the way it was.

these are the days that must happen to you.

[leadmehcme]

thexsurvivors:

Damien didn’t sleep much—didn’t allow himself to. When he did, he did so in fifteen to thirty minute increments and his hand never left his weapon. The rest of the time he spent checking the other rooms to make sure Rohan was still there, but more importantly that the other two additions weren’t doing anything they weren’t supposed to.

They were seemingly harmless (but nothing in this world was harmless), one of them was always up as the other slept. Damien didn’t acknowledge them as he walked through the building. Mostly for his own self-preservation. Just knowing they were there made him feel murderous.

He was waiting for the other ball to drop.

Apart from his utter lack of sleep and the fact that he was getting more irritable each time he forced himself to wake up, the night was quiet. The rising of the sun came without an ambush, betrayal, or gunfire.

It meant nothing to Damien.

Fireflies were smart. Just because nothing happened in the past few hours didn’t mean that everything was safe and clear. Last he checked head Firefly chick still had a face he didn’t trust and her little miniature was still a wild card.

Just thinking about the two in the next room causes his blood to boil and he has to calm himself down before he does something stupid. His hand twitches to pull the trigger of his gun. It would be so easy—so quick.

The only think stopping him is Rohan.

With a frustrated noise, Damien pushes himself off the dingy ass couch he was laying on and make his way through the main room (ignoring the other two like he does best) and to where Rohan is. 

Rohan is already awake when Damien walks in. She’s lacing up her combat boots, preparing for the journey to come. She looks up at him when she’s finished and looks him up and down analytically. “You didn’t sleep at all, did you?” she asks him.

“You brought strangers,” he replies, making his way to the other side of the room and looking out the window. “You’re telling me you slept the entire time?”

“I would have,” Rohan replies as she stands up and makes her way over to him. The sunlight shines on her and makes her eyes squint. She lifts her hand up to block it. “But someone—Damien—decided he was going to have a temper tantrum and slept in a separate room.”

They both knew that wasn’t the only reason, but neither of them were going to bring it up. 

He brings his hand up and grabs her wrist in order to un-shade her eyes. The sun brings out the golden tones deep within her eyes that reminds him of a simpler time. 

Rohan looks away and then goes to grab her jacket, slipping it on. “As fun as it is to watch you mentally run down memory lane and remind me that you have emotions not shadowed by survival, we need to get food and supplies.”

Damien lets the memory pass and focuses on the task at hand. “Those extra ration cards are coming out of your stash—they can starve for all I care.” 

The two of them walk back out to the main room, Rohan standing in front of him as a barrier. Rohan tells them that they’ll be back and for them not to leave. “Unless you absolutely want to—I’m sure the guards won’t notice.” Rohan shoves her elbow into him and then drags him out of the room and downstairs.

It’s a little over half an hour before they’re back. Rohan tosses some bread, jam, and water at the two girls. “Alright, where are we headed?” she asks, regarding the question mark that is what they’re supposed to be smuggling. Something Damien already went off on her for not knowing when she admitted it to him earlier.  

Mila barely slept, her mind too frantic about the man pacing around and checking in. Her eyes would dart to him every time, watching with careful diligence. Her knife remains close by just in case, not that it would have done any good should a gun be pulled on either of them.

Like Sam, she wonders what the Fireflies could have possibly done to him that inspired so much hatred, but she doesn’t dwell on it. Anger and the grudges that follow run rampant these days, and that much Mila can relate to. It just keeps her on edge, on constant high-alert, but it’s rare Mila goes a day without those feelings burning into her spine. The only reason she gets barely two hours of sleep is because Sam wakes up halfway through the night and insists that she try.

But her dreams are always the same, and she wakes up in no time. Sam, still trying to recover from all the strain on her injury, manages to fall back asleep once she does. Mila is grateful for that, at least. She’s more grateful for when the sun begins to rise and she can hear stirring from the other room. The sooner this is over, the better. Maybe she should be less hesitant to start this journey, to make her way to the Fireflies, considering she has no idea what’s waiting for her on the other side.

Her stomach fills with moths at the idea. Nervousness begs to kick in but Mila tries to drown it out. Whatever happens is going to happen and there’s not much she can do about any of it now. She’s already escaped death once, how much more can she expect?

