Note: Warning, sexual assault here. Damn Fiends.

It was becoming a regular occurrence for her to panic upon waking. She didn't like that, but in this case, it was warranted.

When she opened her eyes, there was a ghoul in front of her face, people standing behind him, and the bars of a jail cell in her periphery. She struck out with one hand and shoved herself backwards with the other.

A sharp pain lanced through her head, then her hand―even ghouls still have bones―and her shoulder and neck were on fire. She flinched in pain and cradled her right side.

"What the fuck!" the ghoul cried, grabbing his nose and jerking back.

She took in that everyone inside the bars, including herself, had been stripped of equipment and clothing. She pushed herself up against the bars, getting herself ready for any attack. If any fighting needed to be done, she would need her legs free.

Two arms reached into the cell from behind her, and grabbed her. "Hah!" a rude male voice came from behind her, "I'll hold her, mush-face! You punch!"

The ghoul glared at whomever was holding her, and turned away from them. "Ahh, no fun," the man said, and let her go. She immediately moved away from the bars, as close to the others as she could get without actually being too near them.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled at the ghoul.

"Whatever," he grumbled back.

She realized she must have been caught by the Fiends. Six people wearing tribal armor and horned helmets were guarding the cell, with herself; a dead man; the ghoul and another man who were alive; and a woman inside. Then she saw that Boone was not there. She felt a moment of fear. Was he dead?

Her head throbbed. She couldn't remember anything other than approaching the South Vegas Ruins. Oh, fuck that, she thought. Alone, no memory, frightened again. My luck.

"Hey, pretty lady," one of the guard called out. "Your head hurting? I got something that'll make it all better." He laughed brazenly.

She shuddered involuntarily, to the delight of the other guards. They all started in on her then, offering everything from a hit of Jet to some allusion to sex involving Deathclaws and saddles. She looked down at her feet, her face flushed.

"Just ignore them," the non-ghoul man in the cell said, whispering as he moved closer to her.

"I'm trying," she whispered back. "How long have I been in here?"

"Not long," he answered. "Maybe an hour, tops."

She examined her hand, noting that she still had her Pip-Boy on her arm. Guess they couldn't figure out how to get it off, she thought. It listed her injuries as a crippled arm, minor damage to her head, and some bruising on the ribs. Touching her neck, she felt a scrape and pulled away from dried blood. Nothing too serious.

She looked around at the room she was in. The cell was in the middle of the room, but it appeared to be the jail of a Vault, with security lockers and a few bench seats set against the walls. Her Pip-Boy listed her location as Vault 3. She wondered why is was in such good condition; most Vaults were rusted out, irradiated, or otherwise destroyed on the inside.

Surprise, then, that she could recall another Vault, not in the Mojave. It hadn't been that long ago that she had been there. She wondered where, though. Couldn't remember that part.

I suppose I should be grateful that my memories are returning, she told herself. Given the current situation, I feel like it's rather a moot point.

A hour passed as she fretted over what would happen here, where the hell Boone was, and how long she would be stuck. She'd attempted the lock already, but it was too complex and tricky for her bobby pins. And the guards had watched her in amusement, so they were aware of her attempts.

If Boone is dead, she thought, I hope he didn't go down easy. She watched one of the guards scratch his ass and sniff his finger. Nah. He's definitely alive.

In time, one of the guards left and another took her place. With the replacement came another Fiend who began arguing with one of the others. There was a hushed argument, fingers pointing, and a punch was thrown. The guard came to the cell and unlocked it, and she found out why it took six people to guard the cell.

Two went to the cell door, two remained on watch. The other two rushed into the cell, grabbed her by both arms, and dragged her kicking and screaming out of the cell. They shut the door immediately once she was out. She fought, but was awarded with a punch to the face for her efforts. The pain was so bad she nearly fainted, and she allowed them to drag her away as dead weight.

McCrae was brought before a heavy door, darkened by the interior of the vault. She heard the scrape of the locking mechanisms as it opened, shrill and grating. Then she was tossed inside.

