He turned to Micaiah. “You’ve earned your place among us, for now. But you’ll have to fight eventually. You know that, right?”
“Teach me,” Micaiah said, “and in return I’ll help you with your technology. I studied engineering before I left the World for the Juniper.”
Aces curled up a smile around the cheroot drizzling smoke up his face. He stuck out a tattooed hand. “Deal, son. But in two weeks, I’m going to fight for Renee, and I’ll win. I’ve not lost a fight yet.”
“You won’t win,” I said before I realized that in his backward, stupid place, women were to be seen and not heard. “You’ll die.”
Aces settled his stare onto Micaiah. “Your women will have to learn their place.” Then he looked at me. “If I die, she’ll die, and then Michael will go down in a fight, and you’ll be another man’s wife. So you should hope I win. And win decisively.”
So we had two weeks. Two weeks to get the chalkdrive and get out of there. But fall’s chill was already in the air. In two weeks, we might be up to our necks in snow.
Again, I checked my watch. September 1st was a lie. The second hand ticked away our time.
And where were Pilate and Rachel?
(ii)
We weren’t given a house. Those were reserved for the elite of Glenwood Springs. And we weren’t part of the military, so we didn’t stay at the Colorado Hotel, which acted as the town’s barracks. Our home became a space in a strip mall on Sixth Avenue. The sign had been stripped, so I wasn’t sure what it had been before the Yellowstone Knockout. Industrial carpet sat on bare concrete. Instead of ceiling tiles, plywood had been nailed above us, which made every sound echo. The spare furnishings didn’t help—a few folding chairs, a folding table, and one big king bed, which sickened me, what the men thought of us and Michael.
Wren was going to spend the night in the infirmary, so they could take care of her wounds, though those would heal quickly, too quickly.
Another reason for us to get the hell out of there. If they sniffed out what Wren had become, how long would it be before they went searching for the reward money from the ARK? Or what if they figured out Micaiah had cheated ’cause his weapon wasn’t quite human? Either way, it wouldn’t go well.
Sharlotte sat on the bed and put her face in her hands. I could almost see the buckhorn tearing at her insides.
Micaiah checked the blinds then turned them down.
He drew me aside, his hand in mine. “I apologize for seizing you with such force, and I am very sorry for the way I must treat you in this place. Please, forgive me.”
I could only nod. “Yeah, I understand how things have to be, but go easy does it, okay?”
“I will.” His promise fell flat from his lips. His eyes were clear, no tears. Since he’d only been giving himself half his normal dose, the change was coming on fast. The blankness would take him over, and the boy I loved would be gone.
Who would he be without feelings? What was he capable of?
I hardly slept a wink that long night. Sleep becomes impossible when worry has you by the throat.
Chapter Sixteen
Jesus got tired of my sins and left for Rome
His six-pack promises and hotel-table talk gone
I’m Phoenix-lonely and Tulsa-alone
Can’t try again ’cause my heart’s done
Whiskey might be the devil, but I found angels in beer
Nights too short for sleeping—days too long to bear.
— LeAnna Wright
(i)
MICAIAH TOLD US HOW things worked in Glenwood. He could leave our strip mall room any time he wanted. He was a man.
Women were expected to stay behind closed doors where they mothered children, cooked, sewed, and took care of all the domestic stuff. Any woman caught outside would be arrested, and the man’s ability to control them called into question. Which would lead to another fight.
There were a few exceptions. Escorted women could shop for food, and they were encouraged to let their kids play in the sunshine. So it seemed some of the men were viable after all. Or had the children been stolen as well?
Women who went outside their homes had to cover their hair and face and wear dresses that made the New Morality fashions appear downright scandalous. Any exposed skin might draw the eyes of another man. Which would lead to another fight.
The only time women were allowed in public without children was at the evening social hour at the hot springs twice a week.
Through the blinds, I looked out at the morning street. Micaiah had already left early to kiss up to Aces, no doubt. He’d lost most of his emotions, so I knew he wasn’t enjoying anything. No, he was merely following his imperatives—keep us safe, retrieve the chalkdrive, find an escape from the walled city.
