Questions were not encouraged. In the days following the bloody night, Zhavi learned that it was much better to keep her mouth shut. The most her mam would tell her was that the dead woman had been one of Reitz’s whores. What had caused the argument, and what had caused the death were met with stony silences and repetitions of the same refrain: do not make Reitz angry. Ever.
She and her mam didn’t leave. When Zhi brought it up — tried to bring it up — her mam made excuses. She never looked Zhi in the eyes when they talked about Reitz. She’d get angry, first.
Zhi learned how to be quiet. She learned how to wait, to use her senses to pinpoint where Reitz was, where her mam was, and anyone else who came to the house. She learned how to avoid all of them. She learned how to listen. How to hide. How to slip out the window when he started yelling.
How to sleep outside.
Bruises formed a collection of color on her mam. Zhi cataloged them, the ones that she could see. She guessed about the ones she couldn’t see, but she never asked about them. It was one of those things they never talked about, a thing that belonged in the giant gaping hole between them. Used to be that hole had been smaller. Used to be her mam would talk to her every afternoon when they woke up, before she had to start working and before Zhi left for the night. But now? Now they were strangers tied together by memories and the hope that something, anything might happen that would put things back to rights.
Hope and prayers took up a large chunk of her time. She wished for Llymlaen to take him to the deeps. Menphina to curse him with one of the whores’ diseases that ate up the body. Azeyma, everpresent keeper of the sun, to burn him while he did his business. She mumbled to them often: hoping, wishing, praying for one of them to do something. To save them. Zhi wanted to be saved. She wanted for someone to save her, and her mam, because she knew — she saw — what her mam was not. Even when she still hoped.
Things changed.
Things never changed.
It was always opposite what she wanted.
It was one of the hardest lessons she ever learned.
“Mam.â€
Her mam groaned in her sleep, but otherwise didn’t respond. Zhi pushed at her until she was flat on her back. “Mam.â€
Nothing. Zhi made a face, poking and pushing at her. But she didn’t wake up. When she wasn’t doing something for Reitz, she was sleeping. All the time, sleeping. And whenever Zhi tried to talk to her. . .
“Mam?â€
She looked older. Lines had formed at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Her skin had become rougher. It used to be that she was so meticulous about her appearance, about grooming herself and presenting the perfect picture of femininity. People will forgive much, her mam had said, if you are clean and hold yourself properly. She never said beautiful while looking at Zhavi, though she’d used to say how pretty Zhi was when she kept her face and hands clean, when she washed her hair. Sometimes she’d even let Zhavi use some of her perfume.
Cheap stuff had replaced what Mam had once used. Back when Zhi had counted their gil, there was always some put aside for the costs of working the street. Even if she wasn’t high-class, even if she was just a lowly broad. . .sometimes you have to treat yourself. Sometimes.
There were fresh bruises showing at the edge of the old nightgown her mam wore.
It was almost dawn. Reitz wouldn’t notice if Zhi left now rather than later. He didn’t like it when she skipped the breakfast meal, but as long as she didn’t do it too regularly he didn’t get mad. Not unless he’d been drinking real heavy, and he hadn’t. Business was doing well, after all. Business on the backs of her mam and the other women he controlled.
She kissed Mam on the cheek, tugged up the blanket so the bruises weren’t visible, and gathered up the things she’d need. She’d gotten a decent pick, together with Miza, and she’d been practicing with it. Some locks were easier to open now, like the ones in a better part of town than she wasn’t used to running through. Locks that would maybe lead to something nice for her mam to use, that would make her eyes sparkle. Something that would maybe take the shadows away from under her eyes. Something that would make her happy, because Zhi couldn’t make her happy any more.
She looked back as she hid everything she’d be using, and got a stool under the window. She hopped up onto it, and pushed the shutters open. Her mam always used to say that it wasn’t healthy for her to be so fearless when it came to high places. Sure, maybe there was always scolding, but one time — before Reitz — one time she’d said that being so high must be like flying. There’d been some small awe in her voice before she’d tucked it away in order to impress upon Zhi the dangers of falling, but Zhi had remembered that, more than any of the numerous lectures she’d endured. She cherished that memory.
“I’ll be back, Mam,†she said, real quiet, before slipping outside.
The streets were welcoming in the dark. It’d been a long time since she’d gone out before the sun had the chance to rise. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to move in the night. She covered a lot of distance in the dark, re-familiarizing herself with what the city looked like in shadow. Sure, it was without the group she usually rolled with, but she was content with what she had.
Azeyma was making herself known by the time Zhi reached the part of town she needed to be in. Those houses she hadn’t spent a lot of time casing, but there were always signs in the way windows and doors were dressed, in how things were kept. All she needed was a place that looked like it’d host a classy lady. Took her longer then she’d have liked to finally stumble across a promising facade (and it was pretty, she would have stopped to admire it if she wasn’t looking to steal), but the sun-drunk ‘normal’ people were still abed. Only servants, merchants and poor people got up so early.
The lock was one of the more complex ones she’d busted, but she was raw determined to see it done. Even if it took still more time, she kept at it until it gave. She was breaking in from an alley window, so she had some space from anyone who was awake and happened to come by. This was why it paid to run in a group, why she normally went and fetched Miza — at the very least — when she had mischief in mind. Easier to keep track of who was where.
Her hands were shaking by the time she finally got the stupid thing to click, and she turned it real careful. These pukes had real glass windows. Sure, it was thick and bubbly in places, and not real easy to see through — but glass. That was probably where most of the money had gone. This wasn’t the best part of town, or even one of the more better ones; it was somewhere in the middle between poor and prosperous. The sort of place where a woman would have enough money to comfortably buy the sort of perfume Zhi and her mam had scrimped and saved to buy. The lock was good enough to stymie her, but not good enough to keep her out. The appearance of wealth probably impressed their friends or whoever they were trying to make feel inferior, but it still wasn’t proof against greed.
She put her tools away and ever so carefully pushed and pulled herself up (one nice thing about alleys in this part of town was how narrow they were, making it easier to shimmy up between them) until she crested the window sill. Her legs were cramping from having kept her wedged in place for so long, and so she rested there for a minute, looking over the room. Kid’s room. Toddler’s room. There were two of the pint-sized mites, both still sound asleep. From her own experience around whores’ get, and whores’ complaints, Zhi knew they’d be likely to wake at any moment. Most day-trippers didn’t get up so early if they didn’t have to, but the same didn’t carry for their brats.
