S7, E5 | Through the Snow

“It’s cold” Salem remarks, watching her cloudy breaths flutter through the air with every breath she takes whilst her eyes fixate on the snow-covered leaves of the nearby treeline. “It’s winter, that’s kind of the point” a man replies, wielding a rifle similar to his acquaintance whilst wearing a heavy coat and thick toque, his pale face stained by rosy red cheeks.

“I know that, jackass” Salem replies, her denim coat unzipped and the break of her black jeans tucked into her heavy boots, which sit within five inches of snow. “Why mention that it’s cold then?” the woman’s unassuming colleague retorts, uncertain of the complaint’s point, “or, at least, why mention it to me? I can’t change the weather.”

“I’m just complaining for the sake of it, dude” Salem replies, rolling her eyes as her side leans against the remnants of a rundown sedan, its paint-chipped body covered in a mountain of fluffy, wintery mix. “We’ve got another five hours on this shift, do you really think I wanna spend it all in silence?” she persists, the lack of an answer she receives prompting her to think quietly amongst herself, “well, I suppose I wouldn’t mind it.”

“I’ve never taken you to be the social type” the warm-clothed survivor accompanying the woman on her guard duties responds, sitting on a level of a nearby scaffold, its metal supports rusted and individual platforms dirty and wet. “That’s ‘cause I’m not” Salem replies, the first two fingers on her left hand tapping against her weapon’s trigger guard, “sometimes I’d just prefer not to be alone with my thoughts, that’s all.”

“Would I be in danger if you were?” the man asks back, trying to make light of the rather gloomy comment with a half-hearted attempt at humour, only for his efforts to go unnoticed. “No, probably not” Salem responds, passing a look at him for a moment before reuniting her line of sight with the forest ahead, lips pressing shut to keep quiet so as not to disturb the man a few yards off behind her.

With a squint in her eye, the woman’s attention sets upon the undisturbed woodlands, her ears catching the distant calls of crows hiding within it whilst her skin is kissed by the frigid winds that ruffle through the leaves. “I left something out there the other day- while I was out with Rob- and I’m gonna go check on it really quick” Salem remarks, a gentle push off the vehicle allowing her to begin stepping through the snow that sits between herself and the forest.

“You’re not supposed to leave the post” the man she prepares to leave behind, even if for only a moment, responds. “We’re not supposed to do a lot of different things that everyone ends up doing, man” Salem replies, squawking over her shoulder as she ventures further into the terrain typically deemed off limits, “just sit tight and I’ll be back in a few.”

“What did you leave out there?” the man quickly wonders back, watching the woman stop in her tracks and roll her eyes, turning toward her colleague with a dismissive gleam in her eyes. “So now you wanna chat?” Salem retorts, not allowing the man an opportunity to answer the question she’d asked sarcastically, “just sit tight and I’ll be back in a second or two. You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Though he doesn’t like the concept of being split up against the compound’s orders, the pale-skinned, rifle-wielding guard stationed atop the modest scaffolding has little choice but to oblige to the desires voiced by the free-spirited survivor he watches wander into the frost-bitten abyss.

Within minutes, the headstrong woman finds herself deep within the woodlands, her back held toward the way she’d entered from not long ago. Each step that crunches upon a layer of untouched snow prompting birds hidden within the snow-covered branches above to fly off for safer pastures, Salem carries on with her descent into the relentlessly frost-bitten unknown, terrain she’d never once travelled now surveyed and experienced without a pair of arms to fall into.

Keeping a tight hold of her weapon, the woman’s progression carries onward, the passing gusts of wind that get caught on the open flaps of her coat threatening to halt her at every instance. Defiant and unwilling to compromise with the elements, Salem continues to brave the unfamiliar ground and conditions so unforgiving that they appear motivated, looking farther into the chasm that lies ahead, its fluff-hidden path lit only by the dawn of a new day just beginning to come upon Nova Scotia.

Without a second soul to speak to or another friend to call for in the need of help, Salem’s each step carries her into deeper grounds, the path beginning to dip in spite of the snow appearing to rise another inch at each passing metre. Impossible to differentiate from the crisp chill of the arctic, Nova Scotia’s air surrounds the woman and bites at every last shred of exposed flesh, refusing to grant her a comfortable travel onward.

Her cold fingers grasping her rifle tighter, Salem watches a pile of snow fall from atop a branch that had become too weak to prop up what had compiled atop it, snapping free and hanging by the tree it’d come from as the snow creates a cloud on its way toward the ground. Her ears catching little more than the sound of winds violently whipping past her, the wandering trooper carries onward, the snow’s level reaches her thighs, rising up them like the frost-bitten hands of a poor romantic.

Though they sit barren of the leaves they present in warmer seasons, the trees that stand before the sniper’s vision are so abundant and undisturbed that they block anything within the near distance. The boundaries of the woodlands that Salem’s eyes cannot see because of the cold fog that prevents her sights from laying upon distant views covered in the second layer of forest that litter the field ahead of her.

As her groyne now hovers over the snow, a reluctant Salem accepts the terms of reality that occupy the forefront of her mind, the snow ahead of her having become too deep to safely traverse. Her body cold and hands shaking, the woman presses her teeth together and starts hissing the hottest breaths she can conjure, trying to warm her lips as she turns back, coming to grips with the fact that her travels have ended well before she’d wished for them to.

With his eye pressed to the top of his own rifle, a man perched in a nearby tree watches the defeated Nova Scotian turn back for home, a sigh of relief carried through his mouth. “She’s turning back” he remarks, keeping his voice just low enough for the man in a nearby branch to hear, his weapon having already lowered from their potential discoverer.

