ASHIANA

I had never seen Kaz freeze until that moment. He's always in motion. Even when still, his aptly-named scheming face gives away his mind's momentum. But as I turned down the over-filled hallway, I saw it. At Jesper's words, his whole body froze in horror or shock or pain or perhaps all three.

The Dregs seemed to take their cue from him and for a solid thirty seconds, the chaotic chatter stuttered and went out. Kaz recovered fairly quickly but I'd seen it, we'd all seen it. Kaz had faltered. Then, he was pushing through the crowd, his face shuttered. I thought he was going to pass me in his distraction. I should've given him a little more credit. His hand snaked out and grabbed my wrist. I heard him whisper as he left:

"Get Nina. My room. Now." And then he was gone.

_o*o*o_

"His room? This isn't his room. If he'd cared about her at all, he would've sent her some backup. He doesn't deserve to-"

"Nina-" I sigh.

"You know it's true! You know we needed-"

"Nina, please-"

"-backup. Instead, he let her go on this insane mission without any real fighters. It's not-"

"Facts only. Your commentary isn't necessary." Kaz says as he enters the room, moving to the writing table.

"You-" I grab from Nina's sleeve a millisecond too late. She's across the room in a few steps. Kaz, always ready, sidesteps easily. His cane is up and ready to knock her out when Wylan enters.

"Enough. Everyone sit." Nina and Kaz stay in place, continuing their silent showdown.

"Sit down or I will have Jesper throw you outside and leave you there." As soon as he says it, Wylan realizes his error. Nina and Kaz find a common enemy for the moment as they turn their glares to Wylan. The tension between them somewhat fractured, Nina comes to sit in the chair beside me. Kaz seats himself on the edge of the table. I am too anxious to sit and choose to lean against the arm of the chair instead. Jesper and Wylan find their places on the sofa. Jaap is missing but in his place are Anika, Polian, Fen, and Ryare. They all remain standing by the door - looking more like guards than team members.

"Now, I will receive updates from each group, starting with mine. Wylan and I took four men to the morgue with us. We returned with bleach, formaldehyde, glutereldehyde, and methanol in addition to a few small weapons. We returned by boat, which we pulled onto land about half a mile from here."

"A boat?" Jesper looks almost offended. "I thought you said we weren't to enter the water." It's easily apparent that Kaz isn't particularly interested in offering - or most likely, receiving - any explanations.

"We had to cross the canal and there wasn't a bridge for miles. We found a small boat and took it as far as we could. I'm not sure which Tidemakers noticed us but the water began to rise pretty rapidly as we passed the Church of Barter. We unloaded and tied the boat to a lamppost." The description is almost comical. Who ties a boat to a lamppost? Unfortunately, any humor is quickly swallowed up by the group's pervasive black mood. One of our own, most cherished members is gone and each minute decreases the chances that we'll ever get her back.

"Ryare, report."

"We left as soon as you did. Even at a run, we were slow compared to the Grisha. They nearly caught up with us but, thankfully, they were distracted by another target before we reached the bridge near the Geldrenner Hotel. We made out way across the roofs fairly easily and unpursued after that. Our food stores are well stocked, at least for the time being." Beside him, Anika nods but remains silent. Kaz turns his stare onto Jesper.

"We hit a bit more trouble than your groups did. We managed to get back with most of the supplies but we lost several men along the way." He glances at Fen, who looks pained but says nothing.

"The warehouses were good hits and we had more than we could carry in less than an hour. If we go on another supply run, that's the place to do it. The ones we scavenged didn't have much food, it was mostly bulk supplies - wood, textiles, and, my personal favorite, metal. We have enough brass and silver to outfit everyone with guns and bullets - once we Fabrikate them, that is. And" he grins at Wylan "we found your gardening supplier. We carried as many different kind of fertilizer as we could."

"Unfortunately, we found guns to be... only occasionally effective. I think bombs are going to be our best bet."

"Occasionally?" Kaz questions.

