After the close call in the kitchen, they were all pretty careful. Even Jim, who had been Julie's biggest concern, seemed to accept the situation for the time being. He looked different, somehow, since she had deliberately put the make on Pete. Where Jim had looked at the men with an obvious hatred in his eyes, now he seemed to have given up a little, to have ceased caring quite as much. The possession of her body by force had given him something worth fighting for, and that had been lost when she took the lead with Pete.
Julie stood washing the dishes, vaguely conscious of the robe that hung open, revealing her body. She stood as close to the sink as she could to block off the sight, but it wasn't completely successful. She had to turn to pick up dishes, and each time she did, the big guy, Butch, would grin right on cue as he looked at her nakedness. The other two men had gone into the parlor with the baby, and with Jim still tied up, and were listening to the radio. They had left Butch in the kitchen to stand guard over Julie and Sally while they did the dishes. To keep him amused, they had left Connie with him. Connie still looked as though she were in a state of shock from the first time he had raped her. She sat perched on his knee, her face blank except for a slight smile which looked as though she were keeping it there by a half-conscious effort to keep Butch happy.
She was wearing a robe, of course. That had become the uniform of the day for the women in the house. A robe without a sash or buttons. The one she was wearing at the moment was yellow, bright and cheerful, in contrast to the look of vacuous desperation in her eyes. It was as though she had fled into her mind to escape reality, and was peering back out at the world to see when it would be safe to join it again.
Butch divided his attention between the women at the sink and the one on his massive lap. His hands were occupied, one with a breast that was revealed by the pulled back robe, and the other with one of Connie's thighs. At first Connie seemed unaware of the contact, but she wasn't really driven that far back into herself. Julie had realized that when she noticed the little tremors of fear and disgust that passed over her. Julie picked up a fresh stack of dishes, and Butch leered at her stupidly with an empty, childish sexuality.
Get your eyes full, you son of a bitch, she thought, and felt a stab of fear that he might do just that: get his eyes full and decide to do something more than look at her. He kept looking in her direction after she turned back to the sink, and Julie realized with a start that he wasn't looking at her any more, but at Sally, who was facing slightly toward him as she stretched to put a platter on a high shelf in the cupboard. Julie looked at the girl long and hard until she realized what the meaning of the look was. She glanced at Butch and pulled the robe about her, but of course she had to release it to pick up another dish, and it fell open again. There was no sense in blaming Sally for that, she decided. Her own robe was just as widely opened as Sally's, and that was the way Max had planned it, of course. It had been one of his smarter moves, she thought, because it kept at least one of their hands busy most of the time holding the robe closed. Besides that, she supposed, it kept the men happy and excited when the garments were allowed to go their own way.
Still, she didn't suppose it really made much difference to Sally. She was a little too casual about the whole thing to have anyone believe that she really cared about the revelation of her body's secrets.
It was amazing, Julie thought, how it was possible to know someone all her life and then realize that you didn't know her at all. She had always thought that Sally was a nice girl. Not a prissy little virgin, perhaps, but still a nice enough girl, better than average. And then, that little show she had provided from the bedroom, that solo aria she yelped out, had shown Julie just how much little sister liked going to bed with a man. It was disgusting. She had thought to protect Sally from the advances of men like Max and Pete, and it turned out that the joke was on her, Julie. Because Sally was having a ball. This was probably just the kind of situation she was used to in school, Julie thought, except for the guns. The Big Men On Campus probably didn't need guns to get her into their bed. That was the way it was done. Girls like Sally were the new generation, and the Now Generation as they called it, and she wasn't the type to need any protection from a man like Max. She was probably teaching him a thing or two. It was disgusting. Julie had never considered herself a prude, God knew, but the kind of thing Sally had shown herself capable of enjoying was disgusting.
She placed the last dish in the drainer and looked over at Butch. She supposed she should get a dish-towel and help Sally finish with the drying, but right now she didn't want to look at Sally, much less help her.
