by Sean Black
Ruth had watched Rachel bristle at the comments. She was not used to being criticized at all. Certainly not to her face, and certainly not by Chris.
Ruth wondered if there had been a lovers’ tiff, or whether maybe Rachel had just stopped putting out. Rachel and Chris were hardly the most discreet people when it came to their being involved. Rachel pretty much dined out on it, not just with the other girls but with some of the staff too. Though she never said it straight out, Rachel made it pretty clear that she expected to be treated differently because Chris was second only to Gretchen in the pecking order.
But Rachel hadn’t climbed the levels as quickly, or become Queen Bee, without knowing how to play the blame game. She listened earnestly to Chris’s criticism of her as “being lazy sometimes”. She also took a few jabs from some of the others. Abby made sure to get in a little payback: “We all have to contribute, Rachel.” Mary was silent, even when she was asked to comment.
When it came to Ruth’s turn, she had already decided to take advantage of the opportunity that had presented itself. Her dad, half joking, had told her that the key to success in D.C. was directly related to a person’s ability to kiss ass. That was why he’d been stuck at the same level for so many years.
“Ruth, what do you have to say about keeping the dorm and the bathroom clean?” Chris said.
Ruth looked straight at Rachel. From the way the other girl’s eyes narrowed, Ruth was sure she was anticipating a little more payback, just like she’d got from Abby and some of the others. Instead, Ruth said, “I think it’s a little unfair of any of us to criticize Rachel when she already does so much for everyone in our dorm. We all need to take responsibility. But that also means picking up the slack when people are really busy, like Rachel is.”
Rachel smiled, then turned toward Chris with a glare. “Thank you, Ruth. I’m glad someone else understands that I can’t do everything in the dorm.”
Chris, perhaps sensing that if he pushed Rachel much harder, he’d never get into her pants again, started to backtrack. “I think we all appreciate you, Rachel,” he said.
That drew a snicker from Abby and a few of the others. Now it was Chris’s turn to glare. Ruth was waiting for him to start handing out punishments, but he let it go.
“Now that we have allowed everyone to have their say then I expect the cleanliness of the common areas will no longer be an issue,” Chris said. “It’s a matter of everyone taking responsibility and pulling their weight.”
Now he was staring straight at Mary who was sitting there, head down, rubbing at her ankle. Even though Chris was staring at her, she kept her head down, her eyes on the ground.
Finally, it was Rachel who said, “Mary! Chris would like to address you. Can you at least look at him?”
Slowly, Mary lifted her head. “Yes, Daddy?”
The way she said it totally creeped Ruth out. A couple of the other girls exchanged looks.
“You don’t have to call me that, Mary,” Chris told her.
“It’s a little over-familiar,” said Rachel, chipping in.
“Yeah, only Rachel gets to call him that,” Abby whispered, loud enough for Ruth to hear.
Chris must have been really regretting his criticism of Rachel, thought Ruth. It had completely changed the dynamic of the group.
“Mary, we need to talk about what happened today on the run. You pretended to be injured to garner sympathy,” said Chris.
“Yeah, Mary,” said one of the other girls. “Why do you always pull stuff like that? Like you think we’re dumb enough to believe you. We all know it’s because you’re a fat tub who doesn’t want to exercise.”
Now they were back on familiar ground, thought Ruth. Naked, personal attacks designed to humiliate and belittle. Or, as Chris liked to put it, ‘You have to break something down before you can build it back up.”
“I was injured,” said Mary. “I twisted my ankle.”
“You were faking it,” Chris said sternly.
“I wasn’t,” Mary shot back, a steeliness creeping into her voice that Ruth hadn’t heard much of before. It had always been there, a kind of repressed anger, but Mary rarely allowed it to surface. When she did, she didn’t direct it outwards. She got a blade of some kind and directed it at herself.
“If you’re to move forward and progress, you have to confront your behavior. Not deny it.”
