Metaltown (15 page)

“You thought wrong.” Jed leaned over the desk, dark eyes piercing. “Believe it or not, I don't owe you anything.”

“I never thought—”

“In fact, if anyone owes anything, it's you, Colin. Your brother has a debt, did you know that? He borrows to fund that little fix he's got. Surely your mother would be distraught if we came to your home to collect.”

Colin's mouth fell open. “You don't need to go to my house.”

“Now that's just rude,” said Jed, suddenly indignant. “After all I've done for your family, you wouldn't even invite me in?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“An insult like that has me rethinking my generosity.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” stammered Colin. “I didn't mean anything by it.” Beside him, Ty was quickly rewrapping her wounds. Panic blossomed, like the first draw of blood. Coming here had been a stupid idea. Jed was going to stop the payments that kept Cherish alive. He wasn't going to help Ty, either. Things had been fine one second, and the next had spiraled out of control.

Jed sighed. “I know you didn't. You were just trying to look out for your friend.” He sat down again, and Colin became aware of his muscles humming, his organs vibrating. “Just a word to the wise, kid. This is a dog-eat-dog world. Sometimes the best thing you can do is cut your losses.” He glanced over Ty again.

Colin went very still. Gone was the confusion. Gone was the anger. And in its place, remained a different kind of fury. A dangerous kind.

“Is that the Brotherhood's official opinion?” he asked.

“Colin,” muttered Ty.

Jed smiled. “Of course not. If you paid your dues to the Brotherhood, I'd give you the Brotherhood's official opinion, but I'm afraid you don't. You just reap the rewards.”

Colin stepped forward, but Ty grabbed his shoulder. He tried to shake free, but she wouldn't let go. Then Imon had his collar, and was dragging him down the hallway, out into the gray light of Market Alley.

*   *   *

Colin made for the river with Ty on his heels. He didn't speak to her; he couldn't even look at her. The shame was almost worse than the fury, and he was ready to rid himself of both.

He stalked down the crumbling sidewalk, past the pay-by-the-hour motels, to a bend in the road. The dive on the corner was alive with neon lights and already full of Metalheads—laborers mostly, avoiding going home.
Lacey's.
Where they served penny shots of corn whiskey, and never pretended the stuff was safe to drink.

The bouncer outside was meaty, and marked up the forearms by half-finished tattoos. Before Lacey's, Rico had worked at Small Parts. Exposure in the hot room had made him sick, and Minnick had turned him out to find the only work he could: food testing. A bad batch had messed up his lips, and as a consequence he wore a perpetual sneer. Lacey had hired him because he looked like a monster.

“Hayden in there?” Colin barked.

Rico rolled his head to the side. “You going to cause me trouble if he is?”

“No,” Ty answered for him.

Rico's sneer deepened as he inspected her face.

“Keep staring,” Ty challenged. “I'll make sure your eye matches mine.”

Colin pushed past them inside, scanning the bar and the patrons huddled over their dirty glasses. Behind them was standing-room only. The laughter was already turning raucous.

“Colin!” Zeke called from over in the corner. Martin was there with him, and a few others from Small Parts. Colin didn't stop.

He wove through the bodies toward the back, to where Hayden was sitting on a fold-out metal chair, dealing cards onto a wooden crate. Four other guys watched his hands, waiting for him to slide a card and cheat.

Colin felt his control snap. The fury rolled through him, blocking out the lights, blocking out the other people. Blocking sound and reason. He lunged over the makeshift table, grabbed Hayden by the shirt and hoisted him to a stand. Cards and money scattered across the plank floor.

“What the—”

Colin hit him. Hard enough to crack his nose. His knuckles flared with the pain, but he didn't care. He wheeled back to hit him again, but Hayden had lowered, and he charged straight into Colin's gut, knocking the air from his lungs.

Colin crashed into a group behind them and hit the floor. Glass cracked somewhere near his head. He swung up, connecting with Hayden's side. A grunt filled his ear, brought on a dark satisfaction. He hit his brother again, and again.

