Later that night...
"And just where are you off to?"
I look up, startled, to find Rakess leaning against the door to our apartment. I'd been so busy frantically packing my things that I hadn't even heard him come in. He didn't have a fight tonight, should have still been working the back room at the casino. I hadn't seen him there tonight, but I know his schedule by heart.
"Oh," I say dumbly, and then feel my cheeks go hot as I stare around me at the mess I've made tearing the place apart and trying to fit all of my things into a single pack. "I... I'm leaving."
A frown twists my brother's face, disapproval and betrayal clouding his brow.
"I wanted to tell you!" I say quickly, taking an instinctive step towards him, eager to set the record straight. "I did, I'd... I was going to leave a message for you with Laiki downstairs. I just... need to leave," I finish, hating the way my voice cracks just before it fades away. It makes me feel young, and stupid, just a dumb kid on a foolish errand.
Rakess just sighs, and stares around at the wreck I've left behind. "Do you owe someone money?" he says quietly, eyes still on the floor. "I can get money if that's--"
"No!" I say quickly. "No, it's nothing like that. It's..." Gods, I don't even know how to tell him this. I swallow harshly, try to collect my thoughts. "There's a girl," I stutter, "I've been seeing her for over a year now. Secretly, her father would kill us if he found out. We're running away to be married." Saying it aloud restores some of my resolve, and I straighten my shoulders. "We're in love, and I don't want her to have to live in this horror-show of a town anymore. I don't want to raise our children here, have them go through what you and I went through." I shuffle forward, eyes glued to my brother's face though he won't look at me. "You've heard the stories of Syliras," I murmur softly. "Remember? We used to dream of it when we were children. Getting out of here, going somewhere safe, where we wouldn't have to fight tooth and nail just to survive! I have to get out of here, Rakess," I say, and I can hear the desperation in my own voice, but I'm beyond caring.
He's quiet for a long time, and I'm not sure if he's angry or sad or disappointed or some combination of it all.
Finally a smile crosses his face, and there's something sad in it - horribly sad, and my heart twists to know that I did that, I made him feel that way. We've always depended on each other, our whole lives. We've taken beatings, been lashed by whatever merchant had a long enough whip to catch us before we ran. We've killed people,
dozens of people, all to protect each other.
"Well then," he murmured, rubbing a hand across his face. "I suppose we'd better get you packed."
I'm struck dumb by it, and am sure in that moment that my face looks much like what Ydretha's must have when I told her I'd take her away. And then I can't help myself - I throw my arms around my brother's neck and hug him fiercely, my throat closing with words of thanks I can't say aloud.
When I finally let go, he keeps an arm around my shoulder, and nudges me over towards the bed where I've got my pack. I feel elated, as if the world is suddenly brighter, and for the first time in a long time I feel the stirrings of hope.
Everything is going to be all right, it'll all work out, we'll get away and be happy and have a normal life.My lips twist into an ecstatic grin, and I can feel a laugh starting to bubble up.
A flicker of movement. It's all the warning I have, and my mind doesn't even register it, too bright with dreams of a real future. But my body knows it, has spent long years defending against it, and before I even know what's happened my hand latches onto my brother's wrist where it lays against my breastbone and pulls, hard, yanks his fingers away from the delicate skin of my throat.
Time slows, almost stops, and I can actually feel the pain blossom in a ragged line across my chest as the razorblade Rakess holds digs into the thin flesh over my collarbone and drags it's way up and over my shoulder just below my ear. I smell my own blood before I see it, metallic shadows spraying in red bursts across the bed.
As the razor finally pulls free of my body, time snaps itself back into place, and then everything happens too quickly. I twist out from under his arm, my right hand still clinging to his right wrists so tightly I can feel my fingernails grow wet with blood. My left hand pulls a dagger from my belt, and as I twist I slam it into Rakess' arm and savage it from palm to armpit. I can feel that I've cut my own fingers as well where they circle my brother's wrist, but I'm beyond caring about that.
