The Woman They Kept (8 page)

Gideon backed himself into a
corner. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he was sure that he
had seen enough death for the day, and didn't care to be a party to
more. This was clearly none of his business, he had what he needed
and now just wanted a way out.

Daniel was standing at the
doorway, listening, when it burst inward, knocking him back into the
room.

A woman strode in, clad in black
leather motorcycle armor from her boots to her neck. She moved with
a cat-like grace, powerful yet fluid. Her face was beautiful but
sharp, set into a scowl that hardened every part of her. In her
arms she cradled a large automatic rifle with a whiff of smoke
trailing from the barrel.

“
Hello Daniel,” she
said, leaping over the dead girl's body just as he was picking
himself up. She drove her boot into his chest hard, keeping him on
the ground. “Do you remember me?” She placed her boot
on the man's groin, grinding down hard with her heel.

Daniel gasped in pain. “No!
Why the fuck should I remember you?”

The woman slung the rifle onto
her back and pulled out a knife, pointing the blade to a jagged scar
across her eye. “You gave me this, you and that little pig
sticker you keep under the couch for when the girls get out of hand.
Do you remember me now?”

Daniel shook his head again.
“Did I own you? There's been so many...”

The woman's mouth twisted in a
snarl. “Not me. Her name was Jenny, and I tried to buy her
off you. You left me with this,” she pointed to her eye
again, “and then sold her to someone else. I swore I'd come
back for you, do you remember me now?”

Again, Daniel shook his head,
though clearly it was the wrong answer. The woman grabbed him by
the hair and cut a long line across his face to match her own. “You
fucking little pig, you grunt and squeal in your own filthy little
pleasures and imagine yourself king of this shit heap. Well there
aren't any kings when it's just you and me.” She slashed the
man across the throat and his blood came spurting out of him in
waves. Kneeling on his chest, she brought his face close, spitting
in his eye as he died.

The house was silent after that,
the woman standing as still as a statue, breathing slowly, her eyes
half closed. The knife that had killed Daniel still sat in her
hand, blood dripping from the end of it, providing the only audible
sound for a few moments. All the guests from the party had left.

Finally the woman turned to
Gideon. “Were you buying or selling?” she asked, her
voice sharp as the blade in her hand.

Gideon was in the corner, down
on his knees, all the blood drained from his face. His legs shook
and his heart pounded. “It wasn't like that, I swear.”

She came and kneeled over him,
breathing hot in his face. Her short black hair fell across her
brow as she looked down on him. “This way of making money,
this buying and selling of people, it's a cancer.” She
stroked the side of Gideon's face with the knife, leaving Daniel's
blood in streaks. “And with cancer, the first thing you have
to do is cut it off, then the healing can begin.”

“
I'm trying to find the
woman I love!” he shouted. Sweat was beginning to pour in his
eyes. “Please, I'm just trying to find the woman I love.”

Her eyebrow raised. “Bullshit,
you're trying to save your skin. I've heard it before.”

“
We were engaged to be
married. She got taken one night while I was there, a whole group
of them came, they killed her parents and buried me alive, please,
you have to believe me.”

“
What was her name?”

“
Rolanda,” Gideon
said. Slowly, he reached for the photograph and handed it to her.
She unfolded it and it showed both Rolanda and Gideon, arm in arm,
smiling like they knew all the secrets of the world.

“
This could be any woman.
Tell me a story about her,” she said, though the conviction in
her voice was wavering.

Gideon thought for a moment.
“The day I proposed to her we went beyond the glass bubble for
a ride. It was one of those rare clear days and I knew a small
secret spot that wasn't stuffed with garbage or leaking poisons into
the air. It was up a rocky hill, there was an outlook there where
you could see for miles around. All of Cormac looked like a little
drop of water on a leaf, and in the distance we could even see other
bubbles. It was breathtaking. We had a picnic lunch and some
champagne, I didn't have much money for a ring but I had made one
out of an old log I found, polishing it to the size of her finger.
I got down on one knee and she said yes before I could even get a
word out.”

