Seeing his friend’s head by his feet, Peter wets himself. “No, please,” he begs Volac.
In response, Volac smiles pleasantly, but his eyes are glacial. He throws his weapon down and waves Peter on, encouraging him to attack.
Peter looks from Volac to the crowd to Volac again. With a war cry, he rushes the leader of Sinsity, sword hoisted high and intending to cleave Volac’s skull in two.
Volac doesn’t budge until Peter is close, dangerously close, reaching out and gripping the hand holding the blade and punching Peter squarely in the nose with the other. The blade lands against the stage as Peter falls backward, hands covering his bleeding nose. Volac, not wasting a moment, pounces. Straddling Peter as he lies flat on his back beside Ryan’s head, Volac drives his fist into the man’s face. Alternating hands, he doesn’t stop. He punches Peter again and again until his features meld into a bloody pulp, caved in and unrecognizable. Long after Peter has stilled, Volac continues. When finally he stops, scarlet spatters and small clumps of matter dot Volac’s chest. He rises, breathing even and not winded in the least, and returns to his makeshift throne. He looks to the nearest guard. “Was that it for today?” he asks coolly.
“Yes, my lord,” the guard answers.
The bodies on stage are being cleared when a man’s voice calls out from the crowd. “No! That’s not it for the day!”
Volac leans forward in his seat. Peering out into the crowd, his eyes search for the person who spoke. “Who speaks out of turn?” he demands.
A hand shoots upward. “I do.” A man not much larger than Ara tries to make his way toward the stage. The people in front of him refuse to budge but a few instinctively step away from him, likely fearing he’ll get a dagger in the eye at any given moment. “My son Liam was killed last night.” Eyes red and swollen from crying and skin splotchy, the man’s head is hung low, shoulders slumped. “He was murdered in Fat Sal’s Saloon.”
“No, he wasn’t!” Volac bellows. Swirling vortexes of icy contempt, his eyes are devoid of sympathy. “You brought this to us last night. Woke my men with your sniveling accusations! Still we listened. And it was deemed a fair fight. Both men were armed facing each other when challenged!” Volac shouts. “Case closed! There’s nothing more to discuss!” Volac leans back, confident that the conversation is over.
“Liam was just a boy,” the man says.
Volac glares at him wordlessly. The small muscles around his jaw bunch and flex as he clenches his teeth hard.
“Ryker is a man. Look at him.” The man turns and gestures with one hand to the tall man clad from head to toe in black. Ryker stands toward the outskirts of the crowd, leaning against a food truck and languidly tossing a coin into the air again and again. “He’s a grown man. My son was just a boy. He was only fifteen.” The man covers his face and begins to cry.
“Fifteen is a man in Sinsity!” Volac screams.
“He said he didn’t want to fight,” the man barely manages to say through sobs. He chokes and splutters, then repeats, “Didn’t want to fight,” weakly.
“You know the law! You don’t have the option if you’re challenged! That’s the rule of Sinsity. My rule!” Volac’s gaze is deadly.
Liam’s father, dejected and broken, looks up. His eyes clash with Volac’s. Anger and defiance straighten his posture, lengthening his smile. Fists clenched at his sides, he blinks rapidly. Through gritted teeth, he grinds out the words, “This isn’t right.”
Volac springs to his feet. The crowd takes an instinctive step backward. “Are you questioning my laws?” he yells. Advancing several steps and in the throes of rage, spittle sprays from Volac’s lips when he screams, “If you say another word or if I ever hear one more word of this, you’ll face the wheel. Do you understand me?”
Cowed, the man nods “yes”.
“You have three other children,” Volac continues. “I’m sure you’d like to live to see them again.” His warning is clear. The man doesn’t utter another word. Instead, he stares at the ground blankly. Volac watches him for several moments before declaring, “That’s all for today.” He turns and walks off the stage to a waiting truck.
