She expected a tirade in return, but her scorn bounced off him.
He sighed. “I thought you, above all others, would have changed. You had the advantage of time, which was something your friend and the others were denied. They had to work it out as they received their punishment. You had a chance to reflect on the situation. I thought you’d come to understand.”
Understand, no. Change, yes. She’d changed the entire course of her life after escaping him. Jarocki had spent a year trying to understand that course and why she was on it. All she knew was that the Tally Man had altered her for good—she was broken.
“Over these past weeks,” he went on, “I’ve been watching you live your life. You are not the woman I first encountered. You’ve grown, and you know your place in the world. The way you put the recovery of my cell phone before your personal safety amazed me. I almost absolved you of your past transgressions and gave you your freedom right there.”
Dangling liberty in front of her was cruel. The thought that she might have been free of him was worse than knowing he’d been tracking her. “Why didn’t you?”
“I saw that you hadn’t really changed. I spoke to Rick Sobona. Do you remember him? You nearly broke his nose after you led him on. Despite what happened to you and the chance you were given, you still choose to act like a slut. Now you see.”
She didn’t and never would. His manifesto made sense to him and him alone. She shook her head.
“You and all the others were guilty of the same thing—a lack of respect for your fellow citizens.”
“Is that it? My crime is disrespect? Do I really deserve to die for displaying bad manners?”
“Yes.”
His answer was so matter-of-fact that it stunned her. “Why aren’t you going after killers, rapists, and drug dealers? Those people do real damage to society.”
“Because there are laws for them,” he said. “Unfortunately, bad behavior isn’t a crime, and disrespect isn’t punished. People do it without consequence while the rest of us have to accept it.”
She shook her head. It was so juvenile. His logic was beyond comprehension. He abducted women, marked them with a number, then flogged them as some sort of punishment for their bad behavior. How was his solution in any way justified?
“Do you know how Chinese water torture works? It doesn’t involve nearly drowning a person. It’s a single drop of water striking the person between the eyes, again and again, until it drives them insane. That’s what you and all the others are—drops of water splashing off society’s forehead. By yourselves, you are meaningless, your effect minimal, but combined and repeated a thousand times a day, you are a detriment. You upset people, then they act badly toward others, propagating the cycle of disrespect. Now do you see? Now do you understand?”
She did see. She understood that he was crazy and there was no reasoning with him. “Who did this to you?”
“No one did this to me. A good woman once taught me the difference between right and wrong. A good woman who paid the price for her beliefs. No more talking.”
He tugged the stool from under her feet. She dropped just a few inches but the effect was immediate. Suddenly, all her weight was on her wrists and shoulders. The cuffs might have been lined, but they couldn’t insulate her from the intense pressure on her wrists, which burned. Her shoulder sockets took the full brunt too. Gravity seemed to grab a hold of her legs and pull. Her arms felt as if they were being separated from their joints. He didn’t need to flog her; this was suffering enough. How had Holli and the others endured this for more than a moment?
“Time for your punishment, Zo?.”
No, she thought. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to go through what Holli had. She’d seen her friend’s face in that workshop. It was like the expression of the living dead. She didn’t want to end up like that. She bucked and half twirled in her shackles. The steel ring holding the cuffs together was looped over the hook. “No, please. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to kill me. I’ve learned my lesson.”
She struck out at him with her legs. He dropped the whip and bear-hugged her legs with both arms until she stopped thrashing.
“Zo?, this is beneath you. It’s time to suffer the consequences of your actions.”
“I don’t want to die.” She’d never said anything so sincere.
He looked up at her. “You may not, but you have to take your punishment.”