Author's note: Just a reminder before you read this chapter, the last events with Bri were Momma's death and Darvish's attempted rape, and someone rescuing her drunken self from the forest. Hopefully that clears up some confusion! I also took some liberties with Baird's backstory that will be explained with more details in later chapters. Enjoy!
Highway 34 Northbound
Present Day
"Despite her mother's warnings, and the calls of her friends, Romily left the safe company of her friends and walked deep into the perils of the forest. She thought they would admire her independence, and respect her brave willingness to break ranks with the others. But she did not walk alone. The six-legged demon that had waited patiently beneath her house since her birth followed her, unseen, and joined the rest of his kind who rose from the depths to embrace her."
-Ancient Tyran Fairy Tale, on the Popular and Improving Theme of Monsters Lying in Wait for Disobedient Children
Darvish is here. He's here, and he's leering at me with his sinister smile. He licks his lips with the tongue I now know the rotted taste of. His palm reaches for me in the dark, and I want to run, and I want to scream but I can't. I am leaden with guilt, and regret, and he uses my weaknesses to his advantage as he pulls me closer.
I am paralyzed before him. My body refuses to respond to my commands as his hands slide up my bare thighs. My throat grants me one, strangled, angry scream as I try to flee once more.
"Now Bri," his lecherous voice cajoles me. "We all know you wanted this."
And I can see. I can see the faces surrounding me, staring at me – Dix, Momma, Eric, Bane, the Gear from the bathroom, Ace, Dom… All nightmares in their own way. Each has the same expression; an expression that says it all.
You deserve this.
I fight again to escape, but now my hands and ankles are bound tightly to a stainless steel counter. The room suddenly smells like blood and bleach – like sanitized death. It's a COG farm. In the other room I can hear the shrieks of naked babies being neglected by hollow mothers. Somewhere in the distance a high pitched laugh breaks the tension, but not in a comforting way. It is the sound of insanity, of a person broken beyond repair. The sound gets louder as the figure walks into my chamber.
It's me. Another me, only now my hair is patchy where bits of it has been ripped out. My stomach burgeons outward – pregnant with a choice I never had. My arms are thin with weakness instead of the muscles I worked for in the field. The only bit of me I recognize is the angry tilt of my jaw and the awkward crook of my nose. Even my own eyes are foreign: they are vacant and depleted, missing the soul this life would have ripped from me.
"You can't outrun this," the other Bri hisses, curling her dirty fingers around her distended belly. At first I believed she was caressing the child she carried, but then I saw how her fingers curled into claws as she ripped indents into her flesh. "This was to be your life. Your destiny!"
"No!" I scream as Darvish steps forward once more. I struggle against the restraints, but they refuse to give. I thrash against the cold, silver table as he trails his dirty fingers over my flesh. I scream again – louder – as his fingers wake me from the inside.
My eyes jerked open. The scene in my mind was immediately replaced with the dark view of rubble and empty city spanning the distance between the Stranded camp and Port Farrall. It was a dream. Only a dream.
A nightmare, my mind corrected me.
I felt like I couldn't get enough air despite the cold wind whistling in through somewhere to my left. Adrenalin pumped through my system in almost toxic amounts. The world looked over-focused and hazy all at once; I couldn't take in anything. My mind rejected the scene in front of me, instead playing through my nightmare over and over again. Darvish's face leering above me; my own face snarling and broken. I shuddered again.
Finally, however, details started filtering in. The sun was down now; the only light came from two slightly off-center headlights aimed out on the road. The cracked pavement looked like the scales of a snake in the dark. From the console of the truck music whined out from a cassette player. A husky voice crooned: They said he was ruthless, they said he was crude. They had one thing in common, they were good in bed. She's say 'faster, faster, the lights are turning red'.
The front windshield had a large crack spreading from the top center down across the passenger side. As a result, the view was slightly warped. Or maybe that was just me – warped and slightly off. And broken. Forever broken.
The cold wind finally got to me, and I turned my head to see where it was coming from. My head felt heavy and reluctant to move. Just the slight action made my stomach roll uncomfortably. The passenger side window was missing. Not just rolled down, but actually gone. In between me and the gap is Sam.
She had her head out of the window, examining the world, but when she felt me move she turned around. Her hair was slightly scraggly, but she looked good, though. No one at the camp would have let Sam starve, and she looked a bit fuller around her ribs. Unlike myself. When she noticed that I was conscious, she paved the side of my face with doggy-kisses. Welcome back, she seemed to say. Her tail wagged so hard that it vibrated her entire body. Her front paws pranced excitedly as she moved closer to me.
