E03: Blue Moon
Like most of the communities along the Colorado, Big Bend was friendly, sparsely populated, and completely lacking in any kind of useful munitions sales; it wouldn't do to look too defensive to the Legion camps on the other shore. Even so, with many shady areas to sit and wait out the blazing sun, offering peaceful views of sandy shore and shimmering river, it was as good a place to stop as any.
Butch bought hand-made huaraches to replace the yucca slippers that were all they'd had to fit Oyente back at the farm. Al purchased a locally-concocted salve from an old doctor who checked her eyes out. She was sharing this with Declan as they were all sitting down, finishing off sandwiches Butch had made and packed.
On a bench next to Al, Declan began the work of rebandaging his arm over the salve, and scowled at Aggie.
"Lighten up, Dex!" Aggie insisted, wagging a dress in the air like a war banner. She held it up in front of Oyente, who was sitting on a conveniently shaped rock, taking a drink of water. "Look — it suits her perfectly!"
Declan looked at Oyente — who would probably look quite nice in the dress when she did not resemble a wary dog — and was unable to staunch his exasperation. Aggie saw it in his face and scowled, shaking the dress again, this time insistently at their mark.
"You like it, don't you, O?"
"I do," she said quickly, not breaking eye contact with Aggie.
"Let her breathe," Al ordered, wiping off her fingers.
"I don't know why you needed to get her a fancy dress at all. What's wrong with the one she has?" Declan griped. Aggie regarded him dubiously.
"Her worker's dress? Avi-Avi is a nice place, they won't give her the time of day in that."
While Oyente looked down at herself self-consciously, Declan threw his hand out, incensed. "Who wants to go to Avi-Avi?"
"I want to," Oyente said, raising her hand timidly. Declan shook his head with a groan.
"What about you and Al? Pretty sure your fancy dresses got harvested for bandaging a ways back."
"We don't need 'em," Aggie declared, thumping her chest. "We can just go like this. We'll be O's… bodyguards."
"Are you all still arguin' about this?" Butch returned from what was definitely not the direction of the beach outhouse, but Declan was too caught up to comment. "Wrap it up. I don't wanna hear a lick of it on the road."
Declan scowled. "It cost a lot of money —"
"So take it out of my share!" Aggie snapped.
"— that could have been used on supplies at Linefel!"
Aggie huffed, dropping her arms; the dress swept the ground for a second before she bundled it up. "I can make it back tonight. I can double it, even."
"'Cause the house only wins some of the time, right?" Butch snickered, waving Oyente down. Aggie sighed, and Oyente gave her a rueful smile as she slid off her perch.
"I'm sure you can trade it in Linefel."
Aggie scrunched her face up defiantly. "Not until you wear it out, first."
Oyente opened her mouth to respond, but paused as Charon next to her set his hand on the pistol at his side. Declan started rising slowly off the bench, confused, and suddenly, past Charon, a man came out from the trees, coaxing a pair of brahmin and the cart they were pulling to follow along.
The man looked up and, upon noticing the lot of them, broke into a grin under an impressive mustache and much less impressive cowboy hat. He straightened, tall and wiry — not unlike Aggie — and waved at them, making his way over.
"Mornin', folks — gosh, must be after noon, now," he chirped, squinting at the sun. "M'name's Nicky Needles."
"We ain't buyin'," Butch said flatly, coming up behind Oyente. Nicky gave him a saccharine smile.
"Good thing, 'cause I ain't sellin'. I was wonderin' if y'all might'n be headin' out south for a spell." He nodded along to himself, and then jabbed a thumb at the trees. "Just had a li'l tiff with my merc so I'm flyin' solo, and I'd feel a lot safer if I had some company on the trek home."
"Home wouldn't happen to be… Needles, would it?" Al asked, leisurely strapping her gear on.
Nicky beamed at her. "Bingo!"
"We ain't for hirin' either," Butch maintained.
"I don't have much to offer," Nicky sighed, plucking off his hat to rake a hand through his hair. "Hocked m'good stuff in Big Bend. Most valuable things I got now are Betty, Betsy, their cart, and an extensive reppy-twire of singalong songs I know by heart — but between you an' me, hardly anyone takes me up on the singin'."
Butch arched his neck to check out the brahmin ambling over, then looked back at Nicky without a flicker of emotion on his face, but he said, very seriously, "I could use a nap."
