After (43 page)

She emerges from behind Baldwyn's towering body, a skein of her hair wrapped so tight around his fist that she can't hold her head straight, her eyes clear and focused.

Not one tear has touched her cheek. Riggs's jaw flexes convulsively.

“Maybe you heard us talking,” Lott says, his smile, his gaze different now that he's addressing Hope, rather than Riggs. “I was just telling your friend James how he surprised me, tonight. Not fucking you. I wonder if it surprised you some, too.”

No blush. No change of expression. Hope just keeps her green eyes focused on Lott's.

“Don't think you can keep me from my pleasure, little faerie, by playing the deaf-mute with me. I know you hear me. That what I said provokes you. And if you leave me too curious as to how, I have other ways of finding out.”

Lott seems to forget about Hope, then, and looks down at the baby on his knee, looking up at him, his only expression one of curiosity.

Lott laughs. “This is the quietest goddamned baby I ever saw. He ever cry?” No one answers. “Have you noticed, Riggs, how the little guy looks just exactly like John?”

At this, Riggs winces.

“Well, you knew, right? I don't figure I'm telling you anything new. No way anyone could look at the kid and not see John in him. All the more reason you won't be playin'

Daddy anymore, anything ever happens to Eva. How do you suppose her labor's going?

Taking a long while this time, isn't it? She popped this one out in record time.”

Riggs is shaking, now, like he's palsied. Lott gives him a conspiratorial grin.

“But we were talking about you and Hope, anyways. So, why is it, when you got her here, alone with you in your room—except for this little guy, I mean—you didn't part her virgin thighs and make a woman of her?”

Hope's cheeks remain snow-white, but Riggs blushes crimson.

“You staying quiet on this won't do you no good, Riggs. That pretty blush gives you dead away. You thought about it. Truth is, you've thought about it, over and over, since the day Nichols and Hutchinson turned up with her. Isn't that right?”

Riggs turns to Hope. Turns his head back and forth, over and over. “No.”

“You big faker,” Lott laughs. “Nothin' to be so coy about. Way this girl looks at you with her big cow eyes, it's easy to see she's thought it, too. I'd bet you my stripes, first time she lied there under her covers and rubbed her hand between her thighs, it was you she thought of.”

Now a delicate rose hue tints Hope's cheeks.

“You love your Uncle James, don't you Hope?” Lott asks her.

She doesn't acknowledge Lott. But she gives Riggs a faint smile.

“I wonder, Hope, did anyone ever tell you how your Uncle James and Eva first met?” Riggs stays dead still. “You suppose she knows the story, Riggs?”

Silence.

“When I ask you a direct question, Riggs, I want you to answer me. You suppose she knows the story?”

“No.”

“Funny, Smith not telling her, just to put her off you. I think he actually hates you more than he does me.” Lott takes a moment. Looks at Hope. Looks at Riggs. “You tell her, James. What happened in that orchard, the day Eva came here to the base.”

Riggs doesn't plead or resist. He just looks at Hope and starts talking, tears rolling down his face.

“Me and Baldwyn here, and Nichols were just outside the wall, heading for the apple orchard,” he says, his voice rough and low. “And we saw her. The three of us. It was winter and she was all bundled up in this big jacket. It was hard to tell, from where we were, if it was a man or a woman, or, when we got closer, how old she was. If she was a woman, or just a kid.

“We spread out in formation. And I caught her.” Riggs looks like he's steeling himself. Taking a breath. Steadying his gaze to meet Hope's. “I was going to rape her.

We all were. The three of us. I got to her first, and I knocked her down, and started ripping her clothes. Nichols got scared and ran off, and Baldwyn here chased him down and brought him back. And I was gonna make him do it, when me and Baldwyn were done. But before anything really happened, John showed up. He saved her. Saved her from us. From me.”

Hope pales. Quivers. But she doesn't cry.

“Now, tell her what you done to Evan and Diego. And what you done to Jake.”

Tears rolling down his face, Riggs tells her. How they made Evan rape Diego.

How, after, they all raped Evan in front of Diego. What he and all the others did to Jake.

Now Hope is sobbing. Behind her, his fist still wound into her hair, Baldwyn's mouth is an amused smile.

“You see, Hope?” Lott says. “Riggs isn't what you been thinking, all this time. He likes to pretend he's like John. Like the Major. But he isn't. He's really just like Baldwyn, here. Like me.”

