4 C 1

It's been over a week since I've been dumped in this remote nook and today I've found out there would be a supply run organised into the nearest city. This would save me a lot of walking. Hobbling, really – I was much better, but still on a crutch. However, as nice and peaceful this place seemed, I was on borrowed time. I did not know when the demon would amble back in nor what his nefarious plans for me would be. I wanted nothing to do with best of anyone's unwelcome intentions - and the creature's mere presence froze blood straight in my veins.

After observing which car they were loading with goods to trade – it unsurprisingly turned out to be van - I limped in and hid under the stacks. Might have been a mistake. The produce was heavy and the road - long and bumpy.

As they began unloading the sacks, I heard monotonous voice say, "If you want to leave, leave. Nobody was stopping you."

Didn't as much as flinch. This had to be a trick. I was too far back for anyone to have seen me yet. Another heavy bag was hefted out and steps receded into distance. Voices spoke some ways away. I risked glancing out the wide open doors. There were multiple buildings outside.

"I know you're there," heard Priest's dispassionate voice again, right before he showed up from behind the corner to handle another sack without as much as glancing up at me. He didn't care.

Fine. Fuck's sake.

I carefully climbed out and crossed my arms. Should I say anything? Or just shamble away as fast as I could whilst I could?

Another mean looking guy from Priest's posse was supervising unloading with a rifle. City guards took no chances either. As relaxed as Priest appeared, exchange of high valued goods sported a chance to go iffy at any time. Hungry denizens, exiled bandits, militia ordered to appropriate the food for common good – you name it, it's happened.

"Take care," utterly disinterested man bid me farewell. I turned towards speaker and a pear flew at my chest. "I'll pass the goodbye to the kid from you," he added to get me moving, but making me feel like crap had the opposite effect.

"Wait," I called out to him and the man stopped, staring at me with those expressionless eyes. I've never gotten a chance to talk to this person again, but this I really burned to know, "Can you die? If you wanted to."

His stare bore into my soul for subjective twenty minutes and an objective several seconds. So I suppose I had no right to ask or know. If I could I would have taken the words back. Priest's lips thinned but eventually he said, "Anything can die."

"Had he..." How does one ask a potential victim of unimaginable suffering if he'd been through it? By now it was easy to assume words the monster had uttered weren't idle threats. Dismissed that inquiry. "Will you be in trouble for letting me go?"

Priest shook his head, "There were no other instructions."

I exhaled pure confusion. At least it sounded like I was never in any supernatural trouble. The otherworldly thing just helped me, out of goodness of his heart. Yeah, unlikely. Great time to bolt.

I shambled closer in while grinning to pat disgruntled person on the side and said, "Well, anyway. Thank you!"

I turned away to check the haul in my fist. A hardcandy and car key. This will not be of use. "Hey, you," I called back and when the detached man looked over his shoulder, I lobbed the key his way and hobbled off as though I stood actual chance of running away. However, odds were in my favour. Nobody wanted altercations under so many hollow eyes of riffles.

Neither my theft nor the abduction of my very much looked for crutch went unmentioned. The immobilising splints couldn't have been cheap either, on top of the medicine. Nothing rotted off, although I was sure some wounds were well on their way there. Perhaps I could obtain some valuables and pass them along later? Clearly devil worshippers come by here to trade every now and then.

I reached the manned gates and had to do long and tedious entry process. Since I didn't possess official papers of any kind, I rattled off information of one of my affluent clients. Not contact information, god forbid. Just something I've glimpsed in the man's wallet unsupervised. Old databases had collapsed for the most part, electronics couldn't be spared for each little whim. Documentation was iffy at best.

I should have just looked for holes in the decrepit buildings at the perimeter further out to avoid all this hassle, but didn't want to strain my barely able body. The process considerably shortened after I'd noticed clerk eyeing the pear, which I'd relinquished into the care of state.

