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Derailment
He's not sure what wakes him. It could be any number of things. It could be the light on his face, the air moving over him, the shift of cloth against skin where before it had just been the cool of the sheets and the heat of two bodies. It could be the hard ground under his back, which would also explain the aches in him as consciousness drifts closer. He's gone soft, he thinks sometimes, fallen out of the habit of sleeping well on the ground, lost in the embrace of Tom's big bed. But he still roughs it sometimes, so at first the fact that he's clearly outside doesn't sound any alarms.
But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.
There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.
His gun.
There's no mistaking what this is.
He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.
"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."
But it's the kind of outside. It's not the light but the quality of that light; not warm and glowing but thin, pale, anemic. When he opens his eyes it's not the trees swaying over him in the morning breeze but what they're like, them and the other plant life, still thickly growing and untamed but bad. Unhealthy. Sparse where it shouldn't be and dense where it shouldn't be. No birds, no fucking birds at all. The hints of a world knocked out of balance and gone horribly wrong.
There's a cold wet nose pressed against his cheek, and a weight pressing into his arm, numbing it. He rolls, pulls it away and sits up, shoving Neil harder than he meant to. Dexter steps back, whining softly, and Mike stares around and then down, absorbing it in quick shocked bursts. The car. The campfire, smoking ashes. Dexter. The two figures, curled together on the ground. Tom's old and ragged sweater. His own pants. Camo. Boots. The itchy feel of clothes that haven't been washed for a while.
His gun.
There's no mistaking what this is.
He doesn't want to wake them. As long as they're still sleeping, this is his nightmare and his alone. Maybe they never have to wake up. And yet he has no idea what's really worse: being back here or being back here on his own.
"No," he breathes, barely above a whisper. No louder, because he's honestly afraid that he might scream. "No. No. Fuck."
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He gestures to Tom, nods again at the door. You're pointman. I've got your back. Like everything else, they're going in blind, and there are a whole lot of things about that that he doesn't like at all. But like with everything else, there isn't really any other option. He slides to the wall, presses his back against it, nudges the door silently open with the toe of his boot.
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I can remember the stark white of the fiberglass shower floor, right under my face. The smell of baby shampoo and the freezing cold water beating down on my back. I can remember how I didn't even have a chance to fight back. Not that time. Well, fuck that.
The world's going to shit around us, but I've forgotten, and I figure he has too. There are hands groping at my waistband, shoving impatiently and tearing at my clothes and I shove back, using the wall for leverage, as hard as I can. Kicking and clawing and snarling and sobbing until his knee connects with the small of my back and the air's choked out of my lungs, and he's just so fucking big, one arm clamped around my throat and the other working at his own zipper, it seems like there's no point.
Please, God. I just wanna go home.
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But everything has changed. They're dirty, hungry, dehydrated and the smell of smoke is getting stronger, and maybe Neil is halfway across town with Florence by now, or maybe Neil's already been sold off, beaten, rap-
Tom took a deep breath. This isn't like anything he's experienced. No bodies, but the whole fucking place smells like blood. Sharing one last look with Mike he shouldered open the door and waited just a moment for his eyes to adjust.
He sees a lot in just a few seconds and something dark and primal clawed it's way through his breastbone, all teeth and blood and hate. He forgets the gun for a brief moment and coldcocks the kid on the stairs - seventeen? eighteen? Could he convince himself he cared? - startling a bloody spray of spit out of him and a garbled shout.
"Hands off him," Tom said, hands shaking with adrenaline and restrained violence. He remembered the gun and pulled it up, leveling it at the man that was...that was down in the darkness of the cellar, with Neil. The kid had fallen to the bottom of the stairs and was cursing, scrappling for a weapon stashed in his clothes.
"That's enough!" he barked, easing down the stairs. "Hands. Off."
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Tom knocks the kid down and he follows, leveling the gun at him long enough to know that Tom's got it under control, at least for now, before he lifts his aim to the man by the wall.
