The next week finds me being as petty as I know how. I save some of my food and steal the electronics that Jamie was supposed to fence for us and go buy drugs with the lot of it. I reach out to the Toddler Titans, a group of older ferals that recruit as many nerdy ferals that they can, and they can get me ketamine and a roofie cocktail. I blend them of course and get about five doses out of the transaction.
The week anniversary of her burning my pet project, when she’s had enough time to relax, after heightened awareness period for reprisal, I take all of her clothes out to the yard, drag the small dresser out to the yard and soak all of her clothes in flammable liquid before rigging a small torch to fire as the drawer opens. The message is clear, of course. Same method, same place, same fuck you.
A normal ‘eye for an eye’ response would have ended there. However, I am a petty bitch and when a person fucks with someone who is down and won’t fight back, they can eat all of the dicks. Hence me putting roofies in the steamed milk that her and the Sisters have with tea on Sunday nights after bible study.
It took me most of the night, but I finally found the multitude of hiding spots for the non-perishable foods that the orphans are supposed to get that the nuns have been skimming. I know they’re skimming because Mother and the Sisters buy fresh, perishable goods for themselves to eat daily. Which is a massive misuse of their budget, which is why stealing more from the Orphans makes me want to murder. In any case, I do nothing more to Grace and Desi than invade their privacy and take the food they stole.
I cut off Jamie’s hair as close to the scalp as I can without cutting her. I then chop it as fine as I can and then rub it into the remainder of the clothes she has and the sheets. I also start populating another hidey hole with some comfort items like a few grungy pillows, wadded up paper stuffed in a sack, and some ratty-ass chairs to read in. I start staying there at nights and hide the food I liberated nearby. I bring some back every day to start feeding up the teens and supplementing the grubs.
After years of feeling safe in Our Lady’s walls, it’s odd to be separated from the noise and what I thought was comfort. To my great surprise, some of the rats followed me in the coming days and set up some scavenged cots in my rat hole, preferring it to the bustle of the Orphanage. Plus, I do have the food.
Jamie consistently sicked the Nuns on me. She tried to get me for burning her wardrobe, but since everything was effectively contraband, I got a few lashes for disorderly behavior and nothing else came of it—from the nuns anyway.
Now, however, I am being confronted with bat and knife-wielding thugs, trying to extort me for food that I promised my grubbies. I don’t get out of this without some . . . shitty hits, but one knife against two and three bats? I’ll probably keep my teeth?
I start by throwing switchblades. Only one out of the four landed pointy, but one less knife on the first assault is a win. I take a bat to cross one knife with as I wheeze from a chest and arm hit. I swing my fixed blade at a face, which he tries to block while I stomp his knee sideways.
I lunge into knife number two with an inside twisting strike while he takes an outside chopping swing. Fuck me, I have to take this somewhere, pick a location chica. Outside forearms have meat and not a ton else, so I halt that chop with my bones.
“Fuck you!” I shout at the man who stabbed me, as my knife rushes toward his neck, he tries to move, but I lodge my blade under the inside of his jaw and end him with seven inches of steel. I retreat a few steps to jab my knife into the man with the busted knee, pulling the blade from my left arm to deflect a bat.
My melee was furious and bloody, and I don’t know when the rats that have been staying with me arrive with pipes, but when they do, I get a break from being withered with bone-creaking blows.
“Shit, Kimber. You look . . . not well. What do you need?”
I hate to ask, because I hate to sell food, but I need a Terminal.
“Boys, I need a Terminal and some help getting there.” Two of my rats nod and one takes an arm as the other braces my battered leg. “You guys are amazing. Are they all dead?” They shake their heads. I take a deep breath, shrug and murder the remaining unconscious or groaning thugs. “I don’t like doing this, by the way.”
“We weren’t judging, Pops. You need to figure your woman out though.” This freaking guy. I nod in agreement with having to handle Jamie, but, like, calling me Dad gives me the feels and shit.
When I get to the Terminal, I order the cheapest T-1 regenerative in exchange for a kilo of food. I offer the boys a buy and one asks for a coffee and the other a sweet toasties and I pay a quarter kilo for that. I established a trading account years ago, but I stopped fencing the electronics when Jamie started bitching about it. I don’t know what she was skimming from it, but I suspect it was tea for her weekly time with the nuns.
I think about how long that must have been going on and feel betrayed beyond measure. Sure I found out last week, but if I time it with her desire to participate in fencing our goods, it’s been going on at least a year. Well, time to hide some bodies in her closet.
