Barren Crossroads

Claw My Way Out of the Ground

 She went back to the front door and sighed. This probably wouldn't go well. She tested the handle, and pushed, but it to was locked. Shocker.

She glanced around again, but no one had appeared in the seconds she'd been distracted. She braced her shoulder against the door and then gave another shove, one more powerful than before, that did not leave choice for whether the door would remain closed. It wrenched open with a quiet groan of the wood and she pushed it open the rest of the way softly. She stepped in, and the candlelight danced off the walls and the room glowed in à soft orange.

It looked like à home, more like à home than anything had in à long while. She didn't hear anything, she couldn't hear anyone moving around, and couldn't hear anything breathing either. She walked the first floor, circling the living room and the sofa, and stepping into the kitchen. She opened à few of the cabinets and found a small stash of food- crackers, some cereal, even a jar of peanut butter. There was some other food as well, but she didn't linger. There was à bathroom tucked at the end of the hall on this level, but it was empty too.

She came back out to the stair case that lifted from the foyer to the next floor. She checked the two smaller bedrooms, and a master with slightly rumpled sheets that meant that someone had been staying there, at some point. No one was there now. Not in the master en suite bathroom, or the other bathroom. There was no one and a crypt like silence echoed around the house.

There was no way to know how long they had before someone returned. She half hoped that whoever it was wasn't coming back at all. She only had half formed plans if the person did come back- asking them to let them stay, all the way to cold blooded murder. She didn't want to do any of them, but she wouldn't let anything happen to Rick, and she wouldn't get very far if she was dead either.

None of their options were good, but no one knew what was outside, and at least in here they could be warm, and comfortable, if not well rested. She made her way back to the front door. She poked her head out and called out in as loud as à voice as she dared for Rick. He poked his dark head around the wood pile and she waved for him to come over.

"Clear then?" he asked as he climbed the porch and joined her in the entryway.

"As we're gonna get, I guess," she said. "Still won't be getting much sleep. But there's some food in the kitchen, and we can light a small fire. We can be warm tonight at least. There's even some beds."

She didn't really look at him, she didn't know what would happen if she did, or maybe she just didn't know how to without feeling shame and longing and sadness and hope all rolled into one aching mess that she didn't want to think about let alone sort out. "I'm gonna try to clean up à bit, I think," she said, and then she moved passed him and up the stairs to the master bathroom.

She didn't look at herself in the mirror this time, she already knew what she would see. She sank to the floor on the plush rug in front of the tub and rested her head on her knees. It didn't matter if she kept watch by the door or up here. She'd hear anyone before they even made it to the door and she'd be down stairs before Rick stood up. She didn't think about her complicated emotions, but no matter how hard she tried, she replayed Rick's desperate, possessing kiss over and over in her mind.

This was ridiculous. She thought when she met Jace and then the world ended she'd no longer have to deal with the petty and small things like this. But despite the short amount of time she'd spent in his company, Rick's kindness, his acceptance, his presence was something she wasn't sure she'd be able to do without, if she did get to see Jace again.

Then she started thinking about the cure again. There was à catch to it, there had to be. Jordan wouldn't give up that information. He didn't hold any affection or attachment to her past the experiments he used her for. She wondered if it would be painful, or if it would flat out kill her. She wondered if she should test it on another Hunter first, and then decide. And then she sank further into herself as she realized that even if it was fatal, she was too tired to care. She'd welcome it, and she no longer had any stake in if she lived or die. She was just jumping from one tether to the next, first her friends, and then Jace, and now Rick.

She'd stay alive for them for now, but they'd be better off with her cured, whether that was alive or dead.

After a while she walked out of the bathroom and looked at the bed for à while. The rumpled sheets made her skin crawl and she couldn't sleep there where someone else had just been. She made her way back down stairs and found Rick sitting on the floor in front of the fire, watching the flames. She padded up behind him silently, and even when she knew he'd seen her shadow, he didn't turn or say anything. She sat down next to him and crossed her legs.

After à minute, he shifted, and his arm settled over her shoulders. She flinched on instinct, but then she realized that the warmth felt nice, and she didn't feel sick or anxious, and so she relaxed into him, leaning into his side, and resting her head on his shoulder. She listened to the beat of his heart as it thumped steadily in his chest, the soft rasp of his breathing, and the rustle as his hand smoothed across the skin of her arm absently.

They didn't say anything, but the silence didn't feel awkward, and after à while, they shifted naturally to laying next to each other, with her head pillowed on his chest, and the fire warmed some of the ice that felt like it was going to be permanent in her heart. When sleep took her, she didn't realize it.

And when the noises started, she almost thought it was a dream.

Chapter 17

Claw My Way Out of the Ground

The cold air bit across her skin, and her hair tickled at her face. She shifted as she started rising through the haze of sleep and back into reality, and then she was awake, her eye snapping open, and she blinked rapidly as the stars wheeled above her. She tried to speak but her tongue caught against the cloth of a gag and she choked.

She didn't move right away, and she registered that her hands were bound, and she could smell the dank must of fresh turned earth. She heard harsh panting, and à familiar grunt. Rick. She couldn't call out, so she moved to try to sit up. She froze when she felt the cold, hard press of a gun barrel against her temple. À heavy boot settled over her abdomen to keep her down.

"I wouldn't, little girl. I'm not known for thinking things through," came a flat, woman's voice.

She stopped moving, and listened hard. She didn't hear anyone else breathing, or moving around. She grunted and groaned around her gag, trying to speak. "I don't know what you're going to say, friend. Ain't nothing getting you out of this."

The woman nudged Kaelie onto her side with her foot, and she found herself laying on the edge of à deep hole. Rick was laying at the bottom, bound, gagged, and with à swollen eye and blood dried on the side of his head. His wide, blue eyes found hers, and the bounced all over his face. He looked scared, and worried, and not for him. "You broke into my house. What did you think was going to happen? In this new world we're in?"

She came around to the other side of the hole and squatted down so Kaelie could see her. She was tanned, striking, with thick dark hair in a bun, thick jeans, and a long sleeve black t-shirt. "Maybe before, I'd have called the cops. Or out here in the country? I'd have just pumped you full of bird shot, and let you bleed out. Shit, if you'd come over while I was home, I might have even helped you out. But we aren't in that world anymore. I don't have to play by those rules any more."

Kaelie watched her, keeping her dark gaze, and she worked her wrists and fingers around the thin rope around her wrists. She wasn't sure yet what she could do when she did get free, but she had a sick feeling that was like rocks in her gut. The woman's gun was still loosely trained on her, so when she did get her hands loose, she didn't move. She looked down at Rick again, and he shook his head at her.

"You get to be à lot more creative when there aren't any consequences, you know," she mused. "So, I'll tell you how this is going to go. You have à choice. You can get up, and you can bury him, and watch as you both realize the futility of the situation. He dies. Or, you can refuse. And I'll shoot him anyways, and then, I'll shoot you."

Kaelie rolled her eyes even as her heart thundered in her chest, and Rick's panicked groaning around the gag in his mouth. "That's... original," she said. Or she tried to.