***
That night, we were allowed out onto the deck of the ship. Every night, for weeks on end, groups of prisoners cycled, giving everyone an opportunity to taste fresh air for a short while.
“They do it because people were going nuts being kept inside all the time.” Jason explained to me as we walked outside, “We’re not supposed to be cooped up. We need the sun, and the moon, and the fresh air.”
My mom and dad had always said the same thing.
So that night, when we went outside, and the air that smelled of salt and cold and light (even though it was night) hit me, I found myself beaming brightly for the second time. Sylvie and her group were huddled over by the railing, looking out at the pitch-black ocean. Brynna, Janna, Illa, and their crowd were closest to the front, and I was shocked to see Brynna laughing. It was genuine, with not a hint of malice. She and Janna were standing side by side, facing the ocean, and together, they raised their joined hands into the air and swayed in the breeze, giggling all the while. My eyes instinctively scanned the crowd for James, who, sure enough, was watching his wife and his former girlfriend (and it was still weird for me to think of them that way together). I expected to see a smile there, a flicker of recognition of his old love for her, or of his love for his wife. But there was nothing. His gaze was so steely, so empty, so… dead.
Rael went over to Brynna and Janna, and they both embraced him happily, as did Illa.
“God, Illa looks just like her mother.” Yumi said, “Doesn’t she, Ro?”
“Oh, she does. She’s got that beautiful hair color that Luciana always had. I want it.”
“Too bad we cannot just swing by the corner store and buy you what you would need to make the color dye for your hair like we used to.”
“I know. Such a pity.”
“No.” Yumi said, and she kissed her quickly, “You’re perfect just the way you are.”
Brynna looked over and waved to them, her long hair blowing in the breeze, her white and black eyes glowing, even in the dark, and they smiled and waved back.
“Are you two friends with her?” I asked, somewhat shocked.
“We’re acquainted with her. Rael is friends with her.” Yumi said, “She is alright, Grace. Well, she’s dangerous…”
“Completely out of her mind, and yet it’s that whole ‘crazy like a fox’ thing.” Jason added.
“And she’s ridiculously powerful, with her gift, her physical strength, and her brain.” Rohanna chimed in, “But as long as you’re polite, and you respect that she has more power than anyone else in here except for perhaps the Warden, and even that’s debatable, you’ll be fine. Notice…” Rohanna gently turned my head so I could see one of the girls in Sylvie’s group eyeing Brynna up. “She does not target anyone unless they target her first.”
“Do it.” I heard Sylvie whispering. It was my enhanced hearing, which my mom and dad had told me about but which I hadn’t used before. In her mind, Sylvie was thinking about some deal she had just made with this girl who was now walking over to Brynna. I couldn’t see the exact details, but I could see that whatever it was that Sylvie had promised this girl was enough to motivate the girl into doing what she was about to do.
It happened so quickly that I still don’t know exactly what happened. What I saw was this: A flash of silver in the girl’s hand, Brynna turning to her before she had even reached her completely, grabbing her wrist, breaking it in one hand, grabbing the knife, and stabbing her so quickly and so many times in the stomach that her arm was a blur of movement. In the next moment that was just as quick, she had turned the girl towards the railing, kicked her so hard in the chest that I heard her sternum crack, and then, the girl was out of our sight, having toppled over into the sea.
Before the guards could grab her, Brynna had stormed over to Sylvie, wrapped her fist up in Sylvie’s blonde hair, pummeled and totally knocked out with one fist two of Sylvie’s friends who tried to help Sylvie, and then dragged Sylvie over to James.
“You know that she’s one of mine.” James started to say, “She’s…”
“She’s making her little deals, and why don’t you tell him why?!” Brynna barked at Sylvie, who was on the ground under her boot now, sniveling because Brynna was digging the heel of her boot into the top of Sylvie’s spine.
“Should I crush her spine?!” Brynna asked, and my heart plummeted when she looked directly at me. I looked behind me and to the side of me, but she was asking me, “Should I take her tongue?”
“Don’t get your fucking dogs all riled up. Do you hear me?” James snarled at her, before he looked at the other guards, “Take her inside.”
“Down, dogs,” Brynna sang without taking her eyes off of James, and simultaneously, they collapsed abruptly to the ground and began to pant and bark and even hump the ground like dogs in heat. Everyone on the deck was laughing riotously except for Sylvie’s friends and me. Well, Janna was merely smiling, because she wanted to appear entertained by her girlfriend’s antics, but she also knew that the confrontation between James and Brynna was going to come to blows at any moment.