We’d been given chits, old playing cards the city used for currency. We could exchange the cards for produce from the greenhouse or meat from the butcher. We used a four of clubs to buy a half-dozen hardboiled eggs. An ace of clubs bought us a sewing kit.
The clubs on the cards reminded me of a poker game a million years ago in Burlington when I was eight years old. In front of the entire town, my family had played a high stakes Texas Hold ’Em tournament on the Fourth of July where Mama and Wren bluffed each other until each had bet everything they ever loved. I’d watched until I broke down crying, and the cards were left on the table, unturned. Mama and Wren gave me a gift that day by not showing what they had. Yet still the memories hurt. And I thought we’d come so far after Wren’s big change and Sharlotte’s re-birth.
But it was like Sharlotte had gone back in time. She spent hours sewing, hemming, sewing some more, working on our new outfits and repairing our old. When she wasn’t doing that, she was cleaning our sparse room.
Finally, I couldn’t handle her activity. “Sharlotte, stop. Our clothes are fine. And the room is spotless. We’re not gonna housework our way out of this.”
She stopped and gave me a look that blew parts of my soul out the back of my body. “I’m keeping busy,” she said sternly.
“No,” I said. “You’re doing what you’ve done your whole life. You’re trying to run away from the world through work. Can we talk about what you’re feeling?”
It made me think of Rachel. I’d encouraged her to talk through her feelings. She was new to her emotions. In some ways, Sharlotte was too.
She glanced away. “It might not look like it, but I’m trying to get to my other side. I can’t talk about it yet.”
I was about to argue that I doubted she could feel better by herself, but then Wren came stumbling through the door after spending the night in the infirmary. She threw her veil and scarf into a pile on the floor. She pulled the dress off over her head and tore out the seams in the process.
Wren stood in the middle of the room in her underwear. In her hand was a plain bottle of brown liquid, whiskey for sure. Storm cloud bruises marked her face as well as her shoulder, where she’d tweaked her joint to get out of Walter’s clutches. Bandages swathed her legs.
She caught my eyes. “Yeah, Cavvy, I got burned bad, but I beat that Walter. I’d have killed that son of a skank if those other jack-ups hadn’t torn me off him.” She raised the bottle. “They gave me this for the pain. And who am I not to follow doctor’s orders?” She swigged from the bottle in greedy, alcoholic gulps.
“Off the wagon,” I whispered. I felt hurt, by her wounds, by her drunkenness; it was so familiar. In some horribly odd way, it was soothing. She was acting like her normal self, which I thought I could predict however unpredictable her drunkenness made her.
“I’m so surprised,” Sharlotte said sarcastically. “Irene Weller drunk? Well, whoever heard of such a thing?”
In every family ever created, there is a script to follow. Years of living together writes us into scenes and gives us parts to play. And there we were, on stage, fulfilling our roles.
Sharlotte picked up the sewing kit and attacked Wren’s ripped clothes with a vengeance. Sure,
Wren destroyed things, Sharlotte fixed them, and I watched feeling guilty and ashamed and not knowing why.
Or I’d get between them to make sure everyone got along. Peace at any cost. That was what I had done at the Fourth of July poker game between Mama and Wren. I’d have sold my soul to the Devil for us all to get along.
“Say what you will, Shar,” Wren said, “but it was either this or me murdering everyone in this city ’til they put me down. Goddamn men. Goddamn sexist johnsons, think just ’cause they got a dangle that they’re better than us. Well, it’s goddamn prehistoric thinking. Maybe it’s better that most of the boys are gone in the world. Maybe we should let Aces keep the chalkdrive and let the women rule the world, ’cause if this is how men behave when they get together, this world is far better off without ’em.”
Her rant ended in another long pull from the bottle.
Sharlotte bit off a length of thread and stuck her needle through cloth. “Same old Irene. And you thought you could change.”
