by Griffin, Gen
“You have a price on your head?” This was just getting worse and worse.
“I'm a boogeyman who burned half the city to the ground. The king has offered a small fortune to any person who can bring me in dead. He'll pay even more money to anyone who can bring me in alive.”
“And yet you're walking into the city tomorrow.” It was a statement.
“You asked me to,” he replied calmly.
“I didn't know about your parents, your brother or the bounty on your head when I asked you to come with me.” Vera's accusations from last night were ringing loudly in my head. “I don't want you dead. You don't have to come with me. I can do this on my own.”
“No, you can't.” Seth rolled his good eye at me. “You need me, Pilar. You don't stand a prayer of saving your parents without me.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. There was nothing I could say to that. He was right and he knew it. “Thank you.”
Seth grinned at me and reached out to stroke one hand through my unruly hair. “Have you ever wondered how you'd look as a blonde?”
I blinked at him and then returned his smile with one of my own. “No. But I've always thought I'd make a pretty hot redhead.”
Chapter 6
Seth didn't look like the zombie priest of the Church of Chaos as we walked arm-in-arm past the guards who watched the gate that led into the city of Ra-Shet. He'd given the guards our fake city passes and they had handed them back with barely a glance at the words on the documents. Clearly, the guards weren't too worried about who came into the city. Seth had warned me last night that leaving Ra-Shet with my parents was going to be the hard part. He'd armed me with several small knives that were now tucked into my undergarments. He said he was hoping we wouldn't have to fight our way back out of the city, but the way he'd said it made me think that was exactly what was likely to happen.
In the meantime, we were pretending to be what Seth called Rurals. Evidently, there were a segment of moderately rich city residents who chose to live right outside the city gates. Seth had explained that Rurals were still citizens of the king and that their relative wealth made them less likely to be questioned by the guards than the people who lived inside the city walls. He'd also said that it wasn't unusual for Rurals to shop for their uncontaminated meat in the meat market.
Seth had covered his ruined eye with a pair of brown sunglasses that had mirrored lenses. The permanent wounds on his face had been filled and smoothed with thick, putty-like make-up the color of flesh. The white streak in his hair had been dyed black and then covered with a gray fedora hat. The navy blue sport coat he wore over slim legged tweed trousers made him look like a natty gentleman out on the town. It was the look he'd been going for, and he'd dressed me to match.
My frizzy brown curls were neither brown nor frizzy any longer. The beauty school's shelves had been full of products that were intended to keep curls smooth and silky. It appeared that some of those products actually worked. My newly tamed locks hung in pretty, glossy curls just past my shoulders. My brown hair was now a deep cherry red that was bordering on being slightly purple when the sun hit it.
The dress he'd chosen for me was yellow, with a tight fitting bodice and a skirt that twirled easily around my knees. The dress didn't have any straps or sleeves. It bared my shoulders and made my breasts look surprisingly perky. I would have felt pretty if I hadn't felt so sick to my stomach with fear.
My ankles wobbled in my open-toed high heels as we walked across the cobblestone road that I assumed would lead us to the meat market. Seth hadn't spoken more than two words to me in the last half-hour. It was just as well. I was afraid I would throw up if I had to speak.
The city streets were crowded with people. I had forgotten how suffocating it was to be packed, shoulder-to-shoulder within a throng of strangers. People were yelling back and forth to one another all around us. The shacks and booths of various vendors lined both sides of the streets.
Seth kept us on the right side of the road. I noticed he was careful to avoid looking directly at any of the merchants we passed. I'd never seen so many things for sale in my life. Piles upon piles of clothing, dishes, jewelry, tools and vases. More food than I had imagined possible during my years of near starvation within the walls of the Cube.
“Stop staring,” Seth hissed under his breath. “You look like you've never seen a sales market before.”
“I haven't,” I whispered back to him. “I've never seen so many things.”
Seth sighed under his breath. “Keep your eyes on your feet, Pilar. Don't make eye contact with anyone. Don't look around. We need to get in and out without catching anyone's attention.”
I forced my eyes back down to my toe nails. Seth had made me paint them a bright pink. He'd called the tiny jar of paint nail polish and said it was all the rage within the city. I supposed he was probably right, but my feet didn't even look like my feet anymore. Especially not when they were all dressed up in glittery high heels.
I looked up from my feet and unexpectedly caught sight of my reflection in Seth's sunglasses as he stopped on a street corner. My lips were painted an unnatural pink. My eyes were framed with delicate lashes that I hadn't been born with. My hair hung in smooth red curls and my shoulders sparkled lightly from the glitter powder that Seth had dusted my skin with before we'd left the beauty school this morning. I took an unexpectedly deep breath. The pretty girl in the reflection wasn't me. She was a stranger I didn't recognize, staring deep into the concealed eyes of a man who a part of me was still terrified of.
I nearly lost my nerve then. I would have fallen if Seth hadn't had an iron grip on my arm.
“Pull it together,” he hissed at me. “We're here.”
Chapter 7
The meat market was outdoors. Dozens of frightened, dirty people quivering and crying inside heavy metal cages as shoppers wandered the gravel paths that wound between the various cages.
