I n e j
Jesper likely had no idea how grateful Inej was to be told she could walk above her friends. Granted, he was most likely joking but Inej took advantage of the opportunity anyways. It had been months since she was able to finally get some peace and quiet away from the crew that lived alongside her on her ship, or the prisoners that were kept beneath her. There was no sound of crashing waves against the hull, no strong smell of sea salt in her nose. Inej was so caught up on comparing her ocean life to the one she had in the Barrel, she was surprised of how badly she had missed Ketterdam that she didn't realize she had made the entire walk without even thinking and was standing on top of the Van Eck's roof.
By the time Inej unlocked, slid open, and climbed through one of the house's many windows, she finally noticed how long of a trip she must have taken. Usually she was the first one to arrive due to the rooftops being the fastest route to anywhere in the city. This time, Inej walked into the living room with the seats full of the faces of her friends looking back at her, clearly puzzled by her late arrival.
After a moment of silence while standing in the doorframe, Wylan burst from his seat and ran to greet Inej in a tight hug. So many hugs, Inej thought as she remembered the first time Jesper hugged her and she had flinched. She's a lot better with physical contact than she was two years ago when she left the Menagerie, but sometimes she couldn't help the surge of terror that ran through her. Wylan didn't seem to notice how stiff her spine was as he let her go and smiled from ear to ear.
"So," Wylan said eagerly while running a hand through his red curls. "How many slavers did you catch?"
"Just thirteen," Inej responded, shrugging slightly.
"'Just'?! Inej that's great news," Jesper added while sitting on one of the many couches. "I saw some of the prisoners as they walked away from Fifth Harbor. What did you do, starve them in the hull?" he continued, his constant smirk turning into a full smile.
"It would have been more but we came across a few... complications," Inej said while looking into the distance. "There are still so many bad people out there that need to be caught. I can't stand to think about the same thing that happened to me happening to other girls."
"Good thing you have a map with detailed lists of all the routes slavers travel," Kaz said while looking down at his boots shyly.
"What?" Jesper and Wylan said at the same time, both looking equally as stunned by the news. Nina knew all about the map Kaz had given Inej. "Where did you get that?" Wylan added.
The night before Inej left, while her and Kaz were sitting on the roof of the Slat, Kaz had given her a departing gift.
"Do you know where you're going first?" Kaz asked, looking up and meeting Inej's soft gaze. Her long brown hair had gotten loose from its braid, and her hood had fallen down from a gust of wind.
"We're heading to Ravka first, of course. I have to drop my parents off. And then while we're there we are hoping to gather some information on what their ships have been bringing in and which ships have been carrying some suspicious cargo," Inej said as she grabbed her hood and brought it back up and over her head again. "Specht says we're likely to cross the True Sea to Novyi Zem and then to The Wandering Isle. But besides that, I'm not sure."
"Ever since you told me you were leaving, I needed Roeder to prove his worth as my new spider," Kaz said nonchalantly. Like he was trying to hide his disappointment. I'm just a valuable investment, Inej had thought. He reached into the hidden inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a tattered and folded piece of paper. "His first task," Kaz continued, "was to gain information from all the sailors in the harbors and to find out which ships are going where and what they are and aren't bringing back to Kerch. I've highlighted the routes of ships that Roeder suspects are full of slavers."
"Kaz, I-"
"Inej, just let me give you this. I know you don't deserve a cruel, selfish Bastard of the Barrel but -"
"Saints, Kaz, you have proven time and time again that you are not selfish. Why won't you let people see that?" It was a pointless argument that the two had had many times since Inej's parents arrived. An argument that always ended with silence on each end.
Inej had moved from the doorframe and lowered herself to the floor, leaning against the wall with her legs crossed. "I'm the Wraith, Wylan. Do you really need to ask me where I got something?" Inej said as she crossed her arms across her chest and raised one of her dark brows in a look of defiance. Inej was particularly good at covering for Kaz when it came to the Dregs, it had become second nature.
Inej forgot what it was like to be around friends and not just her deckhands. She didn't need to bark orders at the people sitting in front of her.
