by Ward, Tracey
I kill four more before I reach the Elevens’ hideout. My hands and legs are burning like fire when I arrive.
They let me in no problem because I’m a regular and I’m Hive. You don’t say no to the Hive.
I bump fists with their bouncer, pay my fee to their pimp, and I head back to their stables. I know her room. I know exactly where she is even if no one else at the Hive does, and I go in without knocking. I’m already taking my coat off before she realizes it’s me and the smile she gives me is surprised but genuine.
“Hey, baby,” Nora greets me happily. “What are you doing here? Couldn’t wait until Market day?”
I don’t speak and I don’t want her to either. I take her face in my hands and I kiss her deeply, melting her under my touch until she falls on the bed like a sigh. Then I’m on top of her, I’m inside her, and I’m looking down into her brown eyes and running my hands over her blond hair until I can’t imagine anything else. She whimpers and groans, grabs my hips and pulls me down into her body hard over and over again. We’re both grunting and rutting, and when I can feel it coming, feel myself crashing, I flip her over, raise her ass up into the air, and take her from behind. I reach around and rub her hard, sending her flying until she screams into the pillow, clenches around me like a vise, and I finish inside her with a shout that comes all the way from down in my knees.
It’s fast but it’s good. It’s intense and hard and exactly what I needed to clear my head.
I lay with her for a minute catching my breath and deciding whether or not I want to go again, but the morning is getting late and I need to get back to the Hive before people start looking for me. I don’t want anyone asking where I’ve been and neither of us wants anyone asking who I’ve been with.
Nora sits up on her elbow and looks down at me. “You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
“I just saw you two days ago at the Market. You hardly ever come around more than once a week and when you do something is usually bugging you. So what’s up?”
I gesture to my crotch where my dick lays slack and sleepy. “Nothing anymore.”
She rolls her eyes, a grin on her lips. “Aside from that.”
“I don’t know,” I yawn. “I don’t think about much other than him.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s really not.”
“Vin.”
“The Colonies.”
Her body tenses next to me and I watch her face, gauging her reaction. We haven’t talked much about her time in the Colony. She was only in for a couple years but I guess that was enough because she ran from that place screaming. When she got out she found me, and when I didn’t kick her ass for choosing the Colony over the family she asked me to help her get back in Marlow’s good graces. That’s where I drew the line. I could forgive her, I could understand why she was scared when the Colony spies approached her, but I didn’t take it hard the way Marlow did. I’m not on a vengeance kick and thirsty for Colony blood. I made it clear he’d kill her on sight and she dropped it immediately.
“What about them?” she asks carefully.
“They’re making moves to expand.”
“Where to?”
“Somewhere up north. You know anything about it?”
“No. I’ve been out a year and I wasn’t exactly on the planning committee.”
“What committee were you on?”
She hesitates, her eyes going unfocused. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over now.”
I lift my hand and brush her hair away from her face. “Are they treating you right here?”
She nods, her hair falling back in place. I leave it alone. “Yeah. They’re really good to me.”
“Good. If they ever—“
“Thanks,” she interrupts, her eyes finding mine. “For getting me a place here and helping me hide, but you don’t have to worry about me, Vin.”
“I don’t,” I lie.
She traces her finger over my chest, her eyes following the contours of my body, and I can see her getting soft.
“I gotta go,” I tell her gently.
She lifts her finger, curling it in against her palm. “Yeah. Okay.”
I stand up and gather my clothes, getting dressed quickly. She lays on the bed on her back looking up at the ceiling and not seeing much. Our goodbyes happen like this sometimes. They get awkward and confused. She’s the only girl I’m willing to pay to play and she knows that. She knows why too – that it’s not out of affection but because she’s fixed – but sometimes things slip. Sometimes they get blurry and you forget what you know. You start to think things you shouldn’t and I have the kind of face and body that make a girl act stupid. Even the ones who know better.
The look in her eyes right now tells me I need to stay away for a couple weeks. I’ll go without and that’ll blow but it’s worth it to reset the clock and get us back to where we need to be. Back to where she doesn’t want anything from me above the belt because I’ve got nothing there to give.
“Why’d you pick that name?” I ask her, pulling my shirt over my head.
She shrugs weakly. “You told me to pick a new one or Marlow would find me.”
“But why Crimson? What the hell kind of name is Crimson?”
She laughs, her smile making the room feel lighter. “You’ve got a girl named Onyx at the Hive. Why are you giving me shit?”
I grin as I shrug into my jacket. “Her sister’s name is Cobalt.”
“Wow.”
“So why? What’s the deal with the color names?”
“I don’t know. They sound cool.”
“Do they?” I ask wryly.
“Watch it,” she warns, narrowing her eyes playfully. “Don’t bite the hands that strokes you.”
I laugh, leaning down and kissing her on the cheek. “I’ll remember that. Bye, Nora.”
“Bye, Vin.”
