Stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop thinking about this. Focus on getting out of the city. Or maybe to a decent bed, somewhere no one will come looking for you, and try again in the morning. But if I don't get out tonight, who's to say that I'll have the will to get out tomorrow? Tonight, and then sleep outside the city.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to stay out of the way of those patrols. Veridon was a labyrinth of alleys and streets and underground rivers, and there were only so many Badgemen on the payroll, but a lone pedestrian moving through the city at midnight, when the streets have been cleared, is going to draw the eye. Most of the honest citizens were in bed, cursing a siren at midnight for waking them up, and the dishonest citizens had gotten drunk and ended up in a riot. That just left the stragglers, like me and Wilson, folks who were up to serious mischief, and the truly determined drunks. There were pockets of these people lurking in alleyways, huddled around fire barrels, vigorously getting their bottles empty. I ducked into one such alley, its narrow walls high enough to block out all but the most direct rain. A group of drunks started when they saw me, drawing knives, until their bleary eyes figured out I wasn't there to arrest them. They stood in a tight ring around a fire barrel, sharing the heat and a bottle.
'Bad night for a walk, buddy,' one of them said. He had a raincloak of slick leather, the hood pulled tight around his face. He turned away from me and clapped his hands over the smoldering barrel, but edged to one side to give me some room. I hunched my shoulders and squeezed in. The warmth was nice.
'Wasn't my plan,' I said. 'Out for a drink when all those sirens went off.'
'Yeah,' another one of my new companions said. I was surprised to see that it was a girl, young and thin and well groomed. She wore the kind of clothes that rich girls wore when they went slumming. 'Badge is crawling around like lice tonight. Something has their hackles up.'
'Nothing to do with us,' the first one said. 'Just an excuse to interrupt a perfectly good drunk.'
I looked at the third member of their rain-soaked party. A boy, maybe a little younger than the girl. His eyes were glassy, and he swayed dangerously close to the fire. The girl saw my look of concern and laughed.
'Ricky's birthday today. He's a man now, aren't you Rick?'
Rick didn't answer. The older guy chuckled and passed the bottle to the girl. I took the bottle after her. Bitter and sharp in my mouth, its fire bursting through my chest. A couple shots rang out, far down the street. The girl winced and the man shook his head.
'Don't know what they're on about,' he said. 'Not like people need a reason to hate the Badge. Getting drunk in the rain shouldn't be a crime.'
'Shouldn't it?' the girl asked, with a trill of mischief in her voice. 'I'm feeling pretty damn criminal, I'll tell you.'
I saw it in her, that childish glee at being in trouble. Being troublesome. I probably went to school with her mother, if the money in her bearing came from Founder stock rather than the industrialists. Did that matter, though? Which side of the Chamber her money came from? I imagined rich parents were just as overbearing, regardless of whether they'd earned their money or inherited it. The kids rebelled in the same predictable ways.
'You don't look like a pretty damn criminal to me,' I said.
My two mostly sober new friends turned to me, a little uncomfortable.
'Now just you listen, bud,' the man said, snatching the bottle from my hand. 'There's no reason to be rude to the lady, just because we gave you a drink.'
'Rude to the lady? We're standing in an alleyway, in the rain, drinking from a bottle of rotgut. And I suspect you brought her here, and got her brother drunk, and I suspect you had a good reason for doing that.'
The man flushed and busied himself with the bottle. Who was he? An older friend? A servant? It wouldn't matter, in the end.
'What the hell are you talking about?' the girl said. 'Jeremy is here at my request, and for my protection. It was Ricky's birthday, and I wanted the three of us to have a night out.'
You could almost hear the pout in her voice. Jeremy didn't say anything.
'For your protection. Right.' I took the bottle from Jeremy's loose hands and drank up. 'Have some sense, girl, and get inside with the other good children. And take Ricky with you.'
'Not every girl needs a hero, you know!' she shrilled.
The words hit me. An alley, when I was young and foolish, rushing to the aid of a girl I had only just met. Emily. That's what she said to me, when I thought to rescue her from an attacker, and she stood over his body, knife in hand. Not every girl needed a hero.
My hand was on the fire barrel, the pain barely getting to me through a wall of fuzzy numbness. I looked down at the smoldering cuff of my coat, then to the bottle, and up to the man in the hooded cloak. I was tired, sure, but not this tired. Back to the girl. Her eyes had gone wide, her hand to her face, gasping as she collapsed. Not every girl, no. But this girl does.
'You drugged us,' I slurred. 'You have no idea how bad that is.'
'You should have stopped in a different alley,' the man said. He batted the bottle from my hand. It shattered when it hit the cobbles, its tainted contents disappearing into the rain. 'Or gotten properly drunk and gone to sleep, like everyone else.'
Such a petty criminal. Such a stupid way for this stupid day to end. I backed into the wall, using it to hold me up. The man went to check on Ricky and the girl, both of whom were limp on the ground. Then he turned his attention to me.
'Look, I know what you're thinking,' he said. Glanced at the girl, most of her leg exposed and muddy, back to me. 'And I'd be lying if I said that didn't play a part. But mostly it's him. The boy's at the age of majority tonight, and that makes him an heir. Bad night to be an heir.'
'I agree. Terrible night.'My words were thick in my mouth. I blinked away the shadows that were clinging to my eyes, ran my hand across my face.
He gave me a funny look, then shrugged.
'Anyway. Bad luck for you, running into us. I hoped to have this all done before the curfew, but it's hard getting them away from crowds. Turned out that waiting until everyone was safely at home or tucked away in jail worked out. Other than you showing up. And that's your problem more than mine, honestly.'
I steadied myself on the wall and tried to rub the drugged fatigue from my head. He chuckled, and when I looked up he was holding a knife. The barrel was still between us, and I probably could have gotten into the street. He might not have chased me, not with his two charges unconscious on the ground, but he seemed like the kind of guy who couldn't afford any witnesses. Didn't matter. I had my gun in my hand without really thinking of the consequences.
That surprised him. Maybe he was new to this business, or maybe victims who fought back weren't really his usual thing. He adapted well enough. Ducked behind the barrel, and when he came up it was with the girl's limp body under his arm, knife against her throat. Her head lolled over the blade, already drawing blood.
'How the hell does this happen to me?' I muttered. The damn gun was heavy in my hand. The poison was dragging me down. 'What is it that I do to get in these situations?'
'This can still end well,' he said. I don't think he knew what he was talking about. 'You can just walk away. I promise you the girl isn't going to get hurt.'
'Somehow I have trouble taking the word of the guy who drugged her in the first place.' My sight was blurry, but I did my best to keep the barrel in the general direction of his head. Best if he thought I could pull off that shot, even if I knew better. 'In fact the only way I see this ending is with blood. And it's not going to be mine, so you best start coming up with ways it doesn't have to be yours, either.'
'Somehow I have trouble taking a threat from a man who can barely hold his head up.' There was snide contempt in his voice. 'So maybe you should start coming up with ways you walk out of this alive. Like, maybe if you just put the gun down, turn around and walk out.'
'Let's figure that out, right after you stop hiding behind an unconscious girl.'
He spat, but didn't move. Man, I love standoffs. Especially when I'm drunk, drugged and haven't slept in twenty hours. Best kind of standoffs. And no Wilson to pull my ass out of the fire.
'How about this,' he said. 'How about you take the girl, and I take young master Richard, and we just go our separate ways.'
'I don't think I'd be a very good friend if I let you take her brother. How about you put that knife in your eye and save me the trouble of having to kill you.'
