He dreamt of chains.

Chains that bound his hands and neck. And when his eyes followed the fine silver links back to the one who held them, he saw a familiar cut of a smile and a voice like knives said. “Am I the spider?”

Gabe woke up with a jerk, hand punching his pillow.

Even Etienne noticed his bad mood when they queued up for breakfast.

“What’s eating you?” he asked.

A spider, Gabe thought morosely, shifting along the line with his tray, holding it up to receive the same porridge they were graced with at breakfast time.

The matron placed a small bowl on it, fresh cut strawberries glistening wet inside it like rubies.

Fruit shouldn’t be horrific. But they were. Beside him, Etienne whistled.

“Well lookie here.” He said, his reedy voice grating across Gabe’s raw nerves. “Looks like you ain’t catching scurvy any time soon.”

Gabe made a disgusted noise and picked up the bowl, passing it over to him. It was promptly passed back.

“Nah,” Etienne said. “If Mistah Xero finds out I took ‘em, it won’t end well for me.”

Gabe held the offensive bowl in his hand. It was already attracting attention he certainly didn’t want. It would look like he could be bought, it didn’t matter by who. And if you could be bought, that meant you weren’t at the top already.

So he turned around, slowly extending his arm away from himself and upended the bowl, letting the strawberries bounce over the grimy floor of the cafeteria. Many eyes followed, then slid back to him.

Appetite gone, he left his tray on the counter and walked away.

-8-

“I heard about your lunchroom display.” Mr. Xero said to him, next time they met.

Gabe rolled his shoulders. “I figured you would.”

“It was rude.” Mr. Xero’s eyes narrowed.

Gabe hoped his sarcasm was clear in his expression when he said. “It just doesn’t seem right, you giving me gifts when I never get you anything.”

They stared, again in a stalemate. If Gabe had any lingering fear of Mr. Xero, it had been burned away by rage. Now he was cheeky. He knew it and enjoyed it. And the fact that Mr. Xero still came back to meet him was an interesting fact indeed.

“And if you could, what would you get for me?” the older man asked.

Gabe paused, and let his gaze wander over the man’s face, his neatly styled hair, his tailor-made suit, the glint of jewels on his cuffs. For crying out loud, those were Edward Greens. You could only get them bespoke made in England, the fucker.

After he had looked his fill, he resettled. “What to get for the man who has everything?”

The other man’s expression did not change. “You know nothing about me, Gabriel.”

“But you know everything about me right?”

Mr. Xero shifted slightly in his seat, even though he still looked like class and would have been just as perfectly placed at an opera house as he was there. It was as if he bent the space around him to suit. How did the expression go? A tiger can sit wherever he likes.

“I know that your real name isn’t Gabriel Isaac Malkovich. I know you have no parents and that you spent some time growing up alone until Drake found you and initiated you into his brothel. I know you spent two years with him before killing a client and running away to this city and started anew. I know you are a petty criminal and like to keep yourself below the radar, likely in the hopes that you won’t be hunted down.”

Goosebumps had risen on Gabe’s arms, but he bared his teeth in a sick smile, “There are easier ways to tell a boy you like him than becoming a stalker, Mr. Xero.”

Mr. Xero was unphased. “I can appreciate a person who takes their own life in their hands. I will admit when you first refused my offer, I considered telling my client it would be easier to simply remove you from the equation. But Etienne is informative. You have not, in spite of his personal foretelling, become a stain on the concrete.”

Mr. Xero’s eyes touched on Gabe’s face again, taking in the scars. It occurred to Gabe then that this man had seen him transform from a clear skinned youth into the ugly scarred mess he was now. “I looked into your background because you seemed so…vehement about never working for me. As if it were ...personal.” His raised his eyebrows and glanced down, an expression that would have seemed apologetic on anyone else. “It appeared it was.”

Gabe was simmering still. Anger and confusion and frustration mixed together in a violently frothing mess.

“So?”

“So, working for me as an informant is not the same as a nine-year-old being forced into bending over.”

The froth turned to a boil. “You know nothing about it. And you are the last person who gets to judge me on it.”

Mr. Xero sighed. “I really wish you’d get past this and try to see me as an ally.”

Gabe breathed in a heavy breath. “I don’t-“

“Try to see it this way.” He interrupted, waving a hand like a philosopher posing a theory. “You are a grown man, who has managed to make himself a kind of fight club kingpin in prison in spite of the fact that you used to spend your Saturdays lazing around the house watching Netflix all day. You are resourceful and clever. I wish to employ you based on these things. Whether or not my client has any feelings on the matter.”

Gabe managed to find his sense, to find a calm place in the storm. “Do you mean that even when I get out, you still want to hire me? As what?”

“As what you were, or are. I think we can agree that keeping your small smuggling business under the radar was more out of a need to disappear, rather than because you don’t have the ability to do more with yourself.”

Mr. Xero’s eyes had zoned in on him now, steady and piercing. Gabe wanted to see it waver.

“And the little presents?” he said quietly. “What are those about?”

He got his wish. For a split second, Gabe saw a ripple in the blue pond water of those deadpan eyes. It felt like a much bigger victory than such a small unnoticeable thing would merit.

Mr. Xero stood a moment later, buttoning his jacket up again.

“Think on it.” he said, before exiting once more.