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Dead Men Walking
Topic Started: Nov 28 2014, 02:20 AM (70,853 Views)
DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Leonora cried out in pain, and then all of a sudden all the guns were raised. The one with the raspy voice placed the barrel of his rifle inches from Brandon’s forehead. His eyebrows got even more knitted.

One of his colleagues – or brothers, or whatever he might call him – put a rifle in front of Andy’s gut. Andy shoved his shotgun into his in return. If they both fired, the brother would get the worst of it. That is, until all his friends fired back and Andy was turned to swiss cheese.

“Don’t!” Hank cried out.

Andy didn’t turn his head, but looked in the corner of his eyes to see his friend and former boss aiming his Beretta out the door. He also scanned most of the other guards and noticed their aims centred on Emily and Emmett. If things jumped off, Andy knew his group would be on the losing side.

The other guys must have known that too, though, and they weren’t firing. Not yet, at least.

The one with the scratchy voice kept his stare focused intensely on Brandon.

“If you hurt her again…” he rasped.

* * *

Annie turned when she heard Willow fall down. Before she could help, she heard another sound, and then found herself flinching at a sudden influx of light into the dark, confined space. When she turned around again, she found Gregory standing in front of her. He was flanked by two rifle-wielding guards on either side of him.

“I see she’s awake,” Gregory said, nodding over Annie’s shoulder.

Annie paused. There was a lot she wanted to say to Gregory right now, a lot she wanted to do to him right now, but the guns meant she had to keep her anger at bay. As hard as it was, she selected her words carefully.

“She’s sick,” she repeated.

“I see,” he said.

Gregory looked and sounded sympathetic – which somehow made Annie even angrier.

“Bring her,” he said.

He turned to one of the men with him, and that man moved forward, bumping Annie on the shoulder as he passed. Annie moved to follow him, to help Willow back to her feet, but Gregory’s voice stopped her.

Just her,” he said. “My apologies.”

Fuck your apologies, Annie thought, and said with her eyes and her frown. Again, though, the guns kept her from voicing her dissent out loud.

The man picked Willow up off the floor and held her in his arms under her back and her knees before heading back to the door. Annie watched with concern as they passed through into the other compartment, the one from which they emerged.

“Wait,” she said. “What are you going to do with us?”

Gregory smiled – the son of a bitch actually smiled.

“All will be made clear soon, I promise,” he said, then closed the door, submerging Annie, Riley and Ruby in darkness once again.

To Annie, his promise sounded an awful lot like a threat.

* * *

Brother Gregory ran a hand across his bald head, feeling where he knew the tattoos to be. He remembered when he had them done. Lord, I was so young then, he reminisced, the memories more bitter than sweet. As young as Willow must be now.

Back then, he was Gregory Padilla – or as his friends not-so-affectionately called him, Cluck, after the street-name for his drug of choice. He was a second-generation banger for a stateside crew that a cartel liked to use to farm talent. Not him, though. Not with his habit, the one that grew more debilitating with every passing year, week, and day.

Looking back, Gregory was happy to have shed both those names. Padilla and Cluck – they weren’t him anymore. Maybe they never were. That’s what the Bishop liked to say, anyway. He said the true Gregory was always inside him, just waiting to be revealed. Gregory liked to think he was right. He didn’t like to think the old him was ever real. He was so pathetic then, so directionless, so purposeless.

Not anymore, he thought. The Bishop had put him on a better path. Looking at Willow, Gregory hoped the Bishop could do the same for her.

“Lay her down,” he instructed.

Brother Luis brought her over to a pair of seats. They were in a standard passenger compartment now, not a prison cell. And with the armrests up, there was enough room for a girl Willow’s size to stretch out.

Luis took a step back, joining his brother Blake in the aisle. They stood guard as Gregory took a seat in a chair facing Willow’s.

“How you feeling?” he asked the obvious starter question.
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Is that so?
Willow had a lot that she wanted to say to Gregory right now. Most of it involved a colorful 4-letter vocabulary that he would no doubt disapprove of and would likely result in her getting shot, punched, or worse. Instead, she had to choose the better part of valor for this one. The couch was undeniably more comfortable than the floor, but she had an audience with Gregory. She should at least try to get information out of him in the unlikely event that she survived long enough to use it.

