The Bargaining Path

  ***

  Immediately, I wondered why more of our people weren't heading out, so like a total idiot, I asked James.

  “Because Don seems to think that if they didn't show, it means that they're dead. He's not leaving any room to argue. He doesn't want to believe anything else. Personally, I think he's glad to be rid of them. Yeah, he told me that he asked Brynna to be his second-in-command, and she said yes, which I sincerely doubt to be true...”

  “Well, if it's not true, he certainly thinks it is. One of the Pangaean guys showed us to our house, which is massive, by the way, and he said that we're friends of Don's second-in-command, and we get preferred treatment, essentially.”

  “Yeah, they didn't say that to us, but they insinuated it. So of course, I confronted Don about it. That son of a bitch really seems to think he's smart. I'm sure the only reason Brynna agreed, if she did in fact agree, is because she wants to keep a close eye on things. You and I both know that if that piece of shit wants something done, he's going to do it whether she says it's alright or not.”

  “What do you mean? Like...”

  “I mean that if he wants to kill someone, or rape someone, or beat the shit out of someone, he's going to do it even if Brynna tells him she doesn't want him to. And that's why she's doing this, you know. She wants to keep people safe because Maura is gone. Hell, even if Maura weren't gone, she would still want to keep Don from doing what he does best. Have you heard these stories, Quinn? Have the other guys on security told you?”

  “No. Well, maybe. What are you talking about? Something Don did?”

  “No, not did. Does. He likes causing pain, Quinn. Not guys, though. Girls... Women, I should say.”

  “Are you saying he's a rapist?!” I exclaimed in complete horror. “Who told you that?!”

  “I didn't say 'rapist.' Do you really think that he would still be around if he was doing this stuff against their will? With our violent track record as a group, he never would have survived if he were raping people's wives and sisters and girlfriends. I'm saying that he's powerful, so some ladies find that attractive.”

  “Ew!” I actually grimaced in disgust. I had believed that Don was an alright guy; I knew he had flaws, but he had opened his home to all of us and kept us fed and sheltered. Now, that was being called into question. One thing that did not require even the slightest bit of questioning was that he was not an attractive guy. Any woman who slept with him was either out of her mind or had poor eyesight. Nine times out of ten, the guy looked like a tiny lemur that had just crossed paths with a tiger. (Brynna would be very proud of that simile, partially because she was the tiger.)

  “I know he's nothing to look at. But think about it; the guy is our de facto leader, right? For some reason, some ladies find that sort of thing to be... I don't know, stimulating, I guess.”

  “But why? What does him having some tiny semblance...”

  “It's not a tiny semblance. The guy is plenty powerful.”

  “Maybe he is. But what difference does that make?”

  “Do you really think that I understand why women think the way they do? Obviously, this isn't all women. But I'm telling you right now, in general, I don't know how their minds work. It doesn't even matter. The bottom line is, women want to sleep with Don, and when they do, they go along with whatever he says. Now, Bennie told me that Nicole told her...”

  “Rumor mill.” I interrupted him.

  “Oh my God, you are the worst listener ever!” He exclaimed. “What is your objection now?”

  “How can you believe Bennie and Nicole? Come on, they're always stirring shit up.”

  As we walked, he looked over at me. When he didn't speak for a long time, I turned my head to look at him.

  “What?!” I asked impatiently. “I love them both, but it's true!”

  “That's not why I'm refraining from answering your question. I'm starting to understand why Brynna gets so mad when I do this to her.”

  “Don't be mad, man. Come on, tell me.”

  “Fine, but only because I don't want you to let Alice get sucked into this.”

  “Ew!” I exclaimed so loudly that the five other people in our search party turned back to look at us curiously. “Sorry.” I lowered my voice when I looked back at him. “Alice would never sleep with Don!”

  “I don't think she would, either! Nor do I think Brynna or Violet would ever do it. But apparently, Bennie and Nicole didn't think that...” James looked around the darkened forest, as though there were people from our group among the trees eavesdropping. When he saw only the blackness around us, he continued, “Whitney, Dee, Ana, Aisha, or Holly would do it, either.”

  “What?!” My whisper was almost loud enough to alert Nick, Eli, and James's three friends that our serious conversation was still going on. “I'm shocked about all of them, but Dee?!”

  “Why do you think she and Henry aren’t living together anymore?”

  “That's why?! She slept with Don?! Dee?!”

  Picture the most wholesome person you know. One who attends church, runs charities, smiles at everyone, always has a kind word to say, loves to babysit children, gives said children presents just because she loves to spoil them...That was Dee.

  “And Aisha?! But Frank only just died!”

