Devil himself; it’s easier to become the lion I need to be. I can pretend I know his tricks, that he’s not an unpredictable human with a temper he carefully cultivates like a rose with razor thorns.
It helps. Sometimes.
He doesn’t say anything at first, but his breath is hot on the back of my neck, and his smell—oil, cigarette smoke, vinegar, and sweat—wraps around me like an embrace, trapping me where I am. My movements become painfully careful. The sweat that comes to my palm makes holding on to each case a challenge, but I won’t let my hands shake. I refuse to give him the pleasure of knowing that he affects me any more than the other PSFs.
He’s one of the few that still wears a full PSF uniform; all black and menace, with the embroidered red Psi symbol over his heart under the stitched name Tildon.
I keep my eyes on the bins in front of me, but I wonder, I wonder all the time, if he or any of them would do these things if we were allowed to meet them eye to eye. Would they feel as free to hurt someone as human as they are? Maybe they just wouldn’t care.
I should know better; he’s not someone who likes to be ignored. The PSF lets out a disgruntled sound that seems to rip through my eardrums. He takes a step back and I’m just about to release the breath I’d held when I feel a hand slip under my sweatshirt. Under my shirt. A thumb rubs down my spine.
It’s me.
I see the thought reflected in the relieved faces of the girls around me. This is the third day in a row since the rotation began that he’s zeroed in on me, come sauntering over like a hunter picking up a bird he’s shot out of the sky. I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe that it’s me.
My muscles lock first. My head buzzes, emptied of every thought. The sudden shift from badgering bully to—to this actually tilts my world. It’s a soft, delicate touch, and so vile I think my skin is actually crawling to get away from it. I don’t know what to do—I know what I want to do. Scream, shove him away, give in to the burn of bile in my throat. I’ve been hit so many times it’s never occurred to me that this kind of touch could be that much worse than the pain. The hand slides around my hip, down—
I straighten, turning my head to the side. Vanessa’s face disappears as she turns away, letting a cloud of curling dark hair protect her. What does she have to be afraid of? It has taken years for us to see the pattern of his interest, the careful process of his selection. Last month, when we overlapped cleaning duty with another Green cabin, a girl whispered to us about what happened to her bunkmate. While I am in the room, there will be no one else to him. Only, the attention from the past two days has focused, sharpened from mocking cruelty to something…something like this.
“Work faster.” His voice makes me think of the way condensation collected on walls of my parents’ unfinished basement. The stones are so dark and the lighting is so bad, you don’t feel the cold drip until it’s already on your skin. You can’t avoid it.
I see his reflection in the screen of the next phone I pick up. His body is hot and damp and it repulses me more than even the sight of his face. How can someone who looks so normal, like the man who’d delivered our mail each afternoon, be this way? I want to know what hole he crawled out of, and how I can send him straight back into it.
There are others watching this happen, from above, from around me. I feel their eyes, can sense the attention in the room shifting the longer he stands there, smelling my hair, pressing against me. Even as the hatred boils over in me, shame is right on its heels. It’s the stupidest thing in the world, I know it is, but I am ashamed of what he is doing to me and that others are seeing it.
When I still don’t react, he grabs my wrist, wrenching it back up into the air. “Search!” he calls out, clearly delighting in the word. “Assistance!”
It was quiet in the Factory before, but now I can