“The one thing you’d want to change more than anything else,” she said, “is the one thing you can’t change. You’re outnumbered and overruled in every aspect when it comes to those girls, Atticus. As long as Wolf is leader, and as long as Rafe is his right-hand, there will always be four kinds of women in the East-Central Territory. And anyone who tries to tamper with that system will find a noose around his neck, or fifty angry fists beating him to death in the street—I don’t want that to be you.”
Evelyn left the windowsill and came toward me, a seductive rhythm in her walk, a sweet, yet malicious look in her eyes—she was putting her talents to work. It was a survival instinct, one often used when her own life was at risk, when she would have to become the whore, the manipulator, and adapt to her cruel surroundings rather than be destroyed by them. But now her survival instincts were kicking in for her only friend.
She stepped up to me, her dainty arms bent between us, resting on my chest. I looked down into her eyes, my gaze sweeping over the curvature of her mouth.
She pressed herself against me. “The world is changed, Atticus.” Her voice was soft and dark. “Nothing is the way it used to be, and it never will be again.” One hand slid upward between us and I felt the softness of her fingertips brush my lips. “You have to conform to the world as it is now. You have to become the calloused man that all men become, or die holding on to a moral life that no longer exists. Evolve with the rest of humanity, or become extinct, Atticus. There is no other way.” She pushed up on her toes and bit down tenderly on my bottom lip.
Feeling myself growing, I wound all ten of my fingers through the back of her hair and pulled her closer, kissing her hungrily, wanting to taste her malevolence in my mouth, her ability to adapt. Because I needed that more than I needed anything. More than I needed sex or conversation or advice. More than I needed food in my stomach or water in my throat or air in my lungs. Adapt or die. It had been the reason I went to see Evelyn every other night for the past three years. We had been learning to change together, using one another as a crutch in which to lean on when one would begin to revert back to the Old Ways.
Like most, Evelyn and I were once good people before the world changed. I was a good son and brother; I worked hard; had a soft spot for animals; I was a man of honor and integrity and principles, a man on my way to becoming a Marine like my grandfather—I was a good man, I thought. Evelyn was once a beloved sister, wife, and mother, who worked as a nurse in a children’s hospital. She went to church on Sundays and drove a family van and liked to sing to her two young daughters—Evelyn was a good woman. But in every good person there is something dark waiting to take the reins. Now here we were, Evelyn and Atticus, a whore and a murderer, succumbing to that dark part of us, because that’s how life was.
Being a working-girl was not something Evelyn ever planned, but it is what she became, and with every man that beat her and did unfathomable things to her, she surrendered to it. She adapted to survive. Just as I had been doing slowly over time, with her help—adapting. Soon I would no longer need it. Soon I would succumb fully to the darkness and might someday prove Rafe’s equal, if not his competition. Because every day I felt more of my old self fading away, replaced by pieces of my new self, and my evolution was almost complete.
I broke the kiss; my hands were still wound roughly within her dark hair. This was our moment, an event, a time between two damaged people in which we both longed to feel: The Surrender. Atticus Hunt and Evelyn Bouchard of the Old World surrendered to the Darkness and became one with it.
I ravaged her. I gave in to the darkness inside all men and took her with aggressive abandon, my mind expelling all sense of kindness and morals and concern and conscience. I ravaged her long after tears had pooled in her eyes and her naked body trembled beneath me. And she gave in completely, wanting to feel the pain, wanting to endure the violence, needing to be reminded again and again and again of what she had become and what she would always be.
7
THAIS
Somewhere in the Kentucky woods…
I woke Sosie early, and gathered what little items we had, hoisted the backpack over my shoulders, and then we left the cave. I filled the water bottle and the soda can from the stream; cut two pieces of fabric from the bottom of Sosie’s dress and stuffed it into the lid-less openings.
It was a guessing game trying to decide which way to go; the only thing I knew was which ways not to go: toward the town, or toward the lake.
“What are we doing?” Sosie asked.
“I’m just thinking.”
“Thinking about what? I thought you remembered which way?” The uneasiness was evident in Sosie’s voice.
“I know which way.” I stepped forward as if to prove it. “I was just making sure which way I was facing first.”
Sosie believed me.
All I could do was hope that if we weren’t going the right way, that whatever way we were going would lead us in the right direction.
Traveling over jutting rocks, and up slick leaf-covered inclines, was murder on our feet. Sosie protested when we came to another steep hill, so I gave in and we sat down and took off our boots. I sucked in air through bared teeth as I peeled the leather away from my blisters.
“I think I’m better off with my sandals,” Sosie said, doing the same.
Setting the backpack on the ground in front of me, I dug Sosie’s sandals from the bottom, careful not to knock the fragile water containers over, and then set the sandals on the ground in front of my sister.
“Where are yours?”
“Left them in the town,” I answered. “And before you say it—yes, I know it was stupid.”
Sosie did not comment, but pushed the sandals back toward me and urged me to take them instead.
“I’m not taking your shoes,” I refused, as I peeled off the other boot and laid it aside. “Besides, they’re too big for me.”
“Only by a little,” Sosie argued, maybe even a little offended I’d suggested her feet were bigger than mine. “Here—you should wear them; you’re the guide, you need them more than I do.”
I looked down at my blistered and bloodied feet; they were far worse than Sosie’s were, but Sosie already had a handicap, and adding anything else was not an option. It was hard enough being her eyes to help her cover the rough landscape.
“My feet aren’t that bad,” I lied. “You wear your sandals; later on, if mine get any worse we’ll trade out for a while.”
With reluctance, Sosie agreed.
Many more minutes of walking led us to a small clearing in the woods where I came to a dead stop and grabbed Sosie’s elbow roughly. I forced her with me to the ground on our hands and knees, felt water seeping through the backpack as the sudden movement made the lid-less containers unstable.
“What is it?” Sosie hissed, trembling.
I couldn’t answer; the words were caught in the back of my throat.
The first body lay on the ground, legs splayed, covered by a pair of dirty blue jeans; the feet were bare, and I could tell right away that they were a man’s feet. The second body wore a yellow blouse and a long skirt stained by dirt and blood.
“Oh no.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud.
Sosie tensed next to me. “Thais, what is it? Tell me!”
“I think…oh dear Lord…two bodies…”
Sosie gasped.