Sam wakes up about twenty minutes before Rohan and Damien return to the main room, just long enough for Mila to check on her wound. It seems to be doing fine, considering the quick stitching job.

“We’ll see you soon,” Sam says, watching them leave. She has no plans of leaving, only discussing plans of action to Mila until they are drilled into her head beyond a shadow of doubt. The bite mark on her arm that she is under no circumstances allowed to reveal itches and aches beneath her sleeve as it tries to heal.

“The trip will be over before you know it. You will be back in Firefly hands, then back to a base. Everything will work out.” Mila knows the tone of Sam’s voice - like she’s trying to convince the both of them. Mila just nods. This is the only way.

And she knows it’s time to get started when the other two return, Rohan tossing food their way. Sam packs most of it in Mila’s backpack. She stays quiet after Rohan’s question for a few moments longer than maybe she should. Sam just can’t gauge how well of a reaction they will get after they find out that it’s not a what they are smuggling, but a who.

Mila gets to her feet in the meantime, helping Sam up on her way.

“Straight to the capital building,” she says. It shouldn’t take longer than a day, she reminds herself. Then the smugglers will be out of the picture.

“With Mila,” Sam finally reveals. “I need you two to get her there in one piece.”

[leadmehcme]

thexsurvivors:

Rohan feels Damien tense beside her the minute Sam starts talking; she glances down to see both of his hands in fists. They are practically shaking with anger and restraint. Still, he listens to Sam speak. Or at least Rohan thinks he does. For all she knows Damien is playing out scenarios of which to get around her and murder the both of them. Yeah…now that she thinks about it that’s probably exactly why Damien stares at her so intently.

The moment Sam stops speaking, Rohan glances at Damien once again, trying to gauge any reaction that isn’t murderous. He doesn’t speak, he just stares at Sam. Rohan gives it a minute, feeling her entire bodying getting more impatient and anxious with each silent moment. 

Finally, she thinks he’s going to say something, but instead he just switches his gaze to Mila. It’s the same murderous one he looked at Sam with, but—.

It’s the smallest of flashes, but there is something else present in the way that Damien looks at her. Something Rohan can’t place and something that barely lasts a second before it’s gone. Glazed over once again by nothing but pure ice and fire melted together to become something dangerous and unstoppable.

Rohan’s body tenses, the silence putting her on edge, but the look in Damien’s eyes makes her body grow colder by the second. She can’t stand it much longer and when Damien silently switches his gaze once again to Sam, Rohan snaps.

“Okay, enough, you little psycho,” she says in a frustrated tone, stepping in front of him and blocking his line of sight so that he has to focus on her. The look in his eyes only dials down by a few percentages and her body involuntarily sends a shivering jolt through her system that reaches every nerve ending in her body. “The job really isn’t that hard to comprehend,” she finally says, her voice sounding less like a scolding mother and more like an annoyed business partner. “Our clients just happen to be Fireflies.” Damien goes to say something, but Rohan holds her index finger up and shakes her head slightly. She presses said finger against his lips and he jerks his head away with a low growl.

When Damien looks at her again, he seems calm–the look in his eyes is hollow and nonexistent. His hands are no longer in fists, instead they are relaxed at his sides. A smile slowly creeps onto his face as he lifts his chin slightly and encourages Rohan to continue. She’s reached extremely dangerous territory, but she’s not afraid to cross the line.

Damien would never hurt her and they both know it.

Lowering her voice, Rohan says, “We’ve done worse for worse people.” Damien looks like he wants to argue that, but doesn’t. He clenches his jaw instead. “We need the guns Damien; you know we need the guns. They can get us more than we would get working sporadic jobs for the next few months.” It’s true and Damien knows it’s true, but he won’t admit it or acknowledge it.

“I’m not working for them,” he says simply and with a bit to his words.

“I’m not asking,” Rohan replies without missing a beat.

They both stare at each other, their gazes heavy and electrified. Neither of them wants to break, but they hear voices outside the building and jump into survival mode. Damien is first to turn and run up the stairs, already on the way out of the building and onto one of their many hideouts throughout the quarantine zone.

