Conspiracies Against Me // Levi Ackerman

2. Coward

As an officer leads Eileen to what she assumes is a holding cell, the sound of a quiet whimper catches her attention. She looks up to see a small boy no older than ten, behind him stands an older woman, she assumes his mother. The boy's round, unsullied brown eyes are shining with tears as he wipes his snotty nose with the back of his hand. 

She notices that his brown eyes and dirty blond hair are too similar to Flinn's as she makes the connection. 

Left behind a small boy and a widow.

"Mom..." He whines when his dad's killer gapes at him. He clutches his mom's blouse, begging to be saved while he looks up at her.

She knows Eileen is right in front of them, and pays no attention as she bends down to her son, using a hanker chief to dry his tears.

She anticipated Mrs. Flinn to spew words of abhorrence. She only feels disappointment when she realizes that she wasn't going to pay her any recognition, instead tending to her wailing son. 

Her wrists are bound behind her back by a chain now. The officer grips her forearm harshly, the one already bruised and throbbing from a couple days prior. He urges her down a hallway before they're travelling down a flight of stairs where the light continues to get dimmer. They reach the bottom and take a couple steps before they reach her cell. 

The chambers are made with exposed brick and ashen concrete, only big enough to fit a small bed made for one. A wooden bucket sits in the corner, unwashed from the previous occupants stay.

He drags the heavy metal bars of the cell open with his free arm, and moves her forward by ramming  the middle of her back with his firearm. She stumbles inside with a grunt as she hears the sound of the cell being closed again.

"Would it kill you to be a little less rough? I'm not exactly fighting you, am I?" She rubs the area on her back she was jabbed.

"Ha!" He lets out a sarcastic laugh before responding harshly. "Should be lucky you got me here with you, bitch. I've got a lot of friends who would do worse."

She turns around to face him. "Yeah, of course I know that. You know I had good reason to do what I did. It's insane how you all lie to yourselves."

"Maybe you should just shut your trap, women like you sticking your nose where it don't belong, such a fucking bother." He huffs.

She feels the tips of her ears burn and doesn't have a chance to counteract before he's speaking again. "Just stay put, someone should be coming to get you soon. Have fun getting eaten out there." After that, he's on his way back up the stairs.

The Scout Regiment. She remembers.

It sends a shiver through her body, one that travels to the back of her head where an all too familiar feeling of anxiety settles. She sits on the flimsy bed with a sigh, letting her upper half lean over, fatigued. 

If her hands were available, she'd be pushing her palms against her eye sockets in frustration like she usually does when her thoughts become uncontrollable.

When she graduated the Cadet Corps, she'd chosen the Garrison regiment for two very simple reasons. One, she didn't rank high enough in her class to be recruited into the Military Police straight out of graduation. Two, there was no way in hell she'd be following her suicidal classmates footsteps in joining the Survey Corps.

She's interacted with the division plenty of times, instances where she watches their return from outside the walls. The rickety wagons damaged from missions that barely withstood the weight of dead bodies piled on. The faces of soldiers who, took an oath to fight for humanities freedom, only came back evermore defeated than before.