Year 846
Katrine should have considered herself lucky that she hadn't died in their plummet to the forest floor when she miscalculated the landing, due to the dense branches and the fear of breaking a leg. Instead, she landed on her side, ribs squeezed between the ground and Levi's surprisingly substantial weight, and immediately wished that her neck had snapped. Her left index finger screamed, clearly broken; anger overtook her and she struggled to push him off. Every part of her burned: her finger, the scratches on her face from the leaves, and most of all the place where his thigh pressed against hers. She dug in her waistband frantically for her knife to sever the straps but when she'd grasped the hilt and pulled it out, he'd already drawn his own and cut himself free. All Scouts carried knives, but this one had a dangerous glint in his hand.
Levi pushed himself away as if she were covered in poison, but narrowed his eyes at the sight of her knife. Instead of drawing back he leaned forward and touched the blade, tracing the tiny inscription at the white bone hilt. Katrine froze, wondering if he was going to yank it out of her hand and stab her with it.
"Where did you get this?" His voice had a strange hitch to it.
So, he finally remembers. "Flea market," she said, pushing herself away and standing.
He stood too, not breaking his stare. She eyed the hand still holding the knife. "No," he said. "No, that was you. At that place in Mitras."
"You've probably been to a lot of places in Mitras," she said, unsure why she kept dodging his question.
"Not any other where we got that much money."
Five years ago, thieves had broken into the Mitras Company in the middle of the night and that girl, Isabel, had quite literally fallen upon Katrine as she crept out of a vent. She'd admitted she was searching for valuables. Katrine had admired her gall and fearlessness and promised her the Swan Queen Crown until the two men arrived, the tall silent one and the short biting one. Then she'd decided to exchange it for something worthwhile. The knife was small and deadly and made her feel safer, despite her lack of knowledge on how to use it. She and all the girls had gotten switches to their thighs for the robbery, but it was more than worth it to see Mr. Kaiser's panicked yelp at the discovery and his red, sniveling face.
Unwilling to respond, Katrine inspected her throbbing and immobile finger. At least the bone wasn't protruding. If they made it back to the Scouts, she'd pretend it was worse so she'd get out of chores.
"You look different now," Levi said. He furrowed his brow like he was trying to figure out exactly how her face had changed. The scrutiny made her uneasy.
"Where's your friend? Isabel, right?"
He didn't say anything and all she could hear was the wind in the leaves and the distant call of a bird. The dying sunlight hit his face, making his eyes shine like the hottest sparks of a flame, and Katrine suddenly remembered how he'd sliced through those Titans and how it would take even less effort to do the same to her. His silence was unnerving and dread sank into her shoulders. She'd said something wrong and she should have known, should have anticipated that, and now he was going to hit her in the face again or slit her throat and leave her to rot alone.
"She died." He turned away to shield his eyes from the sun, but his shoulders had slumped a fraction. In her memory, where she faced Isabel on that threadbare sofa and listened to her complain about her empty stomach, purple bruises bloomed around her neck.
"I'm sorry," Katrine said after a long silence. Maybe it was better to say that instead of nothing, but she wasn't sure.
"We need to get moving," he said quickly like he didn't want to dwell on it. "And we don't know where we are." He finally put his knife away.
Katrine looked to where the last of the sunset peeked through the trees and closed her eyes, remembering where it was in the sky when they'd flown off the castle. To the east; not bad, that meant they were nearer to Wall Rose. South would have been better because they'd be closer to Krolva, but there was no time to complain. "We need to move east to get to Wall Rose. If the map was correct we're maybe fifteen kilometers from Krolva."
The glint in his eyes gone, Levi's expression turned exhausted. "How are you so sure?"
"Read the map." She threw him a condescending look to remind herself that she wasn't completely powerless.
Levi turned to face east as well and was quiet, but then nodded. "We need to make some progress with the light that's left." He hobbled over to wrench off a low branch from a tree. It was thick enough that Katrine was surprised that he could rip it off without much effort. "It's possible we could run into a village that hasn't been evacuated yet," he said, picking off a few leaves, "but don't count on it." He leaned on the branch, testing its strength, and then walked in the direction she'd pointed without looking back to see if she followed.
