Culling

Part III • Chapter XII

"You trusted me enough to believe that she couldn't scream, didn't you?" Efrain responded in a snide tone. "I love how all you upper higher level people think you know everything until you need our help. That's just typical."

"Whatever." Roe interrupted impatiently as he cut off Efrain's rant. “Besides that, we can’t just bring her back while she looks like this. She’s covered in dirt and bugs, and, quite frankly, she smells. Plus, she should be awake before we take her back anyway, because with our luck he might think we killed her. That place is nearby, why don’t we just toss her in there? It’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

They didn't sound like the somewhat concerned, but clueless, captors that had first taken me. They sounded exasperated, and on edge, which didn't bode well. I was terrified now.

Plus, what in the world was that place? Thinking about all the different kinds of places that they could be referring to almost overshadowed the fact that I was, supposedly, covered in bugs. I fought the urge to scream as I felt the ghost of a billion tiny insect feet crawling over me.

It took every ounce of my willpower to continue to feign unconsciousness.

“Have you lost your mind? You cannot just throw her into a hot spring when she is unconscious. She would drown.” Payton sounded exasperated.

Oh. Relief shot through me. There was a hot spring here? That sounded appealing, even though I really would rather they not toss me into one. I'd have to see if the boys and I could find one once we got back together.

But then again, the cameras. Would they record you bathing too?

“Don't be ridiculous." Roe said, offended. "First of all, the shock of the water would probably wake her up. Second, she wouldn’t drown. Obviously I would go in with her! It's not like she would be alone. What kind of person do you think I am?”

A terrible person.

I twitched at the thought of bathing with someone who was not one of my boys, almost blowing my cover. But they didn't notice.

I could almost hear the exasperation in Payton’s voice as he responded. “That’s even worse, you imbecile! Remember, she said that she hates you. Plus, you can’t just bathe with a woman without being married first. There’s a proper procedure regarding these kinds of things.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Roe sounded sulky now. “But I don't see why not, my platoon leader used to throw us in the lake any time we were sick and dirty. It always worked to get us back into action quickly.”

“I don’t think he was supposed to do that.”

I almost wept in relief at Payton's intervention. I never thought I'd feel grateful towards a kidnapper before. Now I kind of hoped that North and Silas wouldn’t entirely kill him. I'd have to tell them.

“You are both idiots.” Efrain's voice came from further away than before. “I’m going ahead, I have other things to do. You two should be able to make it the rest of the way on your own - if you aren’t entirely incompetent, that is.”

There was a moment of silence, during which I assumed that Efrain had left the scene, before Roe spoke in a resigned tone. “I fucking hate that asshole.”

Payton sighed in response. “I think we all do."

They both sounded further now as well, and I risked opening my eyes enough to see that they had walked some distance away as they looked in the same direction. I assumed it was where Efrain had gone.

Without further hesitation I leaped to my feet, and jumped towards freedom.

However, instead of leaping away like a graceful gazelle like I had planned, my legs gave out and I fell right back onto the ground, landing on my face.