Chapter Eight
"You two oughtn't be here." Dina clutched her shawl and stared down at her now former charges.
"We wanna be here for Zeke," Sally said, even though she got butterflies in her stomach whenever Zeke looked at her, and now she was scared Dina knew, too.
Tiberius clutched his sister's hand, grateful she possessed courage for two. Mom would be furious when she saw that they'd snuck away for the day, if she didn't break down completely like she had last night after the Jaegers had left them alone in their new, cramped but clean apartment.
He should have thought to leave the note, not Sally. All he was good for was complaining while accomplishing nothing.
"Ah." Dina nodded, though her eyes grew cloudier. Grisha was too sick with anxiety to accompany her. To prevent Zeke from perceiving rejection, she was determined to show enough love for two.
"He'll be okay," Tiberius said, grappling for hope and faith in Ilona.
"Also, we were looking for you," Sally said. "So at least we weren't sneaking around."
"Me?" Dina raised an eyebrow.
"Since only Eldian families are allowed here, we were hoping our status as your, uh, temporary children could be temporarily restored," Tiberius blurted out.
Hopefully they wouldn't be her only children soon. Dina tried to block her mocking brain. "I'll always welcome you two."
"Really?" Sally's eyes widened.
"Really." Dina rubbed the girl's back. "But this really isn't going to be a sight for children."
"Then why does Zeke have to do this?" Tiberius asked, because if he hadn't asked quietly Sally would have shouted. He could feel a guard's eyes on him, though, and fear flitted across his face.
Dina shifted slightly to the left, positioning herself between the guard and the children. "Zeke is a very special boy. He can handle this."
"It's an honor," the guard interrupted.
"Indeed." Dina spun around, pressing her hand against her heart.
"Take care you don't forget it." The guard tapped Dina on the forehead, as if she were a child.
She must have hated it – he hated it – but Tiberius never saw her demonstrate anything but grace. "I would never. Good day to you, sir."
The guard snorted. Watching kids die, even Eldians, was not his idea of a good day.
"Eren." Ilona appeared by his side, watching a handful of Marleyans trickle in. This event hadn't been advertised for the obvious reason, but word on the streets of a 'contest' to demonstrate the use of their taxes on Eldian soldiers had intrigued more than she'd expected. And no guard would see harm in allowing Marleyan attendance.
Few and far between would enjoy watching Eldian children hurt each other, and fewer still would stay for the executions, but those that did wore eager, vulture-like expressions. "I think I hate them."
Kruger looked up in surprise. "Anyone you know?"
"No, just the lot of them. Although, I'm rather surprised no councilmembers have showed."
"Most leaders aren't evil themselves. They just allow evil to profligate under them." There were very few things Kruger would call evil, but oppressing people for their ancestors' crimes and killing children? Evil. Like him.
"I see." Ilona sighed. "I shouldn't hate them."
"You should feel however you want to feel."
"I feel that I don't want to feel like I hate them, then." Ilona stuck her tongue out.
"Charming."
"Thank you, Eren."
"I'd love to ask why you feel that way, but we haven't the time. Everything is set." Kruger gestured ahead, towards the small stadium floor.
Ilona nodded curtly, understanding his true meaning. "Good."
"We'll have to talk later, then."
"Certainly." Ilona swept past him with a swish of her pale pink skirts.
Kruger squirmed. She seemed to interpret his words to mean they'd need to discuss the day's events. But he'd actually just wanted to know why.
Why he just wanted to know why wasn't something he cared to think over.
In the dark, cramped room below the arena waited about twenty children who had never been so afraid before.
Zeke wasn't so much afraid of himself dying. In fact, he was so delirious with fear he giggled as his imagination served up Father and Mother's faces upon realizing he wasn't special after all.
But he was afraid for his friends. Penny still hadn't been able to master the wheelhouse kick, and Frederick was too timid, even in a fight.
The door burst open, nearly blinding the children with the sunlight. They knew better than to murmur or squirm.
"Jaeger, you're going first," barked Captain Fischer.
A fiery wall of fear crashed into him. Yet he had no choice but to whisper, "Okay."
"Louder!"
"Okay!" Zeke forced cheer into his voice, as if he were eager to show what a weapon he had become.
"You want to be confident, right?" Fischer patted him on his back as the door closed behind them. "This way."
Was that all? Fischer was merely going to scold him as Father would? Zeke blinked back the sharp pain.
"Hey." Fischer peered ahead to ensure no one was listening. Then he squatted down and whispered, "You're incredibly talented. I believe in you, okay, Zeke?"
Relief shattered Zeke's fear as he nodded in reply.