God, I wish I had some of those painkillers right about now... what the fuck was I thinking not taking them? Annie and Brandon were wrong. If I had some now, if I had taken them before, maybe I wouldn't be falling apart. Maybe I could do something.

Painfully, she pulled herself up from a supine position into a sitting one, throwing her legs over the edge of the couch and planting her feet on the ground. Such a simple action, yet it required more strength than Willow was expecting. By the time she was upright, she had slumped forward and rested her elbows on her knees. A few strands of hair were stuck over her face, but her eyes peered through them and at Gregory regardless. The forced act of bravado was betrayed by her clammy skin, shaking leg, and heavy breathing.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked him. "Why? We just... we just wanted to leave peacefully... we could have gone our separate ways without this!"
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Gregory gave Willow a patient smile. Her confusion was expected. If anything, he expected her reaction to be worse. This wasn’t his first delivery to the farm, and the ones that didn’t come voluntarily had never been short of colourful language and other extravagant displays of outrage. For someone in her state, Willow was impressively composed. Greg admired that. He chose to take it as a good sign.

“I understand,” he said. “You wanted to leave. But as the – uh, the saying, I think it is – as the saying goes, sometimes what you want isn't always what you get, but in the end what you get is so much better than what you wanted. Have you ever heard that before?”
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Is that so?
Willow rolled her eyes and then shot Gregory the best grin that she could muster. Suddenly, she didn't care anymore.

"So your 'grand plan' was to ship us off to your little cult camp then? Can't believe that Antonio was right about you! But man... I feel sorry for the guys you left behind then... cause if you only took off with so little of us, the rest of my friends are probably fucking your guys in the ass right about now. And they ain't gonna stop there either. After they take care of your 'mother', they're gonna come after us. Then... it'll be your turn."

Immediately after gloating to Gregory, Willow tried to laugh. It only made her feel even more sick as she promptly lurched forward, placed her head between her legs, and vomited all over the floor.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Gregory frowned – not in distress, but in disappointment. There the vulgarity was. It didn’t take long.

And now there was vomit in his shoes. He supposed he was a little distressed at that.

“Brother Luis,” he said, looking to the aisles. “Would you mind getting a towel?”

Luis was the silent, stoic type. He responded with a simple nod and headed off.

Gregory turned back to his passenger.

“I am sorry to say your friends are most likely dead,” he said. “And I am sorry. I think it’s a shame to waste so much potential. The Bishop has done so much for me, I wish he would have had the opportunity to do the same for them. Fortunately, you still have the chance to see the light.”

He nodded to the window they were seated beside. The urban landscape of Salt Lake City had given way to a mountain backdrop as the train zipped along.

“As you can see, even if some of your friends escaped, you are far beyond their destructive influence,” he said. “And even if they followed, I promise you – no one gets onto the farm who is not supposed to be there. You may not believe that now, but in time you’ll see.”

He reached into his pocket next. His fingers gripped a bottle, and he heard the shuffling of the pills inside.

“We were talking about what you wanted being bad for you, I think,” he said. “Here’s an example.”

He produced the bottle – it belonged to Willow. It was one of several. He had found them all in her belongings after dosing her, a few minutes after she broke his nose. That discovery was why he wasn’t surprised to hear Annie asking for help.

“You want these, don’t you?”
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Is that so?
Willow didn't immediately respond. Her face stayed glued to the ground and the pile of puke that had splattered between her feet and onto her shoes. She wiped her mouth off on the sleeve of her sweater and groggily rose her eyes to Gregory with an uncomfortable groan.

But then her eyes widened in recognition. Gregory was holding her painkillers! Her Zohydro! Just seeing the bottle of pills and hearing their familiar rattle sent a chill through her body. She wanted them to sate this terrible feeling she had in her body. No... it was more than that. She needed them to feel better. She needed them to fight. Which meant that she needed them right now. Mentally she knew that she shouldn't want them like that, but her body was telling her otherwise. But she couldn't let Gregory know that. She needed to hide that weakness.

"H-how...?" She visibly gulped and shifted in place uncomfortably, her eyes never leaving the bottle that her captor held. "How did you get those?"
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
“You had them on you,” Gregory answered honestly. “That you had so many, and that you were keeping them so close at hand told me something.”

He put the bottle down on the seat beside him, and then reached into his pocket again, producing the next one. He put that down right by the first.

“I understand,” he said. “Better than you know. For me, it wasn’t pills, but still – I understand.”

