20/365

  The news in the Upper West never said anything about just how ugly Lower Olympus had gotten in months. There used to be helicopters hovering above this half of the city, oh-so brave journalists wearing bullet-proof vests and helmets reporting from the foot of the burnt-out shell of a building with homeless people in the shot behind them. It had always felt kinda…wrong to Bianca. Weird, that’s how she liked to put it. Ben always wanted to be a journalist, taking pictures, telling stories, but then he found out he was pretty good at baseball, and the Major Leagues pay a lot more than selling pictures to Olympus News ever will. This was…worse. So much worse. Everything was worse.

  The streets Ruslana led her down, the people they ignored begging for water or food or even plastic bottles they could sell, all the way to the broken, busted-up superhumans sitting on the pavement, hands cupped, faces low and bruised and bleeding, begging for coins. She could tell they were superhumans from their smell. Their blood was sweeter, their bodies leaner, more muscular, even through the trashy clothes draped over their lumpy shoulders.

  The thing inside of her knew things before she even had the time to react to them. A little boy had come sprinting out of an alleyway with a piece of glass wedged between his knuckles, lunging for her pockets. Bianca, or better yet, her body had stepped aside, tripped him up, and knelt on his back before she could even realize what was happening. She’d blinked, and suddenly the kid was calling her every slur and curse she’d ever heard, thrashing and spitting and screaming for her to get off him. She’d startled and pulled back, apologizing so much that she’d almost tripped herself walking backward. Ruslana had grabbed her arm and dragged her away without a word, too.

  And the smells. And the sounds. And the sun needling into the very top of her head. Alleyways stank. People stank. Sometimes craters the size of cars would expose the sewers, stinking up entire blocks. People would scream and suddenly stop after a gunshot. A roar would tear through the sky, and crows would go screeching away as the ground suddenly shuddered and an explosion erupted somewhere far away. Bianca shaded her eyes and looked upward, waiting to see someone come and check what that was. But the Upper West glittered far, far into the distance, almost lost in the clouds across the city. Not a single Cape on their way. And the few that leaped from one building to the next were ugly and mean, and sometimes watched her walk behind Ruslana with these nasty looks on their faces before they vanished again, like they knew something she didn’t but had no intention of sharing.

  Unfriendly, was the word of the day, because that’s what Lower Olympus was—unfriendly.

  Mean, and ugly, and not its fault.

  But unfriendly.

  Not that Greater Olympus was better. People there were mean, but not stab-you-and-spit-on-your-corpse kind of mean. A group of kids were planting flowers on a naked heap in an alleyway, sprinkling gravel onto wounds so black and rotten flies would buzz angrily over their heads as they danced around their new, tiny little rose bush.

  Bianca didn’t want to be here anymore, not at all. She wanted to go home and watch TV.

  Yep, that sounded right. TV. Shower. Cereal. A massive bowl of it, and her mom would get angry because she’d spill some on the couch by accident, then her dad would accidentally do the same with an ice-cold beer, too.

  And they’d all quietly laugh, and it would be better than being here.

  Because even the wind felt aggressive, almost harsh, like needles against her skin.

  “Don’t think too hard about this place,” Ruslana said as they walked. People would eye her and quickly look away, hiding whatever glare they had on their faces before she saw it. “It’s not fun, but you get used to it. Chin up and eyes forward. If anyone thinks you’re not from here, they’ll smell it from a mile away and come for you.”

  “Me?” Bianca asked, trying not to pick the grit from under her nails. “All I’ve got is a pho—”

  Ruslana shot her a hard look. Bianca’s mouth snapped shut. They stopped walking at the entrance to another alleyway, but Bianca couldn’t find it in herself to look in there. Ruslana looked her up and down, taking her time, arms folded and jaw so hard she could cut diamond with it. She was aggressively pretty, but scary. She had scars just under her chin, and a slit in her right eyebrow—a deep pink scar still healing. She slowly shook her head, then started walking again. What the hell was that about? Bianca quickly followed, silent, silent, then she spoke.

  “Why’d you look at me that way?” she asked, spreading her arms. “I know I smell like sweat, but—”

  Again, she stopped. Suddenly. Like a puppet and somebody just jerked her strings. “You’re…nice.”

  Bianca smiled a little. “Oh. Well, thanks. My therapist said I should try being—”

  “Too nice,” Ruslana said quietly. The smile slowly faded off her face. Ru sighed. “Maybe that works where you come from, but not here.” The black cat circled Bianca’s legs, staring up at her. “So drop the smile and focus.”

  “What’s wrong with being nice?”

  “It gets you killed.”

  “Well, Rylee tried to be nice, right? And it didn’t get her killed.”