"Don't think or feel. Now go out and show them everything you've learned." How was Captain Fischer kinder than Father and Mother?
Fischer shoved Zeke forward, and rapped on the ornate door.
With a growl, the door began to rise before him, and Zeke knew that for now, he had to do as Fischer advised. Don't think. Don't feel.
He stepped into the sunlight.
Ilona yanked the seam out of her handkerchief as if this sole seam were the key to salvation.
Because before her, Zeke had come out first, just as Kruger had promised.
She wished he didn't have to. But this was the only way to ensure the Eldian restorationalists got what they wanted, and by association, Kruger's cooperation.
She could feel Tiberius's gaze on her, but no, he would be looking at his friend, not her. How selfish of her. He could spare his anger for later. Now, he had to feel the fear his friend couldn't feel.
On the other side of the arena, Kruger watched besides a gleeful Gross and a handful of senior officers. The short sergeant major trembled to contain his anticipation, and Kruger kept his façade only by imagining the joy he'd feel shoving Gross straight down into that pit.
"Surely you had a better idea than wasting an exotic creature on these vermin," Kruger said.
"Most assuredly we didn't," snapped Colonel Lange, head of the titan program.
"Beasts fighting beasts. It's the animal way," said Gross.
"Yes, and the human way is to force them to fight for our entertainment," sniped Sergeant Major Wolf.
"It's for their benefit as Warriors," spat Lange, his face red.
"We should just kill these pests," said Wolf.
"Shut up and watch," Kruger said icily.
A gorilla rushed forward, its black fur waving in the breeze.
Zeke stared at the creature as if it were Ymir, his toy. He couldn't imagine hurting Ymir or the fluffy animal before him. In its eyes he saw rage, the same rage Father had when one of the Marleyan soldiers pushed around their Eldia brethren.
He felt connected to this creature. How could he kill someone he was a part of?
Gross chuckled. "It's looking for its cub, isn't it?"
Truitt gave a curt nod. "We've killed it already. Now there's nothing but bloodlust."
"Let's see who will win." Gross rubbed his hands together.
He remembered striking the match. Laying down the turpentine path. Yes, he had. These were his memories, his aloe, and the trap would work.
Ilona gulped in another deep breath and felt a welcome acrid tinge graze her nostrils. She breathed in again and felt woozy, but now her eyes were beginning to tingle.
"What is that smell?" An older man coughed in front of her.
"What is that smoke?" Ilona pointed straight ahead, toward the entrance where a dark purple haze wisped forth.
"Smoke? Where?" The man squinted as an explosion, louder than he'd heard in his entire life, sailed the exit into smithereens.
Zeke found himself whirling around as people screamed and scrambled first towards the arena, but then back towards the dilapidated exit once they recalled the wild animal.
They'd trained for this. For fires. For entrapment.
Zeke glanced at the gorilla, which now seemed more afraid than angry. "Captain Fischer!"
The man burst through the door only to see a terrified gorilla bearing down on him. "Fuck!"
Quickly analyzing the situation, he thrust open the animal's door, allowing the mother gorilla to flee back into its den.
"Captain, we need to move the people back through our door," called Zeke. "They can get out our way."
"Uh – uh – " Fischer looked at Zeke with something like admiration. Zeke had never been admired by anyone other than Tiberius. "Yes, yes we do."
"Get the others in here. Some of them can calm the Eldians while we help the Marleyans first." Zeke hurried over to the side of the arena.
The guests would have to brave a five-meter drop between the stands and the arena, but with no more gorilla, they shouldn't mind too much. At least, not as much as they should mind death.
"Here." Ilona helped an old lady, of all sadistic Marleyans to see! down to the edge before the arena. "See, the children will help."
Indeed, seven of the Warriors-in-training had formed a pyramid to lower guests into the arena.
"I'll have to touch them," she huffed.
"Better than whatever's causing that smoke," Ilona said, wiping her streaming eyes.
"Is it?" The lady coughed.
"Absolutely." Ilona pushed her forward. "Here, take this one."
Now she was the only remaining Marleyan. Ilona wanted to scream that anxious Eldian grandparents and parents, who couldn't know they weren't breathing in anything but a common irritant, would have to wait for her.
She scrambled down as fast as she could, whispering a thank you! to all the children.
Times like these, all she could do wasn't enough.
Tiberius clutched Sally's hand. "It's so hard to breathe."
"It smells like peppers feel," Sally observed, sniffing louder.
"Breathe through this." Dina wrapped her shawl around them.
"No, you too!" Tiberius handed the scarf back to her. "We'll all share."
"I want to smell more of it," complained Sally.
