Shoulda expected that.

Jack coughs up dust and does what the old man used to call the “quick check.” Fingers, toes: yup, they still move. Arms, legs: nothing feels broken. Torso: he unbuttons his barkeep vest and lifts his shirt for inspection, patting his chest and abdomen; nothing sticking in or out of him that shouldn’t be. Head: ears are still ringing, but there’s no metallic taste in his mouth, so no concussion. And most importantly, pain: yeah … he kind of hurts all over. Excellent! Still alive.

Jack staggers to his feet, trying to sort out exactly where he’s landed in the basement. It’s not a particularly large space, but it’s unevenly shaped. The basement was never really dug out in the traditional sense; a more apt description might be that the basement was created by building a bar over a hole in the ground. That hole in the ground—now reconstituted thanks to the fighting—stores the bar’s inventory as well as the “business office,” an old wooden desk with a floor lamp beside it. Behind the desk is a trapdoor that leads to the bar’s sub-basement and Jack’s living quarters.

As he regains his bearings, Jack hears it. A weak cough. It’s coming from behind the desk. Peering through the streaks of light filtered by the dancing dust of the dry basement, he catches a glimpse of her foot before it slides out of view. Jack tightens his grip on Plan B and creeps toward the desk.

She laid out those three mercs like they weren’t anything. She’d rip off my face and wear it like a funny hat, no problem. He pokes his head around the desk, half ready to swing Plan B, half bracing for impact.

Nothing.

She’s not there. No foot, no cough, no girl. Jack stands confused for a tic, but not much longer. He feels Plan B torn from his hand and deftly pulled across his neck in a single flowing move. A knee pushes hard into the small of his back. It takes everything in him to stay on his feet and keep the gun from crushing his throat entirely. Breathing in this position is like trying to snorkel using a drinking straw up your nose.

“Não vão me pegar. Não vão me pegar.”

She mumbles the phrase, repeating it to the point that Jack can’t tell if she’s saying it to him or to herself. He tries to squeeze out a response, a question, a yelp, anything. But it’s not happening. Plan B gets pulled tighter across his neck as the girl drags him to the back wall. He can’t tell if she trips, loses balance, or just gets bored with standing, but they end up collapsing against the wall.

The girl’s grip loosens before the fall, allowing Jack to land without flattening his windpipe. He pushes the old shotgun away and rolls to his side, coughing again.

Holy hell, this is getting old. If I wanted to cough like this, I’d smoke more.

Rubbing his neck, Jack looks back at the girl, slouched against the basement wall with her eyes half-open and lips silently moving to the same mantra she’d been repeating. He does the quick check for her.

Fingers, toes: she doesn’t make noise or any other indication of pain when he bends them. Besides, she had a pretty good grip on Plan B when it was wrapped around his neck.

Arms, legs: she’s got some weird metal bracers covering half her forearms, but aside from that and a few harmless-looking scratches, she seems fine. It doesn’t look like anything’s broken.

Torso: lifting her shirt, he cracks a wide, closed-mouth grin to himself. He stops abruptly when his mind flashes back to mere moments ago. This girl almost killed him, and she may very well have been unconscious for the whole thing. He releases the shirt as if it’s on fire and averts his eyes. Torso’s fine.

He moves on to check her head. Aside from the cut that she had coming into the bar, there doesn’t seem to be any further damage there. Tough to check for a concussion, though.

Jack looks up to the hole between the basement and the main floor of his bar. He holds his breath, listening for any sign of movement up there. Seems quiet.

“Hey! You tasting copper?” Jack keeps his voice low. He doesn’t want to instigate further violence from her, and he certainly doesn’t want to call attention to their location in case anyone up in the bar survived the blast.

“Hey! Who are you?”

The girl’s eyes flutter open briefly. These are not the intense, focused eyes of green fire she had when she was handing those mercs their own asses just moments ago. These eyes whisper fear. Quiet, trapped, disoriented fear.

“Hey! Hey. What’s your name?”

“C-Corva.”

The girl, Corva, closes her eyes and passes out completely, sliding farther down the wall.

Jack gently lowers her head to the ground so she lies flat. He stands and looks around. This isn’t exactly the best place for her to take a nap. It’s pretty exposed. Moving her is a risky call though, for both of them—but mostly for Jack. Some kind of restraints would be nice, but well, beggars, choosers, blah blah blah.

As quietly as he can, he grabs some of the smaller crates in his basement and arranges them around her. It’s not much, but it should be enough to keep her hidden for now.

Straightening up, he looks toward the charred and splintered edges of the hole in his basement’s ceiling—his bar’s floor. It looks like the teeth on some traders who stumble their way into town. Not the slick schmoozy type that try to sell you a sack of sand by telling you it’s “one hundred percent pure, unrefined glass.” No, the really nomadic type. The ones that don’t come in from the empty lands except for a few times a year. The ones with no interest in trading for dental work. They’re just crazy enough to make that trade for the sack of sand and then figure out how to turn it into a window.

Jack turns his attention back to his own appearance: a little tear in his sleeve, a couple scratches in his skin. Dust, grime, and ash everywhere. He rubs his hands over his face. No permanent marks there as far as he can tell. That’s a plus. Quietly as he can, he slaps the dust and ash off his clothes. Even as gentle as he’s doing it, though, there’s still a lot. He has to hold his breath while it settles to avoid inhaling it and going into a third fit of hacking. He waits a second and then takes a quick test breath. Air’s still dusty, but not enough to make him cough.

Satisfied that he can breathe again, he rolls up his sleeves to cover the tear and smooths out the rest of his shirt as best as he can, tucking the ends back into his pants. He pulls his vest straight and re-buttons it down the front. A gift from the old man. The fabric’s tough enough to resist stabs and slices, though maybe not so great against fast-moving projectiles. It’s not much for protection, but it’s better than nothing. At least he’s got a few of his fixins in the pockets. Besides, the vest makes him look distinguished. Picking up Plan B, he makes his way over to the stairs that lead back up to the main floor.

Alright, Corva. Time to see what you’re worth to these guys. It better be enough to fix my damn bar.