[the purge] well all have a face that we hide away forever

[and_survive]

This far out, separated by distance, by the curve of the land and the things that grew on it, you couldn't really see the city, or hear it. If you strained your eyes, maybe there was a glow; if you strained your ears, maybe the sounds of civilization. But mostly, it was light of the moon, and the sounds of nature.

They'd heard the siren, though. It had carried. The reminder that if she strained her ears and tried to hear the city, she wouldn't be listening for the sounds of civilization. It would be the sounds of the other thing. More like home. She hoped everyone she knew still there was safe. She hoped anyone -- hunters, she thought of them, the old language of before -- taking advantage of the Purge would find this place too far out of the way. Wouldn't find it at all.

But hope was a small protection and she knew better than to rely on it, which was why she'd wired nail bombs to the windows of every room they weren't in. Why she was carrying a rifle as she prowled from back of the house to front, why she had her bow and quiver slung across her back, pistol in her belt. Switchblade at her side. All her old tricks, bar the molotovs, because she didn't want to burn Harley's house down, or the forest by accident.

(But she had bottles of alchohol and she had rags, ready to go. Good for wounds, and if it came to it, if it got really bad, that old trick would come out, too.)

She'd thought of doing something in the surrounding woods. More traps, maybe, or just motion sensitive lights. But she didn't want animals wandering through and hurting themselves, or constantly lighting up the place, drawing attention. Better to leave it quiet, and keep the lights to a minimum. Preserve night vision. And project the image: this is just nature. Nothing to see here.

Usually she liked the peace of nature. That had been the same back in her time, her world. Being out in it, away from the trappings of humanity, from the ruins, empty or otherwise.

But part of it, then and tonight, was that it was easier to hear and see anyone coming. So she stalked, and she listened, and she watched.

Comments

[bloodycrescents]

We wait.

This far out from the city, we ought to be able to feel safe. There's nothing especially protective about the forest or anything in it, but we've got distance. Why anybody would trouble to drive out from the city just to rob this place, I don't know. We don't have much of anything worth stealing as it is.

I keep trying to tell myself this. There's no reason to worry. There's no one coming after us. This Purge bullshit is insanity, but it's a madness that won't touch us, far as we are from the heart of it.

I don't really believe it.

Something in my gut is sure that someone is coming. It's twisting and sharp, a cold promise. If anyone does, though, we're ready.

Ellie is ready. I have my dad's old gun, cleaned and loaded, but I've never been a very good shot. If it comes down to it, though, if someone comes at us and tries to harm the girls, I know I'll do what I have to. Nothing's gonna touch them, not as long as I can pull a trigger.

So we sit and we wait and the silence sits under my skin like an itch I can't scratch.

[backward]

It's an exaggeration of the typical rules society runs by, Effy's been telling herself. People break the laws all the time without much repercussion. People hurt one another every day, squeeze both literal and figurative life out of each other, and more often than not the scales of justice never really balance out. Maybe that's too cynical of a way to view the world, but Effy also thinks that it's the most honest. Laws are there to try and bring people into some semblance of order, but morality is too gray and humanity too fickle to really stick by those rules.

Which is why it doesn't surprise Effy to suddenly find the Purge in the news. It's just a matter of how to emerge in one piece.

In the weeks preceding, she's taken the time to learn more about self-defense. How to position her body in the event that someone tries to physically overwhelm her, how to turn even the most brittle of fingers into weapons. There's almost something poetic about the advice she comes away with. Aim for the eyes. If they can't see you, they can't get you.

She's also taken some time to practice with Harley's old gun, though she hopes she doesn't have to pull the trigger tonight.

As the light fades from the sky, Effy lingers by the window of the front room, hidden behind heavy curtains that won't give away her location. She strains to listen, but only catches the sound of her own breath, rising and falling, heavier than usual.

"This is fucked," she murmurs, breaking the silence of the room.

[and_survive]

She didn't know Effy well, yet, hadn't entirely gotten the measure of her. But then, in some respects, you could never have the measure of anyone until you'd been with them when everything went to shit.

Everything hadn't gone to shit, yet, but in preparing for when it did -- she tried to think of it as if, not a sure thing, it could pass them by, but she didn't believe it -- she thought she'd be a fighter. If nothing else, she had the situation sussed.

"Completely fucked," Ellie said. "At least back home we could blame the fucking cordyceps. They didn't just wake up and decide to let everything go to hell."

[bloodycrescents]

I want to say that at least this has a deadline. At some point, another alarm will sound and it'll all come to end.

