Chapter 19
1480words
"Ladies and gentlemen, today we have breaking news. The local hero, Metal Rift, has unfortunately died last night. V.E.I.L officials will not disclose where or how, but they assure the public an investigation is underway. A tragic loss, not only for our city, but for all of us who looked to him as a symbol of progress. Let us all hope whoever did this will meet their end swiftly and decisively."
My eyes opened suddenly. I looked around and saw I'm in my room. When did I fall asleep? I don't... remember. But the voices have stopped. That's good, I don't need to be distracted today.
I stood up and left my room quietly as silent as I can. I walked to the kitchen and start my dreadful routine. Making sandwiches. Bread. Cheap cheese, cheaper meat, cheap mayo.
"...Metal Rift will be remembered by the people he saved and his family. His wife and son will, no doubt, grieve for their loss."
I can hear the news broadcasting outside the thin walls.
Metal Rift died.
I never really paid attention to him. Just the basics everyone else knew. He was working his way into becoming a world hero. The guy could rip the air open and pull out living metal from the other side. I glimpsed at some footage at school, jagged shards crawling into blades, plates snapping across his body like a second skin. Even the rifts were dangerous, like razor-thin doors that could slice straight through a car. People said the big ones were worse... unstable, like he couldn't always control them.
I spread the mayo a little too hard, tearing the bread... all heroes can bleed out in the end.
I forgot... no school today.
Then, a door swung open. Mother sluggishly walked out of the room. She looks like the dead.
Her eyes were rimmed red, her hair stuck flat against her face, streaked with grease. Her shirt was wrinkled, collar stretched from too many hands grabbing at it.
"Where's my-" Her words slurred, the vowels sticking together. "Where's my food, girl?"
Her voice wasn't really hers anymore. It was the drug's of course.
Her arms hung loose, boneless, until she dragged them across the counter, reaching for the sandwich I'd just made. Her nails scraped crumbs off the plate.
Lucius stumbled in after her, shirtless, the tattoos across his chest glowing faintly where the ink fused with chemical veins. His pupils were wide, his grin too wide. The drug hit him harder, he wasn't sluggish. He was vibrating, like every part of him was overcharged and ready to snap.
I slid the sandwich across the counter toward Lucius.
The second he saw hit, his eyes turn full rage.
"THe Fuck! Why am I eating THis shit AGain!" he yelled. He picked up the plate, aiming it right at my face.
Thankfully, due to his sluggishness, he missed my face. But the plate struck my shoulder, the cheap bread sliding down my arm before it hit the floor. A smear of mayo stuck to my shirt.
"This cheap trash again?!" he yelled. "Do you even think? Do you even care if I starve? You make the same food over and over again, bitch!"
Mother laughed, high-pitched and brittle, slumping against the counter. Her hand slapped the surface lazily. "She don't care. She's always been selfish. Always have."
Her head lolled, but her eyes stayed fixed on me. "She doesn't love us. Never loved me. Just like her father. That's why she makes the same shit every day."
I looked at the counter. I don't need to hear their drugged rage state.
Suddenly, Lucius moved fast. His hand grabbed my hair before I could do anything, he yanked my head to the side so sharp my neck popped. My breath caught but didn't escape. He dragged me forward until my forehead slammed against the edge of the counter.
White spots burst across my vision.
"Look at me when I talking to you!" His spit hit my cheek. His breath stinked with the chemical tang of Veyra. "Look!"
I looked. My head rang.
Mother clapped slowly, as if this was entertainment. "Pffft! Hahaha!"
Lucius shoved me back against the cabinet. My spine hit hard. My body just folded there, bent between his weight and the wood. His fingers pressed bruises into my jaw as he forced my face up.
"You're nothing," he hissed. "Nothing but dead weight. You breath my air, I let you live in my home, and this is what I get back?! Cheap food and silence?!"
His hand struck my cheek. The sound cracked louder than it hurt, but the sting still spread warm across my skin.
I didn't cry. I didn't need to. I'm use to this.
But that only made him angrier.
"You're nothing but a fucking broken doll," he muttered, shaking me once before letting go.
Mother slid down into a chair, her head in her hands. She whispered, not to me but to herself, "Why was I cursed with her? Why?"
Lucius kicked the fallen sandwich into the wall, smeared it down into the dirt with his heel. "Pathetic."
He spat on the floor. "Useless, both of you."
Then Lucius's foot kicked my face to the floor. The sandwich squished against my face, mayo and cheap meat flattening against my skin.
"Eat it. NOW!
My palms pressed into the floor until the wood bit the skin. I didn't move. What good would it do? Moving only prolonged the suffering.
"Don't make me repeat myself," He said. He sounded bored when I didn't obey. He grabbed my hair, dragged my head up by the roots until my neck ached, until the sandwich squished back into my mouth.
I tasted everything at once, grease, salt, cheap preservatives, and the copper tang that always pooled under the surface like a warning. I forced my jaw to chew slowly. My throat closed and opened.... Swallow. He shoved the rest in.
Mother laughed. It was more a noise than a laugh. "Yes, that's it. Eat the trash. That way you'll be thin enough for grandmen to like you." She said grandmen like it was a joke. Her hands folded in her lap, fingers sticky with crumbs.
I mouthed nothing. I swallowed the last of the bread. The sandwich tasted like crap. Shame, uselessness, the stale air of this apartment.
Lucius shoved me back until my shoulder hit the cabinet hard enough that a small, answering pain flared through the bruise already there. He spat to the side, wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.
"Good," he said. "See? That wasn't so hard. Now you know your place."
I slid off the floor when he eased me up, though my knees trembled. The apartment tilted for a second, then settled. I picked at the crumbs on my shirt because that's what hands do when there's nothing else to hold.
Lucius moved to the doorway, pacing.
"You know what, I just thought of something. We could sell her to a grandmen," he said, slowly smirking. "Why didn't I think of it before?! HAahaha! I'll be rich!"
"Go get my Holo Board woman! Imma start selling!" Lucius said to mother.
She scrambled like a puppet and go his holographic keyboard. She returned and handed the board to him.
My hands went still. I could feel the crumbs under my nails, the cheap mayo crusted into the folds of my skin. The room smelled like old smoke and the chemical smell of Veyra.
Grandmen. The word sat heavy in my stomach. In the Underbelly it meant one thing: men with money enough to make laws bend, men who could buy silence and bodies and futures. It meant auctions in back rooms, promises made in candlelight and then kept by threats. It meant you belonged to someone else.
"Ha," Lucius said. He paced around. "We could fetch a good price. People pay for rare. People pay for... exotic." He licked his lips.
"Maybe," Mother mumbled, eyes half-closed. "Maybe if she was prettier."
I didn't say anything. Didn't move.
"We'll set it up tonight," he said. "I got a contact near the Docks. Rich fools goes crazy for useless dolls" He started typing away.
I didn't want to hear this anymore, so I left through the front door. I looked up and saw Mr. Or'dara on his stool again. He was molding clay again. He looked up and saw me.
"Slyvian? What happened?"
He stood up from his stool and lead me in his apartment. "Come in child. Let's get you cleaned."
Grandmen: Wealthy predators. In the Underbelly, it's slang for older, richer men (politicians, executives, or crime lords) who prey on the desperate. They're called "grandmen" because they flaunt their money (grand as in grand currency) and use it to exploit others.
Holo Board: A slang for holographic keyboard.