So long as the two kept quiet for another few minutes, Zhi didn’t care. They could raise hells after she left.
The whole house smelled good. Like food, and flowers, and something else that was sweet and light. It was almost intoxicating, that smell. Just like the calmness. No one yelling, no expectation of it — though there would be that aplenty if she stuck around. Right. Perfume. She slunk through until she reached another closed door. She very carefully edged it open, expecting it to creak and coming up pleasantly surprised when it didn’t.
The two in the bed were dead asleep. She watched them as she edged into their small, cozy little room. She could smell the perfume. It wasn’t the same stuff as her mam used to buy, and it wasn’t anything Zhi would have picked had she been sent to spend money on such a frippery, but she wasn’t being picky. It was perfume. It’d do. She slunk over to the corner of the room with a little table, and a chair, and a tiny little mirror, and hit the jackpot. There was more than just perfume there. Some lipstain, and a compressed wedge of something dark that Zhi bet anything on was for lining the eyes. There was a few pots of some kind of cream (one smelled good, the other was weird), and nail lacquer.
Zhi didn’t waste time. She pulled open the bag she’d brought and started putting everything inside. Done and done. Feeling immensely pleased with herself, she crept back over to the door, pulled it back open and slid it shut behind her.
“Mama. . .â€
Zhi froze.
“Mama, hadda bad dream.â€
A bad dream? This kid was waking up to bitch about a bad dream? A sense of infinite superiority welled up in Zhi as she turned to look down at the toddler (okay, maybe a bit older than toddler, though if you asked her all of the runts were just about the same. Whiny, needy babies).
“Mama?â€
Something about the brat annoyed her beyond reasoning. Glaring down, she squatted and picked the runt up with a grunt, holding it away from her body as she hotfooted it back to the room she’d come in from.
Surprisingly, it started sniffling like it was gonna cry.
Then it was crying.
She almost dropped it. “Shhhhh,†she hissed, clapping a hand over its mouth. “Shhhh!â€
Once inside its room, she put it down, shut the door, and dashed for the window.
Halfway through it, the brat took a deep gulp of air and screamed. It was the loudest damn thing she’d ever heard in her life, a mixed jumble of inarticulate words and howls for comfort. Fear was in the mix too, fear of the unknown or of Zhi, she couldn’t tell and she wasn’t sticking around to find out. She dropped down to the alley, skinned her arms getting out of there, and then she was running as fast as she could down the street. She hit a bridge, and started laughing, feeling freer than she’d felt in a long time.
Now, Mam would be happy.
Now, she would talk to Zhi and not look so tired.
Once Zhi was sure that she wasn’t being followed, she got her bearings and turned to start heading home. She was moving at a good clip, trotting quickly in her haste to get home. She wasn’t entirely sure that her mam would still be there, or that she’d be somewhere Zhi could show her the present. Even if she wasn’t, Zhi could wait. It was an exciting thing to have a present for her mam.
She was taking a shortcut through uptown when she decided to check in the bag to make sure everything was still sitting good; she didn’t want to be delivering broken or imperfect things to her mam, after all. Her head was down and the bag was held up, half in front of her face, when she crashed into another person. Both of them rebounded off each other, though she was the lighter of the two and fell back onto her ass, the bag jolted out of her hands. The other person took a couple steps back, bags dropping to the ground with a series of crashes.
Any other day, Zhi would have started tugging at her ears and looking piteous in the hopes of scoring some food for herself — she could smell that the scrag was carrying food fresh from Hawker’s — but this was not any other day. The sharp, acrid tang of perfume hit the air, and she made a strangled squawk of protest as she went to the bag. The perfume bottle, made of glass, had shattered. The perfume had splattered over everything else in the bag. Zhi stared in disbelief. “No way,†she said, utter dismay warring with a rising anger.
“Hey! Watch it!†The voice of the person she’d run into rose and cracked, and Zhi looked up.
Hyur. Young. Lad. Cause of all misfortune. He looked upset. Zhi didn’t care. “Watch it yerself!†She countered, voice sharp and furious.
He didn’t look impressed. “I jes bought this!†He was gesturing to his own bags on the ground.
Inadvertently, Zhi followed his arm. A pang of guilt swept through her as she saw the telltale wet of spilled something; hard to tell what it was with the perfume cutting over everything (it was strong, made her eyes water). Something of his own had broken open in at least two of the bags, and when he squatted to check for damages he pulled out a loaf of soaked bread, and a cloth bag full of something (grains of some sort, she was sure), that was also soaked. A jar of something pickled had cracked, and all the fluid from it had spilled out. The vegetables inside wouldn’t last long without the pickling liquid.
She told herself she didn’t care as she gathered up her own bag and made to move past him. He caught her by the arm, and he squeezed. Her ears went back and she turned to face him, teeth bared and eyes narrowed. “Aren’t ye gonna pay fer this?†He was asking, voice all hard.
They looked at each other. Her, with her eyes stinging from the intensity of the perfume, all watery to the point of nigh spilling over, and him, with injustice and unfairness written all over his face, along with determination to see those wrongs righted. Yet, unexpectedly and inexplicably, his expression softened as he looked at her and then down at her own bag. His nose wrinkled up. “Aren’t ye a little young fer perfume?â€
She glared at him, tugged at her arm. He didn’t let go. “Me mam.†She was feeling vindictive. “She’s a doxy an’ needed it fer her job.†She wanted to see his disgust, to watch him recoil from her, to let her go and mutter insults the way a kid who could go and buy so much food surely would to find out he’d touched a whore’s get. She expected almost anything but the look of sympathy that crossed his face, the way understanding lit up his eyes. His grip loosened. It was she who leaned away from him.