Charon tsked immediately, probably despite himself, glaring sidelong at Butch, who glared back.
"So I get a little sleepy after a meal and walkin' in the sun for a few hours. Sue me!"
"I wouldn't mind putting my feet up, either," Al said, finally standing from the bench.
"Reckon 'bout four of you could sit comfortably back there," Nicky supplied, pleased.
"Dibs!" Aggie yelled, running over.
"Fuckin' kids, I swear," Butch grumbled, stalking after her. Al grinned at the rest of them and followed.
"I'll walk," Oyente said, looking to Charon and Declan.
"Same here. Could use the exercise," Declan agreed. Much as he would have loved to take it easy, he was loath to pass up the opportunity before him — because if there was one thing slimy salesman types like Nicky Needles were good for, it was making conversation. With him around, Declan stood to get some decent information out of Oyente without tipping off their gun-toting guard dog.
"Whaddya say, big guy?" Nicky asked Charon, who only stared in response. After a beat, Nicky rocked on his heels again, unperturbed. "The more the merrier!"
"Less talky, more clip-cloppy," Butch demanded, sprawled out in the cart across from Aggie and Al, using his pack as a pillow.
"We're planning to get to Avi-Avi by nightfall," Al called.
"Suits me perfect," Nicky said, jauntily adjusting his hat on his head with a wink to Oyente.
She made a faint, courteous smile, tilting her head. "What's so unsafe about the way south?"
"Don'tcha know, hon'?" Nicky hunched over and looked around in a show of fear, putting on a ghostly voice. "Snatchers walk these roads. They look for folk to sell to the Legion 'cross the river. They like to wait 'til you're alone 'n' snatch ya!" He snarled the last part and grinned when she jumped. Declan refrained from patting her shoulder and tried not to let the pity show on his face too much.
Butch hauled his upper half up so he could scowl at them. "There's been patrols crackin' down on that shit for months, now. The big guy there's done a few shifts himself."
Nicky whistled low, looking Charon up and down. "We gots ourselves a professional in our midst! Lucky us."
"Yeah, yeah, he's a thing of majesty." Butch rolled his eyes. "Can we ándale this thing now?"
"Your wish, my command," Nicky said with a sweeping bow, sheepishly scrambling to scoop up his hat as it fell off.
‖ « I just wanted to make sure she gets this back. ►
Despite his damnedest efforts, being blissfully unconscious until they reached Avi-Avi didn't seem to be in the cards for Butch. He maybe could have powered through the stench of sun-ripened brahmin behind, but between that, the extremely bumpy ride, and the fact that Nicky Needles did indeed have an extensive repertoire of jaunty songs, he was uncomfortable enough that he regretted trying to relax at all. Walking would have taken less effort — not that the two women snoozing against each other across from him in the cart were being very respectful of the fact.
As Nicky warbled obnoxiously and Betty and Betsy plodded ahead, Butch glared up at each of the scant whisps of white that scrolled obliviously on by in the naked blue of the sky; sorry excuses for clouds that didn't have the decency to give shade and never knew suffering like he had.
At least the singing meant that Declan didn't have much opportunity to ask questions. He'd tried at the start — impressively making him more suspicious to Butch than the random trader that Charon decidedly did not taking a liking to — not that that was anything out of the ordinary — but Oyente had been curious about one song, then another, and then started joining in herself, and then Declan made a request or three, and then he piped in here and there, and then — and then the blue sky warmed up while the air cooled down a degree or two, and it was four or fifty hours later, and Butch hadn't slept a wink.
"There's a town," Oyente said.
"There sure is," Nicky agreed. "Avi-Avi workers gotta sleep somewhere."
The cart stopped. Butch grudgingly pulled himself up into a sitting position and turned around. Ahead, the shrubbery flanking the road gave way to cleared land and a number of modest structures — some shaped strangely, more like patchwork shacks or shipping containers than houses.
Nicky Needles grinned at him, walking around his brahmin. "Mornin', sunshine! 'M'afraid it's the end of the ride."
"Thought you were headin' home to Needles, Nicky Needles," Butch drawled, squinting at the man.
"Ol' gals here ain't what they used to be," Nicky said, looking at the brahmin with an apologetic smile. "I got a buddy 'round the corner here who'll let me put my feet up for a spell. 'Tween you and me," he held his hand over the side of his mouth that wasn't facing anybody, and waggled his bushy brows, "it's a lady buddy."
