“You’ll get them killed!”
“Dad…”
“Don’t do this to me, Payton. Don’t take my boys away from me. I’m begging you.”
She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat never leaving. “I’ll think about it, dad.”
He scowled. It was clearly not good enough for him but at least he seemed to accept it was all she could give him. He got up and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The moment the door closed, she finally let the tears fall.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Payton had not felt exhaustion like this since she worked for the docks. After she had reached an agreement with her family, she and her brothers had begun taking every available job they could find. For the mercenaries, for merchants on the side, anything. They had become regular jack-of-all-trades hopping from one job to another.
One moment it would be guarding, the next they would be fixing someone’s roof. One time Isiah was stuck minding someone’s children for the afternoon. That had left her and Samuel in bouts of hysterical laughter when he had come home spotted with food and demanding not to be asked for details. Samuel had a couple of jobs that left him the same way, mostly when he was hired to help clean the latrines for a few of the rich. His magic was an aid in the sense he could freeze the waste for easy transport but sometimes the spell went wrong and… let’s just say he would have preferred the food splattered on him. Payton had been working nearly every night at the Pegasus, something that amused her greatly given the irony Nyla was paying her so she could pay Nyla to go on a trip.
The game night had become a triweekly thing now, though that was partially because five out of the six people who frequented those games planned to take part on the trip and it became the perfect moment to talk about the plans for the future. What surprised and somewhat pleased Payton was that Jarrett had begun to show up on his own to the Pegasus for those nights. He still kept his sentences short and he and Atherly would occasionally dissolve into shouting matches with each other but it seemed they had added a new person to their group.
“Tall, dark, and brooding has come for a visit,” Nyla said in a sing-song voice as she passed Payton.
“What?” Payton pushed off the wall she had been leaning against to see where Nyla had been nodding. At the door was a familiar shape. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him here when it wasn’t game night.”
“He usually avoids these places like the plague,” Takara commented before taking a sip of whiskey. “I want to know what blackmail you have on him that got him to start coming. I’ve been bugging him to join me for Dragon’s Luck for ages.”
“I asked,” she said simply.
“Oh, asking. Why didn’t I think of that?” Takara said sarcastically.
“You’re a mean drunk,” Payton commented.
Takara scrunched up her face and shook her head at Payton as the man in question strode toward them. “Pull up a seat. We’re making bets on which one of the idiots in the corner is gonna pass out first.”
Jarrett eyed the women and then followed their gaze. Two men were trying to match each other shot for shot but they had clearly been going at it too long. The shot they were each trying to bring up was hitting their chin, their nose, pretty much everywhere but their mouth. And they were wobbling, even though they were sitting.
“The one on the left,” he said after a moment.
“Payton’s guess.”
They watched as the two men downed their glasses and looked triumphant. One looked like he was going to vomit and then…
“Booyah!” Payton cheered as the one on the left when down, smacking his head on the table.
“Damn. How could you tell?” Takara asked passing a single copper coin over.
“It’s a gift,” she said with a shrug.
“His posture was more slouched and he was weaving more than the other,” Jarrett said at the same time.
“Ssshh, you’re not supposed to give away the secret,” Payton said in a conspiratorial whisper. She was rewarded with a faint smile tugging on the corner of his lip. “You know there isn’t a game tonight right? Have you come just for our delightful company?”
For the first time, she heard him laugh. It was a deep rich sound, rumbling through the air and sent delightful chills down her spine. She sensed he was not a man who did that often and it made the sound all the sweeter.
“Perhaps,” he replied with a glint of amusement in his eyes.
She flashed him a grin before being forced to go back to scanning the room for signs of trouble. There were a couple of people she was going to have to keep her eye on. They were beginning to get rowdy.
“I was looking for Takara, actually.”
“Off duty,” Takara declared loudly, picking up the whiskey and wiggling it in the air in front of him.
“Kern and Xeris got into an altercation about whether they should arrest a… lady who worked at the Uptown brothel.” Jarrett looked very uncomfortable in what he was saying. “Lieutenant Collins is uncertain what to do with them because they ended up brawling in the middle of a case and the lady who needed to be questioned fled. The victim is screaming and threatening to bring his case to the Arbiter. The Lieutenant asked me to find you just after I got off duty.”
Takara groaned. She downed her shot of whiskey. “Creators help save me from morons. Alright, let’s go take care of this.” At his look, she gave him a sharp smile. “If I have to go in, I’m dragging you with me.”
Payton was just about to bid them goodnight when things took a disastrous turn. The group to the left abruptly uprooted their table, sending their drinks flying. Weapons were drawn and one person was stabbed clean through before Payton could react. Wonderful.
Springing into action, she drew her dual daggers and slid into position, blocking the cleaving stride that would have likely chopped the intended unarmed man’s head off if the sword was sharp enough. Their blades connected with a loud clang before she threw him off with a kick to the sternum. Spinning she quickly blocked another man’s charge.
