“Go on,” the Overseer urged her. “Serve him his punishment.”
Private Bell’s eyes locked on the Overseer, filled with disbelief and alarm. Only a second later, a shot pierced the air, echoed off the buildings that surrounded us in the city center. I sucked in a sharp breath and my bound hands flew over my mouth; even Sosie trembled uncontrollably next to me. I pulled her closer, buried her face against my chest.
Private Bell crumpled to his knees, both hands covering his crotch; blood seeped through the green of his pants and pooled around his fingers. “Nnnnauuughhh!” he cried out. “Fucking bitch! Mother-fucking-bitch!” He fell over onto his side; his big square head knocked against the concrete; his body curled into a fetal position.
The Overseer took the gun from the defiant girl and casually handed it to Marion, who accepted it, wide-eyed. He and the soldiers gawked at the Overseer as a collective, dumbfounded by what just happened.
The defiant girl leaned over Private Bell. “Piece of shit!” she spat, and then stepped away.
“Someone take Private Bell to the medic,” the Overseer ordered casually.
Two soldiers stepped up immediately, grabbed Private Bell by his arms and pulled him up. They carried him through the crowd of stunned and angry soldiers.
“I think we may not be on the same page here,” Marion said to the Overseer; he looked at him in a sidelong manner, his eyes darkening. “Private Bell may be a sick bastard who deserves to be put in his place every now and then, but he’s a good fighter, a hard soldier, and a loyal soldier, and last I checked, soldiers were more important here than whores.”
Dozens of heads nodded in agreement, and a low wave of voices carried over the crowd.
The Overseer waited until the voices ceased before he spoke.
“Yes,” he began, in the same confident tone he had spoken with since we’d arrived. “But last I checked, the Overseer is the only one with the authority to pick and choose who is placed where within the city’s infrastructure.” He stepped closer to Marion, challenging him. “If Private Bell, you, or any other man here feel you have the right and freedom to step on the Overseer’s boots whenever you see fit, who’s to say what other things in the Overseer’s power you’ve taken advantage of at your own discretion?”
Marion rounded his chin, appeared to chew roughly on the inside of his mouth. “We’re loyal men,” he argued. “And Rafe has never had an issue with the way we choose to do things.”
“Perhaps not,” the Overseer came back, “but what do you think he—or Overlord Wolf—will do to the men they find out violated any one of their wives before they were brought here by any of the scouting parties?”
The low voices rambling behind Marion stopped in an instant, and several heads shot up with guilty faces frozen in a quiet panic.
Marion narrowed his eyes suspiciously, then he turned to see the men standing in the vicinity.
“What are you talking about, Atticus?” he asked the Overseer, though what the question meant was: “Are you threatening us?”
The Overseer, named Atticus, looked at us then, and a chill traveled through my bones.
“If any of the wives were ever questioned,” Atticus began, “about what happened to them on their way to Lexington City, I wonder how many of them would confess to being violated by your men before they became the wives of your leaders.”
Marion’s eyes narrowed.
Other heads looked downward and away from the Overseer whose words were too telling of their crimes.
“And it is common knowledge,” Atticus went on, “that neither Rafe nor Overlord Wolf have ever been in the habit of sharing their wives with other men.” He looked up in thought for a moment. “If I recall, last year Overlord Wolf cut off Private Barber’s beloved cock before hanging him in the street, because Barber made a pass at his third wife”—he tilted his head to one side thoughtfully—“and his cock had never even touched her.”
The air was rife with silence.
“And unless one day,” he continued, “we want a mutiny of pissed off women who band together behind the walls of the brothel, the walls of your very homes”—he pointed, but at no one in particular—“to orchestrate the cutting of every man’s throat while he sleeps, then I think you should be more careful how you treat them.”
“Treat them?” Marion’s head reared back with disgust; his dark eyebrows knotted tightly in his forehead. “The women in this city are treated well. After they’re rescued from certain death out there”—he pointed behind him angrily—“they’re fed, they’re protected, and they’re free to go wherever they please, to associate with whomever they choose.” He waved his hand at the dozens of men standing all around us, and then back at himself. “There are no rapes in the streets of Lexington City. When we go to the brothel, the women there are not only willing, but they enjoy what they do.” He stepped up to Atticus, bursting with confidence now. “If anything, they owe us their pathetic lives, and will never be our equals unless they’re fighting alongside us to protect this city and every cunt that lives within it.”
A flurry of excited voices rose above the crowd.
I kept my gaze fixed on the Overseer, realizing now what it was about him that was so interesting before: the more he seemed to stand up for women against the dangerous soldiers that outnumbered him, the more I believed that he could somehow help Sosie and me.
But then all of that hope came crashing down when he said to Marion, “I agree with you”, and my heart fell into the pit of my stomach.
Atticus stepped away from Marion, passed me and Sosie, and made his way back up the concrete steps where he stopped at the top and turned to face the crowd.
“However,” he began in a loud, clear voice so everyone could hear him, “when it comes to new women, you all know as well as I do that Rafe and Overlord Wolf always get first pick. And Rafe chooses who goes where, not any of you who take it upon yourselves to choose for him.” His eyes scanned the crowd. “And none of the women, no matter where you think they’ll be placed, will be violated before your leaders have seen them first.”
“So then where does that leave you?!” someone accused.
All eyes were on Atticus, even mine—especially mine.
“It leaves me with the temporary authority to put these women where they belong within the city,” he answered. “Because the Overseer post was appointed to me, and I will do the job that I was entrusted to do.”
“Even taking any one of them for yourself!” another soldier called out.
“I have no use for a wife,” Atticus said. “But I will keep watch over any of them I feel might be of interest to Rafe, since Overlord Wolf is not currently interested in taking any more wives. The others will be sorted accordingly.”