Nine
This late in the evening the Stair market has a different feel.
The day-pass workhouse inmates have returned to their bunks and been replaced by the scavengers, returned after a long day’s combing through the Heap.
Those who were lucky enough to find a rich vein of scrap have money in their pockets, and they’re eager to spend it on booze, sex, and food, typically in that order.
So vendors of tools and cloth have packed up and been replaced by the rotgut-slingers, the barbeque carts, and the whores, all eager to relieve lucky scroungers of their winnings.
I don’t come here often; the atmosphere grates on my nerves.
Other people my age can afford to blow a day’s lucky break on a plate of pork ribs and a night with a pretty partner.
I’ve never had that luxury, thanks to Somi’s generosity.
But tonight, if only to piss him off, I can at least get fucking drunk.
I pay a bit for a mug of vile swill, the sort of stuff that’s only good for dissolving your synapses or stripping paint.
Several half-dressed women home in on me like hungry rats scenting bacon, but I wave them away and stare determinedly into my drink.
Nobody else bothers me. Plenty of better prospects than the gloomy fucker hunched over his booze like he expects it to escape.
Fucking Somi. Fucking… life.
I don’t blame him, is the thing. I can’t.
He’s just doing what Fara spent her life doing: taking care of everyone she possibly could.
If not for that I’d almost certainly be dead; like Somi and Spike, I was a baby nobody wanted.
Fara took us in and raised us. Somi feeding Ema and Athie and Gort and the rest is just his way of paying her back.
It’s not that I’d want it any other way. I just wish Somi would admit what’s been obvious to me for a while: Selling mash-bread isn’t going to cut it. We need the money I bring in from the tunnels to stay afloat. Just like Fara needed her… other job. The point is…
I’ve gotten through about half the glass and I’m having a hard time remembering what the point is.
I sober up real fast, though, when a meaty hand lands on my shoulder.
“Taj,” a low voice rumbles in my ear. “You’re looking well. Very healthy.”
Rekas. The big enforcer gives me a smile, the triple scar of the Clawmarks standing out white on his ruddy cheek.
“Too bad about the fight,” he says. “Tough break. But I’m sure you’ll have that runic up and stumbling about in no time.”
I grunt something noncommittal, eyes fixed on my drink.
“I heard you had a big score lately. Brought home some goods.” He kneels down behind me until he’s level with my ear. “Don’t you think some of that lucre ought to go to your kindly Uncle Claw?”
It’s never a good idea to talk back to a Clawmark, but I’ve got alcohol in my veins and rage in my stomach. I scrape the chair back and stand up to look him in the ugly face.
“We’re paid up until next month. So fuck off.”
“Hmm,” Rekas says. He stands, too, rising up and up until he towers far above me. “Oh. Oh. I see.” He puts a hand to his scarred cheek in mock surprise. “The fat kid didn’t tell you.”
The bottom drops out of my guts. “Tell me what?”
He leans forward, eyes suddenly dangerous. “Uncle Claw raised your rate.”
Oh fuck. “How much?”
A toothy grin. “Double.”
“What?”
He gives a languid shrug. “Times are tough. The Arrowheads have been making moves. Good old Uncle Claw needs his faithful friends to dig a little deeper, for the common good.”
“We can’t pay double.”
“That’s what the fat kid said. Told me you’d hurt yourself. Asked for a break. But here you are out for a night on the town, so I figure things can’t be that bad, can they?”
My ill-advised anger has rapidly been replaced by panic. What the fuck has Somi been hiding from me? For how long? “Give us some time, at least—”
“The fat kid said that, too.” He idly examines his fingernails, which are filthy.
“I told him if he takes too long, Uncle Claw might start to wonder if you all are really his friends. Bad things can happen to people who aren’t friends of Uncle Claw.
” He flicks a bit of grit at me. “Bad things might be happening right now. You never know.”
What I want to do is punch Rekas in the face and keep punching until there’s nothing left but goo.
Unfortunately he has thirty centimeters and forty kilos on me, not to mention a dozen armed friends within earshot.
So what I actually do is take off running as fast as I can, shoving past the drunken scavengers and the circling whores in the direction of the bakery.
Behind me, I can hear the bald bastard laughing.
