The Navigator, page 15
"Strange name. We'll have to get you a new one. I followed you because you looked determined when you got here. You looked like you were looking for something. Maybe I can help?"
Petal tried to read Jack, but his handsome face and dimpled smile were too much of a distraction.
"I'm looking for a ship called the Kowaka Adon."
"Hmmm." Jack looked up through the dock; the sunlight glistened on his forehead. "Naw. Don't know it. If it'd docked here; I'd know. I check all the new ships to see what's on them and how well they're guarded."
"Like my boat?"
"Yup. Little rowboat with nylon sails. Don't worry. Not worth stealing. Why do you want to find that ship?"
Petal watched the waves rise to within a few feet of them. They bottomed out in a wide trough that seemed to suck the air out of the crawl space like a vacuum.
"It took my sister."
"Sorry for that." Jack put his hand on Petal's shoulder.
Petal pulled away, startled by the contact.
Jack grinned at her timidness. "You don't have to be afraid of me. Like I said, we're a family. Orphans like you are always welcome down here. You'd probably be the oldest. You look like a teenager."
Petal's eyes lingered on Jack's wet, spry body.
A new boy broke the surface of the water. He was clutching something metallic in his hands. He tossed it to Mackerel and then fought to climb his way into the crawlspace.
"What'd Shrimp find for us?"
"It's a silver bracelet." Mackerel held it up to the light.
"Pick-pocketed it from some old hag." Shrimp giggled excitedly. "She never saw me coming."
"Add it to the stash." Jack turned back to Petal. "See? We do what we have to. Listen, you ever need help – food, a place to sleep, a little silver – you come down here and find me. I'll try and help you out. That's what family does for one another."
***
Quill finished the dregs of her beer. The bottom of the bottle was an inch of foam. She almost choked on the bitterness. The constant heat was draining. The dim bar was her only escape from the relentless sun.
The Beach Master was only a few ships down from Hlac's Hostel, making it a convenient watering hole. Quill was a regular. The bartender, Tratum, knew her and was generous when he mixed her drinks. She'd spent many nights sitting in her current seat, trying to drown out bittersweet memories of her parents and Kudu.
At no time since she'd first left land, had Quill wanted to go home so badly. Here she was, warming up the same barstool she'd held down two months ago. Here she was, with hardly a scrap of silver to her name.
Here she was, just one more face among a throng of people just like her.
"Another drink for you?" Tratum pointed to her empty bottle.
Quill dug around in her pocket. She had five sesterces left and the day wasn't half over.
"No, I'm broke."
Tratum walked further down the bar, to a gesturing customer.
Quill took another sip of her tepid foam; the heat and her depression were giving her a headache.
"Quill? Thought I might catch you here."
She turned around. Lhan was standing behind her.
"Buy you a drink?"
"Sure." The offer made Quill feel perky. "Sit down." She patted an empty stool. "Talk to me. Keep me company."
Lhan jumped at the invitation, sliding onto the stool. He waved two fingers at Tratum for his order.
"What's uh, what's new? Where's your friend, Petal?"
Quill waited for her beer to arrive before she spoke. She held it to her lips. "Don't know, out wandering I guess. I was out on the docks, looking for a job - didn't find any takers."
"Yeah, lot of Hesperians have been coming here lately, trying to escape the war. A saturated job market." Lhan laughed at his own pun. "Dahmlam give you what you wanted?"
"No, he wants silver."
"How much?"
"Three hundred."
Lhan almost choked on his drink. "Wow. If it'd been a little less, I could have spotted you. Hell, maybe if I write my dad he could-"
"No. I can't let you do that. Have to find a way to get it on my own. I have to be able to support myself in the long run, anyway."
"Well what about you, Quill. How are you doing?"
"Me? I'm getting by. It's kind of nice to be back here. I mean it's a dump of smelly old wrecks, but it's the only home I have left. After being lost at sea, at least I'm somewhere familiar."
"Why don't you stay then?" Lhan put his hand on top of Quill's. "I'll lean on Mordecai to give you a job working the docks. A few days of my nagging and he'll cave – you'll see. We could work together."