It was absolutely possible to squint harder, and Butch did just that.
Declan came around to the other side of the cart and thumped on the railing, startling Aggie and Al into groggily indignant wakefulness. "Come on, dead weights, we're here."
As the three of them clambered out, Nicky hitched his thumbs in his belt loops and rocked on his heels. "You all're gonna wanna keep headin' due South, veer right when the road splits in two, then right again where the fence posts end. There's a nice li'l motel called Koa's, there. Avi-Avi's on the left, but they'll charge you down t'your unmentionables for a night. Then y'won't have nothin' left for gamblin'!"
"Thanks," Declan said shortly.
"I'm partial to meetin' y'all again in the mornin', head the rest of the way together?" Nicky grinned, knocking on his head. "Reckon I have a few more tunes clankin' 'round up here."
"Sounds great," Butch grinned back, stretching his face out in a way that Charlie, Charon — hell, most people — always saw through for the rictus of mockery it was. Nicky, of course, preened at it, and gave them a jaunty salute before heading merrily off to his lady buddy's.
Declan sighed heavily, continuing to walk down the road with the rest of them. "For an older fella, he sure is a mile a minute."
"He seemed nice," Aggie said around a yawn as she stretched herself out.
"I thought… he was going to give you something," Oyente said, haltingly, her brow furrowed. Aggie frowned at her, tilting her head to one side in question, and Oyente tilted her own head slowly in the other direction. "Didn't he say that?"
"Like what, a good time?" Al offered salaciously, grinning wider at the face Aggie made at her.
"He said a lotta things," Butch said, as though just mentioning it put a weight on him, "and maybe half of it made any sense." He glanced back and noted Declan's line of sight — of course he was paying attention to this — and looked down at Oyente himself, shaking his head. "You're super green, kid. Like, maxi."
"Must be all the sun," Al quipped, smiling at Oyente. "When we get to the motel, you can cool off and get some rest."
"No motel," Charon grunted, and the others were silent for a moment, not having heard his gravelly voice for hours.
"What? I'm not roughing it when there's a roof and a bed available!" Aggie said. Al nodded along at her side.
"Like you haven't had enough sleep already," Butch grumbled. "Who said anything 'bout roughin' it? Avi-Avi's got rooms."
"But Nicky said —"
"— a lotta things," Charon finished, and Butch smiled smugly, but it was Declan who agreed next.
"I didn't trust him, either." He looked skyward, tapping his fingers against his thigh. "We should be fine to get a bed — but you're gonna have to take the floor, Aggie."
Aggie sputtered. "Why do I have to take the floor?"
"Consider it your share."
"We'll take care of the rooms," Butch declared magnanimously, dropping back to throw an arm around Declan and Aggie each. "Then the ladies can have their little night out, and we'll have a quiet night in, eh, Dex?"
Declan's lips flattened into a thin line as he cast around for some excuse, leaning as far away as the hook of Butch's arm would allow. "I wanted to check out the casino, too…"
"You swingin' your junk around is just gonna cramp their style." Before Declan had a chance to do more than sputter, Butch went on. "Anyway, I'm too old for that shit, and Charon sucks ass at Caravan."
And Butch was most definitely keeping the least trustworthy of the bounty hunters as ransom until Oyente was back in their midst, safe as houses; but judging by Declan's grimace and Al's pitying smile, that went without saying.
‖ » Ladies and gentlemen, this next song goes out from me to you. ►
Oyente knew something was wrong as soon as the desert greenery started thinning out, replaced by an eclectic assortment of homes built from the ground up or off of scavenged and gutted pre-War campers. She knew by the agave flanking entranceways, and colourful lights strung across windows, that the buzzing in her head had definitely changed frequencies.
The group of them veered left when the road split in two, turning left again at the first road, and the massive building that was their destination, a structure that was half open-air decorated with faded patterns, and half windows upon windows in a building the colour of the sand it stood on, loomed before them. It seemed to grow even larger as they approached.
The word Avi stood proudly off one end of the open side, barely but undeniably red, and Oyente knew that it looked more impressive on the front side of the building. That's where there was a formal entrance into the casino proper, with Avi Avi tall in the sun, flanking the pyramid-like skylight that often had star-struck patrons standing underneath, gawking at the pristine glass and gorgeous, protected view of the Nevadan sky.
