Where Phantoms Walk the Earth

If you stare down at the pavement long enough, sometimes the spots begin to move, like your eyes bring the solid to life. The eyes deliver the world, but they can play tricks too. Rhea began questioning her vision when she stared at the ground from the bridge. The structure hosted a trail of suicide spots that snaked through the city, commonly known as the Hari-Kari bridge. The corpses were usually gone before decay began, snatched by organ harvesters, or ripped apart by wild dogs. Once, the bridge carried trains all over the inhabited parts of the island, a network vital with the birth of civilization; now, a dried-up detail. It sat stunted in the path of progress, rusty train cars housing the homeless, the brick posts serving as crumbling canvas' for graffiti. 

Scavengers dashed across streets while the sun was still down, snooping around parked cars, removing anything they could break off: catalytic converters, car batteries, exhaust systems, airbags, windshield wipers, bumpers, tire rims.

Rhea stiffened as she saw a figure crawling under the belly of a roadster. Sometimes, a careless eye failed to spot the explosives wedged in some of the machines' underbellies; but nothing went off this time as the scavenger crawled out and continued her search down the street.

Dim spotlights from streetlamps glowed on stained cement, puddles splashed by passing wanderers, minds scattered like the city's lights while the dark still had a hold. On the east side of the island was a circular bay that opened to the Pacific. At night, the boats within brought small lights to the dark water, tiny dots of light streaming through the holes of a tattered veil.

At the entrance of the bay was a statue withered with age but vibrant in detail: a demon woman to deter others away from the evil inhabitants. Her nude body was carved into stone, her face covered by a mask with bulging eyes and a tongue dropping from overstuffed fangs till it hit her feet. A wild mane sprawled above her head, and long claws grew from the tips of her bony hands.

Rays began to warm the air and the girl atop the bridge watched the sunrise. She was perched atop the posts above the rails, seventy-five feet above the cement. The illuminating bay granted a warming view while her fingers traced over the lava and howlite beads of the mala around her neck.

Samadoya: the city at the ends of the earth; a hell she had been swallowed into, now eroding in its putrid stomach.

A lanky man gazed up at the girl with his one functioning eye, always thinking her climb to the top would end with her jumping to the concrete. But she never settled on the spot with the intent to end her life. She just liked heights.

"You gonna do it this time?" he shouted at her.

Even from atop the bridge, Rhea could see his shit-eating grin.

A six-foot-eleven Cambodian with a lanky body thin with malnutrition, but what little meat Mirek had on his bones was cold muscle, scars and burns, and bullet wounds disrupting the surface. Refusal to cut his black hair left it running over his shoulders, and a bandanna was tied over his left eye. He was a pernicious animal with god-like strength behind his gaunt limbs.

"What do you want?" she shouted down to him.

"Delton's having trouble with the car again."

Rhea groaned. "Can it wait?"

"No. He needs it in an hour."

She gave one last glance at the lights before starting to climb down the bridge.

Following Mirek, they went down the street to an alley where a parked 1967 Pontiac GTO sat in the shadows. After Rhea pulled back the tarp and entered the code that disarmed the explosives, she lifted the hood and got to work with tools from the trunk while Mirek stood guard. He lit a cigarette and pressed his shoulder against the building. The burring tobacco lightly illuminated his face at the passing of each bystander: a display of hostility in his icy expression.

As Rhea began diagnostics, she saw the fuel filter was clogged, and she sighed at the vehicle's poor state. 

"You keep wandering up that bridge. You're gonna end up being a target for a sniper. I hear the Pria-Pohon likes to use wandering women as target practice," Mirek grinned over his shoulder. 

"I've never had any trouble," Rhea said as she spat out the flashlight between her teeth. "Besides, the Pria-Pohon likes outer districts where he can hide."

Mirek let out a hiss between his teeth, irked by the girls' cockiness. But she was right. 

After about ten minutes, Mirek was getting anxious.

"You done yet?" he snorted as he finished his second cigarette, stomping on it with his boot. "Got a job with Orin and some of the others."

The bar they stood beside served as a living space on the top two stories. Some of the residents occupying rooms (where Rhea also currently resided), a small organized business operated: Bryde's Whale Delivery Company. Typical jobs involved deliveries reaching outside the city, a rare advantage granted by the possession of a WW2 Elco PT boat belonging to a resident named Orin. He organized all the jobs, employing whoever was fit for whatever role he agreed to take. He never asked Rhea if she had any interest in filling a spot. With no skill in violence or the art of war, she stayed in her place among machines.

