Chapter TW: gun violence, public shootings, violence against women, graphic descriptions of injuries.

The Ninth Circle, like most nights, had attracted a sizable crowd into its premises. The Museum of History was by no means as bustling as Rivet City or Megaton, but there were enough ghouls in Underworld to fill the establishment up until the radio was inaudible over the din of The Ninth Circle's patrons. Even still, Sandy sat at the bar beating her fingers to the rhythm of the song she thought was playing, stopping in the middle of her crude rendition of Jolly Days and switching into Easy Living as she caught a snatch of the song during a lull in the noise.

Her rhythm died down into an irregular tapping before stopping entirely. She glanced behind her at the doors, or more accurately, at the bouncer who stood by them, arms crossed over his chest as his gaze watched the crowd shrewdly. She watched him for a moment until his gaze swept over and met hers, and with a sharp intake of breath she whipped back around to face forward once more, picking her tapping back up as she had left it. Movement caught out of the corner of her eye made her turn her head to see the bar owner, Ahzrukhal, approaching.

"Back again so soon, smoothskin?" the ghoul wheezed as he pressed his hands on the bar on either side of her, as if trapping her there. She had to admit, she felt more like a caged animal now than she had before he approached. "To what do I owe the pleasure, kid?"

Sandy swallowed a lump in her throat and pulled a pouch off of her lap, tossing it as casually as she could muster onto the counter before her. The metal clatter of the bottle caps within was unmistakeable, and Ahzrukhal perked up at the sound. Sandy did her best to steady her voice. "You know what I'm here for."

Ahzrukhal reached for the bag, but before he could touch it Sandy's hand shot out to rest on top of it protectively. There was only the slightest tremor in her voice as she said, "You can see these when I see the contract."

Ahzrukhal chuckled at that, and it set her teeth on edge when he did. "I gotta admit, smoothskin, I didn't think you'd be able to do it. This wasteland isn't a friendly place for a kid like you."

"Well, I did do it," She responded, and Ahzrukhal chuckled again, more of a wheeze rattling in his throat than a laugh. He turned to his wall safe, and Sandy's grip on the cap pouch relaxed as she watched him turn the dial and open the door.

"You know, this will be no easy loss for me, kid. Charon's been a good employee. Losing his… skills is gonna hurt." Ahzrukhal said as he pulled a faded piece of paper out of the safe, closing the door loosely and turning back to her. "But, a deal is a deal. Two thousand caps for Charon's contract."

He offered the paper to Sandy, and she could see that he was just as tense as she was. Reluctant to relinquish hold of something so valuable. She grasped the edge of the paper gently between her fingers and pushed the pouch closer to Ahzrukhal. "And not a single cap more."

Ahzrukhal's hand closed around the lip of the pouch and as it did he finally released his hold on the paper, Sandy pulled it closer to herself, examining it for authenticity, although she wasn't sure what she would be looking for to spot a forgery from the real deal. The paper was wrinkled and frayed at the edges, and the words that weren't too faded to see were either meaningless connectives or far outside of her range of literacy to understand. Across the bar, Ahzrukhal weighed the pouch in his hands.

"Yes, this should be plenty for me to recoup my losses here," he said. "Now then, I'll allow you to tell Charon the good news yourself."

As if his words had broken a spell on her, Sandy hopped off her stool swiftly and without so much as a goodbye to the ghoul bartender. She hardly felt he deserved such niceties. She pushed through the crowd to the doors, and to the bouncer stationed there, stopping in front of the giant of a man. She'd never stood close enough to him to truly appreciate just how tall the bouncer was. He towered over her—not that it was hard for people to be taller than her at only five feet tall—but now standing right in front of him, she realized he had to have nearly two feet on her.

"Charon?" Sandy ventured.

She wondered if he had heard her when he didn't immediately respond. As she opened her mouth to repeat his name she was cut off by the bouncer's rough, grating voice. "Talk to Ahzrukhal."

"Oh!" She said, eyes widening a bit. "Oh, no, I already did, I have something to show you, actually!"

She held up the paper for him to look at. "I bought your contract! See?"

"You purchased my contract from Ahzrukhal?" Charon responded in astonishment. A tenseness left his muscles as he processed the paper held before him. "So, I am no longer in his service."

Charon set his jaw, his eyes sharpening. "That is good to know. Please, wait here. I must take care of something."

"Oh, yeah, sure! Okay!" Sandy responded, lowering the contract and stepping aside as Charon pushed through the crowd much more effectively than she had, back towards the bar. Sandy watched him step behind it with Ahzrukhal and make a brief exchange before Charon pulled his shotgun off his back and pointed it directly at Ahzrukhal's head. She had no time to react.

