knife / wound

i am i and yet not i, as if i haunted my own shape and am condemned to watch with shame and rage its beastly doings.

Daiyu goes quiet and Zahra bites her lip to keep from cursing out loud. She’s fucked up, said something wrong like she always does, brought the past a little too close to the present. Part of her wishes that Daiyu would argue or lash out, because then at least Zahra could get a read on what she’s thinking. The emptiness between Daiyu’s words feels like a chasm Zahra has no way of crossing. The closet feels like it’s shrinking, but Daiyu feels a thousand miles away.

And then she’s poking fun at Zahra’s lack of a gun, as if this is all a very normal conversation to be having. Zahra used to know almost every thought Daiyu had; now, she can barely predict what Daiyu will say next. “Ran out of bullets halfway up the stairs.” She tells the truth, unable to come up with a witty retort in time. “…I might’ve thrown it at a runner’s head in hopes that it knocked it out. It didn’t.”

 Now she’s saying they need to get out of their hiding spot. Zahra agrees, but there’s a sense of urgency in Daiyu’s statements that she doesn’t like. “What, now?” She tries to keep her voice steady, to smother any hint of the panic she can feel rising in her chest. “I just had to bash a runner’s skull in to get it off you, and you want to run out there with one makeshift weapon between us? Are you insane?” Her hand darts out and clasps around Daiyu’s wrist. It’s gentle, a grip that wouldn’t take much to get out of, but maybe it’ll be enough to just get Daiyu to stop for a second. “We can’t go out there yet. They’re probably still swarming. I just— wait, please.”

If she was more like the rest of her family, she would not fall from one emotion into the other. Daiyu would meet Zahra with something more stoic, disconnection and frost rather than awkward responses and now this, too: another burst of laughter. Nervous, in a way, but also just a release of tension and because the image is actually quite funny. “You’re so fucking stupid.” This time it really isn’t chastising. They both know Daiyu might have done the same.

But the laughter doesn’t dissipate her nervousness or frustration with the situation, is only a momentary burst of release before her chest contracts again. Zahra isn’t agreeing with her, is calling her impulse to simply get out of this corner they’ve backed themselves in insane. Daiyu feels indignant as she opens her mouth, “What’s insane is locking ourselves up with no idea what’s happening outside.” It’s not entirely true, but there’s hardly any wise decisions. Throwing herself into what might be an emotionally compromising situation is far from one, though. That much Daiyu knows.

Zahra takes her wrist, and it’s the only thing that keeps her from reaching for the door handle and opening the door. She would have, really, in direct opposition to Zahra’s protests, but there’s that pleading tone. Daiyu looks at her for a moment, then quickly up to the ceiling as she struggles to accept the existence of that please. The desperation of it. The weight of it. How she cannot be confronted with such things, not now and not ever. She yanks her wrist back, feels her skin sear where the other had touched her. She pulls it up to her chest, considering a cobweb above them as she avoids any type of contact with the other for as long as she can. “Fine. We’ll stay here a bit and see if you can come up with a better fucking plan.” The words are somewhat cruel, more bitten than spoken. Daiyu looks at Zahra again, some kind of apologetic edge to her eyes already. “Fine. Sorry. It’s the adrenaline, or something.” That must be it. 

“alright, no funny business.” she’s never had much respect for authority, just enough to scrape by off the radar. which is why suri closes the door and takes a seat not on the bed daiyu points to, but the one she’s also sat on. what’s that distance matter anyway? suri has been told tales of what people like the volkovs did before the outbreak, and she’s be stupid to think they’re any less dangerous in this world. if she wants to kill me, there’s not much i can do about it. not much. there’s almost too little space to use that gun now, but suri doesn’t doubt that the girl who beat mike’s face in would still use it. suri hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“what details are you talking about?” suri sits slightly hunched, fatigue settling in, but her eyes remain sharp. “‘cause i get it, i’m new, easy person to try and pin for mike. i don’t know what you heard, but i didn’t do shit to him. and how many people do you have lying around who can make bombs that don’t blow up in your pocket? and blow up when you want them to?” she’s pleading for her life, for her spot in this mall while desperately trying to give up nothing. she might as well be selling her soul to a devil. at first there was one reason to be here. bring yen back something he can work with. then one reason became more than she can count on one hand, and her original goal floats further and further away from her reach.

