(AFK WORM) CHAPTER TEN

They were not the worst Brockton Bay had to offer.

Shemira had read enough, listened enough, and lived long enough in this city to understand that much. The Empire Eighty-Eight were openly violent white supremacists, using their ideology as justification for their cruelty, while the ABB trafficked people with an efficiency that bordered on industrial. Compared to them, the Merchants barely registered as a gang worth a mention, so contemptible that even other criminals spoke of them with disgust and annoyance rather than fear and hatred.

She was not entirely certain why that disdain ran so deep.

Perhaps it was because the gang was made up largely of outcasts, people with weak or disgusting powers and even weaker social ties, their appearances marked by poor hygiene and the unmistakable signs of long-term substance abuse. 

Or perhaps it was the drugs themselves, the way the Merchants peddled poison openly and without shame, even though the ABB did much the same just as openly and without shame. 

Whatever the reason, the Merchants inspired no begrudging respect. They had no grand ambitions beyond selling and consuming their own product, and seemingly no desire to carve out lasting territory or challenge the balance of power. When they used their powers, it was only to make their business marginally safer, never to build anything lasting. 

They were despised, ignored, and written off as trash.

Knowing all of that, Shemira found that she felt only slightly guilty in choosing them as her test subjects. If anything, the city might actually thank her for it. Removing a handful of Merchants from the streets was the kind of thing that rarely drew sympathy or protests, and that knowledge rested uneasily but firmly in her chest.

They did not hold territory so much as infest spaces others had abandoned, close enough to the Docks to prey on the desperate, yet far from routine ABB patrols to avoid constant attention. From the memories of the dead man carried by the spirit orb, she knew there was no agreement—tacit or otherwise—between the two gangs. Any suspected Merchant foolish enough to stray too visibly into ABB territory tended to be killed without hesitation.

That did not make them difficult to find.

Many of the homeless gravitated toward the Merchants simply because the gang offered food, drugs, and a semblance of protection, regardless of their race. Survival, however hollow, was still survival to those with nothing to lose or gain. Shemira understood that all too well. 

As such, the air itself seemed almost dirtier here, thick with the acrid bite of garbage, sweat, and chemicals she could not identify. Makeshift camps sprawled beneath broken streetlights, tarps and shopping carts forming fragile shelters that looked one hard rain away from collapse. 

These were the Merchants’ people, or close enough that the distinction no longer mattered to most.

To ease her conscience, she repeated the rule she had set for herself before leaving home. She was not here to punish the desperate, nor to strike blindly at those who posed no threat. Many of the people here were still good at heart, simply crushed by circumstance, and she would not add to their suffering.

She would only answer violence with violence.

Conversations died as she passed, twitchy eyes tracking her from doorways and alley mouths, some wary, others hungry in ways that had nothing to do with food. She knew she stood out, dressed in simple exercise clothes that were clean, and walking with an unhurried gait, her hands tucked into her pockets, and hood pulled up to shadow her face. It was obvious she did not belong here, and in a place like this, this late at night, that meant one of three things: she was either brave, foolish, or bait.

She hoped they believed it was the last.

The answer came soon enough.

Somewhere nearby, someone laughed too loudly, the sound brittle and wrong. And so, she slowed her pace in response, especially as the tug in her chest returned. 

It was not the same pull she had felt before, like the one that led her to the dead man, but one filled with a promise. A promise of conflict.

Footsteps scraped against concrete behind her.

She did not turn right away. She waited until the shadows detached themselves from the nearest alley and stretched long enough to cover her path, bodies moving with the confidence of men who had done this many times before. There were four of them, close enough now that she could smell unwashed clothes and cheap takeout, and see the grime ground into their hands. 

They carried melee weapons scavenged and poorly maintained—rusted pipes, a crowbar, and a knife with a chipped blade—weapons chosen more for intimidation than any actual utility. Their smiles were crooked, their gazes lingering on her in ways that promised nothing good.

They saw a lone woman. They saw an easy mark.

They did not see the spirit orb hovering just beyond sight at her shoulder, its sickly green glow seemingly almost pulsing in anticipation.

“Wrong neighborhood,” one of them said, dark amusement coloring his rough voice.

They expected her to freeze, to plead, or to run.

Instead, Shemira stopped and turned to face them. She let her shoulders relax, let her fear remain buried where it belonged, and let what little of her face was visible—which was her lower face—go blank. For a brief moment, she saw them as they were beneath the bravado, people forced into a life of crime by a city that routinely devoured the weak. They could still walk away. She would not stop them.

But they grinned wider, mistaking her calm for shock.

So she smiled. It was a small and intentional curve of her lips that did not reach her eyes, touched with something unreadable, even to her. Then, she raised one hand and crooked her fingers toward herself in a silent invitation, the gesture almost sensual.

The men blinked, momentarily thrown by the response.

“What the fuck do you think this is?” one of them scoffed, stepping closer. “A porno shoot?”

Shemira did not answer. She only held his gaze and beckoned again, her smile never falling, patiently waiting for greed and confidence to do what they always did.

She had found her experiment.

And judging by the leer on their faces and the way they closed in, they were more than willing to participate.