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“Yes, she is! She said she’d come back so she is!”
The man sighs and runs a dirty hand down his face.
“Come on out, kid. I gotta show you something.”
* * *
“Why didn’t you leave?” I interrupt, baffled by this new revelation and renewed hope. Ax gives me a sad smile. He takes my hand into his, rubbing absently over my knuckles.
“Crow showed me her body,” he replies and my heart clenches, despite the matter-of-fact way he says it. Ax’s gaze goes far off as he remembers.
* * *
We’re standing outside a place I’ve never been before. It smells like wet copper pennies mixed with something rotten. I wrinkle my nose. I didn’t want to come with the strange man who calls himself Crow, but he said it was to do with my mama. I wait as he does something to the door in front of us.
“Kid, I’m really sorry, but I think you need to see this,” Crow says, pushing the door open. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust…
* * *
“She was almost unrecognizable,” Ax tells me, his voice devoid of emotion and his gaze far off, “If not for a necklace she wore, I don’t think I would have believed it.” I bring his hand up to my lips. My heart cracks at the thought of young Axle having to see that.
“He was right though,” Ax continues. “I needed to see it, to know she wasn’t coming back.”
“Why didn’t you leave?” I ask again, hoping to take his thoughts away from dwelling on having to see his mother’s raped and tortured corpse. I shudder at the thought. His own issues definitely make more and more sense the more I’ve gotten to know him. If anything, I’m more impressed he is holding it together so well.
“I don’t know,” Ax replies honestly, “I knew then I was going to be alone in here, that my mama wasn’t coming back, but somehow I couldn’t leave her. But I did help Crow get out anyway.”
* * *
We stand by the newly opened grate, deep beneath The Tomb, and Crow turns to me.
“Sure you don’t want to come, kid? I can’t take care of ya, but I can set you up with some nice ladies who can.”
I barely consider it before shaking my head. My voice seems to have left me after seeing mama. Crow starts climbing into the pipe before turning back to me one more time.
“Well, kid, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your mama. When I can, I’ll do what I can to help ya out in here. So long.”
* * *
“Did he?” I interrupt again, “Help you, I mean?”
Ax nods slowly, “Did you ever wonder how someone who came to The Tomb as a kid with no money and nothing managed to make deals on the outside to get the stuff I do?”
My brow furrows as I consider this. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I think back to the niceties I’ve seen. Booze, half-decent food, medicine…Even a damn whore, I think bitterly.
“That’s all because of Crow?”
Axle nods.
“Why didn’t you ever leave?” I ask again incredulously and Ax sighs.
“I guess I just pushed it out of my mind,” he answers with a shrug, “It was only a few days later that the big riot happened, and the guards left. I met Ethan, and we stayed together. I accepted my life for what it was and over the years, I never really thought about it.”
My brows furrow as I consider this.
“And this way out, it’s still there?”
This time, Ax pauses, and I immediately begin to worry. “Yes, maybe, but it’ll take us a few days to get it ready.”