"Let him go," he says, his voice low. Steady. "Let him go and we all walk outta here." And he doesn't mean it in the slightest.
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The room's swaying in and out of focus and as the adrenaline starts to burn off, the first real spark of fear laces it's way down my spine.
He's shouting something, shouting back at the voices in the dark -- I can feel the rumble of it in his chest pressed against my spine and smell the hot and rancid stench of his breath fluttering across my cheek -- but I can't hear him over the pound of my own blood in my ears.
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"Don't be stupid," he said, voice coming out like a sack full of gravel. "We can work this out. Give us the kid. This isn't worth your life."
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So he has to remember what they're here for.
"Neil," he calls as he edges down the steps, down into the darkness. He isn't even seeing the kid down there anymore. "We're gonna get you outta here, okay? You hear me? We're gonna go home."
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I can't see them. I squint out into the dark, I try so hard, but I can't. He's waving his gun between my and the sound of their voices, and I know that could be my chance to break free, but I'm too weak. My legs buckle suddenly and I slump against him but he hardly seems to notice or care.
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"I'm gonna ask your friend to back down one more time," he said, not taking his eyes off the dark corner of the cellar as he eased down the stairs, feeling Mike as a source of strength behind him.
"And if he doesn't cooperate, things are going to get difficult for everyone."
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He's edging down further, slowly, gun raised, but he forgot about the kid on the floor forever ago, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to pay him any more mind.
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"Don't tell me this little shit's worth yours," he calls out with a harsh laugh, "They told me you had a thing for him, Pinocchio. Said you'd be willing to cut a real sweet deal, but I just couldn't believe it. What's the world coming to?"
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But he was a slaver. He was young, but around his neck, Tom could see the iron stamp the traders used to brand their stock with when it was cherry red, and in his hand, the kid had finally gotten hold of a wicked looking cattle prod, well used and flecked with blood. Tom saw it it crystalline detail, every smudge of dirt and blood, the crap under his fingernails, and his thumb pressing down on the trigger...
No second thoughts. Tom leveled the gun and shot, catching the kid at the base of the skull. Flash, shimmer, he dissolved into nothing before he hit the ground.
"You're alone," he told the man, speaking clearly over the rushing sound of his own adrenalin. "There's no one here to help you. Let him walk away. We'll all just....walk away."
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But then he blinks and there's nothing where the kid had been, and Tom there with his gun raised and an awful look in his eyes.
He feels a flash of cold pity and then equally cold gratitude, and he nods shortly. "Thanks." And he turns his back on that awful look and lifts his own gun, sliding down into the dark.
The floor feels slick, grimy, and the room is vast and shadowy. He can see a dim shape far ahead, half hidden behind a stack of crates, and he takes his own cover. There's no way to know for sure what's down here.
"He's worth fifty of you, you piece of shit," he hisses. "You know who I am? You know what I can do. You let him go now or you'll beg me to end it fuckin' hours before I do."
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He lets out a roar of pain, rearing back and firing wildly into the darkness. Two shots, echoing loud enough in my ears to make my teeth rattle. Fucking stupid, I know it, because I can't overpower him, but I'm desperate and hoping for a fucking miracle. Right the fuck now.
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The shout comes from a place Tom didn't even know he had anymore, deep down in the foundations, dark and simple. It was the kind of emotion that made it much more than easy to kill, that sparked that delight, pushed you along the edge between savior and monster. He pushed forward, gritting his teeth, staring blindly into the darkness. Mike was okay, neither of the bullets had ricocheted.
"You're a dead man," he breathed quietly, almost entirely to himself. The shadows were deceptive, he could see movement but little else. "God dammit, Neil, are you okay?"
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"Neil!" he yells, adding his voice to Tom's. He needs to think, needs to figure a way out of this, but he needs to hear what he can't quite see. Neil could be...
No. No, he can't. There's no way this is going to work like this. Not with guns, not at this distance. He stills his breathing, listening for a sign.
