Sacrifices

Chapter 5: Gunsmoke

"I know you."

"Jacqs," Those eyes. Dark and warm, like dirt turned to mud after the rain. She knew those eyes, "I am nothing without you."

The wasteland air burned her flesh and the stench of radioactive decay inundated her senses. But if she squinted, and peered through the blurry slats between her eyelids, the soft gray moonlight cast upon the peaks and valleys of the waves, and the moon full and bright, strung high above the moor of the warring sea, was just as beautiful as before.

And the stars… Had there always been so many? They filled the night sky from east to west, north to south, the darkness few and far between them. Tiny, glittering pin pricks that unlocked the secrets of the past. Painting the black sky with myth and folklore, legends of times long since passed.

"Don't be afraid," That face. She'd seen that face before, it still lingered in her dreams. And she wondered what it would be like to fall. Would the cosmos catch her or would she fall right on through? Just another pin prick, forgotten amongst the stars, lost in the sands of time.

Cold metal was pressed into her hand and the barrel raised to push against her temple, "Together?"

She reached out her free hand and rough fingers enclosed around hers, "Together."

She was going home.

"Jacqueline… Jackie…"

"Jackie!"

The trance was broken and the grainy bits and pieces of the hallucination dissolved like salt in her wounds that the tearing of time had inflicted. Ripped apart and haphazardly put back together, left for dead as her lesions wept, bleeding out in the hollow grave of the vault.

Except it wasn't the wasteland that burned her skin, it was the tang of sulphur hovering in the air and gunpowder soaking into her hands and arms. Invisible fingerprints marking her a traitor for what she had done. She was frozen, unable to move, as if she was watching the scene unfold from someone else's eyes. The rifle was slipping from her hands, primed to clatter to the floor.

"Jackie!"

Danse. His voice. Firm. Commanding. The lighthouse beacon guiding her back to shore in the darkness. Helping her navigate the rocky shoals.

Don't forget to breathe.

Of course. Her lungs required oxygen to sustain life. With a dizzying sensation, her brain commanded her to breathe in. She opened her mouth and gasped for air and with a jolt, life flooded back into her. It was like a wire pulled taught within her. The tension pushing it passed the breaking point, snapping and releasing the primal beast within.

"I told you to shut your goddamn mouth!" Jackie shoved the barrel of her gun against his forehead.

Maxson stumble, shuffling back slightly, blanching with wide-eyed shock as he slowly brought his fingers to his touch his face. They dragged along the laceration, smearing blood in the dark hair of his beard and along his jaw.

"Y- you shot me…" Maybe it was utter astonishment or the realization that Jackie could have easily killed him, but there was something completely alien leaking through his facade. Betraying the man who operated on impersonalities and brute force. Written clear as day across his face. Something Jackie had witnessed only a handful of times while locked away in his quarters… Weakness. Humanity.

Jackie felt her heart squeeze and a strange tightness rise in her chest. Was that guilt? Did she actually feel guilty for taking a pot shot at him?

No. It had to be regret. Regret for not properly getting the job done and laying him out flat on his back once and for all.