“Step right this way, little buddy,” he called to me.
As I walked toward him, I saw that Connie still lay sprawled on the bottom of her cage.
Knocked out or faking? I wondered.
Hope she split her head open, I thought.
The next cage over, Kimberly stood at her bars, watching me. Her raised hands clutched the bars to either side of her head. She didn’t try to cover herself. Maybe she thought I couldn’t really see her. I could, though. She was much closer to the torch than Connie. The air in which she stood seemed to be tinted with its dim, hazy glow. She looked almost distinct, but veiled. As if draped with a shroud of wispy black fabric that revealed her, but cloaked her with darkness.
I could actually recognize her face. I could see the entire front of her body—ribcage and breasts, the dark coins of her nipples, all the long slender way down past the dot of her navel, the hollows slanting down and inward from her hips to the smooth mound between the tops of her legs, and then her legs, parted and slim and sturdy. All visible, but darkly veiled.
All wounded. In spite of the murky light, I saw dark places where her skin should’ve been unblemished. I saw smudges, stains, patterns of narrow marks and stripes.
My throat turned thick and tight because of how she’d been hurt. I felt my eyes sting. At the same time, heat surged through me. It made me feel ashamed, but I couldn’t help it.
“Don’t let him get you,” Kimberly said as I walked by, staring at her. “If he gets you…”
“Shut up, down there!” Wesley called.
“… he gets you, we’re all sunk.”
“Hey!”
“Kill him, Rupert.”
“I’ll try.”
“One more word and momma-bear’s going up in flames!”
Kimberly’s right hand slipped sideways between the bars. She raised two fingers.
I don’t think she meant it to be the peace sign from the bygone days of the hippies.
I think she meant it to be Winston Churchill’s V.
Hell, I know that’s what it was. A Navy brat like her, Andrew’s daughter, descended from a Sioux warrior, tough and proud.
V for Victory.
“Keep coming,” Wesley told me.
I gave Kimberly a nod, and walked on past the end of her cage. Up top, a ladder crossed the open space between her cage and Billie’s. Just as the twins had said.
The ladder was extended to a length of about fifteen feet. Five or six feet at its middle bridged the gap. The rest of it overlapped the tops of the cages, maybe five feet on each side.
Wesley was standing away from the ladder, more toward the middle of Billie’s cage. Near his feet, I saw the gasoline can and a cardboard box.
The box that held his “bombardier” goodies.
“Okay,” he said. “Stop right there.”
I stopped.
Billie stood almost directly beneath him, well-lit by his torch. The light wavered and shimmied on her body as if she was underwater. Her skin, copper in the shifting glow, gleamed with wetness.
The gasoline.
Her short hair was drenched, matted to her skull in tight golden coils.
Again, the gasoline.
And gasoline darkened the concrete under her bare feet. It had spread out around her, forming a shallow and lopsided puddle in the middle of her cage.
When I looked up from the puddle, she gave me a shrug.
Like a little girl who’d peed on the floor, couldn’t help it, and was left embarrassed and resigned.
Why was she standing in the middle of the gas?
Wesley’s orders, I supposed.
He must’ve commanded her to stand still while he poured the gasoline onto her head, while it ran down her body and made the puddle. Then he’d ordered her to remain standing in the same place.
Move a muscle, and I’ll torch you.
And I had no bucket of water for her. Because I’d stayed too long with Erin and Alice, because of Erin’s hand on my leg.
And because of Connie’s roaring jealousy.
I should’ve had the water for Billie.
Her toilet bucket was off in a rear corner of her cage, upside-down. Apparently, she’d been using it as a seat. Obviously, it had nothing in it.
She’s gonna burn!
I could think of only one way to save her: stop Wesley from setting the gas on fire.
“Look at you, look at you,” he said. “You’ve gone quite native.”
“What do you want?”
“My first order of business is to neutralize you, don’t you think?”
“I’ll do anything you say,” I told him.
“Excellent. Drop your weapons.”
“Don’t,” Billie said, her voice firm and clear. “You’re the only chance we’ve got.”
“Shut up, Billie darling.”
“He’ll burn you,” I said.
“Let him.”
“No, I can’t.”
Above her, Wesley bent over. He reached into the cardboard box with his left hand, and came up with a paperback book. He lifted it by a comer of its front cover, so that the book hung open. Then he lowered the torch and held its flame beneath the pages.
“No!” I shouted.
Fire crawled up the book.
“Don’t do it!”
I threw down my spear and machete.
Wesley tossed the book underhand. It tumbled through the night, blazing. And dropped onto the grass near my feet.
“That was sure a close call,” he announced.
“Fucking bastard,” I said, stomping out the flames.
“Oooo, such language! You’ve been listening to Connie. A very bad influence, that girl.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Let me see. What do I want? I want you to step into your new accommodation, over there.” Swinging his torch, he pointed out the empty cage beside Billie’s cage. “Step right in and shut the door.”
With my first step in that direction, Billie gasped, “No! Rupert, you can’t honey. If he locks you up…”
“I’m not gonna let him burn you.”
“Very wise, little buddy.”
“You have to take him down,” she said.
“Shut up with that kind of talk, bitch! I’ll cook your cunt right now!”
Ignoring him, staring me in the eyes, Billie said, “Kill Wesley. At least maybe you’ll be able to save the others. Let him burn me, but kill him.”
“You asked for it!” Wesley yelled. He bent down and reached into the cardboard box.
“Wait!” I blurted. “Wait a minute!”
He looked at me.
“If you burn her up, you won’t have her to mess with anymore.”
He grinned. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“You get turned on by her pain, don’t you? If she’s dead, she won’t even feel what you do to her. She won’t flinch or cry out or bleed or anything. It won’t matter how hard you whip her, or…”
“Who needs her?” Wesley asked. Even as he said it, though, he took his arm out of the box, no book in his hand, and stood up. “I’ve got all the rest of them. And there’ll be plenty more, once they start having babies for me.” Grinning, he shook his head. “Good old Thelma, she always wanted babies. God save us all. Can you picture it? What if they came out looking like her? Who’d want ’em? Wouldn’t be good for shit, girls ugly as that.”
“Billie’ll have beautiful babies,” I said. “Just look at Connie. That’s proof of how her babies will look. And you want to burn her up? Are you nuts?”
“You’ve got a point there, little buddy. I tell you what, go on and step into that cage, and maybe we can give her a stay of execution.”
“Okay.”
“Wait,” Kimberly said. “What happened to Thelma? Where is she?”
Wesley let out a harsh laugh. “Gosh! I forgot to ask! How’s my Thelma? I sure hope you didn’t hurt my dear, sweet little wife.”