“And what about you, Shar?” Wren screeched. “Don’t you want to be someone other than Mama? But there you go, sewing my crap. You gonna ask to wipe me next?”
“Depends on how drunk you get,” Sharlotte said. “I’ve done it before.”
Couldn’t tell if Wren cursed or screamed or both.
The next line in the script called for me to get between them and remind them we had a whole city of men to fight. We shouldn’t be clawing at each other.
But I didn’t. Let them hate on each other. Their ongoing war had nothing to do with me.
Except ... why did I feel such shame?
Wren tapped the bottle against her thigh. “You just sit there and sew, Shar. Like always, I’ll get us out of this. While I hate Aces, I hate that goddamn Tibbs Hoyt even more. I’ll get the chalkdrive back ’cause I want to see that jackerdan Hoyt on video when the world finds out he kept the cure hidden. Ha.”
Wren glanced my way. And it seemed to me she got embarrassed for a minute. “Sorry for cursing. I’m mad, is all. And I didn’t want to drink, not really, but it hurts. My legs, my shoulder, they hurt so much, and I was so mad. I couldn’t turn it down. Maybe I should’ve.”
“It all doesn’t matter,” Sharlotte said as she stabbed the cloth. “None of this matters. The world’s an evil place. It’s a palace of hurt, and the kings of pain and the queens of desperation sit on thrones made of thistle and buckhorn. There is only suffering and the dirty things we do to make it through until we die.”
Such talk wasn’t going to help us, not a bit, but I had no idea how to respond. At least my sisters had stopped trying to cut each other apart with words for a minute.
Sharlotte sewed, Wren drank, and I planned. We were all doing the things we’d always done to ease our fears.
“You have any idea where Aces has the chalkdrive?” I asked Wren.
Wren shook her head. “I would bet he has it in the Colorado Hotel, up in the suite. Along with my Colt Terminators. I betcha if I lost the fight and went off with him, I could get everything. I’d have to sleep with him, but I could get my pistols back. Shoot him, take the chalkdrive, and we escape. I could do it. Amarillo taught me a thing or two about being a party girl.”
Sharlotte sighed but didn’t say anything nasty.
I didn’t want Wren to do such things, not for us, not even to save the world. No, there had to be another way.
“We have some time,” I said. “So let’s set our priorities. First, we have to figure out where the chalkdrive is. I would bet Micaiah is working on that now. Second, we gotta find a way to steal it without Aces knowing. Lastly, we need to figure out how to get through the wall. Us being girls is only going to make it harder. How many men do you think are in this town?”
“Hundreds,” Wren said. She sat down on the floor and looked over at Sharlotte, still sewing. The dress, the veil, the scarf were her only clothes.
“How many women?” Sharlotte asked. “Do we have any idea?”
We all fell quiet. Could be fifty. Could be thousands. With them hidden away, there was no way to know.
I closed my eyes and prayed for a plan. Then I got one. “Tuesdays and Thursdays, the women get to bathe in the mineral springs. Today is Tuesday. Tonight, we should go and see if we can start a rebellion.”
“Good luck with that,” Sharlotte said.
Wren laughed at me.
“I’ll go then,” I said forcefully. “How come you guys always fall apart when things get hard?”
Wren drank more to answer me. Sharlotte kept sewing.
The script inside me wouldn’t shut up, so I played my character. I got between them and held out my hands.
“Can we come together for a minute?” I asked.
To my astonishment, they didn’t fight me. Wren put down her bottle. Sharlotte put down her needle.
They held my hands, one on each side.
I think they expected a prayer, but I didn’t have one. Holding hands, though, seemed to soften our hearts.
“Sorry for what I said, Shar,” Wren whispered.
“Me, too,” Sharlotte said quietly.
Our spirits softened, and I wanted to keep the hope alive. “Not sure how,” I said, “but we’ll get out of this.”
Wren sighed. “Maybe Pilate and Rachel are planning a rescue.”