Someone was wailing to my left. A fat man in suspenders was haggling over a price with a woman in a fur coat.
“Eating human meat is wrong!” A small girl with tangled blonde hair and a grubby green dress was standing in front of an empty cage. Her bright green eyes had dark circles under them and she was holding a hand-written sign that read 'Stop the Slaughter'. A heavy set boy was sitting on the ground beside her. He had on a battered hat and torn jeans. The sign he held said 'cannibalism is worse than turning into a zombie'.
“How would you feel if you were on a plate?” Another boy asked. This boy was older than the first two. Probably close to the same age as me. His shoulders were twice as broad as Seth's and I nearly stepped back away from him. “All people are equal. No one deserves to be eaten.”
I agreed completely.
Seth pulled me closer into his side.
“Don't look at them,” Seth breathed the words down the back of my neck.
“I can't look at them?” I whispered back.
“We're buyers, Pilar. No. You can't afford to look sympathetic to the protesters.” Seth pulled me further down the path, leaving the grubby protesters behind. “We need to find your parents and get the fuck out of here.”
Something in Seth's tone made me look up at him. He was as pale as I'd ever seen him. There was a sickly green cast to his skin as he led me from cage to cage, staring down at the begging, pleading, crying human beings who were quivering as they waited for money to change hands and seal their fates.
It was all I could do to search the faces of the doomed for the two familiar ones I was looking for. Cage after cage, I looked for my father's broad shoulders and brown eyes. I searched for my mother's round face and curly hair. I stared through each new set of bars with a growing sense of dread. My fingernails dug deeper and deeper into the flesh of Seth's arm as he kept me moving through the market.
We were on the last cage before I realized that we'd made it all the way through the market. As I stared at the starved, old stranger in the final cage, I felt like a heavy weig
ht was crushing down on me from the sky below.
“They're not here,” I whispered into Seth's ear.
He turned his face so that our cheeks were brushing against one another. “Are you certain?”
“I know my parents, Seth. They aren't here.” I blinked back tears. “And I didn't see Bud Moon.”
“I didn't see him either,” Seth said.
We stood in the middle of the walkway and stared at one another for a moment.
“Now what?” I asked.
Seth shook his head and shrugged. “Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
I hesitated, took one last look around and then nodded. My parents weren't here and the meat market definitely made my skin crawl. We were nearly back to the main street when the little girl started screaming.
“No! No! You can't have her! You can't eat my Momma!” She was maybe eight years old with long brown hair and bright green eyes. Her arms were wrapped tightly around the right leg of an older woman. The woman had a thick chain wrapped around her neck and she was being led out of the market by a tall, impeccably groomed man with a long nose. It didn't take a genius to realize that the man who was leading the woman had purchased her from the meat market.
“Moira. Moira please. Go away, baby. You can't save me.” The older woman was trying to pull the child's hands off her legs but her hands were chained together at the wrist.
“Momma, no! Please no!” The little girl was sobbing. Gut wrenching cries came from the depths of her tiny frame. “No! I love you! Momma, I love you!”
“Get rid of her,” the buyer snapped at the fat man who had been haggling over prices when we had walked into the meat market.
The fat man scowled as he walked over to the woman and the little girl. He had a thick whip in one of his fleshy hands.
“No,” I whispered. He raised the whip high in the air above the hysterical child.
I didn't stop to think about what I was doing. I raced to throw myself between the child and the spiked whip that was crashing down through the air towards her.
I ran as fast as I could in the high heels, but Seth was faster than I was. He caught the sharp lash of the whip with his arm as it came down. It coiled around his forearm and cut through his jacket, drawing blood as he jerked the handle out of the fat man's hand.
“What the hell do you think you're doing, boy?” The fat man snarled. He stepped threateningly towards Seth.
Seth didn't flinch. “Saving a little girl from a monster.”
“I paid for this woman,” the buyer snapped. He jerked the chain that was wrapped around the mother's neck. “She belongs to me.”
“No! No! No!” The child screamed.
“Pilar, grab her.” Seth began unwinding the whip from his arm. His jacket was cut through and the whip was dripping with blood as he pulled it away from his skin.
“Look here, kid. I don't know who you think you are.” The big man was only inches away from Seth's nose now. “But I'm not about to let some punk interfere with my business.”
“He's not interfering with your business.” The huge blonde haired protester boy was suddenly standing even with Seth's shoulders. He was staring down at the fat man with obvious disgust on his broad face.
“Back off, Gauge. I'll have you killed if you lay one finger on me. You've already been warned to stay away from the meat market.” The fat man had fixed his rheumy, angry gaze on the blonde boy.
“You're the one who needs to back off.” Seth's lips were set in a thin, angry line. “What kind of a man hits a little kid with a whip?”
I suddenly remembered that Seth had told me to get the little girl. I tore my eyes away from my terrifying hero and went down on my knees in the gravel next to the sobbing child.
“Come on, baby.” I wrapped my hand over hers. Her tiny body was shaking furiously as she clung to her mother. “Please, you've got to let go.”
“Moira, love. Let Momma go.” The older woman bent at the waist. Her eyes were bright as tears streamed down her dirty, wrinkled face. “Please baby. Go with this nice girl.”
