Piper’s eyes snapped open in the grey stillness before dawn. In the bed beside her, tuned to her every move whether he was awake or asleep, Brody tensed with sudden alertness. His hand closed around her wrist.
“What is it?” His voice was a hoarse grate in her ear.
She strained to listen. The silence was so complete, she could hear blood shushing in her ears. After several long moments, she finally answered. “Someone was screaming.”
Brody rose from the bed naked, oblivious to the chill, and ghosted to the window. His face was sharp-edged in the soft gray light, his cold blue eyes quick and analytical as they scanned the area outside the cabin. Piper watched him, rubbing at the center of her chest, which ached unbearably. She felt like she’d been kicked by a mule.
For the first time in the longest time, she thought of her family. Of her brilliant and funny father, and sweet little Macy, and her maddening, tender mother. They would be at the cabin by now, surely, with a menagerie of animals in tow. She tried to picture them there, at this exact moment, using memory to create the image. Her folks would be sleeping. Macy might be awake, especially if Ares wanted his breakfast…
Brody slid back into bed beside her. “I didn’t hear anything. You must have been dreaming.”
Piper stared at the ceiling. “I must have been.”
Brody reached out and picked up a piece of her sleep-mussed hair, stroking it straight before winding it slowly around his hand. He loved her hair, loved running his fingers through it, brushing it, and using it to make her do things she would never be able to speak of.
“What are you thinking?”
She knew better than to say “nothing” by now. “I was thinking about what Max taught me yesterday. Edible plants.”
Brody grunted, and without another word, moved on top of her. Piper put her arms around him – she had learned that, too – and shifted her body to accommodate his. Tensing her muscles only made it hurt, and going limp was not tolerated, so she concentrated on a state that hovered somewhere in-between. When she achieved the proper tension in her arms and legs, she focused on the knotty pine ceiling, tracing shapes with her eyes and naming them: Owl. Ghost. Comet. Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
Like using the bathroom or brushing his teeth, this was just something Brody did in the mornings. He finished in total silence, as always, and rolled off her. She waited until he shut the bathroom door behind him before she rose and dressed quickly. She never let him see her naked, if she could help it. She sat at the tiny kitchen table, waiting for her turn in the bathroom, and her thoughts turned again to her family.
She didn’t want to think of them. Hurt too much. What would her father think of his little girl now? He had always been so proud of her, so proud to claim her as his own. And Macy idolized her – would she still, if she could see the depths to which Piper had sunk? She saw their faces in her mind’s eye and cringed. She didn’t know what to call what she’d become – whore or victim – but she couldn’t imagine revealing her current circumstances to either of the people she most adored in this world. The ache in her chest blossomed into a throbbing burn that made it hard to breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut and hummed a little repetitive tune, rocking to the rhythm of it in her chair. Drown it out. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
She had felt this sensation once before, that first morning, when she woke up naked, bloody and alone in Brody’s cabin. He had tied her to the bed before he left, ankles and wrists. Her chest had ached then, too, something deeper than her injuries, something missing, an emptiness. She hadn’t spent much time puzzling over it; more urgent was the need to free herself, which of course, had proved impossible.
Brody had returned to find that she’d twisted her skin off in the attempt. She had tried talking to him, that first morning. He didn’t respond to a word she had to say. Nor did he acknowledge her involuntary cries when he used her torn body again. When he was finished, he untied her and tossed some clothes at her.
“Clean up and get dressed. There’s a situation with the others that needs to be handled.”
She had done as he told her – the first of many times. On the way to the mess hall, he had outlined the rules: Do not talk with the others, except to communicate necessities. Do not hint or suggest that this situation is not of your choosing. Do not cry or show any other signs of distress. The consequences of violating the rules were simple: People would die.
She hadn’t believed him. She’d actually thought he was being melodramatic. She had nodded her acquiescence, but had pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt up so the others would see her raw wrists, had held her head high and pushed back her hair, so they’d see the bruising on her face and throat. Some of the other men had been trying to romance her; she hated to stoop to it, but she would use that if she had to. This group valued strength and self-sufficiency. They were rough, often crude, and she suspected all of them were capable of brutality. But surely they wouldn’t allow this. Surely they wouldn’t just abandon her to this.