"Maybe." Quill guzzled her beer. "But I'm not a dockworker. I'm an overeducated nautical navigator." She laughed. "I want to go back to doing that. You know I got Petal here from Tinian without my charts? Without. . .anything."
"Must have been a rough few days. But good for you. All that schooling came in handy."
"Thanks." Quill pulled her hand out from under his. "As nice as it is being back and all, it's kind of weird. I'm back at square one. Actually no – then I had a savings to live off for a while. Now I'm worse off than when I first got here."
"Oh, come on. You just said you're happy to be here. You have friends here too. Something will turn up for you, just a matter of time. You need to take your mind off silver. How about we go swimming?"
"Swimming?" Quill cringed.
"Lhan!" A booming voice cut through the bar.
"Yeah." Lhan looked over his shoulder.
Mordecai was standing in the bar's entrance.
Lhan shot to his feet. "What'd ya need boss?"
"Need you on the docks. We're swamped with new arrivals. More refugees."
"But I just went on break ten minutes ago."
"I need you now, Lhan." Mordecai walked away.
"Coming." Lhan piled some silver onto the bar. "Sorry Quill. You know how Mordecai is. I gotta go. If you find a job, don't go leaving without saying goodbye. If not, I'll see ya around soon. I hope."
Quill gave Lhan a demure wave. She watched him scamper up to Mordecai, following on his heels like a lapdog. She put her drink to her lips.
"Meh. . .whatever. . ."
When Quill first came to the Raft, she dreamed that she'd be able to amass a fortune from dealing with sea people. They were supposed to be ignorant rubes - the rednecks of the ocean. A good navigator in Kudu could make a thousand sesterces from a single voyage.
All Quill had made from two was three hundred.
She stared at her beer, watching the condensation drip down the side. She wondered if Lhan was still attracted to her or if he pitied her. She didn't want to stay on the Raft for another second, but there was nowhere else for her to go. As much as she had hated being out at sea with Petal it had at least been exciting. It wasn't the same old drudgery she'd lived through on the Raft before, scraping to get by, day after day, endlessly hunting for temporary employment. When she thought about it, she realized she hated the Raft. She needed to escape. She wanted to be comfortable again, to be somewhere less crowded.
To be somewhere beautiful.
Quill closed her eyes. She kicked herself for leaving Tarquin.
"Dat you, Quill?"
Quill glanced across the bar. She recognized a skinny black man sitting by the corner and quickly walked over to him.
"Silas." Quill cooed, now standing next to his table. "How have you been?"
"Nothing's changed." Silas sipped on a little tin of moonshine. "Haven't seen ya in a while. I've missed my cutest customa."
"I've been at work, sailing the ocean." Quill sat down. She gave him a flirty pout.
"I see. Dem girls from Kudu is always ambitious." Silas grinned. His teeth alternated white and yellow like a corncob. "You got something big coming ya way. I can feel it."
"Ha." Quill looked down at her empty drink. "We'll see. Right now I've got nothing."
"Been there." Silas held up his tin for a toast, before noticing Quill's beer was empty. "You want something else, Quill? Maybe something more familiar? I can hook you up with some khat."
"I was trying to quit before I left. I really could use some right now, but I've already been through withdrawal and everything."
"Weathered that storm many times myself. All about self control. Use when you need to. No reason to feel bad about it. Everybody does something to get by. Need life's daily dose of medicine."
Quill frowned. "Yeah. But I barely have a scrap to my name, so I'll have to pass."
Silas pulled out a little white baggie. "Did I say I was charging ya? Come on. Come ova to my boat and let's shoot up like old times. Celebrate ya homecoming."
"I don't know." Quill stared at the open bar door. The heat radiated off the docks, giving them a rippled pattern. "I think I'm done with that."
"What are ya gona do for the rest of the afternoon – roast in them job lines? Ya ain't gona get a good gig like that. Got all them Yong refugees snatching jobs up for almost nothing. Come with me and let's get high. We can watch them dumb Kudu propaganda cartoons ya like - unless you'd rather sit here - nursing that empty - or unless you'd rather fry for the rest of the day under the sun."
Quill's stomach cramped up at the thought of going back outside.