She heard low growling. She looked to the corners of the room but could only see crates piled up on each other. She moved forward carefully, coming face to face with smoeone whom she presumed was the leader of the Fiends. He was sitting on what appeared to be a throne. How... appropriate, she thought. Two dogs, barely domesticated, were the source of the growling. She moved nervously to the throne.

"My people tell me that you were killing all the Fiends you saw," the leader of the Fiends said. He looked bored, sitting with his chin in his hand. His helmet was the most impressive one she'd seen so far, decked out with bighorner horns. She eyed the dogs, some irrational paranoia setting into her bones.

"Since you ain't NCR, and you don't stink like a Khan, I wonder why that is."

She gulped a breath, and then exhaled noisily. Play along. "I need the money," she said, rubbing her knuckles on her injured hand.

His eyes narrowed at her. "For what?"

Darting her eyes back and forth from the dogs, who were steadily creeping up beside her almost to the point of touching her, she started shivering. "Look, there's only one reason someone would be around here," she snapped, rudely.

A laugh, then. "Chems for sex," he said, "your choice. Then you get the fuck out of my territory, or we kill you." He gave her an appraising look, running his finger along his jaw. "It's been a while since we've had fresh meat 'round this place. Could use a turn on the brahmin."

She did some quick thinking. Firstly, she knew that her quickest way out of this shitstorm was to give him what he wanted. Secondly, she hadn't had her own "turn on the brahmin" in a while, either. You used to enjoy it quite a bit. It surprised her, her memories coming back in such a hostile situation.

"Alright," she said.

He grinned, revealing some terrible teeth. "Come on, then," he said, and led her away from the dogs. She relaxed a little. What is with me? she wondered. I don't know that I've ever been scared of dogs before. Even the Legion mongrels in Nipton got to me.

He shoved her into a room further into the bowels of the Vault. It was full of trash, empty inhalers, and needles. At least there was a bed. She'd expected a cardboard mat on the floor. He slammed the door behind them and ripped her shirt right off her from behind. "Let's see what we got," he said, smirking.

She turned, willing herself not to cover her chest. Work with it, she thought. There hasn't been a man yet, you couldn't handle.

"Bitch, you're practically pristine," he said, twisting a nipple painfully, then shoving her down onto the bed, he was on top of her. Rough hands moved over her breasts, pinching, squeezing, twisting. She cried out in pain. He forced his mouth onto hers and stabbed his tongue into her.

One hand moved to her underwear, jerking them downward. She shimmied out of them, if only to help this whole thing be over with quicker. He jammed two fingers into her mound and rubbed her hard. She groaned in pain. It only encouraged him.

Her hands were still free, and she felt awkward, couldn't let him force it on her. Trying to take control, she ran a hand down his chest and tweaked a nipple.

He jerked upright and slapped her straight across the face. She reeled in pain, grabbing her head. With a laugh, he spread her legs and entered her. She gasped, and put her hands out to him, trying not to fight it. Make it out alive.

He grunted with effort, pushing in and out. She wanted to close her eyes, but she was afraid that he would hit her again and she wouldn't see it coming. He moved his mouth back to hers, and pushed into her, hard.

This went on a lot longer than she would have expected, with how frantic his thrusts were. After a few minutes, he backed off and looked at her with a weird expression.

Oh. OH! He's expecting me to enjoy this! Her eyes widened in shock.

His hand came around then, went to her throat. She blocked it and the fight began.

He was on top of her, heavy and unyielding, still inside her and trying to hold her down with his weight. His free hand was pulled back for another hit. She kicked him in the back, knocking him forward into her face as she moved up to meet it, cracking skulls as strong as she could manage. He grunted and fell forward across her chest, but recovered quickly, sinking his mangled teeth into her neck. She screamed in pain, and let go of his hands.

He got back up, roaring with laughter, and wrapped his hands around her throat, squeezing. She moved hers to his throat, too, but her hands were slick with her own blood and stiff from pain. He began to pump into her again, grunting and exhaling in puffs.

The world went white, blurry, and she felt like she was about to vomit from the pain. Then she saw a way out, and it sickened her, but it had to be done. She vocalized an orgasm, struggling to get the sounds through her throttled throat. She relaxed and let her hands trail blood down his chest, moaning.

