CHAPTER 9 — HUNGER THEFT
Breakfast manages to be worse.
Same line. Same trays. Same tired faces. But the pot at the end of the counter looks like someone already ate half of it before it got here.
The oatmeal is so thin I can see the bottom of the pan through it.
"Stretching it today," Nia mutters to the volunteer, not quiet enough. "We're out of shelf-stable, truck's late, city order's hung up—"
Her voice cuts off when she sees me.
"Morning, Xavier," she says, pasting on a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Chef's special."
The ladle drips grey water into my bowl. A couple of oat ghosts float around like they died disappointed.
"Bold of you to call it food," I say.
She huffs a laugh. "Eat it before it evaporates. Next."
I move down the line. No toast today. No fruit that isn't already brown. Just the bowl and a plastic spoon.
The room is colder than yesterday too. The heater's on, but the crowd's bigger—new faces with red noses and too-thin coats. Warmth doesn't stretch as far as it did.
I drift to my usual corner table: back against the wall, heater vent to my right, clear view of both doors. My shoulders slot into the groove like they've been here for years.
Across from me, the breakfast line keeps crawling. The metal cart of bowls emptying too fast.
Jun appears at the edge of the table like a summoned gremlin, hugging his tray. His oatmeal is… decorative.
"Can I—?" he starts.
"Sit," I say.
He plops down, elbows tight to his sides like someone might snatch his food if he gives them the angle. He scrapes up a spoonful and it falls off before it gets to his mouth.
Mari drifts over a second later, bowl cupped in both hands. She doesn't ask, just hovers.
"There," I say, nodding to the bench.
She perches at the edge, eyes flicking between me and the exit and the serving line, like she's waiting for someone to yell at her.
Tina's a few spots back in line, boot tapping impatiently on the floor. The stitching I put in her shoe is holding. She doesn't limp anymore. Small win.
When she gets her bowl, she scans the room, catches sight of us, and heads our way. Rae falls into step beside her, mug in hand, talking with her hands like she's explaining something vital.
"…I'm just saying, if you add a whole extra gallon of water to soup, that's not stretching, that's a crime," Rae says. "Gotham should arrest that before anything else."
"It's free," Tina says. "You can't go to jail for watery soup."
"You'd be surprised what Gotham can arrest you for," Rae mutters.
They reach the table. Rae upnods at me, then at my corner.
"You on duty?" she asks. "Or is this your day off from saving chairs and vents from their own bad choices?"
"Breakfast first," I say, staring into my bowl. The surface trembles slightly when I move the spoon. That's not a good sign.
I taste it. Hot, at least. A little sugar, a lot of nothing. My stomach doesn't care; it tightens around it like a dog on a bone.
I do the math without meaning to.
One bowl of almost-food. Maybe a couple hundred calories if I'm generous. Today I'll walk a couple miles easy just doing normal things. Stairs, fixes, whatever emergency shows up. The numbers don't add. They haven't been adding for days. But now the gap's starting to feel like a cliff instead of a pothole.
Jun scrapes the bottom of his bowl in three minutes flat and licks the spoon. He stares at the smears like they might become more if he looks hard enough.
"Still hungry," he says, voice small, like he's apologizing.
Mari's going slower, but her eyes keep tracking the serving window. Every time Nia says, "Sorry, that's the last of it," she flinches.
I sniff and pretend my bowl's full. It isn't. Two big bites left, maybe.
I scrape one spoonful into Jun's bowl and one into Mari's.
Jun blinks. "You—"
"Eat it before it runs away," I say.
Mari looks like she might argue. Her stomach makes the decision for her.
My own stomach twists. I push the feeling down. Call it an error margin and move on.
At the counter, Nia is fielding complaints.
"You said we'd get seconds this week," a guy says.
"I said if we had enough, we'd call seconds," she corrects. "We don't."
"City don't care," someone else mutters. "Not about us."
"City cares about numbers," Rae says under her breath. "Warm bodies, not warm bodies."
She stirs her bowl, making whirlpools in the sludge. "You okay, Hoodie?"
"Fine," I say.
She gives me a look that says she doesn't believe me, then glances toward the front, where one of the staff is talking to her on break.
"…if the truck doesn't come by Thursday, we might have to buy from the market again," the woman says, rubbing her temples. "Which we do not have budget for."
"You can't squeeze blood from a stone," Nia says. "Or soup from an empty pot."
"You could if the city—"
"Don't start. I've got enough fights."
Market. No budget.
The word sticks.
When breakfast breaks up, kids scatter to the TV, the corner with the battered board games, or the hall. The air fills with the usual mix of noise: cartoon voices, arguments about rules, someone humming off-key.
