Page 84 of The Woman

He’s right, this will change things.

My gaze swings to my father, noting how he’s watching closely for my reaction, and then I look back to the scene before me, glancing to the left and then the right.

Women. A number of them.

But that’s not what has me so taken aback. It’s the fact that there is a group of them walking together and laughing. Some of them are kneeling in a garden, pulling out some vegetables while animatedly chatting to each other, and two younger girls are running around playing while one is casually sitting on the steps of a nearby house, watching them.

There are no blank stares and empty gazes, mindlessly standing beside a man.

WOUN. All of them. And they look so free and happy.

Disbelief has me looking over the area again, checking to see if my eyes might be deceiving me.

But no. This is real.

Not only are there women here, but a few men here as well. Two of which are casually walking in the opposite direction of where we’re standing, and one man is sitting beside one of the women in the garden, holding a basket for her while she adds things to it, a smile on his face. He briefly turns to me, dipping his chin in greeting before returning back to their conversation.

Astonished is one way to describe my face when I turn back to my father once again.

“This is a safe place for them,” he says, answering my unspoken question.

Laughter pulls my attention back to the women, and my heart rate triples when I catch sight of a woman facing away from me, crouched in the garden, with golden blonde hair like Avery’s.

The air stalls in my throat as I watch, willing her to turn around. When she finally does, my heart tumbles to an abrupt stop in my chest as disappointment floods through me. It’s not her. It was too much to hope that she’d somehow been transported here and was completely fine.

“We try to save as many as we can and bring them here,” my father continues, unaware of the plummet my heart just took. “Unfortunately, we aren’t able to save all of them.”

The meaning behind his words doesn’t go unnoticed by me; he wasn’t able to save Avery.

My throat almost closes shut, the little tumble my heart took earlier feeling like nothing compared to this, like my body just fell from the tallest building in the city.

Thinking that all hope is lost is one thing, but having it confirmed is another.

I swallow past the boulder in my throat and keep walking beside him. If I don’t keep occupied, then I’ll be consumed by the feeling of my heart imploding.

“How do you save them?” I ask, my voice low. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about this place when Avery won’t get to experience it. “And who’s ‘we’?”

Lifting his arm, he gestures for me to walk with him. Several dirt roads lead off to different houses situated about the land, but this one seems to be a main road. A compound of sorts – that’s what this place is.

Would Avery have liked it here?

After a short distance, my father begins talking. “We are a group of men who have chosen to keep our women, despite what they are, and who spend our spare time trying to help other WOUN who have been found out.”

Despite the noble work he’s describing, I can’t help but selfishly wonder if he tried hard enough to help Avery.

“How do you help them?” I ask him instead.

He casually adjusts the watch on his wrist as he walks. “We have someone on the inside. Harold. He goes along on the retrievals, and then is involved in the processing. He risks his life to try and help those who fall under his responsibility by altering documents. Depending on who’s on the same shift, sometimes it’s just a matter of paying large sums of money for a name to disappear.”

“Is that how you knew Avery had been reported?” I ask, chewing on the inside of my cheek.

“Yes. He can see the names of the WOUNs, but only the higher-ups get to know who reported them.“ He makes a turn to the right, continuing on down another one of the dirt roads, and I follow. “We have someone else who is going through the steps to be employed by them. Unfortunately, the application process is long and drawn out. It may take another six months.”

We come to a stop in front of one of the many modest houses here and he turns to me.

“I know this has been a lot to take in, and I know you’re someone who likes to be in control of a situation. You’re more like your grandfather in that regards.” When my brows crease together, he adds, “Just know this. All of this was kept from you to protect you, and those women.”

Right now, the control he spoke of feels so far out of my grasp that I don’t even feel like myself anymore.

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