Chapter 7

Charlie's breath burns her lungs as her legs pump in time with the rhythm of her heart. She's tired, she's infinitely tired and yet her adrenaline doesn't seem to get the message and she almost speeds up.

"Just had to open your big mouth huh Charlotte?" Bass huffs as he speeds up so he's next to her and her fury at being almost bested and his snark has her snapping back at him regardless of the logic of the situation.

"Never pegged you for chicken shit Bass."

She sees him glare at her as he tries to speed past her toward the forest and she forces her exhausted legs to speed up, forcing him back as her mind replays the idiotic situation they're now in.

Looters hadn't been a problem in so long that she may have forgotten that they didn't like a razor sharp whip tongue -no scratch that - she knew that, but she had been spoiling for a bloody, ugly fight. Well at least she was about to get what she wanted. She just hadn't anticipated them pulling a shotgun on her, guns were a novelty in this fucked up world. Guns were also a cowards weapon, meant for men with light stomachs and clean hands. Men who didn't fight fair, but then again, what fight in this blacked out world of theirs was fair? There was a winner and a loser. The winner got to continue to live until the next fight and the loser most times didn't even get themselves a grave, where was the fairness in that?

And if Bass hadn't walked in the bar when he had, she would have said fuck it and taken the odds, regardless if they were stacked against her. She was alive because she had been the winner far too many times, and if this was the time when she lost? Well you can't always win, no matter how hard brave and deadly you are. Her dead were proof of that.

But no, instead of letting her take fate into her own hands as she had done so many times in their war, Bass instead has to be the hero and start shooting before dragging her out the door and making them run for it.

And now they're two cowards running away getting shot at, the snick of bullets whizzing through the air keeping them moving.

"Gotta find cover." Charlie says on an exhale as she jerks her head north and that's where they veer, the cover of spruce and oak trees and overgrown bushes hiding them easily as they both pant to catch their breath.

Charlie draws her swords and cocks her head, listening for the sound of rustle of the underground and watches as Bass does the same.

Bass holds up two fingers and points to her before holding up three fingers and pointing at himself to which Charlie flips him off and before going in search of her three soon to be losers.

"You okay?"

Bass's voice breaks her out of her reverie as they make their way back to her bar and she imperceptibly nods. She doesn't tell him her shotgun shoulder is aching like she doused it in gasoline and lit it. She doesn't tell him that she hasn't been covered in this much crusted dried blood since the war. She doesn't tell him that her rib may be broken or she may be bordering on a concussion from being thrown face first into the ground where there just so happened to be the remains of a tree stump. She doesn't tell him that she wonders if all of her dead will be waiting for her on the day when she finally loses.

"You have a death wish Charlie."

That stops her in her in her tracks and she looks at him in disbelief. In incredulity. And then she keeps walking because she does not have the energy to express her disbelief to someone who is the pot to her kettle.

"You're really going to walk away?" Bass shouts and it resonates through the air like the aftermath of a gun being fired.

Charlie spins around, the ground sliding under her feet and stalks back, fury burning her veins like acid. Maybe this is the ugly bloody fight she's been spoiling for.

"We won Monroe. Won. What about that fight makes you think I have a death wish besides the fact that I'm not a coward?"

Her face is right next to his, so close that she can see the blood speckled in the crows feet near his left eye and in the hairs of his eyebrow.

"When there's a shotgun pointed at you, you don't mouth off and tell them to shoot you!"

"When there's a shotgun pointed at you and looters want your money, you sure as shit don't bend over!"

Her voice is shrill and she winces at the harsh screech before the wind carries it away.

He glares at her and she glares back before exhaustion takes over and she lets out a long sigh. Her head is spinning nauseatingly so, her stomach threatening to jump into the roof of her mouth as the ache in her head pounds from the top of her temples into her shoulders and arms.

"I'm tired, I need a bath and about ten days of sleep so I'm going to keep on this 9 million mile walk home."

She takes the first few steps away from him, her legs quivering under the stress of her body but she stays upright until suddenly she isn't. It's warm here on the ground, the grass makes for a soft bed and smells like rough bark and moss. And she's so tired, so maybe with sleep everything will stop hurting. Maybe with sleep, everything will be okay.