"I got an AC unit in my boat, nice and cool in there." Silas smiled. "Let's just chill. Don't shoot up if you don't want to. I'll hit up Zig for ya. See if he's looking for some help. Maybe he could use a Kudu-trained navigator."
- 30 -
Quill stumbled her way up the stairwell inside Hlac's Hostel. Her feet felt heavy. Her mouth tingled and was pulled into a big, dumb grin. She was high as a kite and was loving it.
Quill hadn't used khat in almost a month. The tiny dose she shot up with Silas had wrecked her for five hours. She spent that time curled up on his couch, laughing at stupid cartoons. For a few brief hours, she'd been able to take her mind off her misery.
Now she fumbled with her room key. It slipped through her fingers and she searched for it on the floor, giggling. The carpet's red and black lines seemed to slither down the hallway. She became lost in their wavy pattern, savoring the psychedelics.
"Where have you been?" Petal hissed as she stumbled into their room.
Quill blinked, her eyes still glassy from the high. They had trouble adjusting to the sudden brightness. She rubbed her face and pushed the door closed.
"I've been out, looking for a job to pay Dahmlam."
"Did you get one?"
"No. There are so many refugees out there. Fifty people are clawing for every opening. But I did get into a fight with a pregnant woman."
Quill giggled and lay down on her bed. The high made it feel like the covers were massaging her skin. She smiled at the calming feeling and snuggled into the blanket.
A flock of birds squawked outside, drowning out the groans of the docked vessels. The sun crept lower on the horizon, now nearly flush with the windowsill.
Petal studied Quill's puffy face in the golden light. Her smile looked blank and unnatural.
"You're high right now, aren't you?"
Quill laughed. "What? No. I had a few beers."
"You aren't drunk. I can tell." Petal backed away. "You're high."
"So what? What's the difference? There's nothing else for me to do for fun out here." Quill ran her fingernails up the wall and smiled at the sensation.
Petal's cheeks went pink. She searched the room for their sack of cargo. Once she found it, she tallied up what was left, to see how much silver it could fetch her.
"You were supposed to be looking for a job so we could find Junk. Not getting high all day."
Quill grit her teeth. Petal's negativity was ruining everything.
"I wasn't going to get hired anyway. They shut the job lines down during the afternoon, once it gets too hot out. I'll try again in the morning. Stop rushing me."
Petal threw down the sack, incensed. "And you wasted more of our silver buying drugs!"
Quill sat up in bed. She was still smiling. "What are you? My mother? I didn't pay for the khat. Silas gave it to me. What does it matter to you if I shoot up?"
"Khat is bad for you. And look at you. It makes you look strung out and stupid."
"What have you done to help us, Petal? I needed some khat to deal with this. I needed to enjoy myself for a little while. You didn't meet me at a good point in my life. Look at me. I'm at rock bottom. I was locked in a cage a few days ago. I have no job, no home. . I. Have. Nothing."
"You keep saying that, but so what? I don't have anything either. I never have. Most sea people live with next to nothing. What makes it so much worse for you? Why are you so special?"
Quill exhaled slowly. Her euphoria was gone, utterly ruined.
"Fuck you - you know? I've done all of this for you. I got you here. I went to Dahmlam. I sweated out there all day looking for a job for you, so you could find your sister." Quill's tone was manic and rambling. "Why? I don't even know why. You aren't my friend. All you do is yell at me - threaten me - torment me - make me feel even worse. I'm trying my hardest! I'm tired of playing mommy to you. You don't want my help. You still haven't sold your boat. You just want me to whore myself out for some silver."
Petal's ears twitched. She glared at Quill; her pupils were dilated from the drug. As angry as she was at Quill, she still felt sorry for her. In her current state, she seemed pathetic.
"You aren't my mother, and you've done a bad job at playing one. You sold most of my things so you could be comfortable. You want me to sell my home so I can sleep on the docks. You don't want to be here with me and you never did. You didn't want to help me find Junk from the start - you wanted to stay with Tarquin."
Quill felt a wave of depression wash over her. She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Fuck you. You're so ungrateful."
