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nightingaletrash · 1 year

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The Base Violence (Part 2)

AO3

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It was raining by the time they reached Greystone. Garrett kept a demanding pace, all but flowing through the shadows like he was a part of them and scaling up to the rooftops like he was a cat. Vaylin was good at getting around the City quickly and unseen, but he made it look effortless, like a kind of art. No wonder the Watch had never caught him.

Up from the rooftops, they got a good view of Greystone Plaza in the distance. It wasn’t anything good though. People were running and the screams were audible even from above. And amidst the chaos was a lone figure chained to the fountain, arms spread eagle, body limp and his head bowed.

“Looks like I won’t be getting anything from Jacob after all,” Garrett remarked, sounding all too indifferent.

Vaylin sucked in a breath and nodded stiffly.

“No, it doesn’t.”

So much for getting him to safety. She’d known there was a good chance he wouldn’t have survived, but it was a gut punch nonetheless. The one consolation was that he appeared to be alone down there. There was no sign of Portia, Robyn or Riley. Not that it was much comfort; for all she knew, they could be locked up in the Keep with any of the other Graven that had been captured.

“Eastwick’s house isn’t far from here.”

She finally tore her eyes away from the plaza and frowned at him.

“The Baron’s Architect?”

He offered a microscopic tilt of his head.

“Who’d know a way into the Keep better than the man that built it?”

A fair point. No doubt a man as proud as Theodore Eastwick would keep the plans of his masterwork close to his heart, where he could admire them whenever he wished. For a thief of Garrett’s skill, getting hold of those plans would be simple enough even without prior information or a plan. But Eastwick wasn’t the real mark, and his plans were old now. Dated. As fires burned and the chaos swirled, context would matter in the heat of the moment.

That was something she could handle.

“Right. You head to Eastwick's, see if you can find some plans. I’ll go streetside and find out what’s happening. If we’re lucky, I’ll learn something that could help you at the Keep. I’ll wait for you near the main gates.”

Garrett hesitated a moment but then nodded and tugged up his mask.

“Just remind your friends not to kill me.”

And without a backwards look, he took off at a run, vaulting the balustrade and jumping onto a narrow ledge before he disappeared between the masonry in pursuit of his target. Vaylin turned instead to the plaza.

Before she did anything else, she wanted to be absolutely certain that the body chained to the fountain was Jacob's, and that he was definitely dead before she went running off. Whatever his obsession with the Keep, he'd been her friend and he'd supported this mad endeavour. She owed him that much. After that, she'd move through the side streets, find Watchmen she could listen in on and vantage points she could scout from. Once that was done, she'd head towards the Keep's front entrance and find a place to wait for Garrett.

It was a plan. More of one than she’d had when she was dragging Roland into Black Alley.

She tugged up her hood and breathed deeply. Setting off at a run, she leapt over the balustrade and landed catlike on the steel walkway below. Without breaking pace, she kept running, jumped and pushed off from a lamp post and caught herself squarely between two pipes with her feet and forearms. She slid, dropped down onto the pipe below and sprung across to the fire escape below.

Then she vaulted the railing to grab the bottom rung of the ladder and swung herself to the next rooftop.

The cold air cut at her lungs and stung her eyes as she sprinted, and the rain lashed at her face. The wind howled deafeningly in her ears, and overhead the sky lit up in a flash of lightning as she made the leap across the gap between rooftops.

And for that briefest of moments, she wasn’t her, and she wasn’t alone. She was everything and everything was her. The withered roots and rotting heart, the unyielding stone and the crumbling earth. It was all, it was nothing. She was a part, she was the whole, and she stirred at the periphery of her senses.

She wasn’t alone. Something else was a part of this desiccated husk. They existed within her. Without her. Together but misaligned. Wrong. Something alien.

A rot.

A poison.

An invader.

And as the flare of light dissipated, so too did the moment and it slithered from her awareness before it could be recognised or understood. Instead she rolled through the landing and kept running until she neared the street corner that joined to the plaza and slid down the drain pipe to ground level.

