Part 2 of 2 - Long ass filler chapter.
No Boone at all, so if you don't feel like reading a heck tonne about Annie + the Khans, you don't have to continue on ! Honestly there's nothing of dire importance in this chapter, just a little tidbits that could piece together in the future. I figured since we all know that the Bitter Springs trek is coming along, I would include some of Annie's childhood.
But, a lot of heavy reading is ahead of you. Some more intense scenes are presented, which explains the rating, and all up I think I used the word 'fuck' 14 times. Not bad.
No Spoken Word - Stevie Nicks
In the middle of the desert, underneath the scalding hot sun, sat a man on a rock. Around him was his team, an oily looking bunch of men outfitted by leather and tires, and their newly hauled loot. They had a line of prisoners broiling in the sun; itching under once-stiff uniforms while the few who could fathom words considered their last knowledgeable hours of life. The man on the rock huffed, disgruntled with the results.
Enzo Olivares was a small man, worn by forty years of sandy migrations. His dark eyes hung low under heavy eyebrows, thin-faced and pink-striped with welts almost ages old. He was scrubbing the blood from his boot heel with a scrap of khaki fabric - freshly torn from the bruised body of a dead soldier.
He missed his woman greatly; dark hair, dark eyes, sad smile and all. She was back at the base camp, somewhere in Bitter Springs with the other women, taking care of the children and elderly. Some days he was almost glad they were tucked up in their little cove - safe from whatever life would throw at them. As much as he understood the necessity for a rough, hard life, he knew that some women were not bred for the harsher side of living.
His first and only child, an ungainly 14 year old who was trembling by his boots, was inhaling all kinds of dirt with the other new recruit. Jessup was his name, four or five years older than the girl, was blessed with bright red hair and an unbelievable sense of pride. He was fresh meat, but brave - one of the only boys of his stature to walk right into their camp and request a place in the Khans.
Jessup was the prime candidate for Ana's sparring partner. He was still soft on the inside and Enzo knew that he wouldn't be able to seriously harm the girl even if he was forced. The closer he could get to the size of an average male, the easier it would be in the future for his daughter to defend herself to the best of her ability. As much as it meant breaking her confused and little spirit with the bodies of aggressive, strange men, it still let him sleep sounder at night.
Enzo wished his woman had given him a boy - then he wouldn't have so much to worry about. His name would never live on through his little girl - and it was probably best to have sent her out into the field before she was soiled by another man's name. He watched his daughter, uneasy with how she looked like his own mother... Except for the eyes. She had Ines' big, brown eyes that he had grown to loathe.
He ushered them up with a hairy fist - bored with their heavy breathing and his daughter's own shuddering.
Jessup was the first to spring up; swaying a little with a small amount of vertigo from the kick in the head the girl had given him only minutes ago. Ana was whining in the sand, unable to work through the squealing pain of a deeply bruised lung. Her father knew that once she was broken-in, she wouldn't feel as bad in the future. The desert was rough for a little girl.
The redhead held out his pale hand, a soft offering of friendship that had been strained with the constant sparring. Practise, her father would tell her, was the most important thing. If she was too handicapped to shoot a gun, she would learn how to fight until she fell apart.
Enzo slapped the boy's hand out of the way with his own slender fingers. "Don't help her!" He stood to his full height, and even though he was a short man he always managed to look more menacing than he needed to be. "She is the enemy. He is yours. The NCR isn't going to hold your hand while they're trying to kill you."
Ana pushed herself up, gasping with the dull ache of pain that clouded her chest. Her brain throbbed with warps of discomfort, tempted sit down and crawl under a rock to cry the pain away - but the way her father was looking at her burnt her blood cold and ashamed. "Pa-" she started.
"Stop." He warned her. "No talkin'. Work through it." Ana's eyes clicked to her partners, the boy's blue eyes thrilled with fear and curiosity. Jessup felt for her - she always looked so alone. She was the youngest girl at the camp, at least three years behind the rest - but she was also the first blood tie between the Khans and a valley tribe. The girl was the pinnacle of a new part of life – life after what those bastards had done to them.
