We trusted them about as much as they trusted us, which was to say not at all.
It was a miracle we only showed up with our doubles, Riu with me, and Miro with Halaor. So relying on Den security rather than an actual second command? Did the Rats even have one?
"I see you brought company," Riu commented, going against what I would have advised in being the first to speak, especially for the sake of it being a simple provocation, one as unfounded as this at that.
"We anticipated the same from you," Miro responded, noting the obvious. "Seems we were in the right to do so."
Noon had barely passed. The afternoon breeze had yet to set in, the severed threats from which the Lawmakers had once hanged sitting still in the air, and already, we were at one another's throats, daring such a sight to pass once more. I expected such behavior from Riu, but I'd been hoping that Miro would be conscientious enough of giving themselves the moral high ground to avoid reciprocating the apparent eagerness for conflict.
"Point is," I interrupted, eager to set things back on track lest a petty dispute become something far more volatile and uncontrollable by me. "You have two, we have two; we're even here."
Miro was silent for a moment, before turning to look at Halaor, giving a nod of the head.
"You sure?" the man asked.
"I'm sure," was the response of the affirmative, resulting in Halaor doing nothing more than giving us a final glance before turning away, and leaving the scene.
The hell?
"Consider it an act of good faith."
I knew what Riu saw. Likely the selfsame thing I did, albeit with more of an inclination to act on it–an opportunity, Miro alone. A glance from me was all it took for him to be reminded of the stupidity of such a move. The odds were just as good Miro was counting on it, willing to act a martyr. No. That wouldn't make sense. So what was this? A gamble?
"I don't suppose you expect me to get rid of mine as well?" Riu asked, at the very least not having gone for his blade. Needless to say, such a prospect did not excite me, of being forced to leave, but at the very least, Miro seemed to be well aware of who it was between us that had allowed this meeting to happen, and who would doubtlessly be needed to see it through. I only wish there had been a degree more subtlety.
"I wouldn't count on it. It's him I expect to do most of the talking with."
A glare shot towards me from the direction of Riu.
What? I wanted to protest, but of course remained silent. Wasn't me who said it!
The gaze, thankfully, did not linger, its bearer turning his attention rather back to Miro, who seemed to be making it an aim to get us off our feet. With what aim? Ensure this deal doesn't go through, that war ignites, or perhaps incite us to do something stupid like attack only for an army of hidden Rats to tear us to pieces with more than just cause to do so?
"Well then," started Riu. "You start."
I couldn't tell if Miro was disappointed, but I suspected not. Miro was smarter than that, didn't desire conflict, despite what the last few moments may have indicated. I detected anger more than anything else. A rat was dead, by our hands, and there was no reason we should have been expecting pleasantries. Compared to the knife shoved in our throat that we could have expected without the lingering unspoken rules of a bygone age, anything was preferable.
"You killed one of our people," Miro started.
"You attacked one of our safehouses. What did you expect? A gift basket?"
"We all know the drill here," Riu. "Been fighting this war for a few years now, and we've known where to draw the line. Beatings, harassment, that's to be expected, but you killed one of ours."
"There's been death before, Miro," Riu said. "I figure we should all be at least a little bit used to it by now, no?" He wasn't making things better.
"And we've handled things like adults before." Though, in all fairness to Riu, calling another a child wasn't the best peacekeeping strategy either.
I had to step in before he noticed the insult, or at the very least, before he could respond.
"What are you proposing, Miro?" I asked, my mind drifting to what was on the line–Bee, having already gone through hell by the Rats, only for there to be the chance that it could all come to an end now with her death. Or we lie, say it was Fluke. It was a sick notion, but it was there. I don't know if they'd believe it, hell, if they'd even noticed Fluke was there. There was no way of knowing what they knew or what they didn't. We had to play our hand close to our chest, not over-extend, not over-bluff. "You saying we should just hand you one of our own, let your guys slit his throat?"
