Page 23 of They Call Me Blue

“Butchers are responsible for maintaining order in the city. They are our first line of defense against invasion, rebellion, and civil war. Most purples cannot afford surgery—this is not the case with Butchers. They are purple by choice, to better represent the people they protect. Their loyalties lie first and foremost with the lower castes.”

“ D ad?” My voice cracks when I see him all broken and bloody on the gambling hall floor. No one moves to touch him, to help him. He has no friends left.

“Dad.” I fall to the marble tile, in a puddle of his sticky blood. More blood oozes from him, seeping from the exposed muscle at his back. “Who did this to you? Why?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move.

Is he . . . No. He can’t be.

My hands shake as I reach for the pouch of ossi dust knotted to my belt. It’s so much blood. Too much. And no one’s fucking helping.

I fumble with pouch strings, cursing at my clumsy fingers as I pour the dust over my father’s exposed back.

The bleeding ebbs, then it stops. A thin layer of purple skin—so transparent it might as well be glass—stretches and expands over the open wound.

Dad’s eyes snap open, bloodshot and wet like he’s been crying. Fuck. Fuck.

I’ve never seen him cry before. He’s always been the stoic one.

“You’re okay,” I whisper. It’s more to reassure me than him. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Gingerly, I loop my hands around his armpits and lift—wincing when he moans in pain. This mountain of a man is too heavy to move. Too fragile. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with him, how I’m supposed to safely touch him. And everyone keeps fucking staring.

Useless sacks of shit—all of them.

The Butcher who summoned me here steps up to the circle. I don’t recognize her, but that doesn’t mean much. Hunters and Butchers rarely share the same social groups.

“We have a room upstairs,” she says, smoothing down her black apron and matching trousers. Her purple face is a mess of twisted lumps and throbbing veins that I can’t stop staring at. “We can summon a Stitcher if you’d like. It may take a while for them to get here though, given where we are.”

I know there’s an angle; Butchers don’t work for free. Still, what choice do I have?

I nod, and the woman whistles, loud and sharp.

A team of Butchers cut through the crowd—their black aprons appearing from nowhere, shoving past lacy dresses and pleated suits.

Surrounding us, they grab my dad by his ankles and wrists, then hoist him into the air.

His head falls limply back, eyes closed and unmoving.

At the woman’s instructions, the guests clear a path to a servants’ staircase at the back of the room. Hushed whispers echo across the marble walls, but none of those assholes dare look at me as we exit the gambling hall.

The walk takes minutes, but it feels like hours.

The Bronze Isle is known for its luxury, but the upstairs is austere and plain.

Bamboo floors and bamboo walls. Kerosene lanterns that swing overhead.

The woman leads us down a hallway with three doors and opens the very last one, ushering us into a sparsely furnished, dimly lit bedroom.

With a sweep of the hand, she commands her lackeys to set Dad down, rolling him onto his stomach on a mattress barely large enough to accommodate him.

The sheets, the air, it all smells like mothballs here, like no one’s visited in a long time. It’s windowless and quiet and sets my teeth on edge.

“Wait here,” the woman says. She walks to a dusty wooden desk—the only furniture besides the bed—and pulls out a rickety wooden stool tucked inside it. Sliding the stool to me, she pats the surface and orders me to sit. “He’ll be alright,” she says. “I’ve seen worse.”

Squeezing my shoulder, she offers me a reassuring smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. Then, she and the other Butchers file out of the room, the door clicking shut behind them.

I collapse onto the wooden stool and grab my dad’s limp hand. Pressing it to my forehead, I sit and wait. The silence stretches, but he doesn’t wake.

As the hours pass, I feel myself drifting, my head lolling against the mattress. I dream of Dad taking me to the forest for the first time, hunting with him and his lover, Korun. I remember the moist grass beneath my feet, the cold rain on my face, the three of us laughing—always laughing.

Then, the memories turn sour.

Korun dies, and Dad refuses to hunt again. Then comes the gambling, the poverty, the growling stomach I could never fill. I don’t realize I’m crying—that I’m awake again—until someone pats me on the back. Wiping my eyes, I look up, expecting a Stitcher. I find Sorso instead.

“The Stitcher will be here soon,” he says by way of explanation.

It’s the first time the Karesai of Butchers has ever spoken to me directly.

His voice is deeper than I thought it would be, and his breath reeks of soury metal and rancid meat.

Like the rest of his caste, Sorso dresses in an unassuming black apron and matching slacks.

“She’s in the washroom right now preparing some elves for transplant. ”

“I can’t afford a transplant,” I say.

“It’s taken care of.” Sorso waves me off dismissively. The floor creaks as he walks to the bed and leans over my dad, examining his shiny skin and fatty muscle. “Did my purples tell you who did this?”

I shake my head.

“Morcai owed Azerin a substantial amount of money.”

It takes a moment for the implication to hit—Azerin only sends one person to collect.

“He wouldn’t.” But my voice comes out hoarse, unsure. The two of them have always hated one another.

“He would .” Sorso sits on the edge of the mattress, nearly crushing my father in the process.

Dad doesn’t notice. He doesn’t even flinch.

Face-to-face, the Karesai of Butchers stares into my eyes as if to show me there’s no deception hiding there.

“Lyrick is a monster just like the Hunter who trained him. I could tell you things about him . . . things the Grand Overseer has worked hard to bury.”

I turn away from him. I don’t want to hear this, nor do I want to believe that my best friend—the boy who fed me when I was dying on the streets—would do this to my father. “Why are you here, Sorso? Surely, it’s not out of the kindness of your heart.”

He chuckles. “Of course not. I don’t believe in charity.

” Sorso smiles at me in a way that makes the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

“Your father has been looking for a way to legally kill Lyrick for years, and I’m going to provide one.

The question is, are you going to help me, or are you going to stand in my way? ”