“Why should I do business with your father?”
Lena balked for only a moment before composing herself. She didn’t know what this man did, much less how his company could serve to support Hampton Industries. How could she answer correctly without the proper background?
“Well, Lena?” Her father smiled, though the lines of his throat twitched. Perspiration beaded on her hairline.
“Anyone who goes into business with Hampton Industries is making an excellent decision,” she said slowly, gauging her father’s response through her long black lashes. She tried to remember everything she’d ever heard her father say to a client. In his silence, she continued. “The company evolved during the war, and though we have no hand in agriculture or food production, our profit margins increased twelvefold during the famine. Why? Because we make weapons, sir. Mass produced, of the highest quality. And as long as humans roam this world they will find something worth killing each other over.”
Lena held her breath, bracing for her father’s disappointment.
The man’s mouth had held a straight line, but when she finished he placed his cigar between his thin lips and clapped generously, spilling liquor from his glass onto the floor. A maid hurried to clean it up before he could slip.
“Quite a showing, Josef. Ice cold.” The man began to ogle Lena’s body in a way that made her want to slap him. She hated that her father still had said nothing. Had her words earned none of his pride?
Finally he smirked. “What can I say? She’s a Hampton.” The man in the boots chuckled appreciatively.
She recognized the cue, and smiled pleasantly, though she felt ill.
“Sing something, dear,” said her father. As if she were one of his factory machines he could command with the press of a button.
But she was a machine. She was a Hampton. Emotionless and hard as steel.
Lena closed her eyes, summoning calm, drowning out the smoke and the boisterous male voices. Gradually, her pulse slowed. She took a steadying breath, and sang.
It was a ballad. She’d chosen one in the old language despite her earlier argument. She knew immediately from the silence filling the room that she’d made the right decision. This was what they wanted to hear, a song about a working man who’d become rich on love, only to see his beloved killed by a storm. A song about things as foreign to them as the lands across the sea. A song about a love that didn’t exist.
She ended on a soft, haunting high note, and the room erupted into cheers. But when she opened her eyes, she found her father was no longer standing beside her. He had disappeared.
Lena gave a small curtsey, and quickly excused herself before the man in the boots could follow. By the time she stepped through the double doors onto the patio a sharp pain had lodged inside her chest. She hated these parties, hated being put on display. Hated the drinks and the smoke and the men’s careless hands.
Her father hadn’t even stayed to hear her sing.
Lena’s eyes drifted over the river, to the district beyond Bakerstown, smoldering in the distance. Metaltown, the staff called it—the third section of the Northern capital, Tri-City, where Hampton Industries was located. A gray haze hung over the place, like a perpetual storm cloud, blocking out everything beneath.
“Brava.” Lena stiffened at the sound of her brother’s voice.
Otto left the patio door swinging open and stalked toward her. She read his face; a lifetime of training had taught her to be ready when the lines beneath his dark eyes tightened, and when he threw his arm over her shoulders and squeezed, she went rigid as a flagpole.
“I’m so glad you liked it,” she said flatly.
“Did I say I liked it?” He rubbed his jaw with his free hand. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter what I think. The rube did, and that’s all that matters. What did you say to make him so interested? He needs a bib for all that drool.”
“Shouldn’t you be down at the club?” Lena asked. “I hear they send out a search party if you roam too far away from the bar.”
He whistled through his teeth. “Don’t be nasty.”
His arm lowered, hand gripping her waist as he jerked her closer. He pinched her hard on the ribs, grabbing the skin and twisting it, until she knew it would be black and blue and perfectly hidden beneath her clothes. Aware of voices near the door, she sucked in a harsh breath and held it while her eyes watered. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying.
“I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that whatever you said got Father all out of sorts,” Otto said, finally releasing his hold. “He wants you to come to the factory with me tomorrow. Thinks it might be time you learned the family business.”
“He does?” Lena asked, still gritting her teeth.
“You know him. He’s probably trying to teach a lesson of some sort. The importance of failure or something.”
Someone called him from inside, and he raised his hand, waving companionably. As he strode away, the pain in Lena’s side receded, and she turned a curious gaze back toward Metaltown.
7
COLIN
At the end of the day Colin smelled like bleach and piss. If there was one thing he hated more than scrubbing toilets, it was scrubbing toilets while Minnick the perv watched, and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it if he wanted to keep his job.
Didn’t stop him from visualizing forty different ways he could kill the bastard.
At least he and Ty were released on time with the others. Everyone knew that if Minnick didn’t bring a fix to work, he got twitchy near closing time, and today the foreman wasn’t about to stay late.
They lined up like usual, and walked one by one through the metal detector into the locker room. Colin was itching to get back out on the street. Maybe they’d only stayed half a day, but it had felt like three times that long with Minnick drooling at his back. After this morning, patience wasn’t on his agenda.
“Johns look real shiny.” Zeke, a boy near Colin’s age with a shaved head and deep brown skin, elbowed in beside him. “I could see my reflection in the bowl.”
“I aim to please,” answered Colin.
“So did I,” said Zeke.