There was a shot, and blood all over the bar and the wall behind it, all over the patrons seated at it, and Ahzrukhal's mangled body falling in a heap the ground. Then another shot. The gunfire hadn't even stopped ringing in her ears before it was replaced with frightened screams and scraping chairs, the patrons of The Ninth Circle pushing one another out of the way to reach the exit, pushing Sandy out of the way, pinning her against the wall and leaving her gasping for the air that was knocked out of her lungs from the shock and from pain. She pressed herself into the corner, out of the way of the stampeding ghouls until the room was cleared, turned over tables and chairs, Ahzrukhal's mutilated body, and Charon the only things left behind with her. She could hear the radio clear as day in the silence left behind by the fleeing patrons.

"The songs the lustiest, the friends the trustiest, way back home," Bob Crosby crooned to the audience of two. She hadn't even noticed Charon approach her until she heard his rough voice once more above her.

"Alright, let's go." he said, as if he had only made a quick stop to say hello to an old acquaintance and not blown another man's head clean off his shoulders.

She could only numbly nod in response, and allowed herself to be ushered out of the bar and into the concourse of Underworld, away from the bloody mess in The Ninth Circle. Whether any of the ghouls that had been witness to Charon's violence were watching them as they exited, Sandy didn't see. She simply focused on leaving, walking forward on wobbly legs until she found herself at the broken T-Rex display in the lobby, where she finally stopped her feet from carrying her forward. She heard Charon behind her stop as well.

"What… what was that all about…?" She asked finally, and was relieved that her voice only shook minimally as she did.

Charon didn't hesitate to answer, as if he had been anticipating the question. "Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my contract, I was honor bound to do as he commanded."

"Oh," she said, and took a deep breath to steady herself. She looked down at the paper still clutched in her hands, the contract that bound Charon to the service of whoever held it. "It wasn't right. What happened to you. This shouldn't exist."

Sandy's grip on the paper shifted, her fingers moving to hold it from the top edge.

"I won't let someone like Ahzrukhal exploit you ever again," she said, but before she could rip the paper as she intended a rough hand encircled her wrist, gripping so tightly she couldn't help but gasp and let go of the contract.

"Don't," Charon said firmly, tone dangerous.

"What?!" She exclaimed, whipping around to glare at Charon. She was startled to see that same sharp glint in his eyes as he had before he had murdered Ahzrukhal in the bar. She had meant to shout at him, but now seeing that look he gave her, she couldn't help but focus on the way the bones of her wrist were rubbing against each other in his iron grip, and her next words came out much more timidly than she had hoped they would. "D-don't… Don't you want to be free, though?"

"I am not a slave," He spat back, releasing her wrist. She pulled it away from him quickly, holding it close to her chest and taking a step back, as if removing herself from his reach. He made no attempt to attack however, instead leaning down to pick the contract up from where it had fallen. Then, to Sandy's surprise, he turned and offered it back to her. She hesitated, then slowly reached out for it, only to have Charon jerk it away from her again. "Physical violence on your part invalidates the contract. That includes violence against the contract itself."

Sandy's response was barely more than a whisper. "I understand."

Finally, Charon offered the paper back to her again, and she took it in shaking hands.

"If… if you're not a slave, then that means you don't have to do everything I say, right?" She asked.

"The contract covers combat services only," Charon responded.

"Okay. That's… that's not so bad." Sandy ran her fingers through her hair and let out a sigh. "My name is Sandy, by the way."

Charon simply grunted in response.

"…Is your name really Charon? Or was that just what Ahzrukhal called you?" She asked.

"I have had many names over the years. Charon is the most recent."

Sandy furrowed her brows. "Do you… want me to call you Charon?"

"I do not care what you call me," Charon replied.

"…Okay." Sandy looked between the doors out of the museum and the doors into Underworld, debating her options. "…We should go back into Underworld. It's too late to be running around the Ruins."

She looked up at Charon then. "Do you… think they'll still be upset about Ahzrukhal?"

Charon grunted. "Very few people had any love for Ahzrukhal beyond the booze he provided them."

"Great. So we probably won't get chased out by Cerberus." Sandy smiled a bit, though her brows were still knitted together from her nerves and anxiety. "That's good. We can get some real mattresses to sleep on then."

Sandy folded the contract up and tucked it safely away into her backpack, then the two turned and headed back into Underworld for the night.

—

Sandy grimaced at the dark purple bruise that had formed on her wrist that night. In the morning light it stood out on her brown skin in high contrast, and even if she hadn't been able to see it, she certainly could feel it. Every time she rolled her wrist it throbbed dully, but she continued to shake the limb out, hoping maybe this time something would pop and the pain would finally go away.

