Taffer Notes: We learn that Zofia doesn't like things cartwheeling about in her stomach- and Kyle finds himself playing with the scales of fate.

For the canon blind: I do not want to bog you down with exposition in the narration. The virus of Harran causes seizures, which serve as a reminder that someone is infected.

Siblings: a volatile Venture

"Let me go let me go let me go!" Zofia shrieked at him. She hated him. Loathed him-hatedhatedhated him. She tore into him, curled her hands around his neck, dug her nails in-

Her eyes flew open.

Weak light. Dirty. Dusty. A ceiling right above her. Dirty, too. A mattress at her back. Soft and warm and a little damp. A pillow supporting her head. Also soft. Also damp. And a frantic thumping in her chest, like a drill working its way out.

She tried to breathe. Her lungs disagreed, constricted the wrong way. Out. Never in- folding themselves together like a broken accordion. They swallowed her screams and allowed her no air. All she was given was panic and dread and so much white hot fury she thought she'd burn up from the inside.

Her throat snared shut. The muscles in her back seized up. Every fibre of her had itself wracked by the seizure, and even though her eyes were wide open she could barely see through the murky yellow clouding her vision.

Then her jaw clenched and her body bucked against the mattress, turned the world sideways and brought a cold, hard floor cracking into her shoulder. She landed with a hollow thump and her hip snapped down. More spasms. More pain. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to banish the sick, yellow and green tint, but it didn't help. Her eyelids were a canvas to the same muddy splotches dancing wildly before her, reminding her of vomit and pus.

She was suffocating. Pulled under by anger and lack of air.

The room shuddered, light touched her tightly clenched eyelids. She flew off the ground. Spun towards the ceiling. Fell back down, her spine hitting a soft and yielding surface.

Still no breath. She opened her mouth, sucked greedily at the air, but nothing would come.

"—Zofia. Zofia! "

The voice hurt. So damn loud. So damn close. She wanted to claw at it, but her hands wouldn't move. Her shoulders wouldn't either, they were tightly clasped in heat.

"Short breaths, Zofia. One at a time. Quick, short breaths, come on you can do it."

She thought her teeth might crack from how firmly her jaw set itself, but she did as told, drew in a quick, desperate pull of air through her nose. It made it all the way into her lungs, so she dragged in another. And another. She wasn't counting, just kept breathing, until her muscles quit screaming and her tendons stopped trying to snap themselves.

In she breathed— "Crap." Out again. In. Out. "Crap." Every quick gulp of air helped a little, until her mind seemed her own again and her eyes fluttered open to find Crane leaning above her.

The anger simmered in her chest, alien and unwelcome and altogether unreasonable. Or maybe not that unreasonable, since this was his fault. She'd missed a hit. She needed suppressants and she needed them now, and he'd made her leave her pack behind. In that pack there'd have been a dose of Antizin, and if she turned now it'd be all his fault and she hoped she'd at least get to bite his stupid nose off. The one he was sticking so damn close to hers.

His mouth was wagging. Saying things. Talking. His hands pressed down harder against her shoulders. A worried crease folded his forehead.

"You're okay," she eventually heard him say and Zofia didn't believe him.

She couldn't be. This wasn't okay, this was the worst seizure she'd ever had and that couldn't mean anything good.

"Hey. You're okay," he repeated. His hands vanished. The shadow of him looming above her went with them.

She allowed herself a moment to remain still against the mattress, her mind limping along after having itself scrambled by the seizure, eyes turned up towards the wall. Her tongue went to find her teeth, counted them. Then it found her lips, dry and cracked and bloody.

No, she wasn't okay at all.

"You need Antizin," Crane stated so damn uselessly she almost felt like laughing. Almost.

Instead she mouthed No Shit at him and earned herself a short, unexpected chuckle that made the mattress bounce and sent the anger and dull panic packing.

Zofia flicker her eyes towards him. He was studying her with that professional curiosity again. A little more warily than before, calculating the risks of her going for his throat, no doubt, while he waited for her to say something. Or do something.

She frowned and so did he, a mutual exchange of cluelessness on how to approach the situation at hand. Whatever that might be. Eventually, he attacked the silence by clearing his throat and standing. The mattress bounced and squeaked as he did, and Zofia watched him turn away, his hand coming up to rub at his neck.

