Chapter TW: Brief misgendering
Skyler was so drunk. The hangover she had the misfortune of becoming conscious of was indicative of having been absolutely shitfaced prior, as was the fact that she couldn't call up a single recollection of the night before. And the downstairs neighbors were screaming again. God-fucking-damn it. Couldn't they get a divorce already so she could lay here and be miserable in peace?
A moan rolled through her as she went to raise an arm up over her face to block out all light and sound. Stuck. What?
Something wasn't right here. Her bleary brain snapped into alertness, which caused her to jerk and confirm that neither her hands nor feet could be separated. She was laid out on the floor like a sack of potatoes too, which wasn't unheard of if she was that fucked up, but she sure as shit knew she wasn't voluntarily letting someone truss her up like this. Not her thing.
Opening her eye to look around put her dangerously close to hurling as she struggled to process her vision in real-time. It was a poorly-lit room, which even drugged-up she couldn't help thinking god, how original, stripped of most everything aside from some large signs on the walls reading, "Fall Into Autumn," with generic leaf prints stuck in time at the beginning of the whole apocalypse that was trickling back to her memory.
What else? A couple of sleeping bags were pushed into opposite corners at the back of the place by a pile of discarded cans and food wrappers. Someone had been staying here. Wasn't she so smart? And the screaming, that was coming from...
"Oh! You're waking up! Hello! Welcome to the party!"
That voice was entirely too chipper for the situation this was shaping up to be. Sure enough, when Skyler finally wormed her body facing that way there was Cat, similarly bound at the wrists and ankles with rope.
Skyler at that moment couldn't muster much more of a reply than, "Mhmm," smacking her lips against the cottonmouth from whatever she'd been given.
To her opposite side, twisted desperately and with a wild sheen in his eyes refracting in the dark was Adrian, far more awake than her and absolutely not happy with their circumstances. Wisely, someone had tied a mass of fabric at the back of his head to block off his mouth full of nasty teeth. By now his breath was ragged and came in panting bursts, but every time he caught it he let out another muffled bout of shrieking accompanied by thrashing for all he was worth. His stomach muscles rolled frantically, fully showing off the strength inherent in his body even while underweight, but he wasn't going anywhere fast; his limbs were wrapped up thoroughly enough that not even he was busting out.
Good to know the whole gang was here.
"Got you too?" Skyler mumbled, watching her poor Leaper's continued attempts to spring himself at their sole companion.
"Mhmm. Earlier today. But, you know, we all have off days. Anyone who says that they don't is bluffing."
"Sure."
Their talking seemed to set Adrian over once more and he loosed an impressively long scream, right up until he sagged facedown in sheer exhaustion where she could see the frenetic rise and fall of his back. Yeesh.
"Is he going to be alright?" Cat inquired with concern, although it seemed closer to the sort after seeing someone come home from a rough day at school than an appropriate amount of fear of the special infected acting as though he would like nothing more than to get his claws into her. "He's been at this for... probably 45 minutes, an hour now? I thought that he was cool?"
"Uh. Maybe." Give her a minute; she was still functioning at half-speed. "Hadn't seen him around other people until now. Took him a while to get used to me. 'S still hard on him I think ah fuck hrk-"
Skyler dry-heaved and she only managed to keep everything down through force of will and desire not to lose precious food. This was miserable. She fully got why they didn't use this shit to take down people instead of just dogpiling them or whatever.
With the gut spasms calming, she took advantage of Adrian having worn himself out from his fit for the moment to ask, "Who was it? Asshole that got us."
"Oh, it's a couple of them, some Mad Max-looking bogan in duct-tape armor and a dude old enough to be his dad. Nobody special, trust me. Bloody. I'm going to cry if they're out there dicking around with my rifle. There's a lot of time and money poured into Babygirl," Cat verbally rolled her eyes, which got a snort out of Skyler. She had to admit, her confidence was reassuring.
If only the positive attitude did much for Adrian. Call her soft, but it didn't sit right watching him have such a shitty time. Not to mention that it was worrying for their prospects of bringing him around anyone else.
