Rainer ate, merrily chatting with Esmeralda for over half an hour, while Maple slept soundly in Rommel's arms, his fedora tilted precariously over her small head like a silken fort.
As they chatted, Rommel's attention remained fixed outside the window.
He watched the towering high-rises of the Cross shrink into average buildings, then into low-rise stores and sprawling malls. Soon, the electric brightness and modernity of the city frayed at the edges, giving way to a rugged, transient terrain of sparse villages and lonely dwellings glowing in the distance, the occasional roadside motel flashing past like a forgotten memory.
This, too, was temporary.
Soon, a diminished dawn of civilization brightened the horizon as the town of Gray rose ahead—sprawling and vast, yet dimmer, like a faded photograph of its glamorous neighbor.
The bus drove under a large, rusting steel archway with the words 'GRAY TOWN' welded into it, a gateway into the city's weary heart.
Over time, the bus groaned to a halt at intervals, shedding passengers the deeper it penetrated, until it reached a district where the light itself seemed tired. Here, under the sparse, flickering streetlights, the homeless built nests of cardboard, hookers negotiated with weary defiance, and drug addicts conducted their shadowy business in plain sight.
Soon, the last of the civilian passengers, aside from their little group, disembarked with weary steps.
At that moment, the driver, a grizzled old man with a face like worn leather, yelled back without turning.
"Hey! This is the last stop! Everyone out!"
Esmeralda gasped, her expression shifting from confusion to pure alarm. She stood and rushed to the front.
"Wh-what?! This isn't the last stop! I use this route every day!"
The old man groaned, a sound of profound irritation.
"Yeah. Well, things change. The actual last stop has become a battleground thanks to some upstart gang. I'm not risking my bus. So get out!"
Esmeralda stepped back, a hand flying to her chest as her breathing quickened, her eyes wide with anxiety.
"But my house is miles from here! I can't possibly walk that far with all my things and my child. Please, sir, just this once. I'll be better prepared tomorrow, I promise!"
"I said, it's too dangerous! Now off!" he yelled, spit spraying.
Rommel frowned, the muscles in his jaw tightening as he made to stand. But Rainer stopped him with a hand and a shark-like smile.
"Let me handle this. Hand me the tickets."
Rommel groaned, retrieving the slips of paper.
"You'd better make it bloodless."
Rainer chuckled, a low, dark sound.
"That's precisely why I'm the one doing it, bucko."
He strolled to the front. Immediately, Esmeralda's eyes snapped to him, the desperate hope in them a silent plea.
Rainer sighed and nodded toward the back. "Go sit down, sweetheart."
She glanced once more at the driver's stubborn back, then did as she was told, brushing past Rainer.
"The hell?!"
The driver finally glanced back, his shock morphing into outrage at the interruption.
"Who is this punk?! I said, Get Out!"
Rainer revealed a faint, unnerving smile, saying nothing until he reached the front. He coolly leaned a hip against the dashboard, the picture of casual insolence.
The driver stared as he slowly, deliberately, took off his hat and placed it on the dashboard. The bronze GBG pin caught the weak light, glinting like a predator's eye.
Immediately, recognition dawned in the old man's gaze.
He was before a gangster. Not just any thug, but an Initiate of the GBGs, the unchallenged rulers of the neighboring city.
But he was an old man, hardened by decades of driving through Grayhaven's gang ridden streets. He wouldn't cower at a mere hat.
At that, he leaned back in his seat, his own eyes meeting Rainer's with undaunted defiance.
"Listen, kid. I've made my choice. I'm not changing it for some foreigner who doesn't know the ins and outs of this city."
Hearing this, Rainer slowly, almost lovingly, pulled a black leather glove onto his right hand.
"You know..." he began, his eyes glinting with a terrifying, repressed excitement.
"I'm a bit new to this GBG stuff. The bosses keep saying we have to be civil, to act gentlemanly toward the average citizen..."
He drew in a deep, theatrical breath and laid the tickets on the dashboard between them.