Petal wasn't finished. "I don't like you. You're more immature than I am. You're weak, and spoiled, and whiney. You use drugs because you can't put up with normal things. You just want to lie around and have some rich ass take care of you. "
"You don't know a thing about me, okay! You have no idea what it's like to go from being sheltered your whole life to being shit on - by everyone. You don't know what it's like to be betrayed by someone you thought you loved. You don't know any of that! Do you?"
"You've had it easy," Petal taunted. "This is life. You're not an adult. You're a spoiled child."
Quill sniffed back tears. "Get out! Get out of my life, you little harpy! You're right! I wish I'd stayed on Tinian. I wish I'd stayed on Smaaland! Get away from me!"
Petal grabbed the sack full of her things and walked out of the room.
The door slammed shut behind her.
***
Petal tried to pull herself up into the narrow cubby. Her fingers ached. She kicked her legs and finally got enough momentum to haul herself into it. Once she was fully inside, she scanned the little hideaway. She saw Mackerel and another boy, Flounder, cowering at the rear of the crawlspace, unsure who it was that had just entered. Between the two boys was a little girl clothed in rags. She looked no older than seven.
Flounder glared at Petal. His tattered jean shorts were splitting around his thighs.
"Who the hell are you?" He snarled.
"I'm Petal." Petal approached the three children on her knees. "I was here before. Jack took me."
"I know her," Mackerel said. He had beady blue eyes and a split lip. A large bruise ran from his chin to his left nostril. "Jack said she was the tough one."
The little girl cringed in the corner of the crawl space, unnerved by the teenage stranger. Something about Petal's presence seemed to terrify her. She clutched a ragdoll with a death grip, shaking.
Flounder stooped over and walked up to Petal so they were face to face. He studied her tattoo and thin build and seemed to scoff. "You might be older than me, but you don't look so tough. I bet I could knock your teeth out."
"Don't threaten me." Petal bristled. "You're just a kid. I've killed grown men before."
"So have I." Flounder was unfazed. His little hands balled into fists.
Mackerel began to giggle. "No you haven't."
"Shut up, Mackerel."
"What's going on?" Jack pulled a sheet of loose metal off the top of the dock, above. He then shimmied his way down into the crawlspace. He looked at the little girl in the corner. "What's got Damsel so spooked? Ah, it’s you. Hello, Petal."
Petal tried to read Jack, but his handsome face and dimpled smile were too much of a distraction.
"I'm looking for a ship called the Kowaka Adon."
"Hmmm." Jack looked up through the dock; the sunlight glistened on his forehead. "Naw. Don't know it. If it'd docked here; I'd know. I check all the new ships to see what's on them and how well they're guarded."
"Like my boat?"
"Yup. Little rowboat with nylon sails. Don't worry. Not worth stealing. Why do you want to find that ship?"
Petal watched the waves rise to within a few feet of them. They bottomed out in a wide trough that seemed to suck the air out of the crawl space like a vacuum.
"It took my sister."
"Sorry for that." Jack put his hand on Petal's shoulder.
Petal pulled away, startled by the contact.
Jack grinned at her timidness. "You don't have to be afraid of me. Like I said, we're a family. Orphans like you are always welcome down here. You'd probably be the oldest. You look like a teenager."
Petal's eyes lingered on Jack's wet, spry body.
A new boy broke the surface of the water. He was clutching something metallic in his hands. He tossed it to Mackerel and then fought to climb his way into the crawlspace.
"What'd Shrimp find for us?"
"It's a silver bracelet." Mackerel held it up to the light.
"Pick-pocketed it from some old hag." Shrimp giggled excitedly. "She never saw me coming."
"Add it to the stash." Jack turned back to Petal. "See? We do what we have to. Listen, you ever need help – food, a place to sleep, a little silver – you come down here and find me. I'll try and help you out. That's what family does for one another."
***
Quill finished the dregs of her beer. The bottom of the bottle was an inch of foam. She almost choked on the bitterness. The constant heat was draining. The dim bar was her only escape from the relentless sun.
The Beach Master was only a few ships down from Hlac's Hostel, making it a convenient watering hole. Quill was a regular. The bartender, Tratum, knew her and was generous when he mixed her drinks. She'd spent many nights sitting in her current seat, trying to drown out bittersweet memories of her parents and Kudu.
