||Series Removed|| OTB

29 - A Taste For Blood

  As per our usual arrangement, Blessing and I eventually located a metal trash can to use as a stove, indulging our risky habit of making indoor camp-fires. Making sure to keep the reception door open for ventilation, we started a small fire in the lobby using the police files from the trashed office.

  Photos of grizzly crime scenes and butchered bodies fuelled our dwindling flames into a roaring blaze... The images of those already dead were being used to keep us alive, a bizarre kind of irony that was not lost on any of us.

  While the Swede started heating up some water for us to cook our instant noodles, the blonde and I just glared at him from the opposite end of the dancing fire. Not a single person had spoken a word since the murder mystery evening took a dive for the worse, and the stranger's satisfied smile didn't help matters at all.

  "I hate him," Blessing finally broke the silence. "I actually hate him, Daniel."

  "Join the club," I scoffed with a laugh. "If one more weirdo shows up on this damned route, I'm freaking done." 

  We both returned to being watchful statues as the magician got awful cosy with Charlotte, whispering words into her ear that she couldn't even begin to comprehend. Since she was the only one to guess our murder victim's fate, she won his stupid game and thus was entitled to his knowledge about the fabled 'Ark'.

  Once he parted with Charlotte to check on our bubbling dinner, Blessing wormed her way past him to find the teenage girl staring off into space. Whatever she'd been told about that mysterious place, it wasn't something trivial. In fact, she seemed warier of Blessing than ever before, no longer thinking that she was just a simple dead girl.

  "All right, what did he tell you?" Blessing nearly spat at her, clearly not having the best day.

  "...Nothing." It came out as a whisper, unconvincing and aggravating to our curious ears. She knew something pivotal to the resistance movement, and refused to say it in front of the woman it concerned the most.

  "Don't test me right now, Charlotte. This is my life we're talking about here."

  "I can't... say anything. I'm sorry." She tried to shrug it off, but seeing that Blessing was not going to back down, she exhaled uncertainly. "If I tell you now, you're just going to get us all killed. This information is all that guarantees my safety, so... I want to meet with the resistance leader. Boudica, if that's what you call her."

  "You're not serious?" I butted in, trying to lower my voice so that the others couldn't overhear. "That cold bitch left us to burn alive, and you want to go back for Round Two?"

  "Don't patronise me, terrorist... You're both breaking into her base anyway, right? I don't have a home to go back to, because of what Telos has done. I've made my decision, to join those who oppose them once we arrive in Nevada. If you can get me there safely, I'll gladly tell you what that man had to say."

  Blessing's hand reached out in front of herself, only to drop mid-air in defeat. Knowing how clever Charlotte was, this didn't seem to be any type of emotional response after what had happened between them. All Blessing could do was pull back with a dismissive frown.

  "...I thought we were friends."

  "Oh please, you don't have any 'friends'." The teen picked up her bowl, and slid past us to collect her meal from the camp-fire, cocking her head to the side. "You have soldiers, people to use, and that's all you've ever known... I'm not going to be another casualty in this stupid war of yours."

  Everyone except Blessing took a helping of noodles, only highlighting her aberrant nature. She had no need for sustenance through food, and it was this fact that ultimately drove her back towards the holding cells where Charlotte's father slept soundly under Tanner's watch.