"No, you don't," insisted Dina. Someone clearly hates Eldians enough to kill Marleyans, too. Just to prevent our children from gaining any mite of power.
Would Ilona really risk us dying? Tiberius didn't want to believe it. She had to know something they didn't, like the smoke was fine and the fire was contained.
Or she'd just risked it all, just like she always did. Ire flashed in his belly. This rich girl was not welcome to play with his life.
"The children first," Dina insisted.
"What were they doing here?" wondered Karl Braun.
"Supporting a friend," Dina replied, hoisting Sally over the rail into the hands of her helpful, calm, beautiful warrior children.
She really felt that way, as if all Eldian warriors were her children. Dina found herself grateful for the protection provided by the acerbic fumes as emotional tears leaked down her face.
Tiberius' heart pounded until Dina came down, and then she had him by her left hand and Sally by her right, and she was leading them away.
"This way." A willowy Eldian girl – her name was Miriam, if Tiberius remembered – led them through the dank room the trainees had waited in.
Dina glanced back as Zeke helped order his friends around, unsure if she admired or feared his placidity.
"That's it." Never one to take chances, Wolf launched a third unnecessary pail of water onto the collapsed entrance. Three extra pails-worth of water ought to be enough, right? But if four were needed, could he handle the guilt? "Maybe one more."
"I think that's enough," Colonel Lange said dryly. "What does it look like happened here?"
"The entrance exploded," Gross said eagerly.
"Yes, anything else?" Lange rolled his eyes.
"There's glass shards behind you. Someone may have planted something," Kruger said.
"Well, obviously," snapped Lange, taking a step back and spinning around. He cringed as glass crunched beneath his boots.
"Now you're on evidence," Gross said in his most saccharine tone.
"Oh, am I?" Lange said sarcastically. "You. You and Kruger – you two fuckers go find out the source of that smoke. Be careful not to die, but if you do, I'm sure I'll recover."
"Capsaicin." Kruger held a broken bottle with a charred label in hold hand, his nose with his other. "Not deadly, at least. Someone wanted to scare the Eldians here."
"Or stop the titan program," Gross said, staggering towards the exit. "We're lucky no one was killed!"
"That would be the implication, and yes, we are." Kruger followed his partner. "Someone was very precise."
"Well, we've no shortage of suspects. Who doesn't hate Eldians?" Gross scowled. "If we just killed threw them all to the animals now, we'd be doing them a favor."
"And provide yourself with enjoyment." Kruger scowled. "No, the best thing would be to keep the titan program. Refuse to let these bastards have their way."
Gross sniffed. "We'll see what Truitt has to say."
"Unfortunately, I don't foresee the colonel siding with you." Kruger rolled his eyes and brushed past Gross.
"So it was a planned attack," mused Lange as the five officers gathered among the smoldering remains. Breathing hurt, and Lange was a man who firmly believed that pain motivated efficiency.
"Yes, planned to minimize death and maximize fear, or so it seems," said Wolf. "Jealous Eldians attacking Eldians, no doubt."
Gross guffawed, and for once Kruger was grateful for his fool partner.
"I hardly see the need to establish facts where we have none, Wolf. As for you, Gross, have you something to add?" demanded Lange.
"Yes, sir." Gross straightened up with a sneeze. "Eren here believes that Marleyans might fear Eldian power, even controlled, and launched the attack."
"Hmm, well, that's lovely. Have you evidence?! Or are all my best minds mere theorists?"
"Colonel, I found the remnants of a large supple of capsaicin bottles. Smuggling out of Liberio would be difficult, though with the recent events, not impossible." Kruger cursed this part of Ilona's plan. One wrong word, and he could find himself tortured beyond anything he'd ever conceived. But such was his life. "While Eldians are always suspects, the fact that this attack occurred with an expensive chemical in a Marley district during broad daylight means we cannot rule out Marleyan suspects."
"So what you're saying is we can't rule out anyone as a suspect?" demanded Lange.
"What about the kids?" Sergeant Major Winder spoke up at last. "They certainly had reason enough."
"The kids?" Lange sputtered. "My kids organized the escape from here. I dare say they all might as well have passed their training today anyways!"
"Even without the animals, they faced danger with quick thoughts and physical strength," Kruger agreed. This part of the plan hinged on Lange's human spirit, something Kruger doubted.
He did not, however, doubt Lange's ego.
"Obviously. They'll all be passed and advanced to the next stage," said Lange. "The kids are the only ones I'm proud of here. Gah! Damn you all – worse than Eldians!"
All of them? Zeke he'd expected, but now Kruger had to wonder if Lange had generosity after all.
