Chapter 2 #2
Grimes grabs for my arm. I try to pull away.
The first signs of a struggle: that’s the cue for the other afi players to pack up their things and start to move.
Like rats off a sinking ship. The man I was flirting with before gives me a gloating look and heads over to a roulette wheel, taking his drink with him.
His night is going on as normal while this nightmare encloses me like a vise.
My heartbeat speeds, panicking. Your problems are your own here.
No one here is going to help me. No one is going to stand between me and Grimes.
Not when he’s that huge and looking at me with that wild determination in his eyes.
How couldn’t I see it before? I thought it was lust. Idiot.
Now it looks like pure hatred. But why? I don’t even know him.
I step back, and immediately Grimes closes the distance between us, like we’re dancing the world’s most unpleasant dance. I’m shivering even though it’s sweaty-hot in here. Grimes’ smile widens as he watches my weakness from his great height.
“Who the hell are you?” I ask.
“It says right there on the contract. Grimes Maccinn.”
“I’ve never even heard of you. Why do you want me as your servant?”
“We don’t want to talk here,” he says.
“Yes, we do.”
Fuck if I’m going to let him take me outside alone. Hard to believe that’s all I wanted to do a few minutes ago. I could kick myself for being so reckless. My friends have warned me about my too-casual vetting process for one night stands. But I’ve always gotten away with it. Until now.
“Sign the contract, Florian,” Grimes says. He hands me a pencil from his pocket.
I grab the pencil and throw it across the room. “The hell I will.”
He takes a step towards me. I take about five back, stumbling.
He laughs at me. Laughs. My face flames with humiliation.
The “security” guards are nowhere to be seen, not that I want to involve them.
Their job is to beat on people who count cards or who win too much, not to save me from unwanted attention.
“Wait, wait.” I hold my hands up in full surrender: the shame of backing down is more appealing than being squashed like a bug. “Look, let’s be rational here.”
Grimes cocks an eyebrow, making me feel even sillier. After all, I’m the one screeching histrionically.
“I’m listening,” he says.
I take a deep breath, rallying my thoughts. I need to think clearly like my life depends on it. Maybe it does.
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” I say. “When you said I was the stakes, I thought… you know. You were just being playful.”
“You thought it was a proposition.”
“Obviously. Like you wanted me. To fuck me. Maybe let me fuck you too. You know, the usual kind of thing.”
“Maybe the usual kind of thing for you.”
My cheeks flame. Is he calling me a slut?
“Your reputation precedes you, Florian,” he says, making it very clear that he is indeed calling me a slut. “But believe me, I have no intention of touching any part of that pretty body of yours.”
“You really want an indentured laborer?”
“I do.”
His face, shadowed by the hood, is like granite.
He means it. But why choose me? I’m hardly cut out for manual labor.
He could’ve thrown a dart at random and hit someone more capable, more useful, than me.
I feel like I’m going crazy, trapped in a dream that makes no sense.
The dizzy, no way out feeling is straight from a nightmare.
I pinch my arm. It hurts. No dream, then.
I look around for some unlikely beam of hope in this grimy place.
The local magistrate, Judge Draved, sits at the bar, where he usually is, ignoring about fifty law violations that are right in his sightline.
Even though he’s corrupt and useless, surely he can’t be so corrupt and useless as to ratify this ridiculous document Grimes has given me.
“Let’s ask the magistrate,” I suggest.
Grimes shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
He keeps a firm grip on my arm as we walk over, like I’m already his. No fire between us now, no excited flutter of my heart at his touch. My body screams at me to get away. But all I can do is walk at his side like I’m being led to my execution.
“Your Honor, may I have a word?” I say to Judge Draved.
This is my only hope, and I can’t mess it up. I’m trying to sound sober, pronouncing everything super-properly. Judge Draved turns and blinks at me, his eyes hazy. The number of empty glasses around him doesn’t inspire confidence.
“Of course, young man,” he says. “Have a seat.”
He’s using the same fake sober voice as me.
Which also doesn’t inspire confidence. But I have to try.
I perch carefully on the high barstool next to him.
The room spins and I grab at the bar for balance.
Stars, how many cocktails did I have? I can’t even remember.
My father’s words ring in my ears. Idiot.
Drunkard. Useless fool. You’ll come to a bad end.
Maybe tonight is the night his dark prophecies come true.
I swallow hard, swallow back tears. Take a deep breath. Fix my gaze on Judge Draved.
“Your Honor, this gentleman and I are having a slight disagreement,” I say.
“Oh?” the judge says.
“We were at the afi table, and we made a bet. The stakes were…er, me.” I can’t quite meet his eye as I say that.
The judge harumphs. “Son, personal matters are not my business—”
“It’s not a personal matter,” I say. “That’s the whole problem. I assumed it was. I thought this gentleman was on the same page as me. I assumed we were talking about, you know. Sexual matters.”
“And what were you talking about?” Judge Draved says curiously.
Grimes, who hasn’t said a word yet, places the contract on the bar. Draved reads it, painfully slowly, then looks up at me.
“This all seems to be in order,” he says.
The bottom falls out of my stomach. “You can’t be serious. This is ridiculous. Criminal.”
Draved leans away from my anger, looking pained. “What exactly was the wording of the bet?”
Grimes fields this one. “Florian said, what are the stakes? I said you. And he said deal.” Grimes gives me an icy smile, but his dark eyes are still fiery and focused on me with strange, fixed intent.
“Did you shake on it?” Judge Draved says.
“We shook on it,” Grimes says.
“Any witnesses?”
Grimes smiles. “The whole table.”
