I have two conditions.”
Gale looked down his nose at her, a touch amused. He didn’t see that she wasn’t the soft one anymore. “And what’s that?”
“I’m not into S&M and bondage and whatever. So I’m not going to be tied up like a…” She held up her fettered wrists. “And I’m not going to do it with the threat of a gun at my head. So unless you toss that gun and untie me, this will be rape. Either I do this freely—as a free person—or you make yourself a rapist. That’s on you.”
It felt good to make demands of him—though it was a gamble and he could refuse. For the first time Imogen was electric with confidence: her empathy might’ve been misplaced, but she understood him, his pride, his inane self-serving logic. She’d crawled into his head and sat there now on a pillow of brains, gazing out the windows of his eyes. He took a moment to ponder.
“You got an interesting way a thinking. You girls, man…Gladder than you know that we could work this out, ’cause yer all okay. I can’t just…get rid a this.” He took out the pistol, admired how it fit in his hand. “Might need to hunt something. But what if I stash it somewhere?”
“That’s fair.”
“Turn yer backs.”
Imogen turned around. Beck glanced up at her, looking a little relieved, a tiny bit reassured. She didn’t know all the things Imogen had been thinking, and Imogen wasn’t entirely sure what her plan was, but they both recognized that the whole thing would go better with the full use of her hands, and without the gun’s facile threat. Gale moved around twenty or thirty feet behind them. She heard the clatter of shifting rocks. And then he moved again, and more rocks clanged together. She wanted to bark at him to hurry up—prod him with his own spear.
Finally he came back. “Okay. Now these two. If we’re gonna…go off on our own, don’t want these two getting up to anything.” He pulled the extra lengths of rope from his pocket and bundled them around his fist, eager. “So we’ll tie the two a you up while we…That agreeable?”
It was so juvenile that he couldn’t say it—yet another thing he didn’t have a name for. He wasn’t capable of calling it what it actually was: only a rapist would consider this arrangement consent.
He surveyed his options. “Any trees around here?”
Slate was flat and open, with greenery along the shallow creek, but nothing larger than a shrub. Imogen knew her sister might be thinking that she’d lost her mind. They locked eyes; she wanted Beck to see her toughness, her mettle. Whatever was about to happen, Imogen was going to be okay—they were going to be okay. Beck had her hard face on, the steely look she wore when she was determined. With its bruises and lumps, it was almost a scary face and Imogen imagined her going berserk as soon as Gale slipped from sight, turning into the Incredible Hulk and bursting out of her restraints.
“You can change your mind,” Beck said to her in a wounded voice. Imogen shook her head. Beck sighed, and gestured with her chin. “A few hundred feet.”
“So we all agree?” Gale asked.
No one said anything. Agreeing and accepting weren’t the same thing. Leaving the packs and gear behind—except for the spear and Beck’s mattress pad—they headed upstream, consumed by their own thoughts. Imogen couldn’t risk making further eye contact with Tilda or Beck, lest they telegraph something—pity or fear—that might sabotage her courage. She was actually glad when the little grove of trees, sun-beaten and wizened, came into view: her valor might not last. It was best to proceed before it slipped beneath the water, like a sentence, an idea, that never made it to the page. Every second was making her decision more real.
“You sit against that tree, you against that one.” He pointed his commands and Beck and Tilda did as they were told. “Wait. I think yer hands should be behind you—or maybe wrapped around the trunk?”
Beck rotated her upper arm so he could see the bloodstain on her makeshift bandage. “Rather not tear that open. If you latch on to our wrists and then around the tree, we’ll be sufficiently held in place, don’t you think?”
In Beck’s attempt to lay on the guilt, Imogen wondered if she had a motive beyond discomfort. It was easier to do many things with their hands bound in front. Gale had to know that, and had to be thinking, as she was, that Tilda and Beck would try to wriggle free as soon as they left.
“Want me to tie them up?” Imogen asked Gale.
“If ya do it good and tight.”
After Gale freed her she gave each of her wrists a hard rub and shook out her hands to get the blood flowing. He hovered over her, directing her on how the cord should be knotted around Beck’s existing bindings, and then wrapped multiple times around her waist and the narrow trunk before finally tying it off at the back. Tilda wouldn’t look at her as Imogen tied her up, but this time Imogen thought it was because of shame, not annoyance. Once again, Gale periodically yanked on the knots to make sure they were tight enough.
There was a weird moment after she was done. Beck and Tilda, their hands imprisoned on their laps, their legs stretched out, were so firmly attached to their scraggly trees that Imogen thought only one of Gale’s knives could get them undone. Both wore expectant, nervous expressions. Was Imogen really going to go through with it?
Was she?
She didn’t intend to go completely through with it—she’d fight as hard as she could—but what if she couldn’t find a way to overpower him?
“So…” That was the only goodbye she could come up with.
“Go far enough away so we can’t hear you, okay?” Beck said to Gale.
“What, yer sister a screamer?” he replied with an uncomfortable laugh.
“Just, please…That would make for a really…Not the memory I want.”
“Well you two look comfy enough. And we probly won’t be long.” Something about the way he tucked Beck’s accordioned eggshell mattress pad under his arm made Imogen fight a wave of nausea. She covered her mouth, close to gagging. His jaunty gesture, as if they were going off for a romantic tryst, made her head throb. Would she have to lie down on that? She blinked, trying to clear her vision—she absolutely could not afford to be wobbly, physically or mentally.
He held the spear like a walking stick and looked at her. “Ready?”
Should she have asked him to leave all his weapons behind? He wouldn’t have agreed; he might have denied all her demands. The knife had already killed at least twice. It felt like a third person was coming with them and Imogen hadn’t agreed to the ménage à trois.
Beck gave her the steeliest gaze, as if trying to infuse her with a reserve of her own strength. “See you soon.” Imogen heard You can do this.
Imogen’s mouth was too dry to reply. There were no words left. She turned and followed Gale into the void.