Page 34 of The Sin

I was about a block from the community center, snaking through one of the many narrow alleyways that comprised The Smoke, when I stumbled into a situation. I didn’t know exactly what, just that the wrongness made the hairs on my arms stand up. My feet rooted on the spot, my eyes narrowing as I tried to make out what the hell was going on with those two men crowding in the doorway.

It wasn’t so much what they were doing, as what they looked like, and the sinister vibe they gave off. They were both dressed in black leather and their hair was just plain weird. The one nearest to me was shorn to the scalp, except for a central strip of straw yellow hair that hung down his back like a horse’s tail. He also wore his leather vest over naked skin, despite the bitter cold.

I needed to get passed them—No, you don’t, a warning voice screamed inside my head.Find another alley.

Just then, yellow stripe lurched backward, and I saw he was dragging another man out from the doorway. That was enough to freak me out. What was worse, the man he had by the scruff of the neck was taller than him, twice as wide, and wasn’t putting up any fight.

Yellow stripe’s friend, a thickly bearded guy with coal black eyes, swung a baseball bat out from somewhere. The steel bat connected the captive man behind the knees. I heard bone crack, or maybe that was just the start of the guttural sound that ripped from the man’s throat as he sagged in yellow stripe’s grip.

My stomach twisted.

Bile lurched into my mouth.

I backpedaled, my gaze frozen on the horror scene, and that’s when baseball guy’s head turned my way and those coal black eyes pierced me.

I yelped and spun about. My only thought was to get away from here, as far and fast as possible.

In my panic, I stumbled, it felt like I’d side-stepped the edge of a cobblestone. I didn’t spare the time to look at what had almost brought me down—it hadn’t, it had cost me a couple of seconds, that was all. I recovered and I raced toward the head of the alley.

I was there.

My fingers caught the corner of the brick building as I flew around it onto the paved road. It only had two stores, a Wicks Wax at one end of the block, and a trading store at the other, but there were at least a dozen shoppers milling about.

I slowed my frantic pace into something resembling a scurry, head down. My breaths were still coming fast and ragged, and I willed myself to breathe, breathe. There were people here, and people meant safety. Even in this place where leather-clad men dragged you from your front door into alleys and cracked your knees. That’s what Roman had said.Stick to places where there are people.

I stepped off the curb, about to cross the road, when an iron-clad brace of fingers gripped my arm. It had happened so quickly. I went from that brief moment of relief to utter terror and shock in the space of a second.

That’s how long it took for me to be dragged back onto the curb and spun about with my back shoved up against a wall.

One second I was thinking,people, I’m safe.

The next, I was staring into a pair of coal black eyes.

A scream worked up my throat. I let it out with, “Let go of me!”

Black eyes sneered, his upper lip lifting to reveal an upper row of silver teeth.

Horror filled me. My gaze darted around wildly. He’d dragged me back to the head of the alley, but I wasn’tinthe alley. Not yet. To my left, a man dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved sweater came into view. He took one look at us, me shoved up against the wall, menacing black eyes breathing down my throat, and crossed the road. To get to the other side, to get away from us instead of helping me.

Everyone gave us a wide berth, avoided looking directly this way, pretending we were invisible.

These people didn’t mean safety.

I wasn’t in Gardens.

“Did you see something you like?” Black eyes said.

“No…”I didn’t see anything.

“No?” he mocked. “You don’t like me? Well, that’s rude.”

The brace of fingers went from my arm to my throat. He wasn’t squeezing, but the threat was implicit. One wrong move, oneanymove, and he would snap off my air supply.

My knees buckled, threatened to buckle out from under me.

“Downright disrespectful,” he went on, never taking his eyes off me. “Wouldn’t you say, Hux?”

I glanced out the corner of my eye, and saw yellow stripe standing there, arms crossed and leaning against the wall.

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