Part 24 (1/2)
”Wear loose s.h.i.+rts so's the men can't see how big you are. And get jeans that's too big for you.
Cut that long hair off. Try to make yourself ugly.
If you don't, you gonna get jumped every time you turn around.”
Lisa started crying.
Rich was the oldest. Fourteen. But small for his age. He was scared, and looked it.
”You just left some city or town, didn't you?”
Judy asked him.
Rich nodded.
”I figured it. You don't know nothin” about stayin' alive, do you?”
”My parents just got taken away from me. By the IPF. I don't know where they were taken. They hid me in the bas.e.m.e.nt.”
”You'll never see them again,” Judy said bluntly.
”So forget them. I can't even hardly remember mine, and if you tune up and start blubberin', I'm gonna knock the c.r.a.p outta you.”
Rich tightened his face, holding back tears.
”You gotta get tough, boy,” Judy told him. ”Or die. I bet your parents protected you, didn't they?”
”Yes.”
”They didn't do you no favors, boy. But you hang around with us, you'll grow up fast.”
Ann was thirteen; looked younger than that.
Carol was twelve. Pretty and very innocent looking, with blond hair and big blue eyes.
Judy walked over to Kim and Sandra.
”What are we gonna do with them, girls?”
”They got c.r.a.p for brains,” Sandra said. ”They could get us killed.”
”Do you vote to leave them?” Judy asked.
”Naw,” Sandra said. ”I wouldn't feel rightdoin' that.”
Judy looked at Kim.
Kim shrugged. ”h.e.l.l, we can't leave them. But Lisa's gonna get us in trouble. I just know it.
You all know how men feel about big-t.i.tted girls.”
”Rich ain't got no guts,” Judy said.
”Maybe he just ain't found them yet,” Kim offered. ”His momma and daddy kept him safe.
h.e.l.l, it's his a.s.s, girls. He'll either grow up or get dead.”
Judy shook her head. ”A big-t.i.tted kid and a boy with no guts. They've all been protected, all their lives. Okay, we all voted to go forward for Ben Raines. If we do that, we got to take them with us.”
Sandra stepped out of the tight group and tossed a knife to Rich. The knife sparked on the concrete.
”Pick it up and cut his throat,” Sandra nodded at the IPF man.
”Me?” Rich asked.
”I ain't talkin' to the G.o.dd.a.m.n road, boy,”
Sandra told him.
Rich backed away from the big-bladed knife.
”I can't do it.”
Lisa bent down, picked up the knife, and walked to the spread-eagled IPF man. She grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head back.
Bending down, she sliced open his throat, then dropped the knife and threw up on the concrete.
The woods-children looked at each other.
An unspoken message pa.s.sed between them.
Lisa would do.
Watch Rich.
Kim lifted her AK and finished the remaining IPF members. She slung her AK and said, ”Let's go.”
Chapter Twenty-one.
”There it is,” Sonny Boy told the bizarre-looking gang leaders and their lieutenants and bodyguards gathered at Fort Klamath.
”What does Hartline have to say about it?”
Grizzly asked, standing up and stretching. A huge man, six and a half feet tall, weighing almost three hundred pounds, some of it gone to fat, but much of it still muscle.
”He don't. I didn't talk to him about it.”