I wasn't entirely surprised to find myself in same city I started out at. It was the biggest hub in the region and there was definitely safety in numbers. Small towns disappeared off the map at an alarming rate, whilst big ones remained. Population in those boomed due to orders of mandatory evacuation. However, coercion ended up being unnecessary. Most people voluntarily abandoned their livelihood for shabby shelter away from the newly untamed wilderness.

Double amount of people crammed into same or even smaller plot of land, as the lavish suburbs have suffered the fate of the surrounding villages and ended up on the other side of the fence. Buildings grew taller to accommodate everyone, not that everyone was lucky enough to get a room. There were slums, surrounding the bastion of civilisation on all sides. Nobody who had a choice wanted to be anywhere near the outer wall. In other words, home sweet home.

It took a fair bit of effort and time to reach familiar neighbourhood. Sun was already setting and I was thirsty, hungry and exhausted. So, the usual.

Pushed on the peeling blue door and hobbled in. The stillness told me the most others were already out working, legally or otherwise, so I turned for the stairs towards my room. Hobbling up those final steps left me quivering and completely wiped out. Knowing finish line was so close made me feel all the hurts anew and at maximum intensity. Opened my room's door to find... a bare mattress. I sighed, and fell face first into it anyway. Rest now, find out later. At least it still had this much.

The later didn't want to wait, "Who keeps leaving the doors open? Were you born on the bus?"

I replied without energy to move, "I might have?" It was an ongoing joke among us, most of whom were orphans. Glad some things didn't change, even if buses were a thing of past.

"Oh. My. God. Ruby!" a girl shouted with all her might and I swear flakes fell off the ceiling. "Ruby hurry up and get your ass in here! Now!"

The happy hops soon landed on the mattress besides me and I could not contain joy, either. Sure, jostling hurt but that was some distant and irrelevant sensation. Clasped my dear friend and saw tears rolling down her face, too. Finally, I was home. Squeezed her to me tighter.

"Where have you been, we worried so much!" the ball of energy kept clamouring too loud.

"So much you threw out all my stuff?" I grouched. "Rude."

Even more impudently, knife bearing man barged into the room just to stop and stand perfectly still. Right until he slumped backwards into a jamb as though legs gave up on being there and offering support.

Amber paid no attention to the convoluted process of fainting, all her attention was concentrated on injustice I've suffered. Her nose crinkled as she shared the gossip, "That's Peach, you know how jealous of you she is."

"Oh, that bitch!"

"I know, right!" Amber was as outraged as me as we delved deeper into the blather.

Red-haired man finally regained use of his extremities and fell into a hug, too. Sans the knife, I was happy to notice.

Redhead muttered, "I have some of it, but I didn't know what was yours. We will get all the rest later."

We giggled and caught up a little more until Ruby's dimpled cheeks lost their lustre all of a sudden, leaving a screaming letter R to stand out all alone and angry. It ruined his pretty face, but that wasn't the worst of it. The meaning, the reason behind it always made me angry. About as much as he'd seemed to be now. Without any trace of previous mirth and full of intent to force the answer if he had to, knife wielding man demanded, "What happened?"

I sighed and forced an embarrassed blush and averted the eyes, "I got lost."

"River," Ruby insisted.

"You know the farm with all those tasty zucchini patches? Yumm. So anyway, they're reaaally overgrown this time of year. And the corn..."

"Rivis."

"Drop it," I said in a serious tone too. I couldn't withstand his burning insistence, not for long anyway. I hoped my best friend would read between the lines too.

"Who did this to you?" he asked calmly, clutching the handle of the hidden knife behind his back.

This would not be dropped.

He did know everything else. And I knew everything there was to know about him. The good, the bad, the ugly, the absolutely atrocious. I didn't want him to get hurt. This guy had no self-preservation. And no sense.

Redhead's steely eyes were unblinkingly fixed onto mine. The discomfort was caustic, even though it should be like second nature to me by now. Mostly because I knew the intensity would not diminish for days and days – I've tried vexing him with silence before. After all I've been through this should feel more like a mother's embrace. It didn't. I was far too tired to do this dance now.

