Leaf
Chapter Twenty
"In short," Brian said, "Aisha will be staying until Shadow Stalker gets transferred or we move to a bigger hideout." The loft was getting crowded, so hopefully their next job would happen soon. Maybe they'd get two abandoned factories instead of just one. "Any questions?"
Alec raised his hand. "I've never met your sister. Is she hot, or is she like you?"
He held his gaze for a moment, but Alec never seemed to have enough sense to be intimidated. "Are there any real questions?"
"Is Rachel okay with this?" Lift said. "'Cause she ain't here, and she don't seem like she likes ... anyone."
"Actually," Brian said, "I just called her, and she says she's fine."
"What?" Alec said, and even Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
Brian nodded. "Her exact words were ..."
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Rachel walked her dogs down the street, giving them time to relieve themselves and stretch their legs. More than that, she was giving them a break away from a home that had, not two, not three, but four other people living in it. Okay, she was giving herself a break, but her dogs needed one too.
"Hey, girl. Nice dogs."
She ground her teeth and wished she lived somewhere besides a city. A wasteland, maybe, that didn't have people on every street corner wanting ... something. She turned to the man who had challenged her and glared at him, not sure if he was after money, sex, or violence.
Or, maybe it was something else. Lisa said that sometimes people just wanted to "be polite," which was different in some vague way that Lisa sucked at explaining. It seemed annoying, but what the hell. She was in a moderately good mood.
"What do you want?" she growled as politely as she could.
The man took a step back in apparent deference, but bared his teeth at the same time. Confusing. "Nothing." Liar. If he didn't want anything, he wouldn't have said anything. "I'm just saying you have some nice dogs. They look strong. Fighters."
"They are," she said in a tone that implied that while they were too well trained to bite his face off, they could if she wanted them too.
He didn't take the hint. "There's a place not too far from here where a girl like you could make a lot of money with a few good fighting dogs. You interested?"
It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. Then she saw red. Then her phone rang.
"What?" she demanded into it.
"Hey," came Brian's voice. "It's me. So, I'm worried about my sister, and I was wondering if she could stay in the hideout for a while. She—"
"Yeah, sure, whatever," she snarled, and hung up on him. Now for this asshole. She whistled two sharp notes and pointed at him, and her dogs lept into action. He let out a scream as he fell, over two hundred pounds of dog on his arms and legs. Angelica looked up at her while biting the man's ankle and wagging her tail to make sure Rachel saw her being a good girl, which she did.
The man writhed on the ground and whimpered something about "please" and "don't" and "get these things off me." She considered using her power on her dogs, because if two hundred pounds could make an impression, two thousand could make an impact, but ... no. It wasn't time to cause bloody mayhem rampaging through the streets. Yet. Now was the time for talking.
"Yeah," she said, standing over him. She bared her teeth to make her mood clear. "I'm interested."
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"'Yeah, sure, whatever?'" Alec repeated. "I've never heard her so excited to meet someone who wasn't a dog. Wait, is your sister a dog?"
Brian grit his teeth and ignored that question as well. "Anything else? No? Alright, let's go."
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"Ten bucks?" Aisha repeated. "Are you highballing me, or is this all a joke?"
The man shook his head. "No jokes today. Everyone wants some right now, and that nutjob wrecked our infrastructure, so we're running on a shortage. They teach you supply and demand at school?"
"Nah, just the teachers' relationship issues." Probably. She remembered something about Henderson's last breakup, which she hoped wasn't on the final, but she couldn't be sure. "Also, infrastructure? You guys got infrastructure?"
"Of course we got infrastructure. We got loads of it, in bits and pieces all over the city. Look, I got a quota to make, kid, so cough up the dough or beat it."
Aisha put her hands behind her head and stretched lazily, pretending not to notice the man eyeing the way her crop top rose over her stomach. "How about this," she offered. "Instead—"
The world went black. She let out a yelp, but she couldn't even hear her own voice. Strong arms grabbed her from behind and dropped her on something soft, like the cushioned seat of a van.
"What the hell, bro?" she said as soon as the darkness vanished. "If you wanted something, just call."
"But that would have been boring," said a girl sitting next to her. Short, round face, tan skin, long hair. She was the one who had healed Mom a while back. What was her name? Laugh? Loft? Lift. "We're kidnapping you."
"Yeah, I noticed."
