Three Days

The cup strikes the saucer twice before Lucian Ward manages to set it down.

Coffee spills over the table. He tries to move the paper beneath it, but his left arm will not reach far enough. A stab of pain travels from the wound to his neck. He remains bent forward, teeth clenched, while the liquid reaches the corner of the eviction notice.

“Leave it,” Ambrose says from the doorway.

The priest picks up the paper, puts it on a shelf to dry, and wipes the table with the cloth over his shoulder. He wears a gray sweater over his black shirt. There is a small burn on the back of one hand, and his glasses have slipped to the tip of his nose.

“The doctor is coming back this afternoon,” Ambrose tells him.

“I’ll be gone by then.”

Ambrose looks at the cup, then at the sleeve, where another bloodstain is beginning to appear.

“I’ll leave clean clothes by the sink.”

He leaves without adding anything. Lucian waits for his footsteps to fade upstairs and tries raising his arm again. He cannot.

It is Tuesday. Portown’s gray light enters through the high window; water runs down the glass and blurs the shoes of people passing on the sidewalk. The room occupies part of the parish’s old basement. There is a narrow bed, a sink, boxes of candles, and a bathtub Ambrose uses to store clean blankets. The helmet is on a chair opposite the still-damp boots. A splinter has left a white mark on the edge of the visor.

On Friday at dawn, Lucian had reached the church with blood hardening on his glove. He sat in the last pew and left the helmet between his feet. Ambrose found him there, unable to stand without help. He called a doctor he knows and prepared this room. That night, when the news showed the Inferno attacker’s clothing, he came down and watched Lucian from the doorway for a while. He did not ask him to leave.

Since then, Lucian has slept in snatches, almost always sitting up. When he takes off his shirt, he finds his chest stained yellow and purple. The gauze on his arm sticks to the fabric. He wets the sleeve before pulling it free and stays still until the pain lets him continue. Upstairs, someone drags a bench across the tiles. The noise passes through the low ceiling and ends in a dull thump. He puts on the shirt they have left him and searches for news on his phone.

The photograph of Inferno is still on a local newspaper’s front page. In another picture, flowers stand beside a barrier. A guard has his arm around a woman on a beach; his sunglasses are pushed up on his head, and he smiles at whoever is taking the picture. Lucian recognizes the man who showed him to the entrance. Below, the desperate family appeals for information from possible witnesses. He reads the man’s name and looks at the photograph again.

After a while, he searches for the latest report on Officer Lance. Still in hospital. Of the three women rescued from the offices, it says only that one remains hospitalized. No names. He searches for Melinda alongside the nightclub’s name. He finds no update. He tries Verónica and gets the same photograph of the patrol cars, the same paragraph about the victims. He scans the article for an identification of the attacker. There is none of that either.

His blood was left on the sheets beside Lance. Four days for someone to examine that envelope. He reloads the page. The text is the same. He did not reach the Meridian before nine on Friday. By the time he could go out again, the hotel was full of police and cameras. Since then, Madsen has appeared only in a recorded statement and a photograph distributed by his office. He condemns the attack on Inferno and asks the public to cooperate.

He says nothing about the women or the dead manager.

Lucian plays the statement with the sound off. The councilor brings his hands together on a table. Behind him are a Stormport flag and a window admitting clean light, without rain. Another story occupies the column beside it. “Tomato Crisis.” The title sits above a photograph of a red price tag. Twelve dollars a kilogram. Lucian opens the link and finds Camille Mercer’s byline, from the Inquisitor. The first piece appeared last night at six minutes past ten.

He reads slowly, pausing over photographs of receipts, empty stalls, and a crate reserved for a restaurant. A woman who cleans hotel rooms puts a tomato back in the box. At the hotel, they serve it with breakfast. Lucian rests the phone on the table. When he bends forward, the edge presses against his chest, and he has to lean back. He keeps reading with a hand over the dressing. The reporter describes supply contracts, buyers who pay in advance, and shopkeepers left with whatever remains.

