The Priest (17 page)

The captain’s hand never completed the act
of pressing Arias’ fingers on the trigger. A rock landed heavily on
her head before she could shoot. The woman emitted a choking sound
and fell to the ground. Leander emerged from the darkness behind
her, looking aghast. He was staring at the pool of blood seeping
from the captain’s motionless body. Heedless of his surroundings,
he didn’t notice the guards coming at him from the side.

“Leander, watch out!” Mauricio barely had
time to say it before one of the guards struck the young man with
the butt of her gun. Leander fell facedown in the blood.

“Stay down.” The guard gave Leander a kick
for good measure. She was hysterical. The rest of the women stood
still, uncertain of what to do with the President’s daughter. Not
one of them dared aim her gun at Rosie.

“I need help here.” The guard who had struck
Leander repeated the message several times on her radio. Once she
was certain that someone had received it and that the slave wasn’t
going to stand up any time soon, she turned toward her captain. She
mumbled something under her breath that sounded like a prayer, and
then she gingerly touched the captain’s arm. One of the other women
asked her if the captain was alive.

“I can’t feel her pulse… no wait… yes, she’s
breathing.” The guard exhaled loudly. Several other comments of
relief followed from the side.

The harsh sound of tires quickly stopping on
the gravel made all those present turn around immediately. The
guard stood, ready to confront the newcomers. A car skidded to a
halt before the upside down van.

“Identify yourself, recruit.” A woman in her
sixties with a deep voice and a large gun positioned to fire walked
toward the group composed of four bodies on the ground, one woman
standing and three other women looking like beaten dogs.

“I am Cadet Byne, Colonel,” the guard
whispered and let her gun fall as she raised her once-armed hand to
salute the higher-ranking woman.

Leander’s arm shot out in the direction of
the gun, but the older woman was faster and snatched it without any
effort, kicking him in the face as an afterthought. Then she
commanded the cadet to recount what had happened. When she was
satisfied with the tale, she dismissed the younger woman as utterly
incompetent. Without breaking eye contact with the group, she
stepped back, reached her car, and talked to someone inside. She
waited until the women got out and retraced her steps, while aiming
both guns at the slaves.

“Look who’s here. My mothers’ infamous and
efficient publicist.” Rosie, who had kept silent the whole time,
spoke calmly, as if resigned. “Have you come to fix things as
usual?” she asked.

“I think that you actually like it.
Otherwise, why else would you be such a pain in my ass?” A woman
wearing a business suit glared at Rosie and then turned around to
speak to the colonel.

“Nobody here saw anything. Is that
understood, Colonel? Invent some night drill and put it on paper.
I’ll sign it,” the business suit said.

“Not so fast, Bruna. I won’t let you get
away with whatever you’re planning.” Rosie moved to face her, still
shielding Mauricio.

“What is it now? Getting pregnant wasn’t
enough fun for you? You needed to transgress some more? You really
want to end your mother’s career, don’t you?” Bruna flattened a
wrinkle on her skirt. “You had to choose perversion as your new
hobby. What about the usual: drugs, gambling, and cheating on your
tests, like every other good society girl? No, that was too much to
ask. But, I almost admire you. You went beyond any expectations I
had. You have outdone yourself this time. Congratulations. Now,
shut up and let me clean up your mess. As usual.”

“Where are my mothers?” Rosie asked.

“I wasn’t going to wake them up for
this
!” Bruna pointed a finger at the slaves and looked
utterly disgusted. “You’ve already aged them twenty years with all
the shenanigans you’ve put them through.” She looked at Rosie with
pure contempt. “We are going to deal with this situation quietly.
And you are going to collaborate with me.”

Mauricio, after a sudden moment of clarity,
used all the energy he had left to slowly stand up and step outside
of Rosie’s shield.

“Don’t!” She followed him and automatically
started rearranging her position to protect him.

Mauricio squeezed her arm gently and stopped
her where she was. “It’s okay. You have done more for me than I
could’ve possibly asked any other human being to do. I am grateful
I lived long enough to get to know you,” he whispered to her and
then moved aside to expose himself completely.

