Caitlyn walked out of the restaurant carrying a large bag of bread. But the children seemed frightened the moment they saw her rush out, and they scattered in panic toward a dark alley nearby.
"Wait! I'm not going to hurt you!"
Caitlyn hurried after them with the bag.
The moment she stepped into the alley, the scene in front of her left her frozen.
The narrow alley was packed with people. At least, Caitlyn could only think of them as people. They were little more than skin and bone, their faces dull and sunken, as if sickness, hunger, and cold had been wearing them down for a very long time.
Mats and bedding lay everywhere, but the drainage was so poor that almost half of them were soaked in filthy water. They looked muddy and foul, and some had rotted into piles of flattened weeds.
The people sitting on those miserable beds stared blankly ahead, their eyes empty. If Caitlyn had not seen their chests rise and fall, she might have thought they were already dead.
After a brief moment of shock, Caitlyn quickly walked over and set the bag of bread on the ground.
"Here. Eat."
There were no thanks, no politeness. The instant the bag opened, the starving crowd lunged forward with hunger in their eyes. In the blink of an eye, the whole bag was emptied. Some of them even began fighting over a single piece of bread.
Caitlyn had grown up with everything she needed. She had never seen anything like this. For a moment, she stood there helplessly, then hurried to stop them.
"Don't fight! Everyone, stay calm! There's more bread—"
She tried to use the crowd-control methods she had learned during Enforcer training, but none of it worked. She grew frantic, completely unaware that someone was creeping up behind her.
"Ah—"
Just as she was panicking, Caitlyn felt a kick strike the back of her knee. She dropped to one knee, and a thin arm locked around her throat.
The sudden attack startled her. Almost by instinct, she drove her elbow backward, flipped the attacker over her shoulder, and pinned him down with a hold.
"What are you doing? Why would you—"
Before Caitlyn could understand what was happening, someone grabbed her arm again.
Not just one person this time. Several hands seized her at once. The starving people who had finished the bread still looked hungry, their eyes dark and vicious as they turned on her.
Caitlyn's heart went cold.
Then an arm locked around her neck again, and even she finally understood what was happening.
She struggled hard. Fortunately, these people had been weakened by long hunger and sickness; there was not much strength left in them. Caitlyn was no sheltered young lady either.
With the strength and fighting skills expected of Piltover's future sheriff, she quickly knocked down the people trying to restrain her and broke out of the crowd.
Then pain flashed through her thigh.
Caitlyn reacted on instinct and kicked behind her. A thin child slammed into the wall and curled up in pain.
The sight made Caitlyn freeze.
At the same time, the people who had been surrounding her suddenly began backing away, leaving distance between them and her.
Caitlyn hesitated. When they showed no sign of attacking again, she quickly went to the child and helped him up.
"Are you all right—"
A dirty little knife, its edge faintly cold in the dim light, stabbed straight toward Caitlyn's face.
It stopped right in front of her eye, so close it almost brushed her lashes.
Caitlyn fell back onto the ground in shock. The child's wrist was trapped in a large hand.
Van's face was cold as frost. If he had not been too worried to stay inside and had come out to check, he could not imagine how badly this might have ended.
"Torvan…"
Van's tall, powerful figure stood at the alley entrance. His long shadow stretched across the ground beneath the faint light, pressing down on the whole alley.
He raised his head without expression, and his icy gaze swept over the crowd. The people who had just looked ready to tear Caitlyn apart instantly returned to their pitiful refugee act. They shrank back, then scrambled over one another to escape.
The child whose wrist Van held struggled desperately. Van tightened his forearm slightly, and a string of faint cracks sounded. The child cried out in pain, and the knife slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.
Caitlyn, still sitting there shaken, snapped back to herself and hurriedly spoke.
"Wait… let him go."
Van looked at her in confusion. Her face was still pale.
"He almost killed you."
Caitlyn hesitated. She looked at the child's young face twisted in pain, then sighed softly and shook her head.
"Hmph…"
Van did not try to argue. He simply tossed the child to the ground.
The boy rolled a few times, scrambled up, and fled.
"I told you to pretend you didn't see them."
Van crouched in front of Caitlyn. She was still shaken, her eyes unfocused, as if she had not fully processed what had happened.
"How could they do that… I was helping them!"
"I warned you not to think too well of Zaunites. You should put away that unnecessary kindness."
Van loved Zaun, but when it came to the nature of most Zaunites, he had little praise to offer. That was one of the reasons he wanted to change this place.
How could Janna's children have become like this?
"You're hurt?"
Caitlyn was sitting on the ground. Her legs were long, and her skirt was short enough that most of her thigh was exposed. A thin cut marked the skin, with blood showing along it.
"It's just a scratch."
"Ha. Treat it anyway. You have no idea what that knife has cut before."
Van took a small medicine bottle from his pocket. In his earlier years, he had come back injured almost every day, so carrying medicine had become a habit. Even now, when he rarely fought personally, he still kept that useful habit.
Van opened the bottle and reached out, intending to steady Caitlyn's leg so he could apply the medicine.
But the moment his hand touched her soft skin, the smooth warmth of her rounded thigh made him pull back as if he had been shocked.
"Forget it. You do it yourself. Pour it on the wound. It'll be fine soon."
"Huh? Oh…"
Caitlyn took the bottle from him and poured the medicine onto the cut.
"I've seen this kind of potion before. It's very popular topside… I've never used it, though. I almost never get sick, and I've… almost never been hurt."
The medicine spread over the wound with a cool, slightly itchy feeling, but Caitlyn's mood remained heavy.
"Why would they hurt me? I don't understand!"
Van took back the half-used bottle of compound potion, then stood and pulled Caitlyn up with him.
"Don't sit there. The ground's cold… Come on. Let's go back. Sit down, eat something."
Van was still thinking about that whole table of food.
"I… I don't have an appetite."
"Then keep me company."
Van put an arm around Caitlyn's shoulders and guided her out of the dark alley, half coaxing and half pushing her along.
[End of chapter]