Vere stood there staring at her sister for a few moments. She had to blink a few times as she was truly grasping the situation. Multiple excuses were coming and going out of her head, yet not a single word was coming out of her mouth.
‘What has she been doing this whole time? Was she just applying her makeup, I thought she would have been done by now?’ Vere thought.
It was taking a while for Vivi to catch her bearings as well, she looked at the two men in strange masks with a body carried over his shoulder. Squinting, she soon thought she recognized the face.
“Isn’t that squad leader Bruno, what are they doing with him!” Vivi pointed.
Before the situation got any worse, Vere ran right up to her sister and placed her hand over her mouth. She then forcefully dragged Vivi back into the toilet, while Austin and Vlad followed.
When inside, Vere kept her hand over Vivi’s mouth as she was struggling.
“Just get him in that toilet, let me deal with her!” Vere shouted.
She looked her sister in the eye as she pushed her back up to the sink.
“Please, don’t scream, don't shout, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt any of us that don’t deserve it, especially us who have been through the same crap. Do you understand?”
Slowly Vivi nodded her head, and Vere pulled her hand away.
“Are you crazy!” Vivi said in a hushed whisper. “What are you doing, if dad finds out about this, he’ll kill you!”
“Dad?” Vere laughed. “Do you think what you're saying right now is normal? The fact that, if he saw this, that he would kill his own daughter. That’s exactly the reason why I’m doing this.
“Our lives Vivi, none of them are our own. Everyday he talks about selling us off, finding us someone strong to be with. Everything revolves around the gang, and the ones that do care about us, our mothers, look how they got treated.”
Unlike Vere’s mother, the others were still alive, but they didn’t have the best of lives either, at least not one of happiness.
“Is that why you're doing this, because of what happened to your mum?” Vivi asked.
“No.” Vere answered. “I’m doing this because I don’t want what happened to me, to happen to anyone else, and that includes you and the rest of our sisters.”
The sisters had never spoken with each other so directly before. Vivi could feel a welling up of emotions inside her. The reason why she never mentioned anything, or complained about her situation, was because she was afraid.
What if one of the others told on her, then her life in the Scavengers, including that of her mother's, would be hell, they would be seen as traitors.
Vivi then went ahead and grabbed onto both of Vere’s hands.
“Vere you can’t do this though, what do you three expect to do, you’ll die. After knowing everything you're doing for us, how can I just let you go and kill yourself!”
Both Austin and Vlad had come out of the toilet cubicle at that point, to a scene of the two girls crying away.
“I’ve already gone too far.” Vere explained. “There’s no reason for you to get in trouble because of this, wipe your tears away, redo your makeup and pretend that you saw nothing, okay. If you want to help me, and you don’t want me to get in trouble, then just do that for me, okay.”
Sniffing up her emotions, Vivi answered with an “Okay.” As she turned her mirror to fix herself up a bit.
“You two, continue with the job.” Vere said.
Exiting out of the room, they followed the instructions from Vere, they took a right down the hallway and after counting three doors, they now knew they were in front of the right door.
“Vlad, I just need you to distract one of them for a few seconds, that all.” Austin said as his arm was already in the middle of transforming. His forearm had bulged so large that it ripped through the clothes.
Opening the door, they quickly closed it behind them.
“Who are you?” The gang members said.
There was no response, instead the two of them charged forward. Austin threw an overhead punch with all his strength. It slammed right into the member's face cleanly, and he had grabbed onto the man’s hand before his body went flying into the wall crashing into it and making a bunch of noise.
Due to him holding onto the man’s hand, the force from the punch had caused him to dislocate his shoulder, but the single punch was also enough to cave the man’s skull in. There was no scream, because the man had already met his end with a single hit.
Turning to his right, he could see that Vlad had rugby tackled the other gang member. But it wasn't doing much. Lifting up his hands, he slammed them on Vlad’s back, sending him to the floor.
The gang member lifted his leg up, but before he could slam it down, Austin was there again, throwing a punch, hitting the member right in the head, and grabbing his body before it went flying into the wall.
“You did a good job.” Austin said, flinging his hand so the blood would fall from his fist to the floor.
That was three Altereds they had taken down, before they managed to transform. Now increasing their whole chances of surviving this event.
“Let’s take the suitcases and bring them back to Vere.” Austin said as he grabbed one.
Vlad slowly got up from the floor, in pain, as he went to grab the suitcase, the top part flipped open, and the syringes spilled out falling onto the floor.
‘Ah crap!’ Vlad thought, as he knelt down to put them back in. ‘Can I not do anything right? I hardly kept that last guy busy, and now I’m fumbling all over the place. Was there any reason for me coming? I can't help.’
As Vlad picked up the syringe off the floor to put it back in the suitcase, he hesitated for a moment.
‘Wait a second, isn’t this an Altered solution. We’re getting these to stop the others from using it, but if I were to inject this into myself, wouldn’t I become an Altered… if I inject this, I can become someone that can help.’
****
Comments