𝙵𝙻𝙴𝚂𝙷 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙱𝙾𝙽𝙴 | 𝚃. 𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙾 𐂃

- Cristine & Luciana -

Cristine quietly arranged the medical supplies she'd taken from the pantry, trying to be as quiet as possible for Luciana. She woke up yesterday night when it wasn't her shift, frenzied, startled by strangers, and cuffed to a bed. It wasn't until Nick appeased his girlfriend and calmed her that she calmed down. The woman close to her age watched Cristine work with suspicion. It didn't faze Cristine, as her reaction would have been the exact same. Luciana's distrust was fair. The way Nick explained the story was that their Colonia crossed the border for somewhere safe and were attacked by Troy and his men. Luciana had literally been at the edge of death not to simply defend his people. His obsession with the infected had grown into something worse since she stopped volunteering and manned her outpost. She'd hear from Hailey, who had it from Mike, that the youngest Otto was testing people of varying body types, ages, health, and ethnic backgrounds. Even Mike stopped going to the long runs to avoid the experimenting.

Luciana response to getting shot first, then nursed by the very type of people who injured her and killed her people was understandable. Cristine didn't blame her caution, but she didn't want to eat. Storing some of the cleaned surgery tools with disinfectant, she decided to address her, "you don't look like someone who wastes food for no reason. You need to eat and regain your strenght if you're about to do something like attack me or my peers."

Luciana's scowl twisted before turning her neck so she didn't have to look at her caretaker. Cristine also shifted her gaze from her patient and put the last of the sterilized instruments back on the shelves where they belonged. "The only one who cares if you live or not are Nick and his family."

"No one forced you to save me," she snapped in an accusatory tone, her Spanish accent thick when she spoke in English.

"In a place like this, people like us need to look out for each other." Luciana's eyes widened in surprise when Cristine spoke her native language, but the casual drop of some of her letters and the light blending of her sentences into a single word made her recognize the different accent.

"You're Cuban?" Luciana guessed, switching to her mother tongue and scrutinized the woman of mixed heritage up and down. She was both taken aback by Cristine's presence in such a foul and unwelcoming place and curious as to why she would willingly stay here.

Cristine shuffled on her feet and turned her body slightly in Luciana's direction and said with a forlorn smile, "my mother." Cristine pulled out the chair from behind the medium sized desk and took a seat.

The revelation had taken Luciana off-guard, but unconsciously she couldn't help but look at the woman with heightened incredulity. It felt like a ploy to make her lower her defenses by using someone that looked like her against her. Cristine scoffed, as if she read Luciana's thoughts. "Don't worry, they don't have that much free time to be worried about you or me. I just wanted to distract you and urge you to eat. I'm not too keen about stubborn patients and equally stubborn boyfriends breathing in my neck when I'm trying to do my job." Luciana glanced in the direction of the tray filled with vegetables, meat, a side of mashed potatoes and a cup of water. She was extremely hungry and it would be foolish not to take advantage of an easily attained meal.

Cristine glanced in the direction of the entrance, took her writing board and shuffled to her feet and walked towards an alert Luciana. "I'll discharge you since you're in the clear and we can remove those cuffs," she switched back to Spanish and scribbled some observations on the paper. "Most of the people here are sheep." Luciana's eyes flicked in the direction of the portable tent's closed flap and saw the shadow of a figure lingering there. Snapping her eyes back in the direction of the curly haired brunette who pretended to examine her, she listened to the calm and well-meant advice, "if you decide to stay, tell your family to think about how they will earn their keep." Luciana's wide and dewy onyx eyes meet the unwavering ones. "Exploit what you need so that you survive and plan your next steps carefully."

"They killed my people." A single tear slipped down her cheek and Luciana's breaths came in shallow pants when she remembered that filthy depo with fresh corpses both inside and out. She remembered the excruciating pain, the sweat, gunpowder and metal aftertaste of blood on her tongue that continuously lingered in the air.

"These monsters killed my people, my only family as if they were nothing." She raised her nose and the disdain, now mixed with harsh judgement returned inside her eyes. "How can you stay in such a place?! You're the same as these so called sheep!"

Cristine stopped writing from the accusation, she didn't think of herself as being like the Ranchers and didn't like that Luciana compared her to them. She paused, rethinking her response and felt the corner of her lip twitch. Then again, while she condemned Troy and the militia, she hadn't tried to stop them after that family anymore. So maybe the woman was right.

"This was when they shot me when I tried to run," Cristine lifted her left leg and rolled up the ends of her pants and showed Luciana the faded scar of a bullet wound. After she lowered her leg, she revealed her skin to display the same trauma on the side of her neck, "this when I tried to act like the gallant hero. People like that are the first to die."

"Yet you stay." Luciana couldn't feel bad when she knew that her doctor stayed despite all that. 

Cristine lowered her eyes and a ghost of a smile floated on her otherwise expressionless face. "I earned my keep and I stay for my family. They are the only ones I have left. Would you leave your family in a world gone mad?"

"If it was for my safety and sanity, I would."

Thoughts?