“I have breasts.”
He nearly gave a snort of his own, then it struck like lightning, pulled him up short. “If some jerk tries to touch you, I hear about it.”
“If some jerk tries to touch me, I can take care of myself.”
“Bullshit. If anybody tries to … with you, I break his hand, then his face.”
Tonia flipped back her hair, long and loose under her knit cap. “I don’t need you to fight my battles. And maybe I’d like somebody enough to let him try.”
“Screw that!”
The thought of some guy doing to Tonia what he imagined himself doing to Cass had his temper flashing like a grenade.
“I break his hand, then his face, then I deal with you.”
“You don’t deal with me, stupid.” She shoved him.
“Watch me.” He shoved her back.
“You just mind your own business.” She elbowed him aside.
“I am.” He grabbed her arm, yanked her back.
Right before she kicked him—hard enough to make him see stars—he spotted the blond girl, blue eyes wide with shock, as she tried to hide behind a snow-covered shrub.
He turned his grip on Tonia’s arm to a warning squeeze, shifted so they both faced the girl.
“Hey, ah … Petra, right?”
He nearly hadn’t recognized her, since she’d hidden a lot of pretty under the dirt. Her hair turned out to be a sunny, golden blond and her skin was sort of soft-looking. But she cringed back just as she had in the camp.
“We’re just messing around,” he said, with another warning squeeze for Tonia.
“Boys.” Tonia gave an exaggerated shrug. “Come on out.”
“I—I shouldn’t be outside.”
“Why not?” Tonia solved things by walking to her.
“Because … We’re supposed to stay separate. Mina said.”
“Not anymore. We live right there.” Tonia pointed toward the house. “Come on in for a while.”
“I don’t know if it’s permitted.”
“Sure it is.” In her take-charge way, Tonia took Petra’s hand, pulled her up, and kept it gripped as she walked. “How’s it going?”
“I don’t know.”
“I like your shoes.”
Petra looked down at the black, gently used Chucks. “They’re not really mine, but they took mine away. They brought others, but they were made from animal flesh.”
Tonia just led her up to the house, through the unlocked door. Then flicked a hand to start the fire.
On a gasp, Petra reeled back. “The demon—”
“Why demon?” Duncan demanded, peeling off his coat to toss it over the back of the couch. “We don’t believe that. You can if you want, but we don’t. We have a gift, and for us it comes from the light. Anyway, I’m starved.”
“He’s always hungry,” Tonia commented as Duncan wandered back toward the kitchen. “So, take off your coat.”
“It’s not really—”
“It is now.” Tonia took off her own, tossed it with Duncan’s, waited while Petra carefully took off a blue parka just a little too big for her thin frame. “Our sister Hannah’s probably over at the clinic. Maybe you met her.”
“I don’t know.”
“You got checked out, right?” Once again, Tonia led Petra, steering her back to the kitchen. “The doctors and all that.”
“They said I had bad nu …”
“Nutrition. So let’s eat.”
“Mom scored!” Duncan let out a whoop. “We got pizza.”
“They make it at the community kitchen,” Tonia explained as she hunted up a sealed bottle of ginger ale. “And we can freeze it, then cook it up. And we’ve got this.”
“What is it?”
“Ginger ale. Ginger root and sugar and lemon and yeast—for the bubbles—and water. Hannah made this batch, but we all have to take cooking lessons, and chem. Making stuff like ginger ale, it’s chemistry. Plus, it’s good.”
Tonia poured out three short glasses while Duncan held his hands over the pizza until the crust browned and the cheese bubbled.
“What’s your gift?” he asked Petra, casually. Then shrugged it off when her shoulders hunched. “Okay. So, how’s it going over at the group house?”
“The doctor—the doctor said some of us are contagious, and need medication, and the nursing babies need better milk. And Clarence and Miranda both took the boots of animal flesh, and now we have to shun them.”
“Harsh.” Duncan cut the pizza into slices.
“It’s hard, I guess, because you lived somewhere and some way, and now you’re living here, and a different way.” Tonia got plates. “But you couldn’t stay there.”
“If the divine brings violence to take our lives …”
“You just lay down and die?” Duncan slid pizza onto the plates. “Doesn’t sound very divine.”
“How old are you?” Tonia asked, then sat at the counter and pointed to the stool beside her.
“I’m not sure. I’ve come into womanhood, but I haven’t conceived.”
“What?” A slice halfway to his mouth, Duncan froze.
“I’ve come into womanhood,” Petra repeated. “And though I have given myself, even to Javier, I haven’t been blessed with child.”
“You’re saying you have to do it, and with that old guy?”
“Javier has no age,” Petra said, beaming. “It’s a great honor to conceive a child with him.”
“Bullshit. It’s sick and twisted.”
“Duncan—”
But he ignored his sister’s warning. “Did you want to do it with him? Or did you have to because he made it his law or something?”
“It’s a great … I was afraid,” she whispered. “But that was my weakness. And it hurt me, but that’s the sacrifice of all women for the sin of Eve.”
“And that’s more bullshit.”
Tonia waved Duncan off as Petra’s head drooped. “I’ll take this. That’s not how things work here. And if you read books and listen to the older people, it’s not how it worked before. People who did stuff like that got punished if they got caught. You have rights. Everybody does. And just because we’re women doesn’t give anybody else the right to hurt us or make us have sex. No one’s going to do that to you here.”
“But there must be children to increase the flock, to care for the elders, to spread the word. So many of them die, inside the womb or soon after birth. We all do our duty.”
Tonia, a born feminist, but more diplomatic than her twin, kept her voice easy. “Around here and in a civilized society, people have kids because they want them, and because they want to take care of them, love them. How long were you in that camp?”
“I’m not sure. I wasn’t born there. Two winters, I think. Before, we just moved and walked and hid. And my father hit me and cursed me because of my curse, even though he was cursed, too. Javier and our people didn’t hit me or curse me. And my father stopped, too, when he embraced redemption.”
“He stopped hitting you, but the rest is just a different kind of abuse.” The thought of it, all of it, burned Duncan’s craw. “We have laws here, too. If somebody deliberately hurts somebody else, he’s punished for it. Everybody pulls weight in whatever way they can. We take care of each other.”
“One question,” Tonia put in. “Were you happy there?”
“It was … I don’t know.” Obviously distressed, Petra twisted her fingers together. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’ll figure out if you’re happy here. Pizza’s getting cold.”
Petra looked down at her plate. “I’m thankful for the food, but … is this animal flesh?”
“Pepperoni.” Duncan bit into his slice. “Pick it off if you don’t want it.”
“They mostly make it at the big farm,” Tonia told her. “And distribute it to the community kitchen.”