Celia was sitting on the ground, underneath the starry wasteland sky, when she felt the rumbling. An enormous ghoulified hand rose from the earth beside her, then a shoulder, and a chest. She tumbled forward as the ghoul rose from the dirt under her, and was caught by the massive hand. She curled into a ball, and covered her face.
It brought her up to it's face, and she could see it was not-Lionel, examining her with those starry eyes, and he placed her gently onto the ground. She rolled away from him, and he pulled himself out of the earth. A loud screech in the distance sounded.
Not-Lionel looked up to the sky and put his arm out, as not-Lilian landed in front of him and began attacking him, violently. She crawled into a patch of bushes and hid from the fight. It seemed like it went on forever, until silence reigned, and not-Lionel was the victor.
And then the hand came back, and pulled her from the bushes, and she breathed so fast her heart felt like it would explode in her chest. She was brought up before the white-hot glare of not-Lionel, again, and she sobbed.
He carried her over the ground, for a long time. Her tears were dry before she was put down, onto a floating piece of wood in the middle of a limitless lake, and he sank into the water.
She was alone, then, and she clung to the edge of the wood, drifting away from everything.
Celia woke, reaching out into the dark interior of a metal shack. For a moment she thought she was in Lionel's shack, and then remembered the dream, and sobbed. Two strong arms encircled her, and she cried into a leather-clad shoulder, for a long time. "It's alright," the man said. "You're okay."
She jerked away, in shock, blinking at the man. He was unfamiliar, and her heart jumped in her chest. "Where―"
"I'm Amos Royce," he said, and patted her hand. "You're in St. James. Lionel and Lilian are here, too, so don't worry." But they were alone in the shack.
She felt the dryness in her mouth and coughed. "May I please have some water?"
He handed her a bottle and sighed. "That stuff is something powerful," he said. "I remember my first dose of Rad-Away."
Celia choked on the water, and looked at him in surprise. Rad-Away meant she'd had radiation sickness. When had she gotten irradiated? She thought about it, for a moment. There had been a swath of barrels, through an overpass. Maybe the bog with all the bloatflies.
She **was dying, then, when she was on the barge. Her heartfelt complaints about motion sickness... Lionel had lied to her, told her it wasn't going to kill her. Maybe he thought it would make her feel better. She curled up her knees and held them. "Where's Lionel?" she said.
Amos sighed and she could see that the room was filled with dust motes, drifting aimlessly through the air. "Out," he said. "With Lilian. They'll be back."
"I don't know if I should believe you," she said, cautiously.
"Good," he said. "You shouldn't trust anyone you don't know."
She looked across her knees at the shaggy-haired man and narrowed her eyes. "I want Lionel."
The leather creaked as he sat back in the chair and rubbed his beard. He looked her over, carefully. She got the feeling that he was assessing her, like he was trying to make up his mind about something, and she didn't like it. "I work with a mercenary group based out of Gladstone," he said. "It's called ARC. Lionel tells me that you three are on the run from Paramount."
If he trusted this man with that much information, then he must be okay, she thought. She held her knees tighter, though. She didn't like this, at all.
"Lionel seems to think you need to be as far away from them as possible," Amos went on. "I agree."
"I'll be safe here," she muttered.
"No, honey," he said, patting her shoulder. "St. James is not a place for people like us."
She brooded for a moment, not answering. Like us? She didn't like that idea. "I want Lionel," she repeated, stubbornly. "I don't want to talk to you."
Amos stood up and walked to the door of the shack, talking to someone outside. She waited for a long time before anyone came back, and when the door finally opened again, Lionel entered the shack.
"Hey, kid," he said. Amos stood behind him, his hands at his side.
Celia stared at Amos for a moment, then uncurled her knees and moved to the edge of the bed. "What's going on?" she asked. "Who is th―"
"Celia," he said, "I need you to listen to me for a minute." He thumped himself onto the other end of the bed.
She breathed faster, near panic. "What―"
"Lilian was right," Lionel rumbled. "This isn't a nice place at all." He looked down at his hand in his lap and clenched his fist. "You don't belong here. I can't keep you safe."
Celia shot a look at Amos and scooted closer to Lionel. "Who―"
"Amos isn't going to hurt you," he said. "He's paying for us to get out of St. James. We're going to ride the barge over to Gladstone."
Lionel was subdued, acting like he had in his shack when he tried to comfort her. "Why?" she asked, suspicious.
Lionel sighed. "Because I shouldn't have dragged you this far, but you can't stay here."
She hesitated, then heard the words again in her head. "What about you, and Lilian?"
"We're coming," he said. "You know we can't go back, either."
Celia looked to Amos. He had sharp eyes on Lionel. "Are you guarding me, for some reason?" she asked.
Amos look at her and smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. "I have my reasons," he said, giving a hard glance to Lionel, who tensed and looked away. Celia knew something had happened.
"I'm sick of this," she announced. "What's going on?"
"We're getting on the barge and going to Gladstone," Lionel said, standing. "No arguing."
"Maybe I should just go home, then," she muttered.
"I wouldn't recommend trying," Amos said. "You're welcome to come stay with my family in Gladstone. No need to travel all the way back down to Grayling."
"Grayling isn't home," Celia said, deliberately staring at Lionel's back.
"Well," Amos said, shifting position, "either way, it's not a good idea to strike out on your own, ill-prepared for dangers." He looked pointedly at Lionel when he said this.
Celia stood up, wavered a little, and looked Amos straight in the eyes. "You need to leave us alone, right now," she said, in a grown-up voice that she hadn't known she possessed.
Amos raised an eyebrow at her. "She's all yours, Papa Bear," he said, and slammed the shack door.
"What the―What is going on?!" she asked Lionel, touching his arm.
He pulled it away. "Stop."
"What?" She was confused. "Look, you―you have to tell me something. Why is he acting like that?"
"Celia," Lionel said, low in tone, looking away from her. "You trust too easily, you know?"
She sputtered. What? She hadn't trusted anyone, except him and Lilian, since she exited the Vault.
"You can't trust anyone," he rasped. "Not me, not Lilian, not Amos. Definitely don't trust yourself."
"That was rude," Celia said. "Why are you acting like that? Everyone's gone mad."
Lionel barked a laugh, and rubbed his face. "Sometimes being crazy is a good thing," he said, wistfully. "We're going to Gladstone." He turned to her and her heart fluttered.
What was that for? she wondered. "Okay, but why does Amos think that you're going to hurt me or something?"
Lionel shook his head. "Don't worry about it."
"Like when you told me not to worry about the 'motion sickness'?" she said, angrily, making air quotes.
"Shit," he grumbled. "You did have motion sickness, kid. I won't lie, you had the radiation, too."
"Well, it didn't kill me, obviously!" she said, raising her arms up. "And I didn't turn ghoul or anything. So why the heck is everyone acting so funny?"
Lionel laughed again, and didn't stop for a long time. "Sorry," he said, and she flushed in anger. "I really am, kid." He patted her shoulder, and turned to the door. "We gotta go, though. Amos promised a world of hurt on me if I didn't behave."
"You really have gone mad," she said, watching him move toward the door.
"If I had, you'd be dead," he said solemnly, and left the shack.