By the time I get back, the Clawmark enforcers have been and gone. The front door is splintered, kicked in, and the kitchen beyond is a mess. I leap over scattered mixing bowls and broken crockery, heading for the stairs, then spin as someone grabs my arm.
“Taj. Taj!” Somi looks me over and lets out a sigh of relief. “You’re okay.”
“I’m okay?” I look him up and down. There are fresh bruises on his arms, but he seems otherwise intact. “Where’s Spike?”
“Upstairs. She’ll be fine.” He lets out a breath. “It was the Clawmarks.”
“I know. Rekas tracked me down in the market. He said they want us to pay double.” My brain is still sorting through the implications of that conversation. “You knew about this?”
“I—” My brother, the world’s worst liar, is suddenly very interested in a patch of flour on the floor.
“Fuck,” I swear, and shove him out of the way.
Upstairs is worse, not just a careless smash-up but wanton destruction.
Spike is sitting on her threadbare mattress, on the floor beside its broken-up frame.
The rest of her furniture is in splinters, and shreds of paper scattered around speak to the fate of her little journal.
When I come up the stairs, she looks up, and my breath catches; there’s a huge bruise purpling half her face and puffing up around her eye.
“Fucking stars,” I growl, throat suddenly full of acid. Anger flares, hot and bright. She is my little sister, and I will find the person who did this to her and fucking kill them, I swear to the sun and moon—
I reach out for her, and Spike shies away. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not—”
“He just hit me, that’s all,” she mutters. “I tried to get him to leave my journal alone and he hit me. I’ll be fine.”
She’s breathing fast and hard, tears leaking from her good eye.
“Somi will get Ameliana,” I tell her, “she’ll have some powder or something—”
“Why would they tear up my journal?” she shouts abruptly. “It’s mine, it doesn’t have anything to do with… with payment or the Clawmarks or anything. There was no reason…”
She trails off, and I kneel beside her. She finally consents to be taken in my arms, stiff-backed and shoulders hunched.
“Because they knew it was important to you, and they wanted to hurt you,” I say quietly. “To hurt us. That’s what they do.”
She sniffs, snot bubbling. “Why?”
And what can I possibly say? Because the world fucking sucks, that’s why, at least when you’re born on the very bottom.
No parents, no money, no hope. And just when you think you’ve finally clawed something good out of it with your fingernails, some bastard comes along and kicks it over for no better reason than that they can, and nobody can stop them.
“I don’t know,” I tell her.
She slowly relaxes into me, face pressed against my shoulder. I feel my shirt getting wet with tears. I hold her while she sobs.
Anger is stupid. Anger gets you killed.
But I’m so very angry.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Somi.
The money jar is nothing but shards of glass on the floor, and he’s slowly poking through the remains, picking out the odd bit that slipped through the enforcers’ fingers.
“I should have,” he says mournfully.
“But why didn’t you?”
He swears, drops a shard to tinkle on the floor, sticks his bloody finger in his mouth, then slumps back against the bed with a defeated sigh.
“Why the fuck do you think, Taj?”
“I could have done something.”
“You would have said, ‘I’ll take care of it,’ with that tough-guy face that makes you look constipated.” His imitation of me is spot-on, unfortunately. “Then you’d charge off to do something dangerous and maybe get yourself killed.”
“So instead you got this.” I gesture around his destroyed room. His writing desk is shattered, his bed torn up. They’ve stolen his books, too, even the Little Forest Stories with its ragged binding.
There’s a long silence.
“I just don’t want to lose anyone else, Taj,” Somi says. “Why is that so fucking hard?”
I say nothing. My throat is filled with bile.
“Maybe you’re right,” he says eventually. “Maybe I should have told Ema and the others we couldn’t keep feeding them.”
“I didn’t say that,” I mutter.
“You thought it, though.” He glances over at me. “Don’t lie.”
“They’d starve,” I say uncomfortably. “It’s not what Fara would have wanted.”
“Fara could keep all this going.” Somi closes his eyes and leans back. “I don’t know if I can.”
Another silence. Slowly, I climb to my feet. Glass crunches under my boots.
“What are you going to do?” Somi says without opening his eyes.
“Do you really want to know?”
“I guess not.” He swallows. “Please be careful, Taj.”
“I might be a little while. A couple of days. Don’t let Spike worry too much. And get Ameliana over to look at her eye.”
Somi nods miserably. I turn away, heading for Yesod.