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Dead Men Walking
Topic Started: Nov 28 2014, 02:20 AM (70,810 Views)
DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Eli frowned deeply at Kelsey’s outburst. His heart hurt, seeing her lash out like that. He didn’t know how to help her.

Noah, meanwhile, reacted by looking away. His expression was hidden in shadow.

After a few kicks, Eli worried Kelsey might hurt herself, so he went ahead and intervened. He leaned over and lifted her up by the shoulders, until she was just kicking at the air.

“He knows, Kels – he knows,” he said.

He put her down and spun her around. He looked her in the eyes – it was hard to do, they were alight with tears, pain, and anger, but he held her stare.

“It’s okay,” he said.

It was a lie, and he didn’t know why he told it. Of course it wasn’t okay. Maybe it never would be. He felt like he had to say something, though, and that’s what came out.

“It’s okay,” he repeated – doubling down on it, still without knowing why.

He felt himself getting emotional too, so he cleared his throat and blinked the inconvenient feelings away.

“We need to ask him about Lowell,” he said, focusing on the practical. “He might know where he went.”
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Battle Mountain? Sounds peaceful." Brandon chuckled.

If he could have things his way he'd stay put and wait for Eli and Kelsey like he promised he would. If earning the ire of Saxon's camp was a bad idea before it went without saying it was an even worse one now though. Even if Saxon's people just stopped giving them food it would mean going hungry and possibly dying. They had some idea of what they were walking into this time around at least.

"Worse comes to worst at least it's only ten people we have to watch out for. When do you want tohead out?" he asked.
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
"Like I said." Antonio mused. "As soon as you're ready to go."

It wasn't that he was desperate to get out of Elko, but Antonio figured Saxon and his people might be itching to get them out. He did not want them to overstay their welcome, especially when the supplies they were getting from here might be all they had to live on for the next day or two.

"Well, that and when Annie says you are fine. Then we can go pick up Willow and Emmett-"

The priest stopped mid-sentence and his eyes widened. A realization had just dawned on him, something he had forgotten during the chaos of the past few hours.

"Nobody's told Willow and Emmett what happened yet. They've been back at the house this entire time."

* * * * *

Kelsey tensed her face when Eli told her it was going to be okay. She knew he was full of it -- it wasn't going to be okay. It was never going to be okay. Not anymore.

But at the same time, he was right. She hated Noah, no doubt about that, but Lowell was the ringleader. If there was anyone that she should have wanted dead, it was him. And as it stood, he was still on the loose. The more her thoughts drifted to finding Lowell, the more her composure returned. She went from throwing the equivalent of a tantrum to somber and sullen.

Kelsey turned her face away from Eli and gave him a simple, one word answer: "Fine."
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Seriously?" Brandon asked in disbelief.

He assumed she'd been told and was worrying herself sick this entire time, but she wouldn't have had any idea what was happening, which might be worse.

"Somebody needs to tell Willow right now, I don't want her to find out by seeing me like this."
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
When Kelsey turned away, having seemingly calmed down, Eli sighed. He stood up again and addressed the young man in the cell.

“Well?” he asked.

Noah would have been close enough to overhear their conversation. He must have known the question that was coming. Still, he didn’t immediately answer.

“Lowell,” Eli prompted. “Where did he go?”

Noah offered a pathetic shrug from the shadows. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Nogales, probably. Then Mexico. That was the plan. ‘The plan hasn’t changed.’”

The last sentence sounded like a direct quote. It was bitterly delivered.

For a moment, Eli was a little surprised that Noah would give that information up so readily. He thought it might take a few threats to get it out of him. But when he thought about it, it made sense. Lowell had abandoned him, just like Eli said. Their friendship was over.

“Let’s talk outside,” Boulet interrupted.

Eli nodded. First, he gave the dark form of Noah a last look, then turned and followed their host out of the trailer, back into the sun. He put a hand on Kelsey’s back, guiding her out with him. He didn’t want her alone in there with Noah.

Outside, Boulet didn’t waste any time.

“So here’s where I’m at,” he said. “Before you came along, we hadn’t decided what we were going to do with the kid. Matter of some contention, actually. There was some argument about how much of an accomplice to his buddy’s crimes he really was. But if I believe your folks story to be true – and at this point, I’m thinkin’ it might be – then that simplifies things in my eyes.”

“Simplifies how?” Eli asked. “Are you going to kill him?”

Boulet shook his head. “Not me. The way I see it, this is a jurisdictional issue. Bodies dropped in your county, not mine. That makes it your case.”

So the cop ‘stache wasn’t just a fashion choice, Eli thought. By his language, Eli figured he was talking to actual ex-police.

“So you want us to kill him?” Eli asked. His tone was a tad sceptical.

“Like I said, it’s your case,” Boulet non-answered. “I’m prepared to hand him over. What happens after that – none of my business.”
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Antonio nodded.

Brandon's concern was valid. It would be easier on Willow too, being debriefed before seeing him. Who knew what her reaction would be if she walked in and saw Brandon in his current state. Not only that, it was probably best to have Willow and Emmett over here. Collecting their possessions and getting everyone in one place would make getting on the road that much easier.