I clear trays with the others, wipe down my section of the table, and step back, hands in my pockets. The rig presses solidly against my ribs. Familiar weight. No food weight to match it.
I tell myself I'll handle it tomorrow.
The part of my brain that does math quietly corrects: you won't.
The Marrow market is a mess even on a good day.
Today isn't good.
Cold wind tunnels down the street, lifting old flyers and trash into mean little spirals. Stalls cram both sides of the cracked pavement, makeshift awnings flapping, tables bowed under whatever people could get. Produce that's two breaths away from bad. Clothes that started life as donations three donations ago. Bread.
The bread's what brings half the block.
Big baskets of rolls and loaves sit on one stall's table, wrapped in plastic, breathing steam into the air. The smell hits my stomach like a punch. Yeast and salt and actual calories. My hands curl tighter in my pockets.
I walk the edge of the street, head down, hood up, doing what I always do: map exits. Corners. Who's watching.
Two cops stand near the far end of the row, bored and cold, hands resting near their belts. They're not here to help anyone; they're here so they can say they were.
Between them and me, people move in eddies. Parents tug kids along. Teens lean against walls, watching for opportunities. A Marrow Boy in a bone-painted jacket lounges by a shut storefront, pretending not to monitor the crowd.
I clock three cameras in busted domes above shop doors. One's dead, one's pointed uselessly at the sky, one might still work.
Pick the right angle, the right rhythm, I can be a ghost.
I drift past the bread stall once without slowing.
The vendor's a thick-set guy in his forties with a windburned face, yelling prices over the wind. Not rich, not starving, just caught in the grind like everyone else. A little hand-scrawled sign says CASH / SNAP / VOUCHERS OK.
I keep walking. Next stall: an older woman selling scarves. Next: a kid my age hawking bootleg DVDs.
Too small. Too easy to hurt. I don't even consider them.
My stomach growls loud enough that the DVD guy glances over. I pretend I'm looking at a cracked copy of some action movie and move on.
Second pass. I slide along the opposite side of the street this time, watching the bread stall from an angle. People jostle at the front. A woman argues over the price of yesterday's loaves. The vendor's kid runs back and forth to the van, bringing out bags.
The cops are looking elsewhere now, attention snagged by a shouting match near the produce. The Marrow Boy's eyes are on somebody stumbling out of a liquor store.
There's a beat in the chaos. Two seconds, maybe three, where everything intersects just wrong.
That's the window.
I cross the street with the crowd, timing my steps so I'm behind a group of construction workers complaining about their boss. Hood down just enough that my face is another anonymous tired expression.
Bread stall ahead. Vendor turned sideways, taking cash, calling out change. Kid ducked into the back of the van.
I don't speed up. Speed is suspicious. I let the flow carry me.
As I pass the edge of the stall, my left hand brushes against the table. Fingers curl, palm lifts. One of the smaller bags of rolls—four, maybe five inside—slides off the back lip into my sleeve. Weight hits my wrist, then my hoodie pocket, in one smooth motion. Micro-tool reflexes applied to theft instead of screws.
"Hey!" the vendor barks.
For a half second my heart tries to climb into my throat.
Then he reaches past me, jabbing a finger at a teen further down the table. "You paying for that or you just touching all of them with your nasty hands?"
The kid startles, offended, holding up empty palms. "I wasn't—man, I was just looking—"
The argument blooms there instead of here.
I keep going. One step. Two. Three. No one grabs my shoulder. No one yells "Thief!" in my direction. The cops don't even turn.
By the time I hit the next corner, the bag in my pocket feels heavier than my entire body.
I don't run. Running draws eyes. I cut down a side street at normal speed, then duck into a narrow alley between a shuttered laundromat and a brick wall tagged with a fresh spray of bone-white ribs.
The wind drops away in here. The noise of the market dulls to a muffled roar. My breath clouds in front of me.
I lean my back against the wall and finally pull the bag out.
Four rolls, still barely warm. The smell alone makes my knees feel weak. I tear off a small piece of the nearest one, steam curling up from the tear, and my whole body leans toward it like it's gravity.
This was the point, I remind myself. Fuel. Fix the numbers. You can't patch pipes and climb stairs on hot air and good intentions.
I bring the bread halfway to my mouth.
Kids' voices echo at the end of the alley. High, familiar, arguing about something unimportant with the seriousness of people who don't get to choose their battles.
I freeze.
The piece of bread hovers in front of my face. My stomach cramps so hard I have to breathe through my nose.
I close my eyes for a second and swear at the universe, quietly and thoroughly.
Then I shove the torn piece back into the bag and fold the plastic over.
