The Apple of My Eye -Kaz Brekker (Complete)

Chapter Eleven

TW: Slight sexual themes in this chapter, but nothing spicy, barely a conversation.

COMFORT

Laura was standing at the door of Inej's bedroom, hands and knees shaking as she heard the girl sobbing in Deepika's arms. She had just gotten back at the Van Eck's mansion after she, Matthias and Spencht went out to deal with the corpse, throwing into the fire of the Ripper's B. She knocked carefully and opened the door just a crack when Deepika's voice called for the person at the door.

"Inej?" she called, the girl looked up, eyes red. "Is done. The body is been dealt with and the girls from the Menagerie that wanted out from the country have been escorted to the Wraith. Wylan and Nina are with them, helping them get settled with the help of the crew."

"I can't believe is done," she said, voice strained. "I thought I'd feel so much better after it was done, but I can only feel... pain. It's like all the torture and all the pain she has been through under my hands was not enough. I should've done more. I should've kept her alive longer. Saints forgive me, but I should've made her suffer so much more," and she went back to crying, face hiding in Deepika's neck.

Deepika looked at Laura looking tired. She had been up all night trying to console the girl one another life in her hands, but nothing seemed to be working this time. Inej cried a lot after she killed people, but not when they deserved it and they all were in agreement that Heleen was someone that deserved it.

"Let me be honest with you," Laura said, moving further into the room and sitting on the small chair near the writing desk, it was a wooden and uncomfortable chair, but enough for someone that slept on the floor. "Heleen was fucked up! You did an amazing job!" Inej chuckled with the tears still running, but peeking away from Deepika's neck.

"Give her the list you told me," Deepika said, sounding finally a bit excited.

"Inej, you have no idea how many bones you managed to break," Laura laughed. "You think she died from the stab on the chest, right?"

"Yeah," Inej mumbled.

"She didn't. It didn't hit her heart," Laura said. "She choked on her own blood very slowly and very painfully when one of the ribs you broke stabbed her lung. Her brain took a while to turn off, so she felt a lot more pain that you think she did. She suffered... she suffered enough for her body to turn off to protect itself."

"See, didn't I tell you?" Deepika said, rubbing Inej's arms comfortably. "You did what you could. She died under your hands, as terrified as you were when you a little kid under her hands. You're doing so much! You've saved all the people that wanted to be save in that horrible place and, every day, you fight those horrible people at sea to not let what happened to you happen to anyone else."

"Sankta Inej!" agreed Laura. "One of the girls called you that and I couldn't help but think about lighting a candle in your Sankta name. Can you imagine? Sankta Inej, protector of the children and guide of the sea."

"Sankta?" Inej repeated.

"You deserve the title!" Deepika said. "You saved me from the same fate, Inej, and you reached your hand to me offered to take me back home."

"But you stayed," Inej sniffled.

"For you, because of you," she answered, kissing Inej's forehead gently. "I saw you and all I wanted was to be like you. I wanted to save people like us – you were my model and then, suddenly, I could only think of you. I fell in love like I fell asleep."