Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 92: Breath

*WARNING*
Violence, gore, and torture. I never like to disappoint, after all.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Danse's aching limbs protested the use of stealth, but he persevered throughout the night, allowing his power armor to do the lion's share of the exertion for him. But he was exceedingly aware of the level of noise he was creating with each step despite his best efforts at loping soundlessly over the terrain, power armor just wasn't designed for stealth ops; something Kelly had lamented over whenever he accompanied her on her missions. He had lost count of the amount of incidents in which he had accidentally obliterated her element of surprise in combat situations. Only a few of those incidents had been deliberate after they had bickered over something trivial and she had somehow come out on top, but mostly, it had been accidental.

Subsequently, he had not appreciated her calling him a bumbling ogre. Now, through the nostalgic glaze of hindsight, he appreciated it for the memory of it.

Deviant thoughts of Kelly like these were a constant companion for him as the night progressed. No matter how hard he tried to keep a clear head and not get wound up in emotional sentimentalities, they would hem him back into his memories. But they did serve him an advantage. They pushed him harder, through the threshold of exhaustion and sleep deprivation, through dehydration and hunger pains, through the possibility of losing the one thing he still lived for.

He was out of water, low on food rations, and nearly depleted of microfusion rounds. He had used his second fusion core for his suit and had only two spare. The situation was becoming troubling, but not dire. There were plenty of raider patrols to ambush for supplies, a sufficient amount of plants he had yet to investigate for possible edibles or water contents, and once he reached that canyon, there would be a plethora of fresh water, and therefore, wildlife to hunt for consumption.

He had missed this. Boots on the ground, living off the land, on the edge of survival. With Kelly once again safe and by his side, the world could be theirs again.

He just had to get to her in time.

Danse ploughed on through dipping gulches and craggy ranges, an imaginary waypoint where he had seen those muzzle flashes and heard the screams from the top of the ridge. The point had been just about at the halfway mark to the canyon, between two firelit outposts. It had been too distant to accurately distinguish Kelly's scream from another woman's, but if it had belonged to her... Cruel images burned before his eyes. He had promised her that he would never let that happen to her while he still breathed. Goddamnit. He had promised her. He couldn't bear the thought of failing that promise. Couldn't bear finding her broken in her own body, afraid of his nearness, afraid of his touch, of what he represented-the sadism in man. He would never forgive himself.

Predawn bled into a fuchsia sky. He was nearing the spot where he had spotted the fight, using the two distant outposts as guides. His approach was slow and steady until he saw a flicker of tawny material in the wind and then legged it at full speed, thinking it a body lying flat on the ground. Instead, he was standing over a weathered and bloodied desert cloak, pinned down by a spent .45 combat rifle. Arrows lay scattered around a scene painted with blood, but there were no bodies.

Checking his immediate surroundings, Danse knelt next to the Brotherhood issue cloak and removed his helmet. Just because Kelly had been reported to have left camp clad in a desert cloak didn't mean that this was hers. Many Brotherhood soldiers had fallen out on patrols and their cloaks would have been pilfered by the raiders as valuable paraphernalia.