Katrine bounded after him; he was unnaturally fast even on a broken leg. She stared at the back of his head, and then his ankle, and frowned. Why did he bother saving her back at the castle, something so self-sacrificing? That didn't make sense for someone coming from the Underground, where being selfish meant you stayed alive. Did he want something from her? That was probably it. A cold and familiar twinge of fear crept down her spine. Normally she felt safer having the knife, but it was useless now that she knew the full extent of his skill. Though whatever his reasons were, it seemed like too much effort to risk his own life to just pluck her out of the grasp of a Titan.
Just as baffling was the fact that she'd told him her plan and strapped herself willingly to him to escape. It was probably because she didn't want to owe him for saving her, and that survival was more likely with the two of them. Or was it because they were from the same place, broken dirty things that somehow found a place hiding amongst the clean and new? And for that matter, why'd she blurt out that she was from the Underground? He hadn't even remembered, and it would be so much easier if no one knew. People liked to pretend that the Underground didn't exist, and didn't want to think about the trash down there.
"Where were you from?" Levi asked, breaking her thoughts.
"Left Bank," Katrine said to the ground. "What about you?"
"Grand Boulevard."
She raised her eyebrows. That place was violent, one she'd never ventured near. "Really was grand, huh?"
He scoffed. She couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a laugh. "When did you leave?"
"I was picked at four or five, but I wasn't in Mitras permanently until twelve."
"Permanently?"
"They won't keep you if you're not good enough."
Levi didn't respond to that. Katrine gazed up at the sky, looking toward the sun to determine their location. For the first time, she was thankful that Engel had ordered them to stop so early. Following her advice and doing something for the greater good really did seem like a bad idea. But it felt wrong to leave him behind. That would be putting on one shoe to dance and leaving the other behind; it was nonsensical. She tugged at her hair, hoping that Engel hadn't died just because she was trying to warn her. But even if that wasn't true, Engel probably would've died anyway. She would have chosen everyone else first. That was nonsensical, too.
"What do you mean, picked?" Levi asked.
"Picked by the man from the Company." Katrine wasn't going to tell him that her mother had shoved her right toward him. "I heard Erwin went all the way down there and pulled you out himself? That's impressive," she said, intent on putting the focus on him.
"Not quite like that."
"What, then?"
"It's a long story that I'm too tired to tell."
"Oh, so it's true you were a coderoin trafficker, an assassin, and you kidnapped the treasurer's wife?"
Levi sighed like he actually was tired. "Is that what you've heard?"
She'd heard many variants of the tale, some sordid, some romantic, all unrealistic. "Not the worst thing."
"They need something better to talk about." He jabbed the point of his stick into the ground.
"Don't tell anyone," Katrine said. "I have an image to maintain." If she never thought about that part, sometimes she could forget it, like it never even happened.
"What image?" His tone was mocking, but when she glared at him, he didn't look malicious. There was no reason to trust him, but it didn't seem like he wanted to ruin her.
The sun vanished and darkness fell; her field of vision shrank. Katrine rubbed her arms, trying to stave off the frigid air biting at her skin and the fear of the unknown hiding in the shadows. A Titan could rear out at any moment. At least she had gas left and two good legs. They were even now and it was fine to leave him behind. But before that happened, there was a question she needed answered, one that kept crawling up her throat no matter how many times she swallowed it down.
"How much did you get for that crown?"
He turned, the first time he'd looked at her instead of the path ahead. "Ten thousand."
"Huh." That seemed like both too much and too little. She folded her arms tighter.
"That paid for a lot of medicine, you know."
She hadn't done it for medicine. All she'd been thinking about was the grumbling of Isabel's stomach and even more so the satisfaction of seeing the horrified look on Mr. Kaiser's face when he realized the crown was gone. But, maybe their bruises were worth more than that. She hoped the other girls would have felt the same, even if they'd never know.
At the end of the path, there was a break in the trees and Katrine could see in the distance brown structures, ones too squat and square to be trees. Her heart soared and she gasped when she realized they were houses, part of a town, and that meant people.