“Yeah,†he said quietly, “my ma’s a doxy, too.â€
She didn’t believe him, wouldn’t have wanted to believe him even if she did. He was looking at their wet bags, his own nose wrinkling as the strength of the perfume finally hit him. “My name’s Dirk. What’s yers?â€
Was he for real? He held himself with assurance. The name was not unfamiliar to her; she’d heard it in the groups she ran with, alongside other names that dealt in bigger bouts of thievery and . . . sometimes murder. But it wasn’t like there was only one Dirk in the whole city, right? It seemed a common enough name. This one wasn’t necessarily that one. “Zhavi,†she muttered in reply, lower lip jutting out. She pulled again at her arm, but he wasn’t letting go. She glared at him.
The bastard chuckled at her. What, did he think they were buddies now just because their mams were both whores? “I need t’go back an’ buy more groceries. What say I get ye more perfume t’replace what broke?â€
Her glare intensified. Was he pitying her? “Get lost,†she snarled.
Something in his face went hard again. “Now jes wait a —â€
She hit him with her bag. Perfume splattered on him, and he yelped as he held up his hands to ward her off. He was going to be stinking like perfume for the rest of the day, maybe for the rest of the week given how strong it smelled. Good. She hoped it didn’t wash off. But more importantly than that, he’d let go of her. She took the opportunity to run. She headed away from lowtown. She was going to bring back perfume for her mam, even if it killed her.
The sun was heading towards noon by the time she’d found another likely location. It reached its zenith by the time she’d found one where she was sure no one was home. Once again she’d gone for an alley window, scared of being seen from the front. She’d still be visible to anyone who took a good look down the alley, but she was hedging off the fact that most people would be too focused on their own chores and routines to bother looking around. That was how most people were; they lost sense of what was around them once they got real used to it. That was the only reason thieves like her could take advantage over it.
She wasn’t counting on a yellowjacket. Their patrols usually didn’t swing into the residential area She was halfway into the window when she turned to give the street beyond the alley one last quick look. What did she see? A jack. But this one? This one was off duty, emerging out of a home across the way. If anything, she was expecting some curious bystander that might have taken a chance glance and caught sight of her entirely by accident. That could be salvageable. Most people didn’t want trouble, and didn’t want to deal with it. They were as likely to look away as soon as they saw something bad happening, coming up with any number of excuses in their head as to why they shouldn’t get involved.
But not this man. She felt the blood drain from her face as his expression shifted from disgust to recognition to some unholy glee. It was the roe from before. He wasn’t in his yellow, but he was carrying his axe. He started to cross the street. Panic deadened Zhi’s limbs, and it was like she couldn’t control them like she usually did. She fell backwards, hitting her head on the wall and sprawling to the ground in an ungainly heap. It stunned her for a moment, a flash of white obscuring her vision before it came back. Black spots danced in front of her as she shook her head, automatically scrabbling to get to her feet.
“How many times now has it been?â€
Gods. Gods. Azeyma, Menphina, Llymlaen — anyone!
He was nearly to the alley’s mouth, and she saw he’d taken his ax into his hands. No one even seemed to be looking, past the bulk of his body. No one even cared. All he had to do was tell them he was a jack, and —
“Think I should take both o’ your hands, y’thievin’ rat?â€
He was so calm. So sure of himself. So sure of his ability to take her down and spit her like she wasn’t nothing. She almost pissed herself right then, caught it just as her muscles started to loosen in fear. There was a lump in her throat as she started to back up. He stalked her, each step placed just so. He was in control. He shouldn’t have been there. Why was he always in the better neighborhoods? What was he doing coming out of houses? He was crooked. He had to be.
And it didn’t matter squat.
Her bag was still clutched in her hands as she neared the wall the houses had been built up against or into. She didn’t even think. She threw it at him, turned, and shot up the wall. She didn’t wait to see him follow her. The bellow he let loose sounded like some demonic hunting dog that had just scented blood. This time, she didn’t look back.
Fear drove her. Getting caught out in the daylight wasn’t something that’d ever happened to Zhavi. She wasn’t used to running tricks in the daylight, wasn’t used to the bustle of the city when there were gads of people about. She moved blindly, without a plan, with him yelling behind her to move people out of his way. He wasn’t even in the blimming uniform, and people listened to him. They got out of his way. Sure, maybe it had to do with the oversized ax he was carrying, but it didn’t really matter why. She took corners at a dead run, ran into and over people she hadn’t seen in time. Her head was swimming with fear, with the certainty that she didn’t have control over this situation. Terror had taken over her. She moved through the city without a single lick of sense. Eventually she found herself in a familiar neighborhood, tears blurring her vision. Nearly breathless from her exertion, she ran as hard as she could. He was still behind her. He was still behind her.
Zhi didn’t question why things had gone so wrong, or why she suddenly found herself in front of the hated place that had become something like home. She banged on the door with both fists. It didn’t matter that Reitz was her enemy. It didn’t matter that he hit her mam. It didn’t matter that he hit her. Right then, at that moment, all she knew was that he’d kept them safe from other men who would hurt them. He could —
The door flew open. She fell into Reitz, and he took hold of her arms. She looked up at him, her face tear-streaked and filthy, and his surprise warped into anger. “What did you —â€
She wormed her way out of his grip and slid behind him as the jack came to a stop in front of the door.
“Dornn,†Reitz said. He knew the roe. He was shocked. Normally, Zhi would have delighted in the way his voice rose, would have crowed to have been right that the jack was crooked.
Right then, all she could do was back up.
“Tell me that ain’t your brat,†the roe said, disgust making his voice thick. Or maybe it was exhaustion.
Reitz took one look back at her. She fled even as he stepped outside and shut the door behind him. She’d never seen that expression before.
Fifteen steps until she reached her room. Six steps to reach her mam’s side. Mam was getting ready for the night’s work, sitting in front of her tiny vanity with her junk powders and paints and perfume. “Zhio?†The surprise in her voice was softer. Welcoming. Concerned. There was love in that voice.
Zhi threw herself into her mam’s lap, sobbing for all she was worth. All she’d wanted to do was make her mam smile. She’d wanted to take away those fine wrinkles, the stress, stop the way she’d look off into the distance and not say anything. She’d wanted to make her talk again, to make things be like how they’d used to be.
“Zhio, sweetling, what’s wrong?â€
Words spilled from Zhi’s lips. Disjointed, garbled, wet words that broke off and formed jumbled sentences. Her mam’s hands were touching her hair, her back, smoothing and petting. The reassurance was welcome, but it did nothing to calm the gaping pit of fear that opened up beneath her.
