When Lily woke up in a comfortable bed with the covers pulled all the way up to her chest, her first instinct was to reach under her pillow. In the Wasteland, waking up with no idea of where you were was never a good thing, even if the sheets smelled nice and the room was toasty warm. She wasn't surprised when she didn't find her revolver in its usual spot under her head, and a quick glance around the room confirmed that she wasn't in any immediate danger. But what did surprise her was the woman sitting by her bedside, silent as a mouse.
She bolted upright, pillow raised as a makeshift shield.
"It is good to see you awake." Lily froze, then sank back into the bed with a sigh. Curie.
"Should have guessed." She mumbled. This was the second time in just as many days she'd woken up in a strange location with Curie at her bedside. "Where'd you drag me to this time?"
"I had help!" Curie jumped, a flash of realization flitting across her face. "Tommy Lonegan! He said you were old friends."
"Tommy. Wonderful." Even her sister hated dealing with the sleazy ghoul businessman. His help always came with a price attached. And if he'd really helped save her life, he was going to skin her to the bone if he could.
Curie turned to her side and Lily noticed a faint, purple bruise on the left side of her face, just below her eye. She continued on in her usual, cheery manner.
"Oh he has been so wonderful!" She gestured to a bag of water with a tube sticking out of it. "He even managed to find a saline drip!"
Lily followed the tube's path all the way down to where it disappeared into her wrist.
"C-Curie."
"Yes?" The woman's brow rose in concern.
"It's in my arm." Lily's voice was barely above a whisper.
"Ah!" Curie looked somewhat relieved and entirely oblivious to Lily's rising panic. "That's a-"
Before she could finish her thought, Lily yanked the tube out of her arm and tossed it across the room. Her momentary relief was shattered as blood began to pour out of her vein, flowing down her arm and soaking into the bedsheets. Curie leapt into action with a towel.
"What a mess!" she cried, wrapping a frayed rag tightly around Lily's arm. "Why would you do that?"
The redhead stared at the bloody mess, too shocked to respond.
"This is medicine, Lily." She frowned at the now empty plastic bag. "Tommy said it was very hard to find."
"I-It was in my arm." Lily stuttered, feeling a little light-headed.
"That's where medicine goes, silly." She leaned over to check her wrist, fingers brushing across Lily's arm.
Lily's heart skipped a beat. Curie carried on inspecting her arm as if nothing had happened, humming softly while she worked. And really, nothing had happened. The odd, tingling sensation spreading through her arm was nothing. A side-effect of whatever Vault-brand medicine Curie had cooked up and shoved into her.
When she felt the odd desire to reach out and touch Curie's hair, she didn't even try and fight it. The round silhouette of her head bobbed and weaved enticingly, the jet-black, lustrous hair waving an obvious invitation.
Thankfully, the door swung open before she could do anything stupid. Her hand jerked away.
"Ain't this a treat." Tommy's voice hadn't changed much over the years. "Lily Tourette!"
"Monsieur Tommy! She just wo-"
"Don't you have somewhere to be, little bird?"
Tommy's blunt delivery must have thrown her off; it was a while before Curie got the message.
"Of course! I'm sure you have much to talk about." She offered Lily a reassuring pat on the arm. "Get well soon!"
"Save some of that pep for the bar, girl."
There was a self-satisfied smirk on Tommy's face as he watched Curie leave with one hand behind his back. Lily hated that expression, ever since she'd first seen it as a child. It stank of self-importance, as if the ghoul thought he'd outsmarted everyone in the room just by walking through the door.
"How ya doing, Red?"
"Just fine before you walked in." Tommy's grin grew wider, revealing yellow teeth.
"Now is that any way to treat an old friend? Especially a friend that saved your life?"
"I really appreciate it." She held up her bandaged arm. "Didn't like the part where you stuck a tube in me."
"Ha! Maybe I should have wrapped a dirty rag around your head and stuck you full of jet." He rolled his eyes. "The raider special."
"Could have saved yourself some caps."
"In all seriousness, I did save your life." Tommy held up a bottle that Lily instantly recognized. Her stomach churned.