Lott levels his gaze with Baldwyn's. Grins. “Let go of her.”

Baldwyn lets the rein of copper hair fall from his grip.

“You're upset, honey,” Lott says to Hope. “If you want to go to your Uncle James for a hug, it's okay with me.”

Hope takes a couple steps away from Baldwyn, who's kept himself pressed against her for the last fifteen minutes. But then she stops. Stands there, alone, at the center of the three men, quietly crying.

“So scared. So vulnerable. And she'd rather stand there by herself than let you touch her,” Lott says to Riggs. “But you'd like to touch her, wouldn't you?”

Looking at her, Riggs says, “I've never wanted to hurt you, Hope. I never wanted to do anything bad to you. I swear.”

“I think maybe we'll let you go first, Riggs. Let you pluck that ripe little cherry.

That won't interfere none with what Baldwyn's been pining for, all this time. And you know me. I'm not so particular about the wheres and hows. Its mostly just her little soul I'm most interested in poking around in.”

“You're crazy,” Riggs's voice shudders. “You know what Smith and John'll do to you if they catch you in here?”

Lott grins. “Nobody'll do a damned thing to me while I've got hold of Eva's baby.”

“I won't touch her,” Riggs says, leveling a determined gaze at Lott. But his voice is thin as air.

“Why not?” Lott laughs. “You got nothing to lose. One way or another, after tonight, you'll never see anything but hate and fear when you look into her eyes. After tonight, your two choices are gonna be to run as far from this base as you can get, or to get lynched by every person on this base, led by John and the Major. Cause there's only one person on this base who'd believe you didn't take her, first chance you got. When they see what's been done to her, every single soldier on this base—never mind the Major and John—is gonna be fightin' for the privilege of being the one to castrate you.”

“I don't care. I won't touch her.”

“I wonder, Riggs. I wonder who you love more. That faerie, there, who's maybe the only person that's ever shown you pure love and trust, not tainted by old hate and fear. Or little Gareth, here. Who you love like a son, even though he isn't yours.”

Riggs just sits there, crying, looking from Hope to Gareth to Lott.

“Go on, now. Get Hope over there on the bed.”

“Go to hell!”

“You do what I tell you, Riggs. No questions. And no sudden moves. Cause from now on, if you do anything I don't like, if you don't do like I tell you,” Lott raises one of Gareth's arms and grips one tiny pinky between his thumb and forefinger, “I'm gonna snap one of these delicate little bones in two. Starting with this wee little pinky, here.

Just to show I'm serious. Second time you anger me, I'm gonna cripple this chubby little arm.”

Riggs' jaw drops open. He stands there, gasping, looking like his whole body will crumple to nothing.

“Now,” Lott says, “get Hope on the bed.”

Except for shaking, it looks like Riggs is frozen. Incapable of moving. But Hope moves. Steps up close to Riggs, until their bodies are pressed together. Takes his hand, touches his cheek.

Opens her mouth.

“Don't be sad. I'm not scared.”

“Well, my, my, my. The little faerie speaks!” Lott exults at the sound of her first words, as if he's just discovered he can do magic.

It's Hope who leads Riggs to the bed. Who sits him on the edge of the mattress, who steps close, between his knees. It's Hope who brings her mouth to his, who touches his lips with hers. Who makes the kiss deep, while he goes on crying.

“I've always wanted it to be you, my first time,” she says to Riggs, her soft voice melodious, like distant song. “Don't be scared.”

Then she gives him a smile—full, radiant. It even brightens her green eyes, as if they are lit from behind. The smile, her look, work on Riggs like a drug, calming and cooling him. He goes almost lax.

“No,” Lott says, cold and firm. “On second thought, maybe Baldwyn should go first. I'm afraid this little bedtime story is getting so dull it's going to put all of us to sleep.

Don't fret, Riggs. He'll get her in the proper mood for you. Go back and take your seat.”

But Riggs won't let go of Hope's hand.

“Please. Don't let him hurt Gareth. I'll be okay,” Hope lilts.

Hope practically pulls Riggs up from the bed and sends him off, toward his chair.

As Riggs crumples onto his seat, Baldwyn moves on Hope, hard and sudden, like he's going into combat. Riggs sobs out loud as Baldwyn brutally knocks Hope onto the bed, twists her around, yanks her up onto her hands and knees. He catches a wad of hair in his fist and wrenches her head back and breathes something into her ear, too quiet for the others to hear. Something—the pain of him yanking her hair, or whatever he whispered—makes tears well and spill down Hope's cheeks.