I patted her, amazed at her full-body excitement to see me. What did it feel like, I wondered, to love someone that much? So much that you couldn't even control yourself when they came close, as if you might just break free of whatever was holding you down and throw yourself at them with enough force to easily overwhelm you both. I had to wonder, but Sam clearly knew: you could see it, feel it coming off of her like a heat. I almost envied that. Almost.
"Oh…god…" I groaned, gently pushing her away. The scent of dog-breath made me cringe. My stomach flipped again, and if I'd had anything solid inside it would have been coming back up. I hadn't eaten in…heaven knew how long. Although, if I did have some food in me it would have helped soak up some of the alcohol. It was a mixed blessing – damned if I did, damned if I didn't.
Okay, so I'm in a vehicle, and I'm moving. What else? My mind was working sluggishly to my aggravation. It only then occurred to me to turn and find out who the driver was. I rotated my head slowly – my temple already pounding with an oncoming migraine – to look at the driver seat.
"Oh, god…"
It was Baird.
He had one hand resting along the back of the bench seat, with the other relaxing against the door. He guided the steering wheel easily with just the tips of his fingers. He looked slightly annoyed, but that was how he normally looked. There was a tense look in the corners of his eyes that I recognized – he was thinking about something, trying intently to solve some sort of mental puzzle. His midriff and arms were free of the COG armor that he usually toted around all day. He looked better without it, less menacing somehow. Less branded. Despite his bare arms and the slight grimace pulling down the corners of his mouth he didn't seem uncomfortable. He actually looked…relaxed. At ease.
It was a good look for him.
"So you're up," he said, breaking the silence between us. The music still played on. There were lines on the mirror, lines on her face. She pretended not to notice, she was caught up in the race. "Good. Got some questions for you."
My thoughts were like lead in my skull. It took a minute before I could comprehend what he was saying, and then another minute to think of a response.
"How…how'd you know…"
"Dizzy," he answered. "That's his name, right? The hick Derrick driver with the dumb hat? He told me where you'd be. Figured I'd come make sure you weren't dead in a ditch somewhere."
Out every evening, until it was light. He was too tired to make it; she was too tired to fight about it…
My cheeks flushed when I realized that people – strangers, really – were coming together to discuss my well-being. Like they thought they could help, out of some misguided sense of pity. It was bad to be embarrassed, hard to be ashamed. But pitied? My worst nightmare. Chagrin fired in my veins, and I said: "I can take care of myself. I wasn't that far from camp, and there were people-"
"Yeah?" he interrupted. "Well, they must have been the invisible sort, because you were alone when I found you."
I didn't have a response to that. As the alcohol faded in my system I realized just how true his words were. It had been stupid of me. Not just stupid – damn near suicidal. Usually I was so much more careful. I ducked my head out of reflex, and peeked up at him like a child being lectured. The slight grimace in his expression had shifted into a deeper look of anger. He was…pissed? At what? Me?
Life in the fast lane – surely make you lose your mind. Life in the fast lane, everything all the time.
"I'm sorry," I said, the words prompted by a mix of sorrow and booze. "I forgot I was supposed to meet Dizzy at noon. The time just got away from me, after-"
I couldn't tell him. The words just wouldn't come. My hesitation was awarded with another quick glance from his cerulean gaze. "After what?"
I shook my head, ignoring the pounding in my skull as I did so. He didn't need to know – more than that, he didn't deserve to know. Momma was just another Stranded to him. He wouldn't mourn her the way she deserved. He'd tack her death up as just another statistic. "It doesn't matter," I finally said. "I'll apologize to Dizzy tomorrow."
I was slowly waking up - enough to begin to notice land marks around us. We were only about ten minutes from the Port. I could field his questions with awkward evasions and half truths, and then go find a corner somewhere to huddle up in and sleep.
That was when Baird stepped on the brakes, throwing the truck into park.
They went rushing' down that freeway, messed around and got lost. They didn't care they were just dyin' to get off. And it was life in the fast lane…
My heart thudded in my ears as Baird turned to face me. No more spare glances; his entire gaze was fixed upon my face, reading every inflection in my expression. No hiding now.
"What the hell are you-"
"Answer me something," he interrupted. "What actually happened in the Hollow?"
"What?" I stumbled, "I don't-"
"Cut the bullshit. You went missing. Somehow you got separated from tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb, and then showed up later on the Queen's Reaver. No one seems to want to tell the whole story, and we're not moving until you tell me."
