Chapter 6
6
Marcelis
I waited until dark, well after the chancellor’s residence had quieted. I double-checked my pack one last time, making sure I’d packed my anti-rejection medication. Solomon told me I needed to finish my supply, but at least I didn’t have to take it for the rest of my life the way people did before the war.
So, at least, there was that.
I put my arms through the straps and hoisted the bag onto my back, hardly having to use the cane as I descended the steps and slipped out the side door.
I snuck into the darkened cart house where I was to meet Thyle.
“Here . ” I found Thyle bent over, back-lit by a camel oil lamp. My sire didn’t waste precious electricity produced by the hydroelectric generators near shore on the cart house or the people working there. Thyle unfolded a cloth package and handed me the contents. “Put these on.”
The smell hit me before I could take them. “What’s that smell?”
“Put them on. Don’t worry about the smell.”
“ Thyle .” I took the package, but I already felt like I needed a good scrubbing.
His hands went to his hips. “I bought them off a beggar near the wall.”
The smell only worsened when I unfolded what appeared to be a shirt. “Maybe we should wash these first.”
Thyle sighed. “I did. But trust me, if you don’t smell, that will be the first giveaway you don’t belong out there.”
“Don’t they bathe?”
“It’s the fringe, Your Gr—” Thyle caught himself. “ Marcelis . It’s… different out there. Maybe you shouldn’t go. You could hire—”
Despite what might await me, I had to do this myself. “No. This is personal.”
As personal as it got.
And to prove I meant what I said, I took the clothes behind the cart and changed.
“Those too,” Thyle said as he glanced over in time to see me putting on the trousers over my underwear. “Beggars don’t have underwear. And if they do, it’s not silk.”
I grumbled, turned my back as I stripped off my underwear and pulled the stiff, coarse fabric over my body. The abrasiveness could have cleaned the rust off century-old steel pipe. One step, and I knew I’d rub my crotch raw within a mile.
I straightened, undeterred, and the hesitant grin on his face. “Happy?”
He coughed, covered his smile with his hand, and reached for my pack. “No, Your Gr—no. But I am a bit amused.”
Even though it was at my expense, it warmed my heart that Thyle felt comfortable enough around me to show this side of himself. Lowers were like everyone else, and I didn’t understand how or why the Primos refused to see that.
“Proper beggar, am I?”
“Not quite.” He finished loading my pack into the cart and stood back to look at me, shaking his head. “You’re too clean, and that hair…”
“What’s wrong with my hair?”
“That red hair is a beacon. Everyone knows the chancellor’s spawn is a ginger.”
“Not much I can do about that.”
Thyle’s face scrunched as he thought until he got a bright idea. He took a long strip of cloth from the pile of rags he used to polish my sire’s cart and wrapped it around my head, tucking in the stray bits of hair. The material was nearly too short, and he worked hard to tie it at the back of my head.
Then he ran his hands through the dirt on the ground and held them up. We’d had a rare, recent rain, and his hands were proper muddy. “May I?”
Moon and mars and the stars. I grimaced, knowing I’d instantly regret the words I was about to say. “You may.”
Swipe by swipe, Thyle brushed dirt onto my face, hands, and forearms where the sleeves' tattered ends left them exposed. The mud dried on my skin, making it stiff and gritty, and I immediately regretted granting him permission.
But Thyle had a keen sense of the world, and I knew he was right. I grabbed my cane and stepped toward the cart. Thyle stuck his foot out and knocked it out of my hand. “What—”
“You’ll have to get by without it.”
“Surely, people on the fringe have seen a cane before.”
“Rusted old rebar, maybe. Not one of polished wood. Besides, a cane means you have a weakness. You won’t make it twenty yards outside the wall before someone spots it and drags you into a dark alley and takes what little you have.”
I gave him one brief nod. I trusted him. I would never have told him any of this if I hadn’t.
I left the cane where it fell and climbed into the cart. I couldn’t tell if the smell of the clothing made me nauseous or if that was from the trepidation that weighed heavy in my gut.
“You don’t have to do this,” Thyle said as he started strapping into the yoke.
I did. I really did. And though Thyle had said he understood when he’d agreed to help me, I don’t think he could fully comprehend unless it happened to him. But I didn’t expect him to.