The other has guts, that much is clear. Suri plops down next to her and it’s a move Daiyu might have used, were the roles reversed. It only serves to piss her off more, though. And as Suri goes on about fucking Mike, her patience runs even thinner. Daiyu pushes her body further up the mattress, then uses her added weight to throw her lower arm against Suri’s collarbones, pushing her against the wall next to her roommate’s bed. Her knee between the other’s legs, her gun pointed against her upper leg with her free hand. Not aimed to kill: but aimed to hurt. She can play the Volkov way if she wants to.

“Shut up,” she snarls, “This isn’t about fucking Mike. You think I care about that?” Come the fuck off it. Daiyu takes in Suri’s features. “Bombs, you say? Bombs, you ever design those for your former people? Grizzlies, right? Yeah, I fucking know what shithole you crawled out from.” She presses closer. “Guess that whoever’s trying to protect you slipped up, somewhere. Oops. So, come on. Consider this your second chance at being honest while someone questions you. ‘Cause I sure as fuck don’t give a damn about whoever’s keen to keep you alive, or what value you bring to my father.”

He doesn’t remember anything after - after he found the - Marsie, the - remnants of Marsie. It’s all flashes of being led away, the smell of the herbal pastes Muriel washes her hair with. He was in a kitchen, at some point. It seems like years ago, this morning, before everything. After the first everything. Before the second everything. He didn’t remember Daiyu was supposed to be coming for him. He was just - he was back in April, and then he was now, and there was Marsie, he was going to save her. All her hope, all her sweetness and light and joy in a shitty world. He’s seen her bones. He doesn’t have anything left to throw up. There’s so many people around him, but none of them are his. They come from where he comes from. The dead outnumber the living, in the group of people who give a shit whether Matty Alston lives or dies. That’s why he isn’t expecting it, the figure cannonballing across the room at him, dragging him into a tighter hug than he’s had in months. He knows Daiyu instinctively, anywhere, and he catches her. Lets her pull him close. Lets himself break. “No - no, they - they - they - Marsie, they - Marsie’s dead.”

This isn’t how it is supposed to be. Embraces between them are scarce, especially of this kind — in the face of traumatic loss, Matty and Daiyu have always opted for avoidance rather than tight comfort. They shut down, skirt awkwardly around the other’s and their own pain and then, perhaps, attempt to reconvene when the wounds aren’t as fresh.

But here she is, pulling him into an instinctive hug and here he is, delivering a necrology. Suddenly the loss between them is more shared than ever — before it had always been his family or hers, people they both knew but meant more to the one than the other. 

Marsie was one of them though, wasn’t she? Child of a warzone, daughter of the post-apocalypse, healer of the community. Marsie was one of them, but she also wasn’t, as she was exponentially better. 

Daiyu feels herself go slack for a moment, a breath getting stuck in her throat as ice water spreads through her veins. Then, she’s back to clutching him, because now she needs this as well. She does not say no, does not go down the path of denial: that has never been much her style, with the corpses piling up in her life since childhood. Her mother, FEDRA soldiers, conspirators of her father’s, trespassers, infected, and then all those she had truly known. There is no room for denial when life is more about death than life, most days. But there is the quiet resignation. The rage, too.

The anger, that simple and only answer that exists in the face of pain. But where can it go, with her face pressed against Matty’s chest and his arms around her? And while her instincts scream to push him away, she cannot break the contact — if only because he seems to need it.

“What happened?” The words muffled, her eyes stinging. Daiyu isn’t sure when the last time she cried is. She swallows, dips into rage all the same, “What the fuck happened?”

Chaos.

It’s the simplest description of the mall as the infected run rampant and the survivors are caught off balance. The aftermath isn’t much better; they’re all left with far more questions than answers. How? Why? Was there still more of them - or were there about to be?

