Abby sits forcibly with a whump of breath and her attention sticks on Jude as he noses into her space, playing pup. He sits between her knees. The rope of Wags' leash is still tight around her hand but she loosens it, lets it go. He doesn't dash. He seems to understand the gravity of the situation. One of Abby's hand drifts to Jude's shoulder and anchors there, fingers clenching against coarse, warm fur.
She gathers her breath, holding it until she feels like she might burst.
"I was traveling with this kid back home. He saved my life and I wanted to pay him back for that, make it worth his while. And then all we had left was each other, so we decided to keep going." Together. Her, and Lev. Her other hand joins the scruff, worming her fingers in, feeling the tufts. Closer to his heart, Jude is soft, and warmer. "The people he used to be with tried to hurt him. All I wanted to do was to find some place he could be himself, be a kid, but I got us caught."
That fucking radio... She's thought about it a lot since the nightmare. What if that hadn't been the Fireflies at all? What if the Rattlers set the whole place up as a decoy to catch stupid, hopeful idiots like her. She gave away everything in a sixty second call: her name, the size of her group, and their exact location.
She shudders, swallowing thickly. When she blinks two, huge tears roll down her face. She releases Jude to thumb them away, her hand dragging down her face, over her mouth, curling up there. She digs her teeth in the heel of her palm, and breathes. "Caught by a group of hostile survivors. There was too many of them, I couldn't fight them off, and they hurt Lev so I couldn't even try. So I gave up and they took us back to their camp. They had a lot of other slaves there, down in the basements, in cages."
Abby looks rattled just recounting it. She is pale and quiet, her gaze darting up. There is nobody here but the three of them: her, the dog, and the man in-between. Her fingers dust the top of his head, between his ears. She whispers through the spaces between her fingers, "I thought they were going to kill us. But it was worse than that." Dying would have been final. What the Rattlers did to her and Lev went on, and on, and on.
cw mention of slavery
She gathers her breath, holding it until she feels like she might burst.
"I was traveling with this kid back home. He saved my life and I wanted to pay him back for that, make it worth his while. And then all we had left was each other, so we decided to keep going." Together. Her, and Lev. Her other hand joins the scruff, worming her fingers in, feeling the tufts. Closer to his heart, Jude is soft, and warmer. "The people he used to be with tried to hurt him. All I wanted to do was to find some place he could be himself, be a kid, but I got us caught."
That fucking radio... She's thought about it a lot since the nightmare. What if that hadn't been the Fireflies at all? What if the Rattlers set the whole place up as a decoy to catch stupid, hopeful idiots like her. She gave away everything in a sixty second call: her name, the size of her group, and their exact location.
She shudders, swallowing thickly. When she blinks two, huge tears roll down her face. She releases Jude to thumb them away, her hand dragging down her face, over her mouth, curling up there. She digs her teeth in the heel of her palm, and breathes. "Caught by a group of hostile survivors. There was too many of them, I couldn't fight them off, and they hurt Lev so I couldn't even try. So I gave up and they took us back to their camp. They had a lot of other slaves there, down in the basements, in cages."
Abby looks rattled just recounting it. She is pale and quiet, her gaze darting up. There is nobody here but the three of them: her, the dog, and the man in-between. Her fingers dust the top of his head, between his ears. She whispers through the spaces between her fingers, "I thought they were going to kill us. But it was worse than that." Dying would have been final. What the Rattlers did to her and Lev went on, and on, and on.