Someone was shouting outside. Her mam stiffened, looked towards the window, and then out towards the front door. Zhi buried her face into her mother’s lap, breathing in her smell. Somehow, she knew what was coming next. She couldn’t stop crying. Her mam’s hands stilled, and then moved slowly to Zhavi’s shoulders. Slowly, she pulled Zhi upright.
“Zhio, what’s going on?â€
Zhi looked up. Her mam wasn’t looking at her, was focusing on what was happening outside. Her hands tightened. Zhi mewled in protest. Something like fear tightened her mam’s lips, made her sink into her chair. When she looked down at Zhavi, there was budding anger in her look. Zhi started to pull back. The grip on her arms had become painful.
“What did you do?â€
When Zhi didn’t respond right away, Mam shook her. “What did you do?â€
“I — I didn’t mean —â€
The door slammed. It muffled the crack of her mam’s palm against her cheek. Strong fingers took hold of her chin, and forced her to look up. The love, the concern, had been replaced. The worry was still there, but it had twisted. “If you so much as — if you did somethin’ t’piss him off I swear I won’t lift a finger t’help you!â€
Heavy footsteps approached their door. Zhi closed her eyes as her mam shook her again, her ears back and her tail pressed to her leg. She’d gone numb all over. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to I didn’t —â€
The door opened.
“Mam,†Zhi said, weak. Pleading.
Her mam stood up, nearly dumping Zhavi to the floor. “Reitz,†she said, lifting her hands in entreaty. “Honey-dove.â€
Zhi was cowering into her mam, cringing. She wasn’t looking, didn’t know what was happening except for the sound of Reitz’s boots on the floor until her mam suddenly was reeling back. The sound of flesh on flesh told the only story she needed to know.
“Don’t you fecking come out of this room until I say you can.†Reitz’s voice was cold. Colder than Zhi had ever heard it.
She couldn’t move.
She saw Reitz reach down. His hands took hold of her own, and yanked her up.
“Reitz,†her mam said again, pleading in her voice.
He kicked her.
Zhi stumbled as he started to pull her out of the room, staring back at her mam’s crumpled form. It wasn’t until they reached the door that sense came back to her. She locked her legs, pulled back in his grip. “I’m sorry!†She blurted. Fresh tears stung her eyes. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry!â€
Nothing she did slowed him. Nothing stopped their march to his study, to the room that still smelled of old blood and death. She started to scream as he dragged her inside, apologies mixed with shameless begging, pleading, inarticulate promises to be the perfect child until the end of time.
The first blow knocked her silly. Her tongue got caught between her teeth, and blood flooded her mouth. The second blow took her down to her knees. The third blow caught her as she was stumbling away from him. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t say a damn thing. It terrified her, pushed her past reason. Pushed her past anything but the knowledge that she was going to die.
There wasn’t anything she could do to stop him. Gods knew she tried. He was taking his time. He was being thorough. He knew what he was doing. Every blow was calculated, done in a cold fury rather than feckless rage. That was the only way that, after minutes of his abuse, she caught sight of the penknife that had fallen to the floor from the table. He was circling her, taunting her with his silence, goading her into gibbering terror with her own anticipation of the next blow. He was cruel. She reached for the penknife, and curled back up. When he approached her, she stabbed it up and into his knee.
He moved. It stuck into his calf and stayed there, wobbling as he took a step back and cursed. She stared at it. Somehow, every iota of rebelliousness in her fled her in that single moment. She’d messed up. She shouldn’t have done that. She really, truly, should not have done that.
They both froze for a long, impossible moment.
She crawled for the door as fast as she could.
His boot came down on her tail.
Something cracked.
For a moment, she kept trying to crawl forward. The pain didn’t register as he reached down and took her by the scruff of her neck. She knew something was terribly, horribly wrong, knew that something had broken. She twisted around in his grip, staring down at his boot, at the way her tail disappeared under it. She could feel bone grinding on bone as he shifted his weight and pulled her up.
Pain hit her. It overrode all of her other bruises, over the throb that her body had become. At first, there wasn’t enough breath in the world for the agony of it. She tried to scream, managed only a dry bleating “ah! Ah!†until she managed a proper breath.
Then she screamed.
The world became pain, and screaming.
Her vision narrowed down, and she flailed without knowing what she was doing. Seconds might have passed, or minutes. She was lost to all of it, to whatever damage he might have done to her, until suddenly she was on the floor and he was bent over. Later, later she would realize that a lucky kick had hit him right between the legs. Right then, all she could manage was to cling to the floor. Inhale. Scream. Inhale. Scream. Inhale. Scream.
The door opened. It got stuck on her. She was blind to everything, deaf to everything. Someone lifted her up by her armpits, pulled her close into sweet softness.
She was moving, the pain becoming awful and familiar, and she realized her mam was dragging her out of the study, down the hall, and to the front room. “You have to go,†was being repeated, over, and over, and over.
Then, “stand up!â€
She stood, staring into the doorway, legs loose and shaky. She stared at her mam. She was outside. Her mam was inside.
Somewhere, she’d stopped screaming. Her throat felt thick, and painful. “Mam?â€
“Run, Zhio. Go.â€
“Mam?â€
“Go, now. Before he sees you. Jes — jes go.â€
Zhi took a step back, staring.
“I don’t think. . .I don’t think you should come back, sweetling.â€
“But—â€
“You’re gonna ruin everything.â€
Zhi’s mouth was open, but nothing came out.
“Go!"
There was a bellow from inside. Zhi’s mam turned to look back inside. For a moment, Zhi could see the bruises that ran along her mam’s collarbone and disappeared inside her shirt.
Then the door shut.
She stared at it, bent over, arms wrapped around her stomach. There was a banging noise inside. She took a step back. Voices rose in heated words, and footsteps came closer to the door. Something hit one of the walls. Her mam yelled out in pain.
Zhi was so gods-damned craven. She broke. She ran, hobbling away as fast as she could muster, sucking in her sobs. She didn’t know where she was going, or when she would stop, but she knew she had to do what her mam had told her. She had to go. Things had changed, and this time she couldn’t even pretend that one day things could go back to how they used to be.