The chaos made it all too easy to slip into the crowd without catching the notice of the Watch officers that were attempting (and failing) to control the situation; nobles and their servants were running to or from their homes, clutching bags and coats and dragging their children behind them. The rain blurred any distinguishing features of the finely dressed people and the harried Watchmen, but here and there, smears of red paint and ragged clothes caught her eye before they melted back into the throng. She wasn’t the only one moving unseen through the panic.

By the time that Vaylin was nearing the fountain, it seemed that maybe the frenzy could boil down to a manageable simmer of fear, that the Watch could make some sense of the madness… And then there was a booming explosion from the Keep.

A surge of fear gripped the crowd as orange flames erupted amidst a belch of oily black smoke and debris rained down across Greystone. Fresh screams filled the air in a cacophony; Vaylin dived for the wall of the fountain and braced herself to avoid being swept away in the panic as chips of bricks and mortar rained down. She took her chance to steal a glance at the body chained to the statue of whichever Northcrest had been honoured here, just to find the worst confirmed.

Jacob had been dead for some time by the looks of it. His tangled brown hair dangled limply over glassy eyes, the chains had worn open his wrists and his guts were spilling out into the pool at his feet, though the blood had long since stopped flowing. The violent red mark around his neck betrayed the imprint of the rope, which was odd because Orion had been so insistent that he’d been alive when he had first been chained here. Had his information been wrong or-?

Liar.

She swallowed down the lump in her throat as the memory swirled in her mind. Then she clamped down on it hard.

No. No matter how angry she was about the questionable choices that Orion had made tonight, there was no reason for him to lie about Jacob’s fate. He’d been misinformed. She was his best scout for a reason, the one he had sent to gather information for the ring commission and the House of Blossoms. Whoever had scouted out Jacob for him had done a pisspoor job of it, that was all.

And it didn’t even matter now anyway. Jacob was dead, and she had a job to do. She had to gather as much information on the Keep as she could that might be useful for Garrett’s mission.

So far it seemed likely that the explosion was the work of the Graven, and that meant that either one of the remaining leaders of the protest were alive and had organised the mob, or someone had yelled ‘fuck the Keep’ and everyone had rallied around that.

Either way, the Keep was the focus.

Once the worst of the crush of bodies had subsided, Vaylin dived back into the panicking throng and pressed her way in the direction of the Keep before swerving off down a side street. The Watchmen were doing their best to divert the crowd, some screaming themselves hoarse in an attempt to have people return to their homes or get inside any of the nearby buildings. Others seemed helpless in the face of a problem that they couldn’t brutalise with their swords and fists and just kept bellowing at the fleeing civilians about following orders.

But Vaylin weaved her way between buildings and back alleys and pressed her ear to the back door of the first house she spotted with the lights on.

“-evacuating the whole district,” a harried sounding woman was saying. “He said that the Graven are too organised to simply disperse.”

“And once again we must pay for the Watch’s incompetence,” a man replied, his voice dipping in and out as he moved around the room frantically, undoubtedly packing a bag as quickly as he could. “That many people couldn’t simply hide. The Watch should have dealt with this Orion and his mongrels months ago.”

“You say that as if he didn’t have supporters right here in Dayport, love,” his wife replied. “Emmaline Thurber was hanged for spreading sedition against the Baron.”

Thurber. Orion’s noble contact, and the one who had agreed to help get so many of them into Dayport without alerting the Watch. Vaylin had only met her once or twice, but she’d seemed decent enough for a noblewoman, albeit a bit intense. She’d been dedicated to the movement and eager to see the Baron brought low after losing most of her family to the Gloom.

Now she was lost too.

Vaylin moved on when the footsteps drew too close to the back door for her liking. A few doors down, a pair of Watchmen were lurking in the mouth of an alleyway, watching the officers directing people towards the outer limits of the district. Neither seemed prepared to help direct the chaos unless it involved using their weapons, and both of them looked ragged already.

“Gods to grave holes,” one of them muttered. “It’s like the end of the world out here.”

“So much for the Eternal Keep,” the other scoffed, his fingers flexing over the trigger of his crossbow. “How many of the bastards do you reckon are in there right now?”

“No idea. Pretty sure we’ve still got men holding the gates-”

“For what? A building that’s coming down a few centuries early? Thought it was meant to serve as ‘the cornerstone of an Eternal City’.”

