We Leave Together, стр. 35

“Me?” said Djoss, “No. Rachel ran off with my cutlery. We sold it all.”

“Right,” said Jona, darkly. “Tell me that again. Show me those teeth, like a rowdy dog.”

Djoss pulled a long dagger from his boot and tossed it at Jona’s feet.

Jona nodded. “I’ll give it to you when you leave. I’m no thief, and this is for your own good.”

Jona took everything sharp from the room. Djoss watched from the middle of the floor. The shaving razors and the toothpicks and the glass all got piled outside the door. Djoss watched the pile grow. He blushed, but he said nothing.

When the door closed, and the tub was pumped full of cold water, Djoss ducked underneath the surface and held his breath as long as he could. When he couldn’t breathe anymore he tried to stay down, beneath the surface. His lungs blossomed with burning. His heartbeat quickened.

He came up for air, and Jona was there. The door was open behind him.

“Trying to drown, huh?” he said.

“No,” said Djoss, “Just trying to get clean. You must have really been rich to get a fountain in all the rooms.”

“My dad lost it all in the war, with his neck. We’re lucky just to have the house,” said Jona. “There’s only a couple rooms where the pumps still work, anyhow. Rachel loves you and I don’t. I think you’re too far gone for anybody. Want me to just give you a few coins and leave you in a hookah den for a while? I would do that, if it was best for Rachel. Is that what’s best for Rachel?”

Djoss said nothing.

“What’s best for Rachel?” said Jona. “Me? I don’t care if you walk away and fade away into whatever burns you up.”

Djoss spoke softly. “She wants to stay with me not you,” he said. “I want to do better for her. I can stop if we get out of town, get away from the stuff for good.”

Jona squinted. “Is that what’s best for her?”

Djoss shrugged. “Only the Gods know, and they’d probably argue about it.”

“Right,” said Jona. “Erin, Imam, Senta koans like Rachel’s spells, and the Nameless dancing in the dark with demons. Not a one has anything to do with you or me or Rachel. We’re just doing our best. Sucking on a hookah is a dead man’s game, Djoss. Once you start, you’re a dead man walking bleeding out slowly. The water in the tub is stained pink from you bleeding out.”

Djoss creased his eyebrows. Then, after a deep breath, “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “May I please bathe in peace?”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Jona. “You’re a giant to her. The way she describes you it’s some kind of giant. Look at you, now.”

Jona shook his head and stepped out into the hall. He waited, and wondered if he shouldn’t just throw a bunch of money at him and kick him out into the street. He wondered if Rachel would stay if he did that.

He just wanted Rachel to stay.

***

When Djoss got out of the bath and dressed in his same, dirty clothes, Jona led Djoss downstairs, to the basement. Between the empty buckets and empty boxes and ruined remains of all the things that weren’t worth selling, two stone columns rose up from the floor. Chains with heavy iron clasps lay rusty on the floor. They seemed to be more rust than metal now, sitting in the mud.

“These used to be my da’s before he died,” said Jona. “You know how it is with some of us. It touches us all a little different. Night terrors. I don’t think Rachel has them. I’m lucky I don’t have to sleep, so I don’t really know what it’s like. We had to chain my da down, though. He’d sleepwalk sometimes.”

On the other side of the stone columns, ancient armor, a shield and a nobleman’s mace rested against clay bricks. With all the sweat and blood in the metal from Jona’s father, it could not be sold off safely.

Jona clapped his hands, and rubbed them together industriously. “You know what we gotta do,” he said.

Djoss frowned. “Does Rachel know?”

Jona placed his heavy hand upon Djoss’ back. It was like palming a boulder there was still so much knotted muscle there. “She doesn’t know like I do. You’d gnaw your hands off to get one little puff when the urge comes. I have to chain you by the throat like a dog.”

“I won’t gnaw my hands off.”

“You would,” said Jona. “And you know you would when the hunger strikes real bad in a day or so.”

Jona pushed Djoss forward. Djoss frowned and turned back to throw a punch.

Jona grabbed the fist in the air and placed Djoss’ own blade at Djoss’ throat. “I’m trying to help you,” said Jona. “I don’t have to do this. If you’re here, you’re chained. You know the feeling you get when you can’t get enough of it.”

Djoss calmed. He stepped back to the wall. Jona’s knife stayed on Djoss’ throat. “Pick up the chains and latch your neck. I’ve got the padlocks in my pocket.”

Djoss leaned away from the dagger. He picked up the old chains from the mud floor. Each side had half the chain.

“When Da used this damn thing, he’d wear chains on his arms, too. We buried him in those chains. We didn’t know what his body would do. Wizards steal the bones of demons. I’ve seen things built with bones. Horrible stuff. You have no idea what it’s like to be a monster in your own home, to be used like one. You don’t know anything about us.”

Jona attached a padlock to each side of the latch. It fit around Djoss’ neck with an inch to spare. Jona’s father was a large man, before he died.

“What will you do tonight?” said Djoss.

“I don’t sleep,” Jona said, “I never sleep. I was born with wings, but