“They sort of stink. Like a lack of deodorant,” Jill interrupted.
“They do have a certain manly musk to them,” April said with a grin, “but I don’t know. I’ve been divorced for over a decade. I kind of like the attention?”
“Slut,” Jill snickered.
“I don’t do that!” April said, now a hint of irritation in her voice.
“Look, but don’t touch,” Angelica told her. “It’s all good. I’m going to go check on Scorpia at medical though. Come find me if you need me, ok?”
“Ok, you got it… but… why?” Jill asked.
“I think she was set up by the folks here. I mean, I figure she was a bully to begin with, and they just sometimes give her a nudge and point her at a target. I’m guessing self-esteem issues mixed with her size and strength… I bet she’s been a bully her whole life. Most guys wouldn’t say boo to her, and she’s probably stronger and tougher than most of the ladies I know. I hope I’m wrong about that, but if I’m right, she might need somebody to talk to right now.”
“You’re a better person than me,” April said. “If I were you, I don’t know if I could trust her after she came at you in your sleep. Your side is still all black and blue!”
“I’ve been kicked worse by cows and mules,” Angelica said with a shrug. “Pain is just weakness leaving the body.”
“I can’t… You’re a better woman than I am, Angel.”
“Thank you. See you both later on!” Angel gave them a little wave and then headed off towards the medical building.
She knew she’d be assigned some sort of work soon, or they’d go through the motions. She’d seen the creepy older guy, Dr. Khamenei, watching her off and on in the camp. Sometimes in the mess hall that doubled as a shipping and receiving dock. Other times it was just walking around the barracks and she’d feel eyes on her. In the three nights and four days she’d been here, she’d caught him watching her at least a dozen times.
“Ma’am, what can we do for you?” The guard in front of the medical building asked as she approached.
“I’m Scorpia’s roommate. I just wanted to check on her and see how she’s doing. I’m sorry if I’m a bother, I’m pretty new here.”
“Scorpia? Oh yeah, the big trouble-maker lady. Her roommate, you say?”
“Yes sir, 4C in the women’s barracks. I’m Angelica Little, Angel to my friends.”
The guard grinned at that and scrolled through a list on his clipboard. “Ok, she’s still here. She’s out of the critical care unit, and it’s ok’d to have visitors. When you go in, ask at the desk and they can tell you what room she’s in. Thank you, Little Angel.”
Angelica grinned at the light flirting, and flashed the younger guard a grin. He turned red in the ears and tried to keep a straight face. She smiled and waved and headed inside. She hadn’t wanted to lead the poor kid on, but she found often in life, a kind smile often would open doors that had previously been locked. She learned that from Anna.
The building was as she remembered it from when she woke up. She asked for and got the room number right away, and was happy to realize it was one of the first private rooms on the first floor, a few doors down from where she’d woken up.
Angelica knocked on the door and heard a noncommittal female voice from inside. She took that as an invitation and pushed the door open slowly. Scorpia was laying in bed. Her face was a mess of black and blue, one eye swollen shut. Stitches zig zagged over one eye where some monkey stomping action had happened, but other than that, those were the only visible injuries. She reacted to seeing Angelica by flinching, then almost tried to crawl up her half-reclined bed to hide.
“Hey sugar,” Angelica said. “I’m here in peace. Honestly.”
“Please don’t. You said not to, and I did, and I’m sorry.”
“Shhh,” Angelica hushed her, then took the stool under the counter the doctors used and rolled it over by the bed and sat down. “I’m here to make peace. I wanted to check on you.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you might be just as much of a victim in this whole mess as I am. Plus, I feel bad. My husband gave me some advice one time. See, my nickname is kind of ironic, and he figured sooner or later I would get myself in trouble. He said Angel, you ever find yourself in jail against a group of bullies, you take out the biggest one. Make an example. And that’s all I thought about that night you came at me in my sleep. I wanted to make an example, and I took all my anger, frustrations, and fear out on you. I sort of feel bad, and want to say I’m sorry, but I don’t know if you deserve that. Or this. Or all of this fuckery that we’re all forced into here. I really wish we could both just start over without all of this… anger and fear and pain.”
