A/N: Update! Im glad im motivated enough to do this. With the scrappy notes i had, i threw together this draft and just went with it. Just me and a few hours worth of Tool and Buckethead and look what I get. It was a big hump to get over. For me anyway. Im not exactly a natural like some of the folks 'round here :-P.
I know the last chapter was short, so i made up for it and went the distance with this one. I tried to get more dialouge in there, I like dialouge. This is my favorite so far, but then again i just wrote it. Everything I had just written is my Favorite. I've had alot of favorites lately. Figured it was about time to introduce the second family. Hope you all like! Untill next time.
The man leapt through the window. He landed on the edge. On the broken glass. It sank into his stomach. The fool who first opens the can. Paige just blinked. And watched it all, as if it were far, far away. She knew the people here would storm the market. She knew the voices all around her were raising with the tempers. Is the fool to unleash the worms. But she didn't hear it. She withdrew to the back of her mind. She watched through a dark tunnel that betrayed no sound save the beating of her own heart and slow breaths.
A rush of wind.
Faceless, nameless cadavers rushed past. She remained untouched, and undaunted.
Here come the worms.
Sirens echoed somewhere behind her. Time to go.
People are so disappointing. Paige thought. Let's hope this alien is not as predictable. She turned to her sister. Ali looked like she was yelling something, eyes full of fear and purpose. She realized that she was tugging on her wrist, pointing away from the building. Always looking out for her baby sister. Paige blinked again. And she came out of her tunnel.
"-out of it, Paige! Let's go now!" Sound exploded everywhere. How could she just lapse off like that? She knew. When you witness something you know to be so critical, a turning point that opens a new chapter in your life, you just know it. You watch it differently that some minor, insignificant, trite event. It burns itself into your memory so permanently and completely that it consumes your thoughts. She knew her town, her world, her life as she knew it shattered with that window. She was there. It happened right in front of her.
She saw it better than anyone.
But now it was "fight or flight" time, and seventeen year old Paige and her sister would now be holding their ground here.
"Let's GO!" Ali ordered.
"Yeah." Paige breathed. "Let's go."
Ali did not waste time. She ran headfirst directly against the current of people. Paige followed in her wake. Ali never hesitates. She does what needs to be done, no matter how difficult. The course of action called for the sisters to punch through the crowd. Ali was up for the job. And like everything else, she performed it without a complaint. She and Paige were the same size, even though she was two years Paige's senior. But Ali was weathered and tough. Much tougher than her dainty frame would suggest.
Her strength was not of the physical, however. Her strength came from her determination to do what needed to be done. For all her memories of her sister, the ones that define her best were those days where their parents would fuss about pretty little Paige's clothes, Paige's homework, Paige's dance recital, Paige's birthday party. All the while Ali was there, hand on shoulder, not complaining one bit about her lack of attention. She even smiled and enjoyed her sister's joys every time without exception. She never showed even a hint of jealousy. Never once had she asked for anything not already given to her. When pretty little Paige was given a silver spoon, solid old Ali was given a block of ore and left to make her own. Paige was the one who was going to marry a doctor, accomplish all her dreams, was going to make her parents proud. The shining apple of Ma and Pa's eyes. Paige guessed Ali would not have it any other way. She liked the work.
As she followed her older sister past the frantic masses, Paige reminded herself of what she wanted to become: Ali. Her parents spoiled her. Her sister taught by example, and made baby sister better for it.
"Opened a can of big, ugly worms, that guy." Ali muttered when they broke free of the crowd.
"Thinking the same thing." Paige said. She watched as 4 cops hustled towards the market.
"You idiot! You could have been trampled! When I say 'follow me' you don't just-"
"Sorry." Paige uttered. She cast a nervous gaze past her sister at a large white tent being pitched on the edge of the parking lot. A white commercial van was parked behind it, brown boxes being unloaded. A banner was unrolled.
The Sharing.
'Emergency disaster relief meeting'.
She remembered getting the flyer in her mailbox coming home early from school. A senior member must have dropped it off at her house after they saw the news. Amazing that someone would have the wherewithal to spring into action after seeing that.
But that's the thing. Ali would. Paige watched Ali turn around and stare at the makeshift setup. Her frown tightened into a growl. She grabbed Paige's hand and walked back into the crowd.
When Paige walked in the door with the flyer that morning, Ali was already there, waiting. It was cloudy. The house was dark, but the lights were still off.
"Shouldn't the Red Cross or the National Guard be handing out relief?" Ali growled. The sisters were surrounded with people again, the view of the Sharing tent obscured. "And what 'Disaster'?"
