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Whack!

The striking palm flashes swift as lightning crackling on the side of my head, just above my ear —hard, sudden, and with an open palm. Tears of surprise spring to my eyes but I will them still with a clenched jaw, and focus my glazing stare to focus on the damp moldy wall.

Elias, the servant's keeper, leans forward, crowding into the menial space that separates us until the moist decaying smell of the alley mixes with his tobacco breath. “Look at me, girl.”

A sharp ring echoes through my ear, the skin which he struck throbs like a pulse just beneath my temple. I feel hot everywhere, and dizzy. Lin’s mewling cries are a thread that holds me on the precipice of unconsciousness.

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, I unclench my jaw and slowly tilt my face back to his. It takes a moment to fully focus on the face poised before mine; his image obscured by my tears; grotesque hawk-like nose, full dirty beard, and dark eyes pressed into a doughy face, Elias is far from handsome.

Perhaps for some maids, they find his gruesome looks attractive — a diamond in the rough, they’d say.

Elias’ gaze roams my face, lingering at a spot where he hit, and a slight spark of satisfaction lights in his eyes before dimming. “Where is it?”

Lin’s cries had grown muffled, perhaps he had realized that his cries would bring no mercy.

My countenance is imperturbable despite the guilty bulging weight in my pocket. Chin slightly tilted, I begin to speak; “I don’t-”

He hits me again.

This time harder.

His open calloused palm struck my left cheek with enough force to send me spiraling in a short circle right before crashing into the cold wall. I gasp upon impact, barely recovering when something loops into my hair, winding it like a vine around his closed fist and using it as leverage to tilt my head moonward.

The sky is metallic, bruised over with autumn clouds that bulge low threatening to drown the earth in its rain.

Elias’ face presses on mine, the fetid stench of his breath fanning heat over my cheek which throbs like a heart of its own. “Lie to me once more, girl,” he threatens while reaching past his cloak to brush the hilt of a leather whip, “and I will have both of you tied and flogged in the town’s square.”

My pulse quickens— a flutter, like little bird wings trapped between my lungs. His threats were often promised, and I had witnessed the results of his anger physically marred on slaves.

Their skins ragged with whip marks and sizzling dark brands, their bodies ambling from castrations, women with chests flat as planks from the removal of breasts — every punishment meted out was monstrous, brutal, and unforgiving.

Yet here I stand in his grip, skin prickling with phantom aches of a public whipping, fear clouding my chest, and a lie ready on my tongue.

“I do not know.” The words are flat and hopefully innocent. To lie to a slave keeper was the height of treason, worthy of my tongue getting cut, but to be caught… oh the damnation for such actions eclipsed all lies.

I pray he does not see past the slate of nothingness on my face. I pray the keen flame of defiance that burns within does not spill past the shallow waters of my green eyes and flicker its deception at him.

For a moment there is only silence broken intermittently by Elias’ haggard breathing, my staccato one and Lin’s soft sobs stifled within the cup of his palm.

Elias searches my face once more, sees nothing, then shoves me away from him as if I am plagued with disease. He pulls a face of disgust whilst darting a look between Lin and me. “If I ever see you two near the marketplace again, I will not hesitate to rip you apart limb by limb.”

He pauses to take me in; a quick scan of my body hidden beneath layers of tattered grimy clothes, then Lin, all the while another twitch plays at his lips, “right after I share you both with my men.”

Head lowered in deference, I mutter something of assurance that he will never see us, then once more fall silent beneath his scrutiny right before it lifts as he walks away.

I watch his retreating figure from my periphery then crack a smile at Lin, vindicated just enough.

The boy’s wretched expression falls blank as he sees my outright grin right before erupting into a fit of anger. “Are you mad?” He yells then quiets down with a sharp look past my shoulder at the alley’s mouth. “Are you mad?” Lin hisses.

“Mad is a subjective term,” I say while rolling my sore shoulders back and tilting my stiff neck this way and that. My cheek hurts but the throbbing had simmered to slight stinging which pulses when I lift my fingertips to it. “I prefer defiant.”

His disapproving stare unwavering, “You mean suicidal.”

“What’s life without a little dance of death?” I challenge him while approaching and crouching low to place both hands on his shoulders.

Though we are the same age, Lin is smaller in mass and size. Partly due to genetics, but starvation is what stunts his growth. His shoulders are timid under my touch, the sharpness of his collarbones jutting into my skin.

“Are you okay?” I ask, drinking him in with multiple sweeps of my eyes. His face is untouched and as is; grime-stained, teeth faded yellow, slanted eyes smeared with something brown on the lower lids.

