Page 75 of Painted Scars
Men in military jackets suck on cigarettes. A mother braids the hair of her daughter. A teen on a skateboard wheels over the angled concrete. An elderly woman slurps on a can of beans, her spoon long lost.
“You’ll see.” If I tell her, she may have second thoughts about our agreement.
We stop at a folding chair propped beside a rusting fire ring. The man in it hunches forward, sharpening a knife.
“Brought you something, Barry.” I drop the bag with the food down for his dog, Daisy, to inspect, and the coarse-haired mutt in desperate need of a bath sniffs it and paws at the material.
“More tins?” he grunts, making Kate flinch.
“Didn’t have time to grab bread,” I admit. “Or fresh anything. Sorry.”
He doesn’t need to know I’ve been busy watching Kate and determining the threat level she presents to Spartacus. I’ll be back next week with a van piled with fresh food from the farmer’s markets to feed everyone. They took care of a close friend, and I’ll repay that debt.
Barry nods once, eyes slowly narrowing as they land on my companion. His stare is hard and steady, a man who’s seen too much. “Who’s this?”
“This is Kate. She’s a reporter investigating the Romans,” I say. “Thought you might want to talk to her.”
He sheaths his knife in one quick motion and jerks his chin at a warped milk crate. “What’d they do to you?”
Kate stiffens, glancing up at me as if calculating the cost of answering. “I reported the Ares’ heir for assaulting me. Lost my job, reputation, and the career I was building.” She stops short of mentioning her father, which is for the best. Those in the camp won’t speak to her if they know she’s Roman bloodline.
I stroke the sides of her shoulders, showing her I’m her tether, and she’s not alone in this while I’m standing and breathing.
“Yeah, they do that,” Barry grunts. “Sit. Hear my story.”
Kate hesitates, then tugs down her skirt, suddenly aware of the exposure. “Thank you. I want to honor your story the right way.”
I remain standing behind her, one hand on her shoulder, reassuring her she’s safe here.
Daisy, his dog, creeps closer, sniffing Kate’s boots. She freezes but doesn’t pull away. Barry cracks a can of dog food and dumps it into a rusty bowl, and the mutt abandons her for the food.
“Before we go any further, Barry.” Kate’s voice is barely audible over the rush of traffic overhead. “I must ask… do you want this story on or off the record? I’m bound by duty to protect my sources, and the law protects whistleblowers.”
“The law in Shadow Lake is for show,” he scoffs. “It protects those who really run this city.”
The Romans pull the strings. Eight houses, each with their slice of control. Mercury controls the flow of information.Mars, the muscle. Jupiter, the money and sits at the top of the pyramid. They leave the rest of us to choose on whatever scraps remain.
“Put me on the damn record,” Barry adds. “They’ve already taken everything from me. What can they do now?”
A man with nothing to lose is what the system fears most. A powder keg to their domination.
Kate reaches for her phone from her clutch. “May I take notes?”
“No recordings,” Barry snaps.
“Just notes,” she promises, opening an app. “Tell me your story.”
Barry exhales and scrapes a dirty hand over his wiry gray beard. “I don’t look like much now, but I used to work for Enterotech.”
Kate’s brows lift as if she recognizes the name.
A massive pharmaceutical company, owned by the Venus family, manufactures drugs for hypertension, heart disease, and weight loss. Venus controls the health industry, medicines, beauty products, health supplements, and is one of the richest Roman families, using their wealth to sway smaller families.
“I was the Chief Scientist and developed a GLP-1 drug for diabetes and weight loss.” He speaks like a man digging a corpse from a grave, relaying drug trials and buried reports outlining side effects of pancreatitis, thyroid cancer, and organ failure, one by one. Naming each. Not letting any of it stay buried.
Barry leans over the side of his seat to collect his coffee flask and pour himself a cup. “They forced me to falsify reports. Threatened to fire me and blacklist me. Was told the board wouldn’t care as long as profits held.”
Kate types fast and focused, her lips pressed tight.
