Justice (9 page)

“Why do you want me to cut my hair?” Felicity whined as Nick and Pete stared on looking anxious.
 

“I’m going to play it straight with you.” I kneeled in front of the young girl whose beautiful brunette hair was probably the only thing she had left to be proud of in this world. It was long and she brushed it every day, leaving it loose and down her back. It wasn’t quite as shiny as it could be, and the ends were frayed, but it was still beautiful.
It had to go.

“You don’t want boys to look at you and admire your looks in this place, Felicity. It’s not a good thing. Not like it used to be. Before the biters you could be pretty, you could be a little girl, pretending to be a woman and it was okay. People still respected that you were young and waited for you to grow up. You only had to worry about a few perverts, men you saw on the news. Now, in here, there are no rules, no jails for men to fear and the men that run this camp are like those men on the news. In this place, pretty means a possession, it means something to be possessed. Pretty means you belong to a man. Pretty means a man can do things to you that you don’t want him to do. If you say no, it won’t mean anything to these men. They don’t care about you or your feelings. They only care about how you look and how you make them feel. I don’t want you to cut your hair to punish you. I think cutting your hair will give you more time. More time to be young. And maybe when you’re old enough things will be different. You’ll be able to have your hair long and not worry about it attracting the wrong attention. Do you understand?”

“I think so. Is that why they keep my mom away from me? Do they keep her like property?”

I didn’t know which one was her mother, and I hadn’t seen anyone come in and greet her like a parent.
 

“Yes, and they don’t treat their property well, you know this, right? Look how they treat you guys. But once you become an adult in their eyes, all bets are off. They can do anything they want,” I said quietly. A single tear leaked from her eye and trailed down her face. She wiped at it absently and chewed her bottom lip, looking from Nick to Pete. They both encouraged her with a nod.
 

“I don’t even want to think about that,” she said under her breath.
 

“We have to, that man that was in here earlier, Eagle. He’ll come back and if he sees a pretty girl, he’ll want to move you out of the kids’ area and in with the women. You have to cover yourself up. Wear oversized shirts, chop your hair off.”
 
She pulled the scissors out of my hand and looked to the boys.
 

“You can’t look like a woman, Felicity. No matter what. There can be nothing sexual about you, no curves, no pretty hair, no cute behavior. I can’t stress that enough.” I felt like the bad guy who drew back the curtain and ruined Christmas.
 

“I’ll help,” Pete said and led her away.
 

“If they’re like this, if they’re so bad, treat women like this, why are you with them? Why do you wear their patches all over you?” Nick asked angrily. I was a little shocked by the vehemence in his voice. It was the first time he had shown any kind of backbone.
 

“I’m as much a prisoner as everyone else here,” I said in return.
 

“Bullshit,” he stood up abruptly. “You came in with them. Before you were assigned here you were out there, doing what they do. You screwed up, that’s why they put you here. I heard Red talking about it. Don’t pretend you’re better than them. You wear their patches, you’re one of them.” He stomped away, following Pete and Felicity to the bathroom.

I deserved that. I deserved every bit of it. I was a coward. The only way I stood up to these men was with a bit of back talk. Stupid words that didn’t mean anything. I might as well be a part of it. I stood back and let them do whatever they wanted to do, calling myself moral because in my head I opposed their actions.
 
When really I was a selfish coward.
 
I was only thinking about myself. I had been focused on my escape. Never thinking of the other people caught up in this mess.
 

I was always focused on my own situation, never once thinking about how I could end this mess. The women here were slaves, treated worse than dogs. The civilian men were kept around so they could work for the Clan. Slaves. The children were held to keep everyone in check.
 

I was no better than them. Just because I was a rebel in my head, morally opposing their actions, didn’t make me any less responsible for this mess.
But what could I do?
 

It was me versus forty armed men. They would kill me if I tried to do anything to save these people.
 

Maybe it was what I deserved. Death would probably be the only escape I got. If I took out a few along the way, would that redeem me?
 

Nick’s anger haunted me even as I slept that night.
 

ELEVEN | The Asshole in Charge

In under two hours we crossed from the neighborhood of Gentilly into Lake Vista without any more issues. We passed a good number of the dead, but nothing like the herd in New Orleans East.
 

We drove the all-terrain vehicles over lawns, neutral grounds and even through over-grown fields to avoid stalled cars and random road blocks.
 

