Dureck stood in front of her, but Blue saw only Elle. The edges of her vision were completely dark, cutting off her periphery. Elle’s fearful scream narrowed the focus until the alarm on her best friend’s face was all Blue could see. Blue could not run. She could not call out for help. In the fog of the fray, she vaguely heard Dureck unsnapping his jumpsuit.
She felt the air move when his hands approached her, as if in slow motion. The black narrowed so she could see only a tunnel in front of her, gray bleeding in like vapors of smoke at the edges. Her breath caught as Dureck made contact with her orange jumpsuit.
Without pause, she clamped her small hands around Dureck’s fingers and squeezed, not stopping until she felt several bones snap beneath his howls of pain and surprise.
Her vision tapered yet further, and she did not hesitate as she grabbed a handful of his black hair and bashed his head down against a pile of bricks. Over and over she thrust him down, not stopping even when the fight and life went out of him.
Shouts of surprise echoed around her, but she registered none of it. Turning on the remaining men, her sight faded to darkness as she stepped forward to pay them the justice they deserved.
She was no longer a girl, but death incarnate.
Bones shattered beneath her capable hands, but she registered no victory. The men cried for help while Elle shrieked, but she did not slow. Blood spread out over her, dripping from her hands and pooling at her feet, but she felt none of it. An abyss of nothing flooded her, blinding her brilliant blue eyes from the torment she inflicted. Her body continued while her mind retreated to a place in her subconscious where the violence couldn’t reach her.
Seconds. Minutes. Hours? She could not remember her own name as she repeatedly slammed Grent’s head into the concrete floor while humming a dismal melody. His skull had long since caved in, face unrecognizable, but Blue was stuck on autopilot. Having wreaked all the carnage she could, her muscles would not stop, even at absolute death. She was encased in the black that would not lift, despite the glow of the furnace and fluorescent bulb dangling overhead.
It was not Elle’s sobs and vomiting that roused her, but her brother’s voice that finally found her in the fog. “Blue!” he cried, his shock only just breaking through her daze as she continued to bash Grent’s head on the floor while humming the Wayward Anthem eerily. “Blue, stop! You’re done now.”
When this did not produce the lucid results he’d been hoping for, Baird pulled back his arm and let it fly, slapping her so hard that her head bobbed to the side.
The room came back to her in trickles and small details, the black giving way to the light. The bulb. The furnace. A pile of housing bricks. Elle biting her fist as she screamed into it in the corner. Pile of dismembered bodies scattered around her. Blood coating the floor, dripping from her fingers.
Baird’s face. Control trumped the worry on his features as he moved in front of her and locked in on her unfocused gaze. “Blue,” he whispered. “That’s enough.”
When Blue found that her hands would not relent in their punishment of Grent’s shattered skull, she whimpered. Her brother’s firm palms gripped her face, forcing her to see only him. “Br-aird?” Her voice sounded far away and foreign. Surely that scared girl couldn’t possibly be her.
“I’m here now. I’ll take care of it.” He nodded until she mirrored the motion. “Now, let him go.”
When her fingers finally granted Grent’s head permission to slump on the floor, Blue let out a single scream that Baird’s hand muffled. He shook his head. “You don’t get to freak out here. Do that on your own time. It’s done. I need you back in the room with me, not wherever you just went to in your head.”
She tried to move her mouth, but only mushy ramblings spilled out.
“Get it together, Elle,” he said of Elle’s quiet sobs. She was huddled in the corner, tears streaming down her face as she hugged herself. Baird shook his head at the mess. “This was sloppy,” he criticized. “These breaks…why here?” Baird lifted a leg to indicate the broken shin. “That’s not the place to incapacitate. All you’ll do is slow him down a little, which you don’t need, given how fast you are. That was wasted effort.” He scoffed at another odd fracture. “Well, at least you kept it quiet this time.”
Blue watched in confusion as her brother continued his lecture on the importance of a clean, swift takedown. She tried to make sense of his words, to pick out the important ones and force them to mean something, but she couldn’t. The room tilted as Elle’s red face came into view. Her eyes were swollen from crying and her face splotchy with emotion. Elle clutched her knees to her chest as she wept.
