Devil for a Lost Cause

Three

"Morning," Steven greets the next day. He's sitting at the kitchen table drinking a mug of coffee.

"Geez," I say, rubbing sleep from my eyes and trudging to the cabinet for a cup. "You don't give up, do you?"

Steven usually leaves before now. When I wake up, I wake in the apartment alone, and the fact that he's still here means he must really want to talk about the recent murder and how it's affecting me.

"I know you were lying last night when you said you were fine. You're not fine." His chair screeches as he stands and gives me a pointed look. "I can tell."

His blatant response startles me. Slowly, I lean against the counter and sip bitter coffee. "Okay," I confess. "I admit it. When I heard about another murder, I couldn't stop thinking about why he's still doing this. He's already gone after numerous people, why's he still having someone kill for him?"

Steven shrugs. "Getting rid of enemies?"

"Yeah, but that many?"

"So he's got a lot of people he hates. Does that really surprise you?"

"No," I say, flustered, "but—" I stop.

Steven speaks lower. "What're you going to do?"

I give him my full attention now. "Me? Why do I have to do anything?"

"I know you think about stopping Leavens day and night. I'm not stupid. You spend half your time outside wandering around, and the other half staring at the city from that damn balcony. Clearly, you have plenty of time to think about him. I'm only saying that because..."

"What?" I ask sharply without meaning to. "You think there's something I can do, Steven?" I shake my head. "Andrew's always had the upper hand, even before he sent me to prison. He's got power. I have nothing."

Apparently deciding our conversation has ended, Steven busies himself by rinsing his cup in the sink before removing his jacket from the chair and shrugging it on over his broad shoulders.

"What are your plans for today, anyway?" he asks now.

It isn't difficult to tell Steven's bulked up since I first met him from the way his shirt tightens around his bicepts. I guess working at the food vendor factory requires more movement than I had thought.

"Oh, I don't know," I reply, bored. I abandon my cup on the counter, walk to the couch, fall onto it without grace. "Stay home. Be lazy. Pretty much do what I always do." Meet with a bounty hunter. Probably be called insane once I tell her my plan for how to repay Ronin. Bonus points if she slaps me when I ask for her help to pull it off.

Steven sighs. "I know you can't get a job because—" He cuts off like he thinks I'm actually going to be offended.

"Because I'm an ex-con?" I offer. "Yeah, it's true. No job wants me after I spent four years in a cell."

I was born into this life of big walls separating the "bad people" from the "good people" and a country that lacks forgiveness, but my mother used to tell me the system was less harsh once, that there was no towering wall twenty years ago. Oh, how things have changed, she would say with a sad smile.

My heart throbs, and I force myself to focus on Steven's next words.

"But you're still looking, right?"

"I'm still looking," I assure him. "But remember, I almost stole from one of the big guys, and they didn't like that."

Steven's eyes are concerned, but underneath it there's a fury when he looks at me, and I wonder if it's for Andrew.

"I gotta go," he finally says. His hand goes to the doorknob. "The factory calls."

"Can I ask you somethin'?" I say before I'm able to stop myself.

He turns back, shoulders stiff. "Yeah?"

My body's being eaten alive by the lumpy couch cushions, so I sit up fully now. "Do you really think I could do something about Andrew? I mean, like stop him? For good?"

Steven looks conflicted. In the end, he gives me a long stare, says, "That's for you to figure out for yourself, kid," and goes to work.

And with that, I make my final decision.

* * *
Yay, another one done!