Having watched enough, she decided to at least try, "Adrian. Hey."
He stirred restlessly with another hoarse growl.
"You're with me? You're, like, here?" She forgot her hands were bound and failed to gesture this, but hopefully it still conveyed the message.
Whether he understood or not, he shifted from his murderous glower to a fleeting glance of dismay.
Figured as much. That at least told her he was hearing her. "We'll get out of this," she muttered, for whatever reassurance it was, "If they wanted us dead, they'd have just done that."
Which raised plenty of questions about what these guys were doing. Skyler could easily tell that Cat and herself had been stripped of their possessions. Maybe this was just a robbery? Hell, that wasn't the worst thing that could happen to someone out in the zone.
"That's pretty typical," Cat chimed in brightly, "Most folks like this, they're real babies about it. Think they're going to rough you up no-nonsense, but then as soon as you, 'Ow, stop, you're hurting me!' you can just see them, 'Ah. Mmh. No, that doesn't feel so good.' Which means, that- Oh! Think I hear them coming. Shh. Play it cool, I didn't say anything." She concluded with an impish wink, giving Skyler the bizarre feeling of being in on someone's big prank.
Once Skyler started being able to make out words, the conversation that drifted towards the room they were kept in seemed to corroborate Cat's observations about these not being pros.
"-are we even gonna ask for? Vehicle for sure, right? Guns? Definitely guns. What else? Marv? Like what else, to ride this out? Hey, I'm asking you a-"
"Boy, I know that you're asking me a question. Food, for one. We're not getting far with your car and guns without it. But I am telling you. What would she be doing out here if anyone was coming back for her?"
"Because of the damn... the Hunter! That's got to be some government experiment shit! Right? Just following her around like that?"
Fuck.
They were coming around the door now, and sure enough, Cat had done a fantastic job at description. Mr. Duct Tape Armor leaned into the doorframe first, probably all of 25 and 5'6 or so, more focused on his beef with his buddy than on their captives.
With a heavy sigh, said buddy caught up. The older man surveyed the three of them with weary concern.
"They're a bunch of little girls, Fred," he waved.
"He's a guy, actually," Cat chipped in, motioning with her head towards Adrian.
To his credit, the old man did rub the back of his neck and nod, apologetic. Likely seeing that she was awake, he half-crouched near Skyler's feet.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... disrespect your-"
Skyler nodded once more down the line towards the seething Hunter.
"...Sorry."
Once that awkward pause had passed, Skyler gritted her teeth and narrowed her eye at the strangers.
"Look, you've already cleaned us out," she scowled, "What else do you want? Is this about to get creepier?"
Not the best idea to have such a mouth on her, but it was too baked-in for her to shut it off and she was right, they had yet to be seriously harmed. Even Adrian, which was something of a surprise.
Duct Tape Armor of course had to play it up, though, fronting towards them stanced in his glistening silver outer ensemble. "I don't know, girl, is it? No! Of course it's not! What, are you calling me a creep? You think I look like a-"
"Give it a rest, Fred. We're all gonna calm down for a minute." Old Man bent slowly down to sit between Skyler and Cat. Closer, Skyler noticed both that he was the one with the tranquilizer gun at his hip and an assortment of old, healed bites and scratches on his hands. Animal dude of some kind, probably. "We just want a little bit of information out of you, and once we get what we need, we'll see about letting you loose. We'll even make sure you're not going out there unarmed if you can give us scout's honor. Do you understand? All that we need is a bartering token, and I'm sorry that has to be you."
Ugh. Regardless of how polite this dude was, the paternalistic tone was grating her, especially from someone who was holding her prisoner.
"I can almost promise you that what's going on is less interesting than you're thinking, but you're the ones with my gun, so go ahead and ask, I guess," she grumbled. What was the worst they were going to do with that information, anyway? She doubted Sad Max and Grandpa here were organizing a big group attack from the looks of their operation. It was embarrassing to have been caught by these guys.
