John stopped what he was doing with his pack and looked up, flabbergasted. “I was just saying, after what the bikers must—have put you through.”
Stephani craned her neck out towards John, her eyes ablaze. “Those bikers kidnapped us and chained us to a wall with several other girls. They brought men in who traded for the other girls, traded things like food, tents, things like that—for people. Those bikers never laid a hand on any of the girls. They were sweet for each other, not us, but they sold girls to men who—” She seemed to lose some of her momentum as she squeezed her eyes closed, trying like hell to drive away the memories. Mostly the memories of the other girls who were unchained and dragged screaming from the tiny room she and Claire had called hell for weeks.
The rest of the men stood frozen, no one wanting to be the focus of Stephani’s release when it came. They were all very uncomfortable with the situation, but thankful she had zeroed in on John and not one of them.
Claire began to cry as she too was dragged back into the past, thinking of the weeks she’d waited to be traded to some animal for a box of ammunition or a sleeping bag. She’d been so hungry and frightened for so long, she’d almost forgotten who she was and where she came from.
“They never raped us, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” Stephani growled. “What they did was make us feel helpless, and I don’t want to feel that way ever again. You’d never understand.”
Jared winced as John opened his mouth. “No, I get it,” John unwisely continued.
The blaze instantly returned to Stephani’s eyes. “You get it? No, you don’t, you have no idea. If you want to know what it’s like to be an unarmed, untrained woman in this—” she turned looking around the room, suffering from a temporary loss of words “—this place, then I suggest you strip naked, leave your weapons, have your hands tied behind your back, and allow me to strap a large sack of food around your neck. Then you can go walk around the city and see what it feels like to be a woman after whatever the hell happened.”
Jared watched John’s mouth twitch as Stephani finished, her chest heaving and her hands balled into tight fists. Jared thought about what the woman said, and it made sense to him. Actually, he thought, she hadn’t explained it enough. A naked unarmed man with a sack of food would either be killed and the food taken, or he would be beaten and have the food taken. A woman had certain physical attributes some men thought they were entitled to and were willing to lower themselves below animal status to obtain.
“Listen,” Jared said, having heard enough from Stephani to know he needed to be careful, respectful, yet firm in order to steer her along with the rest of the group back out of hostile waters and into more calm getting-along waters. “Everyone here has a different story, and every one of those stories is bad if not downright tragic. Two things each of us has to be cognizant of is to act and speak appropriately. Secondly, every one of us has to get past what we’ve been through and not be so sensitive to the point where we have constant fighting.”
Jared looked directly at John and then over to Stephani, waited for his statement to sink in, then moved on. “We need to help each other, and I agree, the ladies should be armed. I know I was against it a minute ago, but Stephani made a valid point, and quite honestly, the thought of walking around San Jose naked with my hands tied and the food-sack thing scares the crap out of me.” Jared paused, hoping he’d added just the right amount of humor.
To Jared’s relief, Stephani let out a short breath as her eyes showed she understood and was relaxing as her temper began to cool.
“The longer this crisis continues, the more I am realizing when we refer to our community, I am not talking about community like we used to know it, I am talking about a community that is as tight as a family,” Jared continued. “We have to be like brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, whatever. What I mean is we have to have close relationships if we want to survive.”
Jared turned to John. “Can you give the ladies a one-day crash course in firearms training?”
John looked over to Stephani, then seesawed his head in agreement. “Sure, I can get both of them through some basic safety stuff and maybe a little sight-picture work.”
This was all Greek to both women, but one thing they did understand was they were going to be armed, and this delighted Stephani while it frightened Claire. Claire had never been around firearms and, growing up in the Bay Area, had been subject to the nonstop demonization of any and all firearms. Guns were bad, guns killed people, but now people were bad, like the bikers who chained her to a wall, put her up for sale like a piece of meat, and nearly starved her to death; then people with guns came along and killed the bad bikers, and now she was free to do as she pleased.
So maybe now guns were okay as long as they weren’t in the hands of people like the bikers or the others she’d seen come to trade for the other girls. All of her college professors had lamented the evils of the gun manufacturers and the dire need for strict gun control, which Claire had fully embraced at the time.
Now she wondered where those men and women were today. Were they dead? Were they somewhere being protected by men like John with guns? She didn’t know. What Claire did know was she was getting one of those scary