"A village!" She sprinted ahead, fantasizing about fireplaces and blankets and a warm meal. Her mouth watered thinking of meat and potatoes.
"Wait," Levi said, a warning in his tone, but Katrine ignored him. When she reached the edge of the village it appeared normal, with small wooden houses and stables and a dirt path leading through, but when she stopped to listen and heard only the banging of shutters, her hope faded. It was unnaturally quiet and the only human noise was her panting like she was the only living thing left.
"Looks like this was already evacuated," Levi said, appearing at her side. "It's too clean to have been destroyed by Titans." He didn't seem particularly surprised or disappointed, while Katrine felt stupid for not thinking of that earlier.
"I just wanted food," she said and groaned.
"Told you not to get your hopes up."
Katrine turned away and rolled her eyes. He probably thought he was never wrong. She walked along the path, hoping the villagers had left behind a couple of chickens or even a horse, but all she saw were empty coops and tangled vegetable patches. The cold air and desolation made her lonely, knowing that the people who grew those vegetables and raised the chickens were never coming back. The town seemed like such a simple place to live, and she imagined herself picking tomatoes and corralling sheep. The only things she'd have to wash off were soil and sweat.
"I always wondered what it would be like to grow up in one of these places," she said.
"Every place has something better," Levi said. "Or worse."
"Like what?"
He kicked at a rock. "Getting mauled by a bear."
"Or a Titan," she said. "Much safer in the Underground. Maybe I'll move back."
He snorted again. She hoped it was a laugh.
They were quiet again, and somewhere a door slammed against the wind. Goosebumps prickled down her arms and her finger ached. The hot clouds of her breath hung in the air.
"Well, this is better than the ground for the night. Go look for food," Levi said, nodding at the vines. "I'll find medical supplies."
Katrine nodded, glad for something to do.
"Meet me at the red one." He pointed to the largest house down the road.
Katrine hopped over a rickety fence and picked through the fields to find rotten vegetables and dead brown vines. The first two houses had only sacks of flour and rice bitten through by vermin, but the third had a spotless pantry that was empty save for a few silver tins that looked promising. She snatched one up and tore it open, hoping for dried meat or fruit, and was sorely disappointed when it was nothing but tea leaves. The aromatic smell sent her empty stomach reeling. Infuriated, she hurled the tin at the wall and felt better when the dry black leaves scattered across the floor.
Dejected, Katrine returned to the red house clutching a zucchini with a few suspicious brown spots and the firmest carrot she could find. She felt like she'd failed and hoped Levi wouldn't yell at her or give her that surly glare like he thought she was the most hideous thing imaginable. Her single hardtack bar would have to do, but she didn't want to share.
When she opened the door she found that Levi had already started a fire and set his ankle in the living room. It had a few cushy chairs draped with blankets that looked cozy to sleep in. He glanced up at her as he pulled his boot back on, but he didn't react when she dropped her paltry bounty on the table.
"Guess you didn't find much," he said.
She unbuckled her ODM gear and sat next to the fireplace, holding up her hands to absorb the warmth. "No. Only thing that wasn't rotten or eaten by rats was some tea leaves."
His entire face transformed. It was like she'd just told him there was a banquet waiting for him. "Where?" he asked breathlessly.
"In the white house."
He was out the door in seconds, nearly running, not limping in the slightest.
Katrine snickered. Levi was strange, stranger than his demeanor hinted. Sara and Charlotte would die laughing when she told them. She split the zucchini open and shrieked when she found tiny black worms wriggling in the flesh, then threw the pieces into the fire.
Levi returned carrying three tins of tea as she attempted to bite down on her hardtack without breaking a tooth. Somehow he looked triumphant without even smiling. "Fucking rats. Knocked over the rarest one," he muttered, setting the tins down and inspecting them.
Katrine held the hardtack to her face to hide her smirk. So he did have a weakness. If he tried anything funny she'd throw a tin at him; that was a good deterrent. "Glad you found a way to make this worthwhile."
"I like to look on the bright side of things," he said. "I need to set your finger."
"I can do it myself." It couldn't be much different than setting a broken toe.
"Sure, if you want it to heal crooked."
