Serratia hadn’t visited the prisoners in a few days. Her ego was bruised and battered, and every time she thought about that horrible smirk across Rontu’s face it just made her want to scream. It had been a long while since someone had been able to get under her skin in such a manner. It made her blood boil every time she remembered it. He knew nothing about her situation or what she had been through.
In a fit of frustration, she kicked her foot against one of the nearby buggies with enough force to bounce it on its suspension before she sank into the dirt. Serratia pulled her knees close and held her head in her hands, letting out a muffled scream into her lap. She was never particularly good at handling her emotions, often letting them completely overwhelm her.
She sat against the rusty fender for a few minutes to try and regain herself, forcing air in and out of her lungs as she leaned her head back. From the corner of her eye, she could see a raider watching her with a worried expression. Serratia let her head drift to the side, casting an annoyed glance at the person peeping on her mental breakdown. It was a younger man, practically still a kid. He looked terrified, sweat pouring down the sides of his shaved head as anxiously cracked his knuckles and stared at her.
“You gonna say something or just ogle me?”
He jumped, flinching almost as she spoke to him. Normally Serratia would have found amusement in that, but she was already sick of being everyone’s number one enemy.
“U-um. Mr. Wall wants to talk to you. Says it’s important,” he stammered out.
Serratia closed her eyes and nodded quietly. It was perhaps the tamest answer she’d given anyone in Horn’s camp since arriving. “Alright. I’ll head over there,” she answered in a whisper as she got to her feet.
“What was that?” the kid asked, taking a step forward and tilting his ear towards her. She could almost smell the musk and sweat of a teenage boy who never showered.
“I said I’ll be there!” she shouted at him, balling one of her hands into a fist and slamming it against the frame of the buggy. The kid turned tail and immediately sprinted away from her, stumbling in the dirt for a second before rapidly disengaging.
Serratia took another deep breath, trying to find some sort of happy medium between keeping a straight face and completely losing her mind. She reached behind her head, pulling her hair into a short ponytail and tying it into place with a small piece of cloth. She’d have to forget about that snarky Shutok and his friends if she wanted to focus at all on her work. For now, at least.
—
Wall was waiting for her at his usual spot, a broken shipping container that had been converted into a small apartment. Serratia had heard plenty of jealous remarks about it while skulking around camp, but people rarely had the stones to actually try and fight Wall for it. She had considered it herself, but she was also well aware of the kinds of things he got up to inside it.
Serratia stepped inside the open doors, brushing shoulders with a half-naked seductress who seemed to be drunkenly stumbling out. In an odd act of generosity, she allowed the woman to pass by her without any combativeness. Serratia watched her closely as she staggered her way towards her personal tent, shortly disappearing inside and presumably passing out. Serratia shook her head and pressed further inside.
The state of Wall’s abode looked like a storm had passed through. Empty beer and liquor containers littered the floor, as did a few people. Wall himself was laid back on a ratty sofa, cradling his head in one hand. Despite his apparent hangover though, a thin smile was on his face. Serratia paused halfway into the room, stuffing her hands into her pockets.
“Ey! There’s my girl!” he quietly croaked in his gruff voice before chuckling to himself.
Serratia’s posture stiffened, her hands balling into fists inside her pockets as she stood a few feet away from him. “What did you want?” she asked shortly.
With a bit of groaning and grunting, Wall sat up straight. He pulled out a match, striking it on the bottom of his boot before lighting up a smoke. It seemed like even Serratia’s abrasiveness wasn’t enough to break his good mood. “Relax. I just need you to use that freak strength to move somethin’ for me,” he said, gesturing behind him with his thumb. Serratia’s gaze followed it, taking note of the long crate that she had seen Wall’s men struggling with a few days ago. “Take that to the tent with those boys you brought in.”
Serratia walked around the couch, giving Wall a wide berth as she walked over to the back of the room. She looked over the container, finding the handles as she gave it a test pull. It didn’t feel that heavy, the weight was just poorly distributed inside. She could probably handle it without transforming if she did some rearranging. She ran her fingers underneath the raised lip of it, finding both latches and flipping them up to open it. She carelessly swung it open, the lid making a loud crash as she stared at the contents. Serratia froze, her blood running cold as a sudden wave of nausea overcame her.
Two feminine figures were laid side to side with burlap sacks thrown over their heads. They didn’t move or make a sound, but the very slight rising and falling of their chests indicated that they were, in fact, alive. Frayed ropes bound their hands and feet as if an escape attempt had been once before made and then given up on. Serratia’s eyes moved to their necks, crude metal collars clasped tightly around them. A series of LEDs flashed green, a slow sequence of blinks indicating their vitals. Serratia’s hand instinctively moved to her own throat, her thumb tracing the worn scar tissue near her esophagus.
“What the fuck is this?” she choked out, her head turning slowly towards Wall.
He didn’t even turn to look at her, taking a deep drag of his tobacco. “Don’t worry about it. Just take it to the prisoner tent.”
She stomped around to look at him in the eyes, her own gaze blazing with fiery hatred. “We don’t do this. Horn and I had a deal!”
Wall brought the cigarette to his lips, inhaling as the cherry glowed to match the woman’s eyes. He blew the contents of his lungs in her direction, filling his home with a musky and dank haze. “Horn’s dead, lady. He died yesterday.”
Serratia blinked, backing off by a few centimeters. “What? There’s no way…”
The large man stared back at her, ashing his smoke onto the floor before letting it dangle from his fingers. “Your little Shutok buddy really did a number on him. Poor Horn was laid up for days holdin’ his gut and throwing up blood,” he chuckled. “I just helped him to the end.”
Wall smiled, leaning forward so that he could firmly grasp Serratia by her jowls. “I don’t give a shit what kind of deal you two had before. How about we make a new one? I’ll let you keep staying here and doing nothing, and you come here every few days and-”
He barely had enough time to withdraw his hand as Serratia’s flesh erupted into bladed armor. Wall may have been despicable, but he was far from an idiot. Before she could leap at him and completely shred him to pieces, he lifted a small remote that was held to his wrist by a velcro strap. The mere sight of it seemed to make the woman freeze completely, her hand having already been outstretched to grab him by the face.
“I know you know what this is. This is your leash, little puppy,” Wall sneered at her, his thumb dangerously close to pressing one of the switches. “Now take that crate to the tent, before I have to tug it.”
