⌜ chapter seventeen ⌟

They had decided that getting some sleep would be a good idea before the day ahead; that's what they're meant to be doing now, but Arya couldn't sleep. She's standing by the open barn door, looking out at the night sky, and she can't get Crowley's voice out of her head.

"I'd reconsider staying with your friends, if I were you."

The brunette turns and looks at the three who are asleep on the ground, laying in different spots on the hay that's covering the barn floor.

"The people you love seem to die protecting you."

She knows that he was right. Whether it be because she's a Salvatore, a Winchester, or just cursed... It's hard to dispute. Her mother died when she was so young, Jo and Ellen are dead, she watched Sam's final moments, now Damon and Stefan are dead too. There's hardly anyone left, and the idea of losing her new friends... It'd be unbearable.

Taking a deep breath, Arya turns away from them and then leaves the barn. She can't say goodbye, they'll never let her go if they know. And she won't think about their reactions when they wake up in the morning to find her missing.

She still has one of Inej's knives, and the gun that she emptied into General Kirigan's kefta. No bullets, but she'll find some. She'll have to. She can make due for awhile. It won't be easy, but she knows how to survive on her own. This isn't the first time, and she's sure it won't be the last.

Arya's walking the rest of the night, and most of the following day until she finds a large campsite full of people. It looks like a camp for soldiers, which means she won't easily blend in, but she has no choice but to stop. Her leg feels like it's on fire, and she hasn't eaten in twenty-four hours. She hasn't slept either, but that last one definitely isn't a possibility any time soon.

Stealing a bit of food from an unobservant few isn't difficult, and then she keeps moving. She's passing behind a large tent when a familiar voice inside makes her stop dead in her tracks.

"How many times do I have to tell you people?" It's General Kirigan. "I'm a man of my word."

"And when does your word mean anything? Black Heretic." A male voice questions. "That's right, I know who you are. And whatever you have planned for Alina, she won't forgive you. And if you keep me alive I will hunt you down, and I will claim the bounty the old king put on your head."

A man who wants General Kirigan dead sounds like a good ally to Arya, especially after she hears a chain rattle. She finds a place nearby to hide, listening to pieces of their conversation. All she needs is an opening to get to the prisoner, that way she can see if he's as good an option for an ally as he sounds, and then she can make him a proposition before breaking him out of his chains.

Their conversation ends with, "I'm not going to kill you, Mal. I don't need to. Time will do it for me." And then Kirigan turns and walks away from him.

There's a rattle of chains again. "You'll wish you killed me here!"

After a bit of time passes, Arya rounds the tent to the front and looks inside. The man sitting near the entrance who's supposed to be guarding the prisoner is obviously asleep, and there doesn't appear to be many others around; no one else inside the tent.

"Pst." The brunette gets the prisoner's attention, and he turns to look at her. She waves, wiggling her fingers, and then she recognizes him.

Soundlessly, the brunette moves past the sleeping guard, and she stands directly in front of the man that she hopes to recruit as help. His eyebrows furrow as he looks down at her.

"You ran into me inside the Little Palace." He whispers.

"Small world." Her voice is just as soft. "You wanna help me kill General Kirigan?"

"What?"

"I overheard your conversation. Sounds like you and I have a common goal." She tells him, and he glances at the guard by the tent's opening. "I can get you out of the chains...if you help me kill Kirigan and get across the Fold."

"Will you help me save Alina?" He asks, and she shrugs.

"Sure, why not? I could do with some good karma." Arya then reaches up and pulls a pin from her hair so that she can pick the locks on his cuffs.

She's careful not to make too much noise with the chains, and then the two leave the tent as quickly and quietly as they can manage. They remain entirely unnoticed by the guard who's been sleeping on the job, and Mal looks down at the brunette once they're hidden a little ways away.

"You wanna tell me why you brought the chains?" He asks, and she smirks as she looks up at him.

"Oh, I wish Jesper were here." She lets out a low chuckle.

"What?"

"They're a weapon, Einstein." Arya tells him. "I have one knife and zero bullets. I wanted a little more to use as self-defense." She explains, and then a goat a few feet away from them gets her attention. Her eyebrows furrow as she looks at it, and he follows her gaze.

"It's just a goat."

"I see that, dumbass." She mutters. "Around his neck."

He squints as he tries to make out the small object. "Is that a bullet?"

