After Dark {N. L}

12

☾₊ ⊹

The heist began. Most of the Darklings crew was on Sturmhond's ship and Ira was ready to execute her plan. She walked to the opposite side of the ship and said a small prayer while looking out at the sunset. She grabbed the rope hanging at the edge of the ship and crawled down into the ocean silently.

It began.

She swam to the back of the boat and stopped when she reached the view of the Grisha. Swimming underwater in the middle of the ocean was not a part of her job description, but anything for the money. Sturmhond had said that he'd pay her double if her plan worked.

She swam underwater as fast as possible to the other side of the Black ship. It already had chips all over, so she used her knives to create climbing steps.

Light work

The girl spotted an opened window before climbing. She used her daggers as a makeshift step ladder and climbed into the open window without drawing any attention to herself. It was just her luck that the window happened to belong to the room of the Darkling himself. She knew this much by the deduction of the size, decor, and energy of the room. Dark, large, untidy, and unsettling. Everything about his presence seemed unnatural and you could feel it in this room.

the Crows used Ira's photographic memory to scan areas and gather information. She memorized every detail in the room, from the objects to the writing on his paper. The Darkling's handwriting was perfect. Every little scribble of his looked like it belonged in a museum, his handwriting often switched from cursive to scribble. You could just see the way his emotions changed while writing in his journals. Whenever he got frustrated, he scribbled, his writing had to match the pace of his thought. Fast, unstable, and flooded with mistakes. The urge to take a piece of it for remembrance was strong, but Ira refused to jeopardize the mission.

The room smelt like oak. Unpleasant. The atmosphere was too heavy.

She'd found war strategies, journals, books on Merzost, and royal records with Ravka's details. One specific plan caught her eye. It was a kill strategy for the King. Ira planned on keeping this detail for herself. It was coded, but Ira somehow remembered the code names that the Darkling used for the royal family from her time at the mansion.

Everything she needed was in this room. She'd found out that they were keeping the Sun Summoner and her tracker friend hostage. He planned to find another amplifier to add to her for him to control. That part was obvious because he had volumes of books opened to pages mentioning a sea whip and maps of the seas. They had some sort of link and he was studying how to get rid of it. Alina Starkov was to be used to control what was in the fold, not destroy it.

Ira found something odd. The Darkling was in love with the Sun Summoner. It was so evident. She didn't even need him there to study his feelings. In operational plans and journals, his handwriting would change when he mentioned her. It would become softer, the edges would become curved, and the written tone would become casual. The biggest giveaway was him always writing 'my' before Alina. My Alina. His Alina, as if she were an object that he'd acquired.

This could be used against him. The girl got exactly what she wanted, so she proceeded to scope and memorize everything else on the ship. She placed everything back in its place and left his room. The girl didn't realize how suffocating that room was until she'd left. She could breathe again.

As she approached the hallway, voices were heard from the end of it. If she ran in the opposite direction, a water trail falling behind her would give away her presence. The girl had to think quickly.

'I'm telling you, I detected a heartbeat in this area.'

The voice said. Ira climbed up a vanity and grabbed the ceiling columns. The roof of the base level was dark enough to not be seen, but there was still her heartbeat. The two men reached the area that Ira hid in.

'See, you were wrong. Again.'

'No, it got stronger as we approached. Be quiet and let me concentrate.'

A few droplets of water fell on one of the men.

'Is the ship leaking again? I thought they fixed the drainage.'

'Didn't I say I'm trying to concentrate!'

A few more droplets fell. Ira tried to position herself to fit the size of the beam.

'Wait, after you said that, the heartbeat increased. They're listening to us.'

'I don't see anyone.'

'Check the vanity, walls, roof, everything. There's an intruder on the ship.'

That wasn't good. 

'Should I alert the rest?'

'No. They would just take the glory. Let us catch the intruder alone.'

There was no way out. The Grisha man could distinctly detect her heartbeat. Even if she moved, he could still detect her. If she made a  run for it, they would just have to look on the other ship to find her. Ira felt some movement by her leg, she looked down and found a rat at her feet. An idea struck. The girl turned silently and grabbed the rat by its tail. She aimed it down at one of the boys who freaked out by the sudden contact.

'Get it off me!'

'I'm not touching that thing.'

'Off! This was the heartbeat you detected, idiot.'

'Just hold still!'

The second man grabbed a vase from the vanity and hit the rat off. It ran forward and Ira crawled in the same direction for the heartrender to think that he detected the rat. When the two left, Ira jumped down and returned to the Darkling's room to escape. She wiped her water trail and climbed the window,

The girl was done in two hours.

She got out the way she came in, climbing down her knives and removing them as she went down. Ira was on the last step to jumping in when she looked down. Memories of the accident flooded her mind. What if there's a shark in the water? 

Ira looked down and tried to find any sign of danger but it was impossible to tell. The water had turned to such a deep blue that you couldn't even see your own reflection. She had to go underwater again. The feeling returned. All sound began fading, her vision became blurry, and her heart began racing.

All of her excitement was replaced with horror. It felt like it was happening all over again, but this time, Sturmhond was too far away to save her. She was going to ruin everything.

'Go check on the side of the ship! I thought I saw something there.' The Grisha seemed to snap Ira back to reality. She was so close, she wasn't going to give up now. Especially not over a small accident.

She grabbed her last knife and fell back in the water. The swim back was harder than before. The ships drifted a little and she had to be more careful when she came up for air. Ira tried her best to not think about anything while underwater. After a while, she'd reached the Volkvony and climbed up the rope to get on board. Ira was successfully undetected. 

The Crows helped the girl on board and she swiftly ran to get changed and act as if nothing had happened. To be on the safe side, Ira dressed up as Inej and remained hidden in the weapon room for emergencies.