In a Time of Silence

Chapter 1

John died like so many others had. Shot in the back, sucking on his own blood. He'd been killed over a can of tainted cat food. Raven took his coat and tried to wash off the blood as best she could. Hawk took his boots. She'd have left the blood on em, but the fucker had shit himself when he croaked.

John had stabbed Shane and ran off with that can of food. Hawk'd told them it was rancid, but hunger makes you stupid. Hawk couldn't help but wonder how far he'd expected to make it alone.

So now their little sextet was a quartet. Shane and John both dead. Fuck 'em anyways. Shane had been a computer tech in the days before. John had been a solicitor. Finding a use for them had been more effort than either of them were worth, and the only reason either of them had made it this far was because better men had died while they got lucky.

For a second she tried to remember the last time she'd been shaken by death.

"Charlotte, Raven," Hawk rumbled, her impossibly low voice accompanying her gaze out into the ruins as she absently surveyed their surroundings. Both women looked up and paused, listening intently as she took a moment to collect her thoughts. Charlotte as tired as ever. Too tired. You could see how thin her mind was stretched. Hawk quietly moved her up the watchlist in her head.

Hawk was a whip-thin woman of average stature, wired tightly with muscles that gnarled like the roots of a tree. Her face was thin, each feature seeming to evoke an unpredictable duality of a deeply gentle and ruthless woman, emphasized by high cheekbones, graying temples, brows that slashed sharply, and a thin mouth, all set around piercing gray eyes that flickered between passive detachment and an uncomfortable intensity. Her stance was that of a cat masking an injury, and her movements -somehow equally languid and forceful- were measured, betraying only the faintest of limps. She wore her shaggy hair long, like a mane swept back; parts strategically knotted or braided to keep it out of her eyes.

"Strip what meat you can off him and get moving." she grunted finally, her lean frame seeming to uncoil in preparation for her next action as her thoughts settled.

Raven set to the task, hair as dark as her namesake glistening as her rope-like muscles twisting two and fro under olive skin mottled with dark tattoos with each precise cut. Charlotte, as thin as Raven was stocky, stared for a brief moment through her curly wheat-colored locks, as if searching for a single hint of humanity left in Hawk with her soft, baby-blue eyes. Hawk didn't bother returning her gaze. They weren't scavs, but she'd be damned if they starved because they'd left good meat.

Charlotte must have realized they might die of hunger too, because she moved to help Raven without much hesitation. Much.

Hawk sighed, "Fuck. I'll lookout for Scavs. Move in five. Leave what you can't strip for the maggots."

They knew the drill. She'd move in five without them. Hawk trusted them to hit the trail without her prompting.

Raven looked up as Hawk turned away. "Cain's out too far again." she clipped at her. Hawk kept walking.

"I know." she said. Raven grunted her approval, and went back to butchering John.

Hawk climbed an old fire escape nearby and sat on the crumbling ledge, back to the setting sun. She felt a jolt of nostalgia and ached for a smoke for an instant before it passed. It'd been years since she'd had one, but she still had cravings like it'd been months. A chuckle barked out of her, quiet as a death rattle and just as disconcerting. Those fear campaigns from the old days had some merit. Shit'll kill you. Not the cancer so much as letting your guard down to scrounge up a pack of smokes.

She watched for movement in the dilapidated suburbs, pondering what to do with the rest of her evening. They'd get back and smoke the bits of John that they'd stripped, save some for later. After that, maybe she'd spend the night with Raven... if she even wanted company. She decided to worry about it later just as she spotted movement.