Disclaimer: I don't own The Hills Have Eyes.
Okay! Here's the latest chapter of this little fic of mine, and I'm sorry it's taken so long! Thanks so much to Berry's Ambitions and Merciless Angels Never Cry for their words of support! It really means a lot that people are liking this fic, so I hope that everyone enjoys this next chapter! Thanks so much for reading!
Edge
Chapter Twelve: With a Clouded Mind
This, Missy thought as she stirred into consciousness, is starting to get old.
Her head was hurting worse than it had the last time she woke up in an unfamiliar set of surroundings. Most likely because she'd gotten hit in the head more times in one day than she had in the past year. She was certainly screwed if she had a concussion. Missy inhaled deeply, finding that it hurt her to do so. She wasn't sure when she got that kind of injury, but it definitely didn't help her odds.
She allowed herself one more moment before she decided to open her eyes and familiarize herself with her current surroundings.
Brightness greeted her.
The light was jarring, stabbing into her eyes as if offended by her presence. She placed a hand over her eyes, finding with a jolt of surprise that she was able to do so. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then she was able to make out her surroundings. A modest house, faded wallpaper adorning the place. Worn furniture. A well-used quilt beneath her. Sweltering heat that enveloped her as if she were wrapped in said quilt. The stagnant air wasn't even being dispersed by a fan.
Missy stifled a sneeze as dust floated around her. She squeezed her eyes shut and ran a hand over her face, only to find that she was missing the large, heavy covering of her army uniform. She still had the pants on, but the top was taken and slung over a random chair in the corner that was pulled up to a writing desk. It was shocking, but not unwelcome. Anything to combat the heat.
At least I had a tanktop on underneath, she thought, seeing the very vague bright side.
Another shocking development was that her hands weren't bound. She wasn't tied up to the bed either. Her feet and hands were free, and she decided to use this freedom to explore.
She moved to stand, but as soon as her feet connected with the ground, she wobbled. One of her hands shot out and grasped the nightstand, bracing herself for what would have been an awful fall. Missy realized she had been fine, gravity wise, until she stood up. Maybe she really did have a concussion or something like that.
Definitely not a good situation.
In her haste to save herself from falling, she had knocked over a few trinkets that had littered the nightstand. A picture frame, a paper weight, things like that. They clattered to the floor, nearly falling onto her feet and causing a racket that no doubt gave away her position.
She tensed as her heart rate skyrocketed. The paper weight rolled and stopped as it hit her sock-clad toes.
The soldier barely had time to think, They took off my shoes? before the door to the room swung open.
Immediately, her eyes swept the room for a weapon. Instincts kicking in, she grabbed the nearest - and girliest - item of defense she could.
The bedside lamp.
Jerking the cord out of the wall, she felt a strange growl emitting from her chest as she faced the person in the doorway. He was massive, filling the entire doorway with his bulk. A strange flash of memory - a battered and beaten, wiry and wobbling character throwing a knife - briefly occluded her vision before she focused back on the matter at hand.
"Get," she snarled, "away from me!"
Her voice was raspy. It was then she realized she was dreadfully thirsty. Her chest heaved with the exertion her body was under.
The character in the door tilted his head to the side. She couldn't make out his features, just that his shadow was massive and foreboding. If he were to try to attack her, she wouldn't have much of a chance, despite her abilities. Her training as a soldier meant nothing if her body wasn't in complete, perfect working condition.
He - and she assumed it was a 'he' - didn't move. Only stared at her with an interest that surprised her. She remembered the feel of the mines, of the complete and utter urgency with which the people acted. In this place, filled with light and space, it was hard to imagine these people being anything remotely alike one another.
"We...need...lamp..." the figure spoke.
Missy paused, sure her eyes were so large they looked comical. What did that...thing just say? They needed the lamp? The hell?
"Lamp...light..."
She looked incredulously at the lamp in her hands, wondering just how much her surroundings had indeed changed in the matter of...well, she had no idea how long it had been since her escape from the mines, but it felt like both a second and an eternity.
Missy hadn't realized how much she had dropped her guard until the figure approached her, coming into the light in the room. She tensed, like a cat ready to spring, but as soon as the figure saw this he backed off instead of forcing himself on her.
What...kind of place...what kind of person was this?
She was able to get a good look at him, not recognizing him at all. So tall his head nearly scraped the top of the doorway, he was looking at her with a gentle - albeit wary - gaze. It was kind of comical, how someone so large and potentially deadly could look that way when faced with someone so much smaller and physically weaker than they.
