Watching it unfold from afar made the situation feel fabricated. The raiders moved like they always had; nervous ticks jerking their bodies around in comical fashion. It was a wonder that any of them could hold a firearm without firing it by accident, just as curious was the ability to avoid stabbing themselves or their wastelander captives before it was time. They moved with such confident swagger—one that every soul in the Mojave had seen—that after a few years it all began to seem rehearsed. Imagine: a group of blood-thirsty chem-addicted raiders maintaining their 'I'm-gonna-screw-with-you-before-I-rape-and-kill-you-infront-of-your-loved-ones' demeanor through organized practice. These were the thoughts that the Mojave sun baked into your brain after you'd been there too long. The thoughts they all had, but rarely shared.
It was a family or at least what was left of one. The father, the alpha of the pack, had done his best to protect his family. Actually, the man probably begged for their lives and was promptly rewarded with being smacked with his own arm. A hatchet was the tool of choice; severing his arm at the shoulder before one of the raiders beat him over the head with it. The group laughed so hard they should have lost any semblance of bladder control. One did, all over the father's twitching and contorting body. The two females rounded out the family, both clinging to one another as the attention came to them. The issue with having breasts meant that this was not going to be quick. The man had been humiliated, but he would be dead soon. His torment was finished. Women on the other hand, would be raped and mutilated, but they would not die.
The group was circling now, taunting the women with blades as long as an arm; the one responsible for hacking the man's arm off was busy cleaning his tool with his tongue. Though their armor was thrown together with tape and nails, it was as threatening as a frenzied Deathclaw to the untrained eye. The mother sprung into action; through the scope it was impossible to make out her words, but the younger female took off running. Fear was a powerful motivator and combined with a healthy dose of epinephrine it meant that the girl was going to be running for awhile. She was lucky. She didn't see the combat knife jammed into the back of her mother's throat or how much flesh it tore off when it was jerked back. Under normal circumstances she would have been carried quite a way in her terror, but she would have been caught by the drug-buffed assailants.
Complexity grew out of the fact that she was rushing his way. A hundred yards might have been good enough if his hide was better constructed, but eventually she was going to trip right over his barrel. Calculations tore through his brain as fast as possible: wind, distance, target speed—the works. She was a goddamn athlete—he was going to be forced to take the shots. With all of the variables taken into account he squeezed the trigger five times—expending every round housed in the magazine under the blanket of relative silence. They were perfect shots; each one striking the t-zone and resulting in a satisfying spray of blood, flesh and bone. The bodies crumpled over without incident—each one dying before they struck the ground.
"Hey! Slow down." Dirt flew everywhere as the man stood. A blanket lined with local plant-life and caked in dirt sent debris flying every which way. His estimations had been correct—the woman barreled into him.
His rifle dropped and he found himself holding her while he staggered back. She kicked and screamed, beating her fists against his chests while she fought for freedom. The terror that gripped her had yet to release and though he looked nothing like the raiders that had executed her family she considered him to be one regardless.
"Get off, don't touch me!" Grunting and groaning, she jammed whatever she could wherever she could. Heels slammed repeatedly into the ground, trying to jam her heels into his feet. Her fists persisted, rising from his chest to attempt to hit him in the face. And the squirming; she writhed like a fish out of her. "Get off of me. LET GO!"
The screaming was the worst of it. She conjured sounds that reminded him of hell; that little fictional place he'd read about in books. Had she been chanting some demonic oath with guttural noises he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.
The pair went to the ground and before long he found himself rolling across the rocky ground with her. Order was established once he was on top and capable of utilizing the height and weight advantage he had over her. His pelvis pinning hers to prevent to the majority of the squirming, he pressed his palm across her nose and held her in place while his other hand reached for his rucksack. The woman was fuming now, trying her absolute hardest to push him up and off her. Knees were particularly dangerous, jamming into his thighs and hips; it was only a matter of time before she struck home.
"Fine—if you don't want to cooperate." A steady was retrieved from the sack and forced on her. He forced her to inhale all of it.
The writhing stopped. Her legs remained still. She simply stared at him, the rise and fall of her chest the last piece of the puzzle that eventually began to return to normal. Exhaustion set in immediately and the woman found her eyes rolled into the back of her head before she drifted off into unconsciousness.
"Just great," Breathing heavily he rolled onto his back and stared up into the sky. "Just fucking great."
It was some time before he did anything about what he had dubbed 'sleeping beauty.' She hadn't budged in her sleep, her body seemingly too tired to muster the strength to adjust for a more comfortable position. With the downtime afforded to him he was able to take inventory and clean up after himself. Every spent shell casing was plucked out of the dirt and stuffed into a section of his rucksack. Before long there was no trace that he was even there, except for the five corpses littering the path up to where he stood and the woman was sleeping. The bodies had been deemed secondary. Raiders died all the time in the Mojave, seeing a group of them on the side of the road with parts of their faces missing wouldn't upset or confuse anyone. Still, normalcy prevailed.
