The Other Brother (Snow and Ash Book 3) (19 page)

And then Tish starts screaming.

I make myself look. Ayden holds a short, narrow rod. The tip glows red as she draws it across my sister’s skin. Tish is the strong one. Tish is the one who can survive anything, but she faints.

Before my sister has a chance to recover, the solder unhooks the chain and she falls to the floor. When they undo mine, I sag against the wall.

Nico flicks each of us a blanket. They fall short and land on the floor. Every movement pulls on my shattered flesh as I bend to scoop mine up. Allowing anything to touch my back is unthinkable, but I cannot—cannot—be naked in front of these people. I clutch the scratchy wool to my chest.

“Come on, whore,” Nico sneers. “It’s time for you to go.”

Tish can’t walk, and two soldiers half carry, half drag her down the hall toward the exit.

I’m blind with pain; I’m sick with humiliation. I’m unbearably hurt and sick, and I can’t be dead inside because I feel. I loved him. He said I could trust him. He said everything would be okay. He… He…

Outside are two snowmobiles. Behind each is a flatbed carrying dog crates.

Dog crates.

Dog crates.

My mind shuts down.

~ ~ ~

I am winter. I lie curled in my cage as Tish taunts the drivers. I wish I could be like her. Then again, numb is better. It’s a whole lot better than despair.

It’d be different if I hardly knew him. Pain would still be pain, but the salt of his betrayal makes it worse. Tish said not to get too close to him, but that was never possible. He stripped me of everything but love and devotion. I crossed lines meant to keep people safe from things like this. I never once wondered how he could love me when he hit me, bit me, humiliated me. In front of others he was wonderful; it was only when we were private, intimate, that he gave me pain. I thought it drew us closer. I thought he was freeing me from the past. What’s wrong with me? How could I come with him hurting me? I am sick. I am depraved, ruined. Oh God, I’m so desperately alone.

The frigid air slices my skin. It sinks into my bones before it numbs me. Anything that takes the pain away is welcome, so I don’t even bother to cover myself. Frozen wounds don’t hurt. Frozen hearts don’t beat.

When the vehicles abandon what I recognize to be the main road, I am only mildly curious.

“This isn’t the way. Hey, asshole, where are you going? Knoxville’s that way!” Tish presses so hard against the wire bars that I wonder if they’ll leave impressions in her skin.

“What is wrong with you? Do you need a map?”

The men ignore her, and the landscape grows increasingly barren. We still ride open sections between the trees, so I figure we travel over a road, that or train tracks. Someone in the old days used this, perhaps every day. But there are no tracks now. I have no idea where we are.

They stop in the middle of what could once have been a crossroads. Both men dismount.

“Last stop for you ladies,” one of them says. The men look the same to me.

One approaches Tish’s cage, unlocks it, and yanks her out. She hisses like a cat and bites him, and he smacks her to the ground, then hauls her back to her knees.

“You’re not going to Knoxville,” he snarls. “You never were.”

“Mom,” I croak, and the other one, the one not battering my sister, flicks me a glance. For a moment I think I see pity, but then his expression shuts down.

I want my mother so badly right now I imagine her here with me. She’s holding my head in her lap. She’s stroking the hair back from my face.

But I have no hair.

“What do you mean we’re not going to Knoxville?” Tish loses her defiance, and panic laces her words.

The one who smacked her sneers. “You didn’t think they’d actually let you go, did you? I guess it’s hard to kill the woman you just fucked. The colonel couldn’t manage it, so he sent us to finish the job.”

“Kent.” The final betrayal. My voice is barely a crackle. I’m on my stomach, gripping the cage with frozen fingers. The pity guy unholsters his sidearm as the first man struggles with my sister.

“Tish!” It’s not a scream. It’s a cry for mercy; it’s agony; it’s the last of my soul. But my voice is gone, and nothing comes out.

The pity guy waits for the first soldier to subdue my sister, which he does by punching her in the stomach. Tish doubles over with a grunt.

A gun goes off, and a splatter of blood hits me. I squeeze my eyes shut.

Another gunshot. I wait for the pain, but I don’t feel anything but cold. Cold.

