24
The Sharetakers’ money problems did not go away, and Rhys followed Teresa around the togetherments, pressuring her to ask her friends. “Why are you so resistant? If this guy Eduard is interested in your well-being, you should be able to talk him into helping us out. And that artist you keep seeing—Garth?—how many credits does he have?”
“Oh, Rhys, they’re not even members of our group.” A few workers continued dismantling walls even after dark, converting rooms into open areas. Everything was public, everyone in plain sight. Teresa had no place to hide. “I gave the Sharetakers everything I own. I did whatever you asked, because I want to be part of this enclave. But Eduard and Garth shouldn’t be expected—”
When she tried to walk away, looking for something important to do, Rhys grabbed her small bicep so hard that his fingers made painful indentations. “Give me a break, Teresa! You told me Eduard has a plush job, working for some rich man. What could he possibly need all his credits for? The Sharetakers could certainly use the money here. Don’t we deserve it?” Rhys frowned at her. “If your friend really cares for you, he would help you out. Help us out.”
She pulled her thin arm from his grasp, but this body felt so tiny, so easily overpowered. “That’s not the way a real friendship works, Rhys.”
Certainly some of the other recruits would have better prospects for raising money, but Rhys hounded Teresa in particular. Now, though, being “special” had degenerated into a nightmare.
After so many months of obstinate optimism, Teresa finally began to see the redheaded leader more clearly. Rhys often went out of his way to push her buttons, as if trying to provoke her. His abusive tendencies had been growing more and more apparent, but Teresa was so accommodating, so eager to please, that she often slipped past his wrath—and that made Rhys angrier still.
She kept hoping she could fix him. Perhaps he didn’t even know he was doing it, and she could make him see what was happening. “Rhys, all the Sharetakers give what we can . . . but forcing me to pressure other people, that goes against our philosophy. Don’t you see?”
His face turned a dark red. “You’re talking to me about my own philosophy? You think you understand it better? You’re just a follower, Teresa, and not even one of the brighter ones—”
As she watched his anger escalate, Teresa tried again, more careful now. “Oh, Rhys, please calm down. I know how much you’ve done for the group. We know how hard you think, how tough it is to run the enclave.” She lowered her already small voice. “All Sharetakers are partners, equals—you don’t need to resort to power plays with me, or with any of us.”
Inside the open togetherments, the Sharetakers could hear everything she said—and Rhys was acutely aware of the fact. As she tried to be reasonable, Teresa felt many eyes on them, dozens of spectators observing a confrontation. “Rhys, if we need credits, I could bring some work here into the enclave. I’ve done a few jobs searching COM, and there’s always somebody looking to hire those services. We could set up some COM terminals in here, link up to the whole network. Other members have experience, too, don’t you think? We could farm out for odd consulting jobs, do outside work. We could get a very good price on a dozen or so filmscreens—”
Instead of being convinced, though, Rhys reacted as if this were the last straw. “No COM terminals!” Teresa flinched. She could feel the heat on his skin. “They spy on everything.”
Teresa took a small step away from him. “Rhys, it was just a suggestion. I was only trying to help.”
“I’m sick of your useless trying. Always trying, never doing.” He shoved her away from him, and she stumbled backward, disoriented in her waifish body. He took her fall as an affront. “I didn’t push you that hard! Get up.”
Rhys jerked her to her feet, yanking her thin arm hard. “Please stop it, Rhys. You’re hurting me.”
“Don’t be such a weakling. Always whining, always finding excuses not to do your share.” Teresa honestly didn’t know what he was talking about, how he could have imagined such failings in her.
In the adjoining areas of the togetherment, Sharetakers stopped their work. Teresa looked at some of the familiar faces, questioning—but when she turned her gaze, the moment he wasn’t the full and complete center of her attention, Rhys slapped her hard across the cheek.
“Look at me, dammit! This is between us, not you and them.”