He produced the final bottle, and placed it near the other two. He looked up again at Willow, observing her reaction.
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Is that so?
Again, Willow shifted uncomfortably at the sight of her pills so close, yet at the same time so far. Her eyes lingered over them for a few minutes before they gradually made their way back up to Gregory. She was regretting losing her cool and taunting him just a minute or two ago. If she had kept it cool, maybe she would have a better chance of getting her stuff back.

"I-I got shot. A lot of times, actually. Annie saved my life." Willow explained to him, her eyes occasionally darting down to the bottles that he had placed on the seat. "Those are my painkillers. So do you think I could, maybe... get a couple of those? For the pain, you know?"
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Greg frowned slightly. A minute ago, she was trying to taunt him by saying his brothers were being sodomized. Then he had revealed these pills, and her resolve vanished almost instantly. If he wasn’t already positive that she had a problem, that would have sealed it.

“I know,” he said.

He stood up. He stepped over the puddle of vomit at his feet and reached the window. He cranked a lever, causing it to open just slightly.

Then he grabbed a bottle. He could sense Willow’s horror as he pushed it through the opening.

“Whatever else these are, they are also weakness,” he said.

He grabbed the second bottle and disposed of it the same way.

“I know, because I was also weak, once.”

Then the third and final bottle. He pushed it through the opening, and it disappeared.

“The Bishop cured me of that weakness,” he said.

He turned again, this time to look at Willow.

“He can cure you, too,” he said. “All you have to do is let him.”
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Panic gripped Willow as she saw what Gregory was doing.

"You asshole!"

Without thinking, she surged to her feet to stop him, her arm outstretched. She made it maybe two steps before her legs gave out again and, for the third time today, she toppled onto the ground.

Why? Why am I so weak...?
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"If you fire one shot she'll be dead, and that'll be on you. We're leaving with her, so move. I won't tell you again." Brandon warned him matching his stare, his finger tightening around the trigger.

Brandon's heart was beating in his ear. He was one foot afoul away from getting them all killed. they had to take this gamble though, if they didn't have Leonora they couldn't get their people back. Not without spilling a lot more blood. Brandon stared a hole in the other man's head but he didn't really see him. He couldn't think about the gun at his head or at his back or the lives of the people around him. While he was staring that man down the only thing he could see was Willow. The only thought in his head was that they had her, and they could be doing anything to her. He needed to live to see her safe from them.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Leonora kept cringing from the pain, but didn’t cry out again. She was afraid if she did, then her children would start shooting, and then so would Brandon. And she didn’t want to die. She had found a purpose again and she wasn’t ready to let that go.

Still, she felt renewed shame when she opened her mouth again.

“It will be all right, child,” she said. “I will return shortly.”

He didn’t, not right away. Leonora saw his arms shaking with anger. His desire for revenge was clearly doing battle with his love for her. Leonora prayed the right side would win.

Eventually, it did. Her relief was bittersweet.

* * *

Finally, the raspy-voiced guard stepped aside. Once he did, Hank remembered to breathe. He allowed himself to lower his Beretta, so he wasn’t pointing it at Brandon or his hostage, or at Andy, or at Emmett – who he remembered to thank God was alive and accounted for once again, even if he didn’t look to be in exactly one piece.

When they got the door closed behind them, Hank eagerly pressed down on the gas. The vehicle lurched past the ring of guards whose gun sights were now on him and his vehicle. He watched them nervously in the rear and side mirrors as he glided away. He crossed his fingers that they wouldn’t change their minds and blast the Winnebago to pieces.

He turned left at the wall and they disappeared from sight. He still didn’t relax, though, not even a little. It took until he reached the gate – which was missing, for some reason he couldn’t fathom – and then drove on through to the other side.

He sighed a little. It was good to be out of that viper’s nest, but his family was still missing, and the Queen Viper was still in his RV.

Plus, at least three of his passengers – friends and foe – had serious injuries.

“You need to stop the bleeding,” a distressed Leonora said through her very obvious pain.

Hank frowned as he pointed behind him, at a cabinet over the fridge.

“Father,” he said, and pointed behind him. “There’s a first-aid kit in there. It looks like you have some patients. I’d start with Emmett.”

Emmett had shrugged off his leather jacket and taken a seat at the dinette. Andy, meanwhile, was still standing, and still had his shotgun cradled in his hands. He was breathing heavy and glaring at Leonora.

