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  "No.” There's a cynical edge to her voice.

  She rises as he uncorks the bottle and fills the glasses. The eagle turns and hands her one.

  "Cheers, Eva. To you,” he says, and they clink glasses.

  Eva takes a tentative sip. Then another. And another. The eagle takes in her eager drinking, but doesn't make a comment. She notices him watching her, and she meets his gaze. And a few seconds later her eyes fill up with tears.

  "Eva?"

  "I'm sorry,” she says, smiling, but when she blinks the tears escape down her cheeks. “It's just, I've been by myself for so long. I didn't know if I'd ever see anyone again. And now I'm here, washed and rested. Drinking wine.” And then she adds, “With you."

  And then she presses herself against him and wraps an arm—the one not holding the wine—around him. The eagle is taken aback, but after a few seconds he sets his glass down and puts his arms around her, tentatively, at first, then pulls her close against him. He strokes her hair for a moment. Then he gently sets her away from him. She seems confused. Almost unsettled. But she gives him a smile, then begins diligently sipping from her glass again.

  But then she sets it down, only half empty. Smith looks from the glass to her, dismayed. But he says nothing. He takes two steps toward her. She stiffens, but doesn't back away. And then a few seconds later she touches the palm of her hand to his chest. She's swaying a little where she stands. Her pupils are huge.

  "Eva,” he says in a low, gentle voice, “would you do something for me?"

  Smith picks up the bag he'd left by the door, and brings forth some beige cloth. When he rotates his wrist the piece of cloth unfurls toward the floor and becomes a delicate, translucent nightgown.

  "Would you put this on for me?"

  Watching her face, he looks surprised when, after just a brief hesitation, she nods and comes to take the garment. She teeters into the bathroom and swings the door closed. Just seconds later she comes back out.

  "Does it look all right?” she asks in a quiet voice either full or void of artifice.

  "You look lovely."

  His words are incongruous with the sad tone of his delivery. Her look of apprehension escalates to restrained alarm.

  "Here,” he proffers her abandoned wine glass.

  Her hand is shaking as she takes three big swallows, like it's water or medicine. Smith finishes off the contents of his own glass, then watches as she does the same.

  "Good girl.” He takes her empty glass from her slack grip and sets it on a shelf. “Now, come and lie down,” he says, coaxing her down onto the bed. Her breathing has quickened and her eyes are glued to him as he leans down to help her get settled. “Try and rest a little more. I've got a bit more work to do yet. I'll see you soon."

  Her eyes go wide and her hand clamps onto his wrist. She's starting to cry a little.

  "Please, stay here. Stay with me.” Her voice is shrill. Panicky.

  "Shhhh. Try to rest,” he whispers, gently prying her fingers from around his wrist.

  "Wait!"

  Smith's hand slips from the doorknob. He turns. Faces her. She is sitting up, swaying slightly like a rooted water plant in a gentle current.

  "Please.” She gestures for him to come back to her. After a long hesitation Smith moves closer, sits on the edge of the bed. Her eyes lock on his, anchor her swaying body there. Slowly but perceptibly, Smith hardens.

  "Don't do it,” she says, plainly trying not to cry but failing, obviously trying to be hard, but shaking. “You don't have to. And it's not right."

  "Don't do what, Eva?” His voice is low. It has a choked sound it hasn't had before.

  She reaches for his hand. She's off by a little, like she's having trouble focusing. But then she finds his hand with hers.

  "Please,” she says, her voice tear-choked, her mouth straining to smile. “You stay. I won't fight you. I'll try. I don't know how, but I'll try to be good."

  "Eva. What do you think is going to happen?"

  "You drugged me."

  "Yes."

  "You drugged me. You dressed me in this thing. And you're leaving.” Smith is still and silent. “You're—” Her angry accusation withers. Fades to a terrified prophesy. “You're giving me to them."

  She is breaking apart.

  "Ssshhh, Eva."

  Smith pulls her to him, puts his arms around her, rocks her slowly, back and forth, like a frightened child.