"Headed out, kid?" Willow rasped as she and Charon approached the stairs down into the Metro.

Sandy gave her a warm smile and nodded. "Those ruins out there aren't gonna scavenge themselves."

"You be careful out there, smoothskin," Willow responded, then turned her cloudy gaze to Charon, sizing him up. "And you, Charon. You keep an eye out for her, you hear me?"

If Charon felt anything besides complete indifference at the request, it didn't show on his face. "That is my job."

Sandy gave a small, weak laugh at that, but as they descended into the Metro she couldn't help but think she should have asked Charon to stay behind in Underworld. Every twinge of pain in her wrist reminded her of just how dangerous he really was, and her mind could focus on nothing more than the blood covering the bar of The Ninth Circle. His job might have been to protect her, but his presence did anything but make her feel safe.

Her rumination was interrupted by a heavy hand coming down on her shoulder, causing her to jump. She turned to Charon, who's other hand was held to his mouth, shushing her, then he pointed forward towards a derailed train car ahead. At first, Sandy saw nothing of concern, but a moment later there was a twitch from low under the car and a guttural sounding growl. Ferals.

Charon unholstered his shotgun and held it aloft, then motioned for Sandy to follow him. He took the lead with careful, low steps through the metro rubble. His shotgun always remained pointed in the direction of the train car, though his eyes shifted between the car and his path. Sandy followed his lead, taking her 10mm pistol from her belt and doing her best to copy his steps. Her shorter gait, however, made it difficult. They had barely made it past the train car when she made a fatal misstep. Glass crunched under her boot, and suddenly the directionless groaning and hissing of the feral ghouls became alert as they searched for their intruder.

Sandy froze. One ghoul raised its head in her direction. It let out a howl. Charon's hand fell down on her shoulder again, pulling her out of the feral's direct line of sight, shouting, "Get back!" at the same time the rest of the ghouls joined their companion's howling.

The first feral ghoul was charging straight for them, heedless of the shotgun aimed directly at its chest. Charon fired, the ghoul jerking back as the buckshot impacted and the sound echoing painfully in Sandy's ears off the metro tunnel walls. The ghoul gave a hiss and continued its charge. Charon shot again, and this time the ghoul went down, twitching and writhing on the ground. Once more, and this time the ghoul stilled. Behind him, three more ferals had climbed the rubble of the train car and were following the first's lead.

They rushed directly for Charon, not because they attacked fellow ghouls, Sandy knew, but because they wanted to get to her. Three more rounds of buckshot kept them at bay. Another two ghouls came running from their right. Sandy whipped around, firing her pistol in their direction. Her first shot missed entirely, but the second clipped one of the ferals in the shoulder, and the third went through the ghoul's neck. She took aim at the second ghoul.

She could hear Charon firing his shotgun at the first three ferals, but had no idea if he was finding any success. She fired at the ghoul. Miss. Another shot, another miss. The ghoul was getting close now, too close, and Sandy fired again as she took a step back. This one connected with the ghoul's thigh, slowing it down, but not stopping it. It let out a howl as it continued limping towards Sandy at an alarming speed, arms flailing wildly.

Before Sandy could fire another shot, the ghoul was upon her. Her head slammed into the ground as the ghoul tackled her, clawing at her face and arms and hissing. Sandy did what she could to fight back. She threw her left arm up in front of her face to protect herself and used her other to try to throw the ghoul off of her, swatting at the flailing arms and gnashing teeth. In retrospect, she should have known it was a bad plan. She took a swing at the feral's head, fist connecting with the ghoul's cheek, but it did little to deter it. Instead it took the opportunity to sink its teeth into Sandy's forearm. Sandy screamed.

She abandoned any semblance of strategy, instead letting her arms and legs flying in an attempt to dislodge the ghoul. The ghoul released her, startled by the sudden flailing, and Sandy used the opening to throw the ghoul off of her. She scooted away from the feral, feeling for her gun as she went, but not taking her eyes off of it. It howled again and scrambled to right itself, to chase its prey, but as its eyes fell back on Sandy there was another final gunshot and the feral's head exploded into a gory mess, its body slumping to the ground.

Sandy yelped and looked up to see Charon surveying the metro ruins for signs of any other feral ghouls before turning his attention back on Sandy. Her breath hitched. He looked dangerous again, jaw clenched in a scowl and shotgun held at the ready as it was. But if Sandy was expecting him to finish her off, he didn't. Instead he replaced his shotgun in its holster and stepped over the feral ghoul's body, reaching down to offer her a hand up. After a moment of hesitation, she took it and was pulled to her feet.

