“Help her!” I shouted over the rain. I stopped on the trail, causing the line behind us to stop. “Can’t you see she needs help? She’s blind!”
With an irritated grunt, the man jumped down from his horse, pulled Sosie from the muddy ground and brought her to her feet. Sosie said nothing, did nothing; she was alive but dead to the world; she didn’t care anymore what might happen to her, and it broke my heart. I wanted to wrap my arms around my sister and tell her that everything would be okay, even though I knew it wouldn’t be.
“Please,” I said to the man, kindly this time, “she can’t see. Please don’t make her walk.”
Relenting, he fitted his hands around Sosie’s waist, and lifted her onto the horse as if she were weightless.
“Keep moving,” the brute holding the other end of my rope said, and the line went into motion again.
Despite my predicament, the rain felt good on my bare feet. I had given up walking in the boots and chucked them into the woods a long time ago. But now the bottom of my feet were getting the same injurious treatment as I stepped on branches and jagged rocks. A part of me wished I could ride on a horse, too, but that would mean riding with that brute behind me, and so I never complained.
Drenched, I shivered incessantly, my teeth clacked together so hard I thought they might break off in my mouth. I prayed I’d get pneumonia and it would kill me before these men had their way with me.
We had been traveling for more than a day with little rest. The leader, named Marion, had been adamant about more travel and less stopping. I had heard him talking to the other men: he wanted to get back to Lexington to collect his pay. One horse pulled a makeshift sled packed with provisions they had “acquired”: bottles of vintage wine, plastic five-gallon buckets of dried beans and dehydrated fruit and salt and sugar and spices, each secured with a lid that kept the rain out. I glimpsed a stockpile of bullets and firearms and knives. But Marion’s most prized find were us—the women. Besides me and Sosie, there were six other women to check in with someone they called “The Overseer”.
“I want to go home,” one girl said; she was small and mousy and fragile. She had been crying: Iwanttogohome Iwanttogohome, for nearly two days now, but always to deaf ears.
The caravan stopped on the trail.
Marion’s voice sounded from the front of the line: “We’ll rest here for thirty minutes!”
I heard the rustle of boots and saddles and shifting wet clothes as the men dismounted their horses.
“After that,” he went on, his voice getting closer, “it’s to Lexington nonstop! So, make damn sure you take care of your business now!”
“Please, sir,” the mousy girl said as Marion approached. “I don’t want to go to Lexington. I want to see my mother.”
Marion studied the girl’s small frame and shrinking face.
“No one’s going to hurt you,” he told her. “You’ll be safe in our city. You’ll have a secure home with guards who patrol the streets day and night.” He glanced at me, and then at another, quieter woman standing nearby with dark hair and narrowed eyes that made her look frightening. “All of you will be cared for and protected—you should be thanking us.”
The dark-haired girl made an awful noise with her throat and spit at Marion, hitting the front of his shirt; the sight of the sticky white mess made my stomach turn.
The soldier holding the other end of the defiant girl’s leash yanked on it, and her bound wrists shot up above her head; she went flying backward and fell on her bottom in the mud with a splat.
Marion cocked his head and clicked his tongue. “Play your cards right,” he taunted, “and you’ll end up with my last name.” He smiled, his teeth stark white against the deeply tanned backdrop of his face.
The defiant girl sneered and gritted her teeth.
“What about my mother?” the mousy girl asked. “Please, just let me go home. She needs me. Just let me go home.”
“You are going home,” he answered. “To Lexington City.” He walked away, and she cried into her hands.
I turned to my sister. “Sosie,” I whispered after Marion walked past, “listen to me—we’re going to be okay. I’m scared too, but they’re not going to hurt us. If they wanted to, they might’ve already.” I didn’t even believe what I was saying; it was ridiculous to think that Sosie would.
“They’re going to sell you,” the defiant girl hissed. “You heard him just now—you’re going to be made someone’s whore. Don’t for a second think they’re not going to hurt you—there are many kinds of hurt.” She eyed me with a look of disgust, as if she couldn’t believe that I could be so stupid.
Marion and a few of the other men set out into the woods. The others stayed back with the horses, the loot, and us. I could feel their eyes on me, especially the brute, and I felt a sinking feeling as I watched Marion disappear into the forest. I didn’t like him, but I felt safer around the other men when he was among them.
Ten minutes of silence passed when a sharp scream filled the air from the end of the caravan. Then another scream before it was muffled, as though a hand had gone over the girl’s mouth to stifle it. I jumped at the sound, my breath catching; my eyes moved to see behind the horses at the end of the line from where the screams came. I glimpsed two figures, one large and masculine, one small and frail, stepping off the path and into the woods. I watched with a heavy heart, knowing what was about to happen and that there was nothing I could do to stop it.
The two disappeared amid the thick bushes. Shortly thereafter, cries and whimpers reached my ears, the rustle of bushes, a man’s grunt, my heart beating in my stomach, my mother’s warning screaming inside my head. I forced myself to look away, down at my bound hands, but the ghost feeling of the brute’s eyes at my back made me look up at him instead. He stood watching me, his back pressed against a tree. He knew what was going on at the end of the caravan—I could see it in his face. A faint smile just barely lifted the corners of his rugged mouth as he slipped a slice of apple from the blade of his knife in-between his lips.
I tore my eyes away, not wanting to instigate the same horrific treatment.
A short time passed when the defiant girl sitting next to me shot to her feet.
“Fucking pig!” she screamed as the soldier who had raped the girl came into view. She lunged, nearly knocking me over to get to him. “I’ll gut you like the fucking pig you are!”
The brute reacted quickly, grabbed the long end of the rope around her wrists, and yanked her backwards. She fought to push herself forward; her dark eyes were wild and feral and full of violence.
The rapist grinned; his eyes were lit with a sort of sickening excitement. He pushed the poor girl down beside the rest of us where she sat without protest.
“I’ll kill you!” the defiant girl shrieked.
Voices carried on the air as Marion and the other men emerged from the trees.
“Sit down and shut up,” the brute told the defiant girl; she tried to lunge again, but the brute was too strong and easily held her back.