Mistaken, p.3
Mistaken, page 3
Asshole was sitting in a chair with a tray of food, watching me.
I ignored him and sat down next to Max.
The roast beef on the plate smelled amazing. Glancing over I spotted mashed potatoes and green beans in sauce. It was the first time I had seen anything resembling real food since before I was rounded up and taken to the refugee camp. My mouth started to water, my stomach growled, and the Asshole just sat there watching me. I looked away. I had to; I was not going to watch him eat his dinner.
He said something to us. I couldn’t understand, so I just ignored him. Max looked up. Asshole repeated his grunt. Max stood up. “Max, sit down, baby. Don’t bother the …. man while he’s eating.”
Mister Tattoos tried again, this time almost humorously slowly, “Kah-uh-mm hur.”
I froze as that sank in. “Was that ‘come here’? You want us to come over there?”
He nodded and held the tray out to me.
I was up off the floor and backing away from him so fast it was like I had been electrocuted. He was here in the room with no doors so I couldn’t lock him out, with me and my son and one big bed. I started to shake. “I don’t want you!”
OK, so that wasn’t the most tactful thing to scream at a man offering me dinner, but it had been a long day at that point and I wasn’t at my most eloquent. It didn’t matter, he just kept watching me calmly. After a moment, Max started to cry. I sat suddenly on the floor and hugged him as he crawled into my lap.
Asshole turned and left.
He left the food tray sitting on the bed.
By the time Max was asleep and I was brave enough to eat it, everything was cold. It didn’t matter, it was still the best dinner I had ever eaten.
Chapter 5
There were soldiers patrolling the house. One walked past the door every ten minutes or so. The bed was on full display from the hallway. Max and I slept on the floor in the bathroom. It wasn’t any harder than sleeping on the ground and it was away from the light shining in through the doorway.
Neither of us woke when someone came in and covered us with a blanket. It had been a long day.
I woke to find Max was squirming in my arms. He did that when he had to pee. I got up and tried to find a new diaper for him in the dark. Sure enough, Asshole was sleeping in the bed. There weren’t any diapers that I could find, but I ran water in the sink to soak the wet one. I put Max in a carefully folded towel without waking him up. Then I wrapped us in the blanket and stared at the bathroom doorway.
There wasn’t anything I could do if my “mate” decided to come in here to get me. That was terrifying.
I was still sitting there, fear keeping me awake when he came into the bathroom the next morning. He stopped in the doorway and stared at me for a moment. He grunted something.
“I can’t understand what you are saying.”
His eyes narrowed and I flinched. He stepped into the bathroom and to the side of the doorway. He pointed at his chest then to the toilet.
I scooped up Max and ran for it.
——
Ok, I have to admit that breakfast was good. I couldn’t complain about the food. We ate in the formal dining room at a table for twenty. It was eggs and toast. I'm pretty sure there was even real butter.
Afterwards, I was led back to the master bedroom. Asshole rummaged through the walk in closet to find me anything that would fit. It ended up being a wrap dress. Whoever had owned the clothes was both older and heavier than I am. Before they had come, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in this outfit. Now I was just happy to have something clean. The bedroom slippers were soft and sloppy but didn’t rub on my blisters. I wasn’t going to be able to walk very far in this get up.
I wasn’t overly pleased that the soldiers were staring at me as Asshole led me out of the house, but I was too excited about going to the park to really worry too much.
The thing about Riverside is that it was built in the 1920’s. There was a post war boom going on and Riverside was a nice little peninsula where the super rich of the day could live without having to integrate into regular society. It was only really two streets. One ran parallel to the river, it held the 5000 square foot or bigger dwellings of the ultra rich. There were about thirty houses that backed onto the river, each one had a sprawling yard. They all fronted onto the park. It was the community green space with trees, a playground, tennis courts and a nice little jogging path around the whole thing.
Across from the park were the smaller houses. And by smaller I still mean 3000 square foot, stately homes. They had smaller lots and backed up to the hill with the stone wall at the top. There was one road up the hill. It was the only way to get into Riverside by land.
Of course, the people with river lots all had boats. Why wouldn’t they? The smaller homes were owned by successful doctors, lawyers, the arch chancellor of the university. The kind of people I could see the knobs look down on as nouveau riche. People who had earned their money, instead of just inheriting it.
I had heard stories about the park. Often in terms of people being reported for suspicious activity if they came to the (in theory) public park when they didn’t live in Riverside. It wasn’t a gated community, but it might as well have been.
Max and I were currently walking to the biggest, best maintained playground in the city.