“Please,” she gasps, “I don't want him to see.”

Lott asks, “Who? Riggs? It's nothing he ain't seen before.”

“No. Gareth.”

“Ah,” Lott grins. “You afraid of tarnishing the little guy's innocence?” Lott hoists the baby up to eye-level and peers into his big, gray, wondering gaze. “Well, I'm willing to honor such a humble request. But,” he says, rising from his seat by the window and moving alongside the bed, settling on his haunches just beside where Baldwyn has her face pressed to the mattress, “personally, I prefer this view. Where I can watch everything that happens behind those jeweled eyes of yours.”

Lott plunks baby Gareth down on the edge of the mattress, his back to Hope and Baldwyn. When he needs his hands for other things, Baldwyn lets go of the rope of hair he'd been using to pin her down.

“Keep your eyes here with me, Hope,” Lott says almost seductively, his breath coming faster, now. “I want to see every second of what's about to happen, every touch in those green eyes.”

Hope does what he's asked. Locks her gaze on his. Steady.

Lott grins. “Little darling, you're something else.” He touches her cheek. Her lips.

Behind her, there's the scrape of a zipper opening.

Still holding Lott's gaze, in a clear, high voice, like the note of a flute, Hope calls,

“James!”

That same second, Hope swings her arm out, sweeps it back, pulls little Gareth under her, collapses down over him, making her body, her arms and legs and head a shell around him. She stays still and hard as Baldwyn punches her hard in the side and tears at her hair, trying to hoist her up off the baby. She stays rigid, a hard little ball, as Lott tries to wrench her arm aside.

Riggs is up. He grasps Baldwyn in his two massive paws, tears him off of Hope, kicks him hard in the knee, hurls him to the floor. Then he leaps on Lott and flings him against the wall as if he were made of straw. Lott sinks into a crumpled heap, and Riggs goes back for Baldwyn as he's struggling to his feet, kicks him hard in the face. Again.

Again. Stomps down on his gut with his jack-booted foot.

The sound of glass shattering.

Hope springs up, gets Gareth into his crib. Then stands sentinel.

Riggs throws a glance over his shoulder. Lott is still crumpled against the wall.

Hope and Gareth are safe. He sobs down at the man under his boot, “I told you, if you ever touched her, I'd kill you.” His knee levers up, his foot hovers over Baldwyn's chest.

But then he sets his foot back on the floor. Looks back at Hope.

Grave, still, Hope says, “Yes. Kill him.”

The knee levers, the foot rises, then comes down, sinking down between ribs and pelvis, up and down again, cracking ribs, up and down again, shattering the sternum, up and down again, fracturing the jaw, breaking teeth.

“Die, you fucking monster!” Riggs screams, tears dropping into blood, his black boot a sticky dark red.

And then he turns, looks. A broken whimper creaks out of him.

Hope is pinned between Lott and the crib, her green eyes wide with shock, her pale face, her hair, her lips, her arms all flecked with blood.

Riggs leaps, pulls Lott back. Doesn't even turn to deal with him. All he sees, knows, is Hope. Blood-spattered.

Hyperventilating, sobbing, he roams over her, every inch of her with his eyes, searching her up and down, running his hands over her face, her neck, her arms, smearing her in streaks of red. Lifts her right hand, drenched, coated, clutching a jagged shard of glass. He turns.

Lott is standing, his fair complexion waxen white, thick blood surging between his fingers, every beat of his heart pumping a fresh flood from his artery. His knees, his hips collapse; he sinks to the floor, folds in three. He looks like he's in prayer.

Riggs glances at Gareth, standing in his crib, looking back at him, unharmed. Not even crying, after all that. Just flecked, here and there, with Lott's blood. Then Riggs puts his arms around Hope, pulls her to him. Holds her. Strokes her hair.

Whispers, “You're all right, Hope. You're all right. Promise. They can't hurt you now. You're safe.”

She lets him hold her. She doesn't hug him back. She doesn't cry. She just stands there, staring down at the bodies on the floor.

He sets her away from him. Searches her eyes. Glances over her, down, up once more.

“Are you cut? Hurt anywhere?”

Her fingers are bleeding. Cut on the shard of glass she has used to kill Lott. She holds out her hand. Shows Riggs.

“Okay,” he breathes. “Here. Let's get you fixed up.”