Chapter 10
The stray cats law
When they arrived at the treehouse, Nami could barely see anything with her eyelids swollen from crying and between the low vision and her ears still ringing, she felt locked in herself.
Instead of climbing the narrow ladder, Luffy directed her to the large wooden gate from which the music came out on the last day of the storm..
Lightning lit up the sky as the boy knocked on the door.
Luffy's hand, held firmly around her own, tightened his grip as she was surprised by another sob.
The door opened as the first drops of rain hit the ground.
A huge lady, of mountainous height and hair as orange as Nami's, looked them up and down.
"What the hell is all this about? Who is the girl? Where is Ace?"
Luffy pulled Nami to his side. Despite the usual childish attitude, his face did not show even a hint of the sweet smile that usually appeared on the boy's face.
"Dadan, we have to call grandpa. Ace has been arrested."
The great lady lost the low color she had on the cheeks.
"What? Who's arrested? Ace? Why?!"
Luffy shook his head. The sky thundered again and the boy pulled Nami closer to the interior.
"I don't know, something about a dead king or something. We have to enter, Dadan, Nami is tired and I'm starving."
Not waiting for an answer, Luffy walked around the woman who had opened the door for them and guided his friend through a bunch of big, burly men to a chair where she could sit quietly.
She shivered, unable to say a single word, but with fear like a blanket on her shoulders. The strangers gave her chills and the chair Luffy sat her in was so high, her legs were dangling. Nami felt tiny and the thought made her nauseous.
"Don't worry Nami, they are mountain bandits, but they would never hurt you. Dadan is very rough but she is good, like you. And I'm not going to leave you, I'm here."
She nodded, tears cold on her cheeks and throat. She want to respond, but her tongue was frozen and the words were paralyzed.
Something inside her was wrong, but she couldn't even place which part of her body hurt.
The huge orange-haired woman came up to them with leaden feet and an expression threatened to hit her back. Nami cowered with her eyes on the ground, hands shaking.
"Do you wanna eat, Nami?"
She shook the head vigorously as squeezed his hand even more. Luffy , unable to understand anything beyond the types of beetles, approached Nami with incomprehension marked in the steps. His eyes were full of indecision, but he was so close that she didn't care that he didn't know what to do. The simple fact that he didn't let go of her hand warmed her heart. Stunned by feelings so intense and terrifying that she couldn't name them, she wrapped her arms around the boy in a trembling embrace and hid the face and tears in her friend's neck.
Luffy responded to the hug without thinking, because despite being an emotional brick, he loved to talk through rubs and touches. He was an expert speaker in the language of the hands.
"Luffy, what's the meaning of all this?"
Nami listened the conversation as if she were witnessing the scene through a fish tank.
"I don't know. When the marines arrested Ace they threw us to the ground and she didn't respond well. Nami was crying since then, she doesn't answer anything I ask. It's like she's locked in another room."
The phrase was not made to cut, but Nami's mind was cutting and the idea of confinement rattled in her head like the sound of shackles.
The memory of a sawed-off nose and the escape plans she had made for that very night swayed behind the voices in the background and her heart raced. That same night she need to left, but the farewell hurt in the bones, in the soul, in the unstitched pieces she called her heart.
The mere thought made her shiver.
"That girl is shaking more than a newly hatched pigeon." Commented one of the big men.
"They beat the hell out of her, it's normal that she's shaking."
"If she is like this, imagine Ace, who likes to talk back more than a puppy."
"The marines will leave him covered in bruise."
"Sure."
"I bet a giant's boot that..."
The unusual talk gradually brought Nami out of the horrible trance she entered. As she relaxed, she felt her friend caress her back in rhythmic circles, at the sweet speed of a lullaby.
"Nami" Luffy whispered in a low voice, searching for the secret of whispers.
She nodded, still hidden in the corner of that hug that offered her protection.
"You want to go home? Dadan can give you some food while you wait there for us to resolve the call with Grandpa. And then, if you want, I'll let you know when we go to the city to fight the guards. I'm sure you punch hard, otherwise you can draw maps while we hit them and those things you like."
The edge she was waiting for slid down her back with warm, sticky fingers. In the treehouse, alone, with Luffy busy with the idea of saving his brother, it would be the ideal time to pick up all the things and run away. Without looking back, with the sea in front and the storm on the back of the neck.
The idea made her cartwheel between sawed off noses, handcuffs and rooms with bars on the windows. And the only coherent statement was born among the noise and lights was she couldn't go with the escape plan. No, she could never abandon Luffy and Ace like that, because if something went wrong Nami wouldn't be able to forgive her in life. And her quota of guilt had reached the limit, she was unable to look her mother in the eyes when she appeared in her dreams, she couldn't live with the rejection of the few people she had been able to consider friends.
The image of the people of Cocoyashi was shouting in her ear and pulling on her neck, so she tried to silence it by clenching the hand on a fist on his friend's vest.
"No, no. I'm not leaving. I can not leave. Let's get Ace out of jail together. Ok?" The firmness with which she said it surprised the enormous woman watching them, who took a step back, with Nami's gaze fixed on her face.
Luffy separated from her and his smile dazzled her.
"You are the best of the best friends, Nami. I promise that I will leave the second strongest to you."
She started to laugh, although she recoiled when she saw the confidence in the boy's gaze. Nami wiped her cheeks before patting Luffy on the shoulder with the usual disapproval finally settling in.
"We're not going to free your brother by hitting them, idiot. We're going to get him out of there my way."
The boy went to reply something, but Dadan silenced him with a slap on his face.
"Let the girl talk, you, brute. She has better ideas than you."
Nami squared her shoulders proudly and smiled, even with her red nose and swollen eyes, with the confidence that characterized her.
"We're going to get him out without them knowing, like thieves."
A man crashed and with a dark look he stirred under the weight of the idea.
"The old dog is not going to like it when he arrives."
Luffy, who hadn't stopped watching Nami with confusion and an endless number of retorts about to explode, laughed, pleased. As if hearing those words were a challenge impossible to refuse.
"Then let's go to jail!"
She lowered the brim of his hat to cover his dust-filled thoughts.
"First we have to steal the map and we need a plan."
Dadan snorted with her hand on the belly.
"Well, if you need something to come out of that idiot's mind, we're going to need food. Because it's going to be long."
Nami observed the bandit with joking comments and was excited to see the hint in her mother's eyes.
"Thank you so much ma'am."
She fanned her words with the hand.
"If you get the boy out of me before the old man arrives, I'll tell them to add some meat to your rice, skinny girl."
The smell of the food made the girl's mouth water, Luffy raised his hat and grumbled something about meat and injustices.
Sitting between ideas, chatter and rice with meat, with Luffy at her side covered in breadcrumbs up to his hat, Nami felt her toes getting warm, despite the anxiety of the last few days, despite the fear the simple memory of a flowery shirt and a town of upside-down houses gave her, despite everything.
After a life of refuge on the run, she was surprised by the warmth of those who chose to stay.
Well, don't kill me, but I was at my wit's end between work and my master's thesis and I went back and forth on the chapter because it didn't end up turning out the way I wanted.
But it's here! hehehe
What do you think about how the story is going?
see you!