  “And you’re not her,” she said dryly. They stared at each other for a second. “Your brother was nice, Bianca,” she said quietly, almost clipped. Bianca’s mouth dried a little. “And a lot of people tried to kill him. They got to his friends, and then Lucian got to him. Being nice isn’t a weak spot, it’s a death sentence. People will use it against you down here, and you should know that, because walking around with you feels like I’m putting a target on my back.” Ruslana took a step back, eyes even sharper now. “And I’m not looking to get killed today, either.”

  “I mean, is anyone looking to get killed, ever?” Bianca said, trying a weak smile.

  Ruslana looked at her, face unreadable, eyes glassy and gray.

  Bianca cleared her throat and said, “Got it, I’ll act super mean and tough, happy?”

  “You should take this more seriously.” Again, they started walking.

  “It’s how I cope, or else I start losing my mind.”

  Ru glanced at her. “Can you hear that thing inside of you speak?”

  Bianca shook her head, then thought for a moment. “I can…feel it. It doesn’t say anything to me literally, but it does fill my body with all these weird urges, right? So I always have a pretty good idea of what it’s saying.”

  “And what is it saying right now?”

  “Nothing, it’s pretty quiet.”

  Probably because it keeps screaming in my head about finding a homeless person to tear apart and eat.

  How did Ben ever manage with this thing inside of him? He’d been so young, younger than she was right now by almost five years, but she guessed she should’ve seen the signs sooner—he’d sit on the porch smoking, staring at birds for so long he wouldn’t even notice she was there until she stole the cigarette out of his mouth. He’d start salivating at the mall, but nowhere near the food court and always in the middle of crowds, his eyes flitting around, like he was searching for something he couldn’t find. The last few months, always the last few months, he must’ve been paranoid, angry—so many things brewing inside of him, that it was almost amazing he didn’t lash out at her when she came knocking on his door, asking if he wanted to play video games with her. He’d crack it open, and she’d see his face in the gap between the doorframe, hair matted with sweat, a nasty black eye, a busted nose, and he’d smile at her and whisper, Maybe tomorrow, sis, and softly close the door again. Her dad thought it was drugs. Her mom tried to get him to talk. All Ben ever did was smile, shrug, and say, Maybe I’m a coke addict now.

  Like this was all a joke. Like she was meant to find it funny when she found him coughing up blood.

  “Good,” Ruslana said. “Then do that for now—be quiet.”

  “Rude,” Bianca muttered. “You worked with Rylee, right? She talks way more than I do.”

  Ruslana remained silent for a second. Slowly, the buildings around them shortened and shortened, until they were so flat they almost didn’t exist. They were in a market now, scattered and messy and loud, with people boiling large pots of God-knows what over trash fires, right beside people with golden pain streaked across their hands, standing on wooden crates, yelling about the Golden Fist, how she was coming back, how we all had to believe. Bianca watched a woman in a bad Olympia costume bawl her eyes out as she gave a sermon on Rylee to a crowd halfway listening and halfway interested in the pot of miscellaneous meat frothing and churning next to her.

  “She did,” Ruslana said softly. They passed a man offering to spray golden paint onto people’s hands, free of charge, just as long as they believed and never stopped. “But not all the time. She was distant, always far away.”

  “But always close enough to feel like you know her,” Bianca continued. Ru faintly nodded.

  Bianca almost couldn't recognize Rylee on all the posters and the murals, fist raised to the sky.

  “Is it a church or something?” Bianca asked her.

  “I guess. Sort of,” Ru said. “But they’re harmless, maybe to their own detriment.”

  Just on cue, the woman weeping over Rylee and her story about how she’d once been saved before some cafe could fall on her was shoved out of the way as someone lunged for the pot of stew. It was painted with a large golden lightning bolt on its side, the paint still so wet it dribbled into the fire below. The woman crashed against the ground, tears still streaking across her cheeks as she gasped for air. The crowd rushed past her, trampling over her. Bianca paused. Ru grabbed her wrist and shook her head. But she was already pushing and shoving through the crowd until she got to the woman, then offered her a hand and a tight smile. She took it, digging her gnarly nails into Bianca’s forearm as she shakily stood up. Bianca straightened her costume, patted her down, then smiled at her.

  “Neat suit,” she said. “My friend has one just like it, but this one’s pretty awesome, too.”

  The woman flushed, looked at the wonky paper lightning bolt on her chest, at the new tears along her bony shoulders, and the seams that keep coming loose, spitting out red threads, then looked at Bianca again. “Thank you,” she breathed, then swallowed. “My daughter made this for me before, um… before the fires, so…”

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  “Well,” Bianca said, trying to get past the lump in her throat, “it fits great.”

