Well, this is a little note. The is one of TWO chapters that will be full of violence, and graphic content, as well as character death. I advise that if you're not into that, then to not read this chapter. I will inform on the other chapter that also involves this warning. Another thing: I am truely sorry this took me so long to update. I was so into it, but as soon as I came to this chapter it was impossible to write it and so difficult to formulate how it should all go. But, without anything further, I must let you pass onto this chapter. Please enjoy.

Taste the Pain

(Shove by L7)

Warning sirens were going off in the entrance to the vault and the sound grated on Rosewoods ears. Surely the alarms were alerting to every resident that someone had breached inside the door, but she still went over to the terminal and cut the alarms off. The sweet sound of silence now filled up the large steel room she stood in and with that, she began to make her way into the heart of the vault.

Descending the staircase she came to the Atrium, and upon peeking around a corner, she saw a few security guards standing watch. A small grin appeared on her features as she eyed them, taking point of where their weak spots were. The neck, the knees, hands, and face. Just by looking at the visors she could tell it was just hardened plastic, something her bullets could tear right through.

She leaned around the corner a little bit more, raising her .44 and aiming down the scope. The neck of one of the security guards came into her sights and with a wicked grin, she pulled the trigger. The bullet landed in his throat and blood began to spray out only to begin pooling down his chest. The other security guard began to panic, his gun dropping as he moved to grip the other one. Rosewood took her chance and shot off another round, this time hitting the unarmed man in a knee cap. A loud scream filled the room and she finally revealed herself, stalking towards them as they hunched on the floor.

The man with the blown out throat was choking, his hands gripping and clawing at his neck in an effort to try and save himself. As Rosewood approached, the coherent guard began to cry, his hands gripping at his knee while he began to rock back and forth. She flicked her hair out of her face as she leveled her gaze on him, while she slowly inched her way towards the choking man. It was as though she was a predator, stalking her prey. The smell of blood had filled the air around the two men, an overpowering smell that caused a shiver to run down her spine.

"Why are you doing this?" the one sobbed.

She smirked, "Why don't you ask your sweet lone wanderer? She's the cause of all this. It's only fair; my family in exchange for hers."

He began to sob harder at her words, and Rosewood gave a 'hmph' in return. Without saying anything further, she finally walked up to the man whose eyes were beginning to close from blood loss. She brought her boot up and hovered it over his neck, ignoring the sudden protests that erupted from the tearful man. She stomped it down on the man's neck, a satisfying 'crunch-cra-shrink' audible.

"Stop cryin', will ya?" she scoffed, pulling out her knife.

At the sight of the large and serrated blade, he tried his hardest to hold in his baffling. It only lasted a few seconds before he hunched over himself and began once again.

"Well, if you're going to continue…"

Rosewood gave a small sigh and advanced on the man, knife at the ready. She pried off his helmet and tossed it into his lap, effectively hitting his shot out kneecap. His dark hair was finally revealed and she grabbed hold of it, pulling on it roughly to have him look at her. She gave him a cruel smile, her green eyes looking down at him wickedly.

"It's nothing personal," she murmured, her knife coming around and slicing through his neck. Blood spilled all over the front of him and she let go of him, letting him fall face down on the floor, twitching as he held his throat. The sight brought back a memory of her father with the same knife she now held, slaughtering a brahmin. She was nine years old.

Rosewood continued on, running her knife along the wall to her right as she left the large room. A sign pointed her to the direction of the cafeteria and as she turned the corner to make her way to the door, she raised up her pistol and shot out the visor of a security guard posted outside. A few screams could be heard inside at the sound of the shot, filling her with anticipation and adrenaline. She moved towards the door then, ignoring the dead man on the floor in front of the sliding door. When hitting the button, she found that it was locked and she tsked. No terminal was nearby, but her eyes settled on the dead guard and the Pip-Boy on his wrist. A smile graced her features.

