I was looking for Tommy. Dig Graves was looking for me.
Every person in the city would be searching desperately and very, very carefully for their comrades.
Humans felt safer in their tribes. Alone like this, they would be exhausted and afraid and unaided in the world. Everyone would be needing their friends and not wanting to initiate conflict until they found them.
As the sun dipped behind the structures and evening painted the world steel, I decided on a building to make my base.
Careful of the dusty floor I walked barefoot on any object that was scattered on the ground, making it inside until I reached a stair well. Up or down?
Down of course.
Always, always go down.
The people who go up in a building do so to set up headquarters and have a look out using the windows. Which means an entire group of people go up and revolve around a watch. I could not fight an entire group of people.
The people who go down into the basement are the people who want to hide. The people who want to hide do not want to kill me.
Rows of lockers spread out on the lowest floor. No food. No running water. I selected a locker at the back. They were noisy things to open.
If someone came down here scouting for an easy kill, they would open up the other lockers first, causing a ruckus with their metal hinges, alerting me that someone was down here so that I could flee.
Perfect.
The locker was extremely uncomfortable. Not perfect.
Night drifted. I remained awake. It was far too difficult to sleep with my limbs shoved in awkward angles, also I wanted to keep my ears pricked for footsteps.
There was none.
Not a single noise, not a single sound of—
The door to my locker was torn open.
Jolted into pure shock, I looked up to find Dig Graves consuming my world. Dusk came swirling its darkness and so had he. A nightmare. Blood sprayed across his lips. He smelled of metal and death.
My heart flew into instant chaos. “How did you—ah!” I screamed.
He grabbed my arm and yanked me out, his laughter wild.
Usually, I screamed only for the purpose of alerting others, however this had been so totally unexpected I could not help but vocalise the sting of confusion and sudden surprise.
He had close to a dozen different blades on him. Strapped to his belt, in his pockets. All bloodied. Oh freckles, how many people had he already killed?
I worked quickly.
Kick to the knee.
Elbow to the throat.
He swung me around, forcing me to miss, and snatched both of my arms, pulling them behind my back, locking me in front of him. His hold on me was expert. I searched quickly through all the channels of my head for a manoeuvre from my defence training.
“Princess.” His lips pressed into my ear, marking me like a kiss. “You can’t hide from me.”
“How did you find me?” My chest swelled. I needed more time to think. “I didn’t leave a single footprint. You didn’t check any of the other lockers. How did you know I was in there?”
His laughter was incredibly annoying. “I’ll always find you—fuck!”
I used my heel on his shin. When his hold on me loosened I snatched a blade from his belt and gave him a swift stabbing in his upper arm. While hespent a moment pulling out the blade, I took out the wad of Cauliflower’s fur I had tucked into my hair and smashed it into Dig Graves face.
