Chapter Ten

Blood

-

The Kost Mart was an empty, hollow building, and it tended to get cold at night. This always came as a relief to Shepard, who was used to spending her time in the relentless Arizona sun. Occasionally the rapid climate change would catch her by surprise though. Today, for the first time since her childhood, she was wearing a dress. The sting of the cold was unusually harsh against her bare arms and legs, so she considered covering up.

It would be a shame, she felt, to put on heavier clothes when she was so enjoying wearing the dress. She had only bought it today, after all, and she had shaved her legs for this. Wrapping her arms around her chest and holding her head in them she blew hot air onto her forearm to warm herself up. She tasted soap as she did, and moved her head back up. She would just have to activate the Mart's electric heating. It would cost her to do so, but she knew she could afford the luxury, just like she had budgeted for her new clothes.

The thin, smooth, burgundy fabric of the expensive new garment hung off her a little too loosely, but she found that she liked the look. The similarly flowing hair above it was clean and untangled, but needed to be cut. Occasionally it would get into her eyes and the ends were distinctly uneven. Beneath the edge of the dress, Shepard's shins were a little bruised. So many speedy escapes with the Reds, and of course the gunfight at the Hotel, had left them sore and blackened in places. Finally her newfound beauty was spoiled by the awkward bulge of her pistol, still strapped to her right thigh. The gun was large and angled, and the soft material against it served only to further accentuate its shape.

Shepard knew it looked silly, but she refused to remove the weapon. After the surprise attack at the Clarion, Nash had noticed the younger woman's unwillingness to part with the borrowed pistol and gifted it to her, dressing the gesture up as a rite of passage. They both knew Shepard had been shaken by the encounter and that having the gun by her side relaxed her. Since that day, it had remained attached to her person at all times, except when she was bathing, when it was kept on the shelf next to the sink, at arm's reach.

To compliment the dress, Shepard had switched her usual gin for white wine, drank from an actual glass, if not a pretty one. After spending a good amount of her generous Reds cut in the stores in the morning, she had spent the afternoon trying to get a signal out of her television in the living room and making the most of the small packet of spare extranet bandwidth she had scrounged-up. None of this had proved fruitful and now the girl was bored. And so it was that she came to be milling around the main hall. Here there were unique games to be played, including but not limited to reorganising stock, climbing the shelves and her latest creation, Price-Check Roulette. She had been balancing on the edge of a shopping cart when she decided the cold had become too much for her. With a graceful hop she dismounted and started to push the trolley back to its home.

She stopped dead when she heard an odd sound from upstairs. It was familiar and yet not so, as she had never heard it from this location. The corrugated metal sheet on her 'front door' dropped to the floor, pushed roughly by someone who evidently didn't mind being heard.

There were two options as Shepard saw it. Either her sanctuary had been discovered for a second time in as many months or Blue Jay was back. She almost hoped it was the former; she found Jay repulsive and wondered what business he might have in visiting her directly. Short, discreet calls had become their preferred method of communication and she liked it that way.

Heavy, angry footsteps sounded off around the upstairs, wondering about the rooms. The unexpected violation of her privacy made Shepard tense and afraid to investigate. She felt her legs stiffen and decided she would feel much better if she didn't move. Instead she would simply wait until the intruder came downstairs or hope they left.

Finally, after the upstairs had been fully investigated and Shepard had made the assumption that she was being robbed, the footsteps hit the small stairwell and headed downstairs. Stood at the conveniences aisle, the girl knew she would at least be able to see the robber before he saw her. Silently, holding onto the empty shelf next to her in order to still her trembling, she waited.

"Hey!" came a female voice, echoing from the stairwell. "Hey, Shepard? This is your place? Where are you, sweetie?"

Shepard's relief expressed itself physically as she pushed away from the shelves, rattling them.

"Gina?" she called, happy but confused. She began to feel very silly for wearing the dress.

Nash dutifully appeared at the stairs, stooping slightly to avoid hitting the ceiling, then extended herself fully as she entered the large, empty hall. She looked around at the freeze-packed food in disbelief, and had wandered as far as the checkouts before Shepard found her and waved.

"Well! There y'are!"

There was a brief silence whilst Nash wondered whether the market or the girl's strange appearance was more worthy of comment. She visibly decided. "You live in a damn supermarket, Shepard?"

"Uh… yes."