  “C’mon,” Ru said, hand on her shoulder. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”

  The woman called after her through the crowd of starving people. “Join the movement! Trust in her!”

  “Trust me!” Bianca shouted back, as Ru kept dragging her away. “I’ve never done anything else!”

  Bianca never knew Lower Olympus had a port, just that the river was a mess and someone on the internet once said it was the reason the fires broke out in the first place. Something to do with a build-up of methane or whatever. She’d been too preoccupied with…other things around that time to pay attention. She couldn’t do anything else except pay attention right now, not when the stench climbed into her mouth and clawed down her throat when she swallowed. Man, it reeks, she thought, and everyone else around here also knew it. Bandanas across faces, rags on noses and mouths, someone wearing a motorcycle helmet and a bunch of kids with Halloween masks on their faces.

  Ru didn’t seem to care how bad it smelt, or how many times Bianca swallowed bile. Her eyes were sharper now, her head turning left and right, looking for something Bianca wasn’t quick enough to find. Sometimes she’d glare into the distance, staring at the filthy waterfront and the loose trail of houseboats bobbing up and down on the gray waters, then keep walking like nothing happened. The houseboats were massive things, but also old and dead and rotting at the hull. She almost wanted to gape at the giant mast heads on each one of them, especially on the biggest one—the one Ru was leading her directly toward, the one with a man standing in front of its metal ramp smoking a stubby cigar, wearing a loose Hawaiian shirt, dog-tags dangling from his neck, and a sleek white rifle wrapped in duct tape leaning against his thigh. He sat on a crate with a baseball hat low on his head, but he looked at everyone who passed with hate. Cold, angry hate that almost made Bianca want to stop, but Ruslana didn’t.

  So she didn’t either, no matter how badly she wanted to right now.

  The closer she got, though, the more she saw of the man’s face. Ugly scars along his cheek. Tufts of blonde hair peaked out from under the hat’s blue brim. More men and women on the houseboat, all of them with guns on their hips, all of them slightly dirty, slightly grungy, with bottles passed between them as flocks of seagulls tried to snatch the cigarettes right out of their hands. Pirates, Lower Olympus has pirates. Sure. And everyone near the dock gave them a massively wide berth. Maybe it was the bullet casings littering the ground. Maybe it was the way they snarled at anyone who got close, or the size of the guns some of them had perched on the houseboats or their hips.

  Bianca had seen a lot of things when she’d gone…missing, that’s what she’ll call it—but not this.

  Nothing like this.

  Ruslana stopped in front of the man with the baseball hat. He took the cigar out of his mouth and looked up at her, head tilted away from the sun, as if the light hurt his face. Bianca stood several feet away, frozen stiff.

  Port Roho was carved into the largest houseboat, painted blood-red, with a torn cape flying from a pole.

  A cape with a golden bolt of lightning on it.

  “Well, well, either I’m going senile,” the man said, his voice just like the smoke spewing off the cigar, bitter, airy, like there wasn’t anything real inside of him, “or you look a lot like someone who worked for me.”

  “You look like shit, O’Reiley,” Ruslana said, lips thin. “You’ve let yourself go, soldier.”

  “Major, to you,” he said, pointing the end of the cigar at her, head still tilted away from the sun, turning half his neck bright red in the heat, just like his scaly, sun-burnt forearms. “Don’t forget your rank and file, either.”

  “Fuck your rank and file,” Ruslana said, making O’Reiley’s dry, splintered lips thin. Bianca didn’t know if it was a good idea to talk that way in front of a group of people looking down at them, arms resting on wooden railings, eyes squinted under the glare of the sun as a balmy, foul-smelling wind swept sweat across their greasy faces. On the other hand, Ru had also put a hole through several feet worth of solid concrete using nothing except Bianca and her fists, so… Should I warn these guys that she’s kinda nuts? “I’m here to see Cedric, like we agreed.”

  “Hm,” the man hummed. He pulled on the cigar. Puked smoke through his lips. “What’s my pay again?”

  “I don’t tell Ava where you’re hiding.”

  The man chuckled dryly, almost venomously. Something felt wrong about him, and that wasn’t the thing inside of Bianca whispering it—she felt it in her chest and her stomach, both of them going so cold she reached for her ribs, like she was trying to protect herself from whatever was in those pale green eyes of his. “Oh, she knows.” The man looked down at the ground again, at his unlaced, duct taped black boots. “She’s just scared. Too weak. Daddy’s money ran out, and now she’s scrambling in the gutter like the rest of us.” He placed the cigar in the corner of his mouth and dug inside his back pocket, then pulled out a tiny flip phone. “Here, call her if you like, soldier.”

