Page 98 of Homebound
Herise threw the stirring spoon on the counter with a clutter. “Stupid, careless girl! How could you have lost your job now? Do you not know the situation we are in?”
“I didn’t do it to spite you, Aunt Herise.”
Taken aback by Gemma’s sarcasm, Aunt Herise didn’t reply right away and Gemma was able to untie her boots in silence.
“How do you expect to pay rent?” Herise went straight for the bottom line.
Gemma wanted to tell her to go to hell, she really did. Would it kill the woman to ask if Gemma was alright? If she was upset about being fired? Scared of the future? How about offering her some reassurance? Ruby, a mere co-worker, had treated her with more kindness than this so-called relative.
She took a deep breath, tampering an impulse to lash out. “I will look for another job. Starting tomorrow.”
“See that you do,” Herise grated. “Adding another dependent is not possible under the circumstances, you understand.”
“I do.”
“Your roommustbring us a profit. I don’t know what foolishness got you fired but we can no longer care for you.”
Gemma laughed and it wasn’t a nice laugh.
“Care?” She stood up, turning her back on the loft where Ravi and Desh were holed up watching the spectacle. “You never cared, Aunt Herise. But my room is paid for the full month and you can expect me to stay here at least that long.”
Gemma snatched a slice of bread from the counter and marched to her room. “Excuse me, I’ve had a long day.”
Alone, she undid the buttons of her coat and let it hung open revealing purple bruises liberally decorating her breasts, a consequence of the Obu’s amorous handling.
Damn her aunt. Gemma would give her right arm to have someone in her life to offer her comfort, a shoulder to cry on at a time like this. Anybody.
Fighting tears, she removed her ruined clothes and, wrapped in a towel, made a foray to the bathroom for a quick clean-up. The tepid water was brownish but she was past caring. Working quickly, she scrubbed head to toe imagining how all traces of the assault were being rinsed off her body and flushed down the drain.
Back in her room, huddled under a blanket, Gemma munched on the bread and contemplated her future. She needed a plan, a list of places where she could look for work. But concentration eluded her.
Instead, her mind turned back to a scene in OO’s office, after Simon’s escape. She had come downstairs on her own shocking everyone by the fact that she had survived the massacre. She scarcely remembered the interrogation that followed. There had been pointed questions and she had to recount the sequence of events several times.
OO had looked pensive. By that time she had been given a new overcoat to cover her nakedness and she’d been holding the lapels of it together in a white-knuckled hold.
“The Obu attacked you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you let the alien from cell 35 out. Deliberately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, why would you do that?”
“He… he said he’d help me. He was the only one to offer.”
“And you believed him? Knowing he was disabled?”
“I had little choice.”
OO had grunted. “We know now that he isn’t disabled.”
“He used to be.”
“He’s been playing you all along. He used you to escape.”
OO had drilled her with his glassed eyes, so sure he’d figured it all out. Gemma had sat there nearly falling apart from the stress of almost dying, of watching others die. Of losing Simon.