When I get back to the Hive the place is in an uproar. The girls are standing together in the lobby talking in hushed but anxious voices, their faces ranging from confused to sad to angry. I spot Asher standing near a few other guys in a corner near the wall of shoes and I head over.
“Hey, what’s up, man?” I ask him quietly.
He gives a nod in greeting. “They caught a Hyde. Just brought ‘em in.”
I frown, confused why that’s such a big deal. “So what? Those guys are in the Arena all the time. It’s harder to catch a cold than a Hyde.”
“Not this one. This one’s a girl. And she isn’t a pro.”
My eyes go wide. “No shit?”
“No shit. Paraded her through the front door. Everyone saw her.”
Pros are common but women are scarce. They’re like cars and condoms. You think you know who’s hiding them - where all of them are in your world - and then suddenly one pops up out of nowhere and you wonder how. How did this one slip by you? Most end up in the Stables or the Colonies. The group in the park has a few women and children, even elderly, but they’re the exception. Most gangs won’t house a woman unless she’s earning for them at the Markets and no one wants to buy a blanket they sewed or some fruit she canned. They want her for one thing and one thing only, and any woman in the wild not already selling is in danger of being robbed. It’s a grim truth but it is what it is.
“Where is she now?” I ask Asher.
“Office. Marlow is dealing with her.”
I slap him on the shoulder in thanks and jog toward the back of the building where Marlow holds court. I find Andy there as always and I nod to him as he opens the door for me.
There’s a small crowd; just two of the other six key players with Marlow seated on his throne at the head of the room. John is there standing in front of Marlow as he studies the girl standing next to him.
Marlow frowns as he looks her over. “She’s the only one you caught?”
“The rest ran,” John explains. He looks rough. His face is swelling and red around his eye and he has scratches deep enough to draw blood
dotted up and down his arms. “They scattered. They knew the buildings better than we did.”
Marlow doesn’t respond. Instead he keeps ogling the girl and I can nearly hear the wheels turning in his head. The numbers crunching.
She’s pretty. Not beautiful, not sexy, just pretty and petite. Probably a five or six out of ten before the world went to hell, but now that the population is thinned, makeup is nonexistent, and standards have shifted, she’s a solid Apoc8.
She’s dirty from a fight. Her hair is loose and long, black as tar. She’s short, maybe five foot four at the most, and there’s barely a scrap of meat on her bones. It makes her small body even smaller, even more fragile, and I’m instantly impressed by the scratch marks and black eye on John’s face. Girl’s a scrapper.
“You’re a Hyde?” Marlow asks.
She nods tersely.
“Not many Hydes out there, are there? Last count I think we judged around nine?”
“Eight,” John supplies.
“There were more before you robbed us,” she spits, her voice full of gravel and hate. “You stole everything and when winter came—“
“Yes, I know,” he interrupts her. “Winter came and people starved. I imagine it was horrible, but I didn’t rob you.”
“Your men came in and took everything we had.”
“Everything that was due to me. You Hydes have a nasty habit of building debt. You like to gamble more than garden, so it should come as no surprise to you that when winter hits you find yourselves eating frost instead of the few vegetables you spent the spring neglecting.”
“I’ve never set foot in the Hive before. I’ve never placed a single bet.”
“No, but your…” he frowns, pretending to be confused. “Well, I was going to say your friends have, but that doesn’t seem like the right word, does it? Because what kind of friends would let you be taken while they ran the other way to save themselves? What’s the right word for that?”
“Cowards,” Mike answers darkly.
Marlow snaps his fingers, pointing at him in appreciation. “Yes. That’s the word. Cowards. You, my dear, have been abandoned by a band of cowards and as much as I sympathize with your situation, the fact remains that a debt still has to be paid.”
She opens her empty hands, shaking her head bitterly. “I don’t have anything to give.”
“I can see that. And like you said, you’ve never placed a bet in my club. It’s not your cross to bear. So what I’m going to need you to do is take me to where the cowards are hiding so I can square things with them.”
“Square them how?”
“In blood.”
She flinches. It’s a mistake. I see Marlow lean forward slightly when he sees it. When he knows he has her. “You’ll kill them?”
“All of them, yes. They’ve run from their responsibilities too many times. My patience with the situation is worn thin.”
She shifts nervously on her feet, her eyes flitting through the room looking for help or an answer or a way out. She finds none of it. “How much do we owe?”
“Hector,” Marlow calls across the room. “How much do the Hyde men owe?”
“We,” she corrects firmly. “How much to we owe at Hyde?”
Hector pinches his large brow, his big body crammed in behind an old school desk in a darkened corner of the room. He flips through his little blue book, through all the debt in all the wild owed to the Hive. “Six hundred. Give or take.”
The girl visibly pales, her breaths coming in short gasps that flutter her stomach in and out rapidly. “Six hundred?” she whispers to herself in amazement.
Marlow smiles. “Give or take.”