"Idiot," I tell myself under my breath. It doesn't change anything.
I walk toward the voices anyway.
There's a side door halfway down the block that opens onto a concrete stoop. The shelter uses it for loading donations sometimes. Kids use it to sneak in and out when the main entrance feels like too much.
Tina, Jun, and Mari are camped there now.
Tina sits on the top step, arms wrapped around her knees, her fixed boot tapping a rhythm on the concrete. Jun occupies the middle step, drawing lines in a patch of grime with the edge of a bottle cap. Mari stands near the rail, watching people go by with wide eyes, like they might disappear if she blinks.
None of them have jackets thick enough for this kind of wind.
"Thought you weren't supposed to lurk around side doors," I say.
Three heads snap up. For a second they look guilty, like I caught them stealing the moon.
"Thought you weren't supposed to talk," Tina shoots back automatically. Then her gaze drops to the plastic bag in my hand. Her voice stutters. "Is that…?"
"Bread?" Jun says, hopeful and reverent at the same time.
I shrug. "Yeah."
Mari just stares at it, throat working once.
I could say I found it. That would be the easy lie. Stalls throw out stale stuff sometimes. Shelters get donations. Food just appears, if you don't look too closely at how.
But I don't lie to kids. That's a line I don't cross.
"From the market," I say. It's not the whole story, but it's not wrong.
Jun licks his lips. Then he catches himself and looks away, like he's ashamed.
"Take some before it goes cold," I say, and toss the bag lightly to Tina. She catches it like it's a live grenade.
"Wait," she says. "For real?"
"No, it's a hologram," I say. "Eat it."
She glares, but it's half-hearted. She opens the bag and the smell hits all of us in a wave. Her eyes flick up, suspicious.
"You robbed a bakery?" Jun asks, way too impressed.
"Don't say 'robbed' like it's fun," I say. "And no. I didn't hit a bank vault full of croissants. I just… took some."
That doesn't sound better out loud.
A slow clap comes from the alley mouth.
Rae leans against the brick there, hood up, watching us with her head tilted.
"Well, well," she says. "Hoodie MacGyver out here doing bread heists now. I leave you alone for one day…"
The kids go tense like they think she's going to snitch. Rae sees it and rolls her eyes.
"Relax," she says. "I'm not calling the Bat on him. I was actually just wondering if he's planning to rob the whole market or if this is a one-time special."
I meet her gaze. She's not stupid. She's too good at reading posture, eyes, hands. She knows exactly what I did.
"Hard to rob a whole market," I say. "Logistics are a nightmare."
"That sounds like a 'maybe later' problem," she says. Then she pushes off the wall and comes closer. "Scoot, T. I'll play bread referee."
They end up sitting in a loose circle on the steps, me a little apart, back against the railing.
Rae takes the bag, peels it open, and starts dividing rolls with surgical precision.
"Okay," she says. "Rule one: no fighting. Rule two: smallest people get first pick. Rule three: if anyone cries, it better be because you bit your tongue and not because you got the smaller piece, or I'm eating your share out of spite."
Jun snorts. Tina rolls her eyes, but she's watching the bread like she might cry anyway.
"Here," Rae says, passing the first piece to Mari. "You look like a strong gust of wind could knock you over. Eat up."
Mari hesitates.
"It's okay," I say, softer than I mean to. "It's for you."
She takes it, fingers trembling, and bites. Her eyes go wide. She chews like she doesn't trust the texture, then like she doesn't want it to end.
Jun gets the next piece. He tears into it, then catches me watching and slows down, like he's embarrassed to look hungry.
Tina accepts hers last of the three, but she breaks it in half and hands a chunk to Mari without making a big deal of it.
Rae hands a piece toward me. It's generous. Too generous.
I shake my head. "Give that to them."
"You're not eating?" she says, a little too sharp.
"I'm fine," I lie.
Her eyes narrow.
"Your stomach says otherwise," she says. "It's been yelling since we sat down."
I look away. The concrete near my foot has a crack running through it, filled with old dirt and a tiny bit of moss. Easier to stare at that than at her.
"I got some at the market," I say. "I'm not—just give it to them."
Rae studies me for half a second, then sighs.
"Whatever you say, martyr boy," she murmurs, and splits my piece between Jun and Tina before they can argue.
Watching them eat does something to my chest. Not the hunger; that sits lower, a hot, hollow pit. This is higher, under my ribs. Tight. Warm in a way that makes me uncomfortable.
They're not careful. They laugh around mouthfuls. Jun crumbs everywhere and doesn't care. Mari makes a quiet, surprised noise at a particularly good bite and then clamps her lips together like she's scared of being heard enjoying it.