The fight went fast, a complete blur of shapes coming at her in a drunken stumble, manically waving weapons around. She was starting to wonder if Nyla should restrict weapons. Maybe order people to tie them up or something. She doubted any of their clientele were dexterous enough while drunk to unlace a knot. And an unpredictable drunk swinging a blade around wildly was far more dangerous than a skilled swordsman.
Finally knocking the last of the morons out, she sheathed her blade. “Always an adventure working here, Nyla. I should start charging extra when they bring weapons.”
“Nah-uh. No tacked on prices.”
“I’m renegotiating here,” she argued before looking to the rest of the tavern. For the most part, they had ignored the fight. Takara and Jarrett had helped her though. “I hope you don’t want a share of my cu—Jarrett?”
Jarrett was hunched over, grasping his wrist. She could see that the metal of his gauntlet had been mangled and his wrist was at an odd angle.
“Creators, are you okay? What did you do, hammer your fist into a brick wall in an effort to intimidate the drunks? Let me see how bad it is.”
“I am fine,” he ground out.
“Right. Because a wrist is supposed to look like that. Come on, I promise I won’t stick Atherly on you. Just me and some aloeroot.” Payton pulled on his hand to nudge it out of the way and fumbled with his mashed gauntlet. “Takara, you need to commission better gear if a bar brawl destroys his.”
“How did this become my fault?”
Jarrett resisted but Payton was stubbornly persistent, smacking his uninjured hand away until she got the metal gauntlet free. What she saw when she carefully slipped it off was not what she expected. His wrist was broken as expected but there on the skin sat something that she was certain he had not wanted her to see. Her lips parted in shock, her eyes flickering from it to his face and then back.
A slave brand.
Abruptly he wrenched his arm
away, a look of panic and anger twisting across his face before he left. Or fled was more like it. He tore out of the Pegasus like she had hurt him. Maybe she had. Hurt him by seeing something he obviously had wanted to keep hidden.
She stared stupidly after him, trying to get her mind to catch up but all she could comprehend was that mark. That burned black ink on raised scarred skin pressed into the tender flesh of his wrist. Two interlocked chain-links, every slave in Malvathar was marked with it.
Which meant…
“Payton…” Takara’s voice reached her just as she started to take the first steps to go after him. “Leave him be.”
“You knew.” Payton was not certain if she was accusing the woman or not. “Creators, Takara, I… he…”
All at once so many things made sense. His behavior, the way he interacted with people, his hatred of Malvathar and loathing of being near anything to do with that country.
“I know. But it’s best just to leave it be. Let him deal with this in his own time and if he comes back—”
Payton stopped listening at the word “if”. If he comes back. If.
Her grip tightened on the gauntlet she was only just now aware she was still holding. “Where would he go?”
“Payton—”
“Where.”
Takara stared her down for several long moments before sighing. “Baker Street. House 27. It has a black door. But don’t expect a warm reception. And don’t blame me if he throws you out. Or throws something at you.”
Payton immediately turned to walk away. “Thanks.”
“If he kills you I’m not cleaning up the mess,” she called.
Payton wove through the streets rapidly. It was not until she reached Baker Street that she finally saw him. The home he was approaching was small, one of the smallest on the stretch, with a bit of a rundown appearance but nowhere near as ramshackle as the slums in the lower district that Payton currently lived in.
“Jarrett,” she called, coming to a stop behind him just as he started to open the door.
He looked back, a deep furrow was on his brow when he saw her. He just… stared at her. Intensely, as though he were trying to bore a hole straight through her with just his gaze.
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes narrowed at her.
“For...” She made an awkward gesture to his injured wrist. He had clearly popped the bone back into place on his own but was set about ignoring it as he just let the arm hang limply at his side. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I was just trying to make sure you were okay.”
He scowled and then fumbled with the lock. “Why are you here? To gawk and stare at me like I’m a sideshow attraction? To simper and give me pity now that you know the truth of what I was, what I am?” he growled in that deep voice of his.
“What? No. I…” she trailed off.
It had been idiotic to follow him like this. Takara had been right. It wasn’t as though he were seriously injured. She could have expressed her thanks for his aid and her sorrow for making him uncomfortable the next time she saw him. But something nagging in her gut told her that he might have stayed away for a long time out of… not embarrassment but perhaps something close.
“I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” she helplessly repeated.
He pushed his door open before hitting her with a glare she had only seen him direct at Atherly thus far. “Just leave.”
Reluctantly, she turned, her shoulders dropping in defeat. She had barely taken a step when:
“That’s it?”
She glanced back.
“You’re not going to fight or push or demand answers? You’re not going to try to stay? You’re just… leaving?”
“You asked me to?”
He seemed angry. “I’ve seen you argue with and ignore what people say ever since I met you. Every time I think I understand you or what you will say or do, you shift and change and then I am at a loss again! Why the hell does this time make a difference?” he ranted. “I don’t understand you. Who are you Payton Clark?! What are you?”