  "Nothing so awful. I promise,” he soothes. “Listen to me, Eva.” He sets her a little away from him, his eagle's gaze trying to pierce the fog of her buzz. “For two years now, every effort of mine, every thought, has been for the men. Keeping them alive. Keeping them safe. Keeping them from going crazy with fear. Trying to give them hope. That we're not the only ones left. That we're not going to grow old and die, trapped here, never even knowing if anyone else is alive out there. And I will still do that. Look after the men. But Eva, now that you're here, nothing, nothing is more important than keeping you safe. I am not going to throw you to the men like a scrap of meat for them to fight over."

  In her eyes, there's a change. Like an explosion resolving to billowing smoke, silent and slow.

  "What's happening, then?” She seems to be teetering at the edge, clinging to hope, struggling not to drop into the abyss of her terror.

  "Eva."

  She doesn't speak or move, really. There's just a faint change, like she's braced herself. He tells her, in a voice almost as soft as a whisper. Maybe he thinks it will scare her less, hurt her less, if he says it quietly.

  Not saying anything, Eva just shakes her head, slowly, for a long time. Her look of horror, her tears, the no, no, no turning of her head back and forth doesn't stop him. When he is done, for a minute Eva is mute, just shaking and crying but trying to hold herself together, erect.

  "Smith. Smith, please.” She is trying to be calm. Rational. To carve the terror and anger from her voice. “There's another way. There is. We just have to think."

  "I've had two years to think this through, knowing there was a chance someone, you, might turn up here one day. I've had months and months of seeing what the men are becoming to realize what sort of crisis we're facing."

  "You keep saying ... what are the men becoming?"

  * * * *

  The hall guard tells Smith John is waiting for him in his office, then listens to the low murmur of Smith's voice, and the raised, angry voice of his visitor. The low and raised voices parry for a number of minutes, then the door opens. Smith emerges, calmly issues an order, then walks off toward the mess hall.

  Twenty minutes later the company is convened—eleven men, not lined up in rows on the benches at the tables, but sitting in a broken, irregular circle on benches ringing the room. Eva's attackers are present, sitting apart, wrists bound in plastic handcuffs. One—Riggs, the leader—has a big bandage on his head.

  One bench in the circle is empty and Smith repeatedly looks up from the papers on the table in front of him to eye that empty space. Some minutes later John enters the room and takes the empty seat, and the line at the edge of Smith's mouth smooths. Another minute later the final two soldiers enter, with Eva between them. She's wearing the nightgown and shaking visibly, and except for Smith's, all eyes in the room lock onto her. There are no shouts or whistles or laughter.

  Her eyes drift over face after face, all so young, so hard. Complexions of boys, eyes of weary men. Hungry men. They look as though they are devouring her life with their stares.

  "Jake."

  Jake steps before the eagle. The major hands him a large ceramic jar. Jake takes the jar and stands before the first man in the circle. The man drops something metal into the jar. Jake moves around the circle, every man dropping something into the jar when he stops before them. John looks at her as he opens his fist over the jar and his token plinks down among the others. When Jake stands before the man with the bandage, the eagle speaks.

  "Not him, Jake. Riggs and his men have forfeited their
participation."

  The man grabs the lip of the jar with both cuffed hands and opens his mouth to protest. But he does not speak, and after a moment he releases his hold, letting Jake move on around the circle. When all the tokens have been collected, he returns to the eagle, proffering the jar. The major puts in no token, but takes the jar from the man's hands. He shakes it hard a few times, stirring the metal tabs around inside.

  "Aaron Velden!” The major's voice rings out like a sentence. Irrefutable. “That's John's tag."

  A din rises as the men begin talking and shouting angrily, not daring to challenge the eagle, but bickering and complaining to the air.

  John—jaw clenched, chest heaving—locks eyes with Smith. They are gripped in a contest of wills while the rest of the room erupts in a frenetic swarm. The men are bickering and joking nervously as they rearrange tables and chairs and jostle the three handcuffed men into the center of a knot of soldiers. Eyes still locked on Smith, John stands, and the other seems to be daring him, with a look, to defy his will.

