Page 90 of Resilience

She wasn’t afraid of the dark—a lot of her best memories had happened outside in the dark—but this dark field, which seemed miles wide and miles deep, was the opposite of a night sky. A night sky was as familiar as home. Even when clouds made a thickness unbroken by starlight, she knew the stars were there, and she knew exactly where they were. She had the map of the night etched in her brain. The field beside them now was a vast unknown, and it freaked her out a little.

Then they turned onto a rutted gravel road, barely more than a hiking trail, and the forest hunched in close, reaching out to grab at them. Still not as freaky as that field.

They arrived before a large, ancient barn that seemed about to fall over. The club van was parked near the closed sliding doors, as was Hunter’s Accord. Light pushed weakly around the edges of the doors—but not, surprisingly, through the cracked and curling boards of the walls.

As they parked the bikes, one of the doors slid open, and Athena’s dad walked out. A half-second flash of an expression showed when he saw Mom, but Athena didn’t think it was surprise in that expression. More like resignation and a little bit of irritation. As if they’d argued about whether Mom would come, and he’d thought he’d won.

Silly man.

Dad came for Athena first and asked, “Are you ready for this?”

“How can she be?” Mom signed—and spoke—before Athena could respond. Dad and Mom exchanged a look that made it clear their argument was only on pause.

“I’m ready,” Athena said.

Did she still feel some internal conflict? Yes. Always she would. She wasn’t a killer, she didn’t like to think of the people she loved as killers, and this was all her fault because she couldn’t keep a secret no matter how hard she tried.

No. Hold up. What the fuck with that bullshit thought? It was not her fault. Hunter had done this. And the consequences for hurting a club daughter were ... this. Harsher than in the normal world? Maybe so. But in the normal world, Athena would be the one bearing the brunt of the consequences for being raped, and Hunter would have gone about his stupid life thinking he could get away with it. Even if she’d done the ‘right’ thing and reported it to law. Law hardly ever helped rape victims get justice.

He'd fucked around. Now he was finding out.

Huh. Look at that. Internal conflict resolved. “I’m ready,” she signed again.

Dad gave her his full attention. “You are going to see Dex work. It won’t be as intense as it can get, because we need to be precise about the kind of injuries he gets. Right now, we’ve got him gagged, stripped to his underwear, and hung by his wrists. Dex’s tools are laid out, and he’s wearing coveralls, booties, and gloves. That’s what you’ll see. Nobody goes near him without gear on. We’ve got a story to tell, right?”

Athena nodded. The light coming from the open barn door wavered with motion from within.

“Look at me, starlight,” Dad continued with a terse wave of his hand, and Athena returned her full attention to him. “You never discuss this with anyone who isn’t here tonight. Understood? And you only ever mention it at home or the clubhouse, even with us.”

Places he could be sure weren’t bugged. “I understand,” she told him.

He looked at Sam and Jay, and then at Mom. “Questions?” No one had a question. “Okay. Let’s go.”

As they all headed toward the barn, Sam reached for Athena’s hand. She didn’t know if he meant to offer her comfort or take some for himself, but she was far too tense just now to be able to tolerate her hand being restrained, even within Sam’s large, strong grip. She gave him a quick squeeze, meaning I love you, but not right now, and slipped herself free.

Sam took the loss with an understanding nod, and they went into the barn.

Her first impression of the interior was surprise: it was a lot sturdier than it appeared to be from the outside. Outside, the barn looked ancient, like one good wind would turn it into firewood. Inside, though it still looked primarily like a barn, it had strong, solid walls and reinforced support beams.

Camouflage. They’d built a new barn inside the skeleton of the original, so it looked like a rundown old neglected building on a rundown old neglected property. The thought made Athena smile. Her family was pretty smart.

Seeing her smile, Mom gave her a look that was both curious and censoring, both, what are you smiling about and you shouldn’t be smiling about anything here. Not wanting to explain, Athena turned from that look and focused elsewhere.

Specifically, she focused on Hunter. As her father had described, Athena’s raping ex-boyfriend was gagged, stripped down to his black Dolce & Gabbana boxer briefs, and hung by his wrists from a pulley-type contraption bolted to a crossbeam above their heads. The beam was fifteen or twenty feet up; they had Hunter high enough that his feet dangled several feet from the floor.

He was conscious, she could tell because he squirmed against the pressure on his arms and shoulders, but the way his body was oriented, he wasn’t facing the door, so he didn’t know she’d come in.

There was an old wooden worktable not far from where he hung. Three large steel trays covered the top, and each tray contained a careful array of scary-looking tools, which seemed to be organized according to different methods of torture: sharp, blunt, and hot. The other groups, not represented here, were cold and loud. (That was something she’d first learned from the TV show Angel, but her mom had told her it was pretty accurate.) The sharp tray had blades ranging from scalpels to a bone saw. The hot tray had a blow torch and several metal rods of varying sizes, as well as a jug of clear liquid that Athena didn’t want to spend much time wondering about.

The blunt tray caught her interest most of all: three coils of steel chain, each of a different-size link. A regular hammer. A small sledgehammer. A rubber mallet. Several substantial rocks. Did they mean to stone him to death? That thought was the first that came close to freaking her out—it was so prehistoric, so biblical, and that simplicity really drove home what they were doing. She had set in motion a murder. Of someone she knew. Someone she’d cared about.

No. She had not set this in motion. Hunter had. Period. This was the consequence of his actions. An execution, not a murder. This was justice. Any thought to the contrary needed to step the fuck off.

Dex, dressed head to toe in a hooded white coverall, black latex gloves, and white booties over his boots, came to her. His ASL was fair but not great, but he made a solid effort. He spoke as he signed, so Athena watched his mouth as well as his hands and filled in where his signs were wrong or missing. She really hated to read lips, but Dex was careful to shape his words so she could read them without trouble.

“Apollo says you want to be involved, not just watch. Yes?”

Athena looked at those trays. The first truth was no, of course she didn’t want to be involved in this. Hurting and killing someone? She’d never even punched anyone except in Krav Maga training or playing around with Sam. It scared her to think of doing it now.

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