2. Chapter two #2
I force a breath through my lungs, roll my shoulders, and make myself smaller.
Slack my features, widen my eyes. Tilt my chin down.
Insecure. Timid. Seventeen . Not twenty.
A scared kid who needs saving, not a man they can discard.
I chant my new birth year over and over, trying to make me believe I’m actually seventeen and hope to the Gods I come across genuine.
The line shuffles forward slowly. Hours go by.
People vanish through the checkpoint doors and don’t come back out, unless they’re dragged onto the boat again, screaming and crying.
The rest? They’re probably guided to new homes, new jobs, new lives.
Lucky bastards with a dog tag hanging off their necks, a claim to a spot on Ibitha.
Ibitha… where the walls are high, and Watchers stand guard to keep the Walkers out. The safest place left in this part of the world—at least, that’s what the word on the street is.
I try not to look at one of those mythical Watchers. The black-haired, golden-skinned one that saved me from the Walker. He’s all darkness and sharp edges, carved from violence. But my eyes snag anyway.
He stands like a tall shadow stitched into the docks, right beside the checkpoint doors. Smoke curls lazy from his lips, his jawline set hard as stone, and those pitch-black eyes rake over the line like he’s measuring every soul in it.
The dockworkers and other Watchers circle near him but never too close. Not because they don’t notice him—because they do. His presence is a blade, and no one wants to be the fool who leans in and gets cut.
My mother would’ve muttered about his aura, called it a warning, a perimeter all its own.
All stay away from him, all except her. The tall, warrior-like woman at his side. She smacks him in the stomach with a casual hand when he mutters something under his breath. He winces hard and shoots her a glare sharp enough to set anyone else on fire, but she only rolls her eyes and smirks.
There are only a handful of people left before me when the air shifts. The door to the checkpoint swings open, and a woman steps out.
And shit, I don’t know her name, but she’s important. I can just see it. The way what’s left of the crowd hushes, the way people look away too fast. The way the Watchers and workers seem to hold themselves higher.
All except for the broody one, who just squints and huffs, bulging arms scattered in scars crossed.
The woman is tall, blonde, draped in silk that doesn’t belong to this world anymore, with a red cloak around her shoulders. Her sharp smile doesn’t reach her eyes, which are calculated, cold, sweeping the line with the kind of ownership that makes my stomach drop.
“What are you doing out here, Joyeus?” the dark Watcher says. “Didn’t find enough poor souls to snatch inside? Or did you get bored counting your coin?”
She lets out a laugh too high, too polished.
“Ah, Max. Good to see you back in one piece. Didn’t Commander Roe let you have a single day off after that spectacular little show in the Pit last night?
If you’re ever low on funds, the offer still stands, you know.
People would pay a hefty sum just for a taste of you. ”
He only raises a brow. Silent. Unbothered. Dangerous. The dark-haired woman next to him snickers at his defiance.
“Well hello, Tass,” the newcomer purrs, turning her sharp smile on her. “I saw you last night in my den. Losing yourself quite nicely, weren’t you?”
The warrior-woman tenses, muttering something sharp under her breath, words I can’t catch.
“Just hobble along, you old goat,” Max growls, shoulders tensing. “Leave her the fuck alone.”
“Careful, Max.” Joyeus’ voice softens. “You wouldn’t want to insult a member of the Nine, would you? Or are you really that desperate to crawl back into the Pit the second you’ve won your freedom?”
The corner of his mouth curls, slow and lethal. “Watch me.”
And shit, the way he says it, the weight in those two words… My blood runs cold and hot at the same time.
Like he heard my shaky inhale, that dangerous gaze cuts to me. Just for a second—but enough. Enough for the silk-draped woman, Joyeus, whoever the hell she is, to notice where he’s looking. To notice me.
Her eyes sharpen, then widen in something that looks far too much like excitement.
“Well… what do we have here? I might get lucky after all.”
She steps forward, silk dragging against the dock planks, and my stomach drops. Instinctively, my eyes dart to the Watcher named Max, like he’s safer than her, like he isn’t the kind of man who held me by the throat moments ago.
I backpedal, panic clawing up my chest, but the sole of my flip-flop skims the dock’s edge. Saltwater churns below, dark and unforgiving, and I freeze so I don’t tumble in. I can’t fucking swim.
She stops right in front of me, smiling like a knife. The mother and child who’d been ahead of me seize the chance, scurrying over the dock into the checkpoint building, leaving me alone in her sights.
Her cold gaze drags over me, slow and deliberate. From my filthy, unruly hair to my dirt-streaked face to the blood on my toes.