We pulled away from the cart house, making as little noise as possible. I didn’t breathe the smallest, slightest, slimmest sigh of relief until we were halfway to the wall.
Every sound, every scurry in the dark, had me glancing over my shoulder, expecting to find Keon or a squad of my sire’s guards racing down the path to stop me.
But the pathways lay empty, the full moon allowing Thyle to maneuver through the maze of paths without a lantern to light his way. He stopped the cart before the final turn to the wall. It would be less suspicious if I walked out of the gate. A cart might garner more scrutiny, and I didn’t want word of me leaving the settlement by cart to get Thyle into trouble.
I climbed down and adjusted my pack. I didn’t know how to thank him, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small handful of chips. It would be enough to help him and his family escape if my sire discovered he’d helped me.
Thyle took one look at the chips and shook his head. He met my eyes, and the hurt in them hit like a solid blow. “I didn’t do it for the chips.”
“I know you didn’t. Take them. Keep them. Sell them. Give them away. Do whatever you need to with them.” I had to take Thyle’s hand, press the chips to his palm, and close his fingers around them.
He held his other hand out for me to shake. I took it. “Be well.”
I clapped him on his shoulder, the tightness in my throat making it impossible to speak. Turning the corner, a gust of wind hit. I slammed my hand on my head to keep the rag in place as I ducked into the wind. The path to the wall was a slow incline that winded me by the time I drew near.
I heard something behind me that sounded like approaching footsteps, but when I turned, I didn’t see anyone following me. The closer I got to the wall, the harder the gusts whipped through the opening. A lone guard stood on the settlement side of the wall to protect himself from the wind. He glanced at me. It was all I could do to keep my steps steady, as if I had no reason to fear being stopped.
The closer I got, the louder my heart pounded, my breaths coming fast. I heard the slap of feet on the path, but I didn’t turn around. I was only ten feet from the gate. The wind gusts carried the smells of the fringe with it, and I swallowed down the involuntary gag.
“What you wearing there, mate?”
I thought it was obvious. I ignored the guard and kept walking. He stepped before me and put a staying hand on my chest. I wanted to raise my head and say, ‘Do you know who I am?’ but he had no clue who I was, and I didn’t want to risk him finding out.
He kicked the toe of my boot with his. His had a hole in one toe. Mine didn’t. Moon and mars and the stars. I still had my boots on. Boots that no beggar could afford unless he stole them.
“Name?” The guard demanded.
I went to step around him, and he stopped me again. I may have been stronger than I was right after surgery and certainly before the transplant, but I didn’t have the strength to fight.
Even if I had been taught how.
Which I wasn’t.
My sire had insisted I had the chancellor guard for protection.
Well… not anymore.
I raised my head. “Let me go.”
The guard narrowed his eyes at the authority in my voice. “Who are you?”
The slap of feet got louder. “Stop him!”
Keon . How did he discover I’d left?
Thyle must have followed in the shadows because as the guard ripped the rag off my head, Thyle’s voice rang out. “Run!”
Toorin
It was late when we decided to halt our search for the reapers, call it a night, and head back to the Lark. The nearly full moonlight sparked off the puddles in the potholes from the recent rain. Laughter spilled out the open door of one of the other bars on the fringe. A small group of people exited, heading in the opposite direction.
I didn’t pay too much attention to who it was. I was tired, sore, and a little defeated from all the time we’d spent searching for people we would probably never see again. Right then, all I wanted was my bunk and to feel the waves roll under the hull of the Lark as it lulled me to sleep.
But Bodie had other ideas.
He hit my shoulder as the people walked away. “Oi, what the—”
“Shhhh.” Bodie grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. The others walked on a few paces before noticing we weren’t with them anymore. “That’s them.”
The whir of my heart quieted. I didn’t fall over and die, so it must have been my body’s reaction to Bodie’s whispered news that made it seem quieter. And beneath that quiet whir, I swear I heard the adrenaline dump into my system like one of the nearby earthen dams rupturing.
“What’s wrong?” Juniper asked. She didn’t know why Bodie was whispering, but she whispered too, her eyes scanning for threats.
Other people walked along the narrow streets but ignored us as they passed. Bodie had his back to the reapers and tossed his head in their direction, trying not to call attention to ourselves. “Those two guys behind me. They’re the reapers.”
