Page 85 of Heartless Heathens

“I don’t lie to my brother, Romi. That would be wrong.” He winked and pressed a button on his key.

An alarm sounded off in the distance and he smirked before dropping his arm and pulling me by the hand behind him. The source of the noise was a motorcycle, but not anything I was prepared to encounter.

It was a beautiful, shiny black, and it was full of neat edges and geometrical forms. It left me breathless. I reached out to touch it, realizing I wanted to rub my hand all over its smooth, reflective surface. I wanted to press my face to the chrome and feel it against my skin.

“Why do I want to say it’s sexy?” I asked him and he laughed.

“Because she’s a Ducati, and if you called her anything less, we’d have a problem. This is my best girl.” His nickname for the bike somehow left a bruise in my chest. “So you better treat her good.”

“Will you take your medicine?” I asked, immediately wincing while I waited for an angry response or outburst.

“Yes,” he said, almost too easily.

He pulled out a pill from his pocket like he was used to carrying one on him at all times now and he swallowed it dry with a dramatic bob of his Adam’s apple. He helped me straddle the bike, taking a helmet off of the handlebars and securing it over my head before taking a seat in front of me.

“Wrap your arms around me, you’re gonna wanna hold on, little lamb.”

I did as he said, and suddenly the bike rumbled under me, sending vibrations directly to my heart.

“It’s like the bell,” I shouted over the noise, hoping he could hear me.

“Oh, it’s nothing like it. Hang on okay?” he said, and suddenly the bike jerked forward too suddenly, forcing a scream from my mouth.

He was right.

Thiswas true freedom.

I fought the urge to scream the entire time we rode, but my chest craved the release like nothing else. A smile covered my face from ear to ear and I was glad he was faced the other way so he wouldn’t tease me for it. The vibration of the engine right below me called to something deep inside me, like it was trying to wake me up, remind me of who I was supposed to be.

Because that’s how it felt with them.

Like it was always supposed to be this way, but I’d somehow forgotten.

In that bell tower I spent every day feeling like I was waiting for something. Waiting for my life to start, waiting for someone to hand me my story. With them, I was being handed the pen and being told to write it. With them I wasn’t waiting anymore, I was living.

It seemed like the only place that existed outside of the school was the Court of Miracles and what I’d learned to be the ‘cover’ for it that existed above ground. We’d driven through the city and Corvin had shown me that all of the neighborhoods and all of the houses had been vacated for years.

Most everyone had been moved to the poorhouses that had been restructured to house the workers. I didn’t understand how people could live this way, why no one tried to stand up and fight for more.

“Did you stand up and fight for more?” Corvin asked me, and I looked down to hide my embarrassment. He pulled my chin up and shook his head at me. “When someone has power over others, they will keep those beneath them in a position where they cannot do anything but be grateful with what they have. Those who speak out, those who fight? In the end they have the most to lose. Would you speak out if it cost you your child’s meal for the day? Would you risk that?”

“How does it end?” I asked him, the tears welling up in my eyes and his expression softer than I’d ever seen, softer than I’d expected him to be capable of.

“It doesn’t, not unlesswefight for it,” he said.

“I thought you said those who fight have the most to lose?” I didn’t bother to hide my confusion.

“I have nothing to lose, I’ve already lost it all. So I’ll fight for them so that they don’t have to.” He sounded like a noble knight from a fairytale.

But the reality was, he was a tattooed heathen with at least five knives on his person this very moment, and there was a good chance some of them were stained bloody. Somehow he scared me less than the thought of Father Frollo catching me with the smile that had been plastered on my face that entire ride.

“That’s not true though, is it?” I asked, and he tilted his head curiously.

“You have Felix, and you have Sonny,” I said. “They’d be upset if they lost you.”

“Some things are worth fighting for, regardless of what you lose in the process. My mother taught me that. Anyway little lamb, I just mean that, people like me, people who are in a position to be able to do more, who would suffer less consequences, who have more resources. It should be up to us to shield those who don’t have the same privileges. Even if it feels hard, even if the stakes are high.” He really sounded like some sort of hero, and I wanted to push him further, to ask what made him this way.

“So you’ll shield me?” I asked instead.