“Good” the second man replies, tightening the hold his winter cap has, its warm materials hugging his head snug, shielding him from the frosty teeth the winter air bites at him with. Retreating, Salem slowly digs her feet out of the snow repeatedly, carrying herself to higher ground with a half-smirk on her face. Lips chapped and strands of her hair having been soaked by the snow and frozen into ice by the late-seasonal air, she proceeds back before coming to a momentary pause.

“Man, what the hell were you thinking? Snapping that branch like that, what’s wrong with you!?” one of the treetop men remarks, presenting the question to his contemporary with the tone of a disheartened father, “don’t you know how fucked we would’ve been if you’d blown our cover?”

“Of course I do. What else did you expect me to do?” the second man replies, the toque he’s meant to wear atop his head instead laid upon his bent knee, which soon feels the graze of his rifle’s barrel. “I didn’t have a line of sight or a good shot on her from behind this damn trunk” man number two continues, shaking his head as his eyes take toward his side, “if I didn’t move, we wouldn’t have had eyes on-”

Ducking at the sound of a gunshot ringing through the air, the toque-wearing survivor shields his face for a moment before feeling the weight of the tree he stands within decrease. Eyes passing to the side, the survivor watches his friend’s feet plummet to the ground below, joining his body in collapsing into the puffy, white snow face-up.

With widened eyes, the living survivor uncovers his face and looks at the ground below, staring into the whites of his friend’s eyes as the wintery mix he lays buried within begins to run red from the blood that escapes a bullet wound in the back of his head. Realising what’s come of his friend and soon to come of himself, the living survivor jumps to the side at the sound of a second gunshot, hearing the bullet barely miss him before he quickly loses balance.

Losing possession of his firearm, the cold-acclimated survivor reaches for whatever branches his eyes can find to no avail, the fall back to earth unimpeded by his desperate efforts. Standing in the middle of ankle-deep snow, Salem watches the defenceless man crater through the air and disappear within the mountain of snow she’s aware is too deep for her to venture through.

Passing a glance over her shoulder, Salem’s eyes wander in the direction of her Nova Scotian home before the sound of a third gunshot- this time one in which she did not fire- whirls through the air violently. Gritting her teeth, the woman holds her rifle to the side as a litany of additional bullets are fired off, all aiming for her direction from various directions.

With her back turned to the pair of men she’d fired at, Salem hurries for whatever cover she can find, only able to depend on her movement within the moment, trying to ensure she’s too difficult of a target to hit.

Knowing the bullets to have stolen enough of the attention off of himself, the living treetop survivor slowly digs out of the hole his body’s weight had formed in an effort to return to fresh air. Flailing his arms around, the man’s efforts soon drag him to the snow’s surface, finding enough to push himself upward and catch the briefest sight of his attacker fleeing in the opposite direction. 

“Fuck!” Salem grunts, her right knee slamming into the snow as the bullet that rips through her left calf muscle prevents her from continuing to put up a chase. Shielding her head, the woman removes one arm from beside her face and uses it to reclaim her rifle, firing a shot off at random in the direction of the nearest bullet.

Still amidst his struggle to fully return to the snow’s surface, the snow-covered survivor crawls to the body of his colleague, frozen hands rummaging the corpse in search of what he whimpers for. “Wallet! Wallet! I need your wallet!” he hisses repeatedly, reaching into the man’s pocket whilst pleading for the leather-bound belonging, hoping the man would be alive just enough to point him in the direction of it.

“Ah!” a random shooter in the distance grunts, prompting the wallet-seeking survivor to look up, watching a body plummet from the same tree that a second body collapses from soon after. “I need your wallet! Where’s your fucking wallet!?” he shouts again, his teeth clattering together as he scrambles with all that he can muster, his fingers too cold to properly move as they’re desired to, beginning to pick up the urgency at the sight of return fire.

“Salem!” a voice calls out from the forest’s entrance, a set of fast-moving lights trailing not too far behind himself. “Get help! Now!” the woman screams back, throwing herself behind the cover of a small rock, laying on her back so as to conceal herself as best as she can. Covered from one side, Salem peers into the distance of the forest as blood pours from her leg excessively, aware that reinforcements are on their way as she takes aim at whatever seems out of place.

“Where’s your fucking wallet!?” the living survivor pleads, fumbling around the winter coat his deceased partner wears, unable to get his fingers to cooperate with his intentions, the many zippers that line the hefty clothing unable to be undone.

Firing off another shot, Salem forces another one of the ambushing survivors to fall from their tree, their weapon plummeting into the snow alongside them, but away from immediate reach. The nearing sound of motors roaring behind her, the wounded guard at Nova Scotia’s defence calls out orders to those arriving at her aid, “I’ve got people on my left! They’re in the trees!” she exclaims, keeping her aim toward her right side.

“Let’s get you out of here!” one of the men on a snowmobile calls out, stopping the winter vehicle whilst his colleague carries on, driving into the open with an automatic rifle and peppering the sound of gunfire with bullets of his own. “No!” Salem exclaims, pushing the man that tries to aid her upward away before hurrying back the way she’d initially journeyed, her rifle taking aim at the man struggling to move.

Pressing his teeth together with great force, the fallen survivor, whose palms are too cold to process the materials they touch, stares back at the woman he’d initially been fired at by, the hurry she takes toward him not impeding her ability to reach for the rifle at her side. “No!” he exclaims, still too deep within the snow to scurry away, defenceless from the rifle whose barrel takes toward him, “no!”

With the pull of her trigger, Salem fires a round through the survivor’s head and kills the toque-wearing survivor, his misery ended, and yet his search is continued. As if the fluffy mixture were water, the rifle-wielding woman tosses her firearm to the side and dives into the snow that had originally been too deep for her to traverse, digging through the soft slush in an effort of reaching the corpses she’d laid to rest.

“Salem, what are you doing!?” the man she’d been stationed at the wall’s front alongside exclaims, firing into the distance as the gunshots begin centring back upon the already-wounded survivor. Without response, Salem digs through the snow to clear herself a path, refusing to let up until she’d reached the bodies’ final resting places.

