a/n: A quick note before we begin: While Ymir is not the central character of this story, her given surname here is Fritz. I find it difficult to imagine she would get very far without a last name, even a fabricated one, and it's amusingly ironic.

I will also note, without pretense, that this story contains a variety of grisly subject matter, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

It was the second year enlisted into the Southern Wall Rose 104th Training Corps, and the fourth spent immersed in enemy territory. The given date in the ledgers read March 7th, 849, but it was really 1910 back home, Leonhardt reminded herself. This start of a new decade offshore meant nothing of consequence to the occupants of Paradis.

The cadets, while older now than she had been at the time she'd set foot upon the island, lacked that sense of immediacy the Warriors carried close to their breasts. But it was to be expected, living one's entire existence in a cage without knowing better. Jaeger had no idea how right he was to speak of cattle; every time he went on another impassioned rant her disdain for him increased exponentially. She'd agreed to spar without hesitation; any excuse to give him a taste of the dirt, her boot, and his own blood in no particular order.

The denizens in Paradis were also far less patriotic, at least when it came to their country. Most cadets had no real opinion on the King or the local government besides a passive resignation to dedicate their hearts to humanity.

Others were more open about their viewpoint; Arlert did not reserve his intellect in the classroom, and once got into an uncomfortable debate with the instructor for fifteen minutes about the ethical implications of the operation―a veritable suicide mission, he'd called it―to take back Wall Maria two years prior, all because the instructor had used the word heroic.

They went back and forth; Arlert rattling off statistics in a rapid-fire, accusatory pitch while the instructor became increasingly incensed. It came to a head when Arlert was assigned latrine duty for two weeks and told to sit down before his punishment became more diminishing towards his training score. Red-faced and fuming, Arlert took his seat with the air of a boy that could not afford Jaeger's own luxury of defiance, and the instructor reminded them all of their station. You are soldiers, he said, not free-thinkers.

Jaeger quickly sided with Arlert afterward during lunch, while Ackermann was around to temper the pair somewhat. The other cadets were quieter about their beliefs; most of them, from what Annie could discern, felt Arlert had been wronged but were not willing to risk their necks to support a boy that was surely going to suffer a horrific accident if he didn't learn to balance his weight during the most rudimentary ODM gear exercises. He was not hopeless, but while his diminutive stature and higher register did not erase his intellect, they also did him few favours. In that sense, he and Jaeger were a perfect match for each other.

Other, keener kids, the likes of Bodt and Kirschtein, were more forgiving of the higher-ups' methods, though whether these beliefs came from a place of honesty or simple desire to make a name for themselves in the Military Police Brigade remained to be seen.

Braun and Hoover listened to both sides; Hoover played the diplomat while Braun tried to reassure Arlert that he'd be able to change a lot more about the military from the inside, on the battlefield, not as a MP or a Garrison soldier, and they hit it off after that.

Annie had no opinion, when asked.

More tangible changes were signified by the passing seasons and monthly explorations conducted by the Scouting Legion; these, Annie only knew about because of Jaeger, Braun and Hoover. The latter two wanted to get a scope for what the enemy scouts were capable of, while the former's interest was borne out of idealisation. The Legion's reputation left much to be desired, given the way citizens and soldiers alike talked about them, with their high mortality rates and historical lack of funding, and Annie could not fathom why Jaeger was so eager to sign his life away, but she wasn't going to argue with him either.

This year she would turn fifteen. She tried to pretend it meant something other than one less year to complete her assignment for Marley, but in the heart of enemy country, the necessity of her mission was all she could associate birthdays with anymore.

"It's your birthday?" asked Carolina when Hoover let it slip that morning; Annie had thrown a dagger-sharp stare his way, and all he could think to do was look at her with a half-apologetic smile before turning back to Braun.

"Yeah," said Annie, turning back to Carolina. "At the end of next week. It's..." What she wanted to say was, not a big deal, now drop it, but even she wasn't that tactless. Or maybe Carolina's kindness, translated to pity in Annie's mind, was rubbing off on her.

