Naturals by Tiffany Truitt

couldn’t come across as weak—I would have to convince the community members to go on another rescue mission. Persuading them also meant proving that I could handle going back.
    I wasn’t weak.
    I had survived.
    The community’s main center reminded me of the dining hall back in the compound. It was filled with row after row of tables. All wooden. Gone were the metal and steel I had grown accustomed to. The place was empty with the exception of a small group of adults who sat at the end of one of the tables. I was pleased to see the group was made up of both males and females. The council had worked so hard to convince the naturals that women were to blame for our countless defeats in war, that it was our natural, inborn wantonness that affected the men around us, rendering them useless, emotionally driven simpletons.
    If these were the leaders of the community, it was obvious that some things here had changed for the better. That was a small comfort.
    “Don’t be shy. What’s your name?” asked a man with longish dirty blond hair. His face, like many of the other men’s, was covered in a beard.
    I cleared my throat and took a small step toward the group. “Tess,” I replied.
    “Did you think about searching her?” asked a second man, who was focused on a cup in front of him that was filled with a mystery liquid. I wasn’t even sure he had seen me at all. He was balding, and a scar ran across the crown of his head, almost as if someone had tried to cut his scalp clean off.
    “Search her? She’s just a girl,” McNair said.
    “Yeah. We’ve traveled with her for quite a bit, and trust me, there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to this one,” Eric replied, playfully punching me in the arm. I wanted to contest his branding of me, but the throbbing in my arm let me know that perhaps he was spot on. Years of merely existing hadn’t formed me into the kind of people who now stood before me.
    “This girl you’re so quick to label as weak sure does have the council scared. Unless I’ve been misinformed, she seduced a chosen one, took on the punishment of a fellow natural, and tried to escape. On her own. I think she packs a bigger punch then you give her credit for,” one of the leaders said. I didn’t know the man’s name, but I suddenly liked him. I couldn’t help but stand a little taller.
    “That may be true, but you two are idiots for thinking she won’t betray us,” the unnamed man continued.
    “Excuse me? Betray you?” I asked indignantly.
    “You abandoned your own people. And worse than that, you’ve…well…you’ve had sexual relations with a chosen one,” he charged.
    My face heated up. They were all looking at me now. And if I wasn’t mistaken, Eric took a step away from me. I could see it in their eyes, could hear it in my head. All the words they wanted to say.
    All the words within which men tried to trap women.
    I lifted my chin. “My sex life, or lack thereof, is none of your business.”
    The man with the cup sat back in his chair and looked me up and down. “Isn’t it, though?”
    “Stop that, Al. You’re scaring the poor thing,” spoke a woman. She couldn’t have been much older than forty. Her long hair was clumsily thrown into a ponytail, pieces escaping and framing her face. Her eyes looked kind, but I knew how deceiving appearances could be.
    “Yes, enough. Sharon’s right. You’re scaring her,” McNair chided. “I brought her in here to meet you. She knows the rules. There’s no need to search her. I vouch for her, and my word should be good here.”
    I’d never liked McNair so much.
    The woman called Sharon offered me a smile before pushing out of her chair. When she stood up, I saw it. The bump. She was pregnant.
    I felt the color drain from my face and had to force down the images of Emma and Julia that always came to my mind when I thought about sex and children. Sharon reached out a hand to me and I cringed. I didn’t want her to touch me. Not