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Dead Men Walking
Topic Started: Nov 28 2014, 02:20 AM (70,999 Views)
DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Annie had never been in a fight before – she didn’t even have sisters to squabble with growing up. She was just letting her instinct guide her. She knew it had gone too far now. If she didn’t fight without reservation, she would die, and Connor would be left without a mother.

She was moving her knife-hand before she was even consciously aware that it had been freed. She raised it and bolted up off the bed. She screamed out loud, and planted the knife blade in Kevin’s upper abdomen with as much force as she was capable.
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Make-7-Up-Yours
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Is that so?
Kevin was too slow. He didn't reach his gun in time. He didn't even see the knife stab him, but he felt the bone-chilling touch of the blade as it forced its way between his ribs and into his chest cavity. He felt the knife stay there.

"Guh..."

He looked down with his one good eye. The handle of the knife was protruding from his chest.

Shit...

Kevin made a move for the door, but the stress of what had just happened caught up to him. He tripped on his own foot. He tried to catch himself on a nearby dresser, but he only ended up knock down everything that was on top of it before he fell to the ground and landed in a heap on his right shoulder. He could feel the impact in his chest.

"God... dammit..." He groaned.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Annie stood up as Kevin fell. She was panting again, and her thoughts were pounding in her skull. Her adrenaline reached its peak and started to fall as she quickly kneeled over, scooping up the gun she had only just noticed Kevin had.

She held it in her hand, keeping her finger far away from the trigger. She’d never held a gun one before. She hated the sight and the feeling, but she also hated that Kevin had it – that he was reaching for it. The thought made her want to shoot him. The taste of her own blood from her lip – and the pain radiating throughout her jaw – made her want to do it even more.

She noticed blood pooling under his wound, though. It made her realize the fight was over. It had been as vicious as it was quick.

Chase! Her anger was displaced instantly by her horror. She turned and dropped the gun on the nightstand next to him. She left Kevin bleeding on the ground as she stepped over her ex-husband’s prone, unconscious, not-breathing body.

She began CPR. She positioned the heel of one hand on his chest, her other hand on top. With her elbows locked and arms straight, she compressed his chest. Once, twice, three times. She kept going. She didn’t even feel the tears coming before they started streaming down her cheeks.

She stopped after 30 compressions. Frantically, she pulled open a nearby drawer with a resuscitation bag. She saw her hand trembling then blinked back the tears and focused. She made herself steady before starting the careful work of attaching the bag to Chase’s endotracheal tube.

She somehow managed the attachment. She gently squeezed the bag and watched Chase’s chest, waiting for it to rise, for him to show signs of life. She squeezed again. Nothing. She went back to compressions.

One, two, three, four, five… Once again, she counted the compressions as she did them, focusing on nothing else but that. She was fighting back the tears still. When she reached 30 again, she went back to the bag. She was about to press it, but paused.

He was breathing again.

She felt the whiplash of relief. Chase was alive. No more alive than he had been this morning, maybe. But Kevin had failed.

She wiped a tear away with the back of her wrist.
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Is that so?
From the ground behind her, Kevin hadn't moved. He simply laid there and watched Annie save her husband. There was nothing he could do. He had failed. And he was probably going to die here, if not from the wrath of Annie, but from the knife in his chest. He regretted accepting Ethan's offer entirely now. He should have just waited until the middle of the night like he'd wanted to do originally.

"What even... bother saving... a vegetable like that?" Kevin groaned.

Every word hurt, but he didn't care anymore.

"More humane... to put him down... Ethan was right... wasting your life... wasting our power... on a man... who looks more miserable... than the deadheads."
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Well, they've got it all in hand now at least." Julie observed.

They seemed pretty functional inside the walls at least. She didn't know if it was their inexperience with firearms or their inexperience with rotters that turned the situation into a total cluster fuck, either way they could do with some practical training. Maybe a few of the badasses in the group could take a few them on small sorties. They shot one of their own people, they needed to learn badly.

Randall looked pretty pissed off about it. He could use a break.