"Where are you hurt?" Charon asked, and Sandy couldn't help the breathy laugh that escaped her. Her head throbbed where it had made contact with the ground, in her shoulders and hips where she had been pinned and her back where her backpack had dug into her spine, in her arm where she had been bitten, on her face where she had been scratched. She hurt everywhere. Charon would have gotten a shorter answer had he asked where she wasn't hurt.

Instead of waiting for a response from her, Charon glanced down at her arm and frowned. Sandy looked down as well. Her forearm was slick with blood, all the way to where her fingers were interlocked with his. She couldn't see the wound from this angle, but as a wave of nausea hit her stomach she was suddenly glad she couldn't.

"Sit back down," Charon commanded, and Sandy obeyed without a second thought, dropping to the ground with as much grace as a bag of rocks. Charon's grip on her hand was all the kept her from collapsing entirely. Her arm screamed in protest as muscle and skin were pulled taut.

"Give me your backpack," Charon said as he kneeled beside her. She shrugged it off weakly, and Charon helped her pull the straps off, careful to avoid the bite. As he began rummaging inside of her backpack, Sandy brushed her fingers over the wound on her arm. She gagged at the feeling of torn flesh, deep gouges, and exposed muscle. She felt dizzy. Her mind wandered back to those old zombie holotapes she had once watched, to when a character was bit and turned into a mindless, cannibalistic monster. She knew that's not how ghouls worked. She knew that if she died from this wound she would stay a corpse. She didn't know which was worse. Would she die from this?

Charon was saying something to her. She could almost hear him, but everything sounded so far away, as if she was only hearing the echo of his voice down the long metro tunnel. Wake up, she thought he might be telling her. Wasn't she already, though?

Sandy's eyes snapped open and she sucked in a breath. The rush of air into her lungs cleared the fuzziness from her sight and made Sandy realize that she had fainted at some point. She was staring straight up at the tunnel ceiling. Charon hovered above her, impassive as always. "…need to breathe. Focus."

"I'm breathing," Sandy gasped.

"Good. Now keep breathing." He said in response, then turned away from her again. So she did that. Focusing on the in and the out and not on the way her fingers were tingling or the nausea roiling in her gut as she stared up at the ceiling, examining the tiles that still clung desperately to it. It even helped a little bit, until she was startled once more by Charon grabbing her arm and pulling it away from the protective position she had it in against her torso.

Charon had a bottle of water from her backpack, was pouring it over her arm to wash the blood away, and Sandy realized she wasn't bleeding anymore. There was an empty stimpak syringe laying nearby. Now that she thought about it, her body didn't ache nearly as much as it had earlier.

"You let your anxiety get the best of you," Charon said, interrupting her thoughts. He set the bottle aside and began to soak the blood and water from her skin with a torn cloth. Sandy furrowed her brow at him. "If you had been paying attention then this would not have happened."

Sandy frowned and opened her mouth to protest, but Charon cut her off before she could get a word in.

"My presence makes you anxious, doesn't it?" Charon met Sandy's eyes as he spoke, and she felt her cheeks heating in embarrassment.

"I-I…"

He was still watching her, expression still impassive, but somehow expectant.

"Yes… It does." she admitted.

"My job is to protect you," Charon said. "I cannot do that if my presence causes you to make such stupid mistakes."

"I-I'm sorry," Sandy said.

"Don't be sorry. Be better."

Sandy turned her gaze back to the metro ceiling, biting her lip. Charon continued to clean the blood off Sandy's arm in silence.

"…Charon? Can I ask you a question?"

"I will not stop you."

"If I lose your contract for any reason… will you kill me like you killed Ahzrukhal?"

Charon paused. "It depends on what kind of person you are."

"I… I don't know if I'm… a good person, but… I'm nothing like Ahzrukhal."

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

Sandy hadn't even known Charon for twenty-four hours yet, but for some reason, she trusted him. She believed him. And she felt the knot of anxiety in her gut relax just a little bit.

"Okay."

Moments later Charon finished cleaning Sandy's arm and bandaged it, then packed her things back up for her.

"Are you well enough to stand?" he asked as he got to his feet.

"I think so," Sandy responded. Charon offered his hand to her, his left hand so as not to agitate her wound, and helped her up once more. Sandy gave him a hesitant smile in response.

"Come on. We should get out of here, before we attract anymore company. I don't wanna get bit again today." Sandy said.

"If you get bit again I will not be so kind as I was this time," Charon said.

Sandy laughed. "Okay. You don't have to be. Thank you, though. For helping me."

"It is my job… but you are welcome."