City of Savages

by Lee Kelly

  * * *

  We shuffle over the sidewalk and then dive into the shadows of the Park, through the woods and over the 76th Street bridge towards Belvedere Castle. Cass is pressing her fingers so hard into my forearm that by tomorrow I’ll have a whole new set of bruises from her. But I don’t flinch. In fact, I don’t even look her way.

  I get it. She’s taking jabs while she can. I know she’s livid, and I guess, in a weird way, she has a right to be. If Sky and I were anyone, anyone, else in the Park, we’d be thrown in the prisons at the zoo for months for disobeying direct orders, maybe even years. Our rations cut, our families threatened. Instead, as I’d bet on, we’re on our way to Rolladin.

  Like I realized on the roof, there’s something special about us. I don’t know what or why. I just know it’s true.

  We get the easiest jobs at harvest. We get the same room every year at the Carlyle, regardless of when we show. Last night Rolladin absolutely should’ve thrown us out of the Park, but we got a pass instead, a chance to fight on 65th Street to prove our worth. And as much as I hate to admit it, I should have been handed my ass in that fight. But Rolladin stopped us right when things were going south for me. I saw it in her eyes when she broke us up, but really, I’ve known it for a long time. There are rules that don’t apply to us. Now it’s time to test how far that goes.

  I take a deep breath as Darren and Cass pull me out of the dark of the Park and into the dim light of the castle hall.

  I’m just going to need to kiss some serious ass in order to test it.

  10 SKY

  I’m so furious I’m seeing colors, the candlelit hallway of the Belvedere no more than the tunnel of an angry kaleidoscope. All I wanted was a tiny shot of adventure, an escape into another world. But like always, Phee took over, and instead of a night of reading Mom’s journal on the roof, I’m being restrained by one of the most feared warlords of the Park, on my way to appeal to Rolladin.

  What was Phee thinking, grabbing that torch, bringing the gun? And if we lose that journal, I will never, ever forgive her.

  Lory thrusts me forward as she pushes open a wide, thick wooden door, and we’re once again in the study of Rolladin’s chambers, as we were a night ago, begging for mercy.

  “The one thing I’ll give you, you’ve got nerve,” Cass snarls into my sister’s ear.

  For once, my stomach doesn’t lurch forward, and my mind doesn’t clamor into protective mode. I just look away, upset, frustrated. Maybe even a little glad Cass is giving Phee trouble. Phee doesn’t listen to me; maybe the lords can knock some sense into her.

  “Cass, take this one,” Lory says, passing me over to Cass. “I’ll get Rolladin.”

  Cass holds my hands behind my back as Lory opens the door to Rolladin’s inner chamber, and then retreats into darkness. We’re left in the study. I look over at Phee and try to figure out if the small handgun is noticeable in the folds of her sweatpants. Thankfully, she never wears anything formfitting, and the thick cotton reveals nothing.

  I look up and meet her gaze, and I can tell she’s trying to carefully wiggle one of her hands free from Darren’s grasp to sign something to me. Her eyes are wide and determined, and she has that crazy look in her eye she sometimes gets when she’s about to hatch a less than fully formed plan. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I quickly and slightly shake my head. No. You’ve done enough.

  Rolladin bullies open the door to her study, Lory in tow, before Phee can respond.

  “Did I hear this right?” Rolladin demands, thrusting her wide features into mine.

  “Breaking out during lockdown?” She moves like a cat on the hunt, is on Phee before I can blink. “Drinking on the roof? Tell me, do you think I just give orders as suggestions? That I’m open to interpretation? Do. Not. Leave. Your. Rooms. What is so fucking hard to understand?”

  She looks like she’s about to strike Phee, and every ounce of ill will I wished my sister over the past few minutes washes away. I battle against Cass’s grip to break free, but Rolladin’s already diverted her anger, is pounding her old wooden desk in frustration. Crumpled papers and folders jump in surprise, then fall to the tabletop in surrender.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with this information?” Rolladin runs her hands through her fire-colored hair. “You’ve left me no choice, you imbeciles. Lory, take them away.”

