S4, E7 | East

As the sun begins to rise on a new day and the sight of the mainland quickly approaches, a mostly-silent night finds itself coming to a conclusion aboard the group, who’ve finally found themselves bidding a final farewell to Vancouver Island. Sat in the seat at the very back of the cruiser, Lou holds his head toward the ground as Terry, Marta, Adrian, Sebastian and Sonya watch on, the rest of the mixed-matched group having sought out the onboard cabin for reprieve from the uncomfortable hush.

“Am I gonna make it, doc?” Sebastian jokes in a low voice to the woman beside him, her fingers dropping the blood-soaked bandage she replaces into a bin off to the side. “I think you’ll fare well enough” Sonya replies, passing the man an awkward smile as she pats his shoulder, carrying the bin of discarded materials used to treat his wound to the vessel’s inner sanctum, taking down the total of rain-soaked passengers exposed to the elements by one.

The confines she enters not faring too well against the uneasy quietude beyond their descending steps, Sonya passes her father as he sits on a chair unoccupied by the rest of the group- which watch on from their respective corners. “You shouldn’t have pulled the trigger” Rudy quips aloud as his daughter passes, earning a sigh the instant his voice cuts through the feeble mute.

“I know, dad-” Sonya replies, continuing to stroll through the quaint-enough cabin that Jules, Elsie, Josie, Courtney, her father and now herself occupy, “-you’ve already told me.” Sat across the room from his now paramotor-less first born, Rudy refuses to change his tune from the one he’d carried with him as he boarded. “I just figured you ought to hear it again” the man replies, brushing off the woman’s visible discontent with the context of his statement.

“You know what, dad?” Sonya asks after a few further steps, licking her lips as she turns the bucket over, emptying its dirty contents into a garbage pale beside a tiny side table, “fuck you.” His frown only intensifying, Rudy tilts his head to the side as he nods, reacting to the quip in the only way he feels most appropriate in the moment. “Yeah, fuck you” Sonya adds, not presenting anything new, but acting the way that comes most naturally to her in the moment, “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”

“Are you done?” Rudy calmly rebukes, his hand pressing against the base of his chin as his daughter quickly argues otherwise. “No, dad- I’m not. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you” Sonya continues, watching the man nod again as he looks off to the floor beside him, “fuck you to the highest of hells, you stupid fucking asshole.”

All with a calm voice that slowly raises in harshness the longer she goes on, Sonya watches her father press his back against the chair he’s spent the last few hours seated upon, unable to rid herself of the anger that continues to simmer within her long-suppressed core. “I’m so fucking tired of hearing you complain about everything. If it’s not me, it’s Courtney. If it’s not, it’s Lou. If it’s not him, it’s the fucking weather or something” she continues on, “I’m just tired of hearing it.”

“The weather doesn’t fire a bullet at the crazy guy holding your sister at gunpoint” Rudy calmly tacks on as the rest of the room sits around watching the conversation unfold. “You’re right, I did. And you know what happened?” Sonya retorts, turning her sights to the end of the room that her sister occupies, her arms crossed and head down as the pair continue to exchange potshots at each other, “she lived. People may have died, but she lived. We all lived as a matter of fact.”

“And it could have turned out very differently” Rudy remarks with the same unencumbered tone he’d carried throughout the discourse’s duration. “But it didn’t, and if I hadn’t taken that shot- who knows where we’d be right now” Sonya retaliates, continuing to speak in spite of Jules stepping off the couch he’d shared with Elsie and Josie in favour of taking his chances with the mood outside, “I made a choice. And to be honest, I’m happy to be at the point where I have the balls to.”

“Well, I’m happy for you sweetie” Rudy sarcastically replies, returning his hand to the place below his chin as the woman continues to berate him, accepting it as it plays out. “Thanks, pop. I wish I could thank you for it, but I can’t. I can’t because it’s in spite of you instead” Sonya proceeds, walking past the man in favour of following Jules’ lead to the deck, “I’ve spent too goddamn long letting you hold me back. For fuck’s sake, it’s time I grew up and followed the others’ lead.”

“And what lead is that?” Rudy calls back to question honestly, interested in hearing what the answer would happen to be. “That it’s time to get fucking used to how shit works now” the woman replies, seemingly deciding that the day she’d spoken of had presented itself, calling upon her to adapt to the surroundings her peers have slowly become accustomed to, “the world sucks, we’re all gonna die. It’s time to live while I can and learn to give a shit.”

Moving to the corner of his mouth, Rudy’s puckered lips remain shut as his youngest daughter walks off to follow through with moving to the floor above. Letting out a sigh as he glances back to his eldest child, her unenthused posture and distanced demeanour the only thing presented to him.

