Chapter 6: Blood Ransom
"So you said you have a package for me?" Caius asked.
Saleg stood there, shocked. Saleg grew up on the streets, survived prisons, toiled in labor yards, fought through poverty, and shrugged off the dangerous underworld that prostitution creates. It took a lot to shock him.
"The package? Are you ever going to give me my package?"
"…Ye… yes, of course," he managed to stammer out. He shoved it into Caius's outstretched hand.
Caius opened it, looked it over, then sat down. He stood up again, and started pacing, reading it more closely. "Alright," he finally said.
"So I can go now?" Saleg asked, hopefully. Something about this odd man bothered him. He looked as if he could snap a man's neck with his bare hands if he wanted to.
"No, stay," Caius said simply. Saleg stood motionless. "Alright," he said again, as if he was in a discussion with a superior. One only he could see. This disturbed Saleg even more. "So, it says here a lot of what I already know. It also says you are to be conscripted in and be an agent under my command. Which means you'll be following my orders." He stopped.
"Look Mr. Cosades, I'd love to, but I don't even know what you're talking about."
"You're right, you don't. And you won't." Caius said. "But you will follow my orders."
"I was released from prison. I don't follow orders too well."
"You'll follow these if you know what's good for you."
Saleg couldn't help but hesitate. "What did you say to me? Was that a threat?"
"It is whatever you want it to be," Caius responded, in his same flat tone that was starting to move on from a simple annoyance to an act of open hostility. "Call it a guarantee."
"Don't respond well to those either."
"Say what you will, I need you. And you need me."
"Now that's where you are wrong, Caius. I delivered your package. I did my good deed for the day." The words seemed to roll off his tongue like venom. "Now, you threaten me, and threaten with nothing to back it up. So here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna walk out that door. And you're gonna let me. We'll probably never see each other again. And that's fine. I'll go back to my life, and you'll go back to your freak show of a life." He turned to walk out.
"You want to see Ahnassi?" Caius asked.
Saleg stopped midstride.
"What did you just say?"
"I only ask because I can make it so you never will. See her, I mean."
He turned. "You son of a bitch!"
"Have a source in prison. Owes me big. And can make it so she can never walk again. Or see. Or smell. I hear that's important to a Khajiit. The sense of smell."
"You… you…"
"Like I said before, a lot of that package is things I already knew. As I also said before I need you. And now you know why you need me. As I also said, you WILL follow my orders. I can guarantee that."
"You ransom the life of an innocent. You son of a bitch!"
"The stakes are high, and I'm desperate. I didn't want to bring her into this. But you forced me to play my hand."
Saleg knew this was futile. "Fine," he said. "I'll do this. And then, you'll free Ahnassi."
"No, no, no. I make the rules here. When I decide you've served your purpose, then, and only then, will Ahnassi go free."
He sighed, defeated. "I have no real decision in this, do I?"
"No."
"Fine then."
"Well then, Saleg. Welcome to the Blades."