“Why were you out, anyway?” Colin turned to see Matchstick, a kid Ty had known from St. Mary’s who’d earned his name because he liked to lift the defective pieces from the scrap bin and rig mini explosives. He was only fourteen but as tall as Colin.
“We thought you’d been sacked,” said Martin Balzac, scratching his yellow, spiky hair. He lisped a little on account of several missing teeth.
“Heard you were doing work for Jed Schultz,” said Zeke. “He ever needs more guys, you tell him I’m good, okay?”
“How’d you hear that?” Colin asked, straightening up a little taller.
“Noneck saw you guys at Hayak’s cart. Said Jed bought you something to eat.”
“He did,” said Colin. “Bought me some new duds, too.”
“You’ll tell him I’m good to work?” asked Zeke again.
“New duds,” said Martin, laughing. “So that’s why Minnick keeps giving you the eye.” He batted his white-blond lashes Colin’s way.
Colin shoved him into the lockers as they headed toward the door.
* * *
They snagged what they could from the corner vendors and met on the beltway, the stretch of road over the train yards that separated Metaltown from Bakerstown. It was deserted, just as it had been when Colin and Ty had walked back from Gabe’s house that morning. Folks stuck to their side of the tracks, especially at night. Even the cops, who housed themselves in McNulty’s territory. That’s why Colin and the others liked it. No Minnick breathing down their throats. No one telling them what they had to do.
Most were from Small Parts, though some of the younger workers from the uniform division or the chem plant came there to set fights, to make trades or make out, or smoke the herbs they stole from Market Alley. Zeke was still pressing Colin about the morning, and how he might g
et on with Jed. He had a sister to look after, currently over with a group of older girls getting her hair braided. Colin watched them, a scowl on his face. The more he talked about Jed, the more he thought about Gabe Wokowski, and Bakerstown, and how different things had been before Cherish had gotten sick.
“Hi, Colin.” A girl waved to him from the pack of females, curly hair tied back with a rag. She smiled sheepishly, and when he returned her wave she ducked back into the huddle and giggled.
“Hi, Maggie,” said Zeke, far too late. He made a show of waving, though the water girl from Small Parts didn’t return the gesture. “What do you think they’re talking about, anyway?”
“Probably you.”
Zeke looked hopeful. “You think?”
“No.” He tensed his gut a second before Zeke punched him.
Other days Colin would have braved the group, flirted with Maggie, maybe even convinced her to go somewhere private, but he didn’t feel up to socializing. He should have been home, anyway. It was Hayden’s night to take care of Cherish, but that didn’t mean anything. Colin had been hoping to find him here, but he was probably down at Lacey’s or one of the other bars gambling.
A lone figure sat on the cracked sidewalk, staring out into the divide between the two towns and the still train cars below. Colin tossed the blanket he’d bought in Market Alley on the ground and took his place beside her, fitting his legs through the railings and letting his feet dangle, as she did. This was often their spot, and always Ty’s. They didn’t talk about all the places they might go like they had when they were younger, but they thought about them all the same.
“I need to go get a bunk,” Ty said after a while. She slept at the Board and Care, where beds were doled out on a first-come, first-serve basis.
“I need to go home,” he said. Neither of them moved. An icy wind swept over the beltway, and he hunched deeper into his coat. The sun was setting; here on the edge of Metaltown you could actually see the sun—or at least a round white ball—through the haze.
“Your home or Maggie’s?” Ty launched a pebble onto a train car below.
He didn’t know why he was surprised Ty had seen Maggie wave at him. Ty saw everything.
“She’s a pinhead, you know,” Ty added.
Colin smirked. Maggie did have a pretty narrow face. But so did Ty. For a moment he looked at her, wondering if she might be pretty if she cleaned up a bit, or smiled every so often. Then he felt weird, like he was staring at his ma, and shook the thought from his mind.
“What do you care?”
“I don’t,” Ty retorted. “I don’t care what you do. Do whatever you want.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shivered against the cold.
Colin suspected the black mood had followed her from the morning. He passed her the blanket, and she jerked it around her shoulders.
They were quiet for a while, watching the crane trucks below load freight into the rusted metal cars. Then Ty said, “You ever have one of those toy trains when you were a kid? The wood ones with the metal tracks.”
An image formed in his mind of the small rectangular blocks on tiny wheels. He’d painted it red, but only because the store had been out of yellow.
“Sure. Didn’t everybody?” He regretted saying it when she gave an exasperated sigh.
“No, Prep School. Not everybody.” She tightened the blanket around her shoulders. “I had a dream about one last night.”
He didn’t know why she was frowning.
“That’s sweet,” he said. “I’ll get you one for your birthday. You can set it up on the line and play with it during your break.”
He braced for a shove, but instead she just snorted.
A hiss behind them caught their attention, but before either could untangle their legs from the railing, there was an earsplitting crack from over by the concrete dividers. A flash of light, and a spray of dirt, and then silence.
“MATCHSTICK!” Martin, smeared with grime, emerged from the cloud of dust and charged after the rail-thin boy, who darted through the crowd. A cheer rose from those around, always game for a little demolition.
“Lifting from Small Parts again,” said Ty, but her lips quirked up. From the opposite side of the street, Matchstick hollered for someone to save him.
