#ld9

All I am is my father’s daughter.

Stay out of the way…

Smile, but say nothing…

You will be of use and marry…

All my life, I have been a tool, a means of sympathy for him. The poor man and his useless daughter. The poor king with his raging princess. His brood. His problem. His burden.

I am not entirely useless, though, am I, father? I am a phylactery for your blood. He put the blood in my veins, so he says. It is his blood. His essence that fuels my heart, that feeds my muscles and my mind, that makes me quake with fury and smile as I torture the hearts of others.

His mistakes are mine, he says. It is his fault, then, that I make mistakes!

It is his fault I taunted the clan elders. It is his fault I mock their sons and daughters. It is his fault I tricked that boy into believing I loved him. It is his fault I beat him within an inch of his life when he tried to touch my hand.

I am your mistake, father. I am your mistakes, too.

So, which is this? The chains at my wrists, my ankles, my throat. This ship, taking me beyond priestess’ sight. Is this one of your mistakes? Or is this because I am a mistake? Did you do this? Did you do this to me?! To us?!?!

Us…

Where is she? Where is my sister? Where is the one good—the one pure—thing, the one person I love most and deserve least? WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HER?

Where is she…?

Is this my punishment, father? For our mistakes? The beatings? The lies? The ones we could not (would not) protect? The way I somehow love in spite of you? The way I have my mother’s eyes?

What would mother think?

Nathan reached for the other end, but hesitated. “How do you know this end is the legs?”

Andre sputtered for a second before clamping his jaw and taking a deep breath through his nose. “Just grab you-THAT end,” he growled. Nathan raised his hands placatingly, then dug them under the bundle and helped heft it out of the car.

The two men shuffled to the door. Nathan nearly dropped it a couple of times, his hands slipping on the smooth nylon tarp while Andre huffed and glowered at him. At the door, which was not under the awning like the large corrugated cargo door, Andre had to balance the bundle onto one hand and a lifted knee while he twisted the doorknob. The knob turned, but the door didn’t open. Andre yanked on it a couple times and dropped his end of the bundle in a puddle. Water splashed up his leg and soaked his pants. He swore and shoot looks up and down the alley. Nathan followed suit a beat later.

“Dammit,” he swore again. “I thought you said the keep this door unlocked.” He fished in his jacket pocket for his lock picks. The only good thing about tonight so far was the dead bolt could be unlocked from the outside, so he wouldn’t have to break the window. That would’ve ended their little mission real fast.

Behind him, Nathan put his end of the bundle down and shrugged. He kept looking up and down the alley. “I mean, it’s the donation door, right? You’re supposed to be able to donate stuff all the time.”

It took longer than he wanted (his hands were shaking and he was sure the rain wasn’t helping, either), but Andre managed to pick the dead bolt. He jerked the door open and spun around. When he saw Nathan had set the bundle down completely, he sputtered again.

“What the hell- Why did- Jesus-” He took another deep breath and flicked a hand at the bundle. “Just pick the damn thing up already.”

Nathan complied, saying, “It’s not really a thing, you know.”

“It is now.” They hurried inside and found a dim room with a silver metal table and a collection of tools and a bunch of metal and glass cabinets immediately next to the door, so they eased their way in and set the bundle on the table.

“OK, so, now what?” Nathan asked. He was leaning his head into the hallway and peering into the shadows concealing the rest of the building. Neon red and blue shined off the rainwater on the floor that had been blown in by the wind or tracked on their shoes.

“Now,” Andre said as he flipped the lights on, “We make it look like it was already here.”

Nathan turned and eyed the tools and the bundle warily. “Can you do that?”

“Not much choice.” Andre shrugged. “After tonight, it’s either that or we get donated.” He started untying the quick sloppy knots they had used to secure the tarp.

Nathan’s brows crashed into each other and he shifted a bit from one foot to the other a couple times. “I don’t want to be donated.”

Andre paused and glanced over his shoulder at Nathan. He sighed a little and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know, man. Me, either. Go close the trunk and the door before somebody sees. I’m probably going to need your help.”

The other man nodded, still frowning. “OK,” he said and stepped outside. Andre tried not think about what he might have to do with Nathan now and instead focused on the task at hand.

The trunk slammed. Then, the wind and rain were muted as Nathan closed the door. The window rattled in the frame when he did. Nathan ran his hand over the grains of the door and examined the cracked paint and worn wood with wistful eyes. “It fits because it used to be alive, too,” he whispered.

Then, he went into the room with the bundle. Andre had untied the ropes and was yanking the tarp open. The plastic crinkling sounded especially loud inside, but maybe that was only because they didn’t want to be heard.

Inside the tarp was a man, a dead man. He wore blue jeans, now black from soaking up blood, and nothing else. He was well-muscled and looked powerful even in death. He was the kind of man you saw playing an assassin in the movies, Andre thought. The man had been shot and stabbed and he must not have been completely dead when they wrapped him because some blood had pooled in the tarp. It spilled and splattered on the tile floor while Andre tried to smooth the tarp out of the way.

“Shit,” he spat. “Find something to clean that up. Try not to touch anything you don’t have to.”

