It was a mistake to go out for a walk in this weather. You realize that now. Your nose feels as if it is going to fall off your face and shatter on the ground. You're not even sure why you decided to go out tonight. All you know is that you cannot wait to be back home, safe in the security of your tiny apartment.

Icy streets. Whipping winds. Cold hands. Distant song.

This is Nimue's Bar.

“What were you two thinking?” Nimue yells furiously, pacing back and forth around the back room of the bar. She and Kaia have cleared a space and pushed together several crates to form a makeshift operating table. Kaia lowers Dirk onto crates, conscious of how frail his tiny body is.

“I mean really, getting in a fight with Lunars! I hired you two because I thought you weren't a couple of complete idiots!” Nimue rolls up her sleeves and taps the cat on the forehead with her index finger, causing him to transform back into human form. She flicks her index finger and it transforms into a long talon, which she uses to cut Dirk's clothes from his body.

Kaia's heart clenches when she looks at Dirk. He is not in good shape. He has blood all over him, turning his beard a dark brown, and his breathing is shallow. Why did this have to happen? She looks away as quickly as possible when Nimue extends her hands towards Dirk's wounds.

“Will he be all right?” Kaia asks softly. She does her best to ignore the squelching and crunches behind her.

“Of course he'll be all right,” Nimue says irritably, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the sound of bubbling flesh. “He's too stupid to die.”

Hearing the word “die” shakes Kaia out of the haze she has been in for the past half hour, forging through the snowstorm, holding Dirk to her chest. If she was a minute later to the drop, or had gotten lost on the way back, everything would be different now. She would only have Nimue left, and Dirk would be gone. “Don't say that,” Kaia says, her voice breaking. “Please don't.”

Nimue is silent for several moments. “I'm sorry, K,” she whispers eventually, “That was cruel of me.” There's a wet sound from behind Kaia. “All right, I'm done.”

Kaia turns around to look at Dirk. He is still covered in blood and still very naked, but the wounds on his neck and leg are gone, marked only by rough, angry scars. Nimue gets to her feet, her arms covered up to the elbows in blood.

“Thank you,” Kaia says, and she impulsively throws her arms around Nimue, who carefully holds her gory hands out of the way. Kaia releases her a moment later, and Nimue smiles at her.

“Of course, sweetie, anything for—” she stops and her eyes narrow. “Are you bleeding?”

“No!” Kaia pulls her jacket more tightly about her shoulders, but Nimue roughly yanks it open, revealing Kaia's undershirt. It is in complete tatters, and huge, bloody claw marks run from her armpit to her hip.

Nimue sucks in a breath. “Oh, K... we need to take care of this.”

“It's all right,” Kaia says defensively, wrapping her arms around herself. “I can barely feel it.” It's true, her side is nothing more than a dull ache. Pain has dulled since becoming a shade, along with everything else.

“K, don't be a child.”

“No,” K says sharply, taking a step back. “Nimue, I'll be fine! It's not like it'll kill me or anything, I'll just shower when I get home.”

“K,” Nimue says, a pleading edge creeping into her voice. “You spend all this time talking about wanting to be normal, to be mortal. Are you really going to let your phobias get in the way of that?”

Kaia is silent. Nimue is right, she knows that. She sits down on a crate and pulls her ruined undershirt off. Nimue kneels next to her.

“I'll be as quick as I can,” she says, and Kaia nods and shuts her eyes. She feels Nimue's warm hands touch her icy side, fingers moving across the torn skin. Kaia tries not to think about how disgusting Nimue's hands must be right now. A moment later, she pitches forward as the sensation starts. It feels like worms crawling beneath the surface of her skin, infiltrating her side and diving into the muscles. Nimue's fingers are in the center of it, motionless against the tide like rocks in a river.

“All right K, I'm done,” Nimue whispers five minutes later, and the sensation fades. Kaia tries to thank her, but nothing comes out except gasping. Nimue seems to understand, however, and wraps her arms around Kaia's shoulders and gives her a squeeze. “I'm going to bring some blankets for you two, and then I'll leave, ok? Neither of you have to work tomorrow.” Kaia nods, and by the time she opens her eyes and looks around to thank her, Nimue has left.

#

It takes Dirk several hours to awaken, and Kaia is there when he does. She knows that she should find something to do, maybe help Nimue out as a way of thanking her, but she can't leave without knowing Dirk will be all right.

“Hey,” she says when he cracks his eye open. “How do you feel?”

“Awful,” Dirk rumbles. He raises a hand to his head and rubs his eyes, then looks at the blanket covering him. “Why am I naked?”

“Sorry, we had to work quickly to keep you alive.” He nods, and neither of them talk for a long time. “I'm also sorry for the things I said about you,” Kaia adds. “I feel like I forced you into this, and that in a way it's my fault. I'm not even a shifter; I had no right to tell you how to live.”

“It's all right. I shouldn't have tried to stop you from dealing with Cahiel. So where are you at with the Circle?” Dirk says eventually.

Kaia shakes her head. “I'm done with them. I can't do something like that again. It's not worth it. I still don't understand why they wanted me to deliver something to a gang of shifters, though. It makes no sense.” After a moment, she speaks again. “Even so, I'm afraid that if he comes to me with an offer again, I'll end up saying yes. It's too tempting. Where are you at with the Lunars?”

Dirk sighs. “I'm so afraid all the time, and I just wanted to do something to prove that I'm not. People like Aiden, they're out there doing things all the time to help people, but I never do anything.”

The sound of Kaia slapping herself in the forehead echoes through the small room. “I realize now that this really isn't my place, but what about, you know, other types of protest? That don't involve a trial by combat?”

“Fighting is the only thing I'm good at,” Dirk whispers. His words hang in the air, and Kaia can feel him shaking. “You don't know what I did before Nimue hired me. I know I'll end up going back to it, back to Aiden one day, because it's the only place where I was useful.”

“That's stupid,” Kaia finally says. It's far from the first time she's heard him talk like this. “You're not the bouncer here because you can beat people up, or because you're scary, because you're like... the least scary person I've met. It's because you're good at making people feel welcome, and you're a nice person. Nicer than me and Nimue. You're a staff member at Nimue's Bar, where we give the middle finger to the Circle's stupid rules, and you're one of the reasons people come here. You make a difference, even if it's in a way that's harder to see.”

“Thanks, K,” Dirk whispers. He isn't looking at her, but he's smiling at least.

“Hey,” Kaia says, struck by sudden inspiration. She takes his hand. “Why don't we make a promise to each other so we aren't as tempted? I'll promise not to help out Cahiel again, if you promise not to fall back in with the Lunars.”

“That sounds good,” Dirk says after a moment. “I promise.”

“Me too.”

Dirk sniffs, and Kaia looks away so that he can wipe his eyes. When she looks back, he is fast asleep, face lined with exhaustion.

Stay safe, you cowardly little lion, you,” she whispers with a smile, and because she's already fought a shifter, run through a snowstorm, and dropped a refrigerator on someone, she feels brave enough to plant a kiss on Dirk's forehead before leaving the room.