Outbreak: Boston (31 page)

**********

Powers found himself growing more and more frustrated. It was not just that everybody else seemed to be pairing off. That zoomie and the jarhead, Rodriguez and that fatass medic, Dana and the other guy there…what was his name? Josh? Right, it was Josh. There was that scrawny bitch that tried to kill herself, but he was not all that interested in her. The mechanic chick was more or less bottom of the barrel too, as far as he was concerned. She was too old for him, or at least she looked way too old. Nobody would talk to him after the whole thing with Owe One and all the shit that went down, like it was all his fault or something.

It was totally not
fair anyway. He saved Rodriguez’s life like some totally over the fuckin’ top
Black Hawk Down
shit so she totally
owed
him, dammit. Okay, sure, he could have handled it better but Jesus Christ he wanted her so bad ever since he first laid eyes on her. And she couldn’t exactly be spoiled for choice with her face all messed up like that. Evans said that she had fucked almost everybody in the platoon or whatever but she would not even talk to him anymore. Whenever they had guard duty together she stayed as far away as she could from him totally pissing him off even more.

He hated that Eamon guy too. What did that fat, hairy cockmonkey have that he didn’t? Sure he was only a private, but he was in
way
better shape than that dumbass civilian. I mean, sure he was a doctor or some shit, but it did not look like having a fat bank account was going to be worth anything for the foreseeable future.

Powers grumbled to himself as he and Rodriguez came down off the roof. He could not help but help himself to an eyeful of her ass as she climbed down the steps in front of him. “Hey,
Owe One.” he muttered once they were in the generator room and making their way towards the door that led to the hall. “What’s the deal with you and that fat mick, anyway? There are laws against bestiality, ya know.”

Francesca flipped him the bird over her shoulder. “He didn’t try to get me shot ‘cause I wouldn’t fuck him.” she snapped. Rodriguez kept walking, not wanting to give the man the satisfaction of seeing the anger welling up inside her on her face. “He’s a man, not some little punk kid.”

Powers grumbled to himself and gave some serious thought to pushing her down the stairs. “Man?” he asked, chuckling under his breath. “Looks more like some kinda cross between the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man and a fuckin’ Sasquatch.”

When they got out to the hall, Rodriguez went off towards the female side of the building, leaving him standing around feeling stupid and horny. It was right about then that he remembered the little Arab bitch. “Don’t know how I forgot about her.” Max said under his breath. She was kinda cute, for a hajji.

Max wandered the halls, hoping to run into the hajji. He thought about her black eyes and hair, the exotic honey brown color of her skin as he walked. The cafeteria was empty and so was the library. A predatory smile came to his face as he spied his quarry coming out of the female latrine. “Hi there! I’m Max.” he said cheerfully as he walked up behind her. “How are you?” She was wearing a tee shirt and a pair of cut off jeans that did a good job of showing off her ass, which was very nice in his opinion.

“Hey, how ya doin’? I’m Fatima.” she said. Powers was surprised to hear that the woman had a thick south Boston accent. Fatima gave him an uneasy smile but did not really slow down. “I’m okay.”

“I’m alright.” Powers said quietly. He leaned close to the woman’s side. “Um…listen…” Max chuckled awkwardly as he tried to think of something to say. “Could I sit next to you at the movie this week?”

Fatima looked confused for a moment. “I don’t know. Let me think about it.” she said quietly and tried to get by him and duck into the library. Like everybody else, she had heard what Powers had said about that other female soldier, Rodriguez when she had supposedly turned him down. Something else had happened the last time the soldiers went out for supplies and now the other female was stuck in the teacher’s lounge.

Powers followed her inside the library. Fatima rolled her eyes
, wishing to be rid of the man. A lot of the other soldiers seemed kind of nervous around her and as far as she was concerned the feeling was fucking mutual. She did not do anything but they all treated her like a goddamn criminal or something. Fatima found that she could at least sort of forgive the one woman there, Rodriguez, for the way she acted once she had found out what had happened to her face, but the others could pretty much fucking rot for all she cared.

