Blue (29 page)

Anytha felt frozen in the middle of the office, and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She turned her head to see that she was more than five feet away from the knob to the office door. She looked again back at Inali’s face, as he sighed deeply before his cheeks flared and he clinched his jaw. Simultaneously, Anytha screamed and leapt for the doorknob as Inali pulled a pair of scissors out of a cup on the top of his desk.

Anytha reached for the knob of the door, but failed to reach it before Inali slammed her up against it, holding the tips of the open scissor blades against her throat. Anytha felt the scream inside of her throat get pressed down by the fear of the blades, and all she could think to do was look directly into his eyes. She stared at him, forcing him to avert his gaze as he held the scissors against her throat. Anytha could see that he was battling this decision to resort to violence within himself, and she figured that the only way that she could make it out of this office was to play into his guilt.

“Why are you doing this, Inali? This isn’t you,” Anytha said frantically as Inali shook his head, looking down at the floor. “Do you know something about my sister?”

Inali looked up and met her gaze. He immediately swung his head again, shaking it and staring at the floor, still holding her body against the door and pressing the blades of the scissors against her neck.

“Inali, I won’t tell anyone about this. Just, please, tell me if you know something about my sister,” Anytha said, pleading with him and attempting to challenge him with eye contact.

Inali closed the scissors and wiped his forehead, still towering over her with his huge frame. Anytha could tell that he was fighting with the guilt. She realized that it would be very unlikely that Inali would hurt her—his pride would prevent it. But she had to know how he knew Tabitha’s name.

“Inali, if you can look me in the eye and tell me how you know that name, I will go home and never speak of any of this again,” Anytha said, reaching behind her and wrapping her hand around the doorknob.

Inali stood up and raised his head, waiting a moment before he made eye contact with her. She stood up as tall as she could and met his eyes with an unwavering stare. She watched his face as he felt the discomfort of the eye contact, and she saw a defeated look in his eye. Then she saw him take a breath, and she saw the muscles in his face jump as he pressed his teeth together and leaned back into the eye contact—taking a step toward Anytha and opening the scissors again, holding them against her throat.

“No. No. I’m not going to let you win this easily,” Inali said, pressing the blades against her neck.

“Inali, you’re not this person. Think about your camp. Just tell me where Tabitha is, and I’ll leave right now, I swear it,” Anytha said, swallowing hard behind the blades. “Just—please—please, don’t kill me.”

“Kill you?” Inali asked, his clenched jaw turning into an evil smile. “Killing you would be such a waste. Now that I think of it, I can’t believe that I didn’t think of it before. Not only are you beautiful, but you also carry the same genes as your mother. I could make a fortune off of you,” Inali said, grabbing Anytha by the top of her arm and pushing her down onto the floor beside his desk. “Don’t you dare make a sound.”

Inali straddled her shoulders, all of his body weight pressing down on Anytha’s small frame, as he pulled a roll of duct tape out of his desk drawer and tied her hands and feet together. He pulled a pair of socks out of what looked like a gym bag, stuffed a sock into her mouth and covered it with tape, then wrapped the tape around her head. Anytha dared not make a sound, for she knew she was no match for him. Inali picked her up, threw her small frame over his shoulder, and opened another door across the wall of his office that led to the parking lot outside. He looked around the parking lot. Seeing that it was empty, he opened the back door of his vehicle and threw Anytha into the back seat, causing her to hit her head against the handle of the door. Anytha screamed in pain and wiggled in her bindings, but Inali reached below the seat of his car and pulled out a small glass bottle, opening the lid and pouring some of the contents onto the other sock from his gym bag.

“Let’s go see your sister,” Inali said, covering Anytha’s nose with the sock. She tried not to breathe, but eventually she had to. And when she did, everything went black.

Part III: Demand

P a r t  I I I

D e m a n d

C h a p t e r 
26

Tabitha sat in a chair in the corner of her bedroom with her legs pulled up to her chest. In her hand she held the worn napkin that Inali had given her. For almost two weeks, she had been rubbing the
napkin’s tattered edges, running through the details of the few hours after the party, and she couldn’t decide if she should tell Inali about what had happened or not. Marguerite’s expression told her that he wasn’t to be trusted, but she felt that she could trust Dr. Hance much less than she could Inali.