Ana caught the boy by his hair, still quick on her feet regardless of the wobbles that shuddered through her thighs. Jessup let out a sharp grunt, jamming a fist around her bicep to swing her back into the dirt. The worn rubber mouths of her boots swallowed lungfuls of sand, splitting old leather from the crumbling gum soles to catch the warm grit that swam around her toes. The girl thudded to the ground, jelly legs following closely – sending sprays of red desert into the dry air.
The two kids let out surprised cries - their green muscles aching from the long walk back from their last haul. Ana's whines turned into winded coughs, seeing little grey spots among the black when she closed her eyes tight to think through the ache that had melted through her lungs. There was a heavy thump on her pelvis as Jessup rested his knees around her, sitting on her lower half as those sad blue eyes told her he wasn't at all happy about their situation.
He was only a fresh-faced farmhand who had run away from his parents. He had ached for adventure, and the Khans had given him that entirely – even if fun was regularly taxed with the beating of younger girls. He was the baby though, and was not to be taken seriously until he proved himself to the original men. And Ana was going to be a tough test it seemed, the boy's breath hitching with fatigue as he leant his hands on her collar bones and pressed down gently to wear her out. Enzo hadn't exactly lied when he had told the young redhead that Ana was a 'cactus of a lass'.
There was still something that irked him about the situation, though. It may have been how her big eyes shone with an innocent's horror as she grasped for his arms, missing only to grab up at the bright blue sky as if it was the last chance of air. Her dirty nails were not strong enough to break skin, and they folded like recycled paper against his denim chest.
She gathered her last ounce of fight before her body slept for a little while, knees straining to bend as to tilt him off balance. His palms slipped down beside her, skidding forward through the dirt to catch Ana's nose with his bruised ribs. She wheezed, winded, fingers gripping his vest to haul him off of her. Her legs fought themselves free, staggering back to the rock her father was sitting on.
There was a pinch of pain as her tailbone clashed with the blunt edge of the rock, stumbling away from the solid enemy to waddle back to Jessup, who was lurching towards her from his knees.
She set him back with a dull boot under the chin, the clack of teeth ringing across the solid plane of desert. A few men laughed, Enzo's ears pricking to the sudden imposition.
"Leave him something to chew with, little Ana!" Papa, with his helmet under his arm to free his sweaty forehead, started over. The shorter man grunted a laugh, glancing up at his old friend.
He returned his eyes to the kid cursing into the sand, dribbling blood from the nip on the softs of his cheeks. Enzo sighed tiredly. "As much as she's got balls, she ain't no use if she still can't shoot." He muttered to his friend, his words catching the parched air that burnt past Ana's ears. "Can't punch through a fucking bullet. Even if you tried really hard." His unhelpful words struck his daughter into a momentary stupor, allowing Jessup to catch her off guard; his forearm slinking around her neck as he pulled her back down.
"We'll head back to the Springs for a few nights." He pulled his hat back on before cracking a match on his armour, a cigarette twitching between his lips. "Leave her with Ines if you're not happy with her." The shorter man turned his gaze away from the scuffle and shot a look at Papa. "You're no use to me if you've got bigger shit on your mind."
"No kid of mine is gonna sit in that canyon and learn fruity magic tricks." He held out his grubby hand for a smoke, Papa obliging with a grunt. "She stays. She learns. She ain't gettin' gutted by a soldier that storms the camp one day just 'cause she chose to lay around chewin' that laced tobacco shit they been brewin'."
"What a good daddy you are." Came a burnt voice behind him, belonging to a grizzly looking man siphoning through a soldier's travel backpack. Enzo lit up as the dirty man grinned.
Olivares had a raw anger to him that had won them many victories. Most people who had encountered him and his terrifying presence had backed away when things started to slip off the deep end, but Oscar had never been a man to turn down a chance to stir the pot. The smaller man bristled with an untamed anger that soured the air around him as he turned to face his competitor. "What?"
"I didn't say nothin' bad, Enzo." Oscar's voice dripped cheekily through yellow teeth, presented in a crooked grin dressed with sharp stubble that couldn't grow any further. "W'z just sayin' how nice it is to see a daddy lookin' after his little girl." He smiled, greasy brown hair smoothed back with a flat hand. "You still let her sleep alone in that big, old tent?"