"Oh," said Carolina. "How old are you turning?"

"Fifteen." Annie hesitated, anger at Hoover dissolving into consideration. Maybe it would do her some good to blend in, as well. "When's… your birthday?"

"March, same as you! Only it's the 24th, a couple days afterward. I'll be turning fifteen also." She grinned. "We should do something together!"

"Like what."

"I don't know, something nice. Is there anything you wanted? We could pool our allowances. Did you want a new hoodie?"

"Uh."

"Well, I noticed that you wear that one all the time, so I figured it must mean a lot to you." Annie had nothing to say; she was distressingly perceptive. Ironically enough, Carolina proceeded to misinterpret the nature of Annie's silence. "Oh, come on! There must be something I can do."

"I'll think about it." Noting Carolina's pout, she added: "And I'll get back to you by the end of the week."

Carolina brightened up again.

So a handful of the other cadets, more notably Jaeger, Arlert, Lenz and Blaus, wished her a happy birthday in turn. Granted, it was only because Carolina had told them about the occasion, not because Annie had not asked Carolina to do so.

In that aspect, Annie was beginning to wish she had cut Carolina's friendship off last year. She had allowed it to flourish, however ill-advisedly, because they were bunkmates, and it was easier to let Carolina curl up under her in the middle of a thunderstorm than brush her aside. For this act of tolerance, Annie had earned herself the unquestioning trust of her enemy. Yet despite her irritatingly kind nature and occasional bouts of stubbornness, she possessed a hardiness that Annie could respect in silence.

An additional sense of obligation stopped her from cutting her off at the head. Carolina was nothing special, though she was much kinder than the other Warrior cadets Annie was used to competing against. The trainees in general seemed more lively, unconcerned or uncomprehending of what they were going to be up against in a year's time. It was stranger, considering most, if not all, had been drafted from the fields, experienced the hardships of famine in winter.

Despite a greater disparity in technology, trading electric torches for gas lamps and subjection to bean-potato stew for the majority of their meals succeeding the government's seemingly overconfident investment in pit latrines last year, the climate was not so different than Marley. While the instructors took great pains to make sure all the cadets were able to progress beyond simple balancing exercises and free-climbing, there were always the odd few exceptions that, by bad luck or sheer stupidity, managed to get themselves injured and went to the infirmary, in most cases. Minor injuries were hardly an uncommon occurrence even among some of the better students.

For whatever reason, the coming Spring seemed to bring out a kind of unpredictability in everyone.

At the start of March, Springer and Blaus crashed into each other during general drills, incurring Shadis's wrath and sentencing them all to five additional minutes of running.

Then Ackermann pulled a disc attempting to get higher marks on a free-climbing exercise, shrugging off Jaeger's concerns with the mark of a dog with its tail between its legs.

Later that same day, Springer almost broke his spine pulling off a trick he'd seen Braun do, without understanding the logistics. Braun went off on him before the instructors got a chance to mark him down. It was difficult to tell which was more terrifying.

Two days from that, Jaeger narrowly avoided hitting a tree and came away with a broken nose and terrific whiplash. He'd seemed happy to be alive, contrasting his mates' reactions with a sickening grin: "Did you see that?"

Lenz threw up over herself the first time she had to complete a full revolution on the wires, and Fritz was by her side as she kept babbling apologies. That had been a year ago, but it was also in March.

Annie made sure to minimise her chances of injury by lagging behind the other cadets during ODM gear exercises and only putting in the work that was necessary elsewhere. It earned her a reputation of indolence among most of the instructors and resentment among the trainees, but there were only so many times they could put her on latrine duty or make her run, and she didn't ever act in a way that would endanger another cadet.