“General’s orders. Burke said they’ve got some of the Graven leaders locked up in there, and he’d sooner let everyone burn than risk them escaping.”

“Burke always did love to live up to his name, didn’t he?”

“Guardsmen!”

Vaylin flinched away from the alley and flattened herself against the wall as the Watchmen were suddenly confronted by the abrupt arrival of their superior.

“Officer Burke, sir.”

“We have an uprising on our hands, and yet here I find you two standing around as if you were chatting over whiskey and cigars,” Burke snarled. “Report to the Keep at once. The defences are in need of bolstering, and it appears that the two of you have nothing better to do qt present.”

There was a pregnant pause of hesitation followed by a pair of reluctant ‘yessir’s and the sound of hurried boots marching away. Yet Vaylin didn’t move because she could still hear someone in the alley, and it could only be Burke. She could just imagine him watching, waiting, prowling around the corner in the hopes of catching an eavesdropper.

Until an alarm erupted from across the rooftops and the air filled with shouts and the barking of hounds.

Vaylin ducked into the cover of a doorway as Burke came sprinting in her direction with his sword drawn. He skidded to a halt at the interjection between the alleys and paused, his gaze turned upward in search of the source.

And, taking a chance, Vaylin brushed her fingers over a stray patch of withered ivy that the homeowners hadn’t quite succeeded in removing from their wall. She reached out and through, willing to glean anything she could from even the smallest insight.

No invaders yet. They’ll try soon. Keep breaking down. Doesn’t know why.

The thoughts were weak and warbled, like the vine was choking in a noose, but the point was made.

Burke lingered a few moments longer. Maybe he sensed that he was being watched. Maybe he knew there was always a chance that she was there, watching and listening. Or maybe he could see what was going on better than she could right now and was observing, trying to determine his course of action. Then he cursed under his breath and - to her great relief - ran right past her shadowy alcove in the direction of the disturbance.

Only when he was swallowed up in the gloom did Vaylin step back out of the alcove and breathe a sigh of relief. That had been much too close for her liking.

But there had been something to learn in spite of the brush with the hangman’s noose; the remaining leaders of the protest were inside the Keep, the Graven hadn’t successfully breached its defences, and the Watch were still trying to protect it even as it crumbled around them for reasons unknown.

That part puzzled her. The Keep wasn’t even a decade old and was intended to last for centuries. Why would it be breaking down now?

The answer to that question probably resided inside the Keep, along with the captured Graven and Basso. And the route inside would depend entirely on Garrett having secured the plans.

Hopefully he’d found something good.

[]

It was less a matter of finding each other than running into each other in a side street, a few streets away from the Keep. Luckily they’d done so just far enough away that the debris wasn’t falling down on them yet. But Vaylin wasted no time. She just beckoned to him as she approached.

“You got the plans? Let me see.”

He reached into his pack and unrolled the page for her to see. It showed the general structure of the Keep, its layers and mechanical systems. A general blueprint for how the pieces fit together, the most important of which was-

“The exhaust shaft here is probably the best route in,” Garrett pointed in, indicating the spot on the page.

“That’s suicide even when everything’s working the way it should be,” Vaylin pointed out incredulously. “You really want to risk that when it’s all breaking down?”

“It’ll buy back the element of surprise,” he said shortly, tucking the plans away again before giving her a questioning glance. “Did you manage to turn up anything?”

“A few bits and pieces. The General has men falling back to man the Keep’s defences. Some other Graven leaders are being held in the prison like Basso, and he would rather see them all burn than escape,” she relayed. “There’s also the fact that not even the Watch knows why the Keep is falling apart like this; the Graven haven’t even gotten inside yet. They’re anticipating it, but they don’t know anymore about why this is happening than we do.”

"Buildings don't just fall apart for no reason," he pointed out with a frown.

"Especially not one that was meant to last forever. One thing I know for sure, old Northcrest will have questions for Eastwick."

For a split second it seemed like Garrett was going to respond, but then another boom shook the ground and the air trembled as a fresh column of flame and smoke was belched into the air and more debris came crashing down into the streets below.

