Page 4 of Gunslinger Girl

“How much did you get for me?”

Her father didn’t answer. He stood slowly, fingertips pressed to the table so hard that they were white. “You will do your duty to the Confederation, and you will obey me.”

Pity tensed with anger. And though her heart pumped cold fright, it didn’t stop the words that came out next. “Momma never would have let you sell me off.”

“Your mother”—her father’s face went from rosy to red as he said the word—“was an insurgent and a drunk. And if she hadn’t gotten herself killed, she’d have sent you wherever she’d been told to send you!”

“No, she wouldn’t!” Pity took three shaky steps toward her father.

He gave a derisive sniff. “Lord knows she had no trouble selling herself, now, did she?”

“And look what kind of heartless, godforsaken son of a bitch she got stuck with!”

She didn’t register the pain until she was on her knees, staring at the wood slats of the floor. She lifted one trembling hand to the side of her face. It came back slick with crimson.

“The 34th is more than you deserve.” Her father’s voice fell on her like a rain of gravel. “You will be ready to leave when I return. And if I hear one more word of dissent, I will go to Lester and make sure you’re sent to the very farthest edge of the settlements. And you don’t even want to know what brand of sons of bitches they send out there. You hear me?”

Cheek throbbing, Pity raised her head. A few feet away, within easy reach, was her father’s rifle.

He followed her gaze. “Go ahead,” he said. “Try. They’ll all say how ironic it was that your mother bargained her way out of the noose only to have you end up in it.”

She swallowed hard, the coppery taste of blood coating the inside of her mouth. Trembling with fear and adrenaline, she got to her feet and met her father’s eyes.

Glacial indifference stared back.

Pity inhaled sharply, then turned and bolted out the back door, not slowing a moment for the cacophony of shouts that trailed after her.

CHAPTER 2

“Dammit,” Finn growled. “I told them the generator wasn’t your fault!”

Though she doubted pursuit, Pity locked the door of the workshop after her. All concrete floor and corrugated metal, it was little more than an old shed wedged into the back corner of the garages, just large enough for a tool bench and the Ranger. She wiped at her eyes. “It’s not…”

“Hey, stop!” Finn grabbed a clean rag and doused it with alcohol. “You’re smearing the blood around. Let me.”

Pity winced at the sting of disinfectant.

“Well, you don’t need stitches,” her friend said at last. “But you’re gonna have a helluva bruise. What happened this time? You forget to fold Billy’s underpants?”

Pity drew a breath. Simply thinking the words made her tongue go stiff. “I’m… being sent to another commune.”

“What? Where?”

“A mining settlement that needs fertile women. He and Lester schemed it up.”

Finn stared in disbelief. “That… that…” She grabbed a wrench and pitched it across the shed. It clanged against the wall, leaving a dent. “When?”

“When he gets back from the next transport.” Pity slid into the Ranger’s passenger side. The patchwork seat embraced her, as it had a thousand times before. Still fuming, Finn climbed in opposite. She fished out a flask from beneath her seat and offered it.

Pity reached, then hesitated.

“A little. For the pain,” said Finn.

She winced at the potent, evocative scent that escaped as she unscrewed the top. It was good for pain, all right—Pity’s mother had applied it liberally and regularly. But it wasn’t drink that had faded her to the shade of the person she should have been. It was misery—the despair of a wolf trapped in a tiny cage when it should have been free. That and the man who had been as much a jailer as a husband, who never touched a drop of alcohol and was a monster anyhow.

Pity took a sip and grimaced. The home-still went down like liquid flame.

“What did you say to get that, anyway?” Finn crossed her arms. “A smart man should know better than to mess with the face he’s trying to sell.”