When they had walked into the mess hall, she had learned just how badly she’d misjudged the situation.
She hardly recognized Levi when he charged at her, didn’t even have time to lift her hand to deflect the blow. She was on the ground before she registered the pain, the right side of her face a red explosion, a deafening ringing in her ears. She looked up at the hatred twisting his face, at the tears shining in trails down his cheeks, and didn’t even see him draw back his foot. He kicked her savagely in the ribs twice before Brody stepped in front of her.
She curled into a ball, trying to wheeze in air, and heard him say, “Enough. She made her choice. It’s not her fault he couldn’t handle it.”
Piper’s head came up. She squinted at Brody, at Levi, at the others, trying to make sense of what was happening. That was when she saw Noah.
He was stretched out on one of the mess hall tables. His skin was the strangest shade of gray she had ever seen. His bloodshot eyes were open and filmy, his features frozen in a grotesque expression, tongue protruding from his wide-open mouth. Around his neck, she could see where the rope had been, a deep, bruised indentation. His sister Jenny was sitting beside him, humming softly and so, so carefully smoothing his hair, straightening his clothes, adjusting his hands. Her face was serene and empty.
Behind her, Jenny’s husband was holding their only surviving child, his face as frozen as Jenny’s while their son sobbed. The others were ranged about the room, grouped according to their alliances, and not one of them was making eye contact with her.
She looked at Noah’s face again, and the ache in her chest expanded. She understood the emptiness now. The connection that had been her friendship with Noah had been severed, leaving her with the raw, amputated stump of it. She looked up at Levi and opened her mouth, but all the things she wanted to say were wrong: I didn’t… We weren’t… It’s not...
Help me.
Finally, she managed, “I’m sorry.”
She thought Levi’s eyes would burst from his skull. He tried to lunge past Brody, who blocked him smoothly. “You’re sorry? Sorry? You worthless, god-damned bitch!” He shook a piece of paper at her, spit flying as he raged. “Did you think this wouldn’t crush him? ‘Staying with Brody. Take care.’ You’re a fucking whore, and you didn’t even have the decency to-” He choked on his words, crumpled the paper and threw it at her. “I want her out of here. Now. I won’t have her here.”
Piper caught the paper reflexively, and her eyes flew around the room. No one would look at her. She looked up at Brody. He was staring down at her, his eyes as arctic as ever, but a tiny smile played around his mouth. She had known then, known, and the depth of his ruthlessness had stunned her.
He had planned this. All of it. From what he had said to Levi the night before in the mess hall, to the note he had made her write, to the death of a good and kind young man. Noah never had a chance. He had been dead as soon as Brody decided on this course of action.
The only person in the group who knew her well, or cared enough to look past the surface, had been eliminated. Levi hadn’t liked her from the start, and now he had even less reason to believe her, much less help her. She had been keeping a cool distance from the rest of the men, per Levi’s instructions. And she hadn’t had a chance – or the desire, to be honest – to connect with the other women. Jenny was drowning in grief, and Ruth wasn’t exactly approachable. Piper looked around the room one last desperate time, calculating. He couldn’t kill them all. If she told them all the truth–
Brody knelt beside her on the pretense of helping her up, speaking so that only she could hear. “I can see what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t recommend it.” He inclined his head towards young Caden, weeping inconsolably in his father’s arms. “He’s next. Then Jenny. I’ll make it look like they couldn’t handle the grief of Noah’s death, and that will come back on you.” He helped her stand on watery legs, keeping his back to the group. “At best, they all think you’re fickle or an opportunist. At worst, they’ll throw you out of the group, on your own, with no supplies. They won’t believe you, and if you do get someone to listen to you, you’ll be causing more death. It’s on you.”
He had put an arm around her shoulders, steering her towards the door and speaking over his shoulder to the group. “We’ll talk about this later.”