I recognized some other boys from our refugee camp. In addition to the ones I recognized there were a number I didn’t. I could see the other moms. I could see Henry, William and James. What I couldn’t see was their dads. Or Rita, who was Patrick’s “Grandmother.”
Janice was there, but only physically, she was staring at nothing. I hurried over to her. Kathryn caught my arm. “Don’t. We had our ‘physicals’ yesterday. Basically, two of the monsters pinned us to an exam table while we screamed and a human doctor did the full blown anal probing thing.” Kathryn was bitter and I could see where she had been crying. “Janice just gave up.”
Kathryn had bruises that matched the ones on my arms, but hers extended to her neck as well.
“Where’s Rita?” I asked.
She snorted, “They only brought the parents who might pop out another baby.”
The boys who didn’t have their parents were huddled together, not playing with Max or the others. I didn’t like any of the implications of that.
Kathryn nodded to where Asshole was standing with some other unarmed orcs watching us. “Which one is yours?”
I looked away, “The one with the tattoos. The human tattoos.”
Kathryn nodded. “I picked the shortest one on offer.” Then she gave a bitter laugh, “Not that it matters, he’s still a foot taller than me. At least it isn’t two feet.”
I had to ask, even if I didn’t want to know, “Has he hurt you yet?”
Kathryn shook her head, “Nope. It’s been more like the textbook ‘how to give someone Stockholm syndrome’ treatment.”
I shivered. “I’m going to go sit down.” Harry and Martin King, Rita McLeod, and I had been close. The adoptive parents group of sorts. I was worried about them and what their boys must be going through without them. I went to sit by their kids, who swarmed me calling for their parents. I held as many as I could, not knowing what to say.
After a while, Asshole and four others came over. The others started to pull the boys away from me. “Wait!” I shouted.
I was amazed that they did. They all stopped and looked at me expectantly. Shit. Now what should I say?
“These boys all lost their families. I’m not hurting them. I’m just a grown up who isn’t a stranger.”
The one holding William who had better English than Asshole said, “I his family now.”
I gritted my teeth. “Yeah, you can say that. It doesn’t make it true for William. You are still just a stranger dragging him away from someone he knows and trusts.”
They had a quiet, snarling discussion, during which William squirmed out of the male’s grasp and grabbed me instead.
“Listen, that old guy, the general or whatever, recognized that children need continuity. Bringing Rita and the guys to stay with their boys would provide that continuity. Even if you can’t rape them to make more sons.” That last sentence came out more angry than I intended.
That made them all stare at me. Then they left. The boys stayed with me.
Someone who didn’t know how children worked had planned a picnic lunch - right in the middle of nap time. Everyone was crabby and exhausted by then. I was sitting in the shade with my back against a tree and five little boys sleeping on me like a puddle of puppies. Most of the others were hangry and crying. In the meantime a battalion of orcs had set up a buffet table and were trying to wrangle screaming children and dissociating moms into eating. I just watched.
I was warm and comfortable in what should have been a lovely autumn morning. Asshole came over and stared down at me. I ignored him. He was back a moment later holding a plate with a whole roast lake trout, some baby potatoes and carrots. He tried to get me to take it.
I shook my head. “Hands full of sleeping babies just now. Besides, I’m not sure how to eat that.
He sat down next to me and pulled out a pocket knife. He quickly filleted the fish, and offered me a bite sized piece on the end of his knife. I shook my head again. “I’m not letting you stick a knife in my mouth.”
He grumbled as he stood up and stomped off like a seven foot tall toddler, but he was back a moment later with a fork trying to feed me fish.
I frowned.
He smiled evilly, then made a passable train noise as he pushed the fork towards my mouth. I managed to untangle an arm from around Henry and take the fork from him. “Save it for the kids,” I snapped.
He didn’t say anything. He just sat there silently grinning like an idiot, holding the plate while I ate.
All five boys stayed with me that afternoon. When Max came over to nurse, each of the boys was offered a bottle of milk by their new father. Patrick was prepared to go along with this, but Henry, William and James were not letting anyone separate them. Their fathers did not seem overly impressed by that. I closed my eyes as silent tears ran down my cheeks before I was able to force myself to stop it.
I just cuddled Max close.
Something rough scratched my face and my eyes snapped open to see Asshole poking me in the cheek. My whole body recoiled away from him and all the boys in my lap started crying.
Some of the orcs watching me started to laugh. Most of them hurried to try to comfort the three King boys.
“Just stop. Please.”
Great, now they were looking at me.
