a ghost; that everyone can see

The realization is a distant one, how unwilling she seems to meet his gaze, nothing that occurs to him until she is. And then it’s gone again, shifting away while she works through her thoughts. It’s easy to wonder why that is, body language like that something he used to be better at noticing. Whatever consideration he might put into it, she seems to settle on what she wants to say about their hosts before he does.

“So they say.” It’s said without judgement, only that it’s nothing he can swear to or contradict. It’s what they claimed. If the woman next to him doesn’t believe them then he can’t blame her, because it runs contrary to most of what they’ve all experienced so far. No place stayed safe that long. If the AFB had, it was because they’d prepared. Shored up their walls, kept everyone armed and on the defensive. And even then, none of them could guess how much longer the place would last if they hadn’t gone to that tower first.

It’s a memory he’d rather not replay, because of what had come out of there with him, but if nothing else it reminds him of what that felt like. The oppressiveness, the unease, and if he can’t say anything else for certain, he can at least swear that’s absent here.

It simply doesn’t feel like anything holy either. It’s an odd thought to consider, that his word would contradict that of someone who’d dedicated their life to god. But whatever he is, and whatever this place was, it wasn’t the same. For a moment his expression displays it, teeth catching his lower lip as he turns to look back at the monastery. Out here it looks strange to him, but he can’t name any feeling to it other than how out of place it is.

“Whatever’s protecting them, i don’t think it’s god.” His gaze shifts back to Violet, and it doesn’t occur to him until after the fact to be anything but blunt.  “Just don’t tell them I said it.” 

A thoughtful nod is all she can offer at the words. Given the conditions of the building itself, the flourishing garden out back, the distinct lack of the ruin that’s spread over the rest of the world, it seems logical enough to her that they might have been holed up here from the start. And maybe it’s rude to doubt their claim. Religion is such a personal thing to some, such a serious thing, and there’s every chance that they could believe God has been looking out for them all this time. In another instance, maybe, she’d afford it much more respect and leave the women to it. But in this, considering what - and who - might be at stake, she doesn’t know that it’s an explanation she could ever really believe for herself.

Finally, she settles her eyes on his, holding his gaze as his next words settle in. And she’s not sure what’s more unexpected to her, really - the claim itself, or how boldly he made it, seemingly unconcerned with any sort of benefit of the doubt toward the monastery and its inhabitants. A pang of envy might strike from somewhere deep within her chest at how easy it seems for him, but it’s nothing she pauses to acknowledge, not entirely aware of it in the first place. It’s surprise, rather, that colors her expression 

“‘Course,” she murmurs, the word nearly distracted. It certainly wouldn’t occur to her to share something like that with the women. It’s hardly on her mind right now regardless, now that Daniel’s admission has monopolized her attention. She looks away again. It’s thought this time, though, not avoidance, as she studies the building with somewhat renewed interest. Looking for... cracks, maybe, any sort of indication that things aren’t as they should be.

All she can really think of now is that mansion from all those months ago. Too good to be true, though on a much higher degree than this fairly modest monastery, and that idyllic sanctuary turned out to be rotten in the end. There were no indications then, either, the first few days, that it was all the work of that demon. She frowns, remembering what she heard of Daniel’s role in all that when she looks at him again.

“Any idea what else it would be?”

They’re both distracted, it seems. One thing he likes about Violet, a passive quality she has, is how aimless she sometimes seems. She doesn’t have to look at him to talk to him, and in that sense he feels almost protected even when his presence isn’t assured. He doesn’t feel the need to look back, to stare with even greater focus to make up for where he falls short. He’s free to drift a bit. She won’t even notice. 

Matching her distracted hum, Justin nods at the explanation, figuring it would be good, then, to avoid. He steps lethargically in her general direction and stops to sit on the back flap of her pickup, watching her circle it in her diligence. 

“I’ve got jeans on,” he points out, knuckles resting on the truck bed underneath him as he glances between his knees, swinging his ankles and staring at the many denim wrinkles that protect them. “‘N chucks, ‘n socks. Haven’t been touched by that stuff since I was a kid. ‘Seems like those kinds of things stop being a threat to you when you stop running around, nicking your knees up.” 

Justin speaks slowly, moving through the words like he’s moving through memories. Maybe he is. Thoughtfully, he rubs his own knees before looking back up at Violet, then leaning back and glancing that way, too, at her plants. “But I guess you like that stuff.”

“Call me paranoid,” she jokes lightly, peering out toward the plants in question once again. “Come across that stuff a few times too much and you never really stop being scared of it.”

