Liberty and Death, Chapter 51
More stayed for Fern and Kyra’s impromptu butchering lesson that Cora had expected. That preteen had really taken to Tania, and Cora looked back once to see the girl proudly showing her an Adrenobyte she’d, presumably, just plucked off a guy’s heart. Tania, true to form, clapped excitedly and ooooo’d in praise.
The girl’s mother looked less enthused, but, fuck, it was a brutal world.
Having Kyra, who was visibly badass, and Fern, who could come to them from a place of understanding, seemed to help calm down the people who weren’t as interested in butchering.
[C, K]
C: hey, Kyra, let these folks no we’re heading to Luxholme, and do it gentle
C: just occurred to me that rolling up on the most well-known slaver den in the area isn’t exactly going to be comforting, even if we just ‘saved’ them
K: shit! Good catch C!
Cora didn’t bother suppressing the little grin that ‘C’ drew out of her. A little under 72 hours to go from heartfelt death threats to nicknames had to be some sort of a record, at least outside of ‘Enemies-to-Lovers’ fics.
Speaking of….
Hawk walked along beside Cora, [Bertha] slung casually back over her shoulder, the pose accentuating every smooth, bulging muscle in her arm. More than that… well, she seemed a little proud.
That should be obvious, what they’d just done was unambiguously good, but Cora forced herself, against her desires, to remind herself that an undetermined but not-too-long time ago, it would have been Hawk they’d cut down as she did a smash and grab, grabbing not valuables, but people.
Hawk was also doing the thing.
You know the thing.
You hold your hand in just the right place.
You make it reaaaaal conspicuous.
You do a lot to make it very clear that its both free, and well within the reach of…. Oh, I don’t know, the girl next to you maybe.
Her fingers had ‘accidentally’ brushed against Cora’s forearm, as low as her hand could go and even have a pretense of being natural, a dozen times.
It was, frankly, cute, and a far cry from Hawk’s overt aggression in the Armory, or that stolen kiss in front of Eldridge. And it made her heart flutter just as much as either.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Cora said, reaching up to wrap her arm around Hawk’s forearm, pressing it tight to her side. It felt like she was hugging a whole ass person, and she pressed her head into the side of Hawk’s bicep.
“Uh…” Hawk beamed down at her, “yea- uh, what?”
“Being the good guy,” Cora prodded, and Hawk’s face went hard. That wasn’t what Cora had expected. Hawk didn’t shake her off, but Cora felt her arm tense against her side.
Hawk was no longer looking at Cora, instead laser focused on a point in the distance. Nevermind that she could only see maybe 50 feet in the Shimmer and dark.
After a long moment with nothing but the squeaking of the cart wheels, and some increasingly fervent whispering from inside the cart, Hawk spoke.
“You know how long it's been since I felt anything, Cora? Anything better ‘n rage, toxic pride, and fury?” She asked.
“No.”
“Me neither. Been that long. Been that way for almost as long as I can remember. Since I was a kid, at least. Been that way until two days ago,” Hawk said, finally glancing down at Cora. Her reflective yellow eyes flashed, just for a moment, to hers, before returning to the distance ahead. “There’s never been another way for me. Might still not be. Might wake up back in the breakin’ pens, only this time they worked. Might wake up and I’m back to being the one doing the breakin’.”
Cora expected a ‘but’ statement. It never came. She sighed, and nuzzled her cheek against Hawk’s skin, warm, soft, despite the hardness of the woman. Honestly, she wasn’t certain if that speech represented progress or not. It certainly hadn’t been an admission of guilt. It did, however, imply a level of self-examination Cora hadn’t thought Hawk capable of, and that deserved positive reinforcement.
She turned her cheek slightly, bringing her lips to touch the crook of Hawk’s elbow in a quick kiss.
“Feels good to me,” she said, then untangled herself, and went to call for Dip at the gate.
She could feel Hawk’s eyes on her as she went.
15 minutes later, 10 new souls were huddled in Luxholme’s courtyard.
