Seeking Eden Read online

  “Again,” ordered the General, his voice bored. “Until she’s clean, I said.”

  Elanna crouched, cringing, waiting for the blast of icy water. In a second it came, full force, stinging like a thousand needles piercing her skin. She gasped, helpless, the frigid water shocking the breath from her lungs.

  “Stand up!” Kodak, who held the hose, turned the nozzle again, and again the water blasted forth.

  Elanna turned, letting the water strip away Lansing’s blood and praying they’d finish soon. Even over the roar from the hose, she could hear the tiny boy crying from his place on the floor. He would be getting wet, too, she thought as she pushed her hair off her face with numbed fingers. She had to get him off the floor, and dry.

  “Enough,” said the General.

  Kodak, chuckling with evil glee, continued to spray the water. She aimed for Elanna’s softest parts, her breasts, belly and the juncture between her legs, and also her eyes. Elanna raised her hands to block the sting from her face.

  Abruptly the blast of water stopped. Elanna opened her eyes to see Kodak kneeling in front of the General, who had both hands knitted into her hair.

  “I gave you an order,” The General said, staring down at Kodak without expression. “Isn’t that right, you little bitch?”

  “Sir, yes Sir!” Kodak said in a strangled voice.

  “And you ignored my order, didn’t you, bitch?”

  “Sir, yes Sir!”

  The General pushed her away from him so that she sprawled in a puddle of icy, dirty water. “And what punishment do you think is appropriate for such a misdemeanor, soldier?”

  Kodak shook her head, seemingly without words. Elanna began to shiver. She found the towel-wrapped child along the wall and gathered it to her chest. Its tiny lips were blue, and it shivered. It had stopped crying.

  “I can think of a lot of things,” the General said in a mild voice. He sounded like he was talking about the weather. “But I think I’ll just send you away for now, Kodak. You’re denied the privilege of helping me with this interrogation.”

  “No!” Kodak cried, standing. “No, Sir, I --”

  “Shut the fuck up,” the General said in the same mild tone. “And get out. Before you make me angry.”

  Kodak scuttled away, out the door. The General turned, looking at Elanna with a bored face. She stared back at him defiantly.

  “This baby needs dry clothes. And food.”

  “Why do you care so much about that thing? It isn’t even yours.”

  Elanna looked down at the sweet face, sunk into exhausted sleep. “How can you not care? It’s yours.”

  In reply, he tossed her a soft, dry blanket from the table next to his chair. Both table and chair were on a small raised platform, above the water that swirled only sluggishly down the drain in the center of the room. Elanna managed to catch the blanket, and she let the child’s dirty, sodden towel fall on the floor.

  As the blanket warmed it, the little boy began to root again, nuzzling instinctively at her breast. The familiar sensation tugged her nipples. Elanna let him suckle, though she wasn’t certain he’d bring anything forth. The suckling soothed the baby, anyway, even as the unforgettable feeling of it clenched her womb. She felt a fine trickle of blood on her thigh but had nothing with which to wipe it away.

  She glanced up to find the General looking at her with amazed disgust plain on his face. He shuddered and seemed to force back a gag.

  “God,” he muttered. “That’s how they eat?”

  Elanna didn’t answer. She was shivering too violently. She looked longingly at the pile of clothes on the table.

  He saw her looking. “Cold?”

  The General flicked a switch and overhead lights the color of fire came on, bathing everything in a hot glow. She felt the heat from them and raised her face to it, grateful. So intense was the heat that it dried her in minutes, and a few minutes more made the room start to become unbearably hot.

  “I don’t mind the heat myself.” The General smiled thinly, avoiding looking at her chest. “I’m always cool.”

  The infant had fallen slack-lipped from her breast. It slept, tiny fists curled and cheeks pink. His tuft of pale hair had dried, sticking up from his pulsing skull. He was beautiful.

  “If it’s done,” the General said, “put it down and stand in front of me.”

  He gestured to a basket she hadn’t seen before. They could have put the baby in it before, she thought furiously as she placed the sleeping boy in it. Instead they’d tossed him to the floor like garbage. She shot a livid glance at the General. He saw her looking, and smiled.

  “Here, in front of me,” he repeated, gesturing.

  She did, lifting her chin and refusing to show her fear.

  “Not afraid to show your tits, huh?”

  Elanna frowned. She looked down at herself, cleaned of blood and grime. Her nipple, where the baby had suckled, was red and rigid, though the color was fading back to its normal pale pink.

  “Why would I be?” He couldn’t know, she reflected, that she’d stood naked before men so many times it meant nothing to her.

  He looked at her speculatively. “You’re not one of them. Those Plain assholes.”

  “No.”

  His eyes flicked down to her leg. She expected more disgust, but the sight of her blood didn’t seem to offend him. “You on the rag?”

  “What?”

  He pointed. “That. You’re bleeding.”

  “I…I had a miscarriage a few days ago,” she said with dignity.

  He tossed her a towel. “Wipe it off.”

  She did, but more came to take its place. She tucked the towel between her legs, knowing she looked awkward and embarrassed. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “Christ, you’re stacked,” the General said. “Turn around.”

  She hesitated a second before complying, and he was on his feet and in her face in a second. He didn’t touch her, didn’t grab her, but his look was so menacing it made her stumble back a step. The towel fell off. Her feet sloshed in the last remnants of the water.

  “When I give an order, I expect it to be done. Immediately.”

  “I’m not one of your soldiers,” she said.

  He stared at her. “You think I give a fuck? You do what you’re told.”

  She lifted her chin. “Or what?”

  He cocked his head like a curious bird. “Or I hurt you.”

  She would have been less frightened if he’d yelled. She thought again that if he were crazy she’d know how to react, how to watch him and expect him to behave. But this soft voice, this calm exterior, scared her more than rolling eyes and ranting would have.

  “Is that how you get them to do what you want?” She asked, quaking inside. “Is that how you got Amy into your bed?”

  Now his eyes flickered. She saw his fists clench and release, so fast she might have imagined it. She’d struck him in a vulnerable spot.

  “Don’t even let her name get dirty on your lips,” he said in a low voice. “Sit down. There, on my chair. Put a fucking towel down first so you don’t get blood all over it.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  He looked at her naked body, blood trickling down her thighs, and then met her eyes. “You can’t stand against me, bitch. My soldiers can’t, and you sure as hell can’t. Don’t even try.”

  She didn’t think he was joking, but something inside her made her resist.

  “Az men ken nit beissen, zol men nit veizen di tsain,” she muttered in Yiddish. Those who can’t bite should not show their teeth.

  “A hunt on tsain varft zich oich oif a bain,” he answered, shocking her. “A dog without teeth also attacks a bone.”

  “You understood?”

  “Of course I do,” he replied. “How do you expect to know your enemy if you can’t speak their language?”

  He was talking about the Plain People. “They don’t have to be your enemy,” she said.

  “We were sent here to keep pea