Page 24 of The Only Way Out Is Up

“What?”

He gives a languid shrug. “Times are tough. The Arrowheads have been making moves. Good old Uncle Claw needs his faithful friends to dig a little deeper, for the common good.”

“We can’t pay double.”

“That’s what the fat kid said. Told me you’d hurt yourself. Asked for a break. But here you are out for a night on the town, so I figure things can’t be that bad, can they?”

My ill-advised anger has rapidly been replaced by panic. What the fuck has Somi been hiding from me? For how long? “Give us some time, at least—”

“The fat kid said that, too.” He idly examines his fingernails, which are filthy. “I told him if he takes too long, Uncle Claw might start to wonder if you all are really his friends. Bad things can happen to people who aren’t friends of Uncle Claw.” He flicks a bit of grit at me. “Bad things might be happening right now. You never know.”

What I want to do is punch Rekas in the face and keep punching until there’s nothing left but goo. Unfortunately he has thirty centimeters and forty kilos on me, not to mention a dozen armed friends within earshot. So what I actually do is take off running as fast as I can, shoving past the drunken scavengers and the circling whores in the direction of the bakery. Behind me, I can hear the bald bastard laughing.

By the time I get back, the Clawmark enforcers have been and gone. The front door is splintered, kicked in, and the kitchen beyond is a mess. I leap over scattered mixing bowls and broken crockery, heading for the stairs, then spin as someone grabs my arm.

“Taj. Taj!” Somi looks me over and lets out a sigh of relief. “You’re okay.”

“I’m okay?” I look him up and down. There are fresh bruises on his arms, but he seems otherwise intact. “Where’s Spike?”

“Upstairs. She’ll be fine.” He lets out a breath. “It was the Clawmarks.”

“I know. Rekas tracked me down in the market. He said they want us to pay double.” My brain is still sorting through the implications of that conversation. “You knew about this?”

“I—” My brother, the world’s worst liar, is suddenly very interested in a patch of flour on the floor.

“Fuck,” I swear, and shove him out of the way.

Upstairs is worse, not just a careless smash-up but wanton destruction. Spike is sitting on her threadbare mattress, on the floor beside its broken-up frame. The rest of her furniture is in splinters, and shreds of paper scattered around speak to the fate of her little journal. When I come up the stairs, she looks up, and my breath catches; there’s a huge bruise purpling half her face and puffing up around her eye.

“Fucking stars,” I growl, throat suddenly full of acid. Anger flares, hot and bright. She is my little sister, and I will find the person who did this to her and fucking kill them, I swear to the sun and moon—

I reach out for her, and Spike shies away. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not—”

“He just hit me, that’s all,” she mutters. “I tried to get him to leave my journal alone and he hit me. I’ll be fine.”

She’s breathing fast and hard, tears leaking from her good eye.

“Somi will get Ameliana,” I tell her, “she’ll have some powder or something—”

“Why would they tear up my journal?” she shouts abruptly. “It’s mine, it doesn’t have anything to do with… with payment or the Clawmarks or anything. There was no reason…”

She trails off, and I kneel beside her. She finally consents to be taken in my arms, stiff-backed and shoulders hunched.

“Because they knew it was important to you, and they wanted to hurt you,” I say quietly. “To hurt us. That’s what they do.”

She sniffs, snot bubbling. “Why?”

And what can I possibly say? Because the world fucking sucks, that’s why, at least when you’re born on the very bottom. No parents, no money, no hope. And just when you think you’ve finally clawed something good out of it with your fingernails, some bastard comes along and kicks it over for no better reason than that they can, and nobody can stop them.

“I don’t know,” I tell her.

She slowly relaxes into me, face pressed against my shoulder. I feel my shirt getting wet with tears. I hold her while she sobs.

Anger is stupid. Anger gets you killed.

But I’m so very angry.