She never went back.
Fin.
(the next one will be less awful, I promise.)
She and her mam didn’t leave. When Zhi brought it up — tried to bring it up — her mam made excuses. She never looked Zhi in the eyes when they talked about Reitz. She’d get angry, first.
Zhi learned how to be quiet. She learned how to wait, to use her senses to pinpoint where Reitz was, where her mam was, and anyone else who came to the house. She learned how to avoid all of them. She learned how to listen. How to hide. How to slip out the window when he started yelling.
How to sleep outside.
Bruises formed a collection of color on her mam. Zhi cataloged them, the ones that she could see. She guessed about the ones she couldn’t see, but she never asked about them. It was one of those things they never talked about, a thing that belonged in the giant gaping hole between them. Used to be that hole had been smaller. Used to be her mam would talk to her every afternoon when they woke up, before she had to start working and before Zhi left for the night. But now? Now they were strangers tied together by memories and the hope that something, anything might happen that would put things back to rights.
Hope and prayers took up a large chunk of her time. She wished for Llymlaen to take him to the deeps. Menphina to curse him with one of the whores’ diseases that ate up the body. Azeyma, everpresent keeper of the sun, to burn him while he did his business. She mumbled to them often: hoping, wishing, praying for one of them to do something. To save them. Zhi wanted to be saved. She wanted for someone to save her, and her mam, because she knew — she saw — what her mam was not. Even when she still hoped.
Things changed.
Things never changed.
It was always opposite what she wanted.
It was one of the hardest lessons she ever learned.
“Mam.â€
Her mam groaned in her sleep, but otherwise didn’t respond. Zhi pushed at her until she was flat on her back. “Mam.â€
Nothing. Zhi made a face, poking and pushing at her. But she didn’t wake up. When she wasn’t doing something for Reitz, she was sleeping. All the time, sleeping. And whenever Zhi tried to talk to her. . .
“Mam?â€
She looked older. Lines had formed at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Her skin had become rougher. It used to be that she was so meticulous about her appearance, about grooming herself and presenting the perfect picture of femininity. People will forgive much, her mam had said, if you are clean and hold yourself properly. She never said beautiful while looking at Zhavi, though she’d used to say how pretty Zhi was when she kept her face and hands clean, when she washed her hair. Sometimes she’d even let Zhavi use some of her perfume.
Cheap stuff had replaced what Mam had once used. Back when Zhi had counted their gil, there was always some put aside for the costs of working the street. Even if she wasn’t high-class, even if she was just a lowly broad. . .sometimes you have to treat yourself. Sometimes.
There were fresh bruises showing at the edge of the old nightgown her mam wore.
It was almost dawn. Reitz wouldn’t notice if Zhi left now rather than later. He didn’t like it when she skipped the breakfast meal, but as long as she didn’t do it too regularly he didn’t get mad. Not unless he’d been drinking real heavy, and he hadn’t. Business was doing well, after all. Business on the backs of her mam and the other women he controlled.
She kissed Mam on the cheek, tugged up the blanket so the bruises weren’t visible, and gathered up the things she’d need. She’d gotten a decent pick, together with Miza, and she’d been practicing with it. Some locks were easier to open now, like the ones in a better part of town than she wasn’t used to running through. Locks that would maybe lead to something nice for her mam to use, that would make her eyes sparkle. Something that would maybe take the shadows away from under her eyes. Something that would make her happy, because Zhi couldn’t make her happy any more.
She looked back as she hid everything she’d be using, and got a stool under the window. She hopped up onto it, and pushed the shutters open. Her mam always used to say that it wasn’t healthy for her to be so fearless when it came to high places. Sure, maybe there was always scolding, but one time — before Reitz — one time she’d said that being so high must be like flying. There’d been some small awe in her voice before she’d tucked it away in order to impress upon Zhi the dangers of falling, but Zhi had remembered that, more than any of the numerous lectures she’d endured. She cherished that memory.
“I’ll be back, Mam,†she said, real quiet, before slipping outside.
The streets were welcoming in the dark. It’d been a long time since she’d gone out before the sun had the chance to rise. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to move in the night. She covered a lot of distance in the dark, re-familiarizing herself with what the city looked like in shadow. Sure, it was without the group she usually rolled with, but she was content with what she had.
Azeyma was making herself known by the time Zhi reached the part of town she needed to be in. Those houses she hadn’t spent a lot of time casing, but there were always signs in the way windows and doors were dressed, in how things were kept. All she needed was a place that looked like it’d host a classy lady. Took her longer then she’d have liked to finally stumble across a promising facade (and it was pretty, she would have stopped to admire it if she wasn’t looking to steal), but the sun-drunk ‘normal’ people were still abed. Only servants, merchants and poor people got up so early.
The lock was one of the more complex ones she’d busted, but she was raw determined to see it done. Even if it took still more time, she kept at it until it gave. She was breaking in from an alley window, so she had some space from anyone who was awake and happened to come by. This was why it paid to run in a group, why she normally went and fetched Miza — at the very least — when she had mischief in mind. Easier to keep track of who was where.
Her hands were shaking by the time she finally got the stupid thing to click, and she turned it real careful. These pukes had real glass windows. Sure, it was thick and bubbly in places, and not real easy to see through — but glass. That was probably where most of the money had gone. This wasn’t the best part of town, or even one of the more better ones; it was somewhere in the middle between poor and prosperous. The sort of place where a woman would have enough money to comfortably buy the sort of perfume Zhi and her mam had scrimped and saved to buy. The lock was good enough to stymie her, but not good enough to keep her out. The appearance of wealth probably impressed their friends or whoever they were trying to make feel inferior, but it still wasn’t proof against greed.
She put her tools away and ever so carefully pushed and pulled herself up (one nice thing about alleys in this part of town was how narrow they were, making it easier to shimmy up between them) until she crested the window sill. Her legs were cramping from having kept her wedged in place for so long, and so she rested there for a minute, looking over the room. Kid’s room. Toddler’s room. There were two of the pint-sized mites, both still sound asleep. From her own experience around whores’ get, and whores’ complaints, Zhi knew they’d be likely to wake at any moment. Most day-trippers didn’t get up so early if they didn’t have to, but the same didn’t carry for their brats.