It wasn’t the childhood at her mom’s side that exposed her to it so often, really, but her teenage years, rife with sneaky, reckless habits and a penchant for hiding away in places she wasn’t supposed to be. Roaming that wild New Brunswick wilderness with a boy she tries not to think about anymore, pretending things were fine, that they could be fine, from time to time. Pretending she was something of a delinquent, even, when she struggled to define herself as anything at all. 

Or just fabricating some reasons of her own, maybe. Trying to be a person who deserved to be treated the way she was, in case her excuses, her constant forgiveness, ever failed her.

Those thoughts are too far removed, though, or simply too intrinsic, to shadow her easy expression now as she leans her arm against the edge of the truck, reaching to fidget with the twine securing the tomatoes’ trellis. “Guess so, yeah,” she says. A quick glance toward his perch on the back of the truck has her adjusting, in a sense, though not out of discomfort. It’s simply a moment to settle into this addition to her territory before she’s continuing on. “It’s just... familiar, kinda, I guess. It’s nice.”

Speaking of familiar.

“Hey, you never did mention you knew Eli.” A rather sudden change of topic as the memory strikes. “I heard you guys play a couple times, y’know. Back then. You’re good.”

Daniel offers a thin smile, incapable of offering more or gauging just how modest she’s being. Though the truck behind her might swear otherwise, because he can’t picture himself keeping any of it alive for long. His wife had grown tomatoes on their back porch. He hadn’t been able to keep them alive without her.

At most he’d had a passing interest in some naturally grown poisons, on the off chance they ever found themselves dealing with a more creative brand of murderer. But it was never hemlock in their tea, it was shootings and stabbings, black and blue fingerprints around someone’s throat. If there was poison it was usually for rats, or some botched attempt at chloroforming a victim.

The memories seem distant and unwelcome in comparison to where he stands now. If there are more violences in the world than there were even then, right now he’s standing amidst green, and it’s quiet in a pleasant way. And Violet has a calming way about her, even if he can’t offer much when it’s all more than he knows, in both cases.

“Maybe a nun could tell you.” It might be true, he can’t really say that for sure either. It seemed like something they might know, if only because of some cliche stuck in his head.  

The nuns. Yes, she imagines some of them could know... but when she looks back toward the building, there’s unease shadowing her eyes that she struggles to contain. Maybe it’s simply the unfamiliarity of it, a lifestyle she was never part of and one she doesn’t quite understand. The empty churches they’d used in the past were one thing. This place, still harboring residents who truly believe in these things, who believe themselves to be protected, seems so inaccessible. That must be it.

It’s comforting enough, at least, to try at these rationalizations. Familiar, and considerate to the women who were kind enough to temporarily take them in, and much more productive than simply sitting with her discomfort.

“Guess I haven’t talked to them all that much.” She glances at his face with a careful shrug, and it’s not until she looks away just as quickly that she realizes she was avoiding just that. A distant, delayed realization, when she’s never been in the habit of maintaining eye contact for very long in such casual conversations regardless. But she pushes that all back to a more distant corner of her thoughts. She understands it well enough.

“It’s-” The words catch in her throat, the rest of the sentence falling away before she risks saying something that could be a step too close to judgmental. Strange. It’s strange, considering what’s become of the rest of the world. But she doesn’t have the right to say such things. “They’ve really been here this whole time? Since it all started?”

Daniel nods his head, and doesn’t fight the thought that most of them probably wouldn’t live long enough to worry about arthritis. He just doesn’t voice it, because there’s no point, another dose of fatalism nothing that’s necessary when all they had to do was look outside the gates.

“Do you?” He glances down at her with the question, before it occurs to him that it might need clarifying. “Know what you’re doing?” 

There’s a vague curiosity when he asks, mostly because he knows little about her, or anyone here. But it all feels harder than it used to, something as simple as asking questions and really listening to the answer. It used to be his job, and now it’s an effort to try and keep himself grounded. To hope that the effort might count for something when his soul might not belong to him anymore, and it’s a more terrifying thought than it would’ve been a year ago. He’d thought he had nothing left to lose, turns out he was wrong.

He blinks, does his best to put the thoughts away as he studies her, before his gaze slips by and back to the truck behind them. “You seem to.” 

Her brow crinkles at the short question, but he’s offering clarification before she has to ask. Still, she can’t offer an immediate answer, following his gaze to glance back toward the truck as well, and the makeshift garden in the back that she’s been tending to these past several months. Maybe it should be proof enough that she knows what she’s doing, to an extent, but it’s not a claim she’s eager to make. A step too close to confidence, to cockiness. That’s not a line she’s interested in crossing.

