Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(63)
“Four years of ballet,” I said tersely. “Two years of modern dance, six years of hip-hop, and three years of Zumba, Eve. Remember? You took the classes with me. I can dance.”
“Classes, Leisel, classes! This isn’t a class full of girls and women, this is you wearing next to nothing and dancing in a cage for an audience of men! You couldn’t even take your clothing off at the gates without having a panic attack!”
I sighed noisily. Yes, this was much different from anything I was used to, or comfortable with, for that matter. But Liv had assured me that I wouldn’t be naked, not that I trusted that seedy woman in any way, and that the cage dancers were just that, dancers. As long as Evelyn and I made sure to have our property brands completed before we began working, a tattoo that would be identical to the one Alex was currently getting, no man could touch either of us without Alex’s permission. Considering the way Alex was acting—refusing to look at me, and his expression murderous—I didn’t foresee it being a problem. Him selling me to another man, that is.
“We don’t have a f*cking choice,” I spat out, increasingly agitated with her incessant mothering. “This place isn’t exactly a pillar of women’s rights!”
“Who are you?” she shouted, her face suddenly far too close to mine. “What is with this split personality disorder? One minute you’re cowering, the next you’re killing infected, the next you’re crying, and then you’re willing to dance for men? I don’t know you, Leisel. I don’t know this person and I don’t understand it!”
“I’m doing what I have to!” I screamed. Without thinking, I slapped my hands against her chest and shoved her backward. “I’m trying to adjust! I’m trying, Eve, I’m trying!”
“I don’t want you to adjust!” she cried, and shoved me back. I caught myself before I could fall, and when I raised my head to glare at Evelyn, I found tears forming in her big blue eyes. “You were fine the way you were!” she continued shrilly. “You were caring and sweet, the only truly good person left in this world!”
“I wasn’t fine!” I yelled, the sight of her tears causing my own to fall. “I was weak, I was weak and stupid, and because of that I ended up married to a man like Lawrence! He knew it, he could see it in me, see that I was a doormat he could walk all over. I don’t want to be a doormat anymore, Eve, I want to be strong! I want to be strong like you are.”
People were beginning to stop and stare, openly gawking at Evelyn and me as they passed us in the hallway. The building we were in was a smaller one, full of what looked to have once been managerial offices. Now they were separate places of business. Evelyn and I were currently standing outside a door laughably marked Branding.
“I used to wish you were stronger,” Evelyn whispered raggedly, drawing closer to me. “And then…now…it’s like I don’t know who I am if I don’t have to worry about you. What is my purpose here, Lei, if I have no one to take care of?”
Despite her tears and her now quiet tone, her eyes were wild, frenzied even. I’d thought her mood swings had calmed some, but it seemed as if the past week might have been the calm before the storm, a storm that was only just beginning to brew.
“Oh, Eve,” I whispered, reaching for her. As I took her into my arms, hugging her fiercely, two men passed by, slowing down at the sight of us. Both of them wore sickly smiles; one of them winked and the other waggled his eyebrows. Disgusted, I buried my face into Evelyn’s shoulder.
How easily the world had reverted to what it once was, where men lorded over women and treated them as if they were little more than cattle. In a way, the new world was much like the old West, full of gun-toting cowboys, danger at every turn, and where a woman was only safe if she was spoken for. If not, she was fair game.
I should be grateful Evelyn and I had Alex, and I was, yet I couldn’t help the anger that followed in its wake. Anger, because I shouldn’t have to feel this way, and because of how far we’d come as a nation, only to lose it all in only four short years.
“We’re safe now,” I said soothingly. “We have electric fences and an entire army keeping the infected out. We have Alex protecting us. You don’t have to be strong at the moment, Eve, you can take a breath. You can take a hundred breaths.”
My words were kind, and as genuinely spoken as I could muster given our current circumstances. I hoped that Evelyn was too upset to hear the doubt I felt, that she wouldn’t pick up on the little white lies laced between the truths. Because we weren’t safe, not really. Safety was now a thing of the past, a wish on a star, the kind of dream you never wanted to wake from. In this waking nightmare of ours, anything could happen. Alex could die, leaving us alone, two women ripe for the plucking once more. Or the infected could come, too many for these gates to hold at bay, and then this somewhat safe haven would fall, leaving us as food for the infected, or again lost to the big, wide open.
“You’re right.” Evelyn pulled out of our hug, sniffing and wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I’m being ridiculous. It’s probably that time of the month.” She attempted a smile and I attempted one back, but our facades quickly evaporated once the door beside us opened, revealing a very pissed off Alex.
He held up his wrist, revealing his branding. Two identical As in bold lettering had been inked into his skin with two circles surrounding them.