to remember a girl / a gun —「andal, for jack.」

When he gets to district nine, they forbid him to explore on his own.

Tensions are rising in the streets, or whatever lie they told him. Andal only nods. He pictures Jack growing up in this place, a place he only needs to see fragments of to put together a cohesive picture: close-knit roofs smeared with soot, cracked windows in every other house, and a general sense of … danger. Of instability. Looking at Nine, it feels like it doesn’t need the help of any explosive to collapse in on itself.

I’ll fix it all, he muses to himself, looking out the tinted glass. Even if it means taking out the place brick by ancient brick, even if it means destroying everything to rebuild from the ruins, he’d do something to help Nine. To keep the memory of Jack greatly preserved.

Throughout the months, he has been turning her death over and over like a stone worn down to smooth edges, mulling it over, poring on it, dissecting it like the insides of an engine. Katrina killed her. Their leader. Katrina, who was blade first in retaliation every time someone attacked Jack. Katrina, who giggled and laughed with her, even flirted with her that one time.

Katrina, another person who let the monster win.

It was foolish to have been surprised. Did he really count on the kindness of a girl who’d been taught to kill before they were coerced into it? Was he that stupid? On some days, he is. His stupidity exceeds absurdly tall heights. He was stupid to have slept through that night, to let Jack face Katrina alone, and he is stupid now to be feeling sorry over her. To be missing her bright, mischievous eyes. Andal wonders if he would have done the same. Wonders if it was him against Jack, he would have unleashed the wolf upon her, too, all teeth and claw.

He doesn’t let himself answer. The gloves around his hands suddenly feel hot, the skin beneath them growing slick with sweat. He should take them off. He can’t take them off. Better to let them stew in hand sweat than see what lingers there. Eager for a distraction, he squints at his surroundings, watching the town square color the spaces beyond the cobblestoned road with a varied palette of the greys and browns of street vendors, reds and whites of the posters warning against the Rose Plague, and blues and purples of banners carrying Storm’s name like insignia. There’s a lump of something rises in his throat at their sight.

Storm Adroxis had something Andal lacks: a legacy. He has read of his lineage, the gunmetal legacy, and surely that is a victor someone would want from a lower district, someone with history. To replace that with a monstrous boy who has strange pains in his gums and a lingering curse within him is to bring down the value. But he is here, now. He survived.

At least that is something they will have to acknowledge when they see him.

Still though, it isn’t enough. The work has really just started, and the waters he navigates now are different; they are not filled with malice like the black lake’s, but rather a thousand social etiquettes and banters that Andal just doesn’t understand. Chiara would have. Perhaps even Elvena would have. That doesn’t change the fact that both girls are ashes and he’s here, trying not to throw up over the cushions as the car picks up speed.

“Stop,” he tells the driver half-way. They look at them through the rearview mirror. “Sir, we are not quite at the Adroxis home yet.”

“Stop,” he repeats. “It’s good weather for walking, so I’ll take that route.” A glove hand reaches for the handle, only for him to hear the locks click in place.

Andal’s eyes move to meet the driver’s in the mirror.

“Apologies, but I am under strict instructions to bring you to the Adroxis home, not for a stroll. The streets are not safe.”

Safe. He almost laughs at the word.

“Do you know that when your throat gets ripped out, you usually die after a period of time instead of instantaneous?”

The driver stills.

“Yeah. The windpipe—without it, you suffocate. It kills a person slow.”

He hears again the strangled gasp Cantara made in her last moments.

The door unlocks with a click. Andal doesn’t say anything else, no words of gratitude, only moving to leave the vehicle. When you’re a monster, you didn’t need to waste your time doing more monstrous things than what was needed.

Air as cold as gunmetal wraps him in its icy embrace. Yet he trudges ahead, the cold nothing but a murmur on his skin now. Along the way, Nine creaks and groans around him, carrying on despite its current condition. That reminds him of Jack. Walking here, spotting the wildflowers that grow out of cracked pavements, he can’t help but almost feel her presence tailing him, saying obscenities, looking for opportunities, and living despite it all, for the hell of it all.