“Oh, I can-” She lets out a careful puff of laughter that’s nearly self-deprecating, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can grow stuff pretty well, I guess.” A mild, middle-ground response, hopefully, as she nods her head toward the truck. “Anything more than that is a whole other kinda smart.”

That is surely the closest she’s ever come to considering herself any kind of ‘smart’, to making such a bold statement to anyone else at all. It seems to invite a brief wave of self-consciousness, and she shifts where she stands, glancing toward the gates so she won’t be tempted to check if he’s studying her again. “It’d be useful, though. If anybody knew more about that stuff. There’s lots of medicinal plants, really, I just- I don’t know all that much about how you’re actually supposed to use ‘em.”

It takes her a moment to answer but it doesn’t stir any sign of impatience. Just a brief, wandering gaze, tracking past her for a moment to the truck she’s standing by. A trace of green there too, and he wonders what she’s growing, and if that’s something he should know. 

It’s a passing thought, a passing interest until she’s speaking and he blinks, like that might chase away the numbness that always seems to be fighting to spread through every limb. His gaze follows when she points, studying the green and white plants climbing up from the dirt. A distant cataloging of what she tells him, solely out of habit now. It might be useful to know, it might not be, no real idea what the road ahead looks like, including the end of it. 

His feet shift on the grass, a few steps closer to the nettles, though there’s no intention on testing that question of which is worse. He’d only had poison ivy once, and it’s one more memory that seems far removed. “Medicine for what?“

The question has her pausing, such memories rather distant things. Growing, identifying, those skills were much easier to bring back to the surface when they were once such staples in her young life. Old wives tales here and there, her mother’s voice in her head reminding her that potatoes should be planted on Good Friday, that plants grow better when they’re stolen, that herbs deserve apologies - these are the things she can recall easily, though not without their fair share of heartache.

Beyond that, it takes a beat for her to recall the things that she taught herself. From college textbooks, unbeknownst to her, left behind by her mother and fastidiously studied over the years. It’s information she never expected to use in any practical application. Only a childish notion she never quite managed to shake - that her mother would come back for her, and Violet would have to be ready, studied, useful, when she did.

“Aches and stuff, I think. Arthritis, things like that.” Hands on her hips, she peers down toward the leaves. “You can make a tea out of it, I’m pretty sure, or creams, if you know what you’re doing. Supposed to help with... y’know, inflammation.”

As much as Bryce doesn’t want to be the reason their group is displaced, he also doesn’t want to give Violet undue reasons to stress out. His instincts are as they have always been, to act as family head and remind them that as long as Bryce is there, everything is under control. That hierarchy is gone but old habits die hard. He glances back at her and can’t quite manage to calm down completely, but he stabs the revenants in front of him a little slower, with less outward anxiety. 

Then he shrugs, sighing. “I’m not just going to sit around and stare at them.” He can’t help but snap, though it’s more at the situation than at her question. ‘Rules’. Fucking bullshit. No one imposed rules on him, especially not ones that prevented him from doing what he needed to do to keep others alive. Briefly, Bryce stopped his stabbing to stand back, hands held out in skepticism, one fist still clutching his knife. 

“I mean, what kind of sense does that make? ‘Sit around, do nothing.’ No one who’s capable of surviving makes ignorance a requirement.” 

Her gaze drops to the ground the moment he snaps. But that’s only instinct, and one she shakes off in an instant, looking up once again to watch the revenants suspiciously as she steps forward to Bryce’s side. Her skin isn’t quite as thin as it once was. Certainly not around him.

“I know. I know,” she murmurs, lips pressed together for a moment of thought. “I agree.” She glances over her shoulder, voice lowered as if she’s worried somebody might be listening in. She’s not sure, though, if it’s respect or something more cautious that’s driving her toward privacy. There’s no real reason for her not to trust this place, or the women inside. Not when there are people in this group that she does trust when it comes to these kinds of decisions. Everything should be fine. And she should be content to follow, as she always is.

Despite all that, her expression mirrors Bryce’s frustration, only for a moment before she shakes it away, hand settling on the hilt of her blade. “Maybe they just know there’s something... else, out there.” It’s a weak justification, she knows, that seems even weaker when she finally says it aloud. “That they couldn’t get rid of.” Being behind the wheel doesn’t give her as much opportunity to study their surrounding when they’re on the road as she’d like, and her head tilts as she tries to recall more of what they passed. “Those bodies had to come from somewhere.”

