Michael pushes another button on the screen and we have audio. I see a guard check behind the desk, coming in so close to the camera that his face fills the screen. I can hear him breathing. Is he going to open the door? The face recedes, blind to us. The men stand around for a little while looking confused, and then one of them says something into his radio about a false alarm and waves the crew back out.
“They won’t look here?” I ask.
“No.”
Michael scrolls back through the footage until he gets to the part where he first found me. He presses some buttons and I see the words ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE? His finger hovers for a second before he finally pushes YES, and then he quickly switches the screen off.
“Why wouldn’t they look here?”
“They don’t know about it.” He nods down the stairs. “Walk.”
With a growing feeling that the walls are pressing in on me, I start down. He hasn’t tied my hands or anything; he just has the gun. I’m not sure whether I should try making a run for it or risk waiting to see what happens next. Where is he taking me? A dungeon? Some sicko Big Man torture chamber? I wouldn’t put it past his dad to have one.
As my mind goes to dark places, Michael suddenly says, “Where have you been?” in such a raw voice that it startles me.
“I . . .” There’s no way I’m telling him I’ve been living rough on a rooftop for five years. “. . . Around.”
He is silent. We keep walking.
Finally he asks, “In Sangui?”
I shrug. “Where else?”
“It’s been five years, Tina. Nothing. Not a word. And then, out of nowhere, here you are.”
I don’t answer. His tone is bitter, but what am I supposed to tell him? Sorry I didn’t hang out after my mom got murdered? Also, dude has a gun stuck in my back. I don’t really feel the need to be polite. “Where are you taking me?” I ask instead, but he doesn’t answer either.
At the bottom of the stairs, the tunnel stretches out before us. I count four doors before we stop in front of one. It has a bolt that locks from the outside, a peephole, and a slot for passing things through. Standard torture chamber stuff. He opens it and nudges me inside with the gun barrel.
Inside the room it feels like the ceiling is pressing down on me, but I force myself to look around and take in as much as I can. It’s windowless and probably soundproof, but as far as torture chambers go, I guess it could be worse. There’s a cot and a table, a chair and a toilet and a sink. No tools to rip fingernails out that I can see.
Michael picks a chain up off the floor. It has handcuffs attached to the end and he ratchets me in.
“Is this really necessary?” I ask, trying to sound tough. I don’t want to think about who else has been in these handcuffs. The chain is fastened to a bolt in the wall. There’s a little drain in the center of the room, like you might need to hose the whole place down.
“I’m going up to talk to the guards. I’ll be back.”
I eye him warily. And then what? I want to ask. But Michael is already out the door. After it closes behind him, I hear the bolt sliding home, loud and final.
For a few moments it’s just me and the sound of my own breath. I make for the door, but the chain yanks me back several meters short. I stand staring at the peephole, chest heaving, willing my panic to stay way down in my stomach where it belongs.
My phone buzzing in my sleeve makes me jump.
“You shouldn’t have called!” I say, when I manage to get it to my ear. “He only just left me alone!”
“I can see him—cameras upstairs—” Boyboy says. “Where—at?”
I am ridiculously relieved to hear Boyboy’s voice, however faintly and broken up. A camera. There’s a secret camera in Mr. G’s office, I want to shout to him, but I’ve got other problems to deal with first. “I’m in a room under the mansion.”
I hear shuffling. “—not on—house plan, Tiny,” Ketchup’s voice whines, like it’s somehow my fault.
“No shit,” I say. “Torture chambers tend not to be.”
“—what?”
“Nothing. What is Michael doing? Does it look like he’s telling the guards about me?”
“Let me——on it.”
While Boyboy’s checking, Bug Eye asks, “You—cool, Tiny Girl?” Even if I don’t hear exactly what he’s said, I know it’s not a question; it’s an order.
“Yeah.”
“Dammit, Tiny——gonna get caught?—Should have never—you—and—shoga friend—”
“Shut up, Ketchup,” Bug Eye says. “—not——fault.”
Ketchup continues to pout. “I——the kids were supposed—Switzerland or some—”
I check out my handcuffs. “They were supposed to be in Switzerland. I don’t know why he’s here.”
“The guards—back—posts. I don’t think—told about—” Boyboy says.
Bug Eye adds, “Looks—Michael is going—office.”
“He’ll be back soon.” Tucking my phone between my cheek and shoulder, I reach into my hair for a bobby pin.
“Don’t you say——nothin’ to—, Tiny,” Ketchup says.
I contort my fingers to get the bobby pin down to the handcuff’s keyhole. “Think I’m stupid? You know I won’t. Did you get anything off the hard drive, Boyboy?”
“What? Not sure yet——to process it.”
For a moment I think they’ve cut out. “Hello? Hello?” The pin flips out of my hands and drops to the ground.
Then I hear Bug Eye say, “Tiny, listen, we gotta——stay strong. We——Omoko’s counting on——”
“Wait,” I say. I’m having trouble getting a full breath. Are the walls moving closer? Don’t get excited, Tiny Girl. Breathe. “Boyboy?” My voice cracks.
