“Why did you bother to bring me all the way out here?” Gertrude looked at her for a long, long moment. With her shoulders down and now her head down as well and the usual authority in her eyes deflated, it was as if she was admitting defeat for the first time in her life.
“Because you deserved it, Lucy,” Gertrude finally said. “I’ve suspected that you knew the truth. And more than anything I wanted you to take that position as headwoman. But when you declined I thought perhaps you didn’t know after all. Now… now I don’t know what to think. I need to know something, Lucy.” Gertrude moved to the back of the helicopter where Lucy had spent her flight in peace. There, she knelt, placed her hands on Lucy’s shoulders, and looked her dead in the eyes. “Why?” she pleaded. “Why is this your decision?”
“Gertrude,” Lucy said, “what I told you about discovering something about myself was the truth. I’d rather have spent just two hours of my own time than another lifetime doing your job. All I ever needed was a little time that belonged to me. I enjoyed this flight. Thank you for that.” Lucy paused only long enough to inhale a long breath of air and to steel her eyes. “Now,” she said, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Just get it over with.”
Gertrude didn’t say another word and moved with the quick, silent skill of a lioness. Two hours later when Monica gently touched the helicopter down on the roof of the fortress, Gertrude was still cradling Lucy’s body in her arms.
7
“Everything inside me is going haywire,” Stephanie said. She was alone and therefore nobody heard her, though she fancied that somehow the stars outside the fortress were listening and twinkling in agreement.
Tonight was her turn for guard duty. In truth, she was glad for the distraction. It had been almost a week since she’d last worked the training rooms, and she knew her reprieve from Rhonda was running short. Still, she had no idea what she was going to do about her situation, and she was hoping the stillness of midnight would help her figure it out.
Alone in the fortress’ topmost floor, she held one hand over her belly. This was something she had taken to doing in the privacy of her room the past few days.
“Dashwood,” she risked saying aloud. “Stephanie Dashwood.” This, too, had become a recent habit. Allan Dashwood was the boy she’d met at a bar on one of her recruiting missions. She’d initially marked him as a potential candidate for the island, but quickly found he was far too suave and respectful for the place.
She was walking round and round the third floor balcony, occasionally glancing at the stars as she passed the windows or down at the dozens of framed, bloodied jumpsuits on the walls and overhangs below. She stopped now and sat on one of the cushioned chairs and adjusted it a few inches so her feet could reach the windowsill.
“Allan and Stephanie Dashwood,” she said. The names had a beautiful ring to them, she decided. Her hand rubbed again at her belly, and she wondered if the life inside her was male or female and what she might name it if it was a girl.
“Stop it,” she told herself, and the stars seemed to twinkle agreement. “I can’t keep it,” she said. “Not here. I’d have to leave the island. That’s the only way.”
But what’s the penalty for leaving early? she wondered. I still have four years to fulfill my agreement. I won’t get any money, that’s for sure. Or at least, not all of it.
“Maybe Josie can help me,” she mumbled. But now the stars didn’t twinkle. They only went on shining and ignoring her insignificant, human problems.
I can’t keep it, and I can’t leave. Not until my ten years are up. And Josie can’t help me. It’s Gertrude who runs the show around here. Josie is no more in control than I am.
A tear welled in her eye. She couldn’t believe how much she had changed. It was such a departure from her usual lighthearted self. She had cried and cried a dozen times these past few days. Even when the new girl, Heather, had been killed by that rapist asshole she’d bawled like a baby that night. She’d never let things like that bother her in the past.
“It’s my hormones,” she said to the stars beyond the windowpane. “Everything inside me is going haywire.”
But he’s nice! she thought. Genuinely, truly nice. He’s nothing like these men. Nothing like I’d ever thought a man could be. He’s smart, he’s kind, he handsome, and he opens the door for me…
Her mind trailed off. She knew this man was good. She’d met so many perverts and liars in her duties that the truth of Allan Dashwood’s integrity was not the reason she questioned herself now.
