Silver Lining | ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴɴ

Chapter 14

It's our only way. To go back or to stay high up in the trees and pray that the titans don't kill our horses. We need our horses to survive; otherwise, we can't possibly make it across the field alive. Hange kills one, two, three titans and creates an opening for us, as small as it may be. We saddle our horses and pull so hard at the reins that they neigh before bending to our will and turning around.

Titans are big, but we can use that to our advantage when we're fast enough. We ride through their legs, and by the time the titans figure out what we're doing, we have the head start that we need. The ones coming at us fling themselves to the ground at us, making it harder to evade them.

We leave the forest again, giving in to the huge disadvantage we have on the open field, but there's no other way. Jean's blade separates a titan's hand from its wrist when it comes too close to him. It doesn't stop the titan, but it certainly slows it down.

Captain Levi somehow manages to kill four more titans on the field without any trees to use his gear on. He uses the other titans instead, and he does it brilliantly.

The ride across the field seems longer to me than it was before. There are so many titans around us now that I can't see how we could ever get back behind the wall. Our formation breaks apart when a group of titans run at us head-on. I get separated from Jean, who was riding to my left the entire time, and from Connie, who was right behind Jean. They swerve to the other side of the titans, and for a while, I can't see them anymore.

I try not to panic, to keep breathing, to focus on my own way ahead of me. Sasha is catching up with me, and we ride side-by-side for a while before a titan cuts her off. I spin my head around just in time to see her slipping through the titan's legs and cutting into them with her two blades. A grin spreads across my face, and I turn back.

"Go, help Jean!" Sasha screams at me.

I follow with my eyes to where her finger is pointing and see Jean's horse running alone while he's hanging at the back of a titan, struggling to hold on. I give my horse a jolt, and it speeds up as much as it can. I shout up at Jean, and using the technique that Levi taught us, he gets down, and I get up. I use the momentum from my fast horse to pull myself up on the titan and slice out its neck with less effort than ever before.

When we finally reach the next forest, the herd of titans is thinning out, and we get our advantage back. But I know that our gas won't bring us out of this forest if we keep going like this. We kill one titan after the other, and there's a larger group somewhere far behind us that we can only hear and not yet see.

I fight myself from branch to branch, and the wind whips through my braided hair. When I get a second to myself, I look around to count if everyone is here. Jean is to my left again, and when his titan falls, he lets out a scream of victory. I don't have to worry about Mikasa, and she's somewhere farther ahead, proving me right by killing titans as if it's her hobby. Connie and Sasha are taking on one together a little behind me. Eren, Historia, and Armin are on their horses, riding below us with Orou and Gunther. Hange is in front of them, clearing the way for them and our unmanned horses. And Captain Levi is right in front of me, doing what it seems he was born to be doing.

A branch whips at my face, and I feel a sudden white-hot pain in my cheek as it gets split open, and blood pours out. The forest is a confusing mass of green to me, and I don't know how long our gas will last, so I lower myself back onto my horse. Quickly, I put my fingertips to my face to see how much I'm bleeding, and I find them painted red. Levi is swinging from tree to tree right in front of me, and I get the ridiculous feeling that he's trying to protect me.

As arrogant and absolutely irrational it might be of me to think that, I seem to be proven right when a titan flings itself at me from the side, and it's fist closes around the captain instead. I scream out, making the others turn around to see what's happening. But the titan is off, running through the trees, joining the group behind us.

"No!" I can hear my voice, but it's as if I'm not the one screaming.

The titans all seem to retreat, or maybe we killed all of the ones who got close enough, but we're on our own again, riding through the forest at maximum speed until we slow down, and I think we're reaching the wall soon.

"The captain-" I say, but Hange stops me.

"We have to get back!" Her face is as pained as my heart feels, but she's shaking her head.

"No, I won't leave him!" I shout back at her.

Jean is riding next to me and shouts, "You can't look for him. You barely have any gas left."

"I have my horse," I say.

"If you want to find him in that forest, a horse will do you no good," Hange points out, and I know that she's right, but I won't see reason. Not if Levi's life is on the line.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Mikasa says when she sees me pulling at the reins.

I can only hear Jean screaming my name when I turn back and ride in the opposite direction. The sound of their horses fades away, and when I turn around to look, they're gone. It's only me and the trees and the group of titans right ahead of me.

I don't know how I will ever find my way back if... No, I can't think that. Levi will be okay, and he will guide me back. He'll be okay. I realize that his horse was still following the others, so we will need mine to get out of here.

"Captain Levi!" I scream over and over again until my throat his hoarse, and I feel like I'll lose my voice. "Captain!"

The titans seem to be absolutely delighted to find me all alone on my horse in this huge forest with no gas and nowhere to run. But they are too stupid to know that I came back to kill every single one of them until I get my captain back.

"Captain Levi!"

I let out a scream every time my blades cut into titan-flesh, but I can't find the one that took Levi, and I convince myself that it's because he killed it, not because it ran away with him. Because I can't, not for one second, believe that it is possible for Captain Levi to die. This man won't just die, and definitely not by a titan. He's too skilled for that to be his fate.

Every time I hoist myself off my horse and into the trees, I'm scared that it will die or run off without me, but whenever a titan comes too close, I kill it or injure it enough that my horse can get away. I'm going to need it. It's going to have to get me and Levi out of here. We're going to need it.

The sound of my name startles me so much that I let go of my controller grips and fall. I get hit by branches on my way down until I'm swept up in Levi's arms for a moment before gathering my thoughts and shooting my own hooks into a tree.

"What are you doing?" he shouts at me, and he's angry.

"Saving you!" I scream back, and I'm not angry. I'm relieved, happy, ecstatic. "Get on the horse!"

He shoots me a look, then does as I tell him and lowers himself onto my horse. While Levi pulls the horse around to go in the other direction, I kill the two titans that come at him. I can hear him shout something at me, but I can't make out what he's saying.

"Get down here. Your gas is running out!" he screams.

I kill one more titan before obeying his orders and swinging myself into the saddle behind him. I land so quickly that I bump against him and let out a grunt at the impact.

"Hold on," he says, then pulls at the reins and my horse picks up speed.