"Is it all right if I sit down now?" she asked Butch. "I'm very tired."
He grinned obscenely. "Heh, heh, I'll bet ya are," he said, and it took her a second to realize that he was referring to the time she had spent in the bedroom with Pete. "I'll bet ya both are," he said. "Yeah, you can sit down. Right here." He pointed to his other knee, the one Connie wasn't occupying.
"No, I really would like to sit down, if you don't mind, I've been on my feet for some time, you know." She thought he was kidding about her sitting on his lap at the same time as Connie, but he frowned at her answer.
"I think you better do like I say, lady," he said slowly. He seemed to have trouble with words, and she wondered whether his intelligence was just marginal or perhaps sub-marginal. "Come 'ere," he said, pointing to the knee. Julie wished she had decided to help Sally with the dishes. She walked over to the big lunk and perched on his knee. She was conscious of the gun behind her, leaning against the wall. Even if she got it in her hands, which she doubted after seeing how surprisingly quick Butch could be, and even if she could manage to kill him without hurting poor Connie, Jim and the baby were in the parlor with Max and Pete, and she couldn't very well leave them here. Not just to save herself, Sally and Connie. And she couldn't be sure that Connie would be quick-witted enough to make a break with them. That meant that even if she could manage to kill Butch with the shotgun, the best she could be sure of would be to save herself and Sally. And Sally, she thought, probably wasn't worth it anyway. So she sat very still on Butch's lap, holding her robe closed with both hands and waiting to see what he would do.
He brushed her hands away, and the robe fell open. Julie sat with her hands raised for a moment, poised to pull the robe closed again, but she didn't dare to do something like that, something that Butch would object to. Slowly, she dragged her hands down to her lap. Her thighs were bare now, as the robe dropped away from them. She was naked down the front, her breasts, from the nipples inward, and her snatch revealed. She folded her hands, hiding herself below, but Butch slapped them away, and looked straight at her there until she thought she would go crazy with embarrassment.
He pulled his hand out from the inside of Connie's robe, releasing her breast, and slid it over Julie's thigh, his fingers curled around the inside of it, petting her roughly. Julie felt her bowels curl up inside her like a burned insect. This was worse than Pete even, and a thousand times worse than Max. It was like having a smelly animal try to cover her. She felt more humiliated than she had with either of the two men, even when they had possessed her.
Butch laughed. It was a strange sound, deep and guttural, and yet at the same time childish and idiotic, as though a gorilla had suddenly giggled.
"This is great," he said. "I never had two at the same time before."
You probably never had one before, unless she was a prostitute, Julie thought, but she said nothing, and managed to keep her face impassive. Butch's hand moved up to her pussy, and he poked it lightly, as though afraid it might break. Then he laid his fingers on it and worked them down between her thighs. She could feel his fingertips against her slit, and there was a sexual thrill to the feeling even though she felt disgust at the same time. He laughed again, and suddenly he brushed Connie off of his lap. He did it quickly and roughly, as though she were some inanimate object that had served its purpose. He put his arm around Julie and hugged her close, his other hand working deeper into her crotch, and then penetrating her slit, working up inside of her.
"Open up," he ordered, and she forced her legs to part, to make room for him. The fingers worked deeper into her, delving up inside of her in a quick, rough move that made her jerk suddenly. "You like that?" he asked with another laugh. He let the arm that was around her slip past her shoulder to her neck, pulling her into him even more closely, and he draped his hand down to her naked left breast, cupping it with a massive palm. Julie had never felt so tiny and helpless in her life. She felt very fragile in his grasp, as though he could break her with a single movement of one of his arms. She sat very, very still, afraid that any movement on her part might be construed by his pea-brain as resistance, and he might move to stop her. And with his strength and his stupidity, he could go too far, and break her bones without meaning to.
