The City

by London Miller

  He shouldn’t have given a shit about her. No one had ever given a shit about him since he’d arrived in this place, but even still, he found himself saying, “I’ll keep her.”

  Bastian clapped his hands together, looking entirely too pleased about that. “Good. I’ll leave these for you. Lock her up once you’re done. We don’t want our new friend to try anything while you’re sleeping.”

  He tossed Valon a pair of manacles, winking at him as he and the men headed out, but before he was gone, he slapped the girl on the ass.

  Once they were gone and the door was closed behind them, Valon climbed off the bed, rolling his shoulders as he finally took the time to look at the girl properly. Her eyes widened as she realized just how tall he was, her eyes flickering over him, lingering on his bloody knuckles.

  As he walked forward, she took an equal amount of steps back, whispering a plea, thinking that he intended to hurt her. He merely reached for the sheet that Bastian had thrown down and tossed it to her.

  He climbed back on the bed, getting right back into the position he’d been in before she was brought to him. While he might have been looking back up at the ceiling, he was very aware of her still hovering in that same spot.

  She still didn’t move from the position she was in, almost as if she thought he was toying with her and the moment she did actually try to cover herself, he would attack.

  But he wasn’t thinking about her. Rather, he was wondering what in the hell he was going to do now.

  It was like having a fucking pet, except he didn’t want this one.

  While Loki was free to roam around—no one dared tell him otherwise—she was kept locked in his room whenever he left, and even when he was there, she still sat in the same spot on the floor, bundled under a sheet. As the temperatures were steadily decreasing, Valon frowned at the sight of her there, knowing from experience how cold those floors could get.

  But she didn’t know what he had done to earn this bed, a luxury that most people even older than him took for granted. Some nights, he woke up delirious, the feel of the bedding on his skin like the blood of those he faced in the Pit. Maybe it was their close proximity, or the fact that up until this point, he had done her no harm, but while the moon still hung heavy in the sky, the house quiet for the time being, Valon shot awake once again, sweat bracketing on his skin.

  He tried to see clearly, scrubbing a hand down his face, but the more he tried to calm himself, the more he sunk deeper into the nightmare that was slowly seeping into his reality. He couldn’t think, he could hardly breathe as face after face flashed through his mind on a continuous loop, forcing him to confront memories he wasn’t ready to deal with.

  A hand came down on his shoulder, startling the hell out of him. Without taking a moment to see who the person was, Valon had a hold on their wrist, yanking them off balance. Springing from the bed, he had a hand around their throat before they could even take a breath, dropping them to the floor, using his full weight to keep whomever it was pinned there.

  He could feel them struggling to breathe beneath his hold, nails scoring down his arm for purchase as they struggled to get free. It was only then did anything penetrate his fog. None of the men he knew had long nails, nor were their hands this small.

  He repeatedly blinked, the image of the girl coming into focus, her face bright red from her lack of oxygen. He jerked his hand away, still staring at her as she took in deep breaths, coughing as she choked, her hands flying to her own neck as if she could still feel the phantom weight of his own.

  Valon frowned down at her, not because she was making a lot of noise—noise that would probably wake up others—but because a foreign sensation raced through him, one he hadn’t felt in what seemed like ages.

  “Sorry.”

  As soon as he’d uttered the apology, Valon could see the surprise on her face as she finally got her breathing under control. Considering he had barely spoken ten words to her in the short time she had been with him, he could understand why his apology for hurting her was met with this reaction. Undoubtedly, she had heard about who he was and what he did while she was being transported here by Bastian or whoever had brought her. She’d looked frightened enough, and he was glad for it, but now, he just wanted her gone.

  He got to his feet, extending a hand to help her up. She gazed at it warily, and then after a few seconds, she placed her hand in his, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

  He let her go a second later, looking away as he tried to fight past an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Embarrassment.

  Valon never had to worry about someone witnessing his night terrors as no one bothered him during the wee hours of the night.

  Except for this girl.

  “Do you speak?” he asked angrily, scrubbing a hand down his face as he walked to the bathroom and turned the light on. He didn’t realize that she was watching his every move until after he’d splashed his face with water and came back out. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  It would be just like Bastian to find an American girl and bring her here. If she didn’t understand what they were saying, then she couldn’t provide information to anyone who asked. And even if she could vocalize something she saw, she wouldn’t live long enough to see the outside of this place.

  “M-My name is E-Elena,” she said in English, her speech hesitant.

  His mother had taught him the language, but he still didn’t understand some words and phrases. For the moment, Valon was just glad she was talking.

  “Valon…” he said carefully, purposefully not giving her his last name. Actually, he didn’t know why he was introducing himself in the first place. With the sheer amount of people who called his name a day, she probably already knew it.

  Clearing his throat, Valon rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, looking away from her. “Did you need something when you were…” He trailed off, waving his hand, hoping she understood what he was asking.

  “Just trying to wake you up.”

