7. RAVEN

7

RAVEN

PORT MREI / A WEEK AGO

I can only breathe in shallow breaths, the air choking me. Pain pulsates through my torso and radiates down, making my legs weak.

Ali and I stumble through the dark streets. I don’t remember Port Mrei being this dark. Some street lamps are flickering but most are gone. Or maybe I’m on the verge of passing out. If it weren’t for Ali’s strong body supporting me, I would’ve collapsed already.

There are wild shouts on the neighboring street. Dogs bark. Shots pierce the air in the distance, an automatic rifle. A bottle is smashed somewhere just a bit ahead of us. A loud group cackle follows.

Fuck.

It smells like smoke and garbage and something rotting. It smells like doom.

I walk on, leaning on Ali, my arm around his shoulder, trying to keep my eyes open even though everything is spinning. The stuffy air clogs my lungs. I breathe in tiny breaths, trying to minimize the excruciating pain from my stab wound.

I’m barely conscious when we hear voices approaching fast. Someone stops us. Ali murmurs something in a low voice. An apology? There are crude remarks. An angry order. There is a rough push at my shoulder, and I summon the strength to fight whoever that is.

But Ali lets go of me. And then there’s sudden movement, grunts, and bones cracking.

“Move!” Ali yanks me into the shadows, a path between two houses, to the backyards.

For a moment, we are running, skirting the buildings. To be exact, Ali is running and I’m following by inertia, half-blind, half-conscious.

I barely understand where we are when we stop in front of the back door to a large house. Ali knocks. The sound of the chain behind the door breaks the eerie silence. Then the door opens, but I don’t know who did it and where we are because my body gives out, and I slip into darkness.

When I open my eyes, I lie in a small room. I hear a woman’s voice right next to me. For a second, I think it’s Maddy. When I peel my eyes open, the light from a naked bulb in the center of the ceiling slices my vision with a sharp assault.

I grunt and squint, shielding my eyes. When I try to get up, the pain in my abdomen pierces through me like a bullet.

“Easy,” that same female voice says. Not Maddy’s. Gentle but strong hands push me down to lie straight.

The light illuminates a room with bare walls, sort of a bunker, and multiple cots crammed into two rows, though I don’t have a chance to see who is sitting on them because two silhouettes block my vision.

“He’s bleeding out.” That’s Ali. His familiar face flickers before the slits of my eyes that I have a hard time keeping open. “We need medicine. And a doctor.”

“Easier said than done,” the female voice snaps. I recognize her. Candy.

Oh, wow, of all people.

And of all places, we ended up in a brothel. How does Ali know about this fine establishment?

“Jesus, like we need more problems right now,” Candy murmurs, then snaps at someone else. “Molly, get me the medical kit.”

With the scissors in her hands, she cuts my shirt open.

“Shit, sweetie. That’s bad. Molly! Hurry up!” She turns to me again. “You are almost too late.”

I need to hold still. The pain from my wound is unbearable. Everything is swimming before my eyes. But I am yet to go through the worst.

"I need a needle and a thread and antiseptic,” Ali says calmly.

“A sewing kit and vodka!” Candy snaps at someone. “I’ll do it.”

And there it is again, the memory that chases me even when I’m barely conscious.

My foster father towering above me while I’m tied to a chair. I have a busted lip, but there’s something else. Blood is dripping into my eye, and my forehead hurts from a nasty split.

He takes a swig from the bottle, then licks his lips. “Gotta learn how to be a man,” he slurs.

He pulls out a needle and thread, then splashes vodka right from the bottle into my face, making me scream in pain as the liquid burns my broken skin.

"Let's patch you up, Mathew-boy.”

I sink into darkness again. Voices around get muffled. My body burns. It hurts to breathe, but I pry my eyes open and see Candy still by my side. Another female face is next to hers. And Ali, his beard the darkest spot in my vision.

Candy takes a bottle of vodka and splashes the liquid on my wound.

“Aaaaargh!” I grunt before I can stop myself. “Fuck,” I hiss, my body engulfing in flames that jerk me fully awake one second, then make me so dizzy from pain that I want to fold.

“Stay with me,” she says as she pours some vodka into a glass and dunks the needle and thread in it.

Stomach clenched, I grunt through my teeth, “You know how to do it?"

Candy takes a syringe and injects something into my muscle, the pain slightly subsiding right away. “I’ll improvise. Got better options? The doctor is probably drunk. And it’s nighttime. I won’t send anyone outside until morning.”

I shift my eyes to Ali.

He stands with his hands on his hips, staring at me calmly. Where did he learn this calmness? Through prayer? I make a mental note to tease him about it.

“You need something to bite on so you don’t bite off your tongue?” Candy asks.

I shake my head. I’m barely breathing as it is.

Ali steps up. “I’ll do it. I’ve done this before.”

I smile. “Who would’ve known, Ali Baba?”

Not sure I actually said it out loud or if I am hallucinating, because his expression doesn’t change. I wonder if the nickname I gave him offends him. I wonder why he followed me into the jungle or how he knew about me meeting Skiba there when it wasn’t his shift. I wonder why he disobeyed the orders to stay away, why he jeopardized his own safety for me. Why—of all things—he even bothered? Ayana is just a job for him.

