Aer

10

'Shit! Slow down!' Daisy shouts above the engine.
Alex brakes, the two get off the bike as quickly as they can. The horde turns their attention to the noise, the leader, the same woman from yesterday, turns and screams. Daisy and Alex make their way off the road and into the trees.

'Oh no,' Daisy pats down her coat 'no'.
'What?' Alex stops 'What's wrong?'.
'My mask,' Daisy looks back to the bike, the Freaks haven't started to run, they're still investigating their surroundings 'I can go back'.
'No,' Alex says.
   'I've no choice, the Mist'.

He doesn't argue. Daisy creeps towards the bike, trying not to make any noise. Freaks use their hearing to navigate, the majority of them are fully blind. She reaches for the mask and puts it on as quickly as she can, a scream fills the air and a body pounces at Daisy. It's a man. A sharp pain travels up through her arm as she cuts it against the road, the man's a lot stronger than she is and she struggles to get him off.

He spits and snaps at her with blood in between his rotting teeth. He's so fixated on Daisy that he doesn't notice Alex come up behind him. Alex grabs his head, placing his fingers in the man's eye sockets and exposes his neck, Alex slices open his neck and the blood pours onto Daisy. Alex takes Daisy's hand as the horde becomes more agitated and turn their attention to the kids.

   They run through the trees, climbing over trunks and ducking under branches. There's no way the horde could be following them, they would've caught up with them by now.

'You think we're okay?' Daisy looks behind her.
'Yeah I think so,' Alex says 'your arm'.
Daisy looks down at her arm it's been cut badly, she pulls down her sleeve and ignores it 'It doesn't hurt that bad I'll be okay'.

Alex grabs her face and kisses her, he pulls away and Daisy smiles 'What was that for?'.
'Thank you for telling me what I needed to hear, I promise from now on I'll do what my heart is telling me,' he says and continues walking 'I already feel like a burden has been lifted off me'.
'I felt the same,' Daisy says 'Even though I was hurt by what happened when I met Dars everything changed, I felt like a new person'.
    'That's good'.
     'You don't realise how bad it is until you see something else, something better'.

      They arrive at the camp. Daisy smiles up at Alex who's beaming from ear to ear as he sees the fences, the guards, the security. A boy of about fifteen walks out of the gate.

'He didn't say anything to the guards,' Alex frowns.
'I know,' Daisy smiles 'You can do what you want here'.
The boy salutes them as he walks passed, Daisy has never seen him before but he looks decent.

    Dars is standing outside one of the cabins, he's talking to a pretty girl with long brown hair and sparkling green eyes, she's holding only a young baby, who's fast asleep. Dars sees them approaching and smiles widely.

'This is Alex,' Daisy introduces him.
'Nice to meet you,' Dars shakes his hand 'I don't think you've met Olivia'.
'No,' Daisy smiles, she's slightly confused.
'This is my girlfriend,' he says, Alex can feel an awkwardness come between Dars and Daisy, does Daisy like Dars? No, she couldn't.
'And this is our baby, Ella,' he smiles down at the baby 'she's only a month old'.
'It's lovely to meet you,' Olivia smiles at them.
'It's nice to meet you too,' Daisy turns her attention to Dars 'Can we speak to you?'.
   'Sure'.

    They go inside, Olivia stays outside, she sits on a little seat outside the cabin. The others sit around a long table, that's covered in maps and drawings.

'What's the story?' Dars looks at them, Alex notices his gaze stays on Daisy, no, he's just being ridiculous now.
'The horde was back on the same road again,' Daisy says 'We just about escaped, they didn't come into the trees'.
Dars sighs 'a small group and I went out this morning, found them further up the road. But they seem to be avoiding the trail up to here and your watch tower, I know before we cleared them that they never came up here, the steepness was too much for them, the trees separate them and when they're in a horde they don't like to separate,' Dars frowns at Alex 'why are you wearing a gas mask?'.

'There's something in that air that makes me sick, even without the Freaks,' Alex says.
   'Right. Tamara can give you a quick check over if you wish'.
   'Thanks'.

'This is lovely and all but what will we do about the horde?' Daisy says.
'Just keep watching them until we know exactly where they're going and what they're doing, I'll send a different group out every day to update us, ask any drifters if they know anything,' Dars says 'That's all we can do, there's no point in attacking them, not yet anyway'.
'That's true,' Alex says, he's beginning to like Dars, he's different to Aaron, more level-headed.
'That's perfect then,' Dars begins to get up 'alright Alex head to the sickbay, Tamara will see if you're okay'.
'I'll catch up with you,' Daisy smiles at Alex 'You'll want to see her alone'.

    Then it's just the two of them left in the room.
'Listen-'.
'You have a child?' Daisy frowns 'And a girlfriend?'.
'Yeah,' he says quietly.
'Alex is my boyfriend,' she says.
   'Really?'.
'Yeah, so you can forget what happened between us the first night I got here'.
'We all make mistakes,' he says 'You'd gone through a lot'.
'Yeah,' Daisy leaves the cabin.

     She remembers back to the first night she and Charlie got there.
She woke up later that night, Charlie was fast asleep. She got out of her bed and wandered down the stairs of the sick bay. The lights in Dars' office were still on so she gave a knock on the door. Dars answered with a smile. Next thing she knew she was kissing him, he lifted her up and placed her on the couch. He got on top of her and she knew exactly what happened next but she was trying her best to block it out of her mind.

She remembers they chatted for awhile, told him how she felt, he did the same, she told him everything that had happened, he promised not to tell a soul, she remembers going back to the sickbay, feeling something after the day she hadn't felt in a long time, and she fell back to sleep. But she didn't love him, and he didn't love her, she loves Alex and he loves her.