They were all in costumes, her brother, Lift, a boy dressed for the Ren-fair, and a blonde girl in purple driving. "Were you buying drugs just now?" Brian asked. Usually his motorcycle helmet had a skull design painted on it, but not today.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh my God, Brian. You always think I'm up to something. Would it kill you to give the benefit of the doubt for once?"
"Was it for Mom?"
"No, it was for me!"
"What was?"
She hesitated. "Nothing. Look, did you just grab me off the street to lecture me, or is there a point to this?"
"I'm not here to lecture you. I'm here ... because things have changed. Remember how I got arrested?"
She blinked. "You got arrested? When?"
"Last Thursday. You didn't hear? It was in the news."
"A lot of stuff is in the news! And most of it's boring!" Okay, the whole bomb thing had been freaky, but most of the time it was all politics and economy and blah, blah, blah.
"That's true," Lift said, nodding.
He let out a breath. "Well, I did. That could cause some problems for the people closest to me, so you'll be staying with us for a while."
Huh. She figured eventually she'd be hanging out with her brother's gang, but she always assumed she'd get her powers first. "What about Mom?" she asked. "Are you kidnapping her too?"
"What? No, why would I?"
"If I'm in trouble, isn't she?"
"I'm not kidnapping Mom. Or Dad."
Ha. More like he couldn't kidnap Dad. Dad would give him one of his looks and tell him to take off his stupid costume and get a real job.
"I've never met your mom, Grue," Ren-fair guy said. "Is she hot, or is she like you?"
"Goddamnit, Regent, would you shut up?"
Aisha snapped her fingers. "That's who you are! I couldn't remember your name, but I've heard so much about you."
"Oh, have you?" Goddamnit Regent said, turning to her. "Well I assure you, it's all true."
She laughed. "I bet it is. Brian says he wants to strangle you to death every time you open your mouth."
"You do?" he said, turning to Brian. "And all this time I thought you didn't care."
Brian took a deep breath. "You're in more danger than Mom is because ... it's complicated."
"You're in the social services system," said purple girl. "That makes you easier to track. Your mother is ... more elusive."
She ... supposed that made sense. Aisha imagined some investigator working his way through a few of Mom's half-lucid ex-boyfriends trying to get a straight answer out of them. She guessed that there were advantages to being ... elusive?
"Anyway, this will only be until we find a more permanent solution," Brian continued. "You'll be staying in Lift's room."
"Heya," Lift said. "Do you want the top bunk or the bottom bunk?"
"Top. Wait, don't I get a say in this?"
"No," Brian said. "Now, you won't be able to go back to school during this—"
Aisha perked up a bit.
"—so Tattletale will be tutoring you."
The purple girl glanced over at him. "I am?"
Brian nodded. "I'll pay you for your time."
"My time is pretty valuable."
"I'll pay you well for your time."
"I dropped out of high school and cheated my way through the GEDs, remember."
Aisha leaned forward. "You did?" She always wanted to learn how to cheat right, but never got the hang of it.
"That still leaves you twice as smart as any of Aisha's teachers, and at least as qualified."
She began to wrap her brain around her situation as Brian and Tattletale discussed details. Gang life had always been thrilling to her, and even if this wasn't like climbing up on stage, this was at least a backstage pass. On the other hand, this was another way for her overprotective control freak of a brother to take over her life because he didn't think she could take care of herself. Which she could. Or ... she could just irritate the hell out of him. That worked too.
She forced a groan. "Out of all the freaks and creeps in this city, I get grabbed by the one gang that wants to make me do homework. You couldn't just, you know, sell my organs on the black market like normal villains. Hey, I didn't see you guys when you pulled up. Is this a plain white van with the words 'Free Candy' painted on the side, or do they not do that anymore?"
"No," Brian said. "It's a black van."
"But I did spray paint 'Free Candy' on the side," Goddamnit Regent said.
"That's what it said?" Lift asked.
"You did what?" Brian said. "Goddamnit, Regent, this was a rental! I could strangle you right now!"
"You always say that," he said sadly, "but you won't. You're nothing but talk."
Aisha laughed as Brian ground his teeth. Maybe this whole kidnapping thing could be fun.
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"And this is our hideout."
