They all laugh. I'm lost.
"I was a chef. I can do a lot of things with a knife." The woman with the scar on her face says.
"I'm going after the women in the breeder farm." I say.
The dark haired one glances at the older one. They exchange a look.
"We're in. How many women."
"Five would be ideal. They have to be fit. Be ready to leave here in a couple hours. Pack light but bring food and water. Meet me at the south east side of camp."
She laughs, "You little shit. You're going to let them fight and sneak a small group of us out aren’t you?"
My eyes sparkle right back at her, "I don’t know what you're talking about."
I walk to where the water well is dug and start filling my water bottles.
Leo makes a noise in his throat. I glance up and see Eric watching me. His dark eyes still show faded bruising under them. I wave. He shakes his head and starts laughing. Leo growls. He puts his hands in the air innocently and walks away. I didn’t know he was at the camp here. I knew Mary asked him not to come back to the retreat. Too many fifteen year olds for him to be tempted by.
I look down at Leo and rub his fur. We could kill Eric in the woods quietly and no one would know. Leo could eat him. I pull an arrow from my quiver and notice it's nearly empty. I decide I need arrows more than Eric dead.
I walk into the forest off to the side. Leo lies in the brush while I whittle new arrows. The forest here doesn’t feel like home. I miss my cabin. I know Leo misses it. I know after this is all over and I find my inner peace again, I am going home.
The feeling of need is burning inside of me. It is a bad feeling that haunts me. It won't stop nagging at me to help the girls in the breeder farms. I wonder if I will ever stop? Will the need ever be filled and go away?
A giggle breaks my silence and thought. I look up to see short shorts hanging off of Will again. He's talking to a man with black hair and a big beard. She is clinging to him and hitting him softly, like he's making jokes. My stomach falls and my chest feels heavy. I hate him. I hate him for tricking me and making me care about him.
I get up from the log I'm sitting on and walk deeper into the forest. I pull an arrow and pull out my bow. I hold it steady and listen to the forest. A bird makes a sound and I release the arrow. I feel sad when the arrow hits him because I'm not going to eat him but I need the feathers. I don’t like waste.
I walk up to his dead body and pull the arrow out. I pluck the feathers on the wings and try not to think about it.
"You should be using willow branches you know."
I look back at him, trying desperately to fight the scowl across my face. I want more than anything to not care about him.
"I read it in a book. Willow branches make the best arrows."
I roll my eyes, "Will, what do you think my bow is made of?"
He smirks, "I don’t know."
"The bow has to be willow. The arrows can be any wood."
He sits beside me, "Good to know. So I heard a rumor."
"Yeah well if you're the star of the rumor keep it to yourself please. My imagination works just fine for cooking up ideas on the things you do that are noteworthy."
He laughs, "You're jealous."
I snap my face at his, "I am not."
He kisses my nose but I back up fast and fall off the log, "Don’t touch me."
I snatch my things and stalk away.
He grabs my arm sending my feathers and sticks everywhere. I feel like I'm going to cry. My lip trembles. I will it not to but I can't help myself. I am furious. I've never actually felt this emotion. It appears the angrier I get, the closer to tears I get.
I feel my body shake back and forth. I feel his arms biting into my skin. I feel his hot breath on my face but I don't hear the words he's shouting.
I shut down. I feel limp in his grip, like his hands are the only things holding me up.
His blue eyes are on fire. They narrow and his lips thin in a sneer. He's very angry. His mouth is moving savagely. His eyes dart to the side. He looks to the side and stops shaking me. I follow his gaze to see Star standing and watching us. The world stops moving and his fingers stop clawing at me. He drops his hands. He glances nervously at her. She bites her lip. Everything moves slower. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. He points one of his big fingers in my face, "I'm watching you. You don’t do anything stupid."
I bend, and try not to fall over, to collect my things from the ground. I wish I could leave them there. He has humiliated me. I can feel a build up of emotions ready to burst from me. I hate that he has yelled at me like I'm a child in front of his girlfriend of the week. Maybe she's been his girlfriend all along.
I hear his feet crunching on the ground and her giggle. My fingers want to grip an arrow and drive it into both of their chests.
I feel Leo nudging my arm.
The fire in his yellow eyes reminds me who I am. I am the hero of my own story. The girl who lived alone in the woods and never needed anyone. The girl who is going to free the other girls.
The world is growing distant to me again. My emotions are shutting off. When I am done saving the women and children I am going back to my cabin.