“You sound like you’re having a fun time down there” Sebastian quips as his tending caretaker ascends the steps he sits beside, her hand taking the bottle of vodka he gingerly sips on. “Bite me, bullet boy” Sonya retorts, thumping the man’s wound with her index finger with just enough impact to force a subtle wince over him. Formed in the corner of his mouth, Terry smirks as a gentle chuckle comes over him, his eyes glancing back toward the waves they leave behind as the woman sits.

“And she said nothing?” Lou suddenly wonders aloud, prompting the man- amidst a rare moment of calm- that looks toward the seas to turn his eyes for him. “She didn’t ask about where you’d go after the hotel, she didn’t-” he continues, the subject of this line of questioning more than obvious to the boat’s entire collection of passengers, “-I don’t know. She just- left?”

Nodding in silence at first, Terry rests one arm against the boat’s edge as the water reclaims his eyes. “Like I said, there weren’t many things we’d talked about farther out than a couple hours” Jules responds on his friend’s behalf, “we didn’t talk about the future. We never needed to ‘cause all we knew to do was wait for Jenn and Halston to meet up with us.”

“And, while the thought had crossed our minds plenty of times, it’s not like any of us had firmly written you off as dead, either” Terry doubles down, unable to do more than shrug as the evidence-deprived mystery the woman’s disappearance shrouds itself in, “if there was anyone that thought the opposite most, it was Ally.”

Pulling his head back as he works out the knots in his neck, Lou follows the pattern of rainclouds that continue to persist nearly two weeks after first forming overhead. “I guess it just doesn’t make sense to me” the man confesses, eventually sliding further into his seat to better lean against the edge that acts as his backrest.

“Would I think she’d sneak off when no one was looking if it was something she truly thought was necessary? Yes” Lou continues, though he speaks to the present members of his group, the words he utters mostly seem to be intended for himself, “would I think she’d do it without leaving a note? Not really.”

As half an hour passes, the sun begins to shine as bright as the group can expect it to manage behind the cover of the same plague-like clouds that take shape overhead. “Take my hand” Lou remarks, extending his palm to Marta as she struggles to disembark the boat amidst the choppy waters. “No, it’s okay- I don’t want to pull you in” the woman politely refuses, gently waving his offer aside as she tries to balance herself out.

“I’m down half an arm, I’m not coordinately-challenged” Lou retorts, extending his hand for a second time with the best smile he can muster in lieu of the trivial happenings that loom over their first collective contact with the mainland. Looking at him with a blank face, the continued-extension he insists on providing brings a warm smile over Marta’s face, her hand taking that of her mentors as an especially-frigid gust of wind blows her head back.

“The hotel’s about four blocks out, so what are we thinking here?” Jules calls out from the front of the mish-mash group, prepared to lead the charge to street level and embrace the undead that walk amongst them. “I don’t suppose anyone picked up Corinne in the middle of the night?” Sebastian wonders with a humoured tone in his reflexion, only to be met with the entire combined group looking back at him in confusion. 

“The meteorologist? The one from the camp?” Sebastian reiterates, casually looking throughout the group before realising not a single visage had shifted, “am I really the only one that cared to introduce myself back there?” Laying a firm slap to the man’s rear end, Courtney fastens the strap to a knapsack she’d picked out of a bucket below deck. “You’re the only one of us polite enough to, yeah” the woman replies, shrugging her shoulders as she wanders closer toward the front.

“Well we can’t start camouflaging ourselves if the rain’s gonna pick up” Jules responds, keeping his voice contained enough so as not to draw attention from the level above, “if we take that option, it’ll be risky.” Slipping the switchblade out of her pocket, Marta follows Lou as he follows Courtney’s lead upon the head of the pack. “It’s been pretty cold out, so they shouldn’t be too fast to handle” the man remarks, slipping past Adrian and Sebastian before nearing Terry, “we should be good.”

“What about the runners?” Marta asks from beside him, her question drawing his eyes toward her with a confused gleam. “Runners? Like people runners?” Lou replies, unsure of what she’s referring to, “are there other people out here?” Pulling her head back before letting a chuckle leave her lips, the rest of the group as confused as Lou in at the reason behind her humoured reaction.

“What’s so funny?” the man inquires, looking back to the rest without certainty of whether there’s a joke he’s missing the punchline to, looking back to the girl as her amused reaction settles into one of genuine surprise. “You- wait, you don’t know about runners?” Marta asks back as she pulls back in shock, her laughter only intensifying as she recognises the authentic puzzlement he returns to her, “holy shit, I know something about the dead that you don’t!?”

“What is she talking about?” Sebastian suddenly speaks up to ask, gently brushing the nub of Lou’s shortened arm as if he were able to provide context.