"So, when are you going to tell us who messed up your pretty Suli face?" Jesper asked while raising an eyebrow, expectantly.
"Oh, this little thing?" Inej responded playfully while pointing to her new scar. "One of the slavers decided to put up a bit of a fight. You should see the other guy," she said with a smirk.
"Oh please, Inej. Specht said she went full Dirtyhands on this guy. If he wasn't caught with a group full of stolen girls in his boat, you might have actually felt sorry for him," Nina conceded while crossing her arms. "Tell us the real story."
By then, everyone was sitting eagerly waiting for Inej to continue her story. Even Kaz was still, all but flexing his ungloved hand over his cane. Huh, Inej thought, I wonder how long he hasn't been wearing his gloves. Even one of the members of the maid staff stood still in the background, patiently waiting to find out the fate of the slaver who tried to take a crack at the Wraith.
"Alright, fine," Inej said finally, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes. "It was the middle of the night when one of my lookouts noticed there was a ship off in the distance. A storm had just passed so we jumped on the opportunity to catch some slavers while it wasn't raining. We decided to play dumb to the sailors on board the other ship as we sailed closer to them, but before we got too close, we took down our sails and pretended as if they had been ruined in the storm that came through just a few hours prior. We were yelling and waving our hands," Inej threw her hands in the air to act out the scene she was retelling. "As if we needed help from these men, and once they saw me and a few other of the female deckhands, well, I guess they decided that helping would benefit them more than it would us. Obviously, they were wrong," she said with a smirk. "Once we tied our boats together, we boarded onto theirs with our guns and knives hidden below our wool jackets. They were fools, probably the stupidest lot we had encountered so far.
"Specht would always pretend he was the captain, it made it so much easier to gain the trust of other crews when they believed that the owner of The Wraith was a man." At that, Kaz made a small sigh, causing Inej to finally look at where he was resting by the window.
He was sitting in the reading nook below the wide bay window in Wylan's living room. His brown hair looked disturbed, like he had been running his hands through it recently. When was the last time he got a haircut? He had his legs up and resting in front of him on the shelf. His left arm was placed across his torso while the other was clutching so hard to the top of his cane, his knuckles had turned white. He wore the same businessman type suit he always wore, tailored perfectly to fit his lean, muscular build. He clenched his jaw tightly as he leaned his head back against the wall of his nook. She couldn't help but wonder when the last time he slept was.
"That was the worst mistake they ought to have made," Kaz said shaking his head and meeting Inej's intense gaze. For a brief second, Inej forgot where she was and became entranced by Kaz's bitter coffee brown eyes.
"Pity the fool," Jesper added. The faces staring back at Inej were mesmerized in her story, silently pleading for her to continue.
"Pity the fool," Inej repeated under her breath, nodding slightly before resting her head against the wall again. "After a short exchange between their captain and Specht, one of their deckhands grabbed me from behind and pinned me against a beam of wood. I could sense the attack coming but let it happen anyways. It was much more fun to act like they had gotten the best of us," she said with a snort. "After pretending like we were lambs oblivious to the fact that we had just walked ourselves into a den of wolves, I gave my crew a whistle that signalled them to attack, and in just a few seconds we had their entire crew kneeling on the deck with knives on their throats. Alexis, one of our new lookouts-" Inej paused at the thought of Alexis.
Alexis had been one of the slaves they freed from the first boat they over took. She was a young girl from Ravka with light brown hair and wide, beady eyes surrounded by thick black lashes. Her skin was as soft as Inej's. She was beautiful and no doubt would have found her way into a pleasure house if Inej hadn't liberated her from the ship she was stuck on.
"Well, she didn't have a great hold on the guy she was holding at knife point and he... he got the best of her." It was hard for Inej to admit that Alexis had lost her grip on her knife for just a second. A second that had cost her life. The man Alexis was holding had broad shoulders, arms as thick as tree trunks, and a face that was covered in too many scars to count. He reminded Inej of Oomen. He easily over powered Alexis, and in the blink of an eye, she was pushed to the floor with her own knife stabbed through her heart.
