Some part of her didn’t like it.
Trish didn’t know what to do about that part.
At least spending time with Laura provided a distraction. The woman still felt guilty over gossiping about Trish and Jordan, and was willing to answer any question Trish asked as long as it didn’t have to do with anyone’s personal lives.
Laura also didn’t judge Trish for wanting to know what errand Jordan had gone on, although she was confused with Trish not having asked Jordan before he’d left. How could Trish explain wanting to pretend she didn’t care where he’d gone? But Laura didn’t ask, and Trish didn’t have to.
“I heard the Wolf wants some new Moonies to play with,” Laura said eagerly, happy to be able to answer Trish’s question. “Jordan’s always the one who recruits them. He’s got a knack for picking out exactly the right kind of people to bring back.”
“New Moonies?” Trish asked, as both hope and alarm rose within her. She tried to focus on the hope—perhaps she’d be back to her old life soon?—rather than the alarm at the same prospect. She wanted to go home. Right? “To replace Alex and Bella?”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Laura shook her head and readjusted her position on the couch so she faced Trish more fully, and crossed her legs in a comfortable position. “But the Wolf gets bored easily. Bringing new people in for a day or two is part of how he amuses himself. Plus, then he can release the day- captives andeveryone knows his current toys are okay and still alive. Keeps the Moon officials off our backs.”
It also let the captives’ families know they were alive and still following the Wolf’s normal procedure—a kind of reassurance most kidnapped victims wouldn’t have. Trish was struck again by the strange combination of compassion, efficiency, and brutality the Wolf displayed.
Returning the victims eventually also kept the Moon officials out of the Wolf’s business. For the most part, the officials insisted on waiting, since no one knew where the Wolf held his captives or how many soldiers he had. Raiding a base filled with soldiers for two people who would eventually be released… It wasn’t a good investment.
But was that the real reason? Or did the Wolf giving his victims back have something to do with the memory drug? All the little pieces of information Trish had picked up over the weeks were niggling in her brain and starting to make a more cohesive picture. It didn’t paint the Wolf as any better than he was but it made the Moon look a lot worse.
“It doesn’t bother you?” Trish asked hesitantly.
Laura snorted. “Why should it? The little assholes are always just looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. They’re thrilled to be part of it. And if they’re not, well, then they got a taste of what it was like to live on Earth after their families deserted it and left us here to struggle. They know what they’re risking just by coming here, but they keep doing it anyway, don’t they?”
Seeing the look on Trish’s face, Laura leaned over and patted her hand.
“You’re different though, obviously. You’re not like them. They’re all spoiled brats who want a little thrill, and maybe they get more than they thought they would, but that’s their own fault. Ugh, you should have seen the last two: whining and wailing the whole time, but then they went straight to the newsvids, bragging for as long as people would pay attention to them and then making shit up when they started to lose the spotlight. Why, the girl…”
As Laura continued, Trish couldn’t help but thinkabout how she was viewed as different than the other Moonies who came to Earth for pleasure jaunts or adventure.
She’d heard a lot of them joking about being taken by the Wolf. The jokes had always been made with a kind of excited disbelief, as though the Moonies were secure in the knowledge it wouldn’t happen to them, but they liked to scare themselves with the idea it might. Trish hadn’t been excited by the idea, but she’d come to Earth with that same disbelief; that same naive security that nothing bad would happen to her as long as she kept her head down and didn’t try to draw attention.
Trish had known of the risk. She just hadn’t thought it had applied to her.
Had that been naivety or hubris?
The majority attitude among older Moonies was that the younger generations who chose to vacation on Earth and were taken by the Wolf got what they deserved. After all, it wasn’t as though everyone didn’t know what might happen. Earth was a desired location for the younger generations because of its supposed savageness and unpredictability. Of course, reality was very different for the majority of visitors, but most of them liked the little taste of danger; the tiny thrill of risk.
Did that mean Trish deserved this? Did she deserve everything that had happened to her?
There were a lot of people on the Moon who would say ‘yes.’ They wouldn’t care that she’d been taken, but if Trish did garner any notice, they’d have the same attitude they did about all the Wolf’s victims: they were idiots who had made a shitty decision and were paying for it. Plenty of people scoffed at the idea of the victims evenbeingvictims and said they should have foughtback or escaped or tried to assassinate the Wolf while they were down there. Those were people who thought they’d manage to do something heroic.
, Trish couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of Alex’s early attempts at just such maneuvers. There hadn’t been a moment, since reaching the compound, that she, Alex, and Bella hadn’t been under guard—and Alex had still tried to fight. For his efforts, he’d been shock-collared, tortured, and starved. She admired his bravery and stubbornness even though he’d been an idiot to persist in such a futile endeavor.
Who was smarter: the person who fought impossible odds or the person who waited for their chance at good ones?
And what was there to be done when the odds were all stacked against them?
She should have felt buried under defeat, but Trish had trouble mustering that emotion anymore.
Her life here was, in many ways, better than it had ever been. Or did she only feel that way because, otherwise, she’d be utterly crushed by the hopelessness of her situation? Sometimes she wondered.
If Trish could continue getting her education—in a structured class schedule, not the little bits of information she read during the few times Jordan left her alone with computer access—she might be some semblance of happy.
There had never been a time in Trish’s life when she’d been happy. She’d never had friends. Sometimes Laura said things Trish didn’t like, but now that she knew Laura’s backstory, she at least understood why Laura felt the way she did. Laura felt like her friend. The other soldiers and civilians at the compound knew who Trish was and they looked out for her in a way she’d never experienced until now.
Trish wasn’t a nobody here.
She was Jordan’s girl.