She had dared one last look, and this time, they had all been staring at her. Emotions had ranged from disapproval to hatred, but their eyes had all conveyed the same message: Your fault. They all believed it. And from that moment on, she did, too.
For three days, Brody had kept her separated from the group. In that time, Piper had reasoned, empathized, wept, mocked, raged, begged and then screamed, screamed, screamed when Brody meted out his retribution. The first time she forced herself to obey him, it had shamed her. By the end of those three days, she was no longer capable of feeling shame. In fact, she didn’t feel anything at all.
Since then, Piper had learned so much. She had learned to follow the rules, to the letter. She had learned to pretend so convincingly, she nearly fooled herself. She had learned to be silent. No matter what she thought or felt, the words stayed in her throat, frozen and still. These days, it took a concentrated effort to talk at all.
She had also learned how to insulate herself from the outside world. She could stare at nothing indefinitely, watch the tops of trees sway for hours, lose herself watching an ant struggle along under a crumb three times his size. Numb. Blank. In these ways, she made it from one breath to the next.
Outside the cabin window, the forest was warming to pink with the rising sun. Birds flitted from the tree tops to the forest floor and back again. Piper tried to attach her mind to their movements, to achieve the drifting, moment-to-moment trance that had been her refuge, but couldn’t. She shifted in her chair, uncomfortably aware of her skin. She felt electrically alive this morning, unbearably awake.
She rubbed again at the ache in the center of her chest and frowned. “What the hell?”
Her mother’s face bloomed in her mind – plump and soft, filled with love and intelligence. It was the intelligence that had always pissed Piper off – how could she choose such a mundane life? Where was the desire to better herself, to be something other than a housewife? Since she was 12, her mother had been a source of embarrassment and irritation.
But in spite of their strained relationship, Piper had been aware of a connection to her mother since the start of the plague, an awareness that felt like a homing beacon. Like she could close her eyes and start walking, and she’d end up with her mom. At first it had irritated her, but she’d gotten over that in a hurry. Funny, what a 99% death rate could do for even the most troubled of relationships.
Before Brody, she had longed to rejoin her family. Josh, their communications specialist, had tried every day to raise someone in the Colorado Springs area on his short-wave radio, hoping they could locate her family and come up with a plan to reunite them. Since Brody, she had thought of her family as little as possible.
Until today. The screaming she had awakened to echoed in her head. She felt like she was standing with her toes on the edge of a cliff.
The bathroom door opened, and Piper smoothed the frown off her face. She let her eyes go soft-focus and turned towards the window as Brody moved around the cabin. He tended to leave her alone when she was still and blank like this, and usually it wasn’t an act. In the movements of birds, there was no Brody. Today, though, her mind was stuttering to life under her zombie façade, whether she liked it or not.
As clearly as if he were sitting beside her, her father’s voice sounded in her ear. “Make a choice, honey.”
Piper started, then threw a furtive glance at Brody. He was emptying his day bag so he could organize and refill it, the way he did every morning, and he didn’t look up. First the screaming, now this. Looked like she was officially hearing things.
“Don’t just drift, Piper. Decide what you want, analyze, and choose a course of action.”
How many times had her dad given her that advice, especially in her party-till-you-puke college years? Hearing his beloved voice, even if it was a stress-induced hallucination, brought tears to her eyes. She blinked fast and kept her face turned towards the window.
So easy, to keep drifting. So hard, to wake up. Waking up meant thinking. Thinking meant feeling. Thinking and feeling would mean acting. Even in zombie mode, she knew that.
Brody was suddenly there, his hand encircling her wrist again. “What are you thinking?”
Shit. Shit! Usually she had some benign phrase ready for these “tests,” but her mind was completely blank. “Ah, I, ah…”
Her head snapped to the side, her hair flying across her face to stick in her eyes and mouth. It never failed to shock her, no matter how many times he hit. Until now, there had been no violence in her world. He could hit so fast and so hard, while barely seeming to move.
“Don’t lie to me. What are you thinking?”