Rohan turns to Sam and Mila and hears a door being opened downstairs. “We’ll do it,” she says quickly before taking off the same way Damien went. She knows they will follow. As she runs she thinks about the fact that she went into this willing to let Damien decide what they did and that if he said they weren’t, she wouldn’t do it. She didn’t know what changed, but Damien could be so fucking stubborn that it brought her own out in crushing tidal waves. She refuses to let him win this round.

They made it to an old apartment building ten minutes later. Damien was already there and the shower was running. Rohan motions to the beat-up couch, “Make yourselves comfortable, we’ll leave in a few hours before the sun rises; when the guards are switching shifts.”

She doesn’t give them another thought as she goes into the next room and shuts the door behind her. She goes into the bathroom, the words “fuck you” are written in the steamed mirror. With a roll of her eyes, she unslings the guns that she’s been carrying from around her and puts them on the counter. Rohan slowly undresses and makes her way into the shower, pushing Damien out of the way so that the scolding hot water hits her instead. It’d turn ice-cold in a few minutes, but right now it feels amazing.

“Don’t fight me on this,” she says, knowing damn well Damien is going to fight her on it until the moment they leave and well after it.

There’s so much ice in Damien’s gaze, but Sam doesn’t let it get to her. What she does let instead, are her thoughts. What on Earth could have happened between him and the Fireflies that the sight of them makes him clench his fist? That the sight of them encourages more violence than this world requires? Sam can’t find any reason in their cause. They’re rebels, sure, but smugglers aren’t exactly law-abiding citizens themselves. It has to be more personal. Something between him and some other Firefly, and his grudge has extended beyond that. Maybe Sam will have to ask Cal about it, if she ever gets the chance.

She plans on it, always does. But she’s not someone who believes she’s invincible. That’s more up Cal’s alley. He’s more likely to know the ins-and-outs of bad history than she is, but all of that is really the least of her worries.

Mila, on the other hand, doesn’t know what to think. Her nerves are little bundles on fire, watching carefully over the two people she may or may not have to travel with. Rohan seems capable and willing. She seems more level-headed than her partner, who makes Mila clench her jaw when he switches his gaze to stare her down. Her instincts tell her not to let him win, so she doesn’t. She stares back, refusing to break eye contact until he does. It feels like a weight is lifted when he finally looks away.

The both of them are grateful when Rohan intervenes and tries to talk down whatever thoughts may be brewing in Damien’s mind. Neither of them say anything while they’re talking it out, and Sam tries to relax her posture for a moment. Her side is stinging and burning, but it’s the price to pay for getting herself into this situation. Now all that matters is the getting out.

Her luck might be turning, though just barely, when Rohan agrees to the deal. It comes just in time as more soldiers, which means they all need to move. “C’mon,” Sam says to Mila, just a habit, as they follow Rohan and Damien up toward another hideout and away from prying eyes who’d love nothing more than to put a bullet in every Firefly head they see.

Sam does as Rohan instructs, settling down on the couch with Mila, who checks over her wound. While they have moment, Mila decides to change the bandaging to get it dry again. Sam does the talking.

“Everything’s going to turn out alright. They’ll have their lovers spat, and then this will all be over. Smugglers can’t pass up a deal like this.”

Mila doesn’t shift her eyes, only cleans up blood and re-wraps the bandages. “They don’t even know what they’re smuggling. Maybe they will change their mind.”

It’s possible. Sam knows it. She’s worried about how Damien might react to not only having to work for the Fireflies, but having one right along side him. A Firefly that he has to actually protect.

“They’ll do it for the guns,” she says again. Mostly Sam is just trying to believe it herself, trying to will it to be true.

When she hears the sound of the shower turn off, Mila purses her lips and puts everything away. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Not wanting to be caught looking so vulnerable, more vulnerable that she already does, Sam stands up before Rohan and Damien make it back out to where they are. Mila joins her, a feeling in the pit of her stomach telling her that none of this is going to work out the way they all hope.

“So,” Sam starts, wanting solid confirmation, “we have a deal?”

[leadmehcme]

㊭

sam → rohan: was i wrong to trust her?

mila → rohan: hope she knows what she’s doing.

cal → olivia: what would i do without her?

carina → damien: never want to see him again.

[leadmehcme]

thexsurvivors:

Rohan turns at the sound of a small explosion and sees nothing but smoke.

She smirks.

