Cause and Effect

Chapter 13

monochopsis [mona-chop-sis]

(n). the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place,  

//--//--//

They left John up on that ridge. 

Left him to watch this gang? family? (doesn't matter, now, it's not yours) rush down, storming, breaking, rushing into Fort Mercer with anger and fury that he had never seen. 

He felt like an outsider, staring in, like one of those pictures he used to hate when he was a child, of those little street urchins staring in at the family. He didn't want this, he had survived for twenty-five years, he was more than goddamn capable of taking care of himself. Had proved it to himself far too many times. 

But for some reason, he stayed and watched. 

//--//--//

"Arthur," Charles sounded distressed, and Arthur sighed heavily, cracking an eye open, letting his vision waver in and out of focus before he dared to turn his head. 

"Hm," he grunted. "What?"

"You hear that?"

Arthur stared at Charles, the words not registering for a few long seconds. There was shouting, guns shots richoccetting off of walls and slamming into the ground. He managed to pull himself up from the slumped position he had been in for the past few days, legs screaming in pain. 

"You think they're here?" He asked Charles softly, not daring to believe it. 

His heart was beating fast, and he felt more energized than he had in days, hoping that a del Lobo didn't decide to waltz in the shack and put a bullet in both of their heads. 

"We gotta get out of here," he muttered, eyeing his wrists. They were bloodied, scabbed over from his futile attempts when he had strength to pull against the shackles. 

The wall next to Charles splintered, a bullet embedding itself in the wood. Charles shrank down as much as he was able to, cursing quietly. Arthur stared at the damage for a few seconds, staring out the ragged hole at the limited view. He couldn't see much, only flashes of color and tore his gaze away from it to glance around him hopelessly again. There wasn't anything in the shack, he had turned over and tried everything over and over again. 

More bullets shattered the wood, raining debris and dust on them. Arthur felt panicked, pulling roughly at the shackles holding him to the wall, adrenaline giving him the energy to respond to the crisis. 

He could hear them, could hear their shouts, could hear the familiar recoil and kickback of Dutch's Python, could hear Hosea's yells. He felt a rush of anger, wanting more than anything to be out there with them, and was suddenly overcome with a deep sense of longing, slumping back into the wall, when the shackles didn't give. 

//--//--//

They had attacked the fort with little preface, choosing rather to rush it and try to wipe the del Lobo hideout right there and then. It was proving to be a difficult feat, more men than even Hosea had previously planned for, and they were fighting in earnest. 

They caused their own bit of damage, plenty of Dutch's boys dabbled in explosives and Molotov's, and part of the fort was crackling now, burning under Sean's quickly lobbed cocktails. It was a risky move, they still didn't know where Arthur and Charles were, and a fire in the middle of a dry plain would no doubt attract first responders and unwanted attention faster than they wanted, but it would smoke the del Lobos into playing their cards faster than they wanted, so no one had exactly told Sean not to throw the Molotov cocktails.