"I lied you know," Lucky started with an apologetic sigh. "It did matter. What he had said and what had happened. It was relevant. It did hurt. What was done to me should have never come to pass.
Yes, the child broke a part of me that I'd already buried and healed. I don't know what it was about trying to save the girl. You didn't see how hard I fought. That Markland had to pull me off of her and just let her go. She was gone before she hit the gurney. I knew it. He knew it. There was nothing left after that."
"Then what the hell were you two doing?" Boone growled. His fingers drummed angrily on the desktop, awaiting an answer he doubted he would get.
"I tried to make her presentable. Clean the blood from her. Apologized till I was sick. I didn't want to face her mother or let you know I had failed. It was another thing that I hated to admit, even if the chance of recovery was impossible.
It was only made worse when I heard her mother. The howling of a deeply wounded woman. It made me want my pound of flesh. Having the Legionary there only made the statement more poignant. More personal." Lucky's voice wavered softly as she gathered her thoughts. "You want honesty. No bullshit. The answer to the 'why' of diving off the deep end."
"Stop. You don't-" Boone argued.
"When I was with the Legion I was a slave to a mid-level asshole... We'll call him Papa, because it shames me too much to admit who I belonged to. It might also make you even angrier than you are right now – with the omission – to know that it was because of him that the Battle ended the way it did. Because I love him. It's ingrained, the ideal. It's impossible to explain to someone who's never lived it." In the background, the soft orchestral tones of Peggy Lee's "Johnny Guitar" ebbed through the chorus of longing.
"I was in my third year of captivity that I'd gotten pregnant. That would have made me – let me see – twelve." Lucky lit a cigarette and the strained squeak of a chair rocking came over the speaker. "I don't know what had pissed off Papa so bad, but like any other time, I took the brunt of his rage induced abuse. Every day I'd get the lash across my back, or when he'd rape me he'd carve a tick mark into the tops of my hands so I wouldn't forget what I was used for.
The abuse only got worse the more I started to show. He didn't care about me, I was a toy, a pawn. A 'wait till your father fucks up and I'll show you what a Legate can do.' It got to the point I wanted to die and I didn't want my child to be in that life. Of course I believed his words. I'd seen what he'd done to the other slaves he'd owned. Blinded them so that they couldn't see his face. I was spared that indignity, regretfully. He wanted me to watch everything, he always stood behind me, his blade at my back, and his thumb on the detonator to my collar.
One night, I didn't listen to him. I looked at him dead in the eye. I wasn't scared of what he would do. I was angry. Angry about what had happened to my uncle, how fucked my life was even if he didn't kill me – which I knew he would regardless of if he made his power play.
He beat me till I couldn't move anymore. Told me if my actions caused the death of his child that our little 'dance' was nothing compared to what he had planned for me already."
Boone stopped the tape and closed his eyes. Every muscle in his body trembled uncontrollably. He pulled his sunglasses off and rubbed the dampness from his eyes. He felt his emotions becoming overwhelming. The gentle and defenseless girl in the photograph. "It might have been easier on her if she'd died." He didn't realize the gravity of what had happened to her. His comments about not considering her as the motherly type. Irony: cold, cruel, and calculating sprang to mind. He hated that hindsight had dictated such utter disdain for an idea.
It was torturous. He had given her so little credit at the maternal side. He felt her layers coming away. Saw the photographs as an epitaph, a growth chart of inhumane actions. Of living death and he wondered if that's what she saw when she looked at him. From the time they met in Novac to this very moment.
He cracked his knuckles and with a shaky finger pressed the button to continue the requiem of life unrequited.
"I guess my body didn't heed his warning well enough. From what I remember of that day – which isn't much – he'd been in the field, training or some other bullshit thing. He was gone for most of it when I started to bleed. I knew what was happening. The pain was intense and I was scared. The previous onslaught had done exactly what he'd intended. Papa just wanted an excuse to beat me again.
When did he ever need one?
I – I -," Lucky stopped and cleared the gentle squeaks from her throat. Boone just wanted to hold her. This would have been so much easier if she wasn't so scared to look him in the eye and tell him everything she needed to say. "I gave birth to a little girl just before sundown. One of the slaves tried to help, but it made no difference. He came in as I held our child in my arms. She was so small, and nearly weightless, even swaddled in the dirty rags.
He almost seemed confused when he saw me there clutching her so closely. For a moment, I thought I saw pain and if it was there, it didn't take long before it was replaced by blinding rage. He was going to make good on his promise of what he would do to me. He took his helmet off. Told me he wanted me to look him in the eye as he was killing me.
After that... I don't know what happened. I just remember coming to under a blood-blurred night sky. Hard stone, hot breath and cold steel sliding between my legs before the full weight of a person could be felt. I could barely breathe. I felt like I was drowning. I probably was. I don't know how long I'd laid there outside the tent or what had happened to my child. I just knew I was going to die there.
Drifting in and out of consciousness isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's sporadic, protects through the manic moments of unknowing and the depressive moments of remembrance. From the darkest moments of pain and enduring rage, I knew little, felt less. There was one such moment of complete numbness where the stars hadn't dimmed. Even with all the evil being perpetrated it was still there, virgin and untouched."
Lucky's soft voice faded to nothing. Boone listened to the soft rustle of fabric and her breathing drifting into the aether. Breathy words of self-soothing escaped his friend's lips, probably unbeknownst to her.
Boone jumped from the chair, his mouth ran dry and he felt like it was impossible to swallow. He ran down the hallway, forgetting to pause the recording. He came to a stop and spun around. He was torn between listening to his friend, someone he'd consider his best, bleed emotions before him, or save the ounce of helpless sanity he had left.
"Why me," he muttered, his eyes fixating on the Pip-Boy in her room.
He ran his hand across his mouth, feeling the tiny splits forming in his tender skin, before deciding to get a drink of water. He didn't know how much more he could take of this; he knew there was nothing he could do for her now, but here he was giving her his proverbial shoulder. And that he would be late if she didn't speed up her damn issues.
He brought the glass back to the room; still no sound came from the speaker and he thought that she'd just stopped recording.
"Lucky?" he questioned to himself.
"I'm sorry. Usually I stop these silly things when it gets too difficult. I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts.
I probably wasn't in my right mind when I made my decision. Emotion based lunacy has a tendency to do that," Lucky uttered with a slight lilt in her voice.
Boone winced at the idea. He rubbed his shoulder and remembered that was where he'd been injured due to her decision.
"I can't forgive myself for what I'd put you through. But I learned something about me, about what drove my father to go on a suicide run so many years ago, or why you think you owe the world a huge debt. Reckless abandon, nothing to lose, but I was so very wrong about that. I had more to lose than I realized or intended to care about."