Succession (6 page)

This threat alone is enough to get me to shut up, and when Bulldog grabs at me, I go toward him immediately, eager to avoid the threat of being separated from my protection.

Sy turns to Lanza, nodding deferentially before speaking. “Look at my hand, sir. I split my knuckle on his teeth.”

He holds his hand out, and the officer takes it carefully, observing the gash and the blood.

That’s why he was pressing his fist to his teeth. Sy split his own knuckle so he could take the punishment for me.

“Sy—” I start, desperate to avoid letting him take my punishment.

“Shut your mouth, Sascha,” he warns. “This was between me and Marvin, and this wouldn’t have happened if you would have stayed out of it.”

His words are true, even if his version of the events isn’t.

Marvin keeps protesting from the sidelines until Bulldog threatens to whip him for insolence, and then he stalks out, pouting and touching his lip. Only the fact that I left a mark on him eases the injustice I feel.

“Punishment remains the same,” Lanza provides. “Twenty lashes—you got the whip?”

“Let’s make it twenty-five,” Bulldog bargains, flashing a smile at me and Sy. “After all, he is a repeat offender.”

Lanza just shrugs and taps at his tablet, entering the date and offense and number of lashes.

Sy doesn’t need to be ordered to strip, he does so automatically. His hands are still and confident as he grabs the zipper and pulls it down, slips his arms out of the sleeves, and drops the jumpsuit to the ground. As if this were the most normal thing in the world, he steps out of it, picks it up, folds the fucking thing, and hands it to me.

“Would you like me on the perimeter or the ground, sir?” he asks, his tone just as even as it was before. I shudder at the image of him lying on the ground, waiting to be beaten.

“Perimeter,” Bulldog grunts.

Bulldog follows Sy to the edge of the yard, where the chain link fence provides stability for Sy to lean against and grip with his hands. Afraid and alone, I stand close to Officer Lanza, who allows me to follow him.

I’m horrified to realize how good a view I’m getting. Some of the other slaves have gathered, keeping a respectful distance. Sy’s face is pressed into the fence, but I can still see his blank expression.

“Begin,” Lanza announces.

Bulldog lets the first lash fly.

He’s not as fast as he is when he’s whipped the other slaves. It’s like he’s drawing it out, savoring it, and the half-smile on his face confirms that. I hate him. He also seems to be hitting harder, or maybe it’s just my guilt. Welts spring up almost instantly, and he’s managed to cross the lashes and draw blood by the eighth lash.

Sy stands there like a stone, his face and posture and expression exactly as they were when they began. Even as the whip falls, cracking as the leather connects with his skin, he doesn’t respond, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t let out so much as a whimper. I think he blinks, once, but I realize it’s just a coincidence. For all anyone can tell, he’s just looking at the clouds.

Bulldog isn’t doing as well; as every lash fails to draw a response from Sy, he hits harder, his face going from satisfied to frustrated as he reaches twenty. He loses control of the whip and manages to wrap it around Sy’s ribs. From where I’m standing, I can see the tip wrapping around his chest, the tip striking his neck. This draws only the slightest jerk from Sy, but Officer Lanza gasps and snaps at his partner.

“Dammit, Reynolds, have you been drinking again?” he strides over and grabs Bulldog’s hand, jerking the whip out of it. “You blind him or something and we’ll both get written up! I can’t afford to lose this job!”

Bulldog mutters something I can’t quite make out, but he doesn’t sound happy.

“We’re calling it,” Lanza decides, tapping something into the tablet. “Punishment finished at twenty-one lashes.”

Sy stays frozen on the fence, not so much as dropping his hands. The red marks seem to glow against his skin. Here and there, blood is pooling just at the edge of the lash marks, smeared where the whip struck repeatedly, but not yet dripping. The single line of dripping blood comes from Sy’s ribs. I can see that his muscles are tense, but every other part of him is calm, controlled.

“Give it up, Syrus, you’re off the hook!” Bulldog snaps, storming away. His pride has clearly been hurt and he’s furious. I only hope that Sy isn’t the one to feel that wrath later.

Lanza nods at me and I rush toward Sy, who’s already turning around.

