Page 11 of The White Rider
“Daria, meet Ariel,” Asher said. “If you hurt her, these threewillkill you.”
Daria put her hands on her hips and struck a sassy little pose.
“Why would I? She’s here to help the women back at the Bubba camp. Pepper told me. This is the girl from the radio, right? I was with Pepper when she was listening to it. By the way, Pepper will kick your ass if you hurtme.”
Aeron let out a little growl and took a step forward. Dice smacked his arm across his chest to stop him. I really hoped those two didn’t get into it here.
“Aeron! Daria is not the enemy! She’s here to help.”
“She knows who Ariel is.”
“Yeah… and?”Daria demanded.“I heard her on the radio. You can’t fake that kind of venom. She probably hates him more than I do. Can we get on with it?”
“Aeron, can you get my art supplies?”
“Aeron, why don’t you go back to helping Leif, and I’ll get the art supplies?” Dice said.
“No way!”
“Aeron, please. I need to do this. There’s so much I can’t do. Let me help in my own way.”
Aeron pointed two fingers at Asher and Dice.
“I’m holding you two personally responsible if anything goes wrong.”
Aeron stomped out, and Dice disappeared into the bathroom to use his angel pockets to get my stuff. I joined Daria on the bed with my charcoal poised over my sketch pad.
“A good way to tell who is willing and who isn’t is by their hair. The ones with long hair in buns are the ones who have always been on board. If they kidnap you, they hack your hair off with a dull knife to break you down. They keep cutting it until you are docile. You see this mark on my hand? They brand the captives like this. Some women don’t have these marks because they’ve never struggled against it.”
I studied the fleshy part of the top of her hand by her thumb. There was a six inside of a circle. Someone was clearly taking the whole mark of the beast thing way too far. Dice and Asher were leaning in like they were taking all this in, and they were just as mad as I was.
“Is there a lead Martha?” Dice asked.
Daria nodded.
“Yeah. The Witch. She’s probably in her mid-forties, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She has a mole above her lip. When you get kidnapped, they bring you straight to her. She has them strap you to a bed, and they beat the soles of your feet with this cane. After that, they chain you to a wall and make you try to stand on your bruised feet. They chop all your hair off while she preaches to you about how Isaiah is the second coming. They have these chants they say as she preaches.
“They keep you awake for three days straight until your vision is blurry, and they don’t feed you. They are only nice to you when they let you down. She starts telling you it’s only by Isaiah’s blessing that you are deemed worth of relief, and that you should praise him for it. I faked it until my feet healed and then bailed.”
“How did you escape?” Asher demanded. “I’m sure others have tried, but you’re the first I’ve ever heard of that succeeded.”
I glared at Asher. He was looking at Daria like he was suspicious of her, even after everything she’d gone through. Maybe I was stupid for not feeling that way considering the state of the world, but all of that pissed me off. I’ve never wanted to hurt someone that badly before.
“I had help. There were five of us that tried to leave that night. They caught up to us. Cinnamon shoved me down this hill just as the Bubbas caught them. She saved my life. I’ve been trying to save hers, but Pepper won’t let me go back there. When she said someone was coming who could help get them out, I jumped at the chance. Pepper, Cinnamon, and I were all dancers at the local strip club before all this started. I owe Cinnamon. That’s not the first time she’s had my back.”
Dice grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“We’ll get them back. So you’re certain that all the Marthas who do this willingly don’t have that brand?”
Daria nodded.
“Theirs is different. They have a tattoo of a cross on the inside of their wrists. The Witch gives them. When she has you chained to the wall, she tells you only the worthy will get that cross, and it’s a ticket to Heaven. It means Isaiah has handpicked you to go when the Rapture happens.”
“I’ll bet she gives shitty tattoos with a side of hepatitis,” I growled. “Sorry, I was a tattoo artist before all this happened. I highly doubt she’s received formal training and has access to an autoclave and sharp, sterile needles. Does anyone have both a brand and a tattoo?”
Daria shook her head.
“They look down on the women who were kidnapped and did not come willingly. They know that, deep down, all those women really hate Isaiah and hate them for losing their identities to follow him. They give them all the hardest work assignments and abuse them even more than the men do. At any given moment, one of the Bubbas could decide he wants to own a different woman. Sometimes, they will challenge a man and fight for them, but other times, they will gamble them in card games. For some insane reason, the original Marthas blame the unwilling ones for all that instead of the men that actually do it.”