No, no, no…I thought. There were currently only three people who knew my true identity. Momma I could have told, but Baird? Baird, who would hold the truth over my head like a noose, or a loaded gun? The past was sticky, full of land mines. I made a point, usually, to not be so free-giving with the details about myself. And family, my family, was one of the biggest keys to me. Like a soft spot, a bruise that never quite healed right. The first place I was sure they would strike back, when the time came for them to do so.
"It doesn't matter," I say, and the lie sounds hollow even to my own ears. The cassette player cranked, shifting the track to something slower and more melancholy. The notes fell flat in the darkness. Well, baby, there you stand with your little head down in your hand. "We got separated, and I found my own way out. What happened later-"
"Bullshit!" His voice echoes off the ripped upholstery. I stare as he points a finger my way. "That's the same bullshit story that everyone accepts as what happened, but no one can see where things don't meet up. What. Happened?!"
Baird was like a rabid dog with a bone; he wouldn't release a subject until he had gnawed all the juicy gristle and details from a story. It was simply a desire to know, to understand. There was no hidden agenda in his blue eyes; no desire for idle gossip. He only wanted to fit together the jagged edges of truths and assumptions.
And within me lay a similar desire: to divulge, and to be understood.
So I told him.
The story poured from me like water from a pitcher. It was easier telling it this time around – more like pulling off a bandage, rather than a stabbing in my stomach. My lips and tongue were lubricated with the alcohol and the darkness. I told him everything, from how I learned of Delta's mission, to what happened in the Hollow. I closed my eyes when I told him of finding Maria, and then recognizing her as the woman from my locket. I explained – as well as I could – the anger and confusion I'd felt, and then how I ran away. I even told him about my plan to kill Dom. I told him how I had tracked them all to Nexus, and then scoured the palace for their presence.
And then I told him that I'd had Dom in between my sights, but had ended up saving him. How I had saved my father's life.
My father.
Baird never spoke during my rant; instead digesting it all. The truth lay between us on the bucket seat like a freshly roasted turkey, oozing its fat across the upholstery. Parts of it were rotted and stinking, but he laid claim to it all. He devoured the story of my life like a meal presented to a starving man; sucked the marrow from the bones, picked the last bits of muscles from between his teeth, sucked the grease from his fingers. I sat exposed before him, feeling more naked than if I had taken off all of my clothes. I was stripped to the barest facts of me.
For a minute, neither of us said anything. After so long of only thinking over these things, saying them out loud felt so strange, as if now they were officially real. My cold, hard life exposed, finally, for what it truly was.
So you live from day to day, the music called between us. And you dream about tomorrow. And the hours go by like minutes, and the shadows come to stay. So you take a little something to make them go away.
Baird was thinking it through, twisting and tugging to see if my life would come apart at the seams when confronted with careful examination. Baird had several looks: his annoyed look, his amused look, his 'blow-me' look. I was slowly learning how to read the intricate muscle twitches that betrayed his thoughts. "So," he said slowly, "your real name-"
"My real name is Bri," I told him in no uncertain terms. "I'm still me. That doesn't change."
He shrugged, accepting that. Dom probably wouldn't have swallowed that line so easily, but it didn't matter what he thought. Not here, in the quiet space between Baird and I. Our breath tangled in the air around us, and I could smell him. He carried a heavy scent of axel grease and fuel, mixed with the sweet, tarry scent of standard carbolic soap. It could have been overpowering, but it was balanced by a unique scent, something that was purely Baird. Something earthy, almost like pine needles but not quite.
Unfortunately, that meant he could also smell me – the alcohol on my breath, the dirt in my hair, and the stench of sweat that had coated my body for too long. As usual, I was the one tainting everything. The black spot on an otherwise perfect canvas.
Baird grunted in response as the track skipped again. He reached to put the truck back into gear.
"What about you?" I asked.
His hand froze in between his lap and the gear shift. "What about me?" he grunted. His goggles caught a ray of light and shined briefly as he turned back to face me.
I shrugged. "You know pretty much everything about me now, and I still know fuck-all about you. I'm curious."
There's a hole in the world tonight! There's a cloud of fear and sorrow! There's a hole in the world tonight! Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow! The radio pronounced as another song began. For a second I wondered where Baird had gotten such shit music, but then I realized how lucky it was that any sort of player existed. The truck we were sitting in wasn't COG issued, so Baird had to have borrowed or stole it from somewhere. The COG would have been holding its resources close to its chest, including vehicles.