That was the trouble with this infection. One wrong move, even without knowing it, could result in more spread.

Gabe’s been keeping his head down, focusing on the flow of patients through the infirmary and trying his very best not to let his mind wander towards darker topics. He hadn’t heard from Gilbert since the radio cut out. There were whispers going around about those who had been lost - and Marsie’s name was on that list. And others still that he knew, for the moment, were safe - Ophelia, Suri - but that could change at any moment.

None of them were safe. Not really.

His eyes lift at the flurry of movement, finding Daiyu to be the source of it. He doesn’t think much of it at first, not until she’s flying in his direction. “Yeah, sure - what’s going on?” Gabriel asks as Daiyu latches onto his arm, dragging him back off in the direction that she’d come. He’s not given much choice other than to follow - though given there is clearly something serious going on, he wasn’t about to refuse her requests.

Immediately his mind is rolling over everything that could be on the other end of this. He was good, he’d taken care of some serious injuries before - but he couldn’t heal the infection. He couldn’t reverse a bite. He’d seen so many infected injuries before, it wasn’t hard to miss…But when it was a loved one at the other end of it, rationality went out the window.

“What is it, Daiyu?”

If her fingers dig into his skin, she doesn’t bother to notice. It’s not like she is particularly worried that Gilbert is about to bleed out, but there’s an urgency to her all the same: she needs this done. She needs this task checked off her to-do list so she can deal with the rest at hand. Not that she’s sure what that is, exactly — just that she needs to be alone to face it, that she cannot be seen here, hugging her knees or pushing the palms of her hands against her eyes.

So, no, Gabriel Reyes’ comfort is far from her first priority. If she pulls his arm from his socket, she’ll simply knock it back in. If there’s half-moon-nail-imprints on his lower arm by now, then she doesn’t mind very much. The only thing that she responds to is his question, head whipping back as she continues to move. 

“Orquídeas is bleeding all over the fucking floor, making a mess.” I want to kill Alexei, he’d said, while chained to a radiator and bleeding from a neck wound. For that kind of stupid brashness, perhaps he simply ought to lay in whatever grave he was digging. Maybe she should just watch him squirm him way out of the mess he’d gotten himself in before he’d get himself into another. And yet here she was, forcefully dragging a medic his way. For Nik’s sake, or Gil’s, or maybe her own, because she’s never been that callous.

There’s a tug, Gabriel now next to her as she lets go, expecting him to fall in tandem. The touch makes her stressed, anyway, afraid that he can sense the trembling that’s starting in the pit of her chest. “You know him, right?” She vaguely recalls their last conversation. “He’s not infected, but some fucker will say he is. Ignore them. Just give him stiches.”

there’s an instinct to apologize again.  an apology for an apology- it’s just her nature.  she says sorry before cleaning a wound knowing that the alcohol will sting, despite that the very task she’s doing is for good.  any pain or discomfort she’s ever inflicted in her life has been either accidental or a necessary means to an end.  “yeah, okay,” she isn’t sure where safety is.  is there a place in this mall still untouched by this tragedy?  can they get out of it altogether?  is the situation just as dire outside these walls?  there isn’t time to run through their options, all she can do is follow.  her step is directly behind the soldier’s, putting her fate entirely in the other’s grasp.

“thank you.” ophelia’s gentle hand reaches forward and takes the knife into her palm.  ophelia who is no soldier, ophelia who was raised by healers.  she’s been sheltered her whole life from atrocities like this, eyes covered by the tender hands of her mother and father.  even gil has played a part in her innocence.  she’s never held a knife as a weapon before.  now she stands here, the blade feeling almost foreign in her hand as daiyu holds her gun confidently next to her.  that’s not to say that she feels jealous of the volkov, ophelia knows that her expertise comes from years of fighting her way through life.  she wouldn’t trade her childhood, her family, for anything.  it’s more of a sense of admiration of daiyu’s bravery and strength.  “right, next time.”  the phrase implies that this nightmare would end, that they will make it out alive.  but it also suggests that something like this will happen again.  she knows daiyu is right, she knows she should be able to protect herself- protect her child.  and she will, in this moment she knows that she will.  “i should have grabbed my medkit, i always have my medkit.  i just panicked,” it’s said more as an anxious rambling than a real need to explain herself.  perhaps daiyu judges her lack of preparedness, but it’s more that she judges herself.  she’s furious with herself even, for making such a careless mistake, for putting her child in danger.

