A Maidens Grave

impossible to see how things work. You can look at a computer chip and not see a thing even though it’s totally doing what it oughta do. We’ve lost control.”
    “It’s all pretty fucked up.”
    “What? Life or what I’m saying?”
    “I don’t know. It just sounds all fucked up. Life, I guess.”
    They’d emerged into a large dim cavern. Must have been the warehouse. They tied or chocked shut the back doors.
    “They can blow ’em open,” Wilcox said. “A couple cutting charges’d do it.”
    “They could drop an A-bomb on us too. Either way them girls die. If that’s what they want that’s what they’ll get.”
    “Elevator?”
    “Nothing much we can do ’bout that,” Handy said,looking at the big service elevator. “They wanta come rappelling in, we can get the first half-dozen of ’em. You know, their necks. Always aim for their necks.”
    Wilcox glanced at him then drawled, “So, whatcha thinking?”
    I do get that look in my eyes, Handy thought. Pris says so all the time. Damn, he missed her. He wanted to smell her hair, listen to the sound of her bracelet as she shifted gears in her car, wanted to feel her underneath him as they fucked on the shag carpet of her apartment.
    “Let’s send one back to ’em,” Handy said.
    “One of the girls?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Which one?”
    “I don’t know. That Susan maybe. She’s all right. I like her.”
    Wilcox said, “I’d vote her most likely to hump. Not a bad idea to get her out of Bonner’s sight. He’d be sniffing her lickety-split ’fore sunset. Or that other one, Melanie.”
    Handy said, “Naw, let’s keep her. We oughta hang on to the weak ones.”
    “Second that.”
    “Okay, it’ll be Susan.” He laughed. “Not many girls around can look me in the eye and tell me I’m an asshole, I’ll tell you that.”
     
    Melanie kept her arm tight around Kielle’s shoulders, which were oddly muscular for an eight-year-old, and reached out a little further to rub the arm of one of the twins.
    The girls were sandwiched in between her and Susan, and Melanie admitted reluctantly to herself that her gesture was only partially to reassure the younger ones; she also wanted the comfort for herself, the comfort of being close to her favorite student.
    Melanie’s hands were still shaking. She’d been unnerved when Brutus had grabbed her earlier as she was looking out the window, sending her message to the policeman in the field. And downright terrified when he’d pointed at her a few minutes ago and demanded to know her name.
    She glanced at Susan and saw her looking angrily at Mrs. Harstrawn.
    “What’s the matter?” Melanie signed.
    “My name. Giving it to him. Shouldn’t have done that. Don’t cooperate.”
    “We have to,” the older teacher signed.
    Melanie added, “Can’t make them mad at us.”
    Susan laughed derisively. “What difference does it make if they’re mad? Don’t give in. They’re assholes. They’re worst type of Other.”
    “We can’t—” Melanie began.
    Bear stamped his foot. Melanie felt the vibrations and jumped. His fat lips were working fast and all she could make out was “Shut up.” Melanie looked away. She couldn’t stand the sight of his face, the way the black hairs at the edge of his beard curled outward, his fat pores.
    His eyes kept returning to Mrs. Harstrawn. And Emily.
    When he looked away Melanie slowly brought her hand up and switched from American Sign Language to Signed Exact English and fingerspelling. This was a clumsy way of communicating—she had to spell out words and put them into English word order. But it allowed the use of small hand motions and avoided the broad gestures necessary to communicate in ASL.
    “Don’t make them mad,” she told Susan. “Take it easy.”
    “They’re assholes.” Susan refused to switch from ASL.
    “Sure. But don’t provoke!”
    “They won’t hurt us. We’re no good to them dead.”
    Exasperated, Melanie said, “They can hurt us without killing us.”
    Susan just grimaced and looked away.
    Well, what does she want us to do? Melanie thought angrily. Grab their guns away and shoot them? Yet at the same time she thought: Oh, why can’t I be like her? Look at her eyes! How strong she is! She’s eight years younger than me but I feel like the child when I’m around her.
    Some of her envy could be attributed to the fact that Susan was the highest in the hierarchy of the world of the Deaf. She was prelingually deaf—born deaf. But