"Share and share alike, my friend." Michael smiled, all boyish charm and diplomacy. "We know of a patch run wild not far from here, and we’re happy for you to help yourselves so long as you leave some for us."
"You are rare, generous souls." Anahera’s smile was so radiant that it made my stomach do a flip-flop. "I am pleased to have you as our neighbours. Too many have become wrapped up in themselves in these self-absorbed days, and forget that community is what will keep the human spirit alive."
I felt an odd mix of emotions: A swell of pride at her praise, coupled with a sense of guilt that I would have handled things so much differently if I were the leader of our group. She was right, and I was one of those selfish ones. Without Michael’s sweet soul to temper me, I was just another greedy survivor clutching her precious scraps of a shattered civilization. I didn’t like that feeling.
"I agree completely." Oblivious to my internal conflict, Michael beckoned for the visitors to follow us. "Come and meet the rest of our community."
Although Michael led the way, he kept his arm looped around my waist in a manner that was both protective and a little bit possessive. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had seen me looking at Anahera, and was feeling just as jealous as I had been a few minutes ago. There was no chance to ask him or reassure him now, though. A moment later, we entered the kitchen where the others were sitting around the table discussing breakfast.
Introductions were made, with Anahera showing delight over the littlest members of our company. She greeted Maddy like an adult, and spoke softly to her until the child beamed and nodded happily. Then her attention turned to Skylar, who blushed and smiled shyly when the older woman crooned over her belly; she looked both confused and pleased by the attention at the same time.
"When are you due, dear one? It must be soon, surely?"
Skylar nodded and rubbed a hand over her belly as though to soothe her unborn child. "In about a month, a little less. Very soon."
"Ah, it must be terribly uncomfortable in this heat." Anahera sighed softly. She reached over and hovered a hand above Skye’s belly, then shot the young woman a quizzical look. Skylar nodded her permission, so Anahera gently rested her hand upon her tummy. "I remember being pregnant with my youngest son at this time of year. It was terrible. I spent half my time soaking in a cold bath just to keep the swelling in my ankles at bay."
Skye smiled at the understanding, and rubbed the side of her belly. "I do that sometimes, too. Well a cold shower, anyway. She kicks more when it’s too hot, so the cool water calms her down."
"Ah, feel her kicking now." Anahera laughed, and it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. "I think she knows we’re talking about her."
Skylar’s smile faded, though, replaced by an intense concern.
"I’m sorry to ask, ma’am, but… have any women in your community had babies since the outbreak?"
Anahera drew back and stared intently at my sister, clearly sensing there was a reason behind the question.
"No. I am the only woman in my community, and I will not take another man since the plague took my husband." Her head shifted a little, tilting to one side. "Why do you ask, dear?"
"Oh, well." Skye looked at me, uncertain what to say.
Despite my instinctive reticence, I stepped in to the rescue. "There was some research that I read; it said that immunity is not necessarily passed from mother to child. We’re worried that her baby might get infected."
Anahera’s expression changed to one of concern. "I am afraid I have no information to give you, but I pray that does not happen."
The conversation was interrupted at that point by the sound of quad bikes outside. Of course, I felt anxious that we were about to be attacked, but no one else looked worried. Anahera quickly informed us that it was just her tribe-mates arriving with their gifts for us.
Anahera and Michael led the way back outside, with the rest of us trailing along in a rag-tag group strung out behind them. I brought up the rear, and was the last one to step back out into the moody weather. By the time I left the building, the leaders of our two groups had descended on the quad bikes and were chatting about something I couldn’t quite hear.
I lingered near the doorway, feeling mildly uncomfortable. More strangers to worry about, more potential dangers. My inner recluse was not happy. While the others splintered off to investigate the newcomers, I stood quietly in the doorway, watching Michael. Even at a distance, I found his presence reassuring. A humid breeze caught my hair and tugged a few loose tendrils across my face. I reached up to pluck them out of my eyes, and tuck them back behind my ear—
—and then I froze as a cold sensation shot right through me from the back of my throat to the tip of my toes.
There were three quad bike riders standing in a gaggle off to one side, obviously members of Anahera’s tribe from the Polynesian cast of their features. They stood in a group watching the leaders chat, shoulders slouched and hands in pockets. They were oblivious to me.
I wished I could say the same. Two of the three faces were unfamiliar to me.
The third one was not.
The shaking began as a faint trembling in my hands when recognition hit me. Then came the panic in icy, surging waves that rippled through my body from head to toe, and made my body shake harder and harder until I thought that I could hear the sound of my bones rattling in their joints.
Skylar said something to me but I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the rush of noise in my own eardrums. I took a step back, and then another, but my back hit the wall beside the door, and I couldn’t quite assemble my thoughts enough to turn around.
I knew that horrible face, with its flat, oft-broken nose.
I knew the tattoos that wound across his brow like a wicked serpent.
I knew that corpulent body, the one that hid thick muscle deep beneath its fat.
Oh god.
Skylar was looking at me and I knew that she was concerned, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I couldn’t breathe.
Oh god. Oh god.
It was the spectre from my nightmares, my tormentor, the one that writhes and hits. I heard the sound of flesh striking flesh, and I felt the pain all over again.