I can’t hear anything but static. I let myself sink to the ground and pick up the pin. The floor is damp, and the coolness of it slides into my bones. My hands are too shaky to do the handcuff lock. I clamp them together between my knees, trying to still them.
For a second the line clears. “We’ll——when you’re out,” Bug Eye says.
I open my mouth to answer, but there’s a rush of static, and they’re gone.
• • •
Rule 7: It may be bad now, but you gotta remember you’ve been through worse and survived.
You have been left alone in the dark before. This is nothing. This is not that hole full of slick, sharp stones that bruise your bare feet. Things are not wiggling and dripping onto your shoulders.
This is not that night.
• • •
Michael takes his time coming back. When he does, it’s as a disembodied voice echoing from some unseen speaker in the walls.
“You took your handcuffs off.”
I look through the peephole, but it’s not meant for looking out. It’s made for looking in. “They clashed with my outfit.”
“Stand on the opposite side of the room.”
I don’t move.
“Go, Tina.”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding, and slowly back up. The door opens.
“Stay there,” Michael says. “Up against the wall.”
I glower at him, but do what he says. He’s brought a laptop—not Mr. Greyhill’s—and the gun. He puts a plastic bottle of water on the table and invites me with a gesture. Is there any way to turn it into a weapon? No. I grab it and chug the whole bottle. Michael watches me. I watch him.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
“Did you rat me out to the guards?”
“What are you doing here, Tina?”
Did he turn me in? I don’t think so, but I can’t know for sure. Maybe security guards are waiting in the tunnel. Michael’s face is a mask; it tells me nothing. At last, I shrug. “I was looking for cash, jewelry, whatever. I knew the hous
e. It was an easy mark.”
“You were just robbing us.” Michael’s voice drips with incredulity. “You realize this place is a fortress, right? How did you even get in?”
When I stay quiet, he says, “Jesus, Tina, our guards don’t play. If you’re here, it’s not just ’cause you think there’s loose change in Dad’s desk drawers. They find you in there messing with his computer, and what are they going to think?”
“I was just looking around,” I repeat, but I know how I sound.
He digs in his pocket. “Just looking around? On his computer? And his hard drive? Are there files copied onto this thing?” He holds up the USB adapter.
Ketchup is right, I think with a sinking stomach. I’m so stupid. How could I get caught?
My nonanswer tells Michael all he needs to know. He glares at me for a moment longer, then slams his fist on the table, making me start. “Why, Tina? Why? You take off after the funeral, then no phone calls, no letters, nothing. I thought you were dead! And now you show up out of nowhere, and you . . .” He rubs his hand over his cropped hair, hard, like he can scratch the whole situation out of his mind. “You’ve got all these tattoos, and . . . are you a Goonda? Is that it? Are those Goonda tattoos?”
When I still don’t answer, he throws his hands up. “So you’re in a gang now, and that’s why you’re robbing us? Why would you do that? We’re . . . you’re . . .” He’s unable to go on, unable to put words to what he obviously sees as treason.
And I can’t stand it anymore.
“You want to know why?” I ask, launching up.
He grabs the gun and leaps to his feet too, and then I’m up in his face, never mind that the muzzle of the pistol is now inches from my heart. I don’t care. I’m beyond caring. I poke him hard in the chest to punctuate, “You. Want. To. Know. Why?”
Somewhere in my mind I am telling myself to stop. I know I should. I need to listen to Bug Eye and be cool, but it’s too late, it’s all spilling out now. I’ve spent too many years being quiet, biding my time, thinking, wondering, nursing the wounded animal in my chest back from death, feeding it, training it, grooming it, until it ripples with muscle, and its claws and teeth are diamond hard and razor sharp.
Mama thought we were safe, that we were away from men in the night. Except then this boy’s father showed us how not safe we really were. He showed us that there are men in the night everywhere. I can’t stand here and listen to this spoiled Big Man’s son ask me why. If he doesn’t know, he’s going to. I bite off and spit every brittle word:
“Because your father killed my mother.”
SEVEN
After Mama’s funeral, I took Kiki and walked away from the Greyhills. We were still in our Sunday clothes. I brought her to Mama’s church and asked the nuns to take care of her. They tried to make me stay too, but I ran. I went to the docks and spent two weeks living in a busted-up shipping container, trying to decide whether or not to die. I would wake up with rats crawling over my legs in the middle of the night and not even care. I was so far gone that I wasn’t even a person anymore. My mother had been killed. I had heard what Greyhill said to her in the garden. I couldn’t stay in his home anymore. I couldn’t leave Kiki there. But I couldn’t take care of my sister either. I’m not proud of abandoning her. But I did it.
When Bug Eye found me, I had just stolen a mango from a street vendor. I was too weak to run away, and the vendor had caught me by the wrist. He was about to beat me silly. His fist was in the air when Bug Eye stepped in and put a bill down that would have bought fifty mangoes. Then he turned and walked away, saying over his shoulder to the man, “My little sister’s a pain. Sorry, bwana. Come on, tiny girl.”
And I followed. For no other reason than he still had my stolen mango in his hand. He called me something that sounded like my name, or close enough to it. And there was not one single scrap of feeling in my body telling me to do anything else.
