I stood up and reached into Eddie’s pocket.
“Let me go!”
He tried to knock my hand away, but it was too late. I pulled out a knife and a small bottle. The blade seemed sharp. There was a faintly pungent smell coming from the bottle.
My nostrils flared.
“Did they say if you used this to knock out April and handed her over to them, they’d make you their apprentice or something?”
I was right on the money. The boys looked around in a panic.
“Was it the Devil’s Alliance?”
It was easy to forget this was the Devil’s Alliance’s territory, since they didn’t come to collect a protection racket from the orphanage. They would have already known April frequented the premises, so I suspected they had set up this trap for the next time she came.
“…They said, tell us if she shows up. And trick her into coming with them. If it goes well, they’ll let us join, and we’ll be allowed to help deal their drugs…”
All I had to do was guess at their deal, and the dumb kids blabbered every detail. Where was their dedication?
“What do you have against April?” I demanded. “She’s done so much for you.”
When she had time, she visited the orphanage and helped the staff. She continued to help as an act of charity. She’d never once mocked the children or looked down her nose at them.
“We didn’t ask for it,” Eddie spat. “What she’s doing is like playtime for rich people. She gets to wear nice clothes and eat good food and sleep in a comfy bed. But if I asked her to switch her life with mine, would she do it?”
“If that old man had a twisted little twerp like you for a grandson, he’d kick you out on the street himself.”
His point was that April was a hypocrite. I could neither confirm nor deny that. You could change your opinion on any person’s actions just by viewing them from a different perspective.
“Plus, what you’ve got is just a plain old loser’s mentality,” I added.
“What?!”
“Listen, if you wanna be a mobster, I won’t stop you.”
It was his life to live. If he wanted to spend it dying in a ditch, that was his choice.
“But there is such a thing as honor in life. And when you ignore all the good that’s been done for you and harm that person instead, you prove yourself to be a total bastard without a shred of honor,” I said, mentally adding, Like me. “And a bastard without honor only has two options left: kill or die.”
“Sounds good,” he said.
“Okay, then.”
I thrust the knife at Eddie. The point stopped a hair’s breadth from his eye. A moment later, he wailed and jumped backward. Too slow. If I’d meant to, I would have jammed that knife through his eye and into his brain.
“What’s wrong? Scared of this little toy? No gang’s going to take you on like that.”
“Toy?”
“Did you think they were really asking you to kidnap April for them? The big scary men in the Devil’s Alliance? Asking a little brat like you?”
I snorted in mockery.
“They were teasing you. This is just a toy knife, and that bottle’s just pepper flakes. It’s not even going to numb your target.”
I stepped away until the sun was shining on my back, then I squeezed the knife.
“Watch.” I clenched my fist and snapped the knife in two within my palm. “See?”
I showed it to them. My skin wasn’t even broken. While they reeled in shock, I opened the bottle and dumped it onto the ground.
“If you want to make your own way in the world, do it right. Live in a way that suits who you really are. Otherwise, you’re only going to end up in the dungeon.”
Graves in this town were for the rich and noble. Everyone else just got dumped into the dungeon when they died.
“You said April was a hypocrite. But it’s only because of her that you’re even here.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Who do you think the primary funder of this orphanage is? It’s April.”
“No, it’s her grandpa…”
“The old man doesn’t give a shit about you.”
He wouldn’t bat an eye at more orphans dying in the gutter. The same way most people wouldn’t.
“If it weren’t for April, there would be a gangster’s mansion here or a brothel full of women. So you’d either be gentlemen of the street or potential male prostitutes.”
They had no money and no connections. Without any skills, either, their destinations were limited. When somebody didn’t have the strength to free themself from a situation, they could only drift along, powerless to stop it. Not that Eddie was particularly incompetent—because most people ended up that way.
“……”
“And in case that wasn’t enough, it’s because of her that this place is being rebuilt.”
A home for poor orphans with no relatives to take care of them was always going to be the last priority. It was only a rich and powerful man’s granddaughter who made this place more important than it would otherwise be.
“Do you get it? Not only were you going to betray the person who did everything for you, but you were going to get yourselves killed in the process. It doesn’t get any stupider than that.”
They were killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Pure foolishness.
“……”
Eddie had no argument and nothing to add. His shoulders sagged, and he clenched his fists.
“If you really want nothing to do with April, just walk away from this place. Then you can waste your life by joining the mob or living on the street. Have fun.”
“Shut up!” Eddie screamed, mad enough to take another swing at me, but I wasn’t going to stand there and be a punching bag. I sidestepped him, and he cracked his knuckles on the wall of the shack. He howled and crouched, cradling his hand. When his little friends crowded around him with concern, he shoved them away.
“This is my house, no matter what you say. Mine! I’m not some rich girl’s helpless pet. She shouldn’t be coming around here just to make herself feel better whenever she needs a boost!”
“……”
“Loser’s mentality? Call it whatever you want. I wanna be huge. I’m gonna sell drugs and make a fortune, so I can be big and powerful like the Devil’s Alliance and the Spotted Wolves and the Birds of Prey.”