“I’m not,” said Mary, not prepared to give up and play the game.
“Okay, I’ll ask the group,” said Chris. “Raise your hand if you believed that Mary was genuinely injured.”
No one raised their hand. Mary took them in with a sweep. She stopped at Ruth.
Ruth tilted her head back and they locked eyes. She could see the pleading in Mary’s.
Ruth already knew what would happen if she raised her hand. It would make her life even more difficult than it was already about to be for helping Mary earlier. There was no way of winning. Chris had made sure of that.
If Ruth raised her hand, she would be the lone dissenter. Not a good thing to be around the fire pit. The pressure would be off Mary and on Ruth.
If she kept her hand down? She would be safe, but she would have sacrificed not just her friend but the person in the dorm who was most troubled and least able to defend herself from what would follow. Ruth would still take some lumps, but she wouldn’t be the focus of tonight’s fire pit.
“Price?” said Chris. “Don’t you want to raise your hand? I mean, you helped out Mary here.”
Ruth looked at Chris. She could still feel Mary’s heavy stare, and sense her desperation, her need.
Moments like this were what made her dread the fire pit. Ruth already knew that she would never forget what was happening now as long as she lived. She was torn. The last thing she wanted to do was to abandon Mary to the pack. Betrayal. That was what it would be if she didn’t raise her hand.
But hadn’t she been betrayed? By her mother, who had sent her here. By her dad, who had ignored her cry for help. And hadn’t Mary thrown her under the bus that first night? Wouldn’t Mary do the same tonight if the tables were turned?
Ruth had to survive. There was only one way to do that.
“No,” said Ruth. “I don’t want to raise my hand.”
Now she’d said it, she might as well be all in. “I think Mary was faking. I’m sorry I got sucked in.”
She still couldn’t look at Mary. Chris must have sensed as much.
“Okay, Price. Now, you know I’ll have to punish you for your part in what happened today.”
Ruth stuck out her chin. “Yes, I accept that.”
“Even though you were trying to do a good thing.”
“Yes.”
“All because Mary lied to us about being hurt,” said Chris.
“Yes,” said Ruth.
Now that she’d kept her hand down she wasn’t sure it would have felt worse to have stood up for Mary. This was awful. She hated herself for what she had just done. But she had done it now. Going back would be worse.
“Okay, Price, I want you to look at Mary and tell her how her deceit has hurt you,” said Chris.
Rachel, who loved nothing more than the smell of blood in the water, jumped in. “Yes, Price. We all know she’s your friend, and then she does that. You need to share your truth with her. Make her realize how lame that whole deal today was.”
“Look at her!” yelled Abby, whose body was almost vibrating with the excitement of this latest twist in the dorm’s drama.
Ruth scooted round so she was staring at Mary’s tear-filled eyes. She couldn’t do it. She knew what she had to say: she could form the words in her mind. Mary, you need to stop pulling other people into your dramas. You need to take responsibility for yourself. Stop being so weak. She just couldn’t say them. She had come this far. But she couldn’t do it. It was the eagerness of the others for her to say them. It made her feel sick. Sicker than she already felt for having done what she already had.
Slowly, Ruth r
aised her arm into the air. “I just lied,” said Ruth. “She did hurt her ankle. Everyone here knows it. This whole thing isn’t about facing who we are, and being honest. It’s bullshit.”
Abby started laughing. A nervous giggle. A couple of the others joined in.
Mary looked confused. Her eyes were still full of tears. Ruth wasn’t even sure that she had heard what she’d just said.
“You didn’t lie!” Rachel almost screamed. “Tell her! Tell her she’s a faker! Tell her she’s a liar!”
“Price?” said Chris.
“Yes, Chris?” said Ruth, not even attempting to conceal the sarcasm in her voice. She was already about to face a world of pain. There was nothing they would do to her now that hadn’t already been going to happen.
Chris tried to play it off. “Okay,” he said. “That’s all fine.”