"Hey." Papa's stern voice cut through the tense atmosphere, Enzo spitting irritably at the ground. "That's enough for today, brothers." Oscar scoffed to himself, disappearing elbow-deep into the backpack to fish out frayed photographs of now smaller families.
The small man had turned back to his daughter, giving Jessup a pointed kick to the shin. "Get up," He snapped at them weakly, his iron stomach turning with the sick idea of Oscar prowling about in the background "Get up, get up! We're moving out."
Her finger was rattling on the trigger, sweat beading down her temples to soak into her short, filthy hair that coiled around her ears in a burst of curls. Her eyes couldn't make sense of the targets – blurred into the sand by their uniforms patched with sweat. Even though their faces dropped in-and-out of focus, she could still see the twitches of fear in their legs, dragging through the dirt with a drained effort to get away.
Sixteen years old and reeling, Ana had strained her way into a permanent place with a travelling team. They had sent in a complaint to her father, finding her gun skills more than sub par. Enzo, still awkwardly ashamed of his only child being a forever fawn, had taken it upon himself to teach her all he could. He wasn't the best shot out of the 30 men who had survived the second almost-extermination, but it had saved him from many sticky situations.
A crack rang out beside her, followed by the howling cry of an older man. "Look at that shot, Enzo! My boy can shoot a sweaty cunt from real far away!"
The boy to her right, probably more of a man than anything, lowered the rifle and returned it to his father, who was hooting and hollering back up to the camp. "Doesn't matter if the cunts ain't movin'." Her father muttered under his breath, tsk'ing as he folded his arms. The kid's face, bristled with hormonal facial hair and a greasy t-zone, creased into one of disgust before he pushed himself away – heading back towards his unhappy home.
Ana pulled the rifle away from her sight. "I can't." She told him, and he tightened his fists in annoyance as he looked back from the footprints of the sullen boy. "I can't see." Placing it down between them, her voice shook with a slight fear. Unable to say anything else, she held a hand up for him to examine – her fingers trembling with a strange anxiety. He slapped it down in shame.
"You can blame your mother for that shit." He told her, snapping the rifle up to aim. He stared down the barrel, lining up his piece for a lucky shot before a hollow blast spattered red from the last soldier's slumped stomach. "Told her to stay off the junk while she was cookin' you, but she didn't listen, did she?" He clutched the tip of the gun as he pressed the butt into the dirt, his hand searing uncomfortably before he noticed the burn. "Which is why you'll stay off the shit, little girl. It's already rot you out bad enough, so don't do it no more."
She nodded, comforted by her fathers rare words of caring. She never felt they meant much, because his hurtful words always outweighed the small bites of light that barely ever broke through her boarded windows. But still, it felt like a compliment when he was in a good-enough mood to feel compassionate.
He caught her softened eyes and he groaned tastelessly, shaking her off with a flippant wave of his hand. "Go away, girl. Go find a party."
Ana felt blessed by his kindness that afternoon, heading back up towards the main camp, past the angry boy and his father and towards the looming peach canyons that cuddled the quiet side of the family. She could see a tiny figure that she recognised as her mother towards the back of the canyon, bent at the waist over an unidentifiable patient.
Ines didn't differ much in looks from the ill around her, cheeks pallid and sunken from a few long benders years before. She had been a peaceful girl before Papa's gang had stormed into their oasis, demanding food and sanctuary from a tailing army. In exchange for their lives, the small valley tribe inherited a group of filthy-mouthed men and women that reeked of stale blood and morning breath. They had culled the male population before coming to that final deal, of course – the tribal women shaken and stirred by the influx of intruders.
In return for their reluctant hospitableness, the tribe was offered protection, and the children would grow up to be the next generation of raiders with half a brain. Ana was born after a drunken night around the fire pit, Enzo cornering a young woman with big eyes that took him back to the days that weren't so burnt to the ground. Her birth bought peace to the tribe – a fresh face of a new age, the gift of a cheerful girl who did not yet know of the shame the world had brought upon itself.