Deaths were rarer than the chance of being crippled. In either case there were additional children imported from the fields and overflowing halfway-houses, aged twelve to fourteen, that would be trained in their stead. Many cadets with minor wounds did in fact return to service within a week or two; the instructors and Garrison infirmary worked as a team to ensure the survivors were kept in good health and morale no matter where they would end up next, all for the sake of having more hands on deck; a crueller notion than letting some die, Annie mused to herself.

Around mid-March, the new cadets arrived and were given beds. Sixty of them, in total. Forty eight boys and twelve girls.

Only one of them, Leslie Hughes, stood out. Broad-shouldered and dark-haired, with a heavy jaw and blue eyes. He was more of a bruiser than Jaeger but not as tall as Braun. He excelled in ODM gear exercises and after a couple weeks, had moved up the ranks and surpassed Kirschtein and Jaeger, much to their mutual disgruntlement. Initially he did not seem to work well with most cadets, but Braun reached out to him within the second day and just like that, the other trainees were a little less wary of him.

What was most notable about Hughes was how vicious he could be. He used his swords like knives in a street fight, and frequently blunted the blades, incurring the frustration of the other cadets whenever he was on a team and quickly placing him in eight, then eleventh best. He kept sinking and settled to thirtieth place, and there was a meanness in his eyes from that point onward.

Several times, cadets would receive injuries during unarmed combat, and they'd pin the blame on Hughes. He was, curiously enough, not kicked out of the Academy, only given laps or put on extended chore duties. Either the adults must be getting desperate for workable soldiers, or Leslie had a secret of his own; connections through nepotism, Annie supposed.

He said he wanted to join the Military Police Brigade, so that gave her competition no matter what environment he was coming from. She ought to stay out of his way.

The week before Annie's birthday, another uneventful day on the training field. They had moved from wooden knives to bayonets, which Annie was more acclimatised to. Carolina, on the other hand, was not so enthusiastic:

"Can you partner with Leslie this round?"

Annie frowned. "Why?"

"I just, um." Carolina worried her lip.

"Spit it out."

"Well, I'd rather watch what you do and try to understand, but every time I try to do what the instructor wants, he doesn't follow."

"What's the problem? You know how to defend yourself."

"That's not it! He keeps," she almost grimaced, "he keeps pinning me. I wish I knew some of your techniques."

Annie frowned. Their orders were to disarm each other with the faux-bayonets. "Have you called the instructor over?"

"That's the other thing," Carolina muttered, "I'm almost scared of what he'll do if I try it." She looked miserable, adding in an undertone: "I-I don't want you to have to fight him either, but you're so much stronger than I am."

Annie had reserved her techniques for herself, and maybe Jaeger when he wouldn't let well enough alone, just to have someone to make an example of. Carolina had seldom trained with her before, and she had certainly never asked her to act as substitute or teach her anything. Of course he's not going to be nice, Carolina, Annie wanted to say. We're soldiers. She experienced a fleeting urge to tell her to hit him harder but reconsidered. "All right," she said. "I'll figure him out, and I'll give you some pointers on how to intercept him afterwards. Consider this a present."

Carolina looked on the verge of tears, but she smiled and said: "Thanks, Annie. You're, uh, a terrific friend."

"Don't start crying," Annie muttered. Carolina laughed and wiped her face.

"Sorry," she mumbled. Annie felt like she was only making it worse and redirected her attention towards Hughes.

"Oi, you," she said. "You want to pick on someone stronger?"

Hughes grunted. "All right, if she's gonna be a coward about it."

Leslie Hughes fought like a caged animal, one step above using his teeth, which was illegal. Even Jaeger had form, faulty though it might be. Hughes' presence bothered Annie in the same manner as a splinter, though not enough to befriend him. If he was anything like her, he was just looking out for himself anyways. She didn't have to wonder why Carolina seemed so irrationally uneasy around him.

At the end of their session, Leslie blotted the saliva from his mouth and stood up. Annie had taken great pains not to break any bones.