So long as the two kept quiet for another few minutes, Zhi didn’t care. They could raise hells after she left.
The whole house smelled good. Like food, and flowers, and something else that was sweet and light. It was almost intoxicating, that smell. Just like the calmness. No one yelling, no expectation of it — though there would be that aplenty if she stuck around. Right. Perfume. She slunk through until she reached another closed door. She very carefully edged it open, expecting it to creak and coming up pleasantly surprised when it didn’t.
The two in the bed were dead asleep. She watched them as she edged into their small, cozy little room. She could smell the perfume. It wasn’t the same stuff as her mam used to buy, and it wasn’t anything Zhi would have picked had she been sent to spend money on such a frippery, but she wasn’t being picky. It was perfume. It’d do. She slunk over to the corner of the room with a little table, and a chair, and a tiny little mirror, and hit the jackpot. There was more than just perfume there. Some lipstain, and a compressed wedge of something dark that Zhi bet anything on was for lining the eyes. There was a few pots of some kind of cream (one smelled good, the other was weird), and nail lacquer.
Zhi didn’t waste time. She pulled open the bag she’d brought and started putting everything inside. Done and done. Feeling immensely pleased with herself, she crept back over to the door, pulled it back open and slid it shut behind her.
“Mama. . .â€
Zhi froze.
“Mama, hadda bad dream.â€
A bad dream? This kid was waking up to bitch about a bad dream? A sense of infinite superiority welled up in Zhi as she turned to look down at the toddler (okay, maybe a bit older than toddler, though if you asked her all of the runts were just about the same. Whiny, needy babies).
“Mama?â€
Something about the brat annoyed her beyond reasoning. Glaring down, she squatted and picked the runt up with a grunt, holding it away from her body as she hotfooted it back to the room she’d come in from.
Surprisingly, it started sniffling like it was gonna cry.
Then it was crying.
She almost dropped it. “Shhhhh,†she hissed, clapping a hand over its mouth. “Shhhh!â€
Once inside its room, she put it down, shut the door, and dashed for the window.
Halfway through it, the brat took a deep gulp of air and screamed. It was the loudest damn thing she’d ever heard in her life, a mixed jumble of inarticulate words and howls for comfort. Fear was in the mix too, fear of the unknown or of Zhi, she couldn’t tell and she wasn’t sticking around to find out. She dropped down to the alley, skinned her arms getting out of there, and then she was running as fast as she could down the street. She hit a bridge, and started laughing, feeling freer than she’d felt in a long time.
Now, Mam would be happy.
Now, she would talk to Zhi and not look so tired.
Once Zhi was sure that she wasn’t being followed, she got her bearings and turned to start heading home. She was moving at a good clip, trotting quickly in her haste to get home. She wasn’t entirely sure that her mam would still be there, or that she’d be somewhere Zhi could show her the present. Even if she wasn’t, Zhi could wait. It was an exciting thing to have a present for her mam.
She was taking a shortcut through uptown when she decided to check in the bag to make sure everything was still sitting good; she didn’t want to be delivering broken or imperfect things to her mam, after all. Her head was down and the bag was held up, half in front of her face, when she crashed into another person. Both of them rebounded off each other, though she was the lighter of the two and fell back onto her ass, the bag jolted out of her hands. The other person took a couple steps back, bags dropping to the ground with a series of crashes.
Any other day, Zhi would have started tugging at her ears and looking piteous in the hopes of scoring some food for herself — she could smell that the scrag was carrying food fresh from Hawker’s — but this was not any other day. The sharp, acrid tang of perfume hit the air, and she made a strangled squawk of protest as she went to the bag. The perfume bottle, made of glass, had shattered. The perfume had splattered over everything else in the bag. Zhi stared in disbelief. “No way,†she said, utter dismay warring with a rising anger.
“Hey! Watch it!†The voice of the person she’d run into rose and cracked, and Zhi looked up.
Hyur. Young. Lad. Cause of all misfortune. He looked upset. Zhi didn’t care. “Watch it yerself!†She countered, voice sharp and furious.
He didn’t look impressed. “I jes bought this!†He was gesturing to his own bags on the ground.
Inadvertently, Zhi followed his arm. A pang of guilt swept through her as she saw the telltale wet of spilled something; hard to tell what it was with the perfume cutting over everything (it was strong, made her eyes water). Something of his own had broken open in at least two of the bags, and when he squatted to check for damages he pulled out a loaf of soaked bread, and a cloth bag full of something (grains of some sort, she was sure), that was also soaked. A jar of something pickled had cracked, and all the fluid from it had spilled out. The vegetables inside wouldn’t last long without the pickling liquid.
She told herself she didn’t care as she gathered up her own bag and made to move past him. He caught her by the arm, and he squeezed. Her ears went back and she turned to face him, teeth bared and eyes narrowed. “Aren’t ye gonna pay fer this?†He was asking, voice all hard.
They looked at each other. Her, with her eyes stinging from the intensity of the perfume, all watery to the point of nigh spilling over, and him, with injustice and unfairness written all over his face, along with determination to see those wrongs righted. Yet, unexpectedly and inexplicably, his expression softened as he looked at her and then down at her own bag. His nose wrinkled up. “Aren’t ye a little young fer perfume?â€
She glared at him, tugged at her arm. He didn’t let go. “Me mam.†She was feeling vindictive. “She’s a doxy an’ needed it fer her job.†She wanted to see his disgust, to watch him recoil from her, to let her go and mutter insults the way a kid who could go and buy so much food surely would to find out he’d touched a whore’s get. She expected almost anything but the look of sympathy that crossed his face, the way understanding lit up his eyes. His grip loosened. It was she who leaned away from him.
“Yeah,†he said quietly, “my ma’s a doxy, too.â€
She didn’t believe him, wouldn’t have wanted to believe him even if she did. He was looking at their wet bags, his own nose wrinkling as the strength of the perfume finally hit him. “My name’s Dirk. What’s yers?â€
Was he for real? He held himself with assurance. The name was not unfamiliar to her; she’d heard it in the groups she ran with, alongside other names that dealt in bigger bouts of thievery and . . . sometimes murder. But it wasn’t like there was only one Dirk in the whole city, right? It seemed a common enough name. This one wasn’t necessarily that one. “Zhavi,†she muttered in reply, lower lip jutting out. She pulled again at her arm, but he wasn’t letting go. She glared at him.