  Eva, clutched firmly between the two soldiers who walked her in, is trying to focus, now on Smith, now on John, now on Smith again. John turns and strides toward Eva or toward the exit, and for just a moment there's a crack in Smith's calm. His expression settles back into willed serenity, though, as John, his face gray and damp, his eyes red and wild, takes hold of Eva's arm and pulls her from between the two soldiers.

  "No!” she screams, trying to jerk her arm free of John's grip, trying to make eye contact with Smith.

  "No!” she screams again, swinging her fist at John's face, thrashing against his grip as she tries to kick him, to knee him, to wrench herself free. Somehow she slips out of his grip, slips past the soldiers, and flings herself against Smith, who rises and catches her in a tight embrace. The soldiers that delivered her to John leap at her, trying to pry her from Smith.

  "Stand down!” he barks, startling them with his uncharacteristic heat. “Ssshhh,” he coos in her ear, holding her, petting her, rocking her. “It'll only be John. Just John. After tonight, he'll be your ... like a husband. This part will be over soon. Soon."

  Smith's face is a stoic mask, but his eyes are wild and his voice wavers. “John."

  John steps up and helps Smith peel Eva free. Like he dragged her through the orchard up to the gates of the compound John drags her now. Her desperate struggle hardly slows him. Soon he has her at the center of the room, beside two tables that have been pushed together, with a thin, narrow mattress thrown on top. And just as she'd suddenly panicked at the site of the fort, when she looks down and sees the mattress and the way the men are closing their circle around her, Eva's strength seems to triple. She convulses and lurches and even wrenches her arms free of John's hands once, twice. But he seizes her again, more and more brutally, and finally pushes her down onto the mattress and pins her wrists down by her shoulders.

  "Eva,” he pants against her cheek, his chest swelling against hers with every breath. “Stop. Stop fighting me. Us struggling, it's just getting them more riled up."

  She squints her lids closed over her dilated eyes. The frenetic din of male voices booms and echoes throughout the hall, built to seat two or three hundred.

  "Not Nichols!” Smith's voice cannons into the throng. One of the handcuffed men is dragged from the fray, shoved aside at the edge of the room.

  "It'll go faster, easier, if you just let it happen.” Johns voice is cold. Matter-of-fact.

  But his eyes are sparking. He wrestles her the rest of the way onto the mattress and in one quick gesture flings the hem of her gown up. She is not wearing anything underneath.

  And as if he's severed some connection to her brain she goes soft. No more screams. Pathetic little whimpering noises squeak out of her now. As John mounts the makeshift bed and plants his knees between hers, unzipping his fly, getting out his stiff cock, Eva focuses her bleary gaze on him.

  "Please,” she sobs, to just him now, and not the whole room. Not to Smith. “Don't do this. Please don't."

  John catches her two wrists in one hand and pins them over her head, then takes hold of his cock and moves into position.

  "No!” she shouts, starting to flail again. “Don't! Don't!” she screams one last time before he clamps his hand over her mouth and thrusts between her thighs.

  Her eyes go wide. Tears pool at the edges of bloodshot whites and golden irises and cavernous pupils, then drain away down her temples, then pool up again. He thrusts again. She just sobs quietly into his palm, now, as his hips pump between her legs.

  The men are ringed all around them, watching from a few feet away. Some bark at John, “Tits! We wanna see her tits!,” and “Feed her your cock! Make her suck it!” The two prisoners are snagged in a pulling, tearing, gripping mesh of soldiers bending their prey over, kicking them to their knees, ripping at their belts and pants.

  John thrusts faster. More urgently. Eva cries quietly under his palm. She's soft and static, now. He grunts, his pumping frenzied, then groans, long and loud, and his body slumps over hers. He keeps his grip on her wrists, keeps his hand clamped down on her mouth while he pants oxygen into his taxed blood stream, then as he lifts himself and locks eyes with her. Then he lets go. Gets off.

  Eva just lies there, eyes fixed on the empty space where John was a moment earlier, not trying to cover up. The insides of her thighs are shiny and smeared. She turns her head toward the cluster of ass and mouth raping, and that pathetic whimpering noise starts leaking out of her again. John tugs the hem of her gown down, then, when he's done zipping and buckling up, he scoops her off the mattress and carries her past Smith, whose gaze doesn't shift a single millimeter from the bed, and out of the hall.