Hollers of excited men and women drifted down from further into the camp, and as Ana continued forward she found that a crowd had gathered. There was a group of men swirling around the ceremony circle, hanging off the spiked barrier with slippery soles digging into the old, rotting posts of scavenged logs. Raucous laughter rang out through the tall walls of the entrance, drawing a small mob that called on – shouting tactics into the pit of fools that held two men struggling for dominance.
Ana stopped to watch, cooling in the evening air that poached her with the smell of meat charring over the cooking fire. "Yanis!" The older man, who was scuffling with the fresh blood, called out to a grisly soul on the sideline. "Grab a friend!"
Yanis whooped loudly, climbing onto the gritty fence to launch himself into the pile. Another man followed shortly, hooking a fist into the young kids gut while the circle of spectators erupted with laughter. "Is he cryin'?" A filthy-looking woman asked.
"Nah, the little shit's jus' drooling!"
There was a slick of pink tinged spit pooling around the back of the boy's neck, his barely kept face calm and collected – only wincing a little when the men found their second wind. Some tapped out to take a swig of the whiskey that was being passed around the circle, leaning back into the horde of grabby men and women who were ready to stay up all night kicking-in the new kids.
She followed the beaten path through the domestic section, modest-sized tepees grouped around small fires that smouldered in the smoke-filled air. The younger kids had made a game of swooping through the tents with reckless abandon; pulling out support poles and bursting through the multi-stitched fabric like the little monsters they would grow to be. A young gang was lurking to the side, handling a medicinal succulent between the arches of their feet with calls of playful strategy. One boy sent the cacti crashing into the crumbly rock that had laid to rest in the middle of their camp. It exploded with juicy, spiked chunks that lit up the air with its tangy sap.
The girl continued on, up the steepening incline filled with muttering women and groaning recruits. The greens who had survived the initiation ritual had been sent away to be patched-up by the women – and as much as Papa felt his warriors should have been tough-skinned and able to survive a beating, he didn't need half of his population wasting away to infections. The women of the tribe were smart with their desert medicine, working with the secrets of the succulents dotted around the camp.
Spotting her mother tending to a brunette boy, Ana started towards her – avoiding the chase of two young girls fencing with nail-boards. Her mother brightened at the arrival of her daughter, fingers squeezing a weeping wound too tightly. The boy winced. "Ana," she welcomed, greeting her child with a soft palm around the young girl's waist "did you learn anything new from your pa?"
"Hands won't stay still." She tinged pink after a moments thought, ashamed by the other presence. Glancing down to make almost painful eye contact with the lad, she found him with glassy eyes and a dull smile. He looked up at her blankly, smile widening as she felt taken aback. Her mother let her go, slightly embarrassed.
"I don't know what to do with that." Ines sighed unhappily, turning back to the boy who had begun to study his hands with pure interest. "I'm sorry, my love."
"It's not your fault." Ana returned, watching as her mother tugged a torn strip of cloth from a bath of what she assumed to be chemical cleaners. With the introduction of the outside world, the tribe had begun to experiment with the concept of man-made substances and their uses. The boy let out a squeal as she patched it over a deep gash on his bicep, grabbing her hand gently to push it away.
"That… really hurts, man." He pulled it off gingerly, fingers cringing into a closed fist at the gnawing pain rushed through the cut. Ines laughed at him, leaning in closer before replacing the scrap over his wound.
"It's diluted." She explained gently. "It's mostly just water."
The boy's face turned sour and the woman grinned, calming him a little. Ana watched on, mesmerised by her mother's movements. There was so much she didn't know about the aging woman in front of her, and it was mostly due to her father's brash words and harsh gestures. There was the idea that he never meant to be so abrasive, but it had scared his two girls into thinking that words were not always the answer. It was always better to just listen to the alpha, and depend on his way.
"Ines!" A light voice called from three recruits away, a soft-faced old maid with barely any teeth coaxing the woman away for a second opinion. She looked back at her daughter, pulling her dark, thick hair to one shoulder as she pressed the cloth closer to skin.
"Hold this," she said, "I'll be right back."
