"Come on, sit up straight so I can feed you."
Totodile rolled on his back. Dust didn't think the croc was capable of moaning, but it was making sounds that seemed to be the reptilian equivalent.
Totodile was sick, and he had been for a few days now. Out on the mean streets of Rutland it was not a good place to have a sick Pokémon. With all the thieves and gangsters there, looking weak made you a target, so Dust had to be careful whenever he let Totodile out of his ball to feed him.
Here in the more upscale side of town, things were less dangerous. Dust was aware of the disapproving stares he was getting, but at this point in his life, he really didn't care what people thought of him anymore.
He held a piece of raw meat in the air and dropped it into Totodile's open mouth. He'd learned a long time ago to keep his hands away from those jaws when holding food. Totodile closed his mouth slowly and weakly, swallowing the meat without much enthusiasm. He rolled on his side and vomited it up, much to the disgust of the people around them.
"Revolting!" a man exclaimed. Dust had to admit that perhaps a busy restaurant was not the most appropriate place to be doing this, but he had paid for this table and he wasn't about to leave it. It had been a long time since he'd had enough money for a meal at a nice restaurant, and the dim light of the building combined with the larger window out front made it the perfect vantage point to see the entrance of the Empress Hotel.
Dust made an apologetic face to the other restaurant patrons and sent Totodile back into his ball. He dipped his napkin into the pitcher of water on the table and did his best to wipe the crocodile sick out of the carpet. He hoped whatever was wrong with Totodile was only temporary. Seeing him in pain was hard to bear. There had been a time when Dust had resented the croc, first for taking so long to hatch and then for being such a miserable fighter. He couldn't believe he had ever been such an ass.
Dust sipped his glass of water and watched the hotel's entrance. He had a plate of food in front of him that he had paid for with money from the wallet of the man he had stolen his clothes from. According to the business cards stuffed in the wallet, the unfortunate man's name was Arthur Vandelay, purveyor of fine silk goods, and based on the amount of cash he was carrying he must have been good at his job. Dust had certainly picked a good person to mug. He felt a bit bad about that, but it was clear that the loss of one suit wouldn't set Arthur Vandelay too far back.
After seeing Maddie on the street, Dust had crossed to the other side of the road and followed from a distance. It was easy to follow them despite the crowd of people. Cyril was a mountain of a man, easily a head taller than most men. It was a lucky thing Dust had gotten by him unrecognized. Cyril was a terrifying man, much better to avoid him if possible rather than having to fight him. When they entered the Empress Hotel, Dust was unsure of how to follow him. He didn't want to just walk in right after them. That would run the risk of being seen, and it was possible that Ashton had other men working with him. He remembered the thugs back in Ludlow.
The hotel took up the entire block. It was a nice building, though not a particularly luxurious looking one. He wandered around to the back of the hotel. The pretty façade of the building was gone back here. It was a dingy and dirty alleyway that was shadowed by the surrounding building. As Dust suspected, there was a back entrance for the staff here, down a flight of stairs leading underground. He doubted he would be able to enter without attracting attention, though, not dressed as he was.
Several members of the hotel staff stood outside on their breaks, smoking cigarettes and chatting amongst themselves. One of them was a tall teenage boy wearing a bellhop's uniform. He looked close enough to Dust's size.
"Hey." Dust said, approaching him.
"I'm not working right now." the bellhop said with an air of irritation. "Go bother someone else."
Dust was undeterred. "How much to borrow that uniform?"
The bellhop looked incredulous. "You want my uniform?"
Dust pulled out the wallet and took a large bill out of it. "Only for a little bit."
"Why?"
"Doesn't matter. All that matters is I'm willing to pay you for it."
"Go fuck yourself."
Dust pulled another bill out of the wallet. "How about now? This has got to be more than you make in a week."
The bellhop looked a the cash. "Double it and you have a deal. I could get in a lot of trouble for this."
"Deal."
Dust felt ridiculous wearing the bellhop uniform. It was bright green with a stupid little hat and shiny brass buttons, but despite the garish appearance, Dust knew it would help keep him from being spotted if Ashton were to walk by. To people like him, the help were all but invisible.
Dust entered the building and tried to look like he was very busy. He went down the dimly lit halls, checking into rooms. they were all washrooms and the like, not what he was looking for at all.