The fingers moved around inside of her, slithering over her vaginal walls, until they found her clitoris. She let out a little yelp at that, and her body twisted violently at the sensation that ran through her. She threw back her head and her mouth hung open under the intensity of her physical reaction. Another grunting laugh came out of Butch, and he gave her clitoris a little squeeze with his fingers, sending an even stronger feeling through her.
"Oh, God," she breathed, and the words came out thickly, almost incoherently. She could feel his hot breath on her, and it disgusted her. But his fingers inside of her had a magical power. They were distressing, but not disgusting, and she couldn't help the overwhelming pleasure that ran through her body with each movement of those fingers.
Connie was still on the floor where Butch had shoved her. She sat there, her robe open, is though waiting to see what was expected of her. She seemed like a child except for the decidedly un-childish body that was revealed by the open robe.
Suddenly, Butch pushed Julie down off of his lap onto the floor beside Connie. She hit with it thump, and Connie looked up, startled, and looking alert for the first time since the initiation she had received into sex at Butch's hands. She moved away from Julie, one hand pushing her hair back from her face. She looked like someone coming out of a long sleep.
Butch came down on top of Julie, came down hard and drove the breath from her. She tightened under his sudden weight, but she didn't try to get away. She had learned in the last day and a half, she thought, that it made no sense to try to get away.
He pulled savagely at his own clothes, and then his pants were down past his hips, and she caught a glimpse of his cock. It was huge, distended, hard and blue-veined. It was hideous, and she looked away, as though by not seeing it she could make what was about to happen somehow more bearable.
Butch took his cock in his hand and centered it on her slit, then drove it into her with one shove. She cried out in agony and pleasure combined, hating to admit to herself that the pleasure was real, was there, and it couldn't be denied.
The cock pushed into her, stuffing her with its bulk, and she felt as though it would rip her wide open. She hadn't known that anything could be so big, or so hard. It had a wonderful, pleasure-giving effect even as she felt sick at being possessed by such a beast. This was a cock that belonged on a horse, she thought, not a human being.
Then he rammed her, pulling and pushing, fucking with a rapid, tireless action, an energy that was as animalistic as the rest of his personality. His cock worked in her quickly, shoving and pulling and shoving, and she thought he would never stop. The pleasure mounted in her body, filling her with a tingling sensation, but still she wished that he would stop, would pull that thing out of her and leave her alone. He seemed to have the stamina of a herd of stallions. She could hear his breath and his grunts of pleasure, and disgust welled tip in her until she thought she would puke all over him and herself.
"Goddamn, you're good," he breathed in her ear, and it was startling, as though an ape bad suddenly spoken in clear English. She tried to shut the words out of her mind and to shut the experience out with it, to keep the reality that had become insupportable out of her consciousness. This had to end, she thought, this couldn't go on much longer. Surely there was a limit to even this beast's ability.
But if there was, he seemed not to have come very close to it yet. He was still ramming away, fucking her with all the force of a steam hammer. Stop, she thought, stop it, stop it, stop it, I can't stand it any longer, you animal, I can't, I can't…
But she would continue for as long as necessary, because there just wasn't anything else to do. There was nothing else…
A blast filled the room, filled Julie's head, and for a moment she thought that the room had exploded, that a bomb had been thrown inside or something. It was a huge, rocking kind of blast that seemed to split her head, and fill her ears. She screamed into it, and heard her own voice blanked out by the blast, but she knew that the blast was really over, and she had been temporarily deafened by it. Then her hearing cleared, except for the ringing in her cars, and she was suddenly aware of something warm and wet running over her face and body. She looked up at Butch, but he wasn't there any more. In his place there was a vast hulk of flesh with a maw of bone and red blood where his head should have been. Blood spurted out of the hole in the end of his neck, and ran over Julie, and over the floor. Julie screamed again, screamed in shock and disgust, and then the body was pulled off of her. She looked up through a blur of blood in her eyes, and saw Connie there, with the shotgun in her hands. A tiny wisp of smoke was curling upward from the muzzle.
