𝙵𝙻𝙴𝚂𝙷 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙱𝙾𝙽𝙴 | 𝚃. 𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙾 𐂃

- Cristine & Troy -

"Walker's is planning to attack with his war party," Troy chewed on the outer edge of his lips and thoughtfully inspected the bruised and red of his torn knuckles. Running the pads of his rough fingers over them, his eye twitched at the stinging sensation and welcomed it. The pain cleared up his thoughts, raised the angry fog against his father, Jake, and the cowards. Having this vital piece of information abated his animosity. "Not sure this one has the details of said attack, but it's not as if we'll keep him alive of let him go if he does spill all the beans." That was fact. The Nation took out at least eight of theirs since the helicopter attack. Troy thought it only fair they took out some of theirs too. An eye for an eye and Troy was more than willing to pull the trigger.

"What do you think?" Looking up from his occupied hands, Troy pushed himself from the wall the moment Cristine stopped across at an arm's length. He briefly stared over her shoulder at the work James left and he continued. The man was barely holding on, his head lolled to one side, his swollen and heavily-lidded eyes barely open. He festered marks of torture with the objects in the midst of their interrogation. Wetting his lips, tasting the salt on his tongue, Troy cleared is throat. "I think he's said all he knows," Troy answered.

Cristine crossed her arms nodding in agreement with the assessment and frowned. Troy noticed the very subtle shifts- tics - almost that developed within her. The pursing of her lips, the twitch of her lips and the way she reeled in her face into that mask. It was usually the way those quiet, calm obsidian eyes glittered that signaled her uncanny pragmatism through stressful or chaotic moments. "He won't make it through another round of questioning."

It was on the tip of Troy's tongue to ask if she really cared whether he died or not. He wanted to ask what's been on her mind as she witnessed the brutality of the torture, being the one that purposely kept this living being on the scale of life and death just so the torture could repeat itself? All in the name of survival. Troy wanted to ask Cristine what she felt and thought off when watching him commit the taboo of the old world and backing him up so easily. If she still thought of him as the monster she so boldly called him barely a month ago. Feeling the darker part of his mind distracting him, Troy forced his thoughts down with a painful squeeze of his nails into his fisted palms. With the end of the world and him having so much more freedom, this unpredictable thing inside Troy wanted to claw itself out from the last restrictions. But now wasn't the time to expose himself by a brief moment of curiosity and a shared interest. At least, Troy thought, not yet. He would do that when both of them were at the point of no return.

"Well with people taking shit from the pantry... we don't have the luxury to waste more supplies on-"

A clattering noise out of nowhere, cutting Troy off in mid-sentence, startled the duo.

Cristine cusses and darted to the strapped man who suddenly went through a series of horrifying convulsions. From the corner of her eye, Troy sprung in action to reach out, but she stopped him by pushing him back, "don't! You'll make it worse if you touch him. It's a seizure."