Nathan nodded, his eyes never leaving the man in the tarp. He start to back out of the room, bumped into the wall, felt for the doorway, and finally stepped into the dark hall.

Andre eyed the dead man’s body and nodded to himself for several seconds before realizing he was stalling. He took another deep breath (he wondered if he was just trying to hold on to the memory of air in his lungs for as long as possible) and grabbed an electric saw from the tools laid out beside the table.

He certainly did not know what he was doing. It took Nathan longer than he would have thought to find a mop and a bucket with some water. By the time he got back, Andre had only managed to cut off one of the man’s arms at the shoulder. He knew the cut was rough and jagged and anyone who knew what they were looking at would know it hadn’t been done by a professional, but it was the best he could do, and he hoped it wouldn’t matter by the time someone noticed. He also knew he was covered in blood. They hadn’t bothered to find scrubs or gowns or anything the recyclers probably normally used, so his clothes were a splattered crimson. Some of it had hit him in the face, too, and he tried to think of it as just dirty water or grime or some other unpleasant but normal substance he had been covered in working manual labor jobs in the past. Nathan started to wretch as soon as he got a closer look.

“Do NOT throw up in here,” Andre snapped, but it was too late. Nathan bolted for one of the sinks in the corner of the room and vomited. Andre tried to hold his temper in check and focus very hard on cutting through the dead man’s leg. “At least you did it in the sink, I guess. Rinse out the sink. Get all of it down the drain.”

The next few hours consisted of Andre cutting the man into parts while Nathan tried to keep the floor clean of all the drips and spills and to not throw up again. The hardest part was the internal organs. They had to be removed individually and that required a steady hand and delicate touch that Andre just didn’t have. He did what he could, though. When it was done, there were four limbs (two legs and two arms), a heart, two lungs, a stomach, a liver, a small and large intestine, and kidney resting in bloody bins beside the table. The head had been placed in its own bin.

“N-now what?” Nathan stammered from across the room. He gripped the mop like the world might fall away if he let go and he looked like he wanted throw up again.

“Now,” Andre managed to get out, “We bag ‘em up. Got to look like they were already here, remember?” He nodded at the remains for a second or two, then marched to the sink. He turned the water on and stood there a moment before vomiting.

Behind him, Nathan murmured, “We took his insides and now our insides are coming out. Is that how it works?”

Andre panted into the sink and ignored him. He rinsed the taste of bile from his mouth, then washed the mess down the drain. He swore again and spit into the sink and rinsed that, too. “OK,” he panted. “OK, let’s find where they keep the bags and all that.”

He and Nathan used the lights from their cells to search the building. Andre couldn’t tell if the place was old or just a broke back alley recycler. Judging from the wooden back door, it could have been both. Nobody used wood anymore. It certainly wasn’t sterile like the high end body shops, either. It’d be lucky to pass an inspection. The equipment looked out of date, too. They didn’t go into the front—they didn’t want anyone to see the lights and call the cops—but Andre bet the parts they had on the shelves (and the parts would be on shelves, not the automated conveyors designed to give you a good look without having to put your nasty fingers on anything) were low grade, stuff fished out of the dumpster or hacked off at home to make a quick buck.

It didn’t take long to find the bags and the vacuum equipment. The shop wasn’t big and the owners were clearly trying to maximize space, but thankfully they were also well organized. The bags were in boxes stacked neatly in a corner crammed beside the vacuum itself. Andre was a little surprised it still had wheels.

They dragged the vacuum and several bags of various sizes into the prep room. Andre hesitated at firs. He couldn’t remember if the parts got rinsed before they were sealed. It made sense to him they would be, but he also thought he’d heard somewhere the parts need the blood to stay healthy or something. They didn’t have time to ponder it or figure it out, so he went with his gut; they went in bloody.

Every part got its own bag. Bulk packaging was a dead giveaway the parts were illegal. Andre had Nathan hold each bag open while he plopped the organs in first. The pale man, still a little green, too, squeezed his eyes shut and looked away for each part and flinched each time the organ hit the bag.

The limbs came next. Longer, larger, heavier, it took a little more cooperation and work to get them into their bags, and the men had to try three different sized bags on the first arm before they found a size that worked. Andre swore under his breath the whole time, but couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. He wondered if they would ever stop and why Nathan’s were so steady. The head was last to go into a bag.

The next step was the worst, because it was the loudest. It was most likely to get them noticed. For as long as vacuums had existed, they still hadn’t gotten much quieter. A few flipped switches and a press of a button and the machine groaned to life. Andre’s gritted his teeth hard as the sound seemed to swell louder and larger. He knew he would never hear sirens over that noise. He just hoped they could get it done fast and get out. Nathan stood beside him shifting from one foot to the other. He had his hands clasped over ears and winced at the smothering drone.

Andre gently pushed him aside to stand by the wall. He was pretty sure he could do this part alone. He had to turn the first bag this way and that a few times, but he eventually figured out how to hook it up to the machine. He had never actually seen one in used before. He only had the same general knowledge everyone else did. It sucked the air out of one end of the bag to create a hermetic seal, while some kind of preservative was pumped into the other end. Expensive machines made seals that supposedly lasted indefinitely. Andre guessed something like this, beaten, used, and outdated, would only guarantee viability for a year or so at best.