“This country dog won’t die in the city,” Justin murmured as he walked, only absently bothering to sing in tune, using the song as more of an anchor than proper practice.

He was almost too used to wandering around their people without a word spared his way or vice versa. It was hard not to now. He wasn’t the only one avoiding the indoors. Only, his only reason was hoping he’d get tired quicker if he kept walking, taking in the naturalistic scenery, for what little it was worth. Anything to stay busy and not still while he waited for things to calm down in his head, or at least take on slightly more pleasant colors.

It takes him a moment to respond to Violet, brows raising and feet stopping him cold as he looked in her direction openly, as though she’d been asking him something and not telling. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t seen her earlier, especially given that she was…where she always was. He thought he’d been focusing well enough. Maybe not. Justin got the proper context when she continued, though, nodding as if to hide that he’d only gotten that in parts, and twisting in place as he examined the area she’d gestured to.

“‘Stinging nettle’?” 

“Mhm.” It’s a distracted sound, almost, as distracted as her previous warning, a thoughtful frown shadowing her expression. Maybe she could try to remove some of it. The sisters might appreciate that, and it would certainly be nice to do something that feels less idle and more productive. But she blinks for the moment, straightening where she stands as she surfaces from her thoughts.

“The, um... the plant, it’s a plant.” She points again, to the base of the trees where the nettle is clustered. The groans of revenants wandering closer to the gates reaches her ears, bringing another brief frown to her face that she’s quick to shake off, replacing it with her best attempt at something more sociable.

“Kinda like poison ivy.” More or less, at least, though she can’t imagine the pedantic differences would be all that fascinating.

Sam’s can’t remember a time when he’s been so unsure of something. A part of him wanted to believe that this was exactly what it seemed. That this was actually some safe haven that God was protecting because there were true believers in its midst. But the unsettling feeling hadn’t left him and refused to let him get any sleep. Not for more than a few minutes at a time. 

The worse part, to Sam, was that he couldn’t wander. Was that he couldn’t go outside these walls and scout and that left him very little space to truly walk as he wandered. There was the feeling of being trapped that he couldn’t quite get passed, no matter how nice these sisters were being to them, how accommodating. 

The voice startles him, because he wasn’t truly paying attention to where he was wandering and he glances up at Violet, giving her a small smile as he diverts his original route to come and stand next to the truck she’s working on. “Won’t go that way, then,” he tells her, leaning his back against the truck and looking the way she’s pointed. There’s a frown permanent on his face as he stares out at their surroundings. 

“Holding up okay?” he asks, finally, turning to look at her. 

She can’t help how closely she watches his expression as he steps closer, noting the frown, the line between his brows. Just as she can’t help feeling that much more at ease when he joins her to lean against the truck. It’s perhaps the closest thing to a home she has, and while she knows it doesn’t really count for much in terms of practical safety, there’s a certain comfort in keeping a close proximity. All the more comforting to have Sam in that proximity with her.

“Yeah,” she says, though it sounds closer to a question than an answer. Oddly, her usual practice of guilting and scolding herself out of her negativity hasn’t quite relieved her of her suspicions, and she presses her lips into a thin line as she glances toward the gates. “Yeah, can’t complain.”

And that’s that, she supposes. She’s safe enough behind those gates, with all the others. No major injuries, no major crises, nothing but a semi-fabricated sense of anxiety that only seems to feed into itself. She tears her gaze away from the gates, glances over her own garden, settles her sights on him once again.

“Have you slept much?”

He looks up at Violet. She ’d been quite peacefully ( he thinks ) pacing up and down the garden. Even sounds like she’s doing all right. Maybe it’s because he’s seen her fiddling round with plants back at the base, but she looks right at home in this garden. It helps she’s only playing along, makes this whole hiding in the garden thing feel less pathetic.

“Hm. Maybe we should fix that.” Wes smiles. He holds up a finger to stop any comment from Violet as he pulls out the sharpie. He offers it to her, “This being in my possession proves nothing, officer.”

“Oh, I-” The finger he holds up in the air effectively stops her words, but her uncertainty lingers in the silence all the same. It’s not that she has anything against vandalism, of course, given her long history with the practice. This just... might not be the place for it. All the same, she eyes the marker, tempted by the lighthearted curl of his smile.

“Yeah,” she concedes, then, taking the sharpie with a good-natured smile of her own and a laugh that sounds nearly like a sigh. “Right, I’ve heard that before.” It’s not something she ever had to try, skilled enough at disappearing at the first sign of trouble. But she’s seen plenty of it from a distance, those first few years in the city when she ran with that kind of crowd.