"Nothing to do about it now. When Eli and the others get back we can ask them about maybe taking up some kind of training duties. Brandon would probably like that, he seems to like teaching people things. Come on, let's go get some coffee." Julie suggested.
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Randall let out a tired sigh. This was a lot to take in at once. Training some of the guards might be a good idea. Brandon would enjoy the work too. Spencer might not enjoy having Brandon take his work though. Julie had good ideas. He reminded himself that he should ask her for advice more often.

"Yeah, that sounds good. Coffee sound good." He agreed with Julie and gave her an appreciative smile. "I could use a break. Get myself back together an-"

"Did I miss anything guys?"

Despite the somewhat tense atmosphere, Willow wore a grin plastered on her face that only seemed to grow wider when Randall and Julie looked at her in surprise; she was dressed and standing up, supporting her injured leg with a cane she had gripped in her hand. At her side, the shorter Candice looked ready to jump in and help at any moment. But so far, it seemed unnecessary.

"Y-you're...?"

"She insisted on getting out of the clinic today, so... here she is." Candice cut in with a frown. "Annie is probably gonna tear me a new one when she finds out about this. But she is handling it well so far."

"Annie is taking a rest anyway. She was overwhelmed by all this." Randall told her. "You're safe for now."

"It's okay, I feel good." Willow assured everyone. "Relatively speaking, of course."

Seeing her back on her feet, and still her laid back, usual self, lifted Randall's spirits a little bit. It wasn't much, but she was getting better. It couldn't wash away the bad taste left by everything that had just happened, but it was a step in the right direction.

"Things are a little hectic right now, Julie and I were going to head over to the house. Grab some coffee and a bite to eat; everyone will love to see you back up." Randall pointed down the street. "Candice, you're free to come with. Invite Marcus too if you want."
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Annie turned and looked at Kevin with cold eyes. His words meant nothing to her. She looked away to eye the gun on the nightstand. She considered it for a moment. He definitely deserved it.

Or maybe he just deserved to lay there. Maybe she should just watch as the pool of blood kept deepening until he drowned in it. He probably deserved that, too.

She had never wanted to kill before. She wanted to now.

Another tear rolled down her face. Again, she didn’t even feel it welling up. Her emotions were too mixed up.

She moved. She didn’t want to – for the first time in her career as a doctor, her oath had been on trial – but she moved. She knelt over him and observed the damage

“Don’t move,” she warned, with poison in her voice. “And don’t speak.

She ran to the bathroom for a towel and some gauze and tape. She opened the window and screamed outside.

“Help!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “I need help!”

She returned to Chase’s bedroom then, and did one of the hardest things she’d ever have to do.

* * *

It was 10 minutes later when she stumbled down the street to the house she knew Randall was staying. One of her closer neighbours – a supply runner named Travis – had answered her cry for help, and had arrived to find her saving Kevin from bleeding out. She told Travis to get him out of her house, to bring him to Ajay at the clinic and to tell Spencer to put him under guard.

Then she left too. She needed out away from there for a while. Chase had almost died. She had almost killed someone. It was too much.

She knocked on the door. Her hands were still coated in Kevin’s drying blood. Her jaw was bruised, her hair was dishevelled, and blood still trickled from her lip. Maybe she should have cleaned up first. She didn’t even know why she was here.

Sure you do, she told herself. You don’t know where else to go.
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Randall couldn't help but smirk. Willow probably didn't hear a word any of them were saying. Julie, Willow, Candice, and Marcus were all gathered in the living room. Willow was so caught up in the grandeur of it all that it was hard to follow the conversations everyone was having. She was like a kid in a candy store seeing this community for the first time; seeing the electricity and the running water and the walls firsthand. Then again, Randall couldn't blame her. She hadn't actually seen anything outside the clinic until just now. it was like waking up to find yourself in a whole new world. It wasn't until the doorbell rang that her attention snapped back to the real world.

"I wonder if that's Eli and the others." Randall wanted to see her reaction.

Apparently that was all the motivation Willow needed. She forced herself off the couch and started hobbling towards the door. "I got it!"

"Hey, wait! Dammit Willow, you're supposed to be taking it easy!" Candice practically jumped to her feet and followed after her. "You're going to get yourself killed if you-"

Willow wasn't listening to Candice's lecture; she opened the front door while she was mid-sentence and both young women froze like statues and an awkward silence pierced the room. Randall had a bad feeling in his gut and quickly got up to see what was going on. When he saw who was at the door, his heart stopped cold in his chest.