He worked as quickly and methodically as possible. Before one part was sealed, he already had the next in hand, ready to swap them out. It was lucky the bags were tough even if they were probably cheap, because he was sure he would have torn thinner plastic. Finally, though, they were all sealed. Andre flicked switches again and turned the vacuum back off. There was a brief moment of dullness, when the quiet pressed in hard on the suddenly noiseless space.

Then, he heard it. Sirens.

“Fuck!” Andre snarled. He turned to Nathan, speaking quickly, “There was a cart in the room we got the vacuum from. Take this stuff back and bring the cart here. Now.”

Nathan nodded emphatically and scurried down the hall. Andre grabbed the dead man’s head and tossed it onto the tarp with the torso. He wrapped them up in the tarp enough that he was sure nothing would fall or drip out, then grabbed the tarp in two hands and hauled it out the back door.

The sirens were louder in the alley. Andre wasn’t sure which direction they were heading. Maybe they weren’t even for him and Nathan. It would be stupid to take the chance. Stupid to think that were true.

He dropped the bag by the car and fumbled the keys out of his jacket pocket. They slipped from his hand into a puddle. He spit a stream of dark curses while he bent to retrieve them. Another few seconds of panicked fumbling. He nearly dropped the keys again, but found the fob. He jammed it against the lock until the trunk door lifted slightly, then yanked it open. Andre grabbed the tarp and hauled it into the trunk and slammed it shut. Then, he rushed back inside.

Nathan, for once, was on top of things. He had not only returned the vacuum and the bags, but the parts were mostly loaded onto the cart. Andre silently thanked God and helped him put the rest on the cart.

“I got this. Go get in the car,” Andre told him. Nathan hesitated, bag in hand. Andre snatched it from him, tossed it on the cart, and pulled him toward the door. “Go. I got this.” Nathan nodded, somehow shifting from foot to foot while walking, but Andre gripped his arm tightly a moment first. He waited until Nathan looked him in the eye and said, “Do not leave without me. Stay in the car.”

“Yeah,” Nathan replied, looking a bit confused. Or worried. Andre wasn’t sure which.

He let Nathan go and finished loading up the cart. The sirens were definitely louder now. No way they weren’t coming for the two of them. Andre barreled down the hall with the cart. He slammed open the swinging doors separating the back rooms from the business up front and barely avoided knocking over a whole shelf of parts. Blue and red lights whipped through the front windows. Shit. It was so hard to tell how far away they were in the city.

Voices called out. He couldn’t tell what they said, but Andre knew they were for him. He rushed around the shelves, trying to use the strobing police lights to find where the parts belonged, desperately hoping they would blend in.

A gunshot went off.

“FUCK!” he cried. Something was happening outside. It was time to go. He didn’t even both putting the cart back, just shoved it out of the way. His brain flipped through a mental checklist while he sprinted down the hall. Was there anything they left? Did they clean everything up? Were all the organs sealed? Was anything else out of place? He hadn’t even made it that far before he was in the driver’s seat, stabbing the key into place.

“Wait,” Nathan started, but Andre was already putting the car into gear and accelerating. “What about the body and the tarp?”

Andre shook his head. “In the trunk. Torso’s empty; they won’t take it. It’d be weird to leave it.” They whipped out into the late night traffic, briefly heading the wrong way on a one way street until Andre took them down another alley. “Got to bring the head, too. We leave that and they’ll know who the parts belong to real fast.”

“Oh.” Nathan sat back in his seat with his brows pressed together while he considered that. “Dre?”

The other man slowed down and pulled into traffic more or less safely and in the right direction this time. He looked in the rear view mirror almost as much as he watched the road in front of him. He was so focused on looking for a tail he didn’t answer for three blocks.

“What’s up, Nate?” Andre’s hands still clenched the wheels tight enough his knuckles were white. He tried to get them to let go, but couldn’t. They would just have to drive around a while, he guessed.

“Is everything going to be ok?” Nathan sat with his hands in lap. He kept interlacing his fingers, pulling them apart until just the tips touched, then lacing them again so the other hand was on top. His feet kept moving on the floor, too, back and forth. His eyes were locked on his hands and his brows were firmly locked together.

Andre didn’t answer for another block. They had blended properly at this point, obeying the speed limit and lights. No more weaving in between other cars. It gave him time to think. It wasn’t Nathan’s fault what had happened, not really. Shitty circumstances combined with awful timing and cruel coincidence. That’s all it was.

That’s all it was.

But the dead man’s friends wouldn’t see it that way. His boss wouldn’t see it that way.

It was impossible for them to stay in the city now. Andre was scrambling to think of a safe place for them to lay low in the short term until he could come up with something more permanent. Something that would still include Nathan and his weird-ass questions and comments.

“Yeah, man,” he said, finally. He pried his hand off the steering wheel and ruffled Nathan’s hair. “Everything’s going to ok.”

Nathan looked over at him. His brows cracked enough to be two separate items on his face again. “Really?”