Read Online Those Who Lived: Fallen World Stories by Megan Crewe - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Megan Crewe
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side of the car with the door still open. Leaving the driver a clear shot at me if he needed it? Nice.
“We’ve gone along with the way you people want to run things,” Trang said. “We’ve helped out when asked. Now the new boss in town is insulting our people to their faces, demanding we hand over more than anyone else in the city to get that vaccine? Maybe you can tell me what message Michael is trying to pass on. Because if it’s the one we’re getting, I know what we’re going to say back. And we’ll be using more than our words.”
“I heard that approach didn’t go so well for you last time,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“Maybe we backed down too soon,” Trang said. “Maybe we’re thinking we’d rather take some of you with us than bow down just to be ground under some jerk-off’s heel.”
At a glance, his stance against the car would have looked casual, but tension was coiled through his posture, the angle of his shoulders, the flexing of his arms. I believed the threat. But they’d bowed down this long. They had some kind of a survival instinct.
“Look,” I said. “The attitude, the pricing—that’s all Nathan. He and Michael have some... differences of opinion that we’re in the process of sorting out. If you give it a little more time for words to work, we’ll all come out better off, don’t you think?”
Trang studied me for a long moment. “You don’t talk like the rest of them,” he said.
“I’m not like the rest of them,” I replied. “That’s why Michael sent me.”
After another few seconds, he inclined his head and swung back into the car. “All right,” he said. “But don’t make us wait too long.”
I had to work faster. But Nathan wasn’t making it easy. I went to the store with him twice over the next few days to unload the small delivery van he was having the Wardens pack his gas and guns into now, but he made me drive the van while he took the convertible—“Waste of our gas,” I overheard Janelle muttering, but Nate seemed to think it made a necessary statement—and while I was hefting the boxes he scrawled numbers on them and on the wall of the storage area with chalk, murmuring to himself. He snapped at me when I attempted conversation. It looked like he was tallying up his haul, but there were other, larger numbers on the wall next to them. His goals?
“That’s my job; focus on yours,” he said when I asked.
Other than that, I barely saw him. He’d started taking his meals at odd times when no one else was likely to be in the kitchen, and the one time I happened to walk in while he taking a bowl out of the microwave, he immediately sauntered out with it. He left in his convertible for an hour or two at a time a few times a day, without saying where he was going. But we were never really free of him either. He lurked, popping into the common room unexpectedly to watch the Wardens on duty truck off vaccine payments and to announce changes to the patrol schedule at a moment’s notice.
We’d been in the city six days when I was heading up to the dormitory and heard hushed voices at the top of the stairwell. I paused just before the bend.
“I didn’t do anything,” a young man’s voice was saying, choked up with anger. “He comes barging in, saying I let that tank leak all over—it’s not my fault the idiot who paid with it didn’t screw the cap on properly.”
“So check them more carefully from now on,” Janelle’s voice responded. Then it softened slightly. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“I should take his whole ear off,” the guy she was talking to said. “Both of them.”
“Devon, you know you have to—”
She halted when I came around the bend and continued up. Devon was holding a rag to the side of his head. A bloody rag.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Devon said, and skulked off. I glanced at Janelle.
“Nathan cut his earlobe off,” she said flatly, and then she walked away
“We’ve gone along with the way you people want to run things,” Trang said. “We’ve helped out when asked. Now the new boss in town is insulting our people to their faces, demanding we hand over more than anyone else in the city to get that vaccine? Maybe you can tell me what message Michael is trying to pass on. Because if it’s the one we’re getting, I know what we’re going to say back. And we’ll be using more than our words.”
“I heard that approach didn’t go so well for you last time,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“Maybe we backed down too soon,” Trang said. “Maybe we’re thinking we’d rather take some of you with us than bow down just to be ground under some jerk-off’s heel.”
At a glance, his stance against the car would have looked casual, but tension was coiled through his posture, the angle of his shoulders, the flexing of his arms. I believed the threat. But they’d bowed down this long. They had some kind of a survival instinct.
“Look,” I said. “The attitude, the pricing—that’s all Nathan. He and Michael have some... differences of opinion that we’re in the process of sorting out. If you give it a little more time for words to work, we’ll all come out better off, don’t you think?”
Trang studied me for a long moment. “You don’t talk like the rest of them,” he said.
“I’m not like the rest of them,” I replied. “That’s why Michael sent me.”
After another few seconds, he inclined his head and swung back into the car. “All right,” he said. “But don’t make us wait too long.”
I had to work faster. But Nathan wasn’t making it easy. I went to the store with him twice over the next few days to unload the small delivery van he was having the Wardens pack his gas and guns into now, but he made me drive the van while he took the convertible—“Waste of our gas,” I overheard Janelle muttering, but Nate seemed to think it made a necessary statement—and while I was hefting the boxes he scrawled numbers on them and on the wall of the storage area with chalk, murmuring to himself. He snapped at me when I attempted conversation. It looked like he was tallying up his haul, but there were other, larger numbers on the wall next to them. His goals?
“That’s my job; focus on yours,” he said when I asked.
Other than that, I barely saw him. He’d started taking his meals at odd times when no one else was likely to be in the kitchen, and the one time I happened to walk in while he taking a bowl out of the microwave, he immediately sauntered out with it. He left in his convertible for an hour or two at a time a few times a day, without saying where he was going. But we were never really free of him either. He lurked, popping into the common room unexpectedly to watch the Wardens on duty truck off vaccine payments and to announce changes to the patrol schedule at a moment’s notice.
We’d been in the city six days when I was heading up to the dormitory and heard hushed voices at the top of the stairwell. I paused just before the bend.
“I didn’t do anything,” a young man’s voice was saying, choked up with anger. “He comes barging in, saying I let that tank leak all over—it’s not my fault the idiot who paid with it didn’t screw the cap on properly.”
“So check them more carefully from now on,” Janelle’s voice responded. Then it softened slightly. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“I should take his whole ear off,” the guy she was talking to said. “Both of them.”
“Devon, you know you have to—”
She halted when I came around the bend and continued up. Devon was holding a rag to the side of his head. A bloody rag.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Devon said, and skulked off. I glanced at Janelle.
“Nathan cut his earlobe off,” she said flatly, and then she walked away
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