At no time since she'd first left land, had Quill wanted to go home so badly. Here she was, warming up the same barstool she'd held down two months ago. Here she was, with hardly a scrap of silver to her name.
Here she was, just one more face among a throng of people just like her.
"Another drink for you?" Tratum pointed to her empty bottle.
Quill dug around in her pocket. She had five sesterces left and the day wasn't half over.
"No, I'm broke."
Tratum walked further down the bar, to a gesturing customer.
Quill took another sip of her tepid foam; the heat and her depression were giving her a headache.
"Quill? Thought I might catch you here."
She turned around. Lhan was standing behind her.
"Buy you a drink?"
"Sure." The offer made Quill feel perky. "Sit down." She patted an empty stool. "Talk to me. Keep me company."
Lhan jumped at the invitation, sliding onto the stool. He waved two fingers at Tratum for his order.
"What's uh, what's new? Where's your friend, Petal?"
Quill waited for her beer to arrive before she spoke. She held it to her lips. "Don't know, out wandering I guess. I was out on the docks, looking for a job - didn't find any takers."
"Yeah, lot of Hesperians have been coming here lately, trying to escape the war. A saturated job market." Lhan laughed at his own pun. "Dahmlam give you what you wanted?"
"No, he wants silver."
"How much?"
"Three hundred."
Lhan almost choked on his drink. "Wow. If it'd been a little less, I could have spotted you. Hell, maybe if I write my dad he could-"
"No. I can't let you do that. Have to find a way to get it on my own. I have to be able to support myself in the long run, anyway."
"Well what about you, Quill. How are you doing?"
"Me? I'm getting by. It's kind of nice to be back here. I mean it's a dump of smelly old wrecks, but it's the only home I have left. After being lost at sea, at least I'm somewhere familiar."
"Why don't you stay then?" Lhan put his hand on top of Quill's. "I'll lean on Mordecai to give you a job working the docks. A few days of my nagging and he'll cave – you'll see. We could work together."
"Maybe." Quill guzzled her beer. "But I'm not a dockworker. I'm an overeducated nautical navigator." She laughed. "I want to go back to doing that. You know I got Petal here from Tinian without my charts? Without. . .anything."
"Must have been a rough few days. But good for you. All that schooling came in handy."
"Thanks." Quill pulled her hand out from under his. "As nice as it is being back and all, it's kind of weird. I'm back at square one. Actually no – then I had a savings to live off for a while. Now I'm worse off than when I first got here."
"Oh, come on. You just said you're happy to be here. You have friends here too. Something will turn up for you, just a matter of time. You need to take your mind off silver. How about we go swimming?"
"Swimming?" Quill cringed.
"Lhan!" A booming voice cut through the bar.
"Yeah." Lhan looked over his shoulder.
Mordecai was standing in the bar's entrance.
Lhan shot to his feet. "What'd ya need boss?"
"Need you on the docks. We're swamped with new arrivals. More refugees."
"But I just went on break ten minutes ago."
"I need you now, Lhan." Mordecai walked away.
"Coming." Lhan piled some silver onto the bar. "Sorry Quill. You know how Mordecai is. I gotta go. If you find a job, don't go leaving without saying goodbye. If not, I'll see ya around soon. I hope."
Quill gave Lhan a demure wave. She watched him scamper up to Mordecai, following on his heels like a lapdog. She put her drink to her lips.
"Meh. . .whatever. . ."
When Quill first came to the Raft, she dreamed that she'd be able to amass a fortune from dealing with sea people. They were supposed to be ignorant rubes - the rednecks of the ocean. A good navigator in Kudu could make a thousand sesterces from a single voyage.
All Quill had made from two was three hundred.
She stared at her beer, watching the condensation drip down the side. She wondered if Lhan was still attracted to her or if he pitied her. She didn't want to stay on the Raft for another second, but there was nowhere else for her to go. As much as she had hated being out at sea with Petal it had at least been exciting. It wasn't the same old drudgery she'd lived through on the Raft before, scraping to get by, day after day, endlessly hunting for temporary employment. When she thought about it, she realized she hated the Raft. She needed to escape. She wanted to be comfortable again, to be somewhere less crowded.
To be somewhere beautiful.