The front of his shirt is ripped open from Elias’ steel grip, revealing the bony stature beneath. I scan his torso for bruises outside the ordinary ones then let out a sigh of relief at the sight of none.

“I’m fine,” Lin swats at my hands but focuses on me, my cheek specifically. “Are you okay? The way he hit you…”

I grimace and touch my cheek, feeling the swollen ridges of Elias’ hand imprint begin to surface. “I’ll be fine.”

We linger on the floor crouched before each other, wild hearts yet to slow to a healthy gallop, and sweating. The shock of nearly being caught is yet to wear off and despite my facade of bravado, I am still shaken within, my hands trembling like leaves stirred in an autumn wind.

A small gust of air slips into the alley and lets out a solemn mourn as it winds up and over us.

The coolness of its touch offers reprieve to the heat of my skin. I begin to rise and hold out a hand; “Shall we?”

Lin glances between the outstretched hand and me, his gaze is wary. “I never understand why I still stay with you,” he grumbles, begrudgingly taking my hand.

I haul him off the floor and begin to walk in the opposite direction, “I’m irresistible.”

“You’re dangerous,” he corrects, “and reckless.” The space between us widens with each lengthy stride I take, forcing him to jog on. “And one day you will get caught—“

“Fools are the only ones that get caught,” Casting him a glance over my shoulder while blindly stepping over a rotting cat carcass, I arch an eyebrow at him, my smile creeping like the edging rays of daylight. “We may be idiots once in a while, Lin, but we are no fools.”

Whatever retort he throws at me deviates once I step out into the bustling world. Though the light is gray, I squint into it, suddenly conscious of the world wrapping me in an embrace of disconsolate noises.

Like a cluster of old wives, the village sits just outside the town with its open shacks and wooden carts. The air is heady with the smell of ripe seasonal fruits and freshly baked bread just pulled from blazing ovens. Donkeys and horses are drawn to the sides and vendors are shouting prices amongst competitors and buyers alike.

I weave through the vendors and stalls easily, conscious of keeping my head low and shoulders hitched up as if walking against the wind. Few notice our scrawny presence, their eyes flickering to our bodies then away within a single breath. Their interest in orphans, squandering servants and the lowest class in the town is non-existent.

They walk past us as though we are grazing cows. Their dull eyes fleeting over us like the shadow of an eagle overhead, fleeting and cold. I help them in this by taking on a muted bovine expression to avoid any undue attention.

We pass an open store with wooden tables stained red with wine and bowls of curdled soup overflows. I watch the men throw their heads back, jaws yawning wide with guffaws of laughter, hands slapping the wooden tables with open palms or mugs brimming with ale.

One servant girl with a freshly bruised eye leans past a man to pour him ale when the man turns and slips a hand beneath her skirt, groping up her thighs as if seeking the purchase of something valuable.

I tear my gaze away from the scene and focus on the ground; the bare yellow earth, cracked into the pattern of a turtle’s shell. The scent of rain is a faint afterimage in the clouding air that curls past us coolly as I step through the market’s edge and pick a familiar winding path up a small hill.

“This should be fine.” Drawing to a standstill, I search the vast land before us; drying grass undulating in the wind and around our ankles. I glance over my shoulder at Lin, a slash of red crosses his pale cheeks almost comically, as if a child had painted him. “Cold?”

Lin nods and sinks further into the coat he wears, arms wrapped around himself in a weary hug.

I gesture at a random spot, “Sit.” Then I begin to pace a few feet from him while keenly tracking the ground. Behind, I hear the grass stir as he slumps onto it with a pained groan.

“What are you doing?”

“Finding our dinner,” I mutter, kicking aside stones and gravel until a familiar path unfurls from under. The trail is not long, barely ten strides past Lin’s flopping body.

Had it been someone else, they would have mistaken the meticulously placed dried grass for nature, but upon closer inspection, one could tell it was too artificial; too unnatural to look natural.

And beneath lay my trap.

Satisfaction thrums through me as I lift the trap, increasing in vibrancy as I weigh it in my hand.

“What’d you get?”

I glanced over my shoulder at Lin who had rolled onto his belly, chin resting atop his flattened hands on the earth. Despite the distance, he sees the trap in my hand and smiles warily.

The basket had been weaved by Arya in her free time. It was not a gift, merely a method for her to have me silent and my presence gone for my whining and frolicking behavior was fraying at her patience.

That, and hunting for myself would make it easier on us.

One less mouth to feed.

Lifting the trap’s door, I peer inside and make a noise akin to happiness— or so I thought, it was hard to properly construct a sentence at the sight of the lizard, long as my forearm, resting at the base of the trap with its serpentine tongue flickering in and out delicately.

I turn to him with a pleased smile; "Start a fire."