The vehicles in the road were beginning to rust, and they were covered in so much dirt and debris they looked ancient. Houses were hidden by overgrown weeds and tall grass, the fast-growing trees and shrubs all but obscuring most houses. There were no more lawns and neat sidewalks. New Orleans resembled the apocalyptic landscape it was. I thought I had seen the worst after Katrina. I wasn’t from New Orleans, I grew up mostly around the Pensacola area in Florida. At the time of Katrina I was staying with a foster family that considered themselves religious and they had made the trek to New Orleans to help rebuild with their church group. They had brought me with them, citing it as a learning experience.
 

The three months we stayed here after the storm changed my life forever.
 

It was why I moved here after I left the Army, why I chose to return to this tragic city that had finally begun to return to normal. The city had finally begun stretching out, finding its place, when the world collapsed under the onslaught of the dead.
 

After the floods from Hurricane Katrina, the houses had been a mess, like someone had come in and shook everything up and drenched them in mud. But there was life. There were people within the houses. There were sounds of power tools and the hum of military vehicles. Hammers and the tinny sound of music.
 

I remember sitting on a discarded and taped up refrigerator eating red beans and rice out of a Styrofoam to-go plate delivered by the Red Cross. I remember sitting there, looking at the destruction around me, while the sound of a brass band filtered down the street.
And I never felt more at ease
.
 
Because in the midst of that destruction, people came together. People stopped and chatted with each other. They cried in the street and held on to complete strangers. They looked at their devastated city and had hope. Hope for the future. It was inspiring.
 

TWELVE | PTSD Special

Morel decided he would be better served following Romeo into battle. It was a wise decision on his part, probably the first he had made in a long time.
 

This left me teamed up with Heather Murphey and a few troopers that were on her team.
 
This was fine by me. Murphey was actually an old friend of mine and the reason we had hooked up with this group in the first place. She came looking for me and the MJ group for reinforcements to help take out Lakeview. And I guess the rest is history.
 

We loaded up the vehicle with more weapons and supplies and opened up the roof rack. It was equipped with a defensive kit, so the roof folded up and out so a shooter could use the roof plates for cover. There would be four fighters in the vehicle, and the rest of the team would be mounted on four-wheelers and bikes that they’d gathered in the last week.
 

“We’re going in at two in the morning, that’s in six hours, people. Get some rest,” Poche called after we gathered in the front room of the mansion they had taken over. All the vehicles were ready, everything was locked and loaded, we all had our orders - it was now a waiting game.
 

“You and Lani can crash in my room,” Murphey said and motioned for us to follow her. She had a room on the first floor to the back of the house. It was down a hallway, past the kitchen and breakfast bar, so most likely where a full-time servant had lived, but the room was large and carpeted, which was perfect.
 
I threw my pack down on the ground and sprawled out.
   

Lani tried to do the same, but it was obvious she wasn’t used to sleeping on a hard floor. She couldn’t hold still. She squirmed and sighed until Murphey relented.
 

“Shit. Take the bed,” she grumbled and yanked her blanket off and threw it down on the floor by me.
 

“I can sleep on the floor, I’m fine,” Lani whined.
 

“Just take the bed, Lani, Murphey and I are used to sleeping on the ground,” I tried to reassure her but her frown in the dim room told me I had done the opposite.
 

“I know you guys think I’m soft, but I’m not, I can handle this,” she said but her voice was high-pitched and whiny not sounding capable, only child-like. I knew exactly how she felt. My first two years in the military were a constant battle against men and other women who thought because of my size, how I looked, and my voice, that I couldn’t do the job. It wasn’t until my first tour, even after going through Ranger school, that I finally began to earn the respect I deserved.
 
It wasn’t until after I had taken out nearly a dozen enemy combatants in one of the most horrendous fire fights I’d ever experienced that I became one of the “guys.” I still had nightmares about that day. I didn’t want Lani to have to go through something like that.
 

“I think it’s more that we want you to be soft, or to stay soft,” I argued.
 

“That’s unfair. I don’t want to be soft, soft people die. You and Romeo think you’re protecting me by shielding me, but I don’t want to be shielded.”
 

“Give it time, Lani, you’ll be as fucked as the rest of us,” Murphey yawned. “Might as well enjoy not having PTSD while you have the luxury.” She laughed, her dark humor too close to the truth for comfort.
 

“Y’all aren’t, fu–fucked,” she stumbled over the curse word as if she wasn’t used to it.
 

“Yeah we are, we just know how to hide it well. Get some rest, Lani, we have a neighborhood to invade and some bikers to kill, gotta be well-rested for that,” Murphey joked again and Lani took the hint, throwing herself on the bed with a sigh.
 

I couldn’t let myself slide over into sleep until both of their breaths evened out and I knew they were out.
 

THIRTEEN | Going in Hot