Piper righted herself slowly and swallowed the coppery taste in her mouth. “Birds,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “I was watching a bird, and I can’t remember the name. The big black and white one.”
He stared at her, on and on and on. He always did this, and usually it terrified her. This morning, though, the theme song to “Jeopardy” popped into her head. She nearly started singing it. She dug her nails into the palm of her free hand and concentrated with all her might on looking blank and scared.
Finally, he released her wrist with a flick. “Magpie. Go use the bathroom. We need to get going.”
Ducking her head, she scurried to collect clean clothes before shutting the bathroom door behind her. She used the toilet first, as fast as she could. Her time in the bathroom was carefully monitored; Brody checked on her frequently, regardless of how private a function she was performing. When she was finished, she stripped out of the sweats and t-shirt she had slept in and slid into her clean clothes, sighing in relief when the door didn’t pop open while she was naked. She scraped her hair back into a low ponytail without bothering to comb it, then brushed her teeth gingerly. She spat in the basin and went still, staring down at the bright red streaks mixed with the foamy toothpaste. Then she did something she hadn’t done in a long time.
She looked in the mirror.
The red mark on her cheek was layered over yesterday’s deepening bruise, and a yellow smudge from the one a few days before that. Her skin was sickly pale and her face was thin to the point of gauntness. Now that she thought about it, her jeans were looser than normal, too. She pulled her sweatshirt to the side, staring at the black outline of Brody’s fingers on her prominent collarbone.
Were the others blind? Did they think she liked her sex rough? Did they tell themselves she was losing weight because she was too madly in love to eat? She looked into her own eyes, and out of the deep box-inside-a-box where she’d stuffed it, rage bubbled up. She leaned towards the mirror, teeth bared.
“Choose!” she hissed at herself. “Analyze! Choose a course!”
Brody’s sharp rap on the door nearly sent her scurrying back into her zombie cage. “Move it, Piper. Two minutes, or I’ll help you finish.”
She watched her own face pinch with fear. “I’m hurrying,” she answered. She ran water in the basin, but her eyes never left her own in the mirror.
She would die like this, eventually. She was sure of it. She would either lose the will to live, or he’d kill her. A slow death either way. From the same place she’d stuffed the rage, a fierce desire to live surged through her. She leaned close to the mirror once more, smiling with red-stained teeth and touching her reflection-self tenderly on the cheek.
“I’d rather die quick, wouldn’t you?”
She left the bathroom with exactly 15 seconds to spare, wearing the vague, obedient expression she had spent the last minute and 10 seconds practicing.
Analysis had begun.
They walked to the mess hall like always, Piper trailing slightly behind. Brody had defeated her at every turn so far by planning, as simple as that. He had anticipated every possible response she might have to the events he had set in motion, and had been ready with a ruthless counterattack. He was a brilliant tactician, she had to give him that.
Well, Brody might know tactics, but Piper knew people. She’d been studying them all her life. She had never questioned what she’d major in at college, not from the moment she learned what the study of people and social behavior was called. Under her blank mask, she smirked with ironic delight. How many people had informed her that sociology was a great major if you wanted to wait tables? Looked like some of those college classes might have some real-world applications after all.
Brody spoke without looking at her. “Who do you have left to do a rotation with?”
One of Levi’s many objections to Piper’s continued presence in the group had been her lack of any practical skills. To appease him, Brody had agreed to allow her to spend time with some of the others, to see if she had an aptitude for a particular discipline or skill set. So far, she had proven herself to be an abysmal cook and disinclined towards wilderness survival.
She had already thought this through and knew exactly how she would respond, but she waited a heartbeat. Then two. “Uhm. I was with Max yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Brody gave her a derisive glance. “He said you could live off the land just dandy, as long as the land was a fully stocked Walmart.”
She didn’t respond. He would lead her through this. His consistency was her advantage.
“Levi won’t have you.” He never missed a chance to tell her that. “And I doubt you’d be able to handle any kind of firearm, anyway.”