The colonel took advantage of Rosie’s
momentary confusion. The older woman rested one of her guns on
Mauricio’s temple and cocked it. Rosie flinched at the sound.

“Don’t shoot him,” Rosie cried and fell to
her knees. “I beg you, please don’t shoot him.”

Rosie, no…

“You are pathetic.” Bruna marched toward
Rosie and pulled her up. “Colonel, kill him and the other two
slaves and then clean up this mess.”

“Listen to me! If you touch him with even
one finger, I’ll let the whole world know what I learned about the
sementals…” Rosie let the sentence dangle, unfinished.

“Don’t listen to what she is saying. She is
clearly in shock and in need of psychiatric assistance. The poor
thing won’t even be able to raise her own child,” Bruna said,
slowly looking around. “You are going to spend the rest of your
life locked up, as I wisely suggested a long time ago. Finally,
your mothers will listen to me,” she added in a lower voice, meant
to be heard only by Rosie.

“Bruna, I can start talking now. I can tell
you exactly what happens at the Temple, where all the pure breeds
go to have their children. Do you have kids, Colonel? Maybe you are
interested in hearing a fascinating tale. Or maybe you already
know… Do you, Colonel?” Rosie had managed to free herself from the
publicist’s tight grip on her arm.

“Rosie, you are playing a dangerous game,”
Bruna cautioned her.

“Am I, Bruna? Maybe you’re the one who
doesn’t know about the incognito—”

“Stop there, Rosie. You don’t know what you
are doing.”

“You won’t intimidate me. I’ll go with these
men, and you’ll let me take your car. As long as you don’t come
after me, I won’t say a word.” Rosie moved closer to Mauricio and
put a hand on the gun still pressing against his skin. The colonel
flinched at Rosie’s gesture.

“Move the gun, now,” Rosie said to the
colonel, who was trying to decide whose orders to follow.

Mauricio could see from the colonel’s
indecision that she had no clue what Rosie was talking about. But
Bruna did.
It’s written all over your ugly face
.

“Bruna, I am not bluffing. Tell the colonel
I’m dead serious,” Rosie said, trying to press the gun away from
Mauricio’s body. The colonel was now looking anxiously at the
publicist.

“Rosie, think for once in your life. Think
for Heavens' sake! He’s just a slave! Why do you want to ruin your
life for… something less valuable than an animal?” Bruna was
furious. She spat the words while walking closer to Rosie.

“Stay where you are. I think it’s story
time. Sit down and relax; it’s going to take a while to explain
everything.” Rosie raised one outstretched hand, but the publicist
wasn’t impressed by the gesture; the woman simply stared at Rosie
with an unreadable look on her face and then turned her head toward
the colonel.

“Shoot her as well,” Bruna commanded the
colonel, who stared back in shock. The night became preternaturally
silent and still.

“I don’t think I understand—” the older
woman said after a long pause, but Rosie interrupted her.

“You do realize that she can’t get away with
killing me without killing everybody else here.” Rosie was talking
directly to the colonel now. “She can’t risk it. She can’t have a
full investigation with all of you alive. Sooner or later, someone
could talk,” she added when she saw the colonel’s arm falter
slightly. “She will ask you to kill all the guards, and then she is
going to get rid of you. Maybe not tonight. Probably not tomorrow.
She’ll still need you to confirm her story, at least for a few
months. But your days are numbered if you kill me. I am your life
insurance policy. If you don’t shoot me or the slaves, you have my
promise that if anything happens to you, I am going to talk.” She
tried to reason with the colonel. Meanwhile, several guards had
gathered around them and watched intently.

“Don’t listen to her. I only want to protect
the President from a scandal that could end her career,” Bruna
interjected.

“It’s not just about my mother’s career. You
want to shut my mouth because what I know will destroy your
precious Ginecean status quo. And you don’t want that. You have
influenced my mother’s political decisions for so long that you
can’t lose it now. But you were in too much of a rush, Bruna. You
shouldn’t have asked the colonel to kill me. That was a
mistake.”

Mauricio looked around to see how many
guards were there, waiting for an order.

“Do you think that any of you can get away
with killing the President’s daughter?” Rosie asked the closest
guard. The woman looked away immediately.