Marker in hand, she peers at the statue for a moment, then leans forward. “Better not pin this on me if we get caught,” she murmurs, an attempt at playfulness in her softened tone as she sketches. “Pretty sure rule number one in all this is ‘no snitching’.”

It felt like whenever Bryce was starting to get comfortable, something had to come along and make him rethink everything again. Not that they had much choice this time with the detours. On its own, Bryce would’ve had no problem with this pit stop; it was business as usual until they got back out there again. But something about the sisters’ “requests”…didn’t bode well with him. He only had one question: why? 

Why did they care if their group explored? Why invite them in only to impose rules? Bryce itched to disobey, his paranoid nature kept him constantly running bad scenarios through his head, reminding him that the best option was to do exactly what they said not to do, and find out what they were hiding. But Bryce did nothing, because as creepy as their hosts were, he’d watched them. He’d listened. He’d stared and waited and looked, and not once did any of his senses, physical or otherwise, detect a single lie, or deception, or hidden hostility. It ought to have been there. Bryce feared making noise only to have their weary group kicked out of their beds, the chance to recuperate revoked. But he couldn’t just do nothing, either. 

“Enough.” Grunting, Bryce pushed his back off the brick wall he’d been leaning on outside and started stalking towards the gates, towards the growing number of revenants that had been staring and reaching at him for hours. When he got close, Bryce started pushing the blade of his knife through their eyesockets one by one, his nose wrinkled with pent-up frustration.

If she wasn’t already in the habit of keeping Bryce well within her radar, the unsettling energy of this place would surely drive her to it. The top of her truck is a good enough vantage point - one eye on the gates and one on Bryce as she sketches pensively in her notebook. She almost can’t help fidgeting. Foot swinging anxiously, pencil tapping intermittently against the page. Until Bryce moves, at least, and she goes still when she glances up.

She frowns in concern, the sisters’ words ringing in her ears. It’s nothing she’s let herself question too deeply, more out of a fear of being disrespectful than any sense of lawful obedience. And it was easy enough to force sense into the warnings, anyway. The monastery is safer. There’s no protection beyond the gates. There may be a much greater threat in the area, one the sisters and the other survivors here couldn’t defeat, one that is simply held at bay.

The rattling of the gates as the revenants reach toward Bryce nearly dissipates that smokescreen of rationalization.

“There are less risky ways to break the rules, you know.” The words are meant to be a step closer to lighthearted, but worry and unease weigh heavily in her tone. Setting the notebook aside, she slides down into the bed of the truck, then drops to the ground, fingers tapping at her weapons. “You gonna try to clear out all of ‘em?”

The place feels like a world apart, and Daniel can’t help the way that feeds into that growing sense of detachment. Pictures of saints and angels inside that don’t resonate with him like maybe they’re supposed to, when they feel like remnants of an old world’s legends. It’s quiet, but not in the cruel, empty way the rest of the world has seemed so far. It isn’t silent because the life’s been stripped from it, but because there’s still signs of it. The area around those stone walls green and thriving.

He isn’t paying much attention to where he’s going, isn’t fully aware there’s anyone else there until she talks. His steps slow, blinking against the light as he focuses on her.

“Oh.“ He stares at her for longer than it warrants, too detached from the moment, and a warning that seems painfully mundane. It has nothing to do with corpses left behind or the monsters that made them that way. Just a warning about the flora. 

“Thanks,” he finally manages, before he frowns. “What’s that look like?”

She tries her best not to make note of how long he stares at her. Maybe he was simply caught off-guard. It’s not like she could blame any of them for being somewhat distracted, especially considering the sights they passed so recently before coming to this place. So she busies herself with an absentminded glance over her own plants until he responds.

“It, um-” She blinks, sifting briefly through the words that rush forward from the depths of her memory. Urticaceae, and trichomes, and all manner of definition from the books her mother left behind for her. “Grows a few feet high. It’s got these pointed leaves. Serrated, they look kind sharp around the edges.” Her hand lingers on the edge of the truck’s bed as she steps away. A farewell, a promise to return, that she doesn’t notice.

“Little green and white flowers on ‘em. Like that.” She points again, closer this time, to the plants circling the trunks of the trees beyond the asphalt. “It hurts a whole lot more than poison ivy, from what I remember. Medicinal, though, actually, depending on who you ask.”

The Lord protects us. Bullshit.

