Break the Chains

by Megan E. O'Keefe

  “This is how you repay me, captain?” He waved a hand over the open mouth of the sack. “With treachery? With turning the very information I gave you against me?”

  “I was in the process of investigating the clearsky chain of ownership when–”

  “Enough!” He slapped an open palm upon his desk. “You think you’re clever, eh? Think you’re smarter than me?”

  “I didn’t–”

  “Did I tell you to speak?”

  Spittle flew from Radu’s lips, tangling in his moustache. Ripka clenched her jaw to keep from speaking. This was not a rational man she was dealing with. She couldn’t expect him to listen to what she had to say, and her attempts to persuade him seemed only to insult him – to make him angrier.

  “I know your game,” he said, and she felt a tingle of fear in her heart. Did he truly? Would Kisser have turned their secrets over to him? She could think of nothing that woman would have to gain from such an act. She could also not imagine Radu sussing out any truths under the roof of the prison he’d been given to manage, let alone her secreted agenda.

  “Sir,” Enard spoke in his smooth, placating voice. The picture of respect, the same tone she imagined he’d used with his Glasseater bosses. “I assure you that our intentions were for your benefit. To discover the smugglers to whom you set us to uncover, we–”

  Radu’s expression changed in a flash. His lip curled into a canid snarl as he grabbed a trinket holding down a stack of papers and threw it at Enard. Ripka winced as the weighted brass struck him with a heavy thump. Enard took the blow as if it were little more than water rolling down his back. With her own collection of bruises and aches from their previous scuffles, she suspected she wouldn’t have been so stoic in the face of such an affront.

  “Think you can talk your way out of this, do you?” Radu snapped.

  “Warden,” Ripka spoke to distract the man from his new quarry, “if you would tell us what it is you think us guilty of, then perhaps we could come to an understanding.”

  “An understanding? Are you so fool headed you think yourself in any position to negotiate?” He snort-laughed and slapped the bag of bark shavings, tumbling a few of the silvery curls to the top of his desk. “I know what this is, captain,” he laid all the sarcasm his drunken mind could muster onto the word. “And now I know the shape of the viper secreted in my nest.”

  “You think me behind the new drug?” She cursed herself for not managing to keep the affront from her voice. Damn watcher pride.

  “Think? Think? Do not pretend the matter is in question! My guards caught you with your arms full of the raw material. This, this sack of shit.” He growled and shoved the bag away from him, spilling a few more curls, as if the very sight and scent of the resinous wood disgusted him. “I don’t know what made you think you could get away with this. Greed, more than likely. But playing both sides? I will not be deceived!”

  “Warden.” She struggled to keep her voice as calm as Enard’s had been, struggled to push aside her desire to roll her eyes at this overwrought man and his paranoia. “The drug was in circulation within your prison long before I arrived here. How could I possibly be the source?”

  “Source? Pah, I don’t think so highly of you, girl. You are but a pawn. A poor one, at that. Who are you working for?” He grabbed the sack in one hand and shook it at her. “Where were you taking this, hmm? Who is your master?”

  “I hadn’t yet discovered who the parcel was to be brought to when your guards–”

  “Lies!” He threw the satchel at them and it slapped against Ripka’s chest. Plumes of silvery bark shavings arced into the air. She coughed as the bitter scent clouded around her, the slight musk of the bag clogging her breath. She swayed, already weak from the fight on the beach. Enard grabbed her arm to steady her.

  “Sir?” Captain Lankal cracked the door, his brows raised in question. “Is everything all right?”

  “These two serpents won’t talk.” Radu paced around his desk and kicked the fallen sack. “So we’ll have to see just how precious that information is to them, won’t we?”

  “Sir?” Lankal asked, his expression drawn tight.

  Ripka stared at the enraged warden, at his flush-red face and his clenched fists. His twisted shirt, and the crimson stains that had nothing at all to do with blood dotting his collar. How this man had lucked into his position here, minding the most valued prison in all of the Scorched, she could not say, but in that moment, watching the man’s veins bulge and his lips crack as he drew them into a sneer, she resolved to see him removed from his position.