Whilst his depleting crew fire at both the stubbornly defiant Salem and those that had come to her aid, one man holds his fire and steadies his aim, wanting to make his shot count. Narrowing his line of sight, the man lets his finger softly rest against the trigger as his barrel takes aim at the persistent woman with a wound in her calf, her head fully within his sights and aim.

Keeping his hold on the weapon steady, the gunman holds his fire and ensures his barrel travels with her every move, waiting until he’s confident enough in his ability to not miss before trying anything. Finally within reach of the corpses, Salem’s struggle through the snow comes to a stop, and her head’s violent and unpredictable movements cease in favour of steadying, allowing her eyes to follow the hand of the second man she’d hit with a perfect headshot.

Stiffening his finger, the man whose aim the woman unknowingly finds herself caught within touches the trigger as a shot bellows throughout the forest, no different from the abundance of others that had spent the last few minutes scaring every bird away from the area. Passing a glance to the side as her hand falls upon the pocket of the first corpse’s coat, Salem watches a body plummet from a tree head-first, a trail of blood falling after him alongside the weapon his hands release.

Ducking below a small hill formed within the snow alongside her, Salem unzips the first corpse’s coat pocket and retrieves the wallet his acquaintance had spent so long struggling to find. Turning back, the woman uses the room within the snow she’d been buried within to pull her arm back and send the leather-bound accessory flying through the air, her commendable accuracy allowing the piece to fall at the feet of her fellow fortress-overseer.

“Take that and go!” Salem exclaims, still using the adrenaline of the moment to let her mind forget about the wound that spills a trail of blood in her path, willing to die beyond the same walls she’d so eagerly yearned to be set free of. Reaching down for the wallet, the cover-ducking man tucks it into his back pocket as a third snowmobile hurries past him, venturing for the direction of the woman who soon reclaims her rifle.

Aware of the woman’s history, the third man refuses to grant the altercation’s source a choice of where her final moments are spent, instead taking the woman by the throat and dragging her onto the vehicle. “Let go of me!” Salem grunts, trying to squirm free of her fellow Nova Scotian’s grasp as the ground beneath her begins to move, her body carried in his arms as he directs the vehicle back toward the compound.

“I’ve got the wallet, don’t worry!” the woman’s partner barks, wanting to leave her little room to hesitate, departing the scene of chaos as she’s dragged back toward the community. Barely able to hear the man’s reassurance, Salem’s struggle begins to relent, and she slowly begins to accept the assistance of those who’d hurried out to her side. As the adrenaline begins to wane, the woman’s teeth begin to press together at the pain in her leg, the rest of her body beginning to wear her soreness.

= Rise is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 3 onwards =

Squinting her eyes whilst seated at a desk, Lauren twists a thin piece of metal around a long bar she’s fitted into a drill, winding it into a screw whilst her husband finishes doing the same nearby. Keeping to themselves, the married couple carry on with their individual efforts in silence, sitting beneath their respective desk lamps whilst embracing the warmth that emanates from a pair of space heaters they’re within the pathway of.

One after another, they twist thin rods of metal around a bar and slide them off with ease, letting the newly-crafted coils sit off to the side with a pile of equally-spun, soon-to-be links of chain. Passing a glance off to a nearby piece of paper, Jack’s eyes take toward the pile of loops he’d made and begins organising them into groups of ten, eventually counting his way up to eighty seven.

“You wouldn’t waste so much time counting the things if you’d just organise them from the start” Lauren remarks, a smirk held in her face as she eyes the man sitting a few metres off to her right. With an amused look of sarcastic displeasure, Jack pulls his sights away from the next bar he’d intended to coil and lets his hands fall to the desk he sits at, eyes fully setting upon the woman he’d committed himself to with the binding power of a wedding ring.

“And how many bars have you spun?” Jack questions aloud, watching the woman’s hand gently pat the table once for every row of coils she’d produced. After a few seconds, Lauren confidently turns toward her husband with a smile that soon fades, her eyes retaking to the twisted pieces of metal that she forces herself to recount, uncertain as to whether or not her initial tally had been correct.

“And now you see how far-” Jack replies, his efforts thwarted as he’s kept from finishing his retort by the sound of a knock at the closed garage door. With his eyebrows furrowed, the man steps out from behind his desk and reclaims the firearm he’d left resting beside him, holstering it on his waist whilst his wife quietly removes her own from the drawer of the desk she occupies.

“You’ve reached the home of Jack O’Rourke and Lauren O’Rourke, who and how may I help?” the man greets, placing the side of his head against the cold entrance’s metal surface. Always hesitant, the couple run through their usual process, the husband speaking to those on the outside whilst his wife sneaks toward a stepladder off to the side, allowing her to climb a set of levels high enough to see the parties on the other side through a set of narrow windows.

“Your boss” a familiar woman’s voice replies from the other side, putting a reluctance over the hesitant face of Jack, whose eyes take toward his ascending wife for clarity. With widened eyelids, Lauren looks at the person standing in the cold, Canadian weather awaiting a reply, having arrived with a group of four armoured cars. Only able to see the top of their visitor’s head, the newly-recoloured blonde hairs give the woman a sneaking suspicion that their visitor is the undesired kind.

“I think it’s Charlotte” Lauren whispers as quietly as she can, though her hiss-like tone is incapable of escaping the ears of the compound’s leader. “Bingo” Charlotte doubles down from the other end of the garage, her knuckles tapping against its exterior for a second time as she requests entry, “hurry up and open this thing- it’s cold out.”

As if momentarily blinded by a rage that discourages common sense, Jack’s hand instinctively reaches for the weapon on his hip whilst his wife closes in, quickly approaching his side. “What do you wanna do?” she murmurs in so low of a voice that she’d barely done more than move her lips, unable to receive an answer from the man for the first few seconds.