Colin laughed, and then Ty laughed, the ugliness of the day having burst like Matchstick’s explosion. He laughed so hard the tears burned his eyes and his stomach cramped, and it was only when he saw that Ty wasn’t laughing anymore that he realized he’d slapped his hand on her leg.
He followed her gaze down, and then withdrew, feeling a little awkward. Not that he should have. Ty was family.
He stood.
A kid rammed into him from behind. He was smaller than most, pushing through the others like he owned the whole beltway. His dark hair was crunchy with sweat, and his shirt was dusted with the white powder all the workers used to keep their hands dry. That meant he worked at Small Parts, though Colin had never seen him before. As he went to shove past, he tripped over his own feet.
Colin reached down automatically to grab his arm and almost laughed. The kid’s shoes were huge—men’s shoes. Clown’s shoes more like it. And white leather, like part of a chem factory uniform.
Exactly like part of a chem factory uniform. The kid was a thief—you had to be eighteen to apply there, and he couldn’t have been more than ten. Plus, it was just plain stupid to steal uniforms—the workers all wrote their names on them so they wouldn’t mix them up.
It rubbed Colin the wrong way. Not that he hadn’t taken things he’d needed before, but the way the kid was tromping around, showing off, irritated him. It was plain disrespectful.
He kept a hold of the boy’s arm, mind set on telling him to watch himself. But when he leaned down, he recognized the inscription on the instep, scratched in black marker.
H. Walter.
Hayden Walter.
In an instant, he’d wrapped the boy’s collar in his fist and shoved him against the railing. Small, narrowed eyes burned up at him with fury, though not as hot as Colin’s. Ty jumped up in surprise.
“What are you doing?” She’d immediately gone for their hands to break them up.
“Where’d you get those shoes, kid?” Colin rammed him against the railing again. The metal clanked, drawing the attention of those packed closest.
“Colin,” Ty hissed.
“Get your hands off me!” the boy squeaked. No one dared defend the kid. No one pushed Colin when he was angry.
“Fight!” someone called. The word caught like wildfire, and after a brief, frustrated moment, Colin released the boy. He wasn’t looking for attention, he wanted answers.
“The shoes,” Colin said, jaw locked.
“There could be ten H. Walters working there,” Ty said after a moment. But Colin recognized the handwriting, and he remembered the night Hayden had marked them, just after he’d started at the plant.
The kid tried to run, but Colin snagged the back of his shirt and dragged him back into place.
“Where did you get those shoes?” Colin asked again. “Last chance to tell me before I make you tell me, kid, and trust me, I don’t care if you’re six or sixty, I will.”
Ty swore under her breath. She was going to intervene. There were rules about picking on someone half your size, rules she’d taught him once upon a time. Even Metalheads had a code.
Fine, so Colin wouldn’t kill him.
“Try it, you big stupid … giant,” the kid managed, practically walking on his tiptoes as Colin hoisted him up.
The crowd of bodies grew denser as Ty attempted to drag them away from the railing, toward the center of the bridge. In order to get a better grip, Colin abandoned the shirt for the kid’s arm, bending it at an awkward angle behind his back. He was careful not to break it. Good God. It didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the kid was carrying on.
“Ow!” the kid whined, falling dramatically in a heap against a concrete barrier. Several workers Colin kn
ew had stopped what they were doing and were watching with interest.
He stepped forward.
Ty slapped a hand on his chest, a stubborn look on her face. “Don’t make me stop you.”
He glared at her.
“I lifted ’em fair, okay?” the kid belted. “From some junkie sleeping off his bender underneath the bridge.”
“When?” Colin bent down and ripped one shoe off, then the other, tying the laces together.
“Hey! I got those fair, I told you!” said the kid.
“You stole them. How’s that fair?” But he knew as well as anyone, what you didn’t claim was ripe for the picking.
“Last night.” The boy pouted. “I got ’em last night. You happy?”
Ty kneeled beside him. “There’s free shoes at the Charity House.”
“Wood shoes maybe,” he spat. “Shoes that don’t fit, maybe. Shoes that got holes in ’em, maybe.”
Ty crossed her arms over her chest. He was mouthy, that much was for sure.
One good smack across the jaw, that was what the kid needed. God knew Colin had gotten his fair share of them after moving across the beltway. But the flash of fear in the boy’s eyes stayed his hand. Ty was right. What did picking on a kid prove? That he was Minnick, that’s what.
A final hard look, and Colin stood. He had to find Hayden. Make sure he was alive. He hadn’t been home in three days now. A shudder passed through him as he considered just how cold the previous night had been.
He shrugged into his coat and tucked the blanket under one arm. The switchblade in the front of his belt beneath his shirt moved, reminding him of its presence. Turning toward the river, he paused when he felt Ty’s hesitation. She was staring at the shoes hanging over his shoulder.
“Go get your bunk,” he said, letting her off the hook. He could have used her help, but winter nights in Metaltown were too cold to sleep outside; maybe Hayden knew firsthand, but Ty didn’t have to. He was on his own.
“Get out of here,” she said, the strange, sad look on her face sticking with him as he jogged away.
Metaltown Page 5