Alone, Rhea sat in the kitchen with a mug of coffee. She had less than a week to pay Rusakov eight thousand dollars. Sawyer's friend was coming to get his car tomorrow. She had about another thousand taped behind the toilet seat in her bathroom, but she still had to figure out how to get the extra three thousand.
As she headed towards the shop—a path lit mostly by streetlights—she saw a few scavengers darting down the street, taking the tires off parked cars and rummaging through dumpsters.
She turned down another street and came upon her shop. The garage door was busted open, and the Land Rover was gone, along with all her tools and spare parts. Empty shelves and bare tables stood around the space like it was the first day she entered it.
Rhea turned and ran to the red-light district, where she sprinted to Canyon Jack and busted through the locked door with a furious kick.
"Sawyer!" she screamed, looking around the empty shop. She saw a device on the door that set off a silent alarm. She crossed her arms and took a seat on the counter while she waited for him. The police wouldn't respond to such a call.
She walked around the shop kicking the counters and trying to ignore the temptation to grab one of the guns from off the walls. She started rummaging through things in the back room, where a TV and couch were set up. With anger boiling her insides and the direction of that anger pointed at Sawyer, she felt no respect for his personal space and wanted to break something of his. The back room had modern Peshawar rugs hanging on the walls and a colored painting on the ceiling of a face with eyes that seemed to follow you.
A picture on a table beside a couch caught her attention, and she drifted towards it, examining the two smiling boys in the frame. One was a younger Sawyer, unmistakable with the stark white skin and hair. There was no scar roping around his throat. The boy beside him looked a few years older. He—unlike Sawyer's washed-out appearance—was beaming with dark brown hair washing over hazel eyes and smooth tan skin that complimented his charming facial structure. They stood in front of a large rock, the older boys' arm around Sawyer, both smiling wide. She flipped the photograph over where there was writing: Sawyer (11) and Ethan (14), Grand Canyon. She set the picture down and left the room.
Finally, Sawyer made it to the shop with a Glock in his hand wearing sweatpants and sandals. He held his back to the wall beside the open door getting ready to cock the gun when Rhea yelled: "It's me, you idiot!"
"Jesus Rhea, what the hell are you doing here?" he said, relaxing a little as he came into the shop and slipped the gun into the waistband of his sweatpants.
"The car's gone!" she shouted, remembering the reason for her visit.
"What?"
"The car that I've been working on for your friend! It's gone!"
"Shit. That asshole must've taken it."
"Where the hell is my money?" she screamed, grabbing Sawyer by the shirt.
"I don't have it. I didn't make him pay upfront, and I didn't think about it when I took him to the shop."
"Of course you didn't! Where did he go? He must still be in the city."
"Like I would know. I barely knew the guy."
"You said he was your friend!"
"He was more of a semi-frequent customer."
Rhea punched him in the face with enough force to leave a nasty bruise on his white skin. "You're an idiot!" she shouted. "Even I know not to trust anyone here like that. And now I'm screwed! You know I pay up to Rusakov! I'll be dead if I don't have what he demands, and I'll be damned if that fool kills me."
"Well, I hope it works out for you."
"Oh no, you're not done here. You led that thief to my shop; you fucked up my chance of five grand, you're helping me get the money I need."
Sawyer gave an exaggerated groan. "How long until you have to pay him?"
"Three days."
He scratched his head. "There's some guys who need help uptown that could get you a couple hundred—"
"I need eight thousand dollars."
"I owe you five."
"You did owe me five. But now, you owe me eight."
"Fuck that."
"C'mon Sawyer. I've never complained about you taking a piece of my profit, and God knows I need it. I've worked too hard, and I'm not about to let it all go to waste now."
Sawyer rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Just let me think for a minute." After a moment of silence, Rhea yelled at him again, and he grumbled at her before checking the time. "He may still be there."
"Who?"
"Mirek."
"Why are we going to see him?"
"You know by now few know this city better than him. He knows all the meeting rooms, all the safehouses, and all the jobs. Even those not printed on posters. We want intel; we go to him, and hopefully, he won't charge us for it. Money is not his primary motive."
