The armoured hearts

Emergency

"500."

"Is this a joke? It's less than what I give to you EVERY months! Are you this greedy? What is this even? What am I making this place for-"

"IT wasn’t FAIR!" He cut her, his voice trembling but not creating any emotions around him.

"What are you talking about now?" She sighed.

"He just arrived like this! Got to be a waiter! He just took one room like this! He just-just got it all suddenly!"

"So you were jealous." Clea said emotionlessly. The more his insecurities were shown, the more they didn’t condamn it but the result of it.

"I am not jealous!...I was just…I-"

"You were." Yok added. "I didn't know I had such a snake in my house. First, I always said that you could all change what you were in charge. You just didn’t trust me. You just kept your venom inside when you will have been able to just talk to me. Even share your thoughts. Second, Chay is my dear child and you made of yourself my enemy the moment you spit his name to them."

"Wait-wait what do you mean Phi?" Jany asked, getting a glimpse of it but not wanting to realize it.

"You're not living anymore nor working here."

"You can't do this! Look what she is doing because of him?" Jany looked at the other, scariness creeping in his veins.

"Don't get me wrong Jany…I am of course horrified about what you did to Chay, but it's not the only reason. Do you think that we can all trust you again? Do you think that people here will talk or breathe easily knowing one of us is capable of doing this for money ? I did this place to protect everyone, even if I stopped it all, I know that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have food, to take care of health and to have a roof with the work we do here. So I am providing rooms, food, choices, I am doing my best in this awful business of bodies and you pay me like this ? By bringing insecurities in our heaven? This is not a menace. You need to find a new place, Jany. I can't let a rotten mind get to all of us and I hope that everyone will think twice before doing anything now. " Yok firmly said, walking away, trying to contain her anger. She didn’t want to let her emotions attack everyone when only Jany messed up.

“Phi…” Clea still walked after her, not the one to be afraid of an angered Yok.

“Yes?” She turned around, her voice already calmer but her eyes still burning of frustration.

“I wondered…who should talk about this to Kim?”

Yok stared at her, she bit his lips. In her actions, she didn’t forgot Kim, he was just hidden by the urgence of the situation. Clea had a point here, if Porchay wasn’t here, Kim had no one to really be around him. Kim wouldn’t be alone but he was only really familiar with Porchay. “I will do it.” She stated, thinking that she could use the relationship she had with the boy to not let the other one outside. He needed to stay safe, he needed to stay under her roof, at east the time they would understand what to do.

—-

Porchay woke up as urgently as Yok talked because of a splash of water on his face. He tried to get his composure back, not struggling anymore as if that water could have drowned him on the spot, it couldn’t for now. He was surprised to still be in a good shape after getting tied up to that chair in a dark room. The fire of the candles was the only light constantly on inside, it gave a really weird atmosphere, increasing by the fact he didn’t have anything to tell them. All they asked was about Kim. They needed to find Kim and Porchay repeated that he didn’t know who that person was. In fact, he didn’t know that the men they thought saw him and recognized the one they took for their target.

Porchay was only beginning to be tired, really tired. He was hungry, the water was getting him cold, and his anxious mind was burning more of his energy each second. He was relieved each time they would walk away and close the door, and then he would stress again because he knew that at any moment that hell of a door would open again.  Like now, after the splash which got him more awake than he was already. One thing was different : the man in front of him was alone. They weren’t two as always.

He kneeled in front of him, Porchay could mostly believe that he was sorry for him when meeting those eyes, those eyes shaped like a knife, this deep look at the universe which was really familiar to him.

“Boy…you are just making everything harder…” He sighed. “We just need the information and we know that you have it…why won’t you give it?”

“Maybe because…I know…how dangerous you are…” Porchay whispered, he finally talked something after hours but Kinn wasn’t really proud of it looking at the tiring state of him. However, he admitted that he knew something.

“The man you are protecting only needs to give the money back, we will talk to him, free him, and ask him to just give us all the money he would earn, it will be hard I know…but he won’t die because we need that money. You can just save yourself, why won’t you just tell us?”

Porchay laughed, he giggled or he sighed at the same time, no one knew because this sound came from the bottom of his really tired and overwhelmed brain. He even smiled mockingly, worrying a little Kinn. He wondered if they broke him too much all of those hours, with questions, questions, and menaces, and questions, and water. Not letting him take a breath or sleep.

“I don’t know…who told you this, but it’s wrong…”

“What do you mean…”

“You got played…I don’t know who told you…but there is no money…problems… not at all…if you listen to me, I can enlighten you really lost expression.”

Porchay said that sentence with so much confidence that Kinn began to want to give him the doubt. He began to think that his father was really eager to find that person who had money to give him, even if a lot of other people needed to do it too. He looked at him. He thought about the men who literally were knocked off, and he clearly didn’t think that the boy in front of him had enough strength. Maybe for one man, but two. It looked too suspicions and the sensation began to wander in all of his veins and blood, reaching his brain, ready to make a decision.