Running With Ghosts (H2OVanoss)

Chapter 10

Songs for this chapter:
Depeche Mode - Dream On
Imagine Dragons - Believer

Briefly NSFW.

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"Will you just listen to me?" Murphy pleaded with her best friend but Langley wasn't having it.

"I have been listening to you. You're the one that needs to listen to me. I trust him. You weren't there and you don't know what happened. I do. You need to lay off this because I've said all I'm going to say." Langley stated with finality and crossed her arms waiting for a retaliation but Murphy just have her a disbelieving look before she turned and left the lobby. Lui took off after her and the lobby fell back into it's normal mood of quiet conversation and weapon cleaning.

Arlan felt like a fish out of water with the stares he kept receiving, but he didn't expect anything less. It had only been a day and it was just starting. These people had a good routine and strong defenses. He was grateful for that because that's all he wanted for his friends; a safe place to stay.

"Langley, this is Cody and Anthony." He introduced her to two of his group when she walked over, still looking beyond tired. But there she was, strong as ever, doing her best to get back to normal.

She smiled and offered her hand to them which they shook in greeting. "Nice to meet you."

"Cody here is fantastic with tech, any tech and he's happy to help you guys with anything you need. Anthony is pretty good with medicine, science, whatever you need, really." Arlan grinned back at them when they tried to be humble about it. "This is why I wanted to keep them safe. The boss never knew about their skills. I told them to play dumb so he wouldn't exploit them for his own gain."

"That's extremely smart of you. Most of the group here doesn't mind you and I know they'll warm up eventually or I'll kick their asses. Murphy is a different story but I don't know what to do about it yet."

Arlan rubbed his lips together, "She's probably a little hurt that her best friend is spending more time down here with me, an untrusted outsider, rather than confiding in her."

"I do confide in her, she's just a hothead and sometimes there's no reasoning with her. She'll come around after a bit, I'm sure."

Arlan tilted his head, "Are you?"

Langley sighed, "No."

"Go talk to her. We'll still be here." Arlan gave her arm a reassuring squeeze and watched her leave.

Langley rode the elevator to the mess hall where she knew Murphy would be somewhere in the kitchen searching for some sort of food. They both liked to sneak up there at night and eat something and make sweet tea. She could hear Lui doing his best to calm her down but she kept on rummaging through the shelves for something to stress eat on.

"Murphy, stop." Langley made her presence known and she and Lui both turned to look at her.

"What? You're not down there with your knew friend?" Murphy rolled her eyes and kept digging.

"No, I'm right here with my best friend who's being extremely emotional and dramatic, as usual." Langley crossed her arms and gave Lui an apologetic look when he left the kitchen to the two of them.

"Murphy, he's not taking me away from you. You are still my best friend and we are family. You are the only person I can ever be myself with, we know all of each other's nasty secrets. This isn't coming between us."

Murphy found some teabags and slammed a kettle on a burner, flicking the heat on. Langley immediately turned it down a bit like she always did, "Too high."