Victor

by Romi Hart

  “I can’t deal with this!” she croaked. “I can’t do this.”

  He couldn’t listen to that. He forced himself upright and took hold of her shoulders. “Come on.”

  She wrenched out of his grasp to turn away, but he refused to give up. He dragged her to her feet. “Come on, Riley. You’re coming with me.”

  She sagged against him, but she stayed up. He marched her around the building. The minute they emerged into view, all the other guys turned around to stare at them. A few cracked knowing grins. They must have heard every fucking sound.

  Victor braced himself and kept a firm hold on Riley. He walked her into the yard and back to the house. She didn’t look up at the crowd. Her head sagged and she continued that tormented moaning sound.

  He pushed her up the ladder and inside. The cool shadows blocked out the glare. He eased her down by the fire and fetched his own blanket. He draped it over her. She huddled in a ball. Her eyes skidded around the house searching for something that wasn’t there and never would be there.

  He tucked the scratchy wool under her chin, but when he smoothed it over her arm, he sensed the same burning electricity of power drawing him to her.

  He crouched down next to her and whispered low. “Listen to me, Riley. I’m going to leave now. If I stay here, we’ll just start up again and that’s not the best thing for either of us. I have to leave. I just want you to know I’m not leaving because….”

  He stopped. What did he really want to say to her—that he didn’t hate her? He did. He felt all the revulsion and loathing that started this whole thing. The very intensity of his hatred sparked his desire for her. It sounded too crazy to believe, but it was true.

  She rolled onto her back and her eyes locked onto him. A single tear streaked out of her eye and disappeared in her hair. “I can’t do this, Victor. I can’t stay here. I can’t do this….”

  He wanted to run. He wanted to flee from those eyes, but he had to control himself. He squared his shoulders at her. “Don’t you think I would let you go if it was possible? If it was at all possible, I would take you to Breaux Bridge myself. I would take you to the nearest town and give you the money to make your god damned phone call. Don’t you think I would? Do you really think I want to keep you here as a prisoner?”

  “I have to get out of here, Victor!” she cried. “I have to!”

  A thousand arguments battled in his head, but none of them would penetrate that thick skull of hers. He already tried and it didn’t work. If she still thought she had to get out of here after everything he said, nothing would convince her.

  He stood up and glared down at her. She kept searching the ceiling for something, something to make sense of all this.

  He couldn’t look at her. It hurt just to look at her. He walked away to the other room and came back with a loaded shotgun. He knew it was loaded because he was the one who loaded it.

  Even so, he cracked the breach in front of her where she could see him. When he ascertained that, yes, two shiny gleaming shells nestled in the twin barrels, he locked it closed and held it up for her to see.

  “I’m going to leave this right here where you can reach it, Riley,” he murmured. “If you even think about going to Breaux Bridge, you pick up that gun and blow your fucking brains out. That’s the only way you’re gonna get out of here.”

  He laid the gun on the floor next to her and walked out.

  The sun hit him in the eyes. In that instant, wolf whistles, hoots, and cheers erupted from the onlookers across the yard. He blinked into the glare to see Bryce, Lincoln, Isaac, Finn, and all the others from his father’s party clapping, pumping their fists, and grinning like idiots.

  It took him a second to realize what they were doing. The blood rushed to his cheeks. So they did hear. They heard it all. How could they miss it? She screamed loud enough.

  His shame fractured into rage. He stormed across the yard and grabbed a fistful of Bryce’s shirt. Before the asshole even finished cheering, Victor gave him a shove and marched him away.

  Bryce cast one more broken snicker over his shoulder to the amused bunch. Then he realized he was moving off on his own with his brother. He tried to wrestle out of Victor’s grasp. “Hey! What’s the matter with you?”

  Victor didn’t look right or left. He forced his brother to the stream and across it. He didn’t slacken his hold until they got well away from camp.

  Bryce whipped around as soon as Victor let go. “Cool it, chump! You’re the one who fucked her out in the open where we could all hear her.”

  “Will you shut the fuck up for a minute, you dim-witted punk?” Victor thundered. “Do you honestly think I brought you here to bitch-slap you for clapping at me?”

  Bryce straightened his shirt. “Well, why did you, then?”

  Victor leaned in. He did his best to keep his voice under control. “We’ve got a problem—a big problem.”

  Bryce’s eyes widened. “What—another one? How could any problem be bigger than her?”

  Victor nodded just to give himself a chance to think. “I know, man, but just listen to me for a sec, will you? Finn is trying to make an end-run on me.”

  Bryce froze. Then he smacked his lips. “Come on, man. You know that dude is solid.”

  “That’s what I thought. Then he pulled a fast one on me. I didn’t see it coming. He tried to turn that fucking bitch against me and it worked. He tried to use her to destroy me.”

  “How do you figure?” Bryce asked. “He’s never gone against us before.”

  Victor raised both hands, but he stopped himself from shaking some sense into his brother. He couldn’t blame Bryce for doubting when he could hardly believe it himself.