Capable enough of handling business, Lou finds himself at the lead of the group as they walk out in the open, taking out the sluggish corpses that close in on them as he confidently strolls along. “How the hell am I supposed to know what I’m looking for if they’re not knocking on a door or talking?” the man calls back, nonchalantly passing corpses that stand no chance of grazing him, let alone tearing into him, his deadly staff prepared for the battles that await him.

“‘Cause they’ll look like a fresh corpse” Jules shouts back, putting down another straggling corpse as the group calmly marches on, “and if you can’t figure it out by looking at them, you’ll figure it out when they start running at you.” Rolling his eyes as he shrugs his shoulders, Lou casually swipes his rebar weapon over the head of an undead pair, the second not straying too far from the first.

“How you go four blocks without running into one of those things is beyond me” Marta murmurs, following Lou through the lobby of the hotel they now enter, “I couldn’t make it half a block before one of them caught onto me.” Unimpressed at the display the undead portrayed for him, the man and his rebar staff take a seat on one of the display seats left abandoned when the leisurely centre closed its doors to the outside world.

“We’ve all got plenty of time for that to change” Rudy quips beneath his breath, relinquishing the rifle that wields fewer bullets than he’d like it to as his feet carry him to the nearest staircase. “There’s a gym, but most of the machines don’t work. There’s a jacuzzi but there’s no heat or jets, so it’s just a tiny pool. Speaking of which, there’s a pool table in the club- I’ll smoke you all if you dare challenge me” Jules sarcastically remarks, “welcome to fucking paradise, you pricks.”

“Thanks, I feel so welcomed” Jenn responds acerbically, carrying her rifle in tow as she follows Rudy to the closest staircase, hoping for it to lead her to something worth writing home about. “Can I get to the roof from here?” Sonya calls out to anyone willing to answer, the best reply anyone can muster coming from the back of the lobby. “Most of the rooms have a patio, but I haven’t found a way onto the roof yet” Elsie replies, ripping a grape from its vine, “let us know if you do though.”

“Would it really be important?” Adrian replies as the youngest Golden child follows the suit of her father and Jenn in searching for the building’s highest summit, “I thought you were only here waiting for the girls?” Stepping around the bar counter and reaching for the first bottle of liquor that his eyes stumble upon, Terry answers the question as the quest becomes one looking for clean glasses.

“We were, but like I said- we never really talked about the future” the de-facto bartender explains, pulling one glass from below the oakwood finished table top in search for more, “this place hasn’t been too bad to us. It’ll do for now.” Casually strolling to the countertop before pausing, Adrian presses his hands into each side of his hip as he looks to the man preparing to serve him through squinted eyelids.

“You’re American- aren’t you supposed to be three years away from this sort of thing?” Adrian inquisitively wonders aloud, immediately prompting an amused chuckle from the server, the witty hotel-introducer, and the rebar staff-wielding slayer. “He clearly wasn’t listening when I told the story of what we were doing when everything went to shit” Lou says between laughter as he takes a seat on one of the empty stools.

“They were all getting shit-faced in the music room if I remember correctly” Marta proclaims as she takes the empty stool beside her mentor, earning an enthusiastic nod from the amused gentleman. “It was the most glorious way to ring in the end of times and you’ll never convince me otherwise” Lou replies, the bottle of aged scotch that Terry holds slightly emptied into the only cup he’s so far come across, which he wastes no time in sliding to his one-armed acquaintance.

“Hey, Lou. Can I ask you a question?” Jules inquires, returning to the group with a pool cue in hand, joining Terry’s side before reaching to a cabinet and pulling its door open, revealing a stack of clean glasses waiting to be uncovered. “Of all the things you could use- a hammer, or a knife, or a gun, or whatever-” the man begins, gently guiding a stack of glasses to the counter for his poorly-inexperienced friend to fill with heart-warming booze, “-why is your go-to weapon a stick of metal?”

Having to pause the lifting of his glass to his lips, Lou’s head hangs as he finds himself too humoured to not break out into a chorus of laughter. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, that’s a good question” Sebastian points out, joining the rest of the group in enjoying each other’s company for the very first time, sharing the laughter that fills the room with jubilation, “what the fuck is wrong with your taste in self-defence, dude? It’s literally just a thin bo staff.”

“Leave my thin bo staff alone you filthy animals” Lou jokingly commands, animatedly slamming his fist against the counter as the rest of his peers join in chuckling. “Thanks” Adrian remarks in Terry’s direction, the next to be served a glass before Sebastian receives the next one. “Don’t thank me yet” the bartender- whose skills would likely have him thrown out the backdoor if he were applying for the position in the old world- warns as he fills yet another glass.

