Hello, Drinor here. I'm happy to publish a new Chapter of Attack on Titan: A Warrior of Devils
If you want to Read the Following TWO Chapters, Search 'patreon.com/Drinor' on Websearch
Chapter 34, and Chapter 35 are already available for Patrons.
Jaime
The heavy iron door groaned on its hinges as Jaime pushed it shut, the sound of the latch engaging echoing like a gunshot in the cramped space. He stood there for a moment, his hand lingering on the cold metal, breathing in the stale air. It smelled of damp earth, old stone, and the faint, copper tang of blood.
The cell was small, a stone box buried deep beneath the earth where the sun never touched. A single lantern sat on a low wooden table in the corner, its flame flickering and casting long, dancing shadows against the moisture-slicked walls.
In the center of the room sat Annie.
She was bound to a heavy wooden chair, thick ropes coiled tight around her chest, waist, and ankles, digging into her Military Police uniform. Her head hung low, a curtain of blonde hair obscuring her face, but it was her hands that drew Jaime's gaze first. They were swathed in thick, white bandages—shapeless stumps resting in her lap. He stared at them, a sick feeling twisting in his gut. He knew exactly what lay beneath that linen. He was the one who had severed them.
She looked small. That was the thought that pierced through Jaime's numbness. Without the armor of her Titan form, without the stoic posture she wore like a shield in the mess hall, she looked diminished. Just a girl in a chair.
Jaime moved. He walked to the corner of the room, grabbed the only other chair, and dragged it to the center. The wooden legs shrieked against the stone floor.
He placed the chair directly in front of her. He sat down.
One meter.
That was the distance between his knees and hers. Close enough to touch. Close enough to hear the shallow, ragged hitch of her breathing. He forced himself to look at her, really look at her, trying to reconcile the monster that had torn through the Survey Corps with the girl who had eaten sweet buns with him just days ago.
"How do you feel?" Jaime asked.
Annie didn't answer. She didn't move. She just stared at the space between his boots.
"Your hands," Jaime said, his eyes dropping to the bandages again. "Are they healing?"
Silence.
The silence stretched, turning taut and brittle. It angered him. Not the furious, burning rage he had felt in his room when he destroyed his furniture, but a cold, sharp frustration born of heartbreak. He didn't want a prisoner. He wanted Annie.
"Look at me," Jaime commanded softly.
She refused. Her chin remained tucked against her chest, her hair a veil protecting her from his gaze.
"Why won't you look at me?" Jaime leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, invading her space. "You used to look at me all the time. In the mess hall. During training. When you thought I wasn't paying attention, I'd catch you watching."
He waited, but she remained stone.
"You know," Jaime continued, his voice dropping, taking on a reflective tone that felt too intimate for a dungeon. "I used to live for those looks. Everyone else saw the Ice Queen. Everyone else saw the scary girl from the 104th who could kick a man's head off. But when you looked at me...your face would change."
He saw a muscle feather in her jaw. She was listening.
"It wasn't a big change," Jaime said, his eyes tracing the curve of her cheekbone, remembering the warmth of her skin under the streetlamps of Stohess. "Just a small light in your eyes. A tiny lift at the corner of your mouth. But it lit up your whole face. It was the only time you looked... peaceful."
He let out a breath, a short, humorless laugh that scraped his throat. "Do you have any idea how special that made me feel? Me. A rat from the Underground City. A kid who grew up eating scraps and sleeping in the dirt, who was told by the world that he was nothing. But when you looked at me like that... I felt like a king. I was making you smile, that felt special to me."
Annie's breath hitched. A tremor ran through her shoulders, and slowly, agonizingly, she lifted her head.
The hair fell away from her face.
Jaime braced himself for the cold, dead stare of the Female Titan. He braced himself for the indifference of the enemy.
Her eyes were broken. The crystalline blue was swimming with moisture, rimmed in red, filled with a profound, exhausted misery. She looked like someone standing in the ruins of her own life, waiting for the roof to collapse. She looked like she had been crying for hours.
"Why are you here?" Her voice was a rasp, unused and dry.
Jaime held her gaze, refusing to blink. "I needed to see you."
"Why not Captain Levi?" Annie asked, a bitter edge creeping into her tone. "Or that crazy woman? I'm sure they're upstairs right now, sharpening their knives. Looking forward to the opportunity to... question me. Gently."