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His arm loosens and I think maybe he's grown a fucking soul, but instead of letting me slip away, he backhands me across the face and I go down in a crumpled heap at his feet, gasping for air and coughing blood onto his boots.
"Get the fuck back," he yells to the two of them, but I know he doesn't really believe it'll happen. He's got me by my hair, gun pressed to my head, and I look up at the shape of him in the dark, teeth bared and just fucking daring him to do it.
They'll be finding pieces of him all over this place for fucking weeks.
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He exchanged a long look with Mike from their respective covers, simple and concise. This is it. The last step. He waved Mike back, mouthing go around to him as Tom turned back to the sounds of struggle in the darkness.
"Lets talk," he said soothingly, hoping Mike got the message and was starting to slip beside the hostage taker in the deep shadows of the cellar. "You were gonna put him on the block, weren't you? Maybe we can work out a...monetary exchange."
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A few feet more and now his eyes are fully adjusted and he can see them in the dimness, the big hulk of a man and a smaller, crumpled shape at his feet. He feels dead except for a cold, steady, hateful rage. His hand is already close to his knife, and everything is surreally clear. There are only two ways this is going to end, and he can see them both like they're unspooling in front of him on a fucking movie screen.
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He's lost his focus, lost his patience, and with both hands on the gun, steadying it, I look up at him, making out the shape of his eyes in the dark, glittering with the faint light coming from the cracked door across the room, and we just... look at each other for the span of a heartbeat before his lip curls back in a snarl and he pulls the trigger.
Click.
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"That was stupid," he said very, very quietly, staring at the man, so close as to see the glimmer of reflected light in his eyes, and Tom's gaze doesn't even flicker to Mike's as the other man's silhouette creeps up behind him.
"That was very, very dumb."
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He had been dead inside but he's twice as dead now. Closed off to empathy. Closed off to mercy. This is a place he hasn't been to in a long time, dark and foul as the room he's in, but it's served him well in the past and he knows it'll serve him well now.
It's just a pity he doesn't have the time or the means to really make use of it.
He's moving again, silent, around the man and up behind him, still hardly daring to breathe. He doesn't remember holstering his gun or unsheathing his knife but it's out, a pleasant weight in his hands, a faint gleam in the darkness. The man is fumbling with his gun, cursing under his breath, and he knows he's out of time.
They all are.
It's easy, and the only part he regrets is how quick it is. Fingers sliding into the man's hair, gripping, yanking his head back, and a single sharp thrust of the knife up under his jaw and a sharp twist. A slit throat still leaves too much time to react. Up into the brain, quick, so unfortunately painless.
Instantly his hands are drenched and warm, and he holds the man close against him as the man twitches violently, twice, flickers and vanishes, his gun clattering to the ground.
And the thing he remembers later is that in that moment, before he returns to himself, he's almost sorry that it's over.
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There's a scuffle, muffled and swift, and then I'm splattered in something warm and wet, and the room's lit up with a brief flicker flash and then... nothing.
The gun clatters to the floor in front of me and I've got enough presence of mind to shuffle back away from it, letting out a choked hiccup of a sound, but that's it. That's all I've got left in me.
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Flash, sparkle, one bolt of lightening and the cellar goes dark. He should be more worried. Mike might be hurt, Neil could be...Neil could have been abused, but silently he holstered his gun and strode forward, pulling Neil against him for the first time in what felt like days. Hours, really, but time was strange here.
"Easy," he mummbled, lips against Neil's hairline, arms around his waist. He glanced up, meeting Mike's eyes in the half light, nodding once. We did it.
"Easy," he repeated to himself, to all of them. "We've got you, we're here."
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He doesn't feel like he should touch anyone at all, right now.
He wipes his knife blade on his thigh and sheathes it again. He stands over the two of them, watching. Trying to breathe normally again. Neil's alive. That's what matters. That's all that matters.
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