"We got off on the wrong foot. Me and your friend," he nodded towards Carolina. "But you seem like you can hold your own, so I don't have to worry about you." Annie stared him down. She did not add he'd been knocked flat on his arse more times than Jaeger; there would be time for that barb. "If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to learn more from you."

"Why me?"

Hughes grunted. "If you can knock me on my arse, I'm doing something wrong, yeah?"

Annie had not forgotten the look Carolina gave her. She agreed, tentatively, and under the condition that he keep Carolina out of it.

Hughes didn't seem as though he'd fret after her like Hoover or Carolina, or even Jaeger. He didn't tell her how to operate as a Warrior or soldier, like Braun. He cared as little for her as she did for anyone else, and it only made sense that they'd get along.

Tersely, of course. They were much too similar to be friends, but they understood each other in simpler, wordless terms of violence and solitude. Hughes didn't make friends.

Two days before her birthday, Annie was almost starting to enjoy his company. Braun seemed happy enough about it, while Jaeger hid his envy by starting more fights with Kirschtein, much to Ackermann's exasperation.

It was all very ordinary, Annie surmised.

Hughes, it seemed, had been paying attention during their unarmed combat sessions, for by now he was already showing signs of improvement. He learnt to block her hits faster than Jaeger, but he was no less vicious now than at the start, and she treated him accordingly, giving him bruises that wouldn't show.

He never told her to ease up, but he had a sourness to him that kept her coming back, a guilt-free alternative to beating up Jaeger.

That same night, during dinner, he challenged her to a one-on-one match behind the storage units. "Practise, for the hell of it," he'd said, in front of all the other cadets. "Unless you think you'll hurt me too badly?"

Braun scoffed. "She can throw me around like it's nothin', Leslie. What makes you think you've got a shot?"

"I'm asking her, not you," Hughes shot back. "So what'll it be, Leonhardt?"

Whatever, Annie thought. She could flip Braun on his arse without much difficulty, and Leslie wasn't even as big a guy. Never mind the fact that Braun usually let her win; the less Hughes knew the better off she'd be.

"All right," she said. He offered his hand and she took it. His grip exceeded his tone's assertiveness, and his eyes nursed a grudge. Annie gauged this without allowing herself to hesitate.

"You can't be serious," Carolina snapped at her, later in the barracks. "He's not—"

"Think I can't handle myself?" Annie drawled. "Do yourself a favour and keep your nose out of my business, Carolina. He won't be bothering you after this."

Carolina's face contorted. "I didn't ask you to pick my battles for me. And you shouldn't push him like that, he's not—"

She flinched when Annie looked at her. By now, the perks of intimidation had largely lost their appeal. "I agreed to it because you're too nice to make him stop." She straightened up, thinking of the warmth Carolina used to exhibit during their first year as bunkmates, unsure how to reciprocate. She frowned. "I'll be back in an hour at most. Don't wait up for me."

His aggression bled into his blows, debilitating his approach, and Annie deflected him, each time.

If he kept this up he would make himself an easier target than Jaeger, which was saying a lot. He was going to hurt himself if he didn't learn to back down. The instructors were far more merciful than her, anyway.

"Afraid to fight me like your girlfriend?" he called.

Annie gauged this in silence. Teenage arrogance usurped her usual sense of discipline and she decided to goad him in return: "Not used to having someone punch you back?" His jaw tightened. Annie didn't smile. "It's getting late. I need to be up early to train."

"Give it one more round," he chided. "You can handle that, can't you?"

When he was on the ground, bloodied and bruised, she was satisfied. She walked over to him and looked down from her height, made sure he was paying attention to her.

"I don't know what you said, or did to Carolina during hand-to-hand practise, but you won't be bothering her anymore. Otherwise, this gets worse. Are we clear?"

Hughes didn't answer. She dug her boot into his stomach until he groaned.

"Are we clear?" No change in her inflection. He gritted his teeth, nodded fiercely. She straightened up. "See you in the morning, Hughes."

