by Tarah Benner
“I don’t know how they expect us to make it on what we have,” said Bernie in a low voice.
“Maybe they don’t,” Lark groaned. “Maybe they’re trying to thin the herd . . . cut costs.”
“Then it’ll just be us and no men,” said Bernie. “Rita told me the men planted everything they had last season, and they’re already running low on food.”
There was a long pause.
“What are we gonna do?” Bernie asked.
Lark could tell by the tone of her voice that the question wasn’t hypothetical. Bernie was genuinely concerned about their survival.
“Don’t worry,” said Lark, trying to keep her voice light. “I’ll take care of us, okay? There are plants in the woods we can eat. I can talk to the hunters . . . see about getting us some meat. Whatever happens —”
“What about the others?”
“I can’t worry about them.”
Lark immediately regretted her careless tone. She knew she owed Rita and Shay, but to her, Bernie was the only one who was really family. At that moment she looked close to tears, so Lark pulled her in for a hug.
It was times like those that she had to remind herself that Bernie didn’t belong in San Judas. She’d gone to school for mechanical engineering but had spent her free time sitting in old-growth trees that were about to be cut down or protesting development projects that were a threat to endangered species.
Based on what Bernie had told her, she’d gone off the rails the year her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. A year after she died, Bernie found out that an oil refinery five miles from her mother’s house had been illegally dumping toxic waste, poisoning the groundwater that fed their well.
Instead of staging a protest or writing letters to her state representatives, Bernie found out where the CEO of the oil company lived and burned his house to the ground.
No one had been inside at the time — evidence to Lark that Bernie was not cut out to be a criminal — but she’d still been sentenced to five years in San Judas.
Lark often worried what Bernie might do if provoked, so she’d done everything in her power to absorb the brunt of the abuse directed her way. Bernie was all she had in there. She didn’t want her going off the deep end and getting herself killed.
By the time Lark finished getting dressed, they’d missed the cutoff for morning mess. They went off to work with their stomachs growling, Bernie ducking into the repair shop and Lark heading out toward the fields.
When she got there, Maureen was already doling out assignments. Lark could tell right away that she was in an especially horrible mood.
Maureen was the head of agriculture, but she acted as though her position was a terrible burden. Her leathery face was always twisted in exasperation, and the loose skin around her neck quivered when she talked.
It seemed that an entire group of field hands hadn’t shown up for work. Lark suspected they were MIA due to the lack of supplies, and Maureen was in the middle of a rant. The pink bags under her eyes were bulging with fury, and she let out a stream of vibrant insults before sending Lark off to the northernmost field to hand-till the soil.
Feeling annoyed, Lark grabbed a shovel from the pile of rusty tools and stalked off toward her assigned plot. It wasn’t her fault that the other women had refused to come to work.
She didn’t know any of the other girls assigned to her field, so she worked in silence the whole morning, the first poem from the river ringing in her ears.
A man with a purpose who is dogged and strong
Cannot be held behind bars for long
As she rammed the shovel into the earth, she couldn’t stop obsessing over the question that had been plaguing her all night: Did the watcher really think it was possible to escape San Judas?
No one had ever escaped before. The closest anyone had come were the few times the prison had experienced a power outage that had taken down the electric fence.
Both inmates who’d tried to escape had gotten stuck in the narrow corridor between the electric fence and the outer wall. One had fallen trying to scale the wall and had broken her leg. The other had been gunned down by the watchmen and removed from San Judas.
Few inmates ever attempted to escape, because those who did were immediately removed from San Judas. Nobody knew where they were sent, but Lark had heard that they were forced to wait out the rest of their sentences in a maximum security prison.
As far as Lark was concerned, it didn’t matter how much of a bitch Mercy was or how scarce food became; living out in the sunshine with the freedom to move about was the best-case scenario for a convicted murderer. She didn’t want to spend the next twenty years in a six-by-eight cell or crammed in a dormitory with hundreds of other inmates.