Darwin’s face hardened faster than camel dung under the harsh summer sun. I caught his arm as the low growl rumbled up from his chest. “Don’t.” It was one word, but I spoke it as his captain, not his friend.
“You can’t let—”
Lyric caught Darwin’s other arm. “We’ll get them. What’s the plan?”
Knowing that the two men who left us for dead were within sight nearly obscured my ability to think. I’d been so focused on finding them I hadn’t thought past what we’d do if we found them. I opened my mouth, but no brilliant plan fell out.
“We rush them.” Juniper’s hand went to the blade on her belt. “There’s five of us and two of them. “No one is going to risk their life to help them. But if you don’t bloody hurry, we’re gonna lose them.”
She was right. We all knew it.
“Wait for my signal.”
No one questioned my command. They all nodded.
“Ready?” I asked. Again, everyone nodded. “Let’s go.”
As a group, we spun, our steps quickening up the road. With the bright moonlight, we couldn’t hide in the shadows of the shanties, so we didn’t try. The reapers heard our footsteps, but Juniper and Lyric led the way while Bodie and I trailed behind so we wouldn’t be recognized until it was too late for them to run.
One look at Juniper and Lyric, and the reapers turned back around, dismissing them as a threat. From what I was learning about Juniper, she would probably hate that they’d underestimated her more than anything.
Bodie recognized it as well. “Easy.”
She turned and flipped him off but kept up the pace.
Closer and closer, we approached at a pace that wouldn’t alarm them.
We finally caught up. Darwin was in front of me. I tapped him, and he tapped Lyric and Juniper to get their attention. Almost… almost…
“Now.”
Juniper yanked her blade from its sheath, jumping on the first man’s back, wrapping her legs around his waist and an arm around his neck. Darwin body-slammed the second man to the ground and pinned him there. The man tried to buck Darwin off but only managed to run himself out of air.
Lyric tripped the first one, and Juniper rode him to the ground, somehow managing not to slit his throat as she did. She held the blade tight under his jaw, rolling him to his side so he wouldn’t crush her. “I think you took something that doesn’t belong to you.”
Darwin straddled the second man’s torso, keeping enough weight on him to keep him from struggling, but not so much that he couldn’t breathe. We wanted answers. We didn’t want to kill them.
Juniper let up the pressure, allowing her prisoner to speak.
“Who are you?” the man said.
I stepped into his line of sight, and Bodie slid in next to me. He raised a hand and waved at the man. “Surprise.”
The man groaned.
“Who—” the man beneath Darwin struggled and scraped his face across the dirt to turn his head. He recognized us right away. “We’re dead.”
I didn’t know if anyone would expect their return and would come looking for them if they didn’t show up, so I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. “Not yet. We want answers.”
“I can’t… I can’t breathe.”
Darwin shifted, but he didn’t get off.
“Let us up.” The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed beneath Juniper’s blade. “We’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Don’t try anything,” I warned.
“We won’t,” the first guy said. The second grunted his assent.
They’d harvested our organs, and I didn’t even know their names.
I gave the nod. Darwin stood, and Juniper disentangled her legs from around the man she’d been holding. The two men started to get to their feet.
“Stay down,” I ordered, not caring that they were lying on the muddy ground or their clothes would get wet. Their nice clothes by fringe standards. I had my eye on one of the pairs of boots.
“Names,” Bodie said. When one of them started to respond, he added, “Your real names.”
They sat together in front of us, Juniper’s blade in her hand, a constant reminder to tell us what we wanted to know. I glanced at Bodie, at the murderous and… was that torment I heard in his voice?
Bodie was… hurt . Like he’d truly liked these guys and couldn’t believe they would turn on him like that even though this was the fringe, and he and I knew better than most that you couldn’t trust anyone.
My eyes flicked to Juniper, Darwin, and Lyric. Well, you couldn’t trust almost anyone.
“Elrin,” the man Juniper had been holding down said. “My name is Elrin.” He had short dark hair that looked like he’d cut it with a blade.
“Ranno,” the other one said, his blond hair falling into his eyes as he scrunched his nose and glanced up at Bodie. It was the man Bodie had seemed most interested in. “Sorry.”