"Is that what you want?" Jaime asked, his brow furrowing. "You want them to come down here and hurt you?"
"It's what I deserve," she whispered, looking away.
"That's not for you to decide." Jaime sat back, the wood of the chair creaking under his weight. "I'm here because I want to know why. And don't tell me you don't have a choice. I know you, Annie. I know you better than anyone. You don't kill forty-nine soldiers for fun. You don't risk your life unless the reward is worth it."
"You don't know me," she said, her voice trembling. "You fell in love with a mask."
"The mask didn't warn me to stay safe in the forest," Jaime countered sharply. "The mask didn't hesitate when I was in danger. So tell me. What was the mission? It was Eren, wasn't it?"
Annie stayed silent, but the tension in her neck gave her away.
"You were chasing him," Jaime pressed. "You ignored everyone else unless they engaged you. You went straight for the center. You took a gamble in the forest to trap him. You wanted to capture Eren Yeager. Why? To take him somewhere?"
"You don't have to waste your time with me," Annie interrupted, her voice hollow. "It doesn't matter anymore. I'm nothing but a failed Warrior."
Warrior.
She had said it in the forest, too. I've failed as a Warrior.
Jaime frowned, his brow furrowing as he processed the term. "You keep using that word. Warrior. You don't mean it like a description of your fighting style. You say it like it's a title. A rank."
Annie's eyes widened a fraction, realizing her slip. She tried to mask it with apathy, but Jaime was already pulling at the thread.
"Soldiers protect the walls," Jaime said slowly, thinking aloud. "That's what we are. We are Soldiers. But you... you call yourself a Warrior. That sounds like a rank. A military rank."
He leaned in closer, his purple eyes narrowing, dissecting her reactions. "I have no idea where you really come from, Annie. You've always been vague about your village. But if 'Warrior' is a rank... then you serve a different military. A military that isn't ours."
Annie's breathing quickened. She tried to turn her face away, but Jaime wasn't done.
"And you serve them because of him, don't you?"
She froze.
"Your father."
Annie looked at him, her lips parting in surprise before she clamped them shut, her expression going blank. But the crack in the armor was there. Jaime had found the leverage.
"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice too controlled.
"You've brought him up before," Jaime said, his voice softening, becoming urgent. "The way you talk about him... he's not dead, is he? He's waiting for you. You told me you needed to get back to him."
He stood up, unable to sit still, pacing a small circle in the tight space before turning back to her. "But waiting where? If you're from a place that has Titans... a place that attacks us... he's not in the interior. He's not in the districts."
Jaime stopped, the realization hitting him with the force of a physical blow. He looked at the ceiling, imagining the world above, the walls that caged them all.
"Is he waiting for you beyond Wall Maria?"
Annie squeezed her eyes shut, her face twisting in pain. It was an expression of such raw vulnerability that Jaime moved without thinking.
He stepped forward and reached out. His hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing away a smudge of dirt near her eye. Her skin was warm, feverish to the touch.
"Annie," Jaime whispered, his voice trembling. His eyes were watery. "Look at me. Please. Say something. I can help you. If you tell me the truth, if you tell me who is threatening you... I can help."
For a split second, she leaned into his touch. She pressed her face against his palm, her eyes still closed, and he felt a wetness there, a tear escaping.
Then, reality crashed back in.
Annie pulled away violently, jerking her head back as if his hand burned her.
"You can't help me," she choked out, her voice cracking. She looked at him with wild, desperate eyes. "No one can help me now. I've failed as a Warrior. I failed the mission. No matter what happens now... I'm doomed."
"Doomed by who?" Jaime demanded, his hand falling back to his side. "By us? Or by them?"
"Does it matter?" Annie laughed, a broken, jagged sound that scraped against the stone walls. "Dead is dead, Jaime. And I'm already a corpse walking."
"It matters to me!"
"It shouldn't!" She shouted back, her composure finally shattering into a thousand sharp pieces. She strained against the ropes, her face twisted in anguish. "Why do you care? I killed them! I killed your comrades! I'm the enemy! I am the monster you sworn to kill!"
"Was it all a lie?" Jaime asked, his voice cutting through her shouting, sharp and demanding.
Annie stopped, her chest heaving as she panted for air. The silence rushed back in, heavy and suffocating.
"Us," Jaime said, gesturing between them with a trembling hand. "The last two years. The tea shop in Stohess. The training in the woods. The night in the forest... when I sang for you. Was that a lie, too? Was it all just... acting?"
