World After

18

MY LITTLE SISTER struggles under the shadows.

Radiating out from her are ropes pulled by men. One rope is tied around her neck, two others around her wrists, and two more around her ankles.

The men struggle against the ropes like they’re holding down a wild horse.

Paige’s hair is tangled and there’s blood in it. There’s also blood smeared across her face and staining her flower-print dress. The contrast of the dark blood and the stitches on her pale skin make her look as if she’s risen from the dead.

She struggles against the ropes like someone possessed. She lurches when the men yank at her to try to gain control. Even in this light, I can see the bloody chafing of the ropes around her neck and wrists as she’s jerked around like a macabre voodoo puppet.

My first instinct is to screech like a banshee and pull out the sword.

But there’s something lying in front of Paige.

The shock of seeing her so cruelly tied up like an animal kept me from seeing the rest of the scene. But now I see a shadowy lump, still as rock but shaped like something I wish I didn’t recognize.

It’s a body.

It’s the guy who carried the bat when he and his buddies attacked me.

I look away. I don’t want to process what my eyes just saw. I don’t want to register the chunks missing from him.

I don’t want to think about what that means.

I can’t.

Paige’s tongue flicks out and licks blood from her lips.

She closes her eyes and swallows. Her face relaxes just for a second.

Peace.

She opens her eyes and looks at the body near her feet. It’s like she can’t help it.

A part of me still expects her to cringe in disgust at the sight of the corpse. There is disgust there. But there’s also a flash of longing. Hunger.

She darts a glance at me. Shame.

She stops struggling and looks right at me.

She sees my hesitation. She sees I’m no longer running to save her. She sees judgment in my eyes.

“Ryn-Ryn,” she cries. Her voice is filled with loss. Tears streak down her blood-smeared cheeks, leaving clear tracks. Her face shifts from looking like a fierce monster to a scared little girl.

Paige starts thrashing again. My wrists, ankles, and neck hurt in sympathy as the ropes chafe against her bloody skin.

The men seesaw at the ends of the ropes so that it’s hard to tell whether they have her captive or if she’s holding them. I’ve seen how strong her new body can be. She’s powerful enough to seriously challenge them and give them a real fight. On this uneven terrain, she might be able to throw them off balance and make them fall.

Instead, she struggles ineffectively.

Just enough to get the ropes to cut into her. Just enough to hurt herself in punishment. Just enough so that no one else gets hurt.

My little sister cries in heartbroken sobs.

I start running again. No matter what happened, she doesn’t deserve this. No living creature deserves this.

A soldier on my right raises his rifle and points it at me. It’s so close I can look right into the dark hole of its silencer.

I stop, almost skidding.

Another man stands beside him, pointing a rifle at Paige.

I raise my open hands.

Men grab my arms, and I can tell by their roughness that they expect a major struggle. We Young girls are getting a reputation.

The men relax when they see that I’m not about to put up a fight. Hand-to-hand is one thing but guns are beyond me. All I can do is stay alive until I get a chance to do something more proactive.

But my mother has her own logic.

She runs out from the shadows, silent as a ghost.

She jumps on the soldier pointing his rifle at Paige.

The other soldier raises the butt of his rifle and smacks Mom in the face.

“No!” I kick the guy holding my arm. But before he hits the ground and before I can get the other guy off me, three of them jump on me. They shove me to the ground like experienced gang members before I get a chance to stabilize.

My mom puts up her hand to deflect another blow of the rifle butt.

My sister ramps up her struggling. This time, it’s filled with panic and fury. She screeches into the air like she’s calling on the sky to come help her.

“Shut her up! Shut her up!” someone is whisper-shouting.

“Don’t shoot!” whisper-shouts Sanjay. “We need her alive for study.” He has the decency to throw me a quick, guilty glance. I don’t know whether to be angry or grateful.

I have to help my family. My brain screams at me about the guns, but what can I do? Lie here while they torture and kill my baby sister and mother?

Three men hold me down. One grabs my arms above my head, another has my ankles, and the third sits on my stomach. Looks like no one’s underestimating me any more. So be it.

I grasp the wrists of the guy holding my hands, using him as leverage, making sure he can’t get away.

I twist and pump my legs, scrape-kicking my ankle holder’s hand off my ankle. It’s hard for anyone, big or not, to match the power of a kick with the grip of his hand.

Then I pull back my free leg and kick him full in the face.

With my legs free, I heave and wrap them around the neck of the guy sitting on my stomach.

I slam my legs toward the ground, jerking him backwards. I yank my leg out from under him and kick at his open crotch.

I kick so hard he slides away from me on the grass with a breathless scream. He won’t be any trouble for a while.

By now, the guy holding my wrists has started to fight my grip, trying to get away. If I thought he’d just run and let me be, I’d be happy to let him go.

But there’s too much of a chance that he’ll get ideas about tackling me while I’m down. Guys are sometimes like that when it comes to losing a fight to a small female. They chalk it up to luck or something.

My hold on him is firm. Using him for leverage, I twist and spin on my hip in what someone in my gym has described as looking like I’m running up a wall, only I’m doing it while lying on the ground.

I swing my leg, pivoting on the side of my hip as I kick the guy above me in the head.

I bet he wasn’t expecting that little move.

I hop up, scanning the scene around me, ready for another attack.

My mom is on the ground, yanking a soldier by his rifle. She grips the barrel while it’s pointed right at her. She either doesn’t realize that all he has to do is pull the trigger to blow her away, or she doesn’t care.

My sister screeches into the sky like the monster they all think she is. The veins on her neck and forehead stick out like they’re going to burst.

Two of the men holding her ropes are on the ground now. A third one goes down as I watch.

I dive toward Mom, hoping the rifle doesn’t go off before I can do something.

Luckily, these soldiers are citizen soldiers, newly minted and inexperienced. Hopefully, this one hasn’t shot anyone yet and isn’t willing to have a desperate mother be his first kill.