“It’s me,” she realized with a pang of agony in her heart. “I’m the bad one this time, not the man. I don’t deserve him. It’s as simple as that.”
But I could try, she thought. With Josie’s help maybe I could escape this place and he could take me in and I could change. I’d never hurt another man. I’d never hurt anyone ever again. He could be my contrition.
An image of Allan sitting on a sun porch offering her a glass of lemonade suddenly flashed through her mind. In his lap was a happy, golden-haired child holding a little doll.
It’s possible, she thought toward the stars, and she swore the whole sky twinkled in response. My God, it’s really possible and I want to do it. I don’t care about the money, and I don’t care about this place. I just…
“I want to try,” she said aloud.
A smile crept across the girl’s face and she even allowed a little laugh to come as well. In a moment she was standing and toying with the sheer curtain someone had hung from the window years before. She pulled it through her fingers, feeling the smoothness of the fabric tickle her skin. Soon she was twirling away with an even greater smile on her face. She nearly tripped over the chair and cracked her shin on the corner of the coffee table instead, but she didn’t care. She was happy. Genuinely happy for the first time in years. She’d come to a decision and it was clearly, unequivocally and undeniably the right decision. She couldn’t wait to wake Josie in the morning and tell her all about it.
When she pushed the coffee table back into position, however, she saw that a little drawer in its side had popped open a little. She’d never noticed it before and almost missed it now. But a sliver of white peeked out at her and she opened the drawer.
It was lined with purple velvet, as if the single piece of paper there was some kind of royal degree. She fished it from its forgotten prison and unfolded it. It was a letter. “Dear woman,” it said at the top. And seeing the words written to such an anonymous anyperson sent a chilled black cloud across Stephanie’s heart.
She read the letter with the stars looking in over her shoulder and the sheer curtain still dancing its tail end from her mischievous game only moments before.
By the time the curtain had stilled, Stephanie had read the letter twice and was crying all over again.
8
This is a place of endings, Josie thought again. It had been three days since Heather’s death and Lucy’s departure later the same night. Already Monica had brought a replacement girl and others had been shuffled to accommodate needs. Josie had lost Sharon to the black squad and had picked up Ann, a respected hunter of the green squad, to fill her slot. Additionally, Steph was on Gertrude’s short list for replacing her own vacated position in the black squad. Much was changing fast, and Josie didn’t like it.
Audra was the new girl’s name. “It means ‘strength’,” Monica had said with her sappy smile when they’d been introduced. Good for her, Josie thought. Maybe she’ll be strong enough to survive her initiation. Yet Josie had been careful not to be too kind or get too close. It was the way of things on the island, and she hated herself for being part of it.
She stood now at the door to the training arena, thinking not of Audra or Heather or even Lucy, but of Charles. She stared at the handle, still amazed that her courage could wax and wane so easily. Her need for revenge and justice was battling so fiercely with her desire to remain compassionate. Finally, she went through.
“Josie!” Rhonda wh
isper-shouted. “What can I do for the blue squad today?”
For the first time in her six years on the island, Josie didn’t whisper. “I’m here for Charles.”
Rhonda’s face changed instantly. “Of course,” she said, standing. Her voice, too, had abandoned all pretense. “Tell me what you want. It shall be done.”
“Pull him out. Put him in one of the rooms. Then leave. Go for a walk, if you like, but make it a long one.” Rhonda balked just a little at the final command but didn’t protest. She moved quickly and quietly toward the rear hallway. Josie stayed in the office and listened.
She heard the door to one of the solitary confinement rooms open. She heard Rhonda’s angry voice. She heard Charles whimpering and moaning, his chains clanging and scraping on the floor as he scampered toward her. She heard Rhonda’s moan of disgust at his smell since he, too, had been sitting in piss for days and days. Then she heard Rhonda put Charles in one of the training rooms, close its door, and walk back toward her.