  One way or another, she would see Radu Baset fallen from his post. By the distaste in Captain Lankal’s eyes, she was certain the change would be a welcome one.

  “You would be party to torture?” she asked Radu, her voice soft, made quiet by her attempt to sift the rage from her tone. He turned his wild gaze on her and hissed.

  “Think you’re precious, don’t you, watch-captain?”

  Lankal’s head jerked back.

  “I’m not that,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  “No...” He cocked his head to one side, thinking. “But that doesn’t much matter, does it?”

  He grabbed the shoulder of her jumpsuit and stomped off, steering her back toward general population. Her heart hammered as he forced her along, the soft rustle of Enard’s chains as he followed only a small comfort. Her time in the watch had given her some training to resist pain, but she knew well enough that even the sternest of souls would eventually crack under a well-applied knife.

  Echoes of Detan crying out in the night, his dreams beset by memories of the torture he’d suffered in the name of experimentation at the hands of the whitecoats, came back to her all in a rush. He’d told her one night, when they’d drunk a bottle dry and sat staring at the stars as the sky he’d set alight burned around them, that he’d told the whitecoats everything. Anything. That he’d begun making up ridiculous stories about where his ability had come from to make them stop. Anything to make them stop.

  Fear prickled her skin as Radu shoved her along the narrow hallways, expecting a door to open to strange instruments at any moment. Radu was addled by drink and lack of activity. She could overtake him, subconsciously had already predicted where best to strike to deal him the most pain. His kidney if she could reach it, an elbow to his alcohol-sore throat if she couldn’t. The halls were narrow, and she was fleet of foot. If Enard could keep up, then... Then what?

  Radu yanked a door open and fear overrode sense. She twisted away from his grip. Hands closed on her from behind and shoved, making her ankles tangle mid-twist. Staggering, she stumbled through the door, righted herself just before she would have fallen face-first onto hard stones.

  Increased brightness stung her eyes and she closed off her stance. A cool breeze ruffled her hair, chilled the sweat at the nape of her neck.

  A breeze. She forced herself to open her eyes fully. He’d thrown her through a side door into the rec yard. A dozen or so prisoners nearby watched her, all conversation cut short at the sign of this new entertainment. Radu smirked, propping his fists on his hips in an attempt to cut a commanding figure. He swayed slightly.

  Captain Lankal herded Enard out after her and, his face a tightly reined mask, removed both of their shackles. Ripka rubbed her wrists, eyeing Radu warily.

  “Lankal, see that these two are fed. I wouldn’t want the watch-captain to miss her dinner due to our little chat.” He waved at her. “Come and see me again when you have more to say.”

  He turned, and slammed the door shut behind him. It echoed in the growing silence.

  Watch-captain. Little chat. Her stomach turned to ice as realization set in. Once the rumor spread... She was a dead woman.

  “Captain Lankal?” He put a hand on her back and steered her toward the food line. He shook his head, lips pressed tight.

  “Unless you’re ready to give up your sources, there’s nothing I can do.”

  “But I don
’t...” She clenched her jaw. She did, of course. She could give up Nouli and Kisser and... then what? Radu would find a way to kill her regardless, she was sure of that much.

  “I know,” Lankal said, placing her at the end of the food line. “I’m sorry.”

  He left them there, waiting for their meals. Unnatural silence spread out around her as if she were a stone dropped in calm water.

  “Enard...” she whispered.

  “I know,” he said, and squeezed her shoulder. “I know.”

  The first rock thrown missed her. The second did not.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A spark of pain pinged off her arm. Her cheek. She did not look in the direction of the stones. She kept her eyes forward, her back straight, shuffling along in the line that had slowed to a crawl. Those before her wanted their meals, but sensed the shifting tide of their fellow inmates’ ire. She felt for them, despite her own pains. They didn’t have anything to do with this. No matter what they’d done to end up in the Remnant, they were now tired from a long day of labor and seeking their suppers.

  The line moved forward. Another ping. Another. She struggled not to flinch, to remain calm and serene while tension mounted all around her. Keeping her head forward, her gaze darted around the yard, marking knots of potential trouble, the direction of the shallow rain of stones. They were coming from her right, provided primarily from one woman. She didn’t have to look directly to know the woman’s face. It’d be the Glasseater songbird, hungry for revenge. Wanting to make something hurt as much as she did.