He finds no Madsen and no mention of the company receiving Portown’s homes. He remembers Verónica beside the mattress, explaining why Melinda had taken that second job. They raised her rent, probably to a ridiculously high price for a home he imagines is barely adequate. The notice remains on the shelf beside a box of church candles. Lucian can recognize the time from the bed: Friday at nine. Some of the ink has run with the coffee.

At noon he climbs the stairs, gripping the railing with his right hand. He has to stop on the landing to catch his breath. From beyond a door comes the smell of onion, starch, and hot water. He hears plates clatter and a voice asking for more spoons. Ambrose is in the parish soup kitchen, scraping the bottom of a pot. Two volunteers are preparing trays. Sacks of rice stand against the wall, the sink is full of bowls, and a steamed-up window looks onto the courtyard.

The priest raises his head when he sees him.

“Do you need anything?”

“To get out of that basement.”

Ambrose points to a chair beside the door and returns to the pot. One of the women opens a crate of vegetables. Among loose leaves and soil, only a few broken carrots remain.

“Is that everything?” the priest asks.

“What we could buy with the money we had left.”

The woman hands him a damp receipt. Ambrose compares it with another he takes from his pocket. He goes to the window, lifts his glasses to his forehead, then lowers them again to read. Afterward he folds both papers and puts them away.

“We’ll have to buy less meat on Thursday,” he says.

The volunteer looks at him.

“We already bought less last time.”

Ambrose leaves the ladle in the pot.

“This afternoon I’ll call the people who used to send donations from the market.”

“I called yesterday. They want to keep helping, but they don’t have as much left over now.”

Someone in the hall asks whether they can start coming in. Ambrose dries his hands and goes to open the door. Cold air comes in with the first children, who pull off their hoods and stamp their feet on the mat. One leaves a backpack under a table; another comes back for him because he has taken his jacket by mistake. A girl protests when her place is changed and drags her chair over to her friend.

Before they start eating, the priest bows his head and gives thanks for the food. Some join him with their hands together; others wait with their spoons already in their bowls. Lucian steps aside to let a tray pass. He offers his right hand, but the volunteer already has the tray braced against her body.

“There are napkins in that drawer,” she tells him.

He sets them beside the cutlery. The dispenser’s spring is too strong, and he has to brace it against the table to fill it without using his left hand. When he finishes, he discovers Ambrose has added three plates to the end of a row. A woman sits there with two children. Beneath the table are a blue suitcase with a broken wheel and several supermarket bags. The woman folds a jacket and puts it on the younger child’s seat so he can reach his plate more easily.

A volunteer brings her bread. She asks for a bag to save whatever they do not eat. Lucian keeps looking at the suitcase. Ambrose stops beside him.

“They arrived on Friday,” he says quietly. “They’re from the building on the notice.”

The woman takes a spoon and moves the plate closer to the child. He insists on eating by himself. When he tries, some rice spills onto the jacket, and he begins picking it up with his fingers. She moves his hand away, cleans the seat, and places the plate before him again.

“Are they staying here?” Lucian asks.

“For now, they sleep in the back hall. There are two other families.”

“And after that?”

Ambrose takes a moment to answer. He tucks the cloth into his apron pocket.

“I’m looking.”

They call him from the kitchen. Lucian stays beside the cutlery table, his arm motionless against his side. A small bloodstain opens at the edge of his shirt. He covers it with his good hand before the woman turns her head.

Later, when the volunteers begin clearing up, he goes back down to the room. Ambrose brings him a plate and a jug of water. He finds him looking at the minutes of the vote approving the housing concession on his phone.

“Madsen wasn’t the only one,” Lucian says.

Ambrose sets the tray down among the boxes of candles.

“I know.”

Lucian opens the council’s membership page. One representative per district. Thirteen portraits, thirteen names. The mayor appears on another page, smiling as he shakes hands with a businessman. He returns to the minutes and goes through the result. Some councilors opposed handing over the homes. Their objections were recorded beside the votes that were enough to approve it.