A gunshot echoed and Rhea jumped. Mirek perked in interest, beginning to wander off as she finished her work, put the tools back in the trunk, and reactivated the explosives. After she recovered the car, she entered the side door in the alleyway that led to the rooms above. The place used to be a whorehouse until Delton purchased the building and renovated it to his interests.

A poorly constructed staircase opened to a living room smelling of coffee and cigarettes. The furniture was torn and dented and the matted shag carpet stuck to bare feet. A coffee table spread magazines and ashtrays. A window on the opposite wall was cracked open where a small bamboo windchime danced gently. A wobbly fan vibrated on the cracked ceiling, blades spinning at a rapid pace that could take a head off.

Coming out of a closet-sized space used as the kitchen was a short man with bright green hair and eyes to match. Orin Salah had a face covered in piercings and rings set on every finger. Short height and a blocky figure suggested he was not easy to knock over. Born in Kazakhstan before he took to raiding the seas. He was nicknamed 'The Elocution Pirate' for his ability as a polyglot.

He looked at Rhea as she came up the stairs. "Working on the car again?" Her arms were coated in dense grease. 

She nodded. "It's not going to last much longer."

"It wasn't working at all until you came along. I'll never forget the look on Delton's face when he heard his old Pontiac roar with life again."

Laughs from the bar came up through the floorboards. Sometimes the laughter excelled into screaming, but Rhea knew that Delton could handle it. Shortly after arriving in the city, she watched one evening when a fight broke out, and one of his chairs was broken. After Delton split up the two men, he dragged them both out to the street and planted an LRN [1]in the thigh of each of them. 

Orin sat on the couch with a mug of coffee, and Rhea got herself a cup and took a seat on a stained grey cushion on the wood floor. Rhea let her mug cool, glancing at the magazines sprawled on the table: The Economist, Gatra, Forbes, Yazhou Zhoukan, The Spektator, Richardson; issues from over several years. Orin grabbed a Forbes issue and put his bare feet up on the table.

The sound of the door below opening, and creaking steps introduced a lean, pale man with wild blonde hair. He wore a white dress shirt with a thin black tie and a large black tattoo of a magpie spread across the front of his neck. He had a bloodless complexion with a swallow gaze. The box in his hand brought concern to Orin's eyes.

"What's in the box, Alton?" Orin's voice catching a tone used between an adult and a child in trouble.

"…Tovex," Alton sighed.

"You know the rules," said Orin.

"I'm moving it after the job," said the blonde with a nonchalant cast of the hand as he headed down the hall. 

Alton was best known for his demolition work that sometimes got him out of control. One time he caused an explosion in the bar when messing around with picric acid. Delton nearly kicked him out, had he not been able to pay for the damages. Since then, he was not supposed to be within five hundred feet of Sockeye if he had any explosive agents on him. 

"Don't blow this place up again!" Mirek shouted as he stomped up the staircase. 

"It'll be gone as soon as we get back," Alton called as he returned from his room. 

Upon his return, Orin began to discuss the details of the job. "Keith isn't here yet, but I'll fill you two in right now." No one took notice of Rhea as she sat at the end of the couch, her eyes fixed on the window while her ears adsorbed the explanations from Orin's mouth:

An information broker had constructed a detailed profile specifying the import and export of every type of prophet-striking goods traveling through the Banda and Arafura seas. This included Samadoya ports. Materiel to be snatched ranged from fresh produce to sex slaves. Containing such detailed information about hidden ports like Samadoya had many buyers. The report was rare, but if buyers wished to use this information to attack a city like Samadoya, they could not be average pirates. Many people they would be stealing from were titans with power that reached beyond the city. However, a buyer had accepted the challenge, hailing from Hong Kong, gangster rivals wishing to demolish the powers luring along the island.

These facts pierced no holes in the men's composure as Orin explained the job, showing the disc containing the information before they rose and began to prepare for their delivery to Basilan.

While the men continued their briefing, Rhea finished her coffee, dropped her mug in the dish-crammed sink, and headed upstairs to wash off the oil clinging to her skin.

Upstairs, she entered a small room that could barely fit a full mattress atop the wood floor under a dirty window. There was a cramped bathroom with chipped floor tiles that cut her feet, and a cracked mirror distorted her reflection. 