He looked down at her, searching for the monster the world saw, but finding only the girl he knew. "If it was, you must be a very good actress. Better than any spy I've ever heard of. You should have joined the theater, not the Military Police."
Annie shook her head slowly. The defiance drained out of her, leaving her small and defeated in the wooden chair. She looked like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"It wasn't an act," she whispered. She looked up at him, and the raw honesty in her wet eyes was more painful than any lie could have been. "I love you."
Jaime's heart hammered against his ribs.
"But that was my mistake," she added quickly, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush to push him away. "I shouldn't have... it wasn't part of the plan. You were supposed to be just another cadet. Just another boy to be ignored or used. I was never supposed to love you."
She looked at him, pleading with him to understand, to hate her. "Forget me, Jaime. Please. It's better for you. It's better for both of us if you just hate me and let me die."
"I can't do that," Jaime said, his voice thick with emotion. "I love you, too."
He sat back down heavily, the chair groaning under the sudden weight. "This is why I need to understand. I need to know why. Why did you kill forty-nine of us? Why did you destroy forty-nine families? What in this hell of a world could be worth that much blood? What prize is worth that much death?"
He raised his voice, the anger bleeding into the sorrow, turning it into something hot and volatile. "Why, Annie? Why did you do that?"
"Because he's waiting," she whispered, tears finally spilling over, tracking through the grime on her cheeks. "If I don't return... if I come back empty-handed... they'll kill him."
Jaime stared at her. He understood it now. The "Warrior" title. She wasn't just a soldier following orders. She was a hostage. A weapon held to her own father's throat.
"What kind of place," Jaime asked, his voice low and horrified, "would do that to you? What kind of people threaten to kill a father if his daughter fails a mission?"
Annie looked at the floor, her voice barely audible; Jaime could hardly hear her.
"It's normal treatment for a devil."
Devil.
The word struck Jaime like a spark in a powder keg. His eyes widened, his breath catching in his throat. It wasn't just a word. Suddenly, he remembered something.
Flashback: Training Corps, Year 1
Jaime easily dodged an attack before throwing himself at Annie, his arms around her right arm and throat in a tight chokehold. Annie struggled against his grip, but Jaime kept his grip on her, not allowing even the smallest window for her to escape.
The small audience watching held their breath, watching closely, expecting Jaime to win; Ymir was the loudest amongst them. "Don't stop, Midget, kick Her ASS!" Ymir shouted, earning a look of disapproval from Krista.
"Annie, come on, you're stronger than this. Are you giving up?" Jaime whispered to her as his grip on her started easing, just enough for her to escape from him, but just as Annie was about to escape from his grip, a shout was heard in the air.
"Let Go Of Her. You Devil!"
"Huhh!"
His gaze shot upward just in time to see a kick coming towards him. Acting swiftly, Jaime shielded his face with his arms. He felt a sharp pain in his arms, and he cursed under his breath, the strength propelling him backward, away from Annie.
Jaime felt his anger rising up; he quickly stood up, ignoring the pain in his arms, ready to face whoever hit him, only to see that it was Bertholdt! Jaime was baffled. Bertholdt was never someone to show anger towards anyone, and it wasn't just Jaime who was baffled; everyone else was as well.
"Oii, Bertholdt, what are you doing?" Ymir was the first to voice out what everyone else was thinking; the same went for Jean, who questioned why Bertholdt tried to kick Jaime.
Bertholdt ignored them. Instead, he walked up to Annie, who was still lying on the ground; she looked unhurt. Bertholdt quickly extended his hand towards her, wanting to help her stand up, only for Annie to accept his hand, but the moment she stood up, she used her other hand to punch Bertholdt in the face, sending him to the dirt.
"Who told you to intervene, Bertholdt." Annie spat, looking down at Bertholdt with fury. Jaime wondered why Annie was so angry; she didn't look just angry with him; she looked furious.
"Enough, Annie," Reiner spoke commandingly towards Annie while trying to help Bertholdt stand up. The latter had blood trailing down from his nose, but his face looked similar to that of someone who just lost everything; he looked defeated in a way.
Annie sent a glare toward Reiner; this time, her glare was tenfold. For a moment, everyone expected Annie to punch Reiner in the face, and from the way she made her hands into fists, but then a voice spoke behind Annie.
