This way’s north,” he said, and started out.
Maree held back, putting a restraining hand on Zophia’s arm. Kallem could not have failed to notice they weren’t following, but he didn’t break stride. Not until Maree called out the final question she couldn’t help but ask.
“Why? Why are you doing this, Kallem Marsh? You say you were kicked out of the First Guard because we escaped. Why are you helping us now?”
He paused then and turned to face her. “Because I can no longer uphold the Eleventh Commandment. Which makes me the worst of sinners in the Holy New Order. A disbeliever, like you.”
“But why are you helping us?”
He looked away, for the first time not being able to meet her eyes. “Redemption. For my other sins.” When he swung his head around again, his glare was hard. “I have many.”
Chapter 5
HE HAD taken a needle for the pain, and so the Prophet sat both silently and calmly as the medic changed the dressing on his wound. He could have taken something also for the humiliation, the anger rising over what Maree had done to him. But no. He wanted to feel that. Needed to feel that.
He would use it.
The chest tube had come out this morning, his lung having reinflated uneventfully. And though the site of the puncture still hurt, it was no more bothersome than the shoulder wound. It was the latter that Graham, the medic, worked on now. Carefully, tenderly.
Graham was an older man, mid-sixties. His grey hair was shaved short against his scalp as was the rule for all of his discipline. The Prophet watched him closely—not the work, but the man’s face. Instilling the fear of God with that silent stare. And it was a stare that said it all: Do this right, or else. The medic nodded, and the young female assistant at his side wiped the sweat from his brow.
Good. He fears me. Still, the Prophet was not unaware of what was going on in the compound. Wasn’t immune to the murmuring. He saw the looks passed between the others as they came and went from his quarters. Glances in the doorways. And too, Swagg had been in to inform him of how badly things were going.
The people were wondering. How could their Prophet be wounded so grievously? Nearly killed! How could he have been so wrong as to be wronged? And by a mere female! A whore!
And then there was the most dangerous question of all. The Prophet knew they muttered an unfinished, what if she’d succeeded?
He winced. Not at anything the attentive medic was doing, but at the thought. Still the grey-haired man looked up, startled. But Graham held the Prophet’s glance a fraction of a second too long.
“Do you disbelieve, Graham?” the Prophet asked.
Beside the medic, his female assistant lowered her head and cringed, as if expecting a blow to come with the question.
“No, si
r. Thou shalt not disbelieve,” the medic answered dutifully. “It’s the Eleventh Commandment.”
He nodded slowly, continuing to stare at the man until the poor fellow lowered his own eyes. “What about the others in the compound?”
“The others, Prophet? I…I cannot speak for—”
“What have you heard, Graham?” The medic had finished wrapping the wound, but the Prophet did not glance down at his shoulder to inspect the work. It would be perfect. As was the binding about his chest. “Tell me, what are the whispers? What are the others saying about their Prophet being so injured? Stabbed by one of the whores. By Maree.”
The man paused long enough that the Prophet couldn’t help but know his reluctance to answer. He rubbed the thumb of his left hand over the medic tattoo on his right hand. The sign of his trade: the Caduceus—the staff and the snakes. On a whim, the Prophet could slice through that tattoo, cast him out of the trade, and out of the compound.
“There…there are rumors, Prophet.”
“Tell me.”
“Most people think it’s terrible, just terrible, what Maree did. They don’t understand why she—”
The Prophet threw up a hand to cut him off. “I’m not interested in those people. Tell me what the rest are saying.” The Prophet felt his heart beat harder as he waited for an answer from this man bound to tell him the truth.
Graham sighed, lowering his head some more. “There are those…” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “There are those who don’t understand how it happened. Some say you…you’re slipping in your judgments. I’ve heard talk of how perhaps this is a sign in itself. And then there are those…”
“Those who what?” His heart hammered all the harder. “Go on, Graham.”
“Those who wonder if maybe you’ve been wrong all along. That they’ve been wrong all along, about you. Maree wounded you. She got away with Zophia—and that one a bleeder. The people…some of the people…just cannot understand how this could be.”
A chink in the armor.
So it had begun.
“I…I don’t think they know… I…can’t understand it, Your Holiness.” The fool of a medic was blubbering now, obviously in fear that being the messenger, he would bear the brunt of the Prophet’s anger. “I’m sure it’ll blow over once the soldiers come back with Maree’s head. But…but they weren’t sent out, Prophet. Not right away, and not in great numbers. Yet, you know best and, well, there are some that say…I’ve heard them say you were growing soft, but I—”
“Leave!” the Prophet commanded. “Leave at once!”
“I said no such things, Prophet. I only report—”
“Get the hell out of here!”
Graham hastened to gather his supplies, but dropped them in his nervousness. His trembling assistant helped him pick them up again, and they both exited as fast as they could, bowing their way humbly out of the chamber.
The Prophet rose, crossed the room to a set of large, dark cabinets. He pulled a key out from his robe and opened the locked doors. He chose a vial—clear liquid—and with smooth and practiced motions, drew up the narcotic and injected himself. The pain had started throbbing again at the twin sites where Maree had injured him. But he’d carefully chosen this vial. Yes, he wanted the anger to remain. It would serve him.
Perhaps he should have sent more than Kallem out for the two women…
No. He’d made the right decision. As hot as he was to have Maree’s throat beneath his hands, he had to know once and for all about the existence of Society Three. That would strengthen his position! That would redeem him! If anyone could lead one of his men to the society, it was Maree. Her fierceness, he’d seen. That was why he’d taken such great pleasure in defeating her in his bed time and time again. Even if it was only her body he took…
What was her attachment to the younger girl?