“My mothers won’t rest until they have
discovered what happened to me,” Rosie pressed her point.

“But you see, sweetheart, I’ll be the one
directing the operation,” Bruna said.

“Exactly. Think—” Rosie put one finger on
her temple and looked around to see the reaction on the other
women’s faces. “—think about what she just said.
She
will be
the one supervising that nothing, absolutely nothing, comes out.
And the only way to assure it is to make sure that nobody is left
to contradict her.” Rosie locked her eyes on the colonel.

Soft murmurs started to fill the
silence.

“She’s right. Colonel, she’s right!” the
woman standing guard over Captain Reece said. Another agreed
loudly. The guards who didn’t talk nodded nervously. The colonel
slowly retracted her hand.

Mauricio started breathing again.

“You are making a huge mistake, Colonel,”
Bruna hissed and was going to say something else, but an idea
crossed her mind and she acted on it before anybody could do
anything to stop her. She attacked the guard who had just spoken,
took her gun, and shot the captain. Then, before the guard could
react, Bruna shot her as well.

What the—

“Now, who’s next? You, Colonel? Or you,
Rosie? Anyone going to argue with me now? No? I didn’t think so.
What I think is that the slave here took the gun from the heroic
guard who was trying to save her captain. The slave shot them both
and then, when he saw that there was no way out of it, he shot
himself as well. Yes, that’s how it went. You, Colonel, arrived
just a second too late, but in time to save the rest of the troop.
You, Rosie, will be too traumatized to be reacquainted with
society. Your ticket for the Mental Illness Center has been ready
for a while. I am not sure that you kept the baby, unfortunately.
Actually, you were never pregnant. A therapy based on a series of
electroshocks will eventually cure your memory. If you didn’t die
in the carnage tonight, of course. That’s something I have yet to
decide,” she said without blinking once.

“I’ll confess to every single crime you want
to accuse me of, and I’ll gladly die for something I never did if
you leave Rosie and the baby alone.” Mauricio was already on his
knees. “I’ll be your scapegoat. Just let her have a normal
life.”

“How dare you talk to me?” Bruna pointed the
gun at him.

“You should listen to what the slave is
proposing,” one guard whispered.

“If the slave is accused of what happened
here, we’re all off the hook,” another found the courage to
add.

“He’s a fugitive already, along with the
other two. If we pin everything on him, nobody is going to
investigate further. He’ll be executed, and we’re not going to
reveal anything about tonight. It’s in our interest to keep our
mouths shut,” the guard who had spoken first, who had been
reassured by the other heads nodding in unison, added.

“Maybe you should at least consider what
they are saying,” the colonel said softly.

Please…

“Bruna, there must be another way out.”
Rosie looked exhausted; she fell to her knees so she was
side-by-side with Mauricio.

“If that isn’t a sweet sight. The precious
brat where she should be: on her knees like a beggar. You don’t
deserve the exceptionally good luck you had at your birth. I think
I’ll go back to my former plan and kill you anyway. I deserve some
satisfaction, after all. But maybe I’ll get rid of someone else
first. So, who’s it going to be?” She brandished the gun this way
and that. She finally decided on her target, and with a sick smile,
she aimed at Rosie’s belly.

Mauricio acted out of pure instinct and
threw Rosie away from the bullet’s trajectory. At the same moment,
the colonel fired her gun at Bruna. She collapsed on the ground,
her eyes locked on the older woman with a surprised expression.

Mauricio stared in fascination at the whole
scene.
Why is everyone moving so slowly? I can barely hear a
thing.

“Mauricio!” He heard Rosie calling him from
far away.
Thank the Goddess Bruna didn’t get you,
was his
first thought when she came into view and saw that she was
unharmed.
It’s okay, everything is fine. You don’t need to be
worried anymore.
Then he followed the direction of her eyes and
saw blood coming out of his midsection.
Oh…
The pain arrived
several seconds later.

Rosie caught his head before he hit the
ground and immediately applied pressure against the wound.
“Somebody help me!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face.
None of the women came closer, but Leander and Arias dragged
themselves to Mauricio’s side. They were barely conscious but tried
to help.