Charon isn't at the Robco building anymore. That's the first thing he notices when he comes to. The large cement structure is nowhere in sight. Now he seems to be situated in a makeshift campsite, still out in the wasteland but far away from any buildings, just surrounded by long empty stretches of dead earth.
He tries to sit up and gasps, immediately clutching at his side. Underneath his shirt, he can feel hastily wrapped bandages but it's clear the wound is still open, still fresh enough to be wet against his fingertips. Around him, the sky has gone a dark blue, late evening showing that at least six hours have passed but he hasn't been given a stimpak. That must mean that either Eva's wounds were significantly worse or the bullet is still lodged in his ankle. His chest tightens painfully at the image of Eva, so still and so bloodied but he pushes the thought away. Who else would have moved him, bandaged him? Eva couldn't have managed it if she was that hurt.
Besides, judging by the stiff burning in his leg, he's going to guess it's the later.
"Eva?" He tries to look around but from his position, stretched out on the hard ground, it's difficult to see much of anything. Just moving is painful and the amount of time he's spent unconscious has left his muscles tight and sore.
Finally, he hears footsteps approaching behind him. He tries to turn to see her, wants reassurance that she's okay but it's too far to twist. Instead he's forced to wait as she approaches, listening to the crinkle of fabric as she crouches down beside him and gasping as a needle suddenly pierces his neck.
It's not a stimpak, he can't feel his tissue knitting back together, but the pain starts to fade immediately. The person behind him chuckles, low and husky but with too much warmth to match the force behind the next shot. He tenses in anticipation of the pain behind such a roughly injected needle but feels almost nothing. It's Med-X. There's no way it could be anything else.
"Hi, Charon." A hand, callused and large brushes lightly over the injection site. "Never thought I'd see the day."
They pat him, two brisk taps like he's a wounded pet, and stand, casting a faint shadow over him in the evening light.
"Ahzrukhal was a god damned idiot to let you go." The figure circles around, crouching down and grinning at the shocked expression he doesn't quite manage to hide in time. The person in front of him is large, heavy set and muscular in a way most wastelanders can't afford to be. Whoever she is, it's clear she's either strong enough or clever enough to rarely go without.
"I heard it sold you for two thousand caps. Is that right?" She laughs, running her hand through the half of her hair that isn't shaved. "Wonder if that old bastard's having fun counting those caps in Hell?"
When he doesn't answer, the smile on her face flickers, twisting down for just a moment before setting back into place. She stands, a hulking presence at at least six feet, and gives his shoulder a halfhearted kick. It's not rough, can't quite constitute violence but it jolts his side hard enough that Charon can't hold back a grunt of pain. The smile on her face changes back to sincere.
"See if you'd asked me, I don't think I could have put a price on you." She scratches her chin, staring out at nothing in mock consideration.
"A undying slave that literally can't rebel." She crouches back down, leaning in until she's close enough to count the faint rows of notched scars lining both of her brows, symmetrical enough that they're clearly cosmetic. Charon can smell her sweat, the bittersweet mixture of cola and jet on her breath. He tries to recoil and flinches, too tight bandages digging into his open wound. Her smile widens.
"If you'd asked me, I probably would have paid anything." She winks, tapping the side of her nose playfully. Slowly, almost theatrically, she draws a familiar scrap of paper from her breast pocket. She brandishes it with a flourish, pressing the edge of it to Charon's forehead as the contract forces him to acknowledge his new master.
"Then again, you can't exactly beat free."
…
It's obvious what she wanted. Charon has known his fair share of sadists before and, after a while, they become easy to predict. She wanted a response, wanted to see the fear or anger or misery in his eyes. A year ago, she would have been disappointed. He'd spent so long working for monsters that he'd learned to steel himself, force away any emotions, give no outer response but Eva has ruined him.
He crumpled when he saw the contract, gave in to a sense of loss and hopelessness he hadn't even realized he could still feel. All those years, all the time spent hardening himself to his situation was wiped away in an instant. A lifetime of freedom cut down to thirteen months. He broke all over again.
Thirteen months. Just long enough to remember what a real life felt like.
He lay there for hours, letting the pain well up and then drain away until he was empty. The woman didn't bother with him, walked away satisfied after she saw him break. Others came to join her, seven in total, all clearly deferring to her. They set up camp, raised tents and roasted meat. Distantly he could hear them, caught his name several times, listened to his new employer brag but the voices were faded, blurring in and out as he pushed back into his old shell.