Brian led Aisha into the loft, ready to show her where she'd be staying and to lay down the house rules when he saw Rachel standing in the middle of the living room. Yes, she had said she was fine with Aisha moving in, but Brian had a mental image of her using her attack dogs on his sister to assert dominance.
"Rachel," he said, stepping between them. "This is Aisha. Aisha, Rachel. If either of you have an issue with the other,"—and he knew they would; Rachel was easily provoked at the best of times, and Aisha could be deliberately provocative—"then come to me, and I will—"
Rachel marched toward them with a bagel in one hand and Brutus' leash in the other. She shoved the bagel in Lift's mouth and dragged her by the back of her shirt out the door.
"Help!" Lift said through the bagel. "I'm being kidnapped!" Her feet were glowing despite her protests, and she slid easily out the room.
"Copycat!" Aisha called after her. "I did it first!"
"Huh," Alec said. "I've never seen Rachel take to anyone so quickly. There's like this instant rapport between you two. Maybe you really are a dog."
Aisha stared at him. "What?"
Brian eyed the door nervously. Lift on her own could get into a lot of trouble, and Rachel could get into even more. Together ... maybe their different brands of trouble would cancel each other out? Okay, that was wishful thinking, but a guy could dream.
"Ignore him," he said, focusing on the situation at hand. "I always do. Anyway, your room is over here, and ..."
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"So," Lift said after she finished her bagel. It was a cinnamon raisin bagel, which was like a bagel that wanted to be a cinnamon roll but was stiff and grumpy about it and didn't have any frosting. "What're we doing?"
"Your power works on dogs."
"Yup. Got a sick dog?"
"I got a lot of hurt dogs. You're going to heal them."
Lift considered that. "If they were hurt too long ago, it sticks."
"This was recent. What will it cost?"
She shrugged. "Whatchu got?"
Rachel felt around in her jacket pockets. "Another bagel and a candybar. After that, it's just dog treats."
Lift made a face. She had tried those treats once, and from the way Rachel's dogs had always rushed for them, she had expected something that didn't taste like chull dung fried in the fires of Damnation, but the taste had ended up ruining bacon forever for her. "We'll see what the bagel and the candybar get you and go from there."
Lift followed her through the city, Wyndle growing along the walls to the side and Rachel's dog trotting in front. The animal was as big as Lift was, and it made her nervous. So did dogs in general, even after two weeks of living with them. She used to think they were a kind of mink, but they acted more like axehounds than anything else.
She had never gotten along with axehounds. Strays were okay. They were dangerous and might try to steal your food, but so would any other urchin. But then some went and got domesticated and started following orders. They became guards and sentries, and could sniff out thieves no matter how quiet they were, and they kept biting until their master told them to stop.
But maybe Lift was overthinking it. They could get pretty scary, but right now Brutus was just trotting along, wagging his tail. He didn't even have a tail, just a little nub, but it kept on going back and forth. Kind of hypnotic.
They stopped in front of a building that screamed legitimacy. Legitimacy shone out of every line of graffiti, every broken window, and was even carried by the emanating smell of smoke and sweat, all while glaring at anyone who might ask pointed questions.
"Hey," Rachel said to a man standing outside.
"Hey," the man replied. He wore a sleeveless shirt and had an impressive display of tattoos. She couldn't read any of the writing, but judging from the naked woman on his forearm sticking her butt out, it was probably saying something obscene. He gave Lift a look she had seen a lot, but usually from people who weren't so greasy, and turned to Rachel. "You here to sign up?"
Rachel glared back at him. "Why else would I be here?"
He shrugged and looked down at the dog. "You get fifty bucks for signing up. If he wins, you get whatever you bet on him." He glanced at Lift again. "Also, this is a dog show, not a kid's show. The kid waits outside."
"Lift, stay," Rachel ordered, but she didn't break eye contact with the man. "This won't take long."
"Yeah, yeah," Lift said easily. "I know how this works." She just wished she had asked for more than a couple of snacks.
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Rachel knew dogs. Rachel knew people. Most of all, she knew anger. She felt it howling in rage desperate to be set loose, but she held it back, just a little longer.
"Just put him in one of the kennels over there," the doorman said, holding a clipboard. The room was full of cages, some with dogs, some without. Some barked, some whimpered. Some were covered in scars, missing ears and noses. Others had never been in a fight in their lives and had no idea what awaited them, but could smell the fear coming off the others. He ignored all of them. Rachel didn't know how people did that, just that they did. They could ignore anything. "And I'll need you to fill out this form."
