Badlands: The Lion’s Den(9)

As Madison took another step back, they heard loud male voices off in the distance. Madison stifled a squeak of fright and clapped a hand over her mouth. Flora sniffed the air. Lions. But not Finn, she realized with a stab of disappointment. There were maybe half a dozen of them, a block or two away. They were talking loudly. They passed by and were gone.

Madison looked at her curiously and seemed to relax a little. “You didn’t rat me out.”

“Why would I do that?”

Instead of answering, Madison walked up to her, still clutching the bag of weeds. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“New in town,” Flora said.

The girl glanced around. “Would you mind walking me back to my territory, in case we run into any of the Hudson patrol? I mean, don’t come in, of course. Just ’til we get to the border.”

Border? What border?

“Sure, why not?” Flora said, and followed Madison out of the alley and down the street, looking cautiously around as they walked. It was still early, and Flora could feel the morning chill right through her clothing, which was just how she liked it. Canadian lynxes preferred it cold.

The scent in the air, however, was far less pleasant. She wrinkled her nose in dismay. Was that rotting garbage smell everywhere in this city?

“Yeah, it stinks here. No Man’s Land,” Madison said as they walked. “Just a big trash dump for both sides. Nobody maintains it.”

They walked about five blocks, and then Madison stopped at a street corner and glanced around. “Okay, this is it,” she said. Flora didn’t see anything different. No signs or fences that would indicate a change of territory. They were at the intersection of 21st Avenue and Monroe Street.

No, wait, there was a big red “R” spray-painted on the 21st Avenue sign across the street, and a big “H” on the Monroe Street sign that they were standing under.

Several teenaged female bear shifters stepped out of a doorway across the street, quickly heading their way. They’d probably smelled Madison coming; bear shifters had the best scenting ability of all shifter species.

As they approached, Flora saw that there were actually three girls and a tall, skinny male teenager. All of them as dirty and disheveled as Madison. Their B.O. said they hadn’t showered recently, and their clothes were baggy and stained. They all wore necklaces like Madison’s, with big “R”s dangling around their necks.

They stared at Flora curiously. She was starting to feel as if there were a giant blinking neon sign hanging over her head which read “Does Not Belong Here”.

Madison hugged the boy, and then stepped back and looked at him critically. His face was pale and he had circles under his eyes. “Sam, you shouldn’t have come,” she chided him. “This is too close to the border.” She glanced at one of the girls. “Sarah, you shouldn’t have let him come.”

“Wanted to make sure you were okay,” Sam muttered, taking the bag of weeds from her. “You were taking too long. I started to get worried.”

Madison, hands shoved in her pockets, turned her attention back to Flora.

“Look, you seem nice, for a crazy person anyway, so I’m going to give you some advice. Go pay your protection money to the Hudsons and start wearing their mark, before you get murdered. Don’t tell people that you have money on you, and don’t offer to help strangers. And stay away from bear territory. Anywhere that’s marked with an “R” is under Ruben’s protection, and only bears live here.”

Well. Life in Darwin was certainly more complicated than she could have anticipated. “Duly noted. Why did you come into Hudson territory today, then?”

Madison glanced at her brother. “I needed those plants. Starweed. It’s a treatment for a blood disorder that only affects male bear shifters, and my brother has to have it every week. You guys grow it in your community gardens. I didn’t really buy it – I snuck into one of the gardens and grabbed some.”

“You don’t have it in your own territory?”

Madison sighed and tucked a greasy strand of hair behind her ear. “We do, but Ruben charges an outrageous price for it. And with him raising protection to seventy percent, we can’t afford medicine. We can barely afford food.”

“Why did you guys come to the Badlands in the first place?” Flora asked.

Madison glanced at her brother, who was standing a little distance away with Sarah, and lowered her voice. “My stepfather. He wouldn’t stop coming into my room at night. My mother didn’t care, and he was a judge, so nobody would have believed me. And he used to beat Sam up pretty bad. And Sarah ran away from a group home.”