Hayden's elbow swung back and knocked him hard enough in the temple to make his vision waver. And then the weight was suddenly absent. Colin sucked in a tight breath.

“No trouble, my ass,” growled Rico, holding Hayden upright in a headlock.

Zeke's arms latched under Colin's and heaved him up. His brother's eyes were red-rimmed, his dark hair matted with sweat. The blood ran freely from his nose. He swiped at it with the back of his hand.

Fighting had erupted around them, a chain reaction of explosions. Glass shattered, voices raised. Colin saw Ty taking a swing at a guy in a chem plant uniform. Martin pulled her back.

“Get out,” ordered Rico. “Work it out outside.”

Hayden and Colin were shoved out the front door, into the empty street and the frigid night. Inside, the fighting raged on.

“I was on a streak,” said Hayden. “You cost me half a day's wages in there.”

Colin got right back in his face, sick when the sticky sweet smell of nitro wafted off of him.

“Why don't you ask Jed Schultz to spot you, then? I hear he's been loaning you all kinds of green.”

Hayden fell back, brows hiking up his forehead.

“Where'd you hear that?”

“Where do you think? From Schultz himself. When he was telling me he could cut the money for Cherish if you didn't pay up.” It was close enough to the truth, and Colin wanted nothing more than to make Hayden crumble.

“You don't want to mess around with Schultz, little brother.” Hayden's voice was low.

“Oh, that's perfect,” said Colin. “Go ahead, try to tell me what to do. You can't even take care of yourself. It's pathetic.”

Hayden turned away, like he was going home, but stopped and came back to Colin, squinting, pointing. “Everything's so easy for you, isn't it? So goddamn easy.”

Colin's head fell back. Easy? Nothing was easy. His mom was sick and his brother was a junkie and his best friend was half-blind. He was the idiot, yet again. Wanting everyone to be something they weren't.

“Yeah, everything's real easy, Hayden,” he said bitterly. Glancing back through the bar window, he found Ty still standing, yelling something at Rico. She was all right—at least for now. But things were changing. She'd had her fair share of scrapes, but what had happened with her eye was different. It made her vulnerable, and he'd never thought of her that way before.

He forced a heavy breath, standing side by side with his brother, facing the black water that lapped against the concrete barrier beneath the bridge. A train was rolling down the tracks at the shipping yards, on the edge of Bakerstown, and the sound carried over the distance. He wondered if Lena could hear it all the way in the River District and then felt stupid for even thinking it.

“I'll get clean,” said Hayden.

“Okay.” He wondered if he sounded as skeptical as he felt.

The minutes passed. Colin knew he should go home. Check in. Take care of things. Try to get a few hours' sleep in before work tomorrow. He cringed when he remembered that Ty wouldn't be there with him. He hadn't worked a day without Ty by his side in four years.

“It's not so damn cold on the water,” said Hayden, chin digging into his collar. “Sometimes, when the tide was out, we'd lay out on the dock in the sun. That kind of warm goes straight to your bones. Keeps you heated half the night.”

Colin felt a pull deep inside of him. He wanted to feel that kind of warmth. The kind that burned off the chill, and the sickness, and the hunger. And the crushing defeat that he couldn't help anyone he wanted to help, including himself. But at the same time he wished Hayden would just shut up about it, because he was sick and tired of stories that never came true.

“You coming home?” Colin asked.

Hayden's eyes shot quickly to the door, then back to Colin. “Yeah. Now?”

“Now.”

Hayden grumbled a curse as they turned up the street. “You messed up my back, little brother.”

“Good.”

 

14

TY

Ty wandered the streets, with no particular destination in mind. The shadows were thick this time of night, and she watched them like they were living, breathing monsters, rather than the shrouds of the sick who'd wandered aimlessly from Beggar's Square. No Bakerstown cops crossed the tracks to Metaltown. Not that they would have kept the streets safe anyway. Knife in hand, she walked faster, feeling the blisters begin to bite at her heels, and the cold claw under her collar.

She was tired of Lacey's. Sick of the noise and sick of people staring at her face. She could have gone to Shima's, but the sublevel apartment was cramped, and Ty didn't want to be a burden. She wasn't an invalid, after all.