"No hurt..." he said, holding his hands out in front of him. "No hurt."
Cocking her head to the side, Missy looked at him skeptically, as if she would look at Clyde if she caught him telling a story.
Clyde, she thought, a pang of loneliness stabbing her. She missed him so much she felt physical pain.
"Pluto," a voice called out, thick with authority. This voice caused Missy to stand at attention, almost as if she were still answering to Sarge. Nothing else had to be said, that one utterance of his name was enough to get the larger man to step down.
Trying to force everything from the back of her mind, Missy looked forward to see that there was a man standing in the doorway, looking authoritative as well as fatherly at the same time. It was an odd contrast, but one that Missy knew well. Her father had looked that way at her often.
She wondered if she would get to see her father again.
She shook her head before focusing all her attention on the man that had invaded the doorway where the larger man - Pluto, she guessed - once stood. He was thin. Scraggly would be the operative word for his appearance. Wild, uncombed hair, windswept and dark, streaked with the tiniest hints of gray, adorned his head. He wore a long, duster-like coat, in which he shoved his hands.
Leader was the word that crossed Missy's mind automatically.
"My son don't know how intimidating he can be," the man spoke, his voice rough and gravelly. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, darted down to where Missy still held the lamp in her vise-like grip. "Ain't no need for that, girl," he said, chuckling. "We don't mean no harm."
Dark eyes narrowed in response. Though not giving off any sinister air - not at all like that monster that dwelled in the mines - this man had to be stupid to think that she'd trust them that quickly. Not after what she had gone through. Not after what had almost happened to her.
An involuntary shudder passed over her. Hating to be seen as weak, Missy straightened herself simultaneously, as if to hide the reaction.
The man nodded, as if in understanding. "We were waiting for you to get up," he continued. "I got a few questions I'd like to have answered, if you don't mind."
Missy didn't budge.
"You can bring that lamp with you, if you like," he offered, as if that were the most cordial thing to do. If Missy wasn't so paranoid about dying, she'd have thought he was teasing. And she might have laughed at him in response.
Stubborn to the core, Missy placed the lamp down on the table before meeting the leader's eyes with her own.
And he started to laugh.
She narrowed her eyes even further, unaware that that was even possible.
He stopped, but a grin was still on his face. Despite his relaxed nature, there was a strange set to his shoulders, as if something was distressing him greatly. Missy wondered what that could be, but decided against asking. "You're a quiet one."
"So I've been told," she replied, not missing a beat.
His lips twitched. "I'm Jupiter. This is my son, Pluto. Everyone else is in the next room. We'd like you to answer some questions to...ease our minds."
"And then you're going to kill me."
Jupiter looked at her as if she was being ridiculous. His eyes were soft in his weathered face, and something about them made Missy feel slightly at ease. "No one's killing you."
Missy clenched a fist, wishing for a knife to protect herself. "Why's that?"
"You saved my daughter."
And it all came crashing back.
The small girl, fitting so easily on her shoulders. Racing for their lives. Chased by a monster in every sense of the word. A knife, whizzing past her cheek - as this image floated by her, she raised her fingers to her face, tracing perfect seam of the cut - and a man calling out a name...what name was it?
"That should be reason enough," Jupiter spoke again.
Missy gave a little nod. If anything, this man seemed to know the meaning of honor, but that didn't mean she was going to let her guard down at all. That would be stupid, contraindicative of her training.
Pluto left the room, lumbering along in a strangely endearing way. Missy fought the urge to smile. When she realized this, she mused that it was probably from being hit on the head one too many times. She watched as Jupiter left after him, graceful even in such a casual setting. Strangely graceful, for such a ragged, rough seeming individual.
Her thoughts racing through her head, Missy followed with reluctance seeping into her bones.
Stepping through the doorway of her small room and into the hallway was something akin to stepping into a dream. Missy felt as if her feet were moving of their own accord, unaffected by any of her attempts to stall them. She followed the two mutants into a larger room, where there was a large gathering of others. Her dark eyes looked over them, one by one. These figures were all looking the same direction, unperturbed by her presence.
A man with a grotesquely elongated skull, sitting in a wheelchair and looking very uncomfortable.
A bald woman crouched in the corner, leaning over something.
A man with a bowler hat, curled fist pressed against his chin.
A man with growths on his face, head held up by some sort of metal device.
The last, a thin girl with large brown eyes, two children pressed against her legs. A name bubbled into her mind. Ruby. Yes, that was her name, this girl she had helped.