“No. Please no, Momma. No.” Moira continued to cry, clinging to her mother's thighs.
“Baby, you have to let go.” The woman looked at me. “Pry her loose from me before they kill her. Please.”
I hesitated for a second and then nodded. I put my arms around the little girl's slender shoulders and began pulling her loose. She screamed and sobbed, kicking and flailing as I tugged her free of her mother. I hugged the terrified child against my chest. Her tears were hot against my skin as I stumbled backwards away from the woman on the chain and the fat man who was still trying, and failing, to intimidate Seth.
“Momma. Momma. Momma.” Moira continued to shudder and cry against me. Her little heart was pounding hard against her ribs as she continued to struggle to go back to her mother.
“Shh.” I stroked her hair as my own tears started to flow down my cheeks. Seth was arguing with the fat man. We'd attracted a crowd despite Seth's earlier insistence that we get in and out of the meat market without drawing attention to ourselves.
“Let me buy her from you.” Seth was holding a thick bag of coins out to the long-nosed man.
“You haven't got enough money,” the man replied. “I paid three times what you're offering.”
“It's everything I have.” Seth held it out with his still bleeding arm. “Please. For the kid.”
“The kid gets a cut of the profit from her mother's sale. You really want to take that money away from her?” The fat man asked snidely.
“I want my Momma!” Moira cried.
“Please. Take his money,” the blonde guy said. “Show some humanity.”
The fat man laughed in Seth's face. “Get out of my market before I call the guard on you.”
Seth rolled his shoulders and I suddenly realized that he was about to punch the man's teeth down his throat. Not a good idea considering that we were severely outnumbered by the notably unsympathetic crowd surrounding us.
“Seth, don't.” I stood up, struggling to keep the squirming little girl still.
Gauge looked over at me. He must have read the look in my eyes because he reached for Seth's uninjured arm. “We should go.”
“I can't just walk away.” Seth hadn't budged. He was nose to nose with the fat man. “That little girl-.”
“Doesn't need to see the man who just saved her killed by the guard for interfering in a flesh-broker's transactions. It's an instant death sentence. They'll kill you where you stand.” Gauge began pulling Seth backwards.
“Seth, please.” I forced the little girl onto my hip, relieved that she was such a lightweight child. If she'd been any heavier, I probably couldn't have successfully carried her across the gravel to where Seth and Gauge were standing.
Seth turned to me. I couldn't see his eyes because of the mirrored glasses, but he must have seen something in my expression because he stopped fighting Gauge.
“Go. Get the hell out of here and don't come back.” The fat man practically spat the words into Seth's face.
“You'll regret this,” Seth whispered under his breath. “I won't forget you.”
The fat man started to say something else but I didn't hear him. Moira was still sobbing in my ear as Gauge towed Seth out of the meat market. I followed after them, the crying child's agony mirroring my own.
Chapter 8
“That was either the bravest thing I've seen someone do or the most suicidal.” Gauge had led us to a crumbling old building on the outskirts of the area Seth had described to me last night as the Burroughs.
“I'll kill that old bastard,” Seth snarled. His arm was still dripping blood.
“Seth.” I smoothed my hand back down through Moira's hair as she whimpered.
“That old bastard is the president and owner of the meat market. A lot of people want to kill him, myself included.” Gauge crossed his arms over his ragged, burlap shirt. His arms and chest bulged with muscle. He stood
a solid six inches taller than Seth, which probably made him somewhere around six foot six. “You can't go after him. It would be suicide.”
“I can go after whoever I damn well-.”
“Seth!” I yelled at him before he gave himself away.
Seth growled and slammed his fist into the concrete block wall. The entire wall shook and Gauge let out a soft whistle.
“You know, normally I don't let strangers come in here.” Gauge gestured to the crumbling room around us. “I'm making an exception for you because you took a lashing for a little girl.”
Seth slowly turned around to face Gauge. He still had the glasses over his eyes. “You don't trust me?”
“Should I?” Gauge raised one eyebrow at Seth. “You seem more than a little bit unbalanced.”
Seth hesitated for a split second and then let out a bitter laugh. “You're smarter than you look.”
“And you're...” Gauge looked Seth up and down for a long minute and then shook his head. “You're bleeding all over my floor.”
Seth looked down at the puddle of blood that had formed under his arm. “Your floor is filthy. My blood isn't going to hurt it.”
Gauge rolled his eyes. “Lola will be back from the docks soon. She can bandage up your arm and put some salve on those wounds.”
“I'm fine.” Seth waved him away with his still bleeding arm.
“You won't be if that wound gets infected,” Gauge said.
“Seth, he's right.” I shot him a purposeful look. I'd spent my pre-Scavengers life working in the hospital ward of the Cube. Normal people had to worry about infected wounds. “You should let me clean those cuts for you.”
Seth sighed. “Fine. Whatever. I'd hate for my arm to scar.” His voice practically dripped with sarcasm.
Gauge cast a look from Seth to me and then back to Seth. “I've been sitting outside the meat market trying to talk rich people out of eating other people every day for the last two years. I don't think I've ever seen either one of you before.”