"D-Dr. Berman?" Willow stammered.

"Annie?" Randall slipped past Willow and took her spot at the front door; he immediately tried to help her inside. "Wh-what the hell happened!?"
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Annie couldn’t process Willow answering the door on her feet. When Randall took her place, though, she felt a quick surge of some sort of relief. She allowed herself to be helped inside a few feet before she stopped, and threw her arms around Randall. She was out of tears, but she was trembling as she hugged him. She was resting her head on his shoulder when she summoned the answer to his question.

“Ethan…”

The name made her blood run cold. Kevin had revealed it in the heat of the struggle, when all she could focus on was fighting for life. Now, the implications were finally dawning on her, and it was bringing her anger back to the surface.

Bastard was too tame a word. The arrogant, entitled fuck hadn’t gotten what he wanted from her, so he had resorted to killing. Maybe he thought she was just being loyal to Chase so he needed him out of the way. Maybe he thought that in her grief, she would turn to him for comfort. Or maybe he was just angry and spiteful and wanted to hurt her for making him feel rejected.

It didn’t matter. She hated him. But he was one of the leaders of the community, it was his walls that had kept her and everybody else safe, and his vision that would keep them thriving. As far as a lot of people were concerned, they needed Ethan. Even in her frenzied state, Annie had the realization that justice might never be done.

“He -- he sent someone to kill Chase,” she hated that she stammered. She wanted to be more composed. “I saw him. He tried to kill me. I had to -- I had to stop him."
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"What the fuck?" Julie exclaimed indignantly.

She didn't know who Chase was, somebody important to the doctor she supposed, but that person also tried to kill Annie. That was not something she had expected to encounter here. Things were bad enough outside the walls. Why would somebody want to hurt Annie? She was the only qualified doctor there, she was crucial. She'd saved Willow and taken care of pretty much everyone in the group. Nobody could fuck with Annie and get away with it, she had too many friends. Not even Ethan could get away with it. Given the choice between a doctor and an architect, Julie would side with the doctor. Putting up walls and setting up solar power wasn't easy, but with 80 minds working at it they could probably noddle it out. What they couldn't noodle out was medicine. Ethan was about to lose a lot of friends. Maybe more.
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He sent someone to kill Chase?

As he stood there, a sobbing Annie in his arms, Randall's heart began to pound like a hammer. Faster and faster and faster. His blood felt like it was boiling; he could practically see red in his vision. He could feel his arms and legs quivering. This was even worse than at Old Fort Erie. At least they could say it was about survival or fear. This... there was no excuse for this. Ethan was a selfish bastard who was taking advantage of the community to get what he wanted. He was using the disaster outside the walls as nothing more than an excuse to stroke his ego and have everyone he helped save love him for it.

Ethan had struck him as a windbag. When his walls and construction plans failed to protect the encampment, he was annoyed that a man who thought as highly of himself as Ethan would be proud of such shoddy construction; even if it was all they had to work with. Then Ajay let it slip that he had been harassing Annie. And now he learned that he had sent someone to break into her house and kill her vegetative ex-husband? It was at this point that Randall stopped caring. Architect or not, this was not going to stand.

While Annie was still sobbing, he walked her to the couch and helped her sit down. He wanted to help her right now, but he couldn't. There was something he needed to do before then.

"Julie. Candice." His voice was physically strained, but he was trying hard to keep it steady. "Help Annie get cleaned up. I'll be back shortly."

On those words, he walked out of the house and closed the door behind him.

"This... this isn't good at all..." Willow stated the obvious.
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DoctorYerishi
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Dude, wake up! We've got a world to save.
Annnie watched Randall go. The determination in his gait was scary, and the blood on his clothes – between Jen earlier, and her now, they had gotten it all over – didn’t help the image. She had a feeling she knew where he was going.

She wanted to object. She should object. When she came over here, though, what did she expect?

Geraldine would probably let Ethan off with a warning. Maybe she’d try to get Spencer to enforce a restraining order. Annie had to ask herself – is that enough? If it was, would she be letting Randall leave? That seemed like an answer. But maybe not a good one.