The building's water pressure wavered, and there was no hot water, making showering a chilling experience that Rhea did not like to endure for long. She banged on the showerhead and tried untwisting it, but water still only trickled from the pipe. She cursed the poor functions of the building. She always felt dirty now. No shower could wash away the filth she continued to collect. It was buried inside her, where water and soap couldn't reach. She turned off the water, trying to dry herself with a permanently damp towel.

She patted down her brown skin and whipped the water away from her freckle-spotted face. She tried to manage the curly amber hair that sprung out of her scalp, fingers moving from the curls to her face, through the spots to the pale scar running from her nose to her lip—the residue of a cleft lip. Burning ember eyes popped against the contrast of her brown face where exhaustion was visible.

It was still early but now was when people often returned from their nights of entropy. After changing into her denim overalls and using a bandana to tie back some of her curls, Rhea left her room, running into a striking man with bright red hair. The right side of his head was shaved and a black tribal tattoo curved around his skull. He was mellow and empathetic, possessing very few sinister bones in his body despite his edgy appearance. His breath always reeked of alcohol, the one thing he loved more than his work with computers.

"Rhea!" he exclaimed, "How are you this morning, my dear?" he grinned as he stumbled up the stairs.

"Sober, unlike you," she smirked at Keith's wobbly figure. 

"Sounds horribly boring."

"Aren't you helping out with the job today?"

"Oh yeah, forgot about that. Guess my nap will have to wait." He patted her head before opening his door and falling into his room, long legs sticking out the door.

She glanced over his unconscious body. "Okay…well, have fun."

Rhea was heading for her shop when she passed the Garza twins at the front of the bar. The boy, Pedro, was a handsome young man who loved anything loud. His parallel, Sade, was quieter than her brother and much more graceful. She was a master of swordplay, a katana tied at her hip.

"Sawyer's got something for you," said Pedro as they passed Rhea. She stopped to ask him to explain further, but he and Sade were already heading down the street and around the corner before she could open her mouth.

She walked under the Hara-Kiri and turned a corner where a fresh crime scene had sprouted. Police lights flashed and useless yellow tape lined the perimeter. The men in blue walked across the stage of red-splattered cement and broken glass. The bodies had not yet been moved.

The blue men possessed no real ascendancy. They were the intel collectors for the real authorities. They jotted notes and collected evidence from those with spilled blood. Rhea walked quickly to avoid unwanted attention from the men, who would try to arrest her if she didn't offer them a bribe.

The sky began to glow with colors of yellow and orange. Artificial beams began to dissipate, windows opened, and Rhea began to pick up her pace with the increase of people streaming onto the streets. 

Sawyer Nordrum owned a gun shop in the red-light district below a strip club and a steakhouse. His guns were only the surface of his products. Behind the walls of ammunition and firearms were dealings in international trades. He could find rare flora for medicine, cocoa from Africa, coffee from Guatemala, fake passports and W16 engines, Russian sable furs, hardware from mainframe computers, night vision goggles; his connections reached so far that over the years, he had achieved acknowledgment in the black market on an international level. 

The man was an albino with thick white hair and red eyes. The tops of his consistently bare feet were tattooed with black bats, and a thin red scar roped around his neck, the effects of the injury presenting themselves in his hoarse voice. He was friendly with the big names, and his desired importations landed him many levels of protection on him and his shop; a glorified middleman in the eyes of many.

A message above the door shined against the dark brick walls:

Find Everything At Canyon Jack! All You Need To Do Is Ask!

A massive mural of warm colors curved around the walls where guns were mounted. On the ceiling was a massive blue face with round glasses and tear-soaked eyes that closely watched customers. The counters were made of bulletproof glass, much of it cracked and dented from the violence that liked to erupt within his store. A 20-gallon aquarium was against the back wall where angelfish, red-tailed black shark, and lionhead cichlid swam in murky water.

As she entered the shop, a bell on the door rang, and Sawyer walked in from the back room. "Rhea! Pedro deliver my message?" he asked in his grating voice.

"A brief one."

"I got another job for you. Repairs on a Land Rover Freelander." 

"How much?"

"He's willing to pay in dollars. Six grand."

"What does he need to be fixed for that much?"

"New tires, headlights busted, cylinders misfire, and he said it overheats. The car could barely start. We had to push it into the shop."

