Coming Undone

Chapter 28

Runt turned over on his cot.

Wind howled like a specter outside the old shell of a building, the creaks and groans of weary steel joints around him keeping him awake despite the brutal fatigue.

That, and the sporadic gunfire.

Runt sighed and sat up, his knotted stomach reminding him that there wasn't going to be rest anytime soon. He looked around. The electricity had been cut hours ago, but the mercenaries Quixxa had as friends had a solution. A single battery powered lamp gave light to the small area filled with cots. It was an inside room, so Runt could at least shrug off the concerns about being picked out because of the light. If it wouldn't have been for the human's need for brighter light, Runt would have simply left it dark.

The thin sheet he'd been trying to sleep under was soaked with quickly evaporating sweat. He'd mindlessly dosed off a few times, only to wake with terror-stiffened limbs and visions of the inside of a cell. The rough cloth of the cot hummed as he shifted, hunching over and resting his face in his palms.

"Still up?"

Runt nodded at Quixxa's voice.

"Yeah." He moaned.

Runt sniffed and shook his head.

"I can't sleep." He said.

"Same."

Runt looked up at Quixxa. She was perched on the edge of a cot near the lamp with her pant leg rolled up and her raw knee exposed to the light. She set a tweezers next to her on her cot and looked up from her wound.

She sighed as she looked at him, and glanced down at her hands. She'd wrapped them around the edge of her cot.

"I can't stop shaking." She said, making eye contact with Runt.

Runt didn't want to unfold his arms from around himself to check if he was still shaking. He could feel the muscles in his lower back and legs still tremoring, and his tail had cramped earlier. He could only imagine that the constant tremors in his hands were even more aggressive after his day so far.

Runt started to swing his legs over the edge of his cot, keeping the sheet bunched up over his midsection. The tight compression shorts he slept in were revealing at best.

"Have you had enough to drink today?" He asked, knowing she'd lavished their alcohol on him instead of taking any for herself.

She shrugged, straightening her knee as she cringed a little.

"Probably not." She said.

Runt felt a pang in his stomach as he looked at her.

This was her.

Her gun was across the room on a table, her backpack beside her bed and her bandanna tossed aside, draped over the edge of a railing. Her graphic tee-shirt, one of only a pair she had, cheerily advertised her favorite band as she sat with her tail wrapped around herself and her guard relaxed.

The hard, locked jaw and cold stare were long gone.

Instead, she sighed and bobbed her head as her knee continued to trouble her. Her face danced with expressions as she looked around. Her toes curled on the cement floor, just the same way Runt's did when he was nervous, her little knuckles whitening as Quixxa gripped the cot's frame and glanced towards the distant, muffled sound of gunfire.

This was Qiuxxa.

Not the smuggler or the currier.

His Friend.