a bump in the road → jackess
tessmorell:
The footsteps faded, evidently heading down a route she couldn’t see. While she disliked not knowing her surroundings, letting someone disappear farther away was far more enjoyable than facing any of these people again. Tess couldn’t focus on anything. Her heart pounded in her chest, but her head throbbed just as much, if not more. The seemingly endless series of wounds she withstood simmered as dull pains. In reality, they caused her agony, but she couldn’t think straight enough or gain enough consciousness to pay them much mind at the moment.
Rolling onto her side took some effort, and she whimpered at the sensation. She didn’t know what parts of her simply ached out of stiffness and which others required serious medical attention. Either way, no one was coming to care for her, and she knew she had to get out of there. The prospect sounded stupid and impossible, and getting caught would likely just land her in more trouble. Regardless, she had to at least make the effort. Maybe her mind was scattered and she was hiding a huge sense of fear built up the previous night, but Tess had little choice. The last thing she wanted was for them to come back and resume their actions.
She managed to prop herself up a tiny bit, trying to muffle her grunts of pain in the process. It only took her eyes a few seconds to hone in on the array of objects sitting nearby. As Tess looked over them, trying to figure out if any of them could help, she slowly realized the instruments weren’t stained with anyone’s blood, but her own. Swallowing nervously, she shifted away, narrowly avoiding falling back onto her side.
Considering alternate options didn’t get her very far. Fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - the young traveler spotted one of the few objects in her possession sitting among the collection. Scooting over as well as she could, Tess reached out. Her hands shook a little as she grabbed the knife, though whether they did so as a result of her many afflictions or a more mental fear, she couldn’t say. When it came down to it, ignoring the fact that her own blood covered the blade was far simpler than positioning the thing properly to make steady progress toward freedom.
The process took quite a while. Tess lost her breath quickly, spending far more time cringing and willing herself not to cave into the pain than meeting any actual success with unbinding herself. The longer she remained awake, the more persistent she needed to grow in ignoring the way her bones protested and her wounds reopened. The blood seeping through every part of her hardly measured up to the frightful tinge of her thoughts, yet she refused to give that any justification. Not yet. She needed to be strong. Jack wasn’t here, and she needed to save herself on this journey for once.
Not for a second did she consider the possibility that he wasn’t even alive anymore. They’d mentioned such things as they pulled screams from her, but she wouldn’t allow herself to reflect. She was alive, and surely he was, too.
When she finally achieved freedom, she took a deep, uneven breath and looked around at her settings. No footsteps returned since, and she could only hope she could find a way out of here. But hope was one of the sparse number of things she always carried with her, as foolish as it was.
Gradually, she eased herself to her knees. Her entire body screamed in disagreement, but she knew she couldn’t stop. As quietly as she could, she shuffled over to the wall. It took quite some time, but not nearly as much energy and aggravated grinding of her teeth as did trying to rise to her feet with the help of the flat surface before her. Stuffing the knife into her pocket likely would’ve expedited the process, but Tess refused to let go.
Once she was standing, albeit at a crooked and incredibly painful angle, she leaned back against the wall, trying to summon air into her lungs. It was then that Tess realized just how alone she was. Independence always seemed like a great thing to the Firefly, yet right now, she needed to provide herself with enough physical and mental support to take a single step in the right direction.
The first two shuffles of her feet took a great deal of time and heaved breaths. But before she could aim for a third, Tess realized someone was approaching at an odd pace. Clinging to the wall for support, she looked up in horror as the figure came into view. She felt acutely aware that preparing for a punch from a foe was nothing like trying (and failing) to ready herself to be dragged back to her own little bed of misery.
But it wasn’t one of her kidnappers, or anyone who loomed over her as she shrieked and wavered in and out of consciousness. Her knees buckled at the sight, and it took more determination than she really had to keep from collapsing to the floor out of relief.
“Jack!” if she had enough stamina, her exclamation would’ve been released in a shout of joy. Instead they came out as a cracked whisper, accompanied by an onslaught of tears threatening to fall. But she didn’t have enough energy to cry, and certainly couldn’t rush to him as some part of her wanted to do. In fact, she had to thank her drained and trembling nature from revealing just how glad she was to see the young man for whom she frequently proclaimed her hatred.
He didn’t seem to be in great shape, himself, but she just stared at him for a few seconds. Finally, she formed a few more words. “Jack.” Tess’ voice faltered into a quieter tone as she continued. “How do we get out of here?”
Without remorse, without shame, and without looking back, Jack left his hostage bleeding out in the corner where he had shot him. Eventually, a wolf or a coyote or something would come to get rid of it for him, though it wasn’t as if Jack had exactly wanted to waste his time shoving the worthless piece of shit back into the dirt. So, with newfound motivation, he continued toward the direction the man had told him to go. Pain shot up his leg, forcing him to grimace, but thinking about whatever the fuck they were doing to Tess seemed to alleviate his discomfort.
Too many days had passed, and he knew that there was a possibility that she could already be dead--and that should have been a relief to him. He had wished death upon the his traveling companion more than once throughout the few weeks they had been together, for Christ’s sake. But thinking about the very real chance that she was being dissected at this very moment was genuinely worrying. It had been a long time since he had worried about someone other than himself.
