Damage & Decay

Chapter 42

Part Four: Family Business

"Fear is only as deep as the mind allows."

----

"Who are you?" Nix asked, but at the same time Eren spoke her name.

"Mikasa!"

The girl stiffened, and the bloody spear swung around in his direction. Her hazel eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

Eren held up his hands. "No, wait . . . I'm Eren Jaeger."

She showed no sign of recognition.

"I'm Armin Jaeger's brother."

The girl said nothing.

"My brother, Armin . . . He knew George!"

If he had struck her across the face, he could not have changed her expression more quickly. The suspicion vanished to be replaced by shock.

"G--George?"

She spoke the name, as if her throat was dusty from disuse, and Eren realized that in a very real way it probably was. Almost immediately her suspicions returned, and the tip of the spear rose another inch, level with his eye.

"Where?" she demanded. "George."

Nix glanced at Eren, putting things together very quickly. "Is this her?"  she whispered.

"George!" the Lost Girl prompted with a shake of her spear. Her voice was still a husky whisper, and Eren remembered that horrible story that Dot Pixis had told him of how Mikasa had started screaming when the men in that little cottage had been forced to kill her mother after she'd reanimated as a zombie.

She screamed herself raw, and then she stopped talking.  Those screams must have damaged her vocal cords for good, leaving her with a voice like a graveyard whisper.

God.

"I . . . don't know where he is," Eren said quickly. "My brother knew him. He helped George look for you."

"Look? For . . . me?" It was clearly hard for the girl to form sentences. It was a skill that she'd lost over time. Eren could not imagine going for years without speaking to anyone. In some odd way that was as bad as living out here in the zombie wasteland.

"When the bounty hunters took you and your sister from George, he started looking for you." Eren risked taking a slight step toward her, despite the threat of the deadly spear. "He never stopped, Mikasa. George never stopped looking for you. And for Annie."

At the mention of her sister's name, Mikasa's eyes filled with tears, but her mouth tightened into a bitter line.

"Mikasa, listen to me. The men who hurt you, the men who hurt Annie and George . . ."

"Eren," Nix said softly. "Don't . . ."

"Those same men hurt Nix's mother." He turned his head for a second to indicate Nix. "They hurt her . . . and she died."

Mikasa held her ground, eyes boring into his.

"And they killed my brother." Eren licked his lips. "Those men took the people we al loved. They took from each of us." As Eren said it, he realized that he did love Armin. As troubled and confused as their relationship had once been, Eren felt an ache that went all the way to the core of his heart. "They hurt all of us, Mikasa. Do you understand? All of us." He leaned on the last word and saw how it worked on her, changing her eyes and the line of her mouth. The spear tip wavered ever so slightly.

"Us," he repeated. "You . . . Nix . . . me. Us."

Eren waited for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest, and then took another step forward. The tip of the spear was inches from his face now. Moving very slowly, hands open, eyes fixed on Mikasa's, he reached up and touched the point where the Marine Corps bayonet was attached to the shaft of the spear. He pushed it aside, and the Lost Girl allowed it.

After a moment she stepped back and lowered the weapon.

"Us," she said.

"Us," agreed Eren.

After a moment Nix said, "Us."

Abruptly the Lost Girl stiffened and looked over the rail. Eren and Nix looked as well, but if there was something to see, they didn't see it. Mikasa, however, did.

"Go," she snapped. "Now. Now!"

Without waiting to see if they followed, she spun around and climbed down the ladder as quickly and smoothly as a monkey. Nix followed, but Eren lingered for a moment, looking at the man he'd killed.

"Eren!" Nix called.

"Wait. Give me a second," he said. "I have work to do."

He took the weapons from the dead men, stripping off Turk's gun belt and buckling it around his narrow waist. The gun was heavy, but the weight was comforting. He left the shotguns. They were big and clumsy, and he had never fired one before. Now didn't seem like the time to fool around with unfamiliar weapons. However, he took Skins's knife. It was not as good as Armin's double bladed dagger or the hunting knife Eren had lost back at the field, but it would do.

Eren knelt beside the corpse for a second, the naked blade in his hand.

"This is probably cutting you a break," he muttered, "but we may need this place again."

With that he plunged the tip of the blade into the back of the man's neck, right below the skull. Quieting him. He pulled the blade free, lips curled in disgust, and then repeated the process with Turk. Then he wiped the blade clean on Turk's shirt, slid the knife into the sheath on the gun belt, and climbed down to catch up with Nix and Mikasa. His mind churned with what he had just done. Closure, of a kin, although it felt more like taking out the garbage than giving peace to the dead. Either way it was necessary work.

All part of the family business.