Using the diversion, she drops down the side of the building she’s on and sprints towards the tunnels. They weren’t far from here, maybe ten minutes. Just enough out of the way and hidden among rubble of an old highway and unruly trees.

Rohan made it to the tunnels without a single problem – unless you count paranoia and lungs that were on fire. She blames the fact that she had smoked cigarettes since she was a teenager. That was one of the only good things that came from these past 17 years. It forced her to quit and her chances at relapse dwindled over the years.

A minimum of five minutes and a maximum of ten. That was how long Rohan was going to wait for Mila and Sam.

She starts pacing.

Rohan’s just about to leave without them when she hears footsteps approaching. Her gun is out swiftly, trigger ready to be pulled as the two women become noticeable. Her chest falls as she lets out a breath. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” she says directly to Sam. 

With her gun securely against her thigh, she turns back around and starts making her way through the tunnels. They are dark and eerie; they only sound present is the splashing of water as they all make their way through them.

Every step feels like the ticking of a bomb – the countdown dwindling faster and faster.

The pipes are a maze, but Rohan knows her way around and it doesn’t take them very long before they reach a ladder; above it is a manhole. She climbs the ladder and presses her palm against the cold metal in order to lift it up and make sure the coast is clear.

It’s late, which means that the curfew is in affect and as a direct result the streets are barren. Only the guards are present in the depths of the night. Usually she plans around the guard’s schedules and routes, but with the whole unexpected …partnership, Rohan has lost all semblance of time.

Pushing the cover off, she pulls herself up and onto the street. It’s out of the way of the main streets, which is why it’s so critical to know those tunnels front and back. Rohan offers her hand to Sam and helps her up and then quickly leads them through and around buildings, skillfully dodging patrol.

They reach a tall, rundown building secluded in the depths of the quarantine zone. The windows are broken or covered with boards, the brick walls dressed in moss and shaped by overgrown bushes and trees. The surrounding buildings mirror it. 

“Follow me.”

Rohan pushes the door open and it scrapes against the rotted wood floor. A bar, somehow still intact lines the room, but the alcohol that once occupied it is long gone and the glasses are shattered on the ground. They move past a broken pool table a few feet away and pieces of a disco ball crunch underneath her boots as she leads them to the stairs. There’s a stair or two missing and they look unstable—and they probably are—but it’s the only way to the second level. 

Once on the second floor they have to cross a makeshift bridge that consists of two long boards and cross into the abandoned brothel. She hears guards not too far away and picks up speed. 

Rohan leads them up another level, thinks she hears something, and holds her hand up signaling Sam and Mila to stop where they are. Silently, she reaches for her gun and takes a few hesitant steps towards the connecting room.

Kicking the door open, she comes face to face with a gun being pointed at her. It only takes a second before she realizes that it’s Damien (and vice versa) and they both drop their guard, exhale, and embrace each other.

“Where were you I wen—“ Damien, having pulled out of the embrace seems to finally notice that she’s brought company. Rohan watches him quickly process everything. The way his eyes go between the two woman and the exact moment he registers what—or who—he is looking at.

Within seconds, before Rohan can even manage a single word, a bullet is being shot from Damien’s gun. The bullet misses its target—Sam—and instead goes well above her head. His gun hits the ground.

He may be quick, but Rohan is quicker.

Also, he’s predictable.

She grabs his wrist as he makes way for his other gun. Her nails dig into his hands; she feels the skin break. “Damien, stop,” her voice is stern and commanding. He looks at her and she wishes he wouldn’t, not in the way he was. His cold gaze shakes her to her core.

“What have you done?” Damien says, his jaw clenched as he speaks, every word annunciated and dripping in lethalness. 

Rohan places her free hand on his chest, the other still holding her gun. She can briefly feel his heart angrily pounding away. “I got us a job.”

Damien laughs and the hollow sound bounces off the walls. “No,” he says, removing her hand and taking a step back. “You got yourself a job—there’s no us.” Damien reaches down and grabs his gun, his eyes are trained in Sam and Mila. The life in his eyes is still gone, just less so now.   

Rohan watches as Damien starts to walk away and makes a decision.

The sound of a gun being cocked grabs Damien’s attention as he stops in his tracks and turns around. Rohan has her gun pointed at him. Her gaze is unwavering. If he was going to act like a victim, she was going to treat him like one.