I swallow against a dry tongue.
I stole that, my brain says. I stole food from a man trying to survive, and I'm handing it out like I'm some kind of generous ghost.
Another voice argues back: The city failed them first. Failed all of you. The vendor will live without four rolls. These kids might not.
Neither voice feels good.
When the worst of the feeding frenzy is over, Rae leans back on her elbows, looking at me sideways.
"You know," she says, "you're allowed to take the big piece sometimes."
"Big pieces attract attention," I say.
"Yeah, that's kind of the point when you're starving."
"I'm not—" I start.
My stomach growls at exactly the wrong moment. Loud. All three kids look at me. Jun's face crumples like he's about to offer his last bite back.
"Don't," I say. "You already ate it. That's the rule."
"What rule?" he asks.
"The one I just made up," I say. "Eat what you're given. Don't starve yourself on purpose. World's already trying hard enough."
He squints at me like he's not sure if I'm joking. I'm not sure either.
At the mouth of the alley, a man stomps past, still shouting back toward the market. "…told you, someone lifted a bag! I don't care if you didn't see them, that's stock out of my pocket—"
A cop ambles beside him, bored.
"We'll review the cameras," the cop says. "If they were even on."
"They better've been. I pay my taxes."
The voices fade around the corner.
Tina's shoulders tense. Jun hunches like he expects someone to appear and confiscate the crumbs from his mouth.
"Nobody's coming down here," Rae says, calm. "He didn't see you lot. He saw a hoodie at best, and congratulations, that's half the city."
Her eyes flick to me for half a beat. She doesn't say my name. Not any of them.
I force my muscles to stay loose. Running now would just prove something. To who, I don't know.
The bag makes it through the circle. Not a lot left by the time it gets back to me. A heel and some crumbs.
I stare at what's left.
If I don't eat any of it, I'll probably pass out halfway up the shelter stairs later. If I eat all of what's left, I'll feel like I stole twice—once there, once here.
Losing both ways. Story of my life.
I pick up the heel, tear it in half.
Rae gives me a look that says don't you dare, but I've already committed. Half for me. Half for the universe.
The piece in my hand is small, hard at the edges, still a little warm in the middle. I bite. Real bread. My body lights up at the taste so fast it's almost painful.
I make myself eat slow, counting chews, breathing between them. Pretending that stretches it.
Doesn't matter that it came from someone else's loss. My cells don't care about the ethics discussion. They just know they're getting something.
The guilt sits beside it, heavy and sharp.
I stole because the system didn't feed us enough. I shared because watching these kids be hungry makes something in me twist.
I don't like either fact. They're both weaknesses if someone smart decides to use them.
"You look like you're thinking way too hard for someone eating bread," Rae says, knocking her shoulder lightly into mine. "It's not a math test, it's carbs."
"Carbs keep the heater on," I say.
"In your body, not the building."
"Same difference."
She snorts. "You're allowed to just enjoy things sometimes."
"Not in Gotham," I say automatically.
She doesn't argue. That's the worst part.
When the bag is empty, the kids lick their fingers and look less hollow. The shivering eases a notch. Tina stretches her legs, flexing the fixed boot like she trusts it now.
"Thanks," Jun says around a yawn. "Even if you're weird about it."
Mari nods, then edges closer to me, close enough that her shoulder brushes my knee. It's small and warm and terrifying.
"Don't get used to it," I say.
"Too late," Tina says, deadpan.
Rae stands and stretches, rolling her neck.
"Alright," she says. "Show's over. Back inside before Nia starts yelling about hypothermia and liability."
The kids groan, but they get up. Tina hooks her arm through Mari's; Jun scampers ahead, suddenly full of a new kind of energy.
Rae lingers for a second, looking down at me.
"For what it's worth," she says, quiet so the others don't hear, "stealing bread to feed hungry kids is like… the least evil crime Gotham's ever seen."
"That your legal opinion?" I ask.
"That's my 'been in this district too long' opinion." She shrugs. "Just… don't get caught. They won't care about your reasons."
"I know."
"Good." She nudges my foot with hers. "C'mon, Hoodie. Let's go pretend the soup is food again at dinner."
She jogs after the kids, her laughter bouncing off the alley walls.
I sit there for a few more seconds, back against the cold brick, listening to the echo of their voices as they disappear through the side door.
My stomach is less loud now. My head's starting to ache instead.
I stole because I had to, I tell myself. Survival.
I shared because I'm an idiot, another part of me answers.
Both feel true.
And beneath all of it, sitting in that tight, dangerous warmth behind my ribs, there's a quieter, more treacherous thought:
I'll probably do it again.