"Come on," she was saying, "come on, Mrs. Bradford, we've got to run, now." Suddenly she dropped the shotgun and headed for the service porch and the back door. Julie sat up and watched her go, and Sally after a moment's hesitation, followed. They disappeared, and Julie sat up and looked at the door through which they had gone, and thought, Oh, no, oh, God no, you've really done it now.
There was a rumble of heavy running in the hallway, and Max and Pete came in. They looked at the body of their friend, and then at Julie, and she saw that they thought that she had done it.
"No," she said weakly, "Connie. Connie and Sally. They went out that door. They went…"
Max headed out the door at a run, and Pete came over and grabbed up the shotgun. He looked at it for a moment, then dropped it to the floor and grasped Julie's arm. His grip was incredibly hard, cutting off the circulation as he yanked her to her feet. "Come on," he snarled. "I'm not leavin' you in here where you can untie hubby."
She went with him, not offering the slightest resistance. She followed out the door to the outside, and felt the bite of tiny stones on her bare feet. She winced at the pain, but he pulled her along with him, dragging her across the ground at a clip too fast for her to run. She did her best to keep up, and her toes stubbed painfully into rocks and bits of wood.
Max was ahead, running after one of the girls. From the yellow robe Julie could tell that it was Connie. She was running as hard as she could, but Max was overtaking her steadily. There were no cars in sight, and Julie knew that the girl had lost her gamble. There was no hope for her now. Julie felt a vague pity for her, but she had brought it on herself, and maybe on everyone else, too. There was no telling how the men would react to the killing of one of them. It couldn't make things any more pleasant, she thought, and so far the three females had owed their existence to the fact that there was one of them to each male. Now there would be an extra female, and no reason why they couldn't kill one of them. Whichever one they chose, she thought, and her blood chilled at the thought, because it was entirely possible that they would choose the one who was the oldest. After all, Max had thrown her over for a younger woman. Why shouldn't he and Pete decide to keep the younger girls and get rid of her?
It was dark outside, or almost dark. The sun had gone down, but the sky was still light with the residual light of day. Max caught up with Connie. A thin little scream floated across the air, and Julie shuddered at the sound. It seemed like an omen of what would come to all of them now. Max hit the girl in the belly with his gun, and she folded up like an accordion. He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, then bent and picked up his rifle again. He carried her back.
That left Sally, Julie thought. She was somewhere on the farm, that was clear. She couldn't have gotten away. Not this quickly. The girls had split up the moment they had gotten out of the house.
Max came back to where Julie and Pete were, and dropped Connie on the ground. She cried out when she landed, and Julie noticed that she had landed on her foot, and the ankle had twisted under her weight. She probably wouldn't be running any more, Julie thought, and it served her right for being so stupid.
"Where did the other one go?" Max asked. He grabbed Julie's wrist and yanked her away from Pete.
"I don't know. I didn't have anything to do with…"
He pulled her forward shortly, so hard that she lost her footing and landed on her knees. Her robe slid back off of her shoulders and down her arms a little, binding their movement.
"I'm not fucking with you, baby," he said. "You come up with that little bitch or I'm going to start with your baby, and then your husband, and you'll be the last to die. But not by much. By about as long as it takes me to cock that shotgun. Now talk!"
Julie had a thought. "I don't know for sure," she said. "I don't, really. But she used to play here as a little girl, and she had a favorite hiding place. The barn, there, has a loose board, and she used to hide there."
"Is it big enough to hide her now that she's grown up?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm sure it is, if she pulls herself in a little. Yes, it would."
"Lead the way. And if she's not there, you'd better come up with another idea fast, bitch."
She had to be there, Julie thought. She just had to be. The little tramp. Why did she have to do this? Why couldn't she have left well enough alone? She hadn't been so badly treated. Not badly enough to justify the risking of Jim's and Diane's lives, certainly. She had enjoyed that little go-round with Max, the little bitch. And now she pulls this.
