Heya dudes! As my main series is finishing up, I've decided to start a side story. It'll have to take backseat to the Sunset stories, but once I finish that I'll be making this my main storyline. Sit back and enjoy/cry/scream/laugh rage at the author for only updating once a week!
The shopkeeper in front of me narrows his eyes suspiciously. "I know you. You's not got cash. You best be getting outta here if you's knowin' what's good fer you."
"Just lookin'," I scowl, moving as if to pass by the little broken-down cart that he uses as his grocery store. As I brush past him, I trip over a small root in the giant pool of semi-solid filth that passes as the clearing for the market and have to steady myself against the shopkeeper.
"Watch where you's goin'!" he shouts indignantly.
I don't bother to respond, but slog off through the muck before he can realize that I pinched his coin-purse. He deserved it, anyway. Opening the purse, I count five copper pieces. Five coppers won't buy much, but then again, there's not much to be bought. The hybrids have destroyed most of the crops, and when you used to be able to buy a loaf of bread for a single coin, now you're lucky to get a slice. Especially if you're a kid who looks as much like trouble as me.
I duck into an alleyway as Ryan and the rest of his gang tromp past. I'm a loner, and on what they've dubbed as 'their turf.' I'd be beaten into a pulp if they caught a glimpse of me. But they won't, because I'm fast and I've been at this for a good ten years, ever since my mom died in the hybrid attacks when I was seven.
I don't like to think about my mom.
As I make my way through the little convenient gap between two of the houses on Cobble Road (cobble is being polite; it's mostly mud nowadays), I catch sight of my reflection in a puddle. The constant rain that plagues the swamplands is disturbing the surface of the puddle, but I know my face well enough. My bluish green eyes. My slightly crooked nose, sore from where Ryan broke it in our last fight. My stupidly curly hair still sticking up from the back of my head. The usual for me.
Trying to smooth my hair back into place, I lose track of where I'm going and slam straight into one of the town guards. "Well, lookit here, Todd," the guard says to his fellow, catching my arm tightly. "Where'd you get that purse, boy?"
Stupidly, I look down and see that I'm still clutching the shopkeeper's purse in my hand. Damn it. "I…"
Todd grabs my other arm, and I try not to let the pain of his grip show on my face. "Well, kid? Speak up, or you's in big trouble."
I get the feeling that I'm already in big trouble. "My Auntie Sally be givin' it to me. She wants me to fetch a pig from the market," I lie.
"Really? And how much a pig be costin', you think?" The first guard pries the purse from my fingers and pours out the five coins. "Pigs be goin' for about four silvers, boy. So where's your pig, unless you planned on buyin' a pig for five coppers?"
"The pig's name be Jeffery, and Jeffery done ran off," I say sullenly.
"Oh, yeah? Nobody loses a pig nowadays and would be goin' home to tell the tale!"
"You's got the look of a dishonest man about you, kid. D'ya know what I'm drivin' at?"
"I didn't steal the money," I protest, already knowing it's too late.
"Kid, you better be comin' with us," Todd says, steering me towards the town hall, where they'll have a trial and sentence me, usually in the same breath. I know the routine, but I don't exactly begrudge our next to useless legal system. After all, I'm usually guilty as charged.
I do, however, begrudge a fresh use of the few unbranded inches of my shoulder, where the letter 'T' (for thief, they tell me) has been burned in so many times that there's hardly a new spot left. As the first guard drags me along, I waste no time in stamping on his foot and then scything my heel around to the back of his other knee as he yelps, standing on one foot.
The guard cries out, letting go of me, and I smash the heel of my now-free hand into Todd's nose, feeling the cartilage crunch. He howls, and I spring free, darting down the street and into the crowd that has gathered to watch the spectacle of my arrest.
I don't have much of a head start, and the guards are both way bigger than me. And better fed, too. I sprint as fast as I can once I break loose of the stunned throng, my bare feet slapping against the mud. Todd and his buddy are right on my heels as I dart down a narrow side street, shoving some five-year-old behind me to trip them up. She starts bawling, and I know they didn't decide to go around the kid.