She turned to go back when Hughes got to his feet. Probably off to lick his wounds, she surmised, resolving to clear him from her mind for the rest of the evening. He was coming up behind her and there was a split-second, before he caught up with her, when she realised his gait was much quicker than necessary.

Recalling the hurt in his eyes, by the time she had taken her next step it was a miscalculation. Sharp pain bursting across the back of her head; she was on the ground. Her nose cracked, flooding her nostrils with copper.

Hughes was smart enough to pin her wrists with his knees. Pressing down on her back, he leaned over so his mouth was next to her ear, his breath coming hot, harsh. "You shouldn't skimp out on your combat lessons, Leonhardt." He paused, watching her struggle. "So your girlfriend sent you after me?" Annie couldn't retort very well through a mouthful of blood. In the state he was in, anything she said would likely just get her slugged again. "You won't last long as an MP with that attitude. Know what they do to pretty girls like you?"

He shifted his weight to the small of her back, his knees loosening up. For a second, stupidly, she thought he was letting his guard down and prepared herself for an offence. If she brought her head up at the right time, she could at least catch him by surprise. But first, he had to get in closer.

"And what did you even meet me out here for? To spar?" He scoffed. Annie wasn't thinking about his insinuation but instead of Carolina, safe with the other girls in the barracks. He leant in again: "You're just—"

She barely knocked his chin with the top of her head and hoped it had hurt him; Hughes slammed her head against the ground, holding her firm, like a misbehaving animal. Fresh pain bloomed in her nose and mouth, her vision flashing on impact. She tried to take in air, swallowing a mouthful of blood, groaned disgustingly.

"Oi! Fucking bitch," he growled. "No one's taken you down a peg, hunh?"

It was difficult to think beyond the tangible present, second-to-second. Dirt saturated with blood on her tongue.

He scoffed, jerking her head up, and as the blurry image of his face came into focus she eyed him with a look of vicious contempt; in his eyes, the same sentiment was mirrored. "I know. You think you're better than everyone here." A nasty smile curled his lips. "Well, you ain't worth shit to anyone like this, are you?"

All right, maybe he was an idiot. Leaving himself open to retort was a punishable mistake. He should have broken her teeth and kicked them down her throat if he wanted to make her regret her decision. So Annie decided she would teach him a new lesson, and spat whatever blood was left over in his face. Hughes barely flinched. His smile never touched his eyes.

"Maybe you could use a lesson in humility yourself."

He slammed her head down again, and while she was too stunned to respond, took the time to pin her wrists behind her back, pausing as if he had all the time in the world to consider what he was going to do next. She shouldn't have let him live, this much was clear. She could have beaten him within an inch of his life and it wouldn't be good enough.

It was difficult to process much. He must have hit her very hard. He was running his fingers over the back of her head and she twisted around to see. For this impudence he shoved her nose into the dirt. His free hand running down her spine, stopping at the small of her back. He rucked up her shirt and palmed her skin, cupping her breasts through the binding.

"Never seen you look twice at another boy before," he muttered. Annie tried to concentrate on the words rather than the shape of them. "Ever let one touch you? You like Arlert, right? Or is it Jaeger, he fancies you, doesn't he?"

Annie said nothing. He scoffed, gripping hard enough that she grit her teeth. "That's why you came out here with me, isn't it?" He let a hand skirt down her back, cupping her arse. "You've done them first, and I'm supposed to be next."

She heard him working on his belt. Hughes had about thirty or forty pounds of muscle on her. Even in the best of circumstances it was all up to her techniques, keeping her distance. That wasn't going to be an option. She couldn't get at his face from this angle, and with the way he was pressing down on her it was becoming difficult to take in air.

Still, she didn't black out, and she would not allow herself to commit to panic wholly. Hughes tried hauling down her chinos next, to no success. He cursed before reaching around to undo her belt one-handed, his fingers brusque, clumsy.

