Quarantine #2: The Saints by Lex Thomas Page A

eyes. She fumbled around like a blind girl, trying to smack her hand into the hanging hose and get it again. Eventually she found it and was able to splash some water in her eyes. She could see again. She glanced down at the counter.
    Her clothes were gone.
    Sluts grabbed her from behind. They held her arms and pushed her toward the cafeteria. She tried to stop them but her soapy feet slid across the floor.
    “Stop! What are you doing?”
    They shoved her out of the kitchen and she fell on the floor, scraping her stomach and breasts. All the Sluts in the cafeteria were gathered around Lucy in a semicircle. They stared at her. Lips was in front.
    “Stand up,” Lips said.
    Lucy stood awkwardly, trying to cover her breasts with one forearm and her privates with her other hand. She felt like a complete and total dipshit, naked in front of a smirking crowd of fully clothed bitches. She’d never felt more embarrassed in her life.
    “Where is Violent?” Lucy said in a tiny voice.
    “She can’t save you,” Lips said.
    “Why are you doing this?”
    “It’s day one,” Lips said. “You know what that makes you?”
    Lucy shook her head. She tried to breathe slow; it wasn’t working.
    “Who is she?” Lips said to the room.
    “A GOOD LITTLE GIRL,” the Sluts hollered in unison.
    “And how does a good girl become a Slut?”
    “SHE’S GOTTA GET NAKED!”
    “What’s that called?” Lips said, hyping them up.
    “NAKED WEEK!”
    “Say it again?”
    “NAKED WEEK!”
    “One more time!”
    “NAKED WEEK!”
    The girls whooped and cheered.
    Lips stepped in and got an inch from Lucy’s nose.
    “From here on out, you have no name. You’re nothing,” Lips said.
    Lucy was angry. She felt duped, but she didn’t know what to do. Lips reached out and pinched a strand of Lucy’s long white hair between her fingers.
    “Until this hair is red, any Slut can tell you what to do. You’re our slave, and you do whatever we tell you to. Got it?”
    Lucy was watching Lips’s thin lips wrinkle as she talked. She wanted to split them.
    “GOT IT?”
    “I guess.”
    “Not ‘you guess.’ Do you got it?”
    Lucy took a deep breath.
    “Yes.”
    “You don’t talk back, you don’t resist, and you do not put your hands on anyone. You obey without question. Got it?”
    “Yes,” Lucy was quick to say.
    “Good,” Lips said. She snapped her fingers. Someone threw a scrub brush at Lucy. It bounced off her chest and fell to the ground. “Pick it up.”
    Lucy lowered herself slowly, and picked up the scrub brush.
    “That’s how you earn your keep around here, slave. You never let go of it.”
    Lucy stared back at Lips. She was thinking how she should demand her clothes and walk out right now, just cut her losses.
Coward
. Will’s voice was in her head again.
    “What are you looking at me for, white hair? Don’t look atme. Don’t look at any Slut unless you are instructed to,” Lips said.
    Lucy looked down. She could do this. If they had all done it, then she could do it too.
They need me to prove myself
, she thought. She had to try her best. She would work hard. She’d show them that they couldn’t break her.
    “Give me your scrub brush,” a girl said, stepping out from the circle.
    Lucy extended her brush to the girl.
    “What the hell are you doing?” Lips shouted.
    “I—She said to …”
    “And I said never let go of your brush! Are you thick?”
    “And I said give me your brush!” the other girl said. “You gotta do what I say.”
    Lucy pulled the brush back. The Sluts
ooh’d
and shook their heads like Lucy had just spat in her face.
    “You’re gonna pay for that,” the girl said.
    “Damn,” another Slut said. “Making enemies on your first day.”
    “What do you think of our new slave, ladies?” Lips clamped her hand down on the back of Lucy’s neck, and the pain made her wince. “I don’t think she’s gonna make it.”

12
    HILARY SAT ON THE BLEACHERS IN THE GYM, in the same spot she’d