Wes hasn’t stopped scowling since the group stopped in this so-called safe haven. He moved straight through the building. Short and curt with all of the ‘sisters’. The only place that felt even slightly untouched by God was the garden. Well looked after and so very much alive compared to every other part of the world. Wes hates it. On principle. 

There were no crucifixes but there was a statue. Some saint. Wes had a sharpie in his bag but he definitely was not the one who graffitied the statue. He would never write something so obscene or draw something so childish across the forehead of a Saint.

“The sisters are sick fucks, aren’t they?” 

Pacing is Violet’s preferred way of passing the time here. When she’s not keeping herself busy with unnecessary work on the vehicles, at least, or semi-superfluous fidgeting with her own plants. She paces. Like a game, almost, that she’s been playing for a very long time, and the familiarity of that alone nearly starts to set her at ease.

Or it’s little more than a mindless distraction, dressed up as something more. Testing how quiet her steps can be, how quickly she can learn the details of this place, how well she can stay out of the way all the while. It brings her to a deeply familiar face in the end. She pauses, the sharp smell of permanent marker still lingering in the air.

“Not to mention amateurs,” she offers softly, the words free of even feigned judgment. “Real street artists gotta have a tag, y’know.”

Instead, she lingers near her truck, pacing, poking, prodding, peering needlessly beneath the open hood. Her gun feels too heavy where it’s strapped to her thigh, but the weight of the blade at her hip is comforting, and she’s long since stopped noticing the way she reaches for it every so often. As if it might just disappear if she lets it go unchecked for too long.

She’s on her fourth semi-aimless lap around the truck when her skin prickles. Head cocked, she waits for the sound of footsteps before casting one last glance over the engine and shutting the hood. “Careful where you wander.” She lifts a hand to briefly block the sun shining in her eyes, then points, leaning uneasily against the side of the truck. “There’s a whole bunch of stinging nettle that way, if you go back too far.”

Violet seems as confused in hearing that question as Lynsey is having to ask it. The two of them just look at each other for a beat but the other woman is actually pretty diligent in her answer, even if there are holes there that only raise bigger questions.

“New York?” Lynsey muses quietly. “It went that far?”She didn’t know what she expected, but hearing that this group had actually originated such a long way away, well…it didn’t bode well. She felt her fists tighten in denial but swallowed it down rather than speak on it. Violet had no reason to lie. And even more than that, Lynsey didn’t feel she was, even as she painted a scary picture about the need to keep moving, a need to find somewhere safe.

She threw a doubtful side glance back out into the world, face puckering a bit more in discomfort as she crossed her arms and tried to find something they could both testify to. But it was harder than it should have been. So much of Lynsey’s brain was a blank space. The repeated blackouts that broke up any sense of time or place she might have riddled out now made it difficult for her to remember specifics, anything that existed outside of that room.

“I remember…earthquakes. But I’m from D.C.–did you feel them there, too?” She asks. Even the memory of that was gone as soon as it had arrived. Lynsey remembers the feeling of the crowds growing dense around her. Losing her footing, slowing down, pummeled by bodies too tightly packed to notice or care. Then endless, endless darkness. For so long, she thought escaping that room meant escaping the things that held her. She raised her hand to gently stroke the side of her throat, wrapped up cleanly in bandages from the care they had here.

“I was held captive for a long time. I want to say…by cultists, judging from their response when I escaped. The day your friends found me was the first time I’ve been outside since then.”

She merely hums her confirmation, pairing the sound with a nod at the question. It doesn't occur to her – at least, not initially – that the wording isn't quite right. Flipped, maybe. She's taken her knowledge of the circumstances for granted, it would seem, even going so far as to consider it meager compared to so many of the others. But Lynsey is moving on before she has a chance to properly comprehend it.

“Earthquakes?” she echoes in consideration. Her thoughts drag, falling over themselves in their attempts to keep up with a conversation that seems dotted with missing pieces. “I dunno that I'd say earthquakes, I guess, but something... something like that, yeah.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, scratching absently at her earlobe as she listens.

And those blank spots start to fill in.

“...oh.” It's all she can say at first, a soft sound as the realizations fall into place. She doesn't know exactly how quickly it spread from New York, of course, what sort of fallout hit other cities and when, what initial destruction there might have been. But the information Lynsey offers paints what seems, unfortunately, like a clear enough picture. Earthquakes at the start, captivity – she frowns at the thought, tucking it aside for later – and... now. Outside. For the first time since. “So, you don't-”

She pauses, hesitant. The group has had no shortage of new additions in the past year or so, and as far as she's seen, most have had some form of an adjustment period – settling into the ins and outs of their daily life, forming even a small sliver of trust in all the others, getting used to being around so many people at all when some of them had been rather solitary. She never considered herself to be part of any unofficial welcoming committee, more prone to keeping to herself and a select few, and doing her work, and letting people who know more about these things do the answering.