“
A storm started gathering
suddenly. It was a fierce one, too, and growing fast in the
distance. We didn't have much time to get back to the bubble.”

“
We got on my bike and
before we put our helmets on she kissed me and it was like time
stopped. In that moment there was no thunder and no lightning, just
the soft comforting feel and taste of her lips on mine. Then she
smiled and we were off.”

“
I had five miles to cover
before we would be safe and the storm was coming quick. I had to
dodge all the trash and scattered metal on the way back, and do it
at three times the speed I had going out there. The storm was
coming fast, but all I could feel was her arm around my waist.
Nothing in the world can compare to that complete trust she gave to
me that day.”

The woman stood for a moment
above Gideon, her features shadowed by the light behind her. Her
profile looked hard, cut from steel, sharp as the knife she held.
Finally, she fell into a chair and pulled out a cigarette, blowing
her smoke up towards the light. “It's a good story. So
you're here trying to get her back?”

Gideon nodded and sat up. His
heart was still beating mercilessly against his ribcage, every thump
echoing in his ears. “And you? Just settling a vendetta?”

“
You caught me in the
middle of my story. That man,” she pointed to the corpse of
Daniel, “is an ellipses, a 'to be continued.'” She took
another drag of her cigarette.

“
So what now? Are you
still looking for your Jenny?” Gideon asked.

Brushing her short dark hair out
of her eyes she frowned. “No, not any more,” she said
quietly.
“What about you? Did you find out what you needed to from
him before I eviscerated Daniel?” She offered a cigarette
over to Gideon and he reached for it.

“
A guy named Malakir
bought her a few weeks ago. He works in...”

“
Fouchbough,” she
interrupted. “Yeah, I know him. He's got riders with him,
they form the backbone of his little gang.” She stood and
belted her knife back onto her waist. "You need help? I can
always cut a little larger swath through these animals."

By the hard set look on her face
Gideon knew it was futile to say no, so he just stuck out his hand.
“Gideon,” he introduced himself.

“
My name's Leanin,”
she said, her handshake painfully strong.

Leanin met Gideon at the
entrance to the bubble. When he rode up she was leaning against an
old motorcycle, tossing her helmet back and forth. Her bike fit her
personality, sleek, sharp, and tough. It was a smaller bike that
rode high with studded and reinforced tires for navigating off road.
It purred loudly as he strapped on his gear, she seemed to love
blipping the throttle and hearing her engine bark in response.

When Gideon was ready Leanin
took off, leading quickly and swerving between the piles of debris
with ease. Fouchbough was far off down the mountains, the air got
warmer as they went along their path. A few clouds were in the sky,
but nothing imminently threatening. Leanin pressed a hard pace, the
muscles in Gideon's forearms ached and by the time they stopped his
right arm was cramping and spasming painfully. He massaged it
gently as Leanin threw a tent.

They were fully down the
mountain in a grove of hard, stubby little trees that had no leaves
on them. They pitched the tent off the track, where it could not be
seen easily. A creek babbled quietly in the background, running
alongside their campsite.

“
I wouldn't drink that,”
Leanin said as she was setting up a fire. “It's toxic enough
to be flammable. Drink what you brought.”

The water looked fine to Gideon,
but he sipped from his canteen anyway. “Toxic? Probably,
everything out here is. But flammable? I can't believe that. It's
water.”

Leanin
knelt down beside the creek. “Look at it at an angle. You
see that shine on top? It looks pretty, doesn't it? All purple and
green as it swirls around.” She filled a cup with the water,
pouring it on the logs she had set up in a square formation. When
she struck a match and threw it on the logs a thick
whoompf
came in response as the water caught fire.

Gideon raised his eyebrows.
“Okay,” he said.

They sat on opposite sides of
the fire eating hard strips of beef that Gideon had brought. The
lower half of Leanin's face glowed, her lips set in a frown.