She could afford a partial transformation, if she was quick. Killing him in a more obvious way would only raise more questions; at best, get her kicked back to the fields and, at worst, net her an execution. She couldn't stop thinking about how easy it would be, one effortless moment, but her mind would not focus on the shape of it expanding into some malformed gory ribcage above them, only the solid weight of him on her back and the dirt cold against her cheek, and then he was pulling her chinos down, clapping a hand over her mouth.

She didn't know if she would scream. She didn't want to know, but he shoved into her anyway and what came out was this low, animalistic gurgle she didn't recognise as her own voice. Hughes, squeezing her jaw hard enough to feel her teeth through her lips, told her to relax.

She dug her teeth as hard as she could into his palm. He groaned louder, but it didn't stop him. He pulled out a little and shoved again, grunting harshly, and she tried to make any noise at all but her voice came out wrong, ragged and frightened around his palm. If she managed to bite through her tongue she could die by her own terms, at least. The coward's way out.

He stopped for a moment, breathing hard, and squeezed her jaws shut. "You're too tight. Got to relax." She made another lame, guttural sound and he fumbled with a hand on her arse, pushing until her spine bowed. Another unintelligble noise issued from her throat.

Hughes didn't let up until they were flush; jerky thrusts, no clumsier than the way he'd gone for her belt, and just as she convinced herself it was never going to end, he was pressing his nose into her hair, groaning about how tight she was. She chose to interpret this as some callous act of mercy and slammed her head as hard as she could upright, hoping she could break his nose and thereby his concentration.

He cried out, but his grip didn't lessen. Whatever fain victory she'd obtained was quickly rendered meaningless as he started doubling down. It didn't hurt any less but it got slicker. She should have transformed by now.

A particularly vicious thrust into the dirt finally elicited some noise out of her; not a scream, more of a high keening, akin to animal distress, spasming involuntarily. His breath hitched. He leaned down to inform her that he would fucking kill her if she shit on him.

She wished he'd cracked her head open instead. She made herself go limp, just to concentrate on not screaming, banking on the idea that he would finish up faster if she was complicit. At first, she even thought it might work. He was losing rhythm, moaning into her hair. He pulled her back onto him with both hands, not that it mattered much when he was putting his full weight on her spine. She wondered if she'd bleed to death, or black out from lack of air before she started regenerating. Maybe it would burn him.

It was difficult to think about anything anymore. But he kept going, senseless, clawing at her hips, longer than she would have anticipated for a boy with such ill-control in his fingers. Then it was over, Hughes gasping, biting her shoulder through the jacket, pulling her flush onto him, and all she could think of was Carolina, wondering where her friend was at this hour as the instructors cut the lamps and left them in darkness.

Maybe now that he was finished, she thought, he would put her out of her misery.

It would be the smart thing to do, she thought, because the evidence against him was utterly damning.

"Oh fuck," he muttered. "What the fuck."

Annie could barely process the words, much less phonetics. He pulled off, still breathing hard. She felt something warm staining her thighs and his fingers. She wondered what it was, really.

"You can hear me? Oi," Hughes smacked the side of her head, eliciting a dazed grunt, "listen, here. Don't go running your mouth, or this gets worse. Not just for you, understand?"

Annie couldn't answer even if she'd wanted to. His eyes narrowed. He grabbed her chin.

"Still think you're better than me, cunt?"

Her eyes tracked his. She wanted to break all the bones in his body twice over. She wanted to kick his teeth in and make him eat them. She wanted to rip his balls off and shove them back up his arse.

But she waited, pleased enough when his indignation betrayed a hint of fear that was snuffed out just as quick, overcompensating with rage. She hadn't cried.

The toe of his boot dug into her stomach; she choked out a noise, and he turned her over with the same foot. He was breathing hard. She struggled to focus on him, a blotch of crimson where his waist would be. He turned away, fixing his chinos. He didn't say anything else, not even a good-night or a taunt or additional threat. He walked away brusquely.