  He didn’t detect any malice in her voice…and she had a nice voice. Soft. Kind. A change from the barking and the male voices he heard every day.

  “Sorry.” That was the second time he’d apologized. A record, even for him.

  He moved around her to sit at the foot of the bed, all too aware of the way she still kept her distance from him, but after he had nearly choked her to death, he understood why. He wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t hurt her, that he wasn’t like the others…but wasn’t he? Didn’t he step into the Pit countless times to murder people just because someone told him to?

  She was right to be afraid of him.

  Not liking the silence stretching between them, Valon said, “You don’t have to stay on the floor.” He gestured back on the mattress. “I’m not going to hurt you if that’s what you think.”

  Valon just wasn’t built that way. He could hurt people with his fists, sometimes reveled in it, but never a female, and not in that way. Not that he knew how even if he wanted to.

  She only hesitated a moment before she walked the few, short steps to the mattress and sank down.

  He was surprised she was still okay due to the fact that she still didn’t have any clothes and it didn’t look like anyone was going to give her any. It was the least he could do…

  Back up again, he grabbed one of his old T-shirts and a pair of shorts that were probably too big for her, but it was the best he could do for now.

  Tossing them to her, he pointed to the bathroom. “You can change in there.”

  She disappeared through the door, leaving the light off, but when she emerged, he actually felt better.

  “Thank you.”

  Her gratitude made him uncomfortable, and even she looked uncomfortable. Her because she probably thought he wanted something from her now. Him because he didn’t want anything from her. Especially her gratitude. He might be a killer, but he wasn’t so bad that he was going to use a ruse to get something from
her.

  Again, they both fell silent, but it took every ounce of self-control for Valon not to ask her questions. Where was she from…did she have any family…was anyone looking for her, or had she chosen to come here expecting something different… But he couldn’t bring himself to ask because not only was he afraid of the answer, but what else could he do about it anyway?

  Sure, there was a train station a few miles from here, but the likelihood of them reaching that place before anyone noticed they were gone was unlikely.

  Valon didn’t know how long they sat there, his thoughts wandering when she finally spoke.

  “You’re really not like them, are you?”

  He wanted to agree with that assertion with every fiber of his being, but he had never been much of a liar, and he wasn’t going to start now.

  “I’m worse.”

  Chapter 10

  Fatos was waiting for him in the kitchen a few days later, smirking when he noticed Valon’s entry. He’d been around far more often now that he was working his way into The Organization. When he’d first shown up, Valon thought he would be glad for his company, but now he had grown tired of his former friend.

  Not because he did anything in particular, but it was just the smaller acts that annoyed Valon now that he was around Fatos far more than when they’d been children.

  One trait about Fatos was becoming abundantly clear. He hated to lose. Whether it was a mere game being played between friends, or if he lost a bet, he did not handle it well, and Valon was seeing a side of him that he never thought he would. But more curious was that he never lost his temper with Valon, not once.

  Even when Bastian asked something of Valon that Fatos wanted, he took it in stride. But let it be anyone else, and Fatos made them pay.

  But because Valon was loyal to those he considered his friends, he turned his back on Fatos’ actions. After all, he had someone to look after.

  Since the night of her waking him up, things hadn’t changed much between them, but she did, at least, make eye contact with him, and spoke to him, even if it was to only say “thanks” for the food he brought her.

  “What are you doing, brother?” Fatos asked as he watched Valon pull a plate down from the cabinets, pulling the contents out of the refrigerator to make a sandwich.

  Valon just glanced at him, letting his actions do all the speaking.

  “Is that for the girl?”

  “If it is?”

  He frowned. “Since when did you start caring about the girl?”

  Valon, still focused on his task, said, “I never said I cared.”

  Fatos held his hands up. “I merely ask…if you are too busy, I won’t bother you.”

  Irritated, he finally gave in, knowing that Fatos would keep bothering him until he had a conversation with him. Sometimes he forgot how needy he could be. “What’s doing, Fatos?”

  “Xavien is gone.”

  Valon racked his brain, trying to remember where he had heard that name, and then it clicked. Since he had grown so used to thinking of Xavien as Gjarper, he had actually forgotten the man’s real name.

  “Oh? Where is he?” For a moment, he feared the worst, thinking his mentor had been killed for a transgression that he didn’t know about.

  “On assignment with my father. It’s doubtful he’ll be coming back for a while.”

  At least one of them could get out of this shithole, Valon thought. While he wasn’t sure what the assignment was exactly, it had to be better than waiting on Bastian hand and foot. Good for him.

  “Okay.”

  Slapping some meat between the bread, Valon took it and a bottle of water, leaving Fatos staring after him. He didn’t notice the way Fatos’ eyes lit with a dangerous fire.

  Elena was just exiting the bathroom as Valon reentered. She hesitated a moment, and then gave him a small smile that made him look away. It wasn’t embarrassment that made him do it.

  At least that was what he told himself.

