Wings in the Dark

Chapter 10: Reparations

*Levi's POV*

"I'll admit, it would have been nice to know ahead of time that you were going to hijack the interrogation like that to antagonize her."

Levi ignored the pointed jab at his actions down in the dungeons, gaze instead roaming around and taking stock of the people they past in a surveillance instinct too ingrained into his being by now for him to shut it off even going down the street towards a tea shop.

Considering L/N could hear so far out, even when she wasn't paying attention, Erwin and Levi had decided to leave headquarters entirely to have this conversation. Which was why they were now headed for a tea shop instead of Erwin's office to discuss something so confidential. Or at least their opinions on the situation, not necessarily the information itself.

"Did you at least get what you wanted out of it?" Erwin asked as they took seats at one of the outside tables.

"I did. Mostly. You?"

"I was skeptical when you told me, but after that little display of hers, she's clearly not human. Not anymore." Erwin leaned back in his seat and appraised Levi, their conversation pausing momentarily as they placed their order with the waitress that came outside to check on them. Once she went back inside, Erwin continued. "If you have more questions, why didn't you ask them before we left?"

"It had nothing to do with why we were there. Personal curiosity. And it didn't seem like the time to ask."

Especially after he'd goaded her like that, making jabs at painful memories for her until she reacted, throwing harsh accusations at her semi-blindly and seeing if anything stuck. The last thing she would want to do would be to give clarifying details about her past traumas to satiate his curiosity.

Her tale made her origins make more sense, but there were a few details that still weren't so clear to him.

The way she explained it, she was attacked and turned by a vampire the night before--for reasons unknown, he noticed. She hadn't said why she was turned, or by who. She'd actually glossed over that part and moved on--and then went home, not knowing what happened to her, thinking she was sick. Her friend came to visit her, Y/N lost control, attacked and killed her, then fled. He was sure there were details to make the tale far more gruesome, but this was what he knew for sure without letting his imagination run wild.

But then she'd shown up dead a few days later as well. That was the part he was trying to figure out.

"Some deaths, okay, fine, I'll come back from it."

So, she ran away after the initial panic, and then came back solely to fake her death so they wouldn't keep looking for her.

And by fake her death, she went for a...temporary death, something she would come back from.

But why go so far as to let herself be buried? It was a closed casket funeral, so she could have snuck out before they sealed the casket and no one would have known. Why wait?

He hadn't forgotten the fear and trauma in her eyes when she'd mentioned being buried alive was one of her deepest fears. And now the mental image in his mind of a woman clawing desperately at a coffin, screaming for help while no one could hear her had a face to go with it, the face of someone he knew, no less.

It was humanly impossible to break out of a grave and crawl your way out. But if you had vampire strength, and every time you suffocated from the lack of oxygen or the dirt crushing down on you and maybe even getting into your lungs...then it was possible. So long as you died a few times on the way up.

Shit...something like that had to do some damage to a person.

Not to mention what came after. Forty years living in the Underground, roughly. He'd only been down there a little over half the time she had. And he hadn't spent it like she had--skulking in the shadows killing people because what she was demanded she kill to survive no matter where she was, and she couldn't go above ground not because it was denied to her, but because if she did she would literally die. Yeah, he'd killed plenty of people in the Underground as well, but far less, and for a reason that was entirely different even if it could be worded the same. He killed in fights because the Underground was that dangerous, or he was protecting people he cared about. She had to actively hunt and kill people to...feed.