He can't think about what this must mean about Eva, can't combine the loss of his autonomy with losing her, can't handle it. He knows he needs to push everything away, instinctively tries to dull himself to the outside world but the last image he has of her, small and broken, it's too raw to let him hide. He can still feel her in his arms, cold and still, and it pulls everything to the surface. So he won't.
He knows it will be years until he can acknowledge her death, years until losing Eva doesn't rip him open and lay everything bare. It's unfair to her, feels wrong to leave her behind to rot on the RobCo steps, forgotten even in his thoughts, but his new owner is clearing her throat, grinning at him like she has the best joke in mind and he needs to be empty, gone. If Eva is dead then he needs to die too. Thirteen months of living and now he's back in his own grave.
"Normally, I don't waste good drugs on cargo but you're something special. I'm keeping you for myself." She's stoked the fire until it's blazing and now she returns to him, tossing a small pack at his feet.
"Get that bullet out and I'll give you a stimpak." She gestures at his ankle. "It's not in deep. You're lucky I noticed before I gave you one. Otherwise we'd just half to cut you back open." She's behind him now but he can still hear the pleasure in her voice. "From what I hear, you're sturdy and I want you staying that way."
Someone behind him laughs.
Inside the pack, Charon finds an incomplete med kit. The stimpaks are missing but he finds what he knows he's supposed to be looking for, a pair of tweezers, still a perfect sterile silver.
The order is already pushing him, upset that he hasn't complied quicker. With the med-x, it isn't too difficult to sit up and she was right, the bullet isn't in very deep. He can see the glint of it, mostly hidden in blood and tissue but clearly there. All he needs to do is pull it out.
Med-X takes away pain but it doesn't clear your mind the way actual healing does. His hands are shaking when he approaches the bullet, not from fear but purely the inability to keep them still. The sharp tips dig into flesh so numbed it feels foreign, once, twice before he can get a hold of the bullet, hissing when he pulls it slowly out. The top was lodged very thoroughly in bone and feeling something scratch against it is nauseating, even though the agony he should be feeling doesn't come.
When he finally pulls the bullet out, he tosses it aside along with the tweezers.
Next is cleaning the wound. There's no point in healing if he's just going to die of an infection. Somewhere, he wonders why his survival instinct is still intact. She only ordered him to remove the bullet, he could do nothing else, hope for infection, but he doesn't. He's lived through worse employers, he'll live through this one. It's clear she's an addict, the track marks along her arms are obvious even from a distance, so he'll either watch her overdose or get the pleasure of putting a bullet through her skull the moment she sells him. There's nothing to do but wait.
He tries not to think about how quickly he's returned to this way of thinking.
Charon searches through the bag again for water, flushes the hole out until the wound runs clean. Almost immediately he feels another needle pierce his skin, this time rebuilding bone and knitting the flesh together in a quick, clean line. It's a fresh stimpak, probably homemade.
She must have been standing behind him the whole time. Watching.
"Normally, I don't like leaving behind something I can sell," His employer circles around him, arms behind her back, pacing like a predator. "But your last owner wasn't worth the stimpaks I'd have to waste on it." She's watching him calmly, lips crooked up lightly, as if they're having a casually pleasant conversation.
"It looked empty by the time I found you anyway. Seemed like there was more blood on the pavement then in its veins by that point."
He won't flinch, won't picture it, pushes his expression to be cold, neutral.
She looks frustrated at his lack of response, frowns and steps closer.
"But what did I find in its pocket?" She waits expectantly, staring at Charon like she actually wants an answer. When he doesn't give her one, doesn't respond in anyway, she continues. "Well, I suppose you could say I found you!" She walks over to him, pets his head with surprising tenderness.
"What luck." Her voice is velvet stretched across sandpaper.
She's playing with him but he can feel the anger beneath the surface, rolling out of her in waves. Every part of her speaks of fury. Her muscles are tensed, pupils contracted down to points. The others seem to have retreated, backing away to the other side of the fire or disappearing into one of the tents. Clearly, they know what she wants from him and they know how she will react when she doesn't get it.
"Call me Lo." Her grin is all teeth. Feral.
"Welcome to my caravan." She pulls her hand away to gesture towards her group, swooping her arm in a grand flourish.
"We've got the finest chems, happiest slaves," She winks at him, nearly mischievous. "and the best liars."
The group behind her laughs, two clink their drinks.
The sky is dark now and she's nothing but shadows and firelight. The red glow catches on her skin, highlighting every muscle, every scar. She looks inhuman, demonic, made of fire and brimstone.
"And Charon," Lo turns back to him, hands on her hips, confident, victorious. "You are our newest member."