"I'll be outside. Grab your stuff, we need to head back to the Tower and get you dosed." Crane vanished through the door, nudged it halfway shut behind him. "And you might want to put a shirt on while you're at it."

Zofia almost choked on the humiliation lodging itself in her throat. She remembered how she'd ditched the shirt he'd found for her, all in favour of not melting in the stuffy room. Mortified, she grabbed for one of the pillows and dragged it over her face. Maybe suffocating wouldn't have been so bad after all.

Once her ears had stopped burning, Zofia felt the dull panic come wrestling its way back in. It helped her to her feet and helped her find that shirt. It helped her shed the trousers she'd borrowed too, and pull on her still damp carpenter pants instead. No way she'd leave those behind. Her fingers and knees still shook desperately, each tremble its own little aftershock of the seizure. But she made it through and she even managed to fasten her belt. The leather snapped painfully against her hipbone when she pulled it tight.

Fully dressed and with her gear back where it belonged, Zofia followed him outside, where she found him sitting on a plastic chair just to the right of the door. His head rested between his knees, hands clasped around his nape. A discarded blanket and knapsack lay by his feet, and a pillow had got stuck between the chair's backrest and the wall.

Her heart squeezed. He couldn't have, could he? Why the bloody hell would he?

"Did you sleep out here?"

Crane rolled his shoulders. "Me? Sleep? No— no of course not. I don't sleep. Ever."

His last words were swallowed by a yawn, and Zofia couldn't quite decide if she should be smiling or frowning and what that pinching feeling in her gut was. She didn't like it, anyway. Didn't want to like it, rather.

Crane, oblivious to the tug of war in her head, got to his feet. He cast a quick look at her, like he was making sure she'd not forgotten the shirt, nodded briefly, and then jabbed a thumb into the general direction of the twin towers.

Last night's storm had left the air cleansed as it had rolled through. Wisps of clouds stretched across the early morning sky, ribbons of white that drifted lazily in the almost still air.

It'd be a nice day, Zofia thought. A nice day for not dying on. And the Tower was closer than her new den, so maybe it'd be reasonable if she went with Crane instead of heading home. Yeah, sticking with him for a little while longer seemed to make perfect sense. Even if he'd almost got her killed last night. It wasn't like he'd meant to.

A little more than halfway there, and Zofia's stomach convulsed with the promise of another seizure. Her right foot caught her left and she staggered, almost fell. Would have too, but Crane was there. He kept her from snuggling up to a pile of rubbish still sodden from the rain. Kept her from thinking, too. And all the while he looked alarmed as ever.

He didn't say anything. Didn't need to, because what was there to say. They sat in the same boat, and it likely reminded him that this could be him, rather than her. He offered her a hand though. She refused it and kept walking, with him close in tow.

Lena was angry. At her, at Crane— she was furious with the both of them as she shepherded Zofia into their makeshift sick bay and told her to sit and not move a muscle until she'd come back with Antizin.

Zofia obeyed, not wishing to find out just how terribly the nurse's wrath might feel if channeled on her. She much rather preferred watching Lena march Crane from the room, her finger jabbing at the perplexed man's chest while he backed himself towards the door.

And then she sat and waited. Her arms went around herself and her eyes darted across the narrow room they'd repurposed. It was cramped in here. Smelled terrible, too. Of antiseptics and of rubber and of clean metal, with that subtle hint of death lurking on her tongue after each pull of air. A few locked cabinets stood impressively well stocked with medication, though how much of it was useful and what was just borderline trash they'd collected from the slum's pharmacies, Zofia could only guess. One of the lockers, she noted, was full of alcohol. Her eyebrow came up at the selection of hard liquor secured behind thick glass.

Harran's roots made it difficult to find alcohol. She'd tried, and she'd only been moderately successful at best, with three cans of beer and a bottle of half empty scotch. The beer she'd drunk the same day. It had tasted like shit, warm and stale. The scotch though, that she'd saved for some occasion of sorts, only to lose it when Rais' men had raided her den.

Too bad. Today felt like an occasion, and she could really use a sip.