"Annie." Jaime said firmly, now standing behind her, before daring to place his hand on her shoulder. The moment he did, she tensed slightly. Jaime expected her to get angry with him, but instead, her muscles slowly relaxed; without saying a word, Annie simply brushed off Jaime's hand and walked away from everyone else.
End Flashback
Jaime stood in the cell, his breath coming in shallow gasps.
Devil.
Bertholdt hadn't called him a bastard. He hadn't called him a jerk. He had called him a Devil. With the same venom, the same specific inflection that Annie had just used.
Then he remembered when Berholdt apologised to him during the Mission to survive a week in the woods.
' "Hey, Jaime. I-I'm sorry."
Jaime stopped pulling and turned his head to face Bertholdt with confusion. "About what?"
"When you were fighting with Annie. I called you a 'Devil' and kicked you. I'm sorry, you are not a devil." Bertholdt apologized sincerely; Jaime couldn't help but arch an eyebrow.
"Don't worry about it, men. Friends insult friends all the time." '
....
Is Berholdt on this, too?
The thought was a cold knot in his stomach, expanding rapidly. Bertholdt Hoover. The quiet giant who slept in the bunk across from him. The boy who was always with Reiner. The boy who seemed too timid to kill a fly.
Reiner and Bertholdt were inseparable. Annie was often with them, though she kept her distance.
He looked back at Annie. She was watching him, her eyes guarded again. She saw the shift in him. She knew he had remembered something.
She called herself a failed Warrior. She called herself a Devil. Bertholdt called me a Devil.
Jaime forced his face to remain neutral, though his heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He couldn't ask about Bertholdt. Not yet. If he was right... if the enemy was sleeping in their barracks, eating at their table... he couldn't tip his hand. He had to be sure. He had to be absolutely certain before he accused a fellow soldier of treason.
Perhaps it was just that, a word, it was nothing else, just because Annie called herself that, and Berholdt called him Devil in anger, that does not mean Berholdt is a traitor, he was his friend, right?
He pushed the realization down, locking it in a box in the back of his mind labeled Terror, and focused back on the girl in front of him. He needed to break her defenses. He needed the truth. And since she wouldn't give him the location of her father, he had to go for the wound that was still bleeding. The question that Armin had planted in his mind.
"I have one more question," Jaime said. His voice was different now. The softness was gone, replaced by a cold, hard edge that made Annie flinch. "And you are going to answer it."
"I told you," Annie said, her voice trembling. "I can't—"
"You said you're a Warrior," Jaime interrupted, stepping closer. "You said you did this for your father. I understand loyalty. I understand protecting family. I understand killing strangers to save the ones you love."
He stopped directly in front of her, leaning down until his face was level with hers.
"But tell me, Annie. What part of the Warrior code involves stealing from the dead?"
Annie froze. Her breath caught in her throat, a small, strangled sound.
"I know," Jaime whispered. "Armin figured it out. The gear you presented for inspection after Sawney and Bean were killed. It wasn't yours."
He saw the color drain from her face, leaving her skin grey and waxen in the lantern light.
"It belonged to Marco," Jaime said, the name tearing out of him like a jagged stone. "Marco Bodt."
Annie squeezed her eyes shut, turning her head away. "Stop."
"Why were you wearing his gear, Annie?" Jaime demanded, grabbing the arms of her chair, trapping her. "Why did you have it? Did you find his body? Did you stumble across him after he was already dead and think, 'What a lucky find'?"
She didn't answer. She was trembling again, harder this time.
"Look at me!" Jaime roared, the sound bouncing off the stone walls.
She flinched but didn't look.
"Marco was our friend!" Jaime shouted, the grief finally boiling over into rage. "He was kind! He wanted to join the MPs with you! He never hurt anyone! And we found him... we found him half-eaten, rotting against a wall in a back alley of Trost! He died alone!"
Jaime's vision blurred. He could see Marco's face, the missing half, the exposed bone, the single eye staring at nothing.
"Did you find him like that?" Jaime asked, his voice shaking. "Or were you there when it happened? Did you see him die?"
Annie opened her eyes. They were wet, but there was something else in them now. A hardening. A resolve. She looked at Jaime, seeing the pain she had caused him, seeing the conflict tearing him apart. He still loved her. She could see it in the way he hesitated, in the way he was begging her for an excuse to forgive her.