By the time the sun reached its apex in the sky, Lark had examined the possibility of escape from every angle. Barring some sort of miracle, there was no way out.
When the bell clanged in the distance for midday mess, Lark threw down her shovel and made a beeline for the mess hall. It would take the field hands a good fifteen minutes to get there, and by then the line would be wrapped around the square.
Lark kept her eyes peeled for Bernie as she merged with the crowd of workers. She didn’t see her anywhere, and none of the inmates would look her in the eye.
Lark knew they were thinking of the lashes she’d taken the day before. Some of them probably felt sorry for her, but they didn’t dare show sympathy.
A flurry of angry chatter floated toward her, and Lark’s eyes drifted from the front of the line to the clusters of inmates sitting at rickety picnic tables.
Most were muttering angrily amongst themselves as they took dainty bites of rice and beans. Nobody seemed to have much food in their bowls to begin with, and they were devouring it at lightning speed.
Rationing had begun.
Lark’s stomach growled as she took her place at the back of the line. She already felt queasy and lightheaded from skipping morning mess, and standing out in the blazing sun wasn’t helping. Lark tipped her water pouch back over her mouth, and the last precious drops dripped feebly onto her tongue.
Now the chatter was coming from behind her. A group of women were arguing. Some of them hadn’t shown up for work duty that morning, and several of the field hands were insisting that if they didn’t work, they shouldn’t be allowed to eat.
Lark swayed on the spot. Privately she agreed, but she didn’t care enough to chime in. She felt as though she might be sick, and the voices were getting louder and louder.
Suddenly, somebody shoved her from behind, sending a burst of agony down her shredded back. Lark swore loudly and spun around to see who had just bodychecked her.
As soon as she pivoted, she found herself staring into the cold black eyes of a girl she knew but had never spoken to.
Denali growled.
The girl’s name was Bianca, and she was one of Mercy’s enforcers. She had a mean round face, wide, chunky hips, and long black hair that she wore in a frizzy French braid.
“Watch it,” said Lark. She could feel where several of the scabs on her back had broken. The blood was soaking through her shirt, causing the fabric to stick to her skin.
Bianca’s eyes flashed with malice. “Ex-cuse me?” she said, glancing around to locate her friends.
“You heard me,” Lark snarled, reaching back for the homemade shiv she kept tucked inside her waistband. “Watch — where you’re — going.”
Bianca made a sound between her teeth that sounded like a cross between a scoff and a click. “Back of the line, bitch. This ain’t none of yo’ business.”
Lark didn’t move. She didn’t care that she and Denali were on their own. It didn’t matter that they were surrounded by six or seven of Mercy’s goons. She was hungry and tired and in pain, and she wasn’t going to take Bianca’s shit lying down. “No.”
Bianca’s eyes widened. “Did you just — Did she just —” She looked around at her friends again.
“You
got a problem?” Lark asked, pulling out the shiv and glaring up at Bianca through the blinding sunshine.
Bianca tilted her head from side to side with a look that said she was about to kick Lark’s teeth in. A second later, her fist flew out of nowhere, but Lark slipped out of the way and dodged the punch by less than a centimeter.
Instinctively, Lark lowered her center of gravity and charged at Bianca’s middle. She shoved the point of her shiv into her attacker’s flesh, and Bianca let out a howl of pain.
In a rage, she grabbed a fistful of Lark’s hair and tugged. Denali launched himself at her like a rocket, snarling and snapping like a monster.
Bianca made a noise of surprise but didn’t let go. Instead, she latched on to Lark’s wrist and twisted it until the shiv clattered to the ground.
Up ahead, the rest of the line had fallen back to give them space, forming a solid ring of bodies. Lark could hear the frenzied boos and yells of Bianca’s friends, and they kicked up a cloud of dust that made Lark cough.