  “Traitor!” The songbird’s familiar voice screeched, and a murmur fluttered around her. Ripka was one away from the front of the line. Could see beads of sweat on the back of the neck of the man in front of her.

  “Snitch!”

  Ripka pressed her lips together, continued her covert survey of the rec yard. Where was Kisser? Honey, Forge, and Clink? Enard’s presence at her back was a comfort, but a small one. She knew well their chances of breaking through this crowd if the whole population went feral.

  Knew well that Radu would be just a touch too slow in issuing orders to subdue them. Would frown and sniff over her corpse, muttering about the unfortunate way in which the Remnant was understaffed.

  If she died here, torn limb from limb or beaten pulpy, that sniveling rat of a warden would walk away from this with an excuse to hire more guards, more lackeys in his pocket. More grains to fall through his fingers as he pissed away the welfare of his charges for his own pleasure.

  The man minding the food line handed her a tray, his hands trembling as he sensed the change in the crowd, their intense focus. They began to advance. She gripped the tray until her knuckles ached.

  “She’s no inmate!”

  Radu didn’t care if his people were harmed in the riot he’d kicked up.

  “Sandrat!”

  He only cared that the experiment being done on his charges didn’t benefit him.

  “Boot-licker!”

  She’d be damned if she let Radu-fucking-Baset continue running this sordid little nest.

  “Blue coat!”

  “I look good in blue,” she said to the confused man spooning her out a ladle of porridge.

  Her shoulders jarred as she spun, slamming her food tray into the advancing songbird’s face so hard her fingers went numb. Bone crunched, the songbird squawked, clutching her bloodied face with both hands. Porridge flew from the bowl, forming a gleaming, slimy arc in the sky. She watched it for a breath, feeling slowed, stuck in time, as the songbird crumpled under the force of her blow.

  There – over the songbird’s shoulder – the door to a dormitory half-opened, a faint shimmer in the air like heat off sand, the half-silhouetted face of Misol, her plush lips pulled back in a smirk.

  Escape, or something else. Better than facing the foaming mob.

  “Run!” In the moment before the group’s shock at her abrupt attack fled, she flung her tray aside and grabbed Enard’s wrist, yanked him in the direction of that half-opened door. He flew along beside her, no questions, no hesitation, just the patient patter of his feet over the filthy floor.

  Her grip on Enard’s wrist jerked and she pivoted around the tug, turning to see a man she didn’t know reel back his fist, aiming another blow for Enard’s already purple face. Dropping Enard’s wrist she darted in toward the man’s side, quick as a rockviper and just as unexpected, muscles singing as she swept the man’s forward leg from under him. He went down, grunting. Enard vaulted over him, following the path she’d begun carving toward Misol.

  The crowd’s hesitation broke. They flowed around them, cutting off their route, circling, tightening, herding them toward the edge of the yard where directional options were fewer. Ripka slowed, hesitated, dug her heels in and refused to take a step back even as they pressed in closer. Enard flanked her right, his posture all assured calm, his hands held ready and low at his sides.

  She examined the crowd; counting, estimating, watching the wariness in their faces, the tension in their arms. Who would swing first? Mobs like this didn’t kick off all at once. They needed an instigator. She had to take that person down before they could get the crowd good and frothed.

  Couldn’t see her songbird, couldn’t see the man who’d hit Enard though she wasn’t sure she’d recognize him. Glasseaters? Yes – of course – but with their tattoos covered, she couldn’t pick them, and had no way of knowing which amongst them would be the leader.

  Who who who, she thought, trying to undercut the tide before it broke and swamped her.

  Through a break in the crowd, she saw Misol in the doorway, her smirk faded to a tight scowl. The woman’s fingers drummed on the haft of her spear, anxious to put it to use, but her legs stayed rooted. No rescue there, then. They were on their own.

  Which meant they were dead.

  “This is all wrong,” a soft, raspy voice said.

