Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 73: This Desert Ain't Big Enough...

Kelly spent her days of recovery cooped up in the Prydwen, burning a quiet flame of fury, weaving a sinful path of dark secrets and self-destruction, drowning in the molasses of her sorrow, and herself. War was yawning and stretching below and all around her, and she was powerless on it's cusp. A restless, pacing creature by day, a languid, derelict creature by night.

She would overlook the camp far below, watching it expand and grow denser with defences day by day, wondering where Danse fit in amongst it all and if he was coping with the same restlessness and soul-searching as her. How would he react when she told him what happened between her and Maxson? Because she had to tell him. The thought of making him a victim of her sins was unbearable.

As for her other secrets and sins, the torture she inflicted on that wretched raider, the Jet, the hallucinations and her encroaching insanity, they were her burdens and hers alone. He had been through enough. She was protecting him from herself and keeping him out of her darkness was the only way she could see of not destroying him further. Or anyone else that needed her fortitude.

She envied those free soldiers as they came and went in the camp, free to their simple responsibilities to their units, free to the simple task of killing things that needed killing out there.

Out on the Flight Deck, under constant guard to prevent the suicide attempt the Elder was paranoid she would make, she would follow the vertibirds with slitted eyes in the cruel sunlight, wondering at their daily excursions to No Man's Delta in the deep valley beyond, but omitting to question the Elder on their operations. The Elder, in return, left her to her own devices.

In fact, it was suspiciously as though he was avoiding her, relying only on Cade's regular psych eval reports, which she was skillfully outmaneuvering. Deacon's Railroad spy tips, a pre-war psychology education, and a natural knack for psychological insight had it's advantages.

The shadow of Maxson's lips were stained on hers, like a phantom kiss she couldn't rid herself of. She wanted to hate the memory of it. She hated the way her body had responded to his. Heated and malleable under his domineering press. His boldness had unlocked her and she was furious at herself. And him.

Some nights, to keep her mind from twisting in on itself, she would watch the oil wells burn off their rich deposits into the wailing eyes of the stars. The Earth was already beaten and ravaged, what more was the smouldering of her dark blood?

Other nights, she would give in and burrow into the delicious dark of her quarters, pining for Danse as the radiation crept in around her, reducing her into a curl of quivering limbs. He was just beneath her, just an airdrop's distance away, right there, yet so far and unreachable it was torturous. All she had of him to dwell on was the memory he left of his arms enfolding her in their delirious slumber down in the bunker. Nate hadn't come for her again, and she was both thankful and mournful for it. The Jet became her decadent sanctum and a filler for the void Danse left in her, and she couldn't sleep without it.

But she was running dry.

Hancock was the only source out here she could crawl to, at least until they could get a supply chain up and running with the Children of Atom. This fucking prison Maxson kept locking her in. Locked away from Danse, away from the Minutemen, away from Jet; it was going to kill her if she didn't break out. Was the Elder trying to protect her from the world, or protect the world from her?

Or just keep her in close range for his own entertainment?

She thought back to what Groves had snarled after she had caught the two of them fighting in his quarters and then dragged her below deck, that Maxson only brought her with him for her entertainment value, that their rivalry was a healthy challenge that turned him on, along with the doses of satisfaction he got from each victory over her. Maxson strove to be an honorable man, in his own sense of the notion. He was radical and misguided, but honor was a focal point for him, and a raw nerve she could pick at whenever he screwed up. So could he really be that corrupt, perverted? Or was Groves the corrupt one, driven by an overprotective sense of duty to her young Elder, or maybe even jealousy?