“Open the door” Charlotte interjects, having pressed the side of her head against the makeshift-workshop’s entrance and listened in through the thin materials. “I’m in charge of this place, so I’ll find another way inside if you really force me to” she doubles down, unzipping the winter coat that’s thin in comparison to those other residents would wear, and shedding it as if she weren’t just used to the bitter chill in the air, but were fond of it.

Biting his tongue, Jack aids his wife in pulling the entrance open, throwing it upward once raised high enough and looking into the face of a woman whose sight makes his blood boil- even in the frigid temperatures he now exposes their home to. “But yeah, this was definitely the option you and your honey would’ve preferred” Charlotte remarks, continuing the line of speech the garage’s opening had interrupted, “it’s a good thing you chose it.”

“What do you want?” Lauren wonders aloud, aware that her husband’s paralysation of reason has rendered him incapable of having the conversation she now must bear, watching as the woman steps into their shared workshop. “Well, I’d like for it to be summertime again. It’d be nice not to spend so much energy sending people out to clear the streets and dig cars out of mini-Mt. Everist’s” Charlotte replies, letting her t-shirt-laiden arms hang by each side, “but you two can’t control that.”

Standing in the workshop’s centre, the compound’s leader stares at the married couple with a smile, inspecting each of their visage’s without letting up on her purposefully-shallow expression of pleasure. Looking into the eyes of Lauren, the visitor finds a concerned woman who can’t help but worry that this interaction will only lead to strife, though the fear that she holds is hidden behind a thick layer of feigned confidence, one used in the hope that it’ll prevent the anxiety from discovery.

Nodding at the woman, Charlotte’s eyes take to her unlawfully-wedded, his expression nothing less than the polar opposite of his perceived better half. His face holding back an anger that he knows is inappropriate for the circumstance, Jack’s eyes contain a mask of rage that had never been fully allowed to slip or be set aside, the bitter hatred he has for the presence of the woman across from him as clear as day, and unlike that of his wife, isn’t even cared enough to be stowed away.

“I heard that the two of you had quite the setup over here” Charlotte remarks, nodding to herself before turning around, her back shown to those whose company she resides within. “I had a member of my guardsmen- a rather high-ranking one, at that- come to me with this suit of chainmail armour he’d purchased from the two of you” she continues, surveying the scene she stands within, fully aware of the kind of people she’s turned away from, “he’d mentioned something interesting to me.”

“What is that?” Lauren wonders aloud, watching the woman briefly glimpse back toward her amidst a pause, clearly eager to end this visitation as quickly as she can. Feeling the haste in the woman’s remark, Charlotte stares off at the garage’s depths before her eyes stumble upon a coffee maker in the back of the room.

“Does that thing work?” she wonders aloud, pointing in the direction of a jumbled mess of items, different machines and belongings stored off to the side and out of the way, “does that coffee maker work?”

“No, it’s broken” Lauren replies, her response prompting the Nova Scotian leader to squint her eyes and smirk. “So, have you just not gotten around to unplugging it?” Charlotte wonders aloud, an eyebrow raised as she begins walking toward the room’s back, each step she takes proving too great of bait for Jack’s expression to not sour over.

“Stop” Lauren interrupts, prompting the woman to cease the steps she’d taken toward the machine, even closer to the room’s actual centre than she’d initially been standing within. Aware of her husband’s best attempt at keeping from exploding with a violent temper in the name of revenge, the home’s more ‘of sound mind’ resident voices her own displeasure for the visitation.

“Please explain why you’re here and leave” Lauren requests, making her desire to see the Nova Scotian ruler’s departure clear and well-stated, “we don’t appreciate you showing up unannounced. We don’t appreciate you being here any longer than you’ve already been, and we’d like you to leave. So, please tell us what you came here to say and go back to wherever you came from.”

With an eyebrow raised, Charlotte looks at the woman who’d spoken to her with such eloquence before taking her eyes toward the man standing beside her. His temper clearly kept at bay for the moment, Jack notices the humoured expression begin to conceal itself well upon his guest’s face, though it's apparent enough for him to notice.

“Is that what you’d like?” Charlotte wonders back, looking at the visibly-angry man with a smile in the corner of her face before an unwelcome voice begins to answer her. 

“Yes, that’s what we’d-” Lauren replies, only for the subject of her response to shake her head and lift a finger in her direction, knowingly contributing to the tensions that stir within the cold garage. “Not you. If I was asking you, I would’ve looked at you” Charlotte reiterates, refusing the woman’s response before redirecting her gaze toward the man she knows to be too spiteful to answer with niceties, “no, I want to hear what Mr. Lauren Salcedo has to say.”

Nostrils flaring, Jack stares into the woman’s eyes as she begins to traipse across the ground once more, walking slowly for the direction of himself and his wife. “After all, I’m here to talk business. The gentleman here is half of that same business I’m here to talk about, so what fun can we have if his wife is doing all the talking?” Charlotte doubles down, closing the gap between herself and the fiery husband, a wag of her chin paid toward him, “I’m sure he can speak for himself.”

Lips pressed together as they had been since the workshop was opened for the fresh air of the cold, winter afternoon, Jack stares at the woman that soon stops approaching him, only a few metres truly parting their bodies. Ever the antagonist, Charlotte winks at the man whose composed guise begins rapidly slipping, acting as an added source of heat to assist already-boiling water in not only falling over the edge, but clearing it entirely.

