The Only Way (3 page)

It was too close to home, too soon. Hart tightened her grip on her bag and grabbed Finn's hand, clenching down on the hurt that crawled up the back of her throat. "Get out of our way," she snapped, knocking Lacey aside.

The girls watched them go with contemptuous eyes. Hart made very sure to keep her gaze well away from their exposed midriffs, breasts and legs.

Noise rose over them as they reached the fence, the clamor of voices begging to be heard. Gutter kids crowded the checkpoint, waving their goods in the air, calling out prices. Huddled in the open gate were a few merchants, looking out on the sea of children with scheming eyes. Nearby, a few guards lounged, guns propped at their feet, looking bored.

After a moment one of the merchants spotted Hart and waved her over. "Got anything good, kid?"

"You know I only take good stuff," she shot back, holding the larger sack out for inspection, tamping down on the lingering unpleasantness from her encounter with the girls. She was here to do business; she had to have her head in the game. He rifled through carelessly, and shrugged. "Two for the whole thing."

"You're dreaming," Hart scoffed. "It'll fetch ten times that."

"Three."

"Seven."

"Don't be an idiot, kid."

"Four. Or I'm taking it to someone else."

The man grumbled but paid her, taking the goods away. Many of the kids around them were being sent home empty-handed, the junk they had collected worthless even to the grungiest pawn man. Hart lingered as the crowds dispersed, waiting. After most of the people had gone she spotted Clark, hurrying through the Alley streets. He was foreman at one of the smaller plants, and often made do with scrap metal to keep them afloat.

He was always kind to Hart and her father.

"Evening, little heart," he said with a wide grin. "Where's Duncan? Big fight tonight?"

"Big fight last night," Finn spat bitterly. "The biggest."

Hart caught Clark's eye. "He's …"

"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry, kid."

"Us too." Hart shrugged, her chest tightening. She refused to cry here in front of the guards, in front of the Alley men.

"You have anything good for me tonight?" Clark asked, voice gentle.

She held out the bag of scrap metal wordlessly. The casing from some kitchen appliances, pried off with desperate hands; small coils of thin wire. It wasn't much, but she could see pity shining in Clark's eyes. Sending a prayer for forgiveness to wherever her dad had gone, Hart let out a little sniffle, ducking her head down to hide her eyes.

Clark shifted uncomfortably and named a price. It was twice what she deserved. She took the cash gratefully, pushing away her guilt and disgust. It would feed the family another night.

She said her goodbyes to Clark and turned with Finn back towards home.

"He only paid you that much because he felt bad that dad's dead."

"I know."

"That won't work tomorrow night, or the next, or the next."

"I know," Hart said forcefully. "I'm going to figure something out, Finn. Try not to worry."

The look he gave her was dubious, but he shut his mouth.

Their mother was actually up by the time Hart and Finn got home. Something was stewing over the fire, and the girls were setting the table carefully. Vivien met Hart's eyes as she came in the door, a knowing, adult look, the kind she used to share with Duncan. A look that said they were the adults of the house now, and had to show it.

Hart nodded, moving to help the kids.

"How did it go tonight?" her mother asked.

"Nine dollars."

Her eyebrows rose. "Really? That's better than usual."

"It was a good night." She paused before conceding, "Probably the best we'll have in a while."

Her mother bit her lip, nodding slightly. Hart knew they'd have to talk, to figure out what to do. But right now, there were children to feed, and bathe and put to bed.

When the evening was over and the three little ones were curled up in the bed in the main room, Hart slipped outside, waiting for her mother to follow. It was nearly pitch black in the street, and Hart huddled in on herself miserably. She felt the absence of her father more in the dark of the night, felt the lack of his protection.

Vivien came out silently behind her, leaning up against the wall. "I'll go into the Alley tomorrow to find work."

Hart sighed. "They won't even let you past the gate, and you know it. You're in no condition to work."

"I can scrub floors as well as anyone," her mother countered.

"Yeah? In some fancy house, when there are Alley girls fighting for those jobs?"

"I'll scrub the floors of a factory."

"They don't clean those floors, mother."