Time was running out.

Without a word, Garrett tugged his mask up and turned to vanish into the shadows that only grew as the air grew thick with soot. And without a second thought, Vaylin followed. The Master Thief spared her a quizzical look, but with no sign of elaboration, he turned his attention to the path ahead.

They moved quickly with little regard for stealth as the smoke concealed them for the most part and the Watch were too distracted to care about the side streets anymore. Above the booms and crackling flames, a low roar could be heard in the distance, and the stench of brimstone saturated the air.

It was lucky, Vaylin decided, that Constantine had decided to vanish back at the Burrick. He was better off chasing rats around Stonemarket than he would be here.

By the time they reached the main plaza, it was already the site of a disaster. Bodies of guards and civilians already littered the ground, some crushed under stone, some cut down by swords, and some burned into blackened husks; the survivors were helpless to watch as yet another explosion sent a block of stone flying down from the Keep and struck the Baron’s statue squarely in the back of the head and exploded into a hailstorm that swallowed up the square.

As the statue toppled forwards, its head rolled from its shoulders, and shook the ground with a resounding quake as it hit the cobblestones. Blocks of stone hit the ground, kicking up concrete and dust, crushing lamp posts, carriages and benches, and bursting into sharp clouds of stones that embedded themselves into every surface they came across, living or otherwise.

The Watchmen scurried to avoid the worst of it, some diving for cover while others tried vainly to shield their faces as best they could, the cacophony of noise deafening them as more screams filled the sky.

Garrett seized the opportunity at a run with Vaylin close behind. They dodged between the debris, leaping over bodies and zipping past the dazed Watchmen who barely noticed they were there. The air sweltered and thickened with greasy soot and scorching heat as the fires burned higher. They swerved through a pair of open gates and down the steps that would lead to the exhaust shaft, the pipes creaking and moaning overhead as they pressed forwards.

A scant moment later, a pipe-cap burst open just in front of his face and he barely ducked down in time to slide under the spout of flame that erupted from the wall. Vaylin skidded under it and didn’t break her stride.

But then another tremor threw her balance; she stumbled into the wall and then pushed off of it to propel herself forwards as Garrett turned right into the shredded remains of what must have been some kind of maintenance room.

A large pipe had been ruptured, maybe shorn in two by the quakes, and the wall to the right looked like it had exploded outwards into the larger space beyond. More pipes, more walkways, and a churning reservoir lapped at the structural supports of the Keep’s foundation. Maybe it supplied water to the building or it was supposed to cool down the machinery - either way, it wasn’t doing a very good job tonight.

Garrett led the way and dropped down to the walkway below. He moved quickly and purposefully, and Vaylin kept a short distance behind, constantly aware of the shaking and the creaking of the steel. If things carried on the way they were, this wouldn’t be a viable exit for any of them, especially if Basso and the Graven prisoners were injured.

The walkway sloped down and a turn then revealed that it had twisted and torn away. The only path forward was the pipeline below; it was already compromised, with jets of flame periodically leaking from bolts that were holding it all together.

They dropped. Immediately the heat burned at Vaylin’s feet as they took off at a run, stopping only to wait for a flame to gutter and the way to clear. Then the world lurched and heaved. The end of the pipe dropped into the reservoir and Vaylin’s knees buckled as they slid downwards through the cold spray. Garrett leapt nimbly to the inside of the pipe’s mouth, and she half expected him to keep moving. But instead he waited for her to follow.

So she caught her balance, then jumped and crawled in after him. Their narrow shelf above the reservoir was vibrating, and she could hear the heaving of machinery overhead.

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” she whispered as they climbed toward the sound. The shaking was getting worse, and she could hear the distinct ringing of metal colliding with metal. “Just, hands down. Never done dumber than this.”

“Well that makes two of us,” Garrett replied dryly. “If this plan were anyone else’s, I’d say it was too risky.”

“Well then in that case, I’m sure we’ll be fine, no problem. Maybe I’ll even find dumber shit to do.”

She received a hum in response, which was about as good as she could expect to get.

