lie to me → s.d.

.30 | his muse

The footsteps drew closer and the voices came to a head. They were just outside, just on the other side of the hollowed stern. Sam and Theodora's footsteps were the 'X' marking their hiding spot amidst the rotting wood and decaying rubble, labored breaths practically screaming out their location. The mercenaries knew where they were; they were toying with them, making them wait for what they knew was the inevitable.

          Theodora huddled deeper into Sam's side and blinked against the small glint of sunlight that wiggled through a crack bouncing off the barrel of his pistol. His finger was curled dangerously around the trigger, the safety flicked off in a show of just how far he would be willing to go. To hell and back was an understatement.

          Just when it seemed like the mercenaries were about to enter the ship's empty belly and find them, drag them out into the daylight and put bullets in the backs of their heads, something rocked the earth beneath them. It took a moment for them to realize it had come from above, on top of the ship, when a wave of cracking gunshots sang out and created a symphony of the Shoreline men yelling for their lives. Debris, small planks of wood and dust, fell from over their heads and Sam leaned over Theodora, allowing the rubble to bounce off his own back instead of hitting her.

          The flying bullets and shouting suddenly halted, and more footsteps began to approach their hiding spots, shoes digging into the sand and growing closer, ever closer. They both seemed to hold their breaths, pray to some god they didn't believe in as he pointed his pistol at the opening they had crawled through. They waited. Waited for something unknown, waited for something they already knew.

          "You guys in there?" said a voice from outside.

          Sam's brow quirked and he swallowed thick, then dared a glance around the corner. "Nate?"

          Pressing a hand to her shoulder, Theodora scrambled around the side, her heart racing like a dog on a track. Sure enough, she picked up her head and found not only Nathan, alive and well and sporting a nasty-looking gash on his forehead, but Elena standing beside him as well. How his wife had followed them all the way here, again, boggled her mind, but she couldn't think about it for too long, because they were already helping to haul them out from the wrecked ship.

          "Aren't you guys a sight for sore eyes," said Sam, placing a hand over his own thundering heart. "Where the hell'd you come from?"

          "Well," said Elena and rested a leisurely elbow on Nathan's shoulder, "some cranky old pilot just so happened to know where a trio of thieves were heading, so..."

          "Sully's here?" said Sam.

          Nathan wrapped his brother and Theodora in hugs, the latter a much gentler one, before waving a hand down the beach. He pointed and, if they looked hard enough, they were able to spot a few small docks attached to a number of houses just around the bend. Another Libertalian neighborhood. "Just up there a ways. Got a first aid kit with your name on it, T."

          Theodora mustered up a smile, but that was all she could manage, because her limbs were beginning to tingle with pins and needles and the toes of her boots were starting to drag in the sand. She allowed Sam to wrap her arm over his shoulder and take her middle, keeping her upright as they made their way to the docks. "Oh, god," she murmurs when her head suddenly spun like she was on a merry-go-round. She lost her footing and at that point, he was practically dragging her along with him. "I think I might throw up."

          "I know," said Sam, and nodded when Nathan took her other arm. "Just a little further; you think you can do that for me?"

          She tried to reply, and found that she couldn't force another word from her throat, so acted like she hadn't heard him and simply carried on.