The Mad Ophelias: Chapter 15
⋈ Sometime in the past.
Previously on TMO: If you’re new here, you can pop over to the Prologue for the beginning (bottom of the chapter is a link to the next one, etc.). For everyone else, in the last chapter Wil made the very poor decision to try to escape, and we are back now with Ophelia the morning after she showed SlyDevil her very extensive, and very hidden, gun collection.
I TEXT IN SICK. Zero memory of getting back into SlyDevil’s car, or the ride home, or how I got into my apartment. Stabbing pain behind my eyeballs. My mouth tastes slightly like vomit, so maybe that happened. I just hope it’s all in the toilet. The dim light coming through the rain-streaked windows is way too bright.
Milton sits on my feet and eyes me. There’s a cat turd on the covers.
Two hours past mealtime.
Right.
Slide out of bed, cold wood floors, a dark bruise blooming on my forearm. Must have peeled off my clothes because they’re lying in a heap on the floor and I’m just in my bra, my underwear, but everything I bought at Lake City Liquor is neatly grouped on the kitchen table. Arranged. The jerky and BBQ potato chips, the crowbar and power drill. Red bouffant wig hooked over the back of a chair. Box of fancy cat treats on the floor, chewed at and clawed some.
Milton hops onto the kitchen counter and flicks his hairless tail.
Dishes are washed and neatly stacked.
Trash can empty with a new bag inside it.
Bottle of water and ibuprofen I did not buy next to the toaster.
I don’t know what it means. What I’m supposed to do. Is this friending? So I grab the box from the floor and open the fridge for the half-can of cat food calling itself salmon pâté, open the bag of cat treats and shake a few on the top as apology, leave it on the counter so I don’t get a claw swipe putting it on the floor.
I look at the ibuprofen. The dishes. Something is expected. A text, probably. But what goes in the text? Could I just get away with an emoji?
Christ, which one is for thanks?
Buzz, buzz, buzz of my phone near my pillow. I know who it is. Feel the weight of it. Another attachment. But I walk over and grab it anyway, unlock the screen.
don’t freak
Too late.
She posts a URL and I suck air through my teeth. A 15-second clip of grainy security camera footage from the range posted to our social group. Heart in my throat watching, but thank god it’s too high up and the glasses, the hat, obscure my face.
Managed to get a lot of shots off in fifteen seconds.
Not bad kiddo. I can almost feel my father clapping me on the back.
The post already has 900 hearts and a long thread of comments, everything from ‘You go, girl’ and ‘I wanna see her play John Wick’ to ‘This bitch is nuts’ and ‘I’d tap that.’
heard anything from the others? I text back to SlyDevil.
nah. bet madhatter’s pissed as shit
tru. we should play it cool for a while
i was born cool. later
Missed a call too from Eyasi, yesterday, pre-gun range. Odd. We all have each other’s contact info, phone tree for organizing kind of thing, but she’s never called me before. There’s a message.
Hello Ophelia. This is Eyasi. Look, there is something I want to talk to you about but I do not want to say too much on a voicemail. Please call me back. It is not urgent but it is…concerning. Please call me. Thank you.
Life was so much simpler when it was just me and Milton.
I WALK THE BLOCK holding an umbrella for cover. Look for a car with men in it parked by a curb, a solo man hanging out on the stoop of a store under an overhang, a landscaping truck in front of a house that doesn’t need landscaping, a dark van with a ladder on top and tinted windows.
But it’s all regular, intermittent traffic, most people at work somewhere else. Only person I run into on the sidewalk is a woman with baggy eyes and a baby in a sling heading into the coffee shop. I hold the door open for her.
For someone to get the security footage, money must have passed hands. My bet’s on MadHatter. Why though? I don’t like that I can’t find the answer.
Pass by the entrance of the apartment building, mailman in the lobby stacking envelopes in the boxes which feels like bad juju so I keep going, turn right for the side entrance which is clear, but I keep going because I should check the alley. Be sure.
No one in the alley, not even Benny, no sign of the cardboard and sleeping bag he’d stash under the dumpster that’s half full of trash bags, pizza boxes, beer bottles that should’ve gone into the recycling. Look up at the windows but the only light on is mine.
Milton perched on the sill, staring at me. Knows he’s not supposed to jump up on the window. Frame is so weak I almost pushed out a pane of glass when I first moved in.
Cell in my back pocket buzzes. Now what’s she want? But it’s not SlyDevil—it’s RoskHill. SOS. heading to MadHatter’s now
There’s a link to a news article too. Pregnant woman shot, hospitalized after immigration enforcement stop.
Still image from a bystander of the woman’s face.
Eyasi.
The cell in my hand drops to the ground.
ODDSBOTS LETS ME IN, eyes red and puffy from crying. The blinds are drawn. Only light on is the rattan globe above the dining table, but I guess that’s not where we’re sitting because RoskHill and Vajrapani are sunk into the Pottery Barn gray couch with its feather-down cushions, MadHatter on the brown leather armchair like it’s a throne, booted feet resting on her glass coffee table, chin pointedly turned away from me. A large mirror hangs on the wall where a modernist painting used to be. Giant blotchy red squares and a roughed-in cubist female face in black and yellow. Ugly as hell but SlyDevil said the artist was famous.
