A laugh went up around me. So much for not drawing attention to myself. My neck was burning with all the eyes on me. But this was too important. Too important not to ask. Scorn was written all over Hasan’s face, and I felt the mix of humiliation and anger rise up in my throat in answer. “That’s not how it works, twenty-seven. Six bullets, six bottles. No second chances.”
“But that’s not fair! He pushed me.” I gestured at Fazim, who was nursing his jaw up against the wall.
“And this isn’t a school yard, little boy. We don’t need to be fair. Now you can use your last bullet and lose or get out of line and forfeit.”
I was the only one with any bullets left. The crowd started jeering at me to get out of the way, and an angry flush rose in my hidden face.
Standing alone on the line, I raised my gun. I could feel the weight of the single bullet in the chamber. I let out one long breath that moved my sheema from where it was sticking to my lips.
One bullet. Two bottles.
I took two steps to my right and then half a step back. I twisted my body and tried to see it all in my mind. Dead center and I’d never hit the second one. Clip it too far off and neither would break.
Fifty fouza.
I shut out the shouting and taunts around me. I ignored the fact that every eye in here was on me and that I’d blown all chances of being inconspicuous. Fear crept in in its place. The same fear that had crouched in my stomach for the past three days. Since the night I’d been crawling around my uncle’s house after dark, on my way to Tamid’s, and overheard Aunt Farrah say my name.
“—Amani?”
I hadn’t caught whatever had come before my name, but it was enough to make me stop.
“She’s needing of a husband.” My uncle Asid’s voice carried more than his first wife’s. “A man could finally beat some sense into her. In less than a month, Zahia will have been dead a year, and Amani will be clean and allowed to wed.” Since my mother was hanged, folks had slowly stopped saying her name like a curse. Now my uncle mentioned her death more like a matter of business.
“It’s hard enough to find a husband for your daughters.” Aunt Farrah sounded irritated. “Now you want me to find one for my sister’s brat, too?” Aunt Farrah never said my mother’s name. Not since she’d been hanged.
“I’ll take her as a wife, then.” Uncle Asid said it like he was talking about trading a horse. My arms nearly buckled into the sand.
Aunt Farrah made a disdainful hissing noise at the back of her throat. “She’s too young.” There was an impatient tone in her voice that normally ended a conversation.
“No younger than Nida was. She is living in my house anyway. Eating my food.” Aunt Farrah normally ruled the house as first wife, but every so often her husband would root his feet, and just now Uncle Asid was warming to this idea unnervingly fast. “She can either stay here as my wife or leave as someone else’s. I choose her to stay.”
I didn’t choose to stay.
I chose to get out or die trying.
And just like that, everything came into focus. Me and my target. Nothing mattered but the aim.
I pulled the trigger.
The first bottle broke instantly. The second teetered for a moment on the edge of the wooden bar. I could see the chip in the thick glass where I’d hit it. I held my breath as the bottle rocked back and forth.
Fifty fouza I might never see again.
Fifty fouza to lose and my only way out.
The bottle hit the ground and shattered.
The crowd roared. I let out a long breath.
When I turned around Hasan was looking like I was a snake who’d dodged a snare. Behind him the foreigner was watching me, eyebrows up. I couldn’t stop grinning behind my sheema. “How’d I do?”
Hasan’s lip curled. “Line up for round two.”
two
I didn’t know how long we’d been shooting.
Long enough for sweat to start pooling in the small of my back. Long enough for Dahmad the Champion to slosh down three whole bottles of booze between rounds. And long enough for one man after another to get knocked out of the game. But I still had a gun.
The target faced me at the end of the room, bottles moving on a slow rotating board some kid was turning with a crank. I slammed my finger down six times. I didn’t hear the glass shatter over the roar of the crowd.
A hand dropped onto my shoulder. “Your final competitors tonight!” Hasan shouted near my ear. “Our own champion, Dahmad!” The man stumbled from the drink and raised his arms high. “Our returning challenger, the Eastern Snake.” The foreigner barely acknowledged the taunts and hoots; his mouth just pulled up at one side and he didn’t look up. “And a newcomer on this fine evening.” He yanked my arm up hard and the crowd went wild, hollering and stomping their feet until the barn shook. “The Blue-Eyed Bandit.”
The nickname killed my excitement in one panicked jolt. I searched the pistol pit for Fazim. No matter if I could pass for a boy, my eyes weren’t something I could hide. Everything else about me was as dark as any desert girl was supposed to be, but my pale eyes made me stick out. Stupid as he was, if Fazim was still here he might just be smart enough to put two and two together and not come out with three. But I grinned behind my sheema all the same and let the cheers wash over me. Hasan dropped my arm. “Ten minutes to get your last bets in, folks. Our final round is coming up.”
There was a rush for the bet wranglers. With nothing else to do, I sank down in the sand in an empty corner of the pit, leaning against the railings. My legs still felt a little unsteady from leftover nerves, my shirt was sticking to my stomach with sweat, and my face felt flushed behind the cloth of my sheema.
But I was winning.
I closed my eyes. I might actually leave with the cash pot.
I worked it out quick in my head. The prize money came to over a thousand fouza. I’d have to scrimp till I was dead to steal and save a thousand fouza. Especially with the mines in Sazi collapsing a few weeks back. An accident. Badly placed explosives. That was the official story. It’d happened before, though maybe not so bad. Only I’d heard whispers of sabotage, too. That someone had planted a bomb. Or the wilder rumors claimed it was a First Being. A Djinni striking Sazi down for its sins.
But no matter what happened, no metal coming down from the mines meant no guns, which meant no money. Everyone was tightening belts lately. And I didn’t even have enough to buy a belt.
But with a thousand fouza I could do a hell of a lot more than that. Get out of this dead-end desert that ran on factory smoke. I could run straight for Izman. All I’d have to do was get to Juniper City on the next caravan. Then there’d be trains from there to Izman.
Izman.