I don’t know how, how we got caught and ended up here, but we did. She said we didn’t have a choice, and she was one who was big on choices and freedom and all that. It kind of broke me when she had given up, even if she was screaming at the end, bloody defiant she was. But you could tell the fight had left her before that. She was just screaming to get it out of her system, to get it into the open just one last time because we had expected her to. For the morale, she might have said, but we knew better and she knew too. Funny how we fall into habits, even in the face of it, even when there’s no point to it anymore.
They had beaten us and that wasn’t enough for them, those were the rules. And yet, she still struggled, strapped in the chair, they nearly took her head off to shut her up. They thought that we were going to get riled up and they would have none of that, I myself couldn’t shed a tear for her, neither could the others. We all just hung our heads, our hands wrapped around the bars. We had stood all rather quickly, I think that was what had set them off, that’s what got them going a bit quicker. Putting more of a shoulder into each blow, but we were just standing out of respect. What else could we do, barely any skin on us, mostly bones, and broken at that. We knew that this was it, she couldn’t make it through another round, she had a hard time just keeping it altogether and that was just for us, to keep our heads straight on what this was about. It was a good show, she had said, smiling, her mouth bloody before they took her for the last time, they had been at it since the morning. We did, didn’t we, I had said, and then they opened the cage.
They weren’t smiling, this wasn’t a good time for them either, or if it was, it was decent of them not to show it. They were all business and dark gloves at their sides, standing, knowing that this was the good-bye part between me and her. I had helped her up, putting my arm around her, my hand on right where her bottom rib was and it gave under my fingertips, almost into her stomach. She winced and I didn’t want to do this, help her up into their hands anymore, but she nodded that it was all right, steadying herself against me, rising. She kissed me then, before they would take her hand and lead her out like a lady of the court, her blood on my lips, without another word of it.
The others were watching the two of us closely, waiting for some sort of sign, like it might’ve been the last go for all, if there was going to be any. She had trouble walking but they were very patient, very respectful, they had wanted her in the beginning, made her some outrageous offers, castles and islands in the sky and all that. They told tell her how wrong she was, what a mistake for her to have picked the losing team, how it hurt them to be doing this. She called them poofs and bastards and twits, laughing until the next blow fell, and they reminded her some more.
It didn’t matter who was next after that. I think it was Jimmy who first volunteered, after they snapped her neck and they were done with her, that’s when we started crying. All very quiet, most of us were still men, hung up on those notions. He was the youngest of us, and her son, but it wasn’t until there was barely a handful of us that we started putting up a fight. Garcia had his brains blown onto the back of his cell when he wouldn’t get up from his corner. No, he kept saying, they were jerking him up from his shoulders, Nonono. Until one of them who was pulling up just got sick of the sight, dropping Garcia and whipped out his gun, putting him as out of his misery without preamble.
Jonathan had managed to knock a couple of teeth out from a few of them, and they decided to play along, letting him even get as far as out of the cell. But when he looked up and down the corridor for a direction in which to go, one of them leapt onto his back, and both fell, Jonathan face first. They beat his bald head onto the cement until it was a wet sound. Lucille had scratched as many as she could, they didn’t seem to mind, maybe they even understood it. Surprisingly they hadn’t raped her, as they had with the others, the first ones that were sent in years ago. They calmly dragged her out of her cell, by then, she was wailing, offering her body. In front of my cell, they stopped and made her face me as they stood behind her.
I’ll do anything, Lucille had said, her face puffed out and ridiculously bruised. Tell them, with anyone of them, anything. She reached for the bars of the cell and pulled herself closer, panting, Tell them. I shook my head and stared at the floor. It was no use and I couldn’t let her do that, especially not after Jonathan, as a matter of principle. I couldn’t bear the thought that I had helped her do it. Bastard, she had said and she spat in my face, just above my lips, the blood on them already dry. Then she spun around, spreading her legs, writhing, hoping that they’ll catch her meaning, as she reached to undo her belt. Before she even got to the first clasp, they shot her dead.
I had been the last, they stopped with Lucille, and by that time, my ears were ringing, I couldn’t hear my own breathing, if I was still breathing, if I still could breathe. I kept touching my mouth mostly, until the next day, when one of them had come to the cage and unlocked the door, they hadn’t moved any of the bodies, still lying where they were killed. I hadn’t responded, or I hadn’t heard him, so he came into the cell and had stared at me, I think. He must’ve, I could see his shadow stretch across the floor and stop by my feet. Then his hand was under my chin and he had gently lifted it, that’s when I had first gotten the shakes, still to this day at the slightest touch they’re there. He had lifted my face and pointed to the opening between the bars, speaking in the Queen’s English. I don’t remember exactly what it was, just that he had said something I understood, in a language I hadn’t heard in years, and there was the door.