I don’t know if the metaphor makes sense—literary bullshit is Kiki’s thing, not mine—but I don’t much care. “Yeah, well, that was different. We came out for a reason, Kiki. To get answers. Or have you decided you don’t care anymore?”

I don’t know if it’s the right thing to say or very, very wrong, but either way, it gets her out of her chair and onto her feet. “How dare you?”

“Yeah, how dare I? How dare I try to keep you from drinking yourself into an early grave before we’ve even had a chance to speak to the one person who might be able to give us ans—”

I don’t get to finish my sentence because all of a sudden, a fist—Kiki’s fist—is hurtling right toward my face.

Kiki

I don’t know what comes over me in that moment. There is no reason good enough to justify it. It happens, as if some demon harpy is piloting my body.

I do what I have never done outside of our sparring sessions.

I take a swing at her.

The moment seems to slow as time goes oddly lugubrious. Ana’s eyes widen, then narrow.

She steps to the side, as deft as ever.

The edge of her coat brushes against my fist as I fall forward, pulled along by the force of my own sloppy punch.

Well, shit.

My hand hits the ground first, followed quickly by my cheek. The rough wood scrapes my skin, drawing blood. Something bubbles up inside me. For a moment, I fear I am going to be sick. That Ana will leave me here and I will drown in a puddle of my own vomit. But what comes out of my mouth isn’t the regurgitated sins of my very recent past. No. It is laughter.

I laugh into the floor, aggravating the scrapes on my face. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

At some point, the laughter changes. It morphs into something darker, something uglier.

My face is sticky, probably with the remnants of decades of ale and spit and whatever else has soaked into these floorboards. But tears, too. My own.

A strong arm wraps around my middle, pulling me up to my feet. I sag against the chest of whoever is holding me. Ana, I presume. But the part of me that cared is soaking into those floorboards too, left behind after seeping through the cracks of whatever has broken in me.

“Come on.” Ana’s words are a balm against my ear as she steers my useless form out of the tavern. “Let’s go home. You’re no good to anyone like this. We’ll try again tomorrow when you’re sober.”

This time, I don’t argue. There isn’t much fight left in me even if I wanted to. All I want is to forget any of this ever happened.

Ana