"...So you'll really let us go?" Cat spoke, far more uncertain than she'd been just prior to the men entering the room, "That's all you want?"
"Man's only as good as his word," Duct Tape Armor vowed. It was pitifully obvious how his chest puffed out and how honorable he was trying to sound.
Old Man shook his head yet again, then started with, "Do you have a name I should be calling you? I know the young lady over there is Cat."
"...Skyler."
"Understood. Where-" He was forced to stop to wait for some of Adrian's godawful racket to pass, then sighed expectantly down at her, "Is he going to keep doing that? Can you tell him to stop?"
"Don't think he can help it."
"Right. Where are you coming from, Skyler?"
"New Haven. I'm just trying to get home."
"Mhmm. And where's that, Skyler? Who are you with? That's some interesting equipment you have on you."
They had left her in her partially-shredded padded vest, likely because it would have been a tight squeeze for even Adrian who was only marginally bigger than her, and they'd presumably seen everything else she was carrying when they patted her down and stripped her.
"First Refugee Militia at Midway base. Does it matter?"
"It might. We'd like to hear a little more about that. I'm going to be totally honest with you. I trust people like you about as far as I can throw you. But I'm sure you can tell times have gotten tough out here. And I'm sure your people are eager to get you back. I'm proposing-"
"Get to the goddamn point, Marv! Your Army buddies will get you and their pet Hunter back when they bring us what we want, and then you can go fucking wherever. Screw this, I'm calling them myself," the poorer-tempered younger man interjected. To Skyler's dismay, he pulled her radio out of his own pocket and was presumably about to do as he said up until she yelled,
"No, wait, shit, don't tell them!"
"What, girl? You don't want to be rescued? I hate to break it to you, but we've got you pretty good here."
"About the fucking-! Him! They don't know about him!"
It succeeded not only in getting Duct Tape Armor to stop but in provoking a baffled silence throughout the room. Old Man just shrugged his shoulders, but DTA was apparently having a hard time with it. Predictably, when he finally did speak, what came out was an almost-choked,
"What do you mean, they don't know?!"
"Listen! Fuck! I found this kid like a week and a half ago! I didn't tell them he was infected!"
"Do they not?" even Cat had to chime in amazement, stifling a stunned laugh, "Oh, you didn't tell me that one."
DTA's impatience had rapidly transformed into disbelief and alarm and his questions came a little blended together with an honest-to-god crack in his voice. "So this is like, literally just some Leaper you picked up?"
"Gee, I sure guess so, huh?"
"What did you think was going to happen when they saw?!" he railed while pacing the room and throwing his arms about, which boy, was Adrian not pleased about.
"Fucking I was going to figure that out! Can you all get off my back? What do I say then?"
"Why are you asking me?!"
"I don't know, because you seem to have such a great idea of what I should do!"
"I mean he's got a point," Cat oh-so-helpfully added at Skyler's expense, "You can't exactly dress him up and act like, 'Ohh, you know, just a perfectly normal totally-not-Hunter'."
"I'm open to suggestions!" Skyler fumed, maybe just a little too hard to cover up for the fact the ill-advised idea had briefly crossed her mind.
Grandpa finally put his foot down, quite literally, while raising his voice above the Hunter growling and back-and-forth, "Can all of you shut it for just five minutes so we're not standing around here screaming at each other?"
The order was commanding enough that even Adrian obeyed briefly if only to determine what had happened before resuming his snarling. Of course, Skyler was the one to break it in a low mumble,
"Don't hold your breath. No one's coming anywhere near here. Why do you think I'm walking?"
Although DTA scowled as if he was trying to accuse her of "she started it", Grandpa did nod thoughtfully. He then took a deep breath and got back to his feet.
"I think that Fred and I have a few things to talk about. Excuse us for a minute," he appeased.
After a minute had passed since the men had stepped out, Cat shook her head with a smirk. "What a couple pieces of work," she mouthed, "How you holding up, tough girl?"
"Eugh. I hate them I hate them I hate them," Skyler commiserated, choosing to excuse the girl having ripped on her for now.
