A Little Broken [Three Trinities Haven Church]

[Oriena]

Ori watched him retrieve his goods, but there was a glint to her eye that suggested it wasn’t a look of anticipation. Sasha knew his clients. He was good and discrete and all the things a decent dealer should be. But she realised she wasn’t interested in service – someone who just knew what she wanted and would accommodate it, which by the second bag he clearly remembered exactly what she liked. Tonight it made her feel known in a way that felt depressingly banal – just another junkie. The brief attempt to reach out faded quietly. His troubles were his own, and that was fine by her.

She shifted to lay back, hands on her stomach, the bottle propped against her hip. There weren’t really any stars up there; there never were in the city.

“Don’t take the advice then, Sasha,” she said. “But if we’re talking about the same thing, they’re just scared people, and you’re a fucking god.” She didn’t look to see if that hit a mark or just elicited a look of confusion. He haunted the undercity like she had once, and there were plenty of things in Moscow’s underbelly to be scared of, even with Zeke’s protection. She might be wrong. She didn’t care either way.

“How about you just surprise me,” she said. Her eyes were half closed, arm cushioned behind her head. She was just far enough from her fire that half of her was bathed in its scalding glow, and the other felt the bite of winter. She didn’t think about what she’d already taken tonight, or the alcohol she’d washed it down with. Ori was perfectly aware she was taking risks, like maybe she thought if the ijiraq were going to destroy her body with their unnatural connection anyway, she’d just beat them to it.

As if on cue, blood choked the back of her throat. She rolled, half pushed herself up as it began to pour from her nose, pressing the back of her hand up against it. “Fucksake,” she muttered.