Gritting her teeth, Lark swung out her fist in a wild uppercut. It barely clipped Bianca’s chin, but it stunned her enough to make her loosen her grip. Lark wriggled free just in time to see Bianca’s bloodthirsty expression before her knuckles collided with Lark’s temple.
The square flickered, and Lark stumbled back in a daze. Denali was hanging on to the back of Bianca’s shirt with his teeth, but her hits just kept on coming.
Each punch was awkward and uncoordinated, but damn she was strong. Her foot flew out and collided with Lark’s knee, and Lark felt her blood boil over.
Before Lark had a chance to strike back, Bianca lowered her head and charged like a bull. Her brawny shoulder collided with Lark’s ribcage, and Lark wrapped her arm around Bianca’s neck.
Bianca bucked and flailed like a wild animal, but Lark just gritted her teeth and held on for dear life. Denali snapped at Bianca ferociously, but he was more of a nuisance than anything.
A second later, Bianca stuffed her fist into Lark’s gut, and they went down. Lark’s back hit the ground, and the surge of pain was enough to make her let go. She scrambled to get on top, but Bianca was definitely stronger.
They rolled over and over in the dirt — a tangle of limbs and fur and teeth. Lark was still bleeding profusely from her lashes, but when they landed, she was in mount.
Bianca threw her hips to the side. Lark sank her weight down and threw out a fist with all the force she could muster. It hit Bianca square in the nose, and blood splattered everywhere.
Bianca covered her face with her hands as Lark laid into her with everything she had. Her punches were met with a few breathless gasps, and after a hard cross, Bianca stopped struggling.
By then, Lark’s hands had gone numb. Her knuckles were split and bloody, but somehow she didn’t feel the pain. Lark had drifted off to another place entirely — a place she’d only visited once before in the dark throes of fear.
Somebody grabbed her around the shoulders, but she thrust an elbow back as hard as she could. A startled yelp told her she’d made contact, but she didn’t look around to see who it was.
Still, that moment of distraction cost her. Bianca seemed to have regained her strength — or she was making one last Hail-Mary attempt to fight. She’d managed to sneak a hand between their sweaty bodies, and Lark felt stubby fingers lock around her neck.
Something in Lark’s brain clicked. In one violent motion, she shifted her weight and wrapped herself around Bianca’s arm. She dove to the right until their bodies were perpendicular, pulled back as hard as she could, and — crack!
Silence filled the space around them like a vacuum. Bianca let out an ear-splitting cry, and several sets of arms reached into their orbit to extricate her.
Denali was still growling, hackles raised, but it was clear to everyone that he was all bark and no bite.
Strange hands dragged Lark through the dirt, and pockets of pain seemed to erupt all over her body. Somebody kicked her hard in the ribs, and another one of Bianca’s friends dove on top to punch her in the face.
Lark scrambled to get into an upright position, but somebody held her down while another girl kicked.
A wave of dizziness swamped Lark as her battered brain struggled to stay online. She was teetering on the verge of a total blackout when an angry voice boomed out over the crowd.
She blinked a few times, willing her vision to adjust. When the scene finally came into focus, Mother Mercy was looming over her, wearing a terrifying expression.
“What — in the world — is going on?”
“Roland jumped Bianca!” spat a girl with a full head of long, skinny braids.
“It was Bianca’s fault!” yelled a familiar voice. Bernie finally surfaced from the crowd, her face flushed with worry. “She came at Lark first.”
“Bullshit!” yelled another girl. “You didn’t even see them!”
There was a lot of movement around Lark, and she felt as though she might be sick. Her head was spinning. She could feel a goose egg forming on the side of her scalp. Her knee and ribs were in agony, and she could taste blood in the back of her throat.
“Get up,” snarled Mercy.
Lark swallowed and pulled herself to her feet, feeling extremely top heavy. Everything had taken on a strange blurry quality, and with the sun breaking over her shoulders, Mercy appeared to be swathed in a full-body halo.