The whole bottle, that's what you need.

Zofia's eyes flicked back to the door.

No Lena. No Crane, either.

She squeezed her arms a little tighter to herself and glanced at the three men occupying the bunks farthest to her right. One of them mumbled in his sleep, a miserable groan here and a pitiful sigh there, but they all looked equally pallid, with their faces flush from what she guessed to be fever. Some ordinary sickness maybe, or an infection of sorts. It might have been something altogether unremarkable, for all she knew, but made worse by the fact that the modern comforts of medicine had been reduced to Lena's tireless, but likely limited capabilities. What, she wondered, happened if someone had to get their appendix taken out? What then? Were they just going to die because there was no surgeon about? Something that trivial out there- was that death here?

Back to the door her eyes went.

No Crane. No Lena.

She frowned.

Why'd it matter if he came back or not? He likely wasn't, since he'd said nothing about coming to check on her. In fact, that little three fingered salute to his temple had probably been his way of saying Have a good one, now let's never talk again. before Lena had laid into him about how he'd supposed to be— Zofia hadn't paid much attention. She'd just fidgeted on the spot. Like she did now, with her chest feeling suddenly very hollow.

Oh.

Her lips pursed. Her heart stuttered.

"Hell no," she mumbled.

She was not hoping he'd come back, and she was certainly not hoping he'd do it soon and then stick around and ask her if she wanted more company. She was not feeling attracted to that stupid Tourist. She wasn't. No.

So what if he'd been friendly? So what if he'd gone out of his way for her? So what if he'd saved her life.

Almost. Got. Me. Killed.

Someone decided it was a good idea to fill her stomach with warm, bubbly liquid.

Saved your life, the awful, traitorous thing at the back of her mind insisted, the one that made her remember that busted nose of his and the alert set of light brown eyes. The one that still wanted to ask how he'd got that scar on his lip.

Zofia threw her head back into her neck and groaned at the ceiling.

"Oh, is it too late already? You've gone and turned in my infirmary?" Lena called from the door, snapped Zofia's thoughts back to the issue at hand that didn't involve her terribly neglected and evidently confused libido. Because that must be it. That, or maybe she suffered from Stockholm syndrome. Except, she thought as she watched Lena approach her with a hypo brandished in one hand, she wasn't really being held a hostage by Crane, now was she.

No, something else then.

Her lips turned up in a weak smile. What was that thing called again? When you got all flustered and obsessed with someone who treated you right, someone that made terrible things go away? A bit like crushing on a therapist? Transference, wasn't that what Freud had called it? School was a few years out already and she'd never cared much about impractical things like the human condition.

Her tongue slipped between her teeth.

Crane had shown her kindness where she didn't expect any, and where she certainly hadn't wanted any. Zofia flinched as Lena grabbed her arm, turned her wrist out and extended it towards her.

"You should be more careful," she chided her, set the cold tip of the hypo against her skin. "I'd hate to lose you."

"I wasn't exactly trying to get into trouble, you know."

Zofia's protest met a sad little smile from the nurse.

"You're not trying hard to stay out of it either."

So, in that case, why aren't you all over Lena then? She's sufficiently concerned, too.

The hypo hissed and the injection stung. Zofia winced, her fingers curling uselessly and her arm twitching. She hated those things. Crane probably didn't mind them.

Oh for fucks sake… Could she not think about him for a little while?

"This one wasn't my fault. You're the one that sent Crane after me to bring me the radio. So I could check in with you and whatnot."

Lena's shoulders pulled back and she tilted her chin. Her eyebrow came up too, and overall Zofia thought she looked a little as if she'd just announced she'd cross bred a shark with a cow and was about to try milking it.

"I did no such thing," Lena said, her lips curling into a careful smile.

"Oh."

Something cartwheeled itself dizzy in her stomach.

"Look-" Lena let go of her arm. "He's a bit of a brute, but he's a good man. Obviously he thinks you shouldn't be out there on your own, and you know I agree with him on that. So don't be too hard on him, okay? He means well."

"I just want to be left alone," she admitted, not entirely certain why it felt like a lie all of a sudden. And not all too fond of how her words seemed to hurt the nurse who'd started packing up the hypo and came back to her with a tired frown on her lips.