But we weren’t standing in a deserted, potholed road on the fringe of Toonu waiting for an apology. “Who got my heart,” I asked.
“And my kidneys,” Bodie added.
Ranno reached beneath him and removed a rock he’d been sitting on. He tossed it away. “We bring people to the harvest site. We don’t know who gets the organs.”
Juniper held up a device in her free hand that I hadn’t noticed until then. She must have picked it out of his pocket when she stood. “Then why do you need these?”
“What is that?” Lyric asked.
Juniper turned it on. The screen came to life. “It’s a health scanner. I’ve seen them before. Reapers use them to see if you’d match someone needing a transplant. They have a list.”
The look on Juniper’s face said she dared Ranno or Elrin to deny it.
“Where did you learn this?” I’d heard of reapers. Everyone had. But I hadn’t heard about the scanners.
“I’ve been around,” Juniper said. A steeliness came to her eyes that I’d seen before. Despite her young age, I didn’t question it. You see a lot and grow up fast on the fringe.
Some of the chips we’d scavenged and sold might have gone into producing those scanners. No one on the fringe had access to technology like that, but things were different in the settlements. With the extremes in the classes, they had things there we couldn’t dream up.
“You targeted us.” Bodie’s accusation was a direct hit. “You know who got his heart and my kidneys.”
Ranno and Elrin exchanged glances. One of those is this secret worth my life kind of glances.
Elrin was the first to speak. “If anyone finds out we—”
“We’re not going to tell,” Bodie said as if the reapers had reason to believe him. Besides, who would we tell?
Darwin went to stand behind the two men. A little intimidation factor never hurt.
Elrin shrunk in on himself as if expecting Darwin to land a blow any second. “One of the kidneys went to Tobs. I don’t know where the other one went.”
“Tobs?” Lyric asked. “The same one who runs the black market in Toonu?”
“And Serenity,” I added. I’d dealt with Tobs before. Not someone I’d ever want to turn my back on. “And probably most of the Tranquility province, if not all of it.”
Getting Bodie’s kidney back from Tobs would be fun.
Fun, as in we’d likely not survive it, but Bodie couldn’t live long with leaky second-rate kidneys. I took a deep breath, afraid to hear who had my heart. “And my heart?”
The reapers exchanged glances again. Darwin squatted between them, His large hands palming the back of their heads as if he wanted to knock them together to get the answers. “Don’t go quiet on us now, mates.”
A cloud passed in front of the moon, but the fear in their eyes burned bright.
Ranno shook off Darwin’s hand. “Marcelis Toft.”
Bodie burst out laughing, and a woman slinking through the shadows on the other side of the street skittered ahead. Bodie sobered when neither Ranno nor Elrin laughed with him. “Wait. The chancellor’s spawn got Toorin’s heart?”
Great . And here I thought it would be hard getting Bodie’s kidneys back. At least Tobs didn’t have the chancellor guard protecting him.
“You sure you don’t know who has my other kidney?”
“No clue.” When Darwin palmed his skull again, he said, “It’s the truth. I’d tell you. But I only know those two because the people are well known, and everyone on the transplant wing was talking about it.”
“You should be glad they were high profile,” Elrin added. “The recipients paid extra to bring you to the facility for harvest to insure freshness instead of us taking your organs in the alley. People don’t survive that.”
“And I pushed for that,” Ranno added.
Elrin gave him a nod. “You did.”
Only my anger kept me from shuddering at the image. “Yet you left us for dead in the exclusion zone.”
“Yeah, but it was the edge of the exclusion zone,” Elrin said as if that made it better.
Lyric took a step away as if we were radioactive, which, to be fair, we probably were. Not like there was anything we could do about that, though.
We stood silent, digesting everything Elrin and Ranno told us. It was a lot to swallow.
Ranno looked away. He took a deep breath, and when he looked up, he locked eyes with Bodie. “This isn’t—I didn’t want… I’m so sorry.”
The funny thing about it was… he looked it.
“Yeah,” Bodie said, “No hard feelings.”
I had hard feelings. But I also understood that people did what they had to out here to survive. No one grows up wanting to be a reaper. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want my heart back.
I caught Darwin’s eye. He grumbled something under his breath, apparently not as forgiving as Bodie.
“We’re going to let them go?” Lyric asked.