Tabitha heard Dr. Hance’s threat over and over in her mind, and the passage of time didn’t make the memory any less vivid. What did he mean by “teaching her a lesson?” The thought sent shivers down her spine.

Tabitha would never forget holding Alyssa beside her bed after they ran away and barricaded themselves in her bedroom. Tabitha remembered stroking Alyssa’s hair, trying to comfort her, as they heard the footsteps coming up the stairs in their dorm. They had both closed their eyes and held their breath in anticipation of someone opening the door and barging in to find them crouched together on the floor. Instead they just heard the laughter of a teenage girl, the sound of pounding jumbled footsteps, and a man’s voice laughing alongside her outside the room next door. The door opened and closed, the voices stopped, and there were no footsteps going back down the stairs. Tabitha and Alyssa sat in silence as they heard the incoherent speech of a few more couples coming up the stairs, the opening and closing of a few more doors, but no footsteps going back down the stairs. Alyssa fell asleep in Tabitha’s arms, and Tabitha dozed with her head against the bed, later awakened by the sound of a heavy set of footsteps making their way down the stairs.

The next morning, Alyssa had woken up with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her body, on the floor next to Tabitha’s bed. Tabitha sat staring at the napkin.

“Thank you for warning me,” Alyssa said, sitting up. “That could have easily been me stumbling up those stairs with Jack last night. You saved me.”

“I just told you to be careful. You made your own decision,” Tabitha said, smiling at her friend. “I’m so glad you didn’t get caught up in the romantic thoughts of escaping the compound to live in wealth and safety as a trophy wife to a rich, young man. I’m proud of you. It seems that some of the other girls weren’t so discerning. God, my heart breaks for them. They’ll probably never see those men again.”

Tabitha felt a tear rolling down her face as she remembered hearing the laughter and the slurred speech of those young girls coming from the hall outside of her room. Some girls that only a year ago hadn’t even hit puberty. Yet with the help of some pills, they grew breasts and curves, and were strategically placed in a room full of handsome, wealthy young men that seemed to have a ravenous desire for their innocence. She rubbed the corner of the napkin and stared out the window of her room. She couldn’t help but wonder why Inali hadn’t made an appearance at the party, but she felt relieved that he hadn’t. She couldn’t help thinking, though, that it was only a matter of time before he would be back. Hungrier than ever.

A knock on the door made Tabitha jump up from her seat. She walked over to the door and carefully opened it. She was relieved to see Marguerite standing in front of her with a tray full of small, empty plastic cups.

Marguerite pushed inside without saying a word and closed the door behind her.

“I don’t have much time or they will get suspicious. I just want you to know that I’m trying to figure out a way to get us both out of here. I know that Inali has his eye on you. I heard some of the other girls talking about it,” Marguerite said.

“Don’t worry about me falling for him, or anyone else. I’m not that stupid,” Tabitha said.

“No, Tabitha, you don’t understand. At the first party, they believed that they were just going to party with a bunch of desperate, young girls, with the hope that one of them might fall for them. Something changed at the second party though. Their goal was different. They were going to get what they wanted—even if they had to carry their prey up the stairs because she was too drunk to do it herself. At the last party, I even saw one of the men pouring a powder into the drink of the girl he was trying to seduce. He had to carry her out of the room,” Marguerite said. “Tabitha, some of these men have lost all sight of what is right and what is wrong. They came in to the first party hoping to eventually have consensual sex with an innocent, young virgin. Nothing wrong with having consensual sex, they thought. But many of them pumped these teenage girls full of alcohol to the point where they wouldn’t even remember saying no if they tried. All this to justify the raping of an innocent, young girl. That’s what it is, Tabitha. It’s rape. And if they’ll resort to drugging a girl’s drink to get her into bed, then there’s probably no limit to what they might do. And I just can’t let Inali do that to you.”

Tabitha swallowed hard as they heard footsteps outside her door.

