"Do you hear me?" Wesley called.
I didn't answer.
"In that case, do you have any last words for Billie? I took the trouble of dousing her with gasoline. She'll make one hell of a torch. You'll be needing sunglasses, little buddy. Better put 'em on!"
I shouted, "What do you want?"
"Go to the front of the cages," he commanded.
"Okay."
I found the bars at the back of Alice's cage. Keeping track of them with my left arm, I rounded the corner. I rushed between the cages. On one side, Alice said, "Be careful."
On the other, Connie hurried along with me. This much closer to Wesley's torch, the light was somewhat better. Connie's shape was fairly visible. Her eyes, mouth, nipples and what I took to be several injuries looked like holes or rips in the pale canvas of her skin. She seemed to be leaping sideways to stay with me.
As she leaped along, she ranted. "See what you get? Huh? This is what happens, Rupie. This is what you get. You were mine. Mine! You blew it. Blew it big-time, boy. Now you're gonna pay. You're fucked. Big-time. Wesley's gonna ream . . ."
She ran out of cage. One moment she was springing along beside me, the next she wasn't. I heard the bars ring from the impact. She let out a grunt, sounding surprised and hurt.
I looked back and saw her prancing away from the bars as if she'd been hurled back by a giant, invisible spring. Then she slammed down on the floor of her cage.
She sounded like a slab of steak tossed onto a counter top.
Which made me realize the floor of her cage must be concrete. Until that moment, I hadn't given any real thought to the subject. I'd just assumed the gals must have earth and bars under their feet.
Not that it seemed to matter, either way.
Concrete was probably better when the cages needed cleaning. It would hurt you more, however, if you fell on it.
Connie appeared to be sprawled on her back. She wasn't trying to get up.
Had she knocked herself out?
I really didn't care, except to be glad that she, at least, might not be causing me any more trouble for a while.
God knows, she'd already caused enough.
After her crash, I slowed down but kept moving. For a couple of moments, I forgot about Wesley.
Then he called, "There you are!"
I turned toward the sound of his voice.
And there he was. Standing on top of Billie's cage -- legs spread, a blazing torch raised in his right hand, his left hand propped on his hip. In the firelight, his body gleamed like gold. A golden statue. Hercules gone to flab.
He'd lost the chest bandage; maybe in his fall down the stairs. The fall must've opened his wound, too. The split across the front of his left boob looked like a grim mouth, puffy-lipped and dribbling blood as if it had recently caught a fist. It made thin, dark streamers down his chest and belly, down to his leather belt. A few strands of blood had worked their way down his left thigh.
The wound obviously didn't bother him much. Neither did I. He was getting a charge out of the whole situation. Two things gave it away: his grin and his hard-on.
"Step right this way, little buddy," he called to me.
As I walked toward him, I saw that Connie still lay sprawled on the bottom of her cage.
Knocked out or faking? I wondered.
Hope she split her head open, I thought.
The next cage over, Kimberly stood at her bars, watching me. Her raised hands clutched the bars to either side of her head. She didn't try to cover herself. Maybe she thought I couldn't really see her. I could, though. She was much closer to the torch than Connie. The air in which she stood seemed to be tinted with its dim, hazy glow. She looked almost distinct, but veiled. As if draped with a shroud of wispy black fabric that revealed her, but cloaked her with darkness.
I could actually recognize her face. I could see the entire front of her body -- ribcage and breasts, the dark coins of her nipples, all the long slender way down past the dot of her navel, the hollows slanting down and inward from her hips to the smooth mound between the tops of her legs, and then her legs, parted and slim and sturdy. All visible, but darkly veiled.
All wounded. In spite of the murky light, I saw dark places where her skin should've been unblemished. I saw smudges, stains, patterns of narrow marks and stripes.
My throat turned thick and tight because of how she'd been hurt. I felt my eyes sting. At the same time, heat surged through me. It made me feel ashamed, but I couldn't help it.
"Don't let him get you," Kimberly said as I walked by, staring at her. "If he gets you . . ."
"Shut up, down there!" Wesley called.
". . . he gets you, we're all sunk."
"Hey!"
"Kill him, Rupert."
"I'll try."
"One more word and momma-bear's going up in flames!"
Kimberly's right hand slipped sideways between the bars. She raised two fingers.
I don't think she meant it to be the peace sign from the bygone days of the hippies.
I think she meant it to be Winston Churchill's V.
Hell, I know that's what it was. A Navy brat like her, Andrew's daughter, descended from a Sioux warrior, tough and proud.
V for Victory.
"Keep coming," Wesley told me.
I gave Kimberly a nod, and walked on past the end of her cage. Up top, a ladder crossed the open space between her cage and Billie's. Just as the twins had said.
The ladder was extended to a length of about fifteen feet. Five or six feet at its middle bridged the gap. The rest of it overlapped the tops of the cages, maybe five feet on each side.
Wesley was standing away from the ladder, more toward the middle of Billie's cage. Near his feet, I saw the gasoline can and a cardboard box.
The box that held his "bombardier" goodies.
"Okay," he said. "Stop right there."
I stopped.
Billie stood almost directly beneath him, well-lit by his torch. The light wavered and shimmied on her body as if she was underwater. Her skin, copper in the shifting glow, gleamed with wetness.
The gasoline.
Her short hair was drenched, matted to her skull in tight golden coils.
Again, the gasoline.
And gasoline darkened the concrete under her bare feet. It had spread out around her, forming a shallow and lopsided puddle in the middle of her cage.
When I looked up from the puddle, she gave me a shrug.
Like a little girl who'd peed on the floor, couldn't help it, and was left embarrassed and resigned.
Why was she standing in the middle of the gas?
Wesley's orders, I supposed.
He must've commanded her to stand still while he poured the gasoline onto her head, while it ran down her body and made the puddle. Then he'd ordered her to remain standing in the same place.
Move a muscle, and I'll torch you.
And I had no bucket of water for her. Because I'd stayed too long with Erin and Alice, because of Erin's hand on my leg.
And because of Connie's roaring jealousy.
I should've had the water for Billie.
Her toilet bucket was off in a rear corner of her cage, upside-down. Apparently, she'd been using it as a seat. Obviously, it had nothing in it.
She's gonna burn!
I could think of only one way to save her: stop Wesley from setting the gas on fire.
"Look at you, look at you," he said. "You've gone quite native."
"What do you want?"
"My first order of business is to neutralize you, don't you think?"
"I'll do anything you say," I told him.
"Excellent. Drop your weapons."
"Don't," Billie said, her voice firm and clear. "You're the only chance we've got."
"Shut up, Billie darling."
"He'll burn you," I said.
"Let him."
"No, I can't."
Above her, Wesley bent over. He reached into the cardboard box with his left hand, and came up with a paperback book. He lifted it by a comer of its front cover, so that the book hung open. Then he lowered the torch and held its flame beneath the pages.
"No!" I shouted.
Fire crawled up the book.
"Don't do it!"