Katrine didn't relish the idea of letting him touch her again, but also didn't want to possibly ruin her finger just for the sake of her pride. Victoria always said her hands were pretty. She chomped down on the hardtack and walked over to him to present her hand, keeping her arm straight and tense. Away from the fire, her skin felt cold away and his hand was warmer than she'd expected. She concentrated on grinding the hardtack between her teeth instead of his calloused fingers.
"Those taste better with tea," he said.
"Hmm?"
He placed a splint beneath her finger and wrapped it with gauze. "Softens them."
"I don't have any tea," she said, still chewing.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, that's disgusting."
Katrine swallowed and grimaced as it inched down her throat. "What are you, my mother?"
"Wouldn't want to be. There must be a map in here somewhere." He finished bandaging her finger and she quickly withdrew her hand.
"I'll look," she said, feeling claustrophobic. She threw her hardtack on an armchair and walked toward the back of the house to what looked like a study. It was clear that this place must have belonged to the wealthiest person in town because it was well-furnished and cozy, but the desk's corners were worn and the fabric on the chair stained. She dug through the desk's single drawer and found papers tracking expenses, orders of seeds, and then finally a torn section of a map. The ink was faint and it only depicted a quarter of the walls, but it showed where Krolva was and that was good enough.
Finally having done something right, Katrine walked back to the living room where Levi sat on the sofa, resting his broken foot on the table and blowing the steam away from a cup of tea. There was another one at the further edge of the table, waiting for her. She raised her eyebrows. That was...nice.
Levi took the map and inspected it, brow furrowed. "Where's the rest of this?" He sounded unimpressed.
Katrine flopped into her chair and whatever gratitude she had toward him evaporated. "Whoever lived here probably didn't need it." She took a sip of the tea and wrinkled her nose at its bitterness. "This tastes like dirt."
"Not going to waste the better stuff on you. What did you say? Fifteen kilometers away from Krolva?"
"We walked for about two." She dipped her hardtack into the tea and chewed on it. It was much easier to eat; he was right about that.
"Thirteen kilometers. All forest, though. But we're not throwing ourselves over the trees like maniacs this time."
Katrine sneered at her reflection in the tea. "I'll leave you behind if you're too slow."
Levi continued to analyze the map, tracing the roads with his finger. "If you made it to Mitras from the Underground, then why'd you leave?"
Too probing, too personal. He must've seen every memory race behind her eyes. "To find a husband." She gulped her tea, scalding her tongue.
He scoffed. "Bullshit."
Anger shot down her spine and she wanted to say something to shock him, something to leave him speechless and exposed like she was, because he really had no idea what it was like in Mitras. "Because I didn't want to die there," she said hotly, and immediately regretted it. She didn't know what he did to keep surviving in the Underground, nothing like what she'd done.
His expression remained indifferent. "Better to die eaten by a Titan than buried under all your jewelry?"
"Getting eaten by a Titan is like dying in a flood," she said. "You can't get mad at a natural disaster. Or get even."
"You can't get even with anything if you're dead."
"If it's a person, someone else can."
He turned and scrutinized her, obviously not the answer he was expecting. It was what she'd wanted, but somehow it seemed like a mistake.
Suddenly Katrine caught a wriggling movement at the corner of her eye and yelped when she saw the rat, scuttling across the edge of the floor with its bulging stomach and beady eyes. In an instant she was standing on her chair, breath caught in her lungs, anticipating it crawling up her leg and then for hundreds of others to pour out of the walls and drown her.
Levi lunged forward, startling the rat, and swooped down and plucked it up by its tail like he knew where the rat would move before it did. In two steps he opened the door and tossed it into the night air. After walking back inside he grimaced and looked down at his hand. "Nasty," he muttered, wiping it on his pants.
Katrine slowly stepped off the chair and sat back down. So embarrassing! What was it going to do, nibble her toes? She was surprised that he didn't kill it, though, because he seemed too harsh to bother throwing it to safety rather than just smashing it. He had such deadly force at his fingertips; why'd he chose not to use it?
He caught her questioning look. "Did it all the time down there."
"You could have killed it."
Levi shrugged. "If I'm ever caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, hopefully they'll do the same instead of stepping on me."
