For the Hopeless

Chapter 15: Mine or Yours?

Hayden found herself utterly confused. She'd come downstairs to get a bowl of cereal – probably Cheerios, because she just loved getting to drown the plain little circles in sugar, and it almost made her feel evil, in a childish little way – but she'd discovered her way to the kitchen blocked by, oh, say, fifty people. They were all clad in dirty rags, and most of them were unconscious or groaning softly, and Hayden was not about to try to traverse this sea of nasty, smelly bodies, cereal be damned.

She turned to head back up the stairs after gawking for a long moment, but she found her face colliding with Dameon's hard chest the moment she took a step forward. She stepped back, looking up at him with a half-confused, half-annoyed glare. "Why are all these people in my house?"

But Dameon wasn't even looking at her. He was staring out over that vast sea of moaning, grimy bodies with a perplexed yet worried look upon his scruffy face, and she was amazed that he'd even managed to say, "I have no idea." It had come out in a mumble, more to himself than to her, but still, he'd been listening to her, and that was shocking enough on its own.

"Oh...well, I'm gonna go, then," she said before quickly darting to one side of Dameon and beginning to run past. But before she could make it more than a couple of steps higher, her face collided with something decidedly softer than before: Aven's chest. The elfin woman blushed deeply and stammered a quick apology, but Hayden just shrugged, unfazed, and continued up the stairs. She thought it was a miracle that she managed to reach her room without running into anymore boobs.

"What the hell is all of this?" Dameon whispered absentmindedly to Aven, who had come to stand beside him on the stairs.

"It's Bailey's doing," came a small, girlish voice, and Samara soon emerged from a cluster of twitching bodies to step onto the bottom landing of the stairway. Dameon and Aven both frowned confusedly down at her, and she shrugged. "She and Tawny went to where I told them to, and they found all of these people," she explained with a sweeping gesture to the over-crowded room. "Bailey was bringing them back three at a time, but she stopped a while ago." She frowned out over the living room and said softly, "I think something might have happened to them."

Dameon was on her in a heart beat, eyes wide and panicked as he tightly clutched her shoulders. She didn't think he meant to, but he gave her a little shake. "Where did you tell them to go?" he asked, and the worry in his tone – no doubt primarily for Bailey – brought a small smile to her lips in spite of the fear tightening her chest.

"Walmart," she said, forcing the smile from her face before he could become angered by it. "There's an entrance behind a pretzel store there – at least, that's what I've heard, and it would seem that I've heard right," she said with another gesture to the sea of bodies.

"Take us there," Dameon commanded, his grip on her shoulders tightening just a hair.

"But what about all of these people?" Aven asked softly from behind him, trying to be the voice of reason he was so obviously lacking.

"You can take care of them," Dameon said, twisting his body to look back at her without releasing Samara. He looked absolutely crazed, and Aven frowned.

"Not by myself," she told him, then looked to Samara. "Leave her here. I'm sure she can help me."

Dameon opened his mouth to argue, but Samara spoke before he could. "She's right, you know. Madeleine is gone, Hayden isn't going to help, and it's really creepy to be left alone with so many sick and injured people. She'll need someone else here with her." Gently, she pulled Dameon's hands from her shoulders and lowered them slowly to his sides. He looked conflicted, so she added, "Besides, it's not like I know any better than you where this mysterious entrance is. I'll be of more use here."