She reached down and clicked a few buttons on it, allowing the device to release from his wrist with a hiss. She noticed that on his wrist were a few deep punctures and she clicked her tongue at the realization. She put the device over her own wrist and clicked a button, crinkling her nose as the device locked itself onto her arm, needles entering deeply into her skin. A few beeps sounded and soon the screen full of her vitals popped up. On the back of the Pip-Boy was a connecting cable and she effectively hooked it up to the sliding door. Typing in a few things on the Pipboy, the door swung open and she grinned.

A few scared whimpers were heard inside as she unhooked her cable and brought it back to the Pip-Boy. She pulled out her pistol once again, reloading it first before she peered in through the door. Inside were three people, two females and a male. A robot was in there as well, she could see. With a hum under her breath she holstered her weapon once again and moved her hand to her belt, unhooking a grenade and giving it a good toss in the direction of the Mr. Handy. A few shouts could be heard, and the voice of the Mr. Handy was cut off abruptly with a loud explosion. From the safety behind the big metal wall, Rosewood was unscathed, but debris had thrown itself every which way. No noise could be heard inside the diner, just the crackle of a fire and smoke billowing out the door at a slow rate. Covering her mouth and nose with her arm, she ducked inside to check and make sure there was no one hanging onto their last string of life. Once satisfied, she continued her way into the heart of the vault.

.-.

The vault was in tatters, only two people were left alive; two people that stood directly in front of Rosewood. She had fought her way there, slicing, gunning and blowing up everything in her way. No more grenades sat attached to her belt, her combat knife had so much blood on it that she'd have to soak it in abraxo to get it off. Blood had soaked through the knees of her pants twenty minutes before when she admired the way a man bled out in front of her.

He had caught her off guard in the housing areas, jumped from a closet and slammed a piece of glass into her side. She had shot his mother immediately after, her eyes blazing with a fury he could only just begin to comprehend. It took three long slices to the chest, and a large hole where she had stabbed him before he began to slowly wither in front of her, the color leaving his face as she kneeled in front of him, green eyes glazing at the sight of it all.

Inside, she knew something was terribly wrong with her. She was sick. A product of evil that no one ever anticipated. A product of revenge. Mister Burke used to comment on her mannerisms, her thoughts, every single time they were alone together in her room. He would sit quietly, admire the way she practiced her fighting in her large room. It would be after those moments that he would voice his admiration towards the type of person she was.

"Such actions, such attitudes that a raider would posses. Ah, but that you are not. A product that the Enclave was always worried would surface. A force of nature, determined, ever appreciative of the art of death. You are everything they ever feared, and here we are, with you holed away in this tower like a damsel in a storybook," he had once said.

The way he had said those words to her always chilled her to the bone. A product of the Enclave… A phrase she hated so dearly, but could never deny. It was true, the Enclave had made her, formed the being she was today.

And now here she stood, looking a man and a woman, a sadistic grin etched into her hardened features. How long would she play with these two? Certainly the longest, she would presume. She knew one, the woman. Amata. The very flower that drove the Lone Wanderer. How sad it was that everyone knew about that weakness.

"What do you want?" Amata ground out, unspilled tears in her eyes.

Rosewood knew the woman was scared, stricken with grief. The blood on her clothes enforced those thoughts, made them whole, made them real. She could tell that the crimson colour, the way it dripped off her clothes as though hung outside to dry was something that spiked emotions inside the woman, that spiked the disbelief, hatred and fear that radiated off the woman like irradiated waters.

"Is it really so hard to understand?" Rose tsked, pacing back and forth in front of the door, the only exit. "Your dearest friend took something from me. Something so very important in my life. Now… Well, I'm just here to return the favor."

A tear finally leaked down Amata's face and the older man behind her grasped her shoulder, squeezing it.

"What did she take? What was so important that you had to come here and kill all these people?" the brunette choked out.

"I admire the way you're in charge, but you're so fuckin' stupid. I really do. The others? The ones that I put an end to? They knew right away. They knew what could only be repaid in blood. Well… Some of them did anyway, those who had a chance to speak before I gut them, shot out their throats…" Rose trailed, her knife out and in her hand, a delicate finger running up and down the soiled blade.