Another smirk behind the mask, like a jewel in a hidden treasure chest. He couldn’t know she was the daughter of Annie Oakley reincarnated, and had inherited at least a measure of her mother’s aptitude. This time, she did answer. “I don’t want to learn to shoot. Guns scare me.”
She felt Brody’s sharp eyes on her and plodded on placidly, her own eyes drifting between the path ahead and the tops of the swaying trees. Even now, they soothed her.
After a few moments, he spoke again. “You’ll need to learn, eventually. It’s a skill everyone in the group needs to have.”
Score another one for her. “I haven’t been with Ruth. Or Josh.” She gave her voice just a little more animation. “I’d like to learn what Josh does. Communications was my major in college.”
Brody shot her a disgusted look. “It’s not the same thing. Idiot,” he muttered under his breath, and Piper’s heart beat a triumphant tattoo.
Her goal was simple: Escape from Brody, and reunite with her family. Something was wrong there, she was sure of it, but dwelling on it would cripple her. Above all, she needed to control her emotions so she could make quick, clean decisions. She had a single advantage: Brody thought she was cowed and more than a little stupid. Making sure he continued to believe that was her top priority.
Priority two: She needed to alter her position in the social network of the group. She couldn’t survive on her own, at least not yet. Right now, she had no social capital whatsoever, no value, and no connections other than Brody. Her relationship with him was blatantly asymmetrical and as such, damaged her standing even more. This was a warrior culture, and she was chattel. She needed to re-cast herself without tipping her hand to Brody, and she knew just how to do it: Work.
This group was more formal than most, in that it had assigned specific tasks to its members in order to achieve a specific goal. She needed them to trust her enough to assign her a task. When she had been given that task, she needed to do it brilliantly, diligently, without complaint or fanfare. She needed to be noticed by everybody but Brody. This was the trickiest part of her plan, and she would have to negotiate every step with the caution of a tightrope walker.
“If she’ll have you, you’ll be with Ruth today. We should have more than one medic, and someone who passed a couple years of college should be able to learn basic first aid.”
Piper wrung her hands. “I’m not very good with blood,” she began, and as she’d known he would, Brody stopped and spun to face her, crowding his body close to hers, using his bulk to intimidate and subdue. He cupped her face in his hand, forcing her to look at him, thumb and fingers biting into her cheeks.
“Are you questioning me?”
“No! No, I’m not, really, it’s just I get sick when I see blood, and I didn’t want that to be a problem, and-”
“Shut up. You were questioning me, and you’ll pay a penalty for it later.” How he loved to promise future violence, then follow through. “Until then, you’ll spend the day with Ruth. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
Everyone else called him “Sanders,” but he insisted she call him “Brody.” Over and over. It was a potential chink in his armor that she needed to analyze. “Yes, Brody.”
“Good.” He stayed where he was, gazing down at her, eyes narrowed. For just a moment, his hand softened on her face, nearly a caress. His eyes drifted to her hair, and he frowned. “Your hair needs attention,” he said huskily. “I’ll take care of it tonight.”
He dropped his hand, turned and walked away, and Piper added another element to her analysis.
That first night, he had asked her to submit to him willingly. “I don’t want it to be rape,” he had said. Since then, he had not repeated those words. He used her whenever he wished, but he never tried to caress or arouse her. Occasionally, though, a moment would pass between them where he was almost tender. Occasionally, she caught him looking at her with what she could only describe as “longing.”
Growing up, Piper’s mother had tried to instill compassion in her girls. “Those who are heartless,” she would say, “Once cared too much. How badly must they be hurting inside, if hurting others is the only thing that makes them feel better?”
Piper supposed her mother hadn’t intended the lesson to be used as a weapon, but that’s just what she planned to do. If Brody had a tender underbelly, she was going to find it. When she did, she would disembowel him.
They arrived at the mess hall. Brody held the door open for her, and she stepped in ahead of him. Most everyone was already seated at one of the long tables, the low buzz of conversation punctuated by occasional laughter. As always, her presence triggered a momentary silence. Then, as a single entity, they shifted their bodies, angling away from her, shutting her out.