The head trainer almost stopped when she reached her office area, but better judgment apparently prevailed when she saw the faraway look in Josie’s eyes. Instead she went right past her and out the door. When it latched, Josie was surprised to hear a key slide into the lock and snap it closed. She hadn’t realized there even was a key to that door.
As Rhonda’s footsteps departed, Josie felt the immensity of the place. She was alone in a room with well over than a hundred sexist men. Many of them were rapists. Some were certainly murderers as well. The room seemed to be weighted with vile negativity.
She walked slowly, deliberately down the long hallway, past dozens and dozens of doors. Behind each one was a man in chains. Some cowered at the sound of her footsteps, praying it was not his turn for special treatment. Some still writhed in anger at what had been done to him the previous day. Still others simply collapsed and slept, having spent hours running a treadmill and being beaten whenever he’d fallen. The worst off were battling their own recorded voices that slunk incessantly through a series of speaker holes in the back wall of their box.
Josie had spent so many hours and days in this place she had come to know the intimate sounds of suffering. Like a professional card player reading the tics and tells of his opponents, she could read these subtle shufflings and moans with equal expertise. She could often feel which box housed which kind of man.
She rounded the corner and saw the short row of full-sized doors. All but one were ajar, awaiting another woman to abuse and revenge another man. The closed door held Charles, and Josie walked to it without pause.
“Jesus Christ! Josie!” he yelled when she stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and faced him, the memories of his rape and her need for revenge foremost on her mind. Rhonda had elected to tie his wrists to the leather strap that hung from the ceiling rather than his ankle. He was sitting up, arms stretched above him, and looking her directly in the eyes.
“You gotta get me outta here!” he panted. “These women… they’re fucking insane! They ripped off my balls, Josie! They made me eat my own balls!”
“Shut up,” Josie said, and Charles did. His eyes bulged now in horror. She saw that he was analyzing whether she was one of them or not. She had carried a single item with her into the training arena and she held it up to him now. He stared at it in confusion and more fear. “You see this?” she said. Charles nodded. “They gave this to me when I first got here. That was six years ago, and only a few weeks after you raped me.”
“Jesus, Josie, I’m so sorry about-”
“Shut… up.” Charles’ mouth literally clapped shut. Josie dangled the silver pendant all the women wore around their necks. It was a fist embedded inside the symbol for woman.
“I didn’t understand its meaning at first,” she said. “I thought it was all about revenge… giving power back to women. You can see how I’d feel that way, being a girl of only sixteen who’d been raped by her boyfriend and ignored by her own mother.”
“Josie, I-”
“Shut up, you fucking moron, before I kill you.”
Silence then. Actual and total silence. Even the distant rattles and moans of the other men in the arena seemed to disappear. “I have killed before,” Josie said. “And more than once. It’s our initiation to this place, and it sometimes happens in the course of our duties. And you know what, Charles? The first few times I didn’t even mind. I just… pictured you and enjoyed watching the sexist pig at my feet die in front of my eyes. Did you know women can be sadists, too? It’s true. We’re supposed to be the nurturing half of the species, but believe me we can be royal bitches too.” She paused then added, “Especially when we’ve been wronged. ‘Hell hath no fury’, right?”
Charles didn’t dare speak. Sweat was forming into little balls on his forehead despite his lack of clothes and the relative cool inside the room.
“I should kill you, but I won’t,” Josie went on. She started walking in a slow circle around him, an old habit she’d made part of her torture routines. “I’ve thought long and hard about that, and believe me I’ve fantasized about it a thousand times over the years. I’ve imagined you bleeding out. I’ve imagined you gutted. I’ve imagined your decapitated head with its dead eyes and mouth open wide in a big, shocked ‘O’. Can you imagine those things, too, Charles? Can you see how easy it would be for me here in this place? With all my strength now? All my training?”
She walked past his front but did not look into his eyes. He was panting audibly, and part of Josie’s need for revenge cried out in triumph.