He began to get to his feet. Now there was silence. This didn’t happen. The fire pit didn’t finish early like this. Not unless something major happened. Ruth guessed that this was major.
“Price, Harper. Follow me.”
A ripple passed through the girls around the fire pit. Groups around other fire pits were looking at them as Chris stood up and Ruth and Mary followed.
Ruth already knew where they were headed. With every step, she cursed her own stupidity. If she had stood up for Mary from the get-go, it would have been bad, but not this bad. If she had kept her hand down, and spoken the words in her head, she would have been home free.
Instead she had managed to capture the worst of both worlds. Now she would pay a very heavy price. So would Mary. By first her cowardice, and then her bravery, Ruth had doomed them both.
31
Ruth stood with Mary off to one side. They watched as, one by one, pails of water were thrown over the dying embers in the fire pits. Almost everyone was already back in their dormitories. They were the only students left outside.
Chris and two other staff members stood guard over them. No one spoke. They were waiting for Gretchen to arrive.
As they stood there, Mary struggling to stay upright on her twisted ankle, Ruth reflected that she had learned some things from her short time at Broken Ridge. The power in making someone wait was one of them. The staff at Broken Ridge were experts at it. They waited until you confessed your sins. They waited while you almost cooked to death in the baking sun. They made you wait to eat, to drink, to use the bathroom. But perhaps the most effective wait of all was this one: the wait to decide your punishment.
While you stood there, you couldn’t help but wonder, dread, what you were about to face. Gretchen was the most feared member of staff for a reason. Her punishments were rarely deployed, at least directly, by her. But they were legendary for their cruelty.
Figuring that the damage was already done to her own chances of an early release, or a move up a level, Ruth turned toward Chris. “Can’t you at least let Mary sit down?”
Chris actually smiled. It was more frightening to Ruth than him shouting. “Sure,” he said. “Mary, you can sit down if you really need to.” He placed a sarcastic emphasis on really need to.
Mary didn’t so much sit as collapse on the ground. Immediately, she began to massage her ankle again, rubbing at it in small circles, kneading it with her fingers. Ruth wasn’t sure why anyone would think she was faking now. You could see the pain etched in her features. Her shoulders were hunched, her elbows tucked in tight, her chin on her chest.
No one said anything else. They just stood round, guarding Mary and Ruth. Though where they were going to go was anyone’s guess. Mary couldn’t walk, never mind run.
Ruth had worked out that escape from Broken Ridge was possible. It wasn’t a Supermax prison. But the chances of being caught were high. And what would happen to you when you were brought back didn’t bear thinking about. Although, ironically, that level of punishment was what she was likely about to face. More stupidity she could have cursed herself for. If you were going be busted, then trying to get out of here once for all had to be a better crime for it than this.
Ten minutes later, Gretchen arrived. They heard her coming through the darkness before they saw her. Her slippers scraped over the rough ground toward them. She was wearing a robe, and under it some kind of long nightdress. To Ruth’s eyes she looked like a crazy homeless lady rather than the person who was in charge of all these people.
Chris walked over to meet her before she got to them. He talked in low whispers to her. She didn’t say much in response, not that Ruth could hear anyway.
The other staff members seemed uncomfortable and on edge. It was well known that Gretchen did not like hearing about problems. That was why so much went on behind the scenes. No one wanted to be the one to go tell Gretchen that there was an issue with something.
Staff turnover at Broken Ridge, according to the kids who’d been there awhile, was high. Partly because a lot of new staff didn’t agree with the way the place was run but also because Gretchen often took an irrational dislike to them. Chris was one of the longest serving, and because he’d always been so loyal, he was allowed to get away with a lot, including his affair with Rachel, who was a barely legal student and had probably been under-age when he’d first crossed that line.
The discussion between Chris and Gretchen broke up. Gretchen shuffled over to them in her slippers. She was breathing hard through her nose, almost like a toddler at the end of a tantrum, trying to compose itself.
