unconvinced. “This is the third time you’ve handed over less than the agreed-upon amount. Rumor has it you’ve been more interested in playing Robin Hood than making money lately.”
A beat of uncomfortable silence followed her statement. Dorothy placed the king’s scepter back on the table; Mira followed the movement with her eyes.
Dorothy wished this could be solved as easily as handing over the scepter—or any one of the other treasures—as payment. But, priceless though the items were, their actual worth here was very little. No one in New Seattle was flush enough to hand over money for jewels and gold.
Resources had always been slim in New Seattle. After the mega-quake destroyed most of the West Coast, the United States government moved the country’s borders inland, leaving the remains of the devastated cities to save themselves. With all the nation’s wealth consolidated to a dozen or so states at the center of the country, inflation along the coasts skyrocketed.
It cost a couple hundred dollars for a bag of grain large enough to feed one person for one week, a few hundred more for fresh water and a supply of vitamins to prevent someone from getting scurvy. Add to that the fact that most people in New Seattle had no way of making money or growing their own food.
Before Dorothy had arrived, the Cirkus had been a gang of petty thieves. They’d numbered hardly more than thirty members, all children and teenagers, most close to starvation. They’d been like stray dogs, nipping at each other, fighting over scraps.
Dorothy had organized them. She’d taught them simple cons, convinced them to work together. They made hundreds a week stealing from anyone stupid enough to be out on the docks after dark.
At least, they used to make hundreds a week. It was impossible to get a city to trust a gang of thugs when they robbed them blind each night, so Dorothy had urged the Cirkus Freaks to lay off the thefts. Just for a little while.
It had not made her popular. The Freaks liked money, and that was running dry.
“Mac asked me to deliver the message,” Mira said. “He’d like the rest of his money by tomorrow evening.”
Voice toneless, Roman said, “And if we can’t get it?”
Dorothy glanced at him, seeing only the lower half of his face beneath the edge of her hood. There was no possible way for them to get the money by tomorrow evening, but she wouldn’t know it by looking at Roman’s expression. The annoying thing about her partner was that he grew even more cool and collected the angrier he got.
Right now he seemed to be all calm, unworried confidence. But Dorothy noticed that a muscle in his jaw had gone tight. His only tell.
Mira considered him, head tilted. “Mac didn’t say, but I can’t imagine he’d be happy.” She glanced at the broadcasting equipment in the corner, her lip twitching in a way that made Dorothy think she’d been watching from the shadows while Quinn Fox went on air to appeal to the people of New Seattle. “Perhaps he’ll come by your little party and you can speak with him then.”
Something prickled, uncomfortably, in Dorothy. Was that a threat?
The Cirkus Freaks were strong, but Mac was stronger. He made real money off his disgusting whorehouses, and that allowed him to procure certain things from the Center.
Firearms, for one thing. And bullets. The idea of going to war with him chilled Dorothy to her core.
Mira turned, and then she was out the door and gone.
“Well,” Roman said. “That ruins everything.”
8
Ash
Ash wasn’t entirely sure how he made it back home. One moment he’d been hunched over the bar, staring into the dwindling remains of his drink, and the next he was hauling himself through the window of the old schoolhouse, the taste of something sour clinging to his tongue.
Beer, he realized, grimacing. Lots of it. He didn’t remember ordering, or drinking, a third (a fourth?). But he must’ve. He could taste it.
He stumbled down the hall, propping an arm against the wall to steady himself as he kicked off his boots.
Another step, and he stubbed his toe on a free weight that Willis had left in the middle of the floor. He swore and hopped around on one foot.
There was a sound, a shuffling of movement, and then Zora’s voice calling, “Ash? That you?”
Ash lowered his injured foot back to the floor, cringing. He smelled coffee. Which meant she’d been waiting up for him. It must be later than