Then
I walk through the evening-soaked streets of their neighborhood, flowing around the parents swapping gossip outside their boardinghouses, the kids hollering at their friends and racing one another through the dust. Distant music and muffled audiographs thread through the air, mixed with the faint aroma of cooking food and the heavy scents of heat and dust. All of this has been the backdrop to most of my life, as intimate as my own heartbeat.
But there’s no comfort in it for me tonight.
Orion is already waiting for me on the front steps of the boardinghouse, curled in on himself. Still a kid—like me—but also not because no one stays a kid for long down in the dust.
He springs up at the sound of my footsteps. Is she okay? V, please say she’s okay—
Kelda’s fine. I cut him off quick, before he can go any further. Not because I want to spare him any pain, but because I don’t want to hear my sister’s name out of his mouth right now. The apothecary got her all stitched up, though it’ll probably leave a scar.
He scrubs at his eyes, probably itching from the grit still hanging in the air from the magnastorm a few days ago. Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would be that dangerous.
Didn’t you? Outrage crawls over my skin, hot as the afternoon sun. You took her to an anti-Ministry protest! After I explicitly told her she couldn’t go! You helped her sneak out behind my back and now you’re acting surprised that the wardens came down on you all like a million hammers!
He balls his hands into fists, his spine stiffening. She wants to be a part of making change down here. I’m not going to apologize for helping her do that.
You want to be a starry-eyed idiot about how the world works?
Fine! I don’t care. But do that on your own time and don’t bring my sister into it with you!
I turn away from him, rubbing my hands angrily over my short-cropped hair.
I just started cutting it this short a few months ago, and I’m still not quite used to it.
It was just one night. You told me you were going to stay inside and keep her safe.
He scoffs, bitter. What about you? Where was her actual sibling last night?
He puts it out there like a question, but it isn’t really. I was on a Butcher job, and he knows it because he knows who I am. He’s the only one who does besides Mama—and Mama is too lost to tell anyone anymore.
So who was it? He circles around in front of me, arms crossed, eyebrows dark angry slashes on his stormy face.
Did they have a family? Friends? Did they actually do anything wrong?
He spread his arms wide. Or did Kilpatrick just wake up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday and need a little murder to make him feel better?
I shove him, hard enough that he stumbles backward and then looks at me like I’m a stranger. I’ve never put a hand on him like that before, but I’m exhausted and full of furious, buzzing energy and there’s blood beneath my fingernails. I don’t need another self-righteous lecture from him.
Morals can’t pay rent, I spit, full of acid. Morals can’t give us the paper we need to buy water. You have your eyes up in the skyline, dreaming these ridiculous dreams. I’m trying to focus on how to survive down here in the dust.
So am I! We’re supposed to be on the same side! He steps close, so close. Tentatively, he puts his hands on either side of my face, cradling it. I feel like I’m losing you.
His eyes are such a rich dark brown, deep enough to fall into.
I can feel the earnestness, the emotion pouring out of him.
The new kind of want building between us that reaches for me, tugs me closer, toward that light that shimmers inside him.
He would make space for me inside that light, if I let him.
And I hate him for it. I hate how he erodes all my sharp edges. Makes me soft. Soft things die quick down in the dust.
I am not soft. I’m not something to be cradled and touched gently.
You’re not losing me. I step away from him, cold, just like I do when I’m the Butcher. You’ve already lost me. I don’t ever want to see you again.
He looks up at the darkening sky, blinking quickly. Like he’s trying to keep back tears. When he speaks, his voice is broken and ragged. This can’t be how we end.
Why not? I shrug and shove my hands back into my pockets. Everything dies at some point.
And then I turn my back on him and walk away.