And come to blows, it did. James grabbed her throat, forced her to the ground, and turned her over onto her stomach. He twisted her arms behind her back until Brynna’s face contorted into a very slight look of pain, and then he flipped her over so he could slap and backhand her interchangeably until she was dazed enough that he could pull her onto her feet without her thrashing. After that, he lifted her like she weighed absolutely nothing and threw her over his shoulder. She wasn’t dazed enough, though, because she kicked him hard in the stomach so he would drop her, and then, she rammed into him with her body and somehow managed to push his solid, muscular body backwards several steps. He came charging back, and when he reached her, his hands wrapped around her upper arms, barely squeezing, and she collapsed, yelping in pain for the slightest second before she regained her senses and kicked him hard in the face. His lip split, and his nose began to gush, but the pain and the blood only enraged him further. When she nailed him with a perfect kick right in the stomach, the crowd around us roared even louder. I had not noticed the cheers or the chants, because I had been so tensely engrossed in the fight, but that particular burst of cheering had been particularly passionate. Thank God the other guards had regained their senses (because her attention was focused solely on James, so she could not hold them under her influence), because they were needed to hold back the rabid, screaming, cheering inmates who were rooting for Brynna. When he had told her not to get her dogs riled up, I thought he had been talking about her friends. But he had been talking about all the inmates out on the deck, all the ones who wanted to watch her fight and win like she had a few days earlier, when that huge man had stepped to her.
As James had been gathering himself together after the kick in his stomach, she had rammed into him over and over until his back was against the wall. But after a few seconds, once he was recovered, he ended the fight in a severely final way: One of his hands twisted in her hair and from there, he threw her to the ground. Then, he bent down, grabbed the front of her prison shirt and the front of her prison pants, picked her up, slammed her into the deck, picked her up, and slammed her into the deck again. When he converged on her, his eyes burning red, and dropped to his knees beside her, she rammed herself up and slammed her head into his. In reciprocation, he brought his hand back to slap her, closed his hand into a fist, and full-on punched her instead. She collapsed back, and his hands wrapped around her throat as he huffed and puffed, as his eyes darkened from white to black.
“Alright, alright…” She said breathlessly, “Officer James… You win this round.”
“Oh, do I?” He asked her, just as breathlessly, “I don’t think I have. Not yet, anyway.”
His thumbs pushed in at her lower neck, and under her back, her hands pulled against the cuffs just as another guard came over and cuffed her ankles together. The new immobility of her ankles seemed to stir in her mind the idea to us
e her legs. Her knees came up and hit him hard in his ribs, knocking the wind out of him again, and her head came up to slam into his for the second time.
“Ooh!” The crowd yelled, before cheering loudly for her. She sat up in a blur and slammed her mouth against his, and the pain that rocketed through him at the touch of her lips so obviously hurt him more than her kicks or her head-butts had. He jerked away from her, reaching out instinctively to push her away, but she closed the space between them and sunk her teeth down hard into his bottom lip, causing him to grunt in pain and punch her so hard in the side of the face that she collapsed onto her back again.
“Reine! Reine! Reine!” The crowd was yelling, and people were shoving each other out of the way of the windows to see out from the inside, most of them cheering just as loudly for her. Even from behind that thick glass, I could hear just how loudly they were screaming.
“You’re done!” James bellowed in her face, his hands on her throat again but not squeezing, “That’s enough!”
“Big man…” She hissed at him, because her body was immobile, but her mind was still as furious and fierce as ever. “Look at the big man.” She raised her voice to a shout, “Takes a big man to win in a fight with a handcuffed woman!”
The crowd laughed hysterically, but they stopped abruptly when James took out his gun. Sylvie was on the ground, huffing and puffing still, not daring to smile outwardly, but definitely smiling slightly. She wanted him to pull that trigger so badly that she would give up days of her immortal life to watch it happen.
“Do it.” Brynna hissed at James, and she spat her blood in his face, “Come on, you big man! Can you do it? Can you pull the trigger, big man? Oh, I don’t think he can.” She laughed rather uproariously, “I don’t think he can do it. Look at the big man. He can beat up on a handcuffed woman, but he can’t end the fight in the only way he wants to end it. Do it, Officer James! Pull the trigger! Do it! Do it! Do it, my love… my love… My lov—”
“James.” A voice said, and everyone stopped yelling and cheering immediately when they saw the man who was standing in the doorway. “James, let go of her.”