"Right? Which one's worse, your opinion? I'm calling Road Warrior just because he gives me the vibe he wouldn't let off texting me after finding out I'm gay," Cat snickered contagiously.
"Nah. Nope. Grandpa for sure. 'Little girls'? Really? At least the other one's upfront about being a dick. Mostly. But can't really blame them for wanting to get in a car and blow this ghost town. Fucking good luck to them if they make good on their word and turn us loose, I guess."
"Come on, don't be that way," Cat insisted, that mischievous glimmer still toying about her face.
"What?"
"Stop playing, Skyler. A couple of idiots get the drop on you and you're going to be like, 'Ah well, since you were so polite to let us go, we're on the level'?" she encouraged.
Hmm. That one needed some thought. Eventually, Skyler had a concoction. "Alright, I've got something. How about if we manage to spring ourselves, we give them a taste of what they gave us? Tie them up and toss them in the closet to let them squirm for a while? Make sure to tell them that this is the time-out corner where toddlers who can't stop fighting with each other go until they learn how to get along. That good for starters?"
Cat just smiled back at her.
"Yeah?" Skyler asked to gauge the response.
The only answer she got was a quirked eyebrow. "I just think you're cute, is all," Cat teased, but it looked strangely like her sly smile was past Skyler, towards Adrian in some sort of shared, knowing moment as he simmered in whatever the virus did to his brain in the presence of healthy people, though it was one-sided on her part.
After some time of staring at the wall contemplating just what Cat was getting at, with no sign yet of their captors having finished their chat, Skyler rotisseried facing Adrian. Either he'd reached the "acceptance" stage of not being able to chow down or else was working the energy up to go into another full-blown fit. She decided that was good enough for her, so long as he wasn't actively busting his restraints.
"Adrian. Wait up. I'm coming over," she called quietly, "Just-" She grunted with the workout of rolling herself a few times. This was harder than it looked on her core muscles. Eventually, she dumped herself close by, though she couldn't do much other than check on him and talk. "Oof. Hi."
All that got through the rags was a dull sort of rumble, not that he would have been able to answer intelligibly. There were other ways he got his point across though, as she was realizing, and the tired look he gave her followed by a jerk of his chin towards where the men had vanished with a growl said enough.
"Yeah. I'm pissed off too," she grumbled. They were on the same page there. Whether it was remaining fuzziness from the tranqs or whatever, something compelled her to go a little further, "You're scared?"
"Hnn?" There wasn't any comprehension of what she'd just asked.
How to show this? "Scared?" she tried again, making an exaggerated nervous face which got a concerned noise out of him, even in his state. Nodding in his direction seemed to do the trick. He visibly tensed even further at first, but slowly loosened up enough to let out a sigh through his nose and a furtive little nod as if for no one else to see. Feeling a fierce urge to bite when backed into a corner. That sounded about right; she and he weren't so different there.
Casually as she could, she shrugged, "I told you I'd get us out of this, didn't I? You should know me better by now. These guys should be the ones scared. They're messing with a real bunch of badasses here. Mhmm." She failed pretty miserably at flexing her biceps with her bound wrists, but put on the same slow, self-assured grin she would if she was at the bar showing someone that she worked out nonetheless.
A beat passed where she wasn't sure she'd gotten any response at all let alone the intended one. Once it hit though, she was delighted to hear Adrian's exasperated groan, and she cackled quietly as he turned his head to the side to get away from her idiocy. Oh, good. The green flu hadn't totally trashed his ability to recognize when someone was making an ass out of themselves.
"Aw, oh no," Cat chuckled in what at least sounded like a genuine expression of assurance, "She's so right! Locked in the Claire's Crew is totally going to come out on top."
"Locked in the Claire's Crew," Skyler echoed. This girl could be strange at times, but she sure was charming.
"And hey, listen, both of you. I'm going to share a little secret with you. To keep hush-hush. It's a good one. You remember I'd been saying that with guys like this, they're always too afraid to-?"
