The first barrel bursts with a pressure that shoves between Neph's shoulderblades. Probably should've closed that door, she thinks as she staggers forward, half-running to get clear of any flying shrapnel. Her legs work just fine, even if her arm goes off like a firework with every step. Pewter keeps her on her feet when the second barrel ignites and sprays its contents across the warehouse interior and batters at the walls; it keeps her on her feet, but abrades her veins and muscles like bile at the back of her throat. She's burned up all her Steel and Iron, but the marionette fishhooks they set in her flesh still twinge as she moves.
Not good.
Headlights flick on across the gravel sea. Neph curls her left hand around her right elbow and marches toward it, paying extra attention to lifting and placing her feet. Better that than considering the distance, or how much easier it'd be to just Push herself off the cars and skim through the air. She allows herself just enough situational awareness to notice that Hannibal's picked a different car than the one she was hauled out of half an hour ago. That's good. Somebody might notice if the same car turned up near their apartment complex twice in one day.
Their apartment. If not for the elixirs hidden in her closet, she'd never ever go back there. Her every instinct screams NOPE at the thought, proposes half a dozen alternate bolt holes. But Will's leg, her arm...unless they want to risk an ER or waste time digging up somebody with healing abilities, they're outta choices.
"We'll need someone else to help pay rent on the new apartment."
Will got it right away, Neph remembers with dizzy relief. She can't know if he just wouldn't feel safe in their current place anymore or if he understands the need to hide from whoever made them as possible mutants in the first place, but he made that intuitive jump. And he said we. Like he was already figuring on them staying together after this.
Then Hannibal kissed her hair and--
--and she can't think about that anymore than she can bring her brain to bear on the thousands of little details between them and the apartment. Things like how they're all covered in blood, how they don't actually know where they are and don't have a phone to tell them, like ditching the car once they've made it back to Baltimore, like getting up the stairs without running into any of their neighbors. On and on, all the odds stack against them getting away with this. But they're alive, and Neph has always considered that the most essential victory. Everything else follows after.
Neph falls against the humming car's passenger side door, jostling the sluggishly bleeding gash along her ribs. With a grunt, she gets her stiffening fingers around the handle, pulls, and falls into the seat.
"Hi," she wheezes. A roaring fills her ears, maybe blood or maybe the fire really catching behind her. She quirks a half smile at Hannibal, dried blood cracking and flaking across her cheek. Above the mess, her eyes flicker a pale blue, lambent as a deep sea creature. "I hope this thing's gassed up."
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2017-07-24 10:22 pm (UTC)Not good.
Headlights flick on across the gravel sea. Neph curls her left hand around her right elbow and marches toward it, paying extra attention to lifting and placing her feet. Better that than considering the distance, or how much easier it'd be to just Push herself off the cars and skim through the air. She allows herself just enough situational awareness to notice that Hannibal's picked a different car than the one she was hauled out of half an hour ago. That's good. Somebody might notice if the same car turned up near their apartment complex twice in one day.
Their apartment. If not for the elixirs hidden in her closet, she'd never ever go back there. Her every instinct screams NOPE at the thought, proposes half a dozen alternate bolt holes. But Will's leg, her arm...unless they want to risk an ER or waste time digging up somebody with healing abilities, they're outta choices.
"We'll need someone else to help pay rent on the new apartment."
Will got it right away, Neph remembers with dizzy relief. She can't know if he just wouldn't feel safe in their current place anymore or if he understands the need to hide from whoever made them as possible mutants in the first place, but he made that intuitive jump. And he said we. Like he was already figuring on them staying together after this.
Then Hannibal kissed her hair and--
--and she can't think about that anymore than she can bring her brain to bear on the thousands of little details between them and the apartment. Things like how they're all covered in blood, how they don't actually know where they are and don't have a phone to tell them, like ditching the car once they've made it back to Baltimore, like getting up the stairs without running into any of their neighbors. On and on, all the odds stack against them getting away with this. But they're alive, and Neph has always considered that the most essential victory. Everything else follows after.
Neph falls against the humming car's passenger side door, jostling the sluggishly bleeding gash along her ribs. With a grunt, she gets her stiffening fingers around the handle, pulls, and falls into the seat.
"Hi," she wheezes. A roaring fills her ears, maybe blood or maybe the fire really catching behind her. She quirks a half smile at Hannibal, dried blood cracking and flaking across her cheek. Above the mess, her eyes flicker a pale blue, lambent as a deep sea creature. "I hope this thing's gassed up."