Still, her assumption - joke or not - was about to be tested. Before them was a massive piston, drawing back and slamming back down with enough speed and strength to be immediately lethal if anyone got caught in it. There was a gap in the wall on the other side, but it’d be a near thing.

“The moment there’s an opening, you go,” Garrett instructed.

Then he waited until the piston slammed back in and began its slow crawl back up before shooting out across the space and crawling through the gap to safety. Seconds later, it back slammed down, hiding him from view, and the bone-shaking quake made her stomach turn. All it would take was one slip, and she’d be nothing but paste. The thought wasn’t a pleasant one.

Then the piston began to slide back up, and the moment she could squeeze into the shaft, she dropped down and scrambled for the gap in the wall.

Garrett was waiting and he grabbed her wrist the moment she was in reach, and he pulled. She clambered up, using his weight to lever herself up and through. A second later, the piston slammed back down behind her.

She let out a shaky breath as the vibration shivered through her bones, reminding her of what it had wanted to do to her.

“Dumbest. Idea. Ever,” she laughed.

Garrett pondered a moment and then he nodded.

“We’ll leave the bill with Orion later. Now we find the prison where they’re holding Basso.”

Worked for her.

They gathered themselves and inspected the plans to quickly orient themselves. The prison was higher up. Not quite near the top but not far from it. They’d need to make it through the Engineering level and find an elevator if they wanted to get there.

They didn’t discuss the plan for getting out. Between the sweltering heat, the shaking walls, and the smothering air, it felt like it’d be a miracle if they made it as far as the prison. They’d cross that bridge when they got to it.

So they pressed on, favouring speed over stealth as the chaos continued to unfold. The fires had spread and the air was overwhelming with smoke. Vaylin covered her mouth and nose with her scarf, but it did little to hold off anything more than the worst of it. All around them, they could hear the shouts of engineers and Watchmen trying to contain the spread of damage, even as the Keep crumbled around them, and another explosion rocked the tower.

Bodies littered the level; if the people hadn’t been killed by explosions or the fires, they’d suffocated as the pipes flooded room after room with gas. Shutting off valves proved the easiest way to make navigating the level possible, and soon enough, they found the main elevators.

As they stepped through the door, they were confronted by a dying Watchman. He’d been caught by shrapnel by the look of it; his blood was leaking across the floor in a pool, and his face was rapidly greying as he stared up at the two intruders, wide-eyed. He wasn’t very old.

He gurgled and blood bubbled at his lips as he reached toward them before the last of his strength bled out of him and his head dropped to the floor.

Silently, Vaylin approached the body and bent down to slide his eyes shut. A meaningless gesture, maybe. Her fellows might even call it wasted or even downright traitorous. But as monstrous as the Watch might be, as cruel and corrupt as its men were, she didn’t need to stoop to their level. It served her well to remember that anyone could be a monster, whatever crest they wore. Monstrosity was not solely the domain of tyrants and their thugs.

Garrett was more concerned with the glittering band in the guard’s outstretched palm. He plucked it up, examined it closely, then pocketed it without so much as an afterthought. She chose to say nothing and just followed him into the elevator.

“We can’t go back the way we came,” Vaylin pointed out, knowing Garrett had already considered that fact.

He just hummed in response.

“So the front door? Guess subtlety really has gone out the window tonight.”

“Guess so.”

For a long while they remained silent, and then they caught a catch of conversation as their iron box climbed.

“Captain, if the Graven come for the criminals-”

“They won’t. The Graven don’t care for their own. And if they do, they can die with them like the animals they are.”

Vaylin’s jaw clicked with anger and she gritted her teeth at the accusation.

“You don’t know us,” she hissed under her breath, and Garrett didn’t need to ask who she was talking to.

“Orion didn’t seem to be jumping at the bit to come and rescue your friends,” he pointed out.

“And I didn’t?” she snapped, stalwartly refusing to look at him. “Whatever my father’s up to, it doesn’t change the fact that we care. If we didn’t, the Graven wouldn’t even exist.”

“If you say so.”

Somehow it was his indifference that wounded her. It cut like a knife, like an accusation, and she could only shake her head and work her jaw. Her leg bounced without bidding.

