Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men - By Regan Wolfrom Page 0,11

nothing compared to Kathleen Shannard.”

“She sounds lovely. But... the plan?”

“Gary’s probably gone home for the night, since like the rest of humanity he hates being around those girls longer than he has to. If we can immobilize those two twits we should be able to get help before anyone else realizes what’s happened.”

“Immobilize?”

“Don’t worry... I’m not a murderer. Uh... anymore. We’ll restrain them. Give them a taste of their own medicine.”

“We’re not drugging them.”

“Figure of speech. Now let me find something for that padlock.”

We made our way to the house, armed with the best weapons we could find in the tack room. Pouchon had a shavings fork and a small knife, while I carried a stack of leather reins and a roll of black electrical tape.

The house was dark aside from one small lamp light coming from upstairs.

“The kitchen door,” Pouchon said. “They always leave it open with just the screen.”

“You pay close attention,” I said.

“Sometimes they put us to work out here, too. Maybe it’s a test, to see if we’re really as docile as we look.”

“Test didn’t work, I see.”

“I’ve been waiting for this chance for a long time.”

We snuck into the dark kitchen. Pouchon had us pause for a moment to adjust from the lack of moonlight inside.

We climbed up the stairs slowly; Pouchon seemed to know just where to step to minimize the creaking. I followed his footsteps as closely as I could.

We split up, Pouchon grabbing a couple of reins and heading left towards the bedroom that had light peeking under the door. I headed to the right. I opened the bedroom door and saw Cadance, asleep in her bed with a stuffed My Little Pony clutched in her arms.

I took the leather straps and walked into the bedroom. I was at least six inches taller a good thirty pounds heavier, but I was worried that my nerves would make me hesitate.

It was hard to think of the teenage girl with the pink horsey as a monster, but she’d held me down while they’d drugged me. She’d wanted to see me turned into a brainless monster.

She deserved it.

I put the electrical tape on the dresser and snuck up beside the bed. I grabbed Cadance by the neck and awkwardly flipped her onto her front. I had her wrists bound before she’d even figured out what was happening. I bound her ankles next, and pulled them up to meet her hands.

I’d hogtied Cadance in less than thirty seconds. I’d missed out on a career in rodeo.

I heard a woman’s scream from the other room. It was loud but muffled. It frightened me despite me being in on the plan.

She kept screaming, for almost a minute. She was in pain.

Pouchon wasn’t doing what I’d thought he’d be doing. He’d lied.

“Oh, god,” Cadance said. “My sister...”

“She must be putting up one hell of a fight,” I said. “Don’t worry... he doesn’t want to hurt her.”

“Why are you doing this to us?”

“I’m saving my friends. You did this to yourself.”

“Come on... this wasn’t my fault. You can’t do this.”

“And so why us, then?” I asked. “What did we do to deserve this?”

“We needed you. That’s... that’s all it was.”

“Why?”

“You already know why. We needed new workers to replace the macoutes.”

“What makes us good workers? You just head over state lines to grab a handful mediocre high school basketball players?”

“Yes.”

“How did you even find us?”

“Uh... YouTube. You guys did a video, that cinnamon challenge thing. We saw the uniforms so we knew where to find you. Shannard saw it and she got all weird about it... three dumb girls... strong and fit, but not strong enough to be dangerous.”

“Dumb girls?”

“Well... cinnamon challenge...”

Pouchon strode into the room.

“That girl is worthless,” he said.

“Did you hurt her?” I asked.

“She’s okay.” He took a minute to check my work. “Nice job... this little bitch isn’t going anywhere.”

“Easy, Pouchon,” I said. “You’ve scared her enough as it is.”

“There’s no such thing as being too scared.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Yeah, okay... now it’s your turn.”

“What?”

“Hands behind your back.”

“What are you talking about?”

He pushed me onto the bed.

For some reason that was the moment Cadance started to cry.

“I wrote a story, Amanda,” Pouchon said as he rolled me onto my stomach. “I’ve had two months in this place to plot it out.”

He bound my wrists with one of the reins he still had. He hadn't used them on Tiara.

“Please don’t,” I said.

“Please,” Cadance said. “Oh god... please...”

“Shut up,” Pouchon said. “1:33 AM. Two of the macoutes escape when their