“Be quiet, girl,” Hana’s mother hissed at her. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?”
Jaya went to her friend and pulled her to her feet. “How can you think it was your fault at all?” she exclaimed angrily. “Ging was a worthless little shit. Why do you think I broke up with him in the first place? And even though it’s very kind for your whole family to come here to show your thanks, it’s hardly needed, because what’s the point of friends if we don’t defend each other?” She hugged her classmate tightly. “I don’t care at all about spending time in jail, I’m only glad you’re safe.”
Hana began to cry in earnest, and would’ve stayed there, clinging to Jaya, if her parents and brother didn’t pull her away, saying the Pillar’s family had given entirely too much time to them already. Hilo was a little bewildered by the feeling that he had absolutely nothing to add to the situation, other than to place a hand on Noyu’s shoulder and thank him for coming.
The man’s lips trembled with emotion. “Kaul-jen, not only are you the Pillar, but you’re managing to raise children who’re as green and good-hearted as you are. Looking at you, I feel humbled as a father.”
CHAPTER
41
Second Chance
Three men stood in excited expectation in front of Bad Keck Remi and his two bodyguards. It was past midnight and the Feast of Janloon restaurant had closed an hour ago; the six men were the only people remaining on the second floor. The single window was cracked open to dispel Resville’s unseasonably warm spring heat, but the blinds were drawn and the lights were dimmed to create an atmosphere of solemnity.
“For centuries, our ancestors claimed the jade off the bodies of their enemies.” Jon Remi spoke with an air of ceremony as he unfolded a black cloth on the table. He’d given this speech many times before and was well practiced at the ritual. “Only the strongest could wear jade. Once they had it, they had to fight to keep it. Kill or be killed. It’s part of our culture. It’s in our blood. Tonight, we continue a tradition handed down to us from generations of jade warriors.” Remi laid out three identical gold chains, each with a jade medallion. A reverential hush fell over the Snakeheads.
Jade was hard to obtain—thanks to those greedy fucks in the Kekonese clans—so Remi was extremely discerning about who he elevated as Vipers. The three men in front of him had all been in the gang for a year and proven themselves by carrying out at least two assigned killings. “You’ve all earned this,” Remi said. “As soon as you put it on, there’s no going back.” Remi raised his tattooed arms. “Who are we?”
“The Snakeheads!” The men forked their fingers in the gang salute.
Remi called forward the first young man from the line, who’d shown his thick blood by executing two members of the Copa cartel. The Snakeheads were currently playing spoiler in the war between the Copas and the allied East Resville and Cranston Crews. Remi hated both sides and had been in violent confrontation with them both before, but enmities and alliances were always shifting in Resville.
Remi placed the chain with the jade medallion over the bowed head of the new-made Viper. A look of awe came into the man’s face and his energy changed, rose in pitch as it began to hum with jade power. From now on, he would have to train every day with the other Vipers to control and use his new abilities, and he would need daily injections of SN2. Remi had heard that in Kekon, Green Bones didn’t use shine at all because they were exposed to jade as children—another old country privilege. Fortunately, Remi had plenty of shine to go around and the drug was safer than it used to be. There had only been three deaths from overdose among the Snakeheads in the past year, and that was preferable to even one case of the Itches. The one man Remi had seen die of the Itches had gone out in a bad way, killing his own wife and children with a cleaver before turning it on himself.
With a dazed look on his face, the first man stepped back and Remi motioned forward the second Snakehead in line, a half-Kekonese ex-con who’d left Migu Sun’s outfit in Adamont Capita and had proven himself by hijacking a Copa drug shipment and killing three dealers. Over the years, the Copas had taken over most of the region’s drug trade by bringing narcotics—primarily amphetamines like sweet flour and buzz—across the border from Tomascio. They had a reputation for indiscriminate savagery; in their own country, it was common for the drug lords to leave dismembered bodies nailed to fences as a warning to their enemies.