“Now what do we do with her?” he asked, looking to Brandon.

For his part, Hank kept driving, even though he didn’t yet know where he was going. He just knew he needed to put some distance between him and the crazy people back at Salt Lake City. He tried not to think about how close he was to joining them voluntarily.

* * *

“You feel that way now,” Gregory said.

He stepped over the puddle of vomit once again, ignoring Willow’s fall. He took a seat again opposite her.

“But you will thank me,” he promised. “If you survive this.”
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"You'll live, just keep pressure on it, you baby." Brandon told Leonora.

"We'll patch her up after we see to ourselves. After that we knock her out with the other sedative so she won't know where we eventually set up. They're going to be following us, they won't be smart and just stay put like I told them so we need to set a trap for them. Losing the guys they send after us will send them a pretty clear message even they can't ignore." Brandon said as he peeled his bloodied shirt off.

He helped himself to some of the antiseptic in the kit, the little graze on his abdomen was the lesser of the two so he could deal with them himself. He began cleaning it up what was left of his shirt before applying the burning antiseptic. He clenched his jaw hard and hit his fist on the table lightly, before applying a bandage with some medical tape.

"How's Emmett looking?" Brandon asked, as much to avoid thinking about his own shoulder wound, which now he could see it clearly was worrying.

Emily had already started looking at Leonora's shoulder.

"Looks painful." she observed with obvious satisfaction.
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Is that so?
"I'm not really much of a doctor." Antonio confessed.

Thankfully, it seemed that the biggest injury for Emmett was just the stitching on his stomach. With all the big fights, it had torn open again. No big surprise. Everything else was pretty superficial. Of course, the downside was that Antonio didn't really have much experience with applying stitching. He really wished Annie was here for this.

He cleaned his hands off with some disinfectant and then went about removing the torn stitches from the wound so he could try to reseal it.

"You said our friends are gone." He asked Leonora. "Does that mean they were on that train that left earlier?"

* * * * *

Willow didn't even both to try getting off the ground before she started asking Gregory more.

"Why is this so important to you guys? Why not respect our god damned autonomy... instead of pretending to be something you aren't?"
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Hank glanced back at Emmett as Antonio stitched him back up, and then wrapped yet more gauze around his midsection. He stopped the blood loss, but the big guy was looking pretty pale, and Hank thought he could make out a glaze of sweat on his face. Emmett was laying down now of his own accord, so as stoic a he was, it seemed even he realized he was in bad shape.

The next thought that ran through Hank’s mind made him feel a little ashamed, but he couldn’t help it. He was worried about Emmett bleeding out, but he wasn’t worried for Emmett’s life, he was worried for everyone else’s. A fresh rotter his size and strength, in the tight quarters of the RV, would be a significant danger.

“That’s correct,” Leonora said, her voice edged with bitterness and pain. “I’ve been trying to tell you damned fools – you’re too late. There is no getting them back.”

“Where are they?” Andy asked.

“Beyond your reach,” Leonora said.

“Lady, I’ll put another hole in you,” Andy snarled. “Where are they going?”

Hank glanced back, saw Andy brandish his Mossberg, and the fear it inspired in Leonora. She was alone now, she must have realized. Her so-called children were in the rear-view, and if Andy wanted to make good on his threat, there was nothing stopping him.

“North,” she said, her voice even more bitter.

“North where!?” Andy insisted.

Leonora hesitated. Andy put a hand on her throat, pushing her back into the fridge. The fear in her eyes amplified.

“I – Idaho,” she managed to say through the choking. “Muh – Mountain Home.”

Andy loosened his grip. Hank kept watching through the rear view.

“What’s that?” he growled.

“Their – their stop,” she said.

Andy let go. Leonora made gasping sounds as she slumped against the fridge and caught her breath. When she could speak again, she was angry, so angry she struggled to get all her words out.

“It might as well be the – the surface of the moon to you damned ones,” she said from the floor. “You tried threatening what’s left of my men, but you have – you have no idea. Brother Gregory tried to tell you. Salt Lake City is just a gateway. Just a preview of the new world we’re building.”

* * *

Gregory shook his head and looked thoughtful.

“What an odd question,” he said. “Saving the world – isn’t that important to everyone? And I wouldn’t call it pretending.”
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