Eevi leaned against the mud-brick wall inside Eanna’s Hut, clutching her shoulder as she sat on the floor. She felt her finger press past her skin into sanguine flesh. Nami’s guard certainly left his mark.

“Not as deep as the one I left him,” she thought bitterly. She laughed through gritted teeth, recalling how her knife ripped open the guard’s belly. “Served him right.”

The hut was a far less appealing safehouse than Eevi expected. Adok neglected to mention its lack of doors, blocked only by a multitude of curtains. Fortunately, there were no screamers inside, and none had followed her past Namshi’s home. Eevi knew how to travel fast and quiet if need be.

Eevi begrudgingly accepted that she couldn’t be picky. She was lucky to have escaped Nami and her guards at all. They should have just kept running when they called them over.

“And I shouldn’t have left them,” she muttered to herself.

Eevi pulled the crossbow off her back and set it beside her. She had carried it for almost ten years. It was the sole possession she brought with her to Ash, the one thing she still had to her name. She knew she shouldn’t be so sentimental; if she had just replaced the piece of junk, she wouldn’t need to worry about it jamming so often. That was the reason they were all so compelled to seek help from a complete stranger.

The inside of the hut was hot and stuffy. Eevi had visited Eanna about a year before to treat a stomach illness, and knew she kept a variety of elixirs and herbs inside. Eevi was sure she could find a needle and a thread if she looked around enough. It was impossible to see, though, and she wasn’t about to light a torch.

As Eevi slowed her breathing in total darkness, she shook her head. “I shouldn’t have left them,” she repeated. She had never felt so alone. At least when the plague first began, she had her tavern. She had time to get used to the solitude.

“Don’t fucking kid yourself. You left them to die. You didn’t give a second thought.”

This was true. She never considered Jere and Adok’s safety when she opened the door and let in the screamers. She hadn’t thought at all about what the guard tried to do to her. One moment, she was looking for her crossbow in the back room. The next, a guard accused her of overhearing privileged information. Muttering about keeping them all from “going in the back.” Before she could walk away, pretending she heard nothing, the guard had suddenly climbed on top of her, choking her. She made quick work of the guard with the knife Jere gave her, but not before being cut herself. It all happened so fast and Eevi wasn’t sure either she or the guard knew what was happening.

Then she heard Nami and the others. They said that no one could leave. She made a gut reaction and stuck with it, deciding to let in the screamers.

Eevi knew Jere and Adok somehow made it out alive. She watched them from a distance as Jere was bested by one of the Corps guards. They carried Jere off, back towards the Manor. She was certain that by the end of the day they would hang from the walls, his skin wrapped around a flagpole somewhere.

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Eevi wanted to tell herself she did the only thing she could have done. She had no duty to protect them. It was every man and woman for themselves. Besides, if she had done nothing, Nami would have killed them. She was certain of it.

But as Eevi cradled her bruised throat, the same thought rattled in her head. “You left them to die.”

They hadn’t planned to stay at the hut indefinitely. But their traveling had only delayed the inevitable. It was too hot and desolate to escape up north. The south was overrun and now even the outer walls were compromised. The only place left with food or water was arguably the Manor: the most dangerous place in the city.

So she came up with a new plan: she would go back to the tavern, drink whatever liquor she had left, and slit her throat before she died of dehydration. It was a grim thought, but less grim than the other options.

Despite her impending death, she missed Jere. She had to admit it, of all people to have survived, she was happiest he had made it. And that was before the Brown Ash scrambled both of their thoughts.

“Jere is a cockroach,” she reassured herself. “If there’s anyone who can find their way out, it’s him.”

Eevi eased herself onto her feet. Her eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the hut, so she put her hands out in front of her. She knew to look out for the stone slab in the middle, but it didn’t stop her from jamming her toe into it.

“Fucking shit!” she grumbled. She flexed, waiting for the pain to peak before it faded away. She suddenly found herself mad. No, infuriated. Why did she let her guard down again? Why now, of all times?

Eevi fell over the slab, leaning her head onto her forearms. She burst into sobs. It all hit her at once. The pain. The Plague. Losing Jere and Adok. Her inevitable death. She allowed herself this fleeting moment, one no one would ever see.

After that moment passed, Eevi wiped her nose. The pain in her foot was gone. She was okay.

“You don’t have to go back to the tavern,” she thought. “There’s another option…”

There was one place left in the city she could go to. One last place that still had food and water. And if she got there quick enough-

“Get it out of your head. What are you gonna do? Let yourself through the gate? Rescue Jere and Adok from who knows how many guards? Being skinned alive is worse than getting drunk and putting a blade through your throat.”

When Jere first arrived, he told her he survived the cells. But it wasn’t until after they slept together that he told her how he did it. How spent the first few moons pondering if he could kill himself. How he had a rope, and that all he had to do was tie a knot. It would have been quick and easy.

But he didn’t. He took the very rope that bound him and filed his way through the iron bars.

At that moment, Eevi felt the slab in front of her. On the side of the slab was a strap. Eevi knew Eanna kept some of the plague victims within the hut before their number became too many. She had rope to bind them. Eevi followed the rope down to the ground. It was thick and long. Incredibly long.

“Maybe I don’t have to go through the front,” she said out loud. “I could go over…”

She wasn’t kidding herself. The Manor was dangerous, and it wasn’t a certainty that Jere and Adok would even be alive!

That was why she wasn’t going for them: she needed food and water, that was the priority. If she were to die trying to get it, it was better to die fighting than to die waiting.

“Yeah, water,” Eevi said. “That’s why I’m considering this. Yeah.”

She would need to fix her crossbow. She needed more bolts. In addition, having more explosives would be nice. If only she knew somewhere with spirit.

At that moment, Eevi decided she would, in fact, be returning to the tavern. Only she wouldn’t be staying for long.