“Where are your papers?” she demands, her voice all silk and steel.
“I—I don’t have them,” I stammer, throat dry. “My father… My father got attacked on the boat by a Walker. He died.” My head jerks toward the ship, pulse thundering from the nerves.
“No papers means no entrance.” The warrior-woman, Tass, cuts in as she steps closer, tone sharp. “Did you know that?” Then she looks over her shoulder, straight at Max. “Can we check the body for the papers?”
He’s closer now. Watching me intently, too intently, and something shifts in that dark gaze as he tilts his head just slightly.
His voice comes out rough, dismissive. “No need. They already hauled it away, but I saw the papers when I checked the body before finding the Walker. It’s true, there was something about a son on it. ”
Her eyes flick between us, assessing. “Really?”
I blink at him, but try to hide my surprise.
Not knowing if he just signed my death sentence.
Because there are no papers, at least none that mention me.
And they also didn’t get rid of the body.
I saw them dragging crates and cargo off that ship, but not a dead man who would have my supposed paperwork on him.
No boarding papers means no entrance. No entrance means I’m hauled straight back onto that boat. But now Max said that the body was my dad’s and he checked the paperwork… I can play my minor card.
I just don’t know why the fuck he would help me.
Tass’s gaze pins me in place. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” I blurt, too fast, my pulse jackhammering in my throat.
Both women study me. Joyeus with that cutting smile, Tass with something colder, harder, like she’s just waiting for me to crack.
“Do you have any other form of identification?” Tass presses.
I shake my head, jaw tight, praying they can’t hear how hard I’m swallowing. “No. My dad—”
“Has the papers.” She rolls her eyes like she’s already tired of this. “We should get the body,” she says then, already shifting her weight to turn.
Joyeus stops her by lifting one hand, then tilts her head, eyes bright with something that makes my skin crawl. “If he’s a minor, he’s allowed to stay. When do you turn eighteen?”
“Couple of months.”
Her smile sharpens. “Then he can fall under my care until he is of age.”
My stomach plummets. Care? She makes it sound like mercy. But from the way Max stiffens, the way his glare snaps to her, I know better.
“That’s not up for discussion,” Max growls. “He should go to one of the Houses, not your godsdamn brothel. He can’t work for you.”
A brothel . My chest clamps tight, the air shoving out of me. That’s what she means. That’s what she wants. She’s here to scout people to come work for her.
Joyeus spreads her arms, mock-innocent. “As far as I see it, he normally has the choice all underaged do. He can go back on the boat right now or he can rot in the orphan house like you two did. You know he’ll end up with me anyway when he turns eighteen, like all the skill-less who can’t find work do.
” Her smile cuts sharper. “I send most of them straight to the mainland when I have no use for them.” She leans in, voice dropping.
“But this one? With that face? He has a third option. He can come with me right now, learn the lay of the land before he’s eighteen.
Serve five years. Then he earns his freedom. ”
Freedom . The word lands like a noose around my neck like my mother’s parting words: Live Kieran, Live. Be free.
Max lets out a low, humorless laugh. “Yeah. Your kind of freedom.”
Joyeus turns her sharp grin on him. “Watch yourself, Max. We both know if you’re tossed back into the Pit right now, you wouldn’t last. Don’t think I missed you’ve been wincing with every move.”
His jaw locks, the muscle ticking in his cheek, but he doesn’t give her the satisfaction of a reply.
Joyeus doesn’t look at me again. She doesn’t need to wait for my answer. She knows what it’ll be. And when her hand closes around my arm, her nails biting into my skin, I let myself be hauled away because there’s no choice, not for someone like me.
The mainland means death. Maybe not quick, but certain. I barely survived the last few months as it is. If starvation doesn’t get me, the factions will. Looters too, the ones who chase boys like me for sport, laughing while they tear everything away.
And the orphanage… If it’s anything like the ones I’ve heard about, I’d rot there until they shipped me back out anyway.
Shit… she’s offering me something. Some kind of freedom.
Freedom on a leash, for five years. But freedom still. A price I’m willing to pay, because the alternative is worse. Even if… even if I can already guess what she’ll expect from me in return.
I don’t let myself think about it. Not yet. Not while, for all they know, I’m still underage. That buys me time. Time to make a plan. A plan to turn to when I supposedly turn eighteen. When I reach the age men can claim me without consequences.
But as she drags me toward the checkpoint, where they’ll put me in the system, where I’ll be registered and tagged, I glance back. He’s still there. Those pitch-black eyes cutting into me, tracking me like prey.
Like a tether.
Like a warning.
Like he’s already claimed me. And he’s just waiting to collect.