"Can't read," she said, taking Brutus off his leash.
"Really? Huh." Was he confused? Surprised? Mocking? "Okay, what's your dog's name?"
"Brutus." Brutus looked up at her and wagged his stub of a tail.
He let out a short laugh. At her? "And yours?"
Facing away from him, she slid her mask out of her jacket and put it on over her face. "Bitch."
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"What do you think she's doing down there?" Wyndle asked. He could have gone inside and checked, but he was lazy. Or he thought Lift would get into trouble if he wasn't watching over her, which was dumb because she could get in trouble just fine with him.
She stared up at the sky, lying on the rooftop. "Oh, you know, a con."
"A con, Mistress?"
"Yeah, sure." Below her people shouted and cheered as dogs barked and yipped. "You remember that Windrunner? Stormblessed? And how he got in a duel with the Blackthorn's son and, like, four other guys? No one knew he was awesome back then, so he could bet on himself and win a hundred broams."
"I've heard that story, but I do not think they were gambling for spheres in that duel. They fought for Shards, I believe."
"Fine. He won a hundred Shardblades. Same thing. But now that everyone knows he's awesome, that don't work no more 'cause no one will bet against him. No one knows that Rachel can make her dog awesome, so she can boost it just enough to win and make a fortune."
"Oh," he said, his vine face frowning. "That doesn't seem very honorable."
She shrugged. "A scam's a scam. It's all good and fair as long as no one gets—"
Screams. Not shouts anymore, not barking, screams right below her. "Actually, I don't know her that well. She might be doin' somethin' a whole lot stupider."
She jumped to her feet, slamming a seed into her forehead. It grew into a vine and stretched across her face, forming a mask and tangling up in her hair. Then she jumped off the roof onto the streets below.
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They wanted excitement. They wanted a fight. They wanted blood. Bitch would give them everything they came here for and more.
They tried to run, crowding the exit, trying to escape the hell that they had, seconds ago, demanded. "Guard!" Bitch commanded, pointing at the door. Brutus charged forward, the size of a car, trampling over those too stupid to get out of the way.
His tail wagged happily as he began to play, but even then he behaved himself. He didn't go for anyone's head, he didn't shake them like squirrels, he just made it completely clear that no one was getting out until he let them.
Then someone came in through the window.
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Lift slipped into the room, watching for broken glass and bent nails, and looked around. People screamed and crowded around the exit, but Rachel's dog blocked the way, all big and snarling and doing his best impression of an angry whitespine.
Rachel stood in the middle of a makeshift arena lined with crates, bright lights shining down on her from every angle. She snarled at Lift through her mask. "I told you to wait outside!"
Like Lift ever did what she was told. "I can't wait outside when you're rippin' people apart!
"Fine!" She pointed at a back room with her thumb. "Then go back there and start healing the dogs. That's what I brought you for."
Behind Lift, Brutus grabbed a man by the leg and tossed him aside. His mouth parted into an inhuman grin as blood dripped from his teeth. "What about them?"
"Them? Do you have any idea what kind of people they are? Some of these bastards came here to make their dogs fight and die for a few bucks, some of the others came to organize the mess, and the rest came to watch it all and laugh! I'm just giving them a taste of what they deserve."
Lift blinked, then she felt like an idiot. Oh. Rachel had always been the angry thug of the group, the sort of thief who carried knives and was always too eager to use them. She barely put up with her own team, and didn't seem to like anyone ... besides her own dogs. Of course she wasn't here to cheat in the dog fight. Of course she was here to bring it all down.
If Lift was half as smart as she thought she was, she would have understood that from the start. She would have understood that as she was making new friends, Rachel was being pushed out further to the edge, forgotten and ignored. With Aisha moving in, that would happen even more.
"You're not making a difference," she said, stepping toward her. "You're just hurting people."
"They'll remember."
Lift shook her head. "They'll remember that you hurt them. They won't remember why. They don't know why. All they know is that some people are crazy and attack people for no reason. They think that you're attacking them for no reason."
"Then I'll explain it to them!"
Someone screamed out in pain behind them. Someone began to cry. Someone huddled in terror and asked, "Why?"
"They won't understand. They won't listen. They won't remember the important bits. No one ever does. That's why you stick with dogs, right? 'Cause they listen?"