“Ruth Price and Mary Harper, please come with me,” Gretchen said to them, turning on a flashlight.
Mary struggled to her feet somehow, and half walking, half limping, followed Ruth, who was following Gretchen. Chris and the other two staff members flanked them.
They weren’t on the way back to the dormitory. They were about to experience some of Broken Ridge’s alternative accommodation.
It was in back. Way in back. Completely separate from all the other buildings.
When they got there, Gretchen stood back as Chris pulled the key to a padlock off the chain hanging from his belt. He unlocked the padlock and wrenched open the door.
Ruth heard something inside the barn, maybe more than one thing, scuttle for cover. The barn was big and open. There was moldy hay on the dirt floor. In one corner there were three dirty old mattresses. In the opposite corner there was a sink with a cold tap. There were two buckets to use as a toilet. That was it.
This was solitary confinement, Broken Ridge-style. Not quite the most feared place there: that honor went to what the kids called “the naughty room”, which was where Gretchen was known to administer electro-shock therapy. But the barn came a close second.
Mary stumbled over to a mattress and sat down. Ruth stood, turning so that she was facing Gretchen, Chris and the two other staff members.
“One week,” said Gretchen.
Mary started to sob. Ruth was going to argue, but there was no point. Arguing would only get their stay extended further, especially when Gretchen was in this kind of a rage.
Gretchen withdrew along with Chris and the other two staff. Ruth stood in the middle of the barn. No change of clothes, not so much as a toothbrush. Just the mattresses, the sink and the buckets. Plus, whatever else was living there.
The door was locked. The padlock put back on. It clicked shut.
Ruth walked over and sat down next to Mary. She put her arm around her.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ruth. This is all my stupid fault,” Mary spluttered, between sobs.
“It’s nobody’s fault.”
“No, it is. It’s my fault. If I’d looked where I was going. If I hadn’t been so slow . . .”
“Listen,” said Ruth, firmly. “It’s this place. It’s evil. Pure evil.”
32
The full moon gave them some light through the barn’s only window. Without it, they would have been in darkness. That was something to think about before tomorrow night. They hadn’t been left with so much as a torch.
Part of Ruth was relieved at bei
ng put in here. Sharing your every waking and sleeping moment with at least a dozen other people was tiring in a way she could never have imagined. There was simply no let-up. Even when you went to the toilet, someone was often posted outside the cubicle if you hadn’t reached the necessary level of the program.
Ruth also knew that the enjoyment of being away from barked orders, and constant teenage-girl bitchiness, would fade. And probably quickly. To be replaced by what, she didn’t know. Whatever it was, she would handle it. She had handled everything so far, hadn’t she?
Mary, though. That was something else entirely. Mary needed help, from someone who knew what they were doing, a professional person—and fast. Ruth would do her best, but she wasn’t at all sure her best was going to be enough.
She was assuming they’d be brought food of some kind. They weren’t just going to leave them here to starve for a week. Ruth made a mental note that they had better make sure to eat everything they were given or, if not, they should ask for it to be taken away. Even crumbs would attract more critters into the barn, and by the skittering sounds she was hearing, it didn’t need any more.
“Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do,” Ruth said softly to Mary. “We’re going to try to get some sleep. I’ll be here right next to you, okay? Things are always better in the morning.”
“This is all my fault,” Mary repeated.
“You need to stop telling yourself that. It’s not true.”
Ruth lay down next to Mary. She closed her eyes. She was beyond exhausted, but she knew getting to sleep would take some time, if it came at all. If she didn’t sleep, she could try at least to get some rest. Worrying about whether you would sleep or not was a surefire way to stay awake.
She lay there, trying to calm her mind. She listened to Mary’s breathing. It was cold and getting colder. She put an arm around Mary. Mary cuddled into her, like a little kid. After a while, maybe it was an hour, maybe it was two hours, Ruth finally fell asleep.