There's no voice in my head that says I have to end it quickly, no thought process or weighing of options. In the streets, you
always kill quickly. No pause for gloating, no clever last words, no promises of violence to come. You do it clean and quick, or dirty and quick, but you get it done as fast as you can because the longer your opponent lives the longer he's got for just dumb, blind
luck.For all that Rakess grew up in the same harsh world that I had, these last years were spent fighting for sport, for entertainment, and that was an entirely different set of skills. That, and his reputation had kept the worst filth of the streets from trying his blade. It's been a long time since he's killed a man for anything but money or the love of the crowd. He's forgotten the quick kill, or he'd have put a knife in my spine, or shoved it between my ribs and up into my heart. But no, he wants the drama. He wants to listen to me cough and sputter, watch the light go out in my eyes while my blood paints the walls in time to my dying heartbeat. He wants the fancy kill. I want to live
more.My dagger lodges against the bone in his upper arm and I twist it viciously and wrench it out, and now it's
his turn to drench the room in blood. He doesn't cry out anymore than I do, though his wound is worse. We fall away from each other, each pressing a hand to our wounds, though blood still seeps from beneath mine and pulses from his. I scramble away, putting the small table between us, the blood-soaked dagger still held out in front of me.
I don't know what expression is on my face - bewilderment, betrayal, surely some combination of the two - but his is a rictus of rage beneath the dripping blood, a fury and hatred I've never seen on his dark features before.
"Why?" I pant, blood oozing between my fingers with every expansion of my chest. It burns, now, as if the wounds were licked in acid, and if I silently pray that Dira keep her jackals at bay.
Rakess' entire arm is soaked, scarlet rivulets coursing down to drip from his fingertips and spatter across the floor. He sneers, and takes another step back, collapsing against the wall.
"You were going to leave me," he says, panting now too. "After all I've done for you! All we've been to each other, you were just gonna sneak out in the middle of the night with that Djelini whore!"
My body goes suddenly cold, ice-cold, and my fear quenches even the burning of my chest. "How do you know her name?"
My brother laughs, then coughs, his head dropping a moment as he winces, and his smile is worse than his sneer had been. "Old man Djelini caught her packing up her things. I have to say, she must've actually loved you, though I can't imagine why. Wouldn't tell him who she was running with, not even when he started beating her. So he dragged her over to the Casino by that pretty black hair of hers." He licks the blood from his lips, straining now to stay upright, even as I feel my own knees starting to tremble. "You know, you coulda done somethin' smarter than falling for Tall Johnny's niece. They don't take betrayal too kindly in that family. He called me in and had me work her over until she gave you up. I have to say,
brother," he spits viciously, "that's the tightest little girl I've been inside since I learned how to petch."
I'm shaking now, with horror and pain, too shocked to even be angry yet. I feel like I should - I
should be angry, furious, righteous even, but all I feel is a sort of creeping despair that freezes me down to my bones. "Where is she?" I whisper, though I'm fairly sure I already know the answer.
"Where all the trash goes," he pants, sliding down the wall as his limbs grow weak from the blood loss. "The Slag Heap. Djelini and I threw her in the fire and stayed until she stopped screaming. Didn't take long."
I stare at him, and there's no repentance in his eyes, only hatred, and I know somehow that when he was in the back room of the Casino raping my fiance and she finally sobbed my name, he'd been only too eager to kill me himself. Wanted Tall Johnny to know that he'd had nothing to do with it, wanted to redeem himself to the master who held his leash. He could have warned me. Could have run with me, could have saved us both. But that ain't how it's
done in Sunberth. Better to stay where he knew his place than face the uncertainty of a new life.
I stand there, silently, and watch my brother bleed out and die.
And then I finish packing, and take all my money and his as well, and climb out the window, up over the roof and across the whole of Sunberth, west and north until I hit the Suvan Sea.
