SICK HEART

by Huss, JA

  I laughed at Maart’s threat to Pavo.

  I don’t talk, I don’t use hand signals, and I don’t laugh, either.

  And now I’m mad at myself for doing that. For being so complacent. For not paying attention. For showing them something real.

  No one gets anything real out of me.

  Ever.

  So I just stare at Maart like he is speaking a language I don’t understand.

  “I think that’s a yes.” Rainer laughs. “Come on, let’s get the formalities over with so we can get this night started.”

  Rainer reaches for the door, but Cort puts one hand on his shoulder and signs something with the other one.

  “Oh.” Rainer looks over his shoulder at me, then offers me the Lectra. “He says you need to drink.” Cort signs something and Maart laughs as Rainer amends his statement. “He says you need to catch up.” Rainer grabs a marker off the small desk and draws a line on the bottle. “Drink it down to there.”

  I hold in my reaction. This is a test. Not the drinking part. Well, yes—the drinking part is a test of my obedience. Fine. Whatever. I’ll drink ten thousand dollars’ worth of Lectra if they want me to.

  But the real test is my reaction.

  My new master wants a reaction from me.

  Cort’s eyes are locked on mine when I find his face. And he probably thinks this Lectra will loosen me up. It will make me drop my guard. Make me compliant and easy. It might even make me talk.

  That is a fantasy.

  I will not smile.

  I will not frown.

  I will not glare at him.

  And there is not enough Lectra in this world to change that.

  Do they think I just woke up one day and said, “I think I’ll stop talking?”

  Fucking amateurs.

  I grab the neck of the bottle and it goes down cold. So cold. Lectra is typically served at room temperature, but it’s always like ice going down.

  I don’t stop until I’m certain that I have met the mark. And actually, when Rainer grabs the bottle from me, I see that I drank a little bit more than was required.

  “Easy there, killer,” Rainer jokes. “Save some for us.” Then he winks at me. His eyes are neither dark, like Maart’s, or blank slates of gray, like Cort’s. Rainer’s eyes are bright, bright green. They look like grass on a summer afternoon. His face reminds me of sunshine. The scruff on his chin has a glint of gold to it. And if I were someone else in this world, I would maybe think about liking him.

  But I can’t afford to like him. Even if he turns out to be as nice on the inside as he looks on the outside.

  I can’t afford to like anyone except Bexxie.

  She is the only one I ever trusted. She is the only one who has had my back since the day she came to live with us. She is wise far, far beyond her nine years.

  She is a survivor.

  And now I have to leave her behind.

  I sigh, heavy with sudden sadness, and look past Rainer. Past all of them like they are unseen ghosts.

  Because this is over now. Nothing will ever be the same again and not even Rainer’s bright green eyes can change that. So why bother looking at them?

  Beauty is a trick. That’s something I learned young. And all three of these men are far too beautiful to be anything but evil.

  “Well, she’s going to be a barrel of fun tonight,” Maart says dryly.

  Then they are pushing each other the way boys do, and not grown men. Cort is grinning and Maart is laughing as Rainer forces us all through the door.

  The walk to the reception hall is long, but passes quickly. I know from watching Cort for the last hour that he is hurting. And he’s drunk and on drugs right now so everything about this walk should make him slow. But it doesn’t.

  I hear just one tiny hiss when we need to brush past people in the hallway and a crew member’s arm swipes the side of his bare ribcage. But aside from that, you’d never know he was in a fight to the death and had his neck cut open two hours ago.

  He walks super-fast. He jogs up the steps. He never once wobbles or even breathes hard.

  Either he is the definition of fitness and control, or he’s so used to the pain, he’s figured out how to get past it.

  Or maybe he’s all of that?

  I begin to wonder about his life. Where he grew up—no. How he grew up. That’s much more important than where. Who took care of him as a child? Where did Maart and Rainer come from? And that little boy? Who is Evard? One of his trainees? Evard wasn’t allowed to watch the fight, but there he is, waiting for us outside the reception hall entrance. Two of those mercenaries stand on either side of him like he’s under their charge.