Lark was so lightheaded that she didn’t see Mercy’s hand fly up to slap her across the face. She just felt a burning heat where Mercy had struck her and the ache in her neck as her head jolted to the side.
A surge of fury shot through Lark’s veins, but she had no choice but to stand there and wait to absorb Mercy’s wrath.
“You ungrateful little bitch.”
Lark didn’t say anything.
“Sh-she b-broke my arm,” Bianca sobbed, drawing Mercy’s attention back to her. “And sh-she s-s-stabbed me.”
“Get yourself together,” Mercy snapped, bending down to examine her fallen daughter. Mercy loathed whining and regarded tears as a sign of weakness. “It’s a shallow cut. As for the arm . . .”
Big fat tears were making tracks down Bianca’s cheeks, and a small rivulet of blood was trickling from her nose. Lark noticed she was holding her arm close to her chest, and it seemed to be hanging at an odd angle.
Just then, Rita materialized in the crowd and whispered something in Mercy’s ear. Mercy nodded and allowed Rita to pry Bianca’s good arm away to test the injured appendage with a few swift motions.
“It’s not broken,” Rita told her, dropping Bianca’s arm like a cold fish. “Just dislocated.”
“W-what?”
“We’ll take you to the healers,” Mercy said. “See if they can pop it back into place.”
Two of Bianca’s friends pulled her to her feet, and Mercy straightened up as if she meant to follow. But then she stopped in her tracks and turned to Lark with cold, steely eyes. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Lark held her breath as Mercy swished past and didn’t relax until she disappeared from view.
But just as Lark let out the breath she’d been holding, she felt a sharp slap on her arm.
“What the hell?” Bernie hissed.
“You really did it this time,” said Rita, shaking her head and staring at Lark’s blood-covered shiv. “Bianca is gonna milk this like there’s no tomorrow.”
Lark didn’t answer. She was still shaking from her ordeal, and she hadn’t quite caught her breath. The rage that had coursed through her veins had been all-consuming — horrific and exhilarating all at once.
The last time her instincts had hijacked her brain like that was the day she’d killed Levi Flemming. She couldn’t control it, and that terrified her.
“I have to go,” Lark mumbled, pulling her arm out of Bernie’s grip and staggering away from the line.
“What?”
“I have to get out of here.”
“You need to go see the healers, too,”
said Rita.
“Not now.”
“What about mess?” asked Bernie.
“Save me something, will you?”
Lark was still shaky, and her nervous system was in a frenzy from the fight and a lack of food. She felt crazed and panicked, but she couldn’t tell Bernie what had just happened. She didn’t want to admit that she’d lost control.
Lark knew the chaos inside her would subside. She just needed to get away from the crowd. She needed to be somewhere quiet and safe — someplace that felt like home.
Before she knew it, she was running across the square with Denali hot on her heels. She flew over the packed-dirt ground surrounding the colony and sprinted through the scraggly field of sagebrush.
She didn’t have any idea where she was going, but her feet seemed to have a destination in mind. The angry crowd slowly disappeared behind her, and soon she was safe in the canopy of the trees.
Lark and Denali crashed through the woods, scattering squirrels and birds in their wake. Lark’s heart was pounding from exhaustion, but she kept on moving until she reached the river.
She collapsed on her hands and knees near the bank, shaking like an addict in withdrawal. Her aching joints sank into the mud, and her chest shook as she worked up a fit of sobs.
The rush of the water drowned out the lingering whispers and taunts that had followed her from the square, but she couldn’t shake the demons that were choking her from the inside.
She was only nineteen when it had happened the first time, and she’d hoped it would never happen again.
At that age, Lark hadn’t had any idea what she’d wanted to do with her life. She’d been working on a farm less than twenty miles from San Judas the summer she lost everything.
Ironically, the first half of that summer had been the best of her life. She’d made friends, spent her days out in the sunshine, and went to bed feeling that she’d used her body for something good. Most of the other workers were around her age, but there was a man named Levi who was in his midthirties.