They walked into the barn and Julie led him straight to the spot where the loose board was. "Pull it up," he ordered, and stood looking at her coldly, the rifle tight in his hands. Don't look at me that way, she thought. I didn't do it.
She got down on her knees and pried up the board.
She peered down into the empty space below with a sinking, panicky feeling. It was almost as though Sally had failed her personally.
"Shit, there isn't enough room down there for her," Max said. She looked up at him, opening her mouth to tell him that she had thought it was big enough, that she hadn't tried to fool him, but all that came out of her mouth was a loud, almost incoherent warning.
"Look out!"
Sally had moved up behind him on bare feet, padding across the barn floor. She had a scythe in her hands, an old rusty instrument that hadn't been used in years. She was lifting it above her head, ready to bring it down on Max, just as Julie's warning caused him to jump aside. The scythe's blade dug splinters from the floor with a metallic ringing sound. Sally jumped back and tried to lift it again.
Max spun around to face Sally and the barrel of his rifle rammed into her belly like a steel lance. The scythe fell to the floor with a clatter, and Sally gasped, cried out in a hoarse, breathless groan and fell to her knees, hugging her belly.
"You fucking bitch!" Max rasped, and yanked her head up by the hank of her hair. "I ought to slap your Goddamn head off," he said. Sally was too jarred by the blow to her belly to answer. Her eyes were clenched tightly, and her hands were folded across her midsection. Julie felt a fleeting pity for the girl. But she had brought it all on herself. She had been stupid to try something like this against armed killers.
Max pulled her up off her knees. Julie thought it was a very impressive display of strength, and something to remember if she were ever tempted to believe that the loss of Butch had been an irreparable blow to their power over everyone in the house.
"Get your feet under you," Max roared. "Goddamn it, you stand up!" Sally managed to stand by her own strength. She groaned, leaning over her middle. Max yanked her upright and spat in her face. "You're going to be sorry for that little attempt, Sally," he said. "You think I've been tough with you up till now? You haven't seen anything yet. Come on." He shoved her toward the front of the barn. Sally stumbled and fell, catching herself with one hand pressed to the floor. Max came up behind her and kicked her in the ass, planting his foot there and sending her sprawling with a single shove. "Get up, Goddamn you," he yelled. He really seemed furious with Sally, and Julie couldn't blame him. He had come within inches of dying at her hands after all. Sally climbed to her feet with obvious difficulty. She was crying, tears running down her cheeks in thick streams. She hurried out the door of the barn, running to keep ahead of Max. She ran clumsily, still clutching at her belly with both hands.
Pete was standing exactly where they had left him, except that he had put a foot on Connie's ass. He held her planted to the ground and Connie lay still as though unaware of it. But her eyes were open, and Julie could see that she hadn't sunk back into her former torpor.
"Smartass here tried to part my hair with a scythe," Max said to Pete. "Let's get 'em all inside. I don't like to leave the man of the house alone too long."
Julie walked ahead of the others, with Sally behind her and slightly to one side. Pete kept ramming his pistol butt into the small of Connie's back, to keep her moving. Connie was crying, as was Sally, but they offered no more resistance. For the moment, they seemed to have learned their lesson. It had been a singularly costly lesson. They weren't likely to win the men's trust again soon, and the loss of one of the men meant that they could get along with one less woman.
"All right," Max said when they were back in the kitchen. "Which of you dames killed him." He pointed to the huge corpse in the middle of the floor. Blood had already begun to congeal on the worn linoleum. He asked the question of them all, not looking directly at any of them. None of the women said anything. "I'm not going to fuck with you," he said. The rifle leveled at the wall between Julie and Sally. "Now, I won't mention any names, but if I don't get some answers starting right now, I plan to gun one of you down in just one and a half seconds."
