“Did you do this?”
“Oh please,” Farah scoffed; she reached up and brushed her hair away from her shoulder. “If I wanted her dead, I wouldn’t have gone through de trouble or de dramatics.” She laughed lightly under her breath, smoothing her pregnant belly with her hand. “Dere are much easia ways dan tying a rope ‘round a troat and trowing someone out a window.”
I felt Thais tense then.
“Close the fucking door when you leave,” I demanded.
Farah smiled, reached out slowly as if to savor the moment, and then the door closed. Still gritting my teeth, I watched the opening underneath the door until her shadow moved and the lantern light faded.
“Will you kill me?” Thais’ voice was so soft, and the request so stunning, that for a moment I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.
Feeling the sting of guilt at even the thought of taking her life, I released her and stood, leaving her on the floor staring up at me, eyes full of pleading and pain. I looked away from her, shaking my head, and refused an answer to a question so outrageous it didn’t deserve one.
“I’m a coward,” she said, more to herself than to me it seemed. “If I can’t even take my own life…” She couldn’t finish.
“The last thing you are is a coward,” I scolded her in an even voice.
I sat heavily into the desk chair, the map of the United States of America laid out unfolded upon the desk, stirred by my movements.
“One more night,” I said, not looking at her. “Give me one more night and I’ll get you out of this city.” All I could see in front of me was the scenario: I’d wait until late, after most of the city was sleeping, and then I’d dress her in my military clothes, make her pin up her hair underneath a cap, strap a rifle to her shoulder, a backpack full of goods on her back, and set her atop the mare waiting at the stables.
“But there’s nothing for me anymore,” Thais said, wiping away the lingering tears on her cheeks. “There’s nowhere for me to go, and no one waiting for me there if by some miracle I make it alive. My mother and father are dead. My sister”—she looked up at me, and although I didn’t meet her gaze, I could feel her eyes on me—“my whole family is dead, and this world is dead and my soul is dead and everything that was once good and beautiful and right, is dead.”
I looked at her then, her words stirring me.
“That’s not true,” I said, and got up from the chair and crouched in front of her. “You may be the only good thing left in this world, and I’ll be goddamned if I let your light fade.”
Tears tumbled down Thais’ cheeks.
I took the gun that had fallen from her hand, tucked it into the back of my pants.
“Promise me you won’t try anything,” I said as I went toward the door. “Promise me on your sister’s soul, that you’ll stay in this room and wait for me.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get your supplies.” I placed my hand on the doorknob. “Don’t open this door for anyone.” I opened it to blackness; the candles lit in the hallway had burned down.
“Wait,” Thais called out, and I stopped.
She stood up on wobbly legs.
“You said to get my supplies—are you sending me away alone?”
I thought on it for a moment. I’d had no intention of going with her. I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to keep others from following her.
“No,” I finally said. “You’re not going alone. I’ll go with you, at least until I can get you somewhere safe.”
“Is there anywhere safe, Atticus?” Her voice was soft, hopeless, and hearing her say my name like that did something to my heart. “Do you know where you’re taking me?”
I sighed. And I looked at the wall.
“Yes,” I lied, and then stepped out into the hallway.
Just before I closed the door I added, “Promise me.”
Thais nodded.
“I promise,” she said. “I’ll wait for you.”
21
THAIS
An hour went by, one long and tortuous hour, thinking of my sister and everything that had happened. Get up, the voice inside my head told me, but I ignored it. Another hour, and the voice was still there, trying to interfere, to take from me all that I had left: my sorrow.
Get up. Do what Sosie could not. Get up. Getupgetupgetup!
Sorrow turned to anger, anger to determination and vengeance—I wanted to live now more than ever, I wanted to live to get back at the world for what it did to my family.
I wanted to live.
I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand—tore them away from my face with fury and resolve—and I stormed across the room, grabbing the backpack I’d already partially filled with stolen supplies.
I went around Atticus’ room and stuffed as much as I could into the bag until it was almost too heavy to carry. Once the bag was full to bursting, I lifted it onto my shoulders to test the weight and it nearly toppled me over. But I straightened, with difficulty, and walked around the room. I walked across flat surface; I stood on Atticus’ bed and walked across unsteady surface; I walked upright, and with my body hunched over; I walked with and without my shoes—I thought any practice was better than no practice.
When I had nothing left to do but wait, I went over to the window and gazed out into the night. The rain had stopped falling; the moon was a giant orb in the sky peeking over the tops of the surrounding buildings.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Sosie. But I’m going to try…I’m”—I swallowed—“Sosie, I’m going to try to make it. And if I live long enough, I will tell people about you, about my beautiful Sosie who was a beautiful poet. Tell Mother and Fa—”
The sound of exploding wood stopped my heart, and I whirled around to face the door. Crack! Bang! The door swung open; pieces of the wooden frame fell onto the floor. My scream pierced the air, and in the same instant I lost my breath. A burly, dark figure towered in the doorway like a monster, a crowbar in his hand, a twisted smile on his face mixed with maddening retribution, revealing the gap between his yellowed teeth. It was the brute.
My already weakened legs shook beneath the thin fabric of my dress; my stomach clenched; my lungs tried desperately to find air again but to no avail. My eyes darted around the room in search of the gun, anything I could use to protect myself. But all I had, I realized quickly, were my words.
“What are you doing in here?” I demanded. I tried not to look afraid, tried to control the shaking of my hands as I raised them out in front of me in gesture. “The Overseer will not be pleased—”
“The Overseer isn’t fucking here,” the brute cut in. “He’s in Ohio. The cocksucker who took you from me, and has been hiding you up here in his goddamned room”—his grin spread so largely it looked like it could take off my whole head—“well, he’ll be dealt with soon enough.”
He lumbered into the room toward me. I backed my way toward the window, both hands blindly feeling behind me for something to grasp.