The bodies were searched, thoroughly. Nothing of any consequence was found, though a few packs of cigarettes would manage to pay for supplies in trade the next time he was town. None of the dead raiders had the proper shoe size for an extra pair of boots either. All in all, a tremendous waste of time that would probably generated less than a hundred caps. Turning made him want to utter the last few words he spoke.
"You know how to use that?" He gestured towards the 10mm pistol aimed at his chest.
She was shaking. "All I have to do is squeeze the trigger." Her aim drifted from one shoulder to the other, each time a result of her fighting off the exaggerated sway."
"That's true. You need to hold it steady first." Mockingly, he moved his head with the pistol, a wide curve that took them both side to side.
"Stop it!" She held the gun properly with two hands and shoved it forward towards him.
"Were those your parents back there?" He hadn't the chance to get that far and search their bodies while she was asleep. The bodies were still there, the creatures of the Mojave not yet having the chance to see how good the pickings were. "What the hell is your name, anyway?"
The shaking only grew more intense. "Angelita." She softened at the mention of her parents and slinked down to the ground, the gun held in her lap.
"How old are you to still be traveling with your folks?" Genuine curiosity, albeit misplaced since her parents' blood still stained the ground. While he inquired he pushed forward and eventually took hold of the pistol while it sat in her lap. A quick snatch was all it took.
"Nineteen." Angelita hugged herself, the shaking persisting.
"You're addicted. One hit was all it took, huh?" The backlash of using drugs was something he had experienced before—the shaking, her eyes watering and the inability to function as she told her body; they were all signs that she was suffering from withdrawal. "Fastest I've ever seen."
"Am I going to die?"
"No, you're not going to die. You just need some more steady or a doctor. Doctor is a little ways north from here, but you're not gonna be able to make it like this." Another inhaler was lifted from one of his pockets and tossed into her lap. "Go ahead."
She fingered about the inhaler carefully before using it in his entirety—a true fiend. Breathing proved difficult the second time around; her body very nearly going into convulsions before she finally calmed and the shaking subsided.
"Who are you?" The inhaler was discarded, thrown to the ground in disgust.
"Call me Adam." Adam reached over and picked up the discard inhaler. It was another trace that someone capable had managed to put down the group of raiders, something he didn't want anyone to find. "You don't seem too broken up about your dead folks over there."
"My mother told me that they wouldn't always be with me. That one day they'd go away and God would look over me." She hadn't looked up at him once since the pistol was in her hands. "I know what life is like here… but I believe what they told me."
"Yeah, but…"
"I miss them." She choked back tears and fought off the urge to sob. Solace was found somewhere—somewhere she couldn't hope to explain to Adam.
"Right, let's get a move on. If you can keep up we'll be in Goodsprings in no time." The rucksack was lifted and slung around to his back where he made the proper adjustments to hold it up. It wasn't as large as one might have expected from a traveler, though this was partially explained by how often he hunkered down in a town or settlement. "You first, I need to keep my eyes on you."
With a nod she dusted off her clothes and intertwined her fingers. For a moment she fixed her mouth to speak but Adam simply pointed her in the proper direction. They walked adjacent to the road but not directly upon it. Unless you were traveling adequate protection there were dozens of ambushes set up along the old roads that claimed the lives of countless people. Adam had learned to tow the line between wilderness and the old highways, keeping an eye out for the ever dangerous creatures and the psychopathic humans. This time was just a tad bit different. There was a young woman walking in front of him, wearing the usual tattered clothes of a wastelander but her body proved to be distracting. Adam was no old man who would succumb to the smiles of a young vixen—he was young and virile, still freshly enamored with the thrills of sex. The clothing didn't cling to her body, but the outline of two, what he would call impressive, cheeks was not to be ignored.
He was fortunate that she was easy to look at as they spoke very little on that trip north to Goodsprings. Each time she began to stray from the path he had outlined in his mind he guided her back along and just as he had described, they reached the town in no time at all. It was depressing, like the rest of the Mojave; a combination of a hollowed husk of a pre-war town and the assumed apathy of a settlement just trying to scrape by without trouble. Angelita found one of her upper arms rudely squeezed while she was moving towards the Prospector Saloon.
"Wrong building." Adam tugged and turned left, heading up the room to the doctor's house. "If anyone asks you're my girlfriend. We're getting married."
"What?" From virtually no communication at all to the suddenly having to act as though they had a relationship. "O-Okay."
A few residents tending to their land were scattered about, each one taking a long hard look at Adam and then the girl that was being lead around by the arm. He didn't bother to return the looks, he was used to them. This wasn't the first time he'd passed through Goodsprings and it probably wouldn't be the last. Oddly enough, the smell of blood and the addition of a few corpses strewn about the town didn't bother him in the slightest. Angelita was not so oblivious to the carnage. The sight of twisted faces, some littered with holes, others sunken in made her want to vomit in the middle of the street. Adam pulled her onward towards the door.
"It's me again doc, open the damn door."