"I knew your sister was the brains in the family but holy shit." He wiggled the bottle. "Poisoned wine?"
Poisoned? That would certainly explain why she'd puked her guts out in the park.
"How was I supposed to know it was poisoned?"
"Did ya yank it out of a corpse's hands?"
Silence. Tommy seemed to revel in it.
"And you just had to wash it down with a dose of jet, didn't you?" The ghoul's tongue scraped over what was left of his lips. "You're lucky poison expires faster than a box of Sugar Bombs. Think about that next time you're looking for a snack."
"Just tell me what you're charging for the help, Tommy."
The ghoul feigned hurt, hand flying across his chest with enough dramatic flair to make an actress blush.
"Me? Charge you?" He tipped his head, gently placing the empty bottle on a table. "After everything your sister's done for me?"
"Cut the bullshit." Lily spat, as a red-hot surge of anger bubbled in her stomach. "You don't do anything for free."
She expected another sleazy grin, filled to the brim with thinly veiled contempt. Instead, the ghoul flashed an almost genuine smile. If she didn't know better, she might have believed he was impressed.
"I guess you picked up something from your sister." He nodded towards the wine bottle. "Along with her suicidal tendencies, I see."
"I also picked up some other tricks." Her eyes narrowed. "Give me my gun back and I'll show you."
"Funny as always, I see." He rubbed his hands together. "Unfortunately, that's where we have a bit of a problem."
"Figures."
"You see, keeping you alive wasn't exactly cheap." He moved to her bedside to inspect the bloodied tubing and now empty plastic bag. "This stuff is Bunker Hill premium. Had to dig into my personal cap stash to cover the Med-X we pumped into you."
"Business not doing too well, Tommy?" Lily seized the opportunity to knock him down a peg. "Maybe you should retire, let my sister choose someone else for the job."
Tommy's black, beady eyes snapped to her face, his expression grim. Instinctively, Lily sidled away from him until she reached the edge of the bed.
"Business isn't doing so great, thanks for asking. Although I can't see why you'd be excited about that." Tommy's voice was rougher than gravel, and all traces of amusement left his scarred face. "It just makes things worse for you."
"My sister will pa-"
"Your sister came through here four days ago." Tommy snapped. "Looking for you."
Lily's blood ran cold.
"S-She wouldn't do that."
"She did. She marched her whole gang into Minuteman territory to look for you." Tommy sat on the edge of the bed but he leaned towards her. "And now no one knows where she is."
The ice in Lily's chest grew thicker, gripping her heart in its vice-like grip.
"Is she-?"
"She's not dead, if that's what you're asking. It'd take a lot more than a few Minutemen to take her down." He drilled into her with those same, hauntingly lifeless eyes that had terrified her as a child. As much as she didn't want to admit it, those eyes scared her now too. "On the other hand, she's not going to be easy to find."
"My sister's always good to her word. She must have left someone back at camp. Just send them a message and they'll get you your damn caps."
"Nobody. Not a damn soul." Tommy sounded just as confused as she was. "Like I said, Lily. I'm not going to charge you. But I'm going to need something as collateral, to keep until your sister pays me what I'm owed."
"I was robbed Tommy. I don't have anything for you to keep."
"Not exactly." The ghoul pulled out a lighter. In one smooth motion, he lit the cigar that had materialized in his hand. "You've got the girl."
"Curie?" Lily recoiled at the thought. "You want her?" Tommy frowned at the disgust in her expression and shook his head fervently.
"Not like that." He ran a hand down his withered cheek. "This is the Combat Zone, not a brothel."
"Why then?"
"Business." Tommy puffed on his cigar. "It's all just business."
"Get to the point, Tommy." She was way too dizzy to make sense of him. Even on a good day, Tommy had a way with words that left her lost. Today, it felt like he was speaking a whole new language.
"You weren't always this rude." Tommy chuckled, gesturing with his cigar. "Remember when you first walked in here? When you saw those rulebreakers?"
Lily's cheeks reddened slightly at the memory. She'd cried and screamed and yanked on her sister's arm until the poor, hooded figures were out of her sight. Just the thought of ending up as one of those hunched, mute prisoners was enough to keep her lips firmly sealed. The ghoul delighted in watching her lip tremble whenever they passed through that room; he made a point of doing it as often as possible.
