She nodded, but paused as the door opened again. Callah slipped in with her wet hair tied up at the back of her neck. The dampness turned the color darker, nearly strawberry blonde. As her eyes fell on Meri, her brow furrowed for a moment before she hurried over to claim the other side.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Gideon," I explained.
"No..." Callah breathed, fearing the worst.
Meri just shook her head. "He's going to live. Ayla saved him, Callah! He said we'll still get married, but asked if we could wait until the seventh day." Then her lips split into a grin. "And he officially proposed!"
Callah and I both sucked in a breath, twisting to see her even better. "And it counts now, right?" Callah asked excitedly.
Meri was nodding her head vigorously. "It's officially my birthday, so yes."
Callah squealed in enthusiasm, doing her best to keep the volume as quiet as possible. "Oh, that's amazing. Meri, you don't know how lucky you are to have a young man. I mean, Gideon's even handsome!"
"Not as handsome as some," Meri pointed out, but her smile ruined the humble words.
"More handsome than my options," I reminded her.
"Or mine," Callah groaned, flopping onto her back. "I mean, I could choose Boaz Alred, but I'm not sure he can even propose anymore!"
"They'll remove him from your list before you turn twenty," I reminded her.
Because Boaz had slipped and fallen a few weeks back. When his head hit the stone, his thoughts had been banished from his mind. The man could barely walk even with assistance, and he couldn't move his limbs well enough to feed himself. No longer would he be capable of producing children, which was the entire purpose of marriage.
"All the rest of my choices are old," Callah went on. "And I heard Reynold Saunders is available again."
"He is," Meri admitted. "His last wife died recently while bringing his twelfth child into the world."
Those words made all three of us fall silent. The poor woman had been thirty-four years old. A respectable age for a woman, and older than most. Yet while no one spoke about what complications she'd suffered, I could guess. The baby had been breech, or too big, or she'd started bleeding. That was always what happened. It was how every woman seemed to die in the compound.
But thirty-four was only a bit more than fourteen years older than us. Few women managed to survive so long. The three of us now had less time left than we'd had of life. We were nineteen years old - well, except Meri, who'd just turned twenty as of a few hours ago. It didn't feel like enough.
"You're going to be okay, right?" I asked, looking over at Meri.
She smiled, but it was a little tense. "Haven't you seen my hips, Ayla? I'm going to be one of those women who has ten children and lives to be forty! Besides, Gideon swears he'll spoil me. I shouldn't be bred all the time, right?"
Callah laughed, but it was strained. "Even if you are, we'll spoil your babies, Meri. Who knows, maybe with Gideon being hurt, it'll be a bit before you consummate the marriage?"
"His wounds are significant," I pointed out. "Who knows, maybe you'll even have a month before he can breed you?"
"I wouldn't mind kissing him, though," Meri admitted. "He's just so handsome. I mean, he has these muscles in his arms that bulge and make me want to giggle. Plus, Mrs. Patterson told me some women enjoy being bred."
Callah and I both made faces. We girls had heard the rumors. We knew what happened in the marriage bed. For the last three years, we'd all had the same class to prepare us for our wedding nights. Men would insert themselves inside us, we would bleed, and that blood would be proof of our faith. Without it, we could be rejected as heathens and cast out of the compound.
"How long do you think someone could live aboveground?" I asked, the thought springing randomly into my mind.
"Ayla!" Callah hissed. "You saw the hunters tonight!"
"Well, yeah..."
"Yeah?" Meri chimed in, mocking me. "They spend a few days up there and always come back like that! If they - the men trained to fight - can't survive it, then what chance does anyone else have? Especially some feeble woman!"
"And we lost four hunters tonight," Callah told me. "Four young, strong men who were killed by the Dragons."
"But what if one could avoid the Dragons?" I asked.
The look Meri gave me was tired. "It's not possible, Ayla. You know that."
"Yeah," I mumbled, "but it's not like we're going to live long down here either."
"But we'll have children to remember us by," Meri pointed out. "Up there, it's just demons and the Devil's followers."
Callah leaned to push my arm playfully. "Unless you're planning to worship the Devil? I mean, that might buy you some time. At least until the wild men decide to use your body as their toy."
"Eww!" I huffed. "No thank you!" I almost stopped there, but couldn't. "It's just that I'm not ready."
"You have months still," Callah assured me.
"I know," I muttered, "but I'm still not ready. I don't like any of my choices. I mean, I'll get Reynold Saunders too! How am I supposed to be ready for a life where I'll be impaled repeatedly by some old man?"
"It's easier with a young and handsome choice," Meri admitted. "If Gideon had passed tonight?" She shook her head. "I don't think I could do it either."
"But what other option do we have?" Callah asked.
"None. It is our duty to be fruitful," Meri said, quoting part of our lectures.
"Always fruitful," Callah muttered even as she pulled herself off the bed and made her way over to her own. "And I'm glad Gideon lived, but my eyes feel like they have the Lord's hands pulling them lower."