Annie straightened her spine against the chair. She forced her face into a mask of cold indifference. She summoned the Warrior, pushing the girl who liked sweets and loved her boyfriend's voice.
"I didn't find him," Annie said. Her voice was steady. Ice cold.
Jaime stared at her. "What?"
"I took his gear," Annie said, maintaining eye contact. "I needed it."
"He... he gave it to you?" Jaime asked, a flicker of desperate hope in his eyes.
"No," Annie said. She leaned forward slightly, her blue eyes piercing his. "I took it off him."
Jaime recoiled as if she had slapped him. "You... what?"
"I took his gear while he was alive," she said. "I pinned him down. He was begging. Crying. He was calling for help. He was calling for you and Jean."
No, stop it...
"And then a Titan came," Annie continued, her voice flat, devoid of emotion. "I let go of him. I flew up to the roof. And I watched."
"Stop," Jaime whispered.
"He was screaming," Annie said. "He was screaming for help while the Titan bit him in half. And I just watched. I watched him die, Jaime.."
She looked at him, and Jaime had never seen her eyes as cold as now. He wasn't looking at her; in front of him right now was the Female Titan.
"I didn't feel anything," she said. "He was just an obstacle. Just like the Survey Corps. Just like you."
Something snapped in Jaime.
A roar of pure, unadulterated fury tore from Jaime's throat.
SHING.
The sound of steel clearing the scabbard rang through the cell.
Jaime drew his blade. He lunged, closing the distance in a heartbeat. He slammed the edge of the razor-sharp sword against Annie's throat, pressing hard enough to indent the skin.
A thin line of crimson beads welled up around the steel.
"You monster," Jaime hissed, his face inches from hers. His purple eyes were wild, dilated, burning with a hatred so intense it felt like it would incinerate them both. "You watched him die? You watched our friend get eaten and you felt nothing?"
Annie didn't flinch. She didn't pull away. She didn't beg.
Instead, she looked at the blade. She looked at the hand holding it, the hand that had held hers in the tea shop, the hand that had caressed her face moments ago.
And she smiled.
She closed her eyes. She tilted her chin up, exposing her neck further to the blade. Her shoulders dropped, the tension leaving her body for the first time since she had entered the forest.
Jaime's hand trembled, the blade vibrating against her skin. He wanted to do it. Every instinct, every lesson from Kenny, every scream of the dead demanded he push the blade forward. Just three inches. Just one slice. It would be over. The monster would be dead. Marco would be avenged.
But as he looked at her, at her closed eyes, at the tear tracking through the blood on her neck, he saw it. He saw the lie.
"You're lying," Jaime whispered.
Annie's eyes snapped open. The relief vanished, replaced by a flicker of panic. "I told you," she rasped, her voice desperate. "I watched him die. I took his gear while he screamed. I didn't care. I—"
"Shut up!" Jaime pulled the blade back, the metal sliding away from her skin with a sharp shing.
He didn't sheath it immediately. He let it hang by his side, the tip hovering inches from the floor. He stepped back, putting distance between the steel and her skin, denying her the punishment she craved.
"I am a monster!" Annie shouted, straining against her bonds, her face twisting with frustration. "Why won't you believe me? I killed them! I killed Marco! I felt-" "If you felt nothing," Jaime interrupted, "then why did you stop killing yesterday?"
Annie froze. Her mouth remained open, the shout dying in her throat.
"Captain Levi told me," Jaime continued, his eyes locking onto hers, stripping away her defenses layer by layer. "In the forest. After we fought... you stopped killing the soldiers. You grabbed them. You spun them. You destroyed their gear to stop them from pursuing. But you didn't crush them. You didn't bite them. You left them alive."
He stepped closer, invading her space again, but this time there was no threat in his posture. Only a profound, aching sadness that felt heavier than anger.
"A monster doesn't spare lives when it's inconvenient," Jaime said softly. "A monster doesn't cry when her boyfriend finds out the truth. And a monster doesn't lie about enjoying a friend's death just so the person she loves can kill her without guilt."
Annie stared at him, her mouth opening and closing, her mask shattering completely. The "Warrior" was gone. The Female Titan was gone. All that was left was a fifteen-year-old girl who had been given a burden too heavy to carry, and who had broken under its weight.
"Why?" she whispered, her voice breaking into a sob. "Why are you doing this? Just kill me. Please, Jaime. Just end it. I don't want to be here anymore."
"I can't," Jaime said.
