@reapxrs [ Rose ] //> That Was Way Too Close
“who's not dead? sound off!” -- feel free to drag in as few or as many reapers as you'd like
Doubled over with a hand mashed against the stitch in her side, Maddy's heart beat so hard and high she thought she was distinctly at risk of coughing it up. It had been a long time since she'd poured so much into an all-out sprint like that. So safe all the way in the city, behind her firewalls and trapnets and the distance of a screen itself. She hadn't had to run, really really run, in... years. She'd forgotten how to breathe through it. Now her legs and her side and her head were all twisted up and pounding, driving her to squeeze her eyes shut and gulp at the air like a half drowned cat. She could really only manage to think thank god Jack didn't come. Well, that and some mangled half-notion about taking her neighbor's next offer to let her tag along for a gym day under much stronger consideration.
A sharp whistle startled her up, ready to go again— – but it was only a call to attention. The only one of this group to give a name so far, Rose, demanded sound off. Answers bloomed back in an ordered bouquet, like a per-arranged roster. One directly ahead and one behind, a few more –she'd go for an exact count when the alley stopped spinning– nearby. One by one they rallied. An empty pause stretched and Maddy caught an elbow in the side: “Fuckin'-! ow!!” she complained, swatting at empty air in the direction of her assailant.
'New girl's not dead!' someone complimented.
Maddy fired a glare at the one he thought responsible: a tall, frankly annoyingly gorgeous young woman with long, red-tinted hair, who smiled back. All teeth. That seemed to be enough. The stillness cracked apart. Someone laughed, and the others began chattering away, checking in on each other and comparing bruises. Maddy took that as her cue to lean back against the brick and sigh sharply.
“So,” she panted, focusing in on Rose for no other reason that everyone else seemed to do the same. Look to her. “I take it... my friends... have friends?” The only reason she could conjure for her sudden absorption into this pack. Running from a handful of uniformed police who honestly looked like maybe justice wasn't their goal today.