“Whatcha looking for?” Max asked as he walked behind the woman. There was something about the tone of the man’s voice that started to make her nervous.

“I don’t know.” Fatima said quietly. He started leaning in closer, almost brushing right up against her. “I’ll know it when I see it.” She stopped at a shelf and let her eyes play over the spines of the books in front of her. With a growing unease, Fatima noticed that Powers was now so close that she could feel the man’s breath on the back of her neck.

She turned and started walking away, but Powers kept following her. “Listen, I said I’d think about it.” Fatima said sharply as she turned
on her heel. The man bumped into her, clearly caught a little off balance. “I’ll talk to you at mealtime, alright?”

Max smiled nervously and tried to take her hand but she pulled it out of his grasp. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Fatima asked angrily as she stepped around the man and tried to get away but Powers quickly moved to block her escape. Now she really did start to become frightened.

“I just wanna talk.” Powers said quietly. He put his hands on her arms and smiled uneasily when she let out a little frightened yelp. Max pulled her in close, putting his arms around the woman’s torso. “That’s all.” The man’s words seemed genuine enough, but there was something about the look in his eye that made Fatima’s unease blossom into full blown fright.

“Okay.” she said quietly and gave the man a weak smile. “Okay. Let’s talk.” When Powers kissed her hard on the lips she kneed him in the groin and tried to run away. He doubled over and managed to catch the woman’s arm, sending her spinning into a shelf. Fatima bounced off the shelf and hit the floor hard.

She attempted to gain a little distance by crawling on her hands and knees before getting to her feet, but Powers was somehow on top of her in a flash. He pinned the woman to the floor with a forearm and leaned against her. She felt something warm and pulsating against her ass through the man’s trousers. “Guess I’ll have to teach you a lesson, you uppity hajji bitch.” Powers whispered in her ear as he gingerly brushed some of her hair over it.

**********

It was close to three o’clock when Amy thought she heard someone talking to the people standing guard on the door. She was pretty sure she did not recognize the voice on the other side of the door, but Frays became mildly alarmed when she could make out that one of the voices was beginning to shout in Arabic. Part of her wanted to start looking around the room for something to use as a weapon.

Finally the door cracked open a little bit. “Hey, Frays.” Rodriguez said through the gap. “That ha- er…Fatima Buckley wants to talk to you. Do you feel up for visitors?”

Frays swallowed hard and looked nervously around the room for a second. “Yeah…yeah, sure.” she said quietly then cleared her throat and repeated herself. She had seen the woman around before but had never had occasion to speak to her. Frays tried to find a justification for that wherein she did not come off like a horrible, racist bitch but could not find one off the top of her head. “Oh, God.” Frays whispered when she saw the look on Fatima’s face. Her hair was a mess and her clothing was ripped up and rumpled. “Come here, ma’am.”

Amy motioned the woman towards the couch. “Would you like a cup of tea?” Frays asked after she had gotten Fatima situated and wrapped up in her blanket. “It’s nothing fancy, but I think I saw some under the sink.”

“You’re a cop, right?” Fatima asked, narrowing her eyes at the airman. Amy turned away from the cabinets under the counter. She regarded the woman curiously and came back to sit on the couch beside her. “I mean…an Air Force cop or whatever?”

“Yeah.” Amy said with an awkward smile. She had not heard her occupation described that way for awhile. “Yeah I am.”

“Good.” Tears started welling up in Fatima’s eyes as she spoke. “I want to report a crime. Private Powers raped me in the library this morning.”

Amy felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
Powers?
she thought confusedly
He seemed like an okay guy
. “It will be okay. You’re safe now.” Frays said as she took the woman’s hand and held it. “Do…you think you can tell me what happened?”

Frays listened empathetically as Fatima recounted everything that had happened to her earlier that day. It was all so shocking: the way he followed her into the library then pushed her down and forced himself on her. Amy’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach as she listened. Sergeant Barnes needed to hear this. What were they going to do? Arrest him? It was not like they could send him off to the brig to be held for trial. Amy went to the door and pounded on it. “Hey! Open up! Get Eamon over here right now!” she shouted, hoping that the guards would hear her.