I do a shit frame job. However, with a lack of other evidence, the other two nuns knowing I have leverage on them after their stash of fucking food disappeared (and keeps disappearing, the stupid cunts are pathological), and bodies stowed in Jamie’s spaces, we earn a visit to Mother’s office a week before Warram shows to buy us like slaves.
That’s rude to Warram, actually, as they are affectively buying an apprenticeship in a Grecian style and offering to optimize our System Tracks and Skills as best they know how. I actively want to be a Warram Orphan as they have the best resources in the area.
“Kimber, Jamie says that you’ve been terrorizing her for the last two weeks.” Mother says.
“She slapped me before we last met, I denied her sex and slept on the roof so she burned the books I collected in retaliation. That was too far for me to forgive, so I moved out. She’s been a petty bitch about it and sent some thugs to rough me up yesterday to express her displeasure.”
I can feel Jamie’s glare but Mother takes a deep breath to center herself. “I’ve also heard that you’ve stolen from the Sister Grace and Sister Devi.”
More leash to hang myself with, fine then. “I found several hoards of non-perishables, no luxury items like chocolate or tea to speak of,” I openly emphasize the Sisters’ favorite foods, “And since I know that you and the Sisters provide yourselves with fresh food, I assumed those hoards were from errant orphans so I reclaimed them and have been redistributing them daily.”
A humorous variety of emotions parade across her face, including outrage and embarrassment. This is an obvious sign that if the Nuns are complaining, and all I found were non-perishables, that her vaunted ‘Sisters’ have been less than holy.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“You will get ten lashes for your flippant behavior.” She scowls.
“Sure you want to do that with less that a week before Warram shows, on my birthday?” Jokes on them, though, my birthday was last week and I’m already fourteen. Two more years to my mandated System initialization if I don’t get picked next week.
“Twenty lashes will serve as a warning to Warram of your penchant for misbehaving.”
Those lashes did not feel good on top of my deep bruises, but the regenerative is still lingering I my blood, so hopefully I’ll get a little boost from it.
“You really are a shit, Kimber. I can’t believe you’d tattle to Mother about our disagreement!” Jamie shouted in the hallway. Before I can reply, Mother sticks her head through the doorway.
“Miss Gooding, we have yet to reconcile bringing your blood games into my house.” She opens the door to her office wider and motions for Jamie to join her.
Genuine surprise shows on Jamie’s face for the first time that I’ve known her. It’s as though she realizes her petty machinations are coming due. I can’t believe I let her have her way with me.
***
“Kimber, a moment of your time please?”
I turn to see Maribelle addressing me from a respectable distance with several small children holding her legs.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard her talk to me. Her voice is comforting. “Your space or mine?”
She smiles, her face full despite rampant malnutrition in this house. “The yard should be fine, if you will.” I nod and follow her lead.
“So, what am I fucking up today?”
“Oh? No, none of that. I just wanted to thank you for accepting Jace, Harper, and Bryant. They have been having trouble coping with a society and enjoy your commanding presence.”
“Heh, ‘bout the only people who like me these days.” I wipe my hands down my face. “I killed again today, and it’s hard for me to feel bad about it. Should I feel guilt?”
Her laughter is thin, yet musical. “I am not here to be your mother too, Papa Kimber.” She titters in earnest as she hides her mouth with a hand.
Jeeeez, what a cutie. “I just don’t know what to do. Finding and trickling in the stolen food sounds like a good deed, but I’m no parent figure.”
“Perhaps not by traditional standards, but here? You’re their protector. You take in the dark so they don’t have to. The sense of security you provide cannot be questioned. As you become the dark, what is to fear but what we already know? As you become the dark, the monsters that lurk are learning to fear it as much as legends of old.”
“Pfft, some legend, but thanks Maribelle. I could definitely use that to keep the grubs from being so afraid. ‘Don’t worry, as long as I’m around the monsters under the bed will stay under the bed.’ Or, how about, ‘if you see something, it’s not looking for you, it’s checking for me.’” I can’t help but laugh at how ridiculous that sounds and my laughing gets away from me enough that Maribelle’s laughter leaks out from behind the hand covering her mouth.
“It’s good to see you laugh, Kimber. You don’t seem to get a break from the seriousness that you’re engaged in.” She walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder. Somehow, that shoulder starts to immediately relax. There has got to be some kind of hoodoo at work, even though I know she’s not old enough to self-select System integration, she is way too good at making people feel comfortable around her. I could use that relaxing aura on the rest of my back though.
“Yeah, it’s good to have a moment without responsibility from time to time. I’m hoping when we get picked up by Warram that I can be told what to do instead of having to figure it out for me and a dozen other people.”
“Confident that Warram’s going to want us?” She smirks. I can tell she agrees with me.