“i’ve never- i mean i-” she stutters, her eyes darting around the hallways as they move in search of safer ground.  “i’ve never seen one of those before.”  they are like the boogeyman in a way- the infected.  she knows they exist, knows all too well the horrors they inflict, but has never had to face them head on.  she’s only heard stories of their appearance, their noises.  the tall tales she heard from other children growing up used to terrify her.  but they were just stories.  it turns out, she’s decided, the truth is much worse.

How is it possible, for someone in this place to hold such innocence? Daiyu cannot begin to grasp it, the reality Ophelia lives in — they had grown up side by side, and there were horrors they had surely both seen when they were too young to see them, but still. The knife passes from one hand to another and she cannot get stuck on thinking of it, the differences between their hands alone. Her violent ones compared to Ophelia’s healing ones. As if there’s room for hands in this world not stained by certain violence. As if it isn’t a matter of time before Ophelia would have to make her hands something violent too, if she wanted to survive.

Daiyu realises she’s worried about her. A bit angry, too, that somehow Ophelia had ended up this sheltered, this inexperienced — not because it was unfair, but because it made her ill-prepared. It made her panic, made her forgetful, as if those were things to permit oneself to be. “You should be carrying, then, at all times. I’ll get you something, okay? Something to make sure you always have something on you.” How was that not yet a reality? Daiyu feels herself grow heavy with worry, if only because it’s not an emotion that fits her well. It’s Ophelia who’s more of the caretaking sort, and here she is, making the decision to take Ophelia out with her sometime, force her to hold a gun, steal an ankle holster and a knife for her. In a way, yes, she does judge her for her innocence, for the naivete — but more herself, too, for letting it be. 

The truth is probably that fewer people sleep well than might claim to. More people are plagued with bouts of memories that haunt them or restlessness that plagues them and there’s no real solution Mara’s found. Their ever dwindling medical supplies are always a concern but for some reason, for Daiyu…she makes an exception. There’s no favoritism, no Volkov name influencing her. More so the fact that before she’d found him again, Daiyu had reminded her of Felix in that scrappy, take-everything-on-the-chin, keep-your-head-held-high type of way. And maybe in helping her, she’d hoped that somewhere out there, someone was helping her son and partner. 

Mara’s lips twitch and she shrugs, “but plenty up here,” she taps her temple, “you’d never run out.” Which is the point. Mara shifts showing Diayu what she’s doing. “Fold them this way,” she instructs, demonstrating the precise way she measures and cuts and rolls and ties off each new bandage, in a way that’’s easily storable. “Here,” the doctor hands Daiyu a pair of scissors and continues on her pile.

They work in silence for a few minutes, Mara content to do so for the most part. Until her gaze shifts to Daiyu and she finally speaks after a beat. “Are you, uh…you’re doing alright besides the whole insomnia thing?” Said with a haphazard smile to make it seem like a lighter question than it is. She’s no therapist and doesn’t want to be, but to her dismay, she’s become quite fond of some people, quite certain that she wants to help them however she can. 

Imagination is a double-sided sword, Daiyu has learned over the years. It’s lost in thought that she finds escapism, but she also finds nightmare fuel and memory — and so while to count imaginary sheep might be a worthy solution, she isn’t sure she’s willing to give it a try. She’d prefer a blank mind, to close her eyes and meet mental silence. “Fair enough. Does it have to be sheep? Or can I count something else, like ...” For a moment, she thinks. “Dogs?” They’re much more fun than sheep, though maybe that’s not the point.

She’s silent as she watches Mara’s instruction, taking the scissors and getting to work. Her work is far from as precise as the doctor’s, but she’s glad to occupy her hands and mind with a task that demands a certain level of focus. It’s not as consuming as some of her other distraction methods, but it keeps her busy busy enough, she figured.