"Well… it's smart. Very smart. It feels great to be in this big, open space here! Smart, Shepard." She seemed bewildered.

"How did you…"

Nash snapped back to attention. "Oh. I persuaded Jay to tell me. I'm sorry, I hate to turn-up uninvited. I was looking for you upstairs."

Shepard nodded, frowning a little. It was good that Nash had been the one to get the location of her home out of Jay, and as always it was nice to see her, but knowing that she had been betrayed so easily worried her. Nash could see the fears working through her head, and frowned with her.

"Sorry, honey, but it's important. I know you value your privacy but… it's important." Nash sat herself down on the checkout and picked up one of the yellow rubber divider sticks. As she began to talk she used it as a prop, waving it around and jabbing it to make points.

"That night at the hotel," she began, "you weren't supposed to be there. When those idiots from uptown, whoever they were, when they showed up and interrupted the job I was actually glad. Right up until they started killing us."

"I don't know what you…"

Nash's voice was stern, her face devoid of its familiar playful smirks. "Cross was being a… he was trying to break you or… I don't know what he thought he was doing by sending you with us. Maybe he was just having a little fun with you. He knew you couldn't handle it."

Shepard fought with her initial urge to take offence at the comment, and lost. "I handled myself pretty well once the shooting started!" she blurted out, regretting it immediately.

"Yeah you did. But we weren't there to start a gang war. And sweetheart, we sure as hell weren't there to rob the hotel either."

Nash's hard face turned quizzical, studying Shepard's blank expression to work-out whether or not the girl had already guessed. She hadn't.

"It's amazing how naive you can be, considering all your smarts…" the older thief muttered, the barest hint of her old smile playing on her lips. "There's an alien staying in the Clarion," she said, after a moment. "A turian, in fact."

Shepard knew that turians were loathed more than any species by the Reds, and by Nash more than most. After the incident with the asari corpse on the street, the friends had made a silent agreement to live-and-let-live. They never mentioned aliens to each other again and their relationship prospered. Just hearing Nash use the word 'turian' made Shepard uneasy.

"Name of Tarion Rymus. It's a general in the turian fleet. And it was a captain in the war. At the head of one of the ships that started the fighting at the Mass Relay."

Nash placed the rubber divider down, making a heavy slap. She still held it with her fingertips as she spoke her next sentence, finding the guts to look her friend in the eye half-way though. "Me and the boys were there to kill it, Shepard."

Shepard leaned back against the opposing checkout, feeling slightly faint. She had to run Nash's words over in her mind three times before she was able to comprehend them.

"Wasn't any armed robbery," Nash said again. "It was a hit. I brought all those guys so that we'd definitely get it, even if we had to fight our way to its room."

"His." Shepard spoke, very quietly.

Nash slammed the divider down again, not to startle Shepard but just to release her own tension. "Y'see, that's why I'm here! That's it, right there!" she said, before quieting her tone to match the younger girl's. "That's not right."

"We don't do that. The Reds don't do that. We're just thieves. And dealers, I guess."

"Not when an alien is staying in one of our hotels, we're not! Not when one of the aliens who personally started the First Contact War is just sitting in a hotel, not even in the safety of a big city, not even in Phoenix. Rymus is asking for it!"

Shepard wanted her to stop talking so badly, and it came as a very pleasant relief when she did. They did not look at each other until Nash lowered herself, quite gently, from her perch.

"It's freezing in here," she commented. "You sleep in this cold?"

Shepard had forgotten all about the cold, but now, on cue, it hit her bare legs. "No," she said. "I was about to switch-on the heaters. Come on." Straightening herself up she walked quickly to the stairs. The taller woman followed, and both of them felt the strange, new intense atmosphere they had created. It felt as if they had never known each other.

Reaching the power box, Shepard flicked two switches in order to heat the building. As she did, she grabbed her old, black jacket and slipped it over the dress. Nash uttered a quiet syllable, about to protest, but decided not to say anything. In an instant something occurred to Shepard.

"How's your leg recovering?"

Nash smiled a little, but it was not genuine. "It's better. More or less perfect. Like you said, the bullet didn't stay in."

"Good."

"Yeah."

The smaller girl slipped quietly passed the other, and led her into the living room. She pulled a chair and sat down, and Nash did the same. They looked at each other with meek, embarrassed smiles until the moment Nash spotted something behind Shepard's head, on the chipped, old worktop.