With the vein in his forehead appearing within his skin, Jack reaches to his hip and frees the pistol from within his own holster, taking the barrel between the eyes of Nova Scotia’s leader. Retrieving their own rifles one after another, the convoy their leader had arrived with take immediate aim at the man holding their commander at gunpoint, though this act fails to intimidate the woman it’s meant to strike fear within, as Charlotte’s smile only deepens, her expression flushed with glee.

|

“Don’t feel sorry” Courtney remarks, shrugging as she lifts a bottled beer to her lips, a smile worn as she pauses to finish her thought, “I’ve used the ‘I’ve got friends in high places card’ plenty of times. It’s almost a right of passage at this point.” Lifting his eyebrows, Emilio looks back to the plate sitting in front of him, his right hand returning the glass of water to the side of his plate, which allows an as-of-yet untouched burger to tempt the man’s eyes and pallet.

“Yeah sure, ‘right of passage’ my ass” Juliet retorts, sitting an unopened beer bottle beside the one Courtney had already nearly finished, which itself sits beside the bottle opener the bartender had left for her patron to use, “how else do you think she gets bottles while everyone else gets their beer in a glass?”

“I’m not even sure how you managed to snag glass beer bottles, let alone have any to give her” Emilio replies, shaking his head as he looks at the burger his hands soon claim, “but Juliet, I’ve learned over the last few months to never doubt you. So, however you went about acquiring them, I’m just going to trust that you made sure there were no witnesses.”

Nudging the man’s shoulder with her balled fist, the bartender gives him a wink and begins marching back toward the kitchen. “Ever the flirt, Emilio. Yes, you are!” Juliet sarcastically remarks, dipping into the back to man the grill once more as the man she speaks to give her a quick salute.

For the next few seconds, the only sounds that come over the counter-sitting pair of colleagues are the noises of a louder dining room than the one that had been present when they’d first met. One side of the room now lined with various billiards tables, dartboards, a ping pong table and a set of foam throwing axe boards, the other is saddled with various booths and tables, of which all are occupied by at least two people.

“So what else did you do with your night?” Courtney wonders aloud, taking another sip of her beer whilst Emilio chews his second bite of the burger, “we didn’t see each other after we split up yesterday. What’d you do after you got back to the warehouse?”

Shaking his head as he waves his hand dismissively, Emilio refuses any notion of having spent his evening any other way than he usually does. “Same thing, different day. That’s all” he answers, taking a napkin from the holder that reflects the sunlight that shines through the clouds, falling upon the snow-covered streets of society’s last stand, “I went home, I put on a Beatles record, kicked my feet up and fell asleep in my recliner.”

Snapping her fingers as her arm zips through the air with a purposefully-animated display of disappointment, Courtney sets her beer down with the opposite hand and playfully picks on her friend’s lack of social life. “I was hoping for some raunchy tale of you falling in love with some dude from the bar- one that’s not this one- and needing to follow your heart or some fairytale bullshit like that” she jokes, wiping her bottom lip with her thumb, “or saving a kid from a burning building.”

“No. No kids in burning buildings, no cats stuck in trees, and no gay love found in some back alley tavern” Emilio replies, dismissing the woman’s claims as the amusing fallacies they are, “I saw one weirdo right after you left, drove away and carried on with my night.”

“That man probably has a heart that would break if he found out you called him a weirdo” Courtney jokes once more, this time earning a noticeable laugh from her friend, forcing him to pause amidst his efforts of taking another bite from his meal. “That guy didn’t seem like he had a soul, let alone a heart” Emilio rebukes, smiling at the woman as he finishes his thought, following it by sinking his teeth into the patty once more, “plus he’s the opposite of who I’d associate myself with.”

“Really? That bad?” Courtney responds, a squint carried in her face as she watches the man gorge himself on the cheese and bacon-covered patty, “in this world? Nah, I don’t believe it.” Shrugging, Emilio lets his doubling-down posture do all the speaking his full mouth cannot, setting the burger down once more before running a paper napkin over the grease-coated corners of his mouth.

“When people blabber on about sparking a revolution, you tend to just wave them off and carry on with your day” Emilio replies, listening to the guttural laugh that leaves his acquaintance as she reaches for her beer yet again. “I mean, it definitely threw me off that he knew about my friends and I, but it’s not something I’m foreign to” he proceeds, continuing to speak whilst Courtney leaves him the floor, “the revolution talk is something I’m foreign to, but being recognised isn’t.”

“Well you used to be in politics, right? It makes sense that he’d know who you were” Courtney replies, unsure of the point behind the others, “the rest of your group weren’t politicians though, right?”

“Franklin was my running mate. My husband was in public a lot when I was mayor, but he wasn’t really involved in the legislation aspect that much” Emilio replies, tossing a french fry into his mouth, “but the others weren’t. Alicia and Lauren were in school, I’m pretty sure Salem was a pilot, Jack worked in a warehouse, and I’ve still got no real idea what the hell Clint and Nessie did before we met.”

Though the pieces don’t add up, Courtney dismisses the man just as Emilio does, remaining mute on the topic in spite of holding a litany of questions her friend lacks the ability to answer. “It’s crazy, though. I thought Charlotte had said the people in here were never told about John and us. At least, I could’ve sworn that’s what she said” the burger-enjoying resident continues, finally speaking aloud something that prompts his acquaintance to squint her eyes, “I guess not.”

“What do you mean?” Courtney wonders aloud, unsure of whether or not she’s on the same line of thought as her colleague is, “I don’t know that anyone here knows it was you and the others that took down the place in New York. For fucks sake, it took me, like, a year before Charlotte even told me.”

“Well, why did this guy know who we were?” Emilio responds, the dismissive and nonchalant attitude he’d spent nearly the last full day treating the interaction with beginning to subside. “I don’t know, how the hell am I supposed to know?” Courtney retorts, defending her insight- or lack thereof- into the discourse she’s only now being informed of, “did you get this guy's name or what he wanted from you?”