She closed her eyes. She was having trouble thinking straight. There was so much she hated right now.
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Is that so?
Ethan sat on a recliner inside his home, a double shot of whiskey in his hand, the rest of the bottle on a side table beside him. It was pretty early to be drinking, but he didn't really care. It was a day worthy of drinking. Any minute now, he expected to hear back from Kevin to hear that the deed was finished. He was taking a while, yes, but Kevin was prudent. He brought the glass to his lips and enjoyed another sip.

With Chase out of the way, Annie would have nothing else keeping her away from him. All he had to do then was be there for her. Be a friend, a rock to lean on during that difficult time for her. Ethan could already see the pieces of the puzzle coming together nicely.

"I'm sorry I need to hurt you, Annie." He said out loud to nobody but himself. "But this is really for your own good. You can't keep living in the past. You need to look toward the future. Hopefully, I can help you see that today."

He hated having to resort to such low brow tactics. But sometimes people needed that jolt to wake them up or uncover their true feelings.

DIIIIING DOOOONG!

"Finally." Ethan let out a relieved sigh.

He got to his feet and walked to the front door. He didn't know why Kevin was so late, but he didn't exactly care either. As long as the deed was done, Kevin could be dead for all he cared. Although if he was dead, the job probably didn't get done properly. He undid the deadbolt lock and swung open the door.

"Randall?" Ethan narrowed his eyes.

What was he doing here? He had only been here for a couple of days, and Annie seemed more taken with Randall than she had ever been with him. The thought alone made his gut wrench; maybe he would need to have Randall killed too.

"What are you doing he-"

He never finished the sentence; Randall's left hook to the jaw finished it for him. Ethan's vision flashed white. Before he could recover and regain his bearings, he felt himself get pulled out of his house by his necktie and thrown onto his front lawn.

"You selfish bastard." Randall spat at him. "Get up!"
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Strompy
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More posts, more Busey.
"Willow, help Annie. I'm going with Randall." Julie instructed, getting to her feet.

She trotted out the door following Randall at a discreet distance. He was mad as hell and might get himself in trouble. Perhaps he forgot that he only had one hand, it seemed like he was looking to fight and he may need help if things got out of hand. Or she may need to save Ethan, that seemed very likely.

She smirked as she watched Randall drag Ethan out of the house and throw his ass on the ground. Keeping one hand on her piece she stood back, ready to intercede or prevent anyone else from interupting.
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Is that so?
"Um..." Willow pursed her lips awkwardly at Julie's request.

"Don't worry about it." Candice cut in. "Just sit down, I have this."

"Right..." She took that as an invitation and did just that, albeit a little slowly.

At the same time, Candice rushed over to Annie with a wet cloth. She knelt down beside her and gently brushed the hair out from the front of her face and started to gently wipe the blood off of her. Willow was no expert, but it looked like it was worse than it actually was; most of the blood was coming off fairly easily. She would probably be back to herself fairly shortly.

"God damn it..." Marcus sighed from nearby. "Willow, right?"

"Yeah?"

"First time seeing you conscious." He reached a hand out, and she shook it. "Wish you coulda seen things a little better 'an this though. Not a good first impression we just gave ya here."

"It's still better than out there..."

* * * * *

Ethan crawled back to his feet and spat a globule of blood to the ground.

"You really are an uneducated brute, aren't you?" Ethan hissed through clenched teeth. "I worked my ass off to get my degree; I worked my ass off to make this community what it is! And then you walk in here like the fucking HIGHLANDER and steal Annie from me! I don't know what your fucking secret is, but-"

Once again, he was cut off mid-sentence by Randall's fist ramming his diaphragm like a jackhammer. Ethan's eyes bulged as he buckled like a suitcase. This time he struck back, reaching out and punching Randall's stub of an arm.

"GAH!" A bolt of pain surged up his arm like a metal poker.

Randall clenched his teeth and fought through it; again he grabbed Ethan's tie. This time he headbutted him hard and pulled on his necktie hard enough to keep him on his feet. Then he let go of the tie and punched him again. This time in the face. Again. And once again, Ethan fell to the ground.
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