"Get to the point," the man finally growled out.

Rose whistled, low and sweet. "Fiesty, this should be fun. Well, I suppose I won't allow you to be so...out of the loop. She killed my family, killed everything that I had ever really known in this godforsaken wasteland. My parents, my brother. Gone, dead. Blown up in a blast because she blamed everyone there about the atrocities our little society would commit. Sure, some people are bastards, real sons of bitches just like me, but the vast majority of those people? Families, loved ones that were so unsuspecting. They were innocent, but she's not, and I'm here to make her pay. Make her hurt like I do, like those who made it out do. And this is what we're going to do.

"You're going to put out a distress signal. You'll be asking, no, begging, for her help once again. Put on a good show, sound just as desperate as you look now. And after? Well, it's a surprise, but I can only assume that you may understand the underlining here, unless you really are that clueless. If it's the case, then I'm not sorry at all for what I'm going to do to you. But let's make one thing clear; If you don't do exactly what I say, then you'll be tied up and forced to watch as I rip open your friend here and make you swim in his blood and guts."

A whimper escaped the woman and she nodded, more tears falling down her tanned face. Rose watched as Amata and the man set up the equipment, listened intently as they sent out the distress signal.

"Miah, oh God, Miah. You have to help! You need to come back! Someone's here, someone's inside the vault.. I can hear gunshots, t-there's explosions-! You have to come back, you have to help us. I'm so sorry that I-I sent you away. P...Please come back. You're the only one that can save us!"

The two vault dwellers were cuffed, chained to the chairs that were around in the room. Amata was crying, big fat crocodile tears with the blubbering to go with it. Rosewood hated everything that had to do with those sounds. It reminded her too much of her early childhood, something she desperately wanted to forget. It's what brought out the violence in her at moments like this.

"Shut that goddamn blubbering bitch up now, or I'll gut you where you sit," she ground out, slamming her knife into a nearby metal table, digging the tip in.

Hushing from him came, and Amata slowly began to calm down, sniffles now only being heard. Satisfied, Rose walked around the two, twirling her knife in her hands as she went. On her third time around, she brought her knife forward and pressed the tip into the man's cheek, digging a large bloody gash into it as she went. A thrilled noise came from the back of her throat at the grunt of his pain, a feral smile spreading across her lips. Amata yelled in the background, fighting against her restraints and the woman tsked.

"Now, why did you have to go and do that?" she sighed.

A flash of steel and a gurgled cry was all that could be seen and heard as Rosewood stepped carefully around the man, knife poised before she plunged it forward - right into the man's neck. Blood began to seep out, then pour out at an alarming rate as she pulled it across, slicing up his flesh from ear to ear and opening his throat for all to see. Green eyes watched eagerly as blood pooled onto the man and dripped all around him. The ear splitting noises that came from Amata fell on unlistening ears as she watched, engulfing every single detail about the scene in front of her. When she finally turned to the girl sitting in the chair, an animalistic grin was spread across her face.

With one swift movement Rosewood was now standing in front of Amata, the bloodied knife gleaming in the terrible fluorescent lighting above them. Choked and strangled cries came from the girl, her arms prying against the restraints that tied her to the chair. Her wrists, from what Rosewood could see through the thrashing, had began to rub raw from the force. A tsk sounded past the Enclave woman's lips, one last time, before she pulled the knife up and slammed it down. It embedded itself into Amata's skull, the girl immediately going limp in the chair as it connected through bone and brain. Nothing else made any noise in the room, only a distant radio that played and played and played. It was a song that Rosewood had never heard before, probably something that only the vault had access to.

It took her a few moments to decide what came next, but in the end, the perfect words came through. Simple, but enough to get the point across. On the steel wall behind Amata, all posters had been ripped off and written in dripping blood read -

An eye for an eye, with a simple bloody handprint.