"You're too stubborn."

She shrugged and earned herself a sigh.

"Anyway, Crane asked for you to come meet him up in his quarters once I'm certain you won't need putting down. You should at least do that."

Zofia had to suppress the urge to fly off the table right then and there and find the nearest window to throw herself from. Crane-Crane-Crane his name was bloody everywhere, stamped all over the inside of her skull, and Lena was just putting more of them up there.

"Ah—" Zofia narrowed her eyes, tried to look suspicious, instead of giving away that cartwheeling thing in her gut. "Did he say what he wanted? I was just going to head home…"

Yeah. Right. Sure you were.

"Likely he wants to talk to you about just that. He seems to be just as stubborn as you." Lena stepped away from the table, made room for her to get off. "You should probably listen to him, you know. You don't have to keep being afraid out there. Rais can't get to you in here, Zofia."

Probably not, but there was no point in arguing with Lena about why she couldn't stay. About how she thought just being around the Tower put them at risk, because— She sighed, flicked the thoughts away.

"Thank you," Zofia murmured lamely and slid off the bed.

Lena deserved those words. For putting up with her, for sharing the suppressants that the Tower so sorely needed, not knowing that Zofia had a whole stash of them waiting at her den. She'd have to come back with a vial. Repay her, else she'd be owing her, and that was unacceptable.

And maybe she should go tell Crane that too, use those two words on him and then get out of his hair. She had nothing to give to him except her gratitude and her removal from whatever path he was hurtling down. His claim that he was in search of a cure, that the cure was here was ridiculous at best. So she might as well give him and that quest of his a wide berth. That'd probably be for the best. Even better yet, it'd probably help with the commotion in her gut, too. The one still happily cartwheeling about the place.

All I've got to do is get some distance between us. Then it'll all be okay again.

"Wait—" Lena caught up with her as she'd made it from the sick bay and thrust a bottle and some swabs at her. "Rubbing alcohol," she added and touched her own cheek with the tip of a finger.

Oh.

Zofia frowned down at the bottle and fumbled to get her hand around it. She'd all but forgotten about that stupid blue smudge.

"You— what sort of humanitarian outfit are you?" Kyle spat into the satellite phone. He dropped himself into the lawn chair he'd found neatly set out by the edge of the roof, folded his torso forward and clenched his fingers around that ugly, beat up yellow leash that kept him tethered to the GRE. A second later he sat up straight again, leaned into the chair and looked around, eyes scanning the Tower's rooftop. Empty, save for himself and a flock of doves collecting at the edge on his left. They fluffed their wings and cooed at the late morning sun. Ignorant, stupid shit machines that didn't care at all that he was being ordered to exchange Zofia for a slim chance at the GRE's files.

"I'm sure she will be okay," his handler tried to soothe him. It only made it worse. He wanted to reach through the fucking thing. Knock her pearly fucking teeth out.

She kept talking, like he even cared to listen. How there was too much at stake. How this was for the Greater Good. How they were not paying him to care, but to get the job done. If this was what the Greater Good looked like, and what his conscience was worth, then Kyle thought he might be okay being a little poorer.

"I'll think about it," he snapped. Clenched his left hand into a fist. Fought the urge to throw the satellite phone off the edge of the tower.

Get it together, Crane.

He weighed his options. Balanced some unfavourable scales in his head. And when Zofia's end of things came up too light, he thought he'd be sick.

By the time he was back inside, Kyle had convinced himself that he'd figure this all out, because that was what they paid him for. Though he wouldn't be able to do much coherent thinking any time soon, considering the steady pressure slowly building inside his skull. It threatened to pop his eyeballs right out of their sockets.

Then there was the rest of him, a bit like a road trip up pain valley. Turned out that sleeping in a dollar store chair which might, or might not, have cost a whooping buck, had been a terrible idea.

Last night it had sounded brilliant though. Sit by the girl's door because you didn't like the look one of the survivors had thrown up the stairs. That sleazy sort of look. The one he'd expect from Rais' flunkies.

Kyle sighed, squeezed at his neck with a hand that had started shaking with fatigue again.

