CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Get out of the chair and get into the van,” the marshal said.
“No.” She went limp, just like she saw the protesters do all those years on TV. If she had to grow up so soon, at least she was not alone. She was part of a movement now. Might as well give the protesters some time. Maybe they’d make it impossible for the feds. The momentary power she had wielded over Erickson, scary Erickson, had sorta gone to her head. She liked it. Not just running; fighting. And not alone.
It took the two of them some time to get her out and into the van. When the garage door started to go up, she saw feet and heard the screaming.
Passerons pas, passerons pas. The exit was blocked. Shouting protesters surrounded the van and started to pull on the doors. The guards on either side of Lucy drew their guns and cracked the doors. The protesters backed away a bit. Someone inside was surely leaking. How did they know she was coming out a back entrance?
“Okay, okay,” Sheriff John appeared in the crowd. “Back away from the van. No one’s going to get hurt here.” Maryland troopers were everywhere. “Get over here,” he gestured to protest leader Larson. “You too,” he said to the chief federal marshal. Microphones bristled over the pair as the media swarmed up. “Back off,” he barked at the reporters, “and let us talk.”
Several minutes passed.
“All right,” the sheriff took the microphone. “Ms. Larson and her people have agreed to let the van out. Ms Atreides is in legitimate federal custody pending her trial. The marshals tell me she came to the hospital because of a medical condition, which has now been treated. The marshals will allow their prisoner out of the back of the van and she will stand on the tailgate and show the people of Maryland that she is unhurt. She will make no statement to the people or to the press.”
“Not a word, young lady,” the marshal cautioned her. “One peep out of you and this van will run those dirty hippies over on its way back to your prison cell. The ones we haven’t already shot. Got it?” The back door of the van opened and a marshal led her out to the tailgate. She stood up and he jumped down to just below where she was standing, gun drawn, just in case she had any thoughts of escaping into the crowd. He was right, too. Now that she knew about the rotten legal system, with the fawning Commissioner and the blackmailing famous lawyer, she would have run to the protesters if she could. She bet the Rescue wouldn’t make a deal with the State’s Attorney or anyone else. But she could not escape now. She did not want anyone to get shot.
She looked at the sea of faces covering the hospital lawn and the driveway back to her prison cell. They were mobbed around her hospital room. They had rescued her. She had been wrong weeks ago when she refused to let the Rescue use her rather than playing the long lost daughter at the Glasses. She owed them. She put her hands on the hem of her pink prison uniform dress, lifted it over her head, and turned around. They would have their pictures of what Red States allow for their movement.
She heard the clicking of a thousand cameras. Nothing like a naked woman to attract the cameras. And then there were the scars. The guard shoved the tailgate up and tossed her into the van. In an instant, the van roared toward the protesters still in the driveway, scattering them, screaming.
As Josh was madly writing the emergency papers, his newsfeed started beeping its head off. He clicked on it. #WeAreLucy. And then the picture of her standing on the tailgate, with the pink dress wrapped around her neck flayed back revealed. He grabbed his phone and dialed. “Larry,” he screamed, “what happened?”
“I can’t talk now,” Larry said. “I’m on my way to the jail to try to protect her from what they are going to do to punish her for that stunt with the dress. I’ll call you if I need reinforcements. Stay put.”
Back at the prison the door clanged shut behind her with that awful finality of solitary confinement. Lucy tossed herself onto her bunk. The thin mattress was worse than ever since they stripped all the bloody bedding off, but at least they didn’t start blaring the music and stuff like when they were trying to get her to tell them who the father was. Maybe they were afraid to do anything too terrible to her because she had to be in court in a few days.
“Get up.”
Or maybe she relaxed too soon. She followed the guard to the visitors’ room and Larry was sitting at one of the tables on the other side of the partition. She picked up the phone.
“You OK?” he asked.
“They’ve left me alone so far. I think trial might be too soon.”
“Yeah, it’s supposed to be at a secret location, but somebody’s obviously leaking. But at least it protects you. Do you feel like you could talk a little about what you’re going to say next week? Mob scenes are colorful, but we really can only stop them from sending you back if we can convince the Commissioner that you didn’t know you were pregnant. We’re going to have to tell the court about the ferals, Lucy. You were already on the way to Maryland when they raped you.”
“Why should he believe me?” she asked.
“Why didn’t you say something right away?” Larry responded. He probably would have believed you if you had told us as soon as you got out.”
More silence. Right question, wrong rapist. It wasn’t the ferals, of course.
“Well,” he said, we can do a paternity test. It’s just a simple blood draw. They get the DNA from the fetus from bits of the placenta that are always in the woman’s blood. Then we can ask Picart to match it against the DNA records in Virginia, like of known felons and stuff. If we get a match, we can do a photo lineup and you can identify the men who attacked you.”
“If they find him they’ll make me marry him.”
“Not if they can’t send you back. If you’re pregnant from the feral who raped you two days before you left Virginia, you weren’t running away to get an abortion and they can’t send you back.”
“And if we don’t get a match?” she asked. She wondered if her stepfather’s DNA was in a file anywhere.
“We’re no worse off than we are now,” he answered. “But Lucy, regardless, Erickson may try to pin the paternity on some boy you knew before you ran away. Any male you were near before you left Virginia.” She opened her mouth to say something and he held up his hand. “I’m your lawyer. If you tell me something now, I cannot deny it in Court. But if you don’t tell me, then I don’t know it and I can defend you as if you had not told me anything.”
She shut her mouth. What’s the difference? She couldn’t tell him about Arthur anyway. She had protected Mom this long, she just had to hope they could win the case without her telling. That’s the game she was playing with Arthur now: he threatened to let Mom die and she threatened to tell every person in Blue America what he had done. If she told, it would be Mom’s death warrant. If she didn’t tell and they sent her back, it would be her death warrant. She would never go back there. But if she was going to die, she was going to take him with her. And as many of the people who made him were going down too.
You write a good thriller!
Thank you!