  Lory waves Cass and Darren to start moving back the way we came.

  This is it. Mom, forgive us.

  “Rolladin, please,” Phee fake slurs. “We didn’t mean any disrespect. In fact, the opposite. We were celebrating your recent capture of those holdouts. No one steals from the Park. No one.”

  Phee does a little stutter step forward for emphasis, but Darren pulls her back. I watch as Rolladin gently takes hold of Lory’s wrist to wait a moment. Phee takes this as a sign to continue. My God, I hope she knows what she’s doing.

  “I want to stay here,” Phee blurts out. “The whole year. I want to be safe. I’m tired of leaving every summer. Tonight I realized that—and I went with Sky to the roof to convince her, too. Without Mom hearing us.”

  She looks over at me, nodding encouragingly, and for the life of me, I can’t tell if she means what she’s saying. This is a lie for Rolladin, right?

  Of course it is.

  But then I think about our conversation today about Phee becoming a lord, about our countless debates about the Park. And if I’m honest with myself, as much as I’ve always wanted to ignore it, we’ve never seen eye to eye on this place. Somehow this ruthless city is home to my sister. Where for me, it will never, ever be more than a cage.

  I get an unsettling, anxious feeling in my abdomen. So how much truth is in this speech of Phee’s? Is it for Rolladin’s benefit, or mine?

  “We had a few drinks. And I’m so, so sorry for taking what isn’t mine, what belongs to the lords. Please show us the lords’ mercy,” Phee continues, pulling out the ultimate line of deference in the Park. The one people use when they have nothing else to offer, and I can’t believe Phee is able to make the words cross her lips. If Mom could hear her, she’d explode. She’s taught us never, ever to give in and say this.

  “I’ll pull extra shifts,” Phee continues. “I’ll clean the prisons. We’ll do whatever you want. But after tonight, I know who I am and what I want. And I think Sky does too. Right, Sky?”

  Rolladin turns her attention to me, stalks forward. But her features are softer than they were before. There’s something new—hope?—in her eyes.

  “Yes,” I stammer, not sure of what to say or do, only sure that yes feels like the best answer. “That’s right.”

  Rolladin’s mouth sets in a hard line, and her eyes don’t leave mine.

  “Wait outside,” she finally says to her lords.

  “Rolladin,” Lory says softly behind her. “If the other sheep knew what happened—”

  “What are you, fucking deaf?” she barks. “I said leave us.”

  The lords slowly slither out of the room like snakes in the grass. Rolladin slams the inside lock shut with a snap.

  Then it’s just the three of us.

  “So,” Rolladin says to the ground, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say she seems . . . nervous. As nervous as I am. “Take a seat.”

  Phee and I find our way to two cracked leather chairs on the near side of her desk, and Rolladin bends down and examines the contents of her cabinet on the other side. She emerges with three glasses and a half-empty bottle labeled JOHNNIE WALKER BLUE. She pushes away her mounds of dusty files . . . Third Geneva Convention . . . Red Allies Code of War . . . before slapping three glasses on her desk.

  “Lory said you two liked whiskey,” she grunts as she opens the bottle and pours us each a hefty amount. I’m pretty sure Phee has no idea what she’s talking about either, but we both take a glass without protest.

 
Rolladin sits and leans back in her throne, probes us with her stare, then finally takes her whiskey and tips it towards us in the air. “Bottoms up.”

  I take the liquid to my lips. This one’s still beyond brutal-tasting, but it goes down a little easier than the Jim Beam. It’s smoother, and I somehow manage not to gag. I regroup and take another sip. With each one, I get a little less anxious. A little less afraid. A little less conscious of sitting with the leader of the Park, discussing our future over a glass of whiskey. I take a deep breath and a long, long pull from the glass.

  “Well,” Rolladin says. “You were saying.”

  Phee clears her throat but doesn’t look at me. “We love our mom,” she says carefully. “But now that we’re older, I think we should be able to make decisions for ourselves. And when those holdouts emerged out of the woods, it all clicked for me.”

  “It clicked for you,” Rolladin repeats slowly. “And what, may I ask, clicked?”

