Vitus Ainsworth {D6}

I'm too smart for my own good, my uncle always said. I'll be picked apart by buzzards if I live my life with my heart on my sleeve and my mind in my hands. He told me to hide them away with lock and key. Lie, lie, lie, was the code of life, the secret to ensured survival. Dad lost because he followed his heart, and mom didn't survive because her mind wasn't strong enough to stay true to a lie. That's why Uncle Vee had to teach me everything I knew. He was the last one up for the task, though he had no experience with children because his wife had always been sterile. He tried his best. Sitting where I am now, I'm not so sure if he succeeded. Nature versus nurture; who knows if it's even his fault? Perhaps he had been powerless all along. The only reason he couldn't survive was misfortune.

We were dirt poor. Uncle Vee had a factory job and I had jack squat because I was supposed to be focusing on school. When I was fourteen he developed chronic muscle pain, and his work hours were halved. He lost capacity to bear hard labor and hospital visits were expensively out of question. What he needed were morphling injections in their purest form, but those were only available at the hospital. Pills smothered an ounce of the pain to a dull ache. It wasn't enough.

I started sneaking into the hospital to swipe vials and syringes. Uncle Vee wasn't naive, he knew where I was getting it and why, even if I tried to play it off. "This isn't what I wanted for you," he said once, as I slid a needle into his vein. "But what we both want must be very different." He has always respected my wishes. He didn't try to stop me because he knew I couldn't be convinced. Who can stop the birds from flying? The dogs from sniffing? He smiled each time I walked in with a new supply, hiding pain behind gratitude. He knew it was illegal, and he knew it was only a matter of time before a rookie slipped up.

It took them two months to capture me. A tall, burly Peacekeeper caught me red-handed with a syringe behind my back and pinned me against the wall to cuff my wrists together. Apparently the staff had been plotting to find me for weeks because they knew their stock was running lower than usual. They had so much I didn't think they'd notice.

"Am I going to prison?" I said, feigning ignorance of the Detention Center's infamous title.

"Yep, you'll be off to the DC soon. Not sure what they do with drug addicts."

I was in the Justice Building, waiting for a train that was due in six hours. That was a lot of time to kill with one man. "The morphling wasn't for me. My uncle has bad muscle pain. He can't work because of it." It was surprisingly easy to manipulate my voice into something silky and sad, like I was a starving child who deserved the world. I'm not sure what I deserved. Peace, maybe. "You can check my arms, there are no needle marks." I was very lucky he was bored out of his mind, because he entertained the idea. A thorough inspection of my arms left him shrugging.

"That's too bad," he said, and I knew he didn't mean it in the "sucks for you" kind of way. What I heard was a genuine apology for my circumstances.

I snatched that opportunity out of thin air and devoured it like the desperate child I was pretending to be.

"Is there anything you can do to help me?" I pleaded. I was playing a pity card that was out of my league. "I'll do anything." I dropped to my knees like a beggar, and discovered the humanity I was searching for. It was very, very human, so obsessed with instant gratification.

"I have an idea, but you have to stay on your knees."

It wasn't a punishment as much as it was an idea. A tool for my toolbox. Uncle Vee wouldn't be proud of my accomplishments, but what we both want is very different. Just like he always said.

The peacekeeper released me back into the wild, grateful enough to let me keep my confiscated prizes. I told Uncle Vee it was just another batch that I stole. It wasn't worth mentioning that my situation now posed a problem; I had no access to future vials and needles, therefore dooming him to eternal pain. I refused to admit it. One arrest was not going to discourage me. I would've accepted a defeat that was out of my control. With power, I can't sit idle. Everything would be my responsibility.

It took a lot of sniffing in the darkest corners of the District to find a dealer willing to sell to me. His name was Barry and his product was reasonably cheap, but he treated me like an addict, handing me only the bare minimum so I would return begging for more. Playing the dumb pawn, I always did, although I was honest when I told him it was for my uncle. I knew he was playing me like a harp, pulling the right strings when he needed to. I’m not as thick as people assume; I recognized how quickly he warmed up to me, and how. It wasn’t surprising the night he invited me to a bar to discuss an “alteration in payment.” I only pretend to be ignorant. ”I’ll think about it,” I said, gradually sipping the beer he bought me.

”What’s to think about? You need the product, don’t you?” he replied, the edge of agitation in his tone dripping on my tongue like a grain of salt.

”I’m a virgin, Barry. I need time to think about who I’m giving my V-card to.”

That shut him up. Someone like me, he figured, had already seen that part of human life. I can’t say I hadn’t experienced something on that level, but I still had some chastity left. He sold me the usual product and gave me a week to decide, not knowing I had already made the decision. A week later he took me home and put in his best effort to please me, and that became our new deal. Sex and money for morphling. Two simple luxuries. An uneven trade. I didn’t argue.

Uncle Vee contracted a mysterious illness during all of this. I was fifteen, and realized on my own that it was degenerative. All I could do was relieve pain with Barry’s product, but even that fell through when we were ambushed. Men and teens with guns surrounded us while my hand was below his waistband, and they dragged us to a warehouse. I suspected Barry was one of many gears in a clock tower, because with drugs there’s always a bigger picture. He was a speck on a canvas, and had single-handedly dragged me into that world. His ringleader wasn’t pleased with us.