"I'll go pick her up right now and tell her what happened." He informed the young man. "Annie and Emily will be nearby if you need anything."

* * * * *

Kelsey didn't say anything one way or the other regarding Boulet's offer. She had already said enough during her outburst only moments ago. Instead, she simply glanced up at Eli and waited.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Eli looked down at Kelsey, and found her looking up. He realized she wasn’t going to say anything. That was okay, actually. A decision was going to have to be made eventually, but it didn’t have to be made now.

Mierda, okay, fine,” Eli said. “We’ll take him.”

“Good,” Boulet replied. “He’s yours.”

“We’ll need a vehicle,” Eli added.

“What, so you can run it into another street sign?”

Eli frowned, and looked to Kelsey and back again. “Do you expect us to walk to Mexico? This isn’t over. Lowell’s still out there, he’s the real target.”

“I got that sense,” Boulet said. “And no, I don’t expect you to walk, but I’m not about to see you behind another wheel in your current state. Not with a little girl in the passenger’s seat.”

Eli felt a stab of annoyance and frustration. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “As we speak, Lowell’s getting away.”

“I appreciate that,” Boulet said. “And I hope you catch him. But for all I know, you’re concussed. And next time you run yourself off the road, you might not get as lucky as you did this time. Maybe you go through the windshield. Or she does. Or maybe the monsters get to you, or maybe someone not as friendly as me. I told you before – lotta creeps on the road these days.”

“So what do you suggest?” Eli said, exasperated.

“That you see a doctor,” Boulet said.

“Do you have one?”

“We have someone close enough,” Boulet said. “You can come with me. Noah’s not going anywhere.”

* * *

The doctor, it turned out, was a school nurse. Daisy Evans, she introduced herself as with just the slightest nod. She was slightly older than Eli, and pretty, with dark blonde hair cut neatly just below her chin. There was a seriousness in her eyes – it was the first thing Eli noticed about her.

Her face was inches from Eli’s as she examined the bump in his forehead, where he slammed it against the steering wheel.

“What happened?” she asked – her voice soft, with the hint of a southern accent.

“You mean the accident?” Eli asked, remaining still.

She leaned back and looked at him, apparently done with her examination. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Eli stared back at her for a moment without answering. He remembered Boulet telling him that he wasn’t going to let them back on the road without a clean bill of health.

“Last night,” he lied.

Daisy looked at Kelsey, who was waiting in the trailer for her turn on Daisy’s bench.

“Is that true?” she asked.
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Kelsey shrugged.

"I dunno. I was asleep."

The truth was that he was awake when she fell asleep, and was awake every time she had woken up throughout the night. She didn't really know if he had slept at all, or if he had trouble sleeping like her.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
“Not much of an endorsement,” Daisy said, looking back to Eli.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m going to list some symptoms of sleep deprivation, you tell me if you’re experiencing any,” she said.

Eli closed his eyes and leaned back. He had to stop himself from groaning. “I just told you …”

Daisy forged ahead: “Difficulty concentrating, decreased performance, memory problems…”

“I already said…” Eli tried to cut in.

Hallucinations and paranoia…” she continued on.

“I’m fine!” Eli shouted – louder than he intended.

“…mood changes,” Daisy finished, unfazed by his outburst. Then she looked up at him, and said, very matter-of-factly, “You’re not fine.”

Eli sucked in a deep breath. He turned away from Daisy and paced a step back and forth to get a handle on himself. Getting more annoyed wasn’t going to help the situation, he knew that. And a part of him had to consider that maybe Daisy had a point. He’d heard a lot of things these past couples days that Kelsey hadn’t. But maybe he hadn’t heard them. Maybe he just thought he did.

He massaged his forehead coarsely with his palm before conceding:

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take a nap.”

“That would be a start.”

He sighed deeply, not bothering to suppress it. If the problem really was lack of sleep, he was worried that the cure might be worse than the disease. Closing his eyes was hard for him. When he did, he stopped seeing what was actually there, and started seeing what wasn’t.

“What about you – Kelsey, right?” she turned to the other person in the trailer-turned-doctor’s-office. “How are you feeling?”
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Hey." Emily said poking her head in the door, "So you're alive. You can keep the blood, I've got more." she said as she approached his bed, trying her hardest not to look at Brandon's arm.

"Wasn't interrupting was I?" she asked.

"No, Antonio was just filling me in on what's happening, he's about to head back to tell the others what's going on. You should probably go with him, I'd feel better knowing they had some able bodied people over there." he said, resting his head back on his pillow.

"How're you feeling?" Emily asked, already able to guess the answer.

"High on opiates." he answered wryly.

"At least it was only your second favorite hand." Emily remarked.

Brandon chuckled weakly.

"I'm glad you're alive." she said seriously.

"Me too. Hey, is Connor still here?" he asked, to which Emily nodded.

"Can you tell him I want to see him?" he requested to which she again nodded with a smile.

...

Connor was where Emily left him. Despite his mom's best efforts he was still kind of... distracted.

"Antonio and I are heading back to fill in the others. I think we'll be heading out as soon as you give Brandon the okay to travel." she informed Annie.