Inej and her crew knew what to do in the case that one of their own died: Kill them all. Every single member with a knife to their throat had their necks slit in no time. She wasn't proud of it, but she knew it had to be done. I've done worse, she thought. Had she? Inej wanted to become a myth, part of a bedtime story parents would tell their kids before going to sleep. She wanted slavers to be too scared to try and take young children from their homes. But to do that, Inej had to be ruthless. She had to prove to her own crew that no one got the best of them without consequences. Inej would lay down her life for her team, she had to show them that.
The Oomen lookalike had gotten up from Alexis' body and was covered in her blood, holding her knife in his right hand. He had turned to Inej and made a run at her. Fake Oomen swung out with the hand holding the stolen knife, and sliced through Inej's face, cutting open her forehead and brow, deep and true. Inej had stumbled backwards, with blood gushing into her eye. He made a second advance at Inej, but she easily ducked under it, swung around, allowing herself to face his back.
All Inej could see was the lifeless body of someone she couldn't save. She saw red. Something dark inside her had woken up and a monster was out to play. Is this what it's like for Kaz? Instead of going for the direct kill, Inej wanted this man to feel pain. She wanted him to suffer. She ducked and slashed her own knives at the backs of his thighs and then kicked her leg out to push him onto his knees. The force was so strong, he flew forwards and had to catch himself with his hands. Now he was on all fours.
Inej jumped from where she was crouched and promptly knocked over the wounded man so he was laying on his back. Then she unsheathed the knives she kept at her wrists and plunged each of them through Oomen's lookalike's hands, deep into the wood deck below them. His screams filled her ears. She had been merciful when she crawled through Pekka Rollins window and gave him one good slash with her knife above his heart. She wasn't going to be merciful now.
"Ppp... pplea... please," the man stuttered while trying to get the words out in between sobs.
"I like it when men beg," Inej said, smiling down at his blood and tear stained face. "Do it some more."
Inej remembered what Kaz had done to the real Oomen when she had been stabbed while trying to leave for the Ice Court, and had a sudden burst of inspiration. The man couldn't form words, he just whimpered and threw his head around as if looking for someone to save him. No one would save him.
"Look at me," she said to the lookalike as she grabbed his chin and forced his face to look up at her. "I'm going to be the last thing you ever see." And at that, she gouged one eye out with her bare hand, and threw it over board. The eyeball landed with a soft plunk in the water. And then she did the same to the next. The man was screaming so loudly now, Inej couldn't hear her own thoughts.
Once blind, Inej stabbed his torso six times, each time forcing the dagger to reach as deep as it could. And then finally she plunged the knife through his heart. She couldn't tell if the screams she heard in her nightmares were from the man she just brutally murdered, or from the members of her crew.
Inej hadn't felt so much anger ever before in her life. And luckily, she hasn't felt it since. Alexis was the only person aboard The Wraith that died along their journey. After that incident, Inej's deckhands had treated her differently. She couldn't figure out if it was because they were afraid of her now or if it was because they respected her more.
"Inej?" Nina asked, her brows furrowed with concern plastered all over her face, forcing Inej to come back to reality. "Are you alright?"
"Saints," Inej stopped to give her head a quick shake. "I must have zoned out," she added before taking a deep breath and continuing with her story. "Anyways, the guy who killed Alexis came for me next and got me in the face with a knife before I was able to kill him." She talked about death now so casually, she wondered whether or not her Saints would ever forgive her.
"That's not what Specht said-" Nina started to say before Inej cut her off.
"Specht was occupied, he doesn't know what happened," Inej snapped. She didn't mean to be rude to Nina, but the thought of Alexis dying had put her in a bad mood. Nina wasn't there, she didn't know what happened. Inej wanted to keep the brutal details from her friends because she thought they would look at her differently or treat her differently. She had taken a page out of Dirtyhands' book and she wasn't proud of it.
"I'm sorry, Nina. I didn't mean to snap at you like that," Inej said after seeing the surprised and sad look that washed over Nina's face. "I just don't like thinking about losing Alexis."
After that, no one said anything. Well, no one except a member of the kitchen staff informing the crows that dinner would be ready soon.