Dzan notices her fidgeting hands. He sighs. He sits down right beside her.

He wants to ask her a lot of questions. He wants to ask her how he managed to kill all four of these men. He wants to ask her how she managed to deal with the four women who were holding Bels’ mother hostage. Did he kill them too? The mother appears unharmed. How was she able to manage such a good outcome?

He wants to ask her about what she had said to the last man that she had killed. Her words of anger. Her words of pain and damnation. She must have seemed like a true devil to that man. It was as if she was introducing him to the first moment of an eternity he would spend in hell.

But, he cannot ask her any of that. If Sigvor wanted to discuss this side of her, he would have heard more about it. She would have discussed some of her past with him. Dzan knows only a bit about Sigvor’s family. He knows that Sigvor was raised in a family that had somewhat strong ties to a crime syndicate.

If Sigvor ever wanted to talk about that, she would have done so already. She never has. Dzan isn’t stupid. Whatever proficiencies Sigvor had developed that had allowed him to so easily kill eight people by himself, Dzan would have heard about it by now. Sigvor would have told him. If anything else, he trusts Sigvor to be his friend. Sigvor is his best friend.

Other than Malia, she is the most important person to him.

He would know where her skills came from if she wanted to discuss it at all. He would even know why Sigvor had hid it all this time.

Yet, Sigvor had not mentioned anything. So Dzan decides not to ask. Sigvor can tell him when he’s ready. One look at Sigvor’s face and Dzan can tell that he’s not ready right now. At best, he’s resigned to answer honestly to whatever question Dzan would have.

But, Dzan is not someone who would force their friend to talk about something they don’t want to even when they know they have to.

So, what else can I ask about?

Dzan thinks to himself about what he should ask rather than what he should leave unspoken. Sigvor sits there in fear of what Dzan might want to know about her. He’s already shown so much. He’s gone and killed eight people. Those are the facts of this situation right now.

They might have been terrorists but Dzan must want to know about this, right? Especially after I tried to press him so hard about why he’s doing so much pickpocketing today…

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Dzan clears his throat and Sigvor turns her head slightly towards him. She braces herself.

“Sigvor. You’re my best friend, you know? I love you. I’m so glad that you saved me. That you saved that boy as well. I just wanted to say that… I’m sorry for not trusting you with what I’ve been dealing with today. It… It has to do with Malia and something that her family is dealing with. I’m going to tell you all about it tomorrow, and then m-maybe all three of us can figure out a way to deal with it.”

Sigvor looks at Dzan dumbfounded. Dzan only looks down at his own fidgeting hands.

“I want you to know though that it wasn’t just my idea to hide it from you. Malia as well wanted to keep it between me and her family. Sorry.” He looks down, an expression of guilt on his face.

“...I-It’s alright, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not alright, Sig. It’s not alright. I know you have some secrets, stuff that you don’t want to have to talk about. It’s ok. I’m not going to ask. If you ever want to tell me, you can, but I’m not going to poke at you for answers. After all, you’re the reason the kid and I survived today.” He laughs to himself, exasperated at the halfhearted plan he had thought up with the acid spray.

“Come on, Dzan. You’re not weak. I know you could have found some way to deal with it.”

“I mean, I had a plan to use an acid spray to blind them as quickly as possible and then make my move. I figure I could blind two of them and then take out the other two with good old fashioned hand to hand combat? What do you think?”

Sigvor pauses a bit too long before answering. Dzan figures that whatever is said after the pause can be dismissed as something like placation.

“Hm. Well, you are strong and agile. Acid is pretty good. At the very least, it can distract them with the smell, you know? I think you’re a pretty good shot as well, I’m sure you could hit them in their eyes no problem, you know? I think you could have made it work? But… I gotta ask, why did you go upstairs instead of downstairs anyways?”

Dzan likes the patronizing answer, he can always trust Sig to let him down easy. He decides to answer his question, though he feels less confident that he can explain his way through this one.

“Oh… Haha, well, I-I thought that maybe I could have ambushed them by going upstairs. If I just went outside I was worried they wouldn’t follow me and maybe they would have just gone for another apartment unit to terrorize, you know?”

“Huh, I guess that’s not terrible reasoning. It was pretty risky, you know? What would you have done if I weren’t able to free the mom?” He whispers his last sentence to Dzan so that Mrs. Litun cannot hear.

“...” Dzan sits with an ashamed expression on his face. In truth, he was thinking of the child first and foremost. He made a decision about whose life was more valuable, the mother or her child. To him it was obvious that the boy was more important, his life worth more, than his mother. He never thought he would be capable of putting life on a set of scales like that.

Yet, he had, and he wouldn’t make a different decision. The mother would agree with him, he’s sure.