The Merry Men Masquerade

23. The Chips Are Down

Ronan turned a potato around in his hand. It was a little soft. He placed it back in the basket and didn't pick up another. It wasn't as if he really needed it, or any of the produce at the morning market for that matter. Amir had made sure of that.

Immediately, his nose started to sting. He shut his eyes tight. Haven't I cried enough?

He had wept all through dawn. He had wept, ugly and messy on his floor, until his knees ached and his head throbbed and sunlight streamed through the living room window. When the crying stopped, he had taken one look around his house and hated it enough to stumble right out the door. His legs had started automatically for the farm, but then he imagined the confusion and sympathy on Sadie's face when he returned so soon after their perfect night with tear-stained cheeks.

He couldn't stand being home, and his usual escape was out of the question. Ronan had very few friends.

So he scoured the market instead, only half-present, dragging his feet to take up time. He picked up apples and carrots and bread then put them all down because he didn't need them. He was running low on lard, at least, so he didn't leave empty handed.

His head remained resolutely down. He hadn't done more than wipe his face with his sleeve on his way out; he was sure he looked terrible, and he didn't care to see pitying looks on the semi-familiar faces of the market-goers. If there was anything Ronan was good at, it was going unseen. So he didn't raise his eyes, and nobody noticed him, and he didn't notice the posters.

It wasn't until he turned onto his street and almost ran into an awning post that he realized he'd been walking home in a haze. His sight refocused and he made eye-contact with himself.

Or, sort of himself. The flier on the post depicted a young man with monolid eyes and a gentle face, but the features were too vague to be particularly his. The hair, though, could only belong to Ronan.

He staggered back as he took in the rest of the poster. He read the word WANTED and a number with four zeros before he ripped the poster down.

Past it, he saw policemen. A whole swarm of them, collected right in front of Ronan's corner of the street.

A crowd had gathered around them, but their attention was on an old woman who pointed insistently at Ronan's house. He recognized his neighbor and had an instant to regret not making an effort to befriend her before he was turning on his heels.

"There he is!" someone yelled, and Ronan bolted.

There were shouts and footsteps thundering after him as he kicked into a sprint, veering back the way he'd come and skidding around a turn. He cut across the road and down the next block – left turn – then another – left again, past the old locksmith's – bursting back into the market.

He was forced to slow somewhat to avoid collisions, but no one could shoot at him in a crowd like this. A woman yelped as he barreled past her. There were curses and grunts as he dodged and weaved (and shoved) his way through the crowd, even more so when his pursuers joined the fray. They shouted orders and demanded space, but they only fed the crowd's anxiety. Ronan cut a path for himself through the chaos.

Muttering apologies, he upended crates of produce behind himself and didn't stick around long enough to see if an officer slipped on a tomato. He ducked into an alley and took advantage of the winding streets, dipping onto backroads and cutting corners until he couldn't hear the cops.

In a stinking corridor behind a dilapidated apartment building, he paused to catch his breath with his hands on his knees. Not for long, only a handful of seconds, but long enough for sound to catch back up to him.