Quarantine #2: The Saints (13 page)

Half of her had thought about running. No, most of her had. She was sick of living like this. It had been endless, pointless abuse. She was Cinderella to sixty-three evil stepsisters.
They all picked on her. She survived on only oatmeal which, most of the time, they threw at her. They slapped her, tripped her, purposefully spilled shit on floors she’d just cleaned and made her clean it again. There wasn’t a day where they hadn’t mocked her naked body, poured cold water on her, or flicked her nipples when they caught her off guard.

She’d told herself all kinds of excuses to stay along the way, but the one she repeated the most was that she’d wanted this. She’d signed up of her own free will because she’d wanted to be like these girls. Tough. Unafraid. Sluts all had this odd way of smiling, like they were wearing an invisible suit of armor that made them invincible, and they were amused that you didn’t know about it. Actually, it was Violent’s smile. Everyone else just seemed to copy her.

Lips wore it too. She crouched in front of Lucy, planting her hands on her knees and shoving her face forward like a lip-less gargoyle.

“You better start pushing or I’m gonna shove your face in that glass,” she said.

“No boys will smile at you then,” another Slut said.

“You better hit sixteen! I’ve been dealing with this ‘fifteen’ bullshit for a week now!” Lips screamed.

Lucy’s arms were blazing with pain. Her waist was rapidly sagging down.

Lips stood up. “Pathetic!”

She wasn’t going to give Lips the satisfaction of giving up.
The pile of clear glass shards glinted underneath her. Jagged spires pointed up at her eyes. Curved shards from broken bottles waited for her face, ready to plunge through her cheeks if her head were to come crashing down.

Lucy bent her elbows. She felt her chest muscles pull tight and blossom with pain. She tried to stop her descent, but realized immediately that she could only push hard enough to slow it, not stop it. Blades of glass crept toward her face.

All of a sudden, Lucy’s muscles shut down. Her smooth cheeks, the tender skin of her lips, the thin membrane of her eyelids, it all plummeted toward the mound of glass knives.

She felt something yank on the back of her hair. Her naked body slapped down onto the floor, but the hair-puller kept Lucy’s head cocked all the way back, and Lucy’s face stayed out of the glass pile except for a single shard that pricked the skin of her chin.

She was able to do half a push-up, enough to get a knee under her and get on all fours. She rolled to the side and saw that it was Lips who had held her hair.

“You’ll never get any stronger, will you?” Lips said, disgusted.

Lips kicked the shard pile at her. Lucy barely had time to cover her face. She felt stings of pain all over her forearms, stomach, and thighs. She lowered her arms from her face. Glass shards were all around her. Dots of blood popped up all over her bare body, and those dots began to swell into little
round berries of blood, before succumbing to gravity, and dripping down her skin.

“Take her to the freezer,” Lips said to the other Sluts.

Lucy could see her breath. It came out in foggy huffs, lit blue by the single bare bulb above her. Her body hadn’t stopped shaking for the entire four hours that she’d been locked in the kitchen’s walk-in freezer. She knew why Lips had locked her in there. It was the last day of Naked Week, and that vindictive cow wanted to squeeze as much suffering into the remaining hours as she could.

This was almost the end. As soon as they let her out of this ice box, it would all be over. Lips would have to eat her words. She will have proved herself. All Lucy had done in the past week was work, get yelled at, get pushed around, flinch about every five minutes, and eat oats off the floor. She couldn’t believe she’d endured it all. They had to respect her after this, she’d taken all they could dish out. As miserable as she felt now, with her blood running cold, and her teeth chattering uncontrollably, she was impressed with herself. She never would have imagined she could handle all this.

Lucy heard a metal
plink
and looked up. The freezer door opened, and Violent stepped in. Lucy’s eyes widened with hope. She hadn’t seen Violent since her first night in the cafeteria, and she’d been getting more and more upset about it. She felt in her heart that if she could just talk to Violent, she
could cut this whole Naked Week thing short. They had history together. The other Sluts never would have been so bold with their abuse if Violent had been there to see.

“Where have you been?” Lucy said through clacking teeth.

“None of your business, is it?” She shook her head at Lucy. “I hear you haven’t been doing well.”

“What? That’s not true. I’ve been doing everything anybody’s asked.”

“People have been saying that they don’t think you want to be here.”

