How Things Are

twelve

"Hello?" Winwrey snaps in my face. "What the fu-"
"Stop!"
"Well stop zoning out. You were about to tell me about your father." She thinks she's clever with her English accent.
"I wasn't actually."
"Don't mock me!" It's easy to dodge questions by insulting her. She does it to me. "Anyway, we're almost here."
"I know. I can smell the booze." Winwrey licks her lips. "Uhuhh. No. We're not here for that."
"Oh come on! Don't you want to try it just once?"
"You're acting like a child. That's the line you'd feed someone to try Crack." I'm exaggerating hey,
"I wouldn't mind giving that a try either." She shrugged, of course, she wouldn't. "This is the best booze in the world. Just a few drinks." She didn't ask just walked into the nearest bar.
"Only a couple! And we take them to our room!"
I follow her inside and she already has two drinks ready. "I started a tab." Win whispers. She sounds way too exciting. The place is packed. Slave women are serving everywhere getting their butts smacked. Winwrey smacks one of their butts and she winks. "What. We're men, right? Gotta blend in." She's already drunk. I haven't paid attention to how much either of us drank. "I'm a man!" Winwrey yells. I laugh.
"Yes, you are Win. A very pretty one. HAHAHA!" I held my gut as Winwrey flexed whenever a woman passed us. They're probably used to worse. There are other people around us acting dumber than we are.
A guy sitting in a booth across from us started showing his butt. Classic drunk move. Then someone came in with pants left without. Perhaps he didn't have enough for his tab? There were a few fights we kept our eyes on.
Someone rolling dice. I had never seen that game so me and Win joined the circle for a bit til we caught on to the con. The dice switched up his sleeve for a set of fixed ones. The people who won were a part of the con. Even drunk we weren't gonna be fooled easily. Then a small card game in the back. We just drank. I observed and laughed at Winwrey but this stuff mostly makes me sad. I thought about my father and brother. I remember mumbling to Winwrey "Do you think my mom loves me" Other than that, it's all I remember of the night.

I woke up in a bathtub with the taste of vomit in my mouth. When I slowly crawled out I saw Winwrey sleeping on the bed. It's a crappie room but at least we got here. My sword is sticking in the wall above Winwrey. What the heck? Going to our bags, everything is still here. How did we get here? She was wasted too.
"Win. Get up. I need to know what's going on." She's Mumbling again
"Screw you Samari." Uhh
"Win!"
"Fine. Stop yelling."
"What happened?" I looked around. "How'd I end up in the tub?" She stared at me for a moment with that look of 'Are you serious?' on her face. "Do you know or not."
"Because I put you there!" What? "You told me about your mother not loving you anymore. Letting your dad mess you up and not doing anything about it. The bed was getting wet from your sobbing so I threw you in the tub." And she called me heartless.
I took a deep breath. "And my sword?" Pointing above her. "How'd that get there?"
"You threw it at me." She yelled. "You'd regret what you told me so I'll leave the juicy bits to myself." She rolled over.
"Umhmm" I yanked my sword out of the wall. Great. Seeing that playful sympathetic face means I told her about what happened. Win knows I hate talking about stuff. Emotions and such. She knows to leave it alone. "We should get ready to go. The next place is a big city run by the Cript. They'll check us at the border and we'll have to pay a fee with a gift to their boss."
"So more booze." Winwrey had sparkles in her eye.
"For their boss Win. Not for us." I said flatly "I'm done with booze."
"Oh, I'm aware. That was another line you repeated last night. 'I'm done, Win. Done with everything.'" She laughed.
"Shut up!" I threw a pillow at her but the bathroom door closed first. I heard her laughing from behind it.

After we both showered and tied up our hair we went to purchase a few bottles to offer the next few leaders in the cities we'll travel through. Winwrey picked out the offerings. She was enjoying this too much. Not just the drinking but earlier she was trying to talk me into getting better manly disguises. It wasn't a bad idea, just the way she implied it was like we needed a prettier outfit to go trick-or-treat in. I told her she can steal the next set of clothes. That seemed to make her happily.

She's either playful or sarcastic but when she thinks I'm not listening I hear her mumble about Carmen. She truly loves him. However long they were together she's hooked and it seems Whatever the mafia is doing is supporting little brother to help us get there instead of daddy Don. We haven't run into a single problem. Well first town doesn't count. We gave ourselves away. Every time I look around I see nothing. No sign of trouble. It's making me uncomfortable.
Winwrey doesn't say anything either. Like her caged prince is leading us to him and I'm the one in the end that has her head chopped off. Lucas is known to be ruthless. I've seen him stare at someone like they're something he stepped in. The last thing I plan on doing is running into him. I plan on dropping Win off and getting out of there as soon as possible. I don't know what's in that head of hers that doesn't seem to see the danger anymore but as soon as we get to Mafia City and her prince I'm out.