"So what did you see that I'll never guess?" Daphne asked, switching to her right hand.
"There was a story linked through the local news site, and guess who it was about?" Tanya struggled to contain her excitement about what she considered to be particularly juicy gossip.
"Was it me?" Daphne asked, still gazing out the window.
"Yes!" Tanya said, throwing her arms up dramatically. Lowering her arms, she pulled her sleeves down self-consciously over the scars littering her arms and wrists. "Specifically, some writer chick talking about how you're a 'feminist hero', or something. Saying she was interested in writing a book about your story."
"A-ha," Daphne said, rolling her eyes.
"She would need your permission, at least if she uses real details about you and your case," Tanya pointed out. "You could probably make a lot of money off of this."
"Not gonna happen," Daphne said. "I don't want her money, and I'm no one's hero."
In the end, the writer had opted to base her story as loosely upon Daphne's as she possibly could, in lieu of getting permission. To the best of Daphne's knowledge, though, the book had yet to be released before the dead had begun to rise. The writer was, therefore, unable to capitalize upon Daphne's tragic story.
It was around midnight when Daphne began to hear whispers that Red was back. She heard the front entry door open and close, then murmured voices from outside. Someone threw the front door open again, and Daphne heard heavy footsteps approaching, the kind produced by big feet dressed in hard-soled boots. A moment later, the man whom she could only presume to be Red stood before her, his appearance more startling than she had expected.
From where she was chained, her face was well below the man's pelvis. He towered above her, and she estimated him to be over six and a half feet tall. She gazed up past a broad chest with visibly protruding pectoral muscles, even through a loose-fitting t-shirt, to a severe, chiseled face. Red's square jaw and chin were upright as he glared down over his nose and cheekbones at her, his face lit with harsh fluorescent light. His skin was as milky white as Daphne's own, and freckles were splashed across his nose and cheeks, contrasting sharply with the white flesh surrounding them. His bright, coppery hair was shaven on the back and sides, and cropped to about one inch on top. Daphne could see muscles twitching in his well-defined jaw and neck as he gazed down at her through cobalt eyes, not speaking for most of a minute.
He snorted. "You're the one who did all that damage?" The right corner of his mouth lifted in amusement. His sturdy bulk was so edged and heavily formed, even in the face, that his appearance came across as almost monstrous in its severity, particularly from Daphne's point of view. He looked her up and down. "What are you, 14?"
Daphne glared up at him.
"You know how to talk?" Red asked, crouching down to her height. His face was large in comparison to hers, so large that she almost felt like a child before him. She nodded, maintaining a neutral expression. "So how old are you?" he prodded.
Daphne swallowed before she responded. "A grown-up. Responsible for all my own grown-up actions."
Red grinned. "Is that right?" he said as he stood. "What a brave girl you are." He strode across the room, grabbing a folding chair and dragging it toward his captive. He sprawled onto the chair, running his abnormally long, white fingers across his short, red hair. "So level with me," he said, "how is it you came to know all that stuff you know--about sneaking, spike-throwing, stuff like that? I don't imagine you could have been anything as glamorous as an assassin, now could you?"
Daphne uttered a dry laugh. "No."
Red shook his head. "What my guys described to me--it doesn't sound like those are recently acquired skills you got there. As in, you had to be doing those kinds of things before there were dead folks roaming the earth, am I right?"
Daphne stared past him, toward an empty spot on the wall. "What's all this leading up to?"
Red peered down at her from the corner of his eye for a few moments, then swung his body around her and crouched to her rear. He placed one of his behemoth forearms diagonally in front of her, from her hipbone to her face, and pulled her back into him. As the back of her head made contact with Red's dense chest, the impact caused her ears to ring and bright, floating spots to appear in her field of vision.
"What it's leading up to," he said, leaning down to whisper into Daphne's ear, "is that I can get over the people I lost if I can have you--and your freakish talents--working for me." He stood, studying her for a moment, then came in closer and inspected her shoulders and lower back. "Hey," he said, "did someone rough you up?"
"It was Heather," a male said from outside the room as he passed. It was the larger, bald man out of the two who had been in the room with Daphne until Red's return. He was the one who had made a point to warn Heather, the coconut blonde, that Red would be angry upon learning of the temperamental young woman's lashing of the captive.
"Excuse me," Red told Daphne, leaving the room.
Doesn't look too good for you, does it, Heather?
Daphne thought. For the first time, she was left alone in the room, if only for a brief period. She took advantage of the opportunity to survey the area around her. There were no closets or doors in the room, other than the wide doorway through which she had been led in, and through which Red had exited moments before. There was one two- by four-foot window on the wall behind her, sitting roughly four feet off the floor. It appeared to be unopenable, just a single layer of two glass panes set into the cement and divided in the middle by a strip of wood. The room was mostly empty, other than a few dozen folding chairs, some sidewalk salt, and around a dozen municipal Christmas decorations, the sort that would have been installed on light posts after Thanksgiving in the old world. It seemed to be a general storage area in which to keep the tiny township's few public possessions.
Red reappeared, escorting Heather by the elbow. Behind them were three men and two women.
"Go ahead and have a seat, Heather," Red said.
Heather did as she was instructed, though her eyes were wide with the fear of uncertainty. The others in the room seemed slightly apprehensive, most likely also unsure of what Red planned to do. Daphne didn't know Red well enough to bother speculating as to whether or not he intended to kill Heather before the six assembled witnesses, including herself.
"So," Red said, locking eyes with Daphne as he jingled a set of keys, "I'm sorry, but this is a one-woman show, and tonight, you're just not the star of it." He stood Daphne up, spun her around, and unlocked her handcuffs. "Get her a chair," he instructed the nearest confused spectator, who retrieved one of the folding chairs.