“And why is-?” Adrian wonders back, unable to finish his question before Terry looks him in the eyes, placing his hand against one side of the glass before shoving it onward, letting it glide past the rest of his peers and right into Marta’s hands. “Oh, you motherfucker” the girl’s father remarks with a smirk, pointing his finger at the man before falling silent as his daughter puts down every last drop without a second thought, his face turning to one of amused shock.

“Thanks” mocks, tipping her non-existent hat in Terry’s direction as she stares a hole through her father, who looks at her with a comedic look of shock as the rest of the group loses themselves in the hardest fit of laughter they’ve experienced all year. “What the hell?” Adrian giggles as a smile spreads across his face, the trust he’s found in his daughter over the past number of weeks proving to earn a different reaction than it would have when the dead first rose.

Sharing the feigned exasperation with the gut-busted survivors that take glee in the suspense of his belief, Adrian shakes his head as he takes a respectable sip of the liquor he wishes to savour instead of guzzling down. “Dude, if Vinny and Fink knew we’d make it far enough to commandeer a bar- in Canada of all places- they would have been so proud” Terry proclaims, lifting a half-filled glass that Lou and Jules clink together with their own, “following in mom and dad’s footsteps- that we are!”

“Here here!” the duo cheers, clattering their cups together as the sun rises over the city that feels a little more complete now than it ever has to anyone calling the abandoned inn home for the moment. Making it back to the lobby just in time to share in the conversation, Courtney, Elsie and Josie join the rank of the survivors just looking to make the best use of the time they share together, coming together as one group in spite of the world they call home.

= RISE and REVOLT is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series from Season 1 onwards belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 =

Stepping out onto the patio overlooking the English Bay, Courtney finds her sister’s figure with arms crossed beside the fully-transparent railing her hip leans against. “I see you settled for something a little less top-level” the older sister remarks, peering out at the grey skies that loom over the oddly-pleasant tower they call sanctuary. “I needed some air” Sonya replies, briefly looking at her sister as the woman joins her on the terrace, “I wasn’t looking for a scavenger hunt.”

Nodding to herself as her sibling turns back to face the world that lays beyond one ledge barely over half the woman’s height, Courtney presses her elbows against the bannister the younger woman seems to trust enough to support her weight. “So you know that witty guy, Jules?” the self-piloting wanderer remarks, forced to tuck her hair behind her ear as the wind picks up, “apparently he’s pretty good at memorising showtunes. I wish he was as good at singing them, but what do I know?”

Trying to subdue a small smirk that lingers through her lips, Sonya nods as she fixes the hair that flows freely in the same breeze that seems to torment her sister. “You wanna come down? Terry’s not that good at knowing how to keep a customer coming around, so you’re guaranteed to get more than enough of an overpour to carry you through the day” Courtney jokes, finally mustering enough good will to pull a full smile and a breathy chuckle out of the hard-to-please lady.

“Maybe in a little bit” Sonya replies, letting go of a deep sigh that she pulls in as her sights fall back upon the waterfront, its coastline frozen whilst its long, thin centre flows freely. “What’s on your mind?” Courtney wonders aloud to the woman she knows to have something stowed away on, “I’ve seen that look before and the answer’s never ‘nothing’.”

The humoured expression having subsided, Sonya’s eyes fall whilst the rest of her head remains taken by the bay’s freeflow. “Come on, sis. Whatever it is, you know you can talk to me about it” Courtney remarks, her expression falling momentarily as the woman beside her remains silent, her reluctant posture unchanged, “you know that, right? You know you can talk to me.”

Looking back up, Sonya replies as hoped, quickly waving off that any such truth would be inaccurate. “Wh-? Of- of course I know that. No, I know, it’s just-” the woman begins to remark, stopping herself as she takes her eyes back to the waterfront that captivates her so greatly, extending a sigh as she clears her mind of all strife in an effort to speak freely, “-my mind’s just in a really weird place right now. I can’t figure it out- if it’s even an it to begin with.”

“What do you mean?” Courtney replies as she backs away from the see-through balustrade, matching the crossed-arm lean as she presses into the glass. “I don’t really know, honestly. I just came out here to try and get a little bit of time to myself and it just sort of descended into this really weird self-reflection” Sonya confesses, shaking her head as her sister tries all she can to best provide.

“That’s alright, I can leave if you want-” Courtney explains, apologetically backing away from the railing as Sonya laughs off her gesture. “No, you’re fine. It’s got nothing to do with you, I just- urgh!” the younger sibling groans, unfolding her arms as her hands press against each side of her face, closing herself off from the world for just a few seconds to clear her head.

“It’s stupid, but after I spent a few minutes up here- I couldn’t stop looking at that fucking river” Sonya finally proclaims, admitting the sight responsible for stealing her mind the instant her face frees itself from the warmth of her palms. Confused, Courtney furrows her eyebrows and glances in the direction her back is turned toward, finding the bay that grips her baby sister without much clue as to its importance.