"Don't let people in there! Otherwise, I'll take my key back."

"No, you won't. Rusakov gets say on who has access to the shop." 

"Which is complete bullshit since I'm the only one that uses it."

"He wants to make sure you're not hiding anything."

Irvin Rusakov was an authoritative arms dealer and the person currently chaining Rhea to Samadoya.

"Well, thanks for babysitting me," she hissed.

"No need to get sinister," he chuckled. "The man pays me well. You can understand that. Anyway, I told my guy you could have it up and running in a week or two. I've seen you fix worse, and it's not like you have a lot else to do." 

Rhea made her way to the old building that had been cleared for her use. I FIX YOUR SHIT flickered, broken in the top corner. There was a side door rusted shut and a large garage door with foggy windows spread across the building's perimeter. The street was an uncommonly quiet one, with more animal life than human. It made business difficult and she leaned on Sawyer to help with work. He advertised mechanic business, taking customers' broken stuff, and sending it to her for repairs. But when promoting her work, he would deliberately leave out Rhea's name and the fact that her services were not far from his shop. He took ten percent of profits for repairs he brought in. 

When she entered her dingy space, she saw the car sitting there waiting for her. The paint was scraped off, and one of the tires was flat, and there were dents along the sides. Headlights were busted, and cracks in the back windshield. She would need to order parts from Sawyer and buy supplies from shops in the market. All the added expense drove prophets down to numbers she didn't like.

She started with the tires, grabbing from the stacks of them in dozens of sizes (many she had stolen), and quickly found ones that fit the car. After that, she lifted the hood and looked at the 2.5 L V6 engine. With a scan, she saw the ignition coils were defective, and the fuel delivery system was malfunctioning, likely the cause of the cylinder's two misfires. When she turned the key, the engine didn't start, and after getting a better look, she noticed a defective fuel pump, along with a faulty radiator cap, which was likely the cause of the overheating.

Rhea adored the art of their repairs. It was a logical and dependable approach to problems. Every piece had to be in the right place for everything to work, and the puzzle of piecing things together brought flowing, pleasant thoughts through her skull. When dealing with anyone in Samadoya, there were no rules or laws to abide by. The pieces didn't fit right; no one was in sync. It was a convoluted mess of jagged parts flung together, achieving nothing except being a dangerous clutter.

There was an assortment of animal life on the island that sometimes kept her company. Much had been cleared away as the city expanded, but there was still thick vegetation on the island's westward side. Animals originating from the frigid human expansion were the madcap dogs and cats that lingered in alleyways and stole food. But wildlife that called the island home before the humans still lingered. Some animals ventured into the new environment, many in search of food as their resources dwindled. Macaque swung on lampposts, jumping from building to building. Some watched in entertainment and others enjoyed shooting them out of the air. Asian palm civets and collared mongoose ran through the streets as they attempted to adapt to their changing environment. Some species had yet to leave their foliage home, rumors of large-tusked babirusa and Komodo dragons looming where human feet did not tread.

With the garage door open, it offered shade from the growing heat, and a black macaque trotted into the space, jumping onto one of the tables, gazing at Rhea with attentive eyes.

"Here to watch me work?" she said to the monkey. It tilted its head at her. She smiled and turned back to the engine. Sometimes skinny cats lingered in and would spread their bodies over the tables where she laid tools and blueprints, and there was a civet with the tip of his tail cut off who was a constant wanderer of the quiet street and paid frequent visits on sweltering days. 

As the day persisted, Rhea collected more dirt and oil while her mind worked through the machine, lost in its small components until Sade stopped by with a message.

"Rusakov wants to see you by the end of the day," she said. She wore black that covered her skin from her neck to the laced boots at her knees. Rhea was surprised she didn't cave under the heat. "Do you want me to walk you there?"

"That's okay. I'm just going to finish up here. I know how to get to Mahkota from here."

When Sade left Rhea's mind started racing with an increased pace of her heart. She didn't know why Rusakov wanted to see her and could not prepare for whatever it was he wanted now. She had no idea how his mind worked, but he was not the most rational of beings from what little she knew. A growing tumor of fear began to swell in her chest. As much as she hated it, the arms trafficker held her fate in his hands like a ball of string for him to stretch and tangle as he pleased. 

