This Is Not The End.

Chapter 11

"Woah, woah!" I raised my hands and stepped back, "I'm not gonna hurt you, okay!"

"Don't move!" she trembled, the shotgun clattering against the shelf as she struggled to hold it. I could hardly see her after I'd moved away but she didn't let that stop her. "I'll do it! I'll shoot!"

I didn't doubt it. There was no way a girl that young could have gotten a rifle all by herself without some sort of violence. This may have been my second day outside of SWORD, but I had some common sense. Some.

"Okay, I believe you," I said carefully, making a point not to move. I should've just gone clothes shopping; why didn't I just go clothes shopping? "What do you want me to do?"

She hesitated. "Um... stay there!"

I nodded, keeping my eyes on her weapon as she struggled to lift a rucksack not dissimilar to mine and scarper to my side of the aisle. She was smaller than I'd expected with a lot of vibrant ginger hair tied on top of her head to make up for it. Her clothes looked clean – not enough to be hygienic, but they'd definitely been washed recently. Beneath a bright pink leather jacket, her shirt screamed about some old chemical band in jagged letters. Her jeans were held up with a studded belt and she looked like she'd walked through an abstract art painting.

I didn't judge, not when she had a gun at my face.

"You're alive...?" she said uncertainly, her Irish accent overwhelming me. The girl studied me, narrowing her eyes as if mine were about to fall out of my head like the Infected.

"I am, and I'd really like to keep it that way, believe it or not,"

"You're not dangerous?" she frowned, "You have powers?"

"I promise I'm not gonna hurt you," I said, "I don't have powers,"

"But you're from the bad place," she said, stepping away as she read the SWORD badge on my rucksack. "You're with them,"

"What?" I did a double take between her and the bag. SWORD wasn't great, sure, but they'd saved most of us. My facility was a one-off hell of abuse, Ariadne had said so and she hadn't given me reason not to trust her. "The bad place? I'm not-"

"Why do you have the bag if you're not with them?"

"With whom?"

"The bad people!" she raised the gun in her frustration, and I felt myself tremble. Get a grip, Skye, she's like ten.

"Look, kid," I kicked the bag away from me, "Put the gun down, and we'll talk,"

"No! You might be dangerous – you might take me with you to the bad place,"

"I'm not taking you to the bad place,"

"I don't trust you!"

"Then you're a very sensible girl," realising it was the only way to get her to remotely listen to me, I moved slowly so she wouldn't shoot me and removed my jacket, silently praying that some psycho Infected wouldn't come out and devour me for being so stupid. If she wanted the bad place, I'd show her the bad place. Tossing the jacket to my feet, I rolled up my sleeves to show her my arms. The majority of purple had faded to a sickly yellow, but the most recent shock marks shone like growths on my skin – some only just starting to scab over where they hooked me to the machine. "Why would I be with the bad people if they'd do this to me?"

"You have marks like my friend," she said quietly, her grip on the gun loosening tightly as it slipped her mind. "His have all healed over now,"

"See, I'm not with them, I promise," I made sure she was okay with it before pulling my jacket back on. My eyes darted to the ceiling as dust fell on my head, the fuck? "Are we good?"