She took a step back, startled at his outburst. He was breathing heavily by the end of it, his hand gripping the knob of his now open door so tightly she wondered if he would dent the metal.
“That’s what you’ve been trying to do all this time? Understand me?” She did not expect him to respond but was intrigued to see his cheeks tinge a faint pink. “Why didn’t you just ask?”
“Why would you answer?”
He had a point. He had no reason to believe she would answer him. He would have no reason to believe that anyone would want to be open about their past, given the obvious trauma he went through with his. There were topics she didn’t tread near just like anyone but that did not mean she was unwilling to share things with him.
“Because you’re my friend.”
He stared at her uncomprehendingly for several long moments. It was clear this line of thinking had never occurred to him.
“Ask me anything you like. I’ll decide if I want to answer it. That’s usually how these things work. You are never obligated to answer. It’s about what you feel comfortable sharing, Jarrett. A true friend would never force you to talk about things you didn’t want to or were not ready to. A true friend is just… there for you.”
“And that’s what you claim to be. A true friend?”
“That’s what I strive to be.”
He frowned. Another handful of seconds pass and then: “Who are you, Payton Clark?”
“Loaded question. I am what you see. A woman with some skill in fighting and defense who hates being confined into a box. I like freedom and think it should apply to everyone. And I think kittens are the most adorable thing on this planet next to baby dragons.”
He blinked. “Baby… dragons….” he repeated in disbelief.
“Have you ever seen them in artwork? So cute.”
He did not respond. Only stared at her longer. “You are a mercenary. Your job is to literally sell yourself for coin.”
“Don’t go repeating that around Atherly or he might get ideas.”
“You were offered coin to look the other way that night. Coin you need. Why didn’t you accept it?”
“Would you have?”
The expression on his face darkened further. She wasn’t aware it could do that. “No,” he snarled.
“Then why would you imagine I could?”
“Your boss could. The merchants could. Most people would lose sight of the value of life the moment the coin is pushed their way. Then life only becomes numbers on a ledger,” he stated coldly.
“Lives are never numbers on a ledger,” Payton retorted sharply. “Lives are people. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but they are still people and no one deserves to be put in that hell. No amount of coin in the world could ever change my opinion on that.”
“A mercenary who does not believe that coin and the client is the only thing that matters?”
“I’m a conundrum,” she said proudly.
“You are a puzzle and I still do not understand you.”
“Why not? Is it that difficult for you to believe that there are people who would be unwilling to sacrifice life?”
Jarrett pressed his lips together. “In my experience, the majority lose their precious values the moment coin gets involved.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
“Pity makes it sound like a bad thing. Think of it more like empathy. I’m sorry you’ve experienced the worst in people. I’m sorry it has made you believe all people are like that. And I’m sorry that I can’t beat those people over the head with a brick until they get a lick of sense.”
“Empathy?” he repeated the word as though he had never heard it. “What would you know of it? You have never lived with oppression, persecution. You have never lived in fear that the next person you meet might learn what you were and turn you in, bringing slavers down upon you to drag you back to the hell you esc
aped.”
“No,” she said quietly, watching the emotions that he worked so hard to keep hidden swirl on his face. “I haven’t. But I have lived in fear of the Templars coming to my home. Lived in fear that they would march on the city and take my mother and brother from me. I lived through them coming and torching our city. And them tearing my mother away, executing her in front of me when I could do nothing to stop it. I do know what it is like to live in fear of people of your nightmares coming. I worry each and every day that the Templars will march east and our haven of Imeryn will be invaded and Sam will be taken this time. And I will fail him like I failed my mother.”
His eyes widened as he listened to her. “I… didn’t know.”
“No one does. Not really,” she admitted.
She had never told any of her friends the details of why her family had moved to Imeryn. It was a subject she avoided. It brought up too many bad memories, too many horrible nightmares.
Something flickered across his eyes that she could not place. “So why tell me?”
“You shared something difficult to talk about with me. How could I not do the same?”
“And that is what you expect.”
“Expect?”
“From… this?” He made an awkward gesture between them, his hand finally leaving the door.
“I’m not sure I expect anything from ‘this’.” She mimicked his gesture. “You intrigued me, mystery man. You were stoic and interesting and strange. You had questions and I wanted to know more, so… I took a chance I guess. I mean, it’s not like I make a habit of inviting random strangers who interrogate me with curt questions while I’m working to join me and my friends for cards.”
“That would be a bizarre pass time.” There were hints of amusement in his tone now.
She chuckled. “It would.” She paused and tilted her head to the side to study him. “Look, Nyla is gonna be upset I ran out in the middle of my shift soon so I have to get back but… please don’t go disappearing over this? I won’t tell anyone about what I saw or what I know. It’s no one’s business.”
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