Mahkota was a branch of the downtown area and was the only place that didn't look like a dump. Extravagant restaurants, dazzling hotels, and towering buildings reaching heights nowhere else on the island. Where the smartest, most dangerous, and most sinister lurked. Though it looked beautiful on the outside, buried not far beneath the surface were beastly crimes carried out with sullied intent.

Rhea could no longer focus on the Land Rover and locked the shop's doors to confront and hopefully overcome what inescapableness lay ahead.

Though she told Sade she knew how to get to Rusakov's building, she found herself unable to pinpoint her direction after she got to Koon Street. She was caught twice by random dead ends that turned her around, and with frustration began stomping her feet towards the tallest buildings in hopes of finding a road that made sense.

It was getting dark again. Rhea walked along the sidewalk, more buildings looking strange, when she heard a voice behind her: "You all alone out here?"

After nearly jumping out of her skin, Rhea turned to see Mirek towering over her—not much relief despite the familiar face.

Mirek let out a low chuckle. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to get to Rusakov's office."

"You're going the wrong way. His building is that way," he pointed at the intersection towards the right. "You're headed to the cartel's building."

Rhea sighed and turned towards the building Mirek had pointed to.

"Why are you going to Irvin's?" asked the Cambodian as he began to follow.

"Sade said he wanted to see me."

"You think you're in trouble?"

"I don't know. Why? Do you think I'm in trouble?"

"Well, if he wanted to see you, he must want something. Probably nothing good."

"Don't make me more nervous than I already am."

"He got a new shipment of MP44s; maybe he's gonna test 'em out on you."

"Will you fuck off?" Rhea growled. Mirek laughed.

He continued to follow if only to be obnoxious. Rhea wanted to protest, but she knew she would likely not arrive at Rusakov's until midnight with no help. Mirek knew the streets as well as the natives, and he could navigate them with ease despite the fog in his mind. Rhea began to notice it more when she paid attention, like now, as she sped her pace to keep up with his long strides. Watching over his shoulder, she noticed the little jerks he made with his head, itching at his ears where his brain was messing with his perception. His hands sometimes began to twist as though there was a rope in his fingers. She got nervous when she saw him falling into himself, delusion taking hold of his reality. But he kept himself hinged enough to function, and she continued to use him as a guide.

They passed an abandoned building lit by streetlights where the lack of human activity had allowed green chlorophyll life to take over. Leaves and vines oozed out broken windows on every building level, the vegetation too much to be contained. Slight rustling caught Rhea's eyes, and if she stayed and looked hard enough, she would have seen the people in ghillie suits gazing through scopes.

A streetlamp had attracted a horrifyingly large atlas moth, its massive wings flapping around the bulb. A whizz passed Rhea's head, and the insect fluttered to the ground.

"Keep moving," Mirek hissed, and Rhea moved her legs as fast as she could to clear the view of the sniper.

On the outer districts, vegetation wove into the human-made constructions. Rainbow eucalyptus, Narra, Melati, and teak trees sprouted in unexpected spots. The strangest flora resided in The Scabs, where vines and roots took back some of their lands. Titan arum, moth orchid, nipa palm, and stinking corpse lily all found ways to grow and prosper where humans had become few.

"If you keep getting lost out here, you may become lost for good," said Mirek after he redirected Rhea again following Rusakov's building.

"Why is everything here so bizarre?" she said in a stomp. "Roads are strange. They start and stop suddenly, lead to dead ends, or loop around randomly to other districts. Nothing here is organized, and I hate it."

"All the power that comes from here is wasted energy. Everyone fights for or about things that don't matter."

"It's an awful place."

"You learn to love it if you live long enough. Though you may deteriorate before you can come to."

"You know, your English is quite good for a no-name illiterate."

"Fuck you. Don't look down on me. I know more than you think, despite what people say."

"I don't look down on you. No one can 'look down' on you. I was just curious how a man with no educational upbringing, who can't write or read, could master the spoken aspect of a foreign language at such a degree. Where did you learn English?"

"It would drift into my ears some in my buried years." Rhea had heard him mentioning his 'buried years' before. What was left of his early memories? "My ears work much better than my eye. I don't trust it. I know I am looking through a deformed lens, but my ears are clean of obstructions. When I made it here to Samadoya, English was spoken on the streets, so I'd listen. Now, I can pick up anything. I can listen to any conversation within earshot, and when you listen a lot, you can learn a lot." 

"Have you ever tried to learn how to read?"

"Not really."