Katrine stared at the corner of the wall where the rat had been. She didn't think Levi would ever be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or be afraid of something so harmless. "So, you're not scared of anything, right?" she asked to prove her theory.
He shook his head. "I'm scared of Titans."
"Everyone is. I mean those little things that you shouldn't be afraid of but still give you nightmares," she said. "Like dust."
He was silent for a moment, long enough for her to think that she might have terribly offended him, until he opened his mouth and gave her an answer that was the strangest out of all the strange things she'd learned about him today. "Snakes."
Katrine cocked her head. "Snakes," she repeated. She'd imagined he would be afraid of something fearsome with sharp claws and teeth dripping saliva.
"They're...unnatural. Slithering around in the dirt. Didn't know they existed until I made it outside the Walls and I almost stepped on one. That thing moved sideways. Scared the shit out of me. Then Hange told me it might be poisonous and now I look everywhere I step."
She wanted to laugh but thought better of it, and instead pressed down the smile tugging at her lips.
"You should get some sleep," he said.
"I'm not tired," Katrine said, despite the weariness in her bones and the dull throb of her finger.
"You don't know how long it'll take us tomorrow. I'll take first watch."
No use arguing, but it would be difficult to sleep with his presence hovering over her like a foul odor. Katrine nestled herself into the chair, drawing a blanket over her head but forming a tiny crack to peer out at him. For an hour she watched him, waiting for him to reveal his true nature, but he just stared out the window, motionless and silent. The warmth of the fire was comforting and then her eyelids were too heavy to bear, and soon she was asleep.
When Levi was eight and lived in the fourth-floor walk-up on Sterling Avenue, he liked to watch the orange cat that picked through the garbage heap below and stalked the mice unfortunate enough to venture there.
"Filthy animal," Kenny had said when he saw what Levi was staring at, and spat out the window.
But Levi was enchanted by the cat because it cut through the dirt and filth instead of being consumed by it, digging through the trash for hours and always emerging spotless and victorious. It perched on the edge of the stairway railing and feasted on its prize of meat or bone, and with a flick of its ear to the shopkeeper who perpetually tried and failed to beat it with a broom, flew down to the ground and fled to safety. It streaked through the air while every other living thing in the Underground trudged as if its bones were made of iron.
One day when Kenny had made him sleep outside for looking at him wrong, he sat and waited in the shadows and watched the sizzling lantern dangling from a fraying rope in a window, a sickly yellow in a sea of dirty gray. His vision was hazy, gloomy, until a blaze of orange crept from out of the shadows and sniffed the air, a color so vivid and glossy that it screamed in the silence.
The cat crouched and gnawed at a bone, swishing its tail in an endless, fluid motion. Levi pressed himself into a ball and stilled every muscle, balanced on the very edges of his toes. Maybe if he was just quiet enough, and only took the tiniest of breaths, he could inch his fingers forward and brush the tip of its tail, and take a bit of that magic for himself—
And then the cat was in the air, shooting straight up like a bullet, like Levi had sent a jolt of fear into its tail and every bone crashed together in an effort to escape. It seemed to think that if it leaped with enough force it could tear its own tail off just to get away from him. In an instant, the cat was gone and there was only silence and gray again. He'd crushed the tiny bit of life creeping out from under the filth. Levi was sorry, so sorry that he'd scared the cat, and it was so plain on his face that Kenny had tried to smack it off.
He remembered that cat, and how awful he felt, when he shook Katrine's shoulder to wake her and in an instant she threw herself halfway across the room, landing on the balls of her feet and balanced on the hand with the broken finger. Her other arm shielded her mouth, fingers splayed and taut. Even though he couldn't see the remnant of the bruise on her jaw it was enough to add to his pile of guilt, the guilt that never truly vanished, something that Kenny had tried and failed to beat out of him. Her eyes gleamed like ice in the early morning sunlight, so wide they were more white than blue, and he thought that if he'd seen the cat's eyes that day they would have looked something like hers.
"It's...sunrise," Levi said, painfully aware of his own voice.