  The smile he beams at Cort is uncontainable. And his eyes are filled with love even though he says nothing when Rainer hands him the Lectra bottle. Like he knows his place in this entourage.

  But then he spots me and smiles. “Hi, Anya. Bexxie wanted me to tell you not to leave without saying goodbye.”

  “Who the fuck is Bexxie?” Maart asks. All three of them are looking at me.

  “Her little sister,” the boy says. “She found me and we watched the fight together.”

  Well, that figures. That’s totally something Bexxie would do.

  Cort signs something to Maart and Maart looks at me. “Later. He says you can see your sister later.”

  Then Cort looks at me. Maybe expecting me to be grateful? I’m not sure. But this tiny sign of humanity isn’t enough to make me react. Not even close.

  “All right, you ready?” Maart asks Cort, pulling his attention back to the business at hand, which is the reception.

  Cort nods.

  “Then let’s go.”

  The mercenaries open the wide double doors like we’re royalty.

  And I guess we are. For tonight, anyway. He did win the fight. My father does not get a controlling interest in this ship and Cort’s father maintains his status.

  All because of Sick Heart.

  That is no small thing.

  There are at least a hundred people in the room when we enter and they all begin to applaud. Not the barely-polite applause they managed outside, but a roaring, thundering applause that even comes with a few whistles and shouts.

  And that makes me tired.

  I’m so tired of the show.

  So tired of the lies.

  So tired of this life.

  Why do I keep going?

  That’s the Lectra talking, Anya. You drank too much already and your night has barely started.

  And that’s how I get through the Lectra intoxication every time they give it to me. I talk to myself and no one else.

  So this night should be so much fun.

  I drift away in my approaching Lectra stupor, unable to even pretend to care what’s happening around me. The little boy takes my hand and keeps hold of it. But I don’t look at him. I don’t look at anyone.

  That’s the Lectra taking over too.

  It makes me want to float away. Just give in. And I will. Not yet, but soon.

  The boy tugs my arm and I look down at him. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We’re not staying here long. Cort hates parties. And we have better things to do than hang with these people. Here. Take a sip. It will make it better.”

  I look down at the bottle he’s offering me and concentrate on breathing. Then I take it, knowing better, but not caring. The life that I know is over now. And I don’t want to know what comes next.

  The drink goes down cold and smooth. And then someone pulls the bottle from my lips, which are sticky now.

  “Easy there,” Rainer says. “You’re good, Anya. You’ve got a long night ahead so it’s best if you pace yourself.”

  A long night.

  A whole life, actually.

  I look past Rainer and find Cort with his father on the other side of the room. Maart is with him, doing the talking, I suppose.

  Why does Cort pretend not to talk? He knows how to sign. All of them do. I bet even the little boy
knows how. So what’s the point? Did they cut out his tongue?

  I’ve heard they do that to people sometimes. I’ve never personally known anyone who had their tongue cut out, but I don’t live in that world. I’m in it, but apart from it at the same time. We had servants, of course. And I would not say that my father was kind to them, but he didn’t go around cutting out tongues.

  I watch Cort’s father as he smiles, and laughs, and pats his son on the back. He’s proud of him. That’s very apparent. So I don’t think he cuts out tongues either.

  So why don’t you talk, Cort van Breda?

  It isn’t rebellion. Because even though Cort had a very dark look to him earlier in the day, he doesn’t come off as sullen or moody now. In fact, he’s smiling, even laughing. He shakes the hands of the men his father lets close. Maart talks as Cort nods and even tilts his head a little in response.

  Is he really interested in what they’re saying?

  Or is that just another layer to the lie?

  Someone grabs my arm, a grip so tight, I wince and hiss from the sudden pain.

  “You little fucking bitch.”

  I whirl around and find my father’s face dipping down into mine as he growls out his words.

  “You little fucking bitch. This is all your fault. This whole night is your fault and believe me, I will make you—”

  And then, before I can even pull my arm from his grip or take a step back in surprise, he’s on the ground and Cort is standing over him.