"I don't know Khmer script, but your English is good enough. I could show you a little—"

"No thanks. I've looked at script before. It messes with my head too much. As I said, I can't trust my eye. Besides, what could I get from crap like the stories you read?"

"So much! Even when it's fiction, I don't know that anything has taught me as much as novels have. They're rooted in truth about humanity. You watch characters grow and develop, watch them struggle and suffer, overcome, and conquer, and it's like they become real. There's one I read after I lost my mother; a novel called Bluebeard. It's from the perspective of a World War 2 veteran and abstract artist. He spills a heartbreaking yet hilarious story filled with loss and trauma, vulnerability, and healing. It taught me it's never too late to start getting better."

Mirek's nose scrunched at the ardent words, unable to see stories through the provocative lens Rhea spoke of. "Didn't learn enough to keep you out of here, though. Only rot ends up here."

"I guess so. I'm a nobody now. Like you."

"It's fun to be a nobody. Move through the world unseen, and you'll see more of it. When it comes to mystic mortality or being remembered, pull your perspective back. Everything will be gone one day. Eventually, no one will remember you and the universe will drift into a freeze that will end everything."

Again, Rhea was intrigued by his selected knowledge. He presented little know-how on international history or the workings of nations across the globe. He was very unplugged from the reality she once knew, but then he would throw in a comment relating to anatomy or chemistry that made her assume he had some teacher or mentor.

"But you can't forget things in the past," she said. "It still exists in memory."

"Our minds change things. It's a flawed system."

"We remember our experiences, though, even if details are altered. They help us learn and develop our sense of self."

Mirek spat at the response. "I don't care about developing my sense of self. I already know who I am. I've always known. There is no higher purpose for meat, despite our ability to compensate big questions."

"Over the recent years, I have come to develop a curiosity about religion and belief. I think there's more power there than I have previously assumed." 

"Religion is foolish. Like the concept of a soul. Stupid. What energy we have is drained upon death. The sources that keep your organs pumping dissipate, but they leave behind everything that makes up who we are to waste away and rot with the corpse. I've seen death up close, and I can say with certainty that there is nothing that rises from it. When one heart starts beating, another stops, and those that cease do not extend into some new existence." 

"What about reincarnation?"

"What about it?"

Rhea shrugged. "I don't know. What do you think about it?"

"I hope it's not true. It sounds much too exhausting to have to keep going through life over and over and over. When I come to an end, I don't want to start it all again."

"I didn't use to believe in it, but I've been prevented with some contemplative evidence: I was in Kampong Cham—found a job on a rice farm repairing a four-wheel plow—and there was a blind man I met in town. He was a chess master. Not that I'm much of a contestant, but still, he would wipe the floor with me; take me out in less than ten moves. I learned Khmer by listening to his stories. He told me about a young girl who lived in Germany with a talent for painting and hawking. He would describe these beautiful images, streaks of color creating the lovely scenery of her German home. His descriptions were so vivid; I felt I was there, looking into this girl's home with canvases of medieval castles and detailed markets along the Moselle River. This man, born blind, who had never been beyond Cambodia's borders, created images of a world he should not know about. I asked him: 'How do you know the colors of the rainbow and the lands of Germany? How is it you see the world with eyes that don't work?' 'It's memory,' he said. 'One I've had for a long time.' He said he remembered his mother, Christa, his massive Sarabi dog named Hunter, and a red-tailed hawk named Arthur. 

"My father followed Hinduism, but nothing was forced upon me as to what to believe, but I found myself unsatisfied with the belief of a God or higher power. I can resonate with your laughter at the concept of a soul, and once, I thought something like reincarnation—a recycled life—was something made up to cope with death. But now, I question everything. I don't know what to believe, but I know the old man wasn't lying. And don't think I haven't seen death too."

"We all do at some point."

They arrived at the foot of Rusakov's building, and Mirek turned to go.

"If I don't see you back at the bar later, I'll assume he killed you." With a laugh over the shoulder, the towering man turned the corner, and Rhea stood alone to confront her fate.

She stiffened even more, entering the dim building, and making her way up to the top floor where Rusakov's spacious office was. That was where she woke up when she first arrived in Samadoya: frightened and bound, laying on his mahogany wood floors with Mirek's boot pressed into her back and the barrel of an M1911 pointed at her head. She hadn't felt terror like that in a long time, and she dreaded the resurfacing of it as she was waved with a metal detector and passed the guards to the office. 

