Chapter 22
T hey had separated her and Nick, but Amiya refused to yield. She was determined to fight her situation at every turn, to claw and tear—literally, if necessary—until she brought this living nightmare to an end.
As the wagon took her away from the barn where they had imprisoned Nick, and along the winding dirt road toward the run-down mansion, Amiya screamed at her captors. She berated them as cowards. Called them idiots. Told them they would be sorry for what they were doing.
The nameless man, and Betty, ignored her. Despite her shackles, she had wriggled around amidst the lengths of wood, positioned herself to have a full forward view as the wagon advanced across the plantation. The man kept urging the old horse along, and Betty didn’t so much as turn to look at her.
Neither did anyone else.
The path to the estate trailed along the edges of the cultivated fields. She got a closer look at the people working out there—the so-called “field hands.”
The first thing she noticed was the ethnic diversity of the prisoners.
There were about twelve of them, and they were Black, White, Asian, Latino.
Mostly men; she saw only two women. All of them wore clothes that hung on them like rags, but there was no uniformity to the clothing.
One guy had on a tattered throwback basketball jersey.
Someone else wore a T-shirt turned brown with dirt.
One of the women wore a flower-patterned blouse but the flowers had turned gray.
None of them bothered to look in Amiya’s direction. They seemed, in fact, to deliberately avoid glancing at her, as if merely looking her way would have brought corporal punishment.
But she didn’t see anyone supervising their work, no slave driver demanding they continue to labor under threat of a whip. They were almost zombielike in their demeanor.
“What’s the matter with you all?” Amiya shouted. She raised her chained hands and shook them, the chains rattling loudly enough for the noise to carry across the field. “Someone, please, help me!”
She might as well have been pleading with androids programmed to perform a single task and nothing else. Her pleadings brought no attention.
She could see that “W” branded on a few of them: at the back of their sweat-saturated necks, on their foreheads or cheeks. No doubt, all of them bore the mark on various regions of their bodies.
But a mere symbol could not have compelled the degree of terrified obedience that these people displayed.
These people obviously had been broken, through systematic torture and brainwashing.
What else could have forced someone in modern-day America to submit to slavery on a decaying southern plantation?
The road took them around the back of the estate. The wagon clattered to a stop underneath the boughs of a gigantic magnolia tree.
Amiya saw a frayed rope swinging from a thick tree branch overhead. Although she immediately realized what sort of punishment that noose probably had been used to deliver, her rational mind struggled to accept it.
Hangings going on out here? I can’t believe this.
But it was as real as the cold perspiration creeping down her spine. People were dying here. Both she and Nick could die here, and who was around to prevent it?
None of her friends or family knew exactly where she had gone.
They knew only that she was spending time with her boyfriend, as usual—she and Nick practically lived together already.
Nick’s mother would have known where they were, but how long before she became alarmed and notified the authorities?
Nick wasn’t a teenager under the close observation of helicopter parents.
He was a forty-year-old man, and his mother might not note his absence for days.
They might not last for days out here.
They say the Overseer arrives at night—what will he do to us when he comes?
Betty and the man ambled around to the rear of the wagon. Amiya glared at them.
“Don’t touch me,” she said.
“This one here, now she’s a little pistol, Jimmy,” Betty said. “I might need you to help me here.”
“She ain’t gon’ do nothing,” Jimmy said. He carried the rifle loosely. “She like a cute little dog. All bark and no bite.”
Oh yeah? Amiya thought. Try me.
“You gonna behave, gal?” Betty lowered the back of the wagon.
Amiya bunched her hands into fists and had drawn up her legs. “Where are you taking me?”
“Up there in the big house. You gon’ be under Miss Lula’s charge,” Betty said.
“Who is Miss Lula?”
“Miss Lula runs the house staff,” Betty said.
“That house? It’s falling apart. How can anyone be living here? The place looks like it needs to be demolished.”
Betty and Jimmy both snickered, as if they were in on a private joke.
“You’ll see for yourself at sundown,” Betty said. She reached for Amiya’s legs. “Come on now, gal.”
Amiya thrust her legs, kicking Betty’s outstretched arms. Betty grimaced with pain.
“Help me with her, Jimmy,” she said. “Don’t bruise her face. She’s pretty and you know how he likes ’em.”
With a grunt, Jimmy clambered onto the wagon.
“Get away from me!” Amiya screamed. She swung her legs toward Jimmy, trying to sweep his ankles and topple him over.
He climbed up on a pile of wood, out of reach.
She twisted around, swinging her hands, but he was nimble on his feet and got behind her.
He hooked his hands in her armpits and lifted her.
“No, no, no!” Amiya shrieked and squirmed.