"But if you refuse to take me the full way I paid for... you're no longer a civilian. You're a swindler."
He leaned down, his smile sharpening to a point.
"So please. Oh, please," he whispered, the words soft and deadly. "Do not take me to the last bus stop. And you'll find out the real danger was never outside."
He held the man's gaze, letting the implication sink into the silence, into the very metal of the bus.
The old driver held his brave front for a moment longer, then his Adam's apple bobbed in a hard swallow.
He soon looked away, inhaling and exhaling a shaky breath before his eyes, now stripped of their steel, returned to Rainer's.
Before he could even speak, Rainer's smile widened. He had won.
...
A few minutes later, the bus hissed to a halt at the actual final stop.
Rainer and the group disembarked.
Esmeralda turned and offered a timid "Thank you," to which the driver replied with a disgruntled "Whatever," before stomping on the gas and speeding away as if fleeing the plague.
Rainer, with Maple perched happily on his shoulder, glanced around.
The neighborhood was a basin of shadows, punctuated by few and flickering streetlights.
The one above the bus stop buzzed and sputtered, casting erratic pulses of light on the deserted pavement. The only signs of life were the shapeless forms of sleeping homeless people nestled in alleyways.
"Whoa, Esmel. You actually live here?"
Esmeralda looked around, a wry, embarrassed smile touching her lips.
"Oh. It looks bad, doesn't it?"
Rommel took a deep breath, the air tasting of decay and damp concrete.
"You can't keep living here." He said, glancing up at Maple, who spotted him and waved a tiny hand down at him.
Esmeralda nodded, her gaze falling dejectedly to the ground.
"I'm saving up for a better place, but for now... this is all I can afford. The housing is sturdy, but the safety... and the distance to work are... problems."
Then she looked up at them, a flicker of curiosity cutting through her fear.
"Ah! Do you gentlemen live around here?"
"Nah," Rainer shrugged, his eyes continuously scanning the darkness.
"It does seem like a prime piece of real estate for criminals, though."
She instantly clasped a hand over her mouth, terrified.
"N-no! I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
Rainer chuckled.
"Ah, don't sweat it. You're heading this way, right? We've got busines—"
He suddenly stopped speaking and let out a long, weary sigh, his head tilting as he listened to the silence.
Rommel frowned, his body coiling slightly.
"Company?"
"Yeah," Rainer confirmed, his wry smile returning.
"The unfriendly sort, it seem."
Esmeralda looked around in a fresh wave of panic.
"What? What?! A-are we safe?"
Rainer chuckled, and a grim smirk touched Rommel's lips.
"You're standing with the GBGs," Rommel reminded her, his voice flat.
Rainer added, the smile not quite reaching his eyes, "If there's something you should fear, sweetheart, it's standing right beside you."
At that moment, three figures emerged from the shadows as if woven from the darkness itself. They approached with the languid, predatory grace of wolves, their footsteps silent on the cracked asphalt.
They wore stylish three-piece suits beneath heavy wool overcoats. The lead man, positioned between his two companions, wielded a golden cane, and all wore flat caps, casting their eyes in deep shadow.
"The G-B-Gs," the lead man mused, his voice a low, deep rumble that vibrated with unspoken authority.
They soon came to a stop a dozen feet away.
The lead man drew on a cigarette, the butt flaring to life and illuminating a face carved from granite and old scars. He blew a plume of smoke into the chill air, looking away in thought before his dead, horror-weary eyes settled back on them.
"Such staggering confidence," he said, the words dripping with condescension, "for men so far from home."
Rainer's eyes discreetly swept the dark alleyways, picking out the vague, hulking forms of multiple men in long overcoats; the cold, dull gleam of their rifle barrels catching the flickering light as the men lurked in deep shadows.
Rommel's brow furrowed slightly, his body tensing for the fight he knew might come
"Gypsies."
At that, the lead man drew in softly, then exhaled; the nasty cloud of fumes masking what seemed to be a slow, sinister smile.