Maybe this is what Iko wants. Maybe he wants to crush me before he meets me. Maybe he wants everyone I know dead. Or, at the very least, everyone whom I dared to bring with me. Maybe Plato... the rat... Celine... maybe they'd all be alive...
If I hadn't...
Or maybe everyone in the Dauphine... for all I know, they could be... could...
No. No. Don't think like that, Dragomir. Pull yourself to-fucking-gether. This isn't the time to freak out. You... you can't do this. Not when your remaining friends are still alive.
Jeffrey's a wreck. He was a wreck on Friday and he's a wreck today. No doubt he'll be a wreck tomorrow, and Wednesday, for the rest of the week, and maybe for the rest of his life. I don't think anyone could ever recover from the death of a child. Possibly two. We've heard nothing from Logan, nor is there any sign that he's still attempting to sabotage the Nothing.
The only positive here is that we now have extra supplies to split between Grylock, Jeffrey, and myself. Celine and Logan left theirs behind. Lots of food, lots of water... that should be comforting to me, but under the circumstances...
At first, Grylock was... understanding. As understanding as Grylock ever gets. He gave Jeffrey his space to grieve on Friday, and even this morning. But Jeffrey is locked in shock, virtually comatose, and when he stalled our progress from one hiding place to another Grylock opened his cancerous little mouth.
"Move!" Riding on my shoulders, Grylock smacked the side of my head with his poisonheart's scabbard rather weakly, as though I were at fault. "Don't have... time... for this shit! We have te hide 'fore we're as flat as yer little girl!"
I suspect Grylock wanted to get a rise out of Jeffrey. It didn't work. Sagging dangerously low, Jeffrey collapsed in the middle of the road between two rows of buildings. He sobbed out the names of his children, then began to pound at his forehead with both hands. When I leaned over to help him up - not easy with an irate goblin on your shoulders - I heard him whispering "My fault, my fault, my fault" to himself, a constant litany of self-loathing.
In other words, Jeffrey might as well have gone missing with the rest. He's useless to the party.
I've given up on meeting Iko. All I want to do at this point is survive. If I ever do come across the old man... if I'm blessed with the opportunity... I'll have absolutely no regrets when I do what I came to do. My fingers will go for his neck at the first opportunity.
After Ed, I wondered if I could still do all this. Now I know I can.
Dragomir
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