Anna spent what felt like hours in the shower, beating herself up about her recklessness. At least we have new information, Marcus had reassured her. Plus, their hoverboard! Simon had added when she told him about her evening. It was progress, sure, but too small a step for her liking. She had a whole team at her command, weapons designed by a renowned scientist, and her parents’ (superficial) support. What’s the point if she can’t do anything good with her wealth and talents? Where did all that those years of training go if she’s still not good enough? And what’s the good of having been saved that night if she’s back to being Adrian’s little pawn?
Now here she is, locking gilded brass doors and drying herself with a gold-lined towel in front of a fogged mirror larger than the blackboard in her best friend’s old room.
And the mirror … well, it had a monkey’s face drawn in thick, vandalizing strokes. And Anna recognizes it immediately but takes her five seconds to take in the picture. In ten seconds, she comes to terms with the fact that someone came in here and climbed onto the sink counter just to mock her with their silly signature. Unlike the rest, however, this monkey was winking.
This one is behind her.
Blue eyes, Anna notes. This Zeevonk has blue eyes and long blue hair.
Her heart races, heat rushing to her head.
This Zeevonk wears the exact same uniform as … the other? the rest?
As Anna turns to face the intruder, she swiftly scans the room for any sign of danger — a bomb, a trap, anything. But by the time she’s turned around, the Zeevonk is gone.
Anna is at a loss. Her life could end at any time, which she would have happily welcomed if not for the fact that she hasn’t ticked off that one final item on her bucket list. She frantically tosses her uniform on, twisting and stumbling but succeeds in a few seconds. Still dripping in her filthy clothes, she tries to recall where she left her gun as she sprints to her room.
There are drops of blood on the floor. Anna wants to check on her family, but not without any defense. Her weapon is her only hope of surviving.
But she’s too late.
She barrels through the doors to a find her own rifle aimed at her, comfortably in the hands of a motionless Zeevonk at the center of her bedroom.
Anna freezes agape. She can’t tell if the elevated heart the Zeevonk’s or someone else nearby, but her own is surely racing. A criminal is in her room, and she can do nothing to apprehend them. A criminal is in her house, and she can do nothing to protect her family. She dwells on her fear and guilt for a few seconds — more than enough time to have been killed already.
The Zeevonk lowers the gun and tilts her head back and to the side with a devilish glint in her eyes. “Sup, hat lady?”
“You’re in my room.”
Anna could ultimately justify and even forgive the countless banks, laboratories, museums, but her home … A criminal she only knows by codename knows where she lives, where her parents live. The Zeevonk had broken into a councilor’s residence, the same one that she had locked when she left this morning and that she was sure was still locked when she came home. What was she going to do?
What was she going to do?
“I didn’t break in,” she tells Anna matter-of-factly, “Your window was open.”
So, that’s the how, the cop notes in her mind. But why?
“Are you here to kill me?” Anna asks. The Zeevonk has her gun, and that look tells her that this one is very much capable of taking someone’s life.
The stranger frowns, slumping by the window like she actually feels bad for intruding in Anna’s private space. “You’ve been after us for so long. You should know by now we’re better than that.”
“Right.”
“I just wanted to see how you’d react.”
“You’re mean.”
“Thank you.” Her round eyes smile, bright and innocent as she returns Anna’s rifle. The Zeevonk’s heart rate — Anna finally identifies — lowers as though she finds a calming pleasure in the cop’s reaction.
For the first time, Anna finds the Zeevonk terrifying, but she’s not about to show weakness before this psycho. Instead, she releases a slow breath as her rifle is gently lowered and leaned against a wall.
“I'm also in a lot of pain,” the Zeevonk adds.
Anna then notices the hand on the woman’s side, a steady flow of blood seeping between her fingers and down her clothes. The cop cautiously approaches, now hearing the shallow, trembling breaths and seeing the slight shiver of her body.
Anna combats her hesitation and strides across the room. “What happened?”
“I got stabbed,” she replies causally. “I’m not as good as my sister.”
Her ‘sister’ …
“So, are you as kind as you seemed earlier or are you gonna let me bleed out in your room?”
… a Scrapper that trusts a Ketherian?
“S-sorry,” Anna gestures for the intruder to take a seat on her desk chair. With a hand lingering over hers, she asks, “May I?”
The Zeevonk nods and removes her bloody hand, hissing when Anna peels the fabric from the wound.
“You know I’m not a doctor, right?”
“Yeah, but you learned first aid, right?”
Of course, a Zeevonk who gets stabbed would insist on having Anna, of all people, to help them.
Anna Verloren, the cop who just so happened to be actively investigating their crimes. It just had to be the very cop who would get in so much trouble if anyone found out about this without her reporting it. The daughter of a councilor, no less.
Anna grabs her first aid kit anyway.
This situation hardly made sense. A thief that she had been pursuing [and failing at apprehending] used whatever energy she had left climbing into a Verloren’s room to seek help because she saw the cop’s failure as a kindness. (Wouldn’t that mean the Zeevonk believes she really could’ve captured them?) Did she not have the means to pay some shady doctor to fix her up in secret? Surely, they had plans for this kind of thing that didn’t involve contacting to someone who’s literally on a mission to lock them up.
“Shouldn’t you be in game night?” Anna asks partly to fill the silence, partly to distract the girl from pain. If anyone catches her, she’ll say it was to gather information.
“I was.”
Anna hums in acknowledgement but doesn’t respond while she’s focused on cleaning the wound.
“We wanted to invite you for next time.”
“What?”
“Well, I wanted to know about your siblings first because you already know about mine. But … it seems you don’t have any.”
“I don’t,” she confirms.
“Does Councilor Simon Nagatomo count?”
“Sorry?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Anna makes a strong effort hide her worry and ignore those blue eyes analyzing her reaction. She goes about setting aside some supplies and gathering what she needs to sterilize a needle without a word.
“My sister thinks you really can help us, but me?” Her eyes narrow. “I don’t trust you yet.”
“Why would I help you? You’ve been damaging and stealing properties. I —”
“We know what it looks like,” the Zeevonk chuckles, “but we’re not the bad guys here. You offered to talk, and we’re willing to listen. If you hear us out too.”
Lips pursed, Anna keeps her hands steady as her fingers brush against a soft, warm stomach that flinches when the disinfectant touches the wound. She steels herself, weighing Simon’s safety as she deliberates whether or not to speak with the sisters. She’ll stitch the wound and let the injured girl go.
And then what? How long before they meet again? Where? What did they have to tell her? What did they know that she didn’t?
When Anna is done, she finds the Zeevonk staring at her mind map on the floor. She clears her throat. “All done.”
“Thanks, hat lady.”
“I have a name.”
“So do I, Sergeant Verloren.” The Zeevonk stands up and approaches the still open window.
Well, that’s better than ‘hat lady’.
“And if you wanna know, meet us where you first met us.” She winks before jumping out of the window, caught by someone else on a hoverboard and lifted immediately out of sight.
Anna should clean up. She should take blood samples to have it ran through the database. She should do a lot of things that didn’t involve listening to the sound of spinning blades fade. She should gather evidence, but she wipes the floor and the rifle clean.