  Still, quiet, she sags in his arms as he carries her into a building, up some stairs, and into a room. She stays still and quiet as he lays her on a bed, and as he walks away. He comes back with a small towel and sits on the edge of the bed and she stays still.

  "I'm just going to get you cleaned up,” he says quietly.

  She doesn't move or say anything as he lifts the hem of her gown, or as he parts her legs, or as he wipes the slick mess from her thighs. When he rubs the cloth against her sex she just moans softly. John rises from the bed and rinses out the towel before throwing it into the hamper. Then he returns, tucks her into bed, and gets in beside her. She's pliant as he curls up behind her, spooning her, stroking her hair and murmuring quietly, “It's all right, Eva. You're all right. It's going to be all right."

  When Eva wakes the next morning, John is gone.

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  CHAPTER TWO

  "You drugged her."

  "Yes."

  "With what?"

  John is taut, vibrating, as if his rage is about to explode. Smith is lax. Except for his eyes, sharp, alert.

  "A glass of wine laced with a bit of tranquilizer and a little mood elevator. Not enough to make her sleep through it, but enough to take the edge off, I hoped. Does she remember anything?"

  "I don't know. She was asleep when I left."

  "I know you'll be careful of her, John. Try to help her ... adjust."

  "You rigged the draw, too."

  "Yes,” Smith concedes after a few seconds’ hesitation. “It was awful to do to you, when you so vehemently opposed this entire arrangement, but I'm sure you understand that I couldn't just let chance decide who'd get her."

  "You could have let Eva decide."

  "John, we've been through this. You know I value your opinion, and I've heard you on this. But this isn't a democracy. I have the dubious responsibility of ensuring that this little den of wolves doesn't tear itself apart. Especially now that she's here.

  * * * *

  A gentle rapping. Eva snaps to standing. White-knuckled fists clenched at her sides, she stares at the door. There's a sound of deadbolts sliding and clicking back, and the door opens. John stands in the aperture.

  "May I come in?"

  Her chest heaving, she
lifts her chin in defiance. “No."

  For a moment he doesn't move or say anything. Then in a soft voice he says, “,” and shuts the door. The deadbolts slide and click back into place.

  She stands there, shaking, staring at the door for a long time, like she can't believe he really accepted her refusal. But he doesn't come back. Not until the following day.

  "May I come in?"

  "No."

  Longer than the day before, he's quiet and still after her answer. But finally he steps back and starts to close the door.

  Fists clenched by her sides, breathing hard, shaking, she says, “Wait.” Then, when he opens the door again and looks at her, she says, “Wait.” Then, “Come in."

  John steps inside and closes the door. When the guard outside locks it, she flinches a little at the click of each deadbolt. Taut and trembling she watches him come nearer, then pull a chair back from the little table by the window.

  "Is it all right if I sit down?"

  She nods and he sits. She seems to be stretched a little less tightly.

  "I came,” he begins, his voice soft, his look direct, “because I have things to tell you. But first, if you have anything—"

  "What's going to happen to me?"

  Still holding her gaze he pulls in a deep breath and lets it go.

  "The other night. You remember the lottery?"

  "Why wouldn't I?” she accuses.

  "Because Smith drugged you."

  "Why?” Now, on the strength of a single syllable, she sounds enraged. Exasperated.

  "To make it easier on you,” he tells her in a flat voice.

  Tears are sliding down her cheeks. She seems to be out of questions for the moment.

  "We...” He is still meeting her eyes, but the matter-of-fact voice is hitting bumps, now. “We drew lots. For you. Remember?"

  She nods, shaking. “Sort of."

  "And I ... my tag was drawn. That's why I...” Her jaw muscles flex and her breathing speeds. “It was all decided ahead of time. Long before you turned up. Before I came here. How it would go, if there was ever a woman. Whoever ... whatever tag was drawn, that's what the man was supposed to do. I would have spared you that if—"