Interlude

The world is fresh with rain, the skies dark with clouds, the stillness of damp pervading everything. She huddles back against it, holed up in a barricaded room high above the city, in some ancient watchtower no one dares to go near. The only window displays the city stretching in all angles, dying and decaying in the rain.

In the distance, Neptune gleams.

Nothing is real any longer. She has been there, has seen what they do in the closest sense. The dark of it consumes her at night, and she sleeps crouched and feral, ready for an attack with a thousand knives strapped all over her and a rifle slung across her lap. Nothing comes but the nightmares, over and over, compelling and wearying and at the same time terrifying. It’s always some variation of Ben, a mix of memory and dreams, of him leading her somewhere through those halls. And then fire, everywhere, burning all of it apart, and him, wasting into ash, asking her why over and over.

She escaped. He didn’t. And still she is furious for his betrayal, for the way he reached out for the needle. He couldn’t have thought she was gone. Couldn’t have believed she was far away, that she wasn’t there watching him. And still he took it, still he went back willingly, and that was when she ran.

Since then the time has gone, days turning to months, the months to years. She has shied from the raids, darting from one hole to the next. Sometimes she stops and camps with people. Sometimes Aki, but she won’t sleep in the same room as the telepath. The visits are awkward, and she leaves quickly. Mostly when she needs company, she seeks out Dandy Jack, enjoying the quiet with him. No questions, no conversations, no knowing looks. He barely speaks to her, and she is content with that. When she is injured, or in need of supplies, he helps.

This time she wakes up with the memory of their escape, of him kissing her in the alleyway. It melts back into their cell there, and it becomes more fervent, more desperately wanting, and then everything is on fire and he is being burned away from her and she screams his name.

Startled, she narrows her eyes and peers over the city, at the dawn coming through the distance. The rain has settled, but she can hear splashing. She grabs a set of binoculars, ancient and chipped on one lens, and scans the area where she heard the noise.

A Neptune raiding party.