Tess (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nowthatsfunny) wrote2013-12-25 10:43 pm
nowthatsfunny) wrote2013-12-25 10:43 pm
Entry tags:
001;
She can feel the bite throbbing, thinks maybe she can feel the infection starting to spread. She's tainted now, and there's no way out. She doesn't want to die, but she doesn't want to turn, either, and the problem gets solved for her when the soldiers show up.
Make this easy for me, she says, pleads - she needs Joel to leave, needs him to not see this. Needs to know he'll be all right. He's always all right.
The wound throbs, and she holds her chin up high and tries not to see the pain in his eyes. Fuck, this wasn't how it was supposed to end.
She blinks the tears away, because she can't let them hinder her aim. She has to delay these assholes. She takes down two, easily, before the first bullet hits her low in the abdomen, and she told herself she wasn't going to cry out, but she screams anyway because fuck, it hurts -
And then she sits up, her throat raw, drenched in sweat, adrenaline pumping through her. She's up like a shot, her breathing ragged, trying to remember where she is -
That's right. A fucking turtle, in a suite of her own, nicer than anything she's seen in almost twenty years, a real bed and real, clean sheets, a roof over her head, and -
She stumbles into the bathroom, peels off her shirt, grips the porcelain sink and looks at her reflection in the mirror. She has a lot of scars, some older, some more recent, but her neck, her collarbone, the place where the bite was - it's clear. Like it never happened. No bite, no infection, no death certificate with her name embossed on it in gold letters.
Tess splashes her face with water, brushes her fingers over the spot. The skin tingles a little in the wake of her touch. She sucks in a breath, trying to push away the dream - memory? So real, like it had just happened. The runner, she'd been too slow to grab in time. The teeth sinking into her skin. The sudden, sinking knowledge that this was it. The soldiers' bullets.
Joel, disbelief, pain in his eyes.
"Fuck!" she growls to herself, smashing a hand against the sink just so she'll have something else to focus on for a moment. She's not gonna sleep anymore tonight, she knows that much. And the kid is here - Ellie, looking so fucking guilty at the sight of her, and where the fuck is Joel?
What's a dead woman supposed to do on the back of a giant turtle?
Make this easy for me, she says, pleads - she needs Joel to leave, needs him to not see this. Needs to know he'll be all right. He's always all right.
The wound throbs, and she holds her chin up high and tries not to see the pain in his eyes. Fuck, this wasn't how it was supposed to end.
She blinks the tears away, because she can't let them hinder her aim. She has to delay these assholes. She takes down two, easily, before the first bullet hits her low in the abdomen, and she told herself she wasn't going to cry out, but she screams anyway because fuck, it hurts -
And then she sits up, her throat raw, drenched in sweat, adrenaline pumping through her. She's up like a shot, her breathing ragged, trying to remember where she is -
That's right. A fucking turtle, in a suite of her own, nicer than anything she's seen in almost twenty years, a real bed and real, clean sheets, a roof over her head, and -
She stumbles into the bathroom, peels off her shirt, grips the porcelain sink and looks at her reflection in the mirror. She has a lot of scars, some older, some more recent, but her neck, her collarbone, the place where the bite was - it's clear. Like it never happened. No bite, no infection, no death certificate with her name embossed on it in gold letters.
Tess splashes her face with water, brushes her fingers over the spot. The skin tingles a little in the wake of her touch. She sucks in a breath, trying to push away the dream - memory? So real, like it had just happened. The runner, she'd been too slow to grab in time. The teeth sinking into her skin. The sudden, sinking knowledge that this was it. The soldiers' bullets.
Joel, disbelief, pain in his eyes.
"Fuck!" she growls to herself, smashing a hand against the sink just so she'll have something else to focus on for a moment. She's not gonna sleep anymore tonight, she knows that much. And the kid is here - Ellie, looking so fucking guilty at the sight of her, and where the fuck is Joel?
What's a dead woman supposed to do on the back of a giant turtle?