Stunned {A Levi X Oc}

15: Planning

Five days.

It had been five days since Tay was taken. Five days where Erwin couldn't hear her voice, or her small yet informative comments, or her quiet humming. Five days since he could hold a conversation with Levi.

Erwin was stuck. He had some idea where Tay was being held, but not enough to make a difference. He didn't know what was guarding her, how far underground she was, or even how to find out. And talking to Levi was no use.

Levi was all but unresponsive, giving only the bare minimum required to answer questions. He was even harsher than before he met Tay, scaring any who walked by with just his stare. Erwin was unnerved by how hollow Levi seemed.

His eyes were either distant, aimed inward, or glaring at whoever got close enough to draw his ire. Erwin, for the first time since he started his term as commander, felt utterly hopeless.

He had no plan, he had no time, and there were no options. And now he had to break the lack of a plan to Levi.

Erwin shifted in his hospital bed, the silence of the room unnerving him even more. He hated how bleak the place seemed without Tay there to brighten it. The doctors and nurses were scrambling around like ants, uncoordinated and overwhelmed. He even predicted this would happen and it still amazed him.

There was nothing he could do. It was up to Tay from this point on.

——————@——————

Tay noticed a few things when her guards came back.

One, they seemed more on edge than usual.

Two, Slug was even more off the rails than the first time she saw him.

And three, Kenny had taken a liking to her.

While the third one was part of her last-ditch effort to escape, it still surprised her.

Tay had intended to win Kenny's trust so she could earn his silence, like she'd done with Kara and Frank, but she didn't expect it to work so quickly. It was a little suspicious, but she wasn't going to complain.

Kenny came back a few hours after he introduced himself, and just sat against the wall across from her cell. She rambled at him for a while, until she mentioned something about cards and he pulled a deck from somewhere. He said he learned it from Frank, but his deck didn't have any emotional significance.

After that, Tay reluctantly played card games with him until her body tired out. She continued to ramble at him while they played, just random stories about her life, and he either responded in kind or simply nodded along.

She found his gruesome stories fascinating yet terrifying. The few times he spoke about his life in the underground, they were bloody, sad tales about struggling to survive in such a horrible environment. He told her about what it was like to never know the sun, and what he had to do to get basic necessities like food and water.

She had similar experiences, but she never had to kill anyone for it. Especially at such a young age. It was no wonder Kenny was so twisted; he didn't grow up in a place where morals mattered. He thought like a wild animal.

They were mid game at the moment, Tay leaning slightly against the bars while he sat across from her. They were playing solitaire, and somehow got onto the topic of family.

"I grew up with both my parents, but my mother was an invalid. She was crippled on duty in the garrison regiment when I was seven, so my father was working alone." Tay explained, squinting at her cards. She didn't know where to put the next one.

Kenny grunted. "I 'on't know mine and never will. They ain't worth the time anyway."

"Well, that's probably true, but don't you think family is important? I mean, you can't get that level of connect with other people like you can with family." Tay continued.