Page 60 of The Gambler's Prize
I think back. I avoid fights and arguments as much as possible, but some people are hard to get along with, especially when alcohol is involved. Sometimes people took my rich clothes personally. Sometimes they tookmepersonally.
“The bar manager asked you to leave,” Grimes prompts.
He watches me so intently it hurts. I want to look down but I don’t dare, mesmerized like a mouse before a snake. I think I remember the night he’s talking about. I’m usually a happy, huggy and, okay, lascivious drunk. But these Durovians were pissing me off. They wanted to take a “spare” chair from my table even though I told them my friend would be arriving any moment. I might’ve gotten a little loud arguing with them. Bullies piss me off. There were three of them, and they were all bigger than me. But I wasright. And then something really pissed me off. The bar manager took their side. I may haveraised my voice. The bar manager asked me to leave. He was a tall, well-built man with knuckles that obviously knew their way around a fight. He had brown Rhennian skin, long black hair, and strikingly dark eyes.
“My hair was long then,” Grimes says.
Yeah. I’ve done the calculations. Hence the pit of terror opening up in my stomach.
“Youwere the bar manager?” I whisper.
He nods.
Fuck. I remember him now. Except for the shaved hair and a few more lines on his face, he looks the same. He made me leave his bar. I had to go outside, alone. The Durovians followed me. They proceeded to kick my ass so thoroughly I woke up next day in an army hospital. A couple of soldiers from the Rhennian barracks had found me unconscious and brought me back with them. My arm was broken, and I was concussed and covered in bruises. I looked like a days-old peach. Also, I was shaking with rage, some for the Durovians, and an equal amount reserved for the bar manager who sent me out to their mercy. As soon as I was able to walk straight, I went to the authorities and reported the Wagon bar for its numerous misdeeds.
“You made me lose my bar,” Grimes says, his eyes still drinking in every expression that crosses my face. “I was arrested and charged with allowing unregulated gambling, unregulated prize fights and stolen property on my premises, among other things. I was sent to prison for two years.”
His hatred falls into place. I was the reason he went to prison. The reason for that red-smeared tattoo on his neck. The reason he forces himself to cover up every day out of shame.
“I didn’t mean for you to go to prison,” I say, feeling dazed. “I thought… I thought maybe the city guards would show up and scare you a little. That’s all.”
It’s the truth. But it pales into insignificance as my anger rises. He’s the reason I got beaten almost to death. For all he knew, I could’ve died. But on the other hand... two years in that hellhole of a prison. Because of me.
I don’t know what to think, how to feel. The happy faces of fair-goers blur in front of my eyes. They’re stuffing their faces, the few rich patrons dining onkinarbut most eating the cheaper deep-fried vegetable pastries or chicken legs. Children laugh and grab at their parents’ arms to beg for treats. Everything feels like a far-off dream. Grimes and I are stuck in our own personal prison of guilt and blame and anger, stuck over two years in the past where this all started. His eyes hold a mix of rage and worry and confusion. I have no idea how I look, but I think gobsmacked probably covers it.
Grimes clears his throat. “Maybe the guards would’ve just scared me, ordinarily,” he says, and it’s obvious he’s making a huge effort to speak normally. “The problem is, I’d already had three warnings about the criminal activity in my bar.”
“I didn’t mean for you to go to prison,” I say again. I’m not sure why it’s so important to me to get that through to him, but it is. “I was just so angry because of what happened with the Durovians,”
“What happened?” he says, leaning forward.
“They beat the shit out of me. Broke bones, left me covered in bruises and concussed. It took me weeks to recover.”
A shadow crosses his face, obvious even under the hood. “Florian, I never meant for that, I swear.”
It’s my turn to go on the offensive. Talking about the attack always brings it back to the surface of my mind. It doesn’t take much to feel their boots again on the soft flesh of my stomach. Feel my hands pressing into the cold, wet cobblestones as I forced myself not to cry out in case that provoked them more. Smell the agram on their breath as they leaned close to taunt me.
“You made me go outside with them when they were already pissed at me,” I say. “You must’ve known what would happen next.”
His eyes are fixed on the woodgrain of the table, which is bleached almost white and bone-dry by the sun.
“They were friends of mine,” he says. His voice is quiet now. “I thought they would just humble you a little.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
He glances up. “Slap you around. Scare you. I knew them well. They wouldn’t usually hurt someone so badly. You must’ve pissed them off.”
My anger flares red hot. “You’re blaming me? It was my fault?”
He looks surprised, holding up his huge palms, trying to placate. “No, no. I just meant—”
“You thought I deserved a lesson because I’m a spoiled aristocrat. Just because of who I am.”
No answer. Which is an answer in itself. He wanted to get back at me for my birth and arrogance. Just like I wanted to get back at him for kicking me out of his bar, and the beating afterwards. This is a fucking mess. His prison sentence explains why he wanted two years ofmylife in return. There’s a sick kind of logic to it. He was punishing me this whole time. As I cooked him dinner and we ate together, and I thought we were starting to get along. Punishing me the whole time I cared about his stupid boxing gym and pushed my body to the limit digging and digging in the hot sun to help him achieve his dream. I knew he hated me at first, but I was stupid enough to think I’d won him over. And the whole time, he was secretly hating me. I feel slimy under his gaze now. I let this man—no, this calculating, vengefultoad—into bed with me.
Nausea rolls deep in my stomach. Shame at letting him touch me. Most of all, boiling fury. But I get a grim sense of pride from staying cool, my hands steady on the table as I stare him down.Grimes is the one who’s falling apart, his hands shredding and shredding at a napkin as though he can’t control his powerful fighter’s fists anymore.
“You really thought I’d just get a warning?” he says. His eyes have a desperate, hunted look. Like he’s just realized he made a terrible mistake.