Cat cut off, hearing the men's voices at the same time as Skyler did. "Okay, okay. I'm just saying, I wouldn't be too worried if I was you," she whispered, a twinkle in her eye and excited as a girl at a slumber party, "Just remember to keep it between friends."
With that, she twisted her wrists to the side and back, giving a little display of spirit fingers with plenty of slack to spare before laying still once more. Oh, shit!
Skyler hurried to conceal her surprise in the minute before DTA and Grandpa could make it back into the room. For once they weren't shouting over the top of each other, making her wonder what kind of agreement they'd come to in their time out. DTA was glowering in random directions around the shop instead of directly at anyone, perhaps disappointed that their original plan of bugging out with all they could obtain from her handlers wasn't working out.
"So no bullshit," he prodded, "About no one coming for you?"
"Nope," she vowed again with a round pop of her lips, "No standing evac station left in the state, and you're looking at the only one who lived trying to route out this way."
"Damn, girl. That's cold."
"Fred and I talked it over, and neither of us feels quite comfortable putting the two of you back on the street. I don't know if you realize how dangerous it is to be just wandering out there-"
Indignant, Skyler nearly knocked her head against the floor trying to sit up to get at this guy. "Fucking-! How dangerous it is, you're looking at me like six inches away from spooning this goddamn Hunter! Gonna tell me about dangerous-"
"...So we would like it if you stayed the night. Just overnight, and think things over. I want the offer to stand that we're willing to give you a place to stay for the time being. It's not much, but it's what there is. If morning gets here and you decide that you'd still rather go it on your own, or walk back to wherever it is you're going, then I won't be the one to stop you." Grandpa let his proposal air, surveying Skyler especially, then followed up with, "You're not happy with me."
"Nope," she repeated herself flatly.
"If that's how it is, that's how it is," Grandpa shrugged curtly.
Skyler roiled at the tone of waiting for her to realize that he was the rational one in this situation but said no more until Cat breathed a resigned sigh and spoke,
"I'm okay with that. I'll think about it. Skyler, I don't trust it any more than you do, but I think it's the best thing to do. What about you?"
This was going to boil Skyler from the inside to say and she was certain that if she said too much it was going to show, but with some sort of plan obviously going on here that she didn't have all the specifics of, she managed to choke it down and balefully mutter, "Sure."
Their agreement superficially secured, the old man passed a nod along to the younger, who punctuated with his own, "Yeah. Yeah."
"Can I-?" Cat began, then winced, "Is it okay if one of you takes me to the toilet, though? I-it's alright if somebody has to come with me. Just. You won't make me do that in front of everyone, will you?" Split the group. Okay, this was getting somewhere.
The men couldn't really be faulted for taking a minute to think about that one. Admittedly it sounded a bit like a movie shenanigan, but perhaps persuaded by Cat's willingness to be supervised, the unspoken conversation sided in favor.
"Go on, Fred. I've got a couple words to have with this one anyways," Grandpa gruffly assented. Uh-oh. "And I'd better not catch you trying to flirt up a girl who can't tell you to shove it and leave," he added sternly.
"Would you-! Stop making me sound like an idiot, old man! I'm going to take her to the bathroom, and when we come back she can tell you I was nothing but polite. So you shove it. Fuck," DTA chafed, glowering in spite as he crouched down beside Cat to saw haphazardly through the cordage around her ankles with a knife. That accomplished, he braced her against him to get her to her feet and steady. "Come on, girl. Sorry about him. He's always like this," he grumbled in plain range of hearing before they exited through the front.
Good luck, Cat. So that left just Skyler, Adrian, and Grandpa, who'd said he wanted a word with her. Great.
"What are you going to do with him?" she demanded without needing one word out of him. It was obvious that's where this was going. Or maybe the certainty was just a smidgeon of panic, but she wasn't ready to cop to that one quite yet.
Her instinct had been true, in this case at least. As soon as she'd said it she knew the subject had been on the old man's mind. "Don't know. Was going to ask you the same thing."
Her reply was harsh and fast, "Yeah, well pretty soon that's not going to be your problem, is it?"