“They better hurry,” Sharlotte said. “I’ve been thinking, if the ARK planted a spy in Glenwood Springs, things could get a whole lot worse.”
The idea turned my hands sweaty. I hadn’t thought of that. My sisters might’ve noticed my damp palms, but they didn’t pull away.
“I’ll go to the hot springs tonight,” I said. “I’ll do some asking around. We’ll get through this.”
We were changing our script. Yes, Wren drinking again and Sharlotte’s relapse into working hurt, but we’d find our way together.
Our very lives depended on it.
(ii)
That evening, Micaiah escorted me to the west end of the mineral springs. There was a shallow pool there, kept hot, but still comfortable enough to sit in. The arena was west of this pool area. Micaiah bought me a special swimming gown using a nine of diamonds. We had to cover up our bodies completely ’cause the men might see our unmentionables. Which would lead to another fight.
I knew Micaiah was going blank, and so I didn’t pretend to be anything more than his comrade in arms. Other men escorted their women, and we all walked through the night streets together. At intervals, fires burned in barrels, giving light and heat.
I bent close to Micaiah, so no one would hear us talk. “Have you found out where Aces is keeping the chalkdrive?” I asked.
“No.” He guessed my next questions. “And I do not know how we will get over the wall. It is well-guarded. They will not allow us to leave.
“I have been analyzing their thermal engines and pneumatics in order to improve things. There is not much to improve. They have someone here, some kind of brilliant engineer, but I have not met him yet.”
“I’ll ask around,” I murmured.
We walked down some steps and through a gate, complete with a guard. An AK-47 was slung over his back with a flip-clip—two clips of ammunition duct-taped together.
The guard let me through but stopped Micaiah.
“I’ll be okay,” I said to him.
He nodded and gave me a thin smile filled with what felt like the last of his emotions. How would we ever get more of his medication? What would he do without it?
I went down the steps into the pool area. Memories of the fight made me shiver. Poor Wren. Sure, she had to drink. Coming down from the violence would’ve been horrible for her.
Well over a hundred women in long bathing gowns packed the hot pool. They talked on the steps or swished alone through the water. Some sat in chairs, holding babies, others chased after giggling toddlers. If only half of the women were gathered there, we were looking at a potential army of two hundred. Not bad.
I stepped down into the water, an
d it was hot, soothing, wonderful. The rotten-egg smell of the sulfur, so sharp at first, soon disappeared as I got used to it.
I was a little surprised there were no men around until I spied a guard on top of the red-brick spa building. He also had a machine gun over his shoulder. All of us in our heavy bathing gowns, covered up, wouldn’t be much of a thrill for him. We looked like crows in a mud puddle.
“So you’re new, too,” a voice said. I glanced down to see a young girl, maybe twelve, in a one-piece swimsuit, not a gown. Her dark hair remained uncovered, and she peeked up at me with big, round dark eyes.
“I’m Cathy.” I put out a hand, feeling bad about using my fake name.
She took it. “I’m Marisol.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
She told me her story, and as she talked, she’d pause to clear her throat and wipe the tears from her cheeks. She’d been there about six weeks. Glenwood raiders had found her alone in the fields near her home outside of Aspen. She didn’t know what had happened to her parents, brothers, or sisters. They weren’t in Glenwood Springs, though. She was too young to be fought for, which explained why she didn’t have her head covered. An old woman cared for her.
I glanced around at the faces of all the women, and I realized only a couple were elderly, each well over sixty. Around them were girls, nearing puberty: unclaimed property, so to speak. And once the men thought they were ready, they would fight for them, while they were still only scared girls. Stupid. All of it, so stupidly evil. Right then I didn’t want to escape from Glenwood Springs—I wanted to destroy the city. Level it to the ground and grind salt into the soil.
“Is your guardian here?” I asked Marisol.
Marisol nodded and led me to the side, where an old African-American woman sat. She wasn’t in a bathing gown, but a New Morality dress, gray and formless, and her head was uncovered, revealing her steel-gray hair. Laugh-lines and crow’s feet were etched into her face.
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