"You there!"
Dust turned around with a start. A short, fussy looking man in a black suit was standing behind him, a wispy mustache over his lips that were curled in distaste.
"What are you doing in this area? Bellhops go upstairs to help the guests, not downstairs to do the laundry."
"Terribly sorry, sir." Dust said. "I was just trying to find the stairs. I'm new here."
"What is your name?" The fussy man demanded.
This was off to a good start. "Lyle." dust said the first name that popped into his head. "Um, Corbert. Lyle Corbert."
"Well, Mr. Corbert, you will never find a staircase because there isn't one. This is a very modern hotel and we use service elevators to go up and down." His look turned suspicious. "Who exactly is it that hired you? I don't remember ever seeing your name on our schedule."
Shit. "Check it again. It should be there."
The fussy man didn't look convinced. "We'll see. Come along, Mr. Corbert. We'll check it together."
At that moment, there suddenly came a loud noise came from down the hall. Dust turned around. A bright white flash was illuminating the hallway from behind a door at the very end. There was screaming, and then the sound of a loud explosion.
The fussy man looked shocked. "What the devil was that?" He looked at Dust. "You wait here. I'm going to investigate."
Dust didn't waste any time getting away from that place as soon as the fussy man was out of sight. It didn't take long to find the service elevator, and soon he had made his way to the hotel lobby.
It was a flurry of activity. Guests coming in and out of the building and staff members on various errands filled the large room in a flood of humanity. The Empress was clearly not hurting for business.
"You boy! Take these bags!" A large man in a bowler hat commanded.
"Of course, Sir." Dust took his bags and loaded them onto a luggage cart.
The cart was very useful. After he had taken the bags up to the mans room, it was very useful for looking busy. If someone came by, he would simply hurry pat them with an urgent expression on his face, and they would simply step out of the way and not bother him.
Dust went around the first floor, and then the second floor. If Ashton or Maddie were there, he didn't see them. He tried third floor, and didn't see them either. The problem was that he couldn't just check every room, so his only hope was to catch them in the hallway. He supposed he could go to the front desk and ask which room Ashton was in, but that ran the risk of having them contact him. Dust didn't want to risk that if he didn't have to.
He went back to the elevator to go to the fourth floor, when it suddenly came up without his prompting. The door to the elevator was a metal grate that made it hard to see inside, but he didn't need help to recognize that voice.
"Bloody wanker telling me wha' I kin do to me own Pokémon. I showed 'im somethin' good, didn't I?"
Dust hurried past the elevator and was well down the hall when Ashton stepped out. Dust turned and watched, keeping the trolley in front of to obscure his face as much as possible.
Maddie was with him. She clung to his arm like a lover. Cyril stalked behind them.
"You were amazing down there." she said. "I was so scared, but you were magnificent. Not like that doctor."
"Showed 'im what a real man was." Ashton said. "Maybe I'll show you the same thing later tonight." Maddie giggled.
Dust followed from a distance, being careful not to make any noise. Ashton and Maddie carried on their inane conversation while Cyril said nothing. When they finally stopped at a room, Dust ducked behind the corner of the hallway.
Cyril entered the key into the door and opened it. Maddie kissed Ashton full on the lips and went inside, after which Cyril shut the door again and locked it. Room 314, Dust made sure to remember. He and Ashton then went into the adjacent room.
Interesting. So they weren't in the same room. Maybe Ashton didn't want Maddie being privy to his secrets; he was clearly involved in shady business after all. Maybe he just didn't like sharing a room. Either way, that would make it much easier to sneak into Maddie's room and get her out. Unfortunately, he couldn't just go through the door. He severely doubted that Maddie had a key to let herself out if he came knocking. She may have acted like Ashton's lover in the hallway, but she was very clearly a prisoner. Dust had no idea how to pick a lock, and trying to bust the door down would certainly draw unwelcome attention.
He went back downstairs and was unbuttoning the bellhop uniform when the fussy looking man came around a corner.
"Lyle Corbert?" He said angrily.
"Never heard of him." Dust said, and walked right past him.
Once outside, he left the shirt and hat folded outside the door for the real bellhop to collect and went into the alley where he had left the clothes stolen from Arthur Vandelay.