"Now have a seat," Red told Daphne. "You may not be the star, but at least you get a front-row view. Two of you, flank her," he instructed.
A male and a female moved in to either side of Daphne, guns drawn. Daphne settled into her chair, her feet still bound.
Heather choked back a sob as Red turned the cuffs on her. The heavy flow of tears pouring from her eyes streaked her face with the charcoal hue of several layers of mascara.
"Red, I'm sorry. Please, if you'll just let me make it up to--"
Her words were cut off as Red pivoted and, in a single, smooth motion, took one long-legged stride forward to backhand the right side of Heather's face. Her head rolled to the left, and her eyes back into her head. When her head lolled back toward the center, Daphne saw blood beginning to drip from her mouth. A clear imprint was visible on her face, the shape of Red's bulbously knuckled hand connected by fainter pink lines in the shape of his phalanges. Some of the witnesses to Daphne's left shifted, exhaling forcefully through their teeth.
Daphne puzzled internally over their mentally, that brutality and infliction of pain were perfectly acceptable when applied to an individual outside of one's group. When faced with relatively mild violence toward one's own, however, the humanity of the situation invariably became crystal clear.
"Red, please--" Heather began again, her words warped due to the swelling already beginning to set in on the right side of her face.
The female standing beside Daphne sighed, scratching the nape of her neck as she turned her face to gaze at the upper left corner of the room. The woman shook her head lightly as she saw Red from the corner of her eye, drawing his hand back again. The blow was a slap this time, done with his palm.
"Shut up," he told Heather, his tone quiet and dismissive. He turned toward Daphne and the others gathered behind him. "Now don't worry, guys. What's about to happen to Heather shouldn't happen to you, unless you're as stupid as she is."
Heather whimpered, cowering in her chair. Red turned to face her again.
"Get undressed," he said.
Heather's face contorted further as her fear intensified. "What?"
"You heard me," Red said. "Don't make me repeat myself."
Heather slowly stood to comply, an expression of utter disbelief on her face as she lifted her t-shirt up and over her head.
"You thought 'cause I fucked you , that meant you were my equal? That you could go ahead and make whatever judgment calls you want to?" Red sneered as she disrobed. "Heather, the woman you lashed with that chain is more my equal than you are. Come on now," he said with a mocking, false soothing tone. "I thought you were at least smart enough to know your place. I guess I overestimated you."
Heather's hands lingered, avoiding the removal of her final garment.
"Go on," Red said, his jaw torquing. "Take it off, baby."
Heather did as she was told, her face twisted with rage and terror. Her body was covered in spiky gooseflesh from head to foot. She stood in the silent room for around thirty seconds until Red spoke again.
"I'm not going to rape you," he said at last, his tone casual. "Even if I was inclined to, I wouldn't. You're a twisted little fuck. You might like it, even with all these people here. I wouldn't want you to get confused, me thinking of you in any kind of sexual way. I can't have you going and inflating your own sense of self-worth, like you did earlier." He grabbed her by the hair, his face moving in toward hers. "Don't let it happen again. Now get dressed and get the fuck outta my sight, you stupid taco."
Heather whimpered with a mixture of humiliation and relief. She quickly gathered her clothes, dressing herself and hurrying from the room.
"The rest of you can go," Red told the witnesses.
As they left, Daphne noted that two of them seemed to be disturbed and two seemed unmoved. The one at the rear of the procession, a female, was grinning broadly as she made her way to the doorway with her back to Red, her expression smug. She muttered something under her breath just before she passed Daphne's field of vision. Although Daphne couldn't hear the words, it was easy enough to read her lips.
"Crazy bitch."
Daphne shifted her attention to Red, who was settling into a chair across from her.
"I trust you won't be making any unwise moves," he said, motioning to Daphne's unrestrained hands.
"Unwise?" Daphne repeated, hands on her lap. "I trust I won't."
Red sat grinning at her, his dark blue eyes sparkling and his right eyebrow raised slightly. He rubbed his bristly chin between his thumb and index finger, staring her down while she stared back.
"You know," he said, a brief, rumbling laugh escaping his oversized chest, "at first, I swore it was a joke. I was out with a group, gathering supplies. Routine stuff. Then one of my guys here gets on the walkie-talkie, tells me some red-haired, freckled kid snuck up to the building like a ninja. Least 'til the dogs noticed her, chased her up a tree. Then, he tells me, this kid kills both dogs, sharpened stick through the brain. She's still not done, though. The first guy to come outside and wander underneath that tree gets taken out, 'cause the mutant drops down from the sky and stabs him in the head. My people threaten the child with more dogs, so the child scurries back up the tree. With nowhere to run, the little freak of nature finally surrenders. That pretty much the way it went down?"
Daphne shrugged. "Assuming the kid is me," she said, "yeah, pretty much."
"More than a dozen of my people have turned up dead with your sticks buried in them," Red said, "and only one lived to tell about it. That doesn't count the ones that got your knife or God knows what else."
"Red," Daphne interjected, "I really don't think I'll be useful to you."
Red put a finger to her lips. "
Shh
," he said. "That's not what I want to hear. Face it, we're both a couple of mutants. I think we'd be pretty formidable together, don't you?"
"I'm flattered," Daphne said. "But I'm not feeling it. Plus I don't know that I'd live up to your expectations."
"No one said to flatter yourself," Red said. "I'll be honest, the whole--underdeveloped look--it's a little off-putting. But you're obviously an adult, I can see that now that I've studied you up close. You seem like someone who's been traumatized, damaged somehow. Did you parents starve you as a kid, or were you anorexic?"