The Seventh Crow

Part 25

When Kaz stormed into the room, I was sitting next to Nina. She looks over at him with confused eyes. There was a strange glimmer in his eyes.

"Get ready," he states. "I have a plan."

"Inej?" Nina asks.

He didn't answer the question, but we all knew the plan involved her.

"Nox will stay here with Kuwei," Kaz said.

Please no.

"I can go with," I said. "I have as much to offer as everyone else."

"We don't need you on this mission."

"Please don't make me stay with Kuwei! He is so strange."

Kaz didn't care about anything I was saying. Everything he had already planned is final. I'm suck with Kuwei, no matter how much I fight it.

And I definitely want to fight it.

"Shimkopper," I whisper. Nina and Matthias must've heard me because they start to laugh. Well, laugh without getting Kaz's attention.

"Leave now or I'm leaving you behind," Kaz calls. Everyone besides Kuwei and I stood up and headed out the small entrance.

"I'll see you soon," Matthias said before disappearing.

With a sigh, I collapse into one of the seats. Kuwei was staring at me. A smile on his lips. I didn't want to recuperate the smile, but I didn't want to be rude, so I smiled back.

"They be back," he said.

This time the smile on my lips was genuine. He understands more than he lets on. Still think he can stop staring, but he doesn't seem that bad.

I mean he went out of his way to try and calm some of my nerves. Nerves that I didn't know were in the back of my mind.

A nerve that takes up my memories. Forcing me to remember the late Barge and Tyse.

Alev and I lay next to each other in an old cabin. The sight of the burnt down post plays over and over in my mind. The sounds of Barge banging on the door, begging us to help him out.

We left innocent men to die. If anything, they didn't deserve to be burned alive. The way they screamed and begged. No one deserves that besides the people who put them in that situation.

"Nox?" Alev whispers. I look over at him. "We will get whoever did that."

He might think that. Might think that revenging Barge and Tyse's death would somehow stop this prejudice against the Grisha. Surprise, it won't.

"How did they know we were there?" I ask. "We have safety measures for that exact reason."

"I'm not sure. It's not like we can go back for answers."

"And why not?" I snap. I was getting more angry. Why can't we find the answers we need? The answers that can prove that this will never happen again and that we know who was responsible.

"Nox," Alev says, "they probably are somewhere nearby. We can't risk it."

"Then why didn't they grab us when we went back?"

"I'm not your enemy, Nox."

"I never said you were!" I got up from the small cot we were laying on.

"Then what's wrong? What is going through your mind?" Alev reasons.

"We almost died, Alev!" Then it hit me. I'm not worried about Barge or Tyse or being caught. I was afraid of dying. The idea of death that makes my lungs deflate trying to get away. "We almost died..."

"But we didn't," Alev says, walking over to me. "We are here."

"What if we were back earlier? Or we go to the next post and that gets burned down. Though we weren't lucky to get out."

"That won't happen."

"How do you know? Alev, we thought we were safe."

"So what? You want to leave? Give up our missions?"

"I never said that!"

"You can't live your life in fear, Nox. That's not a life."

He can't be serious right now? Did he not just witness the sight earlier? Did he already forget the way those orange flames engulfed everything that we knew?

"Just go to bed," I whispered. "I'm getting some air."

"Nox," Alev called after me. The door closed behind me, marking the end of our conversation.