  Ava. Wait, I needed to find her…didn’t I? Or was it the thing inside of her that wanted to? Or…Ben?

  She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything, barely anything, before meeting the Witch.

  Ru took the phone, then tossed it aside. A kid scampered off with it in a heartbeat. “Play brave, but she doesn’t know you’re here, because if she did, you’d be kissing her feet as she puts a gun to your head. You’re not half the trouble you used to be. Look at you, O’Reiley.” The man didn’t look up. He stared at the ground, busy picking dried flesh off his scarred knuckles. “Pathetic. Olympia must’ve done a job on you, hiding like this.”

  He stopped picking, stopped moving. Silence hung in the air. Then he looked up. “I’m not hiding.”

  His voice was hard, on edge, like the large hunting knife on his hip.

  Ru spat saliva at his feet, then lowered her voice. “Then be smart, and go get your boss.”

  They stared at one another. Stared, and stared, and the seagulls kept calling, the houseboats kept rocking gently on the water, and Bianca’s stomach snarled as her nose picked up a stench. Ru glanced over her shoulder, then at O’Reiley, and finally the large scarlet houseboat. She straightened and squared her jaw, then put her hand on the metal mask clipped to her belt. Suddenly, there was movement. The men and women above pulled guns out of their holsters, rifles off their shoulders and clicked the safeties off their weapons. Bianca stepped back, because when she told Ru she could help, she didn’t mean get killed in a gunfight, and she was still starving, and that smell was still toying with her nose. The cat had vanished ten minutes ago, but that didn’t matter—something smelt…

  Kaiju, Bianca thought, nose twitching. Houseboat. It was coming from the houseboat.

  It reeked of the bloody church, except…

  Meatier. Like barbecue.

  Ru didn’t take her eyes off Bianca, not when she swallowed, and not when she wiped the sweat off her palms, shakily cleared her throat, and weakly smiled at her. Eat. The thing inside of her wanted to so badly lunge up the ramp and tear through the hull and— Bianca pinched herself so hard blood trickled onto her palm. No. Stop it.

  God, please, make it fucking stop.

  “B,” Ru said, and her head snapped up. Nobody—nobody real—had said that name in a while, not that softly, not that quietly. “I need you to tell me something, and don’t lie to me.” More men came out of the houseboat, all leaning on the railing, all of them glowering at the two girls below. O’Reiley didn’t move; he stared at Ru, cigar in his mouth, a hand on the sleek white rifle. “If that thing is telling you something, what is it saying?”

  “It’s not…” Bianca swallowed a wad of saliva. “Nothing, it’s not saying anything. But…”

  “Spit it out,” Ru said. “Quickly.”

  “There’s Kaiju on the boat,” Bianca said quietly. She winced and looked at her hands. Her fingernails had gotten longer, pushed out of their fleshy slots by the very tips of bone. Not now, not now—please, not now. She stuffed her hands deep into her hoodie, trying to hide them. She swallowed again. “But…it’s cooked meat, not—”

  “A Supe,” O’Reiley muttered, smoke hanging around his neck like a noose. He looked at Bianca from just under the brim of his hat. He squinted, then smiled an ugly, nasty smile. “Well, you look familiar. Got a brother?”

  “That’s none of your business,” Ru said. He looked up at her. “Your boss said he was done with Kaiju.”

  O’Reiley shrugged one shoulder. “Lower Olympus has to eat somehow, and we’ve gotta get paid, right?”

  Bianca’s nose twitched again, this time picking up something sour, something wilder. She reached to scratch the back of her neck, but her fingernails were gone, leaving blood-soaked fingers to slide across her neck.

  It smelt like…like cats. That’s what the boat smelt like. Wet, mangy, bloody cats.

  Ru took a step past O’Reiley. Suddenly, guns were on her, and silence fell on the dock.

  O’Reiley hadn’t moved. He was still staring at Bianca as Rylee’s torn red flag snapped in the wind.

  Like an insult, like whoever was on this boat was declaring war, trying to get Olympia’s attention.

  Bianca knuckled saliva off her lips, then swallowed again. She was panting from her mouth, watching the men and women above her, noise filling her head, heartbeat pumping blood loudly past her ears. Eat. Eateateat.

  Somewhere on that houseboat, there was food. Plenty of food.

  But something else was eating that food.

  Something foul and dangerous, something with blood in its mouth.

  O’Reiley sucked on the tar, then let a foul, gray plume of smoke surround him like a veil. It was sweet, almost sickly sweet, slightly burnt, maybe harsh to the back of her throat…but also mouthwatering. So, so mouth—

  “The boss,” O’Reiley said, almost done with his cigar, “is busy, Steel.”