"You've said the bald guy with rings was bad news," I whispered, looking at the putrid floorboards.

"You didn't!" Amber's light brown eyes gaped in surprise and Ruby's turned into a scowl. He knew the man first-hand. My best friend attracted bad apples like an ever-growing pile of rot. And I knew for a fact it was on purpose. It wasn't his fault or choice, but he used it to the fullest to let the rest of us dodge that bullet whenever possible. I didn't approve.

I rubbed my face and sighed again, "I didn't – but he was there... And frankly I should have known it would be nothing good as soon as they said it's out of town." But it was good money. Would have been. We had mouths to feed.

The two glanced at each other and I read them like bad news in the forecast. "Cherry and Lime went with some people to party out of town," my plumper friend offered.

Dread was chilling me from the inside and I started shuddering. With memories, with foreboding. I gripped Amber's hand and her nails were digging in too. They saw what that place did to me, the bruises were still green and yellow all over. We all had run-ins with bad clients. They knew I shouldn't be here, alive and telling tales, especially after so long.

We all felt it. Our friends weren't coming back. And there was nothing we could do. Militia wouldn't leave the city to look for some dead hookers. They barely cared when one turned up in the middle of street. And it was pointless to go on our own, even if we could. Which we couldn't. I didn't even know where it was.

I grabbed Ruby by the shoulders in my powerlessness, "Why? Why would anyone go there after me?"

"We didn't know," he muttered through his teeth and my powerlessness crystallised into something entirely different.

"Peachy didn't tell you. Of course. And why did I think to trust her. No wonder she was so quick to..." I was prattled on, frantic and enraged. Then fell quiet but my thoughts still swirled.

Fuck!

My desperate anger was completely dwarfed by the immeasurable fury which started brewing within Ruby, replacing all that powerlessness and despair. He looked out for all of us lost souls. He felt responsible, for whatever reason. The R on his cheek might have told everybody he was a rapist – truly ironic for somebody in our profession – but we'd been through some shady circumstances. He'd earned some kind of brand. And now there was somebody at fault.

I knew he'd kill her. And hell, I would be right there beside him.

No no no no. I let the resentfulness grow for just few breaths more and forced myself to take a step back. Grabbed redhead by the wrist, "Even if she's a stuck up bitch who didn't tell you all where I went, she couldn't have done it on purpose." As therapeutic as this could have been, it was a risk.

"It happened and now two more people are as good as dead," wiry redhead stated so coldly it was clear nobody would change his mind. And what he said was true. We were the only people who looked out for us, and she'd stabbed our little family in the back. Even if it was due to sheer stupidity. He was making a very compelling argument for me to keep spiralling.

"Why would she do it on purpose?" Amber uttered and I grabbed her into my arms. She wasn't a creature capable of anger and I loved her dearly for that. It's what finally doused my embers to stillness. I shouldn't let this go too far, for her. And the other not yet ruined kids. We didn't need more misery in our lives, whatever the kind.

Yet, the answers to her question ran through my mind uninvited. For their things, too? Covering her own ass? Absentmindedness? She knows something we don't? Has a deal with them? It just didn't matter. Neither of us grim ones addressed it.

He must have seen the look on my face and uncharacteristically relented. Perhaps due to the actual look of my face rather than the surrender itself. "I am branding her with a K," redhead stated and I sighed. It was a valid compromise. Peach would be known as killer, and somebody somewhere would end up beating her to death for it. It was an imperfectly perfect solution.

"Amber, would you give us a minute?" I asked.

Ruby tried to make a swift – but valid – escape, "No, you two stay here. I need to talk to Star's girls about all of this anyway. And then go work."

I made a mean smile pinning him right to the wall, "Perfect! Amber can pass the story along. You sit back down."

"Yeah, leave it to me! You two need to catch up," brimming with desire to be of use she'd jumped up and shouted from the doorway, "It's so good to have you back."