Chapter 12 #2
I wrapped my arms around myself and lowered my head. If I could just make it inside, maybe I’d find some form of sanctuary where I could hide, be alone—the very thing I desired most.
Those small hopes were all but dashed the moment I stepped over the threshold into the city of darkness.
“Welcome to Oscuro,” a woman sneered beside me. “The place where all your dreams come true.”
I had no words. All of them were locked behind my teeth.
How was this a place of dreams? When I glanced around all I could see was a nightmare.
Too much of it all at once. Screams, wails, laughter that didn’t sound right—like it had been taken to with a pair of scissors and shredded at the edges.
My ears throbbed with every step, as if the city itself was trying to crawl inside my skull.
Paint peeled and flaked off the houses. Cracks appeared in the stonework of the stores, and all the colours were wrong—dull shades of themselves. It was as if someone took the design of The Grey but twisted it, covering it with a haze of deceit and poison.
I wandered the streets, clutching the edges of my grimy cloak, trying to blend in—but I stood out.
I always stood out. The stares followed me like flies to rotting meat.
My blue hair marked me. A girl laughed as I passed, pointed, shouted something I didn’t catch—her words slurred by whatever this place did to sound.
A man bumped into me on purpose. I stumbled back. Another shoved me forwards. Someone spit at my boots. My fists clenched, fighting the tears, but I said nothing. Did nothing. I didn’t know the rules here. I didn’t know anything.
“Pretty neck,” someone muttered close to my ear.
Before I could spin, cold fingers snagged the black ribbon tied around my throat—the last thing my mother gave me. I yanked away, heart thundering in my chest.
“Back off,” I snarled, voice cracking.
They laughed and melted into the crowd.
I ducked into an alley, my breath sawing in and out. My fingers touched the ribbon. Still there.
My body began to tremble, and my teeth chattered so hard I thought they might bounce right out of my mouth. I could do nothing to stop it. I needed to find some sort of shelter, a place I could gather my useless thoughts.
A place I could fall asleep and never wake up.
With a glance around the corner of the alleyway, I slunk back into the crowds, but this time I pulled my hood back over my head and down as far as it would go. The less attention I drew to myself, the better it would be.
Stall holders shouted out their wares just like they did in District Five, yet here everything looked spoiled, like it would sour my stomach the moment it touched my lips. I couldn't even fathom digesting food right now.
As I weaved through the streets, I noticed there was some sort of money system. I wouldn’t be able to find any lodgings without coin, so not only did I need to find shelter, I needed to find a way to make money.
If that was even possible.
My hope dashed, sinking further into despair, because now everything had become so much harder.
I don’t know how long I walked. The streets all bled together in a blur of shattered cobblestone, flickering oil lamp posts, and crumbling brick buildings stacked too close together.
Then I saw it.
The brothel.
It wasn’t labelled as one—not directly, but I knew.
Velvet curtains, torn at the edges, half-drawn over cracked windows.
A woman draped in sheer red with auburn hair leaned against the door frame, her black wings curling up over her head.
Another watched me from the balcony above, her eyes rimmed in coal—like I usually did.
This wasn’t The Silver Finch. No polished sconces or forced glamour. No scent of cheap perfume trying to mask the rot underneath. This place wore its filth proudly—like a beast baring its fangs. The building itself looked like it had been alive once, and starved ever since.
I stopped across the street. My feet wouldn’t carry me forwards, but they wouldn’t turn away either.
Part of me recoiled as a voice inside my head screamed at me to run. I never wanted to set foot in a place like that again. Not after what the last one had taken from me. What it had made me endure. What it had made me become.
Isn’t this what I wanted? Freedom from this life?
But another part—the colder part—took stock. I had no money. No food. No roof. The city was a vicious place. I’d already been pushed, spat on, nearly robbed of personal possessions. If a bed and coin came at the cost of pretending again . . . well, wasn’t pretending what I did best?
I took one step closer. Just to get a better look, I told myself.
The woman in the doorway raised a brow, a smirk tugging the corner of her lips but she said nothing. Her eyes slid over me like a blade assessing the strength of something breakable.
I stood there for a while, my fingers twitching at my sides. I wouldn’t go in. Not yet.
But the truth coiled around my ankles like a snake.
I might have escaped the hands of Kavish, Rhodes, and men alike. But I hadn’t escaped the need to survive.
And survival always came at a cost.