She glares up at him. She’s catching on to his game, but it’s too late. She’s shown her hand and she’s playing against the house. “How?”
“How what?” he asks innocently.
“How can I square the debt?”
His smile grows, showing his teeth. “Show me where they’re hiding.”
“No. Try again.”
“Are you giving me orders now?”
“I’m asking you to cut the crap and tell me the truth. I won’t turn them over to you so you can kill them, so how do I make this right? How do I pay off their debt?”
He sits back, relaxing as his smile fades. “The Stables.”
She laughs. It’s a short bark, loud and shocked and full of anything but joy. “You aren’t serious.”
“I’m always serious.”
“I can’t.”
“That’s disappointing. I’m trying to work with you and you’re not meeting me halfway.”
“Halfway is not being a whore!” she shouts in outrage. “You’re giving me shit options.”
“Life, little Hyde, is a shit sandwich served cold. It doesn’t go down easy and yet it must go down. It must go on. Decisions must be made and just because they’re not pretty or desirable does not mean you can look away and they’ll disappear. Now you have a choice to make and while I understand it’s not an easy one, it still has to happen. I need an answer. Will you pay a coward’s debt from inside the Stables or will you turn the men responsible over to me and go free?”
Her chest heaves with deep breaths that pull in and out loudly through her nose like a bull getting ready to charge. Part of me wants to see it. I want to see her try, to see her tussle. I know she’ll die before she even gets close, but the fire in her eyes has my blood up. It’s infectious.
When she speaks her voice is oddly melodic, like singing. It’s throaty and full, but of what I’m not sure. Not at first. Not until I understand her words.
“I’ll work the Stables,” she chokes out. “I’ll pay my family’s debt.”
It’s loyalty. It’s the only currency I love more than coin.
“What’s your name?” Marlow asks her curiously.
She doesn’t answer. Instead she stonewalls him, her silence saying everything.
Marlow watches her calmly for way too long. The silence draws out so far I worry it’ll snap like a rubber band and sling back to slap us all in the face. The tension in the room is subtle, low, but alive. I can feel annoyance radiating from Marlow. Fear pulsing from the girl.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marlow finally tells her quietly. “The men will call you whatever they want.”
“I won’t answer them. I won’t speak to them.”
“Yes, you will. You absolutely will, and do you know why?”
“Because you’re forcing me to.”
“No one is forcing you to do anything,” he snaps, losing his patience with her. “I gave you a choice and you made it, the same way your gang made a choice when they entered my Arena. The same way they made a choice when they threw good money after bad. The way they tried to run from their mistakes. The way they let you stand trial for their sins, so if you’re looking for the hand that forced you into your situation, you can look to them. Not me. I’ve done you a kindness here today and you’d be smart to remember it. Vincent!” he shouts, startling the room. “Show the newest member of The Stables to her home, will you? Make sure she’s comfortable.”
I sigh silently, not eager to do Bennett’s job yet again, but I eventually go to stand behind her. I don’t touch her with my body, only press against her with my presence. She reacts to it immediately, turning on her heel and heading for the door to get away from Marlow’s eyes and my invasion of her bubble. Andy opens the door for us when I nod to him over her head and she storms out into the hallway. But it’s there that she hesitates. She doesn’t know where she’s going. She doesn’t know which way to run to escape.
I wait until we’re both out of the room, out of earshot, and I mumble to her, “Stables are upstairs. To the right.”
She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t do anything but stand there, and I tense, getting ready to chase her. But after a long breathless moment she turns right.
“Your name is Vincent?” she asks scathingly.
I fall into step just slightly behind her to ma
ke sure she can’t get the drop on me and turn to run the other way. “It is, but everyone calls me Vin. I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me your name.”
“I don’t need a name, I’m just another one of your whores. What number am I? Fifteen? Twenty?”
“You’re the seventh woman in the Stables and none of you are whores.”
She glares up at me. “Oh really? What do you call them then?”
I look at her evenly. “I call them by their names. If you give me yours, I’ll do the same for you.”
She looks away. “You bastards are getting enough of me as it is. You're not getting my name too.”
“Seven it is then.”
“Are you gay?” she blurts out.
I casually slide my hands into my pockets, my temper flaring faintly. I tamp it down because it’s exactly what she wants – to throw me off balance. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because it makes sense. Why would Marlow let straight men into his Stables? It’d be like letting a starving man into your kitchen.”
“That’s a good point.”
“So, are you?”
“Am I what?”
She brings her eyes back to mine, dark and round and so damn deep. “Are you gay?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I stop by the door to an empty room, looking inside at the bare mattress pointedly before returning my eyes to hers. “Do you want me to prove it?”
She looks me up and down slowly, her eyes lingering on my hips where my bare body disappears from her view under the dark denim of my jeans. I don’t move. I stand perfectly still, my hands resting in my pockets, my feet spread to cast a wide stance.
Finally she sneers up at me, her face lined with open disgust. “Maybe later,” she says sarcastically.
