The City on the Edge
Nine

Conversation between Ronnie and Lorna had dwindled to nothing, but the walk wasn’t unpleasant. The comfortable silence was filled with sounds of a busy street, punctuated by the stomping pattern of the White Guard cutting through the parting crowd, like a ship through rolling waves.

“You smell that?” Lorna asked suddenly.

Ronnie lifted her head, nose tilted up, and sniffed. Smoke and steel, animals, sweat and-

“Sweet cakes.” She inhaled the scent of melting sugar again. “Fresh.”

“Let’s get one. We can split it.” Lorna grabbed her arm, tugging her gently toward the bakery.

Ronnie conceded, allowing Lorna to pull her off the street. If it made her feel better, it was worth the coin. She waited outside with the case of blood and the little treasure box balanced on top, their income for the time being.

Staring down at it, Ronnie wondered how she was supposed to tell Malik that Fence didn’t want them coming back.

The passing guardsmen gave her sideways glances as they marched, eyeing the contents of the case but not stopping to question her. Ronnie shifted in place. It wasn’t technically against the law to harvest blood for vampires, but if a guardsman were feeling particularly confrontational, she’d have a fight on her hands. She wasn’t about to let anyone tell her she couldn’t feed the vampire kids, white uniform or not. They were family. Every hungry belly deserved to be full.

A repetitive sound, almost lost among the movements of the street and the marching of guardsmen, hit Ronnie’s ears. The rapid succession of footfalls coming toward her had her body tensing suddenly. Her back straightened and she swept her gaze over the street.

“Ronnie?” The bakery door opened and Lorna came out, cake in hand, a bite already missing.

Ronnie sighed, “Are you ready to head back now, or do you plan on stopping for-“

A body crashed into her suddenly from behind. She jerked forward, her fingers flexing in surprise and losing their hold on the case. The jars of blood toppled to the ground, shattering and sending starbursts of deep red across the bricks and dirt.

“Hey!” Ronnie whirled around, lips curled back over her fangs in a snarl. “Watch it!”

From beneath a heavy hood, a pair of blue eyes blinked back at her, a golden curl of hair sitting above them. It wasn’t a face she’d expected to ever see again.

Sebastian?

Her head swiveled instantly, looking for angry blue eyes, waiting to entrap her. A learned response from guardsmen who thought cruelty towards supernaturals was a form of entertainment. Surely Sebastian was bait. One wrong move on her part would land her in a cell with irons around her wrists. She listened and looked, just waiting for the ax to drop.

There was nothing though. No shouts from the patrols. No furious faces aimed her way. No traps or tricks. Just this one human.

The two of them stood there, inches from each other, unsure of what to do. Sebastian’s fingers flexed loudly, crinkling over blue paper. Ronnie’s eyes darted down. He was holding a bunch of…flowers?

The street seemed to blur around them and all Ronnie could do was look at this human and wonder what the hell he was doing back.

Slim fingers curled around Ronnie’s elbow. “Ronnie, is that…”

“Sebastian.” Ronnie finished, a little annoyed at the pleased expression that crossed his features when she said his name.

Lorna’s voice had cut through the haze, setting the world back in motion. Ronnie looked around. People were stopping to stare at them, curious about the mess and the hooded figure wearing clothes that were far too nice to be from the Edge.

The stale blood tickled at her nose. Scratches and chittering from demons scurrying cautiously towards them reached her ears. Blood on the ground was free food. A meal that couldn’t be ignored, even in the broad of daylight. Deformed bodies were emerging from the shadows and the sewers, inching closer to the spilled blood. Ronnie’s eyes raked over them. There was a six-legged creature, a dark shade of green, with bulging eyes and a mouth that wouldn’t close. A snake-like demon weaved through the legs of shoppers, the ridges on its back catching on the fabric of their pants.

People were jumping out of the way and sidestepping the sudden appearance of the rarely seen demons. Worse, they were paying attention to where the demons were converging. Straying eyes were already looking at Sebastian and piecing together the fact that he didn’t belong among them.

Like a striking predator, Ronnie snatched Sebastian’s wrist and pushed through the crowd, pulling him behind her. His steps stalled at first, stumbling over the uneven bricks before seeming to understand that she was leading him away from the crowd. Lorna called her name, hurrying to follow.

Twisting and turning through the streets, darting down narrow alleys and cutting through open yards, Ronnie lead the way without a real notion of where she was going. She just knew they couldn’t stay in front of the bakery. She finally stopped behind an old, crumbling skeleton of a building. It had once been a schoolhouse. The colorful swings and benches still stood, weathered by the years and claimed by the plants. It wasn’t the most hidden place, but at least it was away from prying eyes.

