He was not dead.

Why is he not dead!? Nix screamed in her mind. K’tan should have died there with all the other ass-hole Fleshsmiths.

Nix’s return through the streets had been anything but easy, yet she’d found her way back through the secret hole in the floor soon enough. Alarms blared through the ward, and thankfully everyone had already gathered out in the assembly hall; it gave Nix the perfect opportunity to dive into the bath and scrub off all her blood.

Her brand new robe was tattered. She would need to sew it up later.

After getting rid of all signs that she’d been in a fight to the death only an hour before, she’d made her way for the rumble of chatter she could hear between each blare of the siren. Only, before she could reach them, her eyes landed on the distressingly familiar back of K’tan.

He stood and spoke to a woman in a hushed tone, clearly not wanting to be overheard. Nix noticed it was K’kali; the overseer of the current thirteen-year-olds. She was quick to notice Nix, and motion K’tan to stop talking.

She tried her hardest not to stare. How was he alive? Nix and Ari only escaped because they had the help of some god that was apparently far too interested in Nix for her comfort. The overseer should have died there, along with all the other cultists involved in the kidnapping of Ari.

Then there was the woman besides him. Were all the carers even tangentially related to the Fleshsmiths in on the efforts to collect sacrifices?

“Nix,” K’tan said. His voice laced with that sickly sweet — fake — caring attitude. “Why are you not with the others?”

She tucked her hands under her arms, both hiding her chitin and acting demure. “I was in the bath.”

“You went to the bath… during a corruption outbreak?”

“…I was already in there.” She turned away, worried that something in her gaze might give away both her frustration and that she knew where he’d been.

The man groaned at her apparent foolishness, but didn’t question her further. “Fine, at least you are unhurt. Go and join the others; we’re still trying to figure out what’s going on for now.”

Nix nodded and scurried off. Just as she was to turn down the hall, she glanced back and found the two back in their hushed chatter.

“Eyeball,” she said. “Do the same as before, will you?”

“As before?” He spun, confused.

“Listen in to K’tan’s conversation again. I want to know how he survived.”

Little God nodded before floating off to shove his gaze in the overseer’s business.

When Nix reached the main assembly hall — directly attached to the foyer — she found everyone gathered. Not only were her ward-mates standing around, but all the other ages as well. Most of the carers were off to the side dealing with the youngest groups, leaving only the few overseers to watch over the hundreds of teens that found the entire situation exciting.

She was intent to just sit off to the side and wait for Little God to return. After half a night’s rest and running around for so long, her beaten-up body demanded sleep. She wouldn’t get that, but at the very least she wanted to remain undisturbed.

“Nix!” a voice immediately cratered her plans. “Where have you been?”

Dan weaved through the crowd to reach her. As he got closer, she made sure her hands were hidden well enough. No brief glance would reveal anything wrong with them, but they weren’t foolproof. Her skin-tone was the same, but they no longer held creases, veins, or even fingernails. With her claws retracted like this, they almost looked like a doll’s hands.

Nix wasn’t at all confident he wouldn’t notice.

Her sleeves covered most of them, and as long as she didn’t unclench her fists — showing her finger-tips in the process — she should be fine. Especially tucked in her armpits as they were.

“The bath,” she said.

He gave her a look that said he didn’t believe her, but didn’t press further. “Have you seen Ari anywhere? I can’t find her.”

In those eyes of his was a depth of hope and desperation. He already knew what happened. He knew K’tan was after a sacrifice, and he placed the last hope that it wasn’t true in Nix.

She wanted so much to tell him that Ari would be okay. That K’tan hadn’t succeeded in selling her off. Nix didn’t want to lie, but she couldn’t let him know she’d been out. So instead of reassuring him as she desperately wanted, she shook her head.

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The knuckle of his thumb suddenly found itself chewed on as Dan looked unfocused towards the tightly locked shutters.

Nix wanted to comfort him — she knew it would be only a temporary worry — but quickly discovered she didn’t actually know how. What would be helpful now, and wouldn’t only make him feel worse?

Little God floated over the heads of the crowd before she could make her decision. She gave Dan one last concerned glance, and turned to the floating creature she once considered her imagination. It thankfully dove right into K’tan’s speech.

“…think she was bullshitting? Who spends an hour in the bath while the alarm is blaring?”

“I don’t think it matters. She couldn’t have seen me even if she was out and wandering. It’s concerning how active she’s become, but I’ll work on her later.” Ah, so this was K’tan.

“How certain are you that it was the cult-house?” the other voice — likely K’kali — suddenly shifts the conversation. “Could it not have just been nearby?”

“Well, possibly. But the Dark Star appeared far too close to be a coincidence. A minute earlier, and I would have been dead with the rest of them.”