The two left the shop and headed towards The Scabs, the district home for torture, back-alley abortions, suicides, and cleaners. The closer they got to the district, the thinner the crowds became. There was a corps marking the entrance of the special little hell of the city, slumped against a lamppost, bones in her neck sticking out at jagged angles. Judging by the decomposition, the woman had been sitting there for almost a month, the vile smell causing those passing by to get away from the horrible death. The buildings were left to decay, weeds taking over, and those creeping in the alleys watched the two on the open street. Limp bodies of overdoses were curled within tents, and a few dealers were searching for addicts with offers of dope and clean needles. The cars on the side of the roads were completely taken apart, only the skeletons left. The Hara-Kiri passed through with a larger body count and blood stains than Sockeye.
Rhea stayed close to Sawyer. She could feel eyes on her, and it made her skin itch. The powerlines had been torn down, no light to illuminate the haunting dark, though the dark tracing signs suggested at some point there was real life flowing through the streets. A dead neon cross hung against a large degrading structure: Temple of Believers. She thought of the skeleton she had found at the motel and tried not to tremble.
The building did not strike Rhea as a sacred temple, resembling a disheveled apartment building with a dead café on the ground floor covered by a straining blue awning. It looked like a place that may have once held people of faith. Attempts to find something more significant than life, but a city like Samadoya slaughtered any hope left in the believers, as seen by the insults of calligraphy:
Things die, but they don't always stay dead
Men who fear demons see demons everywhere
God is the pain of the fear of death
They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more
A part of her wanted to enter the building. The more she thought about it, the people of this city that surfaced as crazies may know more than anyone else.
There was a rustle of movement and jerked their heads towards the gloomy alleyway. Rhea's instincts pulled her away from the alley, where a man came crawling out of the dark with skin falling off his face and a needle gripped in his hand. Rhea fell to her feet, and Sawyer tried to pull the Glock from his waistband, but his clumsy movements and smack of surprise led to a fumble with the decomposing homeless, the needle centimeters from his eye as he fought against a surprising amount of strength. Rhea got to her feet and shot a boot to the man's head which knocked him off Sawyer, who got a chance to grab his Glock and fire a round through the man's abdomen. He fell to his knees, and Sawyer pressed the barrel of the gun to his forehead. His face was caked with pain and horror, and Rhea figured people like that are better off dead.
They wandered the place for half an hour, and they were about to head back to the store when they came to a street where Mirek was sitting on top of a decapitated body. In one of his hands was the head, and in the other was a pair of pliers he had jammed in the mouth. He was talking to himself, muttering in Khmer in an argumentized tone. When he looked up and saw the two approaching, some reality set behind his eyes, and he pulled himself out of his diseased mind.
"The hell you guys doing here?" he asked.
"We need a job. One that will get us at least eight thousand dollars," said Sawyer trying not to look at the head. He knew when Mirek was on a job, and he sometimes liked to bring his prizes where no one would bother him.
Mirek laughed. "You fuck up, Red?" he looked at Rhea.
"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, trying to look away from the body.
Mirek smiled. "Trying to get this guy's molars out."
"Why?"
"He's got expensive ones made of rare metal. They're supposed to be easy to get out, but—" Mirek tore the masseter muscle, and the jaw came off. Sawyer muttered swears, and Rhea sheltered her eyes.
"Do you know of a job or not?" Sawyer asked.
"One second…" Mirek gave a yank, the brief noise of the tooth being ripped out of the gums, and he held up a pair of teeth-shaped rhodium. He tossed the head aside and put the teeth in his pocket before standing up. "I got a job in mind. Twelve grand, dollars, but I want a cut of it."
"You already have the teeth. Why do you need this too?" asked Rhea.
"Like I'd miss out on the fun," he grinned. "There's a pirate that came in a few days ago known as Ceto. I don't know why she's here, but she's looking for some hired dogs to do some work for her here in the city."
"Do you know where she is?" Sawyer asked. Mirek nodded, and they followed him towards the marina.