  “It’s—it’s like you were saying at the street-fights. About the whole survival-of-the-fittest thing. And after my match, I got it. I mean really got it, you know?” Phee’s voice is starting to betray her a little, quiver just a bit. She takes another gulp of the Johnnie, and I do too for good measure.

  “We’re in the middle of a war,” Phee says with new vigor. “And I don’t want to be cowering in the background. I want to be on the front lines, with you, keeping this city in order. Making sure we’re as strong as we can be when we’re finally released to fight and end this war for good.”

  She sells it, hard, so hard I’m believing her, and I have to look away.

  I focus on Rolladin instead. She’s toying with her glass, batting it around on her desk, like a cat with a caught mouse. “And what makes you think that I’d want you as a lord?”

  Phee stutters, “Uh, nothing. I don’t think that.” She runs her hands in circles under the desk, pulls at her sweatpants, gives that hidden gun some breathing room. “I don’t expect anything at all. I just wanted to say that I hope to be pledged. And if you’ll have us, we’re yours.”

  Yours. I no longer care if Phee is being serious, or if this is all some elaborate tactic to escape the zoo. It’s too much either way, and my stomach curdles in disgust. I can’t look at either of them anymore. I grab my glass and pour it down my throat, finish every last drop, wish I could transport myself back to our room at the Carlyle. Or better yet, to the other side of the world, to another dimension, where there is no Rolladin and eye for an eye and survival of the fittest.

  “Interesting,” Rolladin finally answers. “Well, I’ll have to think about that offer.”

  She finishes her drink as well, and then promptly pours herself another one.

  “And what about you?” Rolladin suddenly turns to me. There’s a smile threatening to reveal itself, but she smothers it before it can escape. “You’ve always reminded me of your mother. It’s always seemed to me that our Park way of life doesn’t suit you.”

  She leans forward, I swear, like she’s about to jump over the table and devour me. “So I’m quite sure that you’re just playing along on this one.”

  My stomach drops. And I’m shocked. Rolladin has paid that much attention? Knows me well enough to even guess at the truth? I feel a flush in my cheeks, and I don’t know whether it’s from the alcohol or the sickening feeling that I might be flattered.

  And I know I have two options.

  I can tell her how much I hate the Park, and this city, and her and all the sorry excuses for human beings who do her bidding.

  Or I can tell her the bigger truth. The one that, regardless of how jealous I am, how insignificant I feel, is more a part of me than any limb or organ, whether I like it or not. It rumbles inside me and bursts through my lips, armed with new ammunition from the whiskey.

  “I would never leave Phee,” I say, but don’t look at my sister, as my answer is so fundamental I’m scared by it. “What she wants, I’ll live with.”

  Rolladin looks at me for a long time, and a thin film glazes over her, steals the color out of her eyes. And for just a sliver of a second, she reminds me of my mom.

  “Well, that,” she says, “I can believe.”

  Phee’s fingers find mine under the desk, and she gives me a little squeeze.

  I feel like a traitor, a terrible, sorry excuse for a daughter. If Rolladin takes us in, how are we going to answer to Mom tomorrow? Are we even going to see her? As the whiskey settles, I start to realize that here, right now, we’re forever altering the course of our lives. Not to mention Mom’s.

  Will she stay here with us?

  Will Rolladin force her to stay in the fields? Or will it be Mom’s choice instead, and she’ll disown us?

  I close my eyes and think of this uncertain future, picture Phee a lesser lord, and me—what? Some sort of council to Phee? A castle whore? I shake my head.

  Stop it. Stop thinking. Just stop.

  “You’ll stay here tonight.” Rolladin stands quickly, the shove of her chair interrupting my thoughts. “Tomorrow we’ll discuss and make arrangements. I’ll tell your mother. She’ll have to come to terms.”

  Then she pounds on the door, and the moment is lost. We’re just two young prisoners of war again, being handled.

  Lory opens the door, and I see the other two warlords have just been waiting behind it patiently.