“What do you want me to do?” Tabitha mouthed to Marguerite, as a knock came on the door. Tabitha walked over and opened it, and a nurse walked in.

“Everything okay here?” the nurse asked.

“Yes ma’am. I was just about to get her sample,” Marguerite said, grabbing a plastic cup with an orange lid off the tray and handing it to Tabitha. The nurse nodded and walked out of the room and back into the hallway.

“Have you started your period yet?” Marguerite asked.

“No. Not this month. Not yet,” Tabitha said.

“Okay, well. They’re taking urine samples from everyone,” Marguerite said.

“What for?” Tabitha asked.

“Really?” Marguerite asked, sighing. “Wow. I never realized how little they actually taught us about sex and reproduction in the compound health classes.”

“Oh my God—a pregnancy test,” Tabitha said, realizing her ignorance.

“Yeah. And I can’t imagine what they plan on doing with the results when they get them,” Marguerite said.

“Those poor girls. All they wanted was to find someone to sweep them off their feet and out of here, and those men took advantage of their wide-eyed, romantic innocence. Now, once it’s gone, they’ll just forget about them. The desire is gone. I wish that those girls could have seen that,” Tabitha said, heading to the bathroom with the cup in her hand.

Tabitha got the sample and zipped up her pants. She looked at the cup in her hand and paused for a moment staring at the liquid in the cup.

“Once the innocence is gone, the desire is gone,” Tabitha whispered to herself, looking up at the door quickly. She pushed it open frantically and handed Marguerite the cup. “Marguerite, do you really want to protect me?”

“Of course I do,” Marguerite said, taking the cup from her hand.

“Well, sooner or later, one of those tests is liable to come up positive,” Tabitha said, grinning a bit as she implied her point with her eyes. “When it does, can you get me some of their urine?”

“Oh, Beetha, that’s risky,” Marguerite said.

“Hear me out, though. It’s obvious that Inali wants to appear to be doing good deeds, as to not tarnish his sparkling reputation. As soon as he finds out that I’m damaged goods, not only will he turn his attention away from me, but his anger will probably turn to the man that did it to me.”

“But what happens when in nine months you don’t have a baby?” Marguerite asked, as they heard footsteps approaching outside.

Marguerite placed the urine sample on the tray, and walked out the door as Dr. Hance walked by her door.

Tabitha sat down on the chair in her room and took a deep breath as the breakfast bell rang. She walked out of her room and down to the main hall, prepared herself a plate of food, and walked out into the foyer to eat by herself on a bench. Tabitha saw Alyssa walk into the main hall, and she came and sat down next to her before she even got herself any food.

“Have you heard about what happened this morning? With the urine test?” Alyssa asked.

“No, I haven’t heard anything,” Tabitha said. “What happened?”

“Well, it looks like Dr. Hance came up and talked to all of Dormitory E, because one of the girls’ urine supposedly tested positive for a contagious virus of some sort. She has to stay in isolation until she isn’t contagious,” Alyssa said.

Tabitha laughed.

“What?” Alyssa asked.

“A contagious virus,” Tabitha said, laughing and standing up to walk away. “Think about that a little bit more. Just like Marguerite said, it’s funny how little they think we know about sex and reproduction. We can’t talk here. We’ll have to talk later.”

Tabitha put away her dishes and walked back to her room. She lay down on her bed, trying to get comfortable while mulling over how she might be able to acquire some urine from the girl in Dormitory E. She looked up at the ceiling, and turned her head when she heard a knock at the door.

She walked over and carefully pushed it open.

“I’m sorry to hear that you’re not feeling well. I told the nurse what you said this morning about having those strange stomach cramps, and they decided that they wanted to get another urine sample from you to be sure that you didn’t catch the virus that is going around. I had one of the girls in the kitchen make a pot of soup for the girl that’s fallen ill, and I thought I would bring you a cup, too. Hope you feel better,” Marguerite said, loud enough for the nurse walking up behind her to have effectively heard. She handed Tabitha a plastic sample cup and a paper bowl with a lid, with a spoon on top. Marguerite nodded at the bowl and looked Tabitha in the eye.