He turned away from her, the sword clattering loudly as he dropped it to the stone floor. He didn't need it. Weapons were useless against this kind of pain. He walked to the chair he had vacated earlier and sat down heavily, the wood groaning beneath him. He buried his face in his hands for a moment, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes, before looking up at the damp ceiling where water droplets gathered like unshed tears.
"I wanted to marry you," he said.
The silence that followed was absolute. It sucked the air out of the room, leaving a vacuum where only the sound of their heartbeats existed.
Annie stopped breathing. Her eyes widened, the blue irises trembling as if he had punched her.
"What?" she breathed.
Jaime didn't look at her. He stared at the stone wall, his purple eyes distant, seeing a future that was already turning to ash in his mind.
"I had a plan," Jaime said, his voice soft, conversational, as if they were back in the tea shop in Stohess, discussing the quality of the pastries. "After we took back Wall Maria. After we went to Eren's basement and found whatever truth is hidden there... I was going to retire. I was going to take my savings, and I was going to buy a house."
He finally looked at her. His face was wet with tears he hadn't realized he was shedding.
"It wasn't going to be anything fancy," he continued, a sad, ghost of a smile touching his lips. "Just a small place. Somewhere in the countryside of Wall Maria, maybe near a river. I know you like the quiet. I know you hate crowds. I was going to plant a garden... berry bushes, because you have a sweet tooth, even if you deny it."
Annie was shaking. Violent, uncontrollable tremors racked her body, rattling the chair against the floor. Tears spilled from her eyes, hot and fast, soaking the front of her uniform.
"I wanted to wake up every morning and see you sleeping next to me, safe," Jaime whispered. "No walls. No Titans. No mentors. Just us."
"Stop," she sobbed, the word a strangled plea. "Please, stop."
"I wanted to have a family with you," Jaime said, ignoring her plea, needing to say it, needing to let the dream die out loud so he could mourn it properly. "I wanted two daughters. A boy. I wanted to grow old with you, Annie. That was my dream. That was why I fought."
"Why are you telling me this?" Annie cried out, her head dropping forward, her hair hiding her face as she wept.
Jaime stood up. He walked over to her, standing right in front of her bound form. He didn't touch her. He couldn't. Not anymore. The distance between them was no longer measured in meters, but in graves.
He looked down at the girl he had loved. He looked at the traitor who had killed his comrades. He looked at the Warrior who was terrified for her father. He saw all of them at once, a mosaic of tragedy.
"I love you, Annie," Jaime said, his voice breaking on her name. "God help me, I still love you. And I will always love you."
Annie looked up, her face a mask of agony. She opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to beg for forgiveness, perhaps to say she loved him too, perhaps to finally tell him where her father was.
But Jaime stepped back. His face hardened, the grief settling into something permanent and cold, like stone setting after a landslide. He wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand.
"I understand why you did it," Jaime said, his voice final. "I understand about your father. I understand that you felt you had no choice."
He turned his back on her and walked toward the heavy iron door. He placed his hand on the latch, the metal cold under his palm.
"But understanding isn't forgiveness," Jaime whispered, not looking back. "And I don't think I can ever forgive you for what you did to Marco. Or to the people you killed."
He pushed the door open. The torchlight from the hallway spilled in, blindingly bright after the dimness of the cell.
"Jaime!" Annie screamed his name, a raw, terrified sound that tore at his soul. "Jaime, don't leave me! Please! I don't want to be alone!"
Jaime didn't look back. He stepped into the corridor and pulled the heavy door shut.
CLANG.
The lock engaged with a sound like a gunshot, sealing the tomb.
Jaime stood in the hallway, his forehead resting against the cold iron of the door. His legs felt weak, his heart hammered a painful rhythm against his ribs. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the world, trying to breathe through the crushing weight in his chest.
But he couldn't block out the sound.
From inside the cell, muffled by inches of steel and stone, came a sound he had never heard before. It wasn't the scream of a Titan. It wasn't the cold command of a Warrior. It wasn't the cynical laughter of a spy.
It was the sound of Annie Leonhart sobbing, broken, jagged, hysterical cries of a girl who had lost everything, echoing in the darkness he had left her in.
Jaime listened for a moment longer, the sound carving one last scar into his heart. Then, he pushed himself off the door, wiped his face with his sleeve, and began the long walk back up to the surface, leaving his heart in the dark.
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