“Go ahead,” Baird urged, and it occurred to Blue that he had been instructing her to no avail.
“What?” she mouthed, her voice adding no volume.
“Snap out of it!” Baird clicked his fingers in front of her face. To test her awareness, he slapped her cheek, dismayed when she did not punch him back. “Blue.” He laid a dismembered leg across her lap. “The femur. Practice snapping the femur. It’s the strongest bone in the body, so it might compare to a Vemreaux’s arm or something.”
Blue did not respond as the room tilted once more, shifting the order of everything like sand to one side and then back again. She felt him move her hands to either end of the thigh and heard one command: “Break it!”
Blue finally obeyed. Without much hesitation, the strong bone splintered and cracked in half. She did not register Baird’s satisfaction, or the second leg he placed in her lap. Over and over he had her break femurs until each one was properly assaulted.
Baird pulled her up, unsettled when her legs gave out beneath her. “Get yourself together, Blue. This isn’t finished. We’ve got to clean this mess up.” When he judged that she could stand without assistance, he opened the door to the furnace and thrust in what was left of Grent’s head, careful not to get blood on his jumpsuit.
Blue followed his example, shoving pieces of her soul into the chute along with each body part she burned. The heat was unforgiving, but the fire inside proved a welcome distraction from the agony that threatened to show itself at any moment. The thought to climb into the conflagration and burn away her many sins seemed a viable option, but the saner part of her reasoned that Baird would probably not approve.
Arm. Leg. Head. Torso. Arm. Leg. Head. Torso. Penis. Blue screamed at the foreign appendage and jumped back, earning a glare from her brother. “Finish it!” he commanded.
Arm. Leg. Head. Torso. Blue could scarcely believe the destruction she’d caused, the utter obliteration of these men at her hands. There could be no absolution from this. Despite their intentions, she knew she would carry the weight of their deaths for years to come, as she did the others she’d destroyed in the black.
So entranced was she that she did not hear the door open. She did not see the intruder enter the furnace room. Only when the beginnings of a shrill screech reached her ears did Blue turn around.
Ariel. Number 0-6396829527-8. Blue remembered the girl with frizzy red hair. She was three years younger than Blue, a Linda. There she stood in the doorway, eyes wide with Baird’s hand over her mouth. He checked the surrounding area to see if anyone had heard her noise, and then shut the door again, dragging her into the mess. “This,” he spat with anger at his sister, “this is what happens when you lose your mind. This is what happens when you lose your temper.” He shook the girl, his hand still stifling her screams. “This is what happens when you aren’t careful.” He looked into Ariel’s young eyes that were filled with terror. Bad enough to be this close to the infamous Baird. Even worse to walk in on mangled corpses and Blue covered in blood. Baird jostled her to evoke another cry for help that would go nowhere. “She won’t be able to keep your secret like Elle or Grettel. So now, because you lost your temper, she has to die.” He thrust the rag doll at his sister with disgust. “Finish her.”
Blue was sure she’d misunderstood. She was positive he couldn’t mean she must
kill this thirteen-year-old girl who recoiled from her in horror. “B-Baird! No! I can’t do that! She h-hasn’t d-done anything wrong.”
“No, but you did.” Baird’s was tone icy. “Your mistakes have consequences, and she has to pay for it. Do it,” he commanded.
“N-No!” Blue bent down to Ariel, who’d dropped to the floor, nose running as she bawled. “Shh. Quiet, Ariel! You can keep quiet, right?” When her words did not penetrate, she pleaded with the girl. “Please! Be q-quiet, Ariel! I don’t want to hurt you!”
Elle crawled toward the girls to lend her support, but she had no words that could help. She simply offered her tears to the growing pile as she touched Ariel’s bony back.