Greeting the strange boy's surprisingly warm skin with trembling fingers, Ana was now acquainted with some of the fresh meat her father was always working towards. The young man didn't seem like much of a fighter; his skin peeled with bruises and cuts, more so than the other recruits around him, but his eyes told her he was more-than-likely off his face on some form of chemicals. Chems had slowly snuck their way back into the camp, and although it wasn't a rising epidemic, it had claimed the lives of a few weak-minded soldiers.
He didn't seem so bad though – swearing coolly through gritted teeth before twittering at his shoes, eyes scratched red while his cottonmouth clicked stickily. "Is it just me, or…" he started, finding her gaze "is the world shaking?"
"Just you." She replied quaintly, attempting to steady her hands.
"Have you got the tremors, little cat?"
"No." Ana snapped.
"Then the world is definitely shaking." He breathed, tugging away from her. "Should we tell the others, little cat?"
"Little cat." She spat at him unhappily. "My name is Ana."
"Anna!" He greeted her, blue eyes darting up to fixate themselves with her own.
"Ana." The girl retorted weakly, her palm retracting to her chest – a heavy cloud of thinners framed her face like a puff of perfume.
"Anna." The boy confirmed with a serious tone to his voice. "The sky called me Jacob but the wind tells me I'm Jack, little cat, and I…" he lost focus, glancing up at the purpled distance, delight glassing over his lazily exuberant eyes. "I know how to fix your shakes."
"You gonna let her fucking talk to you like that?"
"She's just a kid, man."
"You're the one with your dick in her every night." The swing of an old, bent club sent a shatter of glass at the canyon wall. "If she's old enough to fuck, she's old enough to take what you throw." Ana could taste the grime on her teeth, sucking on them irritably as the men bickered with their backs turned. It was as if her main point hadn't even been made.
"Nah," Chance set down a fresh bottle, avoiding eye contact with the girl with great ease. He was a tall boy, broad from shoulders to stance – still filling into his future form but growing at a steady pace. It was all thanks to the buffout, though – slowly moulding him into some kind of super-soldier whose moral compass spun out of control. "She's fine."
"She's right here." Ana snipped back unhappily. "Can you hear me?"
"What did I fuckin' tell you about fuckin' off?" Malcolm whipped around as he shoved her pointed finger at her to further his intent. "Go find daddy's dick to crawl under or somethin'."
She froze, embarrassed – suddenly aware of even the slightest breeze on her neck. Her fists tightened around her biceps, nails tightly nipping into her darkened skin. "Fuck you, Malcolm." She bit back, heart thumping and ears burning. She released her arms, throwing her hands to her side. Opening her mouth to continue, Ana found her sights set on the new arrivals – voice dying in her throat. She managed an upset grunt instead.
"You pussies gonna hide in the dark all night?" A girl, blonde and brash, was leading Jessup and Manny down from the main camp. The three were the last of the younger Khans who had kept off the chems, and they tended to stick together in a tight-knit group that hung around the fire pit talking shit. It was safer that way, less peer pressure to endure and more conversation that wasn't weighed down by a drug-fuelled charge. It was no surprise that they continued to be the most levelheaded of the lot.
"The fuck do you want, Diane?" Malcolm snapped.
"We heard that there's some big wedding on the Strip next Thursday." She started, pressing her hands together gently to explain her plan.
"How far away's that?" Chance asked brusquely.
"Five days." She replied bluntly, snapping her eyes to search over the red-faced Annie. "I was thinking we should set up a camp down the 95. All the stiff fuckers should be fat with caps to spend in the casinos. We'll save them the trouble and spend it for them."
"I ain't settin' foot in that shithole Strip, Diane." Malcolm grunted back. "Fuck that shit right off."
"No, you idiot." She sighed. "We'll split it between us and Papa's strong box – spend on whatever we want. Guns, mags…" she wasn't getting his attention, the man still scowling through his latest handle of dirty jet. "Chems?"
He guffawed in appreciation. "Fuck. Yeah, sure. Count me in."
"You in?" She pointed at Chance and he shrugged, a grin forming on her face as her finger found Ana. "You aren't coming."
The girl nodded quickly, taking a step back to escape the situation. Malcolm remembered her presence. "You're still here?" He asked, stalking towards her. She hopped backwards, pacing towards the camp as she flipped him off.