  “Take them to the guest chambers. Lock them in,” she tells Darren. Then she looks at us and nods like a fat cat, satisfied. “Until tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Darren hurries Phee and me up a few flights of circular stairs and down a hall lined with windows, then throws us into a small, simple room. He slams the door and snaps on the chain lock on the other side, and we’re left with each other.

  “Phee.” I sit down on the narrow bed, shaking, and put my head in my hands. The whiskey causes the room to bend and flex its muscles, bully me for sport. ”What have you done?”

  “What do you mean, what have I done? Isn’t it obvious? I just saved our asses.”

  Phee moves into the corner’s shadows, pulls open her two layers of pants to dislodge the gun and the bullets, then sits beside me. She carefully places the small weapon down next to her, like it’s an esteemed guest instead of an interloper.

  “Were we in the same room down there? You just signed us up for a lifetime with Rolladin. Are you insane? I mean, really, have you lost your mind?”

  Phee cranes her neck back, like she’s sizing me up. “You’re drunk.”

  “That’s hardly the point.” I leave her and walk to our window, look down to the torch-lined entrance of the castle. Lory is leaving with a fully armed troop, down the cement path and into the night.

  And I realize it’s possible we might never leave this castle as fieldworkers again.

  “What were you thinking, bringing that gun?” I say to the window. “And that show for Rolladin down there—”

  “Oh please, they don’t even know I have the gun.”

  “Not the real issue here. Seriously, why couldn’t you have just listened to me? Why’d you have to light that fire on the stairwell? Now Mom’s journal’s locked on the roof!”

  “Well, don’t blame me for that. You had to know that was a risk. No worries, I know we’ll get it back—”

  “Phee.” I sit back down on the bed. I want to shout or cry, but I’m so frustrated I can’t bring myself to do either. It’s always like this with my sister. She deflects, she rationalizes everything away, and then we end up talking in circles. And I can’t do it right now, I just can’t. I take a deep breath. “Just be honest with me, for once. No twisted words. No dance. You’re happy with the way things turned out tonight.”

  “Come on. I thought we dropped this whole me-wanting-to-be-a-warlord business in the fields today,” she says slowly. “We were in a jam. A jam, in case you forgot, that was s
ort of your fault in the first place. And I got us out of it. That’s all.”

  “You got us out of it,” I parrot. Calm. Calm down. Measure and weigh your words.

  But for some reason, I can’t seem to get calm, and my words fly out of me before I can pin them down. “Phee, there were a lot of ways we could’ve gone on this, had you—I don’t know—let me do the talking maybe? For once? We could’ve pleaded for a shorter sentence. Or agreed to leave the Park with Mom. But your go-to is pledging to Rolladin, practically begging her to keep us? What do you think’s going to happen tomorrow, huh? How are we going to explain this nightmare to Mom? Because I’m pretty sure Rolladin’s not open to ‘Sorry, just testing the waters. Thanks but no thanks.’ We’re finished, Phee. This, this castle.” I raise my hands as if to summon the room. “It’s home now.”

  Phee shakes her head. “Okay, these options you’re talking about? Involve legit jail time, or starving and freezing our butts off on Wall Street. We’re alive, we’re warm, and we’re not behind bars. We’ll just explain the situation to Mom and make her understand.”

  “If we’re ever alone with her again—”

  “Second, if I do say so myself,” Phee talks over me, “we had about two seconds to come up with a plan. And for all your big talk now, I didn’t see you stepping up on the roof. So you can say thanks anytime. We just dodged a heck of a lot worse.”

  “In your eyes.” I roll over on the bed, thrust my hands under the flat pillow, and curl my knees into my chest. The room starts quivering again, threatening to spar. I close my eyes. “You’re just not getting it,” I add. “This isn’t a game.”

  Phee lies down beside me and makes a big show of pulling the thin lonely blanket, threatening a tug of war. I let her have it.

  “I know it’s not a game,” she snaps. “You always think you know better than me. But maybe I know what I’m doing. Maybe I get the Park, all right? And I know how these whorelords think, more than you ever could.”

  “Why, because you’re such a ‘badass’ warrior now?” I throw back at her. “One fight, Phee. You were in one fight.”