The Condemned (2 page)

   By the time he stopped running her distressed cries had tapered down to a series of gulping sobs as she tried to draw breath. Her brother at first mistook her condition to be horror and grief at watching their father die brutally before their eyes. It took a few minutes until she was able to convey that her emotion was wrought out of disgust at being splattered with grey matter. He had laughed and cleaned her and she had known from that moment that her big brother would take care of her. She had been five, Xavian twelve, and they were a team.

   The last of the Walkers.

   They were d
escended from some distant Renegade Sect that her father had never bothered to teach her of and that at the time she had no interest in learning anything about. She had Xavian to take care of her and he was her entire world, there was no need for anyone else as far as she was concerned.

   From age five
to
sixteen, Leci approached life with little regard to her own wellbeing and with none in respect to her brother‘s. It was simply an acknowledged fact that if she got
into trouble, Xavian would get her out of it.

Being older than his sister, Xavian had known their father before the drink turned him into the ruined shell of a man his daughter had never known him to be anything more than. He had spoken to his son of their past, their ties and their ancestors. Among the sects there existed a family like bond, and though the Walkers had long since become an independent unit, the old man had tried his best to make sure that his son knew their roots and that if it ever came down to it, they could hunt down old acquaintances and be comfortable in the knowledge that they would be welcomed and safe. He foresaw his own self-destruction, wasn’t strong enough to prevent it and though he could never quite bring himself to return with his children to the underground civilisation he and his wife had once called home, he knew the importance of making sure they would always know they were not alone. Xavian strove to give his sister the best life he felt he was able but he never once mentioned to her that alternatives were available.

   It was his duty to take care of his sister and he intended to do that the best he could to his own abilities. He rarely complained about her behaviour and he tolerated her tantrums and childish selfishness with understanding and patience.

   He was a talented Poker player who rarely lost a game but who was sharp enough to know when to concede a hand in favour of his own life. When he couldn't scrape together enough to
live by from his games they would make up what they could
from scavenged or stolen goods,
which they both had a talent fo
r obtaining, Leci in particular-
she was a small child and it benefited her in that she could wriggle herself into a lot of places most adults could not.

   A quiet boy who avoided conflict where possible, having witnessed the decline and eventual death of his father and vowing never to be like him, Xavian had been a mellow soul who had
managed to get
by on his natural looks and charm. Friendly and sociable, he'd been able to talk his way out of most situations and would always resort to violence only as a last resort. Still, when he had needed to he had been a fierce fighter. Years of having to defend his drunken father had hardened him and he never shied away from what he knew needed to be done. Alecia seemed to embrace trouble. She was irritable and moody, given to fits of rage over the smallest things and always more than ready to use her fists, nails, teeth, feet…

   When she was sixteen Alecia had reality thrust upon her inescapably.

#

The man glared balefully down the barrel of the gun while the
teenaged brat laughed gleefully, holding out a hand and impatiently motioning for him to empty his pockets for her.  Let Xavian go play his silly games. She had her own ways of earning a little extra to spend.

  
She knew that he knew.

  
Nevertheless, he never questioned and he rarely complained. He couldn't really, not when she'd been paying to feed them. She had a feeling he suspected she was doing more than just mugging when she disappeared on an evening.

  
He'd be right too if he did.

  
She wasn't overly scrupulous about how things found their way into her possession and more than once she'd sold her body for food, cash, anything at all really that could be of use to her in some way. Still, to her there was nothing that beat the feeling of power you got when you were holding cold steel against a man's forehead and watching his mortality register in his eyes.

  
Pocketing her earnings, she backed off, keeping him in her view until she reached the end of the alleyway, where she turned and fled. Perfectly content that she could continue this way forever.

  
Of course, in her naiveté it never occurred to her that she was walking a one-way path towards her own destruction. Her recklessness was an eerie and unintentional tribute to her father, mirroring his own footsteps, walking a different path
perhaps, but it still led to the same place and she was bound to be offered a fast ticket eventually.

  
The benefits of their lifestyle were many, but for Alecia the most important one was that they never stayed in one place for very long. If Xavian played too many hands in the same place it made it harder for him to find an honest, or, as honest as they came, game.

  
Not only that; it was the way it had always been.

It wasn't in their blood to settle and movement was as much a part of life for them as was breathing. Besides, her brother seemed to have an uncanny knack of knowing just when was the right time to leave, just when Leci was on the brink of overstepping and causing mayhem.

  
She would habitually use this to her advantage. Xavian often found himself wondering if her latest escapades were some kind of test, if she were pushing him, trying to find the limits to exactly what he was willing to do for her. She seemed to delight in causing trouble wherever they went.

  
She didn't expect to be here much longer but she'd reap whatever she could while she
was, it was how things worked. I
t was how she worked. Everyone was out to line their own pockets, interested only in what they could do for themselves; she reasoned that she was no worse than
the rest of them
.

