Bad to the Bones(61)

Ginny’s eyes grew wider. “No. Shit.”

“No shit. Listen, Ginny, that is the bath house. It’s not a fun place. They sucked the fetus out of me with some kind of vacuum, then I guess he cauterized my tubes so I can never conceive again. This is what they’re going to do to you. And what say will you have in it? Do you want to keep this baby?”

Ginny finally broke my gaze to look into the distance. “I…I haven’t given it much thought. I didn’t know I had a choice. I just assumed I’d have the baby here and it would be taken from me.”

“Well, think again. You don’t have any say in the matter. I wasn’t kicking and screaming because like you, I thought the bath house was a nice place. I wasn’t even suspicious when they drugged me. That goes on all the time, you know that. But I’m telling you, Ginny, if you want to have this baby, and I think you should question even that seeing as how Shakti’s the father, well, you need to run from here. Will you think about it? Will you even consider running? Because I won’t be able to help you when Bodhi and his little friends come to get you one morning.”

Ginny squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m scared, Bella,” she whispered.

I hugged her, petting her hair. “I know, Ginny. It’s f*cking scary, it really is. We grew up here in a scary place after being in a scary place with Mom. We don’t know what it feels like to be protected, to be safe. But I’m telling you. Where I’m at now, the clubhouse for Knoxie’s biker gang? I feel safe. Nothing can hurt me when I’m there. I only came up here to convince you to go home with me.”

I realized I’d just said “home.” The Citadel was my home now. All my meager belongings were there, my Sporty was there, my cut-out photos of Ryan Reynolds were on the grimy walls, it was home more than anywhere else had been home to me. I felt stronger. I had the conviction of my words now. I knew myself.

“I want you to come home with me, Ginny. The longer we wait here, the more chance for them to plot your next surgery. Think about it. All the women he’s impregnated? Leela, Yoshi, Gia—did any of them ever give birth to a live child? Answer me, Ginny.”

“No,” she whispered. “No they did not.”

“So come on, then. Come on, Ginny. Let’s get the f*ck out of here. There’s a whole new life waiting for you outside these walls. I know it’s scary. I was terrified at first. But I’ll be there with you every step of the way.”

“I can’t just up and leave, Bella. That’s your new life now, but this is my life.”

In the end she just hopped on behind me after buckling on my brain bucket, and we took off to her bunk house. She wasn’t ready to make such an enormous, life-altering move.

I like to think that over the next few days, I made a dent in her will. I like to think that my relentless talk and rhetoric was seeping into her brain, just as Shakti’s soothing sermons had originally reeled us in. She asked me more and more questions about The Citadel. She asked what Duji looked like, what Tuzigoot did for a living normally. I was glad I could answer that he was a construction foreman. She asked what Knoxie’s kids were like. I had to say I didn’t know.

But she was interested, you know? I slept for two nights at the bunkhouse, taking my chances that one of the women would turn me in to Shakti. I didn’t dare show my face down at the cafeteria or any of the stores, of course, so I hid in the bunkhouse when it rained and out in a side canyon when it didn’t, reading the Kindle Madison had given me in order to broaden my horizons. In the past seven years the entire world had changed, and I was devouring all sorts of erotic romance novels and even some more serious things, like the New York Times. It was a rich world I’d been denied, and I didn’t want Ginny to suffer the same fate.

So it wasn’t until Thursday morning as Ginny prepared to go to work that they came to take Ginny to the bath house. Bodhi himself didn’t do the dirty work these days—it was Poona and a few of her henchwomen who came to strong-arm Ginny. The moral of this story, I have to conclude, is that time goes by much faster than we would like. Time flies, and if you don’t get off your ass and take action, before you know it life has passed you by. Quite literally in this case, as my poor sweet suffering Ginny was about to discover.

Although it wasn’t my fault—far from it, I’d done everything in my power to convince Ginny of what was good for her—I rolled under a bunk bed and hid. I had no weapon, and even if I did, could I shoot my way out of this mess? Not likely. I didn’t even know how to load a gun.

Ginny protested as they led her away. My heart was breaking for her. I kept telling myself that I’d done the best I could to convince her how important it was to get away from Bihari. I’d told her my own story about the bath house. I knew from painful personal experience how hard it was to deprogram someone who had been steeped in this particular tradition for so many years. Shakti radiated energy, and was able to make everyone think they could realize some god-like potential inside themselves. His mishmash of countercultural love and freedom had sucked in many a brainy lawyer, doctor, and street poet. We weren’t the only ones who had fallen for Shakti’s charisma and power.

I had to bite my lip as they hauled Ginny outside and into the waiting vehicle—a Hummer, no doubt. Two people still moved around the bunk house looking for me.

I quickly realized one of the women was Poona, and I recognized another as a nurse I’d seen on many occasions, Jambo. She worked with Bodhi. At first they talked about mundane stuff. They were so unconcerned about Ginny or me, they seemed to be discussing a television show. It burned me up that they watched TV when it was forbidden to the rest of us.