  He took a deep breath. “Last night when I posted the perimeter, he told me about a natural gas plant in Breaux Bridge. He knew all about it—or at least he claimed to. Maybe he cooked it all up out of that head of his. How the fuck should I know? Anyway, he spun me a tale about how there was a communications relay at the station. If the bitch could get to it, she could send a message to her people where she was. She could even call in the airstrikes to destroy us.”

  Bryce stared up at him. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Who knows if it’s even true? He told me to send out a scout to keep watch on the gas plant and what do you know? I sent him. He magicked me with his eyes so I would send him. He suggested it to me and that’s what I did.”

  “And you call that an end-run?” Bryce snorted. “You’re getting paranoid. You better not let Pop hear you talking like that or he’ll…”

  “That’s why I’m telling you and not Pop,” Victor cut in. “He told her. He told Riley about the gas plant. He told her all about it because he knew she’d go for it if she found out. He knew she was looking for a way to escape and he magicked her to do the same thing.”

  Bryce cocked his head. “Are you sure?”

  “I just caught that fucking bitch trying to break out of the village,” Victor snapped. “Where do you think she was going to go? She’s too smart to just start bushwacking her way through the god damned Atchafalaya swamps without a destination in mind. She would have taken days or even weeks to make a play for escape without that.”

  Bryce pulled his head in. “Okay. I hear you. Now explain to me why he turned around and told her.”

  “To get her killed, of course,” Victor hissed. “Use your brain, kid. He knew she’d run for it against all odds and he knew where she’d be going. He knew he’d be the one to catch her and he could kill her. He planned the whole thing to ruin me.”

  “You!” Bryce pulled himself together. “Oh. I see.”

  Victor moved his mouth within inches of his brother’s face. “You have to pay attention, man. You have to be on your guard at all times. If he gets rid of me, you’ll be next. Understand?”

  Bryce nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He stared at Victor with huge eyes. Victor watched the realization sink in. Bryce and everyone else considered this whole Riley
situation a big joke, but not anymore.

  Finn didn’t consider it a joke. He pretended to, but he obviously didn’t. He saw a golden opportunity to get rid of Victor in one stroke.

  Victor let out a shaky sigh. “Just watch her, okay? Keep an eye on her. She’s in a state right now, I can tell you.”

  “Yeah, ‘cuz you just fucked her against the side of the house,” Bryce fired back. “You fucked her and told her you hated her. What do you think she’s gonna be in if not a state?”

  Victor chopped his hand through the air. He didn’t want to talk about that—not with his brother. “Just watch her and watch him. Make sure he doesn’t go near her.”

  “How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” Bryce demanded. “That would mean staying with her twenty-four-seven and I’m sure as fuck not gonna do that. You stay with her twenty-four-seven if you’re so god damned worried about it.”

  “I can’t, you dipshit!” Victor didn’t mean to bellow. It just slipped out. “I can’t stay with her twenty-four-seven. The power won’t let us. If I go near her, it spirals out of control. You don’t have to stay with her all the time. Just make sure someone’s there so he can’t get her alone. Understand?”

  Bryce nodded again. “Yeah, man. I understand.”

  Victor turned away. “I’m sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  11

  Bryce used a hunting knife to chop root vegetables on a cutting board. He held the board between his bare feet and concentrated all his attention on the task at hand. He didn’t look up at Riley once.

  She observed him. His demeanor certainly changed since……since that unfortunate incident outside. Was Bryce jealous that she screwed around with his brother? Maybe he wanted her gone like all the rest of these god-forsaken mutants.

  She made up her mind to break the silence. Maybe she could get him talking. “Did you get anything today? You said you were going hunting. Did you have any luck?”

  He still didn’t look at her. He laid his knife aside, picked up the board, and brushed the sliced vegetables into the cooking pot. “I got a coon.”

  She listened for more. “A coon? I hope you mean a raccoon.”

  He didn’t flinch. He didn’t crack his usual easy-going smile. He didn’t twinkle his eyes at her in suggestive fun. He put the board back in its place and unwrapped a package of meat.

  He laid the slabs on the board and started cutting them up, too. He sawed the blade through the thick tissue with methodical slowness. He exaggerated every movement to maddening proportions.

  Bile rose in her throat watching him. How dare he ignore her like this? What did she ever do to him? She considered what to say to him next, but before she got the words out, the house vibrated with the steps of someone climbing the ladder.

  A heavy tread hit the floor and Victor stepped into the room. He scowled at Riley in the firelight, but he didn’t say anything. He clomped to the fire and sat down across from her. He picked up a stick of kindling and snapped it in half before throwing it on the flames.

  She hauled her gaze away from him and went back to studying Bryce—not that he interested her more than Victor. She couldn’t look at Victor, though. She began to understand what he said about something happening to them. Whenever she got around him, something happened to her. It drew her toward him against her will.

  He went through the same motion of breaking sticks for no apparent reason. Then he turned to his brother. “Pop said to tell you he’ll be late. He’ll be here in an hour or so.”

  Bryce nodded. Riley pricked up her ears. “Why is your father coming over?”

  “He’ll be staying here for a while and he wants to have dinner with you,” Bryce told her. “It’s the rules.”

  “What rules?”