Quill closed her eyes. She kicked herself for leaving Tarquin.
"Dat you, Quill?"
Quill glanced across the bar. She recognized a skinny black man sitting by the corner and quickly walked over to him.
"Silas." Quill cooed, now standing next to his table. "How have you been?"
"Nothing's changed." Silas sipped on a little tin of moonshine. "Haven't seen ya in a while. I've missed my cutest customa."
"I've been at work, sailing the ocean." Quill sat down. She gave him a flirty pout.
"I see. Dem girls from Kudu is always ambitious." Silas grinned. His teeth alternated white and yellow like a corncob. "You got something big coming ya way. I can feel it."
"Ha." Quill looked down at her empty drink. "We'll see. Right now I've got nothing."
"Been there." Silas held up his tin for a toast, before noticing Quill's beer was empty. "You want something else, Quill? Maybe something more familiar? I can hook you up with some khat."
"I was trying to quit before I left. I really could use some right now, but I've already been through withdrawal and everything."
"Weathered that storm many times myself. All about self control. Use when you need to. No reason to feel bad about it. Everybody does something to get by. Need life's daily dose of medicine."
Quill frowned. "Yeah. But I barely have a scrap to my name, so I'll have to pass."
Silas pulled out a little white baggie. "Did I say I was charging ya? Come on. Come ova to my boat and let's shoot up like old times. Celebrate ya homecoming."
"I don't know." Quill stared at the open bar door. The heat radiated off the docks, giving them a rippled pattern. "I think I'm done with that."
"What are ya gona do for the rest of the afternoon – roast in them job lines? Ya ain't gona get a good gig like that. Got all them Yong refugees snatching jobs up for almost nothing. Come with me and let's get high. We can watch them dumb Kudu propaganda cartoons ya like - unless you'd rather sit here - nursing that empty - or unless you'd rather fry for the rest of the day under the sun."
Quill's stomach cramped up at the thought of going back outside.
"I got an AC unit in my boat, nice and cool in there." Silas smiled. "Let's just chill. Don't shoot up if you don't want to. I'll hit up Zig for ya. See if he's looking for some help. Maybe he could use a Kudu-trained navigator."
- 30 -
Quill stumbled her way up the stairwell inside Hlac's Hostel. Her feet felt heavy. Her mouth tingled and was pulled into a big, dumb grin. She was high as a kite and was loving it.
Quill hadn't used khat in almost a month. The tiny dose she shot up with Silas had wrecked her for five hours. She spent that time curled up on his couch, laughing at stupid cartoons. For a few brief hours, she'd been able to take her mind off her misery.
Now she fumbled with her room key. It slipped through her fingers and she searched for it on the floor, giggling. The carpet's red and black lines seemed to slither down the hallway. She became lost in their wavy pattern, savoring the psychedelics.
"Where have you been?" Petal hissed as she stumbled into their room.
Quill blinked, her eyes still glassy from the high. They had trouble adjusting to the sudden brightness. She rubbed her face and pushed the door closed.
"I've been out, looking for a job to pay Dahmlam."
"Did you get one?"
"No. There are so many refugees out there. Fifty people are clawing for every opening. But I did get into a fight with a pregnant woman."
Quill giggled and lay down on her bed. The high made it feel like the covers were massaging her skin. She smiled at the calming feeling and snuggled into the blanket.
A flock of birds squawked outside, drowning out the groans of the docked vessels. The sun crept lower on the horizon, now nearly flush with the windowsill.
Petal studied Quill's puffy face in the golden light. Her smile looked blank and unnatural.
"You're high right now, aren't you?"
Quill laughed. "What? No. I had a few beers."
"You aren't drunk. I can tell." Petal backed away. "You're high."
"So what? What's the difference? There's nothing else for me to do for fun out here." Quill ran her fingernails up the wall and smiled at the sensation.
Petal's cheeks went pink. She searched the room for their sack of cargo. Once she found it, she tallied up what was left, to see how much silver it could fetch her.
"You were supposed to be looking for a job so we could find Junk. Not getting high all day."
Quill grit her teeth. Petal's negativity was ruining everything.