“Sy, I’m so sorry,” I babble, fighting back tears. It isn’t fair, none of this is fair, I shouldn’t have gotten him into trouble, and I shouldn’t have stood there and let him get whipped because of me. “I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again, Sy, please—”

“Sascha, I warned you once today to shut your mouth, do you need a more physical warning?”

As kind as he’s been to me, it occurs to me that he could hurt me, and his demeaning tone and casual threat of violence has me cowering.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, looking down. I want to crawl into the concrete, burrow under the ground and hide like a worm.

“Give me my jumpsuit.”

I hand it over wordlessly, feeling my guilt mounting as he steps into it and pulls it on. The faded orange fabric is animated by the spots of blood that show on his back.

I become vaguely aware of the crowd watching us, some commenting on Sy’s decision to step up and protect me. Marvin is pouting in the corner, one of his boys sucking his dick to soothe his pride. Sy doesn’t speak to me for a while; he doesn’t speak to anyone. He gets a few approving nods from the other slaves, presumably for his unflappable attitude during the whipping. In typical Sy fashion, he doesn’t respond, just stares off into space.

I stay close to him, out of habit and self-preservation, but I don’t touch him like I usually do, because I’m afraid he’ll disapprove. I don’t speak, either. I’ve seen other slaves punish their pets, and it can be anything from an extra rough fucking to pinching to taking away meals. I hadn’t thought Sy would do that, but then, I hadn’t thought I’d be responsible for him getting whipped either.

When we’re allowed back inside, Sy takes me by the arm and drags me down the hallway. A few lecherous slaves follow until Sy turns, glaring at them.

“No audience,” he orders, his eyes cold. “This won’t be entertaining.”

He drags me into his cell and starts stripping off his jumpsuit, face stone solid again as he pulls the fabric out of the cuts on his back.

“Take your fucking jumpsuit off and get in the bed!” he yells at me, his voice booming through the cells.

I tremble, wondering what he’s going to do to me, but I follow his orders. I deserve it.

Sy goes to the sink and fills a flimsy plastic cup with water, grabbing a washcloth as well.

I wonder if he’s planning to gag me.

He crawls in bed next to me, slower and stiffer than usual, and he proceeds to lie on his stomach, his head turned toward me. It’s not what I’m expecting, but I’m still afraid, and I’m still trembling. I wait for his orders.

He hands me the cup and the washcloth.

“Calm down,” he whispers. “I’m not really going to hurt you. After that stupid little stunt you pulled earlier, we need to keep up appearances. Help me clean up.”

“Oh.” I take a few minutes to understand what he said. Another act.

I wet the washcloth and dab at his back, as gentle as possible.

“You won’t break me,” he comments, prompting me to press a little harder. “You do something like that again and I’ll bring you back here and knock you around, got it?”

“Yes,” I have to fight to keep from adding “sir” to the end of the sentence.

“It was between me and Marvin, you didn’t need to get involved,” he mutters, clenching his teeth as I wipe a stubborn piece of lint out of one of the deeper cuts on his back.

“You didn’t have to do that for me,” I hiss at him.

“That’s not up to you.”

I can’t argue with that. I bite my tongue against all my comebacks and focus on what I’m doing. I don’t understand why he’s so hell-bent on helping me, but I’m not so rude as to be ungrateful.

Finally, I feel a hand on my leg.

“Sorry if I scared you,” Sy whispers. “But plenty of people saw what you did, and they saw that I took your place. There needed to be some sort of consequence. I’d never really be that cruel.”

“But you’ll knock me around next time?” I tease, only half-kidding.

“Probably not,” Sy admits. “But don’t think that a part of me doesn’t want to.”

I smile, thinking of Cash. Something as stupid as what I did would have earned me at least a meeting with his belt, back in the day. He always has been able to keep me in line, but he hasn’t really had to, not since he let me in on his plans. I work so much better when I know what I’m facing.

“Why are you helping me?” I ask again. “This is more than just winning me over, more than just looking tough. What are you working toward?”

“You can just thank me and move on,” Sy evades my question, letting his head rest on his arms.

I think back to Marvin’s last taunt, about being put down like a dog. I wonder if it’s true, and more importantly, if Sy will tell me. “Are you really at risk of being killed? What did you do?”

