“I don’t think it matters if the gods exist,” Bero said. “If they gave me this shitty lot in life, then I don’t give a fuck what they think.”
Ema gazed into his eyes with calm agreement. “Me neither.”
She took his cock out of his pants and lowered her head into his lap. Her damp hair spilled over his stomach as she sucked him. When he was close to coming, he pushed her down and they fucked on the sofa. They moved to the single bed and fucked again. Ema fucked with her eyes closed, with relentless, mechanical, angry desperation. She didn’t even make him put on a condom. After Bero was done, she kept riding him and rubbing herself urgently until she came. Bero was honestly bewildered. After years of rebuffing him, he would’ve liked it if she’d put on more of a show of her usual haughtiness, maybe resisted a little, made it more challenging. As it was, the sex was fine, very good, it was sex after all, but a bit anticlimactic considering how long he’d had to wait for it.
Afterward, he wanted to fall asleep, but she shook his shoulder and said, “You have to go.” Bero rolled over and grumbled, but she shook him again and he raised his head in irritation. A couple of hours ago, Ema had been drunk and needy, but now she was standing up, wrapping herself in her robe, strangely sober and purposeful, with a vaguely vacant look in her eyes. “It’s tomorrow,” she told him. “It’s happening tomorrow.”
At first, he couldn’t understand what she was talking about. Then he sat up. “What’s happening tomorrow?” He was awake now. “It’s what you and Molovni and the others have been planning, isn’t it? The great strike of the clanless.”
Ema wrote something down on a slip of paper and handed it to Bero. “Go to this address in the Docks at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. That’s where we’re meeting after it’s done. Vastik will be there with a boat nearby, ready to get us out of the country.”
“Out of the country?” Bero repeated in confusion, scowling at the paper in his hand. “Why are you giving this to me? Molovni doesn’t want anything to do with me. I was never brought into the plan.”
Ema bent over him and placed a strangely chaste kiss on his cheek, the crooked one that had been damaged so many years ago. “You’re in it now,” she said, “because you’re my friend. Vastik won’t have a choice.”
Bero said with a jealous sneer, “So you can get Vastik to do whatever you want?”
Ema gave a humorless laugh. “Molovni has to do what his masters in Dramsk tell him to do. Just because I hate the clans doesn’t mean I have any love for the Ygutanians.” She picked up Bero’s discarded shirt and pants and handed them to him. As he dressed reluctantly, she rummaged in her purse and pulled out a wad of money. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “It’s late. Take a taxi.”
“That’s more than I need for a taxi ride,” he said, eyeing the cash but taking it anyway and stuffing it into his pocket. “Why won’t you tell me what you’re going to do? Maybe I could help, you know.” He knew he sounded whiny. Angry.
Ema gave him a deflated smile and drew her robe more tightly around herself. “You have. I needed a good fuck tonight, and you gave me that.” She went to the door and opened it for him. “Lie low tomorrow. Just be at that address on time.”
_______
When Bero got back to his apartment, he called the special number he’d been given by the Espenians, the one he’d been told to use only for emergencies, if his position as an informer had been compromised, if he was in mortal danger, or if he had some vital or urgent information. It was past midnight. The phone picked up after the third ring. “Who is this?” demanded Galo’s sleepy voice.
“Catfish.” Bero winced; he still hated his code name. “It’s tomorrow. Whatever Molovni is planning with the leaders of the clanless, it’s going to go down tomorrow.”
Galo was instantly alert. “How do you know this?”
“The girl. Ema. I finally got to her. I went to her apartment and everything.”
“What exactly did she tell you?”
“She wouldn’t tell me anything,” Bero groused. “All I know is that it’ll happen tomorrow, and Molovni has a plan to get them out of the country afterward.”
“What’s the girl’s address?” Galo demanded.
Bero hesitated. He had a sudden vision of Espenian soldiers surrounding Ema’s building in Coinwash and breaking down the door. He imagined her being dragged from her apartment and thrown into the back of an unmarked vehicle, to be taken to an Espenian military installation and never seen again.