Shadows: A Six of Crows Fan fic

Chapter ten: Inej pt. 2

The instant they had laid hands on her, Inej had been worried that Pim would come charging in thinking something was wrong. But, staying true to his word, Pim seemed to be staying back until she gave the signal. The signal being her brandishing her knives, or said knives being forcefully taken from her. Hopefully his nerves would steal so that she would have more time to gather intel on these people.

"Though I'm sure your friend told you already," The man in front of her was saying. "I am Dawa Yul-Neshyenyer."

He paused for a moment as if expecting Inej to say something, acknowledge him somehow. Instead, she continued to stare him down looking directly into his eyes. The longer she looked the more unnerving his returned un-wavering gaze became, but Inej would not be the first to back down.

Continuing their staring contest, Dawa started speaking again. "Well, in case you are having a similar thought process to your compatriots, I would strongly urge you to avoid trying to jump us somehow. I would like to believe that someone as poised and skilled as yourself, someone so similar to our own order, would be above such things. But I suppose that I can't assume such things given your... unedified background."

Inej could tell that Dawa wanted to illicit any sort of response from his challenging raised eyebrow and his petty insults, but she wouldn't give it to him. He was going to have to work much harder than that. From his reaction to her silence, she couldn't tell if he was impressed or annoyed at her restraint.

"Regardless, you're probably wondering what in the world we want to talk to you about that would be worth all this hassle, but we'll get to that later. For right now, why don't we go somewhere to sit. You look incredibly uncomfortable all bent up like that. Come, come. I'll show you to my quarters."

The guards released her, the girl to her left doing so only after a second's hesitation, and let her stand up. Dawa turned on his heal and started heading to the door that led below deck, but his words stuck with her. "Wait," Inej called, her words causing Dawa to look back with an air of triumph in his face. "What about the people you're holding hostage? My friend told me that Wylan is in pretty bad shape."

Dawa glanced up as if pondering the question. "Wylan.. Wylan... Oh you must mean the scrawny bleeding one. Yes, he'll be fine for now. But all in good time, all in good time. Now, let's go talk about more important matters, shall we?"

Inej resisted the urge to strangle the man then and there but instead opted to follow him complacently, at least for now. She was worried about her friends, but she couldn't help them if she didn't know for sure what she was up against. Unlike Kaz, she knew that intel on these people would be the difference between life and death, success and failure. As they made their way across the ship and down the stairs to the lower deck, she took in every detail that she could. Aside from the two guards she'd been greeted with, there was at least one more in the crows nest above and one sitting on a barrel at the end of the lower deck hallway. As far as ships go there was nothing special about this one neither above nor below. The boat was just a small, standard schooner with only four doors along the hallway below deck and an open area behind the stairs. 

All of the doors were closed, but Dawa instinctively went to the door closest to the stairs, holding the door open for her and signaling for the guards that had followed us to stay outside. Just before he shut her off in his quarters, Inej heard a low groan coming from the door down and across the hall from them and she whipped around to run to the sound of it, but the door slammed shut in her face.

Dawa clucked his tongue, "Patience my dear Wraith. We must talk first, remember? Come sit."

Begrudgingly Inej turned back around to face him, using every ounce of her will to not rip the door open and check on her friends. If the short, pompous, little man talked down to her one more time, she wasn't sure she would be able to keep it in. Over the years she had become skilled at not showing emotion or getting easily riled up, but this man made her want to punch a wall— again— despite only knowing him for such a short time. Her wrapped fingers pulsed painfully at the thought of it, but some side of her still figured it would be more than worth it to knock a few of Dawa's perfect teeth out.