“What do you want us to do with them?” We’d already told them we’d let them live if they talked to us. Not that I could have killed anybody in cold blood, even if they’d stolen my heart.
“I… well… we could…” Lyric stopped talking when he couldn’t come up with an answer.
Exactly .
I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Get out of here.”
Elrin backed away, holding his palms out as if wary that we meant what we’d said about letting them go.
Instead of backing away with Elrin, Ranno sidled closer to Bodie, dropped his voice, and said, “You know, I never did get a chance to suck your—” Elrin grabbed Ranno’s shirt and started pulling him away. “Oi, let go.”
Bodie glanced at me.
I knew that look. “No. Don’t do it. He stole your bloody kidneys.”
“Yeah, but he’s sorry about it.”
“ Moon and mars and the stars ,” Juniper grumbled, shaking her head.
The two men disappear into a shadowed alley. I blew out a breath. Darwin, Lyric, Bodie, and I all turned to return to the Lark. I wanted my heart back, but we needed to rest and regroup.
We hadn’t gone far when Juniper called out behind us, her hands wide in disbelief. “Oi, you’re leaving?”
I turned. “Where do you want us to go?”
Her hands slapped down at her sides. She pointed toward the wall and the entrance to the settlement. “To get your heart?”
“Now?” Darwin asked.
“Yes, now.” Juniper met each of our eyes one by one. “Let’s go.”
We started following her, my exhaustion melting away. The prospect of finding the man who had my heart gave me the boost in energy that I needed. I fell into step beside her. “What’s the plan?”
She glanced at me. “Don’t ask me. You’re the captain.”
We neared the main road that led out of the settlement. No brilliant ideas popped into my head, so we followed her. The clouds had cleared away from the moon, and we tried to stick to what little shadows remained. Darwin and Lyric took up the rear. Bodie brooded a few steps behind me because I wouldn’t let him hook up with Ranno.
I mean, Ranno was handsome—for a reaper—so I got it, but still…
The whirring in my chest stopped with a clunk, and I grabbed Juniper’s arm before I fell. Bodie’s hands caught my head before it slammed into the ground. That was the last thing I remembered before I woke up at the end of the darkened alley with my chest on fire. The whir had returned. My mechanical heart was pumping blood again.
This was getting old.
So. Bloody. Old.
I opened my eyes.
“You’re back.” Bodie kneeled beside me while the rest of them stood around. He helped me to my feet, one arm around my waist for support. “Right. Back to the Lark for you.”
I shook him off. “We’re not going back to the boat.” After my heart had quit on me twice, I was more determined than ever to get my real heart back before the mechanical one crapped out on me for good. I made eye contact with Juniper.
Her hand automatically went to the hilt of her blade. “We’re going to the chancellor’s residence.”
“We can’t break into the residence,” Bodie said. “The chancellor guard will catch us before we’re two steps in.”
But to find the Toft spawn, we needed to go where he was. “Then we’ll sit and watch. We’ll lie in wait until we can get our hands on Toft when he isn’t well protected.”
We were in the back of the alley where they’d dragged me to recover. Even with as many of us as there were, it wasn’t a good idea to make yourselves a target out in the open if you could avoid it. Especially at night.
In the distance, we heard a commotion, and someone yelled, ‘Run.’ Bodie put a hand on my chest to keep me from going to check it out, but that didn’t stop Juniper, Darwin, and Lyric from running toward the end of the alley.
Before they made it to the end, pounding footsteps drew nearer. Someone ran by the alley entrance, his red hair shining in the moonlight.
“It’s him,” Juniper whisper-shouted to us.
We jogged to the head of the alley. Juniper turned to us. “It’s the Toft spawn. He went left three alleys down. Lyric and I will go this way. The three of you go down to the next one and see if you can cut him off.”
The distinct footfalls of someone running after Toft came closer. Bodie, Darwin, and I started running in the direction Juniper had indicated. I didn’t care that I was the captain and not her. I still hadn’t completely recovered physically or mentally, and neither had Bodie.
But we ran as fast as we could, Darwin pulling ahead despite his size. We had to get to Toft before whoever was chasing him did.
Darwin skidded and dodged to our right. I couldn’t stop as fast, and my shoulder slammed into the wall of one of the shanties. The clatter would probably draw attention, but I kept running. Darwin turned another corner, and Bodie and I managed it without stumbling or slamming into anything.
