Chapter 9
Isen disappeared as soon as Prig announced the work was done. I watched him go, though part of me wanted to run after him. He hadn't spoken a word to me or to anyone since calling me a stupid little girl. The insult burned, regardless of how true it was, stinging worse than the gouged flesh on my cheek. I would have hated anyone calling me such, but from Isen… I wanted him to see me as more. I wanted him to see me as a woman.
I didn't know how long I had before my interview with the overseer, but I knew it would roll around sooner than I'd like, and the cut on my face needed tending to. It had stopped bleeding, though it still hurt like a fire burning away at my cheek. Josef always tended to my wounds as I did his, so with that thought in mind, I ignored the other scabs and stormed away to our cavern.
Josef wasn't waiting for me when I arrived and that started a niggling feeling worming its way through my gut. He almost always finished his work before my team. It wasn't unheard of for him to finish later, but… Sometimes I get a feeling. It's like dread and sorrow mixed into one. I knew something bad had happened, I could feel it in my bones, and it scared me.
Hardt arrived shortly after I did, a few of the others in tow. Thinking back, I honestly can't even remember their names. Not a one of them. I'm sure Hardt could though. He probably considered them friends. I wonder if it hurt him when I murdered them all.
"I suppose we better have a look at that cheek," Hardt said in his quiet rumble. In moments he had a bowl of water and strips of cloth in hand. Maybe it was more than moments. I was so worried about Josef I wasn't thinking clearly. I was pacing, hands clenching and unclenching, breath coming fast and ragged.
As Hardt set to cleaning out the wound, I kept my eyes locked on the cavern entrance, waiting for Josef to appear.
"Sorry about my brother," Hardt said. "He had no right to say that to you just for standing up to Prig."
I snorted. "Then why did he?"
"Pride," said Hardt. "He's a man grown and you're just about half his size. You standing up to Prig like that when he won't, when none of us will… It shames him. Makes him feel less of a man. He wasn't really angry at you, more at himself."
I winced at the pain in my cheek. "But you're not?" I asked. "Not ashamed for letting Prig beat your brother like that? Not ashamed for acting like a fucking coward?"
Hardt paused. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him staring at me, though his eyes looked unfocused. "There's no shame in surviving," he said. "Prig's a shit-chewer and no mistake, but I don't hurt people anymore. Besides, what would standing up to him get me? You might be safe from real reprisal, little soldier, but me... I could kill Prig. Deko would hear of it soon enough, and then I'd be dead and Isen would be alone. And you'd get a new foreman, one who might be even worse than Prig.
"My dad used to tell me to pick my fights carefully," Hardt continued. "Then he'd punch me about as hard as a grown man can punch a boy and tell me all over again. I spent a good few years taking any fight I could. And spent a good few years learning the lesson he was trying to teach me, in his own way. Now I have."
I thought about his words. On the surface they sounded like cowardice to me, though I now know there was something to them. Unfortunately, it's a lesson I seem incapable of learning. I've never been able to pick my fights. I let them pick me, and then I beat the odds. Or maybe I've just never met a fight I wasn't willing to take.
I was still mulling over Hardt's wisdom when Josef stumbled in through the cavern entrance. I was on my feet in a moment, regardless of whether Hardt had finished cleaning my wound. Josef was cradling his left arm and one eye was swollen shut. A dozen little cuts marred his face and his rags were stained red in places.
"Don't fight," Josef said urgently, shaking his head at me as I ran over to support him.
Prig sauntered into the cavern a few steps behind, that same shit-eating grin all over his face. It didn't take a leap of logic to see how Josef had ended up so badly beaten. My anger raged. My hatred was a fire inside of me, burning away all reason. I have been known to let my anger get the better of me and this was one of those times.
Josef grabbed my arm with his one good one and shook his head at me. "Don't..."
I didn't listen.
Shrugging free of Josef's grip, I ran at Prig and threw a punch. It was a messy haymaker of a strike. These days I'd be embarrassed by such an attack, but back then I didn't know how to fight. I thought my rage would see me through. That my ferocity would overcome any lack of training or brute strength. I was so fucking wrong.
Prig caught my punch, twisted my arm behind my back and shoved me up against the nearest wall. I just about managed to turn my head in time to stop the impact from breaking my nose. Unfortunately, I turned my head to the right and Prig ground my wounded left cheek against the cavern wall. Pain is something one can get used to, and I thought I had, but an open wound pressed against rough stone taught me otherwise and I let out a scream.
"Any of you scabs so much as move my way and I'll put my knife in her and then in you!" Prig roared. He was pressed up close against me, so close I could feel the heat coming off him and feel his breath on my neck. He pushed me harder against the wall and twisted my arm a little further. I'm ashamed to say I squealed from the pain. I think he enjoyed that most of all.
I considered grabbing for my little shard of mirror, but with one arm twisted behind my back I had no way of reaching it.
This is why, in all my life, I have never hated anyone so much as I did Prig. No one else has ever made me feel so helpless. Not even the torturers down in the Red Cells. Not even the emperor with all his fucking knives.
A punch to the kidney is a dangerous thing. It's a vital organ and one that has very little protection when struck from behind. The pain of Prig's punch blotted out the agony in my cheek. My legs collapsed beneath me and I could not even scream. I collapsed against Prig's grip and floundered, lost in the pain. Thought and reason blasted from my mind. Then I was moving, pushed along by the fat bastard, my arm still twisted behind my back.
The caverns and tunnels seemed darker than usual and passed by in a blur. We were on one of the lifts, halfway down to the main cavern floor, when I started thinking again. The pain was all over, as though my body couldn't make sense of what hurt, so everything was agony. I looked down at the cavern floor growing closer and realised how close Prig was holding me to the edge. All he would have to do was let go of my arm and I would fall. It was a strange thing to realise the pain of my arm twisted behind my back was all that was keeping me alive. Strange to think, as much as my shoulder seared with pain, I didn't want Prig to let go. I didn't want to die.
No sooner had the lift bumped to a stop we were moving again. Scabs turned to watch as Prig pushed me onward, my arm still twisted behind my back. None of them helped. Maybe they were too smart to stand up for another scab, or maybe they were just cowards, happy enough to watch someone else in pain as long as they were spared from it. That was the way of the Pit, the way those in charge bred isolation into us all. Nobody was willing to stand up for anyone else in case they found themselves in the same situation. We might have all been in the same shitty, sinking boat, but we were also in it alone.