  “Ruslana,” she said icily, pulling the mask off her belt. “I’ll carve it into your chest if you don’t get him.”

  “Threats, really?” he asked her quietly. “You think you scare me? Just ‘cause you’re a filthy fucking—”

  “Supe,” Bianca whispered. He looked at her. They all did. She stared, though, at him. “You’re a Supe.”

  He stayed silent, eyebrow cocked, curious, testing—a flash of anger. “What did you call me?”

  He smelt like the homeless they’d walked past. He smelt like the dozens of kids she’d sat in lecture halls with for just a handful of weeks. He didn’t look it, but he smelt like it—smelt like them so badly he sweated it.

  Ruslana narrowed her eyes, then quietly said, “Ambrosia. Should’ve known the smell.”

  O’Reiley’s cigar didn’t reach his lips this time. Instead, his mouth thinned, and he slowly stood up. Ru had to angle her head to look him in the eyes. He barely did the same as he rolled his shoulders, then massaged his arm.

  Silence. Dead silence. Bianca moved closer, instinctive, scared—not for herself. No.

  For him.

  Because Ru’s fist was so tight she was splitting the wraps around her palms, cutting into the flesh.

  She’ll kill him, and get herself murdered in the process.

  No more deaths. No more dying. Not if I can fucking help it.

  Then, suddenly, a door slammed, shattering the tension. A man belly-laughed and stumbled onto the deck, shirt open, gut hanging, flesh so gray Bianca almost thought he was a corpse. Frail black hair. A velvet suit jacket hung from his bony shoulders, and whatever was in his glass sloshed and spilled, making him giggle as it got on a woman’s leg. He leaned against the railing and lifted his circular sunglasses, and Bianca, with all her manners, nearly cursed, because she’d never seen anyone so ugly before. Sunken, red-ringed eyes, a tiny hooked nose, tiny yellow teeth poking out of his black gums. She wanted to look away before he seared himself into her nightmares.

  The man’s smile slowly fell. He straightened and handed the glass to the woman. “Ah,” he said. “You.”

  “Tell your dog to stand down,” Ruslana said, still staring at O’Reiley. “Before I take him out back.”

  The man circled his finger through the air. Nobody moved, not for a moment, and then the guns lowered, and so did the tension—but barely. Nothing was holstered. Nothing was put back to safety. Bianca’s fingernails didn’t heal yet, because shards of bone had replaced them, sharp and short, serrated and glistening bright red.

  “Hey, soldier-man,” the ugly thing (person, Bianca, Jesus! Mom raised you better than that. Everyone is beautiful to someone…I think? Fuck, he’s ugly) said. “Help them up here and get them something cold to drink. They look old enough to drink, right? Ah, fuck it, who cares? Not like the cops are coming down here to check.”

  O’Reiley didn’t move.

  Ruslana said, “Walk, before Cedric makes you.”

  A snarl twisted his lips. “You think I’m one of his drugged up little zombies?”

  “Let’s put a hole through your chest and see if you bleed, then we’ll know.”

  “Today, soldier-man!” Cedric shouted over his shoulder. “It’s hot out here, Jesus!”

  With a grunt, O’Reiley picked up his rifle, and stiffly moved aside. He jerked his head at Bianca, and only moved when Ru nodded at her, waiting for her to pass so she watched Bianca’s back. O’Reiley eyed her all the way up the ramp, and so did the entire gang of mercenaries surrounding Cedric. Tall, fat, thin, ugly—everything she knew about what a person should look like went out the window when he spread his arms, a smile on his face.

  “Welcome, ladies!” he said, “to Port Roho, brought to you by yours truly. Meat? We’ve got human, too!”

  Bianca glanced over her shoulder at Ru.

  Ru’s jaw was tense. “Welcome to L.O.,” she muttered. “Can you blame Olympia for not coming back yet?”

  I’d be surprised if Rylee ever wants to come back to this place, anyway.

  “Come, come!” the thing said, heading for the houseboat’s entrance. “We’ve already started eating.”

  “We?” Bianca asked weakly, already nauseous.

  “Oh, you’ll love them,” he said. “You seem like a cat person, you smell like one, anyway. Just don’t try to pet these ones. Lions tend to get a little edgier about that sort of thing. Something to do with their pride, y’know?”

  Bianca, in fact, didn’t know. All she did know was that she wished Rylee would see that stiff red flag and come swooping through the sky, sweep her off her feet, and get her the fuck out of here and as far away as possible.

  But she didn’t, so into the foul, meaty darkness she went.