this town's for the record | blitz [bella]

[dars]

C A S S I D Y ;

Even when riding on horseback, by the time Cassidy made it to the market, the stars were out and cicada songs made it hard to hear too much else other than the steady fall of Bluebell's hooves against the dusty ground. She was thankful that the majority of the heat was finally starting to subside by that point. It was apparently the hottest summer in thirty years.

She parked her horse in the stalls out back and rounded the corner to the black market her family owned. It was easy to miss: nestled into a winding cavern situated between two rock formations near the border. Not too many people made their way out to these parts in this time of year- the relentless sun made it difficult to grow anything and it wasn't safe to leave any of your animals outside. Even the grass burned right up, leaving only dust until late autumn, when it started to cool off. A few of the older folks would come out this way to grow hay for the horses, or maybe a pumpkin patch for a carving contest at the harvest festival, but even they paid no mind to the market. It was one of the best-kept well-known secrets of District Ten.

She stepped inside to find stalls lining the long pathway just as always. Some sold leathers, some sold seeds. Some sold cooked meals, others offered their services for hire. At the far end, she could hear the auctioneer taking bids on a milk cow. Some people walked with their heads down or with hoods covering their faces. Others laughed and clapped each other on the shoulder as they drank tankards of ale like this was a weekly meetup. Cassidy had once been uncomfortable being seen among the crowd, but she eventually discovered that the pistols on her hips were pretty good deterrent for anyone who didn't have good intentions.

"Grammy needs you and Landon to cover her tomatoes from the sun tomorrow," she said, stepping around her brother, Noah, to take a seat behind their table.

She was going to say more before she noticed a girl standing in front of them. Cassidy didn't recognize her, but that hardly meant anything in a place like this. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table in front of her.

"Need somethin'?"

[Bella 🌻]

W R E N b e c k e t t

The third time he stole from her, Wren thought she might finally kill her father.

This time, he’d bypassed the change jar and went straight for the real stash. The jar, half-full of coins and a couple of bills, was a decoy that she left out in the open in the unavoidable event that he’d show up looking for money when Wren wasn’t at home. It was a shame to lose even that money, but at least it satisfied the old man’s compulsion. The real deal, her whole life’s savings, was hidden under one of the floorboards beneath her bed. One had to loosen it with a flathead screwdriver, which she’d thought made it extra secure, but he’d found out anyway.

Wren also considered–her temper rolling to a boil as she thought about it–that her mother, under the pressure of her father’s drunken rage, might have told him exactly where it was.

There were hundreds in that shoebox. Every penny earned with pure sweat and grit, long evenings spent shoveling horse shit alongside her siblings in a nearby rancher’s stables. Her father would drink and gamble it away in a matter of hours. He was efficient like that when he was least needed to be.

As she stared, fuming, at the bottom of the empty shoebox, her first thought was that she was going to kill him next time. Her second thought was that she was damned tired of shit-shoveling for money that would just get stolen anyway. It just made things a hundred times worse. She would find another hustle, another hiding place. She’d been saving that money for her own horse.

That’s how she ended up pulling a wagon into the market with two buckets full of wildflowers she’d plucked from the meadow beside her house. As summer was reaching its peak, the days growing relentlessly hotter, they were scraggly things, a few cornflowers and daisies. But, well-arranged, they could be... romantic-looking, she thought.

When she asked friends at school about the black market, one had told her to find a young woman with long brown hair and a couple of guns on her belt–you couldn’t miss her, they said. It was true; Wren could see the metal barrels catch the torchlight as the horse pulled in. But Wren, unsure of how best to bother her, followed and then waited for the girl to finish talking.

”Need somethin’? the girl asked, leaning forward against the table.

Wren drew her sore shoulders back. ”I’m fixin’ to sell these flowers,” she answered, ” and I was wonderin’ if you might have a few words of advice for a girl just getting started in…business.” Then she looked around, left and right, as if afraid to be seen, her blonde hair tossing to-and-fro. ”Being straight with you, I need to make some cash. Fast.”