“I know it’s not what we crossed, but it reminds me of the strait between here and home” Sonya admits, finally re-earning her sister’s attention as the woman remains silent, letting her sibling explain without her words having to be forced to share the air. “I keep thinking about the talk we had in the cabin a while back. I told you I wasn’t ready and it’s just really getting on my nerves” the woman remarks, watching her sister’s face sink as the difficult topic lays itself out in the open.

“I was so fucking stupid to keep thinking I could kick the can down the road. I don’t even know why I kept fighting it, but it pisses me off when I think back to it now that I’m out here. It’s the same world I was so ‘not ready’ for” Sonya explains, looking down in self-pity, “it’s fucking stupid.” Shaking her head the moment such a declaration leaves her sister’s lips, Courtney refutes the statement without a second thought, arguing against it the moment the air silences.

“No, it’s not. It’s not stupid and neither are you” the older sibling responds, taking a step forward to get closer to the woman clearly caught up in performing mental gymnastics with herself. “Listen, no one’s ready for any of this. No one goes straight from lounging back in a cabin to putting down the dead like that” Courtney explains, snapping her finger mid-pause, “even Lou- who we all kind of agree is better at this than any of us- started on a rough note.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s messed me up” Sonya rebuttals, looking past the woman that stands at her aid as the water recaptures her eyes, “look at Marta. We were in the same place when Lou showed up, but she got the bigger picture. Now look at us- two completely different stories.”

“Yes, you are- and yours is just beginning” Courtney replies, wrapping her hands around her little sister as the woman’s face looks into her own, begrudgingly listening to the words spoken that go against the idea she’s moulded into a strangely-twisted version of the truth. “Think about everything you’re gonna do from this point on” the flightless self-pilot instructs, “think about all the life you’ve still got to live. It may have taken you some time, but you get it now.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t be-” Sonya immediately begins to refute, her reply stopped before it’s offered the chance to speak itself into fruition. “Yeah, but I didn’t before- blah blah blah” Courtney mocks, mimicking the display her sister had presented to her ex-boyfriend earlier in the day by flicking her arm with the finger on her dominant hand, “everything that happened before is over. Boom- done. Finished, finito, hasta la vista, baby! It’s old news, time to make new. Now we move on.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple” Sonya replies, again feeling the force behind her sister’s finger flicking her once more before rolling her eyes. “It is that simple. It’s very simple. I’m almost embarrassed at how simple it is” Courtney replies, the enthusiastic pep in her verbal step too comedic for her sister to disregard without the faintest smile, “yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away! I’m pretty sure that’s what the Beatles said, and if not- it doesn’t matter. It’s still true!”

Tilting her head as her arms cross, Sonya looks to the woman with a curious face, “Court’, the very next line to that song goes- ‘now it looks as if they’re here to stay.” Her third attempt at refusal marking the birth of a third flick to her arm, the youngest sister continues to be broken down into her sibling’s friendly charm. “And then it goes ‘Oh, I believe in yesterday!” Courtney replies, struggling to not realise her choice in song proved poor, “okay, I admit- maybe not the best example.”

“Look, the point is that it’s a fresh start. All of this is a fresh start. I get to start new, so do you, so does dad, so do all of us” Courtney proceeds, making her point as her hands fall from her sister’s arms, hanging by her sides as the words finish leaving her lips, “so what happens next is up to you. No one else gets to decide- only you. You can sit up here and rack your brain over stuff that doesn’t matter and hasn’t mattered in ages, or you can get up, make new, and move on.”

Hesitant in nature, Sonya’s embattled eyes take to the waterfront that her sister’s words had managed to free her from the infatuation of, its sheets of ice to each side of the shoreline no longer much more than a pretty picture to snap a mental image of. “I love you, Sonya. I always have, I always will, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you” Courtney explains, shaking her head as it leans close to one side, “but I’m not gonna sit here and let you beat yourself up, hun.”

Suddenly interrupted by the gentle and quiet set of knuckles tapping against the hotel room’s door, the sibling’s turn their attention toward the entrance their father stands at the centre of. “I hope I’m not involving myself where I don’t belong, you left the door open” Rudy apologises, watching Courtney’s face turn toward Sonya’s, whose eyes remain placed upon the man she’d been tied at the hip to since before following their adventurous family member to Sebastian’s cabin.

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“What about a beach house somewhere?” Jules asks aloud, sat at a table in an empty concert hall with every survivor minus the Golden family, Josie and their metal stick wielding guardian angel. “As incredibly tempting as that is, it might be the last place we should set our sights on” Jenn replies, lighting a fifth candle to stage at the centre of the circular table top that sits amidst the otherwise dark entertainment room.