I hang my head. No point disputing that. There’s no need to call them over one by one to attest to my stupidity.
Draved looks at me, some sympathy in his eyes. “You got off easy. With that wording, he could’ve drawn up a contract for twenty years.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Grimes says.
My gaze flies to him. Even though I hate his guts and want nothing more than to throttle him with my bare hands, I’ve never given anyone such a pleading look in my whole life. Something flickers behind his hard eyes: a new expression. I’m not quite sure how to describe it.
“I was joking,” he says roughly. “I couldn’t stand your company for that long.”
I turn back to the judge, desperate. “You’re serious, Your Honor? There’s nothing I can do?”
He shrugs. “Come to me tomorrow and contest it officially if you like, but the answer will be the same. Indentured labor is fully legal in Galbrava.”
“You should’ve stayed in Rhennes,” Grimes says.
Fuck him. Fuck the lot of them. I forget how big he is, forget the stupid archaic laws of this place, forget everything but rage.
I pull back my fist, aiming for Grime’s face.
I don’t connect. Next second, both my hands are twisted up behind my back, Grimes’ hot breath is on my neck, and I gasp as pain spears through my arms.
“Outside,” Grimes says. “Now. I’m not losing my new worker to the drunk tank.”
I come to my senses and stop struggling before he breaks my arms. His grip loosens enough to be bearable, but he doesn’t let go.
People are starting to stare at me, pinned helpless, face flaming.
I don’t sense much sympathy. Most of the customers are poor, working in the goldmines for bosses who take the majority of the profits and dole out pitiful salaries.
They have no love for people like me who come here to play and dance off home again to the better streets.
I knew it, but it really hits home now as I meet their taunting gazes.
“My jacket,” I whisper. “I need it before I go.”
Losing a jacket doesn’t really matter compared to the shit I’m in, but I’m just trying to get back some tiny modicum of control. My life has gone down a sinkhole in a matter of minutes.
“Get his jacket,” Grimes growls at a server.
The man retrieves it from the afi table where I fucked everything up and throws it over my shoulder.
Grimes starts to walk me to the door, still holding my arms behind my back like he’s a guard and I’m a criminal.
There are loud jeers as I’m led out. And a few murmurs of concern or sympathy, much softer.
A woman I bedded a few weeks ago takes a step forward as though she wants to help, but one glare from Grimes sends her scurrying away.
The security staff don’t even look at me, but they do hold the door open for Grimes to propel me through. Like I expected, I’m on my own.
We cross the threshold to the street. I catch my breath as though I jumped into a cold pool.
During the day, desert sun bakes the streets like an oven, but they turn to ice at night under the empty, cloudless skies.
All heat has vanished into the vast vault above.
I shiver in my thin shirt, sweat drying on my skin.
I’m already pretty sober from the metaphorical cold water the judge poured on my head.
I sober up even more now as the casino door shuts behind us and the noise of revelry dies away and it’s just us and the silence of night.
Moonlight shines brightly, lighting up the narrow street.
Hastily built workers’ houses surround the casino, the wooden boards stained with cheap paint or just left bare.
There’s a small grocery store and a tobacconist, but apart from the casino the buildings lie dark and sleeping.
The miners start early tomorrow. Cacti twice as tall as men loom from the shadows, scaring the unwary.
They grow right in the center of town, everyone and everything working around them.
It’s considered bad luck to cut them down: Galbrava superstition.
It’s a long way from the pretty architecture and wide, tree-lined boulevards of my home city of Rhennes, where everything has been designed with an eye to beauty.
Of course, I never would’ve had to come here if I hadn’t been so stupid.
And now I’ve made my stupidest mistake yet.
“You can let me go now,” I say, trying to sound in like I’m in charge of the situation.
Grimes’ chuckle shows very clearly that I’m not. From behind, he brings his mouth close to my ear.
“Are you sure you aren’t going to throw a petulant little punch at me again?” he says.
I’m the best boxer in my weight class at my gym. Unfortunately for me, he’s about three weight classes above me.
“I won’t attack you again,” I say, humiliation curdling.
“And why’s that?”
“Because you’d kill me?” I guess.
“Exactly. You’re a fast learner, Florian.”
He’s hateful. How did he put on such a show to snare me?
Am I such a terrible judge of character?
Was I that horny? I swear his dark eyes were warm as he looked at me across the afi table.
I thought his gaze was pure molten sex, but now I’m realizing it might’ve just been pure, molten hatred. And I was too conceited to see it.
My father is right. I deserve everything I get.
Grimes finally lets me go. My arms sing with pain and my hair is disheveled, the tie almost loose.
I rearrange it, looking anywhere but at Grimes.
There are no gas streetlights here, of course: this place is years behind Rhennes.
But the moon is enough to show my expression, so I try to look as strong and unconcerned as possible.
I get my jacket on and hug myself inside it, trying to chase the bitter cold of the night, and the cold that’s seeping into my bones from the realization that I’m in very, very big trouble.
“The contract,” he says. “You still haven’t signed it.”
There’s no escape. The “authorities”, in the form of Judge Draved, have already made that clear.
Grimes hands me another pencil from his pocket.
I lean the paper against the casino wall and sign.
Lord Florian Southland. A grand name for the biggest idiot ever born.
Grimes folds the paper and puts it into his pocket. My panic breaks the gates.
“Look, wait,” I say. “Please. This isn’t… it just isn’t going to work. You don’t want me working for you. I’m a terrible worker. I’m lazy, and irresponsible, and annoying... Why don’t you just hire someone else? Someone who actually wants a job?”
“Because I don’t want someone else, Florian,” he says. “I want you.”