Van watched Silco leave, the syringe still in his hand, and for some reason the irritation in his chest only got worse.
He picked up the bottle and made as if to smash it, but in the end, he slowly lowered his hand again.
After a brief hesitation, he took a savage gulp, then poured the rest over his head. The high-proof liquor ran over his skin, and the sting cleared some of the haze from his mind.
Then he raised the green syringe and drove it straight into his arm.
"Fuck..."
A wave of agony unlike anything he had ever felt tore through his entire body almost instantly. It hurt so badly he could not even speak.
Compared to it, every wound on his body—and even the cuts he had just drenched in liquor—felt insignificant.
After recovering for a moment, Van braced himself on the bar and used the last of his strength to haul himself up onto it and lie flat.
A glass was pushed off the counter and shattered on the floor, but he had no energy left to care.
The record player kept turning out its song. Van stretched out a hand and, after fumbling for a long while, finally found the bluebird pendant at his chest.
The pain was so intense his fingers shook uncontrollably, but he still traced the pendant's surface and whispered through clenched teeth,
"Wind... Janna... grant me... one night of peaceful sleep..."
He did not know how much time passed after that.
At some point, he thought he felt a faint breeze brush across him. The pain in his body seemed to ease a little, the tension finally bled out of him, and his thoughts gradually sank into darkness until he drifted into a deep sleep.
What Van did not know was that the crystal fragments embedded in the right side of his chest were giving off a faint blue glow.
As the shards slowly shifted into place, they seemed to form the outline of a strange eye.
...
...
"Now listen. I'll talk, and you keep quiet."
Vander pushed the glass toward Van, then calmly lit his pipe.
"I'm not handing anyone over. Not one of them. In the whole of the Lanes, there's only one person I'd ever betray."
"But—"
"You want me to hand Vi over?"
"..."
Van gripped the glass tightly, his expression twisted with conflict, his brow knotted hard.
"But... I don't want you to hand yourself over either. The Lanes need you. Powder and Vi need you. You're their father."
"There's no helping it. Someone has to stand up and take responsibility."
"Then let it be me! I'm still young. Worst case, they lock me up for a few years!"
"Cut the bullshit. I told you, I'm not handing any of you over."
Van lost control again and lurched to his feet, slamming a hand down on the table so hard the glasses bounced and half the liquor splashed out.
"But if the Lanes lose you, then everything here is—"
"Sit down, Van."
Vander tapped a finger on the table and looked at him with tired helplessness before letting out a sigh.
"I said I'll talk. You listen."
No matter how unwilling he was, Van had no choice but to sit back down.
"There's another hand in this. Someone from our side. Someone even worse than the Enforcers."
"Who?"
"Silco. You remember him, don't you? You've dealt with him before. He's a dangerous man. I don't know what he's planning, but I can't let him get what he wants. If we go all the way against topside, we may be walking straight into his hands."
"So what? You're giving yourself up over that? Wouldn't it be better if we carried this together?"
"No. The Bridge of Progress..." Vander took a deep drag from his pipe and let the smoke out slowly. "I never want to live through that again. Even if it costs me my life, I'm carrying the fate of everyone in the Lanes on my back. I have to protect as many people as I can."
Then he looked at Van and said quietly, "This is the last lesson I can teach you. But I hope you never learn to be like me."
Van fell silent and could only snatch up the glass and throw the liquor back.
It was only one incident in topside—something nobody in the Undercity would have cared about—that had forced Vander to sacrifice himself just to settle it.
How had Zaun become this weak?
Once again, he felt that helplessness in the face of topside. But unlike the first time, back at the Bridge of Progress when he had been little and ignorant, something else was taking shape inside him now.
An obsession.
"As for after I'm gone..." Vander refilled Van's empty glass and poured one for himself too. "Benzo will keep an eye on things, but I know him. He can't outplay Silco."
"In my eyes, you're the right one for this. But it's all happening too fast, and you're still too young. I'm sorry. This burden's landing on your shoulders earlier than it should."
Vander held out his pipe, pointing the smoking stem at Van.
"So promise me, Torvan. Protect this place. Protect the people of the Lanes. Protect Vi and Powder. Be a man about it... no matter what happens next. Can you do that?"
The way Vander spoke sounded like a final request, and Van froze.
He stared at the still-smoking pipe stem, his breathing growing sharper and quicker as a sting rose in his nose.
...
...
"Van... Van?"
Still half asleep, Van was shaken awake by a small hand and dragged back into the present.
"Why are you sleeping here, you poor thing? What in the world happened to you?"
"Aunt Meira?"
Van opened his eyes to find one of the Last Drop's regulars standing over him—a longtime resident of the Lanes, a strange-looking old Vastaya woman.
He jerked upright too fast, and the movement pulled at his wounds hard enough to make him suck in a breath.
"How did you get here?"
"I came out this morning and saw the bar door open. I thought Silco's people had come again..."
"Oh. Right... Have they been coming here a lot?"
Van rubbed at his throbbing head. The custom Shimmer treatment had worked remarkably well. He could still feel pain, but most of last night's injuries were already nothing serious.
Except for the wound over his brow.
That one definitely needed proper bandaging.
"Not all the time. But after Vander... after that, people in the Lanes tried causing trouble for him. Silco had too many men, though. The ones leading it were all taken away..."
"Yeah... I see."
Meira frowned as she looked at the state he was in, then at the large puddle spread across the counter.
Who knew what it even was—sweat, spilled liquor, blood, or some mix of all three. It was slowly dripping over the edge of the bar in a dark red stream.
She looked back at Van with open concern and asked carefully,
"Are you... all right, child?"
"Me?"
Van, still pressing a hand to his forehead, paused in surprise.
Then he looked up and gave her a warm smile.
"I'm fine."
[End of chapter]