Slowly, the crowd disperses. The man remains where he is, as if his feet are rooted in the very pavement upon which he stands. Laughter trills from every direction. Staccato and grating, the sound claws at my eardrums. The events of the public trials are a source of amusement as details are recounted and joked about. Two dead bodies are dragged off the stage. I can’t say their crimes were defensible. If someone violated Ara or Reyna, I’d be capable of far worse than the deaths the men received here today. But their deaths aren’t what disturbed me. Everything else did. More specifically, Volac’s lack of sympathy or empathy for John and for the fallen boy’s father. How he ordered his guards to retrieve Reyna last night like an object without thought, feeling or choice. A shiver traces the length of my spine at his intention. Reyna would’ve been forced to join his already-large assortment of wives.
“You shivered. Are you cold?” Reyna asks, still tucked under my arm with her head close to my heart.
The sun beats down on the top of my head. My dark hair absorbs it and my scalp feels like it is cooking. The only part of me that’s cold is the marrow in my bones.
“I’m fine,” I answer absently.
She looks up at me. Stock-still and gaze astute, she waits for me to try again, this time with an honest answer.
“Okay, I’m not fine at all. Not one little bit. Happy now?” I shake my head at her, an involuntary smile threatening at the sight of her beautiful face.
She frowns. “No, Lucas. Sinsity makes me anything but happy.”
“I know,” I reply tightly. “I’m sorry.” I look to Ara. Huddled against Pike, her complexion is paler than usual. My brother’s hand is on her upper back, rubbing small circles. He doesn’t look much better off than she does. Xan, Micah, Aaron and Kai share similar expressions. Stunned. Shaken. Upset by what they’ve seen. “This place is…” I grind my molars, at a loss for words.
“Terrible. It’s terrible and scary,” Reyna fills in the blanks. She turns to face me. “We need to do something. We need to change Sinsity.”
A faint breeze blows. It ruffles Reyna’s hair before brushing my cheek then kicks up litter from the street and whirls it in a small cyclone close to the ground. Though I don’t know how Sinsity can be changed by our small group alone, I know she’s right.
Chapter 15
Back in our room after the public trials, I sit on the edge of my bed and rest my head in my hands. My stomach roils and churns in time with my thoughts. Between the beer last night and what I’ve just witnessed, I want to close my eyes, sleep, and banish both from my body. Pike flops down on the bed face first. He groans. I twist and face him. “You okay?” I ask.
He props himself up on his side. “Yeah, sure. I just saw a kid get his hand chopped off for trying to feed his family and a father cry for justice after his fifteen year old son was murdered by a grown man, who killed him in front of us just for the heck of it.” He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. “I’m great.”
I pause, watching him. Everything about his resigned sarcasm echoes how I feel. The need to apologize burgeons. “I’m sorry.”
Pike’s hand leaves his face. “What for? You didn’t do anything.”
“I brought you here. I brought you to Sinsity.” Flashes of the arena, of the death and destruction he and Ara were subjected to there, flicker in mind’s eye. That and the human camp we trudged through the forest and battled a monstrous creatures to reach, only to nearly get ourselves killed again. Images of the Uganna territory and barren desert we endured to get to Sinsity fly to the forefront of my brain, too. The first thing we saw when we arrived was a man dying in the street and no one slowed or seemed to care. The realization that that was and is a pretty fair representation of Sinsity is not lost on me.
“Yeah, and?” Pike narrows his eyes, studying my face.
I h
eave a sigh. “And it seems everywhere I take us, every place I think we’ll be safe, ends up being just as bad as the one before.” I purge myself of the words, try to purge myself of the feelings tied to them, but the guilt remains.
Pike sits up. “Lucas, enough!” he surprises me by exclaiming. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that happens! You try to get us where you think we’ll be safe. Monsters that lurk in the forest and human breeding camps with people loyal to the Urthmen aren’t your fault.”
“Yeah but people died,” I fire back. “I’ve gotten people killed. Their blood is on my hands. Mom, Dad, Kohl, Lark, Aiden…” I start, the faces of so many who’ve died float before my eyes.
