Wade received the new prisoner. Mayer had roughed him up pretty badly. He eyed the ghoul. The ghoul eyed him back with starred eyes, working his jaw.
Angus and Bradley had gone out to surveil the land for the day, leaving Mayer in charge of Wade. Mayer was angry for being stuck with the rookie, and had been taking it out on Wade all day. Bradley wasn't prepared to leave the town until he was sure there was no other threat.
Wade opened the shack door, unsure if it was a good idea to leave the girl alone with the ghoul, but his uncertainty was blown away very shortly.
Celia flung herself at the ghoul, sobbing, and the ghoul cursed. "Lionel," she mumbled.
"Get off," he said, and pushed her back a little. "Watch the arm. Pretty boy fucked it up."
Wade pointed his pistol at the girl, and turned to the ghoul. "Hold onto the table," he ordered.
Lionel looked at him warily, leaned his right arm onto the edge of the table, and waited. Celia pressed her lips together and closed her eyes.
Wade grabbed the ghoul's arm and shoved it back into place with a jerk. Lionel grimaced and made a pained noise. The girl whimpered sympathetically.
Wade turned to the side, looking at the girl, wondering. He realized it was a mistake almost immediately. The ghoul grabbed and swung the table around, smashing Wade in the arm, then pinned him against the wall with strength that Wade hadn't thought possible in someone so decayed.
"Get the gun," the ghoul barked out. Celia picked up the laser pistol and looked at him. "Shoot him!" Lionel ordered.
She held the gun, unsteadily aiming it at Wade, and looked to the ghoul again. A moment passed in silence.
Wade turned his head, looking at the girl. He remembered, when Bradley had first been assigned him as rookie on Sigma, a discussion they'd had about the power of the weapon and the power of words. A well-placed shot will end a fight, he'd told Wade, but there are situations where a few well-placed words work just as well.
"Celia," he said, looking right at her. "I won't hurt you."
"Goddammit!" Lionel said. "Shoot him, shit-for-brains!"
"I can't!" she yelled back tearfully, and fled the shack. Wade pushed back the table easily and put the ghoul into a submission hold, breaking his arm this time.
"Regrettable," Wade muttered, and sent an SOS to Mayer. Mayer hotfooted it back to the shack, grinning at the ghoul as he knocked him down and stepped on his arm.
"Go get her," Mayer ordered Wade.
Wade loped off into the town, pulling up his prompt and studying the radar. The girl had made it to the treeline, then disappeared on his motion tracker. "Celia!" he yelled, out into the trees, moving toward where she'd been. "The ghoul will die, if you don't turn yourself in!"
She reappeared on the radar and he moved to the position, before she disappeared again. "Surrender and I promise that he won't come to any more harm!"
He heard her inside a hollowed-out tree, to his right. He shut off his prompt and pulled out the prod, hesitating. If he didn't get her back, he'd be in serious trouble. He didn't enjoy using the prod on people.
"Come out!" he yelled, one more time. She didn't answer. He reached a hand into the tree and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her upward. The prod came around and made contact with her stomach, shocking her, and she vomited. Wade dragged her out of the trunk and prodded her again, incapacitating her. She fainted, and he hauled her back to the shack.
Mayer had one foot on the ghoul's back, pinning him to the floor. Wade dragged Celia in and cuffed her to the bed. "What do you want to do with that one?" he asked Mayer.
Mayer tossed another set of cuffs to Wade and jerked a thumb at the unconscious girl. "That. Who knows, maybe she'd like to wake up next to this dogbreath."
"Dogbreath's my cousin," the ghoul rumbled. Mayer kicked him in the side of the head, mock laughing at his remark.
They handcuffed the ghoul by his bad arm to the bed, because Mayer thought it would be hilarious to watch him try to get comfortable. Wade rolled his eyes and resumed his watch, outside.
"I do not want to be you, when Bradley gets back," Mayer said.
"Me either," Wade muttered.
Celia woke with a nasty taste in her mouth. The skin on her stomach was on fire. She coughed and moaned, then opened her eyes to see Lionel studying her. She turned her head and spat vomit.
"Morning, sunshine," he said, sarcastically.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at her wrist, cuffed to the bed frame. She felt her chest tightening and tried not to hyperventilate. "Oh, God," she whimpered, pulling on the cuffs. "What happened?"
"Got our asses handed to us," Lionel said. He was laying on his back, his arm bleeding darkly onto the mattress.
She breathed quicker, and pulled harder on her wrist. A thin sound came from her.
"Calm down, kid," Lionel said, closing his eyes.
"I always get out," she muttered. "Always." She sat up and put her feet on the bars of the bed, pulling on her cuffed wrist as hard as she could. "Help me," she moaned. Tears fell from her eyes.
"What?" he grumbled. "I couldn't even move if I was forced to."