She served herself from the kitchen and headed back out to the main area. Brody always sat with Levi and Tyler, and he didn’t expect her to join them – part of his “everything’s fine” camouflage. Jenny, her husband Aaron, and Caden kept to themselves. Josh, Ethan and Adam could usually be found together – the others had started calling them Things 1, 2 and 3 – but Piper only sat near them if either Ruth or Max was already there.
Being the oldest members of the group, Ruth and Max tended to stick together. They were also the only ones who appeared interested in increasing social cohesion in the group by rotating their seating choices. Most frequently, they could both be found sitting with the Things, but often one or both of them would join Jenny’s family. Occasionally, Max would join Brody’s group, though Ruth never did.
Piper had analyzed these connections without conscious thought. Up until now, she had chosen the seat least likely to earn her a reprimand later, then had concentrated on pushing her food around to form pleasing artistic patterns. This morning, though, she was glad to see Ruth and Max seated with the Things. They were definitely more prone to levity than Jenny’s family. And she was hungry.
She sat down near the group, at the exact distance she had calculated to be “close but not intrusive.” Aware of Brody’s eyes on her, she stuck with the pattern she had already established, pushing the food around in a lackluster manner, eating only an occasional bite until he was fully engaged in conversation with Adam. Then, keeping her eyes on him, she shoveled eggs in as fast as she could. He looked up once, and she let her eyes go unfocused, let them drift up to the ceiling, and stopped chewing altogether, until he looked away again. Then she crammed half a piece of toast in her mouth.
She glanced at the group beside her and found Ruth staring at her, eyes narrowed. Shit, Piper thought. She let her eyes slide vacantly away, and put the rest of the toast back on her plate. She stared into space, face slack, berating herself. She needed to keep her behavior consistent in front of everyone, not just Brody, until she had properly set her plan in motion. One person on her side did her no good – they would just be eliminated. She needed to shift the entire group. Hungry as she still was, she left the rest of the food on her plate. To distract herself, she tuned in to the group’s conversation.
Max was speaking, his voice animated. “We tested it out – just used a deck of cards and had them guess the suit, so a 25% chance of being right. The government used to do this same kind of experiment, years ago.” Max leaned forward, nodding down the table. “Our boy Ethan here guessed right 55% of the time – 55%! That’s crazy! And Tyler was right nearly 60% of the time!” He leaned back, shaking his head, laughing in wonder. “I won’t play cards with either one of ‘em ever again, you can bet on that!”
Josh looked uncomfortable. “Christ, Max, what are you saying? That the plague made people psychic? How’s that work? They didn’t get it – they were just exposed, like the rest of us. And if you’re right, why aren’t all of us mind-readers now?”
Ruth cut in. “It’s not really mind-reading. It’s an intuitive hunch – like when you know who’s on the phone before you look at the name? Or you know when the Daily Double is going to come up on Jeopardy, just before it does? Stuff like that?” Josh just stared at her blankly, and she snorted. “Okay. Never mind. We don’t think everyone is experiencing it, and certainly not at the level Tyler and Ethan are. And we’re not sure how it’s related to the plague. People change as a result of stress – it could be as simple as that. An evolution.”
“We haven’t talked to everyone about it. Jenny and her family have other things on their minds. And others, well…” Max glanced in Piper’s direction, and she quickly looked away. “We think it’s different for different people, too. Ruth says she’s had ‘gut feelings’ all her life, but they’re much stronger now. I haven’t noticed any change, but I’m still hoping.” He chuckled. “I will be so pissed if this passes me by – I read every book on psychic phenomenon I could get my hands on when I was a kid.”
Josh still looked uncomfortable, his fingers rubbing over the small cross he always wore around his neck. “Yeah, well, some of us don’t buy into that evolution bullshit. Ya’ll can believe you’re hairless apes if you want to, but I am a Created man.” He stood, eyeing Ethan suspiciously. “Far as I’m concerned, you can keep your mind-reading shit to yourself. That is tool-of-Satan stuff, man.”