Paige said nothing, and replayed that morning in her head.
"Where's mom?" Ali asked, hunched over the coffee table.
"She's on her way home. The trains are real crowded, but she's okay, she got out before the riots."
"Good." She said after a pause. She sat up and put her hands on the couch. Her face was covered in shadow.
"You got out of work?" Paige asked as she shuffled through the door and put down her bag.
"You got out of school." She said.
"Yeah."
"Did you see the news yet?"
"No?"
"What do you know?" Ali asked.
"Only what everyone else is saying. What happened?"
A long pause. "It's on the news." She answered simply. Paige grew irritated with this whole coy act.
"Um…" She began towards the T.V.
"A guy came for you an hour ago. From the Sharing." Ali cut her off.
"What did he want?" Paige stopped in the middle of the dark room, arms folded.
"He asked for you; he gave me that flyer in your hand."
Paige gripped the piece of pink paper at her side.
"He said the group is getting supplies together and going to hand them out. They need all the help they can get."
"What did you say?"
"I said I'll let you know." Another pause.
"Is that all?" Paige held her arms out, impatient.
"He asked me if I could come too. As in right now."
"Well, why didn't you? People may need help."
Ali shifted on the dark couch. A slight ray of light pierced through the shades, lining silver around her silhouette.
"How important are you in the Sharing, Paige?"
"What?" Paige asked, stunned and wary.
"Are you one of the higher- ranked members?"
"I- I've only been going for a month." She said defensively. She could not suppress the sense that she was in danger.
Sometimes fear can be an asset. She thought. She was afraid, shaking even.
"I'm only going to ask you this once." Ali said, she stood up, her dark figure foreboding and dangerous. "Have you been spending time with any higher ranked members? Have you tried to become an elite member?"
Paige flashed through all the times her superiors talked about 'moving up'. About becoming a leader. About how great it was and how satisfied they felt. Her group leader quit his job to work full time. Her physics teacher was one. He handed out extra credit to students who joined, and invited the class to barbeques. 'Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than they are. Everyone wants to be on the winning team.' He said.
"You're not given a hand in the matter. They decide when your ready."
"Mm."
"Ali? You're scaring me right now."
"They said they need to feed every three days. You're out a lot, Paige. Where do you go? Is it to the Sharing?"
"What's wrong with the Shar-" Paige backed up.
"Do you have any inkling of what that group does?"
Paige could only shake her head in confusion. Ali slowly advanced one hand behind her back.
"Do you know what they do to people in there? What goes on in those Elite member meetings? Those 'initiation ceremonies'?" Ali growled.
"I- I heard crazy rumors..." Paige pleaded.
"I've heard crazy facts!" Ali hissed. Fury emanated from her. It almost shook the walls.
"You don't trust the Sharing?" Paige whispered, trying not to provoke her suddenly terrifying sister.
"Do you is The Million Dollar Question, Paige." Her hand twitched behind her back
"Do you trust me?" Paige pleaded, desperate to find an escape route.
Ali stood silent for a while. Contemplating that question, in a loud silence that only Ali could.
A butcher knife dropped to the floor behind her. It gleamed in the minimal grey light that occupied the room. Ali dropped to her knees, gasping loudly for breath.
"Oh God." She cried. "I'm so sorry. I thought… you were…" she broke into tears. Her face contorted in pain, tears flowing but so, so silent. A loud gasp, and she was up embracing her baby sister.
Paige's arms were limp at her side. Over Ali's shoulder Paige stared at the knife. What It represented. What It could have done. What a poisonous thing, to hold an object like that with whatever Ali intended to do. It shook both sisters down to their cores. They stood there in each others arms for a while, let the darkness surround them, glad they were unable to see each other's faces.
A group began to form around the tent. People began walking off with cases of Poland Spring. A second tent was pitched next to the Sharing's. This one owned by the local church. There was already a young, slick-looking man preaching from the roof of his car.
Paige got an awful premonition. Ali said it first.
"We can't let any elder members see you. They'll wonder why you're not with them. Can't let them suspect you know anything."
"Why are they out in the open? Don't people know that they're a front?"
"The President didn't get to tell us that. Maybe he wouldn't have anyway. It was only leaked as rumors on small private radio stations. They didn't blurt it out because they don't want the Sharing to know that they're onto them.
"You can't just go around screaming 'controller' at everyone there. One slip up and they'll all be forced into open action, no more sneaking, no more exposing themselves in the open. I'm shocked they're even out now and they don't know about it yet. I don't want to be around when they're exposed."
"Shit." Paige could only muster.
"Let's move, it's not safe with all these ears around."
"Okay."