The dark space was vacant, and Rhea took a seat on the stool in front of the extensive desk. She sat with her spine perching her shoulders as high as she could muster before the door opened, Rusakov bellowed in, and she felt her composure begin to crumble. 

"Hello, Rhea," he said in deep Russian-accented English.

"You wanted to see me?" 

He looked at her and flashed a yellow-toothed smile as he took his seat. He wore a thick sable fur coat woven with vulture feathers that made him look like a huddled necromancer, an attempt to hide the hunch on his back. But he still looked lopsided, his neck lowering where his right shoulder raised, his steps trying to sink with his uneven form. His dark hair was tied atop his head, and a black goatee grew around his chapped lips. He had a face radiating years of violence, faded scars, and an old burn that spread around the bottom of his chin. Silver rings ran along both his thick eyebrows.

"You look tense. Would you like a drink?" he asked, taking out a bottle of rum.

"No, thank you." 

He smiled as he filled his glass. "You've been here almost three months. How do you like my lovely city?" he asked, lips twisting into a grin that made Rhea want to punch in his yellow teeth. 

"It's a real delight," she said with a flat tone.

Rusakov's grin stretched wider. "Well, it must be nice for you to have somewhere to sleep. You were homeless in Kampot, weren't you? You little thief." A hiss whispered through his teeth.

Anger knotted Rhea's face. "I'm not a thief. I just…borrowed things from time to time that others could spare. How was I supposed to know that hardware shop belonged to someone like you?"

"I don't blame you for trying to survive. When I was your age, I didn't have a direction to follow either, just trying to get by. But with no direction to go, you can end up anywhere."

"If you understand, then why have you forced me into an indentured servitude under threat of my life?"

"I have empathy, not sympathy."

"Did you call me here just to chat?"

"You could try a little harder to keep the venom out of your voice, dear. No need to get your feathers ruffled." Rhea shot another glare at him. "Anyway, I wanted, since you speak Khmer, to step in as my mediator for a meeting I have with some clients next week."

"You can't ask someone else? Like Mirek?"

Rusakov laughed. "You think that man could function as a mediator?"

"I suppose I could do that. I might be a little rusty..." Using Rhea gave the benefit he would not have to pay a professional. And he could show off the stream of confidence on the hold he had over her. "Is that all?" she asked as she started to get up.

"No." Her heart sank as she sat back down. Rusakov leaned back. "Why so eager to leave? Are you that frightened of me?"

"Hard not to be afraid of my kidnapper."

"Kidnapper?" he laughed again. "I believe Mirek is the man that brought you here. You'd be right to be afraid of him. An animal is all he is now."

"You're an animal."

"Don't compare me to filth like him!"

Rhea smirked.

"Since you've been here, I haven't received even a fraction of what you owe me from the following months," he said, diverting the conversation back to his control. "Equivalence of six thousand dollars every eight weeks. That's your sentence. I don't care how you get it. If you want to work as a repairwoman, be my guest. But if it doesn't bring in some more cash, you can consider my mercy on you revoked."

Rhea's nails dug into her palms. "I know I haven't delivered what you expected, but if you give me a little more time…it's not easy to get work in this city. I can get you six thousand dollars by the end of the week." The pity in her voice entered her ears, self-disgust coursing through her, and Rusakov could see that disgust blazing behind her eyes in a fire he admired.

Rusakov took a minute, pretending to think. "I want that eight thousand by the end of the month."

Rhea felt herself choke on her protest, and all she could do was nod. Rusakov nodded at her to leave, and she stomped out the door.

When she made it onto the street, she kicked a trashcan with enough force to cripple her toes. She repeated the motion three times, unable to stop the violence coursing through her limbs. By the third kick, she had broken three of her toes on her left foot.

When she was a child, self-harm was Rhea's method of dealing with her emotions. The behavior first began after losing her mother, gone at a young age to leave behind a girl who didn't know how to understand death. Blades didn't interest her much. She liked to break her bones, and at one time or another, she had broken all her fingers on both hands, seven of her toes, and obtained at separate times a base and shaft metacarpal fracture in her right hand.

She moved onto the street sidewalk with sprouting pains beneath her boot, and with each step, her toes moaned. With that, her pulse began to settle some as the pain became her main focus. She would slowly push on her broken toes as she walked, feeling the breaks beneath the skin. She felt relief as she retraced her steps through Mahkota.