Velli

Excess. Necessity. Excessive necessity is how a building stays safe in Division’s Hand. I’m grateful the security outside my mom’s hospital follows this trend. High, happy red-and-white peppermint-candy-colored gates loom over me and stab through the clouds of the orange fall sky. The gate circles the hospital, which was a warehouse at one point. In fact, it looks more like a warehouse than a hospital even now, massive and cavernous.

I feel a little guilty for leaving Jeremy alone, but I need to visit my mom in the hospital before I attend, hopefully, the last funeral for one of my friends.

Wisp, the security guard, watches me from a white puffy cloud, invisible, but I can feel his eyes. It’s that hair-raising alarm that a gun is aimed at my head. If he did see me as a threat, he would shoot me, and if that didn’t kill me, he would send enough wind down to launch me flying into the clouds then let me drop.

I don’t like it, but I get it. It is what it is. Can’t have anyone engaging in one of the city’s black-market businesses—kidnapping. I’ve been snatched a time or two. And pretty quickly, I learned that no one smart relies on the Heirs’ public police force.

“If you want to live, you have to buy,” the saying goes.

The Heirs’ police force—or merely the power of their name—is great for things they put their symbols on: public schools, hospitals, grocery stores, certain neighborhoods, etc. No one would dare commit a crime in any of these places. However, as other cliques rise in power and the Heirs grow weaker, they’ve become more and more lackadaisical with defending anything that doesn’t have their symbol. They’re stretched too thin. Of course, none of the Powered notice how alarming this is that they can defend themselves. They go about their day like we don’t live in near anarchy. Still, I wish I could have put my mom in an Heir-funded hospital, but for her sickness, she has to go to this private one.

A man with genuine gray silk skin forms a silhouette as he stands by the gate and smokes a cigarette. Is that Weaver? I don’t know him personally, only of him.

Weaver glares at me. A large, brooding man, he wears simple black shorts, flattop sneakers, and an entire body made of intricate silk and strings, except for his two eyes and fingernails. He uses American pennies for eyes and origami ten-thousand-yen notes for fingernails. I nod at him on my way to the door. I can tell he’s been waiting out here awhile and getting aggravated because his “fingernails” are wet with sweat. Probably meeting somebody. He’s a creepy-looking guy, and the wet money on his fingers made of strings doesn’t help.

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He’s giving me a look. I must have accidentally given him a look. This is going to turn into a thing. A hole opens in his face to speak to me. He thinks I want to fight him, so he engages in some boasting to see if I’m up for the challenge. The first step in boasting is to list powers.

“Indestructible body.” His voice sounds like silk rubbing against silk, it’s so quiet, like a whisper with a mischievous spice. “Unbreakable silk bonds. Silk that whips like a slave master. Silk that can go in your mouth and out your toes.”

I ignore him. If I list back, he’ll think I want a fight. I’m supposed to say “I’m sorry” and bow my head if I don’t want a fight. If I’m shameless and a coward, I’m supposed to squat beneath him and wipe off his shoe in two quick swipes as I apologize. Frankly, though, I’m not feeling sorry at all. I’m annoyed because Dream is mad at me, in mourning because I have to attend a funeral, and worried about my mom because she’s in the hospital. And Prometheus just told me everything I know is a lie, so no, I’m not feeling cowardly.

“Mogvaz Main,” I say back, switching the boast to people we’ve killed or at least maimed.

“Sharp, all of the Radiance Clique, and One Man Fleet,” he responds without missing a beat.

I shrug. Impressive resume, though.

He doesn’t like that and steps in front of me. “What’s your name?”

I fell for this before. He doesn’t actually want to know my name. They’re the final words before a fight. If I’m in a clique, I say the clique’s name, and that should get him to back off. If I’m alone and want to fight, I say, “I have no name,” implying I want to make a name for myself by killing him.

But I’d lose this fight.

“Velli Greene.” I drop my head in surrender.

He laughs at me, loud and aggressive. Fate joins in, of course. I walk past Weaver.

He slams his hand against my neck and spins me around to face him. “Swipe.” He pushes me down, his phone camera out, recording.

I glare at the eye of the camera, the only small and useless act of rebellion I can manage.

But you get to your knees either way. Don’t you?

I drop to my knees and swipe at his foot twice, wiping away my self-respect in unison. I’ve had to do this before, some recorded, some not. It doesn’t get easier. It doesn’t make me any less mad. I curse whatever thing brought the Rain and made him stronger than me for whatever reason.

I’m going to change this whole world when I get powers.

But what if you’re not strong enough, Velli? What if you get powers and you’re still swiping feet?

I promise you, I’ll get more power than anyone in all five cities of Division’s Hand.

Deed done, I’m careful to keep my eyes down to avoid another fight. My thumbprint on the scanner door opens the gate for me. The gate creaks against the surface.

“Velli Greene, feet swiper, sole licker!” Weaver yells at me, and the flash from his camera reflects against the fence.

I can’t even flip him off without making this situation three times worse.