“Yeah, the hurricanes and lack of places to make a farm don’t seem very ideal” Elsie replies, gently swaying the handle to her upside-down tomahawk from one side to the other. “By that logic, the best place to settle down would be Kansas” Terry replies, immediately prompting the woman to look up at him with a curious glimmer in her eye.

“What’s wrong with Kansas?” Elsie rebukes, taking one hand away from her weapon’s grip to lift one finger for every advantage it offers, “good place for farming, open space people won’t usually be, no snow, plenty of lakefront property if we so choose.” With one finger raised, the subject to her line of questioning presents her with the fatal flaw, “here’s what’s wrong with Kansas-” Terry replies, pausing to take a sip from his glass before following up, “I don’t wanna live in Kansas.”

“I agree with Terry- fuck Kansas” Josie exclaims, marching in through the building’s rear-entrance with a wrench in hand, the rag that’s draped over her shoulder stained with grease, “who the hell wants to follow the red brick road down tornado alley? Bippity-boppity no thank you.”

Rolling her eyes as the good times roll on, Elsie throws her hand in Josie’s direction as the momentary laughter begins to fade, taking a backseat to the genuine intrigue her messy appearance induces. “What’s new, Bob the Builder?” Terry calls out, taking another swig of transparent liquor- the kind of which he doesn’t know or care to know- is pulled down from his cup.

Without a word, Josie reaches into her pocket and digs out a pair of car keys, tossing them a few centimetres away from the set of open flames. “The engine’s running, the oil’s clean and the brakes seem to be alright” the woman replies, her words bringing an invested look upon the faces of her newest friends whilst the overwhelming joy come over the trio she’d spent most of the last few weeks with in waves.

“You got the thing to run!?” Jules shouts with opened eyes, leaping out of his seat to patiently wait for the self-pleased nod the woman answers him with. “Josie, you are a fucking god!” the man bursts out as he lunges forward, pulling the woman into a tight hug as Terry picks up the keys to inspect them, no real reason for doing so aside from it feeling natural enough to do.

“Wait, you guys have a car?” Marta wonders aloud to the only people she’d expect affirmation from, the reply given to her from the man seated across the table only furthering her excitement. “Not a car- a truck” Terry replies, setting the keys back down before taking another sip of his drink, the smile that appears in the corner of his mouth joining his face in following Jules’ hand, the man taking his turn to inspect the keys- again with little reason to do so.

“Can it hold all of us?” Sebastian asks the same man responsible for the answer to Marta’s question, only to receive it from the lady responsible herself. “It’s got room for five people inside the cabin and another five- maybe six- in the truck bed” Josie responds, saying more than enough to assure the group that not a soul would be disallowed from climbing aboard, “as long as it’s not Kansas- that thing will get us wherever we need to go.”

“Let Lou decide” Adrian suddenly responds, sat at the de-facto head of the table as he’s left the most arm room of anyone that shares it with him, “I mean we’ll argue amongst ourselves until a few people just cave and give into whatever the majority agrees to. But if there’s anyone I’m pretty sure we can trust with making a fair call- it’d be him.”

“Listen, I still don’t know the guy as well as the rest of you, but if that’s what the rest of you are cool with- so am I” Josie replies, her only destination not preferred voiced beyond any misconception. “Someone go find him and stick a pin in it then” Terry replies, finishing the last of his drink before pushing his chair out in search of a refill, “the sooner we get this thing squared away, the sooner we can work out the kinks to what happens next.”

“I’ll go” Marta replies, more than willing to do so as her lead is followed by her own group’s leader. “I’ll go with you” Sebastian replies, joining her in standing from her seat as he grabs the coat he’d rummaged out of the hotel room closet he’d picked out for himself, “I’ve gotta go look for Courtney anyway, so I met as well check in on him while I’m at it.”

“Listen, as long as you keep her from downing half a bottle of tequila along the way, fine by me” Adrian jokes, his glass held in the hand that joins his arm in resting against the table, the other draped over the back of his chair. “That’s fine, I prefer vodka anyway” Marta replies, again prompting the group to point and laugh at the father’s expense, his rolled eyes and shrugging grin making its peace with being the source of the group’s mockery.

“I thought this was the room you said, 52-A” Sebastian replies, pointing to the accurately-carved designation beside an open door with an untouched room beyond it. “It is. At least, that’s the one he told me he was staying in” Marta responds, leaning past the man to take a look at what lies within for herself, no sign of the man’s trace to be found.

“Alright then, maybe he found a different room- one he liked better” Sebastian suggests, the implication bringing an inquisitorial look over the girl’s face that his following proposal only strengthens, “or maybe he settled into Terry and Jules’ room while they’re out getting hammered.” Slowly leaning back, Marta looks up at the man with a semi-convinced look in her eye, one hand tucked past the faux-leather jacket she now adds to her belongings.