Scorpia had started off with an alarmed, confused expression, but it slowly relaxed as did her body. She wrapped her arms around her sides and started crying softly.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a while.
“I’m sorry too,” Angelica told her. “Can you forgive me?”
“Yes,” she said after a minute, “but…” Scorpia’s words trailed off as she started crying again.
“Excuse me, is there a problem here?” The doctor had slipped in the room without making a sound.
Angelica saw that it was a regular doctor, not the one who kidnapped her.
“No, no problem at all,” Angelica said sweetly. “Just checking on a friend.”
“Is that right?” he pointedly asked Scorpia.
She bit her lip, then looked at Angelica, then back up to the doc, and nodded.
“Ok, listen. I know she was beaten severely by her three roommates, and you pretty much fit the description—”
“I came here to apologize, and see how she’s doing,” Angel interrupted.
The doctor grunted. Something beeped overhead, and a voice asked for Doctor Leyton in another room.
“If you do anything but apologize, I’m going to have you put in isolation,” Doctor Leyton said, pointing at Angel, then left the room.
Angelica waited for the door to swing shut, then started chuckling, and turned to see Scorpia staring at her in confusion.
“So now you’re going to beat me quietly?” Her words were almost a whisper.
“I see no reason to beat you ever again, as long as you’re not such a bully. Hell, a little girl like me could use a big friend in a joint like this. And nobody has to know how it happened. It’s not like Jill and April are going to tell anybody. For all they know out there, it was three of us and the entire second floor.”
“What do you need?” Scorpia asked simply.
“Nothing. Life is short and, after they took you out of the room, I sat up and thought about you. What would make a woman so angry and bitter that she’d be a bully? Sadly, I came up with a lot of shit, but I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“Self loathing,” Scorpia said quietly.
“What?” Angelica asked.
“So, I know you hate some of the shit I am, or where I come from, but I did spend a good year in therapy once after I got in some trouble. Judge said therapy or anger management. I stuck with the therapy after the six weeks mandated.”
“So, you’re actually pretty smart, despite doing some dumbass shit,” Angelica said, patting her leg. “You smell better too.”
Scorpia just looked at her indignantly for a second, then snorted. Soon she was laughing softly, wiping her eyes clear. Angel couldn’t help but join in for a few moments.
“You’re something else,” Scorpia said quietly.
“I had to be,” Angelica told her. “Try growing up in podunk motherfucking Arkansas. Nobody ever took me seriously because I’m so little. I was the scrawny girl who didn’t get boobs until after I had my baby. I get the self loathing part, but I channeled my anger another way—”
“You’re kind of hot,” Scorpia said, interrupting her.
“Whoa, I’m not like that—”
“Sorry, I meant… No, I meant, you’re being too ha
rd on yourself and looking past the positive.”
“More psych stuff?” Angelica asked her.
Scorpia shrugged and wiped her eyes. “I honestly didn’t believe in any of it until recently.”
“How come?” Angelica asked her.
“Something happened to you, to make you the woman you are. Same way I am the way I am. Even though our lives turned out different… some parts sound the same. Maybe the therapists weren’t too far off.”
“It wasn’t that something happened to me really,” Angelica said, tapping a finger on her chin for a moment. “I met somebody, and from middle school on, I tried to get his attention.”
“Your husband?” Scorpia asked.
“Yeah. See, he’s older than me by a few years, we weren’t even in the same school. It was love at first sight. And I just… This is going to sound so stalker-like… but I wanted to be more than the skinny girl with no boobs. I wanted to stand out, so he’d notice me.”
“Whoa, now slow down,” Scorpia said. “Tell me about him first.”