She forced herself to calm down. "When I was fourteen," she said, fear edging into her voice, "I was caught stealing couch cushions from Mavis Pottin's quarters. Officer Pesaro cuffed me to a chair in the security office. I―" she sniffled and pulled on her arm again, grunting.
Lionel turned his head and looked at her. "I broke my wrist," she said, through gritted teeth, pushing with her feet and lifting herself up off the bed.
"Give me a minute, okay?" he rasped, and closed his eyes again.
Celia tried to calm her breathing and failed. "What if Bradley was lying?" she whimpered. "They want to go back to Stockton, what if they hurt Li―" She cried harder.
"Goddammit, Celia," Lionel said, and pushed himself up, slowly, with a lot of grunting. "Calm the fuck down."
She cried harder and pulled on her arm. "What if" kept running through her head, starting with "what if I can't get free".
"You know this is going to hurt, right?" he asked her, looking her in the eyes. His starry ones looked concerned. She nodded frantically, and wiped her face. "No blame," he added.
"No blame," she said, quavering.
Lionel wrapped his good arm around her cuffed one, and pulled roughly. Celia flew backwards, as the frame of the bed creaked and gave way under the force. A piece of the bar ricocheted back at her face and hit her abroad, and she yelped. Her cheek and forehead began to bleed, and her wrist hurt like hell.
She sat upright and picked up the bar, holding up her scraped wrist with the cuffs still dangling from them. Lionel made a noise she'd never heard before, removing his arm from hers. "What?" she asked, wiping blood and tears from her eye.
"Nothing," he answered, and slowly laid himself back down. "You're free." He closed his eyes again.
She breathed slower, calming herself down. The adrenaline from the fear made her feel weakened. She untucked her shirt and wiped blood from her face, then looked down at Lionel's arm.
That jerk had done a number on the already ravaged skin on his arm. She could see the blood caked onto patches of skin, the torn muscle on his bicep and forearm ripped open. About a hand's length from his shoulder, the bone was peeking out. She swallowed and willed her tears to stay put. No one deserved that kind of beating.
Celia ran her hand along his good arm and put her hand on his, squeezing. He jerked at her touch, then calmed, but didn't open his eyes. "I'm sorry, Lionel," she whispered.
"If we get out of this," he muttered quietly, "I guess I'll forgive you. But we're probably going to die."
She released his hand and moved off the bed. She wiped blood from her face again and poked at the cuts, while searching for anything that might be useful in the shack. A knife had fallen behind the fridge in the corner, and she put it through her belt loop.
Celia picked up a box and looked through it, and found two bottles of whiskey. In another corner she found an acetylene torch striker. She squeezed it a few times, watching the sparks fall. In the other hand, she held the whiskey. An idea came to mind.
"You're insane, kid," he grumbled from the bed.
"What?" she looked over her shoulder at him. He shook his head at her, watching her.
"Whatever your plan is―"
"I don't plan things," Celia said, resolutely, and ripped a clean part strip of her shirt, then uncapped the whiskey and stuffed the fabric into the neck of the bottle.
"I couldn't tell," he said, dryly.
"We've got to get out of here," she said, retrieving the other bottle and doing the same to it.
"I ain't going nowhere," he said, grunting in pain.
"Whatever. I'm going to go get shot," she said, and she remembered her visit to his shack. Her hand paused on the door, but she pushed it open, despite her trepidation.
Immediately the lens of a laser pistol was in her face. "While I admire your unspoken tenacity, Miss Landis," Bradley said, "I'd hate for you to get shot."
She dropped the whiskey and pulled the knife, brandishing it. "You shouldn't have me for a hostage, then!" she said, her voice unsteady. "I just want to go home."
"You will be returned to Stockton very soon," Bradley said. "Please, go back inside. I will collect you and the ghoul, when we are ready to leave. Should be any moment."
Celia hesitated, and looked back inside the room. "Lionel needs medical attention," she said, turning back to Bradley.
Bradley moved closer. "Please," he said again.
She felt deflated. Everything she tried to do, anymore, she felt like she could never do right. She turned, and went back inside the shack. Bradley pushed the door shut. She sluggishly moved to the bed, and sat down.
Her face was bleeding, again, and she dabbed at it, numbly. She felt tiny and helpless, and wished that she could climb into a hole and die. Celia started to sob, and tried to stop herself, but the situation was so dire―every single time someone had called her stupid came floating back into her mind. She curled up with her knees at her chest, lay down on her side and let it all out.
A heavy arm came around her side. She jumped, but realized it was Lionel. He grabbed her hand like she'd grabbed his, and squeezed roughly. "It'll be alright, kid."
"No, it won't!" she mumbled. He let go, and she balled up her fists against her eyes. "I thought that, if I left the Vault, I would fit in better out here! I don't!"
Lionel sighed, and laid a hand flat on her back, giving her a little shove. "It's been an extremely long time since I was a teenager," he said, slowly, "but I am pretty sure you'll live to be embarrassed about this."
The door opened, then, and she wept, burying her face in the mattress.