Duty and Deceit

Chapter 19

Explosion at the mines! Miners voice their concerns.

Around three hours to dawn, a fire started at Ping Wei, the Mining officer's, office last night. The fire had reacted with the coal dust in the air, causing an explosion that resulted in twenty deaths and seven severely injured. The supervisors suspect this was an act of the Communist rebels to delay production from the mines during a time of war. The Miners disagree, for survivors claim they apprehended an unidentified woman in the mines moments before the explosion. Ping Wei has refused to address the situation.

Fetu yanked the newspaper away from Roxas's face.

"A fire?! Filthy hell, you said you were going to get some information. Where did the fire come from? And who's this woman they're talking about?" He leaned in, his voice lowering to a whisper, "I thought you liked Kaia Nuwas, did she reject you?"

"The mentioned woman is the Nuwas girl." Hadi said as he packed the burns on Roxas's back, cringing as if he felt the pain when he touched them.

"I had to deal with the unfortunate circumstances swiftly. Besides, the explosion works in our favour. I doubt they could do much without the coal and metal they so desperately need." Roxas was sitting backwards on a chair, facing the kitchen, instructing Fetu as he cooked while Hadi mended his back. He leaned forward, trying to read more of the paper Fetu had stolen from his hands when Hadi smacked him right in the middle of the burns. Roxas jerked, nails biting into the wood of the chair as he breathed through a scream, "Hadi if you do that one more time, I will hang you by the balls."

"Then stop moving." He grumbled as he wrapped the bandage tighter around his torso, "Your burns are bad enough, stop straining yourself for a while and take some rest."

Roxas ignored him, returning to Fetu, who stirred the boiling curry.

Min and Nara had taken Kaia out so they could discuss their next course of action. "The letter was sent to the ministress of defence before the fire. So even if Ping does have other resources, I doubt the ministress would contact him." Roxas nodded towards the paper, "And we can still use Ping. I'm sure he blames Kaia for the fire."

Roxas studied the rough weapon plans he had drawn from memory, a small frown wrinkling his forehead. "I just don't see how they can create these weapons."

"The Husk provides them with powers we don't completely understand. If Fetu can convince us that a table is a canon, it's not that far-fetched for others to do something just as unbelievable. We should be prepared for the worst." At Hadi's words, Fetu glared at the pot in front of him. Like Min, Fetu didn't understand how his powers worked.

Roxas planned on asking Nara to sneak into the military camps to learn about these weapons. Fetu would go with her, in case anything happened. And then Min and Hadi would have to leave for Akil soon. Leaving him to fix this mess alone.

The sky greyed outside the window, the uneven pattern of rain hitting the window. Roxas thought he could see specks of black ash flying across his window, the water seemed to turn black, leaving a trail as it ran down.

When he turned back to Hadi, he found him staring at him, concern wrinkling his brows.

"What?"

"Are you alright?" He gave him a knowing look.

Roxas couldn't blame him. He'd been the only one who'd seen the way Roxas had broken down after he took his first life. Just as Roxas had woken up to Hadi drinking away his nightmares after his. It was an unspoken rule to not mention any of it ever again, and Roxas didn't plan on breaking it now.