As Little God continued to repeat K’tan’s words, Nix saw the man walk out into the hall. It only drove home the misfortune of events. The words she’d heard were delayed, respoken, but Nix had assumed he wouldn’t have had enough time to escape. By the time she’d heard them, he had already been on his way out.

“This won’t be tracked back to us, right?” K’kali followed out of the hall a dozen seconds after K’tan and made a beeline for her ward-group.

“Impossible. Whoever initiated the ritual to the gods, they would have used Ari. I doubt a hair remains of the girl. Nothing to link us. As far as we know, Ari never returned tonight and was swallowed in the disaster.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

Nix snapped away from Little God’s narration to Dan, who was glaring with burning fury at K’tan. He stepped past her, and she noticed the ritual blade he pulled from a pocket. She knew exactly how he felt. She’d stewed in the anger for years after he’d betrayed her. Even now, she wanted to walk over there and clamp her claws around his neck. It would work, too; none of his names were all too likely to provide him such protection.

But doing so would ruin her future.

Her hand snapped out and grabbed the back of his robe, the hard chitin of her fingers tearing through the fabric slightly. She winced, but suppressed it.

“Not now,” Nix hissed. “Don’t.”

Dan didn’t turn. He just kept glaring at their overseer. Thankfully, the man hadn’t looked their way.

“He took her,” Dan said. “You know it, don’t you? He shipped her off as a sacrifice, and she either died in whatever is going on outside, or is already in the hands of the upper creeds.”

“Just don’t,” Nix whispered now that he wasn’t fighting her. “You know what happens if you attempt a murder before you’ve got the backing of a cult. Don’t let him make you a sacrifice too.”

“And what?” He spun on her. “Just let the man walk free after he killed Ari? The others I… I was a coward. But I can’t let Ari’s death be swept under the rug like everyone else.”

“It won’t.” Nix’s words were filled with a conviction that had Dan pause. “I already plan to kill him. But I don’t intend to die while doing so.”

Why am I telling him? Nix screamed in her mind. He may be angry himself, but that is no reason to trust him with my resolve. What if he reveals it?

“You do?” he seemed confused. “Why?”

“I discovered he was intentionally isolating me.” Nix couldn’t say the full truth, but even knowing this would be enough to infuriate her. “He doesn’t know I overheard him say he was prepping me for sacrifice. I didn’t know it wasn’t just me until you told me.”

Nix looked back to the overseer, and found him glancing their way. She tugged Dan back, and turned to point at the shutters, as if she was talking about the disaster outside.

“I’m not about to let him get away with it, but I refuse to let anyone know it was me.”

“How?”

And that was the question, wasn’t it.

So often she’d considered how she wanted to punish her betrayer. She’d fantasised using her mutations to give him the most painful deaths. Melting by acid. Slowly eaten by mould. Crushed by the very claws she now had. But all of those would reveal her. It would be optimal for her to trust herself and grow until the man couldn’t even resist her, but that would take too long. He didn’t deserve to live that long.

But how would she do it? Too many of the methods she wished to use would reveal her immediately. She needed to be careful. She needed to be smart. But most importantly, she needed K’tan to have no idea what was coming.

A trio of heavy, pounding knocks rang through the lobby and into the assembly hall. Everyone quieted immediately. The only noise that remained was that of an overseer scrambling with the door control. She turned the monitors on for only a moment before she lifted the switch and had the shutters rolling upward.

Two pairs of legs stood outside. The first, small and scrawny. The second enraptured all. Thick, metal boots and legs bound by wires and tubing all framed with a pointed shin-guard.

When the shutters finally rose to reveal the giant, Nix was surprised to see Tarchon again. Somehow, his presence loomed over them. He felt like a monster in a way he didn’t when she’d last met the man. Steam fell from glowing sections of his machine implants, pooling around his feet in a small fog. He motioned his hand, and the other figure stepped forward.

Dan let out a choked sound, and ran. Ari couldn’t even react before the boy was sobbing in her shoulder and holding her tight. She softly pat his back.

Nix, in her corner of the room where she was sure she wouldn’t be spotted, subtly turned to watch K’tan.

He was terrified.

She couldn’t help the giddiness rising in her chest as she watched the man try his hardest to keep his poker face, yet fail to cease the clench of his jaw or widened eyes. The dread rolling through his veins was almost palpable to Nix from even this far across the hall.

His eyes were trained on Ari, and only Ari. He knew just how bad it was that she had returned, and at the hands of a cult that was anything but friendly with the Fleshsmiths.

Tonight, he took Ari out to become a sacrifice, and it ended with a disaster beyond anything he could have imagined.

Oh! Nix suddenly had a realisation. I know the perfect way to kill him. The only way he deserves.

It would certainly be hard, but depending on how desperate the man became in the next few days — especially with Tarchon’s intense glare washing over all the overseers — Nix believed it possible.

“What way is more fitting?” Nix finally replied to the empty space besides her. “K’tan will die a sacrifice.”

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