"A sand bag? You've got a bag of red sand over there, Shepard." Her tone of voice was as if Shepard had never noticed the tightly-packed, unopened drug. "Where'd you get that?" Nash sounded in equal parts surprised and annoyed.

"Cross gave it to me. The day before… the hotel."

Nash stared at the bag. "You haven't opened it," she said, and though she was trying to suppress the emotion, she now sounded more angry than Shepard had ever heard her.

"No... I know I'm a Red now, but do I have to…?"

Something Shepard had said was too much and caused Nash to violently push her chair away and stand up. The metal legs of the cheap furniture groaned as they were forced against the hard, polished floor.

"Are you kidding me here, Shepard?" Nash shouted, making a fist and planting it against the worktop behind her. "You don't even understand the… no, sweetie, no you don't have to like sand. This is what we need to talk about."

After breathing to collect her thoughts, Nash sat down again. "I really like you," she said. "You're the nicest, most hard-working, smartest person I've run with in this gang. Including Mike. It's refreshing, you know? What I really like about you is that you can turn your hand to anything. You brought yourself up, found this place for yourself, learned to fight, learned to pick locks. And that night at the hotel, well the way you handled yourself, the way you took control was just… it's ridiculous."

This line of conversation was much easier for Shepard to hear. As she immersed herself in the warm glow she felt from the compliments, she tried to forget what her mentor had told her about Rymus.

"You're too good…" Nash caught herself and swallowed some saliva. "No that's not it. Well maybe… You're not one of the Tenth Street Reds, sweetheart. You don't belong."

"I…"

"Now I don't know where you do belong, but it's not with us."

"But…"

"All right, I'll ask you a question, straight-up," Nash announced, matter-of-factly. "Do you want to help me kill Rymus? I'm going back to the hotel tonight."

Shepard stared at her, silent and terrified. The older woman was not trying to impress her. She was serious.

"No, you don't," Nash answered for her. "And it's not because you're some kind of alien-lover. I know you're not. You've got issues with the batarians and the turians just like everyone else, but you're not a killer."

A little spark of the confidence Shepard had felt outside the hotel suddenly welled-up inside her. "I killed more of those Hawaiian shirt guys than you!" she spat, even raising her voice.

Nash shot her down instantly. "In self-defence," she said calmly. "Let me rephrase… you're not a murderer."

"Are you?"

"Yeah."

Once again, Nash was not exaggerating. Again, Shepard was utterly deflated by her remarks. She tried to think of a counter argument but came up short. The delay cost her, as Nash returned with another of her questions, forcing her to face things she preferred to ignore.

"Why don't you live in Phoenix?"

"What?" this one caught the girl by surprise.

"Do you like Glendale?"

Shepard actually laughed. "Of course not! Nobody does."

Finally, Nash's half-smile returned to her tired face, though it was sickly now. "I do," she said. "I like what I do with the Reds and I like the people here. I like that there are no aliens and I like the pace of life. Do you ever get bored?"

"Well…"

"I don't." Nash sighed and decided to ease-up with the interrogation. "Let me put it like this…" she made a clicking sound with her tongue and her cheek for a moment, then faced her young friend again. "Go to Phoenix," she said, simply. "Use the money you got from the Reds and rent some place. The Reds… they'll all forget about you."

Shepard was glad she had not said 'we'. She smiled, then softly said, "I like this place." It was the first argument that had come easy to her so far.

"Get a job, Shepard. Any job you want. If I've learned anything about you, it's that you're tough enough to succeed at whatever you put your mind to. So what the hell are you doing still living here, huh?"

Shepard stood, leaving Nash where she was, and poured herself a glass of wine. There was just enough for two, but it seemed somehow inappropriate to offer one to Nash. It would look very silly if she refused. She took a sip, then a gulp, then refilled the glass. Now there was not enough to fill a second glass and that problem had been solved. She stayed stood, trying to give herself a confidence boost by being physically higher than her opponent in the argument.

"Mike had a nice way of looking at things," Nash said, leaning forward onto her elbows. Shepard thought back to what she knew of her friend's late fiancée, and remembered that she liked the sound of him, more or less. Nash, certainly, still loved him dearly. "He used to say that good people are the people with sense…" she paused, then interrupted herself. "You know what I mean by that. There's folks in the gang with no damn sense. Cross, for one. He said good people are those with sense, and those who do the best they can with what they have. Do you know what I mean?"