All that was hours ago. Dust had found the found what he thought was the window to Maddie's room by walking around the outside. the brick wall of the Empress had small ledges under the windows that he thought he could use to climb. Obviously, doing so in broad daylight would be extremely conspicuous, so he was waiting for night to fall.
A waiter approached his table. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We have a strict policy against animals at the table, and yours has vomited on the floor."
Dust couldn't think of a good argument to that, so he recalled Totodile back to his ball and stood up. He dropped the proper amount of money on the table and left. The sky had darkened considerably. Dust figured that now was as good a time as any to enter the hotel again.
In his nice suit, Dust didn't stand out at all from the normal clientele of the Empress, and had no incident getting in. He simply took the elevator to the second floor and found Room 214. This would be the room directly under Maddie's. Now, he just had to get through the door.
It being unlocked would probably be too much to hope, but he tried the doorknob anyway. Better to fail at the obvious solution than to waste time trying to bypass an unlocked door like some kind of idiot.
The door was locked, of course. Dust took a small pin from his pocket he had gotten earlier and inserted into the lock. How did lock picking work? Dust didn't have the slightest idea. How hard could it be, though? He wiggled the pin inside the lock. Ten minutes later, Dust concluded that he had no idea what he was doing. It was time for a more direct approach.
Dust looked both ways to make absolutely sure nobody would be able to see what he was about to do. He let Beedrill out of its ball.
"Beedrill, punch a hole through this door."
In one swift motion, the bee's spear like arm blasted straight through the wood as easily as if it had been made of paper. There was a woman's scream from within.
Crap. Dust thought. The last thing he needed was loud noise. He would need to shut her up before she attracted undue attention.
He recalled Beedrill and put his arm through the door to unlock it on the other side. He flung the door open to find… well, that the woman's screams had had nothing to do with him. She was astride a man on the bed, both of them as naked as the day they were born.
When they saw him, the man flung his female companion off himself and pulled the sheets up to cover himself.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "Did my wife send you?"
Dust wasn't entirely sure what to answer. "No. I was just hoping I could use your window." He didn't imagine that answer made all that much sense.
The man picked up a telephone on the nightstand. "I'm phoning the police." he said.
"Look," Dust said, "I'm just leaving. Can't you put the phone down and we can all just try to forget this ever happened?" Dust very much doubted he'd be able to erase what he had just seen from his mind, but he'd certainly make the effort.
"And let you go running back to my wife? I don't think so."
Dust pulled Poochyena's ball from his belt and released her. The hyena growled menacingly. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist." Dust said. "Get in the bathroom, both of you."
The man's eyes darted to the pokeball that sat on the dresser.
"Don't even think about it." Dust said.
"Can we at least put our clothes on?" The woman pleaded.
The clothes in question were strewn around the room. Dust picked up a shift and a pair of trousers and tossed them on the bed. "Get dressed in the bathroom." He said. "Poochyena, if either of them come out before I come back, kill them." Once they were in the bathroom, he knelt down and said. "Don't actually kill them. Just tackle them and hold them down."
He picked up the telephone off the nightstand. Dust had never actually seen one of the devices, but he had a basic idea of what it did. He took his knife and cut the cord connecting it to the wall. Best not to take chances, after all.
He went to the window and looked down. This was huge chance he was taking. If he fell, he was looking at about a thirty feet fall onto hard stone below.
It was far too late to turn back now. He had two people trapped in a bathroom and a damsel to rescue.
Dust climbed out the window, placing his feet of the sill and turning to face the building. He took a deep breath and began the climb.
The room was pitch dark, except for the faint light from outside the came through the opening in the window curtains. Maddie never could get them to close all the way.
She lay in bed, staring at that sliver of light. She had decided not to put on bedclothes tonight. No, tonight she wanted to be fully dressed. She had spent the last several hours waiting to see if anything would happen. She looked at the window. If Dust was coming for her, that was how he'd have to get in. The corridor was too well watched. She knew Cyril had someone watching her door. Did he know Dust was here? No, she told herself, he couldn't. He would have told Ashton, and Ashton wouldn't have left that evening. There was no way he would leave when he knew Dust was nearby. they didn't know, she wouldn't let herself believe that.