But then, kindness is the superglue that binds broken pieces together. The Change left us with lots of them. The two most unlikely people are by my side. He and Candy, the brothel owner.

I met Candy several times on my trips to Port Mrei a year or so ago, when I used to come to town to get my mind off Zion’s business. I used to drink, watch the girls dance, catch their smiles, and pretend that life was normal. I never used their services, not my thing. But they all knew me.

One day, Candy found me at the port, came with a stack of Port Mrei tokens they used for barter.

“I don’t know how much it costs and what you can do, but tell me the price. If I can afford it, I will pay you.”

She confused me at first. I didn’t know what she could possibly ask for.

Turned out one of her girls had a daughter with a severe medical condition, in need of surgery and treatment. Nothing they could do here, in Port Mrei. Ayana—maybe. We fly in surgeons and specialists occasionally. But it would cost a fortune to fly a doctor here, and to be honest, Ayana didn’t give a shit about Port Mrei residents.

“The little girl needs treatment,” Candy explained, all businesslike. “She and her mother need to go to the mainland. There’s a clinic there. Sure, we can smuggle her out. Don’t look at me like that. We could, in a second. The problem is that once she gets to the mainland, she won’t be able to get past the coastal control and will be kept at one of the contamination camps.”

I nodded. She would. So, Candy needed me to get the girl and her mother across to the “safe” counties. The request was expensive, and Candy couldn’t possibly have anything I needed.

“Tell me what you can do and the price,” she insisted. “We lost a lot. We can’t go anywhere. We can’t escape this.” This meaning the island, the shitty clientele, the poverty, the fact that their lives would only get worse.

“I would offer my unlimited services to you,” she continued, determined. “But I heard you are not interested in those.”

I studied her with curiosity. An entire brothel of women were willing to pool their funds together to give one little girl a chance to live a good healthy life—that was rare.

And then, just then, I got a text message.

Mac: How is everything, kid? All good here. Hope you are well. Maureen sends her thanks, blessings, and a hug. I told her you are not into those. She says someone needs to teach you how to hug.

If this was not a fucking sign, I didn’t know what was. The message made me smile.

Mac once said, “Do not underestimate the power of coincidences.”

Coincidentally, he just sent me a message for the first time in a month.

I raised my eyes at Candy.

Hers were hesitant. “I understand you are a busy man. This is a lot to ask. And you don’t have a reason to care. But perhaps ? —”

“I need the names of the woman and her daughter,” I said. “Social security numbers. IDs. Passport pictures. Pack the minimum.”

I looked down at my phone and replied to Mac’s message.

Me: All good. Sending you a live package. Need you to take care of someone. Talk to you tonight.

Mac never said no. In fact, Mac enjoyed this. That was his calling, being the leader of the “not so free world,” those who were left behind, minorities, crippled by an unjust justice system. Granted, I had unlimited funds and nowhere to spend them except playing Santa for his non-profits and a handful of social projects he started after the Change. Helping people get out of the contamination zones. Sending youth to colleges. Finding housing for those who lost theirs but were left behind by the shitty government. Appealing internment camps. Sending the promising kids abroad. And on and on and on. Too many to count.

“You didn’t tell me the price,” Candy said as I was typing a message to my guy at the border patrol on the mainland.

I didn’t look up from the phone. “The boat leaves at 6 a.m. sharp. The girl and her mother have to be at the port at 5.30 just in case. Tell the guards they are waiting for me. They will have passes ready. On the mainland, it’s four hours inland. They will be met and transported out of the contamination zone. Someone will take care of the farther route and accommodation.”

“You didn’t tell me the price,” Candy said louder, for the first time with slight panic in her eyes. Mind you, Candy was the last person who would ever show vulnerability. A decade of prostitution would teach you that. “We might not have ? —”

“Do you want them to go to the mainland and the hospital or not?” I finally raised my eyes to meet hers.

“Yes.”

“I don’t sell services, Candy. I do favors. Favors require favors in return.”

She blinked slowly. “I am saying I don’t want to owe you my life. And I am not sure I can match the favor.”

Huh. A woman used to being in charge, now nervous.

“I have no intention of cornering you, Candy. I’m simply not interested in whatever you have to offer. If you are hesitant, you don’t have to accept this. But when time comes, I might need your help. You just never know. So, make a decision.”

She nodded. “They will be ready tomorrow.”

Truth is, her friend wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last one to ask for favors. There were many people back on the mainland that Mac helped with the trusts and funds I set up for him. You gotta believe in the butterfly effect. Or karma. Or the Golden Rule. If Mac didn’t pick me up that night in his backyard, I wouldn’t have been where I am right now. Who knows if I would still be alive.

You see, it’s a certain chain of events that lead us to where we are. What Mac does is, well, wishful kindness.

“Ready?” Ali asks, his voice very close.

I don’t need to open my eyes.

I just nod.

And there’s the image of my beautiful girl, carrying me through the sharp pain of the needle piercing my flesh.

M. Maddy. Manage.