“Yeah, it was Andrew something” Emilio responds, looking off to the side as his hands press to each side of his forehead, unaware of the widening eyes his friend reacts with as he searches for the name sitting on his tongue’s tip, “Gamble! It was Andrew Gamble.”

Her lips just barely parted, Courtney looks into the face of the man that soon turns toward her, taking immediate notice of the shock that comes over her awestruck visage. Silent, Emilio stares at the indescribable expression that holds toward him, only able to read the motivations of fear and dread in her eyes.

“And I’m going to assume you already know who he is and there’s something very wrong with him?” Emilio doubles down, trying to use whatever light-hearted enthusiasm he can muster to ease the woman from the stiff and rigid presentation she’d responded to him with. “Don’t ever talk to that man again” Courtney replies, instantly breaking from her apparent code of silence the moment her friend’s remark comes to a halt, an obvious sincerity held behind her words.

“Well, I think I made it rather clear that I wasn’t planning to” Emilio replies, still holding the youthful pep within his words, trying to mellow the space shared between himself and his friend, “he gave me the creeps anyway. Seems like a dude that doesn’t socialise.”

Falling silent the moment his wrists are taken into the grasp of his business partner’s hands, Emilio looks into the woman’s eyes and awaits her remarks, aware that there is something on her mind she wishes to speak, though she’s yet to fully flesh them out and into words. “I’ll try to explain what I can at some other time, but right now I need you to tell me exactly what he said to you” Courtney declares, her voice kept to a minimum as her stare grows even more intense, “leave nothing out.”

|

“Drop the weapon!” a man at the front of the convoy commands, his weapon aimed at the back of whom holds the woman’s fate within the reach of his trigger. “No, sir. I’m afraid there’s no need for that” Charlotte retorts, refusing the efforts of her subordinates in spite of the barrel that she spends what could be her final moments staring past, looking into the concentrated eyes of the man whose finger resides within mere centimetres from ending her life.

“Mrs. Walters, I’m-” the commander of the ruler’s private security rebukes, kept from speaking any further by the hand that extends past the side of the man holding her at gunpoint. “You’re paid by me to serve whatever purpose it is that I wish for you to. As far as I’m concerned, that includes speaking when spoken to” Charlotte interjects, her passing glance toward the security detail soon returning to the man standing across from her, “I command that you- all of you- lower your weapons.”

Reluctant, the man tasked with providing for the Nova Scotian ruler’s every command is forced between a rock and a hard place, the woman he’s sworn to protect now demanding that he do just the opposite. “If you really wanna be given the chance to do this, you might as well let me make sure they give you some room for error” Charlotte whispers aloud, allowing the man who tempts her fate to hear as she steps past, approaching the crew she’s commanded to step down.

“If you open fire on what you cannot see, you run the risk of shooting me dead” Charlotte proclaims, stepping to the workshop’s front and reaching for the garage door, “so you are all to hold your fire until this door is opened back up. When it is, you are to remain holding your fire until I tell you otherwise. If anybody fires a shot before then- I’ll have you hanged.”

Leaving her troops no other option, Charlotte forcefully pulls the door down of her own volition, sealing herself within the chainmail workshop she’d only intended to visit for a short time. “Why did you do that?” Lauren wonders aloud, asking the question to the same woman that expected nothing less than that being the opening inquiry.

Locking the garage’s entrance into place, Charlotte casually strolls back to the spot in which she’d initially stood, allowing herself to be held at gunpoint with a nonchalant smile on her face. “Reason number one is as follows- because I could” the Nova Scotian figurehead replies, letting her arms sway freely by each side, refusing to present either survivor with the faintest sight of hostility, “reason number two is as follows- because we can’t actually talk business until we settle this.”

“There’s nothing to settle. You know what you did” Jack replies, watching the grin on the face of the woman he has every reason to kill only increase with his remarks. “Correct. I do know what I did. I took a group of my guards to a warehouse because I needed to know where to find John” Charlotte responds, only beginning her recollection, “John didn’t have any current address on his military records, so I went to his wife’s workplace and found it through her. You lot were there too.”

“You tried to kill Tyler. You tried to kill all of us” Jack responds, his claim left unrefuted by the woman he torments with his firearm, “I don’t know why John let you go, but I should’ve never given him the chance.” Tucking her hands into the pockets on her camo pants, Charlotte nods along with all of her aggressor’s comments, allowing them to be voiced and left to linger, aware of the undertones provided by the fact that she’s still yet to be sentenced to death.

“Yup. I did all of that” the woman responds, shrugging her shoulders as she shakes her head, passing a look toward Lauren, who splits her sights between the man she loves and the leader she fears he’s about to take unrecoverable action against. “I didn’t pull the trigger, but my men certainly put two-face on the verge of death. I nearly killed the lot of you, and yeah- it caught me by surprise that the Cowboy just sent me on my way” Charlotte responds, again shrugging, “so kill me.”

With wide eyes, Lauren’s stare darts toward the Nova Scotian leader whilst her husband’s remain unchanged, his anger-filled visage keeping as steady as the hand he aims the gun with. “I’m a menace to society, you practically said it there yourself. You and John and the others were all so much better off without me. You lot kept that place running in tip top shape” Charlotte doubles down, the sarcasm in her voice beginning to grow obvious, “and clearly this place won’t be affected by my death.”

“Yes it would” Lauren interrupts, watching the compound’s leader glare in her direction, “yes, Jack- it definitely would.”

“Of course it would. The economy would crash, there’d be a power vacuum left in my wake, and the things under the surface that aren’t so pretty would bubble to the top and make a big fucking mess. Hell, this place would probably crumble within two weeks, but at least Jack would have gotten his revenge” Charlotte replies, the words she speaks implying this entire altercation is as ridiculous as the words she utters, “that’s what’s important, isn’t it Jack? You and your revenge.”

