CHAPTER 2: TWENTY BOOTS IN MY HOUSE

Thomas Hills did not sleep.

All night, Nathan watched his father sit in the living room with a cutlass on his lap. The broken front door had been pushed shut with the dining table. His mother and Lily were awake in the corner, holding each other, their bags half-packed but not fully, because Thomas had said no.

At 4:00 a.m., Thomas's three friends arrived.

They were big men from the construction site: Uncle Boro, Uncle Sam, and Uncle Daniel. All in their forties and strong, they carried sticks and iron rods from work.

"Thomas, are you sure?" Boro asked when he saw the broken door and the blood still on the floor from yesterday. "General Varric? That man has killed for less."

"This is my house," Thomas said. "He wants us to move out on our own so he can say we left willingly. I will not give him that satisfaction. Let him come and throw me out if he can."

Nathan stood by the window. He was seventeen, and he wanted to believe his father could win.

At exactly 6:00 a.m., the street went silent.

There were no hawkers, no children going to school, no okada engines. It was as if the whole street knew what was about to happen and everyone had locked their doors.

Then they heard it.

Boots. Many boots. Marching in sync.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

Not six. Twenty.

Nathan looked through the crack in the window. Twenty soldiers in full uniform, with helmets and batons, two of them carrying rifles. And in the middle stood General Varric, wearing black gloves again, sipping tea from a small cup as if he were on a morning walk.

Behind them was a large government truck with an open back, meant for carrying furniture, or people.

Varric stopped in front of the Hills house. He looked at the door blocked by the table. He smiled, then threw his teacup on the ground.

"Thomas!" he shouted. He wasn't angry. He sounded almost cheerful. "It is six o'clock! Time to move out on your own, or we will help you!"

Inside, Thomas stood up and gripped his cutlass tightly.

"Stay behind me," he told Grace, Lily, and Nathan. "Boro, Sam, Daniel, with me."

Grace grabbed his arm. "Thomas, please, let's just leave. Let's take Lily and go."

Thomas gently pushed her behind him. "No. If we leave like this, we will be homeless forever. If I fight today, they will respect us."

He believed he had enough strength and energy to bring down the General with the help of his team. He truly believed it.

The first kick hit the door.

The table moved but didn't break. Second kick. Third. Fourth. Five soldiers were kicking at once.

The door flew off completely, and the table fell sideways.

And they trooped in.

Not one by one, but all at once: through the front, through the back kitchen window, through the side window of Lily's room.

Twenty boots inside the house. Mud on the floor. The house that Grace had cleaned every day for twenty years.

"GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE!" a soldier shouted.

Thomas roared and swung his cutlass, not to kill but to scare. It struck a soldier's baton, and the baton broke in two.

Boro and Sam fought too. They grabbed two soldiers and threw them out through the front door. For thirty seconds, it looked as if Thomas's team was winning. The living room was chaos: chairs flying, pots breaking.

Nathan was fighting too. He punched a soldier who tried to grab Lily, but he was hit back hard in the chest and fell.

Varric was still outside the door. He had not entered. He stood watching, arms folded.

Then he clapped slowly.

"Nice. Very nice. Construction workers versus trained soldiers," he said. Then he nodded to his second in command.

The second in command whistled.

The soldiers changed. They stopped trying to arrest and started to beat to destroy.

One soldier brought out a long iron rod, the kind used to break concrete, and hit Boro on the knee. Boro screamed and went down.

Sam was hit from behind on the head. Blood came instantly, and he fell onto the table.

Daniel tried to run to help Thomas, but three soldiers seized him and beat his back until he stopped moving.

Thomas was now alone in the center of the room. His cutlass lay on the floor. His nose was bleeding and his shirt was torn.

Grace and Lily were in the corner. Lily was screaming and crying. "Daddy! Daddy!"

Two soldiers grabbed Grace by her hair and her hand. It was an image Nathan would remember for years.

"Leave her! Leave my wife!" Thomas shouted, and he charged at them.

He managed to punch one soldier so hard that the man fell through the window.

That was his last good punch.

Varric finally walked into the house. Step by step, he came over the broken chairs and past the soup pot from yesterday, still lying on the floor.

He stood in front of Thomas, who was breathing hard, bleeding from the mouth, and standing on shaking legs.

Thomas looked at him. "You will not throw my family out."

Varric looked down at Thomas's condition, at the blood on his mouth and his trembling knees. He looked with no pity and no anger, the way one looks at a stone on the road.

"You thought you could bring down a General with four construction workers," Varric said quietly, so that only Thomas could hear. "That is why poor people stay poor. Too much heart, not enough brain."

Thomas spat blood at Varric's boots.

Varric's face changed. He stepped back and said one word: "Clear."

The soldiers dragged Grace and Lily out. Grace clawed at the floor, trying to hold on to the door frame. Lily clung to her mother's wrapper, crying loudly.

"NO! LEAVE MY FAMILY! LEAVE THEM!" Thomas tried to run to them, but two soldiers held his arms.

Outside on the street, neighbors peeked through their windows, but no one came out. No one dared.

Nathan was on the floor, trying to get up. A soldier kicked him hard in the ribs, and he rolled toward the back door, near the kitchen that led to the small backyard.

In the backyard was the old dry well that his grandfather had left behind, five feet deep and made of old bricks. It was covered with wooden planks.

Nathan crawled to it. He heard a soldier say, "Where is the small boy? Get him too," so he lifted the planks and dropped inside to hide.

He fell into the well. It was dry and dusty. He hit his head on the side, and blood trickled down his forehead. He covered his mouth.

Through a small hole between the bricks, he could see directly into the living room.

And what he saw next, he would never forget for the rest of his life.

Inside, his father was on his knees, and Varric was standing over him. The house was destroyed. It was not burned, but destroyed: chairs broken, walls cracked, clothes thrown everywhere.

Varric knelt down and said to Thomas, "You wanted to fight. So fight. Bring me down. I am right here."

With the last of his strength, Thomas swung his fist and hit Varric's jaw.

Varric fell back one step. His lip bled.

Silence.

Then Varric wiped the blood away and laughed.

"You have strength," he said. "But strength without power is just noise."

He stood up, and three soldiers beat Thomas at once with iron rods: on his back, his head, his legs. Thomas fell forward, face down on the floor.

Grace's scream could be heard from the street outside.

In the well, Nathan bit his own hand so hard that his own blood filled his mouth, so that he would not scream and be found.

His father, who had believed he had enough strength and energy to bring down the General with the help of his team, lost

his life right there, on the floor of his own house, before his own eyes.