“They’re going to vote on something else,” Lucian declares.

“We can show them what’s happening here. Surely they’ll decide differently.”

“Differently? They already know everything.”

“Then they’ll have to answer.”

Lucian gestures toward the ceiling with his eyes.

“How long can you keep them up there? A week? A month?”

Ambrose picks up the stained shirt from the edge of the sink.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to serve food to everyone, either. Today they ate.”

“They have to eat tomorrow too.”

“Yes. That’s why I have work to do this afternoon.”

Lucian closes the minutes and leaves the phone on the table.

“They’re going to bring prices down, whatever it takes, at any cost.”

Ambrose stops folding the shirt.

“How? As far back as I can remember, prices have only gone up. They never come down.”

Lucian looks at the helmet. The priest follows his gaze, then looks back at him.

“No, not that,” Ambrose pleads.

“I haven’t even said what I’m going to do.”

“I saw you arrive here. I had to help you out of clothes stuck to you with blood. And I’ve seen the news. Who are you planning to kill now?”

“Whoever keeps letting this happen.”

Ambrose clenches the shirt in his hands.

“Did the man at Inferno’s door decide how much that woman paid for her home?”

Lucian raises his head. For a few seconds he hears the dripping tap, Stormport’s drizzle outside, and the clatter of cutlery being cleared upstairs.

“They protect that system. They protect the people who decide that and everything else.”

Ambrose watches him without moving. Lucian looks away first. The beach photograph comes back to him, sunglasses raised, an arm around a woman.

“Melinda shouldn’t have been there either, naked, violated, drugged, and dumped on a mattress like raw meat,” Lucian blurts out. “She should have been at work, or at home with her daughter. Right?”

“What I’m trying to tell you is that God…” Ambrose begins, but Lucian interrupts.

“They took her there because she needed to pay that outrageously expensive rent. And there are people sleeping here, right above us, because they were thrown out of their homes.”

“We can’t change that, nobody can. Only by voting can we place our trust in someone who…”

“No!” Lucian erupts in fury.

The shout can be heard in every room of the parish.

“There will be a law that puts limits on all this. Rents, food, water, electricity. They need to stop raising everything every time a ship full of tourists comes in, every time they review the accounts after six months, or when a war somewhere is used to justify the costs.”

“The city council doesn’t set all those prices.”

“It decides that, and it decides who gets the buildings. It decides what to charge. It signs concessions, grants licenses. Let them start there. Let them ask the people above them for whatever they need to ask.”

“And if they vote for something you don’t like?”

Lucian looks at the phone again.

“They’ll have to do it.”

Ambrose puts the shirt on a box. His knuckles are white when he finally lets go.

“Then tell them what you want them to do. Make it public online. Let people demand an answer from them.”

“The way they demanded one on Friday?”

“Without threatening to kill them.”

Lucian takes the notice from the shelf and places it beside the phone. He smooths it with his palm. However hard he presses, the paper keeps its creases.

“If I’d found Madsen, that family would still be in their home.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I would have made him call in front of me. Put the gun right here.”

He touches his forehead with two fingers. Ambrose takes a step toward him but stops before reaching him.

“And now you want to put it in front of thirteen people.”

Lucian rests his hand on the table.

“I want them to pass that law.”

“I won’t help you do that.”

“I didn’t ask you for anything.”

The priest looks at the bed, the gauze in the wastebasket, and the plate beginning to cool on the tray.

“When I found you, I didn’t know whom you had killed. Afterward I knew. I kept feeding you.”

“And I’m grateful.”

“I helped you even though I don’t approve of what you do. I want you to recover, not to kill.”

Lucian does not answer. Ambrose goes to the sink, tightens the tap until it stops dripping, and returns to the door. Before going out, he turns back.

“You can stay while you recover. But you won’t use my church to send death threats.”

Lucian looks at the helmet, then at the plate. He touches neither until he hears the footsteps recede.

