A/N: I really like this chapter. Thass'all. Just like how Krew is back after his chapter 6 mention—drug ring, you say? Hm, I've never heard of such a thing.

OH MAR. Poor baby.

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TEN

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He sat at the dark, empty bar, drink in hand. The half-full, sooty glass was a courtesy that, unexpectedly, he gulped down: he hardly believed they would poison him yet, and he dearly needed the alcohol. His hair was yet uncut, a tired blond swab matted to his shoulders. A vivid purple bruise encompassed his chin and cheek; his split lips were currently open and splitting further as he snarled:

"Hell no."

He tasted blood and sucked it away from his chapped mouth.

The video screen before him flickered, but the wide, sneering man it featured was a model of perseverance. Krew smiled toothily: a rare feat, having only every other mottled tooth left to display.

"You're going to have to do better than that, m'boy… anyone within city limits knows I don't take no for an answer."

Anyone did know it—anyone who knew the inner workings of Haven, and just how much the upper-class denizens were not under the government's control. But still Mar spat onto the bar floor vengefully, meeting Krew's distasteful expression with a hot blue glare.

"How can you offer me this?" He spat at the gang-lord. "How the hell can you sit there and say that like it's nothing?"

"Think of it as a punish-reward system, Mar…. It's really quite simple," Krew grumbled genially. "After your treatments, you need Dark eco to survive. They've cut off the access to Deadtown and the Outside, so you can't go there to… what? Sunbathe near the fetid eco pools, I suppose," he laughed at the idea, as if imagining a beautiful blonde woman lounging near Deadtown's dark slag pools with a brightly colored umbrella perched above her.

Mar flinched.

He had a jagged scar on his right arm from a metalhead who caught him doing just that, before prison. The only reason he was alive was due to a wandering group of Wastelanders on their way into the city. They might have been employed by Krew, knowing his fetish for unquestioning Wastelanders; Mar didn't say anything.

Krew rumbled on.

"So where is poor starving Mar to turn to? No eco, and it gets quite painful, doesn't it? Far beyond a grumbling stomach." His eyes gleamed, wet, flabby mouth inching to the side. "Hours, even, and things start happening—"

"How do you know?" Mar demanded, voice low and sharp. Krew ignored him.

"Darkroot is a thriving substitute for Dark eco. It's a easily-perforated plant practically pickled in dark eco from a seedling." His tongue seemed to lap up the alliteration, capping it with a grungy, satisfied chuckle. "I happen to own the largest drug-distributing ring in the country and have generous access to that horrible substance through a few… scientist friends of mine. We'll have you tied up to the system in no time."

Mar sat in silence, studying the man who had the entire city under his thumb. Interpreting this silence as understanding, Krew settled his heaving bulk more firmly in front of the vidscreen, leaning close into its smeared lens. He smiled again.

"Here's my deal, Mar. I'll keep you supplied, healthy—sane—" he jeered quietly, then continued diplomatically. "And you win my high-dollar races for me. I bet all my coins on you, and if you win—"

"Nothing happens."

"Not at all, Mar," Krew derided him gently. "You get fame, money, fortune—"

"Which'll soon be your fame, your money, your fortune," Mar ground out, eyes burning resentfully.

"Mmmn, you have a point there… Everything does come back to me in the end." Krew sounded quite pleased with himself, and twiddled his thumbs exuberantly. "Clever boy: you know how this works."

"You pick up a few things in this city," Mar said acridly.

"Mmm, surely, but are you ill at ease with the way it works?" Krew inquired dubiously, dissecting the young man with his small, mismatched eyes. "After all, who picked your poor wicked, undeserving self out of prison, mm? Eh? Right before our Baron was about to—"

"Shut up," Mar interrupted softly. "Shut the fuck up."

"Mm, yes. Tempers are always cute. I'm certain the ladies will adore you, m'boy," the gang-lord said with relish, then retreated once again to his professional dialect, though his eyes remained piggish and gleeful as they absorbed Mar's hard, handsome features. "Moving on, Mar. If you win, you will have fame and fortune aplenty. Enough to take care of your darling sister and her father, isn't that right? Isn't that what you want? To pay them back for all the trouble you've caused?"

Mar twisted where he sat, poison brimming behind his teeth, but settled for a tense syllable:

"Yes."

"However, if you lose—"

"I die," Mar rasped.

Krew stayed suspended for a few tick-tocking seconds, then dipped in a sheepish little shrug, eyes rolling upwards.

"Well, if the earnings from my races aren't paid in full, I can't guarantee that I can make the next shipment of darkroot to your location... It is so very rare, " he explained in a sniveling tone, small eyes predatory above the comical expression. "You know how unpredictable these things are. Gang politics: really"

Mar looked down, embroiled in his own stunted, furious thoughts. Anger distorted his face, stretching the bruise; underneath the bar, his fist trembled atop his knee.

"Don't worry." Krew smiled again. Reassuring him. "Shipments will pick up again the instant you start winning."

"Doesn't sound like a good deal to me," Mar said darkly, eyes skewering the bloated man.

Krew glared at him through the screen, all trace of oily humor gone. It was not an angry glare, but a firm one. One of utter ownership.

"It's the only one you have," he snarled, and the screen went dead.