In the dusty, quiet present, the six of them made their way to the resort's hotel lobby. The last time she was here, there'd only been one other person at her side.
Oyente was silent as they entered and Butch went right to negotiating room rates. She didn't want to make it obvious, but the familiarity of the clean tile, the plain walls, and the ostentatious clock behind the counter choked her. The cheery clerk was a stranger, and Oyente wasn't sure if that made things better or worse.
Long time, no see! She blanched at the prospect of someone knowing her the way she knew she'd been here before. She couldn't even pull a hypothetical response from the growing white noise in her head.
A tear, a crinkle — then a square of cornbread appeared before her, sitting in its paper wrap, held aloft by Charon. She took it automatically, had a bite; it was a little more sweet than she was used to, but even that made her feel human again. She could eat, and she'd had this before. Not every memory in the shadows of her mind was something out to get her.
"Aztec Amber's putting her show on at 9," the clerk chirped, and Oyente tried not to flinch, startled out of her calm. "Y'won't wanna miss it!"
The way to the rooms was uneventful, and the walls and flooring lost their novelty as Oyente finished off her snack. The disjointed chatter fading in and out of her head was easy to ignore in the face of Butch's bragging ("... the Bishop place — they know how to put on a show!"), Aggie's excitement ("She's supposed to be the best!"), and Declan's grumbling ("... but when I want to go, you guys are 'too tired'…").
Her stomach lurched when they got to one of the rooms, and she swayed on weighted feet while the others filed in. Butch waggled the key at Declan, declaring it his responsibility, before heavily making himself comfortable in a faded armchair. Declan took issue with this, Aggie and Al started setting down their things, and so only Charon stood by the doorway, watching Oyente stare ahead and swallow hard.
It was a great effort to make eye contact with him, and she opened her mouth to say something — anything — to dispel her horrible daze, but instead she spoke in a man's voice with a sticky, fuzzy cadence, distant and faded like the furniture in the room: "More classics coming right up for you, so stay tuned."
Oyente slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes widened like Charon's own. She chanced a look behind him at the others, heart pounding, trying not to linger too long on any one of them: Declan scowling, Butch sneering, Aggie yawning, and Al looking out the window. None seemed startled or surprised or that they were even aware that two of their party still lingered in the hall.
Oyente looked back at Charon, dropped her hand slowly, and made her way inside.
"Think maybe you should stay in tonight?" Charon asked lowly as she passed, the words hardly more than a rumble in his chest.
Oyente took in the devastating familiarity of the room, knowing it was almost just like the one she'd stayed in before she'd woken up on the wrong side of the Colorado, and was terrified at the prospect of more — more from her life before, more people who might know her, more static clogging her throat — but she shook her head resolutely.
She'd known there was a casino. She hadn't expected it to be this close.
She got ready with Aggie and Al, freshening up and changing clothes. Oyente was too distracted to appreciate the novelty of a fine dress, worrying that her silence would make them suspicious but learning that Aggie could chatter on enough for twenty people without much prompting. She waved when the other two said their goodbyes to Butch, Declan, and Charon. She smiled and nodded along to Aggie and Al's excitement in the elevator. And when they finally set foot on the casino floor, she marvelled along with them at the colourful and gaudy decor, the polished staff busily going to and fro, the eclectic assortment of patrons expressing all sorts of excitement at great rolls, bad cards, and loaded waits.
Al looked up and gasped, taking Aggie's hand and pointing up at the skylight revealing the clear night sky, deep and dotted with stars. Oyente tilted her head back to take the sight in herself, and dread coursed through her veins as the static drowned out everything else.
Aggie and Al smiled at her, gesturing to head further inside, and she nodded back, following. They beelined for the stage, which already had a crowd gathered, making small talk and finding seats. Her companions looked back at her curiously and she waved them on with a nervous smile, standing herself by the seating partition, hoping they wouldn't insist too much. They quickly took seats themselves not too far away, pointedly leaving one open between them.
Oyente tried to breathe. Around her, people were surely chattering about the show, but she couldn't make out any sounds save for the harsh drone filling her skull.
Someone touched her elbow, and she turned, and through the noise she heard: "Maricris! I thought that was you. Where've you been?"
There was no face to the speaker; only something deep and dark and dotted with stars.
"We were worried sick, you know. After Jasper's birthday came and went…"
Then there was nothing at all.
‖ « Tie her up.
