Sinners 01 - Branded (5 page)

“Skank! We know you’re in there,” says a screechy voice.

“Slut! Open the door,” says a second voice. “We’ve been dreaming about touching you
all night… We promise to be gentle.” They laugh.

I sit up, my heart pounding against my chest, and press against the wall. Do I sit
tight or call Cole? Their hands fiddle with the door, and I swallow hard, trying to
decide what to do.

“I’m gonna ride you till the sun comes—”

“Leave!” Cole’s voice demands from the other side of my door. “Now.”

The men chuckle. “Oh, I almost forgot,” the deep voice says with sarcasm. “The guards
get the first lay… How could we forget? Damn, she must be number—”

“Get the hell out of here before I smash in your skulls,” Cole says.

“All right… all right… chill… Just be sure to let us know when she’s back on the market.”
Their laughter fades away. “That body of hers is to die for.”

The door opens from the main hallway, and I shrink into the shadows, but instead of
strangers, Cole walks in. He gives me a tired look of annoyance as he places a small
paper bag onto my windowsill.

“Out of all the sins, you had to go and pick lust?”

His question irritates me. I have to swallow the dry lump in my throat before I can
answer. “You know nothing about me.”

“Well, then, enlighten me.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and cocks his head.
“If I’m supposed to keep these lunatics off you, then I deserve an answer.”

“Why? No one else believes me.” I breathe deep, trying to stem the tide of emotions
that surge over me. “When you look at me… like everyone else, you see nothing but
blue.”

His eyes dart to the floor. “What happened to you?” His question catches me off-balance
and the muscles in my neck tighten. I wrap my arms around myself, waiting for the
darkness.

I’m in a closet. Waiting, waiting, waiting. What I’m waiting for is always the unknown.
The sharp stab in the pit of my stomach causes me to double over. I feel his presence.
I hear his breathing. I want to run, but there’s nowhere to go. I want to scream,
but no one can hear me.

And there’s my mother, standing in her sequined dress, decorated in that gaudy jewelry
he bought her. She’s jealous of me for some warped reason. I’d give anything to change
the past—to be free of this pain. I never wanted to be the focus of my stepfather’s
attention—his adoration. I’ve done nothing wrong, but my mother doesn’t see it that
way. She wants me dead. He wants me alive so he can control me.

“Snap out of it!” Cole’s voice brings me back. My hands shake as I rub my eyes and
crawl onto my mattress. “Geez, I only asked what happened to you and you go all psycho
on me.”

I take a deep breath. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I’ll never tell anyone
about it again, especially you.”

Cole stares at me with a knowing look and raises his eyebrow. “Let me see if I can
remember… My report says you were caught having premarital sex and your partner jumped
out of your window. But you refused to turn him in.” His voice sounds inquisitive.
“Leaving you the only one to brand for the sin.”

“Believe what you want,” I say with a shaky voice. I’ve never been good at masking
my emotions, although I try really hard.

“So, you’re not gonna defend yourself?”

“My bedroom was eight floors up in a High Society building. I think it’s reasonable
to conclude that a naked boy with broken legs would’ve been caught… but I bet your
report didn’t give you those details,” I say, holding my voice steady for once.

He shakes his head, tucks in his T-shirt, and fixes his belt. “There’s no such thing
as reasonable. Go to sleep,” he says before leaving my room.

I’ve been trying!

In the darkness, my throat constricts and my muscles lock in place. I can’t see a
thing, but I hear everything—the
drip, drip, dripping
from the bathroom and the
tap, tap, tapping
as rain hits my window. Screams from outside bounce off my walls and then moaning
from the hallway joins in. I shake my head, pry open my throat, and take a breath.
Propelling myself off my mattress, I stand at Cole’s door with my hands at my side.
It seems weak, but I hate being in the dark. I give in and knock.

“Now what?” he asks.

“I can’t sleep,” I say.

“And that’s my problem how?”

“It’s not.” I bite my lip. “Would it be all right if I kept my light on?”

