Dead and Buryd

Chapter 9: Deal on Delivery

The overnight shift in Medics’ Way had been quiet, which Georgianna had been grateful for. After spending the day out in the camps, and the evening serving drinks at Crisco, Georgianna had been exhausted. Being a medic had been her dream since she was a child, but after the arrival of the Adveni, it had not been enough to live on. While the Veniche often dealt in trade, the Adveni system revolved around money, and not many Veniche had enough money to afford medical treatment when they most needed it.

She had taken the bar job during the freeze a few years before. After a large number of Veniche had moved south to escape the worst of the blizzards, there had not been enough people for Georgianna to make her way in trade. Greunn, the owner of the bar, had been sceptical at first, but settled on giving her a shot, believing that her pretty face (for a Veniche, anyway) would help sell his drinks. She hadn’t been sure how she felt about being looked on in that way by Adveni, but had decided that as long as they kept their hands to themselves, she could deal with their eyes and lewd comments well enough.

Georgianna took over from Keinah in the early morning hours. Keinah was huge, her stomach swollen with the coming birth of her second child. She didn’t take many shifts on the Way anymore because the child could arrive any day, but she’d explained that Jaid had been getting increasingly frantic as, after three days’ missing, they had still been unable to locate her husband, Si. While Georgianna had wanted to ask more, it was clear that Keinah was desperate for some sleep, so she’d let her go.

Jaid showed up mid-morning, looking like she had not slept a wink in days. Georgianna asked her about Si, but with no news on her missing husband, the older woman didn’t seem up to talking about it. While packing her things into her bag, Georgianna offered to stay, though Jaid would hear none of it. There were a couple of Belsa out looking for Si, and Jaid wanted to ensure that she was in a place where people knew how to find her if he showed up.

Unfortunately, Georgianna partly knew how Jaid felt. While she’d never had a husband go missing, the days before they discovered her mother’s fate had been much the same. There was nothing to do but to keep looking and hoping. Her father had been unwilling to accept that anything had happened to his beloved wife, and so it had been Georgianna, eighteen years old at the time, who went to the Adveni registration buildings after the fifth day.

She’d been killed in a fight in the Oprust district, among Veniche fighting to keep their trade lands. She’d not been involved. Georgianna knew her mother didn’t have a fighting bone in her body, but she’d been killed none the less, caught by an Adveni Agrah’s stray bullet. Her body had been disposed of before Georgianna made the trip to the registration buildings, so nothing was left but the possessions she’d had on her. There were a few dresses, finished for trade, a bag filled with cloth for new designs, and her joining ring, slipped from her cold finger. Georgianna still had that ring, buried in the trunk at their family home, but she didn’t dare put it on for fear of losing it.

However, a mother lost almost a decade before would hold no comfort for Jaid, so Georgianna slipped away, heading out of the Way and south through the tunnels to the Carae. From the things her brother had told her about Nequiel’s last days, to Jaid’s current desolation over her lost husband, Georgianna knew that she had to tell Taye her decision sooner rather than later.

Taye had managed to secure himself a spot deep in the Carae tunnels, furthest away from the main lines. There weren’t many of the old tunnel cars down this way since most of the tunnels were far too narrow to have held them. Instead, members of the Carae used whatever they could salvage and scavenge to create their homes, much like Keiran had done for his shack in Belsa territory.

Taye had built a place for himself and Nyah at the end of a narrow tunnel, using the walls of the tunnel and attaching heavy sacking across the front. Georgianna let out a whistle as she neared the entrance to Taye’s home, covering her eyes in mock worry as she pulled the canvas to the side, making a show of groping along the wall. Taye groaned out a laugh, and Georgianna could hear him moving on a mattress. Peeking through her fingers, she let out a sigh of relief to see that he was, thankfully, fully dressed.