She's breathing hard, and struggling. There is dust in her lungs. The ground is rough and scrapes her skin. Above is a clear and endless pit of black.
When did she get outside?
« Hurry!
They wrench her arms back painfully. The rope is coarse like the sand and dirt in her face. She wants to scream but she doesn't exactly know how. All she can do is kick, and thrash, and gasp for air. It's night but her skin is hot, and her hair sticks to her neck and chin.
She tries to turn her head back, look behind her. There is nothing; a stretch of flat, unforgiving land that is swallowed by the night.
Shouldn't there have been a casino? The question lances through her temple like a knife and she shudders with the pain of it. Her nose drips; she swallows and tastes copper.
Inside, pooling behind her ears, is a whisper, an itch; then all too suddenly it is blaring static, startling her, making her eyes sting, making her gag. They wrap a rag around her mouth that she bleeds onto, and shove her back into a cart that's no more kind than the dirt they pulled her from.
They continue through the desert. She looks forlornly to the stars, remembers their image above glass, and the memory stabs through her skull again, leaving her shaking; and then, simply leaving her. ►
It had been surprisingly easy to slip out of the hotel room, as for all his griping, Declan was actually quite competitive when it came to Caravan, even while decrying it as an old man's pastime. Charon left him and Butch to no fanfare, and took the stairs down to the main floor.
As a ghoul of particularly large stature, he had a tendency to attract attention, but years (and years) of experience had taught him that, more often than not, most people were too caught up in their own drama to pay him any heed. So long as he wasn't doing a jig or letting his deep disdain show too much on his face, a stranger would notice him and forget him in quick succession. After all, there were far more interesting or pressing matters hounding the good citizens of the Mojave than a tall shuffler who, at the end of the day, looked like any other merc.
It was through this phenomenon that Charon continued through Avi-Avi unfettered, and he caught sight of the three young women before they could catch sight of him — and they would not catch sight of him, as the shiny baubles of Avi-Avi's second-rate casino were evidently items of wonder, each more attention-grabbing than the next.
Except, of course, to Oyente, who smiled like she was trying not to puke.
Charon kept a practiced distance from the trio as they made their way through the crowds, careful to make himself look otherwise occupied. He checked on them in measured doses, between perusing a chart of odds, ordering a basic cocktail, and getting himself a handful of chips. They gawked at various fancy dressers, hid their laughter at a failed bet, and quickly joined the group of people getting ready to watch Aztec Amber at 9 PM.
Oyente stayed behind, standing before the seating area.
Then one of the staff approached her.
Her face changed; at this distance, Charon couldn't get a grasp on how. She was upright, but her whole body seemed to list ever so slightly. He tapped a chip against the bar, debating on a closer vantage point, when a man swaggered out from the cluster of patrons and clapped a hand on Oyente's shoulder, cheerfully assuaging the concerned croupier. That grin and mustache were clear as day across the casino floor, raising gooseflesh across the scant skin that remained on the back of Charon's neck and getting him to his feet — it was so-called Nicky Needles, who had now successfully waved the dealer away, and was guiding Oyente away next.
Charon started to make his way after them. He glanced back at Aggie and Al, who had left their seats and were following the pair as well. The possibility that they were in on this came and left as he watched them rush ahead to the door Oyente disappeared through; whatever their ultimate agenda was, they did not set his teeth on edge the way Nicky Needles did.
He let them go and pivoted to another side exit, which by design led into the same service hall. He heard a scuffle, and the creaking groan of a heavy metal door; shouts, rapid footsteps, and a sudden, piercing burst of static that was quickly cut off by the door slamming shut. It was shoved open again a few moments later, and by the time it closed, Charon had found another exit around the corner.
The night was cold, in stark contrast to the heat they'd spent the day walking in. There were cigarette butts and empty bottles around his feet, their scents thick and stale in the air. A few light fixtures flickered and buzzed on the walls outside, evidently much lower in maintenance priority than the polished sconces that customers saw. Some dumpsters blocked his view of the other exit, but he could hear the confrontation: Aggie barking expletives, and Nicky Needles, with that immovable joviality, telling her to calm down.
"Your friend here is a lot of trouble," he grunted, presumably trying to keep the friend in question still. "I'm tellin' you right now, y'all don't want no part o' this."
Charon had Nicky Needles in his sights as soon as the trader stepped backward beyond the dumpsters. Needles had one hand with a gun trained in front of him at Aggie and Al, and the other arm wrapped around Oyente's throat, which she clawed at viciously, writhing and kicking as he dragged her back.
