Scavenge the Stars (Scavenge the Stars #1)(58)

Which was how Amaya came to be crouched on its roof in the middle of the night, gazing down at Melchor in disgust. The knife she had brought with her to the inlet was in hand, which she had used to split the tighter seams of her dress in order to climb up the building. She was still barefoot; her slippers wouldn’t have given her the right traction for the climb.

And she couldn’t afford to lose her balance tonight.

Keeping quiet in the shadows, Amaya swung off the ledge of the Rooster and plopped down into the alleyway. It stank of urine and old vomit, and she had to resist the urge to gag as the odor momentarily overwhelmed her.

When Melchor turned to head back inside for another round, he started at the sight of her. She knew she had to look ragged and scraped, a haunting half-bathed in shadow. He didn’t seem too well off himself, his jaw carelessly stubbled and his eyes bruised from lack of sleep.

“What’s this?” he slurred, his breath carrying the scent of cheap ale. “Little pigeon wants to steal my money?”

“I don’t want your money,” she said, her voice low. He had only met her as Countess Yamaa, with her lighter, more enunciated way of speaking; she doubted he would recognize her with her hair curled from seawater and her dress frayed and dirty. “I want you to repent.”

Melchor squinted at her, still swaying on his feet. “What’d you say? Repent? For what?”

“For the lives you ruined,” she growled. “All those children you gleefully shipped off just to get some coin in your pocket. How does it feel, knowing that you likely sent them to their deaths? To torture and labor and trauma?”

He stared at her, as if thinking it over. Then he let out a loud belch.

“How’s it feel? Feels like nothin’,” he slurred. “Each of those soft little heads paid for a month’s worth of drinks. Best job I ever had.”

Amaya breathed hard through her nose, trying not to shake. She again thought of her mother weeping as she held her, the day before this man came to shepherd her to seven years of torment.

How could you sell me? she demanded of her mother’s ghost. How could you hand me over to this man?

She bared her teeth and tightened her hand around her knife’s hilt. It glinted in the starlight, and Melchor’s eyes widened.

“Whoa, now,” he said, hands raised before him. “Put that sticker away ’fore you take an eye out.”

“It’s not your eyes I’m after.”

She launched herself at him. She knocked him into the wall of the alley hard enough to wind him, but he was a grown man nearly twice her size and had no trouble shoving her off so that he could scramble for his own weapon. Melchor brandished a small boot knife at her, his hair beginning to fall out of its queue.

“Just turn around and go home,” Melchor warned her. “I don’t want none of this tonight.”

Amaya ignored him and rushed in again.

Use surprise to your advantage, Boon had taught her. Speed, ducking and weaving, feinting—they’re all the friends you need in a fight.

She ducked under Melchor’s wild swipe and slashed him on the thigh. He yelped and backed away, limping. Amaya faced him again, knife lifted before her to show off his blood along its edge.

“The children you helped sell faced years of degradation,” she said. “Of hopelessness. They cried for their parents. They cried for someone to help them. Some died performing their work, and some—” Her voice broke. “Some chose to jump into the sea instead of facing one more day of it. You did that. You caused their suffering. My suffering.”

He squinted at her again. “Your—”

She didn’t give him time to finish—her nerves were screaming for action. She yelled and rushed in, blocking his arm and stabbing him between the ribs, angling up toward his heart, just as Boon had shown her.

She wasn’t prepared for the jarringness of it, the way the blade glanced off bone and sank through muscle.

He exhaled with a grunt, taking a few steps back. Amaya held on to his arm and walked with him, keeping her knife buried in his body, her grip turning slippery on the hilt.

Her fingers wet and warm with his blood.

She could feel his stuttering breaths on her face, his eyes wide and full of pain. Amaya flinched back, releasing her knife and scrambling away from him. Melchor uselessly pawed at the protruding hilt, the shirt around it dark and damp. The scent of his blood flooded the alley, metallic and rusty.

“I hope you regret it,” she whispered. “The day you sold me to the Brackish.”

He fell to his knees. His gaze was still on her, his mouth opening and closing uselessly.

“Ah,” he sighed after a moment, sinking toward the ground. “Yeah, it’s you. I get it now. Should’ve just…done what I was told…”

And then he fell over. Unmoving.

Dead.

Amaya stood there for what felt like hours, bathed in starlight and blood. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t look away from Melchor’s body. His eyes were still open, still looking at her, the flash of recognition now faded.

His last words perched on her shoulders, echoing in her ears. Should’ve just done what I was told.

What had he been told to do?

A raucous sound from within the Rooster made her come back to herself. Amaya hurried forward and grabbed at the knife, trying to pull it out of his chest. It was slippery, and the body refused to give up the blade. She gritted her teeth and put her foot against his chest, yanking until it pulled free with a sickening squelch.