"Well, what do you suggest, then?" Vivien asked sharply. "Live off the scrap heap? Let Penny and Roe starve?"

"I'll find work."

"You think they're going to let you waltz past the gate?" Her mother asked, tossing her question back at her. It was worse for Hart. She didn't even have papers or identification. She'd been a small child when they came to the Gutter, forced out of even the most derelict of Alley neighborhoods. At least there was a record of her birth in the Alley. Finn, Roe and Penny didn't even have that much. Born in the small room they still slept in, there was no record of them anywhere. According to the City, they didn't even exist. "They won't take you in the factories."

"So I'll find something else."

Her mother turned towards her, eyes barely visible in the dim light streaming through the gaps in their house. Hart could see the pity reflected in them anyway.

"You know there's only one kind of work a girl from the Gutter can get in the Alley."

Hart knew. She thought of the girls she had seen earlier, their clothes barely covering anything at all, makeup smeared around their eyes and over their lips.

They had been her friends when she was little, but sometime around the age of twelve or thirteen things changed. They started to 'go' with boys, cozying up to the older Gutter boys and then preening under the attention of men. As young as thirteen, they laughed at Hart for not having boyfriends, someone to fight her battles for her in the street. Hart always maintained that she could fight her own battles.

It was a short stretch from laying down for the swaggering Gutter boys to crowding the fence at night, waiting for an Alley man to make you an offer.

It was good money, they said, and not that hard. You just closed your eyes and waited for it to be over.

She also had seen them limping home late at night with black eyes and bloody noses, with torn clothes and tearstains on their faces. She had seen the way their eyes looked in the light of day:  dull and dead. Ashamed and broken.

She thought of Lacey, seventeen and pregnant. All that her work had gotten her was another mouth to feed. All that baby meant was more nights on her back for the Alley men. Hart would do anything to keep her siblings alive, but she hoped it wouldn't have to be that.

"There must be something else," she said firmly, casting the idea aside. They weren't desperate. Not yet.

Her mother sighed, glancing back into the house with sad eyes. "The factories, which won't hire us. The streets, which wouldn't want me and which I won't let have you. And the fights. That's it for people like us. That, and the trash heap."

The fights. The industry that consumed so many Gutter men, including her father. The City sold it as a social crusade—and if the City dwellers bet on it, if they turned it into a show to cheer and jeer at? Well, that was all the better, wasn't it? A win-win situation.

The idea of it was sickening, but Duncan had brought home good money out of those rings.

Hart wouldn't make half of what girls like Misty or Lacey did in Alley beds. She was all hard muscle, long and lean from her years training at Duncan's side. She had the body of a boy, still, not much different from when she was thirteen and all the girls started to change, to worry about boys and makeup and to whisper to each other ways to keep from getting knocked up. Hart had never been like those girls.

"I could fight," she said, the words surprising her.

Her mother laughed, a high, desperate sound. "Sure. And I'll get a job as a lady's maid in the City."

"I'm serious."

"There aren't any fights for girls," Vivien said. "And thank god for that."

"Because what they want with girls is better?" Hart demanded. "At least the men still have some dignity when they're beating the shit out of each other. At least they still have some fight in them. I'd rather fight than just lie back and take it."

"It doesn't matter what you'd rather. It is what it is. You're a girl."

She was a girl, of course. But—"I can fight." Duncan had trained her. She was small, but fit. Wiry.

"Hart, what are you even talking about?" her mother said impatiently.

Hart stood up, squaring her shoulders. "Fighting. I know how. I could do it."

"But—"

"I'm tall. I have muscle. I barely have a waist or breasts. I'm built for fighting, for surviving, not for … what girls are for. I can do this."

Her mother shifted uncomfortably. "You're being ridiculous."

"You know I'm not. I practiced with dad. I'm good at it. I could make a hell of a lot more in the ring than on the trash heap."

"What if you get hurt?"

"I'll be careful." Hart stepped closer, wrapping her arms around her mother, ducking down to tuck her face into her mother's neck, like she was a child again. "I promise, mama. We have to do this, you and me. For the kids. So Finn doesn't end up in the ring. So the girls don't end up on the streets. Let me do this."