“Uh, yeah. How can I not be? Even if they’re only here to select a handful of kids, there are four of us that are clearly more together or capable than the rest.” She nods at my statement and waits for me to continue. “Plus, why else would they schedule their assessment for my birthday?”
“I had wondered about that. No use thinking too hard about it though. Next week we’ll know for sure.”
“Yeah. I honestly can’t wait.” I sigh and run my hands through my shaggy crew cut. “I should go get some of the pasta and canned beans for the teens so I don’t get fucking lashes because there isn’t enough to eat.” I reach up and squeeze her hand before walking off.
When I get back from my bolt hole I hand my room-mates the pasta and cans and ask them to guard it while I set up the kitchen. To my surprise, there is a brand new padlock on the gas valve. Well fuck them, the vengeful cunts. ‘Hey Kimber, make sure they’re fed or else!’ but you can’t cook or use the kitchen or anything. I get a pot and fill it full of water and put a pan in there to heat the beans too. I pull a rack out of the oven and go back to see my room mates. I ask them to move the trash barrel back to the burn mark in the dirt while I go get some wood.
The wood is supposed to be used only when important people are visiting, so that they won’t think that the temperature is utterly unregulated in the winter. Well, if they lock me out of the kitchen, I’m gonna steal shit to cook with. I nab a few of the magazines that the nuns collect and go back to the yard to cook over a fire. I of course splash the wood with flammable liquids to ensure I don’t have to waste a bunch of firestarters. About an hour later, we’ve scrounged up some bowls and start digging into our bland but bountiful meal.
“So, who’d you have to fuck for all this food?” Marcus asks. The big man is a capable protector, but he does not understand words like ‘polite’ or ‘tact’. Which is part of why we get along.
“I’m flattered that you think I’m pretty enough to get paid this much for sex. I do have dexterous hands, though.” He snorts and then coughs up a noodle. “None of that though. I’ve know for a while that we haven’t been getting the food allotment that our benefactors buy for us. I just finally got mad enough to find where it was being hidden and steal it back.”
“Thank fuck for that. I want to look like a human on market day instead of whatever boney alien we look like now. Well, except for you Kimber, you’ll probably still look like a boney alien.”
“Copy that, Marcus. No stolen food for snarky black assholes.”
Jamal gasps from across the trash can fire, “What the fuck Kimber?!” I snort at that and then hack up a noodle as a result of my laughter.
As the sun sinks toward the horizon, we bullshit and laugh as a group for the first time in months—the stress of food shortages momentarily forgotten. For the fourteen plussers, I’m seeing a sense of hope in their eyes that the end of our incarceration may be near. Hope is a dangerous and wonderful thing, I just wish that Warram had spots for all of the folks here that are between fourteen and eighteen. I don’t want any of my rats falling in with the assclowns that I’ve been roughing up lately.
I drag the rack and cooking utensils back to the kitchen to clean them, and an irate Mother is there to meet me.
“Do you know how expensive that wood is?! What possessed you to cook in the yard instead of in here?”
I point to the stove. “Hard to use a stove when the gas line is locked shut. If I gotta feed the kids, I’m going to find a way to do it.” I squeeze past her and start scrubbing the pot, trying to get the burned noodles from the inside and the char from the outside.
“You need to resolve your conflict with the Sisters, Kimber. You’ve clearly angered them. Go talk to them and get the lock removed.”
“Sure, might as well do your job too. Since I’ve already had to reclaim hoarded food from Grace and Desi, what’s one more task that is literally in your job description.” I wasn’t looking at her while I was being rude. If I had been, I might have prepared a reaction to the metal spoon hitting my back.
“You dare speak to me that way?! With all of the evils you have visited upon yourself and the people of this house, you should be grateful I allow you to stay!”
It takes all my willpower to reign in my desire to retaliate. The honey badger instincts are tempting me to throw cautions and fucks to the wind and see what happens. I turn toward her, holding the handle of the pot as though I’m thinking of bludgeoning her to death with it. The confidence flushes from her face.
“That’s like asking me to be thankful for your incompetence, or for the thieving, petulant bitches that even you don’t want to deal with. I won’t be doing that, Mother. And I fucking can’t wait to see what this place devolves into after Maribelle and I are gone. Maybe Warram will finally see that the successes you’ve claimed will be leaving with us.” I throw the pot into the sink with a loud bang and march past the lazy bureaucrat. I see her hand raise in the corner of my view and turn to swat her hand into dropping the spoon. “Grow up.”
I hear a series of clangs in the kitchen as I walk down the hall. Her frustration brings a smile to my face, even though I know I’ll be paying for it later. If she punishes the kids to get to me, I’ll take it out of her ass.