Ronnie shoved Sebastian down onto a bench and crossed her arms over her chest, taking a step back and staring down at him. Lorna caught up to them, huffing and leaning against Ronnie heavily. She’d nabbed the treasure chest and clutched it to her chest, leaving small smears of red on her shirt.

Sebastian pulled back his hood, smiling up at Ronnie. “Um, it’s nice to see you again?”

Ronnie’s fingers clenched against her arm. “What are you doing back here?” Anger bubbled in her chest and she struggled to keep her voice even. What was this troublemaker up to?

Sebastian picked up on her tone, his smile faltering, but not disappearing. “I wanted to see you again. I wanted to thank you for saving my life.” He held up the bouquet of flowers still clutched in his hand. The white petals were tattered now from the swift journey Ronnie had taken them on.

She didn’t take them from him. “You already thanked me. More than once.”

“Well, yeah, but like I said,” he shrugged, “I also wanted to see you again.”

“That’s,” Ronnie stumbled over her words, looking for something to encompass what she was thinking, “incredibly stupid,” she settled finally. She didn’t feel bad about it in the slightest about the frown that replaced his smile.

Sebastian rose to his feet. “I’m not- I was just- look, I like you. I appreciate what you did for me when you could have done nothing. I know what the people here think of humans. I know that men like Sloan don’t exactly help that image.” Lorna huffed at that, clearly spinning her own impressions of Sebastian. “You could have left me there for that vampire, but you didn’t. I’m alive because of you. So,” Sebastian tucked an arm across his waist and bowed low, “sincerely, thank you.”

Ronnie raised a brow at him when he straightened and held up the flowers again. No one had ever bowed to her before. Lorna made a noise of shock, her mouth on the verge of dropping. An odor was beginning to waft off her skin, something akin to smoke, something Ronnie distinctly recognized. Anger.

Sebastian didn’t seem to notice the stiffness in Lorna’s posture. He was focused entirely on Ronnie. “You know, I never did get your name.”

“There was a good reason for that.” Lorna answered before Ronnie could open her mouth.

Ronnie sighed and snatched the flowers from his hand. He looked surprised, then pleased that she’d accepted his gift, however reluctantly.

“They’re nice,” she complimented awkwardly, staring down at the torn petals. They really were nice. The long creamy white petals yellowed brightly toward the center and smelled of something fresh and sweet.

The air seemed to shift to something slightly more pleasant, at least for the two of them. Lorna leaned away from Ronnie and crossed her arms over her chest. Ronnie didn’t have to look at her to sense her unhappiness. The tang of building irritation and nervousness was growing stronger. Perhaps it was fortunate that Sebastian couldn’t smell it. It wasn’t like Lorna didn’t have a reason to be nervous. They were standing in an old playground with a human.

“Well,” Lorna spoke up, “those are...lovely but we’re done here.” Lorna nudged Ronnie toward the nearly empty street. “You are going to get us in trouble.”

“But-“

A sudden shrill siren spilled through the streets and carried through the Edge. Ronnie winced and clapped her hands over her ringing ears. The sound pulsed into her head while Lorna ran to the street and peered down it both ways.

“What is that?” Sebastian asked over the siren.

“The alarm,” Ronnie grumbled.

Lorna came back. “I think they know you’re here,” she said, giving Sebastian a pointed glare. “There are guardsmen everywhere. They have to be looking for you. I told you that you’d get us in trouble.”

“Maybe I can talk to them,” Sebastian began as he reached for Ronnie but Lorna cut him off.

“You’ve done enough just showing up like this!” Lorna tugged Ronnie away from the street and towards the winding back alleys. The Edge was built like a maze and the back alleys were the best place to lose any pursuers. “Let’s go, before they see us with him.”

Ronnie nodded but Sebastian grabbed her arm before she could leave. “Wait, please. I was being serious when I said I came to see you.”

Ronnie pulled her arm away from him. “And you did. Goodbye, Sebastian.” His expression fell at her words. “It’s better this way.”

The blaring sirens and the stampede of boots on the brick and dirt streets were more than enough to send Ronnie and Lorna scurrying away, leaving Sebastian behind in the rundown schoolyard. Something tugged in Ronnie’s chest as Sebastian’s vanilla scent vanished beneath the swelling odors of dirt and hurried panic, but she ignored it. If they were caught, they’d be tossed in the Cavern for who knew how long. If they were lucky.

“Through here,” Lorna stopped at a narrow slot between two buildings. It looked entirely too small but she turned sideways and inched her way through, motioning for Ronnie to follow. Ronnie looked over her shoulder and caught sight of Sebastian watching her, though he was far enough away that she couldn’t tell if the look of his face was one of concern or longing. Maybe both and wasn’t that an unsettling thought.

“Ronnie!” The sound of Lorna’s desperate voice snapped her back to attention.