She waited until she was sure she was alone, breathing in warm spring air. She waited still, for a prickle of heat, steam, but there was nothing. Nothing, itself, was her last advantage. She could not allow herself to regenerate.

Someone must be told. Instructor Shadis would see to it that Hughes would be kicked out in the blink of an eye. It was, now that she came to think of it, the first incident she had ever caught wind of this level of violence from one cadet to another, at least on Paradis. Surprising, considering their circumstances, that they were not trying to attack each other more often.

There was always one bad one in the lot, she reasoned.

Rumination would get her nowhere. Right now she had to get to her feet, a Herculean ordeal in of itself, as Arlert might say.

Assuming Hughes was not skulking around, waiting to finish the job. Perhaps he assumed her dead; he'd landed a solid blow to the back of her head, after all. Surely he was not so foolish as to attack her twice. Then again, if there was anything clear from to-night it was that she had sorely misjudged his character, as well as Carolina's instinct. The latter fault was what caused her to push herself up on all-fours. Blood had pooled across her face and dribbled lazily into a puddle below. She could taste warm iron in the back of her throat and it wasn't all hers. The blood would stain her jacket and shirt without steaming away.

Her legs felt limp, her arms similarly useless; it took everything she had just to keep herself suspended. Hughes had not disabled her explicitly beyond the first blow to the back of the head as well as the successive assault. She should be able to sit up. The world spun drunkenly upon its axis; then there was a sharper, stabbing pain almost made her vocalise, chewing her lip. She felt the dirt beneath her fingers but the pain kept her doubled over for longer than she had anticipated.

Would she heal if she were bleeding internally? The Marley doctors had never talked about it, but she could assume as such, given the occasional loss of limbs the Warriors were subjected to during Titan transformations.

So she wouldn't be able to spring up and walk immediately. If she stayed out here alone, she'd be picked off like carrion.

If she crawled all the way to the infirmary, she was most certainly going to be locked out and a prime target for another attack, if Hughes was still awake. She would not put that past him at this point. But right now she needed the help of an adult, not another trainee, prone to acting out on his or her emotions and skewing the whole operation.

If she dragged herself across the grounds and back to bed, she'd inevitably just end up drawing unnecessary attention to herself. Annie had no intention to get anyone else involved, but this was very unlikely; the damage was too great to ignore.

In the morning Braun would probably be angrier that she got herself into a fight she could not win than anything else. Hoover―she did not wish Hoover to see her like this, either. And she'd give Carolina nightmares for weeks, if she came up to her like this.

And the only response she had for Hughes were her thumbs lodged firmly in his eyesockets.

By the time she reached the girls' barracks all the torches were out. How long, exactly, it had been since her return, Annie could only estimate. Miraculously she was not apprehended by Hughes again, or any other person for that matter.

She forced herself to stumble forward and found the door locked, cursing. She began hammering at the door with the side of her fist, a desperate, violent rhythm until the lights turned on.

"Who's there?"

Someone was moving around indoors. The door opened, and Annie, who had been leaning against it in her exhaustion, stumbled again. There were screams, gasps, predictably, but the sound rang in Annie's head and she screwed her eyes shut.

Someone caught her before she fell.

"Oh, my God―" it sounded like Blaus. Annie grit her teeth, trying to shake her off but it was hopeless. This was exactly why she didn't want to get anyone else involved.

"Carolina," she heard herself say in a small, stable voice. "Where's Carolina?"

"She's over―" Blaus cut herself off. "Are you gonna explain what the hell just happened to you? You look like a walkin' corpse!"

Annie noted that they were all in night-wear.

Carolina pushed her way to the front, her eyes glazed over like she had seen a ghost. Perhaps her injuries were more severe than she had realised from an outside perspective.

"Everyone, be quiet," Ackermann raised her voice enough to be heard without shouting. She was already beside Carolina, surverying the scene. Their eyes met and Annie flinched, shrinking into herself preemptively. "Annie. What can we do to help you?"