  “The rules that say he has to stay with an honored guest of the family. The rules state he has to extend hospitality to you until the ceremony.”

  She froze. “What ceremony?”

  She looked back and forth between the brothers. Bryce didn’t seem to notice that his words had any effect on her. Victor did, though. He closed his eyes and his chin sank on his chest. He puffed out his cheeks in a long sigh.

  Riley gulped. Something big was going on. “What ceremony?”

  “The marriage ceremony.” Bryce went on with his chopping as if this was the most natural conversation in the world. “The rules state that the fathers extend hospitality to the other party before the….”

  “What the holy shit are you talking about?” she shrieked. She lunged onto her knees. She would have seized Bryce by the collar if she could have done it without setting herself on fire. “What marriage ceremony?”

  Bryce’s head shot up, but Victor kept his head down. “The……the…..” Bryce swiveled back and forth looking at both of them. “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Know what!” Riley roared. “What ceremony, Bryce? You better tell me right now before I…..”

  She stopped. The words died on her lips. When she glanced over at Victor, it all made perfect sense. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

  Victor stole a peek up at her. “I asked Pop not to tell you. I thought you were too fragile to handle it.”

  Her shoulders slumped, but she could only stare at him. “When exactly were you going to tell me?”

  He shrugged and looked away. That motion didn’t even make her angry. Nothing could top this. After everything that happened, this capped it all. She should have expected something like this—another fucking desecration of all she held dear.

  She looked over at Bryce. He stared at her with big, round eyes. “I thought you knew. I thought they must have told you by now. I wouldn’t have said….”

  She nodded. “You wouldn’t have said. You would have just kept me in the dark forever, right, just like everybody else?”

  All in a minute, she couldn’t stand their detestable presence a second longer. She had to get as far away from them and their moronic world as she could. She needed to get back somewhere sane, somewhere people understood each other and where the laws of man and nature made sense.

  She jumped to her feet and bolted out of the house. Pitch dark closed in the camp, but the sky shone bright with stars overhead. She didn’t look around for anyone creeping up on her. She didn’t give a good god damn who knew she was running away. She was walking the fuck out of here and God help anyone who tried to stop her.

  She headed straight for the stream. She hurdled it and hit the trees. She knew enough about this country to follow the Atchafalaya River. It would lead her to Highway 10. Once she got into populated territory, the mutants wouldn’t dare come after her. That would expose their existence to the human world, and they didn’t want that.

  She stormed into the trees not even trying to be quiet about it. She crossed a hundred yards when someone grabbed her arm and whipped her around. She swung her hand and slapped her knuckles across Victor’s face. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

  “Wait, Riley! It’s not like that. You don’t understand.”

  She rounded on him spitting tacks. “What exactly do I not understand—that your freak rules assign me to marry you just because we hooked up once? Forget it. I’m not your fucking property whatever you think. I’m leaving and I would so love to see you try to stop me. I would so love a chance to rip your motherfucking head off.”

  He hustled after her, but he didn’t grab her again. “It’s not like that. Will you just stop and listen to me? You don’t have to marry me.”

  “You’re god damned right about that, Mister. You can dream until doomsday ‘cuz that shit ain’t never gonna happen.”

  “It’s an old rule,” he told her. “All it says is we owe each other an obligation. If you hook up with another guy, the obligation is annulled. If we’re not interested in each other enough to get married, then we go our separate ways. No harm, no foul.”

  She propped her fists on her hips. She didn’t want to stop being mad at him and this who
le perverted system, but his words sunk in. “And if we…..?”

  She didn’t say it. She didn’t ask what would happen if they were interested enough in each other to get married. No motherfucking way in Hell would she ever get herself saddled with this nightmare.

  He held up both hands. “It doesn’t mean a thing. It just means Pop and….me and the boys have to follow certain rules until you and I…. decide what we’re going to do. That’s all.”

  “I can tell you right now what we’re going to do,” she shot back. “You’re going to go back to that house and explain to your father that we don’t want to have anything to do with each other. You’re going to explain to him that you hate me and I hate you and we can’t stand the sight of each other. Then I’m going to go back to Barksdale and we’re never going to see each other again. I’m gonna hook up with someone else and you’re gonna hook up with whoever and get married and live happily ever after in the motherfucking swamp. That’s what’s going to happen.”

  He bowed his head and sighed, but he didn’t smile. She would have cut his fucking nuts off if he had. “I already explained to you that you can’t. You don’t have to like it. Just come back to the house. We’ll get something to eat and you can explain it to Pop yourself.” He waved toward the village. “Come on. Okay?”

  She straightened up to confront him, but when she did, she saw him as if for the first time. He kept his head bowed so he never looked her in the eye. His shoulders hunched. After he gestured toward the house, he let his arms flop at his sides in an attitude of exhaustion.

  How could a guy like that ever get exhausted or despondent? He sure looked it now, though. She measured him up and down. She realized for the first time that he was hurting. She never allowed herself to empathize with him like this before.

  Maybe this idiotic spell worked on her brain. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt differently about him all of a sudden. She wanted to spare him this, to make it easier for him.