"Well, if everyone was as good a shot as Polian and I, we'd be able to take down all of them no problem. It has to be a head shot. Chest, stomach, even neck - they bounce back like rubber bands after taking the shot. Barely even slows them down. A head shot will kill it - or at least, drop it long enough to enable escape."

"Or drop it? You're not sure it kills them?" Kaz cuts in.

"I didn't stay around to find out if they popped back up. But, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it kills them. They're still people, after all." Kaz nods for him to continue.

"Once we'd pretty much stocked up, we were about to hit a couple more warehouses, just to see if there was anything we wanted to switch out. Apparently, some of the Grisha had taken one as a hideout or - I don't know if they even think that rationally. But they were in there."

"A group?" Wylan asks.

"Yes."

"Were they quiet?" Kaz asks.

"Well, yeah. We wouldn't have gone in there if they'd be shrieking or something."

"So they can co-exist." Jesper looks surprised, as though this hadn't occurred to him before.

"I guess so. They weren't actively murdering each other at the time." Kaz nods again but this time, a look of concern crosses his face. "Anyway, Fen and some men went in to check it out." Jesper glances at him again, but Fen is staring at the floor.

"Apparently," Jesper begins, giving Fen one more chance to share the story himself. Still, he stays silent. "There was a group in there. We were going through the supplies, deciding what we may be able to discard if they find something useful in the warehouse, when they started yelling. Fen climbed out a second story window and a couple other men were right behind them when... well, the whole thing went up in flames. In seconds."

"I'm the only one who made it out," Fen says softly.

"How many were in there?" Kaz pushes him.

"About fifteen, maybe twenty."

"Were most of them still in there when it went up?"

"Only a couple had made it out onto the street below. They chased us for a few blocks until Polian and Jesper took them out."

"So, co-existing until targets are identified. And I guess we can add burning alive to the ways they can be killed," Wylan says, looking woozy. "Bombs it is."

"You made it back without trouble after that?"

"Yes, but..." Fen starts and stops. Kaz raises his eyebrow at Jesper.

"Whoever the Inferni was didn't go up in the fire, obviously. However, it - they ran in the opposite direction. We were still traveling parallel to the harbor. It traveled inland and, well, it didn't stop burning things."

"How far did you see it go?"

"Wasn't really focused on anything other than getting back."

"That all?"

"We- uh, ran into Ashiana and Nina's group on the way back." Jesper says softly. Kaz somehow manages to stay loose, as though he was expecting something like this. He doesn't falter, doesn't freeze, just looks at Jesper, waiting.

"We'd slowed down about fifteen minutes after we lost the pursuit. Focusing on keeping all the supplies together. And then they-" Jesper motions to Nina and I. I can feel Nina building up steam next to me so I jump in, trying to avoid another blow up.

"We were on our way back too. We'd almost made it to the East Stave but-" a deep breath "-Inej said she felt like this was all we could handle. I could tell she wanted to keep going but we already had so many..."

"How many?"

"Seventeen. And some of them were - are - little. We couldn't drag them along much farther. So we decided to head back."

"You made it back with seventeen untrained civilians?"

"Fifteen. Only fifteen made it back." I can tell Kaz, for all his anger, is mildly impressed.

"Tell me what happened on the way back." I swallow hard.

"It was pretty slow going. We had to find short jumps and that took a while. Inej would scout ahead and then come back with the easiest route. It was still tough though. And the younger ones-"

"We had to carry them." Nina breaks in.

"Carry the children?" Wylan asks. "How far?"

"Well-" now Nina looks uncomfortable.

"We didn't - Nina and I - we couldn't make it across the jumps with them. But Inej, she -" I dart a look at Kaz, who still sits stone-faced, as though patiently awaiting our report. I doubt his patience and scramble to find the words.

"She did it. She made the jumps with the children."

"How many children?"

"Four."

"You're telling me Inej scouted ahead and then came back and carried four children across the same jump, each time?"

"Not every time. They could make some of them. But yes, several times."