"He also mentioned he'd like to talk to you." she addressed Connor.
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Is that so?
"I'm fine." Kelsey answered the doctor with an unconvincing sigh.

She didn't really want to be here right now. She felt fine. As fine as she could feel, at least. Yelling at Noah had been more exhausting than she had expected it to be. How could yelling at someone be so tiring?

Maybe it was the second thoughts she was having about all of this. Alma was dead and Noah might as well be. And yet neither of those things really made her feel any better. In fact, after yelling at Noah, she thought she felt even worse. She wished she knew why. Maybe finding Lowell and closing the case on this would make her feel better. Maybe. It was the only idea she had.

She sighed again and scratched an itch on her chest. It hurt when she scratched it, and there was something wet under there too. She pulled open her jacket and noticed that her shirt was torn at the left breast and damp with blood.

"Uhh... no, I'm bleeding." She corrected herself after a minute.

She must have gotten it during the crash, probably from crawling around in the back seat with all that glass. At least it didn't look serious.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Connor blinked and looked at Emily upon her entrance. After a second, he slowly nodded. Annie gave him an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder, and they set out together.

* * *

He entered Brandon’s room hesitantly, almost scared at what he’d find. His mom waited outside. She had told him that Brandon was going to live – that the dismembering saved him, and that he did the right thing – but the reality was still hard to confront.

When he eventually did look at Brandon, he kept his vision away from the hand – or the lack thereof. He made eye contact through the corner of his eye.

“My mom said you were going to be okay... is that true?”

* * *

“Let me see,” Daisy said, keeping an even keel at the sight of blood.

“Is it bad?” Eli asked, suddenly very worried.

“No,” Daisy answered, after lifting Kelsey’s shirt and examining the wound. “Not bad. But you’ll need stitches.”

Eli’s worry levelled out a bit. He sighed in relief. “I’ll, uh, I’ll wait over here,” he offered.

He took a seat on a chair facing the trailer’s door. He wanted to give them some privacy, but didn’t want to leave Kelsey alone with a stranger.

Nearby, Daisy produced a kit with medical stitches, a needle, and scissors, among other things. “Have you learned how to do this yet?” she asked Kelsey.
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"She's the doctor, so I guess so." Brandon remarked with a sleepy smile.

He noticed Connor was avoiding making direct eye-contact with him. Brandon knew he couldn't just think of Connor as a kid, it was more complicated than that, and it just wasn't entirely true anymore. Still, at that moment he really looked like a kid, one who'd just been through something awful. Brandon hid his left arm under his blanket, figuring the sight was uncomfortable for Connor, it had been a really ugly event even after everything they'd both seen.

"You know how Randall only had one hand? I was the one who cut it off. Wasn't a lot of time to think about it, just kind of popped into my head, I had no idea if it was possible but it worked. Used an ax. It came off in one swing. So quick. I was high on adrenaline, there were rotters everywhere, it was total chaos. I'm sorry I put you in that situation. Worse even." he admitted.
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Is that so?
"No." Kelsey admitted.

It seemed kind of strange, now that she stopped and thought about it, that she had not learned about stitching a wound. She had learned a lot of skills since leaving Mount Kisco, such as how to make a fire that didn't leave smoke or how to handle weapons properly. But nobody had taught her how to stitch a wound. Someone was always getting cut or slashed and they'd had people that could have deal with it. She remembered Maxwell hastily stitching up Willow's back after she got shot to stop the bleeding and it was impossible to forget that Annie was a doctor. And Brandon and Glenda both seemed like people that would at least know something about that.

"We have a doctor in our group." The curly-haired young girl admitted to Daisy. "But she never taught me how to stitch or anything."
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Connor took a beat, then straightened up and forced himself to look at Brandon more squarely.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I know there was no choice. If I didn’t, you…”

He trailed off. He didn’t need to, or want to, finish the thought. Instead, he turned his mind to something else.

“It was Donnie’s fault,” he declared. “We should have killed him back in Twin Falls.”

* * *

“It’s not too late to learn,” Daisy said. “Pay close attention.”

Eli listened as Daisy walked Kelsey through the process. She started with cleaning the wound and ensuring there were no foreign materials – in this case glass – still inside. Then she produced a sewing needle, sterilized it, walked Kelsey through a simple stitch, and showed her how to tie the knot. A few more general tips later, and she was done.

“Hopefully this won’t come in handy,” she concluded. “But I think about the world we live in now, and I have a feeling it will.”

When Kelsey’s shirt was back on, Eli looked to Daisy. “Are we good now?”

“That’s not for me to say,” she responded. “I did notice you were favoring a leg.”

“You caught that?” Eli asked with a sigh.

It occurred to him how weird his resistance was – someone was offering him free healthcare, and all he wanted to do was leave.

“I’m observant,” Daisy said. “So you tell me – are we good?”

Eli untied his shoe and headed back over to Daisy.

“I was stabbed a couple days ago,” he said, presenting her with his bandaged foot.

“By who?” she asked, looking it over.

“I think you met him,” Eli said.

She looked up at him. “Lowell,” she said, dispassionate. "And you’re really going after him? Both of you?”
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