I flick my eyes open when I hear Tish heaving, scrambling to her feet. The soldiers lay splayed on the ground with rivers of crimson staining the snow around them. I spot a half-dozen armed men, scraggly and dangerous looking, closing in on my sister. Tish scrambles to her feet and tries to run, but a guy with a man bun and a beard scoops her up and tosses her to a companion.

Tish struggles, but this time there is no profanity.

The bearded guy approaches my cage and kneels. He grips the wires of my cell. Up close he’s not that bad. Eyes of sapphire blue are framed by long lashes, and although his eyes are hard, I don’t see cruelty.

I shiver. Tish is not dead. She’s not dead. Kent hasn’t managed to kill her.

“Who are you?” he asks. I try to think.

“Don’t you touch her! Don’t you fucking touch her!” There’s my Tish.

I lay my head against the floor of the cage and cuddle the blanket. I manage to lift the corners of my lips. “My sister will always land on her feet,” I croak. “She’s strong. She’s got spirit.”

“Grit is good.” He cocks his head and eyes my wounds, my semifrozen state. He frowns.

I can’t walk, and even if those soldiers hadn’t pulled over, I don’t think I would have survived long. My fingers burn, and numbness has set in everywhere else. I can’t even feel my feet. Maybe if they’d given me socks…

I use the last of my strength to reach out and pass my hand over his. “It’s okay. It’s better this way.”

He sighs, nods sharply and gets to his feet.

“What are you doing? You can’t leave her like that. She’ll die!”

He swings my sister up over his shoulder, which is a good thing because she doesn’t have shoes either and her back is just as bad as mine. They tromp into the woods, and my sister’s cries slowly fade into the distance.

Two days ago my worst problem was feeling a little self-conscious. One day ago I was locked in my room. Today I’m going to die.

My wounds no longer hurt. I’m thankful for the cold. So thankful. In my mind I imagine antlered deer and spotted fawns grazing in a field. There’s a rabbit chewing on clover, and a medley of birdsong blesses them all. Kent holds me. He tells me he loves me, and the sun shines on my face.

It’s too bright, and it hurts my eyes. I blink. I try to speak, but I can’t. The sun goes out, and all I see is a broad smile revealing perfect white teeth.

It tastes like chicken. The lukewarm broth slides down my throat, and another spoonful appears in its place. “One more. Just one more.”

I open my mouth, and in pops the spoon. I swallow. “That’s it. You did it. You took the whole bowl today.”

I blink. There’s a middle-aged man seated across the table from me. The smile he wears is anxious, and I don’t blame him. “Where am I?” I ask.

His smile is not unkind. “You ask that same question every day. You’ve been with us several weeks.”

“How can that be?” But I feel blank. I feel missing.

The woman at the stove stirs something foul smelling. “You came to us with some pretty serious wounds. It’s time for your salve. Are you ready?”

She eyes me like I might have a fit. Weeks? Just how injured am I? I look for a window, and the movement pulls on tender spots I didn’t know I had. I grimace. “Will it hurt?”

The woman cocks her head. “Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on whether you’ve opened up your wounds.”

I allow her to lead me into a side room where she’s laid out a towel. “You’ll need to take your top off, dear.”

I gasp and my heart begins to race. I clamp the shirt to my chest.

“We haven’t hurt you yet. It’s up to you, dear.”

But I can’t, and I stand there, hesitating. The woman holds her hands out as though undressing me is an old drill. I blink at her, then raise my hands.

She lifts the long-sleeved knit shirt over my head, and I cross my arms over my breasts. She sets my top on the hope chest at the foot of the bed and gestures to the towel. “Just lie face down on that. I’ll take care of the rest.”

The towel is a faded green. Green isn’t bad. I do as she says. I turn my face to the side so I can breathe.

“Can you tell me your name?” she asks as she spreads the first of the salve over my upper back. I cringe when she presses too hard. I don’t answer but this doesn’t seem to bother her. She spreads the stink across the middle, then grabs a thick gob in her hand and traces it ever so lightly across the small of my back.

Ayden. Nico.

Kent.

I cry softly because I remember now.

The woman pats my head with her non-sticky hand. “You’ll be okay. It’s like this every day.”

I shake with horror as I reach back and trace the scarred flesh of my back. I know burn scars when I feel them. I know them because Kent… “What is it?” I ask.