The question makes her lift her head, the scissor halfway through a bandage. It’s sincere, the question, and that in and of itself makes Daiyu hesitate. What use is there, in pretending everything is quite alright when she’s here for something mildly sedative? “Fuck, I don’t know.” She cuts through the bandage fully and it ends up crooked, so she puts the scissors down. Fingers splay on the table. “Just trying to process what went down, you know. The people we lost, that cult sending someone just to —” Her head shakes. “I don’t know, cause so much damage, for whatever reason. The growing unrest ... It’s a lot, right?” It is always a lot, though, so Daiyu thinks she should be fine. That she should not be so hung up on it, the fact that her father had a guilty man executed. That she should be icier. “What about you?”

sometimes he wishes she’d lash out at him more. it would be easier to stomach his guilt if she made him bleed for it. but that’s not who they are, it never has, it never will. this love has cost him time and time again, but he wouldn’t change it for the world. it must be due punishment that he sits here and endures the hurt on her face. he so desperately wants to look away, but he can’t quite bring himself to. 

she’s skeptical, of course she is. he’d be more worried if she wasn’t. at least she isn’t running head first into this. nik is quiet as he always is, but very much present, absorbing every word with thorough consideration. she’s right, mostly. teddy and felix haven’t been here anywhere near long enough to know the extent of alexei’s cruelty and games, not even mara’s four years is enough. eva, too. and gilbert, who moves with his heart and not his head. then zahra, who’s competence shows, but in nik’s aged eyes, is still a young soul and ripe for making mistakes, mistakes a movement like this can’t handle. but these people together, not alone, now that could be something. “if this is going to work, they need the zone to trust them. that’s what they’re doing now.” 

more people to hang means more blood on his hands, and finally his eyes drop from hers. for a long time, he had himself convinced that killing left no mark on him. that he didn’t enjoy nor detest it. he’s not so sure now. maybe it would be easier to not think about if gil wasn’t so gentle with him as he washes blood from his clothes. nik is silent for a moment, he considers not asking, but he finds himself curious. “do you want to?” he asks, devoid of any judgement. there’s a part of him that would have loved to have been the end vasily met, and another part that would be sickened at the thought of stooping so low. but which part is strongest in her? “what’s stopping us is over half the zone would die for him. i can’t take on that many people, neither can you. his pedestal needs to crumble so we can reach him and make it out afterwards.” 

nik inhales slowly, shifting in his seat. “i don’t actually know more than this. i’m not technically invited. gil and zahra’ve told me about it. at least teddy and mara aren’t stupid enough to invite a volkov.” it’s a slight on those who have come before them, but regret stings his features as he wonders if that’s how she’ll understand it. “i’m helping through them for now, zahra and gil. i don’t want to scare off the doctor. your repuation might not be as bad as mine, but if they’ve got any sense, they’ll hesistate with you too, because of how much you mean to him. so for now, we keep our eyes on them. keep everyone else distracted, give this little… uprising as much cover as possible. help it grow.” 

“The people they’re sneaking out won’t be here to trust them, though? What the fuck?” Her response is rapid-fire quick, confusion blooming over her features. It sounded like a sack of shit. And it was good, sure, to let people out of here if they wanted to — but then Alexei wasn’t going to waste his resources on dissatisfied civillians anyway. Only if he could easily shoot them in the legs and rob their bodies, perhaps.

He looks away and she starts to stare at her hands as she ponders the subject she’d brought up herself. Then he brings the question Gilbert had forgotten to ask ( as he tended to ) and Daiyu lifts her shoulders. An honest display of hesitation, before looking up. “If anyone’s going to ...” Her voice trails off, the thought of setting something right, of balancing some kind of scale, of making her father afraid for once, to make him face the mortality he seems to be in denial of — it is enticing. “Yeah, I think so.” 