“You gonna shoot me? Really, Ro?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” She cocks an eyebrow, challenging him.

Damien smiles and puts his hands up in mock surrender. 

Rohan looks behind her at Sam and Mila and then approaches Damien. Pushing him a little way back, she speaks to him in a hushed tone. “Just hear them out, that’s all I’m asking—we need what she’s offering.”

She plays her last card, using their complicated relationship, and presses her lips gently against Damien’s. “Do it for me,” she whispers against them.

“Three minutes.”

Rohan smiles briefly, reminding herself that she won the battle, but that the war was still ongoing. She leads him back to Mila and Sam (while keeping a safe distance) and says, “Tell him what you told me and do it quick, we don’t have long.” And she wasn’t just referring to Damien’s time limit or the fact that she wasn’t sure just how long she could keep him in line, but  rather the fact that just a few minutes ago there was a gun shot and surely guards would follow.

The path Rohan leads them both down doesn’t worry Sam nearly as much as what they might find at the end of it. In all her years climbing ranks within the Fireflies, Sam has met her fair share of people who have hated them for whatever reasons they mustered up. They started as rebels, wanting to maintain all three branches of judicial government before everything fell into zone-designated martial law, where anyone with a badge or a gun ruled over the rest of them. Just like all things did, that fell into chaos. Creating any wide-spread agreement was no longer in the cards, not after the world crumbled.

After that, the Fireflies just expanded where they needed. They were always the resistance. Always fighting ‘the good fight’. These days, they just want peace. They want a cure, they want a better, easier survival. They want to rebuild. The military, the zones, the hunters, they don’t want any of that. Their reasons are their own, and Sam has no interest in trying to change minds anymore, but the hatred runs deep. If Rohan’s partner really hates the Fireflies as much as she’s letting on, there is no telling what danger they might be in.

But they’ve gone this far. She can’t turn back now, can’t afford it, and so they keep snaking their way through the quarantine zone. Both her and Mila keep their heads down and their footsteps quiet, following Rohan’s lead and keeping a look out. The deep throb in her graze is starting to subside, and for that much she can be thankful for.

She just hopes she doesn’t get anything worse when their pace slows, and it looks like this is it. While Rohan draws her gun and kicks in the door, Sam backs up a step and makes sure that she’s standing in the way of Mila.

The relationship between Damien Thorn and Rohan is immediately evident... but less so than his feelings for her. The sight of a gun pulled and aimed has Sam leaping into action, pulling Mila down toward the ground by the time the gun fires. The sound it makes when it lodges into something behind them assures her that neither of them were hit, and Sam’s about to pull her own gun when, somehow, Rohan manages to talk Damien down.

“Sam what the fuck!” Mila’s teeth are grit, her voice angry but tone soft.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she reassures, watching the situation like a hawk. Whatever his trauma with the Fireflies is must be brutal, and now she worries that this plan is going to run into the ground... just like so many others.

But Rohan seems to have some sort of control over the situation. Enough that it encourages Sam to get back up onto her feet, though she keeps Mila behind her and at an arms length. At the sight of a kiss, Sam isn’t so curious about how Rohan is able to maneuver a negotiation like this.

At least she gets some time to talk. That’s all she needs.

“I get it. Neither of you are my biggest fan, but I’m not empty handed here. I need to get something smuggled out of the city and into the capital building as soon as possible.” She presses against her wound again, and thinks, just maybe, the bleeding has finally stopped. “I’d do it myself, but I’m not exactly... in good shape. And I don’t have a lot of people around here anymore to do it for me.” Damien would probably get a kick out of knowing that most of them have been killed, so she leaves that part out.

“You’d be compensated. The few people I do still have here just got a shipment of guns and ammo. Handguns, shotguns, rifles. They’ll all be yours if the job is done, I’ll make sure of it.”

[leadmehcme]

thexsurvivors:

Rohan looks up at Sam’s hand and slaps it away with an annoyed roll of her eyes. “You want your butchered stitch job to bust open or what?” Not that she cares if it does or not, but they also don’t need a trail of blood left behind them and they didn’t have time to restitch her. She’s about to tell Mila to give her her hand when she hears the obnoxious clambering of multiple footsteps coming from the front of the police station. 