"Milo." The teenage girl chuckles as she kneels down and lures him over with the last of the food she stole before. "You beautiful, beautiful boy." She pets his head as she pulls the necklace from him and stuffs it into her pocket.

"I think I can find us a little more firepower than that." Mal tells her.

"Lead the way."

"They're taking the skiff across the Fold tomorrow." He says as they move through the camp; he seems to know what they're looking for. "We have to sneak onto it."

"Easy." Arya smiles. "Getting into places I'm not supposed to be is a bit of a specialty of mine."

» » » « « «

Arya was able to get a bit of sleep the night before, and now she and Mal are on the skiff, sailing through the Fold. They're sitting in the back, below deck, when they hear the footsteps of people coming down, and then they hear their hushed voices.

"Shit." The brunette mutters, and Mal looks down at her. "Stay out of sight, keep quiet, and do not, under any circumstances, attack them. You will lose." Her voice is barely loud enough for him to hear, but he nods before she moves away from him.

Jesper groans after they hear a volcra above them. "This is a bad idea." He says, tinkering with his guns.

"I think it's rather practical." Kaz tells him from where he's standing about a foot away.

"What? Why?"

"I don't see how we step off this boat without you pulling those guns." He says, and Jesper chuckles. "So, cleaning them's a good idea."

"I don't mean this." He holds up one of his guns. "I mean this." He motions to the skiff, and they hear the volcra again. "We are in the worst place in the world, on a ship full of people who want us dead, surrounded by monsters who want us in their gullets, without Arya. Oh, I should've brought Milo."

"Who's Milo?" Inej questions.

"The goat."

"Arya made her decision; she chose to leave us." Kaz reminds him. "What did you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know. Maybe not betray her by leaving her for dead with the Black General so she stopped trusting you." Jesper shoots him a pointed look, and his jaw tightens.

"How many bullets do you have?" He asks, changing the subject.

"Not enough." He twirls one of his guns around his index finger as they all look up, hearing another of the volcra. "I would feel so much better if we had Arya with us."

"So would I." Inej takes a deep breath.

The lighting above them soon changes, and they know that Alina must've done something that they can't see from below deck. Kaz is trying to look through the grate, but it's too difficult to tell what happened from his position.

"So... What's our play?" Jesper asks.

"We wait." Kaz says, and he looks up at him.

"For what?"

"For whatever the general has planned."

"You figured him out?"

"Not quite." Kaz looks down as Jesper then rises on his feet. "Consider the scenario. The Sun Summoner fled from his palace, now she's tied to the deck. We're sailing for a city where another Ravkan general hired Arken to kill her. And I saw his face as he boarded." Arya's jaw tightens when Inej starts walking in the direction that Mal's hiding. "I know that look. He's a man consumed with vengeance."

"See it enough in the mirror, do?" Jesper asks, and he looks back at him. "So? What kind of revenge has he planned exactly?"

"We know it requires the Sun Summoner, which makes her valuable to us. She's the one keeping everyone safe in here. If we have control of her, then we call the shots." He says. "We need to threaten her life."

"What?" Mal and Inej both question as they walk over to the other two; Inej has his own gun to his head.

"Who's this?" Jesper looks at Mal. "Who are you?"

"A stowaway." Inej says when he doesn't answer. "Why pick this of all skiffs?" She presses his gun firmer against him, prompting him to speak.

"To kill the general and save Alina." Mal tells them.

"I'll ask again." Jesper says. "Who are you?"

Arya leaves her cover in the shadows, getting her hand on Inej's wrist and pulling the gun from her hand with ease. Inej then quickly pulls a knife, holding it to Arya's throat as she presses Mal's gun into her chest.

"Don't mind him. He's just an idiot." Arya says, all eyes now on her. "Now can we all stop pretending that we're stupid enough to pull a trigger and announce our presence down here?" She raises her eyebrows as she clicks the safety on Mal's gun back on.

Inej lowers the knife in her hand, having pulled it before she saw Arya's face. And Jesper turns the safety of his own gun back on.

Arya turns then and looks up at Mal. "Didn't I tell you to stay quiet?" She reaches up and slaps the back of his head with the barrel of his gun, and he grunts as he glares at her.

"Ow." He takes his gun when she slams it back into his chest. "These are your friends? Didn't you think it was worth mentioning that you have people who want you dead on this skiff?"