Katrine blinked, and then blinked again, and looked around like she'd woken up in a different place than the one where she'd fallen asleep. "...Right," she said, and slowly stood. She turned to the window and touched her braid with one hand.
"It snowed," he said. Stupid, pointing out the obvious.
She brought her other hand to her hair. "It...did." The words sounded like it took her a monstrous effort to form them.
"We need to head out soon," Levi said, picking up his gear and his bag of tea and walking outside. He should give her space, and he didn't want to step on her and crush all the life inside her. Though Katrine acted like she was made of steel, he knew now that it was more like porcelain.
A dusting of snow blanketed the ground, the kind that would melt in an hour of sunlight but looked pristine and glittering. He almost wanted to wait for the sun to melt it before he ruined it with his footsteps, but that was a ridiculous thought that he banished with a sharp exhale. A cloud of breath formed before his face and the cold made his ankle twinge.
The door slammed shut and Katrine stepped into the frost, eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. The frightened look from before was gone, as if he'd only imagined it, but it still hovered in the back of his mind like an apparition. The guilt flooded back.
"When I first saw snow I thought my hands were going to freeze off," he said. It was an offering, an apology.
She tilted her head back and stared at the sky, a solid sheet of light gray. "One of the older girls told me it was the sky breaking apart, and I cried so hard I almost passed out." She laughed. "I was stupid to fall for it. I was six, I think."
"Fifteen," he said.
She looked at him and her eyes softened, and it reminded him of everyone else who gave him that same look when they remembered that he was from the Underground, beneath them, filthy no matter how hard he scrubbed. Levi hated that look, hated that she would even look at him like that, and hated that slash of red at her lips.
"Thought of any bright ideas?" he asked, not bothering to hide the edge in his voice.
"You'd think they're all stupid." She consulted the map and started walking down the path, oblivious to her footsteps marring the snow. Levi followed her, wondering how they were going to make it to Krolva alive. He could use ODM, and though he didn't want to risk injuring his leg any further that seemed like the best option. He weighed the probability of having enough gas to make it when she halted and he nearly ran into her.
"The hell are you doing?" he snapped.
Katrine stared at a barn, lips parted, and stood so still he was unsure if she heard him. He was about to snap his fingers in her face when she sprinted to the barn and stopped at a wagon. She clambered into the driver's seat and put her hands on her hips. "Can't believe I didn't think of this earlier," she muttered, and jumped to the ground and disappeared behind the back of the wagon.
Levi rubbed his forehead, wary of the direction this was going. "Enlighten me with this brilliant idea of yours."
"How much gas do you have?" she called out, still hidden.
"A quarter." It was not enough to get him to Krolva, or even halfway there.
Katrine didn't respond and he trudged to the back of the wagon, mostly annoyed but also stifling his curiosity. She had both hands on the back of the wagon, trying to push it forward, but the wagon refused to budge.
"I can already tell this won't work," he said.
Katrine held up the map and pointed to the road leading to Krolva. "It's mostly a straight shoot to Krolva except for this bend here by the ravine. So, if we're trying to get both of us there on one set of gas canisters, we should use a wagon. It's all forest, so no reason the ODM can't handle pulling this along. Hit two trees on either side of the road and it'll drag the wagon forward."
Levi stared at her, long enough for her to know that he thought she was an idiot, and snorted. "That's fucking ridiculous."
"Isn't that what you said at the castle?" she asked. "And who's alive and still complaining?"
"This has so many flaws that ridiculous doesn't even begin to cover it. Can the grapples even handle the weight? And what'll you do if you tip over?"
"Everything has a learning curve." Katrine resumed pushing.
She must have some sort of death wish and wanted to die in a flashy, heroic way that would get people talking for weeks and maybe even a newspaper article. He was certain that she'd done even stupider things before joining the Scouts, and had only made it this far because of dumb luck.
"You can't even move this," he said, watching her fail to budge the wagon.
"Just need to get it started," she said, voice strained.
Levi grit his teeth. He hadn't had much of a choice at the castle, but it was miraculous that he hadn't broken his other leg or more so his skull. Though here he also didn't have much of a choice, because he had a quarter tank of gas and three blades left. She could leave him there if she wanted.
