They were against her. The whole world was against her.
Sami crouched on her bed, elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. It had been four days since those few dozen outsiders had spent the night in Morgan's backyard, and somehow he had convinced his parents to go along with it. After eating every scrap of food in his kitchen, the interlopers had staggered off to some old half-filled warehouse, and everyone had acted like the problem was solved. Sami could still remember how the rest of the militia had so smugly told her that she had been wrong to worry.
Sami stood up from her bed, hair falling in a mess over her eyes. With a rush of anger, she brushed it away, but it just fell back.
She showered, quickly so she didn't waste water, and dressed herself in leather pants and a short-sleeved black coat with red diagonal stripes running over the front like claw marks. Barefoot, she padded into the bathroom, her spongy hair dripping onto the glazed wooden floor. Over the sink, she looked at herself in the mirror like a huntress facing down a troll. She brushed her teeth fiercely, then soaked her face and padded it gently with a hand towel.
Now her real morning ritual began. The makeup went on first, giving a frame to her eyes, and some lipstick brightened her lips. The black girls all had strong, neat features, but Sami's face was dull without something to enhance it. Just another reason to hate myself.
Now came the painful part. Grabbing the right half of her hair, she bunched it into a single massive pigtail and forced a hair tie over it, doubling and tripling the tie over itself. The pigtail yanked at her roots, assaulting her thoughts with constant pain. But if she didn't wear her hair this way, nobody would notice her. She would not just be alone, but forgotten.
She forced the other pigtail into submission, and they pulled symmetrically, trying to rip her head in half. But in return, they made her look big, bold and strong. If lie to myself, maybe it'll come true.
After pulling her shoes on, she stormed out of her room. She had a few hours before her first class, and if she didn't hit the gym to blow off steam, she'd be angry all day. As she left the house, she slammed the front door behind her, hoping that one of her parents would wake up and come running, or yell at her through the walls, or do something, anything at all, to acknowledge her. They didn't. In all her nineteen years, they never had.
"Go to Hell," she muttered at them, even though she didn't believe in Hell.
The sun was low. In only a few weeks, the world would go dark. Then the air would cool off, mosquito season would be on, and she'd have to wear long sleeves, just like everybody else. She didn't look forward to it.
In the low, steep light, shadows reached all the way across the road like oily black fingers. A few awnings had been adjusted to keep up with the angle, but the sun was so weak, most people hadn't bothered yet.
This early in the morning, the streets had more outsiders than natives. Every day, more of them showed up. As Sami walked, they eyed her from their nooks and shadows, shrinking away or whispering to each other. All of them were female. They kept their men hidden away so the other street trash wouldn't kidnap and rape them, or just for the joy of keeping someone down. For poor women to keep their men trapped was a tradition almost as old as the gender imbalance. Not that there weren't good reasons for it too. As soon as a poor boy got a moment of freedom, he'd abandon his family, leaving no dowry to pay them back for the trouble of raising him. Then he'd turn up a few months later married to some middle-class girl who wanted a man all to herself, but wouldn't stoop to paying for him. Poor boys always tried it when they got the chance, so no one ever gave them that chance.
Halfway to the gym, Sami notice a couple of the street urchins following her. She saw them reflected in a window ahead. Both were both taller than her and almost as muscled, with grim faces and ugly, knotted hair. Sami turned a corner, and their footsteps followed her.