“You didn’t kill Mom, Dad, Kohl or anyone else!” Pike explodes. “Urthmen killed Mom and Dad. And Cas killed Kohl in the Urthman arena! Lark and Aiden were killed by Uganna!” He springs to his feet, more agitated than I’ve ever seen him. He rakes a hand through the front of his hair. “You can’t keep that inside you! You have to know what’s true. No one blames you.” He holds his arms wide at his sides. “No one!”
Rocketing to my feet, as well, I take several steps forward. “Yeah, then why do I feel so bad? Tell me that, Pike? Why do I feel responsible? Why?” My throat constricts unexpectedly. Hot tears burn my eyes, brimming and ready to fall. I blink feverishly, holding them at bay.
Tense features slackening, Pike’s voice is softer when he says, “You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t feel bad. I don’t want you to.” He swallows hard. “You’ve done everything a person possibly could for us. And I, for one, think you’re doing a great job.”
“Me, too,” Ara, quiet up until now, says. “You’re a leader. A really great one. And leaders make decisions. Hard ones.” She swipes the tears that’ve gathered at the corners of her eyes. “Mom, Dad and Kohl would be proud.”
“Nothing could’ve prepared you for all we’ve been through and seen,” Pike says. “But you’ve taken everything as its came. You’ve adapted and made the best of situations, no matter how bad they were. But you can’t walk around with the weight of every bad thing that happens on your shoulders. You just can’t. It’s too heavy.”
I know what he means when he says guilt is too heavy a load to carry. I feel it. I feel it like liquid lead in my veins, weighing me down some days to the point where breathing requires tremendous effort. I want to be free of it. I need to be. Could Pike and Ara be right? I wonder. Perhaps I have assigned myself too much blame. “Maybe you’re right,” I whisper.
“I know we are,” Pike replies.
Several moments pass. “How do I do it? How do I stop feeling guilty?” I ask.
Pike shrugs. “How the heck should I know? I’m just a kid, much younger than you and not as wise.” He flashes a toothy smile.
I laugh out loud. Reyna and Ara burst into a fit of laughter, too. Scratching my head, I say, “Okayyyy. Well thanks for your honesty.”
Pike tilts his head to one side and nods. “Anytime, brother.” He sits back down on the bed. “Since my work here is done, I think I’ll rest for a bit. Unless, of course, you have more problems that need solving.” He smiles again.
I purse my lips as if I’m deep in thought. “Nope, I think I’m good for now,” I say.
“Good,” Pike smiles. He removes his boots and leans backward. “Ahh, much better.”
Shaking my head I chuckle to myself. The motion dizzies me slightly. “Whoa,” I say and rub my temples. “I think I’ll lie down, too. I still feel terrible from last night.” I untie my boots and slip them off my feet.
Pike, with his head back and his eyes closed, opens one. “Oh, here’s a thought: no beer, no feeling terrible in the morning.”
“And you said you’re not as wise as Lucas!” Reyna shakes her head. “If you figured that out, you clearly are because anything that tastes as bad as that stuff does is going to make you feel sick for sure, right?”
“Absolutely,” Pike agrees.
“Alright, alright.” I throw my hands up in mock surrender. “You guys are right. I should’ve know better.” After a pause, I say to Pike, “Wait, how do you know how bad the beer tasted? You didn’t have any.”
Pike closes his one open eye and goes still.
I reach across the bed and give him a light shove. “Huh? How would you know?”
I broad smile rounds his cheeks. And he opens his eyes. “I took a sip of Reyna’s when she set it on the bar.”
“What?” I ask, shocked. “You were told you couldn’t have it!”
Pike cocks one eyebrow. “And you only do whatever you’re told to do?”
I hold his gaze then close my eyes. “Fair enough.”
“It was awful, wasn’t it?” My eyes pop open at the sound of Reyna’s voice.
“It really was,” Pike agrees with her. “I don’t know how Lucas here had three.” He shudders and wrinkles his nose exaggeratedly in disgust.