“Lux,” Cora whispered, as Jocasta, roused from slumber, fussed over the new arrivals. “Do we actually have room for these folks?”
‘We do Cora!’ Lux gushed, ‘while I believe all the state rooms have been claimed, per your free-for-all order, I was designed with a slave contingent of 50 in mind!’
Cora winced, thinking of the dingy quarters Fern had led her through earlier. But, just because someone was staying there wouldn’t mean they were a slave.
Plenty of supplies, too… and we can work on lodging. If they even want to stay.
Cora stepped forward, extending a hand in greeting to a woman who had been sporting a pretty nasty head wound before Jocasta’s attention.
“Hey! I’m Cora,” she said. The woman, a little hesitantly, took her hand and shook. “What, uh, what happened out there?”
“Chains busted in,” the woman said, narrating like it had happened to someone else. “Lined up the boys, took the girls. They already had a cart of us gone by the time you showed up. Had a man who did something to that bunch… they just marched straight into the cage.”
Donovan, Cora cursed internally. She should have risked more to kill him when they’d had the chance. Whatever he’d been trying to do to the Alphound Matriarch must be easier on people, at least unintegrated ones.
“A few seconds before you turned that corner, they shot the boys. Quick as you like, against the wall. Lost a husband. Lost a brother.”
“Shit…,” Cora had no idea what to say. Especially as the woman seemed too numb to really grieve. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we didn’t get there sooner, but those gunshots were what even alerted us to anything going on. You can stay here tonight, if you like, you’ll be safe.”
“Oh sure,” the woman said absently. Cora hoped the morning would bring more clarity, but after an experience like that, things might not be so simple.
The rest of the women weren’t in much better shape. The only one of them that really seemed alive inside at all right now was the young girl Tania had bonded with. Her mother silently wept into her hair as Tania showed her knife tricks, rivulets of blood demonstrating that Tania was learning as she went.
By the end of things, Mike and Fern had sourced some clean blankets and Lux reported the… well, Cora was going to call it the bunkroom, was warmed up.
Mike, Tania, and Jocasta took them down, and got them settled in.
“Fuck me,” Fern breathed, “that was rough.”
“Bad memories?” Cora asked, wondering if a similar scene was how all of these women had ended up here.
“Hm? Oh, no,” Fern replied. “Sold myself. Didn’t have a fuckin’ choice, it was that or starve, but nothing so traumatic as what these girls just went through. That came later.”
Sold yourself!? Cora wanted to scream, but held back. People hadn’t been lying to her much, thus far. Maybe that statement wasn’t as insane as it sounded in this world. Still, her nails dug into her palm hard enough to draw blood. When she was done with Tyrinno, those words would never be uttered again.
“I’m gonna be honest, Fern, I’ve got no idea how to deal with them,” Cora sighed. She was a mess herself, but in a completely different direction to the way things were heading for that group. “Think you can rally some of the gentler souls to help them out tomorrow?”
Fern grinned at her. The woman wasn’t conventionally pretty, but she did have the kind of smile that was absolutely magnetic. Fierce, with sadness and hope in equal measure at its edges.
“‘Course I can, bosslady. Just cause this ain’t what happened to me doesn’t mean it isn’t what happened to some of the girls. If its bad in Tyrinno, you’ll find someone who can empathize with it in Luxholme,” Fern said, like it was a mark of pride. Cora certainly didn’t feel proud of it. But if this was gonna be a refuge, maybe it would be for the best it was staffed by people that, were it not for one twist of fate, would have been refugees.
“Cool,” Cora said. “Figure out if they have any skills, too. If they stay here long term, I’m still trying to figure out how we’re gonna make this place self sufficent.”
Before bed, they [Integrated] three more women from the original staff, Tinny included. As the girl pranced off, clearly looking for someone, she wiggled her eyebrows at Cora. “Let’s see how rough Dip likes it when I’m the tough one, eh?”
Cora was still grinning at that creative use of [Integration]’s bonuses when she crawled into bed next to Kyra, and found sleep as slender arms wrapped tenderly around her neck.