More likely Cyril was anticipating Maddie trying to escape. She had done that back when they were in Ludlow. Ashton's watch on her had gotten lax, and she took the opportunity to slip away when he was out shopping for a new hat. She'd shed her expensive clothes and rubbed dirt on her face and tried to disappear into the city, but Cyril had found her. The beating she received that night was the worst she'd ever had, and after that, she was never out of sight, not even for a minute.
The room was utterly silent. There had been a clock on the night table, but its constant tick-tick-ticking had made the wait unbearable, and she'd smashed it and hidden it under the bed. The tension was like a hundred pound weight on her chest. Maddie didn't think she could take another day of this. The hope was unbearable. She had been devoid of hope for so long, and now it was like a hot knife stabbing her. She couldn't last another day with Ashton knowing Dust was out there. The longer he waited to come, the more it felt that the world was playing a cruel joke on her, giving her hope just so it could take it away. Maybe Dust hadn't been there at all. Maybe it was just someone who looked like him. Maybe she was going mad.
There came a soft knock at the window. Maddie's heart stopped. She froze. The knock came again. Maddie sat up and slowly walked to the window. She put her hands on the drapes. What if wasn't Dust? What if it was only a bird, or the wind blowing something against the glass? She wouldn't be able to take that.
Maddie pulled open the curtains. She had to resist the urge to cry out. Moving quickly, she opened up the window and helped pull Dust inside. She flung her arms around his neck, and he lifted her off the ground, hugging her tightly.
Maddie wanted to tell him how much she had missed him, but when she spoke, the words that came out were. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead."
Dust put her back on the floor and put a finger on his lips. "We have to get out of here now." Looking at him now, she was amazed she had recognized him at all. Dust's face was leaner and harder than the boy she's left in those mountains. He looked years older. She imagined he probably thought the same about her.
Dust took a pokeball and pressed it into her hand. "I think this is yours."
Maddie didn't even look at it. "I thought you were dead, Dust. I gave up on you." She slumped down on the bed. "Oh god, I gave up on you."
"Don't worry about that." Dust said. "We have to get out of here now before someone comes in."
At that exact moment, the door swung open, bathing the room in yellow light from the hall. Cyril stood in the doorway. He had a gun in his hand and pointed it at Dust's chest.
"Am I interrupting something?" he said.
Dust pulled Maddie to her feet.
"Hide it." he mouthed silently, and stepped in front of her.
"You knew?" he said.
"Of course I knew." Cyril replied. "You think you can just walk right past me without me noticing you? I knew you were here the moment you bumped into our little princess here. I figured you'd come trying to rescue her like some knight in shining armor. That's why I have a man watching this window from across the street. Brave of you trying that approach, but pointless."
Maddie slid the pokeball down the front of her bodice where Cyril wouldn't see it. There was no point trying to use Beedrill here. Cyril's men would just rush in with guns and kill them all. The world had played a joke on her after all. It had given her Dust only to take him away again.
"And now you're going to kill me, I guess?" Dust said.
"No. That wouldn't be seemly after all to kill you in front of the girl like this. I'm going to deliver you as a gift." With that, he pulled the trigger of his gun, and Dust fell to the floor.
It took Maddie several moments before she could even speak.
"Is… is he dead?"
Cyril shook his head. "Not much of a listener, are you? It's just a dart gun. He'll wake up in a few hours and then we'll kill him. Pity, really. He would have made a good Blackshirt if he wasn't such a hopeless romantic." he loaded another dart in his gun and pointed it at Dust's prostrate form. "Don't know why he wanted you anyway. I prefer my women a little less used."
Something snapped in her. Maddie resolved right there that she was going to kill this man, and she didn't care that she would be killed. Before she could reach for Beedrill's pokeball, though, Cyril pointed the gun at her and shot her in the stomach.
The whole world swam. Maddie's vision blurred as all the strength went out of her body. The floor came up up to meet her and she was unconscious before she even hit it.
When she woke up, she was bouncing. It took her a minute to realize that she was in a carriage, sitting across from two of Ashton's thugs. One was a skinny wretch with yellow teeth and a crooked nose, and the other was a handsome young man in a bowler hat with an evil look in his eyes.
"The lady awakes." the bowler hat man said.
The ugly man laughed. "Not much of a lady, if you ask me."
Maddie could feel the cold metal of the pokeball between her breasts. Cyril hadn't searched her body. She put one hand down her bodice to grab it.