The rice has stuck at the bottom. He loosens it with his fork and eats slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed. Then he opens a document on his phone. He writes a sentence, deletes it, and writes again. Rents. Food. Services people cannot stop paying for. The first draft demands the return of the homes and an investigation into the concessions. He rereads it with the notice spread across his knees. He goes back to the Inquisitor article.

The hotel worker is still beside the tomato crate. He starts again. When he dresses to go out, the light from the window no longer reaches the bed. He folds the blanket and leaves it beside the pillow. The coat tugs at his left shoulder as he puts it on. Adjusting his chest protection, he has to stop until he catches his breath. He puts away the phone and the notice, picks up the helmet, and climbs with his right hand gripping the railing. Everything smells clean thanks to Ambrose.

The priest is in the corridor, kneeling beside the blue suitcase. He has taken off the broken wheel and holds a piece of plastic between his fingers, examining it beneath the light. He looks up when he hears him.

“The doctor hasn’t come yet.”

“I know.”

The priest stands. Lucian stops beside him.

“Thank you for everything.”

Ambrose puts the piece on top of the suitcase.

“I don’t even know your name.”

Lucian presses the edge of the helmet against his hip. On the other side of the wall, one of the families speaks quietly while preparing the mattresses for the night.

“Lucian.”

Ambrose nods. He seems about to add something, but Lucian is already heading for the exit. Rain reaches him as he crosses the courtyard. He turns once. The priest remains in the doorway, his hands empty.

Several streets away, Lucian stops in a covered passage between closed warehouses. He rests the phone on a low wall and checks the framing. Only his body and a brick wall are visible. He puts on the helmet. As he straightens, the pain beneath his ribs cuts off his breath. He waits, leaning against the wall, until he can sit on a step. He tilts the phone toward him. The image shows one shoulder higher than the other. He cannot correct his posture. He presses record.

“My name is Nox. I entered Inferno on Friday. I was looking for Councilor James Madsen.”

A drop falls from the edge of the roof and strikes the pavement a few inches from his boot.

“That morning they were going to evict people from housing in Portown. Madsen voted to hand their homes to a company that will rent them to tourists. I couldn’t stop it. I killed the men at the door and shot a police officer. If you’re watching this video, you already know what I’m capable of.” His mouth goes dry. He hears an engine on the other side of the passage and waits for it to move away.

“Mayor: call an extraordinary session. I want a law that sets caps on rents and the prices of food and basic services in Stormport. They have to come down. Freeze them.”

He raises the eviction notice with his right hand and holds it in front of the lens for a few seconds. Then he rests it on his knee again.

“You will draft the text. You will explain which prices you’re limiting, what the limits are, and when they take effect. And you will publish it before the vote. Anything you can’t resolve at city hall, you’ll have to demand from the appropriate authorities. I want measures that apply here.”

The red indicator is still on. Nox looks into the lens.

“By Friday, before nine in the morning, I want the law passed unanimously. I will kill every councilor who votes against it. And if you avoid the vote, I will come for every last one of you until you vote and approve what I have just told you.”

He lets a few seconds pass, then stops recording. He takes off the helmet. Cold air dries the sweat on his forehead as he plays the video. When he reaches the threat, he opens the council’s page again. One of the women in the photographs voted against the housing concession. He rereads her statement: she asked that the keys not be handed over while any residents still had nowhere to move. The threat is for her too.

Lucian returns to the video and watches it to the end. He does not change the sentence. He sends a copy to the mayor’s official account and another to the council. Then he opens the Inquisitor’s link for submitting information. Camille Mercer’s name is still above the photograph of the red price tag. He attaches the same file without a note for the reporter. The bar advances slowly. He stays seated, the helmet between his feet and his left hand motionless on his thigh. Rain falls on the warehouse’s metal roofing.

He wonders whether Ambrose has managed to repair the wheel; he pushes the thought aside and looks at the screen again. When the upload finishes, he opens city hall’s automatic acknowledgment.

Your message has been received. Estimated response time: five business days.