“What’s up, Zoomie?” Rodriguez asked cautiously. She had seen Fatima too and had probably guessed that there was something wrong. “I think he’s on guard duty. I’ll go up and take a look. Alex is right here.”

“Just tell him we need him right away.” Frays said quietly. She started to turn away but stopped herself. “I’m okay, but Fatima needs some medical attention. Get Sergeant Barnes too, come to think of it. He needs to hear this.”

Frays sat on the couch next to Fatima while they waited for everyone to arrive. The woman sat there stock still with her hands folded in her lap. “It will be okay.” Amy said trying to sound reassuring as she made sure the woman was well covered with the blanket. “It’s alright. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Fatima shivered and scooted over to the corner of the couch where she huddled beneath the blanket. “No, it won’t ever be okay again.” she said quietly. Amy opened her mouth a couple times, trying to think of some way to
comfort the woman on the couch as Eamon and Sergeant Barnes suddenly burst into the room, startling the both of them.

Amy got up and moved out of Eamon’s way so he could take a closer look at Fatima. “Sergeant Barnes…we need to talk.” Frays whispered as she took the big man by the arm and led him off towards the opposite corner of the room. A look of cold anger came over the NCO’s face as he listened to the airman recount what Fatima said happened to her. He waited until Amy finished then he started towards the door.

Amy made an attempt to block his path. “Wait! What are you going to do?” she asked as Sergeant Barnes physically picked the woman up and tried to set her down out of his way. “Sergeant Barnes, stop! Calm down!”

“Get out of my way, Zoomie.” Barnes said icily as he glared down at the woman. “I don’t want to hit a woman, but right now I’m not in the mood.”

Frays stood between the big man and the door, but moved back a pace or two with one forearm across her stomach and one hand on her chin. “Look, Sergeant.” Amy said quietly as she positioned herself to present a smaller target to the man. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t do something you’ll regret later, okay? Just calm down and let’s talk about this.”

Sergeant Barnes leaned over and looked the younger woman in the eye, his face inches away from hers. “Out. Of. My. Way.” he said coldly. She could feel the rage radiating off the man like heat. “I won’t tell you again.”

Frays looked him in the eye as if weighing the options. Was the man really willing to go through her to get at Private Powers? What did he think he was going to do when he got his hands on him? “Sergeant, you know I can’t do that.” she said evenly, her eyes never wavering from the big man’s face. “I can’t let you do what I think you’d like to do to that man. Just calm down so we can talk about this like rational human beings, alright? Please?”

The air became tense for a moment. Eamon stood up to face the two people across the room, his hand involuntarily closing around the grip of the Glock pistol in his pocket. It really looked like Sergeant Barnes was about to clean her clock for a moment before he took a deep breath and seemed to settle down a little bit. He shook his head in disbelief. “Fine. What do you think we should do, Zoomie?” he asked with a condescending chuckle. “Put him under arrest? We’re on our own here, Frays. We’re gonna have to settle this ourselves.”

Amy shook her head as Eamon went back to tending to Fatima. “I don’t know.” she said quietly. Frays went to the table and plopped down into the nearest chair. “But I…I can’t just let you hurt him either. He’s got rights too, you know.”

Fatima was up and across the room in a flash,
catching Eamon off guard and knocking him out of her way. She slapped Amy’s cheek hard enough to make the woman’s ears ring. “HE’S GOT RIGHTS?
HE’S GOT FUCKING RIGHTS!?
” Fatima demanded as she slapped Frays again. “WHAT ABOUT MY RIGHTS, YOU FUCKING BITCH? HE FUCKING RAPED ME! DID YOU FUCKING HEAR ME? HE MOTHERFUCKIN’ RAPED ME!”

Amy stood up and held the woman until the sudden rage dissolved into huge, wracking sobs. Frays whispered comforting words into her ear as she guided her back over to the couch. She did not miss the bitter smirk on Barnes’ face as he left the room.