She couldn't stand the idea of Roe and Penny growing up like Lacey had. Used and abandoned with a baby on the hip before they were even grown up. Lacey's taunt about supporting her family still rang in the back of Hart's mind. She had let her father go off and fight to keep them all alive. Now it was Hart's turn.

For a moment, her mother didn't say anything, and then she straightened up, stepping back out of Hart's arms. "We'll have to cut your hair."

Hart's heart hammered in her chest as she nodded, resolved.

They crept back inside and into the second room, where her parents slept. Hart perched on the edge of the bed, holding still as her mother approached with a kitchen knife. Her hair was ratty, but long, hanging down past mid-back.

"Are you sure?" Vivien asked.

"Do it."

Hair fell to the floor in chunks. Her mother cropped it close to her head, the knife shearing against skin. Hart expected to feel more as she saw the brown tendrils fall to her feet, but instead of loss she felt excitement. It had never occurred to her to fight, not while she boxed with her dad or ran by his side. Not while she watched him go out in the evenings and come back bruised and bloody, but proud. But now that she had decided, she felt like a fire had been kindled inside of her. She could do this. She knew she could.

When her mother finished, she stepped back and gave Hart a critical look. "Your face is still pretty. But you might pass for a boy of fifteen." She tilted her head. "We'll have to do something about your breasts."

Hart crossed her arms over her chest. "Do what?"

Vivien ducked out of the room and returned a moment later clutching some strips of cloth. "If we wrap them up and you wear loose clothing, no one will be able to tell."

Hart stood, running a hand over her shorn head. "You think I can pass?"

Her mother sighed. "I don't know. When I look at you, all I see is my beautiful girl." She reached out, laying a hand on Hart's shoulder. "But I think you're strong enough. If any girl from the Gutter can do it, it's you."

*~*~*

When Hart woke the next morning, it was to Penny's little face close to her own.

"What happened to your head?"

"I got a haircut." Hart leaned up on her elbows, forcing Penny to back away, sitting back on her heels at Hart's side. 

"Do you have nits?" Finn asked, scrambling out of the bed. "Johnny had nits, and they shaved his head. His whole family, too."

"No nits, I promise."

"Stop bothering your sister with questions," Vivien snapped, emerging from her room. "She can do what she wants."

Her tone was light, but Hart felt the significance of her words, laden with permission.

Her siblings' questions stopped, but Hart could feel their curious eyes resting on her throughout the day as they combed the trash heap. Hart left early that day, sending Finn off with their takings to barter as best he could.

At home, Vivien helped Hart get ready, winding strips of fabric around her torso and pulling tight, pressing her breasts uncomfortably to her bones. Hart shrugged on a t-shirt and an oversized sweatshirt of her father's and ran a nervous hand over her shorn hair. "How do I look?"

"Too young to be doing this," her mother sighed. Hart frowned. "Fine. You look as much like a boy as you're ever going to." She stepped forward, pulling Hart into her embrace. "Please be careful. I can't lose anyone else."

"I'll be fine, mother," Hart said, knowing that it wasn't her promise to make. It came down to her opponent, after all.

Hart slunk out of the house, hood up, hoping none of her neighbors saw her go. She crept to the closest checkpoint, knowing that it was late enough that most of the kids selling goods would have dispersed. There was still a crowd milling around, and Hart slowly joined them. Girls dressed in practically nothing lined up with hardened men and desperate-looking boys, hoping to be allowed through the checkpoint. Duncan had a fight scheduled nearly every night of the week, except when he was injured, because he was good. For a brand new fighter, though, things were more difficult.

Hart joined the crowd.

Chapter Three

The crowd stirred with nervous energy, people jostling each other roughly as they pressed closer to the gate. The checkpoint guard stared off into the middle distance, gun clutched in his meaty hands, ignoring the people around him. They didn't have to wait long, however, before men approached from the Alley side. Hart was used to people from the Alley looking better off than the Gutter folk, but these men were undeniably sleazy. Maybe they were better fed and better dressed than the people who lined up at the gate, but they still looked like something scraped off the bottom of a fancy shoe, dirty and clinging along for the ride.