Page 4 of The Only Way Out Is Up

Somi is actually a deft hand with a needle, whether he’s sewing up fabric or flesh. But it still hurts like a motherfucker. I don’t pass out again, but I wish I had.

Afterward he wipes my leg clean and tosses the towel in the slop bucket, then sinks back against the counter with a sigh.

“I’m going to have to wash all this down, you realize,” he says. “And I’m supposed to start in less than an hour.”

“Eh.” I struggle up on my elbows to look at him. “So what if the day’s rolls are a little Taj-flavored?”

“Can you take this seriously for a second?” There’s real fear in his eyes. “You could have died, Taj.”

“Always a possibility when you get stabbed, I hear.”

He glares at me, and I glare back.

Somi insists that he’s my older brother, although truthfully neither one of us knows our exact birthday. We didn’t start out as brothers, either, just two starving kids Fara took pity on. Somi was always bigger than me, though, and got more so as we grew up. Now in his early twenties he’s tall and broad, but as pillowy-soft as one of his own lumps of dough. (Whereas I didn’t so much grow as harden into a wiry string of gristle, all tendons and bone.)

“I got the fucker, if you’re interested,” I tell him.

“I’m not.”

“Plenty of sigils,” I lie. “Should sell for a good price.”

“Taj—”

“You know we need the money,” I snap. “Unless you’re going to start turning those kids away from the back door.”

“Taj!” He straightens up, mouth hardening. “They’ve got nowhere else to go. You want them to starve?”

“I don’t want us to starve. Or get our fingers broken by the Clawmarks.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to hunt Twisted. There are other ways of making money.”

“I don’t think I’d make as much selling my ass in a back alley.” I look down at myself. “Not enough meat on it. Or were you thinking I should sign up for a workhouse—”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Somi says, practically shouting. “Why can’t you just be a little—”

“A little what?”

“Careful,” he growls. “For moon’s sake, Taj, I just want you to be safe. You and Spike are all the family I have.”

I snort and look away. He’ll take the money in the end, the fucking hypocrite. I swing my legs off the table, ignoring a stab of pain, and manage to get down without collapsing or taking Somi’s outstretched hand. Score one for spite, I guess.

My room is a mess of tools and spare parts. About the only clear space is my bed in the corner, and I barely manage to pull my armored coat off before I collapse into it. My thigh hurts like—well, like it’s getting stabbed by a Twisted, but over and over with every heartbeat.

I’m so tired. You’d think falling asleep would be easy. But stab stab stab and each time makes me want to tear open the bandages with my fingernails.

It’s never dark in the Heap. But I papered over the windows in my room long ago to keep out prying eyes, so with the door closed there’s a kind of semi-darkness broken by chinks and seams. By this faint light I spot movement on the floor; a grate lifts, slowly, and from the tunnel below I can see the owlish gleam of Star’s primary optics.

[Query: you are not asleep?]

I wish I was, I send back with a grunt. You’re okay?

[Assessment: I still possess in excess of seventy percent of my limbs. For the moment that is sufficient.]

And you’ve got the sigils?

[Confirmation.] His fine manipulator extends, dropping a sack on the cluttered floor. It’s a lot smaller than I’d like.

How many are there?