Baird knew his sister like the back of his hand, the hand that was dripping with the blood of her mistake. He looked down at Blue and knew she was not capable of killing on her own without blacking out. He shook his head, hoping to convey his utter disappointment in her. “You’re not ready,” he ruled.
In one swift motion, Baird picked up the gangly girl. “Shh,” he cooed, almost tenderly. He smoothed her fiery tangles from her tear-stained face as she begged for help Baird could not give. Then, just as quick as her scream built up, it ended with a sharp twist of her head. Ariel slumped to the floor, every bit as dead as Grent and the others.
Elle shoved her fist into her mouth and howled, muffling the sound and the horror as much as she could. She backed away from Baird, now only pretty sure he wouldn’t do the same to her. She’d kept quiet. She’d been helpful, even. Still, Baird possessed little mercy, and she didn’t want to use up the last of it. She tried to breathe as he pushed Ariel into the furnace, but the air was too thick to pull in a proper gasp.
After Baird tossed the last torn body part into the heat and shut the heavy door, he set about dealing with the rest of the mess. He ventured outside the building and turned on the hose. Without addressing either woman, he sprayed down the floor, chasing the blood and bile down the drain in the center of the room.
Logistics he could deal with. Elle needing comfort as she sobbed? There never seemed a right way to handle that, so he settled on ignoring her for the time being. “Blue, I’ll run back to Laundry and get you a new jumpsuit, but you’ll have to hose off while I’m gone. Burn the uniform you’re wearing. Nothing can tie you to this, understand?”
Blue’s mouth opened to scream, but Baird closed the distance between them in two of his long strides. He palmed her forehead and pushed her down on her knees roughly. “Ariel’s gone, and you don’t need to think about that right now.” He stiffened against her violent shaking. Baird was grateful his sister did not seem capable of crying. “I want you to picture her body and put it in a box. Can you do that?” His voice was unnaturally calm as he spoke to her. “Put Ariel in a box and shut the lid tight. Now dig a hole and stuff the box in.” When Blue did not confirm his words, his tone hardened. “I can’t hear you.”
“Yes, Baird,” she whispered.
“Good. Now shove the box in the ground and cover it up. Nice and deep, shove it down. Shove it down.” He pushed her forehead and squeezed his fingers tighter around her cranium. “Stuff it all down, Blue.” Baird watched her eyes slide out of focus. “Did you bury the bad things?”
“Yes, Baird,” she answered soullessly.
“Good girl. Hold it back. Hold it all back. Push it down. Way down.” His voice was hypnotic as he watched her obey. The angst slid from her, as did her fight. “There you go. Never touch that box again. If you see any sign of it, beat it back down. Push it down.”
Blue nodded, her eyes empty as her brother released her, finally giving her the space to breathe. “Now, wash up,” she heard him order.
Blue moved without thinking. Her mind was numb to the terror. She heard only the blood rushing in her ears as she turned on the water. Blue held the hose over her head and let the cold water hit her, though she doubted she would ever feel clean again. Life began to return to her as the chill awakened her senses one by one. When she found Elle standing at her side, Blue scolded herself for allowing someone to surprise her. Elle’s trembling hand motioned for the hose, and Blue handed it over without a word.
“Why didn’t you run?” Elle asked, her voice barely audible above the trickle of water.
Blue shrugged. “Would you have left me alone with those guys?”
Elle did not respond, but hardness glinted in her emerald eyes. “Still, you stayed. For what it’s worth, you were pretty amazing.” She bunched Blue’s hair in her fist and ran the water over her friend’s neck. Elle swiped at her tears, still trying to steady herself. “You’ve got to take this suit off, sweetie. Baird’s right. It’s gotta be destroyed.”
Blue unsnapped her jumpsuit and peeled the uniform off. After casting the last bit of evidence into the furnace, she sat on the floor under the stream of water, clad only in her underwear and bra. She shivered from a cruel combination of cold and nerves. Even though the water from the hose would have covered her indiscretion, Blue did not cry. Baird would not have tolerated such a disgusting act. Blue stared vacantly ahead and permitted Elle to weep for the both of them.