"It wasn't even any of your business anyway, asshole!" She called down to him, presented with a grin from Jessup. It wasn't often Ana spoke out of turn, especially to the older men. She had grown a severe fear of them, and from that blossomed some kind of twisted respect. They had run the world she had grown up in, and their rule was all she knew. Ana saw the defeat on her mother's face every day. She had to fight her way out of it.
But her confidence was something new, probably due to the tiny tabs she consumed on the hour – stopping the shakes and settling her vision for a few fleeting moments of what was supposedly 'normal'. It was strange to have everything seem still for once in a while. Fixer, as great as it looked on paper, was just another drug. It still itched when all the foil seals were popped.
To her, Malcolm was not a strong man like her father or Papa – he was a scummy being who had fallen into the wrong kind of element. He was better off as a fiend, and with a firm line of sight and a steadily pumping heart, Ana knew that was solid truth.
The look on his face scared her, though. Even if she knew she was better than him, she knew she could not match the abrasive rage that burned underneath the skin of a man with a tortured little boy inside. He pitched the golf club into the sand, pushing up his denim sleeves before starting towards her. His steps were short and dense, and it was terrifying.
Ana turned and fled, making a beeline for the main camp. Her father usually finished off the day by sitting around the fire pit, and even though Ana probably deserved what was coming for her she knew that her father would stop the raging young male that was blazing towards her… hopefully.
"Malcolm!" Diane started.
"Yeah, man, come on." Manny added, wandering off to the side to keep an eye on the two. "Leave her alone, Mal, don't beat on little girls who haven't done shit to you."
His long legs allowed him to catch up to her, finding a fistful of her vest. "Nope," he wound his fingers around the warm leather, solidifying his grip. She yelped, legs wobbling like her first steps as he tugged her back to the darkened cove. "One day her daddy's gonna die, along with the rest of the burnt-out old men up there."
"Big man!" She called at him, stumbling backwards, balance thrown over her shoulder and held at the mercy of Malcolm. "Such a big fucking man!" Her eyes were pulled wide open with a naïve horror that shone bright under the ripening moon, grasping at straws in a last-ditch attempt to escape. Antagonising him was going to be a bad idea, but if it made him let her go it would have meant the world to her. "Let me go, asshole!"
He dumped her forward, the girl almost tripping over Chance as she stumbled back to the rock face. Malcolm followed forward, seizing a shoulder of leather as she gathered her bearings. Malcolm shoved her forward with a lurch, the vibrations from his fist balled into her shirt were rolling through her chest – world shuddering with a strange-smelling true fear. There was nothing she liked less than being on the wrong side of an angry man, and although those moments were few and far between, she knew that laying down and admitting defeat was the last thing she wanted. Ana never wanted to end up like her mother.
There was no doubt she was fighting a losing battle, though. Her peers would not help her – they banked away from the danger of Malcolm. The man would wipe out anything to complete his main goal – tipped off by needle points and warm liquor. Besides, they knew that Ana could handle herself, even if she didn't exactly look like she could. They'd seen the girl's initiation only a few months before, and she had a strong second wind breathing under her skin.
It was scary, seeing a little girl fight. There was something wrong about it to the kids who had come from the outside. The strongest women in the camp had learnt to fight for their lives from unfortunate childhoods and fiend-invested homelands, but Ana had been bred into a specific life of blood and hatred. There wasn't anything comforting about a father would sacrifice his daughters innocence to fuel his own hatred for the world around them.
Still, she was a girl on the inside, confused and hurt that her 'boyfriend' (the first man to see past the dewy eyes of a desperate kid) had already found someone else to mess around with. Malcolm just didn't like the idea of being tied down, and because Chance was so brain-dead due to some childhood trauma, the two meshed together to become a sickening bromance that looked out for one another.