He sighs. “It’s better if you don’t know about it.”

I wait, frowning, resisting the urge to poke at his wounds until he talks, but I know better. I’ve seen the scars; even if he wouldn’t smack me across the cell, he wouldn’t talk, either. I take another angle, one I doubt he’s been trained to resist.

“If you’re going to use me, you could at least tell me how. I owe you. I won’t get in your way.”

I can see from the slight redness that graces his face that shame cuts far deeper than the whip did. He glances over at me, shaking his head.

“You’re too smart for your own safety,” he says. “Look, I know who you are. More accurately, I know who your master is, who his associates are. I know I might be able to use your safety as a bargaining tool. My master is a member of the 27th Street Gang—it’s small, but the gang has ties with the Argova crime family. They have interest in the slave industry.”

It’s not that I thought he had fallen instantly in love with me or anything, but it still stings to hear someone else’s plans laid out so carefully.

“It should have been me killing the man my master murdered. I fucked it up, so he did it instead… and he got caught,” Sy confesses. “He wants me dead for that mistake, but his superiors aren’t so vengeful. I have it on good authority that the Argova family is interested in your master. They have a part to play in everything, they keep the lower level gangs in line. If I’m useful enough to them, they might cut the 27th Street Gang out of the equation entirely. You’re the first useful thing that has come in these doors since I got here.”

I raise an eyebrow, curious. I know I’m useful to Cash, but I fail to see how an organized crime unit would have any use for me.

“The people who own me, they have business dealings with Oliver Torenze. Your master’s partner. That’s how I recognized you, I saw you at a social event probably a year ago.”

Always observant.

“Sascha, I’m dead when I leave here. My master will be imprisoned or executed; when the trial is over, his associates will likely do the same to me. Keeping you safe is a stretch, but it might win me some favor.”

I frown. Torenze’s corruption has followed me into a detention facility. I wonder when Sy first saw me. Was it at one of the parties that I attended so faithfully with my master? The one where he beat me for Toreneze’s amusement? I hadn’t noticed Sy, but I rarely notice other slaves. My job is to focus on people who matter. Bodyguards, servants, slaves, we blend in.

“How are they connected?” I ask.

Sy smiles. “Torenze has a lucrative side business connecting medical supplies with organizations that need them. Officially it’s research, but mostly they sell organs to the highest bidder. The Argova family facilitates the business end. They hired my master and the 27th Street Gang to move the products and clean up the mess. We’re bottom feeders, but I’ve been around long enough to recognize the important players. It’s kept me alive.”

I shudder. Cash has mentioned Torenze’s connections into the medical industry, his role in experimentation on the Demoted, but I never realized that something as grisly as a black market organ trade was part of it. At one time, I was almost part of that population.

“Torenze seemed fond of you,” Sy recalled. “Your master certainly was. You’re a bargaining chip. From what you’ve told me over the past few weeks, this research thing, the way your master is challenging the Miller System, you might be even more valuable.”

I nod, trying to remember everything I’ve told him. I underestimated him; I thought I could speak freely about the project since he’s just another slave. Just the big dumb bodyguard of a street thug.

“The stuff with the Miller System is a government program,” I remind him. “I’m not sure how useful I’ll be.”

“You’re too smart to miss the levels of corruption in the Demoted system,” Sy chastises. “The government, the Argova family… they’re all working toward the same goals. The only difference is whose name shows up in the media. Besides, you’ll be more of a personal favor. Please your master, please his partner. It positions us for better deals in the future.”

I nod, seeing his point. It’s a stretch, but he sounds like he’ll take whatever he can get. Then again, so will I.

Chapter 5
Making Deals

The longer I stay in the detention facility, the more worried I become about my master.

I don’t get news about him; I don’t get news at all. Time seems to stop in here, at least for slaves. Knowing why Sy is helping me makes me a little less confused, and I pay him back how I can, sharing extra food with him at mealtimes and staying out of trouble. It’s the least I can do for him.

We’re in the common room, playing a game of cards with some of the other slaves, when Officer Lanza comes over, eyeing me and Sy up skeptically. He glances at me. “You’ve got a visitor,” he informs me. “He’s requested a private room. Think your master would allow that?”