  “Thought you might be hungry.”

  “What about you?”

  He blinked, looking back at her as she crossed the floor to sit beside him. “What about me?”

  “Well, aren’t you going to eat, too?”

  He forced the plate into her hands, dropping the bottle of water onto her lap. “I’m not hungry.”

  He didn’t know what to make of her. Besides her first few nights, she didn’t seem to fear him, not even when he’d come into the room covered in blood, or like the other night when he’d nearly choked her to death. She just seemed to take it all in stride.

  “If you say so.”

  She carefully took a bite of the sandwich, smiling shyly at him when he looked at her. Since she seemed to be more receptive—or maybe because he wasn’t glaring at her—he decided to try to appease his curiosity.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  She chewed some more, swallowing before nodding. “Sure.”

  “Where are you from? I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.” He thought he would have remembered someone like her.

  Clearing her throat, she stared down at the sandwich thoughtfully. “I don’t know…or at least I don’t know where I was born. When I was nine, my parents died in a car accident, and I was sent to an orphanage. When I was sixteen, I left, thinking I could make it on my own.” She sipped the water, looking uncomfortable as she discussed a past she probably didn’t want to reveal to him. “I met a man who promised to take care of me, pay for anything I wanted, if I did a little work for him.”

  “What did you need to do?” Valon asked, then immediately regretted it when he realized what she meant a moment later. “You don’t—”

  “No, it’s okay. He wanted me to sleep with some of his friends first. That was my test, to see how I performed. When I…passed…he made me one of his girls. It wasn’t so bad,” she said as she read the look on his face. “He was never terribly cruel to me. It was only when I was short on money that he ever hurt me.”

  “And Bastian? How did he find you?”

  “Trenton, that was his name, he owed Bastian a debt. I fulfilled it.”

  Valon nodded, leaning his head back against the wall as he digested everything she had told him. It made him think of his mother and what her life must have been like before she was bought by Ahmeti and brought here. Was it better there? Had she been happy?

  Elena, misunderstanding his silence, looked down at the plate she had now set on the floor. “Do you think less of me now?”

  He wondered whether she thought if he did think less of her, would he treat her differently. Would he become cruel like the others and start calling her a whore because that was what she was…

  Truthfully, he didn’t care about any of that. Even if she had been an innocent, he would still never hurt her. If anything, this would only make him treat her better.

  “No,” he answered honestly.

  “Thanks.”

  But she shouldn’t have to express her gratitude for that. He was only being a decent human being.

  “And you?”

  Shaking his head, he laughed without humor before telling her a condensed and clean version of how he had come to be in this place. She listened intently, never taking her eyes off him until he had finished.

  If anything, that seemed to make her pity him.

  “I’m sorry about your mother. It sounds like she meant the world to you.”

  And she had. That was why, shortly after he had come here and gained enough freedom that he could walk the property without being followed, he’d taken her combs and wrapped them in a spare strip of cloth he’d found in the barn.

  In the dead of night, he had ventured from his bed into the woods behind the house, letting the light of the moon guide him until he was deep enough that he felt they would be left unfound. Though no one had tended to bother his things at that time, he still didn’t trust how long that would last. He was spending too much time running errands for Bastian to watch over them.

 
; When he had found a rather secluded area, he had crouched beside the thick trunk of the tree, digging into the hardened earth with desperate fingers until he had made a significant hole. He had had some time before anyone would be looking for him, so he had taken advantage of that.

  On his knees, he took a second to unwrap the folds, taking a moment to peer at the jewel-colored combs with their incredible designs. He had almost been too afraid to let them go, knowing what these had once meant to his mother and now to him. Despite having given up everything else from his former life, he hadn’t wanted to give those up, too.

  Not yet.

  Down they went into the hole, and then he covered them in dirt until there was nothing left to see.

  At the time, and even now, he didn’t know whether he would ever return for them, but he hoped… One day, he hoped.

  “Yes,” Valon answered after some time. “She was.”

  “Thank you.”

  He looked at her, confused. “Why do you say this?”

  “You trusted me with something that I doubt you’ve told anyone else. So, thank you.”

  Though the action felt foreign and out of place, Valon smiled.

  From that day on, things had shifted between them.

  She was less of a pet and more of an…ally?

  Valon wasn’t quite sure what to call her, but he knew one thing. He was glad to have her in his life. Now that she was there, he didn’t feel that same grueling pressure at the end of the night when he left the Pit. He actually looked forward to returning to his room. Even if it was just for a few short hours every night, she helped him forget the Pit and the demands Bastian put on him. And in return, she gave him her undivided attention.

  No one bothered her now that it seemed he had taken more of an interest in her, and the one time that Strom thought to harass her while Valon was busy in the Pit, Valon made sure to teach him yet another lesson on why that was not a good idea.

  Time slipped by as they grew closer, and before Valon realized it, that first awkward week between them had turned into six weeks, and they were closer than he could have ever thought they would be.