The thought of the thick, warm, foamy brew makes me want to vomit. I roll onto my back. The motion doesn’t help matters. Holding up a hand, I say, “Can we please not talk about the beer anymore? Just thinking about it is making me want to puke.”
Reyna comes around to my side of the bed. “Aww, poor Lucas drank too much beer,” she croons as if she’s talking to a baby. “That bitter, thick, frothy drink. Ummm!” Laughing, she rubs her belly as mine turns.
Reaching out, I grab her and pull her toward me. Tickling the sides of her waist, I say, “Oh that’s funny, is it?” She giggles and falls across me, her ribs landing flush against my abdomen. I groan and feel the contents of my stomach threaten to spew.
She frees herself and stands, smoothing the strands of hair that trailed onto her face. Her cheeks are pink and she still laughs when she says, “Sleep. We all need to right now.” She kisses my forehead.
I gaze up into her crystalline eyes. For a moment, the rest of the world evaporates. It’s just Reyna and I.
“Do you think he’ll kiss her?” Ara whispers loudly, intending to be heard, then giggles.
“I don’t know,” Pike answers in the same tone. “But I hope he decides soon because I’m tired.”
Both Reyna’s head and my head snap in their direction. We both laugh. Reyna winks at me then joins Ara on the bed. They take off their shoes and slip under the covers. The room goes still. Before long, Pike is snoring softly and the even breaths of my sister and Reyna can be heard. I lie with my hands behind my head, staring up at a brown spot the ceiling, until my eyes grow heavy. Lulled by the sounds of sleep all around me and pulled by exhaustion so complete it claims every cell in my body, I feel myself drift off.
I’m not sure how long I’ve nodded off for when a knock at the door rouses me. I guess it’s been a few hours when I open the door and find Garan on the other side. “Hey,” he says then looks past me. Pike is stretched out and still asleep. Ara is rolled over onto her side. I can’t tell whether she’s awake or not. Reyna’s eyes are open. She watches us, looking as though she’s not fully committed to getting up. “What happened here?” he clips his chin toward the three still in bed.
Yawning, I reply, “After the trials we were shot. That and the drinks last night.” I rub my head and nod.
“Too many will do that to you.” Garan smiles as if he knows all too well. “I didn’t hear from you guys and it’s been three or four hours. I figured you might be hungry.”
My stomach growls as if on cue. “I’m starving.”
“I’m going back to Fat Sal’s. Wanna come?” Garan asks.
Though I feel far better than I did before I went to sleep, the thought of drinking beer—or smelling it for that matter—sickens me. “You want more of that stuff?” I blurt.
Garan rubs the back of his neck. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m more interested in eating than I am drinking.”
“Isn’t Fat Sal’s only a place to drink?” I don’t recall seeing anyone eat there. But then again, I recall little about last night.
“Mostly, but there’s food, too.�
�� Garan bobs one shoulder. “Fat Sal doesn’t have a huge selection. What he has is good, though. One of the best burgers in the city in my opinion.”
Burger. The memory of that delicious thing causes my mouth to water. My stomach growls again.
Garan says, “Sounds like you’re starving. You need to eat. Wake them and get ready. I’ll come back in ten minutes.”
I can’t argue. He’s right. I need to eat. All of us do. Besides, moping around in our room all day won’t do us any good. “Okay,” I agree.
Garan nods and turns away. I close the door behind him. “Everything okay?” Reyna lifts up her head and asks.
“Yeah. It was Garan. We’re going back to Fat Sal’s,” I say.
“Fat Sal’s? To drink?” A worried crease forms at her brow.
“No, absolutely not.” I smile. “To eat. We need to eat and Garan says the food there is pretty good. The burgers mostly.”
Ara’s head pokes up. “Burgers? I wouldn’t mind a burger.” She sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed.
“Me, too.” Pikes hand shoots up. “Argh, I just need to find a way to leave this bed. It’s so comfortable.”
Sin City Page 16