“Oh… um… he’s kind of a jack of all trades right now, but he just finished his 20 years in the military. He’s mostly interested in ranching and farming. His dad died in a trucking accident, and his Mom, Goldie, she lives with—”
“No, tell me about him,” Scorpia said, noting that Angel was fidgeting. “You changed for a guy, and you started doing it in middle school?”
“I was thirteen when I first met him. I didn’t get to ask him out until I was twenty-two. He went into the Army. I caught up with him when he came back between deployments.”
“Holy crap. You held a torch for him for eight or nine years?”
“Yeah, but he doesn't really know that,” Angelica said. “It sounds creepy, and I know it’s half a step away from stalking. It’s why I got into self defense classes, then picked up a few different forms of Karate and Krav Maga.”
“So, you could beat him up? God, I can only imagine, and I’m no skinny guy.”
“Oh, he’s not skinny,” Angelica said, smiling. “I come up to his chest, roughly.”
Scorpia chuckled. “So, he’s a big guy?”
“I tease him that he’s just a shaved down sasquatch sometimes. Some days it seems he’s got to be almost seven feet tall and over three hundred pounds.”
“Holy shit!” Scorpia’s eyes got big.
“Yeah. See, Rob had a reputation as a scrapper. I guess being as big as a grown man in grade school made him a target for the older kids. He was more than big though, he was tough. He could fight. But he wasn’t mean. He is a very kind man, very gentle. The day I met him, I crashed my bike… I was scraped up and crying. He lifted me up in one arm and carried my bike in the other, and took me home to my Momma.”
“And you fell in love with an older, grown and mysterious man.”
“Yes, but he’s only a few years older than me. What about you, what’s your story, and is Scorpia really your name?”
“I’m Bailey,” she said, and looked away. “But I hate that name.”
“Why?” Angelica asked.
“Do I look like a Bailey to you?” Her voice came out angry.
“You look like somebody who could use a friend, and maybe some forgiveness,” Angelica shot back.
She got Bailey to open up more, and the two of them talked for over two hours. When lunch was delivered to the room, Angelica left to go to the mess hall to get her own food. She had gone there to apologize, but she did have an ulterior motive. The mess hall had a small dividing wall between that and the loading docks, where the food and produce was shipped in. The loading docks looked to be the best way to get beyond the fences. She just had to figure out how.
Having somebody who was somewhat known to the guards and sometimes used by them to enforce things off the books would be handy. If she could sneak into the back of one of the trucks before they left…
Yet, she felt a new connection with Bailey. She’d never told the story of how she’d met Rob to anybody. She hadn’t quite changed who she was for her love. She evolved into the woman she wanted to be, and that coincided with what Rob was looking for. Bailey talked briefly about forgiveness and redemption. Angel had apologized once again.
Roscoe watched his humans with a half awake and interested eye. The other was closed, resting. Laying on his side on the warm drive felt good on his bones, but he couldn’t figure out why his humans were playing with the long shiny thing that made the annoying beeps. They seemed really interested when it made fast sounds. He even watched as his beta dug with them. They had a stick with a metal thing on the end.
Roscoe remembered his old human from before had used one like that. But he’d used it to move Roscoe’s poop around. Not that Roscoe understood why the hairless monkey wanted the poop, but he’d used a stick thing, like his boy was using. Roscoe wondered if maybe it was how the humans made holes? Why wouldn’t they use their hands and claws like a real dog? His pack confused him. Being in charge of all of them was tiring work, though he wished his human Andrea would come back soon.
Even though those smelly hard things that held her bones together were mostly gone, he knew she still needed his protection. She wasn’t the smallest and weakest in the pack, but he could smell it on her. Her injury made her vulnerable, but there was something else now too, and he ran the pack, and he wasn’t going to let one of his pack get hurt because he was asleep on the job. Speaking of sleep…
“I got it,” Curt said suddenly, making Andrea turn to him sharply.
They were both lying in bed, bodies sweaty under a sheet.
“Yes, you did,” Andrea purred into his neck.