He'd felt guilty, that had been it. Guilty for even having listened to Rais' proposition, instead of laughing into the man's face and then walking off.

And now the GRE wanted him to walk back. With her in tow.

No. He wasn't gonna do that. Couldn't. Even if she'd come up light on the scales of fate. Kyle's brow pinched.

She'd come up light from the floor, too. Back when she'd woken him with a strangled cry and a hollow thud from inside the room. He'd been on his feet before he'd been conscious, apparently, tripping over the blanket caught around his ankles and then almost falling through the door.

A bad seizure had knocked her off her bed. He'd scooped her up, dumped her back onto the mattress, and had tried hard not to think about her turning right then and there while he'd pinned her down. Instead he'd thought about getting her to breathe again and attempted- and failed spectacularly -not to notice how she wasn't wearing anything for a top.

Nada.

Just a lot of white skin stretched over bone and a pair of tiny breasts. Very tiny.

She needed to eat more, Kyle decided for her, and violently ejected thoughts of negligible breasts from his mind. Put some meat on that ribcage which showed every single rib, and that sharp angle of her hipbone that could probably cut him if he bumped into it.

Yeah.

She needed to eat more. He'd find her food, instead of bringing her to Rais. Feed her, if he had to, rather than turning her over. He yawned. He'd have to feed himself too though. Right after an extensive nap.

Thoughts of stretching out on his bed hastened Kyle's footsteps. Not by much. It turned his zombie like shuffle into a casual stroll, and by the time he reached his room, he was ready to pass out.

He'd gotten his hand up to the door handle when the sound of a guitar being choked froze him mid motion.

"Drat."

Kyle cocked his head to the side. Listened.

A mellow chord played. Was choked off again.

"Stop being difficult," Zofia muttered through the crack in the door, and Kyle helped himself to a peek.

She sat on the bed. A guitar— the one he'd found abandoned in the room —on her lap. Kyle nudged his shoulder against the door. She had a hand up by the headstock, her fingers questing about. Her eyes were fixated on the thing, her head bowed, presenting him with a view of her wild mop of mousy brown hair and her scarred jawline.

Another note filled his room, throaty and dry, and Kyle pushed the door open just enough to start feeling like a proper creep lurking on the threshold. But chances were she'd stop trying the moment he announced himself, and Kyle wasn't ready to face her just yet.

He really couldn't make himself pretend everything was just fine and that she'd not been weighted against the fate of the world.

Bullshit.

Zofia plucked at the guitar, teased a row of notes from it. Snapped her hand back on it, choked it out. Still a little out of tune, but she went for it again. Same row of notes. A little shy. A little clumsy, with her mouth tightly pressed together in a thin line.

The hesitation didn't last. It gave way to a clear rhythm. Made room for a beat that filled his unit wall to wall. Her heels came up, snapped back down. Her knee bounced. Her lips curled.

Kyle raised an eyebrow. She was smiling. Not a toothy, wide grin, not a delighted sort of beam. A simple, content smile. Simple like the notes she played as Time of your Life by Green Day fell crisp and quick from her fingers.

She could breathe. Deep, liberating breaths, which fed her heart and made her feet bounce off the ground in the rhythm to the music.

Zofia had forgotten that feeling. Had not considered it since the day they'd told her whatever ticket home she'd had? Now invalid, no good any more. They'd told her to sit tight and someone would sort it out. Except no one had. No one might ever get around to fix it all, but here she was, wrapped in a small bubble of elation while the quarantine existed, but for once did not matter.

Nothing mattered.

"Crane!"

Rahim's voice popped the bubble and everything she'd managed not to care about came wrestling its way back in and arrested whatever pleasantries she'd dared surround herself with. Her left hand snapped down on the strings, her right strangled the guitar's neck. From one moment to the next Zofia sat ramrod straight, eyes flying up towards the entrance, where she found Crane watching her through a half open door.

A needle went to stab at her heart.

She stopped breathing. Stared. Caught red handed committing a crime, no doubt, one involving trespassing and getting her fingers on things that weren't hers. A bit like when she'd looted her first can of soda and scavenged her pack. Or when she'd found her carpenter trousers and stolen them right off a drying rack.