“No problem.” Ever easy-going, Ethan stood, collecting his plate and silverware then nodding to the others. “Off to do the Devil’s work. Have a good day.”
Laughter followed him, and Piper’s mind raced. What was this? What had Ruth said? Evolution? As in evolution of the species? Piper searched her experiences, looking for evidence to support this extraordinary hypothesis, but quickly let that line of inquiry drop. She’d been so out of it, people could have grown tails and she wouldn’t have noticed.
Brody finished eating, took his plate to the kitchen, then approached Ruth. Piper resumed her blank stare, heard Brody ask and Ruth accept, and kept right on staring. She jumped when Brody’s hand landed on her shoulder.
“Ruth has agreed to spend the day with you. Try to keep your head out of the clouds and pay attention.” He wrapped his hand around her ponytail as he spoke to her, just tight enough to sting her scalp. Using his hold on her hair, he twisted her face up to him. “I’m going out on patrol with Levi and Adam. We’ll be back late this afternoon.”
“Okay.” She was aware of everyone’s eyes on them, and kept her face still, though her eyes wanted to smart with tears.
He squeezed his fist once, hard, making her gasp, then dropped her ponytail and walked away. Piper waited until Ruth rose from the table, then picked up her plate and utensils and hurried after her.
Ruth had set up a clinic in a room off the kitchen. She had also commandeered one of the nearby cabins as a quarantine facility, though no one had been sick with the plague since Jenny’s youngest son died. Ruth gave her a tour, explaining where supplies were kept and how they needed to be handled, as well as what she felt it would be most important for Piper to learn.
“I need someone to back me up for basic first aid, and simple procedures like stitches.” As she talked, Ruth started setting out the supplies she would need for Piper’s first lesson. “If this suits you, I can give you more extensive training. Someone else should know how to assess more serious injuries and illnesses, to be able to decide whether or not to use the pharmaceuticals we have on hand. Noah was really good with triage.”
Piper couldn’t suppress a flinch. It was the first time she’d heard Noah’s name spoken aloud since the day of his death. She had not grieved him. She had not dared. Of all the things she had done in the last weeks, neglecting the memory of her friend shamed her the most. She looked up to find Ruth watching her. After a moment, the older woman shook her head.
“Quite a pickle you’ve got yourself in, little girl.”
Piper kept her face still and returned Ruth’s steady gaze, though her heart was pounding. She was fairly certain Ruth was offering an alliance, but she needed to stick to the plan. When it was apparent Piper didn’t intend to answer, Ruth sighed and resumed her instruction.
They worked together all morning, took a brief break for lunch, and went right back at it in the afternoon. It was bliss to use her mind again, to concentrate and learn. She had maneuvered for this opportunity because it offered tactical advantages – people were grateful when you helped them, when you stopped their pain – but she hadn’t expected to find it so interesting. By the end of the afternoon, Ruth was shaking her head in wonder.
“I’ve never seen someone learn as fast as you,” she said. “I say it once, and you’ve got it. Maybe this is how you’re manifesting psychic talent, like we were talking about at breakfast. What was it you were studying at college?”
“Sociology,” Piper said, and Ruth snorted.
“Well, you were wasting your time, if you ask me. You’ve got an aptitude for the medical field. I think we can tell Sanders we’ve found your skill set. I’ll have you trained in no time.” She shot Piper a sideways look. “And here I thought you were a dimwit.”
Oh, this wouldn’t do. Brody wouldn’t buy this sudden brilliance after she had failed so miserably before. He couldn’t know she was awake and functional. On impulse, she put her hand out, resting it on Ruth’s forearm. She had to play this just right. “I’m sure I’ll forget it all as soon as I walk out of this room,” she said, gazing at Ruth steadily. “And you’ll need to repeat it all tomorrow. Every bit of it.”
Ruth cocked her head to the side and just looked at her in silence for a few moments. Then she nodded slowly. “I see. Yes, I see what you mean. You have potential, but you need a lot of repetition.”
“Yes.” Piper didn’t try to hide her relief. “Exactly.”
