Serve or die. The motto of failure, the mantra of extortion. Rae felt the twisting of the deal like the twisting of a knife.
The cold metal was oily against her body as she inched her way through the dark, close, tunnel. Upside down since the last bend, her keto-laced breath bounced back to her nose, her desperate eyes reflected back—warped—in the metal sheets. A demonic red glow from her light vial tinged her whole sensorium with dark liminal shadows. Each agonising stretch of limb was met with the grating of edges on her exposed back, each a caress of careless lover. Each made worse, knowing, that they would get another go on the way back.
It would be worth it, to get the antidote, to set her sister—herself—free. Those bastards held her like a knife to the throat, job after job, payment after payment. But this forge they forced her through will be their unmaking: hardening her core, sharpening her wits, tempering her impatience.
Light flickered through a grate ahead, and the pain of the last few meters merged into anticipation. There were no voices, no breathing, just the unpopulated emptiness that sits above silence. Pushing the grate open, Rae wriggled and birthed herself into the room. The cheap carpet beneath her was scratchy, musty, and drank in the small rivulets of blood which ran down her back.
It was here, in the safe on the red wall, behind the painting of the prisoner. Malloy kept enough to cure himself from accidental exposure. Everyone else got a micro dose – enough to keep them sane, healthy, for a week or so, until they topped up. Leverage they call it, the second chance for the working man in the underbelly of the city. Get poisoned with it, get a day to make your choice: serve, or die.
The wood of the painting’s frame was smooth and easily pulled free of its hangers. Behind, a simple metal safe. No keyhole, no dials, just a handle—Malloy was confident here. The handle moved freely, silently, and the safe opened butter smooth.
A sharp pain swept the inside of her fingers from behind the handle. A trap. With agonising certainty, she brought her hand into view. Blood mixed with a sickly yellow fluid: leverage.
Her salvation was before her. Or her sisters. A cruel joke played by a cruel man. She saw it now, the hints, the doors left open in her view, all to set up this moment of understanding.
But all of them misunderstand. She is not here for herself, that was discarded long ago in the alleys and halfway houses, ablated like a shield to keep her sister safe.
No, she would slither and crawl back through the tunnels, would see her sister cured and safe, take the knife oh so carefully sharpened, and would return to give her answer.
Serve or die.
Death would come, but she would not go alone.