The meaning was clear. Nash was disappointed in Shepard's stagnation in Glendale. Before the Reds had come into her life, she had been ready to leave Arizona behind once and for all and try again. She had been all set to go travelling again, and as much as she would miss the pleasant luxury of the Kost Mart, and in particular its wines and spirits section, Shepard had never been one to stay in one place for too long. Not since the Landing, anyway, but that was too long ago for her to really remember.

However, now there was more to lose than just her home. There was the only true friend she had known since Illinois. On top of that, running with the Reds gave Shepard a steady income. Living like she had become accustomed to in the recent months was not exactly paradise, but it was better than sleeping rough in some new town, worse than the last.

Ever since the Landing, every new town had been worse than the last. With the Reds, with the Kost Mart and Gina Nash, Shepard finally had something resembling a fulfilling life.

"You know what?" Shepard shot back, angry now and embracing the emotion. "I'm doing pretty well here! And it's not like I can't deal with this Rymus thing. You want me to say it? Fine. I think it's wrong to kill him. I think it's morally wrong. Big whoop. But I can deal with it! It won't make me any less loyal to the Reds. I can just forget it! I can… I can't make it on my own, Gina!"

"Well in that case maybe I was wrong about you, sweetness." There was a spite in Nash's voice, hiding some pain.

Shepard kicked her own chair, now, sending it skidding across the carefully-tidied canteen. It stayed on all four of its legs, making less of a commotion than she had intended. She picked up the little bag of red sand from behind her head, then deftly cut it open with a small pocket knife. The movements flowed together with the girl's natural grace and skill, and the sandbag was open and on the table within three seconds.

"Maybe I don't exactly fit in with the rest of the Reds," Shepard stormed, raising her voice against her would-be protector and loving the feeling of independence. "But I'm learning fast. And I'm perfectly happy." Moving her hands with too much exuberance, she began to use the knife to cut a line of the pink powder on the table, smiling a ghoulish smile.

Nash's warm hand landed on top of Shepard's cold one and stopped her.

"Look, Shepard. One more question, all right?" Her voice made the request seem very reasonable.

"Okay."

"Do you know why we call ourselves the Reds?"

A warm, sickening humiliation began to rise up in Shepard. Although she thought she knew, suddenly she was not so sure, and there was no way she could avoid answering the question.

"Yeah, it's because… because of the red sand…"

Right away, her opponent's eyes told Shepard that she was wrong, and she prepared herself for Nash to grin with half of her mouth and take the point from her, winning the argument and forcing her to listen. The girl's cheeks were hot.

But Nash did not smile. Her expression was deathly as she tenderly squeezed the girl's hand for the briefest moment. "No," she murmured. "No, you idiot. It has nothing to do with the sand. It's because we know what colour our blood is. Get it? Distances us from the aliens. Red. Blood. See?"

The older woman was clearly not trying to anger or embarrass Shepard, but she needed her to understand. Her hand moved away and she stood up, ready to leave.

"Shepard, I'm going to get ready. When I am, I'm going to kill that alien in his room, and I'm going to make it hurt. I really like talking to you. A lot, Shepard. But I don't ever want to see you again. The Reds are starting to get serious, starting tonight. And this outfit isn't fit to be one o' your little adventures anymore. You're so tough, but sometimes I have no idea what goes on in that greasy head of yours. Sometimes you make me so damn mad, I swear… I have to go to work now, honey."

Nash turned to leave the room, too tired to continue.

"I can deal with it!" Shepard yelled, hurting the back of her throat with the sudden cry. "I can live with it. I don't exactly like turians, you know! Maybe I'll kill him myself, did you ever think of that? Maybe I'll get there first! I know where he is!"

Without any response, Nash left the room. Shepard heard her climbing out of the entrance and shifting the corrugated iron sheet back into place behind her. Then there was the muffled sound of Nash attempting to descend the exterior wall of the Kost Mart, and then with a final, controlled thud, she left Shepard by herself.

It took Shepard some time before she was cool enough to allow herself to think about what had happened. She first spent the time straightening the chairs, then tidying the red sand back into its back and resealing it with tape. She then placed it inside a larger bag, just in case. When the spilled dust was properly cleaned up, she removed her jacket, revealing some new wrinkles on the rich, maroon dress. Feeling uncomfortable in the living room, she headed back to the power box and deactivated the heating. She didn't need it anymore.