He was here, in the flesh. The demon was here, in my home.
I had prayed so hard that I would never see him again.
I felt hands on me and then I felt myself being dragged inside until I could no longer see the demon that haunted me. Once he was gone from my sight, I collapsed both literally and figuratively. The hands caught me as I fell, and supported me.
"Sandy? What’s wrong?"
I heard my sister’s voice, but it sounded like it was coming from a million miles away. Stars danced around the edge of my vision, and I felt like I was falling, falling, falling...
The next thing I knew, I was lying down with a semi-circle of concerned faces hovering around me: Skylar, Ryan and Madeline. They were familiar faces, friendly faces, and yet I couldn’t put aside the uncontrollable, animal panic. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t control my limbs.
I suddenly realised that I was crying, but I was too afraid to make a sound.
"Maddy, go get your granddad." I heard Skylar speaking, but the little girl shook her head.
"No… we should get Mister Michael."
"What? She needs a doctor, not her boyfriend." Skylar leapt to her feet to go fetch the doctor herself, but Maddy sprang up as well and grabbed her by the hand to hold her back.
"You don’t understand; the bad man is here." The little girl stared at her intently, then repeated the words with an intensity that made my shivering all the worse. "The bad man is here."
Skylar stared at her, not quite comprehending what she was saying for what felt like forever. Finally, something seemed to come together in her mind. Her eyes widened in shock.
"The–" She hesitated for a moment then made a snap decision. "I’ll go get Michael."
All this time I felt like I was paralysed, watchi
ng some terrible play unfold before my very eyes. It was less than a minute before Skylar returned, but it felt like an eternity. Michael was with her, my kind, sweet Michael, and his concerned face joined the circle that floated above me.
"Jesus… Sandy? Sandy, what’s wrong?" His gentle fingers caressed my cheek, and came away wet with my tears. It took all of my willpower to raise my hand just a little bit, but it was trembling so badly I couldn’t coordinate it enough to touch his hand.
"The bad man is here." Maddy came to my rescue again, and repeated the words softly for Michael’s benefit. Like Skylar, he stared at her in uncertainty. Then, driven by some sixth sense, he reached for me and gathered my shivering body up against his broad chest, to cradle me close against him.
His warmth was like a pillar of light to my ice-cold mind, the tonic that I needed to coax my frozen muscles back to life. A convulsion shook my entire body as I wrapped my arms around his waist, and buried my face in his chest.
"Sandy, sweetheart." His voice was a gruff whisper, and he stroked my hair softly as I clung to him. "Talk to me. Tell me, which one of them did it? Which one of them hurt you?"
The sobs wracking my body left me mute and inarticulate, but Maddy knew. How does she always know?
"The one with the bad drawings on his face." She stared at Michael like he would know what that meant, with an intensity that just didn’t belong on the face of a little girl.
"Bad drawings? Do you mean the tattoos?" He questioned her softly, but she was only a little girl and didn’t know what that meant.
"What’s happening?" A new voice entered the fray, one that I recognised as Anahera. There was a gasp, and then another body joined the circle around me. "Is she alright?"
Michael’s voice was like ice, so cold it practically froze the hot summer air.
"Are you aware that one of your brothers is a rapist?"
There it was. The R-word. The worst four letters of the English language, and spoken from the lips of the man I cared about. I muffled a sob against his chest.
"What?" Anahera’s voice was soft but it carried so much dangerous intensity that for a moment I felt a wave of irrational alarm. They were going to hurt me, going to hurt my sister, hurt my unborn niece, hurt my Michael.
No, no!
But I couldn’t see her face. I didn’t see the anger, the unbridled fury that bubbled up from deep within her. I did not know that it wasn’t targeted at me. Oh, but I could hear her voice, the hiss of her breath through clenched teeth. "Which one of them did it?"
"T-the one with the tattoos…" I managed to summon the will enough to name my abuser, unable to bear the thought of little Madeline having to say the words again.
There was a sound like a growl from the beautiful woman, an animal thing of wild and primal fury, and then she was up on her feet and gone. Suddenly I was afraid for her, afraid for my family, and my instinct was to fight.
I struggled against the palsy that held me, unintentionally fighting against Michael’s grip as well – but he understood. His strong hands helped me to my feet and kept me upright until I could stand on my own. I shook off the dizziness and headed to the door, with my family hot on my heels.
As I made it to the doorway with the others in a gaggle behind me, I could hear the sound of raised voices arguing back and forth in the Maori tongue.
Then I heard the distinctive sound of a fist striking flesh, and I was afraid, afraid that Anahera was being attacked.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried for her. It was her fist that I heard, and the target of her ire was the very one that was causing my distress. He was screaming at her, spitting curses around a mouth full of bloody teeth, but he was held back by the three other men of his tribe. His leader struck him, again and again with astounding strength, until her knuckles ran with his blood.
He didn’t look so terrifying now, not when he slumped semi-conscious in the arms of his captors, and his own leader kicked him so hard that I saw teeth fly.
Then, panting heavily with exertion, she gestured to her companions and they dropped their captive in the dirt. She saw me, trembling amongst my family, and she turned to face me.