Looking down to her waist, she sees a red light blinking on the walkie-talkie. “Fuck.” Of course they were equipped with GPS and of course they activated it when they didn’t find it with the body. It was a rookie mistake and Rohan wasn’t a rookie.

The walkie-talkie is harshly thrown to the floor, shattering instantaneously and she grasps Sam’s hand without a second thought. Fuck the stitches. 

“Run,” she says at the same time multiple gun shots start going off. She takes the lead as she’s the one who knows where they are going. Also because she was going to keep going no matter what – she wasn’t stopping if one of them got hurt. 

Jumping across the first roof, she turns back to make sure they were still keeping up with her. She can see one of the soldiers being lifted onto the roof they just came from. She runs faster. There’s a ladder now and she climbs it with ease, crossing the roof and dropping down to the roof below. It’s a long drop and she rolls in order to suppress the blow.

Rohan turns to see the two women on the roof above and she doesn’t know if Sam can manage the long drop in her condition. Thinking quickly on her feet, she remembers the theater. “Keep going West – there are a few jumps, small drops, but they are mostly even and they have good coverage,” she tells them as she hears shots in the distance. “There’s an opening in an old theater.” Rohan digs into her pocket and pulls out a scarce rolls of bandages she found on her way and throws it up to them. “Once you’re on the ground, head North past the old church and find the tunnels – I’ll wait for you there as long as I can.” 

Their route would take them longer, but at this point what choice do they have? Rohan doesn’t wait for confirmation or for a response before she starts taking off, leaping across the next building. The longer they stand there, the more vulnerable they become.

“I’ll be fine,” Sam retorts. The hand she’s offering is on the opposite side from her wound, and she’s had some experience with working around injuries like this. Mila, on the other hand, isn’t so sure, and leans down to help with getting Rohan up.

Both girls feel a jolt of panic when it sounds like people are approaching, and fast, but neither of them budge before getting Rohan up to the top floor. Mila catches a glimpse of the soldiers clambering through the door, guns at the ready. When Rohan tells them to run, they don’t need to be told twice. Both of them follow her lead, going as fast as they can with Sam’s injury protesting the whole way, but they keep up across rooftops.

Up the ladder is easy, but the drop is one that Sam knows might incapacitate her. It’s possible she’ll be able to keep going, but it’s possible that she’ll pop all of her stitches and be in worse condition than she already is. Rohan’s quick thinking and alternate directions are appreciated, and Mila takes that minute to kick down the ladder they just climbed up in order to buy them some more time.

Meanwhile, Sam repeats the directions on her head, catching the bandages and nodding before Rohan takes off. It’s probably easier that they split up, just to divert the military’s attention, but Sam has her doubts on whether or not they will actually see Rohan again. But as it tends to go in this world, she can’t think about that right now.

“C’mon Mila, let’s go!” Her tone is hushed but urgent, following the alternate route and keeping her head down. Once they jump one more building, Mila looks back to see the soldiers make it up to the top of the previous building. With another canister on her, she takes a second to light it and throw, the hissing of the fuse turning into a small explosion that flashes in the night and produces a billow of smoke that should provide them with plenty of time to disappear.

But they’ll likely still be right behind them if they don’t lose the trail, so Mila runs and catches up to Sam. She can see the old theater up ahead, and Mila helps her with the final drop they need to take before they reach it. They both know that if they run into any infected that it will likely cause some trouble, but the coast seems to be clear for now.

They slow it down and quiet it down now that they’re in the theater, catching their breath and checking on Sam’s wound. It’s bled through her bandaging, but not badly enough that it needs to be changed right here right now. There will be time for that later. There will be.

“How do we know she’s not just trying to get us killed?” Mila whispers, moving through the old theater and finding their way back outside.

“If she wanted us dead, she would have just killed us. And maybe she is hoping we get killed on the way, but we’re out of choices here. We’ve lost a lot of people lately. There’s no one else to get you to the capital building.”

Mila has mixed feelings about her... condition. She’s angry that it’s put them in this position, and hopeful that it might take them somewhere else. Regardless, she doesn’t say anything.

“There’s the church. C’mon, we’re almost there.” Sam picks up her pace again, one hand keeping some constant pressure on her graze. She will have to make her way back to the remaining fireflies by herself if this all pans out, but it will be worth it once Mila is on her way toward the others.

