Watch As We Burn

Chapter 7

Jo circled the lip of her glass with her fingernail. She looked into the amber liquid blankly. But her knee was bouncing. She was nervous, drowning herself in liqour.

Sean watched her, eyebrows knitted together.

"Jo."

She blew her black hair out of her face, and her knee bounced faster.

He leaned forward, and grabbed her knee under the table. Her eyes snapped up at him. "What." She snarled.

"Stop doing that," She raised an eyebrow and her jaw tightened. "That. Your little ticks. Kyrine, wherever she is, is surely fine."

Jo's eyes narrowed at Sean, and she looked elsewhere. The apartment was silent. Sean's flat was plain, a blotch of red here and there. Orange carpets. But overall whiteness. Blankness. Like her mind was now.

Where is Kyrine? Blank.

Should they contact the Vanguard? Blank.

"I'm going to throw the rug at you if you keep staring at it." He huffed, blue-green eyes rolling.

Slowly, she turned her eyes back up to him.

"I'm worried."

"I tried contact with Nate, nothing. Justin and Sarah answered, Nate may be with her." He sighed. And thought back to the times Kyrine had disappeared from the scanners, into the Wild.

Her tracking device would short out, and no one would know where she had went. Then days later, the white dot bleeped and she was back.

They didn't know how she disconnected it, then again..

No one wanted to know.

She'd always done her own thing, been her own person. Never to let any of them get too close. And never too far.

A feeling simmered low in both their guts. Uncertainty. Worry.

Abruptly, Jo downed the beer in front of her. She coughed once, and belched.

"Ew, Jo, why? Just- ugh. Ugh." He whined flailing his arms. Jo's lips stretched into a small grin.

"Can I have more, please?" She asked sweetly, showing her white teeth. A genuine smile. Almost snarky.

Groaning, he got off the stool and walked to the other side of the countertop. Jo watched him, broad shouldered, tan with flaming ginger hair. Muscular legs and arms.

She grunted to herself, raising her glass and cursing when there wasn't anything to drink away her embarrassment. She pulled on her long sleeved shirt and picked at the faded Tower logo on the hem.

She tugged on her hair with her other hand, watching as he grabs a bottled drink out of the white fridge.

He flashed her a small smile, and uncapped it. It came off with a hiss and tendrils of frosty air curled upwards. It was a black painted bottle. The label had been painted over. But faintly the word Green could be seen.

He walked over to her, and slid it to her side. "This guy right here, over 750 years old. I found it one day when I was in a town in the Wilds. It's almost funny... that in the stage of an alien apocalypse that the beer is persevered and not historical documents." He tapped the bottle, humming to himself.

Jo looked up at him in curiosity.

"It's called The Green Man." He said.

Sean looked back down at her, hair fell over his eye. His face was blank. There was silence for a few moments and then he pushed himself off the counter.