The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  “Alright. Nice and easy now, sweetheart.”

  I had just shut out the light when James, Brynna, and Adam returned. Together, they were easing her down onto her sleeping mat. She was wearing a pair of prison pants that she had ripped to make shorts, because, as she had explained to me quietly, she could not sleep in long pants, and there was an unspoken rule about sleeping in only undergarments or in nothing at all. In the darkness, she could not see me watching, so she did not see me see the extent of her injuries.

  I had never had sex. That should be obvious. So I did not understand how she had gotten the bruises down her thighs. I did not understand why she was in so much pain. I was so ignorant. I was so stupid. I watched as they laid her down, and I wondered, “Even if it was forced on her by the Warden, would it still hurt?” But it did hurt. She was biting her tongue as James gently helped bend her knees to settle her down onto the mat. By the time she had laid back against the pillows that Adam had placed behind her back, I saw the tears leaking from her eyes. They were tears of pain, only. Nothing more. Despite how I felt about her, I knew with my whole heart that she would not shed tears for that man or for what he had done to her. The tears were in response to the pain, and that was all.

  Adam wiped them away very gently with his thumb, and then, he and James took their usual place on either side of her. I had noticed, when I had watched them over the previous days, that if her head was rested against Adam’s chest, she would have her fingers entwined with James’s, or if she was lying with her head nestled underneath of James’s head, she would pull Adam’s arm so it was draped over her. Only if they were both beside her would she sleep. Otherwise, she sat up, and while some of us remained awake, she would merely lie with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling, but once she thought we were all asleep, she would sit up on her sleeping mat, and rock herself back and forth. That would wake up Adam, who would just lie beside her, rubbing his hand up and down her back, or up and down her thigh, or he would sit up, too, and start massaging her shoulders. James slept like the dead, but I knew that if she shook him, he would wake and sit up with her.

  It was only a matter of time before he found us. She knew it. I knew it. Every day felt like another minute had ticked down on the time-trigger of a nuclear bomb. Every night, I imagined feeling the explosion of noise before I felt it. I imagined the fire. So when it came, I was almost relieved.

  “It’s him.” Brynna whispered when we heard a long bang against the wall. James looked at her, his eyes wide, terrified. Penny grasped her around the middle, squeezing tightly. Adam had merely wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

  “We’re the most expendable.” Jason told me grimly, sadly. “We’ll be the first to go.”

  “I’m not expendable.” I whispered, “And that’s worse for me.”

  “Why?” He asked, “Who are you that I’m not?”

  “You’ll see. Because he knows.”

  There was no fighting, at least not at first. Once they grabbed hold of us, and began to tear us off in different directions, though, I began to thrash and fight and claw and scream. I fought and kicked until the guard holding me had had enough, until a blast across the back of my head blotted out my vision with darkness and stars.

  Before I passed out, though, I heard her screaming for me. Brynna.

  “That is my daughter!” She screamed, “Warden, she is my daughter! Gideon! She is mine!”

  I wanted to say her name, to show that I heard, that I knew that she was fighting for me, that she was claiming me in order to save me. In my heart, I wanted to believe that the reason she wanted me spared was not just because I was her blood, but because she cared for me. I allowed myself to believe that as I felt myself slipping further and further away from the light, as I felt distinctly like I was falling backwards into some terrible dream. Before I went, I would say her name.

  But when I cried it out, it did not come out as “Brynna.” It came out as “Mom.”