Without a Whisper //Danger Days//

8. Gang Leaders and Witches

       Over the past week, the porch steps had become a favourite place for Maya to sit and wait. There wasn't much for her to do in the Nest, so all she could do was hang around until Lola came back for her.

"Where are they? Lola's never left me for this long."

The sun was starting to go down, so Maya focused her attention on the pink horizon. She hummed quietly to herself as the sky turned to a deep navy blue, and the stars started to twinkle above her.

Val had gone out. There was a party at the Pit. He thought it best to leave the little girl at home. The Pit was no place for a young child.

He had been frequenting the Pit quite a lot in the past few days. It was a distraction, as things had been terribly stressful over the past few days. Maya could sense that he was having a rough time, but the only cause of Val's distress was that one single red head he kept thinking of. It never stopped. Maya heard her voice sometimes, only through Val's memories. She seemed nice. Maya hopped that she'd get to meet this girl one day.

When Val returned to his house, he was accompanied by a girl with dark green hair. He was drunk out of his mind, and so was she. As they stumbled up the steps, they were already ripping their jackets off. The two completely ignored the girl sitting by their feet, too busy sticking their tongues down each other's throat. Maya scooted out of their way, clearing room for Val to shove the girl into his living room.

He was smiling.

He wasn't happy.

Maya saw it too. He'd never admit it to her, but she saw that he was trying to put Atomic's face onto this stranger. The green haired girl, on the other hand, only had one though running through her head;

'I'm finally fucking Val Velocity!'

She didn't care about him. She just wanted to get in his pants. It made Maya cringe just thinking of it. Val wasn't the best person ever, but he tolerated Maya. Therefore, Maya tolerated him. She did not tolerate weird girls desperate to get with him. That wasn't fair at all.

She hoped that once Atomic got back, she could fix things.

But there was a sickening feeling in Maya's gut that got her thinking.

What if she didn't want to help Val?

---

    The city was much different then how I had left it. Ashes and broken glass and rubble tumbled down to the roads. The tallest buildings had turned into mountains of cement. I clung onto Party's hand tightly as we walked, my heart absolutely broken.

"You okay?" He asked, noticing my discomfort.

"It's so broken." I kicked a block of concrete at my feet.

"I'm sorry." Was all he said, unsure of how to sympathize with me. We continued our journey as I tried to find something that was significantly important to me. It was only until we reached an old pizza restaurant that I stopped.

"Shit." I hissed under my breath.

"What?" Party asked, letting go of my hand.

"We're in the North End."

Right as I finished talking, we both rushed to pull out our guns. Our firearms from the Zones was the only part of California that we kept with us, and I had a feeling that we were gonna need them.