“Do you remember where their rooms were?” the woman inquires, following the direction of Sebastian’s finger toward the halfway point of the corridor. “They said they were at the end of the hall from what I remember” the man replies, giving Marta all the assurance she needs to pass through the abundance of open doors- one of which she peers through to find Sonya and Courtney talking amongst themselves on the distant patio- with only one thought in mind.

Finally reaching her intended area, Marta peers through a few doorways before stumbling upon exactly what she’d expected to, Sebastian nodding to himself as he finds Lou sat on his own at the foot of a barely-touched bed, impressed with the woman’s investigative skills. “I’m gonna take it this was Ally’s room?” the woman inquires, her voice prompting the man to look up at her expected appearance, one that he welcomes kindly.

“I figured you’d find me here eventually” Lou confesses, his rebar staff propped against the wall beside the front door, not having made it as far into the bedroom as he had, “it’s not because I wanted you to or anything, I just knew I probably wouldn’t leave this place before you came looking.”

“Mhm, that’s why” Marta responds, the first to step into the room and join the same mentor she’s grown close enough to jokingly mock, “it’s not ‘cause we’re totally B.F.F’s now and read each other’s minds or anything.” Rolling his eyes as he shakes his head, Lou slides over a slight bit to free a space beside him the woman takes without hesitation, Sebastian remaining a fair distance away as he leans against the entertainment console at the front of the room.

“I know it’s foolish, and maybe it’s misplaced because I went so long looking for friends I started losing the hope of ever finding, but-” Lou begins, the woman that sits beside him already aware of what he’s going to say, bracing herself for it to be spoken aloud, “-I have to find her.” Her eyes pressing shut, Marta bobs her head the moment his thought concludes, nodding to herself with her head hung for a moment before lifting it, her eyelids parting as she looks to him.

“I’m gonna give you two a little space” Sebastian interjects, not wanting another word to be shared that he truly feels doesn't belong for his ears to hear, politely bowing out of the conversation that he reserves no right to be a part of. “I’m sorry, I know we just got here and started settling in, but-” Lou explains, trying to clear the air that feels more tense than it truly is the moment their friend departs for other company, kept from doing so by his impressive protege.

“No, Lou, it’s okay. I’m-” Marta remarks, shaking her head vehemently as she hides an uncomfortable smile, the conflicting emotions that come over her proving to be difficult to contest with. “You’ve been nothing but the best to me ever since we met- aside from the brief spell where you wanted nothing to do with me, obviously” the woman remarks, quickly turning the tide to her original point, “if your heart belongs to her, that’s totally fine. I get it, and I get why you wanna go after her.”

“But it’s not fair to you” Lou replies, looking away from her face as he speaks before being cut off again, his point not refuted this time around however. “No, it’s not. It’s not, and I won’t pretend like it is ‘cause I’d be lying and I think we can give each other more than that” Marta agrees, staring off into the depths of the room as the man’s eyes now take toward her, “but what’s fair to me isn’t the point here. Maybe- in a different world- I took your heart before she did, but-”

Stopping mid-sentence, Marta’s eyes begin to grow watery, this reaction not one she feels needs to be spared from the man beside her, a breathy huff escaping her lungs as she shakes her head. “But we don’t live in a different world” the woman sighs depressingly, frowning as the man’s heart weighs heavy with the weight of her disappointment- one he knows himself to be the cause of, “we live in this world. In this world- Ally has your heart... I don’t.”

Pulling a deep breath into his lungs, Lou opens his mouth to speak before seemingly freezing, the air he’d trapped within him kept held down as the words he wishes to use evade him. In one full thrust, every ounce of oxygen he’d pulled in waves forward without the words they were intended to carry, the silence he meets the girl- who leaves him honestly speechless- with only allows her to continue speaking.

“Sometimes, when I’m having a hard time falling asleep, I think about what it would be like if we met before this. If we got to know each other like this before hell tore us apart- even if it’s the only reason we met each other in the first place” Marta confesses, staring off at the opposite side of the room as the salty tears begin to make their way down her rosy cheeks, “I imagine what could have been and- when I do that- I realise how much I’ve actually fallen for you.”

Lou’s lips reuniting with each other just as he had with his friends against all odds, the motivation behind his search- and the effects it has on him and those he cares for by proxy- shown to him in full display. “That’s the truth honestly. It’s not some crush, or some fleeting young-love, wishy-washy thing” Marta concludes, wiping her nose with her arm as the tears truly begin to run, “it’s what you felt. That thing you know you never want to feel for anyone else ever again.”

