‘i can’t do that. not without your help.’
she wants my help because i know how to stay off the grid. because i’ve spent the past few years doing that, and staying away from them. they can’t find me. they think i’m dead. they have to think i’m dead. i can’t go back out there. not when i look like this. not when i am like this.
doing this means confronting every last thing that they have done to me. losing niki. failing her. racheI duncan. the lab fire. the hurt. i can’t do this. they think i’m dead. they can’t find a dead person. (they can’t find two. and that’s why they’ve been holed up in her cabin for the past couple months, and that’s why she stares off at the iced tea with three perfect-shaped ice cubes clinked against the side of the glass.)
and that’s why it hurts when beth asks her to do this. i don’t want anything to do with this. i have helped in the ways i can. but i can’t get any more involved. they’re coming for all of us. they’re going to kill all of us. helsinki will happen again.
fingers flex. they catch the cuff of her sleeve, before dragging them over the tips of her knuckles, and there’s one deep breath and the blatant aversion from beth’s eyes that isn’t all that new. you don’t know what they did to me. and that-- that’s why she can’t do this. i can’t do this. i’m sorry. i can’t help our sisters. she’s been silent for too long. minutes. and beth is waiting for the answer. waiting for a i’ll help you, or the quick scurrying of fingers over her keyboard. it doesn’t come. the only thing she blurts out is:
‘they did this to me, beth--’ the hood’s been drawn over her face on instinct. but a finger from each hand hooks under it and slowly pulls it off. the scar almost twitches in the light, in the way her lip almost quivers, and her gaze is drawn away as far as possible. she did not expect that. of all the things she wanted to say, she didn’t think that would break that unavoidable barrier. (but it did. when she can’t speak, she can say this. and what she means by that, is i’m scared.)
‘---i can’t. it’s not safe.’