  No. That’s not Cort. That is Sick Heart.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Cort’s father, Udulf, says. He steps in front of Cort, blocking my view of my father. “You can’t touch his girl like that, Lazar. She belongs to my son now and you’re going to need his permission to speak to her.”

  Lazar wipes the blood from his mouth with a fingertip. He stares at that fingertip with an air of astonishment. Then he gets to his feet, straightens the collar of his white button-down shirt, and glares at Mr. van Hauten. “Fuck you, Udulf. You cheat. He cheated. She helped him. You owe me. He was supposed to—”

  “Come with me, Anya.” I turn and find Rainer looking down at me. “I’m taking you back to the room.”

  He takes my arm, as if to pull me away, but I hesitate. Because Lazar was saying something and I’m pretty sure it was a clue. I’m pretty sure it was about me.

  He was supposed to… what?

  But Rainer’s interference has changed the subject and suddenly Lazar is yelling, “You can’t take her!” He is losing his shit. “She’s mine! And we had an agreement!”

  Maart steps up, places two hands flat on Lazar’s chest, and pushes him back with such force, he stumbles into a crowd of men. “She is his,” Maart growls. “And you better calm your shit down. Because if you raise your voice again, no one will stop him next time. You have been warned.”

  Damn. That Maart is scary too. He might not be the star of the show, but it is very clear to anyone with any sense of self-preservation that Maart is just as dangerous as Cort.

  “Fuck you,” Lazar spits.

  “There is no such thing as an unfair fight in the Ring of Fire,” Udulf says. His voice is steady, and calm, and low. But everyone hears it. Even me. And Rainer is pulling me towards the door. “And if your people hadn’t planted that knife on the platform, then Cort’s new woman wouldn’t have picked it up and handed it to him.”

  That’s not really what happened. I mean, there were extenuating circumstances. Like Pavo punching me in the mouth and splitting it open. I reach up to touch the cut on my lip with a fingertip. It’s swollen and tender. And my tongue—thank God I don’t need to talk, because it’s swelling up quick. One whole side of my body is road rash from Pavo pushing me down on the concrete platform.

  But it’s not like I can object. Rainer has tugged me into the stairwell and we are going down, so I don’t catch Lazar’s response. But I do think about Udulf’s words.

  Cort’s new woman. That’s what I am now.

  I sigh—internally, of course—and just float down the rest of the stairs, into some other part of the ship, and then I’m led into a room. The AC is on so high, it’s frigid. And I don’t realize until the moment I walk under the rushing cold air above the door that I am sticky hot with dried and cracking body paint, and sweat, and blood.

  I just want a bath. And that’s never going to happen. I highly doubt there are bathtubs where I’m going and there certainly aren’t any on this ship.

  Evard follows us in, leaving the door open. Then a few moments later, Cort and Maart enter as well. Maart kicks the door closed with the heel of his foot and he is holding another bottle of Lectra. Full.

  “Want more?”

  I look up from the bottle and find Maart’s gaze.

  Rainer, busy on the far side of the room with something, tsks his tongue. “I don’t think she needs any more. She drank a lot and she’s probably not used to it.” He turns around with a small machine in his now-gloved hand. “Besides, it’ll make her bleed more when we tat her up.”

  And even though I have been professionally uncommunicative for nearly fifteen years now, I am unable to stop the expression on my face.

  Rainer points to me and his grass-green eyes brighten. “Gotcha,” he says. But then Cort is signing something and Rainer laughs. “Spoke too soon, I guess. He has plans for you tonight.”

  Plans? What the hell does that mean?

  Rainer buzz-buzz-buzzes the little machine in his hand and I realize it’s a tattoo gun.

  Cort is settling down on the couch, pulling the little boy into an embrace. His quick fingers sign something to him, and Evard signs back with a smile.

  My mind wanders to all kinds of dark corners at this display, but then I push it aside, look back at Maart, take the bottle, and drink.