I round another corner—and run smack into a wall. As stars swim in my vision, the guards catch up to me, grabbing my wrists and forcing me to the ground. How was I supposed to know that there was a building there? I must have run down the wrong street. Now, dizzy and with an aching head, I can only lie there in the mud as Todd plants his boot into my back and slaps me, hard.
"Damn rascal. Eddie, you best get some cuffs onto this kid." Todd's voice is thick, slurred perhaps because of his freshly broken nose. Somehow, the injury reminds me of this thing, before the hybrids came, called paying it forward. Ryan broke my nose, I broke Todd's. The universe is happy.
"I be doin' that, Todd." Eddie, who must be the other guard, wraps a rough, scratchy rope around my wrists, securing my hands behind my back. They yank me to my feet, and Todd smacks me with his club to keep me moving. I get the feeling that he's pretty put out over his broken nose, which is a little unfair. It's not like I spoiled his good looks or something, because he didn't have those in the first place.
Every time I stop to catch my breath, because although I don't want to admit it, I'm extremely dizzy, Todd or Eddie pummels me with a club or fist. All this over a stinking five copper purse. If only I hadn't left it in the palm of my hand like some sort of amateur, and had been on the lookout for guards.
As they push and shove me towards the town hall, I see a strange man watching me. He's wearing green headphones over his ears, and one of his eyes is hidden behind a chunk of his brown hair. It's hard to tell at this distance, but I think the eye I can see might be red. His jeans and white t-shirt mark him clearly as not from here, by the fact that they're clean.
What stands him apart perhaps as obviously as his clothes, though, is his confident stance. He moves like he owns the world. "Hey!" he shouts to the guards, and he has a slight accent to his words. That's when I notice the sword at his hip, and realize where he's from. Can I just fall into a hole and die, please? It'll be less painful than if this man wants to get involved with my punishment.
"M'lord," Eddie and Todd mutter, bowing respectfully as the man advances, pulling his headphones off to down around his neck.
"What are you doing with him?" he asks, jerking a finger at me. Please no. I don't want him to take me. Not someone from the Fortress.
Todd sees that I'm staring at the man and shoves my head down so that I face the dirt. "He be under arrest, for stealin'."
"It looked more like you were hitting him repeatedly with a club," the man from the Fortress muses. His hard, strong fingers slide the hem of my shirt up, and I flinch away as he touches my back, examining me like I'm a hunk of meat in the market that he's not sure whether he's buying or not. I don't want him to touch me. Especially when I can't even see if he's about to turn me into a toad or something unnatural like that. "He's already bruised."
"He's gonna be more than bruised when we be finished w' him," Eddie chuckles. Yeah, yeah. I know. Because I've done this about twenty times: get sentenced, get whipped, get branded, and then get released to eventually get caught again, where the cycle repeats. I'm used to it.
"I suppose you think it's funny," the man says neutrally, dangerously. "That it's funny, for someone to be caught, and funny, to punish them before they're even sentenced."
Eddie and Todd both go very quiet.
"Pain isn't a nice thing, gentlemen. It isn't something to inflict upon others without reason."
"He done broke my nose!" Todd interjects angrily.
"Then let the law punish him for resisting arrest, and have satisfaction that you did not stoop to the level of taking revenge on a helpless boy. What crime is he charged with?" the man asks icily.
"Petty theft," Eddie says. "He be lyin' about it, too. Sayin' somethin' about his Auntie Sally."
"He will be charged at the town hall?" Oh no. I see where this is going. Damnitdamnitdamnit, damn it. I yank at the ropes around my wrists, ignoring the pain as the tough fibers scratch my skin. I have to get loose. I have to get out of here, before the man from the Fortress can get a chance to do something horrible to me.
"Yeah," Todd mutters mutinously.
"I'll take him from here."
No! I knew it! Not good! Very much not good!
And so it begins... Love thy author but hate thy cliffhanger.