In the outer room, there was the sudden sound of multiple pairs of boots on the wooden floor, as well as multiple male voices. Brody, Levi and Adam were back from their patrol, and it sounded like the Things had arrived in the mess hall in anticipation of dinner as well. Brody had told Piper to stay with Ruth until he came to get her, so she settled into a chair to wait. She took several deep breaths, searching for the still, blank place she had been inhabiting, and schooled her face to vacancy, but oh, it was hard. She was alive again, and she didn’t want to go back in the box.
Ruth moved to stand close beside her, and Piper looked up, startled. Ruth frowned, and reached out to touch Piper’s bruised cheek. She shifted her hand to lightly stroke Piper’s messy ponytail, her expression troubled. Her mouth opened to speak, but she reconsidered, shutting it again. Then, a smile of evil joy transformed her face.
Ten minutes later, when Brody appeared in the doorway, Piper was covered from the neck down with a plastic sheet, and her hair was lying on the floor around her. Ruth was spreading mayonnaise liberally on her closely shorn scalp.
“Lice!” she barked at him. “She can’t work here with lice! And-” She pointed her mayo-covered spatula at him. “She will be working here. I need the help, and she did okay today. She can learn this stuff – it’ll just take her a while.”
Perfect, Piper thought. She kept her head down and her eyes closed as Ruth swathed her head with plastic wrap, muttering her disgust. “You would think somebody would have thought to bring a nit comb and some of that fancy shampoo, but no. This’ll have to do.” She gave Piper’s head a crinkly pat. “There. You leave that on overnight. When you come back in the morning, we’ll rinse it out and hit you with the vinegar.”
Piper rose from the chair, and she and Ruth worked together to collect and discard every strand of her hair. Only when they were finished did she dare a peek at Brody.
He was staring at her, unnaturally still, and she couldn’t begin to analyze the expression on his face. Horror? Rage? Regret? Pretty big emotions, for someone else’s hair. She stored the information away for future use.
Ruth shooed her along. “You go get those plastic bags and take care of your bedding, like I told you. Jenny can show you where the extra linens are.” Brody moved to take her arm and escort her out the door, but Ruth’s voice cracked out, whip-like.
“Where do you think you’re going, Sanders?” She held up her spatula and jar of mayo, and gestured at the chair. “You’re next.”
Piper hustled out and headed for the storeroom, then reversed and slipped silently back down the hall to hover outside the doorway. She heard the rustle of plastic as Ruth prepped Brody for the homemade treatment, heard the buzz of the hair clippers, and all the while, Ruth talked, talked, talked.
Yep, sure enough, he was infested – had he been itching? No? Must have a thick hide. She’d have to check the others, damn it all. That Piper, she’d do as a helper – she tried hard, though she was none too bright. Had a gentle touch, but the technical terms confused her. Better than no help at all. Squalled like a baby when I told her we needed to shave her head, but no way could I get all that hair clean, not without a nit comb, no way. Some women sure put a store by their hair.
Piper heaved a silent sigh of relief and slid away, satisfied that Ruth wouldn’t betray her. She headed once more for the storeroom, adapting her plan as she went. She had an ally, whether she’d wanted one or not, and though it was riskier, it was good to know she wasn’t alone.
One by one, she would build connections and alter her standing. Climbin’ the social ladder, she thought, and smiled. Ruth was wrong; medicine wasn’t her supernatural talent. People were.
All her life, she’d been reading the people around her, and when it suited her purposes, manipulating them. She was reading this group accurately, she knew it. They needed another medic, so she’d be the second-best medic they’d ever seen – outshining Ruth was just bad strategy - right up until the day she took over as tactician.
Because that was her end game: When she had achieved the status she needed, it would be time to kill Brody, and take his place as leader of this group. These people were going to pay her back for their blindness, their lack of judgment, and their failure to protect her from Brody’s abuse, by conveying her safely to her family.
What she thought of as the mom-bond pulsed in her chest. Piper closed her eyes for a moment and put her hand over her heart. “I’ll get there as fast as I can, Mom,” she whispered. “I’m on my way.”