"I wasn't going to get hired anyway. They shut the job lines down during the afternoon, once it gets too hot out. I'll try again in the morning. Stop rushing me."
Petal threw down the sack, incensed. "And you wasted more of our silver buying drugs!"
Quill sat up in bed. She was still smiling. "What are you? My mother? I didn't pay for the khat. Silas gave it to me. What does it matter to you if I shoot up?"
"Khat is bad for you. And look at you. It makes you look strung out and stupid."
"What have you done to help us, Petal? I needed some khat to deal with this. I needed to enjoy myself for a little while. You didn't meet me at a good point in my life. Look at me. I'm at rock bottom. I was locked in a cage a few days ago. I have no job, no home. . I. Have. Nothing."
"You keep saying that, but so what? I don't have anything either. I never have. Most sea people live with next to nothing. What makes it so much worse for you? Why are you so special?"
Quill exhaled slowly. Her euphoria was gone, utterly ruined.
"Fuck you - you know? I've done all of this for you. I got you here. I went to Dahmlam. I sweated out there all day looking for a job for you, so you could find your sister." Quill's tone was manic and rambling. "Why? I don't even know why. You aren't my friend. All you do is yell at me - threaten me - torment me - make me feel even worse. I'm trying my hardest! I'm tired of playing mommy to you. You don't want my help. You still haven't sold your boat. You just want me to whore myself out for some silver."
Petal's ears twitched. She glared at Quill; her pupils were dilated from the drug. As angry as she was at Quill, she still felt sorry for her. In her current state, she seemed pathetic.
"You aren't my mother, and you've done a bad job at playing one. You sold most of my things so you could be comfortable. You want me to sell my home so I can sleep on the docks. You don't want to be here with me and you never did. You didn't want to help me find Junk from the start - you wanted to stay with Tarquin."
Quill felt a wave of depression wash over her. She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Fuck you. You're so ungrateful."
Petal wasn't finished. "I don't like you. You're more immature than I am. You're weak, and spoiled, and whiney. You use drugs because you can't put up with normal things. You just want to lie around and have some rich ass take care of you. "
"You don't know a thing about me, okay! You have no idea what it's like to go from being sheltered your whole life to being shit on - by everyone. You don't know what it's like to be betrayed by someone you thought you loved. You don't know any of that! Do you?"
"You've had it easy," Petal taunted. "This is life. You're not an adult. You're a spoiled child."
Quill sniffed back tears. "Get out! Get out of my life, you little harpy! You're right! I wish I'd stayed on Tinian. I wish I'd stayed on Smaaland! Get away from me!"
Petal grabbed the sack full of her things and walked out of the room.
The door slammed shut behind her.
***
Petal tried to pull herself up into the narrow cubby. Her fingers ached. She kicked her legs and finally got enough momentum to haul herself into it. Once she was fully inside, she scanned the little hideaway. She saw Mackerel and another boy, Flounder, cowering at the rear of the crawlspace, unsure who it was that had just entered. Between the two boys was a little girl clothed in rags. She looked no older than seven.
Flounder glared at Petal. His tattered jean shorts were splitting around his thighs.
"Who the hell are you?" He snarled.
"I'm Petal." Petal approached the three children on her knees. "I was here before. Jack took me."
"I know her," Mackerel said. He had beady blue eyes and a split lip. A large bruise ran from his chin to his left nostril. "Jack said she was the tough one."
The little girl cringed in the corner of the crawl space, unnerved by the teenage stranger. Something about Petal's presence seemed to terrify her. She clutched a ragdoll with a death grip, shaking.
Flounder stooped over and walked up to Petal so they were face to face. He studied her tattoo and thin build and seemed to scoff. "You might be older than me, but you don't look so tough. I bet I could knock your teeth out."
"Don't threaten me." Petal bristled. "You're just a kid. I've killed grown men before."
"So have I." Flounder was unfazed. His little hands balled into fists.
Mackerel began to giggle. "No you haven't."
"Shut up, Mackerel."
"What's going on?" Jack pulled a sheet of loose metal off the top of the dock, above. He then shimmied his way down into the crawlspace. He looked at the little girl in the corner. "What's got Damsel so spooked? Ah, it’s you. Hello, Petal."
