Chapter 8: Marked
I BEGIN TO feel like a regular at the card table. The others greet me by name, now. Sometimes they laugh and joke with me. I do not mistake this for friendship. As time wears on, I become more and more aware of the growing tension every time I walk into the room. It's not personal. I win too much. The only reason I'm still playing is because I often make myself lose— lose, and lose, and lose, and then win. I come out ahead, which I had hoped, for a while, they wouldn't notice. But these guys aren't the kind who miss things like where the money's going. And at any rate, playing like this doesn't offer the kind of gains I would like to see.
Ideally, there would be other games to join. I would move around, win money here and there, but not continually from the same people. However, Apollon and Jonas insist that I only play with certain groups. Never with any of Matthew's men. Never with Donegan. So I'm usually with Sumter and Lloyd and Taylor and Jacob... many of the same players I sat with on that first night. Sometimes Dan, the knife dealer from the marketplace, joins us. He's a sharp player, clever and sneaky. I've taken to calling him Coyote Dan in my head. Once or twice, he's even fooled me.
Tonight, he's sitting across the table from me, studying his cards through slitted eyes. Behind me, Oscar is at the bar with Apollon, laughing. Jonas didn't come with us. Everyone knows who I’m with, now, and no one bothers me. I could probably even walk down the street all by myself during the day.
Coins chink as Coyote Dan tosses them into the pot, raising Jacob's bet. Sumter and Taylor fold, leaving me, Lloyd, and a guy named Julian Moore, who only plays once in a blue moon. Lloyd sees the bet. Coyote Dan's ice blue eyes flick to me. "Your move, darlin'."
I nonchalantly add my coins to the pile, though in all honesty, I'm not entirely sure he doesn't have a hand full of bosses or a royal flush. I have three henchmen and a pair of twos. Full house. I glance at Julian, who hesitates, then calls. We lay down our cards. Julian has three bosses, but nothing else. Lloyd has a flush. Coyote Dan has shit all. He gives me a wry smile as I rake in my money.
The next hand is hard not to win. The others get bad cards, and I end up with a royal flush. There's not a lot in the pot, but when I lay down my cards, Sumter bristles.
"It seems to me," he says in a low voice, "that you end up with more than your share of good cards, Eden."
I glance at him. His face is rounded, with extra flesh on his cheeks. A depravity to his eyes. I wonder if eating people takes your soul away. But I shrug as though I'm unaffected. "Lady Luck favors the damned, they say." I sweep my money in, and as I do, I catch Coyote Dan's gaze flicking back and forth between us. I let my vision blur so that I'm not really looking at anything. All the movements from my peripheral vision are magnified, now, easier to sense. Sumter, sitting to my left, is moving his right hand slowly toward his hip.
I stand up. My first instinct is to go for my knife. My second is to holler for Apollon. I end up going with my third, so, when I raise my voice, the name I call is "Arthur!"
Arthur Adner, tall, skinny, and balding on top, is standing at the side of the room talking to two men seated at a table. He has a rag in his hand, not currently being used. He looks at me across the room. "Yep?"
"We need a round over here." I make a swirling gesture at my table.
He leaves his conversation and heads behind the bar. As my eyes follow after him, I notice Apollon's attention has become sharply focused on us. He adjusts himself on his bar stool so his legs are pointed toward us, his back against the bar. Beside him, Oscar glances up at his face warily.
I sit back down, casually, smiling. "Thirsty?"
They don't exactly look pleased, but I bet none of them ever passed up a free drink before. When the round comes, they all drink. Even Sumter. And though handing Arthur the coins to pay for it makes my stomach tighten, I tell myself it's their money, anyway, and I'm about to replace it. I catch Coyote Dan's gaze from across the table. The corners of his lips are curved into the slightest smile of amusement.
We continue to play, and I pace my winning evenly. Thus I discover the power of a round of drinks. Before the evening's over, I buy one more, when I win a large pot. Again, no one looks happy about my winning, but maybe it takes the sting off. That, and losing part of the money back to them. I hate doing this, but I can't make myself unwelcome here. With Miranda's income gone, we only have Neveah's herb-selling business and a few odds and ends that Apollon and Jonas come up with. Without my winnings, we would be in trouble.
I'm feeling OK about the way I've handled things, but as we walk home, Apollon says, "You're going to need to sit out a while, Eden."
I glance at him, frowning, and then look at Oscar, whose fingers are interlaced with mine. I shake my head slowly, meeting Apollon's gaze. "No," I mumble. "We can't."
His jaw is set. "It doesn't matter," he says. "I don't like the feel in there tonight. I don't want you to play for a while."
I'm about to tell him that I don't care what he wants, when Oscar squeezes my hand. His brown eyes reflect the sliver of moon hanging above us. "I don't want you to, either." It's not a statement. It's a plea.
I consider him as we walk, then sigh. "Maybe for a little while," I mumble.
Oscar smiles. Apollon nods.
A Sentry strides down the street, two men dangling, skulls grasped in its metal hands. The scent of aether and a warm draft trails in its wake.
A weight drags my shoulders down. A lasso around my vital organs, pulling, pulling earthward. Again, the sense of restlessness comes over me, and I want to run, to be away, somewhere. I extract my fingers from Oscar's as gently as I can. From the corner of my eye, I catch the movement of Apollon's hand coming to rest on Oscar's shoulder. I let myself take longer strides, walk ahead of them, but not run. I'm walking like a bat out of hell as we come to the last block before home. I hesitate at the side street, glancing the way I shouldn't be going, considering not going home. Considering running and seeing where I end up. The only thing that stops me is the certainty that anywhere I go, it will not be far enough. None of this is right.
This will all stop once I'm inside, I tell myself, continuing. I won't feel like this. It will just be warm light, and a dinner of real food, and the comfort of family. Like when mothers swaddle their babies tightly, so they can't flop about. It's the same thing. There's comfort in being held so tightly. Home will do that for me. It will hold me so firmly I can't move, and this restlessness will go away. I won't want to run anymore.
I turn through the opening in the junk wall and close the distance to our front door, throwing it open and moving inside. Perched on the end of the bed, Jonas and Miranda jump apart, and I only then register that his arms were around her, his lips pressed against hers. She glares at me, turning red, though I'm not sure if it's embarrassment or anger. I really don't care. Now, more than ever before, I want to run.