"Her throat," Miro corrected. Damnit. "Match saw it was Bee who did it, so don't try pawning Fluke off on us." So they knew about that too. My periphery caught the subtle shift of Riu's posture. There had gone Plan A, getting rid of the life he hadn't wanted around in the first place.
"So that's what you want? For us to hand you Bee? After everything your people have already done?" I should have limited myself more. I know Miro would have caught it, and perhaps so would Riu. Why should he care? He ditched her the moment the Rats had their way with her. Why should he care that somebody gave a half a shit more than he had?
"It is what's customary."
"Oh, go fuck yourself," said Riu. My attention turned to him. Sympathy, care for the woman he'd once considered his? No, I knew him better than that. He did not prove me wrong. "Like hell we're killing one of our own just because your people lost their gamble." Pride. Giving in to the demands of another based off of some arbitrary system put in place by a gang he'd ridden the slums of, or thought he had at least.
"It's the blood of one, or the blood of many more, Riu. Can your people really take a war right now?"
"Better than you can."
I had to step in, and soon. "Neither of us want war." I wasn't sure who I was addressing more, but I kept my eyes on Miro, perhaps just for fear of Riu thinking it was truly him I addressed. "An actual bloody war, past robberies, beatings, arson, we'd both be done in. We go to war, and that's it. Dozens of dead on either side."
"Or," Miro started.
Or?
"Or we compromise?"
"Compromise how?" Riu asked.
"My people want blood. One of theirs is dead, and they want vengeance. Your people want food, want supplies. I say neither of us go home with what we want. No further blood is shed, and in exchange, we get what it was that was in your stash house that Shaalin got killed over. And don't try and cheat us. We know exactly what was inside."
How did they-
"You want our food?" Riu asked, seemingly appalled.
"And the water."
What was there to think about? We had our out? It was everything I could do to not break out an idiotic grin. Nobody more had to die. So why the hell hadn't Riu outright agreed yet? Why the hell was he quiet?
Oh don't fucking tell me…
Riu turned to look at me, then back to Miro. "We'll have to discuss this."
"Take all the time you need."
No! I wanted to scream. What the hell was there to discuss? We had the chance to save one of our own, why would we not act on it? Take the chance to save one of our own?
Miro was enjoying this. I fucking knew it! This was the plan all along? No, no of course not. We wouldn't play into Miro's hand. Riu, damnit. Think!
"We need that food," he had told me, Miro having stepped away to allow us to partake in a conversation that should not have been happening. Couldn't have been happening. There was no way. There was no way that this was actually a discussion that needed to be had, making a choice between some lousy food and one of our own.
"Bee is one of our own, Riu." As though I had to remind him. As though that was the key factor that would change his mind, myself stupid enough to believe that when Mahin's blood was still wet.
"And we need that food."
"Riu!"
"Winter's coming, Danev, and all you tell me is that we're low on supplies. That your entire reason not to wage a war, yeah?"
"We stockpile food so our people don't starve. We avoid waging a war so our people don't get killed. If we just end up giving them up anyway, then that's kinda beyond the fucking point, Riu!"
I shouldn't have been talking so loud. With all that Miro knew already, I certainly didn't need to add to the list. Bee, Fluke, what supplies we had, how?
"We give up what little food we have, we'll lose more than just Bee."
"Riu…" This wasn't happening. It couldn't have been. He wasn't putting another Hornet's life on my conscience. He couldn't be. "This is Bee we're talking about." Why had I thought it would accomplish anything. His mind had been made up the moment he'd heard what Bee's life was being scaled to. Just then, he'd decided which had been worth more.
I don't know which decision Miro had been hoping we'd make, but something told me the supplies was worth more than blood so far as the mind behind the Rats was concerned. That, we had in common. It was as Miro had said. Neither of us would get what we want, all except Riu perhaps. There was something about it…something about him, that told me the decision had been easier than it should have been.
I'd made a promise to Bee, after everything that had happened with the Rats when Fluke had decided to expose to the slums who and what she was, that I wouldn't let anything like that happen to her again. The world had left her behind, including the Hornets, and I was a firm believer that we were only as strong as our weakest link, so I did whatever the hell I could to make it the strongest we had.