“So what should we do? Lie down and let the Baron do what he wants to us?” she spat. “You’ve seen what he’s done, what the Gloom’s done. You think no one should do anything?”

“If your ‘doing something’ is burning down half the City, then who are you actually helping?”

Her stomach twisted and she shoved her hands into her pockets as her leg bounced harder.

“I don’t know,” she huffed. “I don’t know what I should do. I tried to help and all I did was make a mess. The riot, everything that’s come of it, that’s on me, and I don’t know what to do about it. But I know that I can’t do nothing. If I’m not trying to help then…”

She paused, considered her words and found her exhausted mind struggling to come up with the kind of deeply profound things that her parents might have said.

“I have to do something. I can’t look away and do nothing.” And then she confessed, “it’s who I am.”

The elevator came to a halt and the doors clanged open noisily. It spared either of them having to continue the conversation.

More fires, more smoke, more bodies. But this time, weapons had been involved, that was evident. The dead guard’s throat had been violently slashed with a knife or shiv, and then they’d been stabbed in the gut. But Riley hadn’t made it much further. He was spread-eagle on the floor, covered in burns and bruises and his head smashed open.

“Blunt force trauma,” Vaylin murmured as her heart lurched in her chest at the sight. “Probably got caught in an explosion.”

“Someone you know?” Garrett asked as he followed her gaze.

“Riley Cadderly. A writer. Wrote manifesto after manifesto against the Baron,” she replied with an empty laugh. “Always preferred books to people. Knew how to get a crowd going though. He always had the best speeches.”

She tore her eyes away from the bodies even as the sight of Riley’s brains leaking over the floor burned itself into her retinas. Instead she turned to the nearby desk and inspected the log that had been left open. It was a list of names, complete with their declared sentences.

#1 Robyn Worrall — for Graven crimes — Vandalism of Baron's property, looting — Starve in stocks, then hang by the neck until dead.

#2 Riley Cadderly — for Graven crimes — Distribution of seditious literature — Hang by the neck until dead.

#3 Jacob Albright — for Graven crimes — Ring-leader of seditious mob — Hang by the neck until dead, then draw and quarter.

#4 Portia Varden — for Graven crimes — Rabble-rousing and incitement — Put to the question, then hang by the neck until dead.

#5 Basso — keep in solitary. For special attention. Do not question or execute without the express permission of the Thief-Taker General.

#6 Isaac Rood — for Graven crimes — Vandalism of Baron's property — Hang by the neck until dead.

#7 Emmaline Thurber — for Graven crimes — Sedition amongst the nobility — Put to the question, then hang by the neck until dead.

Her insides went cold.

Every last Graven on the list had been sentenced to death. Jacob, Robyn and Thurber were no surprise on account that she had seen or heard about it by now, but if that was the case, then the rest could be-

She pushed herself away from the desk, swallowing down the urge to be sick.

“Basso’s in solitary,” she told Garrett. “I’m going to check the cells for the others.”

He paused for a moment and glanced over the log. Then he nodded and swooped away around the corner, disappearing into the smoke, leaving her to face the prison alone.

She preferred it like this. She didn’t need the nasty little voice in her head to put words in his mouth so she could make herself feel better. This was her fault. She knew that. She just needed to be alone with the fact first. And besides, maybe she’d get lucky, just this once, and discover that someone’s execution had been delayed indefinitely while the crisis unfolded.

So she crept into the prison and prepared herself for the worst.

Smoke and fire mingled with the reek of blood, sweat and urine to create a pungent stench of filth. Bodies littered the ground, both Watch and Graven alike, many of whom she didn’t recognise. Then she spotted Robyn, lifeless on the ground with a violent red mark over her neck that proved she’d been choked. Isaac had been gutted and left where he fell.

And then Vaylin reached the open cell at the end of the hall and the whole world came to a frozen halt.

Portia had been left slumped against the back wall with a bloody smile cut across her throat. Bruises had blossomed against her skin, and the marks on her wrists and burns on her skin betrayed the torture the Watch had inflicted.

Vaylin didn’t remember falling to her knees in front of the lifeless body of her dearest… friend? Companion? Love?