  “I know. I heard about that from Greg. A part of me wonders if he can use his power to make them go along with it. I mean, I was just as shocked when Henry told me about what Dee did, and I asked him if he thought that maybe Don had controlled her emotions or something. But you know Henry has that power, and he says that it doesn't work like that. You can only control people's emotions once in a blue moon, and only for catastrophic reasons, he said.”

  “Like what kind of catastrophic reasons?”

  “Like if you're trying to kill someone, or a whole group of people. You can take one's fear and infect all the others. He did it to a group of Bachums when they invaded the house. He said they became suspicious of each other, and ripped one another to shreds.”

  “That's pretty awesome.” I muttered incredulously.

  “It is, kind of. But Rael, you know, the Pangaean ‘spirit guide’ for the Ares?”

  “Yeah, I hear about Rael from Violet and Allie all the time…” I said with an eye roll, “They say he’s the spitting image of Denzel Washington in Training Day. And then they giggle hysterically.”

  “Holy shit…” James said, “They’re right. Anyway, so Rael says that as we get more powerful over the coming years, the Ares might be able to control people’s emotions, but even then, it’s really rare. He says it’s not possible for Don to have that ability.”

  “So Don has been seducing these ladies, some of whom have been married, to have sex with him, and, what? He's into S and M or something?”

  “It goes way beyond that. The guy is crazy. Whitney came out of there crying about it to Mike. She said that he's not just into whips and chains and all that nonsense, but that he hurt her. And Mike said that she has cuts and bruises all over her. But she says she was willing, so none of us have done anything about it.”

  “Why would she agree to that? He has to be controlling her mind!”

  “I'm not going to explain that to you unless you really, really need me to. Even then, I still might not.”

  “I don't get it! Please, explain it to me! Why would she let him do all of that to her? If he started getting rough, or whatever you want to call it, why didn't she stop him?”

  “She says she didn't want him to stop at the time but that later, when she saw the effects of what he had done, she regretted it. I was there when she told that part of the story, and I don't really believe it. She just didn't seem that upset to me. Like, it wasn't that she was in shock, or something like that. She just seemed to be saying what she knew Mike wanted to hear, or what she expected us to want to hear. You know what I mean?”

  “No.” I shook my head back and forth emphatically. “I have literally no idea. Either way, what does this have to do with Bry
nna? That's how this whole mess of a conversation got started. You said that she wanted to be there to stop him from doing that to those women. Well, if they volunteered for it, then she doesn't have to stop anything. And if they volunteered for it, Don's not a rapist, he's just a guy that's into weird-ass, kinky shit. It's disgusting, and I could literally throw up just thinking about it, but that could be all there is to it, you know?”

  “No. Those women might have been volunteers. But that woman he has now isn't. Brynna found that woman, and even though she pretty much loathes the sight of maternal figures, that woman is still a mom to those kids, and Brynna won't want anything bad to happen to her. So, to get back to what we were talking about earlier, Brynna probably agreed to work with Don in order to spare whatever female prisoners we take from suffering against their will what those women wanted to have happen to them. Do you see what I'm saying?”

  I nodded but didn't say anything. Ice had filled up my chest, and I stared straight ahead, contemplating all that had been said. How could I not have seen that side of Don? If he was what James was saying, there would have been warning signs. There would have been something imposing about him, at the very least. I wasn't afraid of Don in the slightest, and not many other people were, either, until that night when he had lost his temper and the entire house had shaken. People respected the hell out of him for all he had done, but they certainly weren't afraid to cross him.

  Or maybe they were, and I had been too ignorant to see it. Maybe while I was wrapped up in appreciating mine and Alice's new life, I had missed the warning signs of what he really was. If I had known that harm was going to come to that woman and her children, I would have encouraged them to run. Like a naïve child, I had believed that Don would offer them safety and promise them a better life than what they had left. That was what he had done for us, after all.

  As we searched, I tried to keep that woman's face out of my mind. Every time I tried to suppress the vague details I could recall, she made another surprise appearance before my eyes in the darkness. I tried not to picture her face contorted into a cry of fear or a scream of pain, but as is always the case when you try not to see something, I saw those two expressions with perfect clarity. I could almost hear her children crying for her.

  The only way to stop Don was to find Brynna. From then until the end, she would be his opposite, his foil, his enemy at times, but his silently cunning “ally” at all other times. Her goodness that she kept hidden from everyone (even us, most of the time) would save that woman. It would not be until she was betrayed in the worst ways that her goodness would die off. Only after the light had failed her would she embrace the darkness that I have grown so used to seeing these days. I can't chide her for that; I embrace the very same shade of black, the darkest shade, the very last one there is.

  I shouldn't be giving all of this away.