He groaned, hating the feeling of helplessness swirling in his gut. "Find a smaller one. The cables can support the weight better."
Katrine dropped her hands and looked at him, face flushed with exertion. "Isn't this a brilliant idea?"
Levi dug his heel into the ground, wincing at the pain in his ankle. "I'm not sitting in anything that reeks of pig shit." He turned and walked back to the main road. Quick footsteps followed him but he refused to turn around and see her triumphant grin.
They made it to the end of the village before they found a wagon that was both small enough to move easily and didn't smell like a dead animal. Katrine rolled her eyes and muttered something petulant for every wagon he rejected, but Levi wasn't going to let her have all the power. The road spat them out into the forest, where a faint trail marked the route to Krolva. Katrine scrutinized the map and determined that they had reached the correct one.
"You should steer," she said. "Don't want to damage your bum leg."
The cart was small and unassuming, probably used for transporting vegetables, and Levi hoped it wouldn't splinter apart holding their weight. The only mechanism it had for steering was a rusty hitch. He gingerly stepped inside and sat. While he pushed at the hitch to make sure it actually worked, Katrine stood behind him and adjusted her gear. Her boots were too close to him and he cringed at the thought of more dirt on him. When she leaned over to adjust her canisters her braid brushed his shoulder.
"Get your hair out of my face," he said.
"Don't touch my hair," she said but wrapped it around her neck. It looked like she was daring someone to try to choke her. "Last chance to bail out."
"Get on with it."
Katrine shot her grapples forward, piercing the trunks of two trees on opposite sides of the road, and the cart shot forward. Though it moved without much resistance the force of the springs nearly yanked Katrine off her feet and she gasped in surprise, and before Levi could think to stop himself he grabbed her leg to keep her from tumbling out. His fingers dug into her thigh and when he felt her muscles tense he suddenly remembered her dancing in the night air, balanced on that leg and ready to fly. Those two people couldn't be the same. It didn't seem possible that someone who'd wrenched herself out of the filth of the Underground could become so graceful and light. She leaned forward and put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself and he glanced at her thin fingers. It was the same hand, he knew, the one he watched catch air.
"Learning curve steep enough for you?" His tone was harsh, partially to get himself to focus.
"I'll get used to it," she said, her breath tickling the back of his neck. Levi gripped the hitch tighter.
Katrine continued to shoot her grapples forward and barrel them down the path. The cold air whipped in his face and he squinted at the trees, a blur of green and brown. Thankfully the snow was melting, so there wouldn't be ice patches to send them to an early death. She seemed to have found a rhythm, but her hand was still on his shoulder and her fingernails dug into him. Levi turned to berate her for it but the words died in his mouth when he saw the utterly demented grin on her face, like she was having the time of her life.
"The fuck is that look on your face supposed to mean?" he asked, horrified. This did not bode well for his safety.
Her eyes darted down to him but the grin didn't falter. "They're not eating me today. And if I get you back safely they're never making me do chores again."
Levi looked back at the road. There were a thousand better ways to die in the Underground than like this.
He tried not to let himself be hypnotized by the blur of trees rushing past, but the road was relatively straight and he hadn't needed to use the hitch much for steering. Dread was building in his stomach, though, because the bend in the road must be close, and barring Titans, that was the deadliest part of the plan.
"That bend is coming up," he said.
"Yeah," she replied. "If I hit one tree with both grapples then we'll make an arc."
At least she has a plan for that, he thought bitterly.
Suddenly the wheels lurched to the side and Levi's body tensed; his hands clamped down hard on the wood. Though the snow was melting they must have hit an unseen icy patch, something he shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss. Katrine had just shot her grapples to the next set of trees but now that they were careening sideways, it was impossible to reset them and it was inevitable they were going to tumble down the steep hill into the ravine below.
Levi bolted to his feet, knocking Katrine backward, and shot his grapples toward the thickest tree across from the edge while bracing himself against the front of the cart. Resisting the pull of the cables, he maneuvered the cart to swing in an arc around the bend, just grazing the trees on the other side. He copied her method of grappling to a tree on each side of the road and finally they were moving straight again, unharmed except for a deep scratch in the side of the wagon.