Her eyes narrow as she looks back up at him. “You’re not making any fucking sense. If you want him dead and to get out after, we can make a plan. Death of night, be quiet and quick, take the routes we know.” She grits her teeth, shakes her head. “If that’s what you wanna do, turn around, abandon everything and everyone here, then we could’ve done that. Already.” She’s reaching dangerous territory, questions of why, why he had been so aware that this was a cruel place and still allowed his own son and Alexei’s children to grow up in it. Why he had never tried. Why even now he wasn’t trying. She doesn’t blame him, but she does know it’s too little, too late. “I’m not doing that. Finishing him, standing by whatever is brewing and then abandoning, fuck that. No.” They either hatch a short-term plan to run to the wilderness or they sit it through. Build something real. Face their responsibility and do something with it, rather from run from it. Daiyu is guilty of it too, after all.

Being inside a gym felt a little unnatural to Felix, who for most of his life had built up what muscle he had through walking and running miles upon miles with a fifty-pound rucksack and building up enough strength in his shoulders and back to pull the weight of his bow. Strength was simply built through labors. Lifting for the sake of lifting was never really something that Felix considered a priority, when he was of the belief that endurance could get you out of a spot of trouble more than brute strength. It had served him well on more than one occasion. Building up strength through the leisure of equipment dedicated to it was something of a novelty to him. 

“Sounds good to me,” he smiled at Daiyu’s acquiescence, and cross the room, taking the moment to eye the rest of the contents of the room before he settled behind her bench. “Gotta say, this gym is a far cry better than some of the ones I’ve seen before. I’m honestly surprised what some of these look like in one piece and not covered in rust and who knows what else.”

As he moves behind her, she lays back down, hands gripping the barbell once more but not yet moving to lift it as Felix chatters on. He’s seen more of the world than she has, that much is certain — Daiyu’s trips outside of the wall had never gone too far nor too long, never to other places of civlisation like the QZ she’d been born in. It intrigues her, some days, the places that others tell her about. 

She looks up at him, her hands curled around the cool iron. “Where have you seen others before?” She prioritises her curiosity over the work out, head cocking slightly to make her view of him less odd. “And well, we do some good upkeep. Physical fitness and strength are highly valued by the manager.” The manager in question being, of course, her father — but it’s easier to give him some silly title than to speak of him as their leader or the person who was supposedly her parent. 

Zahra’s eyes dart over what’s visible of Daiyu in the glow of the flashlight, checking for anything that might indicate broken skin. She’s fine. She’s alive. She’s fine. Her hands still hover between them, unsure of what to do. Brush a loose strand of hair behind Daiyu’s ear, wipe the blood off Daiyu’s cheek, wrap Daiyu in her arms with no real plan for letting her go— all of it seems too close to a confession that Zahra isn’t sure she fully understands. She settles for crossing her arms, hands tucked close to her torso, if only to keep them from acting of their own accord.

Thank you. Her eyes snap up to meet Daiyu’s, and for a second all she can do is let out a shaky breath. “Of course,” Zahra eventually replies, “I wasn’t gonna leave you there. I’d never leave you.” Instantly, it feels like she’s said too much. She becomes acutely aware of the space between them (or lack there of) and of the fact that they haven’t been this physically close to each other in years, save for a few patrols here and there. This feels different, just the two of them in a corner of the mall that’s rarely frequented. For all they know, they could be the only ones in the QZ left.

Zahra tries to move and give Daiyu more space, pressing her back into the closet door, but all she really succeeds in is narrowly avoiding scraping her leg on the infected blood-covered nails jutting out of Daiyu’s makeshift bat. She swears her heart is beating loud enough for Daiyu and the runners on the other side of the door all to hear it. Fuck, the runners. Unless they decide to live in this closet for the rest of their lives, there’s still infected to deal with. “Shit, I think I dropped my knife out there,” Zahra whispers. She pats her pockets for anything resembling a weapon and comes up with nothing but her own flashlight. “What do we do now?”

Zahra refrains from touching her and Daiyu isn’t sure what to make of it, this closeness between their bodies but the lack of anything. It’s better, better — but how strange it is, too, after all that transpired between them just moments ago and over all the years before that as well. And with every heartbeat she becomes more aware of how small the place is, how trapped they are, how afraid she is of scenarios like this: being stuck. At least she’s not alone, that other large fear of hers — no, someone is telling her she’d never leave her and Daiyu just looks down, into that blinding light.

