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chapter thirteen. ketterdam
Aria Antonov wanted to be brave.
Her whole life she wanted to be something more than a broken girl who had ran away from the only life she'd ever known. She wanted to best what people had said about her all those years ago but here she was at the end of the rope and no one had won but them. She wanted to be more than the runaway—than the wayward girl she'd gotten use to. But in the coldness of Ketterdam's damp and twisting alleyways, bleeding and bruised, smelling like a forest fire and looking like nothing more than another canal rat—Aria Antonov felt like a scared little girl again. And there was nothing scarier than being a child. Aria was shaking—whether from the minor blood loss or the fact she'd been on a low boat for an hour. She was drowning in the oversized black woolen coat of Kaz Brekker—somewhat subsiding the shaking. Her tired feet followed in tow of Wylan, her boots almost never leaving the ground.
Aria stumbled slightly, grabbing side of a brick wall in a turning alleyway. A hand held her forearm, she didn't have to look—she knew who it was. "I'm fine," she said, wiping her nose. Her skin came black red. She'd smashed her face on something when falling through Van Eck's roof. Aria grimaced, wiping it on her trousers. "I'm fine." She repeated mostly to herself. She hadn't even been that badly hurt, but with the lack of sleep, the fall that probably took a bad toll on her body, and using a lot of her strength to try and get the wires off of her, it was safe to say Aria was struggling.
"You don't look fine," Kaz murmured.
Aria let out a soft laugh. Her head tipped back and eyes shut. Kaz was intoxicated by the sight, even though the blood poured down her nose and her cupids bow, her white blouse was veined with blood, her stained trousers, and she wore his jacket with a big spot of gravy on it—Kaz wanted to watch it over and over. "Thank you, Kaz. Means a lot," she said in a sarcastic tone. Kaz rolled his eyes and pushed himself to continue forward.
"Wylan, help Aria," Kaz ordered.
Aria scoffed. "'said I was fine!"
Wylan appeared at her side within seconds, smiling sadly. "Hi, Wy." Wylan tried a bigger smile, but Aria saw right through it. "Talk to me," Aria said, linking her arm with his as they walked through the alleyway towards the safe house.
Wylan swallowed hard. "I want to be brave," he met her eyes. She could find the tears at his waterline. "It doesn't help that I'm surrounded by the bravest people I know and they're all badly shaken. What do we do now?"
Aria sighed, furrowing her brow. "Wylan, I don't think there's anything to do." She admitted. There was a sort of dread Aria got—it came when she stood above the body of Aric Moskal. A grave mistake kind of dread. It settled in her stomach now, and Aria wanted to rid herself of it but there was no doing that. This would be it.