"See?" the ugly man said. "I had a shiny silver nickel betting she was some whore the boss like to parade around. Looks like she's eager too. We'll be getting some pleasure tonight."
The look on his hideous face when Maddie pulled out the pokeball was a thing of beauty.
"Oh, shit." the bowler hat man said, and then the carriage was full of six feet of angry giant bee.
The ugly man was the first to die. Beedrill's arm went straight through his mouth when he tried to yell and out the back of his head. The bowler hat man had just enough time to go for his gun before he was speared through the chest.
Beedrill was in a rage. Maddie tried to use the pokeball on it, but the bug's violent thrashing knocked it out of her hand. She shrieked and dived for the floor of the carriage to avoid the deadly spear arms. The bowler hat man lay next to her, his vacant eyes stared into hers.
Beedrill's thrashing was tearing holes in the sides of the carriage. The windows were smashed and the whole thing rocked violently. The whole thing tipped over, and Beedrill came down hard on her, still thrashing and buzzing angrily. Maddie's hand found the pokeball and she slammed it against Beedrill, making it disappear in a flash of red light. With the bug out of the way, the corpse of the ugly man fell on top of her, its face nothing but a horrible hole that gushed hot blood over her. She screamed and pushed him off of her. Her hands were hot and sticky and red.
The door was under her, flat against the street, and the other one was above her, but the back window was gone. One of the thugs' guns lay on the floor next to her. Maddie grabbed it and crawled out the wreckage and onto the cobblestones.
The driver was staggering to his feet outside. When he saw Maddie getting up, he shouted "Get back here!"
Maddie pointed the gun at him and shot him. When he moved, she shot him again.
A crowd had gathered. "She shot him!" Somebody yelled. "Get her!" yelled someone else.
A man came toward her, but backed off when she pointed the gun at him. The crowd parted when she walked through.
Maddie hurt all over, and her dress was torn and wet and sticky and red with other peoples' blood. She staggered into an alley and ran until she was far away from the scene of the crash.
Maddie didn't know where she was and she didn't care. All that mattered was that she wasn't back there. She was free from Ashton. Free of his beatings and his rape and his sneering mocking voice. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
She sat back against the brick wall of the building behind her and screamed up at the night sky. People walked by, giving her a wide berth. She must have looked like a madwoman. Maybe she was. She knew she wasn't the same girl she had been before. That girl had died a long time ago. That girl wouldn't have killed a man, not on purpose, and if she had, she wouldn't have taken so much pleasure in it. She realized that now. She had enjoyed shooting that man down. She didn't need to shoot him the second time. She could have easily gotten away without doing that.
And the thing was, she didn't even feel guilty about it.
"Dust." she whispered. He'd never given up on her, even after she'd long ago given up on him. Was he still alive? Maddie doubted it. Who knew how long she had been knocked out? Dust was probably dead by now, and it was because of her. Everything that had happened to him, all of it was because of her. And now he had died, and for what? This was the cruelest joke of all, that he should die and she should live. It should have been reversed. She was worthless. Everything that was good about her had been chipped away piece by piece until there was nothing left.
Maddie sat there for a long while. She considered using the gun on herself, but that would have meant Dust had sacrificed himself for nothing. Eventually, she got up and started walking, leaving the gun on the ground behind her.
She didn't know where she was. She didn't know where she was going. She didn't even know what the date or time was. She saw a man walking by with a newspaper and went after him.
He looked shocked when he saw the girl covered in dry crusted blood and torn clothes coming toward him.
"What happened to you?" his voice sounded concerned, not afraid.
"What time is it?" Maddie asked.
"Were you attacked?" the man asked.
"Tell me what time it is." Maddie insisted.
He looked at his pocket watch. "Ten minutes past midnight."
"Can I see your newspaper?"
"The man handed it to her, perhaps not knowing what else to do. She looked at the date at the top. It was the twenty-second, but then she remembered that it was past midnight, which meant that today was…
Maddie laughed. She couldn't help it. It was just too absurd to be true, yet there it was.
"Why are you laughing?" the man asked.
Maddie showed him the date. "It's my birthday! I didn't even know it was my birthday!" She laughed all the harder. She leaned into him and buried her head in his chest and howled with laughter until it turned into horrible choking sobs.