The walls press in harder, my breath coming in short, painful gasps. No. Not this again. Not now.
The fog starts to creep at the edges of my vision, that familiar hollow feeling spreading outward from the back of my head and tingling across my scalp.
Dissociation.
My old friend. My constant unwanted companion when everything is too much.
I grit my teeth to fight it back. I'm always afraid that one day, I'll dissociate a littletoohard and I won't come back the same. And I especially hate the feeling that I'm not in control.
It hits me that despite everything that's happened, I haven’t dissociated in… how long has it been? I have no idea. Weeks. Maybe more. Certainly not since I woke up in Nikolai's dungeon.
All the running, all the fighting, all the chaos, and this is what finally pushes me over the edge.
I fumble with the hatch, my fingers clumsy and numb. It won't budge.
"Need a hand?"
I nearly fall off the ladder in surprise. Geo stands at the bottom, looking up at me with that maddeningly calm expression.
"Thought you were giving me five minutes," I snarl.
"Been seven," he says with a shrug, not budging an inch even as my hand twitches at my side, itching to give him a few more scars with my pointed nails if he tries to keep me from going up there. "You look like you're about to pass out."
I cling to the ladder, hating the tears that burn behind my eyes. “I’mfine,” I grit out.
"Sure you are." He climbs up, reaching past me to unlock the hatch with a key I didn't know was necessary. "When I feel like that, sometimes it helps to shoot something."
The hatch creaks open, and cold air rushes in. I climb out onto the surface, breathing deeply despite the tinge of diesel and dust and gods know what else in the air. Geo follows, surprisingly graceful for such a massive alpha.
"Shoot something?" I give a dry, brittle laugh as he hauls himself through the hatch and joins me topside. "Like a person?"
He shrugs, lips quirking. "Sometimes."
The wasteland stretches out around us, bleak and oddly peaceful. Oblivious to the fact that my own private world has been tilted on its head. The sky is heavy with dark green clouds, the air thick with the swampy scent of a fast approaching radiation storm.
"Here." Geo offers me a gun I hadn't noticed tucked into his waistband.
I hesitate, then take it.
"That's a risk, isn't it?" I ask, feeling the weight of the weapon in my palm. "Giving a gun to an omega who might be having a mental breakdown?"
He chuckles, a low sound that reminds me of stones rolling down a mountainside. "Life's full of risks. Follow me."
I trail after him as he moves a short distance from the hatch. He kicks something in the ground, revealing a hidden panel beneatha carpet literally caked in dirt. He stomps on a switch with the heel of his combat boot and mechanical targets spring up from the wasteland.
They’re crude silhouettes of human figures with round tin spray painted faces displaying varying degrees of comical anger, moving back and forth on rattling tracks. A few even have shoddy armor full of bullet holes hanging off them.
"Guard training," he explains. "Can't have my men shooting at each other. Well, not all the time."
I look down at the gun in my hand, then at the targets. They're simple, but they're better than nothing. I take aim at one and pull the trigger.
The recoil surprises me and the shot goes wide, missing by at least a few feet.
"Want some help?" Geo offers, keeping his distance, respecting my space.
I nod wordlessly. The distraction is helping keep the numbness at bay, at least. I still don't trust any of them enough to be in that state.
Well… okay. I would trust Knight.