"What do you wanna know?" There it was. No sarcasm, no hiding. He was being as honest with me as I was with him. Perhaps it was easier because we were alone – literally in the middle of nowhere – and we had to squint to see each other in the dark. If either of us looked away we could pretend we were narrating to the stars.
"Start at the beginning," I suggested.
There was another pause while he thought – like a computer starting up – before he began to speak. "I don't have a lot of happy memories about my family. Not abusive, just…distant. Dad was a COG judge, mom rode his coattails into the finer circle of friends. Like hell I needed them, though. I spent most of my time dissecting anything mechanical that I could get my hands on. Used to catch shit if I couldn't put them back together. That wasn't often, though." I smiled when he added in that last part to defend his honor. I could imagine this young, blonde Baird playing with the contents of a microwave, or a radio, or even a television. I could also imagine his parents: stiff, aristocratic tossers that never gave the attention that their son needed. Despite my own misgivings with my parents, the mental image irked me.
"Didn't matter to me," he continued. "I usually spent time with my sister."
Sister?! My previous mental image was completely blown out of the water. "You have a sister?"
His eyes narrowed at the disbelief in my voice. "Had a sister. She was eight years older than me." A gap that wide was enough to make me wonder if he was a last-gasp attempt to save a marriage going down the drain. "My parents were always dedicated to the COG. Made 'em proud when Danielle enrolled at the officer's academy. Course, pissed 'em off when I said I was going to be an engineer."
He paused, and I could see the muscles in his cheek working his jaw. Baird had remained completely silent as I told him my story; I didn't have the same patience. "What happened to her?" I asked.
"She died." He let out a heavy breath. "It was a few years after E-day. I was only twelve when it happened. My father was already dead; my mother was in the hospital with some respiratory disease from all the ash after the Hammer Strikes. Danni had been working hard at keeping people safe and ordering idiots from making stupid decisions. There were Stranded on the battlefield, and she got herself killed trying to rescue some of them."
He stared blankly out the windshield as he delivered his last lines. From what little he'd told me, it seemed that he was closer to his sister than his parents. There was affection when he called her 'Danni', and anger when he spoke of her death. I could see why he wouldn't speak of her often; I hardly spoke of Ace, just because it hurt too damn much. It meant all the more that he told me of her.
"I'm sorry," I said.
He rolled his shoulders, like he did when he was embarrassed. "Long time ago," he said.
"But it doesn't stop hurting."
"No," he responded quietly after a moment, in a voice that was very quiet and very un-Baird like. "No it doesn't."
Just like Baird hounded after facts and truths, I was starting to put the pieces of him together in my mind. His hatred for Stranded, his distaste for female ground soldiers, his desire to work more alone than with a squad…all could be explained when one delved into his past. It made me wonder how much of my personality built upon my own history.
"She was a natural leader," he continued. "Not really into mechanics, but she was the one who would listen. Always knew what to do or say, or what advice to give."
I smiled slightly. "She sounds great."
Baird had a faraway look in his gaze. This was younger Baird speaking now, a Baird who worshiped and was raised by his older sister, one who had no thoughts of jumping headfirst into battle. One who wasn't angered and embittered at the world. "She had a wicked vocabulary. Could damn near cut a man in half with her tongue. Probably best she was an officer, because there's no way in hell she'd have made it in enlisted life. Would have told the first idiotic sergeant she came across exactly where to shove it."
I kept quiet, simply imagining the life he gifted me pieces of. Some might think of Baird as little more than an embittered pessimist, but there was a shred of tattered optimism in his soul. They said that inside every cynic was a disappointed idealist; Baird had just been burned too many times to let that hope shine through.
I was almost the opposite. Life had turned me into a skeptical realist: something good had to happen sometime. That was just playing statistics.
Was I being optimistic? Or just delusional? After all, I had found my father again against all odds and a role to play in the COG. I finally felt like I was contributing to something that made a difference in the world. Something that might give another person their own quiet reason to hope.
I wanted to be the daughter Dom so desperately deserved, but after years of struggling, years of trying to force myself into a role I just couldn't play, I'd learned to settle into the woman that I was. I was a woman ruled by her demons, a woman who didn't fit it. I'd chosen a life on the edges of society instead of in the midst of it. It was the only way I knew; the only way I'd survive.