Katrine sat up, dazed, but laughed. "See? You're a natural!"
His knuckles were white from gripping the cart. "If this doesn't kill you then I will."
"As long as you don't ruin my face." She resumed her position behind him and shot her grapples to the next set of trees, and they were moving straight down the path again.
Levi sat back down and bit his tongue. It was like she knew about his guilt and was taunting him. He'd have to wait until he was on solid ground and not hurtling through the air to throttle her.
Soon a mass of gray appeared on the horizon and Levi knew it was the Wall, that they'd made it to Krolva on her half-baked plan, and though part of him was relieved the other anticipated her gloating. "There's no good way to stop this before the Wall," he said, imagining their mangled bodies slammed against the stone. "We should jump out beforehand."
"Good idea," she said. "Don't break any more of my fingers."
"I'll break all of them if you keep that up."
The Wall grew larger by the second and the break in the forest was quickly approaching. "Soon," Levi said, perching his good foot on the edge of the wagon. "Jump once we're past the trees." Katrine did the same on the other side.
Moments later they reached the grassy field outside the Wall leading to the closed gate and Levi pressed his weight into his thigh. "Now!" he shouted and leaped out. He dove into the grass and rolled to a stop, watching the cart slam into the stone and shatter into a mess of splinters. Taking a deep breath to steady his pounding heart, he assessed his body. All his limbs were there, still attached, and his ankle wasn't damaged any further.
Katrine stood and wiped the dust off her hands and despite her torn, blood-stained pants and the scratches on her face she seemed unbothered, while Levi was acutely aware of the sweat on his forehead and the dirt under his fingernails. She didn't have the same filth on him that never washed away no matter how hard he scrubbed, though they'd been born in the same garbage. Instead, it was like she brushed off that place with a flick of her wrist, spotless and victorious. He then realized that ever since he'd left the Underground he'd stopped looking around for that cat, glancing around alleyways and trash piles though it was certainly long dead. Every other orange cat was the wrong shade, the color of rotten fruit.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hey, Er-win!" she bellowed at the Wall.
Levi flinched. Thinking he could hear birds flapping away in fear, he leaped to his feet and snapped his head toward the forest, anticipating danger. "Shut the hell up, Katrine!"
"Clean your own goddamn stables!" There was a mocking cadence to her voice.
"You fucking moron, there's Titans!" He shook her shoulders but she just cackled.
Someone appeared at the top of the Wall, thankfully not Erwin, and Levi thought he'd never been so grateful to see a Garrison soldier in all his life.
Katrine found it preposterous, completely absurd, that they still made her wash dishes and prepare equipment with a broken finger when she'd delivered Levi back to safety mostly unharmed. They should have bowed at her feet and given her whatever she demanded. Instead, she had to hide in the forgotten closet at the back of the compound, her book on the mechanisms of coal power illuminated by one paltry candle, because the rescuer of Humanity's Greatest still had to run laps.
Right when she'd learned why canaries were used in mines, the door swung open and Levi stood in the doorway, face obscured by a kerchief and clutching a broom but in a way that was no longer menacing. Inexplicably he had not used his broken ankle as an excuse to stop cleaning.
"You like sitting in filth? These stupid Krolvans can barely wipe their own asses," he said.
"Love it." If it was anyone else she would have been annoyed, but this wasn't that bad. Of course, it wasn't like she wanted his company, but he didn't set her teeth on edge anymore like the other men in the Scouts. Besides, he was fun to goad.
He appraised her with narrowed eyes, but he didn't appear angry. She thought there might be a hint of curiosity behind them.
"Why bother reading a book on coal? You'd make a terrible miner."
She shrugged. "Just wanted to know."
He shook his head like she was hopeless, but closed the door and left.
Katrine didn't have to be afraid of Levi, not that she had been before, but because he'd had multiple opportunities to harm her, to take something from her, and chose to leave her alone. Even though he knew where she came from, a little piece of her past she preferred to keep buried, she didn't feel exposed anymore. Instead, it was like they shared something no one else had, or would think to go looking for.
Also, now that she'd saved him, he owed her. She was untouchable.