Ripka pressed her lips together hard to keep from smiling. Didn’t matter where you went in the world, those who dealt in illicit trades always made up their own language to obfuscate what they were really up to. She figured the language of Aransa’s dark trade would translate just as well here. Radu had insinuated that the drug he wanted rooted out was an upper, and those usually had an acerbic taste from which they took their slang.
“Yeah. Not much time to get used to going without. I got tossed straight on the transport. Anything bitter growing on this rock?”
“Hmmm,” Forge said, drumming her nails on the table. “Not much like that around here. Guards keep it pretty tight, but there’s…”
Clink cleared her throat and shot Forge a hard look. “I’ll ask around. See if I can scrounge up something to help.”
Ripka swallowed her disappointment. Either the girls knew something and were keeping the information close, or she’d attached herself to the wrong group. Pits below, she shouldn’t have to bother with this bullshit. She should focus on Nouli, on getting close to that yellowhouse. But the thought of being outed… She glanced sideways at Honey, at the hard planes of muscle hidden behind her jumpsuit. They weren’t likely to be so friendly with her if they knew where her “name” came from.
“I’d be grateful,” she said, forcing a tight smile but not trying too hard to hide her disappointment. They’d expect as much.
“We look out for each other, that’s the deal.” Clink didn’t need to explain what she meant, Ripka could hear between the words easily enough. She’d be called upon someday to repay the favor of their protection, their company, and their drug supplier if it came to that.
A little worm of guilt crawled under her skin as she realized she wouldn’t be around long enough to settle the debt Clink had offered her in good faith. But was it good faith, truly? Ripka hadn’t the slimmest idea what Clink, or the others, had done to get themselves tossed in the Remnant. Wasn’t anything petty, she could count on that. The empire didn’t go to the trouble of shipping you out to this sea-slapped rock if you hadn’t gone out of your way to earn the dubious honor. It had to be worse than petty theft, but not so nasty they’d lob your head off and be done with it.
Not much was a capital offense in the eyes of the empire, especially not on the Scorched. Planned murder would get you chopped, or being a deviant sel-sensitive – but with the sensitives, they just wanted them out of the breeding pool. In being sent to the Remnant, the empire thought they might be able to squeeze some use out of you someday. Rehabilitation was the lip service they gave it, but in truth this nest of vipers was a place of waiting.
Waiting for the next war, the next selium-rush. Whatever the empire’d need dirty hands for. Hands they didn’t mind chopping off.
“Your sweetums is making friends,” Honey said in her soft, whispery voice.
Ripka suppressed a scowl at the thought of Enard as anything more than a friend, and followed Honey’s gaze. Enard had set himself up at the trestle table again. The population there had thinned, many of the new intakes having broken off to join smaller, more insular groups. Some of them had even formed their own clumps of human protection. But not Enard.
He sat straight-backed, methodically spooning gruel into his mouth, a ratty napkin folded across his lap with angles so crisp Ripka wondered how he’d managed to beat the rumpled material flat, let alone straight. Give the man a change of clothes and you could plop him down in any high society dining hall and no one would be the wiser.
He’d attracted flies. At least, that’s what they looked like to Ripka. Three men made a crescent around Enard – one at either side, one at his back – leaning forward with expressions so intense Ripka couldn’t tell if they wanted to kill him or fuck him. Maybe both.
That songbird who’d started the fracas stood on the other side of the table, arms crossed, a smug look tugging up her still-swollen lips.
“Trouble,” Ripka said, automatically keeping her voice soft.
“Just another day on the Remnant,” Clink mused.
“Hope they don’t mess up those lovely cheekbones of his,” Forge added.
Ripka’s fist tightened around her spoon. They were criminals, these new friends of hers. Not her watchers, trained to fall into action by her words, by the subtle shift in her voice. She’d moved on the chair, unconsciously swung her legs around to the other side so that she faced Enard. Her hands curled in her lap, one still holding the wooden spoon. A paltry weapon, that. She’d give anything to have her baton, her crossbow, or her cutlass. Would give so much more to have her old sergeant, Banch, backing her up.
Pits below, she’d even welcome Detan’s idiotic face right about now.
“You gon’ fight, Captain?” Honey asked.
“Best not, unless you wanna spend a night in the well,” Kisser said.
One of the three men was talking, hunched over real close so Enard couldn’t miss a word he said, but Enard kept on eating, bringing that spoon up and down to his own internal rhythm. Maybe they just had harsh words to share. Maybe…
A small hand lighted on her shoulder and she snapped around to face the owner faster than she’d intended. Honey smiled at her, her little hand with its too-short fingers tugging on the cloth by her shoulder.
“Gimme your spoon, mine’s broken,” she said.
“Honey…” There was a warning note in Clink’s voice that Ripka couldn’t parse. Was Honey simpleminded? To be worried about cutlery at a time like this was so disjointed from reality that Ripka wasn’t sure whether to laugh or yell. She handed the spoon over without comment, acutely aware of the conversation going on at the table while her back was turned.
Honey snatched the spoon with glee and shoved one of her short, thick thumbnails into the end of its handle. Sticking her tongue out with concentration, she twisted her nail around until the wood began to splinter, then upended her plate and fitted the notched end of the handle against its narrow edge. With a few deft taps, she split the spoon in half against the plate and peeled a few splinters off one half. She tested the handle’s new point for sharpness, nodded to herself, and handed it back, beaming with triumph.
“For you.”
Ripka stared, dumbfounded. In a few heartbeats, Honey’d crafted a serviceable shiv.
“Thank you…” Ripka said, hesitantly, as she took the makeshift weapon and stashed it in her pocket.
“Be careful, there’s an awful lot of them.”
“I don’t think–”
Shouts echoed across the courtyard, cutting her off. The man who had been speaking to Enard grabbed his collar and jerked him from his seat, shoving him toward the ground. Enard twisted expertly, wrenching his shirt away from the man’s grasp, and got a hand down to brace himself.
There he perched, his thighs on the bench, a single hand holding him off the ground. Silence wove throughout the moment, the entire rec yard holding its breath to see which way things would swing next.
The man standing behind Enard, his jumpsuit dyed over the shoulders in a scale pattern, kicked Enard’s elbow. He crashed to the ground. The yard exploded in whoops and cheers.
Ripka couldn’t see Enard after he went down – the three men converged upon him – but she was on her feet before she could think. She sprinted, elbowing aside the crowd that swelled about the nucleus that was Enard.
Enard’s head popped up – taller than the rest, dark hair flattened with sweat. A trickle of blood snaked from his nose to his lip. The three tightened the noose, pressing him back against the bench so he’d be off balance. Ripka saw Enard’s eyes narrow, his shoulders set, his fists come up, and then she was in.