The bastard chuckled at her. What, did he think they were buddies now just because their mams were both whores? “I need t’go back an’ buy more groceries. What say I get ye more perfume t’replace what broke?â€
Her glare intensified. Was he pitying her? “Get lost,†she snarled.
Something in his face went hard again. “Now jes wait a —â€
She hit him with her bag. Perfume splattered on him, and he yelped as he held up his hands to ward her off. He was going to be stinking like perfume for the rest of the day, maybe for the rest of the week given how strong it smelled. Good. She hoped it didn’t wash off. But more importantly than that, he’d let go of her. She took the opportunity to run. She headed away from lowtown. She was going to bring back perfume for her mam, even if it killed her.
The sun was heading towards noon by the time she’d found another likely location. It reached its zenith by the time she’d found one where she was sure no one was home. Once again she’d gone for an alley window, scared of being seen from the front. She’d still be visible to anyone who took a good look down the alley, but she was hedging off the fact that most people would be too focused on their own chores and routines to bother looking around. That was how most people were; they lost sense of what was around them once they got real used to it. That was the only reason thieves like her could take advantage over it.
She wasn’t counting on a yellowjacket. Their patrols usually didn’t swing into the residential area She was halfway into the window when she turned to give the street beyond the alley one last quick look. What did she see? A jack. But this one? This one was off duty, emerging out of a home across the way. If anything, she was expecting some curious bystander that might have taken a chance glance and caught sight of her entirely by accident. That could be salvageable. Most people didn’t want trouble, and didn’t want to deal with it. They were as likely to look away as soon as they saw something bad happening, coming up with any number of excuses in their head as to why they shouldn’t get involved.
But not this man. She felt the blood drain from her face as his expression shifted from disgust to recognition to some unholy glee. It was the roe from before. He wasn’t in his yellow, but he was carrying his axe. He started to cross the street. Panic deadened Zhi’s limbs, and it was like she couldn’t control them like she usually did. She fell backwards, hitting her head on the wall and sprawling to the ground in an ungainly heap. It stunned her for a moment, a flash of white obscuring her vision before it came back. Black spots danced in front of her as she shook her head, automatically scrabbling to get to her feet.
“How many times now has it been?â€
Gods. Gods. Azeyma, Menphina, Llymlaen — anyone!
He was nearly to the alley’s mouth, and she saw he’d taken his ax into his hands. No one even seemed to be looking, past the bulk of his body. No one even cared. All he had to do was tell them he was a jack, and —
“Think I should take both o’ your hands, y’thievin’ rat?â€
He was so calm. So sure of himself. So sure of his ability to take her down and spit her like she wasn’t nothing. She almost pissed herself right then, caught it just as her muscles started to loosen in fear. There was a lump in her throat as she started to back up. He stalked her, each step placed just so. He was in control. He shouldn’t have been there. Why was he always in the better neighborhoods? What was he doing coming out of houses? He was crooked. He had to be.
And it didn’t matter squat.
Her bag was still clutched in her hands as she neared the wall the houses had been built up against or into. She didn’t even think. She threw it at him, turned, and shot up the wall. She didn’t wait to see him follow her. The bellow he let loose sounded like some demonic hunting dog that had just scented blood. This time, she didn’t look back.
Fear drove her. Getting caught out in the daylight wasn’t something that’d ever happened to Zhavi. She wasn’t used to running tricks in the daylight, wasn’t used to the bustle of the city when there were gads of people about. She moved blindly, without a plan, with him yelling behind her to move people out of his way. He wasn’t even in the blimming uniform, and people listened to him. They got out of his way. Sure, maybe it had to do with the oversized ax he was carrying, but it didn’t really matter why. She took corners at a dead run, ran into and over people she hadn’t seen in time. Her head was swimming with fear, with the certainty that she didn’t have control over this situation. Terror had taken over her. She moved through the city without a single lick of sense. Eventually she found herself in a familiar neighborhood, tears blurring her vision. Nearly breathless from her exertion, she ran as hard as she could. He was still behind her. He was still behind her.
Zhi didn’t question why things had gone so wrong, or why she suddenly found herself in front of the hated place that had become something like home. She banged on the door with both fists. It didn’t matter that Reitz was her enemy. It didn’t matter that he hit her mam. It didn’t matter that he hit her. Right then, at that moment, all she knew was that he’d kept them safe from other men who would hurt them. He could —
The door flew open. She fell into Reitz, and he took hold of her arms. She looked up at him, her face tear-streaked and filthy, and his surprise warped into anger. “What did you —â€
She wormed her way out of his grip and slid behind him as the jack came to a stop in front of the door.
“Dornn,†Reitz said. He knew the roe. He was shocked. Normally, Zhi would have delighted in the way his voice rose, would have crowed to have been right that the jack was crooked.
Right then, all she could do was back up.
“Tell me that ain’t your brat,†the roe said, disgust making his voice thick. Or maybe it was exhaustion.
Reitz took one look back at her. She fled even as he stepped outside and shut the door behind him. She’d never seen that expression before.
Fifteen steps until she reached her room. Six steps to reach her mam’s side. Mam was getting ready for the night’s work, sitting in front of her tiny vanity with her junk powders and paints and perfume. “Zhio?†The surprise in her voice was softer. Welcoming. Concerned. There was love in that voice.
Zhi threw herself into her mam’s lap, sobbing for all she was worth. All she’d wanted to do was make her mam smile. She’d wanted to take away those fine wrinkles, the stress, stop the way she’d look off into the distance and not say anything. She’d wanted to make her talk again, to make things be like how they’d used to be.
“Zhio, sweetling, what’s wrong?â€
Words spilled from Zhi’s lips. Disjointed, garbled, wet words that broke off and formed jumbled sentences. Her mam’s hands were touching her hair, her back, smoothing and petting. The reassurance was welcome, but it did nothing to calm the gaping pit of fear that opened up beneath her.