"When I found you, you were chained up and being guarded in a tent on a military site. I don't owe you a Goddamn thing." She reminds him. "Besides, last I checked, Kirigan wants you dead, not me. And they'll try to kill us both the second we make a move against him."

"Found a new friend, have you?" Kaz asks, and she looks at him.

"Are you gonna pretend your feelings are hurt?" She questions. "His name is Mal, he's friends with Alina. We're killing General Jerk-Off, saving Alina, and getting across the Fold. I don't give a damn what he does from there. But nobody's hurting him."

"Where have you been?" Jesper asks, concern in his voice. "You shouldn't have taken off on us, especially with the wound in your leg."

"She's hurt?" Mal questions. "Doesn't act like it."

"I'll cry tomorrow. I have a Heretic to kill today." Arya says as she turns away from them, but Jesper grabs her arm and makes her turn back.

"Why did you abandon us for a solo suicide mission?"

"Why do you think he sent his Grisha with the order to bring me back alive? To satisfy his curiosity?" She questions as she looks up at him. "No. He wants me to tell him how to open the door, but I'm not gonna let him get there. My world may already be going to hell in a handbasket, but he is not going there to make it worse. I don't need the Fold in my world. We have enough monsters of our own."

"But why leave us?" Jesper insists. "Because of what Kaz did?"

She grinds her teeth as she looks at him. "You remember that bullet you gave to Milo? To remember you by." She asks, and he nods. Arya pulls the cord from her pocket and lets the bullet dangle between them. "I saw him last night, decided I needed this more than he did."

Jesper gasps as he snatches the bullet from her, letting go of her arm. The brunette turns away from him as he looks back at Kaz. "She's never gonna forgive you." He says, and Kaz shakes his head as she rolls her eyes at his theatrics.

The skiff suddenly stops, and they all look up through the grate. The same light from before is still shining down on them, but they know it should be brighter if they're in Novokribirsk.

"We're not outside the Fold." Arya mutters as Jesper raises his guns. She and Mal glance at each other, the two standing behind the others.

"What is he doing?" Inej questions.

"Shh." Kaz keeps his eyes above them, listening to what's going on up on the deck.

"One more demonstration." They hear General Kirigan. "You've seen what the Sun Summoner can do. Now bear witness to what I can do...with her power."

It seems to get darker above them, and then they hear the terror-filled screams of people in the distance.

"Did he just...make the Fold bigger?" Arya asks, and Jesper and Inej both look at her.

"What now?" Jesper asks as his gaze returns to Kaz.

"We wait." He tells them.

"Kaz, you can hear him slaughtering a city." Inej says as she steps closer to him.

"So you understand the scale of his power then?" He leans toward her. "Good."

"The bold move is to strike now." Mal says as he takes a step forward, earning his attention.

"And the smart one is to get clear of the damned Fold first." Kaz tells him.

He nods once and then turns away from the three of them. Mal's gaze lands on Arya, and she can see the question in his eyes as she looks up at him. The brunette nods before motioning behind her with her head, toward the exit. I'll be right behind you.

"I never said I was smart." Mal tells Kaz as he then walks away from the other four.

"Can you believe him?" Jesper questions as he looks between Arya and Kaz.

"I'm going with him." Inej jogs to catch up with Mal.

Arya looks from Jesper to Kaz, and blue eyes meet her green ones. She turns around to follow after the others, but Kaz quickly reaches out and grabs her arm. "You're not going out there." He shakes his head, jaw tense as he pulls her back a step.

The brunette looks up at him, and she can see the concern in his eyes, but she doesn't care.

"You know, it occurs to me that you really don't know me at all. So allow me to formally introduce myself: my name is Arya Salvatore, my father is Dean Winchester, and I come from a family of hunters. Yes, I steal, cheat, lie, gamble, drink, do all sorts of illegal and unethical things, but most importantly... I kill the evil sons of bitches that kill innocent people. Also, I don't take orders from men. So let go of my arm before I put you on your ass." She tells him, and his expression hardens as he releases her arm. "You can hide down here like a coward, waiting to be clear of the Fold, while innocent people are slaughtered in cold blood. That's your prerogative, but it's never really been my style. I'll see you on the other side." Arya turns around and walks away from Kaz and Jesper, heading up to find Mal and Inej.

"Are you as turned on right now as I am?" Jesper asks, and Kaz grinds his teeth as he watches her disappear.