“I—I don’t want to be cleaning people’s feet and getting kicked in the ribs and scrubbing ovens if that’s what you mean,” Lucy said.

“Lips told me about your attitude. Your lack of obedience. This is your chance to show us you’re Slut material, and you haven’t shown us anything yet.” Violent sighed. “You’re going to have start Naked Week over.”

“No,” Lucy muttered. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. It starts over now. This is day one.”

Violent turned and walked to the door. She stopped in the doorway, with her back to Lucy.

“First task,” Violent said. “Get out to the cafeteria and bring a mop. Someone threw up.”

Violent left, leaving the door open behind her. Lucy stood trembling. Whatever semblance of friendship she thought she’d had with Violent had been an illusion. She’d made an
awful mistake joining this gang. The Sluts weren’t tough, they were sadists.

Lucy didn’t follow Violent out of the freezer. She began to pace again, much faster this time. Another week of being treated like she was subhuman? And what would happen at the end of that week? A third week? How about a month of being blindfolded and hit with sticks? She wasn’t cold anymore. She was sweating.

Fuck these girls
, Lucy thought,
I’m out
.

She charged into the warmth of the dark kitchen, and out into the light of the cafeteria, which was filled with boisterous conversation, and the
chock-ch-chock-chock
of Sluts slamming their knives down into the long cafeteria table before sitting down to eat. Lucy didn’t slow a bit, she walked straight for the exit, on the other end of the dining room. The further into the room Lucy got, the quieter it became. She could feel all eyes on her, and although a growing fear was beginning to accompany her boiling anger, for the first time, she didn’t care one bit that she was naked.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, slave?” she heard Lips say.

Lucy kept walking. Something hard whacked her in the ear. Lucy stumbled left as pain stabbed into the side of her head. Her filthy, blackened scrub brush fell to the floor in front of her filthier toes.

“Oh! Direct hit!”

Lucy turned to see Lips stand up from the table, about ten feet from her. Lips smiled until her eyes were little knife wounds and her mouth looked like someone had placed a small shovel on Lips’s face and stomped on it. Lucy pulled her hand away from her ear. Fury electrified her at the sight of her own blood.

She dashed at Lips. Lucy saw the surprise flash across her ugly face. Lucy punched her in the tit. Lips wasn’t expecting it, and she wasn’t blocking for it. Lucy hadn’t really been aiming for it either, she’d swung wild, and that was just where her fist hit. Lips winced, and Lucy was able to shove her to the ground. Lucy pounced on her, ready to beat her face in, but the other Sluts pulled Lucy off.

Then they did something unexpected. The Sluts started to cheer. The whole gang converged on her. They were smiling. They hugged her, they patted her on the back, and mussed her hair. They told her how great she did, how awesome that was.

“What’s going on?” Lucy said to them.

“Congratulations,” Violent said in a big voice, as she came weaving through the crowd. She wrapped Lucy in a heavy quilted blanket and pulled her close.

“Ladies! We’ve got ourselves a Slut!”

“I don’t understand,” Lucy said.

“I knew you had the killer instinct somewhere in there,” Violent said. “I just didn’t think it would take you so long.”

“What do you mean?” Lucy asked.

“Naked Week ends when you fight back. Naked Week could’ve been Naked Afternoon, if you had fought back that first day.”

Lucy furrowed her brow. She couldn’t help the flush of embarrassment.

“Some girls just need a little more time than others. But in the end every Slut gets tough. That’s what binds us, right, girls?” Violent said, and the Sluts nodded. “We don’t wait for permission, we don’t take any shit.”

Lips came walking up, smiling like a proud parent. She held a plastic salad bowl full of bloodred water.

“Not bad, girl,” Lips said. “Now, let’s get that white out of your hair.”

WILL OPENED HIS EYES. A WAVE OF NAUSEA
rolled down from his forehead and plopped into his stomach. His temples throbbed with dull pain and his mouth felt like he’d been chewing on socks. He wasn’t in the elevator, and it took him a few seconds to remember why. He was lying on his side, on a bed in one of the processing facility’s containment cells. The baby chick girl from the party was standing over him, next to the bed. He watched her slip into a pair of black tights. She pulled on a gray cashmere sweater. Her wispy, white-haired head popped through, and when she saw him awake, she smiled.

