Within These Wicked Walls(48)

“Go ahead, girl,” he said, his dreadlocks falling in my face as he leaned over me. “Make me let go.”

Even though he had my other wrist pinned, I could still slice his arm. There was a good artery there.

But that was exactly why I wouldn’t.

I felt the tight burning of my constricted windpipe. I had seconds to decide what to do before I lost strength. Blacked out. And then he’d win, like he always did, and I’d have a headache and sore throat for the rest of the day.

Without his wooden leg, he only had one leg supporting his weight. I kicked it out from under him, shoving him onto his back. I pressed my knee into his arm, aiming my knife at his face with both hands. He caught both hands with his only free one, pushing up against me.

“Why didn’t you cut my arm?” he grunted. “I gave you the easiest opening.”

“Artery.”

“You’re soft.”

“I’m not soft, I just need you alive.” I shifted my meager weight more on top of the knife and lowered it closer to his face. “Surrender, old man, before I give you one less eye.”

“Your threats have gotten more realistic.” He glanced at the knife. “I surrender.” I let up on my pressure, allowing him to drop his defensive hand, but I kept the knife pointing at his face, in case he changed his mind. “Tell me, how do you check a man’s pulse?”

“By sticking a knife in him,” I said.

“Then why do I have to tell you this again? Never put yourself within grabbing range of someone, especially someone bigger than you.” He waved me away and I got up and put my knife away. “What the hell happened to your hand since I last saw you?”

“Oh—” I looked at my still-wrapped fingers, which were beginning to throb from all that activity, despite the medicine. “I cut myself on … some pottery.”

“Was it pottery or wasn’t it? You sound like you have no idea.” He scraped his fingers through his beard, giving me a skeptical look. “We both know this isn’t a sentimental visit. What are you doing here, girl?”

I folded my arms across my chest and backed up another step to gather up my courage. Just say it, Andi.

Instead, “This place is disgusting” slipped out of my mouth.

“That’s because you’re not here to clean it.”

“You don’t have another mentee by now?”

“Haven’t found one with enough potential to be worth my time.” Jember coughed out a laugh, then groaned as he forced himself to sit upright on the end of the bed. I heard his joints creak. He was almost thirty-eight but pain had made him seem older to me. He winced, massaged the puckered and rounded-off end where his knee used to be, then swallowed two of the illegal pills without water. All his energy must have been sheer adrenaline.

Living on the street so long, you learned how to turn it on and off when you needed to.

I wanted to be mad at him. I wanted to hate him. I couldn’t.

“How are you even surviving?” I said. “You don’t get paid by the church unless you train debtera for them.”

Jember let out a long sigh, his posture drooping as he glared at me, as if he were already sick of me after only a few minutes of interaction. He yanked off his gloves and dropped them on the bed, shaking out his sweaty hands, then opened the drawer beside him and took out a pipe. “I really thought I’d made it clear last time not to bother me.”

I snatched the thing out of his lips before he could light it. “Your body is a temple for God’s glory.”

“My body is mine, and yours is yours.” He snatched it back but didn’t light it. “Unless I decide to finally kill you and use your fat as cooking oil.”

And he said my threats were unrealistic. It had worked for the few months—months of living in constant anxiety, until I learned that Jember was too lazy to ever follow through. Now it was just tradition.

I smirked. “Good luck finding any fat on me to burn.”

Jember laughed a little, ending it with a heavy breath. For a moment neither of us spoke. For that moment, I felt like I was back home. Finally, he said, “You must be truly desperate to come to me for help.”

I swallowed. “You said to come to you if my life was in danger.”

“Who is it? Just give me the name.”

“It’s … more of a what than a who.”

The color left Jember’s face, and I felt myself trembling at his expression. Concerned? Terrified? I’d never seen those emotions from him, especially not at once.

“You’re at Thorne Manor, aren’t you?” he said, his expression finally slipping into anger. “Have you lost your mind?”

“What do you care?” I snapped. “You’re the one who did this to me.”

Jember threw one of the bottles beside him, and I winced as it shattered against the stone wall. He tried to get up, then remembered he wasn’t wearing his leg. We both knew he didn’t have the energy right now to hop on one leg.

For a moment we were quiet. Hate and guilt mixed in my gut.

“I know you’re smarter than this,” he said finally.

“I needed work.”

“Needed wor—?” He pressed his fingers into his temples, taking a deep breath. “You know ten experienced debtera have already been through there, don’t you? Wasn’t that enough of a hint to stay away?”