By the time they hit the tunnels, she just hopes that Rohan is still here and still willing to go through with it.

[leadmehcme]

thexsurvivors:

Rohan looks down at the item being handed to her – a flashbang she called it—and looks slowly back up at the girl. The girl. What the fuck was her name? She can’t recall it. “You could at least buy me dinner first,” she says sarcastically. Maybe she would appreciate it more if she wasn’t so untrusting, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. Still, she manages, somehow, to say thanks – even though it’s followed by a “I guess” and sounds more like a question.

She takes the flashbang from her and watches them leave.

Her name is Mila.

Rohan looks back down at the flashbang. She feels something in her chest, but she doesn’t know what it is or why she feels it. She tosses the flashbang aside.

Once the two of them are well out of sight, Rohan looks around the corner again. There’s two of them now and they are closer. Rohan smiles. She closes her eyes, holds her breath, and counts to five – counts her heartbeat.  On five, she breathes out and turns the corner. She shoots once, twice – two bodies hit the ground. 

Damien was the one that made her practice headshots, made her perfect them. Not that she was perfect at them by any means, not like he was, but in the past three years she has learned a lot and with the right spacing and distance, she could hit any target.

She stuffs her pistol into her holster and sprints up to the two bodies. She strips them off both of their guns and slings them over her chest. One for her, one for Damien. They guns are low on ammo and neither guard is carrying more, so they won’t last long, but it’s better than nothing. 

While making her way to the police station, she scavenges a house or two and comes up with some medical supplies. She figures it could help Sam, which will in turn help her and their situation.

Wanting to save ammo, she dodges the guards she comes across rather than taking them out. It’s all very quick and painless and she arrives at the police station with no hassle. She makes her way to the cells where the two others are waiting. “Glad to see you guys can follow orders well; guess you really are Fireflies.”

Rohan pushes past them and makes her way to the very last cell. There is a hole in the top. The makeshift ladder that was one there is gone. Leaning against the wall she laces her fingers together and looks at the others. “Up up and away,” she says before explaining that they have to hop building until they get to the tunnels.

Though it might be easier, just so she doesn’t get an earful from Mila, Sam is thankful that they have a minute or two to themselves. She’s sure that Mila has caught onto how the plan has changed, and Sam doubts that she’s too fond of it. At this point in time, they just don’t have any other options. This can’t wait. The more time it takes to get Mila back to the medical center the more time exists to allow something to go wrong. She can’t risk it.

Before she speaks, Sam clears the police station and glances outside again. All is quiet, and she holsters her gun once more. The graze in her side aches, but it’s better than it was. It takes her a minute to turn back to Mila, who is fiddling with the knife in her hand.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Mila glances upward, but it doesn’t last long. “Do you.”

“I can’t get you to the capital by myself. As it is I still have about a hundred things I need to see through back here.” She pauses and tries to relax her stance. “You know if I could take you I would.”

And she does believe that. It doesn’t mean she likes it. Sam’s the second in command, and the Firefly’s bases expand all across the United States.

“Yeah, I know. But the strangers you assigned to the job? Is that really a good idea?”

Sam sighs and applies a little pressure against her wound. “It’s not ideal, but they’re capable. They’ll do it for the guns, or at least Rohan will. It’s only a short few day to the Capital building, then you’ll be back in Firefly hands. It’ll be over before you know it.”

Mila’s still unsure and uneasy. For most of her life she’s either been alone, or with the Fireflies. “Let’s just get it over with...” She relents, shifting the backpack on her shoulders.

“And you know the rules, alright? Don’t say a word.” They’d probably kill her the second they saw that bite mark on her arm.

“Yeah, I got it.”

Rohan comes in not too much later, and Sam’s grateful for that. She even lets the dig go by without any sort of fight back. Everyone has their misconceptions about the Fireflies, so she’s well used to it. Sam just follows Rohan toward the back, making sure that Mila is right behind them.

Any other time and Sam wouldn’t have a problem with the labors of getting around these days, but the wound on her side loves to protest. But she’s got to get up there either way, so she doesn’t waste time when Mila encourages her to go first.

“Alright,” she grimaces, clenching her jaw and using both Rohan’s and Mila’s help up to the upper level. Mila goes next, much quicker and with a little help from Sam.