“This isn’t about me. It’s about what you did- about who you hurt” Jack reiterates, clearly speaking from a place within his mind that’s rooted itself within a deep and well-guarded vendetta. “Of course it is. This has nothing to do with you. This is all about Tyler, and Janice, and Reggie, and Shauna. This is about them” Charlotte retorts, her voice carrying the most obvious hint of sarcasm yet, “and getting revenge for them is way more important than looking after Lauren, right?”

Keeping his mouth shut, Jack stares at the woman he’s waited years to hold in this position whilst his wife watches on in equal silent, waiting for the discourse to subside however it will, unable to truly influence it without being talked down by either party. “All of those people are dead. They’re really fucking dead. They’re so dead that they’re yesterday’s news” Charlotte pokes, “but getting revenge for them is worth ruining Nova Scotia. It’s worth sending the missus out into the cold.”

“Jack, please” Lauren murmurs aloud, not feeling the need to say anything more than that, believing that her husband can fill in the blanks that she leaves for him to inspect. “Yes, Jack. Please tell Lauren how important it is that you put a bullet in my head. Tell her how it’ll bring your friends back from the dead and finally make right on what I’d done to them” Charlotte replies, reaching for a stool she soon takes a seat upon, unphased by the situation she’s surrounded by.

“You deserve to die. You don’t know what we had to go through out there. You don’t realise what it was like in those first few weeks” Jack rebukes, his steady arm wearing the veins presented from his tight grip on the weapon. “It was a miracle that Tyler made it at all. All of those sleepless nights worrying he’d stop breathing. All of those days where I thought it was my fault for what happened” he continues, “what you did to Janice, what you did to John, it was-”

“It was unforgivable. Yeah, I agree. That’s why I’ve never asked for forgiveness. And not for nothing, but I couldn’t fucking care less whether or not you gave it to me” Charlotte replies, still as carefree as the second she’d stepped foot in the workshop, “but I’ve said it since before you lot took New York down, and I’ll say it until I’m dead- which could be at any second thanks to you- I was right. John was wrong, I was right, and people had to die en masse to prove that.”

Letting the air settle, Charlotte pauses for a moment before hanging her head, letting her index and middle fingers press together and rub against the side of her head. “But let’s not pretend like you and your friend haven’t already done worse by now” she proceeds, having allowed her past to be dug into, and now taking the opportunity to do much the same, “it wasn’t just the people in New York that your actions got killed, it was the people in Sheol, and the people in Sun City.”

“No one’s perfect” Jack replies, aware of how poor that defence is, but admitting within himself that he has no better. “So why is it that I am the one standing trial here?” Charlotte quickly retorts, not allowing the off-hand and lazy excuse go unnoticed, “don’t even bother answering that question. The answer is a lot simpler than anything you could answer it with. I’m standing trial because this is all about how you never got the chance to take me out yourself.”

Aware of how little his last poorly-attempted reply was, Jack chooses to remain silent this time around, instead opting to let the woman continue speaking whilst holding his weapon upon her. “Janice and John would’ve loved this shot, but they’re not alive to actually take it like you are. That’s why this is happening. The only way this ends is by you killing me right here, or you finally getting the chance to choose to put the gun down. There’s no third option.”

Whilst his teeth press together, Jack looks into Charlotte’s unimpressed eyes whilst his ears catch the various voices beyond the locked garage door chatter amongst each other, all as uncertain over what’s unfolding as part of himself is. “On one hand, you can shoot me and the guys outside that door will do with you whatever it is they’ll do with you” the woman continues, able to make a sophisticated guess over how that option will play out.

“I’ll die and they’ll probably arrest you. You’ll be hanged, but Lauren will probably be allowed to walk free. You’ll get to say a goodbye before they pull the floor out from beneath you- literally- and she’ll watch you die. How romantic” Charlotte chirps, carrying on, “then, Nova Scotia will fall into disrepair, a man who you don’t need to know about will sever communications from Prince Edward Island, and the people will rise and revolt. This will all fall into the hands of chaos.”

“But there’s another option” Lauren interjects, again finding herself cut off by the remarks that the Nova Scotian overseer doubles down on, speaking into detail just as she had with the prior point. “Yes. You can choose to put that gun down, move on with your life and stop keeping yourself up at night with regret over not killing me when you had the chance” Charlotte concludes, crossing her arms in anticipation, “you can move on, care for your wife, and live out your days satisfied.”

“For the love of god, Jack. Please put the gun down” Lauren remarks, her pleas made as the talkie on Charlotte’s hip begins to fill the air, an unfamiliar voice to them calling for her immediate response. “We’ve seen worse than what she’s done to us. The least she can do is keep this place running so we don’t have to fight for every meal all over again. And she can’t do that when she’s dead” Jack’s voice of reason proceeds, “make her pay us back by having to keep this place running.”

“That’s one way of looking at it, but sure- it applies all the same” Charlotte confesses, shrugging her shoulders as she reaches for the talkie, responding to the voice on the other end as Jack turns his attention toward his wife. With weighted eyes, the man drowns out the voice of the Nova Scotian forewoman, allowing her to address the woman calling for her immediate action whilst sitting with his thoughts.

“It’s time to let go of the past” Lauren admits, disheartened at having to talk her husband down from the moment he’d been anticipating for all too long, but aware of what needs to be agreed upon. “If Tyler or Janice were here, they’d tell you to put the gun down. They’d hate having to do it, but they’d still tell you to” Jack’s other half concludes, taking her husband’s free hand into her own and squeezing it tight.

“Call Courtney and let her know as well. I’ll try to make it out there as soon as I’m done here” Charlotte remarks, already having prepared to walk out of the garage unscathed. “Jack, I’ve got somewhere else to be urgently, but I already know you’re not going to shoot me” the confident woman remarks, watching the grimace she’s reacted to with present itself upon the man’s face, “I’ll have someone else come up and work with you on what I was going to propose, but you’ve gotta make your call now.”