Spoken with the air of a commander, Annie thought bitterly. "Shadis," she said in a tone of forced indifference. "Get him down here. He needs to be informed there's been an attack."

"Set her down on my bed," Hannah Diamant offered. "We'll get help," she insisted, and Annie realised she'd never talked to the other girl before. Overcome with a strange gratitude she allowed herself to be guided to the bunk.

Ymir was on her left, surveying the damage in the light. "Jesus. Never thought I'd live to see the day you got the shit kicked out of you."

Annie wished her legs were in better condition. She'd have kicked her upside the head, to let her see how she liked it.

"I can't BELIEVE you!" Well, no need for physical retaliation when Carolina did the arguing for her; this would have been easier to appreciate if Carolina wasn't right next to her ear.

"What, are you her mum now?" Fritz scoffed. "She doesn't need you to make her feel shitty."

"How could you be so insensi―"

"Shut up," Annie cut in, a loud, emotionless voice that did little to hide her own unacknowleged enotions, "both of you shut the fuck up." She put her head in her hands, shrinking into herself until she could only see the dark behind her eyelids and struggled to keep her composure.

The room was quiet. Annie took her hands away from her face. When Carolina finally did find her voice it was a broken, helpless thing: "Oh my God, Annie―" for a moment, she could not bring herself to continue and sucked in a breath "―I'm so sorry. I should never have let you leave, I―"

"We'll talk later," said Annie, hating the sound of the wounded. "I promise." She looked up. Carolina's face came into view, a little snotty, her eyes huge and glistening. Annie caught her shoulder before she could trap her in an embrace. "Don't," she said, sharply. Guilt warped her voice: "Please, Mina."

"You lot, stop ogling her and go get Shadis," Fritz barked.

Ackermann left without another word. The other girls did not budge.

"Are you deaf? Out, all of you," Fritz snapped. "Jesus, do I have to throw you?"

"We ain't stupid," Blaus shot back, "we're tryin' to help!"

"You'll do a fat lot more good by leaving her alone," Fritz said through her teeth, "and keep your voice down, you're scaring the shit out of her."

The girls shuffled out under Fritz's scrutiny, and Fritz, once satisfied, returned to the point: "So who's the bastard that got one-up on you?" Annie said nothing, her knuckles turning white on her knees.

"She's not going to tell you if you ask her like that―"

"Shut up, Mina," Fritz snapped. "Or you'll have to leave too."

"She can stay," Annie said bluntly.

"Fuck, all right then. You know, we can't help you if you won't tell us anything."

Carolina touched her arm; Annie went rigid. "Hughes," Annie snarled, more from anger than distress. Mina wrenched her hand away as though she'd touched an open flame. The sudden urge to break Carolina's wrist pervaded words, a wretched thought which made her throat constrict, humiliatingly.

Fritz sobered, got on her knees so they were eye-level. "Are you serious?"

"I'll kill him," Annie said, avoiding her eyes.

"You won't do jack shit to anyone, the state you're in. Get a hold of yourself."

"He's fucking dead," said Annie, as though Fritz hadn't said anything. Her voice was level, but her nails dug deep into her palms, threatening bloodshed. "Do you understand? I'm going to track him down in whatever safehouse he is deported to and kill him. There is no argument here. I'm going to―"

"Annie," said Carolina in a small, high voice. "We need to get you help. Please, just wait for Shadis."

"That's right," Fritz added. "Me and Carolina here will help you to the infirmary after we talk to Shadis. You just have to sit tight, all right?"

Annie's shoulders went slack. She grit her teeth. She would not cry in front of them.

"Just let her alone a minute," Fritz muttered, taking Carolina by the shoulder. "She'll talk when she's ready."

a/n: There'll be one chapter more at least, two at most, and it gets worse before it gets better. If you've got time to spare, consider leaving a review. Thank you for reading!