"You gotta understand, little girl," he took hold of her other shoulder, fingers gripping the freckled skin with intent to burn it pink. He pushed up between her legs with no intent to further it, teasing her with his body weight. She didn't like that, her body wringing with an ugly feeling that told her to push him off, even if it meant her arms snapping from the pressure. "He doesn't have to answer to you. You ain't in love or nothing. No one comes to the Khans to find love, little girl, and you gotta take it from me… gotta toughen up…
"Can't go cryin' over men who don't answer to women like you. Weepy little cunts with more balls than brains…" He pressed into her again and her breathing quickened, repulsed completely and shuddering with disgust. Her struggle snaked his hand to her neck, his thumb brushing her ear. "If you're really that caught up over cock, I could give you a go-" his hips thrust to scratch her bare thighs "they tell me I'm gentle."
She swallowed deeply, body burning with disgust. "You want to fucking talk to me like that?" Ana snapped at him again, squirming to embarrass the situation. "Get the fuck off me, Malcolm." Her knee fought itself up. "Fuck right off."
He'd been waiting for something all night – something fun to do. His body had a way of drawing him to the liveliest of things; raids, rapes, ravages… all the things that got his blood pumping. And with the added surge of chemicals, his nerves were twitching with anticipation. Ana starting trouble was an unlucky draw.
With a rough palm he found her face, gripping the sides for leverage as he smashed the soft of her skull back into the rock. Her vision burnt and the colours sucked out of her sight – grey and bland as his sweaty face glistened along with his eyes. They were alight, burning and concentrated on his final goal.
"Malcolm!" Diane grabbed his jacket, met with no resistance. "Don't be doing dumb shit."
"I ain't hurtin' her."
She opened her eyes in a last ditch attempt to shriek sense into him, the eye contact scaring the both of them. Being caught off guard sent a surge through his arm, wrenching her from the wall to her unsteady feet. She stumbled into him a little, bracing herself only to be torn away again. There was a crash and a thick blast of pain.
"Malcolm!" The voice sounded cloudy. "Jesus, Manny, fucking grow a pair and grab him!"
Her boot was twitching in the sand, guided by her still body that had stretched out among the grains of sand. There was a throbbing bite taken from the back of her head, warmed by the dirt that had cushioned her obvious fall. Her breathing sat shallow and unproduced and each and every inch of her ached.
"Fuck… Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Someone was pacing around her, a terrified whine to his voice. "Enzo is going to fucking kill us!"
"He's gonna fucking kill Malcolm, that's what he's gonna fucking do." Another man chimed in, dull and dry.
"Let him fucking try, assholes! The old shitstain can't even walk properly, let alone fight like a real man!" There was a shift of sand and crunches drifted away, along with a loud, strong voice. "Hear that, old man! You fucking hear that?"
"Shit. Shit." There was a warm palm on her face. "I think she's fucking dead."
"Good job, asshole! You've fucking killed her!" The woman shrieked back at the fleeing fiend. "Shit!"
The girl on the ground mustered enough energy to shift her palm in the sand, limbs heavy and eyes sticky. The hand on her face whipped back, horrified.
"She's alive!" He tittered, recoiling. "She's moving! What if she turns into one of those fuckin' zombies down near the lake?"
"Shit, Jess, if she was dead she wouldn't come back to life. That isn't how it works." The second man sighed, crouching behind her. "Anna? Are you alright?"
"… Yeah," she managed to grunt, prying her eyes open to prove her immortality. Even the moon seemed too bright, leaving her to squint at the older kids awkwardly. Ana sat up groggily, the soft wind tickling the wet streaks of blood now slipping down the back of her neck.
"You've been out for five minutes or somethin'!" Jessup sputtered at her. "We thought you were dead, man!"
She squinted harder, screwing up her face as if it would help her sluggish brain. "Can you get Jack?" Ana asked.
Diane was up, zipping back towards the camp. Ana attempted to follow suit, bending her knees and tilting forward to find a crouch. She nearly toppled over, but Manny kept her steady. He wasn't sure if she was to be standing at that point, but he had to admire her motor skills.
Everything around her seemed to be tinted with grey, the usually bleached canyons shining like an old, crusty holotape. She found Diane sprinting past Malcolm, who was swaying in his jeans - finally feeling the pull-down of his chems. There was a group of old men smoking on the hill, watching over the kerfuffle as they shot the breeze with empty bottles of high percentage spirits. There was nothing like teenage rebellion to put an edge on the night.