“Whatever,” he says.

I draw my knees up to my chin, wrap my arms around my small frame, and start to count
the cement blocks that make up my walls. My imagination runs wild with every noise
in the building and the screams from outside. I hope this nightmare ends soon.

*   *   *

A screaming siren jolts me awake.
Did I fall asleep?
I leap to my feet and look outside, accidentally knocking over the paper bag on the
windowsill. It clatters to the cold floor. I unfold the top and pull out a roll that’s
hard as cement.

Disgusting.

I throw it and begin to shake. Biting my tongue, I try to bury myself in the corner.
I have nothing but these walls to protect me, and no one but myself to watch my back.
I’ll never be able to fight my way out because what lives outside is worse than what
is in here.

A shower will help clear my mind.

I turn on the faucet for a long while only to discover ice-cold water rushing out.
The water never warms and I begin to understand. The commander thinks he can wash
away my soul by freezing me to death in the shower. He thinks he can destroy me by
stripping away my possessions. But he can’t and I won’t let him take my memories,
my ambition, and my pride.

He thinks I’m so easily broken.

The commander doesn’t know anything about me, what I grew up with, what I endured—the
father I lost, the mother I hate, the brother who walked out of my life, and the stepfather
I was forced to accept. He thinks since I was rich, making me poor will cause me to
give up. What he doesn’t understand is that, after my father passed away, I grew up
behind walls of hatred. I had nothing yet everything at the same time. I owned expensive
clothes, enjoyed good schooling, and lived in a nice home. But my body was just a
shell protecting an empty, desperate heart. My life was a colorful façade.

I had so much time to sit and think. I spent the majority of my life between four
walls. I was abandoned, neglected, starved, betrayed, and abused. I’ve already been
treated like the scum of the earth, so the Hole is nothing new. He wants to erase
every sign of my existence on this earth, but I won’t let that happen. He can strip
me naked, but he’ll never reach my soul.

It’s personal, completely personal.

I squeeze the excess water from my hair and slip back into my old scrubs. I tiptoe
back to my mat only to find it occupied by Zeus.

Great! How did that happen?

I don’t want him in my room, but I’m unsure of what to do. When he looks at me, his
brown eyes widen, his tail whips back and forth, and his ears stand at attention.
I wonder what he thinks of me. I don’t know why I care, but I do.

He releases his gaze and drops his head. I comb my fingers through my hair and remain
standing.

Cole steps inside my room through the open door from his bedroom. His eyes narrow
at me as he shakes his head. He opens his mouth, then closes it, and scratches the
back of his neck. Then he shrugs his shoulders and closes the door behind him again.

Weird.

I don’t know what to expect, but it seemed as if he had something to say before he
stepped outside. As I’m pondering his awkward facial expression, the door from the
main hallway swings open, and Cole reappears, holding another paper bag.

“Here’s your breakfast.” He holds out the bag.

I shake my head, trying to be polite. “No, thank you.”

“Eat it.” He unrolls the bag and holds out crackers.

At least they haven’t solidified like the roll. “All right. Fine. But I could use
some water first.”

He crosses the room, hands me a bottle of clear water, and watches as I gulp it down.
He places a hand on his hip, takes a step back, and starts rocking on both feet. I
can’t hold eye contact with him for more than a second. His stare makes me uncomfortable,
and the way in which he enters and leaves through the two doors always reminds me
that I have no privacy.

“Come this way,” he demands.

“Where are we going?” I ask, feeling suddenly nervous.

“Don’t question me,” he says. “When I tell you to do something, you do it.” He points
his finger in my face and he’s close, too close. It’s the first time I take notice
of the stubble on his chin.

“Okay.”