“None of us want any of you touching us. They want their dads back. They want to not be separated from their brothers. We just all want to be safe. Having you grabbing or poking at us doesn’t feel safe. If you want these boys to grow up to be mentally stable people, you need them to have a stable family.” I swallowed and looked down at Max who was watching me with an eerie silence. “None of them will be helped by you torturing their moms.” There was no response. “Not that I expect that matters,” I added bitterly.
Asshole snarled something at me that I didn’t even try to understand. Then he snatched up Max and stormed back to the house with my now screaming son. I jumped up to run after him. The King boys tried to follow, but were restrained by their new guardians. I couldn’t call those monsters fathers.
“Wait!”
Asshole just ignored me.
“Please wait!” My feet still hurt and trying to keep up in slippers wasn’t working.
“Stop!”
Nothing.
Damn.
Screw it.
I kicked off the slippers and sprinted after him on my toes, the gravel and dirt on the road biting into my skin. My feet were a lot tougher than they had been before the invasion but the ground still hurt. I ignored it.
I was almost caught up when Asshole got to the door. The guard said something and Asshole turned and snarled at me. I tried to stop, slipped on the leaves and landed on my backside.
Fuck. That hurt too.
Max had stopped just screaming and settled on yelling “Mum! Mum!”
Asshole glared at Max with a look of absolute rage on his face.
“Don’t hit him! Please!”
That made everything stop.
Asshole, the guards, the random orcs walking past, they all stopped what they were doing to stare at me. I scrambled to my feet. “He’s just a little boy who’s scared. Please don’t hurt him!”
Asshole looked at me in disgust as he stomped towards me. I took an involuntary step back. Then forced myself to step forward. I was shaking, small and pathetic, but I was not going to back down when he had my son. Max was thrust into my arms before a huge grey hand landed on my back and pushed me into the house.
Even with him clinging to me and using both arms to hold him, I staggered under Max’s weight. I was basically pushed to the stairs, then he grabbed my arm and pulled me up to the room where we had stayed last night. Once we were through the empty door frame, Asshole strode away.
Max and I were both crying by then. I lead him into the bathroom to clean my feet again. Antibiotics were a thing of the past. If my cuts or blisters got infected, it was a death sentence.
I got Max out of his diaper and gave him a bath too. I didn’t have another diaper. The towels remaining in the bathroom were too big. I peaked out into the bedroom and tried to see if I could find any. The guard who caught me bleeding on the carpet last night came past. He stopped to look at us for a moment, then kept moving. He was back a moment later with a stack of clean diapers. He didn’t hand them to me. He set them on the floor just outside the doorway and pushed them into the room with his foot.
That was weird.
I wrangled Max into a clean one then led him back into the bathroom. At least that way they weren’t staring at us. I used one of the clean flat diapers and some of the hair elastics from the drawers in the bathroom to make him a doll. He hugged it and rubbed his face on it.
“I don’t know if they will let you keep that, my lad. I don’t even know if they will let you keep me. But everyone needs a lovely to cuddle.”
Chapter 6
Asshole came back while I was telling Max the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. He had a newly split lip and a bit of a black eye. He sat a food tray on the floor at the doorway to the bathroom and slid it towards me in a movement reminiscent of the guard with the diapers.
I stared up at him.
He made a sound of disgust then turned his back on us, stripped naked and crawled into the bed.
It was roast chicken leg and carrots.
I let Max eat first.
There was some left. It was nice. There wasn’t a blanket, but there were big towels to use to
make a nest. This time instead of huddling against the furthest wall, we took the corner inside the door. The sun was low and there wasn’t much light coming in through the window.
Max had nodded off when I heard the commotion on the stairs. I wrapped my son in the makeshift blankets before creeping out to peer into the hallway.
Harry and Martin King and their boys were coming up the stairs even as the orcs were taking the door off another of the bedrooms. The two men had been roughed up. Martin had some stitches in his cheek. They had both been shaved. The important thing was that they were alive and with their boys.
No sign of Rita or Patrick, but the Kings being all back together gave me hope.
Harry saw me coming towards them and took a step towards me. The guards were immediately between them.
“How bad is it?” I called out. Now there was a soldier in front of me.
“Nothing as bad as what you ladies already went through,” Martin said bitterly.
Harry blurted out, “Don’t fight them Kari. You can’t win. Just don’t … make it worse.”
I felt like I was going to be sick.
The one standing way too close to me chuckled.
There was soft crunching noise behind me.
All the guards stood down.
Harry went white.
I looked over my shoulder.
There was Asshole, in all his naked glory, leaning against the door jam, cracking his knuckles.
I looked back at the King Family. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m glad you’re alive.”