  Plans.

  Fuck Cort van Breda. Fuck him, and his friends, and his boy. And fuck his plans too.

  Maart pulls the bottle away from my lips with a sigh. “All right. You’re gonna really need to sit down. Over there.” He’s pointing at a chair. But then his gaze finds Cort, who is signing again. “Never mind,” Maart says. “Sit next to Cort. He really does have plans for you.”

  Then the tattoo machine begins buzzing in Rainer’s hand. Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzz. He points it at me. “Ready for your mark, Anya?”

  I hold still, my head spinning and my vision going a little blurry.

  “Goddammit.” Maart grabs my arm, pulls me over to the couch, and then pushes me until I fall into the cushions next to Cort. “Just stay there.”

  “I told ya,” Rainer says. “She drank way too much. She’s gonna be hallucinating all night now.”

  Cort signs something and they all laugh. And that laugh lasts for an entire eternity.

  It floats into my ears and gets stuck in my head. Bounces around in there and then… then I lose track of time.

  I lose track of everything.

  I drift in and out of consciousness. There are skulls all around me. Skulls everywhere. I reach for one and find the soft skin of a belly. And when my eyes look up, I find… him.

  The sick heart.

  The man with skulls all over his body.

  I start tracing lines of teeth and jawbones. I trace the outline of an eye. Then a heart. Not a heart you draw, not a cute thing at the end of a note or an emoji on a phone, but a real heart. An anatomical heart with pipes or vessels protruding and spurting blood everywhere.

  Then there is a keyhole in the middle of it. And I have that key. It’s made out of a finger bone.

  “Anya!”

  I look up and see Rainer. Tattoo machine in his hand. Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzz. Black and red ink all over his gloves. And then I look down and see that I am practically on top of Cort.

  I blink. Then the little boy is pulling me off of the rock-hard body of the fighter. He pushes me and points his finger in my face. “You’re not handling this well.”

  That echoes in my mind and I think I laugh. It might even be out loud, but I
can’t be sure. I’m not sure of anything right now.

  “She doesn’t drink it like we do,” Rainer says. His hand is buzz-buzz-buzzing over the skin of Cort’s ribcage.

  Maart laughs. He’s sitting on the other side of me and I’m leaning in to him.

  Cort snaps his fingers and it reverberates through my head. At the end of that snap, there is another tattoo machine. The little boy is kneeling at Cort’s feet holding a little cup of black ink.

  I feel like time is skipping. Like I’m losing hundreds of seconds at a time. Jumping from minute to minute like a stuttering old movie. Then Cort is dragging the needle across a finger on his left hand and I’m mesmerized by this. I watch, line by black line, as the image takes shape.

  A skeleton key.

  But that’s when I notice all his fingers have keys on them. I get lost in that too, watching them dance as he draws and wondering… what the fuck do they open?

  Then his buzzing stops, but Rainer’s buzzing continues, and Cort is flashing his finger-keys in my face.

  It’s a sign.

  The little boy is suddenly in front of me. “He wants to know where you want it.” And his words come out slow and… shimmery. Like… waves of words. I want to laugh again. I can’t tell if I do it out loud or just in my head.

  Where I want what? That’s my mind talking, not my lips. My lips don’t talk. Not even the Lectra can make them talk.

  Plus, I’m so fucking high right now, I don’t even remember how to talk. I couldn’t form the words if I wanted to.

  “Never mind her,” the boy says. “Do me.”

  I gasp before I can stop myself. And grab his arm. No! No! Do not let him mark you, beautiful little boy!

  But Maart, who is behind me—or… no. I’m like… in his lap?—he pulls me back and I don’t have it in me to resist. So I’m lying back on his chest and Cort has my foot in his hand and—

  I kick and wiggle, because it tickles. I laugh again. This time, I’m very sure the laugh escapes.

  This makes Rainer stop and smile at me. Next thing I know, he’s looking back down at his work on Cort’s ribcage and Cort is dragging his needle over my baby toe.