“I’ll take you there,” Ryan tells me quietly. Reluctantly. “Give me two weeks and I’ll take you.”
“Two weeks? Why not tonight?”
He snorts, shaking his head. “You can’t go with that splint on. They get off on weakness and you’ll have to at least be able to pretend your arm isn’t useless. Besides, I haven’t been there in a while. I can’t just show up one night with a girl no one’s ever seen before on my arm, asking to talk to the boss.”
“You’ve been to the fights before?”
“A time or two.”
I turn to Trent. “You too?”
He simply nods.
“And they know you down there?”
“Yeah,” Ryan says, smiling sadly. “They know me there.”
Chapter Five
A week later, while Ryan and Trent show their faces in the Underground on the regular, I make a visit to Crenshaw. It’s a little scary going out with my arm in the splint and the Risen population still bloated from the fall of the Colony, a Colony I have now lived inside of, but I’m going stir crazy in my apartment. I have to get out and I have to face Crenshaw.
When I go to my wall of weapons to pick something out, I nearly burst into tears. There, hanging in its home, is my ASP. It must have been here this entire time, I just never noticed it because I didn’t need to, but now that I see it I’m nearly crying with relief. After Trent saw me taken he must have told Ryan where it happened. Maybe Trent told him that I’d lost my weapon or maybe he found it on accident, who knows. The important thing is that it’s here, right where I need it.
And I do need it. The Risen population is still high, still an ongoing problem reminding me of the old days. They shuffle and bumble down the streets, through alleyways and into everything. I stand in my doorway for a bit watching and remembering as they walk into each other. Into the remnants of cars. Into old sign posts. It’d be comical if it weren’t such a pain. If it didn’t remind me of the worst times of my very, very worst case scenario life.
I manage to use my ASP to take down three on the way to the woods. My breathing hitches as I run toward them. I can’t afford to be scared but I can’t trust myself either, not with this jacked up arm. I struggle to stay calm, to be numb and smart as I work through them. Each one drops with a fractured skull and a hit to the temple just for good measure. Injured or no, it never hurts to be thorough. Only this does, it hurts. Physical activity of any kind, especially running or bashing in skulls, makes my arm throb to a painful rhythm.
When I reach the woods and call out for Crenshaw, I’m shocked to see him emerge entirely from the shadows. He walks right up to me, staff ever in hand, and wraps his arms tightly around me without a word.
“Cren,” I say awkwardly, my mouth pressed into the hood of his robe, “do you know you’re hugging me?”
He pulls back, still holding onto my shoulders. His face is very nearly beaming. “Athena, I’d thought you lost for the ages.”
I smile despite my discomfort at his proximity. “No, I’m still here.”
“Thank the stars for small favors,” he says, gesturing to the blue, afternoon sky. “Come, sit with me awhile and tell me of your adventures to the great beyond.”
He leads me through the bushes toward his hut, past the traps and snares meant to deter and murder anyone dumb enough to trespass here.
“There’s not much to tell, really.”
“They took you,” he says frankly, his face firm. Annoyed.
“Yes.”
“The rogues,” he grumbles as we enter his hut. He sits me down across from him at his small table. “They knew not with whom they were dealing. Athena! Goddess of War and Vengeance.”
“Amen to that.”
“How did you escape?”
I hesitate, unsure how I want to handle this. I didn’t want to admit to Ryan what I’d done and I can’t imagine telling the story to Crenshaw. He might be proud, which I don’t know if I’ll particularly like, or he could be angry with me. Again, not something I’d like.
“I heeded wise words,” I tell him meaningfully. “I kept my wits sharp and luck favored the prepared.”
“Ha!” Crenshaw exclaims excitedly, clapping his hands together once. “Wonderful. Well done, my dear. I knew you were not a lost cause.”
“Thank you,” I say, not really sure it’s a compliment. Maybe it’s just an observation. Stupid Trent.
“Your arm,” Crenshaw says suddenly, his demeanor becoming sedated. “Have you been caring for it? Do you need anything for the pain or infection?”
“No, thank you. I’ve been taking medicines for it.”
He scowls at me. “From whom? Not one of those Charlatan’s in the markets, I hope.”
“No, Cren. From you.”
Crenshaw stares at me for a lone moment before nodding sagely. “The boy.”
“Yes,” I reply, feeling nervous. I’m breaking a rule here by mentioning a Lost Boy in his presence. We never speak specifics and I’ve just gotten very, very specific.
“He’s a good one, that lad. Stay close to him.”
“Really?” I ask, shocked. “I thought I was supposed to avoid the company of men.”
Crenshaw nods again, watching me. “There are few good men left in this world of wraiths, devils and fools, my child. Should you find one, you’d be an idiot to walk away. And you, Athena,” he says, heavily, “are no idiot.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ve been pretty stupid lately.”
He waves my protest away dismissively. “Youth!” he cries, as though that one word explains away every complication in my entire world.
And who knows? Maybe it does.
Two nights later I’m scared to death by a pounding on my door. It’s not frantic, but it’s loud and insistent. I wrap my blanket around me, hiding the shorts and threadbare t-shirt I’m sleeping in, and run for the door.
“Who is it?” I whisper into the crack, feeling ridiculous. I’m not used to visitors. All I know is that if their answer is ‘Ughhhhh’, they are not coming in.
“Joss, it’s us,” Ryan replies weakly.
I quickly lift the board off the door and fling it open. There they stand, Trent and Ryan, leaning against each other. They’re both covered in blood. Some of it is way too dark to be theirs. To be human.
“What the hell happened to you two?”
“Can we come in and tell you that?” Ryan asks impatiently. “My leg is killing me.”
I step aside to let them pass, but I eye Trent hard as I do. “Why does his leg hurt?”
“You ask that like you think I had something to do with it.”
“Did you?”
Trent chuckles quietly. I get no other answer.
I slam the door, dropping the board over it again. Trent drops Ryan down carefully in the middle of the room. He collapses back, breathing hard with his arm thrown over his eyes. I watch as he flexes his right leg back and forth, a grimace etched around his mouth.
“What happened?” I ask again, my tone softening. I go to step closer, to kneel down to help him, but Trent comes straight at me. I instinctively back up against the door, my eyes darting toward my weapons wall as his shadow moves through the dark loft.
“Easy,” he says calmly. “I was just leaving.”
“What about Ryan?”
“You’ll play nurse to him better than I will. The gang can’t know he’s fighting freelance. I’ve gotta get back and tell everyone he’s spending the night with a pro named Freedom.”
I frown, confused and freaked out. “Is that where he was? With a whore?”
Ryan lifts his head off the ground to glare at me. “You think a girl did this to me?”