Zoo City - By Lauren Beukes Page 0,91

bring up the kettle, but he slams his knee up between my legs. Everything goes white. There is the clunk of metal dropped onto a linoleum floor.

He lets go of my throat and I sag down against the counter, trying to remember how to breathe. He watches impassively before tucking the gun into the back of his jeans, all the better to beat me.

"I don't– I gave–" I manage.

He backhands me. His knuckle splits my cheek open. "You made me look bad. Get up. I said, get up!" Vuyo drags me to my feet.

"I gave you the money!" There is blood in my mouth.

"Did you think I wouldn't fucking notice? Did you forget who you were dealing with?"

"Notice what? Wait–"

Still holding my arm, he punches me in the gut. I fold up around the point of impact, but he won't let me fall to my knees.

"Notice what? That it was counterfeit? Every single fucking blue note!"

"I didn't. It's a set-up, Vuyo. They set me up."

"I am so sick of your mouth," Vuyo says, reaching into the back of his jeans. But he doesn't get to pull the gun, because Sloth drops onto him from the ceiling. Vuyo goes down under a ball of fur and fury. The gun goes skittering across the floor, skidding under the bed. I start to scramble for it, think better of it, and change direction.

Then Sloth screams. I stop dead, a frame-grab of a girl bending down to snatch up a kettle. I close my hand over the handle and turn, very slowly, to see that Vuyo has Sloth's arm wrenched backwards at a terrible angle, his knee between Sloth's shoulders, pressing him into the linoleum. There are deep gouges on Vuyo's face and neck. A chunk of flesh has been torn out of his cheek by sharp little herbivore teeth.

"You can break his arm, Vuyo, but I'll cave your fucking skull in before you can do anything else," I say.

Vuyo considers this. Sloth whimpers and squirms, trying to take the pressure off his arm. Our connection is one-way. I can't feel his pain, but it's bad enough to see it in his face.

"Stalemate," Vuyo says grimly. Blood drips off the end of his nose. The kettle is heavy. It would be so easy to bring it down. So complicated after.

"Or," I say through my teeth, "load saved game."

"What?"

"We reset to where we were before."

"Impossible."

"Who knows? That the money was counterfeit?"

"I do."

"Who else?"

"No one else. Yet." But he is starting to smile, a thin, appreciative smile.

"Two hundred thousand," I offer.

"Four fifty."

"That's insane."

"If you were anyone else, girl, you'd already be dead."

"But I'm an asset."

"You're an asset," he agrees, easing off Sloth's back. Sloth gives a little cry of relief and scrabbles towards me. I scoop him up with one arm, still holding the kettle half raised.

"Get out."

"My gun."

I laugh. "Add it to my fucking bill."

I'm an asset, alright. And as much a moegoe as any of the ones I've netted for him. If Vuyo had really wanted to punish me, all he had to do was shoot Sloth. Hell, chuck him out the window, save himself the bullet. He wouldn't have risked bringing the Undertow down on his head, getting animalled. Now he has me right back where he wanted, with triple the debt.

There is a commotion outside. Doors slamming. Footsteps. A kid scrambles past the door, yelling "iPoyisa! iPoyisa!" – the building's early warning system.

"You called the cops?" Vuyo says, incredulous. His eyes flick to the bed, to the gun under it. He wavers.

"Not me. Whoever left this knife in my drawer. Same people who gave me a suitcase full of fake hundreds."

"When you make enemies, you don't fuck around," Vuyo says, admiringly.

"You want to leave before they get here."

He tips his hand to his forehead. "I'll be in touch," he says, sliding into the chaos of people pouring out like cockroaches: hookers and dealers and skollies making a break for it.

I grab a dishtowel, wrap it round the knife and the china kitten and toss it in my handbag – Odi's insurance policy. But they killed Mrs Luditsky before I even got involved, which means they're setting me up to take the fall for something else. What's worse than stabbing an old lady to death in her home?

I tie Sloth around my waist, like a pregnant belly, yanking one of Benoît's old t-shirts over my dress to disguise the lumpiness. The t-shirt smells of him, man sweat and Zambuk.

I barge out into the