Marital Law Read online

  Looking my way, my mother said without hesitancy, “That's where you are wrong, Marcella. I have no doubt I will see Sidnie again, because she will beat you, and I will defeat the Darcy sisters in the arena, as well!”

  There was something different about Mother's tone. She'd always encouraged me in all things, but until now I could tell she had her doubts due to my condition. Still, there was faith there, and my heart swelled with pride. She wholly believed I could defeat Marcella Munford, and I would not let her down.

  “We shall see about that!” Marcella said, as she turned and left the podium. Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “Lock all three of them up in the dungeon! I will be rid of them all in short order!”

  Searching the crowd, I managed to meet Adeline's eyes. She looked conflicted, worried. I could see a war going on inside her mind. She wanted to remain loyal to MOM, but everyone in her family was about to be locked away, and then forced to battle in the arena.

  In that moment, Adeline looked like the little girl I'd helped raise, the precious baby I loved more than anything. My heart longed to hold her, to take her in my arms and tell her it would be okay. Nodding my head, I gave her a wink, like the one Ellen had given me years prior, when the monitors had taken her away.

  ****

  He always hated being in her presence. Couldn't stand the feeling of her disappointing eyes on him. No matter how hard he tried, he always came up short pleasing her. The savages were painstakingly slow at ridding the forest of the dwellers, and Marcella was running out of patience. At least you've been more successful that her generals.

  This didn't help Lucius in the least. He wanted Marcella to finally accept him not only as her brother, but as her equal. “You called for me, my queen,” Lucius said, bowing his head.

  “Yes. What took you so long?”

  “Planning the next raid in the forest. I normally only send out four or five of my abnormals to capture them, but this time I'm considering ten, maybe fifteen. The higher the number I send, the greater the yield of dwellers,” Lucius said.

  “Savages, Lucius, not abnormals. I want you to send them all! I'm tired of feeding and housing them! It would be best if they all just killed each other, and then I could feed their carcasses to Caine and his people!”

  A beat. It was obvious Lucius had grown fond of the freaks. “As you wish, my queen,” he finally replied. “Is there anything else?”

  “Before you do anything else, I need to make sure my little frail opponent stands an even lesser chance in the arena, Lucius. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly. And I have just the thing. I've been working...” Lucius started.

  “Please don't bother with the details, Lucius. Just see that it gets taken care of,” Marcella said, waving him off.

  Stopping at the door, Lucius turned and said, “Sorry to be a bother, my queen. Would it be too forward of me to ask whether or not you plan to tell the people that I'm your brother, during your next address?”

  Marcella burst out into fits of laughter. It took her a few minutes to regain her composure.

  “Are you serious, Lucius? Why would I ever do such a maddening thing?”

  “I just thought since I came up with a way to capture the dwellers that you would be proud of me, that you'd want everyone to know,” Lucius said, fighting back emotions of thirty years of rejection.

  “Why Lucius, you really have lost your mind. There's no way the people can ever know we're related. Do you understand me?” Marcella said, pointing her finger at him.

  Downtrodden, Lucius said, “Yes, I get it. I will go now.”

  She knew she'd hurt him, that she'd always treated him poorly, but she couldn't help herself. For a man of his stature, he should've been the top general in her military, but instead, Lucius had chosen to hide out in the dungeons. He was a freak, nothing more. She dismissed his whininess, not giving it a second thought.

  With the room to herself, Marcella went into the closet and retrieved her spear. She had never actually considered using it against an opponent before, but trained with it, nonetheless. The next hour was spent practicing, working through her fear and angst. She didn't think Sidnie could defeat her, but this was new territory. If the little twit even managed to strike her with her spear, it could cause Marcella to lose some credibility in front of her people. And that was something she simply wasn't going to allow to happen.

  Spent, Marcella headed into her bathing chambers and had her servants thoroughly clean her body. And then she called in her favorite husband and enjoyed his company for the evening.

  ****

  Back inside my recent tiny home in Marcella's dungeon, I remained focused on the mission ahead. I tried not to let my mother's battle interfere with my thinking, but it was by no means an easy task. After learning that men used to run the show, I now saw my father in a different light, viewed everyone differently. He wasn’t a prize, something to be fought over. He was a human being, an individual with thoughts and feelings just like us females.

  Later in the evening, I received a visitor. The monitors dragged me out into the hallway, to meet with him. He looked sickly, his large mass hanging out in all directions. His face was paler than normal, which was saying a lot since the man already looked ghostly. His eyes sallow, sunken.

  I began to wonder what kind of magic elixir he'd been taking, because he didn't appear to be all there. He looked not all there, like some of the women in Providence who liked to grow their own grapes and make their own wine. Wine was popular here, probably because people were missing happiness in their lives, and it provided an escape.

  When Lucius removed a needle from inside his jacket, I immediately jumped to my feet and fought against the monitors attempting to subdue me. I managed to break the nose of one of them before they slammed me to the floor and sat on top of me. With my arms and legs out of action, I might as well have been a fish, flailing out of water.