"Fair enough, I suppose."
Nothing more was said, up until an odd noise disrupted Adrian's consistent grumbling; garbled, wet coughing that had him rolling to the side with his eyes watering. After watching this for a minute, Grandpa started in his direction with stony purpose.
Skyler's heart did an involuntary tap-dance. "He's not fucking hurting anything like this!" she fired, a lance of four-month-old dread freshly piercing the forefront of her brain even if rationally she knew this wasn't the same scenario, "Can't you just back off and leave him-"
"Settle down, girl," Grandpa dismissed as he crouched behind Adrian, which was infuriating right up until with adept motions and a knowing step, he tugged at the back of the bindings, and-
A second later, Adrian spat out the remaining rags, unusually red in the face and still getting over the coughing by the time Grandpa stepped well out of biting range. Frankly, it looked pretty gross, the fabric utterly soaked and more spit flying from his mouth with each cough. He didn't even muster up a growl for a good minute or so.
Dumbfounded, Skyler could only stare at the exceptionally slobbery scene, interrupted when Grandpa nodded, "Mhmm. That's what I thought. Can't imagine you'd have been happy with me if I let him aspirate on the saliva. That right there is where you get the foaming. Just keeps producing it and can't swallow all of it proper."
That was a nice nugget of information that she sure as hell hadn't expected to be getting. Skyler blinked, forced into some quick reconsideration of the man. "You're, uh. A doctor or something?"
"Not a people one," he explained as he got fully to his feet with a grunt. "Still. Something I've seen more than once in my career. The weird thing is that these ones are still up and biting after all this time."
With the gag out Adrian hadn't resumed screaming, though if that was out of gratitude, confusion, or just catching his breath was up for debate.
Funny how this had worked out. Skyler realized she wasn't going to get much better of an opportunity before she had some explaining to do with their own doctor for a couple of her own questions. "You mean rabies, right? That's the closest thing? Is there anything you could ever... do for it?"
"You sound like you know what we did. We kept the animal under observation, and once we had a strong suspicion, we generally euthanized quickly as we could so testing could be done."
Shit. Yeah, she had known that and hardly knew why she'd asked.
"You know. It was for safety, but it was the kindest thing to do, too. That's no way for anything to die. One of the worst," he added, softening slightly but earnestly.
Was that supposed to be pointed? Or was Skyler just feeling defensive? "Well. He's not dead yet, so I don't think either of us knows what's going to happen," was her best rebuff.
Grandpa nodded, which somehow made it worse than if he'd doubled down and fought her on it. "Suppose that's true. Just not in me to not say anything."
She'd have taken Adrian's howling over the silence after that little talk. Thankfully it didn't last too long, although what broke it raised a glaringly red flag; Adrian's body tensing sharply, then shaking with a growl that increased in volume as his teeth bared and he fixed a single-minded stare out the door and into the hall. A scuffling sound came from down there with no words to accompany it.
Understandably, this raised Grandpa's eyebrow, and he was smart enough not to just run out to investigate. "Fred?" he called, shaking his head and sighing when he got no response, "Girl, I swear if you're out there trying to run out into the street without your guns and-"
But it wasn't Cat's voice that came, and the one that did was hardly recognizable as DTA's. It was guttural, agonized, liquidy in an all-too-recognizable way.
"Ghhk-... Hggglp..."
However many times she'd heard similar, the rattle still turned Skyler's gut. Hell. It was unsurprising an escape attempt had ended badly for someone, but that didn't make it particularly pleasant.
Of course, that got Grandpa jumping out of hesitation into action, running for the door. "Jesus Mary and Joseph, Fred-"
Before he made it, the other man managed to stagger his way into the doorway, just barely holding up his weight hugging the wall. In the few seconds before he sagged weakly towards the floor, the thing that got Skyler was how oddly shallow the oozing smile drawn across his throat below his chin was; deep enough to weaken, to choke, shallow enough to find his way back here. To call for help.