I slept in the Goondas’ warehouse that night. In the middle of a snoring pack of street kids, I lay down with no hope of anything better the next day. And maybe things would have stayed the same. I would have gone on being a useless bag of bones.
Except, early the next morning I woke to a hand creeping into my pocket.
I jerked awake like I’d been electrified, clawing at the intruder. But the weasel-faced boy slipped out of my reach, dancing backward.
“Give it back,” I said, my voice rusty from disuse.
“No,” he sneered. “What is it?” He squinted at the prayer card he’d pulled out of my pocket, twisting it left and right.
“Give it to me!” I rushed him, my voice growing louder. I snatched at the card, catching nothing. “It’s mine!”
I was vaguely aware of the bodies stirring around us. They sniffed the air, eager for blood.
The thief was bigger than me, older. He held the card over his head, his rag of a shirt flapping as he jumped to evade me. He could tell the card had no real value, but also that I was desperate for it.
It was currency he was interested in.
“You want it? Come and get it,” he said. He waved Saint Catherine’s paper face at me. I watched his fingers bend a crease across the card.
For the first time in weeks, I was alive. I was heat and fury. I threw myself at him, using my fingernails, my teeth, my toes, every ounce of raw pain I had at my disposal.
And I could hear the boys laughing, Hey, look at the wildcat, and then Bug Eye was pushing me away, saying, Give it back, Ketchup, and I saw the boy leering through the lines of blood I’d scratched down his face.
His eyes never left mine, even as he crumpled up the card and threw it at my feet.
Later, as I smoothed it, after I’d finally shed and dried my tears, I looked at Saint Catherine. Really looked at her. I looked at the wheel she rested her hand on. At the sword under her feet. At the palm branch she carried.
The prayer card had been in Mama’s pocket when she died.
It was all I had left of her.
I’d heard the story a hundred times from Mama—she was kind of obsessed. Saint Catherine of Alexandria was smart and beautiful, and didn’t want to give it up to some king, so he put her on the breaking wheel, which is this torture device. You’re laid out spread-eagle on a big wheel and people hit you with sticks until you’re good and broken. Except Catherine was holy, and the wheel broke when she touched it. So instead, the king took a sword and chopped off her head. Saint stuff is crazy violent like that. The palm branch she carries is supposed to be a symbol of triumph.
Mama would pray, Help us to break the wheel, Catherine, as we knelt by the bed at night. And I never got it because Catherine still got killed in the end, so what’s the point? Why the palm branch? But Mama would just shush me and say, Saint Catherine may have died, but she wasn’t ever broken. Mama would tap the palm branch with her finger like, See?
And for the first time maybe ever, I did see.
I saw that while part of me was certainly dead and gone, the whole of me wasn’t going to die. I had let myself be broken, but maybe I could be remade. I could become something stronger. If I was strong, I could keep my promise to Mama. I could make sure my little sister stayed safe. Maybe she should go on living with the nuns. With them, she could have the life Mama wanted for us. She’d go to school. She’d learn about God. But not me. I would stay in the shadows and watch over her from a distance. I would never let anything hurt her.
I slept that next night with a shard of glass in my hand, and no one touched me. In the morning, when Bug Eye yelled at us all to wake the hell up, I was ready.
He wanted to see what sort of Goondas we could be, and I lined up with all the other new recruits like we were getting ready to march into battle, the most laughable little army on earth. The Ketchup boy was nowhere in sight, so I focused instead on taking stock of the other kids, deciding which ones looked weak, which ones I c
ould beat in a fight. I was the only girl, but it didn’t matter. I would be stronger than any of them.
I let my pain and exhaustion sink down and slide out of my body until I was completely empty. The day before, I had been a fragile vessel made of clay. I had been broken down to dust, but a storm had come and churned me up. Now I was a hunk of mud.
And I was ready to be put on the wheel and shaped into something else entirely.
• • •
Rule 8: Know the value of what you take.
• • •
Question: What is worth more than diamonds and gold? What is the most stable currency? What thing, when stolen, becomes most dangerous and precious of all?
Answer: a secret.
• • •
An hour of silence goes by in the torture chamber, and I feel a little calmer. I figure that if Michael were going to turn me over to the guards, he would have by now. Which means he probably doesn’t know what to do with me. Which means that maybe, just maybe, I have a shot at getting out of all this.
He’s frisked and handcuffed me again, this time checking my hair. My bobby pins are in his pocket. I had tried to hide the phone between the toilet and the wall, but he checked all around the room as well. Michael always was a fast learner. I try to console myself with the fact that the phone wasn’t going to help me get out of here. No one is coming to rescue me.
Michael has said only one thing: “My dad didn’t kill your mom.”
I am not interested in what he has to say on the subject. I continue lying on the cot and staring at the ceiling, where there’s a water stain that looks like an elephant with wings. Michael’s sitting in front of his computer, trying to figure out if there’s anything saved on the USB adapter. He doesn’t seem to be having much luck getting it to do anything.
“Why are you here, anyway?” I ask. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Switzerland or something?”
Michael shifts in his seat. “My school sent me home.”
City of Saints & Thieves Page 4