After a significant amount of time practically dragging his leg behind him, he laid his eyes upon their compound. It was an old warehouse, a big concrete building with a rusty “stco” hanging above the padlocked roll-up door. Clearly, Tess’ kidnappers were not the brightest of the bunch if they really thought a measly padlock and two guards would be enough to secure their gates. His hiding spot wasn’t even that great, and he was sure that if they were actually paying attention they should have spotted him by now. Getting rid of them only took two quick pulls of his trigger. Picking the lock took longer than taking the guards out. He took their weapons and turned towards the entrance, a little surprised that the sound of gunshots hadn’t attracted immediate attention. At least it made it easier for him to retrieve Tess and get the fuck out of there.
He pulled the gate open slowly, doing his best not to make too much noise. Again, much to his surprise, there was no one on the other side. It seemed suspiciously easy to get inside, and for a moment Jack had assumed he had been dragged right into a trap. But the moment of conspiracy passed, and still no one had taken a shot at him, so he stealthily navigated through the aisles. Although he was moving slower than usual, he was still making progress. The only issue was...he didn’t actually know where to go. This place was huge, each aisle twenty feet high. All he had was his intuition to guide him; there were no tracks to clue him towards Tess’s jail cell.
With each step he grew increasingly wary. It seemed impossible that no one had snuck up on him or spotted him yet. There were some human noises traveling through the warehouse, but they seemed distant and not worth worrying about. Everything was moving smoothly until he heard the panicked voice of someone alerting whoever else was trapped within the concrete walls.
“Intruder!” They shouted. “Guards outside reported dead!”
Jack’s heart began to beat faster and with more ferocity, the grip around the handle of his pistol growing tighter as his blood pressure rose. Figuring that stealth was the only way to go about this situation, taking his fucked up leg into account, he took a few deep breaths to steady his heart and continued moving slowly towards the door his gut had told him to approach. Unfortunately for him, the door was locked. He bit down on his lip, praying to whatever deity up above to keep anyone from coming his way as he shoved his pick into the keyhole and began to feel around for the picks. One, two, three, four, and five. His body disappeared behind the door just as a lookout turned the corner.
In front of him was a hallway with doors on each side. The end of the hall separated into two more hallways. He took another exhale, tiptoeing down the cheap, musty carpet. It permeated an odor that made his nose crinkle. It smelled like several people’s corpses had been buried underneath the floor, and for a split second he wondered if Tess was one of them. He quickly pushed the thought out of his head, peering around the corners to make sure no one was waiting there for him. There was no one there, but he was faced with another hallway that split into two at the end. He was starting to think that this place was some sort of labyrinth.
“Maybe someone just killed the guards and ran off?” A raspy voice said, coming from the hall he was just in. Jack quickly ducked into an open room, held his breath, and pressed himself up against the wall. Hopefully they wouldn’t come in here.
The footsteps neared.
“The entrance was broken into. He’s gotta be out there somewhere.” A female voice, but very low in the register. She sounded angry. “We’ll find him before he kills anyone else.”
There was a quick pause. “David was a good kid.”
“I know that. He was my little brother.”
That was definitely not something he was prepared to hear. He knew what it felt like to lose a younger sibling, and it was a kind of numb yet painful grieving process that was hard to explain. Losing his parents was hard enough, but losing Aimee felt unbearable. And he still couldn’t find it in himself to let her go. He could understand the emotions running through that woman’s mind, and he made one wish: if he died today, let her be the one to kill him.
After some time passed and Jack felt confident that the coast was clear, he ventured further into the maze. Left, right, look through the door, straight, pick a lock, hide door, right, left, straight, lock, door, hide. It seemed endless, and he was starting to think that they didn’t have her here after all.
That was until he unlocked one more door and found her standing there.
She looked different. Physically, she was bruised and battered. There was blood on her clothes and bags under her eyes. Her skin was stained with blood--hers, most likely--and there was a kind of fear in her eyes that he had to look away from. It scared him too.
She muttered something under her breath. It was his name
Concerned, he spoke quietly, under the impression that if he said anything too loudly she would shatter right then and there. “Tess?”
She looked at him like he was the messiah, sent to save her from this hell. The fear in her eyes turned into relief as she coughed out his name again, her voice not the stubborn, annoying thing he had remembered. In fact, he was so relieved to hear her voice that he asked her a question. “Are you okay?” It was a stupid question, because she was clearly in bad shape. Still, he had a feeling he knew how she would answer, and that answer was exactly the one he wanted to hear.
“I can get us out of here, but everyone out there is looking for me. They know I’m here. Can you...no. You can’t walk on your own.” He wasn’t in any shape to be adding more weight to his leg, but there was no way she could hobble out of here without being caught or killed. So, he put his backpack on his stomach and got down on one knee, his back facing her. “I’ll carry you, but I’m going to need you to hold on tight, okay? And...” He handed her one of the guns he had taken from the guards outside. “I’m going to need to you to watch my back.”