"I'm tired, Tommy. Can you get to the point?" His eyes narrowed. "Please?"
"That's much better, Red. Cigarette?"
Lily shook her head and Tommy stuffed the pack into his suit pocket. He took another long draw of his cigar and looked around the room, his eyes lingering on the red-stained sheets.
"Your girl. Where'd you find her?"
"She's not my-" Lily paused. "She found me."
"Where?"
"I don't know, somewhere. A little to the West."
"Do you know anything about her? Friends, family?"
"No…" It had only just occurred to her how little she knew about the woman she'd been travelling with. From the very start, she'd convinced herself it wouldn't be necessary. She was a stumbling, tripping fool of a waster. How long could she really last?
Pretty damn long, apparently.
"She saved my life. Outside, with Swan."
"That was her?" Tommy snorted. "She's a damn good shot."
It took her a second to realize he was talking about the raiders. She nodded along, storing the compliment for later. If he believed Curie was some sort of gunslinger, she wouldn't correct him. The less Tommy knew about her the better.
"I swear, neither one of you could walk past a hornet's nest without kicking it, spitting on it and blowing it up with a stick of dynamite."
"Hornets?"
He waved his hand.
"Forget it. What I meant to say is this. First, your sister gets the Minutemen all riled up with her vacation. And then, within the week, you're here at my doorstep with Swan and the General at your back."
"The General was here?"
"Here and gone, Red. You've been down for almost twenty-four hours, I reckon." He snuffed out the cigar, almost as an afterthought. It was little more than a stub when he tossed it over his shoulder.
"I'm trying to run a business here, Lily. You understand that, right?" She nodded.
"My customers are raiders, like you. And they hate it when Minutemen start to swarm around my little establishment like Bloodbugs at a Brahmin pen." He tapped his chin and reached for the empty bag. "And this medicine was expensive, as I'm sure your bird told you."
"She's not my bird."
"You owe me a lot of caps, sweetheart. So maybe I'll just say whatever I want." He snarled, and Lily's lips snapped shut. The mask slipped off, and for a second she could see the cold, ruthless businessman hiding behind his friendly smile.
He hadn't saved her out of pity or because of some small shred of gratitude he still had for her sister's help. The only reason he would have dug a hole in his pockets to save her was to ransom her back to Rachel. And now that she was missing, he just didn't know what to do with her.
As if he'd heard the hammering in her chest, Tommy pulled away with an apologetic smile. The mask had returned, only this time Lily wasn't fooled. Without her sister's protection she was vulnerable to corpse-pickers like Tommy. Now more than ever, she wanted her gun back.
"Tommy, do you know where my revolver is?" She gestured vaguely with her hands, trying to keep him from wondering why she was asking. One look at his face made it obvious that he wasn't falling for it.
"Don't worry about it, Lily." She shuddered when he touched her arm. "It's safe in my...safe."
He smiled from ear-to-ear as if he'd told the best joke in the world. Lily smiled back, careful not to meet his eyes.
"A deposit." He explained. "Until your sister pays for your expenses, I'll keep it with me."
"And Curie?"
"She's doing some work for me. Nothing dangerous I promise."
"I didn't think there were many safe jobs in the Combat Zone."
"She serves drinks, alright? Ain't nobody gonna mess with the gal handing out the beer."
The image of Curie whirling around in a frenzy, taking drink orders from ruthless raiders was enough to put a smile on Lily's face. Tommy grinned back.
"Pretty as an angel and just as innocent. The men love her, even if she messes up their orders from time to time." He stroked his chin and gave her a pointed look. "I could make a lot of caps with a server like her around."
"Ask her. She's not my property."
"Maybe I will." He slid off the bed. "In the meantime, let me know if there's anything I can do for you."
Tommy was halfway to the door when she called out.
"Wait!"
He turned around, knowing smile on his face.
"Could you get me some books to read?"
The smile disappeared in an instant. He nodded, a stiff, uncomfortable gesture.
"I'll do what I can."