The Warden was tall, and he would have been handsome, if the sight of him had not immediately set my thoughts tripping over themselves, and my heartbeats fluttering, like my heart was trying to run away. His piercing blue eyes fell on her, and though he was smiling slightly, I could see the disgust on his face.
“Starting trouble again?” He asked her before looking up at James, “Quite a number you did on her, Commander. Quite a number she did on you, as well. Were these extensive injuries well-deserved?”
“Absolutely.” James answered, “She used her curse on them.” He gestured to the other men.
“Tattle-tale…” Brynna murmured, but loudly enough so the crowd could hear. A few people snickered, but when the Warden looked up at them, his light blue eyes suddenly dark red, they fell silent as the grave, as they say.
“You used your curse on my men?” He asked her lightly, as though he were mildly entertained by her precociousness.
“I did. He called my people dogs, so I made his people dogs. Isn’t that humorous, Warden?” She asked.
“Oh, yes.” He whispered as he bent down and tenderly wiped the blood away from her mouth, “You are the most humorous woman I know, my love.”
His fist sunk down into her suddenly completely shattered ribcage so easily, it was like her bones had turned to butter. She inhaled deeply, and when she could not take in any more air, she still continued to gasp, her body curling up, her eyes tearing, and yet her mind screaming at her not to scream. Her head was tilted backwards, fixed on Janna, who was wiping tears from her eyes repeatedly as Illa held her back, looking enraged.
“Is that humorous?” The Warden asked in her ear, still so calmly, with not a hint of emotion in his voice, “Does that hurt you?”
She tried to breathe in, but the breath rattled loudly in the back of her throat, stuck firmly there.
“I asked you a question, my sweet, silly Brynna. Does that hurt you?” He was holding her face now, and she nodded.
“Good.” He slammed his fist down into her broken ribcage again, and though she still did not scream, she took in another deep breath and made a noise between a grunt and a gurgle. I grabbed onto Rohanna, squeezing her arm with both hands, and her arm came around discreetly to hold me.
“Look away, sweetheart.” She whispered in my ear so quietly, so as not to be heard by the Warden’s surely far advanced hearing, “If he does not see you look away, he will not punish you, and he is not looking here now.”
But I could not. My eyes were stuck on her, stuck on the tears of pain streaming from her eyes, stuck on her curled up body. My ears could not stop hearing those rattling gasps for air that she was emitting. I feared that she would vomit, but she seemed to be holding that down out of pride, too.
“You know what I have to do now, don’t you?” He asked her softly, wiping those tears of pain from her eyes. “I loathe it, but it must be done. Now, will you walk, or will I drag you by your hair? Brynna?”
“Walk.” She said, as clearly and firmly as she could.
“Do you know what I am going to do?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.” James and the Warden brought her onto her feet and the guard who had shackled her ankles unlocked them.
“The show is over.” The Warden said, “Back to your evenings, if you please. Enjoy them, because Mrs. Elohimson has just bought you all three months inside.”
Maybe the crowd groaned, maybe they did not. I did not peek into their minds to see if they were angry at her for what she had done, or if they still felt she was justified, if they still thought she deserved their hero worship. I was simply watching her being led away, to an unknown fate about which the only thing I knew in certainty was that it would be brutal.
I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t want to know. It would sicken me. I truly did not like her in any way, and I did not think that I ever could or would like her, but still, it would literally make me sick if I saw it. Regardless of the effect it would have on my heart and my mind, my curse allowed me to travail minefields and quicksand and barbed wire fences and dark forests full of beasts until it could enter her mind, and I saw her deepest, darkest secret.
She laid down on her own, but it was not her choice. He grabbed her and rode her and clawed at her like a wild animal, and afterwards, his grip on her face would be so tight that she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.
“Tyre will hear nothing of this,” He would say.
“Of course not, Warden.” She would say.
Rohanna sensed the storm inside of me. She had the same gift as Rael, so she saw into my heart with ease. She saw the pain I felt, though I didn’t know how I could feel it for Brynna. Her arms wrapped around me. She turned me away.
As quietly as I could, as quietly as I had been trained all my life to do, I started to cry.