He loosened his grip and moved faster, then let out a guttural sigh and slumped on top of her once more.

She lay there, recovering. She could feel him inside her, twitching, and hot tears fell down her cheek onto her bleeding neck. She was so angry at herself. Why would she ever think this was preferable to being killed?

Some disconnected thought murmured, I wonder how Betsy felt when Cook-Cook raped her.

And she snapped. She grabbed up his helmet and slammed him in the face with it until one of the horns lodged into his eye socket. She shoved him to the ground then, and picked up his chainsaw.

The people in the cell were probably horrified when she sprang into the room, wielding the chainsaw, naked and bleeding profusely. She cut down every Fiend she saw, hacking limbs and spattering herself with more blood. When the chainsaw broke, she grabbed a pool cue and thrashed the remaining Fiends with it until it broke in her hands on the last terror-stricken enemy.

She left it stuck into the gaping mouth of the nearest Fiend. Her head was fuzzy, but she unlocked the cell and released the prisoners, then searched through the lockers nearby for her things. All her chems and caps were gone, and her hood smelled like someone had peed in it. She tossed it into her pack, dressed in her leather, and headed out of the Vault.

Outside, she stopped and looked around, her eyesight not entirely clear. Picking a direction, she started walking, wincing at the pain that was now creeping back into her neck and head. She was still bleeding, and it didn't appear to be stopping.

She rounded a corner in the courtyard and almost shot at Boone, who jumped up at her appearance.

He didn't appear any worse for wear. She smiled in a dazed sort of way, then blinked slowly and tried to find the words. She passed out onto the ground before she could muster them.

When she woke, another kind of panic set in before she fully came to. She was starting to wonder when she wouldn't wake up again, when she would finally be buried without someone to dig her up. In her fear, she wanted to run, to leave the Mojave. But she knew that wouldn't happen. She'd die one way or the other.

McCrae came to, leaning against a sandbag barrier on the edge of the ruins. Boone was crouching beside her, his eyes out on the horizon, face impassive.

"Wha?" she slurred, then realized she'd been doped with something. She was moving slow and her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

"Give it a minute," he said. "It should be wearing off soon."

She felt for her neck. A dense bandage was wrapped around her neck and under her arm, her shirt open and her chest exposed. She felt embarrassed. Her underwear had been torn in the Vault and she hadn't bothered to put it back on. She adjusted her shirt carefully, avoiding eye contact.

"What happened?" she enunciated carefully.

"Got separated," he said. "You went on ahead when I got pushed back into a building by five of them."

She nodded, slowly. She vaguely remembered shooting wildly into a fray, then being lead away by a distraction. "Okay," she said. "Sorry."

"Seems you got the shit end of that stick," he pointed out.

She laughed bitterly. "Of course." She tried to push herself up but slid back down when her arm wavered. She noticed her hand hadn't been bandaged. It felt stiff but otherwise was not hurting.

"What did you give me?" she asked, feeling dried out.

"Med-X." He handed over a bottle of water.

She drank greedily, spilling it down her chest. She was going to chafe tomorrow, if she didn't find some new clothes. After a minute, she managed to push herself up off the sandbags and winced at the bandage. "It's too tight," she muttered. Her fingers were slightly numb.

"It's tight enough." Boone handed her pack over, then the tiny pistol. "I couldn't find your other weapons." He held out a pair of brass knuckles.

"Alright," she said, and slipped them into a pocket.

"Plan?"

"Vegas," she said, trying not to think about anything. The muscles in her face, where she'd been shot by the man in the checkered suit, twitched mercilessly. She put a hand to her face and swore.

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't say a word. They travelled east toward the entrance to Freeside, moving slowly at first. When the Med-X wore off, she had a moment of intense pain. "Goddammit," she said, falling forward. She caught herself.

Patiently, he waited for her to scrape herself off the pavement. She hobbled towards the east. "You know, we're completely out of money," she said.

"Could try Colonel Hsu at McCarran."