Nodding her head, Marta hyperventilates as Lou’s hand reaches out to wipe the tears from her face, her head shaking at his touch as she musters the strength to finish the point that sits at the tip of her tongue. “I have that kind of love for you-” the woman concludes, her head drifting all the way to her left shoulder as her voice falls faint, the smile she wears one that she depends on to ease the deep pain that her heart breaks through, “-and you have that kind of love for Ally.”

Deeply wounded at his core, Lou’s face turns to various different expressions of guilt and sorrow for what he’s done before the woman’s best efforts to regain her composure manage to prevail. “I know you never meant to do this. You never meant to lead me on or depend on you or- or any of it” Marta explains, clearing her throat as she wipes the tears that still linger on the cusp of her eyelid, “so I want you to know that I don’t blame you. I get what you need to do and why- I get it completely.”

His own wrought with regret and remorse, Lou stares into Marta’s eyes as his head sheepishly rocks from side to side. “Marta, I know how bad I’ve hurt you” the man explains, kept from talking further as the woman shakes her head vigorously, refusing to let his line of speech present itself.

“No, I don’t want you to think about that. I don’t want you to look at me like that ‘cause you’d never be able to look at me any other way- ever” Marta replies, refusing the man the chance to slowly tear away what they’d built simply because of the feeling she’d fallen into, “I love what we have. I love the banter, and the friendliness, and the care- all of it. I need it ‘cause it’s the one thing that I’ve lived for since we met. I can’t not love you, but I can’t lose you as a friend.”

Again forced to grunt as she clears her throat, Marta steps away from the bedside and turns her front toward Lou, the distance between them created as she makes her best attempt to clean the slate. “Part of that is being there. To be here and support what you want regardless of how it makes me feel” she explains, continuing to speak to the man that refuses to step out of line in her speech, “I know why you have to go after her because it’s why I had to go after you. I know. I know.”

Standing up to join the woman, Lou slowly approaches her as he desperately searches for what to say, beating his own head as if it were a drum just to prevent himself from saying anything that could hurt her anymore than he already has. “I only came here to see if I could find a note. Maybe just find a piece of paper stuffed somewhere the others didn’t check” the man explains, trying his best to speak freely despite his mind’s eagerness to remind himself of what he’s caused.

“It doesn’t make sense why she’d leave without a note, so I came here looking for one, but-” Lou continues, finding himself coming to a stop before actually finishing his thought, looking into the woman’s eyes as his expression starts to shift, adjusting into something that completely goes against the apologetic front it’d worn to that point, “-but I know I’ll never actually find her.”

Smiling without showing her teeth, Marta refuses the man’s conclusion with a nod, another tear rolling down the side of her face before she speaks. “Yes you will” the woman replies, her soft tone catching Lou’s ears the way they have for as long as he can remember hearing them, “you will because you know her. You will because you’re gonna find that note they missed and you’re gonna go after her- we all are.”

Confused, Lou shakes his head as it slightly pulls away, “there’s no note. I’ve looked anywhere I could think of and there’s no note” the man refutes, smiling off the woman’s kind words as just that- reassuring statements. “You know her better than anyone else. Everyone else seems to think it, and somewhere deep down inside of you- I think you know that” Marta replies, retreating slowly to leave him space, “if you think she wouldn’t leave without a note- she wouldn’t leave without a note.”

Squinting, Lou struggles to ask the question that he wishes to ask, an uncertain feeling coming over him that forces him to stay silent- his mouth open without a voice to use. Again freezing as he had before, the man’s eyes widen slightly as the rest of his body eases up, the two halves of his mouth slowly drawing closer to each other as those same words he’d fought to find completely disappear.

Almost as if gifted the key to all his problems, Lou turns toward the same piece of furniture he’d aimlessly taken a seat at the end of, the sudden thought that dawns on him watched on by the woman who simply smiles at the simple hope she knows floods through him within an instant. Walking to the head of the bed, the man reaches past the woman’s clearly-used pillow- the brief imprint of her head still presented in its sunken cushion- and to the unused one that sits beside it.

With a gentle tug, Lou holds it by the pillowcase’s end and peers inside, overcome by shock as he reaches in to retrieve a folded piece of paper with the first letter of his name written at the very top. “So, BFF-” Marta murmurs, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she slowly approaches his side, looking over his shoulder as he unravels the paper, “-where are we all heading?”

Opening the page to reveal a short, three-sentence body of text purposefully intended for him- and him alone- to find. As Marta looks over his shoulder and reads the note for herself, her face takes a slow turn from pleased for his revelation to surprised at words her eyes read whilst moving from one end of the page, looking back to the man’s face upon her completion, where he waits for her eyes to meet his before answering her question in one word.

“East.”

== RISE and REVOLT ==