Grandpa rushed to get a look at the damage, having to fight with DTA struggling to duck his chin with whatever strength he had left in a desperate bid to stymie the bleeding. "Shit. Shit," he hissed, "Knock that off. It's bad, but not that bad. We've just got to get you-"
A sharp snap split the air that registered an instant later as a round leaving Cat's suppressed sniper. Skyler was jumped enough that second was just a flurry of her knocking back against the floor and Adrian hissing. Immediately Grandpa went down in front of DTA yelling like a wounded animal on a knee that was obliterated badly enough to spray bits of bone along with blood as the bullet lodged. Heart still slamming itself against the inside of her chest from the startle, Skyler was stuck watching as the old man couldn't do anything but gasp and moan, his face white as a sheet.
It took too long for Cat to saunter in from wherever she'd taken the shot from, rifle given its rightful place in her back harness and pleased as punch with her handiwork.
"Cat. Cut me loose and let's get out of here," Skyler spoke, the thought of showing these guys what they got for snatching the three of them up chased from her mind by the gristly scene. By the end she had to shout at the top of her voice over Adrian who was absolutely maddened trying to throw himself towards uninfected blood. Regardless of whatever else he was, here and now he was a rabid animal. "Shit. Think we can put him under with that dart gun on the old man?"
Cat's laugh was jarring enough, but everything that was missing in her demeanor was probably worse. "Seriously? You're for real? I thought you were joking before," she chuckled in surprise. The girl rolled her eyes but did cross over to her and Adrian's side of the shop. "Alright, hang on, I'll get you in just a minute. Just let me..."
On her way over, she stopped, distracted by huffing and movement from Grandpa as the poor old guy had shakily tried to start shifting himself across the floor towards where he'd left the tranquilizer gun, then by Adrian's contorted, screaming heap.
"Oh, pffh. Where're my manners?" she stopped herself, shaking her head, "You've been stuck in here with us too, after all, haven't you?" Her gaze rose to make eye contact with Grandpa as she crossed and kneeled behind Adrian in much the same manner as the man had while freeing him from his gag.
"No. No," the old man started weakly and holy fuck no, there was no way Skyler was on board for this.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" she shouted in disbelief, "Cat! They can't stop us! We can just walk out! He'll lose his shit on us, too!"
As if considering this, Cat hummed, putting a hand to her chin. "I don't know. Let's ask him. I think he'll get it; just needs to get some of what's his." She snapped her fingers a couple of times to get his attention, clearly repeating a couple of times, "Adrian. Adrian."
His focus was limited, but he followed and then transfixed when she pointed to Grandpa.
"You want him? Yeah? You want that?"
His panting had reached near hyperventilation, frantically looking from Cat to Grandpa and back.
"Only him? If I let you go?" she pointed once more and then tugged lightly at the ropes around his wrists.
There was a point where his eyes fell on Skyler, and in that glance, she knew simultaneously that there was very much still something that didn't know what to do and that he was going to do it anyway. Between the blood and the sickness, he didn't have a choice in the matter. And he nodded. Feverishly, probably hardly understanding what he was nodding to. Cat smiled and tipped her head as if to say, "See?"
"Don't do this. Please," spilled from the old man's mouth in a low groan, and maybe Skyler was reading too much into this, but she could have sworn that rather than to Cat who had no qualms about it, he was pleading to Adrian.
Adrian's arms fell free and he shoved himself into an upright position, legs flexing already as he started to tear at the bindings there. A shudder shook him following Grandpa's words, which seemed to put a final, last-moment hope into the man.
"Don't," was the single, tremulous word that the old man managed.
"Don't-" Skyler broke through the shock to echo, not that it would have helped.
Cat's knife finished slicing through the ropes on his legs.
And it was over.
A/N: Wow, this one sure wound up being a monster, didn't it? I debated back and forth about splitting it into two, but eventually figured it'd be less choppy to just do one longer-than-typical chapter. As always, I love and appreciate any comments or feedback! Always great for the motivation to see folks are still along for the ride. Glad to be pretty back in the saddle as far as updates go and hope everyone reading has been well!