“Calm down, gal. Good Lord,” Betty said. Amiya kicked, but Betty got her hands around her ankles, above the shackles, and her grip was strong. “You gon’ live like a princess up in here so long as you behave—better than what most folks here get.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jimmy said.
They dragged her, screaming, out of the wagon, across a threadbare section of yard, through a doorway in the rear of the house, and into a shadow-filled room.
Though her tears and tangled hair, Amiya saw a sagging ceiling, floorboards buckled as if something had broken up from underneath them, peeling dirty wallpaper.
Gray afternoon light filtered inside through a pair of boarded-up windows.
She smelled rotted wood and mildew, and her stomach lurched.
They placed her on a thin, lumpy mattress that lay in the corner of the room. Yawning, Jimmy sauntered back toward the doorway. Amiya tried to get up, and Betty shoved her back to the mattress and wagged her finger in her face.
“You settle down, you hear?” Betty said. “I’m warnin’ you for your own good. Miss Lula ain’t got as much patience as me.”
“I need water.” Amiya coughed. “Please.”
Betty opened a metal flask that she wore attached to her leather belt. She brought the rim to Amiya’s lips.
“Sip slow now,” Betty said.
Amiya drank. The cool water helped to quell the nausea that had threatened to overtake her.
As she held the flask to Amiya’s mouth, Betty brushed locks of hair away from Amiya’s brow and studied her face.
“Quite the stunner you are,” Betty said. She clucked her tongue. “All that smooth skin—looks like you got a nice figure on you, too. Hmph. Hard to say where you’ll get your mark.”
“No one’s marking me,” Amiya said, mouth half-full of water. She swallowed, glowered at the woman. “I’ll die before that happens.”
Betty pursed her lips, took away the flask, screwed the cap back on.
“That might be a blessing, honey,” she said.
They left her in the room, shutting the door as they departed. She heard their footsteps receding, wooden floorboards creaking under their weight.
Silence fell over the house. She heard random pings and groans, noises that old homes tended to make, but she didn’t hear voices or any sounds of human activity.
Gathering her strength, she wobbled to her feet. She stumbled to the doorway, barely able to keep her balance with her chained ankles, carefully avoiding the ruptured sections of the floor.
It was an old door, fashioned of heavy oak, with a faded, old-fashioned brass knob. She turned the knob. She heard a mechanism creak inside, but she couldn’t open the door. It was secured from outside the room.
She hammered her fists against the wood.
“Help!” she shouted. “Someone, please help!”
No answer. She hadn’t expected a response. If there were others in the house—a house staff, as Betty had stated—they were deaf to her pleas, like the prisoners outdoors.
She turned away from the door and assessed the room for anything useful.
It was a small chamber, and held only a meager amount of furnishings.
A brass chandelier, festooned with cobwebs, hung askew from the high ceiling, dangling from a rusted length of chain.
Against one wall stood a battered chest of drawers, all of the drawers missing.
A padded chair sat underneath a boarded-up window, dirty stuffing spilling out of the seat cushion like entrails from a wounded beast.
Nothing in here’s going to help me.
Tears dripped from her eyes, and she felt a sob building in her chest that threatened to overcome her. She lowered her head and willed herself to breathe slowly.
She had to stay strong, focused on escape. Despair was her enemy. If she allowed her resolve to weaken, she would be vulnerable to whatever methods they employed to break and mold their prisoners.
But she was so exhausted. That lumpy mattress lying on the dusty floor was beginning to look as inviting as the queen-size Tempur-Pedic bed in her condo.
I’ve gotta stay in motion.
Although none of the furnishings in the chamber seemed helpful, to keep herself active, she opted to take a closer examination of each of them.
She began with the chest of drawers. It was literally an antique, and in terrible condition; it looked as if it had tumbled end over end down a long flight of stairs.
Using both hands, she gripped the edge of the dresser and nudged it away from the wall.
It was heavier than it looked, and she couldn’t manage to move it more than a few inches, the furniture legs screeching against the hardwood floor as she pushed.
Breathing hard, she peered into the shadowed gap between the dresser and wall. She saw only dusty spiderwebs.
Next, she examined the chair, pulled it away from its position, and found nothing. She climbed onto the chair and pried at the slats of wood that had been nailed across the window, but they held firm.
She was too tired to bother trying the other window. Sighing, she eased onto the ruptured cushion to catch her breath. She hung her head, gazing at the shackles on her wrists and ankles.
As much as she hated it, she was inclined to accept that there was no way out of this room, no way out of her restraints, and nothing to do except wait for an opportunity to escape.
Up there in the big house, you gon’ be under Miss Lula’s charge . . . Miss Lula ain’t got as much patience as me . . .
Amiya clenched her hands into fists.
I will resist , she thought. Until my dying breath.
But until then, she did something she hadn’t done in years: she prayed.