And I hadn't been disappointed. Even now, served a death sentence, I couldn't begin to understand how it was that her legs didn't crumple beneath her, how it was that she found the strength to look Riu in the eyes, and spit.
Spirits, how I wish I had her strength. How I wish I could look ahead after being told upon returning home, "You have to die," and still find the strength to stand tall. How I wish she could have too, just for a while longer, just long enough to leave and put the Hive behind her, so that I wouldn't need to see it all crack.
The Hive's courtyard was empty. We'd made sure of that. It was only Riu and I, alongside Meeko and Aden, who were present to observe the momentary bout of strength she'd mustered finally collapse along with herself. "No," she tried to say, behind shaking breaths that still belonged to a Hornet, refusing to let go of it, refusing to believe her death had just been assured. "No, no, you're kidding. You didn't. You fucking didn'-"
"I did"
"You fucking piece of shit!" Any other day, she would have lunged, but what little strength was left had gone to her voice. It was all she had left, even as tears formed around her eyes, the one redeeming quality of her face that years past had been reduced to a broken shadow of what once had been a decent enough looker by Taisho standards. "Why?!" she begged. "What for? I was just defending myself. I was just defending us! I was fighting for us! What the fuck do you do?" Sacrifice our own.
"Protect our own," Riu answered.
"I am your own!"
"Not anymore."
She knew what awaited her. The moment she was back out on the streets, without our protection, she knew that the final act of the hell she'd endured years past would finally come into fruition, and there would be no label of gang affiliation to spare her life. She turned to me, her lifeline, the same one she'd clung to before, that had gotten her out of this mess, ensured that when evening came, she was still one of us, still a Hornet, still alive.
If only I could still make that guarantee.
"You have to go, Bee," was all I could say, all I had to say. I could protest, I could persuade, but the decision I had made, and I knew what I was. I knew it when I had helped Riu slit the throats of his own gang in their sleep, stringing their bodies from the wall. I knew it when I killed Mahin just two weeks ago. And I knew it now as I watched Bee disappear into the winding alleys of Taisho.
She would be dead by evening, I knew. And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Blood had been called for, and blood would be delivered.
"Get word out to the others," I told Aden and Meeko. "Let them know she's not to be helped, and for spirits' sake, stick together, and don't start anything. We don't need any more blood."
They nodded, and left. We all had people we were loyal to, people whose whims we followed, regardless of how we felt, regardless of what we knew to be right or wrong.
Except for Riu. I didn't know whose whims he answered to save his own. Perhaps that rendered him a follower just the same as us, a victim too, driven by a single will, to keep the dream alive, to keep the Hornets alive, even if it would be atop a pile of his own dead. He turned to leave without a word. I wouldn't know what it was that had truly gone behind his decision to kill Bee. Was she just another, like Fluke, who'd been on borrowed time, albeit for years longer, having overstayed her welcome since she was nearly killed by the Rats. Was that what it was to Riu? An eventuality waiting to happen and it finally had? I couldn't believe that. I couldn't believe that after everything, it was something so pragmatic, something so simple.
I couldn't claim to know what he believed, how he felt, only how I did.
The worst part was that I understood, in part.
I understood that we had given her up in exchange for a week's worth of reserve food, two at most if we strictly rationed. But part of what Riu had said had not been a lie. Many more than just Bee would die if we weren't ready for the winter to come.
At the end of it all, nothing had changed. The same rules of the past still applied: blood for blood. Bee would die, and the debt would be paid, but I wouldn't let the Rats have their satisfaction. I pondered the blade in my pocket, and I knew I wouldn't let them finish what they'd started. I'd sworn after Mahin I would keep my hands dry of the blood of my own, and today, I would break that oaf, but it would be a mercy. There wouldn't be fear, she wouldn't see it coming. The world would go black, and that would be the end of it all. After everything, after failing to protect her like I'd sworn I would, it was the very least I could do.
I'm sorry, Bee.
I broke my promise.