I had no idea what the coming days would bring. I'd thought I'd go back to the camp, but with Momma's passing I wasn't sure how many ties I had left there. Dizzy was right when he'd said that I probably wouldn't have to fulfill my birthing order – at least not yet. Who knew what would have happened only in a few short months? Once the COG got its feet back under them, there would be dozens of decrees to go out aimed at rebuilding humanity. Would I settle into the COG only to have to leave soon after?
Maybe I'd known all of this all along, and that was why I was so anxious to leave. Because I didn't show weakness; I didn't depend upon anyone. And if Baird had been like the others, and just let me go, I would have been fine. It would have been easy to keep conveniently forgetting as I kept my heart clenched tight, away from where anyone could get to it.
Maybe that was what made this easy – this sharing of souls with Baird – the idea that his life was just as impermanent at this moment as mine. At any moment either of us could have been whisked away, never to see each other again. We were only converging for a few weeks, fleeting.
I glanced at Baird and realized that I'd never seen him like this: a bit cowed, uncomfortable, unable to come up with a quick funny retort that always seemed so close at hand. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at it, then glanced around the truck. The words that had flowed so easily between us only moments ago felt hidden, hard to find.
Baird started up the truck again without saying anything. He shifted into drive and pressed the gas pedal down, slowly gaining speed. As he accelerated the wind kicked in from the broken passenger side window, blowing past Sam - who had laid down and fallen asleep during our conversation - and against me. The sleeves of my jacket were still ragged and torn, and offered little protection from the wintery chill.
Baird - true to being a Gear - noticed my tremble. "I think there's a blanket in back," he said, and then reached his arm behind the bucket seat to the sparse few inches behind us. When he came back empty handed, he twisted his torso around to get a better look.
The truck, still propelled by Baird's foot on the gas pedal, devoured the dimly lit cracked pavement in front of us. It took a matter of seconds - barely enough time for me to yell "Baird!" before a cavernous E-hole was illuminated in front of us.
Instinct taking over, I lunged for the wheel and jerked it to the right, steering us sharply away from the E-hole and around the danger. The truck - and all of us inside of it - jerked to the left, sending me crashing against Baird's side.
"Damnit!" Baird cursed, bringing his other arm around from behind the bucket seat to grab the wheel at 10 and 2. He straightened out our course with a plethora of colorful curses. Sam rightened herself against the torn seat, looking annoyed from being jerked awake from her nap.
And I was still trapped to Baird's side, pinned there by his meaty arm from where he had reached for the steering-wheel. He seemed to realize my position at the same time I did; he sheepishly raised his arm, expecting me to jump away at the first sign of freedom. Instead, I hunched down closer.
Because Baird was warm. I hated the cold weather, and hadn't felt anything close to his furnace-like body in forever. Even paltry campfires - with their flames kept low as to not attract attention - couldn't produce this sort of all-encompassing heat.
The alcohol in my system lubricated my inhibitions until it only seemed natural – right – for me to wrap my arms around his sturdy torso and to fold myself around him. It was surprising how well I fit against him; almost like we were two puzzle pieces finally coming together to form part of a picture. My head rested upon his chest like it belonged there. His heartbeat pressed against my cheek in a steady pace that was slowly picking up tempo. I rocked against him to the rhythm of his breathing.
His warmth flowed through me like sunlight. Any survival specialist could have explained the concept of sharing body heat – keeping warm by embracing another - but somehow this felt like more. It wasn't just body heat he shared with me, it was strength. Courage. I wasn't even aware I was trembling until I felt his strong body pressed against mine.
Somewhere in my muddled mind I expected him to pull away, to turn from me in disgust or anger. After his initial shock – where I felt him stiffen against me – he slowly relaxed into my drunken cuddle. I was so exhausted by the day, and so relaxed by the heat of him against my cheek, that I started to fall asleep. It was just as I was starting to drift when I felt him shift below me. He slowly pulled his arm from behind the seat to wrap it around my shoulders, pulling me closer in beside him. Wrapped in his arms, I fell into a dreamless sleep.
Author's Note: So, yes, I'm still alive, and no, I haven't abandoned this story. Although I have been working on writing/maybe publishing another novel of mine, so maybe that explains why it's been so long since I've done any work with this one? Sorry!
The songs used were all by the Eagles: Life in the Fast Lane, Hotel California, and Hole in the World. There was a few reasons why I picked these lyrics to write into the story; a. because they fit the story-line, b) because Bri doesn't have the chance to listen to music regularly and it was something in the background that would continually draw her attention, and c) because it was something different to do. :) Let me know in the comments if it worked or not!
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