Except she really hadn't wandered into the room to take anything. Hadn't even done that the first time she'd been here, back when she'd— the needle in her heart dug in a little deeper.

Right.

She'd come to thank him, not steal his guitar. Tell him she'd be okay now and that he didn't need to tell her how to make arrows. She'd be okay. She'd be just fine. She'd be so damn peachy.

Zofia lowered the guitar. Lowered her hopes and dreams. Ground them up underfoot. Wished she'd never had them.

Crane looked disappointed as he stepped into the room, some small crease to his brow that wasn't for once angry or worried or just agitated with the situation at hand. It just looked a little disheartened. Then he turned his head away from her and greeted a bright eyed Rahim rushing in after him.

"Brecken really needs to talk to you—" Rahim froze in his steps as he spotted her, his mouth forming an Oh he didn't quite manage to say out loud. Then he looked back at Crane, who'd taken to wearily rubbing at the back of his neck. His jaw flexed and adam's apple bobbed up and down. Swallowing a yawn, Zofia guessed, and not giving off much excitement over being summoned by the Tower's leader.

"Okay." Crane's eyes flicked back to her. "Can it wait?"

He's not asking you. Zofia's back stiffened. The curious intensity of his stare crept down her spine and anchored her to the thin mattress.

"No. I— I don't think it can. He said it's urgent. Something about the Antizin drops? He wasn't being very specific…"

"Of course the Antizin." Crane's eyelids snapped shut. His shoulders rose and fell with a What-else sort of sigh. When he opened them again they were so damn hollow and tired, Zofia almost got up to chase Rahim from the room and tell him to never come back.

"Okay," he breathed. "You—" Crane jabbed a finger at her. "Stay where you are. I'll be right back."

And don't think about arguing, the stare following his finger added. Zofia thought she might have got sucked into the mattress a little more still, and offered him a short bob of the head. Then she hugged the guitar a little closer to herself, and watched Crane slip past Rahim and out of sight.

That left her with the younger man standing with an awkward tilt in his shoulder. Though then again, Rahim always seemed a little off-centre. The round goggles he wore snapped to his head were on a little sideways, his shirt and sweater too long on one side, too short on the other. Though today, Zofia noticed, he'd dressed himself for— for what? Battle?

She frowned at him. Tightened her grip on the instrument cradled in her arms.

Tape reinforced his forearms, a simple attempt at Biter protection. Unreliable at the best of days, since the tape would ride up and down when the things worried their teeth against an arm, and would expose weak spots fairly quickly. But it could buy a second, maybe two, and that might be all one needed to get away.

He sported a pair of knee pads and had strapped two empty holsters to his thigh, readily awaiting weapons of sorts, but none of that gave it away as much as the nervous and almost guilty fidgeting as he stood there trying not to look conspicuous.

That, and he'd not even said hello.

"What's the matter, Rahim?"

His green eyes snapped to her. He frowned and smiled, both things wrapped in one confused twitch of his lips. But this being Rahim, the smile won and he rushed into the room to drop himself on Crane's armchair.

"Can you keep a secret?" He sounded positively bubbly, but kept his voice low and proceeded with throwing suspicious looks towards the door every once in awhile.

Zofia nodded.

"Cool. So— look— you remember that Volatile nest?"

Again Zofia nodded. The fingers in her left hand tapped idly against the guitar, teasing the strings but allowing no tone. He'd told her about that once before, about his fancy of blowing up a nest that had cropped up in an unfinished apartment building. A brilliant idea in theory, Zofia had thought then. A bit ridiculous in practice.

"Jade and Crane found explosives a few days ago."

Ah.

Of course. Jade and Crane, the two heroes. They'd do something like that, wouldn't they? Zofia's eyes cut to the wardrobe standing behind Rahim, who thought the sudden twist of her neck was a sign of interest. In reality it was just that needle again having another stab at her heart. A dejected, miserable stab.

They'd do other stuff, too.

The cartwheeling thing crumpled.

"Omar fixed up those explosives with timers, and— and please, Zofia, you can't tell Jade, okay? Not Crane either, he said it was too dangerous. He called it crazy! But he'd go himself, you know?"

Rahim's hands flew up.