"He would not deny it," she spat the words like they tasted bad, as enraged as a wild cat. "All these years he’s lied to us, told us that his only crimes were petty thefts." She jerked a finger at the slumped man, and her brothers hauled him back to his knees. "This is the one, dear heart? You are sure? He is the one that hurt you?"
I could only nod; there was no way I would ever forget that horrible face.
"Wait."
There was a voice behind me, and then Michael stepped by me with the strangest look on his face. "I didn’t realise it before, but I think I know this man as well."
"From where?" Anahera spoke softly as she stared at him, her eyes narrowed dangerously in the grips of an irrational berserker rage.
Michael circled the prisoner, and stared at him from all angles, his brow knitted deeply in thought. "I used to work for the police force. I know his face. I just… need a moment to remember."
Silence descended over both groups as Michael stared at that terrible face from every angle. I stood back drawing deep breaths, trying to keep the shaking in my limbs under control. I worried for my sweetheart, but I was afraid to move closer. I wasn’t sure whether I would faint again if I did, or whether I would attack like a pack animal and tear that terrible man apart.
Suddenly, Michael drew a sharp breath and straightened up.
"I remember now." He looked at me for a long moment, and then his dark eyes returned to Anahera. "He was a wanted man, but the riots hit before we could catch him. I’m sorry to say that Sandy wasn’t his first victim."
"What did he do?" Anahera’s voice was like ice. I could see her twitching, barely in control of her anger. Michael stared at her, almost as though afraid of telling her the truth – or perhaps he was afraid of what he would do to the man himself if he spoke the words out loud.
"He abducted a pair of little girls." Michael closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Twins; it was all over the news when they went missing. They were… five or six." I felt my stomach drop to my knees. I remembered seeing those sweet-faced children on television. It was one of the last things we saw before the plague became everyone’s news. Michael’s voice was heavy with sadness as he continued. "He… violated them, strangled them, and then threw them into the Waikato River.
"My colleagues found them." Michael grimaced and shook his head. "One of the girls was already dead, but the other one was still alive. She lived long enough to name her killer, but then she died in hospital. He was her uncle. They distributed pictures of him to everyone in the precinct, and it was all hands on deck looking for him. I don’t think I could ever forget those tattoos."
In the silence that followed, tears sprang unbidden into my eyes again. I remembered those little girls. It had been weeks between when they went missing and when they were found. Someone had kidnapped them and tortured them for a long, long time.
Just like me.
It was the softest little noise that broke the silence, but it wasn’t a sob or a cry – it was a growl. I looked up and saw Anahera shaking with pent-up fury, her dark-eyed gaze focused on the half-conscious man held up by her brethren. They dropped him unceremoniously in the dirt and stepped back, as though sensing something terrible was to come.
"You–" Her voice was a husky whisper as she rounded on the man, her feet planted wide apart, her hands clenched to fists. "–are not my brother!"
The last part wasn’t spoken, it was screamed. She punctuated the sentence with a kick so brutal that it sent the tattooed man rolling through the dirt.
Screaming in wordless fury, she chased after the crumpled form and stomped on him again; I heard the tell-tale sound of ribs snapping at the force of the blow. Her voice was so loud, so charged with pure rage that it startled birds out of the trees nearby and sent them fluttering away in distress.
At last, ex
hausted, she stepped back and took a deep breath to calm herself, then turned and looked straight at me.
"Is he really your brother?" I stared back at her, horrified by the idea.
"No, not by birth. I consider all the men of my group to be my brothers, in the sense that common interests bind us into a form of adopted kinship. But, this one betrayed me, and everything that we stand for. He is a murderer. There are no judges anymore. No juries. In my tribe, the only just punishment that I see is death." Her voice was dangerously soft, her eyes unreadable. "But, you are the last living person that he sinned against, dear one. His punishment is yours to decide."
"Mine?" The statement didn’t quite sink in straight away. She wanted me to decide the fate, the ultimate punishment for the man who had held me captive for days; brutalised me again and again until I was so traumatised that even years later I felt crippling fear every time I met a stranger.
This was the man who had left me so emotionally damaged that I struggled to trust even good people, people who were kind to me and showed me generosity far beyond what I deserve.
This was the man that had broken my psyche so badly that I was afraid to make love to the man I adored.
This was the man who destroyed those beautiful little girls, and god knows how many others since then.
It was his fault.
His fate was mine to decide.
But, did I want the blood of another human being on my hands? It was true that I’d killed before to save myself, but only in the heat of the moment and never in cold blood. That was how I'd escaped from him, three years ago. He’d gone somewhere, and left his lazy, drunk accomplice to use me as he pleased. He’d been careless; now he was dead.
Did I want the ringleader dead as well?
Yes, I did – but also no. Not like that.
"I don’t want him to die." My voice was so low and breathless that it forced Anahera to draw closer to hear my words. "He doesn’t deserve a quick death. I–" I could hardly believe I was saying this. "I don’t know. I think he deserves to suffer, like he made me suffer all of these years. Like he made those little girls suffer. I just want him to understand what he’s done to us."
The Survivors (Book 1): Summer Page 27