  When the needle entered my body, I feared I might soon become like the savages, under Lucius's control. To my surprise, I didn't feel different in the least. After tossing me back in my cell, the monitors stepped aside and Lucius bent to the small window.

  “No need to worry, my child. Just a little something to slow you down a bit. We'll leave your ultimate demise to Colin. Marcella will only wound you. The final blow will come from the man of your dreams.”

  “I'm not surprised Marcella Munford is afraid! Well, she should be, because I plan to remove her head from her shoulders!”

  “My, my, I like your spunk, Sidnie. But I'm afraid that's simply not going to happen. You will be lucky to stay awake for the next two and a half days. Just enough time for you to watch your mother lose in battle and to perish at the hands of our supreme ruler.”

  “I'll show you...” I started but I lost my train of thought. My head began to swim, the room following suit. My arms and legs felt weak, and everything began to blur. “What...?”

  “Ah, it has started to work its magic. I hope you enjoy the next couple of days, Sidnie. I know I will.”

  Sleep came over me, pulling me away from this world and into its warm, comforting embrace. Dreams assaulted me. The first involved my mother losing in battle to the Darcy sisters. The second was my father leaving with his new wives. The latter was more devastating that the first, because my father wouldn't even look at me. It was almost as if he'd written me off in that instant.

  I wasn't sure what pulled me out of my nightmares, but when I opened my eyes I still felt slow, weak.

  Eventually, I rolled onto my stomach and made my way to my knees. Lifting my head felt like I was pulling up ten tons of blocks, and I was physically exhausted from the effort. I was unsure of what Lucius had given me, but there was no doubt of its potency. There was no way I could battle with Marcella Munford in this state. It was hard to tell exactly how many monitors showed up at my cell, maybe five, but that number was unusually high for them. Normally they travelled in pairs, which made me think maybe I was hallucin
ating, seeing triple, quadruple, maybe more. They dragged me outside, tossed my arms over their shoulders and led me back upstairs. “Where, where are you taking me?” I managed to ask.

  “To watch your mother become a single woman again,” said one of the many monitors.

  This sobered me a bit. A mild panic attack hit. I couldn't help but wonder if my dream the night before might've been some sort of premonition. Was it all about to come true? I prayed not, but the Darcy sisters were well known around Providence for their skills in the arena. They'd both been married previously but their mates had mysteriously and coincidentally ended up missing...both of them.

  Even though I’d never actually seen my mother fight an opponent before, I still had faith in her abilities. If it weren't for her age and the fact that she was going up against two women at the same time, then I wouldn't have even given it a second thought. She was quick, smart, and fierce. Three deadly ingredients, but would it be enough?

  The monitors took me outside, tossed me into the back of some sort of hand pulled cart, and whisked me in the direction of the arena. As we neared the entrance, I began to hear the crowd chanting, “Battle, battle, battle!” they were out for blood—my mother’s.

  Chapter 30

  The boy was given strict orders not to leave his room. He’d just met with Lucius, had been forced to give the evil man the location of the dwellers’ hideout. He went along with the plan, knowing the others would be ready, that they would be able to fend off the attack.

  Lucius had put two other monitors on guard. They had positioned themselves outside the boy’s room. He hadn’t believed the boy would actually kill the girl, so he thought it best to keep an eye on him. Of course, no one had expected the girl to escape and actually have the gall to challenge MOM.

  A smile creased the corners of the boy’s mouth at the thought of Sidnie battling Marcella Munford. He had no doubt she’d come out victorious, but he also knew better than to believe MOM would fight a fair fight. He decided it best to keep an eye on the girl.

  It was after midnight by the time the guards finally fell asleep. The boy knew from watching them the previous evenings that neither of them was much for staying awake all night. One was supposed to remain awake while the other slept, but the awake one normally only made it about thirty to forty-five minutes before he joined his partner. On this particular night, he’d made it a whopping fifteen minutes.

  Using the key he’d managed to lift from Lucius months ago, the boy easily opened his door and crept past his guards. They didn’t make a stir. He quietly made his way to the dungeon, to the area where the girl was being held captive.

  Peering in through the bars, he saw her sleeping fitfully on her side. Something wasn’t right about her. When she stirred and attempted to sit up, the boy immediately knew Lucius had drugged her. Anger flooded him. He wanted to strangle the life out of the man, but he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t his part. That belonged to someone else.

  He spent the next hour rifling through Lucius’s lab before he finally found what he was looking for. With the liquidly stuff tucked inside his shirt, the boy made his way back to the girl’s cell, let himself inside and poured it down her throat. Before he left, he found himself staring at her beauty, and he wanted more than anything to scoop her away and cart her away from this madness.

  Before he left, he softly kissed her sweet lips, and gently placed her hand on the floor where he’d found her.

  ****

  Later that night, the boy located the cells of one of the savages, and after mustering up the courage, entered inside. It wasn’t easy, trying to calm the creature, as well as his own beating heart.

  The thing was once female, but one would have to strain really hard to see any last vestiges of that now. Most of its hair had fallen out, and its once feminine features now looked very manly.

  The boy had searched the cells for days for this particular one. He knew her, had once been very close to her.