"She did it," Julie said, pointing to Connie. "She got the shotgun from where it was leaning against the wall and killed Butch while he was on me."
"Serves the son of a bitch right," Pete mumbled. "That's what he gets for fucking somebody else's woman. He had his own woman, and if he'd fucked her, she wouldn't have been able to get at the gun. Besides, he was supposed to be guardin' the women, not playing grab-ass."
"That's beside the point." Max swung the muzzle of the rifle about, bringing it to bear on Connie. The girl's eyes went wide as saucers, and she drew back against the wall.
"Yeah?" Pete asked quietly. "Well, just what is the point, Max?"
"The point is we can't afford to let this little cunt get away with something like that. If we do, she'll do it again. And so will the others. They'll have everything to gain and nothing at all to lose. That's the point."
"Butch was stupid. We ain't gonna be that stupid. She won't get another chance like that."
"You're fucking right she won't. Because I plan to put a thirty caliber slug through her lower intestinal tract before she does."
"Just a minute, Max." Pete's voice was low and businesslike. "I don't like the idea of killin' her."
"Are you kidding? You were the one who wanted to kill that guy in the living room just a few hours ago, as I recall. How come the big change?"
"I'm still for killin' him. But I let you have your way that time. I'm not for killing a woman, though."
"I didn't know you had scruples like that, Pete."
"Don't talk like an asshole. I'll kill her myself when the time comes, it won't bother me none, and when she's still some good to us. We got three dames to two men now. That's good. That means we got an extra, and we can trade around. This place is loaded with food. And when that's gone there's a lot of animals to kill. We can stay holed up here for four, five months if we want to, and I think that's the smart thing to do."
"All right. What's that got to do with this little twat?"
"I don't see any reason to make the place less pleasant to live in while we're here. If you want to kill her when we leave, that's fine with me. And if you want to beat the piss out of her to teach her a lesson, I'll hold her still for you. But I don't see why we should kill her. That don't make sense. Not now."
"Shit, we have two women, and there are two of us. Why do we need an extra?"
"Let's just say I'm a pig. I like more than I need. Besides, you told me outside that this one," and he pointed at Sally, "tried to kill you with a scythe. You want to kill her, too? Then we'll have only one woman. And she'll be my woman. Remember? You're the one who traded her to me for the young stuff. I don't see nothing wrong with keeping a spare handy. We might have to kill one of the others later on, if they try to escape again."
"For Christ's sake, Pete, talk sense will you? We have to teach these other cunts a lesson, and this is how we do it. If you get out of line, you get a fresh hole blown in you."
"I just don't agree, Max." Pete handled his pistol meaningfully. Julie felt her blood run cold in her veins. This was something very dangerous now. Pete hadn't really made anything out of the disagreement yet. But he had left it up to Max to make something out of it if he wanted to. Max looked at him for a long time, and Julie had the feeling that the whole matter was riding on the question of whether he felt he could bring his rifle to bear before Pete could fire his pistol. It would be close, she thought. "Like I said, Max, I gave you your way about Farmer John in there. Now I think it's time you gave me my way on somethin'. What do you say?"
Max looked at him for a moment longer, then shrugged and lowered his rifle's muzzle to the floor. Connie gave a scream of relief and fell to the floor, sobbing.
"You want her so bad, why don't you take her to bed right now?" Max spat disgustedly.
"Why not?" Pete walked forward and grabbed Connie's arm. She came to her feet without hesitation, ready to do what he wanted.
"Before you take your little lovebird away, help me tie up the others," Max said. "I don't want something like this happening again."
Julie let herself be led to a chair and tied in it. Max yanked her arms behind her and fastened her wrists together firmly, then tied one of her ankles to each of the chair's legs. Her robe fell away from her body, draping down on either side of the chair.
