Page 53 of The White Rider
I found Pepper and her girls right away. We weren’t focused on the Bubbas. Let those who could actually carry their stupid asses to the busses to take them to the prison deal with them.
Me and the girls had a different mission. These men had taken women hostage. They brainwashed them, tortured them, and treated them like property. They stole their names and marked them like cattle.
We were here to find them. We wanted our face to be the first thing they saw when they woke up. The girls and I wanted to tell them this nightmare was over. I wanted to ask them what their actual names were and give that back to them.
Pepper and Daria had a few men with them. Those little cherubs must have done an excellent cleanup operation inside the White House. I tried to talk them out of bringing the women inside, because I knew what was in there, but they insisted. There wasn’t a single trace of what we did when I went in with the girls.
There were alotof women here with the marks Daria told us about. And many of them were covered in bruises and looked half-starved. We also found a fair few with marks like The Witch that weren’t at the cathedral with the others. We had to have this massive debate about what to do with them.
“Throw them in jail and try them with The Witch!” Daria growled.
“Hold up a minute,” I said. “Some of these women might just have those marks because they came with their husbands. They might not have thought they had any other choice. Maybe they were just making the best of a totally shit situation and deep down they disagreed with all of this. Some of them could have been just as abused as the women who were kidnapped.”
“I get it, Ariel. I do, but we’ve spent more time around The Witch and the other women from the cathedral than you have. We showed them proof of how wrong they were. They were given a lot more proof than any of these people are going to get. They still think it justified everything they did because they firmly believe their intentions were good.
“They are tryinghardto manipulate anyone who goes in there to feed them. If any of these women are like that and weren’t at the church that day, and you put them in the same room with women weknowwere there against their will, it could just make things worse.
“We want them to know they are safe, and that this is finally over. The fact of the matter is, we don’t know enough about the women with the marks like The Witch to put them in with women we know who were hurt. At least, not at first.” Pepper said.
“I get that. I know some of them might be just as bad as The Witch. If they aren’t, we’ll be putting them in the same jail cell as the men who hurt them.”
“She has a point,” Daria said. “My soul would shrivel up and die if I had to believe every woman here with those marks was as bad as The Witch. We know the truth. We know what the President really was. We lived through the Rage Heads and the war. I can’t fault them for being afraid.”
“There’s plenty of places we can keep them that aren’t the jail, but how do you two want to play this, since it’s your idea? Those women we took from the cathedral are saying anything and everything they think we want to hear to get us to release them back to their husbands. You separate those women from their husbands and tell them their men are going on trial for war crimes, and you ask them if they were there willingly? If the choices are walking free or standing trial right alongside theirmen,then what do you think they’ll say?”Peppersighed.
I shrugged. I got all that. I knew people would say anything to save their own hide. But I agreed with Daria. It would blacken my already dark heart to believe the worst about every woman with a particular mark.
“The only thing they’ll remember is that the president died, and a priest was about to detonate a Holy Water bomb to find me. If they are going to lie, then so can we. Just tell them the bomb backfired, and the resistance swooped in and rescued the women. They will already know some women there were kidnapped from the resistance. You were there at the cathedral with us, so it’s not technically a lie that you have their women. Make sure The Witch and the others end up where you bring them, but keep them separate since The Witch is a manipulative little cunt. Let’s use that technique to find out the truth, andthenwe’ll be honest.”
Pepper narrowed her eyes at me.
“You’re dating four insanely hot angels, and they didn’t rub off on you at all? You seriously want to lie to them?”
I cracked up laughing because I knew every single angel would be fine with that.
“Did you not hear me? Dice pretended to be a fucking priest and told these people it was Holy Water in his bomb right before he chloroformed everyone! Apparently, that’s a little game Dice and Asher like to play. I’m not even going to get into their ver much unholy kinks… you better forget what you think you know about angels. They are totally okay with a little lying to get results. Two of them catfished me online to see if I was evil before we started dating.”
“I don’t know what part of that was more fucked up,” Pepper said.
Daria just shrugged.
“Their methods have gotten us this far. I saw we go with it. We know that some of them are going to lie to us, so why shouldn’t we be proactive and do it first?”
“Because we’re supposed to be the good guys?” Pepper said.
“Oh, please. You made bank with that lie you made up about your backstory when you were doing lap dances. You were never paying for your philosophy doctorate stripping!”
“That’s different. That was business.”
“How? You were bilking men for money to pay for your doctorate while shoving your tits in their face talking about the meaning of life. They all loved shoving twenties in your bra to make sure you got that degree. You used the money for new cars and hair extensions. If anything this is less questionable because we’d be getting those women away from abusive men.”
“Who is going to question these women and decide if they are lying or not, Daria?” Pepper demanded.
“Well,Iwasn’t lying when I told customers I was stripping to pay for law school. If you’ll remember, I graduated with honors, but the apocalypse happened before I could take the bar.”
“Which means you aren’t a lawyer,” Pepper pointed out flatly.
“Which means I’m better suited to ask questions than anyone here.”