Even then, though, newcomers had been getting by out there one way or another, with at least some frame of reference to prepare them for more specific answers. This is... unexpected.

She can't possibly be suited for this.

“Okay, um.” She pulls her lower lip into her mouth for a brief moment of thought, breathes in softly through her nose, nods. To herself, more than anything. “All this, it- it started in New York, actually. As far as we know. Something called a Hell Gate?” She doesn't mean for it to come out like a question. And she only pauses for a beat, watching Lynsey's expression for any flicker of recognition before continuing. “It opened up in the middle of the city. Right in Times Square, I think, just... really sudden, last January. Those earthquakes you got could've been from... that, I guess. A few of us found each other, got outta the city eventually. We've been on the move since. It's-”

The rag tightens across her knuckles. She glances down, almost surprised to notice that she'd been twisting it through her fingers all the while, and tucks it into her back pocket, nodding out toward the lot and the desolate landscape beyond. Her tone is soft, but measured, almost regretful, something characteristically apologetic to the way the ends of her sentences seem to drop and drag.

“It's like this everywhere we've been, pretty much. But the further away from New York, the better, it seems like. So. West.”

For a second, Violet acts as though she won’t play along. The risk is real; they never seem to discuss, acknowledge, or carry out their physicality in public, after all. But it had still never really felt like a secret, not to Bryce. Just another part of them that only seemed to exist at night, if the weather was good, if the day was uneventful. If she looked at him one way, always reluctant to outright ask. He’d never complain. He didn’t mind the privacy but it felt good to say something in the morning, to be out in the air and speak freely with someone he gave a shit about. About this.

Bryce smirks at her response, licking over his top row of teeth behind his lips, and leans back, palms flat to the truck, elbows straight. He watches her sit and dip her chin and smile at him, proud of being not-so-good from time to time.

“Thank God for it,” he says. As if it were possible to forget. “I remember dragging my feet. Worrying about you, what you could handle. ‘Never been so wrong about something in my life.” He doesn’t enjoy thinking back to the house; while it might have been the birthplace of their physical relationship, it had taken a lot of dark, dark thoughts to root that out of him. Both of them, he suspected. But rather than let the memory poison things now, he had to remember the faith he’d had in her, then and since then. Now. Bryce quirked his cheek in a half-smile and kept his voice soft, honest, as he glanced down again at her plant army, fingers playing gently with some leaves.

“There’s not a lot of moments in my life I can look back on and honestly say were great, but I have a feeling…however many years ahead, this’ll probably be one of them.”

It's a quiet sort of thrill to see him be so openly appreciative. Though not for the first time, she wonders – with that familiar, hollow sense of shame, those secretive chastisements echoing in the back of her mind – how different things would be if she were honest with him. If she ever risked explaining her reaction those months ago, that moment of panic when he set her back on her feet in her living room. Why she wasn't supposed to kiss anybody there, even then, even after all this time. Why she wasn't supposed to like it, isn't supposed to, and why he shouldn't, either. And how she doesn't remember what it was like, when she learned how to like it again.

But there's so much to say, and she's not sure she knows how to say any of it.

Maybe some other day.

This is enough for now, she thinks. That he worried about her at all. The thought floods her chest with a rush of affection that nearly drowns out the anxieties, bringing a softer, more secure smile to her face. He doesn't need any more worries. If he considers himself proven wrong, then he was proven wrong, and there's a part of her that's almost excited to follow his lead into this narrative for now. Where she can handle it all without any need for worry. Where she can be fine. And playful. And smiling. It might even be comfortable.

Her gaze lands easily on the movement, watching his fingers fiddle with the leaves, following the expanse of bare, scarred skin up his arm, across his shoulders, his chest, and finally settling on his face at the admission. A life with few genuinely great moments. The scars, she knows well. But the stories, the life that led to them, are unfamiliar to her still. She doesn't ask. She's armored him – his past, at least, and where it overlaps with her own – in assumptions and excuses that are too delicate to put to the test so recklessly. Not that she meant to, and not that she realizes, but there's something to be said for that passive, subconscious kind of stubbornness.