"Calls my plan crazy and doesn't want me to go, but he's fine going himself?"

"He knows what he's doing," Zofia's tongue decided to wag on her behalf, not waiting for her brain to interject its protest.

"And I don't?"

You're a kid. How old are you again? I don't even bloody know. Eighteen? Now stop looking at me like that.

"That's not what I meant. And if you've got the boom now, why not just attack Rais?"

Rahim's mouth snapped shut.

"Blow him from the slums," Zofia continued, one idle finger tracing up and down a smooth string. "He's a bigger bother than the Volatiles, no?"

"Brecken would never allow that."

She shrugged. Zofia didn't know the man, but from all she'd heard and seen and witnessed, Rahim likely had it right. Brecken wasn't a warlord ready throw his hat into the ring with Rais and fight tooth and nail for who got to rule the Quarantine. All he wanted was a safe little haven for those who needed it and to sit out the shit storm.

Her eyes went to the door. What's he want from Crane?

She felt a string dig into the tip of her finger as she pressed down on it. What do you care?

Her heart had itself needled again, and once again Rahim got the wrong idea from whatever she couldn't keep off her face.

"I'm sorry, Zofia. We want to get rid of him too, but I don't know if Brecken would ever—"

"It's okay." Was it though? The thought of the garrison crumbling around Rais and Tahir while they stood in the maelstrom of their own undoing felt just a little too right as it knocked about in her head.

"But once the nest is gone," Rahim finally continued and leaned far as he could towards her from the dusty old armchair. "We can run for Antizin at night. It'll take a lot of power away from Rais."

She nodded idly.

"So don't tell Jade, please." How often was he going to ask her that? "Omar and me are going to head out later today."

Zofia's head snapped around to him.

"Are you insane?"

"We'll be fine! We have a route planned out and everything." Excitement got his voice staggering over himself, and the clandestine whispers were forgotten. "If we wait until nightfall to go in, the nest will be empty. So we'll camp out in the train yard. And then all we have to do is plant those explosives on some of the bottom floor supports. Omar said the whole thing will come down if we blow the right ones."

He gestured enthusiastically, presenting her with a depiction of boom and a crumbling building.

"It'll be awesome!"

"You're going to get yourself killed. Have you even been outside? Are you taking anyone with you that knows the way?"

He frowned. "We have a map."

"You're not taking any of Brecken's Runners? Or a Scout?"

The frown turned itself into a guilty grimace.

"Brecken doesn't know?"

Rahim shook his head.

"Bloody hell, Rahim. Your sister is going to kill you if you live through this."

The boy's shoulders straightened. "Or maybe she'll finally get it that I don't need protecting all the time. That I can't just sit around all the time and do nothing."

"You train Runners. Scouts." she interjected.

"On a nice, safe course, yes. Everyone can do that."

"I heard you're pretty good at it."

His eyes pinched a little. Embarrassed maybe, or flattered. He looked away, towards the door that she knew she'd been glancing at every once in awhile herself.

"I'm tired of being useless."

The words sounded awfully familiar, and for a moment Zofia thought she'd said them herself. It hurt. There wasn't any other word to explain how her core pinched tight. Hurt.

"Crane's been with us for nine days. Nine. And he's— he's set up a safe route through half the slums, he's got the electricity back on when it fell in one of the sectors. At night ! He's even got the antenna towers online, negotiated with Rais for Antizin, he's—" Rahim's shoulders sagged again. "He's great, okay? He's really damn good at what he does."

Zofia thought about all the Antizin he'd burnt. And how she'd swapped it for poison before that. She thought about his why. That secret he'd shared with her. What was it with people wanting to tell her things she really didn't want to know? Or needed to, for that matter. She'd been perfectly fine being ignorant to Crane's insane claim that he'd come to save the day. Still didn't quite believe him, anyway. And now Rahim.

Though she couldn't blame the boy who so wanted to be a man, could she?

No.

Rahim kept rambling. About how he wanted to just prove he could do something worthwhile. How he'd been here, trapped with everyone else, and achieved nothing, while Crane had done so much in so little time. He spoke of Amir, too. That man, that hero, that— Zofia wished she could have stuffed her ears with cotton swabs soaked in petrol and set them on fire.