I follow him into his room, breathing in the fresh smell of oranges. It’s set up almost
like a large studio with everything in one room except for the bathroom. To the left
sits his bed, and to the right is the entrance to his small bathroom. His clothing
is piled at the foot of his bed along with Zeus’s food dish and crate. His kitchen
area sits in the far right corner and is small but clean with the doorway to the main
hall next to it. Against the wall, near the kitchen, sits a wooden table with two
identical chairs and a safe mounted above it, where I assume he keeps his weapons.
A small laptop sits on his table. On the screen, I see a view of the main hallway
and a view of my bedroom.

Outside the window above his bed, the siren screams again. “When you hear that.” He
points to his window. “Your ass better be at work.”

I figured that.

He sits at the table and points to the chair across from him. “Sit,” he says as he
packs up the computer for more space. “We have a lot to cover. There’re certain rules
you have to obey, and if you don’t, you’re toast.”

“Do you have a pen and paper?” I ask. “So I can take notes.”

He pulls on the collar of his shirt. “Don’t move. I’ll be back.” He leaves through
the doorway in his room and the door locks behind him. I check just to make sure.

Cole returns with a pen and a piece of paper. He sits back down and slides them across
the table.

“Where’d you go?” I ask.

“The guards have a station on each floor for reporting purposes… Now can I start?”
he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

I try to steady my hand while I write, but the letters look like a third grader wrote
them. I can’t stop wondering why, out of all things, he chose to be a guard. I bet
it’s the control, but I’ll never ask.

He tells me there’s no public transportation within the Hole. He explains how the
buses take the sinners to high-speed trains that transport them to their jobs if their
jobs are up north in High Society or farther away. However, very few people are authorized
to come and go freely—none of which are sinners, of course. The majority of the population
is branded red, black, or yellow. He says the blue tend to die off quickly, either
from suicide, disease, or murder. Orange keep to themselves and green hangs out with
purple. Stay away from all reds—no matter what.

He tells me that the gangs are growing, violence is increasing, and everyone’s starving.
Some areas are safer than others, but pretty much everywhere is dangerous, especially
for me.

I absorb every disturbing detail. Children born here are forced to live the remainder
of their lives in the Hole. The commander believes they carry the blood of sinners
within them and, therefore, don’t deserve to leave.

I drop my pen on the table.

He huffs a heavy sigh. “Now what?” I feel him shift in his chair.

“How could anyone be so cruel?”

“Forceful is putting it lightly. Then again, if he weren’t, you’d think he was soft
enough to try and escape, right?”

I shake my head. “I just don’t understand why you’d want to join the guards.” After
the sentence slips out, I clench my teeth in expectation of his response.

Will he lash out and hit me or will he finally rip me to shreds?

He gives me a hard look and avoids my question. “Can I finish?”

“Yeah, go ahead.” I lean back and cross my legs at my ankles. “But I have one more
question.”

“Seriously?” he asks.

“Are all sinners treated equally?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you protecting me?”

“That I can’t answer.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both,” he says. “I was ordered to watch you, and that’s what I’m doing. There’s nothing
more to tell. Now please shut up and let me finish.”

He tells me all the rules without any personality. His monotone voice flips through
the pages.
No this. No that.
No one but the guards has rights here. Trudging through all the details of my new
arrangement takes all of the morning, afternoon, and part of the evening. He shows
me maps of the Hole and the hospital, which stands in the center of this monstrosity.
He writes out my schedule for the week, which consists of my cell, work, and back
to my cell. The Hole runs just like a prison but without bars to hold everyone in
place. He says the commander believes the judicial system that used to exist was full
of flaws and a waste of time.

“After all, it’s easier and cheaper to keep everyone in one location,” Cole says.

I totally disagree.

“You should just kill me. You have a gun, and no one would care.”

“Lexi.” I feel his eyes on me. “What’s wrong with you? You think I want to kill you?”

“I’m a waste of your time.”

“My job is to protect you, not kill you.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Without me you’d be dead, so yes, for whatever reason, I am.”

I’m not sure what he means by that, but I’m done asking questions today.

I lower my eyes to the table, feeling shame mixed with despair. I’ll never get out
of here. Either he’ll be with me or some crazy person will do worse to me in the streets.