Rat Pack/Property

Maura glanced up as Stray pushed his way into the tool shed, taking off his dusty coat and shaking it out for all the good it did him. He slung his pistol holster off his back, leaving just his ragged undershirt to cover his body. Tossing aside a small burlap sack—Maura saw copper wires and other scraps spill out from its open top—he grabbed the pistol sling and trudged over to the bench she and Anne were sharing. He never did let that pistol out of his sight, Maura had noticed. You had to respect someone like that.

Beside her, Anne’s head turned slightly at Stray’s approach. Adam’s Bible closed with a snap as she slid off the bench and crept over to the furthest corner of the shed. She gave Maura an apologetic shrug before burying her nose in the Bible once again.

Stray threw himself down onto the bench and let out an exasperated sigh. He gestured at Anne with his free hand. “When are you going to tell me what her problem is?” he demanded, more irritated then hurt.

“What, besides the fact that some sick fucks cut out her tongue?” Maura shot back. My father and his friends, hissed the miserable voice of the past. She wouldn’t let anyone blame Anne for the way she was. Not now, not ever.

“It’s like she can’t stand to be around me,” Stray complained, taking off his boots. His feet were cracked and scabbed, but so were everyone else’s. Maura always took a fair amount of pride in how filthy her own feet were. “I don’t know what I ever did to her.”

“You kicked her,” Maura reminded him. “In the alley.”

He shot her a dirty look. “You were trying to mug me.”

Maura shrugged. “We said say sorry. Let it go already.”

“Well, maybe she can let go of getting kicked then.”

She hit him hard in the arm and immediately regretted it. If he hit back, it would hurt. For such a skinny kid, he packed a hell of a punch. “Just leave her alone,” she growled. “If she doesn’t want to be around you, don’t push it.”

“Fine, fine.” He gave her a dirty look but did not return the punch. “Adam and Sal are off helping some crotchety bastard sort out his latrine. The brat’s with them, too. Where’s everyone else?”

“Em got them work picking Mr. Collizi’s stupid vegetable garden. If I was there, he wouldn’t give the rest of them jobs.”

Stray gave her one of his infuriating smirks. “Does this have anything to do with that time you beat up his kids?”

“Maybe.” She picked viciously at the bench’s surface. “They threw rocks at Anne.”

“If you’re looking to pick fights all the time, does it always have to be about her? You won’t always be there for her. You know that, right?”

She fought back the urge to hit him again. What was his problem, anyway? Why’d he have to keep harping about Anne? Maura remembered the whimpers and screams from the other children, the ones who had come through her father’s compound before Anne. When she thought about all the times she’d just looked the other way and pretended not to care it made her want to throw up. Now that Stray was around asking stupid questions, it was making her realize that she needed Anne just as much as Anne needed her. Facing that fact made her even angrier. “What do you know about it?” she snapped. “Why don’t you go clean your gun or something? Leave Anne alone.”

Something flashed behind Stray’s murky grey eyes, but he just twisted his mouth and looked away. As he turned, Maura caught a glimpse of the skin beneath his tattered undershirt. She’d seen it before—the scars that criss-crossed his body—but this time the thoughts of her father and the compound were at the front of her head. She saw the scars and she knew.

“They cut her tongue out,” she said quietly. It felt good to say it out loud, even if it hurt a bit, too. “So that when they shipped her to some other place, they’d know what she was. And if she got away, she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what had happened to her. They marked her. As property."

She pointed at the back of Stray’s neck. His hair was growing out, already a far cry from the stubble it had been when they’d fought him back in that alleyway. It was beginning to cover up the small markings on the back of his neck, the ones he always tried to hide with mud and dirt. The ones that formed the numbers and the bar code.

“I think it’s the same as what they did to you,” she said quietly. “Whoever put that mark on you. They gave you those scars, too, right? They marked you so people would know you belonged to them.”

She frowned. “Who did you belong to, Stray?”

Stray’s arm snapped up and for a second Maura recoiled, afraid he really was going to hit her. But after a second’s pause it slid up and pressed down on the coded skin. He stood up quickly, jaw working furiously as if he’d suddenly been struck as dumb as Anne. With a sharp twist of his head, he headed back for the door.

“I’m going to find Sal and Adam,” he said, throwing his coat back on. “Back later.” He pushed his way out of the tool shed.

Maura glanced down at the bench. He’d been so freaked out that he’d even left his pistol there with her. When he didn’t come back for it, she slid it out of the holster and ran her hands over it. It really was a nice gun when you got right down to it. Had he stolen it from his masters when he’d run away?

She looked over at Anne, who had watched the whole exchange with that solemn look of hers. “That’s why you don’t like him, isn’t it?” Maura asked. “Because he’s like you.” Maybe it frightened Anne that there were more children like her on Mamore. It frightened Maura more than she could fully understand, a cold fist closing over her insides as she slid a finger down the barrel of Stray’s gun.

But Anne shook her head, and though she could not speak Maura could almost hear the words she must have desperately wanted to voice. No, the mute girl was saying. He’s nothing like me.

And that’s why I’m afraid of him.