Nevada: High Roller (Fallout New Vegas)

Chapter 21: One For My Sister

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"If you really thought I'd let him hurt you, then you're even crazier than I thought you were."

Seconds slipped by me, unnoticed, as my brain tick-tick-ticked away, leaving my face displaying nothing other than complete and utter dumbfoundedness, fixed ahead on Benny with a pair of wide, unblinking eyes.

It was only then, when the situation caught up to me, that I raised my hand up to my shoulder where Benny had pulled the strap back up and over it, hesitantly and lightly took a hold of Benny's large, rough, warm hand, and lowered it, shaking my head with a blink and turning my back to him.

               If I let myself get too caught up in the 'why's of the number of possible reasons that Benny could have doubled-back to brutally cave Clanden's head in before Clanden could put his hands on me, leaving his corpse a face-mushed slumped thing on the brown carpet, I would'a been stuck in that room for forever.

For the time being, the 'why's weren't important enough to get wrapped up in.

As I turned my back to Benny, kicking myself into gear and stepping over beside the bed, Georgia's face had become wide-eyed and white-as-a-sheet with what appeared to be shock. Seeing the man who had hurt her getting his head caved in, when the presumed events of the night up until Benny's sudden reappearance had been likely to consist of seeing Clanden doing all the things it was presumed that Clanden had done to her, done to me instead. 

               Then, if Benny had taken too long -- if he had, in fact, left -- Clanden very well would have tried to murder the both of us and catch the whole thing on that fucking video camera of his. 

Getting murdered with my sister was not the sort of family bonding activity I ever intended on taking part in, though those office-chair races down the hill from the Mojave Outpost had, in hindsight, come awfully close.

Tears were still trickling down Georgia's cheeks, leaving black lines of watery mascara along with them. I knelt down on the floor in front of the side of the heart-shaped bed she was sat on, licking my thumb with a shaky hand to wipe away the streaks of black mascara sticking to her skin until it was mostly gone. 

All that remained afterwards were thin rings of black beneath her eyes close to the waterline, though I felt like my hands were too jittery to wipe there without poking her in the eye and, after all the events of that night and however long it had been that Clanden had her in that room, getting jabbed in the eye with my nail was the last thing she would'a wanted.

"You're gonna have to take deep breaths, alright?" I instructed her as best I could, moving my hands to her reddened wrists and rubbing over the marks left there by the duct tape to stimulate better blood flow as best I could. "We're gonna get outta here 'n get 'cha to the Followers for help, but we can't walk 'ya back through that casino if you're cryin'."

Georgia nodded with an 'uh-huh' hum of agreement, pressing her lips together, quickly pulling her hands away from mine to hurriedly wipe at the tears that continued to spill from her reddened eyes.