She eyed the narrow gap with a frown. Not fond of tight spaces, Ronnie had to suck in her gut and hold her arms out to her sides to wiggle her way through the tight passage. Lorna had slid right through, but where Lorna was lean, Ronnie was bulky with muscle. The rough stone scraped at her bare shoulders and thin shirt and tugged at the loose strands of her hair.

Lorna reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her out the other side. Ronnie ran her hands over her arms and shoulders, soothing the aggravated skin there. The sirens cut off suddenly, leaving them in suspended silence. They exchanged a look. The White Guard had probably found Sebastian, right?

“Did we lose them?” Lorna asked quietly. They weren’t that far from the playground. “Maybe they didn’t see us?”

Ronnie leaned toward the opening with her ears pricked for anything that sound like heavy boots, the clink of metal swords and rifles, or the cutting volume of angry voices. She filtered through the everyday noises of animals and city residents until she landed on a sound she was hoping she wouldn’t hear.

“He didn’t come here alone. Find whoever was with him,” a cool voice commanded. “I have an idea of who it may have been.”

A flash of white and gold darted past the other side of the gap and Ronnie flinched back. She snatched the front of Lorna’s shirt and quickly hauled her away from the gap.

“Wha-“

Ronnie pressed a hand over her mouth and Lorna nodded, understanding immediately like she always did.

“Stop.” Another voice was speaking. A woman’s voice. “I thought I saw someone.”

“The shifter?” another voice asked.

Lorna’s eyes were boring into Ronnie’s- curiosity and anger swirling together in the green orbs. An ‘I told you so’ hung between them. The sound of cloth scratching against stone had them both tensing. There was a scrape of metal and a grunt of exertion before the woman sighed.

“I can’t fit. It’s too small. We’ll have to go around.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know what I saw,” the woman snapped. “We’re going around.” Her tone left no room for argument.

The voices retreated and Ronnie released her hand from Lorna’s mouth, who wasted no time in putting it to use.

“Well, I wonder what shifter they could possibly be referring to,” she hissed. “I told you that human was bad news. You should have never intervened.”

“He needed help. I couldn’t just leave him to die.”

Lorna rolled her eyes. “Tell that to Malik when he can’t send us out because the White Guard are scouring the Edge looking for you.”

“Let’s just go home. You can glare at me there.”

The alley they were in splintered off in several winding directions, each one just as cluttered with discarded trash and hanging lines of laundry as the last. This was the poorer district of the Edge. Technically, everyone in the Edge was poor, but these back alleys held the residents with nothing to their name but the clothes on their backs.

Admittedly, Ronnie hadn’t spent a lot of time in this district. None of her family had. It was sort of an unspoken rule of the thieves of the city to never steal from someone with nothing to spare. This was the former home of the twins, Teri and Tara. The little vampires had been starving when Anya had come across them. With no parents to send them back to, she’d brought them home to Hazel, who had promptly given them a room and a new family.

“Let’s go this way,” Lorna said, taking the lead and stomping down a particularly dark alley.

Not wanting to anger her further, Ronnie followed behind her. They ducked beneath a wall of hanging laundry, still damp and smelling strongly of mold. Ronnie wondered briefly if it had been forgotten in the small rain shower of the early morning, or if it had been laundered at all. It certainly didn’t smell clean.

Their boots stomped loudly over loose thin sheets of rusted metal. Leftovers, it looked like, as many of the buildings in the alley were more akin to poorly constructed shacks. Weary heartbeats reached Ronnie’s ears. People were living in those metal huts. They were decorated with an assortment of colored graffiti and faded logos from shops and homes that had been knocked down ages ago. Tattered blankets were hung up as makeshift curtains and doors. Seeing the homes, Ronnie felt a longing to return to her room and her warm bed.

She was lucky, she knew, to have what she did.

Something putrid tickled at Ronnie’s nose, sickly sweet and nauseating. She crinkled her nose but couldn’t stop the scent from invading her nostrils. It smelled like it could have been a dead animal, rotting out of sight somewhere.

Nails scratched against stone and Ronnie turned to the sound. An old man sat nearly hidden inside the darkened doorway of the opposite building, just far enough away that she had to take a few steps toward him to see him clearly. The closer she stepped, the stronger the smell grew.

A hand went up to stop her approach. Each finger was tipped with a dark claw, broken and thin. “Stay back, child. You shouldn’t be here.” The old man leaned out of the shroud of darkness he wore like a blanket. Light caught his pale skin and illuminated the blue veins spreading across his face. Patches of his skin were discolored with festering sores slick with pus. He narrowed pale yellow eyes at her and spoke with little more than a harsh whisper, as if his voice were also dying. “It isn’t safe for you here.”

Poor Street, Ronnie realized. They’d run right into Poor Street, home of the sick and dying.