With Sally he had a different idea. Pete stood by covering Connie while Max tied the two women. When he was finished with Julie he pulled Sally over to the sink and tied her feet together. He tied the other end of the rope to the pipes under the sink, then fastened her wrists behind her back with another piece of line. He tied the opposite end of that piece to one of the taps, tying a half dozen knots to keep it from slipping. It left Sally in an uncomfortable position, her shoulders pulled back and her knees slightly bent because the length of the rope on her wrists wouldn't allow her to stand upright.
"A few hours in that position and maybe you won't be so eager to pick up a scythe," Max said. He pinched her cheek hard, making her cry out from the pain. "Okay," he said. "You take your little slit into the bedroom now, Pete. I'll go check to make sure Farmer Brown is all nice and snug." The two men left the kitchen.
Sally looked over at Julie. She had to throw her head back to clear her hair from her face. "Why?" she asked cryptically, and then, after a moment's pause, "Why did you do it, Sis? I could have killed him. We could have been rid of them all, maybe, if you hadn't warned him. And then squealing on Connie like that. Why?"
"If I'd let you swing on him with that scythe you might have killed him and you might not," Julie said.
"Well, it was a pretty good bet. And even if the first swing hadn't killed him, he never would have been able to hurt us. I'd have fouled him up pretty good, wouldn't I?"
"Is that all you can think of? What about how you would have fouled us up?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. There would have been just one of them left if I'd killed Max."
"That one alone could more than handle us. Now you know that if you'll just think about it sensibly, Sally. He was out there with Connie, and he had a gun. Two guns."
"A pistol and a shotgun. Neither of them would have been much of a threat to us in that barn. And we would have had Max's rifle."
"Which we might have been able to kill him with. And we might not."
"Well, Jesus, Sis, you have to take some chances."
"Not with my husband and my baby, you don't."
"Do you think they're going to let your husband and your baby live if they have their way? Use your head, Julie."
"I'm the only one here who is using her head. The only way we can have any chance at all is by biding our time. If they get to fearing us, they'll kill us all, and they won't hesitate to do it. They don't really need us, you know. They're just keeping us alive because it amuses them. And when our amusement value drops below our potential danger, they'll blow us open. That's a thin rope, and we have to walk it."
"Then you don't leave us any hope at all, Sis, we just stay alive as long as it amuses them. And when they decide to leave here, they'll kill us. You know our danger will outweigh our amusement value then."
"We'll have to hope for a chance before then. But it will have to be a real chance, not the kind of half-cocked thing you and Connie pulled just now."
"I doubt we'll ever have the kind of chance you're talking about. You won't feel it's a worthwhile chance unless they just drop dead for us." She gasped a little as the position of her arms and legs became painful. She was glistening with sweat. It served her right, the stupid idiot. "And speaking of Connie, you still haven't answered my other question. Why did you squeal on her? That was terrible. You might have gotten her killed."
"Better her than you or me. Or both you and me. Or all three of us. She should have told on herself to keep that from happening. She was the one who was stupid enough to pick up that shotgun and get all this started."
"Oh, Sis, God, what's the matter with you? She was the only one who picked up the shotgun and did something! She was the one with the guts to cut down the odds."
"There's no sense in discussing it any further, Sally. We just don't agree on how to act in this situation. But I don't plan to do something stupid, and I don't plan to get killed because you and your idiot friend want to play gunslinger."
Sally looked at Julie for a long moment. "Well, we did some good with that escape attempt," she said. "Besides killing Butch, I mean."
"Oh? What's that?"
"We found out that we can't depend on you, or even trust you. Because you're a collaborator. You're on their side."
"I am not on their side!" The words came out too quickly, too vehemently. Sally managed a tight, sardonic smile.
"I don't care how you explain it, Sis. I don't care what kind of excuses you come up with. What it boils down to is that you're on their side. And I'm telling you right now that if another chance comes along, I'll take it. And if you get in my way, I'll kill you. Just like I'd kill one of them."