“I know what you mean,” she says quietly, warmed by the thought that she might still exist to him however many years ahead. It's a feeling she tucks away carefully, certain she'll want it later. “Sometimes I almost think it's kinda nice, like this.” She looks out across the treeline, head tilting in a half-nod. As if to say... this, all of this, in some broad sense, her eyes tracing along the tree tops and watching the breeze weaving through the leaves. “Not-”

But she catches herself on the verge of that unnecessary clarification, silenced by the trust that Bryce will understand. It's not good, of course, that the world is like this now. That so many people lost so much when it happened, and have lost so much since. And she knows that, if given the chance, she'd put it all back the way it used to be without a second thought. So maybe it's selfish – she's sure it's selfish, she usually is – but lately, she hasn't been able to shake the feeling that she might be better off now than she was a year ago, two years ago, ten. Different, at least. It's a nice change of pace.

“I dunno,” is what she lands on in the end, soft, bright words that she pairs with an easy shrug as she stands. The meager distance feels senseless suddenly, and her fingertips itch, and so she crosses the bed, scooting around plants to sit on the edge beside where he stands. One hand reaches to smooth absentmindedly down the back of his head as she sinks into place. “The 'great moments' thing, I guess, yeah. It's nice to have some of those.” She pauses in consideration, fingertips drumming softly against the metal beneath her. “Hey, you think this counts as my first car?”

The hold Lowell has on his new charge loosens when Violet tells him it doesn’t know he’s only trying to help. Somehow the thought hadn’t occurred to him, that a creature scared and alone and in need of help might see anything that scoops it up as a threat. He relates to the bird even more closely now. He feels… remorseful. “I… ” but he doesn’t intend to say anything else, letting the rest of the thought unfold silently within his skull as he listens to the woman provide a solution. 

“That sounds,” his mind is divided between answering her and carefully placing the bird onto her jacket, “good.” Once the bird is nestled in Violet’s jacket it flaps it’s working wing wildly until it moves itself into what Lowell assumes is a more comfortable position. He takes the jacket and carries the animal in folded arms like he’s seen woman carry infants who couldn’t walk on their own. “I hope it doesn’t poop on your jacket,” he glares at the bird in warning, softening his gaze when he looks up again to Violet and then the children’s play area nearby. He walks ahead, briefly too focused to check and make sure Violet is coming along with him. He knows her intelligence will be useful in this endeavor. “Do you think there will be a box over here? Maybe a chest, with a lock,” his voice raises in mild excitement. “Then the bird won’t fly away when its other wing goes back to normal.” He sees nothing wrong with this. 

Looking behind him, he quickly walks back for Violet, “we’ll have to find something to do with it when it’s healthy again. I hardly think it’ll survive if we take it with us, at least in the van. There are too many large men, one of them will sit on it and not notice.” 

She watches his expression shift with an easy sort of patience on her own face. He doesn't finish the sentence, offering only a single word with no proper hints of his thoughts. But that's alright. She glances away briefly, a sort of subconscious sanction for the unfinished thought, looking first toward the bird, then out to the doors, before looking back to him. It doesn't feel much like she's looking up toward him, even if only by an inch or two. But maybe that's his age, and the odd balance of uncertainty and boldness that makes him seem both younger and older than he actually is. It's a strange thing, that distant, foreign sense of responsibility feeling nearly superfluous.

As it stands, she only smiles at his new hold on the bird once it's situated in her jacket, offering a soft hum of laughter when he speaks. “That's alright,” she assures him, absentmindedly tugging at the sleeve of her t-shirt now that her arms are bare. A rare thing for her, even in the summer heat. “I'll be sure to wash it when we're done.” But he's off already, authoritative in his sense of focus. She trails behind him for just a few steps, listening with sincere consideration, before her gaze falls on her sketchbook still sitting on the counter top, her backpack on the floor below. A moment of hesitation, a brief debate with herself – and it's fine, she'll leave it for now, they're not going very far.

“It's-” She steps forward once again to join Lowell when he comes back for her. There's no shortage of boxes in a place like this, technically, but flat-pack doesn't quite suit their needs here, she thinks, stepping through to the colorful play area. “-y'know, it's a wild animal, it probably should fly back out on its own once it's better.” She zeroes in on the shelves along the side wall, rows of wide, deep plastic tubs that should be suitable enough for now. A mess of toy cars greets her when she crouches to slide one out, and she dumps them carefully onto the floor. “It'd get scared, don't you think? If we took it to a bunch of places it doesn't recognize and it couldn't get away?”

She swivels on her knees to set the tub on the floor between them. “Here, let's see how it likes this for now. And then we'll see about bandaging that wing down.”