Someone was shouting outside. Her mam stiffened, looked towards the window, and then out towards the front door. Zhi buried her face into her mother’s lap, breathing in her smell. Somehow, she knew what was coming next. She couldn’t stop crying. Her mam’s hands stilled, and then moved slowly to Zhavi’s shoulders. Slowly, she pulled Zhi upright.
“Zhio, what’s going on?â€
Zhi looked up. Her mam wasn’t looking at her, was focusing on what was happening outside. Her hands tightened. Zhi mewled in protest. Something like fear tightened her mam’s lips, made her sink into her chair. When she looked down at Zhavi, there was budding anger in her look. Zhi started to pull back. The grip on her arms had become painful.
“What did you do?â€
When Zhi didn’t respond right away, Mam shook her. “What did you do?â€
“I — I didn’t mean —â€
The door slammed. It muffled the crack of her mam’s palm against her cheek. Strong fingers took hold of her chin, and forced her to look up. The love, the concern, had been replaced. The worry was still there, but it had twisted. “If you so much as — if you did somethin’ t’piss him off I swear I won’t lift a finger t’help you!â€
Heavy footsteps approached their door. Zhi closed her eyes as her mam shook her again, her ears back and her tail pressed to her leg. She’d gone numb all over. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to I didn’t —â€
The door opened.
“Mam,†Zhi said, weak. Pleading.
Her mam stood up, nearly dumping Zhavi to the floor. “Reitz,†she said, lifting her hands in entreaty. “Honey-dove.â€
Zhi was cowering into her mam, cringing. She wasn’t looking, didn’t know what was happening except for the sound of Reitz’s boots on the floor until her mam suddenly was reeling back. The sound of flesh on flesh told the only story she needed to know.
“Don’t you fecking come out of this room until I say you can.†Reitz’s voice was cold. Colder than Zhi had ever heard it.
She couldn’t move.
She saw Reitz reach down. His hands took hold of her own, and yanked her up.
“Reitz,†her mam said again, pleading in her voice.
He kicked her.
Zhi stumbled as he started to pull her out of the room, staring back at her mam’s crumpled form. It wasn’t until they reached the door that sense came back to her. She locked her legs, pulled back in his grip. “I’m sorry!†She blurted. Fresh tears stung her eyes. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry!â€
Nothing she did slowed him. Nothing stopped their march to his study, to the room that still smelled of old blood and death. She started to scream as he dragged her inside, apologies mixed with shameless begging, pleading, inarticulate promises to be the perfect child until the end of time.
The first blow knocked her silly. Her tongue got caught between her teeth, and blood flooded her mouth. The second blow took her down to her knees. The third blow caught her as she was stumbling away from him. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t say a damn thing. It terrified her, pushed her past reason. Pushed her past anything but the knowledge that she was going to die.
There wasn’t anything she could do to stop him. Gods knew she tried. He was taking his time. He was being thorough. He knew what he was doing. Every blow was calculated, done in a cold fury rather than feckless rage. That was the only way that, after minutes of his abuse, she caught sight of the penknife that had fallen to the floor from the table. He was circling her, taunting her with his silence, goading her into gibbering terror with her own anticipation of the next blow. He was cruel. She reached for the penknife, and curled back up. When he approached her, she stabbed it up and into his knee.
He moved. It stuck into his calf and stayed there, wobbling as he took a step back and cursed. She stared at it. Somehow, every iota of rebelliousness in her fled her in that single moment. She’d messed up. She shouldn’t have done that. She really, truly, should not have done that.
They both froze for a long, impossible moment.
She crawled for the door as fast as she could.
His boot came down on her tail.
Something cracked.
For a moment, she kept trying to crawl forward. The pain didn’t register as he reached down and took her by the scruff of her neck. She knew something was terribly, horribly wrong, knew that something had broken. She twisted around in his grip, staring down at his boot, at the way her tail disappeared under it. She could feel bone grinding on bone as he shifted his weight and pulled her up.
Pain hit her. It overrode all of her other bruises, over the throb that her body had become. At first, there wasn’t enough breath in the world for the agony of it. She tried to scream, managed only a dry bleating “ah! Ah!†until she managed a proper breath.
Then she screamed.
The world became pain, and screaming.
Her vision narrowed down, and she flailed without knowing what she was doing. Seconds might have passed, or minutes. She was lost to all of it, to whatever damage he might have done to her, until suddenly she was on the floor and he was bent over. Later, later she would realize that a lucky kick had hit him right between the legs. Right then, all she could manage was to cling to the floor. Inhale. Scream. Inhale. Scream. Inhale. Scream.
The door opened. It got stuck on her. She was blind to everything, deaf to everything. Someone lifted her up by her armpits, pulled her close into sweet softness.
She was moving, the pain becoming awful and familiar, and she realized her mam was dragging her out of the study, down the hall, and to the front room. “You have to go,†was being repeated, over, and over, and over.
Then, “stand up!â€
She stood, staring into the doorway, legs loose and shaky. She stared at her mam. She was outside. Her mam was inside.
Somewhere, she’d stopped screaming. Her throat felt thick, and painful. “Mam?â€
“Run, Zhio. Go.â€
“Mam?â€
“Go, now. Before he sees you. Jes — jes go.â€
Zhi took a step back, staring.
“I don’t think. . .I don’t think you should come back, sweetling.â€
“But—â€
“You’re gonna ruin everything.â€
Zhi’s mouth was open, but nothing came out.
“Go!"
There was a bellow from inside. Zhi’s mam turned to look back inside. For a moment, Zhi could see the bruises that ran along her mam’s collarbone and disappeared inside her shirt.
Then the door shut.
She stared at it, bent over, arms wrapped around her stomach. There was a banging noise inside. She took a step back. Voices rose in heated words, and footsteps came closer to the door. Something hit one of the walls. Her mam yelled out in pain.
Zhi was so gods-damned craven. She broke. She ran, hobbling away as fast as she could muster, sucking in her sobs. She didn’t know where she was going, or when she would stop, but she knew she had to do what her mam had told her. She had to go. Things had changed, and this time she couldn’t even pretend that one day things could go back to how they used to be.
She never went back.
Fin.
(the next one will be less awful, I promise.)
