The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Sixty-Three

"Why do you think Daunter wants The Last Drop so badly?" Starley asked, jogging ahead to match Six's pace. Their arms brushed, and she sidestepped to put a bit of proximity between them.

Six looked at the other woman from the corner of her eye. "It's where Silco set up shop when he was in control of the city, but when it was his turn, the bar was already gone. Guess he sees this as an opportunity to claim what he probably thinks is rightfully his."

Both of them were walking behind Daunter and his runts, but with enough distance that he probably couldn't overhear their conversation.

Six had been working on the enhancement serum from the runts, and had been for the last week. She was close to making a breakthrough, but was interrupted by Daunter, who said he needed her help with securing territory.

To her initial surprise, it was The Last Drop he was after.

Four and Starley were joining them as well, with Four lingering behind slightly.

They walked down the halls of the hideout, which eventually phased out to cave passages. They tread through soggy dirt, while passing walls of jagged rock dressed in an array of moss patches. Occasionally, they would pass a blister shroom colony, which awakened with their footsteps and cast a soft blue hue throughout the tunnel.

She couldn't recall taking this route before, the corridor absent from her memory. Since Daunter had saved her from human traffickers, she had spent most of her time cooped up in the lab, trying to help Daunter with his mission to better the undercity. Her tasks varied, ranging from creating healing tinctures and removing addictive and mutative properties from shimmer before it was sold. This meant she rarely left the hideout, only leaving to help Starley and Four guard cargo. But every time, they would take the same exit.

It was a rather inconvenient exit, now that she thought about it, as it required them to either climb a cliff to enter the city, or swim towards the nearest dock.

It made her wonder why.

She felt something in her skull spasm, before ceasing moments later, the question leaving her mind just as quickly as it formed. It made her thoughts stall as she struggled to remember what she'd been asking in the first place.

"This is where we split up," Daunter's voice came, disrupting her confusion and dragging her attention elsewhere.

She looked up, finding him standing in the center of an opening that gave way to some corner of the undercity.

"Starley, Four, and Six, you'll keep to the rooftops while the rest of us go through the streets. Keep an eye out for any Enforcers or Firelights."

Firelights.

The word caused her throat to thicken and made her heart squeeze.

The thought of confronting the group who had betrayed her so catastrophically made her want to shrink into some crevice in the earth and cower, while at the same time, it caused an insurmountable need for revenge to bloom throughout her.

It was calamitously contradictory.

So far, it had happened only once—during one of the times she helped Starley and Four guard cargo.

She remembered the stomach lurch. The crushing sensation inside of her when she saw them flying towards the ship. How it felt like her guts were spilling from her abdomen when Ekko flew in close just to taunt her. Her eyes burning and her insides turning over when she saw Zeri and Belladonna flying amongst them.

A weight pressed against her left shoulder, drawing her out of her thoughts.

Daunter stood before her, his hand an attempt at comfort.