”I never gave you permission to have a fuck buddy,” he said gruffly to Barry, pinching my jaw between his thumb and his index finger. He was inspecting me like cargo, and I pretended not to understand why I had been kidnapped and brought to Barry’s boss. I pretended not to know this was a drug ring, that this man was the leader and probably wanted me for himself and would steal me whether I liked it or not.

I pretended not to anticipate violence.

However, even expectations didn’t prepare me for an execution. The ringleader whipped out his pistol and launched a bullet into Barry’s forehead without warning, to punish a disobedient pawn. It was the first time I could hear my own voice echo inside my head alongside the pounding of my heart. Panic feels like I swallowed the bullet and lost my hearing. I covered my ears and looked at Barry’s brains spattered against concrete, not once thinking I had ever hated or condemned him for trying to manipulate me. He didn’t deserve to die like that.

Sex is as much of a weapon as it is a bargaining chip.

They tossed Barry’s body somewhere far away, and I became property. The ringleader took a liking to my face and my tolerant demeanor, and gave me to whichever of his boys didn’t have a preference for girls. I lost all access to products. I was stripped of any kind of manipulative power, and my Uncle got sicker and sicker. I couldn’t relieve him of his pain, even during his final moments. I wasn’t home when his heart stopped – I found him that way one night and collapsed over the edge of the bed, body and mind exhausted from misuse. I didn’t cry, I just passed out. I had to notify the Peacekeepers the next morning. I was allowed to attend the funeral and the burial, because I was the only family who showed up. I stood with the men he used to play poker with and shared a drink. I needed the company. I needed somebody friendly instead somebody of demanding and hungry. They were now the closest thing I had to family, yet I would never see any of them again.

Life is dull when you have nobody.

If my mood changed, the boys didn’t notice. They were self-centered, unlike Barry, the types to drink from a lake until they were bloated and lethargic. For a while I thought they had sucked me dry, that I was on the verge of passing from heart failure because there was no energy left in me. It turned out not to be true. Gunfire always boils the blood, and the second time I heard it I leapt from their bed and somehow found the fight to scramble for my life. The man I was with stormed out to join whatever battle had ensued, but a bullet greeted him at the door. I watched blood spew from his spine. It slid straight through his torso and landed in the wall behind him. I was crouched with a sheet wrapped around my trembling body. A boy and a girl entered the room. They looked my age.

”Nah, they weren’t keeping it in here.” The boy called over his shoulder. Meanwhile, the girl’s eyes were fixed on me.

"The only thing in here is a dead man and his whore."

I stared at her in fear, but I wasn't afraid of her. For my own sake I was just another whore. They could execute me, capture me, or let me run wild. Escape wasn't an alternative. As much as I wanted to go home and eat what was left in my fridge, I was once again too busy being part of the larger picture. I was starving because I was living off of my uncle's savings, and I remember thinking how desperate I would be if one of these people offered me a job or money, and how okay I would be if one pointed a gun at my head. Instead, the boy dragged me out and asked what he was supposed to do with me.

"Take him," somebody said, "Didn't you hear? Arrow's collecting them."

Like a trophy, I imagined.

Before they led me to another building, I managed to catch a glimpse of every corpse they left to rot in that place. All empty faces that I had once seen smile and grimace. I couldn't find the energy to hate them. I don't think I've ever hated anyone.

My face fell when they brought me to another shithole-looking building. Wash, rinse, and repeat was not the life I wanted to live anymore. I was pleasantly surprised when I walked inside. Looks were deceiving; whoever owned it had the money to repair the insides to impressive conditions, while decorating the outside to make it look ugly and abandoned. Two guards patted me down in the clothes they had rushed me into. Finding me helpless, I was escorted down a hallway into an office. A girl was sitting behind a desk counting money. My only thought was that a cartel co-owned by a woman could either be really promising, or really terrifying.

Maybe both.

She pretended to offer me a job, and I pretended to believe it was a choice. The only subject on my mind was the word salary. As soon as I heard those words slip between her red-stained lips I was sold, heart and soul. I didn't want to wither away like my uncle had. There wasn't much of a status change, given I was still property and still an entire cartel's toy to play with, but I was finally making money. I could actually survive. It's not what Uncle Vee wanted for me, but what we wanted was very different. What I want is all that's left.

Amity, like the previous ringleader, admires my tolerant demeanor. Everyone knows me as the laid back whore who'd happily fuck for a lollipop. I'm a ditsy street boy with no actual street smarts, just a barrel of luck and a banging body. I play that part well. I'd rather be notorious for ignorance then have them know I smuggle pills into Amity's office. They pat me down every time I enter the building, but they never think to run their hands through my scruffy hair. I have a hair clip with a little red jewel on it, and it pops open to hold about five pills. I get them from old connections - one of the boys who wasn't there during the massacre, one of the ones that acknowledged whatever dignity was buried deep inside me. I have to sleep with him for the pills, of course, but he's a nice guy. I appreciate his service.

I take the pills when I feel like I'll need them. When somebody gives me a bad feeling, I turn around and pop one in before my clothes are off. I'm part bargaining chip, part luxury. There's a Peacekeeper who threatens to expose the cartel if he isn't satisfied every other week, and before he slams me into whatever furniture is available, I sneak a pill down my throat so his hips don't feel like a bulldozer. I'd rather be numb instead, a cloud drifting and being consumed by thunder clouds. It's better than pain.

Amity appreciates that I can please, that our secret remains safe.

I smile and salute. It's what I do, I say.