The Orcs put Bathsheba in the wine cellar. It has been three days since they left Marfa, fleeing in the middle of the night in a rush. Katie remembers the lights going on in her tower room, then hands on her shoulders and a sharp pain in her arm, and then nothing. She woke in a helicopter flying over mountains. Was this still Texas? Were there mountains in Texas? They landed in a clearing, black SUVs waiting. Ahead of her she saw the Wizard and Astrid climb into the lead car with Liam Orci, and then the other Orci brothers pulled her out of the chopper and carried her by the elbows to the follow car.
“Where are we going?” she asked, but neither answered. They drove for twenty-five minutes, pulling through the gates of another impossible estate at high speed. Before the SUV had even stopped, armed guards were moving toward them, car doors opening. They pulled Katie from the car and hustled her into the house—a Cape Cod–style mansion—through an elaborate kitchen and down a flight of stairs into a windowless basement. A cot had been set up next to a stone wall. Boaz Orci put her suitcase on the floor and told her she’d be safe here, then retreated with the other guards. Katie heard the door lock behind them. She had no sense of time. How long had it been since they left San Francisco? Since that first night with Mobley, since he held her down with Astrid stroking her hair, telling her everything would be fine, to just lie back and enjoy it.
She put her hand on her belly, once flat, now a noticeable slope. The morning sickness had started a few weeks ago—months? She had thrown up everything they tried to feed her, meal after meal, until they’d had a doctor come in and put an IV in her arm. Bathsheba pleaded with him to help her, to call the police, but the doctor never faltered from his task, taking her temperature, measuring her blood pressure. She had turned nineteen that morning, but no one noticed. No one knew. It took three Orcs to hold her so he could get the needle in for her intravenous fluids. They had to strap her down so she didn’t pull it out.
Time passed. The nausea faded. The tube came out. Then came the middle-of-the-night panic, the helicopter ride, and the windowless basement. She sat on the floor, listening to movement on the floorboards overhead. Eventually, she dozed. The sound of footsteps wakes her, the clip-clop of heels on the basement stairs. Astrid steps into the light, carrying a tray.
“Hey there, sleepyhead,” she says. “I’ve got that quinoa salad you like and some soup.”
She puts the tray on top of a plastic folding table. The plate and bowl are metal, as is the cup. The cutlery is biodegradable, no knife, only a spoon. As rosy a picture as they paint, her captors are clearly aware that a woman in her position might consider suicide as a means of escape.
“Welcome to California,” Astrid says in a breezy voice. “Sorry about all the drama.”
She takes a tube of lip balm from her pocket, rolls it on.
“Come on,” she says, “eat up. You don’t want to go back on the feeding tube, do you?”
Katie climbs to her feet, goes to the table, sits on a folding chair. “We’re in the mountains,” she says.
The quinoa has cherries and almond slivers in it. She pokes it with her fork.
Astrid pulls out the other folding chair, sits. “Your rèsumè says you’re from Georgia originally.”
“Why? Does Master wanna meet his in-laws?”
“Cheeky little thing,” says Astrid with a sour face.
Katie pushes her plate away. “I’m from Florida, actually. My real name is Bathsheba DeWitt.”
Astrid smiles, as if to say, Yeah, right.
Bathsheba sips her water. “There are thousands of us, actually, born off the grid, no birth certificate, no social security number. When we escape into the wild, we have to forge fake documents, driver’s licenses, school transcripts. So that’s what I did.”
Astrid’s face falls. “Wait,” she says. “You lied to us?”
“Seems only fair,” says Bathsheba, “since you lied to me.”
Astrid looks away, doing the math, the investment that they’ve made, her worth to them as the mother of his child.
“So you’re what?” she says. “Some Tallahassee mall rat?”
“I’m from Lake Mystic,” says Bathsheba, “and we weren’t allowed to go to the mall, because of the police state, surveillance cameras, facial recognition software. We had a generator and a septic tank. Our water came from a well.”
Astrid smiles. “How novel,” she says. “You’re one of those survivalists. And here we thought you were just another artist wannabe.”
“Oh no. I can live in the woods for weeks, eating berries, collecting rainwater. I know how to build a lean-to and make weapons.”
She holds up her biodegradable spoon.
“Like how, with a dull tool, you wanna scoop out the eyes first, blind your opponent. Then, while they’re screaming, you crush their windpipe with your fist.”
Astrid blinks at her, all the color draining from her face.
“Well then,” she says. She slides her chair back, stands. “That’s—I’ll leave you to it.” She takes a step toward the stairs.
Bathsheba grabs her hand. “You made a mistake,” she tells Astrid. “When you picked me.”
Astrid pulls her hand away, eyes wide. “Boaz will be down shortly to collect your tray,” she says, hurrying to the stairs. “Try to get some rest. You must be exhausted after all that travel.”
She runs up the stairs, slams the door behind her.