I had no idea where Lyric and Juniper were. Then I saw Toft, ten paces ahead of Darwin. They were both slowing down, but Darwin made a last-ditch sprint before the next alley and dove for Toft.
They landed in a heap. Toft struggled, but he was no match for Darwin. Few people were. We heard the shouts of others behind us, and I clapped my hand over Toft’s mouth before he could shout.
“In here,” Bodie said from one of the shanty doorways. I had no clue who it belonged to, but we had to hide.
Darwin wrestled Toft inside, and I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. It nearly gave under my weight. I looked into the dark corner, and three pairs of eyes stared back at us.
Outside, footsteps grew closer, along with the shouts. Bodie stuck a finger to his lips to keep the other people quiet. Toft struggled, making too much noise behind my hand. From the corner of my eye, I saw Lyric and Juniper sprint by, but I couldn’t worry about them right then. If I didn’t get Toft to shut up, we’d all be found.
And no way would that end well.
I leaned in, putting more pressure on the hand over Toft’s mouth, and whispered in his ear. “Do you want them to find you, or do you want to take your chances with us? Your choice.”
He couldn’t know who I was or that I wanted my heart back. Depending on who was after him, we might be the least worst option.
Toft stopped struggling. All I heard was our combined breathing, which sounded like a herd of camels who’d run all the way from the exclusion zone to their first source of water.
“Halt.” The footfalls stopped. “Who goes there?”
“Oi.” Juniper and Lyric stepped into view from the doorway. If they knew we were in the shanty, they didn’t give any indication. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m Keon, lieutenant of the chancellor. I’m here on the chancellor’s orders. Have you seen his spawn?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone and lost him.” Juniper’s response made Toft snort.
“Shhh,” I whispered in Toft’s ear.
Toft nodded.
“Have you seen him?” Keon asked.
Lyric shook his head. “He’d have to have the brains of rats from the exclusion zone to show his face on the fringe. Everyone would want a piece of him.”
He wasn’t wrong.
There was a good reason the chancellor had kept his spawn out of the fringe other than the apparent heart situation I hadn’t heard about.
Then again, the chancellor didn’t exactly confide in the local scrappers, so there was that.
I couldn’t determine what Keon said next, but we heard boots scuffling on the ground and footfalls fading away.
“ Psst .” Bodie caught Lyric’s attention. “Are they gone?”
Lyric held up a finger as Juniper stepped out of view to make sure they were gone, I presumed. “All clear,” she said upon return.
My hand over Toft’s mouth eased a fraction. “No yelling. No screaming. Got it?”
Toft shook his head.
I wasn’t sure what that meant. “No, you won’t scream, or no, you don’t get it?”
In the faint shaft of moonlight coming through the open doorway, Toft rolled his eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bodie said. “Everyone knows you have to ask a simple yes or no question.”
I cut my gaze to Bodie. “Give me a break. It’s not like I’m out kidnapping people on the regular. We didn’t get to the point in the plan where Toft runs right past us.”
Bodie grumbled. I returned my attention to Toft. “Are you going to yell?”
He shook his head again.
I slowly eased up on my hand, ready to slam it down again if needed.
“I was running from them. I’m not going to scream,” Toft said, his voice raised only loud enough for us to hear.
He seemed like he was being truthful, but I didn’t tell Darwin to release him. Lyric waited outside, and I presumed Juniper went to keep watch at the end of the alley.
I took a step back, looking Toft up and down, getting the measure of the man who had what I held dearest. He was about my height with a rare shock of red hair. His build was slight, but I took a good hard look at his shadowed face, and my breath caught. I had to listen for the whir to make sure I wasn’t about to faint again. Under the layer of dirt on his face and the tangle of hair, he was quite simply… beautiful.
Beautiful and sexy and completely unexpected. I—
“Who—who are you?” Toft asked.
I shook my head and tried to ignore the fact that the most beautiful man in all the province had my heart. I didn’t dive deep into the complex emotions that came when such a violation happened to a person. All the horror and fucking disbelief.
The unmitigated anger.
I reclaimed the step that I’d relinquished. “I’m Toorin. And you have something that belongs to me.”