Because she can understand there nuances, certainly, the difference between leaving someone to the mercy of a runner and the difference between leaving someone in a relationship, but the comment still threatens to push out. You did leave me. There’s no use in bringing it up, reiterating the heartbreak she promises herself she’s recovered from over the years. “Huh.” That’s all that leaves her, some kind of mangled sound. As if she can’t accept that Zahra still cares about her, despite all the ways she’s proved it since the break up. “Yeah, right.”

there’s a huff of breath that pushes out of her as eva lets herself fall onto the ratty couch, body beginning to hold aches in all the places she knows she’ll be sore in come the following days. it’s funny how a day turns; she’d started today off baking a cake, of all things. the normalcy of it had been jarring in the most enticing way. she’d felt giddy with it, perhaps, the excuse to do something she no longer had the time or will to do. it had felt easier to garner up enough of both when she got to do it for someone else. and that frivolous normalcy, the joy of seeing ophelia’s face after it, the mundanity of the routine that had followed – all of it had bled right back into here. the abandoned house, daiyu, violence as an answer.

it wasn’t something eva kept secret on purpose, but it was willful, purposeful omission, what they did here. with the kind of vehement opposition she took to fight club, this felt like something that was too akin to justify. but it wasn’t – and that made all the difference, didn’t it? 

a laugh escaped her, a short, tired thing, as she leaned over to accept the cloth daiyu passed to her. folding it up round between her fingers, eva pressed it to her nose, tilting her head back to let it rest against the back of the couch as she stemmed the blood from dripping everywhere.

they had, perhaps, started this all under different circumstances. who eva had been then felt so distant from her now in a way that scared her some. to know that she could take such distance between versions of herself while being otherwise untouched, unfettered. eva had been angry then, looking for a home for it. daiyu had a family name that made that all too easy, a fire that burned back. take it as some form of release. honest fare, really. 

daiyu speaks again, and eva adjusts her head so she can look at her instead of the ceiling. she grins at daiyu’s words, accepts the compliment willingly. that’s a new occurrence too. they didn’t exchange much as many words, before. maybe it had been easier to pretend the anger directed at daiyu was fair, before. “as long as you promise a good fight.” she starts, adjusts and sits up a little straighter. 

“–picked that one up from nele.” eva adds, even as she had almost decided to let the silence sit for longer. “i’ve been training with her.” she hasn’t shared that tidbit of knowledge otherwise because there hasn’t been a need to. her business is hers, and what she does with her spare time is too. but the time they have here is nebulous, tucked away somewhere with the bleeding tension releasing from her shoulders, lost in between the witching and waxing hour where no words they share seem permanent. there’s a freedom in what this space offers to them where eva can be honest. why not say whatever the hell comes to mind? 

she adjusts again, trying to get comfortable against the ache in her ribs that she knows is going to carry satisfyingly. “i’m shit outta luck in a fight without my knives – so i’ve been volunteering to get my ass kicked, i guess.” eva adds, talking to talk. 

It had been Inna who taught her how to braid her hair. At least, that’s what memory demands to tell her — that there had been a time where Inna and her had been close enough to do sisterly things like that. It might as well be that it had been Ophelia or her mother who’d taughter, or some other young woman straggling around her life at that age: it isn’t as if she remembers much of it, anyway. But Daiyu likes to think of it like that and stubborn persistence means she remembers this: the room she’d shared with her siblings, in a previous life, Inna putting her hair in Daiyu’s hands and telling her what to do.

Vissa had taught her different things. Taking hikes. Fishing. Being patient while fishing. The power of making conversation mean something. And then there were Nik and Alexei, who’d both taught her violence, among other things. How to wield it, how to defend yourself from it, how to make it hurt and how not to. How to be afraid of it, how to make others afraid of it, how to hold it in and when to unleash it. 

