City of Savages (9 page)

Her voice grows louder, and I hear a few footsteps moving towards us. Beside me, Sky starts breathing heavy, so I reach out to hold her hand. Our palms, slick with fear, slip together.

“Sheep, huh?” Another voice, a deeper one, male, answers Cass. “Then why’d you call me up from the lobby?”

“Darren, Lory called you up. Not me.”

“Enough bickering,” a third voice chimes in.
How many of them are there
? “Cass, for being low lord on the totem pole, you’ve got an awful lot to say. As Council member, I make the calls here. And I saw a flame in the stairwell.”

A flame in the stairwell. A flame. My flame. My stomach does a backflip and lands on the glass-covered floor.

“Darren’s squad was guarding the lobby. Yours was on two, Clara’s was on three, and I was patrolling four. So if not for the sheep, then who the hell was on the stairwell?” The third speaker, which by now I’d bet a ration is Lory, pauses for dramatic effect. Then I hear a groan and a gasp—like there’s some sort of power play happening on the other side of the bar.

“Now shut the fuck up and do what you’re told,” Lory says. “This is the last place we have to look.”

Sky lets go of my hand and moves up my wrist with her fingers, then ever so slightly digs her nails into my skin. A bona fide
Told you so
. Damn it, I hate it when she’s right. I should never have lit that torch.

I’m wondering how pissed she’d be if she knew I had the gun.

I take a small breath and look around at the bottles and glass that barricade us in. If we don’t move, we’re surely caught. If we move in the middle of all this glass, we’ll make noise, and we’re caught. I close my eyes and briefly consider shooting our way out of this. How many bullets are there? Four? Probably not enough. Assuming I have the guts to pull the trigger.

The footsteps are splitting up and shuffling around us in all directions. The whorelords must be checking under couches and in corners, looking for the rogue sheep.

“Lory, there’s no one up here,” Cass whines. “Come on, can’t we go back to the castle? You promised I could see the trial.”

And for one short, amazing moment, I think we might be safe. Sky takes my hand again, and we squeeze.
Yes, yes, yes, go back to that whore’s den of a castle
.

“They must’ve snuck back to their rooms,” Lory says with a sigh. “I guess the other lords can handle babysitting for the night. Just check the bar and then let’s get the hell out of here.”

The bar.

Sky and I look at each other, mirrors of panic. Footsteps start pacing towards us from the opposite side of the roof.

Half-baked ideas start bumbling around in my brain.
The whorelords
.
Lockdown
.
The castle
.
Rolladin
.
Street-fighting
.

Think, think, think.

The ideas finally roll up their sleeves and start working together to build the beginnings of a plan.

I put one hand on my chest, like I can actually keep my heart on lockdown, and with the other, lean on Sky’s shoulder for support. Then I dislodge the small gun and bullets from my pocket and shove them into the seat of my long underwear. Sky watches me in horror.

You brought your
gun
?
she mouths.
Moron.

She’s right, of course. Again. There’s no precedent for getting caught on the roof during lockdown, let alone with a weapon.

But I don’t admit this, and instead just whisper, “Do what I do.”

I scan the bottles. Out of the lot of booze, Jim Beam looks like a solid, rational guy—a real straight shooter in a jam like this. His cap is crusted over from years of disuse, but he finally cracks open and I pour the caramel-colored liquid onto my hands, rub it behind my ears, take a long, deep swig of the gag-worthy stuff and pass it over to Sky before I stand.

Here. Goes. Nothing.

“We’re over here,” I fake slur across the roof terrace. I try to remember all the nights of watching the sloppier whorelords stumble around the Park, and channel them. “Cele-bra-ting.”

I look down at Sky, plead with her.
Drink it, bathe in it, and get up. Please
.

She debates whether to hide the journal on her, but then thinks better of it, weasels it into a cabinet, and camouflages it with a few bottles. Then she takes a long pull from the Jim and, choking on it, pats some on her face before she stands.

“What the hell are you two doing up here?” Lory demands. “Getting wasted? On our stash?”

She stomps over to us and grabs the half-empty bottle from Sky. The other three whorelords converge on us.

“Ugh, you lemmings reek.”

Lory and Clara begin searching Sky as Darren drags me out to the center of the roof-deck lounge. He holds my arms behind my back with one hand and does a quick check of my sweatpants pockets with the other, scouting for booze or weapons or God knows what else. I buckle my knees a bit. I squeeze my thighs together and pray he can’t see or feel the gun poking out from my sweats.
Moron
, I repeat silently.
Moron
.

But he backs away, satisfied I’ve got nothing. The cold lead of the gun slides between my legs uncomfortably, but it’s nothing compared with the shit I’d be facing for holding a weapon.

“Well, if it isn’t the famous Miller kids, cel-e-brating,” Cass spits into my ear as Lory brings Sky around the bar. “What, now you think you can do anything you want, just ’cause Rolladin didn’t let me finish you on Sixty-Fifth Street?”

The smell of Cass’s breath is layered—meat and booze and a heavy, smoky smell—and I cringe and angle my face away from her. The fur of her lame little squirrel cloak scratches me in the eye.

“Don’t think I’ll ever forget you cut me. Bitch.”

“Cass,” Lory snaps, pushing Sky forward as she does so, like my sister’s just a puppet on a string. Sky looks at me, her eyes wide and hollow, and I can tell she’s scared shitless. I am too. I close my eyes and breathe.
Come on, just trust in the plan
.

“What?” Cass answers Lory. “I’m just having a little fun with her.”

Cass grabs my hair and pulls my head backward, and I have to bite my lip to keep from yelping. My ribs are still sore from the fight, and Cass is standing so close, she’s crushing into me.

Darren reaches across the back of my body, and for a second, I’m sure that he’s going to touch me again and find the gun, and this will be all over. I close my eyes—

But his hand just grabs Cass’s wrist.

“Cass,” he says quietly. “Let’s not do anything we’ll regret.”

Cass releases her death grip on my hair. She straightens herself out and clears her throat. “Fine. We’re taking them to the zoo prisons, right? Then let’s go. We don’t have that much time before the trial.”

“Not the zoo,” Lory answers. “The castle.”

“The
castle
? These two lemmings were found drinking the lords’ booze. After curfew. On
lockdown
. And we need
Rolladin
to weigh in on whether we lock them in the zoo?” Cass’s eyes inch up and down my features. “I don’t get it,” she adds, her hot mess of breath crawling across my face. “What’s so special about you? Why does she even care?”

“What did I tell you about that mouth, Cass? Don’t forget your place.” Lory pushes my sister towards the door and the puddles of chains. “Now shut your fat face and get moving.”

As we feel our way down the stairs, I keep my thighs locked, hugging the gun.

“Can we at least tell our mom we’re being taken?” Sky calls out over the stampede of footsteps. “If she wakes up and we’re not there . . . Please.”

The whorelords get a good laugh out of that but don’t even bother answering.

Sky’s right. Mom’s going to be totally spooked if we’re not there when she wakes up. I pray that she stays asleep through all of this. That somehow we get back by morning. But if things go according to my plan, it’s pretty doubtful.

“Clara,” Lory barks back to my street-fight referee, now flanked between Lory and Sky, and me and my captors. “Stay behind and let the squads know we’re taking these fools to the castle. They’re on their posts until told otherwise.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Clara drops behind as the rest of us burst into the slick-floored lobby, and then out into the midnight air.

*   *   *

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.”