“That sounds nice,” said Jeremy, staring down his belly. “Can you wrap it?” He gave her a short grin and she flicked his forehead with the tips of her fingers.
“No, I can't wrap it. Do you really want me to risk putting extra pressure on this so that you can bleed into your lungs?”
“Umm...” Jeremy moved back, trying not to twist his side as he lifted his arm to stop the assault.
“Do you?”
“What the hell?”
She threatened to hit him again.
“No—”
“Then what in God’s name did you think you were doing? You nearly scared Amanda half to death and then come back looking like this? Do you have any idea what that does to someone her age?”
“I was trying to find a way out.”
“Then what?”
“I came back?”
“Really?” She almost laughed in his face. “Did you count on getting debilitated in the process?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Well, debilitated is a strong word...” She raised her hand again and Jeremy followed suit, pointing at her. “Don’t you dare.”
I tried not to get in their way or make eye contact, but the fact that I was standing just next to them made it pretty much impossible.
“And what about you?”
Shit.
I looked up to see Martha bore her eyes into my soul. The words almost stumbled out of me like a little girl. “What about me?”
“I thought I told you to get some rest? You need to keep your bandage dry otherwise you might get an infection. Instead you’re dragging this masochist through the dirt.”
“Hey,” Jeremy started. “I'm not a—” Martha threatened to hit him again and he pulled back. “Whatever. Fine.”
Luckily, I was spared from the rest as Amanda interrupted with some water and a pill bottle. Martha handed Jeremy the pair and stood up. “Take one of these every twenty-four hours and don’t do anything stupid.”
He squinted down to look. “That can't be on the label.”
“Jeremy...” Martha cooed.
He ignored the rest and raised a hand towards the little girl. “Hey, Mandy, you keep an eye on everything while I was gone?”
Amanda nodded and gave him a high-five. “Are you okay?”
He gave her a face. “Oh come on, you know it'll take more than some dirt to keep me down, right?”
“Yeah...” She quietly ran her foot across the ground.
Martha automatically put a hand around her reassuringly and tossed a clean shirt over Jeremy's head. “Put this on. I’ll be back in a few minutes. If you're lucky, then that man is still alive and you won't be blamed for bringing him back here to die.”
Jeremy snorted. “Yeah, if only...”
Martha told me to watch him before leaving with Amanda and an empty void instantly filled their space.
I watched Jeremy struggle taking his shirt off and I couldn't help but stare at his exposed skin. Faint, thin lines of muscle rippled across his back and sides, while pale scares and fresh bruises lined his tan stomach. Apparently I wasn't the only one to have an eventful last few days. I accidentally caught his eyes and looked away, refraining myself from asking if he needed any help taking his clothes off.
He must have noticed my bandage as I gingerly rubbed my shoulder in an attempt to pass the awkward silence. He held his pills out toward me and shook them. “Have you met my friend, Roxie?”
'Roxie' Roxicet: oxycodone and acetaminophen conveniently wrapped together in familiar little white pill form.
He tilted his hand and I could feel myself hang on indecision. Given the circumstances, I was damn lucky for a girl that had just gotten shot not too long ago, but foggy memories seeped their way back into the forefront of my mind as I peered at another orange bottle that didn't belong to me. I had to remind myself that I had learned about just as many things outside of school as I did when I had actually gone to class, prescription pain killers being one of them.
I kept my hand still and shook my head.
“Suit yourself.” He popped a pill and glanced over my shoulder. “You think she’s gone?”
It took me a second to realize that he was referring to Martha. I let the question stretch itself for a moment, lending towards the obvious. “Yeah, probably...”
“Good.” He grunted and struggled to get up from his cot.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, she said not to go anywhere.”
He chuckled and clenched his side, immediately regretting it. “Yeah, the guys with the guns said the same thing. You gonna listen to them too?”
I glared at him and grabbed his arm, this time pulling him up without trying to be gentle.
“Wait a sec...” He sat back down and opened his bottle again, downing another two pills. “Alright.”
It was dark by the time we got outside. The hard lines between the repetition of tents barely made their way to my eyes, but it didn’t stop Jeremy from leading us off onto a path that only he could see. I asked him where we were going, but he only kept his answer nice and vague.
“To see the good guys.” He stopped me at another tent, this one lit on the inside and I could hear someone laughing. I almost didn’t recognize the sound at first. Jeremy looked at me, his face close enough to mine that I could tell he was trying to catch his breath. “Just... try and keep an open mind.”
He led me inside and a handful of men all looked up at us, one after another, their voices trailing off as they froze in the middle of a card game that reeked unbelievably of feet.
Jeremy was the first to break the silence with a sloppy salute. “At ease, gentlemen.”
“Moses!” One of them slammed down his cards and tore Jeremy off my shoulder, squeezing him so hard that I thought he was going to deflate.
Jeremy managed to push him off and sputtered. “Damn. Squeeze harder, asshole. Doctor’s orders.” He shook his bottle of pills in self-defense.
“What happened?”
“Cramps.”
Another man nodded towards me. “Who’s the badass?”
They all turned to look and I was confused for a moment. I realized I must have gotten a black eye. I felt like I was stuck in a spotlight.
“Tess,” I stammered. Definitely not Jessica. Anything but Jessica.
“Right, Tess,” Jeremy continued. “Don’t worry, she’s cool.”
Another one of them walked over. “Hell yeah. She’s got the battle scars to prove it.” He snatched someone's cards straight out of their hands and offered them to me. “Mike sucks. You know how to play poker?”
The man I assumed was Mike threw a hand up. “What the hell?”