Eventually the confession trailed off into a meek "You won't tell anyone?"

"No," she lied.

Rahim left her in Crane's room to go off and find Omar. Something about getting everything ready. Ready to get himself killed. At first, Zofia sat still, rooted in place by the Stay right where you are that continued to fill the room. It took a lot of effort to get up, to gently place the guitar back where she'd found it. It took even more of her already wavering willpower to leave it there.

If she didn't know better, Zofia thought she might have left a piece of her with it.

She rubbed at where Lena had stuck her with the hypo as she walked the busy halls of the Tower, eyes set straight ahead and shoulders tucked in to make herself as inconspicuous as she'd ever manage. When she reached the wide set of double doors that had Headquartersscrawled next to it, she came to a fidgety halt. Turned on the spot. Looked left, looked right. Back at the door, at the knobs on the front. She pictured herself opening them. Stepping inside. Walking right on into the unknown and telling Crane and Brecken about Rahim's plan.

Hell no.

She couldn't just march in there. She might interrupt something important. Maybe she'd just wait out here instead. Her eyes went to a wall close by, and then she saw herself leaning there until Crane came back out. So she could tell him. Only him, because she didn't know Brecken and didn't want to know him either.

But what'd he think if he saw her standing there?

That she'd been following him? That she'd been clingy?

Hell no.

She wasn't clingy.

Sighing, Zofia wandered over to the corner, a new scenario playing itself out in her head. Once Crane came out she'd just round that corner and make an effort to look all worried. She'd tell him about Rahim. He'd thank her. Then he'd smile at her and it'd be a nice smile and— Zofia ripped those thoughts right out of her head, planted herself by the corner, and waited.

It didn't take long. In fact, she'd barely managed to start picturing him not believing her or thinking she was a terrible snitch, when the double doors flew open.

Crane came out, eyes downcast of all things, shoulders slumped. He looked like he was about to just keel over, his steps lazy as they dragged themselves a little.

Zofia swallowed her heart back down and willed herself to get around the corner.

But then Crane turned around and right after him came Jade, and she reached for his hand, and Zofia's hips twisted her about and she went hurting down the hallway with her lungs frozen mid-breath.

Jade's head had tilted up, her pretty face carrying a worried little smile. Crane had looked a little puzzled, squinted a bit, and he'd been saying something she hadn't been able to hear because there'd been a pop in her ear that left her deaf.

She shook her head to herself. Jammed her hands into her pockets. Jammed her heart into a vice. What was left of the cartwheeling thing set itself on fire and dissolved in a miserably hot sludge seeping through her innards.

And Zofia walked. Walked like her life depended on it, the hall around her shrinking and tilting like the melting walls in a dollhouse. Soon they'd drop in on her and she'd be crawling, and then Crane and Jade would walk right over her, ignorant to how she lay squashed under their feet.

It took her a while. She wandered aimlessly at best, eyes darting along the dirty floors and carpets, flicking up towards doors, skirting out of the curious glances of children and women— and eventually finding Rahim.

She could almost breathe then. Almost. And by the time he asked "Hey— are you okay?" she even managed to lie again and tell him "I'm fine."

Rahim looked no less worried though, except Zofia thought he was likely fearing that she'd gone and told on him.

That plan had failed spectacularly, and now she stood there, looking at the boy playing at being a man.

"I want to help," she heard herself say.

"You want to what?" He recoiled a little. Like he'd just gotten slapped by a cold wave of water. His green eyes widened and his mouth worked on some silent words of disbelief.

"A map isn't any good out there. I can get you to the train yard and I can get you back again."

"But why?" He ducked forward, looked around her, expecting some trick most likely.

"Because you're right. About it all. And because I want one of those explosives in return."

His head snapped around to her, mouth slightly agape.

"Can you do that, Rahim? Get me one of them?"

"Sh— sure." He didn't ask what for. Didn't need to, because she'd made her intent perfectly clear before. This one'd be for Rais, and she needed no one's bloody approval or help.

"Great. Tell me when you're ready and we'll head out."

No. She needed no one's help. Especially not Crane's.

Taffer Notes: Updated 12nd Mar 2017, Draft version 1.5