“Remember—there can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.”
My smile is the first genuine, warm one I’ve felt in a while. “This is one hell of a storm, so hopefully that means one hell of a rainbow.”
“Indeed.”
31
“I’m alive. I got shot in the shoulder and I was unconscious for a long time. My wound got infected. If I hadn’t been found by a former surgeon, I wouldn’t have made it. I’m still recovering. Will be in touch when I’m strong enough.”-- Decoded message from ILF undercover operative Nightingale to ILF handler Hiro Tanaka
Two Years Ago
Briar
He’s looking at me. I always know when he’s behind me because it feels like bugs crawling all over my skin, invading every inch of my being.
“Hello, wife.” Lochlan unbuttons his olive-green jacket, takes it off, and passes it to one of his assistants, who bows his head and leaves the room with it.
Every fucking evening, the same routine. No one in the house gets dinner until he gets home, and it’s usually late. The later,the better, as far as I’m concerned. Every hour I don’t have to be in his presence is a win.
“I said hello.” He glares at me from the end of the oblong wood dining table.
“Hello,” I respond robotically, my gaze locked on the small painting behind him.
Leonardo’s originalGinevra de’ Bencipainting belongs under lock and key in a museum. That’s where it was when the world I knew ended four years ago. Soren Whitman was prepared, and his forces looted priceless artistic treasures while others killed each other over canned goods and bullets.
Lochlan was an art history professor before the virus, and the original works of art Soren has gifted him are his most prized possessions.
I have something in common with the woman in Leonardo’s painting—I’m also Lochlan’s possession. Her cool, detached expression is my visual mantra.
Don’t engage. Bide your time. Survive.
Servers fill our wineglasses and deliver our chilled dinner salads. It’s the exact same salad every night, precisely as Lochlan likes it: cold, crisp iceberg lettuce, a single sliced Roma tomato, six Kalamata olives, and freshly shredded mozzarella. Buttermilk ranch is served in tiny silver pitchers we’re each given on a saucer.
“Dr. Hansen tells me you failed to conceive once again.”
I suppress my urge to pick up my fork and stab him in his meaty red face. I have to be smart. The damage from head injuries compounds, and after nearly a month of daily beatings when I was first brought to his home in handcuffs and proclaimed his wife, I started getting terrible headaches and blurred vision.
My father taught me well, so I got the better of Lochlan several times. I escaped him and ran for my life.
But I never even made it out of his home. Every door is tightly secured and guarded around the clock. The property is surrounded by a tall iron fence that’s been reinforced with electrified spikes on top. Every person inside the home who doesn’t wear an olive-green uniform is a prisoner, and all of us are women.
“Yes. I’m sorry.” I eat my salad, playing the game I have to play until I find a way out of here. “The salad is delicious.”
He loves compliments, even if he’s already heard them dozens of times. Anything that makes him feel powerful, in control, and a man of taste always lands well.
“That cheese in plastic bags never compares to freshly shredded,” he says. “But don’t try to distract me, Briar. You’re lucky Caroline is pregnant.”
I’ve been his prisoner for eleven months, and he’s tried to get me pregnant every one of them. He still has a scar on his face from that first time, when I bit and clawed him as I tried to fight him off.
Those faint bite marks on his cheek are like the woman in the painting behind him: they remind me that I’m still me. I may be his prisoner, and I may submit to his assaults to avoid irreversible brain injury, but this won’t last forever. I’ll never have his child—the tea one of the housekeepers secures for me every month will ensure that. And I will get out, even if I die trying.
He has several mistresses, but Caroline is currently number one because she’s expecting his baby. I felt guilty when he told me the news two months ago, because I knew it would take some of the pressure off me.
“She’s over the morning sickness,” he says. “Our son is strong and healthy.”
Our son.It sickens me every time he says it. When Caroline gives birth to her baby boy, he intends to take him from her and bring the child here to be raised as mine and his.
There’s no end to the cruelty of the regime and those who power it. There are a few women in high-ranking positions, but only because they already had military leadership experience when the virus hit. So few people survived that Whitman had to put any women on his team who were willing.