She stopped and breathed in slowly. She could smell a weird stink in the air, like infection or the heavy smell of blood. "What is that?" She raised her pistol up.

Boone surveyed the distance. "Don't see anything."

Damn. I hoped it wasn't in my head. She holstered the weapon and sighed. "What's at McCarran."

"NCR has a monorail to allow access onto the Strip," he said.

"No shit?" She thought it over for a moment. "I think they owe us money, anyway. I suppose it would be worth a try."

They went around and stopped at Gun Runners to sell off some of the weapons that Boone had the presence of mind to remove from the Fiends. "Hey, we won't have to wheedle a ride, after all." McCrae shook the bag of caps and smiled. She rubbed her shoulder. "But we should go to McCarran, anyway. I gotta talk to Betsy."

After a short trip into McCarran and an extensive talk with Betsy, McCrae felt a bit better. She was still angry, so angry. But she couldn't vent that any more than she had already. Betsy held her in a tight grip, until she had to pry her hands off her, demanding to know what had happened.

"Nothing. Cook-Cook is dead, and apparently so is Motor-Runner. Not that I am in the habit of exchanging names with the bastards I kill." She smiled weakly at Betsy. "Sorry I stole your kill."

"I'm glad he's dead."

McCrae echoed the sentiment. "But I've been told by your C.O. that you ought to go to see Dr, Usanagi, at the New Vegas Medical Clinic. I think it would be a good idea, too."

Betsy sniped at her for playing up to the boys, but did eventually agree. With that, she collected the money for her kills from Major Dhatri and they left.

She stopped again in the parking lot of the El Rey and sat down. "I'm dying of hunger over here," she said. "Is there anything to eat?" She leaned against a car, pulling out a rag and wiping her face.

She was still covered in a good bit of blood. At least she had underwear now. Such a doll, Betsy.

"Here," he said, and she found a wrapped package of Brahmin steaks under her nose. The bloody smell wafted up to her nose and she gagged, only managing to turn her head just in time. She threw up violently. It was mostly beans. She wanted to laugh.

"Ugh, at least cook it first," she moaned. She dry heaved a bit more.

He said nothing. She set up the campfire and cooked the meat, then ate in silence. The wind swept over the land, a never-ending hot dry breath. She sighed.

"I really don't want to go to Vegas," she said, finally.

"Then don't."

"I doan haff the opshun," she mumbled around her food. "I gotta get that damn chip to the customer or the Express will send out mercs and other nasty bodies to find and kill me. And if I'm lucky, it'll be over quick."

She shuddered. After that shit with Motor-Runner... she tried not to think about it, but it came back around the minute she pushed it away. She turned her face away from the fire and wiped tears away from her face. A few shuddered sobs later, she gained control of herself.

"I need a bath," she muttered. "But we'll camp here, since we need all the money we have to get into Vegas." The sun was setting on the second day outside of Freeside. She wondered how long it would be before the mercenaries came for her.

Later, she lay on her back on the ground, trying hard to sleep, but it wasn't coming easy.

"Tell me a story, Boone."

He didn't say anything.

"I'm serious, man. I can't sleep at all."

"I'm not your damn babysitter," he muttered.

"Well, if you don't say something, I'll be forced to sit here and belt out Radio New Vegas."

He didn't respond. She debated which song to start with, and was deciding on "Something's Gotta Give" when the dog ran into the camp. It aimed itself right at her.

She was up and immediately on top of the nearest car, her heart pounding. It growled at them, and Boone put it down cleanly. He looked at her up on top of the car, her knuckles white from gripping the rail.

"Wild dog," he pointed at it. Like that made it less scary. Part of her wanted to burst into hysterical laughter.

"Yeah... I know." She didn't move. "...Are there more?"

He looked with the scope out into the desert. "Nothing."

She eased off the top of the car and moved away from where it was laying. He looked mildly amused. "What?" she finally asked, her back up.

"You're scared of dogs?"

She didn't answer right away. A howl in the distance made her jerk in surprise.

He actually had the gall to chuckle at her. She huffed, and decided they should try for Vegas, anyway.