It looked like she wasn't the elephant in the room, after all
She stood in the doorway, watched as Jupiter walked to the corner where the woman was crouched near. He leaned over and asked her something, the words too quiet and hushed to be picked up by Missy's ears. It was strange, seeing how respectful of her the leader was. In a way, everything about this clan was strange. She remembered the innate fear Chameleon had displayed when confronted about his father.
There was none of that here.
Pluto stood furthest away, strangely reticent of whatever it was that was going on. He was just a few feet ahead of her, to the right. He tugged on his sleeves every few minutes or so, looking oddly childlike.
This whole situation was...strange.
She felt like an outsider. Invisible. Only there to observe, nothing more. It seemed that her supposed questioning was secondary to whatever was going on here.
Missy hadn't realized she was stepping forward until everyone turned to stare at her. Ruby faced her, looking at her with the most compassionate gaze she had seen since this whole ordeal started.
"Stay back," the man in the wheelchair wheezed.
She bristled, but before she could say anything in response, Jupiter's voice rang out.
"Stop it," he commanded.
Jupiter looked towards Missy for a second or so before leaning back down over...what looked like a couch? Missy wasn't certain, but now that she was closer she could see a pair of boots dangling over the edge.
The details were becoming more and more apparent. The woman was pressing a cloth down on something - a wound, possibly? Missy watched as Jupiter held the figure's shoulders down against the couch.
A flash - like a movie being played - dazed her momentarily. The images that had passed through her mind before were now clearer, more defined. She remembered the look on the man's face, determined and steely despite the declining state of his health.
Somehow, she knew that that was who they were so concerned about.
She watched as the woman removed her hands from their current position, pulling away a blood soaked towel. And that was no exaggeration. The towel plopped to the floor with a sticky, wet sound.
Unable to keep quiet any longer, Missy spoke, "It'll be better if you leave that towel on."
Again, all heads turned to look at her. She was used to this, to people looking at her and expecting answers, and when the man in the wheelchair said, "You don't know what you're talking about...towel like that can't absorb anything."
Missy stepped forward. "By ripping that off, you're ripping off any kind of clotting that's already happened. It might seem unsanitary, but it's the truth."
Silence greeted her; they did not stop staring at her.
"You're sure?" Jupiter asked.
Missy nodded.
"And you're knowledgeable about this? Healing?" he pressed on.
She took a step forward, again firmly placing herself in the spotlight. "Yes."
After a pregnant pause, Jupiter motioned for her to come closer. His eyes were focused, and yet there was something swimming beneath the calm - like a storm waiting to surge forward and consume everything in its grasp.
Missy stepped closer. The woman and Jupiter parted so she could see what - who - they were working on.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The man lying on the couch clearly had seen better days. She could barely tell the color of his hair, coated as it was with blood and plastered to his forehead and neck. There were cuts along his jaw. Rips in his shirt revealed the cuts that corresponded with them. Still bleeding. In some areas, she could see where the wounds had been stitched crudely shut, and then ripped open. His breaths were shallow, shaky, and his eyes were closed, the lids fluttering every now and then. Teeth were clenched in pain, marred lip curled.
"Can you do somethin' to help him?" the woman asked.
Missy approached slowly, looking each of them in the eye before lowering herself into a crouch between them. Her brows furrowed as she looked over the man in front of her. She had no idea when this little rendezvous turned from interrogating her over her ties with the army to helping someone in need, but now her mind was focused on one, all-encompassing thought - helping the injured.
"Do you have any more towels?" she asked. "I'm going to need a knife to get these clothes off. Needle and thread. Lots of bandages. And rubbing alcohol."
Jupiter sent a glance towards one of the members of the clan, passing a thousand words with just that one look. There was the sound of scuffling feet and the shutting of a door seconds later.
While waiting for the necessities, Missy pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, nesting them against his trachea and waiting for the reassuring thump, thump, thump of his pulse. It was there - weak, but still there. She moved her hands to press upon one particularly brutal looking wound, trying to stem the blood flow that was steadily trickling from it.
A sharp intake of breath interrupted her thoughts.
With one quick and sweeping motion, she looked up towards the man's face, finding that two piercing blue eyes were staring back at her - piercing, as if seeing straight through her despite the weakened state of their owner.
And - ignoring the weird, nonsensical lurch in her chest - Missy continued working to save him, this man who had been her salvation.
End Chapter Twelve.