She remembered a beggar she had met in Emul. He wasn't right in the head and couldn't carry a conversation in a bucket, but he shared whatever he got with a stray axehound. He would sit alone in his alley muttering to himself, and the axehound would hum back to him. They would keep going back and forth, neither making any sense, neither needing to.
Rachel didn't answer her, which was answer enough.
"You don't have to waste time with people," she said, stepping forward. "I thought you came here for the dogs."
Rachel held her gaze for a moment, then turned away in disgust. "I was about done anyway." She whistled sharply, and Brutus came bounding after her. Those who could still run ran out the door, and those who could crawl crawled after them. Those who couldn't even do that, well, they were still alive.
She followed after Rachel and healed the dogs, one after another. She went through the bagel and candybar Rachel had promised her and kept on going. The dogs were stuck in rows of cages, biting at the bars or barking or whimpering, covered in bites and scratches. A few were dying, waiting to be shoveled out like trash, and Lift healed those ones first. She thought Rachel was going to let them go afterwards, but instead she took them outside, cage and all.
When she was done, she went back to the main room to heal the people who were left behind. The ones who couldn't walk. The ones who were spooked too bad to move. They'd survive without her, some with scars they'd never get rid of, some with stumps they'd never get back. It wasn't a matter of life and death for them, just a matter of life.
Rachel returned and looked down at her as she worked, her mask pulled up but her expression unreadable. Lift's stomach grumbled. A couple of snacks didn't get her far.
"You're not making a difference," Rachel said.
"I know." Storms, she was hungry. Her stomach was going to start gnawing on her spine at this rate.
"They won't understand." She sounded angry, frustrated.
"They're people."
Rachel scowled at her, then reached into her pocket and dropped a bag of dog treats on the wooden floor. Bacon flavored. Blegh.
They were close enough for food. Lift forced them down, and her stomach couldn't tell the difference. She kept healing until she was done.
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They drove off in a stolen truck, the back filled up with dogs in cages. Brutus took up half the front seat even when normal sized, his head out the window, and Rachel took up the other half as she drove, leaving Lift sandwiched between them.
"So, what are you gonna do with them?" Lift asked. She knew Rachel didn't plan on selling them, and if she was going to let them go she'd have already done that.
"I'm going to take care of them."
Lift tilted her head. "What, like set up a dog orphanage?"
"No. I'm going to take care of them."
There was heat in her voice, a lot of it. "Have you ... been in an orphanage before?"
"Yeah. It sucked."
Lift nodded. Having someone take care of you as a job wasn't nothing like having a family. It wasn't like having someone care. She scratched Brutus behind his ears as she had seen Rachel do before, and he wagged his tail.
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A/n And that's the end of the chapter. I'm kind of surprised how many people thought the plan would be to kidnap Shadow Stalker, which goes to show you that just because something is obvious in my head, doesn't mean it's obvious on paper. Why kidnap Aisha in the first place instead of just inviting her over? Like Lift said, it's more fun, and after the ABB arc, fun chapters are more fun to write than serious ones.
The only thing that I think might cause some controversy is how I reintroduced her. Would she really be buying drugs when she spent the first part of her interlude chapter telling her mother to stop doing drugs? Well, the out of universe explanation is that I wanted to show her getting into trouble, and there are three main ways kids get into trouble: sex, drugs, and crime. I didn't want to write her doing the first one and the Undersiders aren't going to teach her to stop doing the third one, so that left the second one. The in-universe explanation is that after she got done telling her mother to stop doing something dangerous that could have lasting consequences for herself and the people around her, she tried to solo the Slaughterhouse Nine, so yeah.
But while this started out in my head as an Aisha chapter, it ended up being more of a Rachel chapter, and culminated an arc that started way back in chapter three. If you think I wasn't planning this entire thing ... you'd be right. But it worked out anyway, so it's all good.
So, yeah. NaNo WriMo has been working out great for me. I'd like to thank Eschwarz for editing this, as well as my Patrons, Exiled, Prime 2.0, Sphinxes, Kelsey Bull, Hubris Prime, Janember, Yotam Bonneh, Svistka, Lord of Edges, LordXamon, Victoria Carey, Kurkistan, Bernie McGuire, Christopher Harris, Luminant, Jan, and Jamie Hayes. Thanks for everything!