“
You look mad,”
Gideon said.

Leanin scowled at him.
“Everyone says that. I'm not mad, this is just how I look.
Deal with it.”

“
Why did you want to help
me?” Gideon asked. “Don't get me wrong, I need all the
help I can get. I'm just curious is all.”

Leanin's teeth looked sharp as
she gnawed into a large chunk of dried beef. The fire reflected in
her eyes when she answered him. “I knew a girl once who would
be happy I was helping you.”

Gideon let the remark be and
stared into the fire. “You know, I've heard if we stay
outside of the bubbles for long enough the air will give us cancer.”

Leanin laughed, and for a moment
her face lost all the sharpness in it and was surprisingly
beautiful. “I believe it. We're all dead somehow, so I don't
think it really matters. That's okay though, not everyone gets a
good life.” At that last remark her face fell and the
sharpness returned.

“
Who was it that Daniel
owned? Who was Jenny to you?” Gideon asked suddenly.

Leanin's face twisted into a
scowl. “That's not a question I'm willing to answer. Daniel
was a pig though. They're all pigs.” She tore off another
large hunk of beef and chewed for a while before continuing. “I
stormed a brothel once, a while back, and killed the riders that ran
it. There were only about five or six riders to about thirty girls.
If the women had all just stood up and said no they could have
easily overpowered the riders, but they were all shit scared. As I
was telling them they were free I heard a grunting coming from one
of the locked bedrooms. I kicked in the door and saw one of the
worst things I've ever seen. You ever been in a zoo?” she
asked suddenly.

Gideon had to think. “Yeah,
there was a small one in Cormac when I was a kid. Only a few
animals, but yeah.”

“
Do you know what an
orangutan is?” Leanin asked. Gideon nodded. “Well,
when I kicked in the door they had this orangutan that had one arm
chained to the bed. It was completely shaved, it looked like the
ugliest woman you've ever seen. I was wondering why in the world
they would have an orangutan when it flipped over and prostrated
itself on the bed, gyrating and grinding towards me. They had
trained it to fuck.”

"That's terrible,"
Gideon said.

"That's humanity,"
Leanin responded.

They were quiet for a long time
after that, staring into the crackling fire. Gideon stood, a sudden
urgency to get traveling again gripped him, though he knew it would
be hours before that was possible. “I have to go to bed,"
he said, "I want to get to Fouchbough as soon as possible.”
And with that he bade her goodnight and crawled into the tent,
hoping sleep would come and help him pass the time.

...

Gideon woke later in the night,
hearing a rustling sound outside his tent. He rolled onto his back
and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. It was very quiet, just a small
rustling sound.

He walked outside, squinting in
the dark. A crescent moon barely illuminated the camp, their fire
had burned down to embers. The wind shifted direction and the heavy
smell of sweat filled his nose just as something large moved from
behind him.

The world flipped on its side as
he was thrown bodily to the ground, a great weight landing on his
chest, and the air squeezing out of his lungs in one great gasp.
The smell of sweat surrounded him, a man was grasping in the dark at
his neck. Someone was kneeling on him, crushing his ribs and
squeezing the life from him. Gideon tried to turn, but the man was
too heavy. He drove his knee as hard as he could upward, feeling
something give and hearing a grunt of pain. Finally Gideon was able
to roll out from underneath the man.

A brilliantly blinding light cut
a swath across the camp, coming from Leanin's motorcycle. Gideon
raised a hand to block the sudden illumination, there were several
shadows moving in the encampment with him. From out of the darkness
Leanin sprang, flying through the air and kicking the nearest shadow
into the river. She moved like lightning, branching in multiple
directions as she attacked the two other shadows. For the moment
Gideon stood helpless and confused, wondering whether this was just
a dream. One of the shadows stumbled and fell back into the river
with his compatriot, the third struggled to remove some kind of
goggles he was wearing.