“No… At Rob’s last check in… The text I got said he wished he had a distraction to get in. I was just thinking of the… riots.” The last words came out and he looked at his wife shamefacedly.
“What do you mean exactly?” Andrea asked him, mentally holding back a shudder.
“Why has the government been able to snatch rioters off the streets lately?” Curt asked Andrea.
“Because our president seems to be more worried about reelection than what’s actually going on, maybe?” Andrea asked pointedly. “Or maybe the pandemic?”
“I mean… Why weren’t they swamped and overwhelmed?” Curt’s voice was impatient.
“I don’t know,” Andrea told him finally.
“They only grab people from the outer edges of the mob, and then get out of there. As a psych out tool, it’s been working wonderfully. But what would happen if they went to the front lines of a riot and tried to yank a few people out and drag them into vans? They’d get their assess handed to them. They can’t just be brazen because they don’t have the numbers.”
“So, you’re suggesting we do what, exactly?”
“Ok, this is out there but… What if we used Antifa and other radical elements against the internment camps?”
“How do you… Hm…” Andrea tapped a finger against her lips.
“Yeah, what if, say, a controversial figure started a protest. One against the injustice of jailing Americans without due process. Make it blatant, so that we know there are going to be counter protestors. Hell, conservatives are way beyond sick and tired of the arson, looting and rioting that’s going on. If we give them a target, the anarchists are sure to follow to ruin it, and in the chaos…”
“Rob can make his move,” Andrea said softly. “I suppose I’m the controversial figure you had in mind?”
“It doesn’t have to be you, but if there’s one thing that’ll empty out West Memphis and Memphis itself for a protest, I’m guessing it’d be you. It’s not like you actually have to be there though. You could put out a press release through your lawyer and we could sit back a hundred miles away and wait for Rob and Angelica to get in touch with us after the dust settles.”
“What would the fallout for us be personally?” Andrea asked.
“An annoyed provisional governor and police department?” Curt asked.
“It’s
not like I haven’t already pissed them off. Hm…”
“Let’s talk about it some in the morning, unless Rob gets ahold of us.” Curt kissed her on the nose.
Twenty-Three
Harry knew the grownups were worried about the pirate treasure he found. They weren’t as excited with the second and third boxes as they had been with the first. The box he’d found last night had been full of coins, just like the first one. Most of them were what Luis and Dante had called pre-war mint. Harry didn’t care, he just knew he had followed the treasure map and he’d found the treasure. With some help, of course.
With his parents both gone, he felt alone in the big house when the families finished their meals and went back to their cabins. Harry abandoned his room as soon as his grandmother fell asleep. He didn’t like being upstairs alone, even if he had Ranger and Roscoe with him. He waited until he could hear his grandma snoring in the room below him to get his blanket and head down.
He’d get his hide tanned if he were caught watching TV when his grandma had told him not to, but he didn’t think she’d mind if he was found sleeping on the couch. Ranger followed him down and Harry laid down on his favorite spot on the big couch. He’d just pulled the blanket over himself when Ranger hopped up. Harry sighed as the big dog laid across his legs and bottom, putting his big head on Harry’s side.
“You won’t leave me, will you?” Harry whispered, running his fingers through Ranger’s hair over his eyes.
Ranger groaned, then turned his head and licked Harry’s hand. Using his hind legs, Ranger scooted further up, forcing Harry away from the back of the couch. Harry giggled, and grinned as the big dog took up the space where his back had been a moment before. They both wiggled a bit and Harry re-adjusted the blanket. Ranger put one paw over his boy’s shoulder and they both fell asleep, Harry the little spoon on the couch.
Roscoe liked sleeping outside, until the white stuff started falling. The little bit of cold didn’t bother him much, and when his first master had been around, the screen door would have been left closed, but Roscoe could make his way outside whenever he wanted to. He liked that. He also liked the new job he had inherited when the new hairless monkeys moved in. He had to run the pack when it was just two of them, but now the pack-mates and their pup were too much for him to count.
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 3 | The Farm Page 13