“Your turn,” Sam says, leaning down to offer her hand.

[leadmehcme]

“Then go kill the bitch” // ✛

She shouldn’t have followed them. She shouldn’t be listening in. She shouldn’t be here.

There’s a lot of things she shouldn’t be doing.

Her heart beats frantically while she hides, breathing slow or not at all. Carina’s own hand is pressed against her mouth, fearful she’ll make too much noise and draw attention. She’s not afraid of what might happen if she’s caught… she’s afraid of what she’ll hear if she isn’t.

She’s afraid of what she’ll see. Or what she’ll know.

For the most part, she’s been kept away from whatever Damien and the rest of this camp do. She sticks near their base, keeping watch or scavenging, but never much else. Carina knows that her brother is just looking out for her, but each day he comes back bloody, she feels a little more sick. Something in her gut is begging her to trust her instincts - that something isn’t right. And she needs to figure out what.

Lately, Carina has found more and more reasons to have less faith in what her older brother’s decisions are when it comes to survival. If anything, it’s her motivation. Worrying about just what else she’ll find out doesn’t stop her from trying to gain composure in her hiding spot, tucked away behind a wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. She’s never been in this area before. It’s not too far from camp, but far enough to be… out of sight. Out of mind.

Now that she’s seen it, Carina doesn’t think it will ever be out of mind.

Damien has become colder and colder in her eyes. More willing to go further, to do more, and none of it toward humanity. Life doesn’t seem to mean anything in his hands anymore, and it’s all Carina can think about. They live in a world so filled to the brim with death that she has a hard time dealing with it. Or with anything that spurns life so easily.

And the tone in his voice… it doesn’t instill any confidence in her. It doesn’t qualm her worries or ease her conscience. It sets her jaw in anger, in fear. Her teeth clench so hard it hurts.

From where she’s hidden, she can hear the fear in another girl’s voice. She isn’t saying much, and when Carina dares to peek around the corner, she isn’t doing much.

She’s being held captive.

None of it has sunk in yet, and Carina still feels sick.

Her whole being feels sluggish when she pleads for the opposite - to think of what she can do and to act on it. Her mind is going too fast, a mile a minute, and she can’t catch up.

Not until five little words snap her in half and pull her back together.

“Then go kill the bitch.”

Damien’s words. His voice. Toneless. Hollow. She wishes it wasn’t him.

Who she is, who she thinks she is, who she hopes she is, urges her to scramble to her feet to stop this. What’s the point of living if there’s nothing to stand up for? If there’s nothing to want to be, or to change, or to reach?

But before she can do anything, before she can even start to intervene, she hears the sound of a knife cutting through flesh. She hears the thump of someone lifeless.

Her heart stops. Existence feels... heavy.

The sun cuts through the clouds just enough to shine light through the cracks.

Look for the light.

And so she does. She runs for it.

[luthienne]

may I never lose that terror that keeps me brave

Audre Lorde, from The Black Unicorn: Poems; “Solstice” (via luthienne)

[asombregirl]

I don’t know how to stay tender with this much blood in my mouth

excerpt from ‘cinders’, from my heartless girls zine - coming soon (via asombregirl)

[sempiternale]

You will always be a monster - there is no turning back from it. But what kind of monster you become is entirely up to you.

Julie Kagawa, The Eternity Cure. (via empiregrotesk)

[tudorstuarts]

[captnsulu-deactivated20161211]

we all have our demons, yes, but what if that’s all there is to me?

ii. questions of great tragedies (o.q)

[wnq-writers]

The future is out there. And so are you.

F R E S C O, Article #177 - The future in you. (via wnq-writers)

[ecstasticdisasters]

Suddenly I wonder, ‘Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years go? What would she think of me now?’

Sylvia Plath (via ecstasticdisasters)

[dvoyd]

we’re all killers. we’ve all killed parts of ourselves to survive. we’ve all got blood on our hands. something somewhere had to die so we could stay alive.

if memories could bleed, if dreams could scream | m.a.w (via dvoyd)

[melisica]

(by riahhlynn)

[wordsnquotes]

Scars, scars. She was coming to have so many. She wondered if it was wrong to be proud of them.

Marissa Meyer, Winter (via wordsnquotes)