She’s not here, SlyDevil. I texted her but didn’t hear back, and I’ve just got my burner phone so now I won’t.
MadHatter’s huge Capitol Hill apartment: three bedrooms, dark wood floors, high ceilings, view of the park across the street that’s filled with mothers and small children during the day, heroin junkies at night.
She uses one bedroom as a bedroom, the second as a yoga studio, and the third no one’s seen because the door’s always locked. One time I dropped by to see her, and when she went into the kitchen to make some coffee, I quietly padded over to the mystery door, crouched down, tried to peer through the keyhole. It felt hinky. Like when that guy handed me a red cup of room temperature beer and I was trying to be someone else and I didn’t know what beer was supposed to taste like so I drank it, stereo so loud I could feel the bass in my rib cage. It’s hard to listen to, this sense. It’s never connected to anything logical. Just gray space. So I’d looked through the keyhole and found that MadHatter had stuck a piece of black tape over the other side, which told me something, but nothing too. More gray space.
OddsBots settles on the couch, wiping her nose with a bunched-up tissue. That leaves a hard wooden stool, which suits me fine.
It’s hot. At least five degrees too hot. But I leave my wool coat on, hands in my pockets. Sit on the stool and put one foot on the rung, keep one foot on the floor. Glock is in my waistband holster at the small of my back. Not that I think I’ll need it. But still.
Vajrapani and RoskHill won’t look at me. So I know we’re going to pretend to have a discussion, but it’s already happened. A decision’s been made, next steps chosen. And I bet it’s not another protest. I’ll be given the option to come along for the ride or drop away. The rest is theater.
Silence. OddsBots’s knee bounces. She looks at MadHatter, me, MadHatter. “Are we waiting for SlyDevil?”
“I don’t think we need to,” I say. “She’s not shy about sharing her opinion. Anyone talk to Moshe?” Met him once at the unofficial baby shower RoskHill organized. One of those skinny guy types with a goatee working in software. Long fingers. Glasses. Didn’t say much but hovered in the background, refilling Eyasi’s water glass, taking empty plates back to the kitchen, topping up the bowl of chips.
“He’s not answering,” says RoskHill.
“The baby…” OddsBots twists the tissue in her hand.
“Baby’s fine,” I say.
This gets MadHatter to turn. “How do you know?”
“Called the hospital. Talked to a nurse. The bullet grazed Eyasi’s arm. They’re holding her for observation because her blood pressure is high. They want to rule out pre-eclampsia.”
OddsBots puts her hand on her chest. “Oh thank god.”
“It’s still not okay,” says Vajrapani. “A lot of pregnant women die of eclampsia.”
RoskHill rubs at the chenille arm. “And the hospital just told you that over the phone?”
“I might have implied I was a reporter and this was on background.”
“She’s in even more danger then.” MadHatter’s voice is calm, steady. “They’ll want to make an example of her.”
It’s true. Probably go with some kind of anchor baby-sanctuary city-soft on crime spin until some journalist is able to dig up an overdue library book or unpaid parking ticket or an unflattering photo with her mouth half open. The trick isn’t getting her out of the country to somewhere safer—Canada maybe—it’s getting her out of the hospital.
“We can’t just sit here waiting and do nothing,” says RoskHill, which sounds prepared.
A loose tear trickles down OddsBots’s cheek that she pushes away with the back of her hand.
“So then the question,” says MadHatter, “is how do we respond?”
“We should call in a bomb threat, just storm the hospital and bust her out of there,” says Vajrapani quickly, which also sounds prepared.
A part of me actually likes that idea. Of course with a bomb threat they’d just go into lockdown so you’d need to toss a smoke canister and flash-bangs into a duct to trigger an evacuation, dress in scrubs and surgical masks so no one notices you in the commotion—there’s potential. But not enough talent in this room. Or time.
An expectant silence follows.
“Sounds good,” I say. “You want me to call in the bomb threat?”
MadHatter crosses her arms over her chest.
“Because we should get this over with sooner than later.” I pull out my burner. “I don’t have any plans tonight, do you guys?”
“Hilarious. I guess we should just let them lock her up in some detention center and then ship her off,” MadHatter says snappishly.
“Am I arguing with you?” I turn to the others, assuming an innocent expression. “Let’s call in a bomb threat and storm the hospital. If that’s what everyone wants, I agree. I don’t know how I can make myself clearer.”
MadHatter’s foot propped up on the coffee table moves back and forth like Milton’s tail when he’s pissed.
“Of course…people will be in surgery. Elderly cancer patients. Babies in the NICU. All of them getting rushed out into the parking lot, the cold, the rain.”
RoskHill glances nervously at Vajrapani. “I never said we should storm the hospital.”
“We were just brainstorming,” says Vajrapani. “Jeez.”