Chapter Twenty-One
The ragged group of people is exactly what I imagined they would be. The desperate look in their eyes is exactly what I was looking for. I pull out a map I stole when Marshall was out of the main tent. It's one of the smaller ones he never uses, as far as I could tell.
"This area here is a high traffic area." I point to a roadway a few miles from the farm. I look at the two younger looking women, "We are going to get you and you to walk along the road there and get picked up. You look pretty perfect. Once they stop I will drop them from a tree on the side of the road with my bow. Who here can shoot?"
A man, who reminds me of my dad a little, nods. "I can. I have a rifle." He pulls it off his back.
"Okay good. You and I will shoot everything down there but those two ladies. Everyone else hides at the edge of the woods and ambushes after the initial are dead. We climb aboard and ride it to the farm with us women in the back as captives. There are few guards at the drop-off. Maybe four. They will expect you guys are guards too. From there it's mostly doctors and nurses. We sneak inside and…"
"And what Emma? Blow up the building? Kill every doctor you see whether they're guilty or not?"
I sigh and close my yes, "No one asked you for help."
I look at the group of people and ignore the giant angry bear of a man at my back. "We are all here voluntarily right?"
They eyeball him and nod weakly. He must look really pissed. I don’t care. I hate him.
"Honey you have to think this through." I hear a sweet giggly voice.
I turn and try not to shout, "What have you ever done besides fuck guys in a camp? What do you know about rescuing people and avoiding death? Your short shorts and big boobs have pretty much guaranteed your survival. Sorry if I don’t listen to anything you have to say. For Christ sake. I'm not looking for advice on how to style my hair." Her pretty face becomes stoic. She looks at Will and turns on her heel and stalks back to camp. Will grabs my arm and drags me into the woods. I fight him but at some points my feet aren't touching the ground.
I prepare myself for the shaking of a lifetime and for his fingers to push in where the bruises are still fresh from last time.
Instead he sits on a log and pinches the bridge of his nose. I frown. He is quiet. It's more creepy than anything.
"You are a child Emma. You don’t realize it but you are. I know you've lived through incredible things and you've been alone and that you don’t have social skills like normal people but you can't talk to someone like that. She was trying to help."
All I really hear from his sentence is 'child' and 'not normal'. My feet are backing away. I feel a sickly knot in my stomach.
"You need her. Her brother is a genius of sorts. He's holed up in a creepy old mansion. We need to go there and get his help if you're serious about saving all the farm workers."
I don’t hear him. I'm backing up slowly like I used to. Not making noise.
My plan was a good one. We're sticking to it. I know it will work. I don’t need a bimbo like Star or her brother or the moron she has wrapped around her fingers.
I feel a branch snap under my foot as I'm about to turn and run.
He glances up and frowns, "What are you doing?"
I swallow hard.
"Why do you look like that?"
I watch his face and roll up my sleeve on my right arm slowly. His fingerprints are still in my arms. The red has faded and instead a slight blue is appearing.
He focuses on it and shakes his head, "What?"
I swallow hard again and pull the sleeve back down, "I'm done with you bruising me and shaking me. If you want to talk we can do it this far apart."
He looks frightened, like I've cornered him and made him angry.
"What was that? Did I do that?"
I don’t say anything. Instead a memory burns through my mind. A memory of being with my best friend Lana.
Once we hid under her bed when her parents were fighting. Her dad was beating her mom. All we saw were feet. His in black socks with jeans bunched at his ankles. Hers were bare with red nail polish. She was on her toes and struggling to touch the ground. She made a weird gurgling noise. Slaps and grunts filled the air mixing with his shouts. Suddenly she was on the ground beside us. Her dark brown eyes widened when she saw us. Her lip was bleeding making it look like lipstick as the droplets rolled along her lips. A tear slid down her red cheek. She winked at us and pushed herself onto her knees and crawled down the hall. He followed. His shouts followed too. As she got further away we could see more. I looked at Lana. She was covering her face and sobbing silently.
I looked back down the hall to see him kick her until she didn’t move anymore. He stalked down the long hallway of the trailer and went into the small kitchen. I heard the fridge door open. He made other noises and closed the fridge. He walked to the end of the hallway and looked at her. He opened the beer in his hands and drank a bunch of it. He turned and walked out of my sight. When Lana was calm we snuck out the window and went barefoot to my granny's. She made us pancakes and we made crowns out of craft paper and sparkle glue.