Chapter Three
Temper
Three Years Later
“Hurry, George!”
“Oh, this is not good. This is really not good,” George worried aloud to himself as he struggled with the bag of feed. The sturdy burlap sack weighed half as much as he did and did not lighten with his valiant attempts at speeding up.
“We have to finish our chores soon,” Griffin insisted. “This is the last day I can see my sister, you know.”
George stopped once again to give his pubescent muscles a rest. “Griff, I can’t go any faster than this. These bags are heavy!” He stretched his back up straight and groaned, already getting annoyed with the flies that grew thicker as they neared the scratch piles and cow pens. “Why did we get barn duty today of all days? Wouldn’t mind scrubbing a toilet right now.”
Griffin smirked, despite the growing urgency that plagued him all morning. “I’ll remember you said that next time we get bathroom detail. C’mon, now. We’re almost done. Just four more bags.”
“After these two!” George corrected him.
Griffin could not be deterred. Heavy sack flung over his back, he walked steadily forward – George or no George.
George pushed the bent frame of his gold-rimmed glasses up onto his nose, but the profuse perspiration made his preference for their placement irrelevant. When he hefted the too-large bag over his unsteady shoulder, his glasses slid down even further than they were before. George huffed as his leaden feet followed his best friend faithfully.
“Hurry, George!” Griffin called out over his sturdy shoulder.
George pursed his lips and bit back the grunts he wanted to make. After all, this might be the last day Griffin would be allowed to see his sister on the inside. If their older brother Baird was successful in purchasing her for his owner that night, it would be the end of the threesome. Griffin, Blue and George would become just Griffin and George. Griffin would be without family in The Way. While this devastated Griffin to no end, it made George equally wary. Blue had an uncanny ability to calm her younger brother’s oft-flaring temper. George did not know how well Griffin would fare without his sister’s gentle hand on his arm to quiet his sometimes violent irritability.
With new determination, George fought against his strained muscles and the itch from the sweat that ran down his back, soaked up by his orange jumpsuit. He was glad for the calluses that already marked his fingers from the many hard years of work he’d lived through. His hands were shaking with the effort of keeping the sack in place. Griffin made it look so easy.
“You take that back!” George heard Griffin’s voice yelling from up ahead.
“Look, kid. I’m not saying anything against your sister. I just think it’s rough, is all.” Clarense shrugged as he leaned on the fertilizer rake in front of him. He bore a large smear of scratch across his cheek
, not to mention several smelly trails down his arms. His barcode was scarcely visible under the brown stains.
“She’ll be fine!” Clarense had voiced Griffin’s biggest concern, though the fiery teenager didn’t want to admit it. “Baird’s owner is buying her. My brother’ll look after her, no problem. You remember Baird, right? The giant Wayward that broke your arm when you couldn’t watch your mouth?”
“Hey, no need to bring that up. I’m sure you’re right, Griff.” Clarense held up his free hand in surrender. “I just hope Baird’s owner isn’t into renting out his A-bloods for prostitution. I’ve heard they don’t screen as carefully for that anymore.”
Griffin’s right fist began to shake, and George knew his time was just about out. He huffed and puffed closer to the two who were garnering much unwelcome attention. Just a little further and he could drop his heavy load and coax his best friend away from the older Wayward who had yet to learn tact.
“My sister’s not a prostitute! Baird would never let her get bought by someone like that.”
Good, George thought. Use logic instead of your fists this time.
“C’mon, Clarense!” A second older boy by the name of Willyum chimed in as he refilled his bucket with wet scratch. “That’s crazy. You know who his sister is. She’s that scrawny one named Blue. No Vemreaux in his right mind would pay for her.”
George closed his eyes and hissed out the air he was saving to talk Griffin into walking away. There was no hope for that now. Griffin had the same auburn hair as his siblings, the same peak in his left ear, unsettlingly blue eyes, and unfortunately, he also had his brother’s temper – but without the silent intimidation or moderate level of self-control. When Griffin exploded, there was no containing the damage.
The Way Page 3