  Inside the room, the boy slowly, cautiously closed the door behind him. He maintained eye contact with the creature and said, “I am here to help you. I promise I won’t hurt you in any way.”

  The creature moved towards him, making loud grunts the entire way. It stopped within inches of the boy and looked down upon him.

  The things hot, foul breath washed over the boy, making his knees weak. He prayed it wouldn’t snap him in two, that it wouldn’t use his body as a chew toy.

  “I am the son of Jeremiah and Hannah Callahan. I live in a village on the other side of the river, on the outskirts of the forest. Do you remember me, Meredith?”

  Reaching down, the creature lifted the boy into the air and brought his face within inches of hers. It studied him, even sniffed him.

  Sweat poured from the boy. He knew he shouldn’t have come. He would die here, and all would be lost. “Please, please don’t hurt me, Meredith. I-I came to free you from Lucius. I came to make you whole again. Will you-you let me help you?”

  A beat.

  Seconds turned into minutes, but the thing eventually set the boy back down on his own two feet. And then it plopped to the ground on its seat and began nodding its head.

  The boy reached inside his shirt and removed a small vial. Offering it to the thing, he said, “Drink. It will help you.”

  Wrapping its massive paw around the thing, the creature flicked off the lid and turned it up. The boy felt sad for the once beautiful woman. He could see the pain, the conflict going on inside of her.

  Minutes lapsed and nothing happened. The boy had feared this might happen. After all, this was the first real test. Suddenly the thing started changing, and before he knew it, the boy found himself looking at his aunt again. She appeared older, and with less hair, but to him, she was still beautiful.

  The two talked for the next hour, setting things in motion, and then he headed back to his sleeping quarters to check in on the guards. Satisfied they were still out, the boy went back and released Meredith to help him convince the others to allow them entrance.

  One by one, they met with the savages. They were on a mission. There were over fifty of them and each one was very time consuming. Fortunately, he managed to get half of them and still make it back to his room before his guards came to.

  The next night, the boy did the same thing. He visited all of them, and even though he was exhausted, he felt they were ready, that they understood. Now he just prayed Sidnie would defeat Marcella Munford, and they all would finally be able to go home.

  Chapter 31

  As I was being wheeled to the front of the procession, I caught a glimpse of my mother, dressed for battle, spear in hand. My father stood off to the right, away from all the action, guarded by what I believed was two monitors. My mind was beginning to clear slightly, but my energy level was completely depleted. I laid my head on the side of the cart and did my best to keep my eyes open.

  From what I could see, my mother wasn't afraid. She didn't move an inch when the Darcy sisters walked into the arena and took up position on either side of her. I think she might've even smiled, and this made me do the same.

  Marcella Munford was sitting in the shade of a newly built awning with quite an extensive seating area, complete with an outdoor kitchen. Evidently sitting outside with the peasants wasn't an option for her.

  I could see Marcella’s horde offering her a plate of fruit while two others stood guard. Everything about her disgusted me, and I wanted more than anything to get up, go over

  there and bust her in the face. But all of that required energy.

  After Marcella gave a few words of encouragement to the Darcy sisters, she turned to my mother and said, “You have brought shame and dishonor upon yourself, Sonia. This is all your doing. You could have disowned Sidnie, and I might've overlooked your lack of parenting skills. Instead, you turned traitor on me. Now you will get what you deserve.” To the crowd she said,

  “Let the battle begin.”

  Rapid movement caused me to li
ft my lead-laden head. The Darcy sisters moved in for the attack, spears flying at my mother's head with incredible speed and accuracy. It surprised me that Mother hadn't struck first, as she'd always taught me to do. I heard roars of approval as Sonia Rashellus narrowly avoided the sisters' weapons.

  In short order, the two women swung their spears and continued the offensive. My mother looked tired, but she managed to hold the two off.

  The fight seemed to rage on for hours, neither side gaining advantage. Since my mother had been on the defensive the entire time, I worried she wouldn't be able to withstand the two stronger, quicker women much longer.

  When one of the sisters, Regina I think her name was, managed to nick my mother's side with her spear, I knew the two now had the advantage, and it was only a matter of time. I prayed they would spare Mother her life, but from the look in the sisters' eyes, I didn't think they would.

  Sonia continued to repel their attacks, to my surprise. The Darcy sisters were starting to look a little winded, and then I began to understand: my mother was letting them wear themselves out. With speed and agility to match, maybe even outweigh, that of the Darcy sisters when the battle had first begun, my mother went on the offensive. She fended off a spear from one of the sisters and quickly slammed hers down on the other one’s head. The woman's eyes fluttered a bit, and then down she went.

  The other Darcy sister was so shocked her sister had been knocked out that she lowered her own spear and stood mouth agape, looking down at her. Sonia Rashellus used the wooden end of her spear and took the woman's legs out from under her. With this one dazed from hitting the earth on the back of her head, my mother placed the tip of her spear to her neck and said,

  “Submit now, and live!”

  The crowd began to yell, “Boo” at my mother, but even in my hazy state, I could tell a few of them were impressed at what she had done.