“See ya around,” she said, and turned for the cell’s clear door, which was open to the hallway.

“Hey, wait,” Will said. He looked down at himself. All of his clothes were still on, even his shoes. “What, uh … what happened last night?”

“You don’t remember?”

Will shook his head. His brain felt like liquid sloshing up on the sides of his skull. “Parts, I guess. What did you and me, uh, do …?”

“Nothing X-rated. You feel asleep,” she said. Will was relieved in a way. He’d hate to have missed his first time. The girl laughed and skipped out of the cell. “Don’t forget your bag. It’s in the hall.”

Oh, no, the honey. Will sat up suddenly and he nearly vomited. Too fast, too soon. His body despised him. He stood and a head rush made him stumble one step sideways. He swore his head was about to collapse as he walked out of the cell.

Will’s backpack sat on the floor, just outside in the hall. He bent down, and the blood flowed to his head. His headache pulsed. He unzipped his bag fast. He was shocked to find his bottle of honey was still inside. He reached in and gave it a satisfying squeeze. He didn’t understand. How had no one taken it? They could have gotten away with it for sure.

Will looked down the hall to where some Saints were hanging out, beyond the airtight doors in the front room where the bus had crashed through. They were doing a massage train. The kid in front told an animated story and used his hands a lot because he didn’t have anyone’s shoulders to lay them on.

Will wished the party didn’t have to end. He thought about the life waiting for him in the elevator. Hungry, cold, and alone. Only going out at night. Trusting no one. He’d seen the
love between the Saints last night. They worked together, had fun together, and watched each other’s backs. Will remembered what that used to feel like.

But he felt out of place. This wasn’t his gang. He didn’t want to push his luck by hanging out any longer and turning into the annoying house guest who wouldn’t leave. Will zipped up his bag and shouldered it. He headed for the exit.

“Where you going?”

Will turned to see Gates; he was disheveled and shuffling into the hallway behind Will. His eyes were barely open and he looked like he was in just as much pain as Will.

“Figured I should get going,” Will said.

Gates wiped his hand down his face. “Huh? Where?”

“Back home,” Will said. “I really appreciate you letting me hang out last night—”

“Home? I thought your whole gang bailed on you.”

Will didn’t like hearing his situation put so bluntly, but he couldn’t deny that it was pretty much true.

“I’ve got a smaller place now.”

“The elevator?” Gates said. “You’re not going back there. That’s depressing.”

“How do you know where I …”

“You mentioned it last night.”

Will groaned softly. He didn’t remember doing that. What had he been thinking?

“Look,” Gates said. “I know we haven’t known each other
long, but, I’m not really one for waiting, in general. We need someone like you, someone who knows this school.”

“You want me to be a Saint?”

“I guess we’re stuck with that name, huh?” Gates said. “Anyway, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I think you should run with us in the food drop today.”

Just the thought of being on the quad again, in front of everyone, made Will’s hangover double in intensity.

“You don’t want me in your gang.”

“I do actually, that’s why I’m fuckin’ asking,” Gates said sharply. “We’re the new kids, there’s no hiding it. I can’t lead my people if I don’t know how things work, or if I don’t know who I can trust and who’s trying to hustle us in the market … I don’t know all that stuff. But you do.”

The picture was clear in Will’s head. He was seizing in the middle of the quad, everyone was laughing, and the Saints were walking away from him. It would happen all over again.

“I don’t get it,” Gates said when Will didn’t answer. “You don’t want forty pairs of eyes watching your back from now on? You don’t want to get your respect back? Walk out there with us and you could show all of them that they can’t keep you down.”

“I don’t run in drops anymore,” Will said, breaking eye contact.

Gates threw his Nalgene bottle onto the ground, spiking it like a football. Water sprayed up on the door of a neighboring
cell. The bottle clattered on the hard floor. Will looked at Gates, confused.

“Dude, what’s your problem?” Will said, throwing up his hands.

“You’re epileptic and it sucks. I get it. I got an earful of it last night. But, you want to hide? That’s what you want to do about it? I know I’m hungover, and my head is fucking killing me, and maybe I’m out of line in saying this, but grow the fuck up. You get seizures. That’s your deal. You have to accept it.” He massaged his temples, clearly in pain. “I’m sorry I’m yelling, but … don’t you want someone there to help you up next time?”