Ivory Hill had spent the majority of her adult life running. Throughout her twenties and the first part of her thirties it was from bombs and bullets. Now, at thirty six years old Ivory was running from something that she could never truly escape fr...
Grace slotted another weighty textbook into her bag with difficulty.
"Are you sure Norm needs all of those?" Ivory asked, pushing herself up into a plank.
Grace nodded. "He wants to start a new research paper. They need every book that they can get their hands on."
"That explains the wreck his living room was in then," Ivory winced as her abdominal muscles began to burn.
"Wreck? Are you sure it wasn't Trudy?"
"I'm sure, there was notepaper everywhere. If it had been Trudy it would've been aeroplane blueprints. Or the papers from those cheese slices. I don't know why she likes them so much, they're even worse than the rehydrated shit we had on Pandora."
"Is that my T-shirt?" Grace asked.
Ivory looked down at the black vest top that she was wearing. "Yes. Do you mind?"
"No. It looks good on you." Grace forced her bag closed. "Do you want to come with me?"
Ivory bit her lip then shook her head. "No thanks." She didn't have the energy to sit through Norm and Grace discussing the photosynthesis process of a plant in a ridiculous amount of detail no matter how much she liked the both of them.
"Okay." Grace said easily. "I'll see you later, I shouldn't be more than an hour and a half."
"I'll start the dinner whilst you're gone. What do you want?"
"What do we have in? I meant to go to the grocery store earlier but I forgot."
"A lot of carrots. Some stock I think as well as a bit of chicken. Other than that not much." Ivory pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Maybe some cereal if you look in the back of the cupboard."
"Chicken casserole? I don't think muesli is a very nutritious dinner."
"Sure. I'll make a grocery list and we can go to the store tomorrow, I've got the day off." Ivory released her hair from its ponytail.
"Thanks," Grace bent down and gave Ivory a quick kiss before she darted out of the apartment, lugging the books with her.
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Ivory stood in the kitchen listening to the radio as she sliced carrots, doing her best to pay attention to the chopping board in front of her as her cat threw a tantrum at her feet. "Tigger I'll just be five more minutes then I'll play with you."
The cat flopped onto its back, howling dramatically.
"Seriously?" Ivory raised an eyebrow, throwing some of the carrots into a pan. "Okay fine, two minutes. But I'm blaming you if this ends up tasting like nothing."
Tigger leapt up onto the worktop and settled himself down, watching Ivory work with a look of distaste. He reached out and idly batted a pot of stock with his paw, knocking it onto the floor.
"Really? You're playing it like that?" Ivory bent down and dropped the ingredient back onto the worktop.
The cat looked at the pot for a moment then up at Ivory, maintaining deliberate eye contact as he knocked it back onto the floor.
"Tigger just give me chance to put this away-"
A loud bang sounded from outside, drowning out the noise of the radio completely as it echoed off of the buildings. Ivory jolted, swearing under her breath as she struggled to keep her grip on the knife. "Okay, okay." She muttered to herself, breathing out slowly. Ivory turned the radio off and stood still, her body tensing as beads of sweat began to gather at the small of her back. When no more noise came the woman turned back to the cutting board, hacking the remaining carrot into mismatched chunks. "See? We're alright." Ivory reached out and scratched Tigger behind the ears. "It was probably just a car backfiring. I think-" the words died on her lips as a rapid series of bangs split the night air in two.
The smell of smoke and burning flesh filled Ivory's nose. Her stomach flipped over and she retched, scrabbling to get away from the soil that was forcing its way under her fingernails. The woman bit back a scream of agony as the skin on the side of her face tore open. Warm, wet blood spilled down her cheek and soaked into her T-shirt, staining the olive green fabric a murky reddish brown. "Help! Please, help me!" Ivory rolled onto her knees, struggling to shield her eyes from the thick cloud of smoke and dust that seemed intent on enveloping her. She had to find-
A/N: New Fall Out Boy song! Reformed emos how are we feeling? I somehow managed to write this chapter with a tiktok audio stuck in my head, I deleted the app a while ago but for some reason the contents of it are still burned into my brain.