She never did decide on a word for how she felt, did she? She’d never even tried to discuss it with Portia either. Not with Madam Xiao Xiao looming over their heads and the prospect of war on the horizon. With all their chats and the flirting and minor misadventures, it had always felt like there would be time to decide later. To see where things went, if they fit together as friends or something else.

And now it didn’t matter.

She lifted a hand and slid Portia’s eyes shut. Anything to keep her from looking back with that empty, glassy stare. Then the backs of her fingers drifted over her cheek and settled there.

Cold.

She was so cold.

The bastards had left her here to be found like this.

“Thanks Garrett. Was going a lil crazy in there. Even wished I had Jenivere with me.”

Vaylin didn’t move, even as the pair approached. This was her fault. It was always going to be her fault.

“That scum-sucking bastard! I always thought if anyone was gonna kill her, it’d be me!”

Then there was a long pause and a quiet ‘oh shit.’

Vaylin turned her hand to cup Portia’s cheek one last time, let her thumb brush over the corner of her mouth and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

She pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then straightened up stiffly, turning to Garrett and Basso who were lingering in the doorway to the cell.

“Shit, Vaylin. I’m sorry,” Basso murmured as she approached.

She had nothing to say, just stepped past them to head for the elevator.

Her whole body was heavy like lead. Only now did Vaylin realise just how exhausted she was. From start to finish, this whole day had been an ordeal. It had started with watching her friends being beaten and attacked, to being corralled like animals, to fighting and bleeding and seeing the bodies of her friends, one by one. She was still caked in blood, except now it was buried under layers of soot and grime and sweat. The thought of cleaning it off made her head throb. Mostly because now a new layer of filth was coating the mess - the kind you felt but couldn’t see and could never wash off no matter how hard you tried.

The base violence necessary for change.

Just this morning, she had thought that she understood what that meant. Thought that she was ready to deal with it and bear the consequences when they arrived. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Right now, she just wanted to go home, curl up in her bed and never come out again.

“What are you up to?”

Vaylin’s head snapped up just in time to see Garrett brush past her for a different elevator than the one they’d come up in. One that only headed up. She frowned, her mind sluggishly trying to figure out the answer to Basso’s question.

Luckily, the Boxman beat her to it.

“Wait, wait, wait! You’re not thinking about those tall tales about the legendary Great Safe, are you?”

Garrett didn’t answer, just eyed the door pensively and then moved to press the button that would call the elevator down. Basso stared at his back imploringly then stomped his way over, catching the Master Thief by the elbow to try and get him to make eye contact.

Garrett resisted the attempt, just kept his gaze fixed on the door as the mechanisms hissed and whirred.

“The General had Basso locked up with orders of no questioning and no execution,” Vaylin interjected. “He’s baiting you. Let’s just go.”

“She’s right, Garrett. No one’s paying you to risk your neck for this!”

“It’s not about the payment,” he said softly, turning and looking Vaylin dead in the eye. “It’s who I am.”

And maybe she was just too exhausted to fight him over her own words being thrown back in her face, but she backed down. He had his sights set on the safe, and that was his mistake to make. And evidently, Basso knew better than to fight him any further too.

The doors slid open and Garrett stepped inside.

“Garrett? If you get outta here alive- I mean, y’know, when you get outta here…” Basso exhaled and shook his head. “I’ll be at the Siren’s Rest in the Southern Quarter.”

Garrett acknowledged him with a small nod, reached out to press the button, and disappeared as the doors slid shut. And just like that, Vaylin and Basso were alone.

The Boxman clapped a comforting hand over her shoulder.

“He’ll make it,” he said, as if that really was what was burdening her mind. And then he softened and added, “I knew Portia well enough to know that she’d never be content with sitting in the House doing nothing. She’d have headed up that crowd with or without you.”

Vaylin said nothing, just hung her head.

“C’mon, let’s get outta here. Get you a bath, some clean clothes, and some sleep. Black Alley can wait.”

She let Basso guide her back to the elevator, but she had no intention of following him to the Southern Quarter. She needed answers, and only one man could provide them now.

She needed to talk to her father.

#nightingale writes #thief 2014 #vaylin #viktoria hucks #garrett #basso

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