And it’s that which sticks with her most. Sure, she braids her hair and thinks of Inna, and tries to think of Vissa when things are meaningfully quiet — but it always returns to this. Blood. Throbbing muscles and head. Flaming fists. Leaning back in a chair and looking at the damage done and just hoping it won’t stick, that it won’t fan out and spread like some kind of wildfire.

She fiddles with her braid, still, then lets out a sound of amusement. “I don’t know how not to offer a good fight, Rhie, don’t worry.” All this is to say: it is in her blood. Violence is her undeniable birthright. Because no matter what Inna and Vissa had taught her, they had taught her that too. How to rinse the blood from your hair after you’ve undone it. How to still your hands after they’ve taken a life. How to sleep, living with it. How to use it against one another.

And here Eva is, finding her own mentor. Not Daiyu, that’s for sure: Daiyu has no interest in teaching violence, only in releasing it. In deescalating through planned escalation. But Nele, now she could be a good teacher. Or couldn’t, she really isn’t sure: it’s not like she’s very close to the woman. “Well, nice. Good to know how to get your ass handed to you and how to avoid it down the line, right?”

     This is a first: Daiyu, humbled in a way. Death does that to people and Nele wonders how close she was to the ones she’s named. A hand lifts toward the other woman, then lowers, and it’s the one bearing the jerky, to which Nele realizes she’s holding it in a gloved hand. Gloves that have been handling the dead. And now it seems unappetizing, the dried meat resembling the corpses once they’ve been burned. She feels drained now and her features contort as she stares at the meat in hand, finally tearing off the glove then rubbing the meat with a bandana she keeps in her pocket. Then, she tears off a bite with her teeth, eyeing Daiyu as she asks about Mike.

     “Yeah, I heard about the asshole,” she claps back, face tightening, irritated that Daiyu “gave her permission” to finish eating. It’s easier to be annoyed — but it isn’t the time, and Nele ends up poking her tongue into her cheek, inhaling a long breath. A hard smile does little to ease her features, though she wishes it would. She wishes she had the softness she did when her family was still around, but her body won’t allow it to extend it to someone with the last name Volkov. 

     She takes another rough bite, chewing quietly as she stares at Daiyu, expecting pushback. “You know what happened to good ol’ Mike? Cause you know it’s gonna fall on us to find them.” She isn’t looking forward to finding justice for someone who hardly deserves it; she’s used to attending to duties she has no interest in. All because of Alexei. And Nikolai. Fucking Volkov’s. She should have put a bullet in Nik when she had the chance. The bitterness is comforting sometimes, offering the same temporary satisfaction as a cigarette. 

     And yet, “Thanks,” she tacks on. For the food. 

The switch in conversation topic from Marseline and the other fallen to Mike had seemed smart, somehow, something to distract her from that familiar distant cold called grief. Now that the topic is at actual hand, though, Daiyu feels something crawl up her spine. As if, for the first time, she is considering the full picture. An enforcer murdered in the heat of a moment. Not just any enforcer: one her father had favoured, had come close to defending while striking down Ray not even two months prior.

It would not be so easily let go. It wouldn’t just be another casualty, no, it would be considered a slight upon his authority, or something of the sort. “No, but I can take a fucking guess. Someone saw their chance and took it.” Daiyu tries to state it plainly but struggles to keep her tone neutral. She isn’t one to dance on someone’s grave, but even so, Mike’s loss isn’t one she feels particularly moved by. There’s some vindication there, she supposes. “There’s a ton of people who had a bone to pick with the guy, right?”

She lets out a huff of air, not bothering to search her jacket for gloves. Daiyu does not want to find Mike’s murderer only for them to receive the fitting punishment, to see their own end in response. “Pah, as if he’d put me on the job,” she says, not sure if she’s insinuating that her father finds her incompetent or if she’s too privileged for such dirty work. “I don’t care who did it. I care how this happened, the fucking outbreak. But sure, yeah. It’s gonna be a fucking mess, trying to figure out who did it.” Does Nele look at her as a suspect? Daiyu isn’t sure. She digs her hand in her pockets, stares at the flames and finds it intolerable, so stares ahead in stead.