"She wouldn't have had to if you'd sent someone with us! Ashiana and I, we aren't trained. We're not strong enough. But if you'd been a little more reasonable, if you'd given us just one more person, she wouldn't have had to do it so many times. Then she wouldn't have been so exhausted when -" Nina's anger is palpable but it breaks as she remembers. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block it out.

The inhuman shrieks, the smell of smoke, tinged with wood and flesh, and the very human, very near yells of people being attacked.

"Go!" Inej insists as quietly as she can. She grabs two children, shouldering their weight as she prepares for another jump. We all follow as quickly as we possible. She deposits the two a few roofs over and heads back for the next two.

"What happened then?" Kaz's voice is deceptively soft. To an outsider, he would seem calm but there is a rough edge beneath it that bespeaks a barely harnessed violence.

Then the screams are nearly underneath us. Suddenly, we can distinguish words, pleading for mercy with beings that no longer possess any. And that's when we hear it.

"We were most of the way back. Less than half a mile. They were close. An Inferni was clearly with them because houses were going up in smoke as fast as we could run. She had just carried the four children across when they caught up with us. They were right below us. And then we heard -"

"Mommy, please! No!" Inej turns, placing the children next to the others. She runs, making the leaps back in record time.

"It was child. She was - they were all begging for mercy but -" I run a hand through my hair, breathing deep. "It was like before. The little girl must have been with her mother and the mother - I'm not sure what was happening but she was crying and screaming for her mother and-" I try to beat back the tears but they refuse to be stymied.

"She ran back and-"

As she passes me, I can hear her mutter "Not again."

"Inej!" She looks back at me, precariously balanced on the edge of a roof. Her face is one of both determination and heartbreak.

"Go. Run. Get them back."

"We can't! Not without you!" We'll die out here without her. Smoke is rising around us and my eyes burn with tears of pain and panic. She doesn't answer. With a final look, she dives off the roof.

"I tried to stop her. I told her we needed her. But she - she just looked at me and told us to run and then she just - she just dove off the roof, toward the screams. We couldn't go back. We'd all have been killed. Nearly all houses around us were all on fire."

"So you left her." Kaz doesn't phrase it as a question but I can feel Nina nearly lunge out of the chair as she responds.

"We had no choice! All of us would've died!"

"You should've at least tried! She was exhausted from dragging all those people and children and YOU around! You left her there in the midst of a massacre! You-" Nina leaps out of the chair then, rushing at him with the rage that's been simmering since she arrived. Jesper is on his feet and grabbing her around the waist before she can pass him.

"Nina, hey -"

"Let me go! This is his fault! He shouldn't have sent her out there without backup! It should be him out there, not her! She was the best of all of us and you wouldn't even consider helping! So focused on yourself and what you can do for you and your precious Dregs! And now she's-" sometime during her rant she switched from screaming to sobbing. She's not even fighting Jesper now. He's supporting her now as her body folds. He pulls her to him, settling her on his lap as he sits back down on the sofa. We're both drained, both emotionally and physically. I sink into the chair she's vacated. While my head is still buried in my hands, I hear Fen speak.

"We found them soon after. I think - the Grisha must've gone after Inej because they weren't near them anymore. I think the Inferni we'd met was the one following them. If anything, it's our fault that it got started in the first place." I glance up at Fen, trying to communicate the gratitude I feel at him stepping up and saying what I'd been thinking, but he's found the floor to be completely captivating during this entire conversation.

"Nina, Ashiana, Fen, out. Now." Fen pulls open the door and Nina is out before I even stand. Her bedroom door shuts as I enter the hallway and I recognize that she wants to be left alone. Fen closes the door behind us and I turn to him.

"Thank you." He nods, still examining the carpet. I sigh, tears dried. I don't even have the energy to cry anymore.

"I think-" he looks up at me then, remarkably resembling a puppy that's been kicked. "I need a drink." The corner of him mouth twitches, just slightly. He follows me as I head down the stairs.

Time to get drunk.