  Ripka turned to a bulge in the crowd, watched the tightening ring of inmates shift aside as a petite woman with a mop of golden curls strode through. Honey. Ripka’s gut clenched. No, she wanted to yell. Didn’t Honey see the tide was against them? Couldn’t she see this crowd was on the brink of boiling and tearing everyone in its center to bits?

  Honey strode through the crowd, their ranks parting as if for a ship’s sharp prow, and came to stand beside Ripka, a little frown turning down the bow of her lips, almost a pout.

  “Captain’s my friend,” she rasped, and turned a darkened eye upon the crowd, sweeping them all up in it. Ripka was shocked to see a few recoil from that glare. “Don’t matter what color she used to wear. She wears beige now.” Honey flicked the sleeve of Ripka’s jumpsuit. “And I think it becomes her.”

  Ripka stared at Honey in disbelief. It was the most she’d ever heard the woman say all at once. The crowd shifted, some of their ire fading in a strange mix of confusion and fear – none of them understood what was happening here anymore than Ripka did. She risked a glance toward Misol’s door and saw a shadow cast above the crowd – a cloud? No, it was too regular. Trying to keep her glance subtle, she flicked her gaze up to the dormitory balcony above and saw Forge and Clink maneuvering one of the trestle tables, preparing to drop it on the group below.

  Ripka swallowed a lump. Willed herself not to look their way.

  “She’s a plant!” The songbird got back on her feet and shoved her way through the group. “A pitsdamned watch-captain here to rat us all out to the warden! You all saw them talking! Heads together like old pals!”

  Honey cocked her head to the side, considering. “No,” she said at last.

  “No? No? We all saw!”

  “Did you not hear me?” Honey’s jaw went rigid. The songbird drew her head back, stunned by this dismissal. With deliberate care, Honey slipped her hand within her pocket and withdrew a meat cleaver, the metal polished bright, the wooden handle dark from use. Ripka stared at the gleaming stretch of steel, dumbfounded.

  She turned it over, admiring the gleam w
ith a loving eye, and pressed the flat of the blade to her lips. Resting the dull edge against her shoulder, she stared down the shuffling ring of would-be rioters.

  “Captain’s my friend.”

  To Ripka’s shock, a few of the men and women crowding them broke ranks and ran. She swallowed. Who was this woman?

  “Honey, you don’t have to–”

  “Shhh,” she murmured, reaching without looking to press a finger against Ripka’s lips. “Shhh.”

  “Fuck this,” a woman said, and charged forward. Ripka slipped into a ready stance as the instigator broke the tension holding back the wave. The sounds of the crowd devolved into a meaningless roar as they charged, closing the circle. Enard’s back pressed against hers, and still Honey stood apart at her side, holding the knife against her shoulder with a moue on her lips.

  “I tried,” Honey whispered.

  The table launched from the balcony above, slamming into the crowd. Confusion erupted, knots of men and women turned on each other, a few unlucky souls buckled beneath the crush of the heavy wood. Shouts of rage and pain sounded all around. Ripka braced herself for the coming fight, lamenting that she would not have a chance to break through the path the table had carved her.

  Honey began to sing.

  It was a high, keening song, the language alien to Ripka’s ears, the sound eerie and shrill enough to startle the advancing tide. Even Ripka took a step back, accidentally shoving Enard, unable to look away from Honey despite the advance of the crowd. Of her death.

  Honey danced.

  She twisted and pirouetted, nimble as a willow switch, snaking in between groups, bodies, the gleam of her blade catching the sun and sparkling while she sang and swayed. Sprays of blood arced into the air, painted crimson doorways in the sky.

  Honey hewed a path with her song, and all around her joined a chorus of screams.

  No time to waste. Ripka bolted for the path the table had carved, Enard tight on her heels. She ducked a fist, twisted away from someone reaching for her, vaulted over the twisted tangle of wood and limbs, scrambled across the shattered rubble. All the while that high song keened in her ears, sending gooseprickles down her spine. She knew that Honey danced at her side, saw the fans of blood unfurl themselves to the sky as her expert swipes of that too-sharp knife opened throats and hearts and lungs to the bright of day.