Scowling, Jack looks the busy woman in the eyes and lets out a sigh, focusing on the touch of his wife’s warm palm pressing into his own, his mind eased from the cliff he’d prepared to leap over the edge of within her comfort. Lowering the gun, the small business’ patriarch turns the lock on the garage and kneels down, pulling the entrance open to grant the woman her exit, “go. Get out” he concludes, pointing in the direction of her awaiting convoy.

With no more than a nod, Charlotte bows her head and steps off the stool, reupholstering her talkie before stepping out of the workshop, refusing to speak another word to the man she knows was lured into the decision he’d made, but had the literal chance to lower the gun for himself.

|

“You’re sure he was from Prince Edward Island?” Charlotte responds, shaking her head as she passes another look toward the laminated identification card within her grasp. “It’s got the same confirmation stamp we had all residents staying put get during that first year. He’s from over the bridge” Courtney doubles down, hands reaching for both sides of her waist.

“So what the fuck was he doing outside the front walls?” Charlotte whispers, though the haste in her voice accidentally makes it loud enough for the nearby hospital patient to overhear. “The better question is why he and the rest were perched up in trees” Salem rebukes, stepping past the leader’s armed security detail with a limp, her calf muscle bandaged, stitched, and treated for infection all within the same day.

“Well, if you’re so inclined to get in my business and we’re going to go down that route, why were you out there in the first place?” Charlotte replies, genuinely curious as to the woman’s motivations, “the kid you were with said you’d heard something in the forest, but I know he’s covering for your ass. There’s no way you heard something that far into the woods, and I know damn well you’re the kind to just wander off into nowhere looking for trouble.”

“I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered” Salem mocks, pressing her arm into the hallway’s corner so as to take the weight off her bad leg whilst a caring voice calls out from a few metres behind her. “Salem, you need to get off that leg” Emilio remarks, finally rounding the same corner that his friend had approached, having not realised his business partner and compound leader were within an arm's reach.

“You obnoxious cunts never fail to amaze me. What, do you fuckers travel in packs or something!? Jesus!” Charlotte quips, rolling her eyes and spinning around as her right hand woman takes over. “Guys, I’m sorry but we really need to talk in private right now” Courtney remarks, her passive request for privacy refused and ignored by the wounded woman who limps for the intel carried within the hands of the community’s overseer.

“I took a bullet to get that card for you. It was important to the other guy I shot- for whatever reason- and I think I’ve earned the right to know why” Salem explains, brushing off the hand Emilio tries to rest upon her shoulder, “and I think, since I’m pretty sure you know what I’m more than willing to do, you lack the guts to tell me otherwise to my face.”

“Salem, you- as a survivor- frighten me greatly. I’ve never denied that, I never will deny that, and will always consider you to be a different breed of confusing, complicated, and badass human altogether” Charlotte replies, not shying away from offering the woman the credit she’s due, “but regardless of what you do and don’t want, there are some things that you and your friends are just not meant to learn about. It’s not even just a ‘you guys’ thing, that applies for the general public.”

“Actually, I’m not sure we can keep it a secret anymore” Courtney interjects, watching her superior glance toward her with the look of confusion, “at least, I don’t think we can keep it secret from them anymore.” Covering her face with her hand, Charlotte sits with the woman’s remark in spite of not being offered a reason, trusting her close confidant enough to take her at her word.

“Gamble introduced himself to Emilio last night. And before you say anything, Emilio only told me about it about two hours ago” Courtney explains, watching Charlotte’s eyes widen as they fall upon her once more, the leader’s gaze soon redirecting itself toward the man in question before her eyelids press together yet again.

“He didn’t spill the beans on much, but he made it clear that something was going to happen- and you weren’t going to win” Courtney explains, pressing her teeth together and grimacing as the Nova Scotian leader turns around, slowly walking away with her head lowered. “We both know he’s aware of them and what they did in New York, but if we don’t tell them about Gamble now, he’s gonna get to them sooner or later” the bartering paramotorist declares, “we’ve gotta beat him to the punch.”

“Who the fuck is Gamble and what does he have to do with the wallet I pulled off the dead guy?” Salem wonders aloud, wanting to know whatever she can in return for the wound she’d taken in Nova Scotia’s name. “He’s the guy that sent those fuckers into the woods. I don’t know what they were doing there, but they were there on his orders” Charlotte confesses, letting out a sigh as she comes to grips with what her hand has been forced into, “he’s in charge of a rebellion group out in PEI.”

“There’s only one?” Salem suddenly wonders aloud, paying the compound’s leader an off-hand jab before bowing her head, humorously apologising before falling silent. “Yes, there’s only one. At least- that we know of” Charlotte replies, turning back with her arms crossed and reapproaching Courtney, allowing the truth behind what she’s now forced into to settle, “but, if I’m going to tell either of you anything more, I guess I’ll have to tell all of you.”

“The others are at Alicia and Franklin’s flat. We were supposed to meet them for dinner until Salem- well, y’know” Emilio responds, watching Courtney’s head nod before falling toward the ground, “I just talked to them a few minutes ago. They’re still there.”

“Then let’s not waste anymore time. I already hate this as is” Charlotte replies, beginning the retreat for the convoy that had taken her to the hospital whose halls they now occupy for the time being, “Fly-girl, governor, and pirate leg- let’s go.”

Stepping through the corridors without a second thought, Charlotte leaves the trio behind to watch her depart, not one of them confident that they’re to just blindly follow her. Without much of an alternative to lean toward, Courtney leads the charge in following after her superior whilst Emilio aids Salem onward, her rifle kept in tow as they continue through the nearest set of doors, joining the leader of the community in her reluctant march toward the home of those she has little care for.

== Rise ==