Needles was saying, "You can let me go on my way, easy peasy now, or…" and Charon, with a clear, unobstructed view of the man's head, pulled the trigger before the trader could explain whatever other option he was giving them. His lifeless body teetered over to the side and crumpled; Oyente stumbled down with it.
Aggie rushed forward to help Oyente out of the corpse's grasp, dark splotches of blood on the girl's yellow silk, and Al stepped into sight with her gun trained right on Charon, quickly pointing it to the ground when she realized who he was.
"What —?" Al watched him, dumbfounded, as he set to patting down Nicky Needles's body, emptying his pockets. "I guess I should have known you wouldn't be far."
Aggie was crouched down with Oyente, unconscious, in her arms, wiping the blood off her face. Aggie glanced over at Charon, her expression uncharacteristically grim. Charon ignored them, cataloguing his findings as he went: some ammo, a lighter, a wallet with a mix of dollars and denarii; finally, in a hip pouch, a little handbound notebook, with names, numbers, and lyrics in excessively loopy handwriting. He bent the pages in one hand and lifted his thumb to flip through them; they stopped where a separate piece of paper had been folded into quarters and tucked away.
Printed on the paper was a header with a row of red diamonds, and a field of green.
Take her for a spin!
The same loopy writing was all over the names listed, circles and arrows notating Nicky Needles's assumptions and intel; he'd put a star next to Maricris Calle and Jasper Klinai.
Charon sighed to himself, tucking the page back into the notebook, and the notebook into a pocket of his own. He jabbed a finger at Al, then down at the body. She grimaced but came over as directed, crouching down to hook her arms around the dead man's shoulders. Charon got a hold of the booted ankles, and together they dumped Nicky Needles into the trash.
‖ ► You heard me saying a prayer for someone I really could care for... ►
"I knew something was off about him," Declan groused, slumping back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. Across the table, Butch snorted.
"Yeah, 'cause like smells like, right?"
Declan shot the older man a glare, but Aggie heaved a mighty sigh from one of the beds in lieu of any response to that, rubbing her face. Al, next to Declan, gathered the playing cards together.
"He had a copy of the list," she said carefully, her eyes flicking to Butch, who was stoic, then Declan, who straightened up to better scowl at Butch.
"You said she wasn't on that list —"
"She said her own damn name," Butch snapped back, but Declan was undeterred.
"Then how come he went after her, huh?"
"Ain't it obvious? We took an escaped slave to one of the main hubs crossin' over the Colorado. Needles must've figured some asshole would pay sweet coin to get her back." Butch shook his head and pressed a palm to his face in much the same way Aggie had. "Shoulda gotten her new threads, at least."
No way, Declan thought, staring. No way Nicky Needles trailed us from Big Bend just to return a runaway. But he pressed no further. The possibility that Oyente was being hunted by some entitled Legionnaire humiliated by a loss of property was honestly much more likely than her being recognized for her connection to a mysterious list of names that included no less than one (1) Deathclaw Psychic.
Still, stolen snippets of conversation were seeded in his mind — a robot, an experiment, or something. Nicky Needles could have been an opportunistic Snatcher who just so happened to have his own copy of the list from the Lucky 38. Declan had witnessed stranger coincidences.
Deep in his gut, he did not believe that this was one of them.
"I'm hittin' the sack," Butch declared, starting to leave. The room he'd gotten for himself, Charon, and Oyente was on another floor. "You all oughta catch some Z's, too. Soon as the kid's up, we're outta here."
None of them, save for Oyente, were able to get much sleep at all.
"She went along with him easy enough," Al recounted as the three of them lay awake in the dark. "She didn't even hear us when we called her."
"But when we got to the hallway she was fighting against him like crazy. It didn't even take us a minute to catch up," Aggie said.
Declan watched the little strip of light on the ceiling that came from somewhere outside. "So she caught on eventually."
"I don't know," Al hummed. "Her face was different. Kind of... wild."
"I felt like she didn't even recognize me," Aggie added. "There's definitely something wrong with her."
They were silent for a while after that. In the darkness, some neighbouring room's muffled music seemed amplified, but remained indiscernible.
"I think she went through something bad," Al said finally.
Declan huffed and turned to his side, tired of being tired. "Yeah, well. Who hasn't."
■.