Page 11 of Kings Fear No One
I stop where I am. Everybody knows the Leader’s married to Mandy. She was his first wife. She’s high-ranking, but she still belongs to him. As do all the women in this place.
For a second, he looks me up and down and I stand naked as the day I was born, waiting out the moment. There’s no such thing as free movement in this house.
“What a show,” he says finally, giving a nod. “It is no wonder Mandy’s always calling on your service.”
I’m finally present enough for a real reaction. Heated by blood in my veins and the muscles that clench. Compliant as I am, I’ll never stop fighting. I’ll never let him win.
“I have things to do,” I say. “You’re going to need to move out of the way.”
The Leader’s icy eyes light up. “Of course, Believer Logan. Do what you have been instructed to do.”
I slide into the workman’s pants and hole-riddled t-shirt that are the only clothes I have and stride past him.
Something tells me he watches me on my walk out.
The rest of the morning, I’m under the close surveillance of Brody and another guard named Amos. We’re at the back house, far across the property, using the industrial-sized washing machines and dryers.
Doing laundry for dozens of members in the family takes hours.
There are sheets, blankets, towels, clothes to launder.
Brody and Amos watch on from lawn chairs as I haul out bag after bag of laundry and toss it into the pickup truck.
“Faster, boy!” Amos barks, then laughs.
My muscles ache as I sling another bag of blankets over my shoulders and carry four others. It’s backbreaking, sweat-inducing work that would go smoother with more people.
But that would be too easy.
And the guards always get a kick out of pushing me to the limit. Most of them are forced to hear Mandy’s cries when I pleasure her. Her screams about how satisfied she is. It’s created some kind of unspoken resentment between me and the other men in power here.
I’m hauling one of the last bags when I notice the other believers in the distance. Those that have been sent to pick berries and apples from the fruit field. Teysha’s among them.
The basket’s limp at her side as she wanders like someone too dead to be alive. Her expression’s dark and unreadable, her movements sluggish. A strong gust of wind would knock her over.
When a breeze does come through and blows the strap of her tattered potato sack of a dress down, she doesn’t bother fixing it. She doesn’t bother with anything. Even picking the fruits she should.
The whistle sounds and one of the guards comes over to check their bounty.
“What’s this?” he yells at her. “You had an hour and you bring me two?”
SMACK!
His hand crashes down across her cheek and she tumbles to the ground. The basket flies out of her hand, where it lands on its side next to her. Two measly pieces of fruit tumble out and roll away.
An immediate current of rage rushes me. The laundry bag drops from my shoulder and my fists curl. I take a step forward despite the fact that I’m ten yards away.
“Hey, boy!” calls Amos. “Didn’t I say hurry the fuck up?”
I’m caught between blinding anger and the sense to move on. It’s like standing on the border of two worlds. Two versions of myself.
I stare at the scene far away, where the guard kicks at a collapsed Teysha and grabs a fistful of her hair to yank back her head and scream in her face, and I feel the anger shake in my bones. The dissent that spreads so fast it’s taken over me many times before. All the times I’ve pushed back against the system.
All the times I’ve gotten my ass knocked right back down.
But I got up.
I always get up.