"The council won't approve," said Gross, bitter that he'd been denied the suffering that burned his soul.
"The council will listen to reason, unlike your fat head," Lange replied. "Now get out and write your incident reports!"
"The council will have to review, but Lange's bets are on parents or Marley." Kruger collapsed onto his bed in his dim cabin lit only by streetlight through a window he'd deliberately kept dusty.
"Will they be interrogating the parents?" Ilona asked nervously, sitting on the corner of his bed. Their proximity disquieted her, but exhaustion overweighed her anxieties.
"We start tomorrow. Don't worry, we'll save torture for the perpetrators." Kruger closed his eyes, hoping she would take the fucking hint and leave. "Do you know how many times your plan could have gone awry?"
"Yes, because I've played each one in my mind about a hundred times."
Ilona shivered. "I risked killing people, Eren. I'm not even sure it matters that we didn't, because I risked it all the same."
Kruger opened his eyes and glared at her. "So, a killer is your definition of irredeemable."
Ilona froze as the face of Tiberius Berg, Sr., floated across her mind. "No, I didn't say that. What's more, I didn't mean that."
"But do you?"
He wasn't looking at her. She wanted his gaze to convey her seriousness. Ilona leant over him and pried his eyes open. "No one is."
Kruger snickered and pushed her hands away, even as her sincerity handed him a flicker of hope. "Ever met Gross?"
"Not even him." Ilona's voice shook. "I have to believe that, or I'll go insane."
"Do you know how many men, women, children I've killed? Tortured? The youngest was two – she'd been brought out by her dumb parents as they made a run for it. They were aimed a better life and what they hit was death. Much like your Salome could have been." At Ilona's surprise, he added, "Yes, I've pieced that much together. She's lucky."
"I don't know if I'd call it luck. She's still in a ghetto and her family's in ruins."
"Well, she's alive, isn't she? That's something," Kruger said, sitting up; his face awfully close to hers.
Where was it? She should pull back, tremble, scowl at his misdeeds. At the very least she could look disgusted. She loved children; surely that hurt her.
She did none of the above, and Kruger squashed his hope immediately. She was well-bred; she'd learned how to hide her dislike.
"Do you think you're irredeemable?" Ilona asked quietly.
"I don't have much time to think about redemption."
"You have enough time to nurture a furtive Eldian force and save children with a demanding socialite," she said.
"Ah, you admit it." Kruger cocked an eyebrow.
Ilona giggled, but her eyes remained contemplative. "I suppose I am, for better or worse."
"Different perspectives are valuable," he said. "If annoying."
"They're annoying because they're inconvenient. But you know what's more inconvenient in the long run? Forcing them to be like you." Ilona ran her fingers across his hands, and his breath caught, as if he knew what she was going to say before she spoke. "Like inciting someone to hate you because you hate yourself."
"I don't hate you, Eren. We're humans – we're guilty sinners all of us. And we're beautiful and capable of good." Her hands tightened around his. She was surprisingly strong, but then, what about her wasn't surprising?
The lines around his eyes crinkled as he tried to hold back his emotions.
"You know," Ilona added with a wink, "I also know your worst secret. Practically speaking, you shouldn't want to incite my hatred anyhow."
"Oh, I have deeper secrets than that," he joked back, but also – also – he did. Secrets she could never know.
"That's okay," she told him.
Kruger squeezed her hands back. "You're an odd mix of ignorant and wise, you know that?"
"Everyone is," Ilona said. "You're ignorant enough to think your actions mean everything, and they don't. Neither do intentions, true. Please don't take offense, but you're like … like you share the opposite trait with my father. Though you at least don't pretend to be a righteous man. For that, I respect you more than him, I think."
Kruger was not at all pleased to be compared to her father, much less Mayor Minsk. He wanted to be something else to her, something impossible because hadn't his life left.
"My father lets this injustice happen because he thinks his intentions matter more," Ilona said bleakly. "But they don't. Is it weird, then, if I still follow his advice to me, even now?"
"'Love everyone,' he said. 'Love your mother and everyone in our household. Love the people of our city. Love everyone in this world.'" Ilona smiled through her tears. "I may be ignorant to follow this advice when the person giving it is a liar, but I will. Because something in those words speaks to me, like wisdom I can't explain."
"No, I…I think you should." Kruger smiled at her. "I've lived my entire life among hate. Your father, bastard though he is, is right about this."
What would his life become if he were to love everyone? Gross, Lange, Mayor Minsk? Was it too late?
A tear trickled over Ilona's red, red lips and Kruger found himself staring at them, wondering if perhaps not all was lost with a late start.