Relations? It did not seem likely. All sibling groups were torn asunder when the Holy New Order came in. Loyalty had to belong to the Prophet alone. Yet the two females did share the same eye color… Perhaps there was a blood connection there. Or perhaps in her barrenness, the shared eye color had caused Maree to seize on the idea that Zophia was her child. That happened sometimes. Not usually with the whores, but with the wet nurses employed in the nursery. Barren they might be, but lactation could still be induced, freeing the breeders to be bred again sooner. Sometimes those barren women became deluded that the child they nursed was theirs.
Whatever the reason, Maree felt enough attachment to the bleeder to risk running with her. And yet, the Prophet could tell no one what he suspected—that the abhorrent Society Three did exist. There was a risk if others knew. Risk in knowledge. Danger in hope. No, until the Society was destroyed, he said nothing. The rumors…would be quashed in time.
Meanwhile, the masses were wondering why he’d not sent a whole contingent of soldiers. Second-guessing him! Suggesting he was going soft!
He smashed the syringe against the cabinet door, then smashed the door itself closed.
“Guard!” he hollered. Immediately, the door swung open. Gomez, a young and loyal guard, stepped inside.
“Your Holiness?”
“Bring me Liz.”
The guard hesitated. Hesitated!
“That one lies in the clinic, Prophet, from last night’s—”
“Bring her!” he roared.
“Yes, Prophet.” Gomez closed the door behind him.
The Prophet sat. Already his pain was abating. The physical pain, at least. But the humiliation, the anger—the fucking rage!—scored his brain like a demon’s claws as he waited for Liz, who served him now in Maree’s stead.
And in Maree’s stead, her friend would pay.
Chapter 6
KALLEM CAME awake suddenly, but without moving a muscle. His ears strained to catch the sound that had pulled him from his light slumber. There was another scraping sound, but from within their small shelter. Just one of the women stirring. He relaxed. Or as close as he could come to relaxing while propped in a sitting position at the mouth of a cave.
Actually, it was more of a niche in the rocks near the base of a cliff than a cave, barely big enough for the three of them to fit into. But it was the safest, most defensible campsite he was able to find, and it gave them shelter from the brutal midday sun. Despite the heat of the day, it was cool in the cave. Between them, the two women had only the one small blanket they’d been traveling with, so he’d insisted they use his bedroll. He’d dug his jacket out of the rucksack for himself. His rucksack, of course. He'd taken it off no soldier. All part of the lies he was weaving.
Another noise from inside. He turned to see the young one crawling toward him.
“Zophia?” he called softly. “What is it? Do you need to relieve yourself?”
“No. I just can’t sleep, and I didn’t want to disturb Maree.” She positioned herself next to him, drawing her legs up for warmth.
“I think your sister would be more disturbed to find you here talking to me.”
“She’s very protective of me, and she still doesn’t trust you.”
“But you do?”
“I do.”
His gut twisted at her simple declaration. “You shouldn’t, Zophia. Maree is right,” he said. “You should trust no man.”
She did not shrink away or show any inclination to return to her sister’s side. Rather, she just tipped her face up to him. “You will protect us, Kallem. I’m sure of it. You will see us safely through these wilds until we reach—”
She broke off quickly and looked away.
“Reach what, Zophia?”
“A better place.”
He would have pressed her, but Maree started to whimper piteously in her sleep. The noise tore at him. He nudged Zophia. “Shouldn’t you…I don’t know…go back to her or something?”
“Not until it passes.”
“Would it not comfort her to have you at her side?”
“No doubt. But if I go to her, she’l
l waken, and it would pain her to know we witnessed her distress.” Zophia turned her head toward him. “She pushes it down, Kallem. The pain and humiliation, the anger, that comes from being taken again and again. Most women in the Compounds do. They bury it so deep inside, it can only come out when the conscious mind shuts off.”
“You’re a wise girl.”
She shrugged. “Just an observant one.”
Kallem blinked, thinking of his own nightmares. As Captain of the Guard, he’d had his own private quarters now for two years, but prior to that, he’d always hated sleeping in the barracks lest he betray himself as Maree had just done when the nightmares came. He was a loyal servant of the Holy New Order, and he always did as he was commanded, but in his heart of hearts, he feared he wasn’t the soldier the Prophet thought him. A good soldier, a true soldier, would have a stronger stomach for soldier’s work.
Could it be the same for the whores? Were there some among them who couldn’t stomach their jobs? He’d assumed that they just accepted their role. After all, relatively speaking, they enjoyed more privileges than other women and moved more freely about the compound.
“You sister has a hard lot, I know,” he said. “I’ve seen the bruises when I’ve escorted her back to her quarters. But what of the others? The Prophet doesn’t suffer them to be harmed, unless with his permission. How then do they suffer?”
“He doesn’t permit them to be physically injured,” Zophia pointed out. “I imagine there’s a lot of potential for pain before you hit that threshold. But more than that, it’s that they have no control. They must submit to any man, provided he’s on the Prophet’s approved list, any time they wish.”
Zophia fell silent, and it was then Kallem realized that Maree had stopped thrashing.
“I must go back to bed now,” she said. “Get some sleep, Kallem.”
He watched as Zophia lifted the bedroll and crawled in with her sister. Maree must have woken, or at least sensed her, for she made a welcoming sound and pulled her young sister into her embrace. For a second, he let himself imagine her warmth and softness, but banished the thought immediately. He had enough aches from dozing in an upright position; he didn’t have to add another one.