  
Making the mistake two nights later of returning to the scene of her earlier crime, Leci entered the tavern. Scanning
the crowded inn she failed to notice the man who'd happened to glance up as she entered, seen her and as a result had quickly slunk up a staircase at the back of the room.

  
Leci spent a short time slipping between patrons, picking a pocket or two whenever she was able, but never too many in one place and she knew never to stay for very long after beginning her work. Once somebody realised they'd been robbed fights would break out and if she were gone before that happened there was no risk of her being caught in the middle. She moved outside. A slip of a girl, smaller for her age than she perhaps ought to have been, nothing particularly striking about her appearance
and even if there had been it would've been indistinguishable from beneath the thick coat of dirt and grime. S
he might be pretty later on but for now she was little more than average. To her this was an advantage; blending in with the crowd was something to be thankful for. It was hardly noticed when she arrived and it went unseen when she left.

  
Passing by the mouth of the alley where she had lured the man with lustful promises and then reduced him to his knees with a swift sharp kick between the legs and held him at bay with a pistol to his head, Leci didn't notice the shadows shifting towards her until burly hands grabbed her from behind, hauling her into the darkness. Another set pawed at her, removing her weapons; the pistol at her belt and the knives concealed inside both of her boots
, heavily patting her
down as she was thoroughly checked for more
. A clammy hand pressed against her mouth, forcing her head to bang painfully against the wall behind her as her yell of surprise
turned to one of pain and
was stifled. Strong hands held her arms and legs, preventing her from defending herself. The hand at her
mouth
was pulled back and as she drew in breath to cry out a fist smashed into the side of her face, dazing her. She was released and without the support of the hands that had been holding her in position she slumped to the floor.

  
Unable to sort her jumbled thoughts through the pain in her jaw she could not stop them, because there was certainly more than one, she believed three, maybe four… Unable to stop them as her clothes were torn from her. She attempted to resist the indignity when her legs were pried apart but all it earned her was another hard punch to the face, this one blackening her world for a few minutes.

When she came to she wished she hadn't, she prayed for the ignorant bliss of darkness to wash over her again, to spare her the shame of being awake while they used her for their own enjoyment.

  
When her ordeal was over and they had finished with her she was, confusingly, left alive. The sound of laughter rang in her ears as the men headed back to the tavern and left her, brutally beaten and raped, to come to her senses.

  
Upon returning to Xavian she couldn't hide from him what
had happened, didn’t bother trying.

  
Her brother said nothing, but his eyes flashed darkly and while he tended to her wounds he brooded, she could sense a simmering rage in him, like none she had ever known.

  
When he was s
atisfied she could walk and was
in no danger of succumbing to h
er injuries he took her, gently but forcefully, by the hand and
urged her to sh
ow him who had done this to her
and in the childish way she always had, she relied on Xavian to make things right for her. She led him to the men who had hurt her. Led him to the men who would kill him.

  
Xavian was rendered practically senseless, enraged
at what had been done to the one living person who shared his blood
, his only kin, the one he was supposed to protect. F
eeling empowered, strengthened because the notion of ‘right’ was on his side
, blinded
to logical reasoning..
.

  
Or maybe just stupid.

  
Who knew?

  
Her brother had taken on more than he would ever have been able to handle and there was never more than one outcome to the brief fight that ensued when he confronted the men who had done wrong to his sister.

  
His righteous fury had
robbed
him
of the ability to correctly assess and appreciate the danger of the situation.
Alecia’s desire for revenge, her need to see retribution car
ried out for her by her brother
and her vanity were too
powerful a combination to resist, she was powerless to prevent herself from losing him.

Chapter 2

Waking up to darkness
she blinked a few times until her vision cleared and she was able to see the dull, grey crack of light pushing through the holes in the boxes under which she'd taken refuge for the night.

   With a groan and heavy pro
testation from her aching limbs
Leci pulled herself to her feet
and left her makeshift shelter
only to discover that she'd rolled over into something nasty
,
and stick
y,
while she'd been sleeping.

   She made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat and wiped her hand on her pants. Wasn't as if they were clean to begin with, a little more wouldn't exactly hurt them.

   She had been on her own for just over a year and she figured she probably should have
become
better at it by now.

   Xavian had always made sure they had a safe place to sleep but the best Leci could usually do was a secluded self-made
nest
compiled of boxes and sheets of metal. She was starting to ache in places she hadn't even known she could ache because she slept in so many cramped positions.

   It was rare she managed to sleep in an actual bed and
considering
the circumstances
under which
that most often happened it wasn't something she particularly looked forward
to. It usually meant things
were
bad enough that she resorted to spending time with another actual human being, something she avoided wherever possible, not entirely because of what it meant she was doing and what she had found herself having to sell, more a simple case of enjoying the reclusive status she had come to rely on.