Her eyes skimmed dumbly to Chance, who was now sitting in the sand - dimly-lit, blue eyes gazing off into the distance. Beside him shone a bent-back-straight golf club, dusted with glass shards and cactus juice. She broke free from Manny and staggered towards it.
"Anna." He called after her. "Are you doing what I think you're doing?"
"Fuck this." She wheezed, stumbling off. "He hurt me." Jessup followed behind her.
"Anna," he started, watching her lean down to retrieve the club. She grasped it gently, rolling it in her palms as she found her bearings. She held her stance, testing her strength before deciding her choice was right.
She blundered towards the retreating enemy, largely undetected as he was lost in his own distraught mumbles. Ana caught up to him fast, stalking forward on a mission titled with shame and revenge. He had embarrassed her in front of everyone, and it was not something she wanted marked against her name. As soon as her father found out it, she knew he was not going to be happy.
He barely had time to turn around at the sense of her footsteps, his jaw caught with the solid bar of iron that had been swung back with such force it was unbelievable. There was a drunken, distant cheer of old men from up the hill.
The force of the blow spun him off balance, toppling backwards into the sand. "What?" He spat out, garbled and shocked. He grunted. "Fucking-"
She hit him again, this time in the ribs – swinging back for a third blow. It struck him in the forearm, thrown up to protect his head. "Don't you ever fucking touch me again!" Ana yapped at him, pulling back another swing. He reached out to grab for the weapon, inebriated and unable to complete his goal. She thumped him in the ribs once more, nipping his elbow with an audible crack.
Taking a step around him, she brought another blow down onto his chest – feeling better about herself as he slowly sunk into the ground. He was able to take a beating; sure, he had passed his initiation test with flying colours. She was never going to be able to kill the man by herself, but she could at least show him how strong she was.
"Don't ever fucking touch me again!" She told him, breath seeping from between gritted teeth. She whacked him again, just to make sure, and he let out a defiant groan – rolling onto his stomach in attempt to crawl back up. "And stay out'a my business 'cause it ain't yours!"
She ditched the club by his side, the man breathing into the sand gently. He wasn't hurt too bad, but he there was an ugly embarrassment that burnt in the back of his brain. A little girl had caught him off guard – and it hadn't been a lucky shot. The welts on his chest would stay for days.
"Anna!" Diane called out for her, brushing past the crowd of old Khans that had gathered in a group. The girl could pick out her father, leaning against the shell of an old bus – smoking a cigarette with an unreadable look creasing his face. "I found Jack!"
She headed towards them, finding a smooth patch of sand to softly lower herself onto. Jack was striking a match to life, lighting up a hand-rolled cigarette before inhaling harshly. "This is for you," he offered it to her gently – pinching the end "it should smooth down the edges of your mama's freaky voodoo."
The girl huffed a laugh at him, reaching out for the burning bush.
"We should take you to your mother, Anna." Diane spoke quietly, and Ana looked up at her. She was right, as unfortunate as it was. The walk up the hill looked like too much work for her legs, and the girl inhaled a lungful of the earthy taste.
The youngest cousin was dragging Malcolm to his feet on their right, eyes sweeping over the girl with a curious spark. Jessup followed behind them like a helpful puppy, dipping under the other shoulder to help lug the sleepy man back to his tent. Chance stayed spread in the sand, watching up at the sky with cramps from a comedown.
"Did you do that?" Diane asked, watching as the men dragged their bumbling friend up towards the medicine women. The old Khans had begun to split back towards the fire pit, leaving Enzo to snuff out his smoke and leave. Ana pressed the light hair on her thighs, leaning tiredly back into the shins of her male friend as her head began to cloud and swim with a soft bliss.
"Of course I did."
I can't believe you made it this far. That's actually amazing, thank you for reading this chapter. I figured we didn't know too much about Annie's past, and considering it sits in some canon, I should go over it a little. I hope it all makes sense.
Also, here are her stats as of 2281:
S - 7
P - 4
E - 8
C - 7
I - 4
A - 5
L - 5
Tagged skills; Melee, survival, speech
Traits; Four-Eyes and Heavy Handed.
AND THROUGH ALL OF THIS, according to his stats, Annie is still smarter than Boone.