The Slat story

Worried

"Hey," Inej spoke groggily, her voice breaking like waves upon rough rocks as she forced it free from her too tight throat.

The pale boy she was speaking to barely stirred, his hand twitching where it rested on her bed, fingers out stretched. Inej would have loved to take that hand. If only she could.

"Kaz," she whispered again, nudging his hand with her knee. Kaz seemed to flicker to life. His body jerked back. Taking a second to sit up in the chair he had been sleeping in, slumped forward. His joints gave protesting cracks stiffly and a muffled noise of pain escaped him.

Then those dark eyes which had been foggy and disoriented locked onto hers.
"Hey," Kaz rasped back softly, and Inej allowed herself a small smile. Normally Kaz's lips quirked up in a partial smile, a smirk that aired on the side of smug, one that she shouldn't have found as sweet as she did.

Instead, Kaz's eyes darkened and it was like a cloud pulled over his expression. He pulled his chair closer, sitting with his back to the door so that he could properly face her. Inej reaches her hand out, and without hesitance it's cradled in his.
"Thought I lost you," his rough gravelly voice seemed to fracture under the weight of those words.
"It'll take more then a couple of slavers to kill me." Kaz's coffee black eyes went from upset to lethal in a heartbeat.

"They're dead, Kaz." She tried to console his clearly worried mind, running her thumb across the back of his gloved hands.
"What does it matter? More will come." Inej scowled and he matched it, letting go of her hand to pull back into a more defensive position.
"I can handle myself."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
"Then what is it Kaz!" Inej huffed, frustrated.

Kaz watched her, obsidian gaze assessing the damage that had been done to her in that week. Three broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and a nasty tear through the majority of the muscles in her right leg. That wasn't to mention the bruising that speckled across her body in dark purples and blacks.

Just as he opened his mouth to give her his answer, the door was violently pushed out of the way.
"You had one job, Brekker! To tell us when Inej woke." Nina bit out, but there was a smile on her face as she raced to Inej's side.

"Don't hurt her," Kaz growled, brandishing his cane as a threat. Nina glared back as Inej sighed. "Stop."
"See? She has enough love for both of us. No need to be so greedy and overprotective."
"You have a husband." Kaz responded back, calm but icy. Nina merely shrugged and gave Inej a overly exaggerated, slow hug that wasn't even a squeeze.

Despite the squabbling, Inej was grateful that a Nina bear hug hadn't crushed her ribs, though she doubted Nina would have done such a thing anyway.
"Jesper and Wylan are on their way," Nina remarked, pulling over the only other chair in the hospital room so she was situated on Inej's other side.

"How did this even happen?" She questioned, Kaz feigned disinterest, though the act was wasted on the two girls he shared the room with.
"The slavers coordinated a ground and sea attack, using young children to lure us into a cove where we could land and get the kids. Men kept us busy on the ground while they took the Wraith.... of the crew on the ship, I believe none are alive." Inej lowered her head, playing with her hands.
"I lost the ship... and some of those kids, there were so many of them. I barely got out with my life and a few of my crew and the innocents..." she felt tears hot on her cheeks. She went to wipe them off but found a gloved hand lightly brushing against her own.

Kaz hadn't quite turned to look at her, but was offering her comfort all the same. Inej gratefully took his offered hand, squeezing it once, before raising her other hand to wipe away her tears.
"I'm sorry, Inej." Nina whispered, Inej nodded.
"It's alright... I have people on the lookout for the wraith. I'll get it back."