“I’ve re-lived that day so many times, Charles. The way you hit me across the face. The way you grunted and dripped sweat into my eyes. The way you plunged your dick into me over and over and over without so much as a care to what I might be feeling on the other end. The way my parents watched T.V. just upstairs the whole time it was happening. They were just a few seconds away. I don’t think I ever got over that part. At any moment my dad could have come down in his underwear for a glass of water. But it never happened. Not that night. And you know what else I remember? I remember laying there, letting you fuck me and knowing that I had known you were bad news when we started dating. I mean, did you really think I actually fell for all your stupid charms? The truth is… I had wanted a bad boy. I got more than I could handle that night, of course, but I had been excited by the rebellion of it. Then there I was, being raped by the boy who had so excited my heart and my loins. And all because he was exactly what I wanted him to be… A bad boy who didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. My whole world changed that night, Charles. I don’t think that’s something a man can comprehend… that a single act of sex can change a person so completely.”
Josie paused long enough to steal a glance at Charles’ eyes. She liked the terror she saw in them, but she still wasn’t sure how or when she was going to finish this.
“I didn’t usually imagine killing you, though, because then your pain would be over. Usually I just fantasized the torture. Cheese graters flaying your inner thighs to a bloody pulp. Hammers breaking and pulverizing your elbow bones. Needles under your fingernails, tearing your ears off nice and slow with a pliers, grinding your ankles in a vice grip. I’ve pictured them all.”
She was behind him now, and he was turning his head quickly from side to side to keep his eyes on her. The fear was coming off him in odorous waves now, and her need for revenge was waning with every whiff.
“Some of those would undoubtedly leave permanent damage, which isn’t what we’re supposed to do here. The men leave the training arena physically fit, at the peak of their running stamina. All so they can be properly hunted when they get out into the field. But I never let that bother me in my fantasies. And you know what’s really amazing? Thanks to you, I’ve found myself in a position of power where I can actually do anything I want to you. No rules. No code. Just… straight revenge.”
She walked to his front again and stopped, her pendant still dangling from her fingers.
<
br /> “But of course the worst torture isn’t any of those things, Charles, though you might think it is. The worst torture is the other thing we do here. We reach straight into your head and we scramble your mind. We mess with your very identity. I’ve always been particularly adept at coercive persuasion. I let the other girls do the physical tortures when I can. I’ve always preferred the mental end of things. Now,” she squatted in front him, finally bringing her eyes to meet his, “I’m going to ask you a question in a moment. And your answer may very well be the last thing you ever say. So when I ask you to be honest, it’s best that you do so.”
Charles nodded emphatically, and Josie knew she had achieved her goal.
“You’re an asshole, and you deserve to be punished,” she said. “The horrible stuff you did to me last week proved that.” She pulled up her sleeve and showed him the remains of two bruises he’d left behind. Then she sighed and covered them again. “But this,” she said, sweeping her arms briefly around the room, “isn’t what you deserve. This just makes us as bad as you. Worse, in fact.”
She held up the silver pendant again and it gleamed a bright reflection in the room’s lone bulb. “See this… it’s not about revenge. It’s not even about power. It’s about simple equality. That’s all.”
Josie watched Charles’ eyes as she spoke. His fear was waning faster than her need for revenge had. In its place was something she couldn’t yet place. She placed her hands on his knees, the pendant dangling cold against the skin of his calf, and looked him as deeply in the eyes as she could muster. She held her breath and purposely thought about the distant past. His slap. His grunting. His pelvic thrusting and his wicked grin when it was over. She thought about the recent past when it had happened all over again with more slaps, more grunts, and with scratches and even bites this time. She allowed the pain to come all the way in, and she looked her two-time rapist in the eyes when it did. She thought of Steph’s pregnancy and Heather’s death. She thought of her mother who hadn’t truly rejected her but had only misunderstood her change in behavior that horrible week so many years ago. She thought of Gertrude’s constant anger and Lucy’s words of warning. She thought, finally, of the hundreds of men in her past who had screamed and begged and cried, and she spoke the words she needed to say.
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