She'd used up all her green from last payday; even if she had been able to forget what had happened last time, the Board and Care was out. If she'd stayed on at Small Parts until the end of the week she might have been all right, but kids who got fired didn't get to claim their wages. That was Minnick's rule.

So she walked, heated by her hatred for Lena Hampton. Hampton might not have been the one to dump the acid on Ty's face, or sic those mutts on her at the Board and Care, but her hands were still dirty. It was her people who owned stupid Small Parts, who allowed for knotheads like Minnick to take advantage. Her people who let Jed Schultz's Brotherhood protect the adults, but not the kids. Now there was nothing for her to do. No one hired a girl with one eye. And the Brotherhood would never cover her as an adult because she'd been injured before eighteen.

The despair clung to her back, sharp nails lodging in her muscles. She moved faster, trying to outrun it.

Lena Hampton had fired her. Ruined her. Ty remembered that pathetic puppy-dog look on Colin's face when he'd said her name. That had been its own special brand of betrayal. He just couldn't figure out where he belonged. Well, she was tired of reminding him.

It was long past midnight when she reached the familiar stone statue of St. Anthony. One thin stone arm stretched before him, the other broken off sometime over the years. He looked eerie in the dark, like a corpse in the streetlight. Ty quickly skirted by into the projects.

Twelve floors high, Keeneland Apartments was on the verge of ruin. The brick siding was crumbling, the windows almost completely boarded up. Graffiti marked everywhere within reach, and the fire that had scorched the west corner had become a hole for squatters since the owner—some pig-faced greenback from the River District—refused to fix it last year.

Ty hustled around the outside of the building, clambering through the weeds and empty bottles toward the fire escape. Just to the left of it was the Dumpster, and the smell coming from it was enough to make her gag. She froze when she heard several voices back near the statue. Someone broke a bottle against the stone, making her shudder. Laughter echoed off the brick siding as they moved on.

She climbed the fire escape to the second floor, and huddled in the shadows below the window. There wasn't much warmth coming from inside, but it was enough to take the edge off. She felt safer here, with her back against the wall. She felt safer knowing he was close.

Her eyelids grew heavy. Her arms pulled inside the sleeves of her shirts, wrapping around her bare stomach. Her knuckles grazed the two matching scars beneath her knife hilt, reminding her of a nun at St. Mary's, who'd told her when she'd gone to take a bath that she shouldn't let people use her body to put out their cigarettes. If that's what had happened, Ty couldn't remember. Probably better that way.

A hacking cough from within the apartment roused her, but when it quieted, she drifted again.

Get up,
she told herself.
Don't fall asleep.

*   *   *

The woman's hand was cold, and dry like bones. Not warm like her mother's. Not full like her father's. It grasped her fingers so tightly she recoiled, but couldn't shake it loose.

“Come on.” The woman's voice shook, and that brought hot, fierce tears to the girl's eyes.

They were outside a stone building, the damp shadows clinging to their skin. The woman knelt down, scooped up icy mud water from a puddle, and sloshed it into the child's hair. It bit into her scalp and dribbled down her face. Her dress was ripped too—the collar shredded, leaving only her stained underskirt. The sounds were too much like growls in this strange place. The cold made her shiver so hard she could barely stand.

Finally, the woman knocked at a dingy wooden door, told the girl to stay put, and ran. She cried then, wailed, her tiny bare feet frozen to the step. She wanted her mother. After several moments the door was unbolted, and a lady appeared in the lamplight, a sour look on her face. She was dressed all in black, her hair and neck hidden by a scarf.

She only shook her head disapprovingly, and then picked the little girl up.

*   *   *

Ty surged to her feet, a rattling at the window above turning the remnants of that strange, familiar dream to dust as she sprung for the fire escape. She was too late; the plywood board was lifted off the frame and pulled inside, and the sharp curse from within had her freezing in her steps.

“Trying to kill me?” Colin whispered. He had a wastebasket tucked under one arm as he stepped over the ledge to the platform. Instantly, he replaced the board, coughing once as the cold air hit his throat.