It’s subtle, but I watch MadHatter recapture what her face was giving away. Her foot relaxes. “How can we complain then?” she asks evenly. “How can we complain when they shoot a pregnant woman, not because she’s dangerous, or armed, or threatening, but because they want to use her as an example? As a communication tool. To tell other women like her that they’re not safe here. That they should leave voluntarily or risk their lives, their babies’ lives. If we don’t say anything back…well, we can’t really complain.”
“So what do you want to say back?”
“An eye for an eye.”
Everyone else says an eye for an eye like an amen and a prayer. Hard to keep my head from nodding along. Hiss of the iron radiator with its peeling, white paint. Someone down the hall slams their door shut. I wish SlyDevil was here. No one’s got my six. Not even me.
The farm when the summer sky was darkening even though it was midday, heavy clouds thick with water, dry earth waiting.
“They take one of ours, we take one of theirs.”
“Who?”
“That man who’s always at the press conferences. The one who called Eyasi a degenerate, illegal alien. We could use him as a hostage until they release her.”
State representative from Eastern Washington, he’s always shooting down Power to the People even though he’s in the only part of the state that actually gets sun. Slicked-back hair and a weaselly grin, tailored gray suits and puffed-out chest. Just like the rooster that used to chase me until I grabbed it by the neck and flung it against the wall of the barn. Kept its distance after. Cracked my father up but he said you can do that with a chicken but don’t you ever poke a bear. Much as he hated the government, much as he armed up and stocked up and plotted and planned, it was all for the lawless apocalypse for when it collapsed. Never an offensive. Never anything that could give them a reason to bust down the door.
And they didn’t until I took the first shot.
The idea of it though. The idea of scooping up the weasel and throwing him into the back of a van is like the Johnnie warming my throat on the way down.
Still. None of them have a record. At least that I know of.
They look at me, trying to get a read. “I’m not saying we should do nothing. But kidnap him? Seriously? First off, he’s state, not federal, so the feds aren’t going to give a serious shit about him, but for fun, let’s say they do. OddsBots, how are we going to get past his security? He’s always got a couple of beefy guys with him.”
OddsBots swallows.
“Vajrapani, where would we stash him? Your house? We going to tie him to a chair in the basement? What’s the plan for taking care of him 24/7? The eating, the peeing, the shitting and sleeping parts. Who’s got that much accrued vacation and sick time? You RoskHill?”
MadHatter takes her feet off the coffee table and sits up. “If we—“
“And you,” I say, staring her down. “What’s your plan for the entire governmental apparatus of the most powerful nation in the world turning its eye on us, with satellites, security cameras, agents, military personnel, investigators. If they’re going to make an example of Eyasi, what kind of example would they want to make of us? Considering someone just posted our little gun range field trip online, I don’t think it’d take them long to figure it out. And please tell me you didn’t use your real IDs there.”
Silence. The others look nervous now. Good.
MadHatter’s eyes narrow. “So we do nothing.”
“We do the smart thing,” I say. “Plan B. Find a kickass lawyer who’d take the case pro bono for the exposure, find a way to get the story picked up in national media outlets, keep interest from fizzling out through a drip campaign. Election’s coming up, and while he’s a shoo-in, he’s got national ambitions. Kind of thing an opponent will use in a debate if it doesn’t blow over soon. Unless everyone wants to proceed with plan A and has, I don’t know, about $100-300K lying around for legal fees.”
OddsBots, RoskHill and Vajrapani stare at the floor.
Just then there’s a knock at the door.
“It’s the cops,” whispers OddsBots.
“I seriously doubt that,” I say, getting up to walk over and look through the peephole. “Nope, not the cops. Just the devil.”
I undo the latch and open the door.
SlyDevil stands in the hallway, cradling paper bags with liquor bottles peeping out of the top. “Goddamnit, why the fuck aren’t any of you answering your phones?”
She barges past me into the apartment. “I mean, what’s the fucking point if I can’t get a hold of you in a fucking crisis? Now who’s going to get the fucking glasses or do I have to do every goddamn fucking thing?”
OddsBots seems relieved to have something to do, and Vajrapani jumps up to help her.
“Three bottles of cheap beer ago I had the most brilliant fucking idea,” says SlyDevil as she pulls the liquor out of the bag. “What we could do. Way better than a protest. Something theatrical. Memorable. Viral. All we need are some paint supplies, a dark van, and a way to hack someone’s Wi-Fi, which I’m 90% sure my fourteen-year-old nephew can show me. You remember that “Woman’s Body Found In” exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum? You know, with the mannequins?”
No one says a word.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, I gave you all tickets. No one went?” She crumples the paper bags into balls, tosses them toward a silver trash can, and misses. “At any rate, it’ll make men shit their pants. And the best part? It’ll be fun. Where the fuck are my glasses!”
Lawyer would have been better. And I might have been able to get a line on what Eyasi’s message was about under the umbrella of client confidentiality, but at least everyone’s excited about something other than kidnapping. The booze will help smooth things further, which is probably why SlyDevil brought it.
MadHatter leans back in her armchair, face relaxed. Too relaxed. Eyes looking inward like she’s got some other plan B of her own.
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© 2026 J. Lincoln Fenn. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction published as a serialized novel on Substack. No part of this work may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the author’s prior written permission. First publication rights reserved by the author.