Her skin burned. “Leave me alone, Rhys! I’m doing everything—” She raised her hands, but that provoked him to hit her harder.
“You’re doing nothing. You yourself are nothing. You’re just sponging off the hard work the rest of us are doing.”
“That’s not true!” Biting back a cry of pain, she pulled, trying to break free. With a wicked grin, Rhys let go of her arm just as she tugged. She sprawled backward, hitting her head against the remnants of the nearest wall.
Two Sharetaker workers scurried away, looking sidelong at Rhys. No one helped her.
“Now look at what you’ve done!” He stepped closer and kicked her in the hip. Not hard—but he was just warming up. “Not only have you upset me, but you’re interrupting the work routine, disturbing other members.”
She rolled away, trying to get her footing again.
“What have you been telling them when I’m not here to listen?” His eyes blazed. “Distorting Sharetaker philosophy? We welcomed you into the enclave as one of us, and this is how you repay me? For all the love I’ve given you?”
“But Rhys, I never said—”
He cuffed her so hard that blood trickled from a cracked lip. No matter what she said, what she did, his reaction darkened, like a tiny pattering of pebbles building to an avalanche. Rhys’s words weren’t even meant for her: they were intended for the Sharetaker audience around him. He was performing now, putting Teresa in her place.
With a sick feeling that hurt even more than the physical blows, she recalled the previous disenchanted members who had spoken against Rhys—and how they had been ostracized and forcibly evicted. She had never thought it would happen to her.
Trying to get up, Teresa felt a sharp pain in her wrist. Rhys lashed out once more, kicking hard this time. She folded. In the wonderful open environment of the Sharetakers’ quarters, she had no doors to lock, no place of safety.
She got to her knees and began to crawl away, but Rhys hit her in the small of the back with his bunched fist. “You’re not welcome here anymore, Teresa!”
Her arms and legs gave out, spilling her flat on the floor. She looked around her for some sort of support. “Help me!”
The Sharetakers backed away. They looked uncertainly at Rhys for instruction, then glowered at her. “. . . never appreciated what we do around here.”
“. . . always clinging to Rhys . . .”
“. . . what did she bring to the group?”
The floor and the archways reeled around her, and Teresa could barely keep her balance. She eventually made it to the half-wall, leaving a blood smear on its freshly painted white surface.
The believers sided with Rhys, their leader, and left her out of their circle. Teresa could see it in their eyes—these people with whom she’d lived, shared, and swapped bodies over and over again. Now they bore the faces of strangers. Strangers.
Rhys found one of the small hammers among some tools in a corner. He picked it up and slapped the heavy black head against his palm.
Finally, full-fledged panic overwhelmed her. Teresa lurched away, but through a haze of tears and sweat and blood she couldn’t see where she was going. She turned in fear to look at Rhys one more time—just as he tossed the hammer at her. Teresa dodged sideways so that the hammerhead only clipped her collarbone. She heard the dry bamboo snap inside herself as the bone broke cleanly.
A surge of adrenaline muffled the nerve-shouts of pain. She looked through a red-black curtain of near-unconsciousness to see Rhys just standing there, watching her. The thrown hammer could have crushed her skull—could have killed her—and he had not missed on purpose.
Now he let her go with no more than a smug smile for farewell.
Battered, Teresa fled, forced to take slow lifters and stairs, while her tormentors slid down firepoles to reach the street level and cut her off. Blood tasted salty and metallic in her mouth. Her sides ached with broken-glass pain.
She just wanted to be far away, beyond the reach of the Sharetakers. Teresa would have to take the body she was wearing now, small and waifish and broken. The believers followed her, hurling insults, increasing the pain with their cruel taunts. In a few moments they might even turn into a mob, and she would never get out alive.
Badly injured, both physically and psychologically, Teresa knew of one place she could go, someone with resources who would welcome her and help her, no matter what.
Disoriented, she reeled toward the enclave doorway. She would run to Eduard for help.