“Say one more word and you’ll have it all week.”
“It really wasn’t her fault,” Burgundy says. She’s been waiting for her opportunity, and this is it. “Ruth did bump into her. If anyone is punished, it should be her.”
“Are you in charge here?”
“No, of course not. But it really was Ruth who?—”
“Now you both get compost duty tomorrow. And whileyou’re doing it, you can meditate on how godly women are to be silent and submissive to those in authority over them.”
Both Burgundy and I act appropriately chastened and distressed, but we’re not.
We’re really not.
24
I barely sleep at all,so I’m already alert when the night matron wakes us up while it’s still dark to start our morning compost duties.
If I believed in a god, I’d suspect he was blessing our endeavors this morning. There’s a thick fog in the air as we step out of the Training House.
That will help.
It might actually make the difference.
Hauling compost really is a vile and difficult job, and it takes a long time. We have to shovel up various piles of refuse from different buildings, filling up two large bins and hauling them behind us. It takes a couple of hours to fill them up, and we can’t skip or rush for fear of alerting the guard who’s escorting us.
He doesn’t say anything other than a few brief orders,directing us to the piles and telling Burgundy to keep up when she falls behind.
I try not to look at his face. I don’t want the mental image of him to stick.
Pretty soon I’m going to have to kill him.
By the time we’ve filled our cans, the sun has fully risen, casting bleak light into the fog. Our escort leads us out the back gate and toward an enormous compost pile not far from the wall that surrounds the compound.
No wonder they keep it outside the walls.
It smells like shit.
It’s still foggy. I can barely see the guards who are stationed at the gate.
I release my big bin and crouch down quickly. “Ouch! I twisted my ankle.”
My knife holster is at my right ankle this morning, still kept out of sight by the long sack of a dress.
“Oh come on, girl, stop whining,” the escort says, sounding tired and impatient. He comes over to pull me back up to my feet. “You’re fine.”
As soon as he starts leaning over, I pop to my feet like a jack-in-the-box. Knife in hand, I plunge it into the side of his neck, aiming as carefully as I can in an attempt to get to his carotid artery.
It works. He makes a weird choked sound as he collapses to the ground. He jerks a couple of times and then nothing.
He’s dead in only a few seconds.
I feel sick, but that can’t matter now. I take my knife back and meet Burgundy’s eyes as she leans over to grab the guard’s gun. Then we take off in a sprint. The fog is thick enough that the compound is completely out of sight in only ten or fifteen seconds.
We’re halfway up the hill before we hear any shouts from the guards at the gate. Pretty soon we’ve reached the spot where I left my rifle and binoculars. They’re still there, hidden by the tall grass. I grab them, and we keep running.
If we can reach the place where I hid the motorcycle without being caught, we might actually make it.
My lungs and thigh muscles are burning as we push our way through tree limbs and underbrush. I really wish I was in my jeans and not this ridiculous dress. Burgundy is right behind me, running hard and keeping silent. I’ve been impressed by her at every step.
