I fixed my hair using the reflection of Dig’s sunglasses as a mirror and wondered if I should get highlights. “Okay.”
“Hold up!” Fred pulled on my shoulder. “I ain’t letting him take you. You’re my ticket to freedom.”
I swatted Fred. “Let me go or your niece/lover is going to die.”
Fred hitched with irritation and looked at Fiona, keeping his hand on me. “Nope. No trade.”
Fiona’s eyes widened.
I frowned looking at Fred. “Oh, I don’t like you anymore.”
“Shut up.” He angled his own blade to me.
Dig gritted his teeth. “If you touch my girl, I will torture you for the full ten days.”
“Ow!” I made a point of it as Fred grabbed my arm.
Dig growled.
Fred squeezed.
I kicked Fred in his crotch and elbowed his throat.
Dig let Fiona go and lunged for Fred.
I grabbed Fiona’s hand and together we ran down the street, allowing the others to sort out their differences.
The burning structure acted as a beacon to all and from out of the muck of night, inmates came weeding from buildings and streets, eyes wide on the clouds of smoke. Some who recognised each other toppled into instant fights while Fiona and I snuck into an alleyway.
Behind a stack of crates, I pushed Fiona up against a brick wall.
An ocean of emotion was raging behind her eyes. Grief, I think, loss. Either for Fred or for perhaps who she had thought Fred was to her. I wished that I could offer her proper comfort through endearing words and heartfelt emotion. I wished I could see myself in her place and feel what she was feeling so that I could help her. However, nothing came to me. I was blank and bland and nothing.
I was Soulless.
I could not offer her relief, but I could offer her everything else I had.
“Fiona, listen to me. Dig is after me. Not you.” I pulled the can of food and bottle of water out of my satchel and gave them to her. “Take these and run as far away from me as possible. You’re a highly capable woman. Far better at combat than myself, you will live extremely easy on your own.”
Her lower lip trembled. I hoped she wouldn’t cry. It would just make me envious, and she already had boots, food and water, none of which I had. Her ability to cry was just cruel.
“I tell you what darling.” I held her shoulders. “Find Tommy. An eighteen-year-old boy with a green basketball shirt and gangly arms. He’s off with the God damn cannibals. Find him and keep him safe and I promise you, oh, I so very promise you I will do my best to get you out of prison.”
“You’ll get me out of prison?”
“I can try to.”
Her throat bobbed. She woke up. “You know I murdered my family, right?”
They were probably assholes anyway. I winked to her. “So, you should be able to murder the cannibals.”
She agreed to my condition and brief relief coasted in my chest knowing that at least Tommy had a second person out there searching for him, this one who was damn good with a slingshot and blade.
I watched her skip away, very happily pulling back her slingshot when a man came to chase her, hitting him dead in his temples and knocking him out.
Tightening the satchel over my front, I checked I still had my cigarettes and blade and decided upon my next move. Hiding. Tonight, would be wild with observers for the fire which meant I needed to hide, and in the morning, I’d find Tom—
“Princess.”