“It’s a burn.”

“I saw her. She wrote something on her back.”

“Whose back?”

“What does mine say?”

There’s a long pause. “Whore.”

Whore. A good name for a girl who let herself be sold.

I shake, remembering my time with him. I’ll never see him again. Who will take care of me now? Who will put me back together, and who will keep me safe? The woman continues to speak, but I close my eyes. A short time later, Mister and Missus take me outside. They’ve told me their names, but I’ve already forgotten them. Things like names make sense for a while, and then they don’t. Mister takes one arm and Missus takes the other, and they walk me down the long, compressed snow street that stands between a triple-thick row of cabins. People stop and stare as I pass. One girl comes through her door just as we’re passing, and she too stops to stare. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Long, thick golden hair, angelic face; who does she remind me of? I can’t remember. I touch my own head and find it soft with new-grown fuzz. Mister nudges me, and we continue on to the end of the street, then around and back to their house, a one-story log cabin with a single bedroom at the back. It’s quiet here.

It would be quieter if I could stop the screams inside my head.

~ ~ ~

Peace is fleeting. You think with absolute certainty that if you follow the rules, your life will turn out exactly as it should. You think you find your place in life, and then it’s gone. I thought all I had to do was make him happy and he’d take care of the rest. It’s what he told me. I gloried in every little task, believing I was bringing a better life to him and, in turn, to myself. Maybe if I’d done a better job, he’d have believed me when I said I couldn’t possibly hurt him. I wrapped myself around him, in him, gave myself over to him completely, but he’s gone anyway.

What’s left?

I’m still in a fog. People blend together. I’m never quite sure who it is I’m talking to. I do try to fit in, but when I attempt to build a fire, nothing catches. I can’t cook a meal, I can’t clean the fireplace without making a mess, and I’m too weak to shovel snow. I’m useless.

I rarely speak, and after a while no one meets my eyes anymore—no one but that one girl, the pretty one with the blonde curls. She looks like some sort of medieval lady, all regal and proud but not snotty. Just sure of who she is and why you should respect her. In my head I’ve started calling her Lucrezia after a girl in a show I watched about a medieval pope’s family. She’s the only one who looks me in the eye and smiles. The rest, I know what they’re thinking; they should have left me there to die.

They’re right.

After a time I no longer get out of bed. Missus allows this for a couple days. One morning she sits on my “bed,” which is actually their couch. “You know, honey, there’s a good hospital in Asheville. They have real doctors there. We’re thinking of taking you. You’d get much better treat—”

I bolt upright as panic grabs my lungs and squeezes. “No! No! No, no! I can’t I can’t I can’t!” I claw at her, and she recoils. “Please don’t send me there. I can’t—” I clutch my hands over my face and sob.

She pats me like I’m a dog she’s not sure about. “Okay. All right. It’s just a suggestion. You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to go. Okay?”

I nod, still trembling, still squeezing my eyes tight. I can’t go back there. God knows what they’ll do to me if they ever find me.

That night I get up to use the compost toilet. I’m just short of the back bedroom when I hear Mister speak.

“She can’t stay here anymore.”

The wife sighs. “I know.”

“We don’t know what she’s capable of. What if she harms one of the children?”

I clap a hand over my heart. I would never!

“I don’t think she would.” But there’s hesitation in Missus’s voice.

“You don’t know that.”

Shock holds me rigid, but only for a moment. I return to the couch and pull the covers up high. I’m dangerous. I’m crazy and they’re afraid of me. The monster.

The following morning I get up and leave before breakfast. I don’t want them to see me. I don’t want them to look at me and think whore. Crazy lady. Instead I hide in the shed behind their house where no one can watch me. I return after dinner, and when they ask me where I’ve been, I do my best to smile.

“Walking,” I tell them.

It’s the same the next morning, and the next. Always I tell them I’ve been walking.

It’s a lie, and we all know it. I am a drain on their resources. I am as useless to them as I’ve been to every person who ever mattered to me.

I’m washing my face in the bathroom one evening when Missus pokes her head in. “Honey, have you remembered your name yet?”

My name is a curse. I shake my head.

“Do you have any idea where you’re from? Not Asheville, I know. Bluefield, maybe? Knoxville?”