“Don’t worry. You’re pretty too.”
“You're damn right I am.” He swiped his cards back.
I froze, still unsure on what exactly I had walked into. I had been sure that I was being held captive in a prison camp just a few minutes ago, but now... I nodded. “I mean, I can learn.”
The man in front of me slowly nodded his head and smiled, pointing a finger straight at my face. “YES. I like her. She can stay.” He shook my hand for me and introduced himself. “You can call me Scott.”
Someone else chided up from behind. “No shit. What else would she call you?”
Scott shrugged. “Scott's fine.”
Jeremy gently grabbed my wrist and pulled me away. “Alright, I think you all scared her enough for now.”
“Yeah,” said Scott. “So did you. What the hell happened?”
Everyone waited for Jeremy to answer and changed his mind. He pulled me back in front of him. “You know what? Why don't we all get to know each other a little bit?” He pointed at the man that had hugged him. “You've already met nimrod Nick...”
Nick waved at me with a grin.
Jeremy pointed at the biggest one in the room, almost twice my height and dark skinned. He hadn't said a word. “That’s L.T. Colonel Murphy, A.K.A. ‘The Law.'”
“Ain’t nobody above the law,” Nick added.
Jeremy nodded. “That’s correct, thank you.” He kept pointing. “And then you got shit-for-brains—I mean—Simon.”
Simon flicked him off. “That’s not for you, dear.”
Jeremy returned the favor and kept going. “And of course, Mike.”
He nodded. “It's a pleasure.”
“Always is,” said Jeremy, and turned towards me. “Any questions?”
Jeremy, Scott, Nick, Simon, Mike, and Murphy.
I had to take a moment. I’d gotten used to seclusion and had trouble keeping up with the conversation.
Nick raised his hand. “I got a question for Moses!” He pointed at Jeremy. “Where the hell did you go?”
“It’s called recon, Nick,” chided Simon.
“He sounds lovely.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
“Guys,” Scott intervened. “Shut up.” He went back to Jeremy. “So? What happened?”
We listened to Jeremy recount what he had seen, how he had traveled outside the camp to help find supplies, though it was just as unclear as it was the first time I had heard it.
I thought it was strange that he left out what the wounded man had said to Ryan. The idea that someone named Jessica might have somehow been involved with the marks on his body seemed worth mentioning to me. The man had dropped my name for one reason or another, though that much I was fine not discussing.
Scott didn't seem all too surprised. “I've never seen anything around here that could do something like that. Honestly, it kinda sounds like there's someone out there getting creative. Could be someone from town, some whack job with too much time to himself.”
Or herself.
“Maybe,” Jeremy started. “I don't know.” He shifted his weight, uncomfortable. “It doesn't make any sense.”
“Which part?”
“Everything.” Jeremy held his hand out. “Imagine you're the one that's responsible. You're probably alone, hungry, tired, you need supplies. So you attack someone that you know has a gun, but you don't kill 'em. You don't even steal anything. Why? What's the point?”
Mike drew another pair of cards and threw them down. “Because you don't have
shit.
” Nobody said anything so he elaborated. “Why kill one guy when he can lead you back to the rest of us?”
A lure to find the camp, to find supplies, to find more victims.
The thought gave me goose bumps. It reminded me of walking through bad neighborhoods in the city at night. As soon as I would take that first step, my body would automatically pick up the pace, throw a hood over my head and unplug an earbud. The less I looked like a twenty-something year-old college girl and the more I could hear, the better. Most people were good, but there were always the few that viewed the streets as their own personal stalking grounds and the few unfortunate girls to light their radar as their prey. Hopefully they had all finally gotten what they had deserved by now.
“But you found a way out?” asked Nick.
Jeremy frowned. “I didn’t. Turns out that along with the guys in here with us and the ones on the gate, there's usually two more circling the camp a few hundred feet out. Ryan’s probably using them as a lookout. Even if we found a way to make it out, the ones on the outside would still spot us. We all know each other and they won't shoot us for fun, but they might change their mind if they see something going down and we ask for it.”
I looked around and everyone seemed to nod in agreement, but that didn’t make any sense to me. “Wait. What do you mean you all know each other?”
Scott explained. “There’s a town a few miles North of here big enough to hold up in, but small enough that no one's gonna give a shit.”
“Except Ryan,” Mike corrected him.
“Right. Well, we thought we could use an extra hand.” He crossed his arms. “But here we are...”
Judging by everyone's smug response, they only blamed themselves, and I was starting to get a better picture of what was going on. Where someone might have seen a walled off community, Ryan must have seen an opportunity to take what he wanted, to command by force.
“Ryan's a dick,” said Jeremy, “But he's smart. He knows we're useful. He probably separated the six of us from everyone else on purpose. He took us out here looking for supplies and found this place before splitting up. The other half went out scouting in their trucks and should be back soon. Everyone in this tent is just slave labor.”
Nick prodded my shoulder. “Yeah, until you showed up. Douchebag probably wasn't expecting you to carry anything except a short skirt.”
I tried to smile and let his comment bounce off, but the reality of the situation started to strike hard. Were there other girls in their group or was it just going to be me?
“Tess?”
I looked up and noticed that everyone was staring at me again. I must have spaced out when Scott had asked me the second time.
“Tess, what did Ryan want?”
I didn’t know what to tell him. I knew the words: sex slave, prostitute, whore, but I couldn’t bring them out past my throat. They were still waiting for a response. I had to give them something. “He... he said the guards were off limits.”
They kept staring and some of them glanced at each other, but Nick was the only one willing to ask, “From what?”