I want to say it, but I don't really believe it. They might start enforcing the laws again, but who the hell is actually going to make everyone go back to following them? A fucking siren isn't going to do the job. Now this shit has started, I have trouble imagining it stopping.

I'm pretty sure these two already know that, though. There's no point in saying it. All I want to do is hide out here and stay safe with my girls, pretending it's all going to be fine. Who the fuck is going to come all the way out to the edge of the woods anyway? We've got nothing worth taking. There are bigger, fancier houses closer to town.

I look out the window for some hint of what's to come, but there's just darkness, so I step back over to Effy's side, resting a hand at her shoulder. "They might not come here," I settle on. "I wouldn't want to be in the city tonight."

[backward]

The touch of a hand on her shoulder makes Effy close her eyes at once, subconsciously taking a moment to enjoy the company without overthinking the whole situation. It's a comfort to have Harley here, and oddly a comfort to have Ellie too. There's something brash and straightforward in Ellie's personality that feels appropriate, almost necessary for a night like this. It's completely fucked. It's completely fucked that everyone woke up one day and decided it was okay to have a lawless twenty-four hours.

"If there are people living out here, seems like it's likely that someone will come," she says quietly, eyes opening again and staring intently. "Maybe they won't be as crazy as people who head straight for the crowds, but the smart ones would know that we're all vulnerable out here. Takes longer to get to us, but we also don't have the luxury of hiding behind cinder block."

She exhales softly, glancing at the clock.

"Seems like it's always humanity fucking things up."

[and_survive]

"People were always worse than the infected," Ellie said, by way of agreement, crossing to another window and peering out. Listening, too, always listening, and now she thought she could hear something.

Hard to say if it was getting closer, though. Or if she was just imagining it in the first place, brain conjuring up what she was worried about.

"At least the infected you always knew what they were gonna- someone's coming."

She was sure of it, now. Car. Getting closer. This far out, that almost certainly meant, coming here.

[formicine]

Blue isn't the world's best driver -- she prefers her bicycle -- but she can do it. Driving in an earthquake, as it turns out, is fucking hard.

After what she'd seen at Alec and Magnus's -- been party to, and she's still feeling guilty about it, feeling as if she should drive as far as possible away from their place -- after the shit started really hitting the fan, she'd taken off. Not to save herself, particularly, but she knew it would spread outward, and she'd been meaning to get out here to back Ellie up all night. Harley and Effy, too, of course, but Ellie would keep them safe. Usually Ellie keeps her safe, but she's at least hoping she can do something.

(There's the small part of her brain that suggests that everyone would be better off if she just locked herself in a small room where her fluctuating powers can't hurt anyone, but she's ignoring it. If nothing else, because they'd worry.)

She's driving a little maniacally; when the earth had still been quaking the road had actually roiled in front of her and she'd had to stop, curled in the shitty car with her doors locked. Now she's just driving like a demon, shifting in and out of gear abruptly and with her high lights on as she works through the woods toward Harley's cabin. For a little while she's been away from people trying to shoot out her windows or setting fires in the middle of the road, but who the hell knows, especially with demons in play.

And then there's fucking deer. She'd almost hit one dashing across a blind turn, even though she'd known better than to take those fast in the country. Now that would be a shitty way to die. Everyone killing each other and Blue Sargent wrecks her car mauling a deer.

The turn off to the cabin comes up before she's quite ready for it and she swears and skids around the bend, hitting the brakes.

[backward]

Her heart pounds, feeling as though it's trying to break out of her chest. Her movements slow, limbs heavy and pushing through water. Panic has never been an emotion that Effy's handled particularly well. She freezes up, she loses her words, and though her complexion's already as pale as it gets, there's a clamminess in her skin now.

From the chill that runs down her spine.

She reaches for a knife — a large, sharp butcher's knife, because she doesn't trust herself to aim well enough in this state, but close-range defense seems instinctual enough. But even the act of picking up such a passive weapon makes an unwelcome surge of guilt pass over her cheeks, warm and burning.

Feels like Effy can't even protect herself, let alone anyone else.

"They're stopping," she whispers, brow furrowing. Stopping means it's not necessarily someone hellbent on pure destruction. Stopping means they want to come out of this situation, that they want an avenue out. Stopping means they have a survival instinct, and maybe that's enough that the three of them will come out of the situation relatively unscathed.

[bloodycrescents]

"Shit." I had a half-formed hope that they'd keep going, drive past us and on to some other house or up into the hills. I don't want anyone else getting hurt or anything, but I'd rather that than us. I don't know that I have what it takes to pull the trigger on someone if it comes to it. I don't want to know either way.

Leaning down to press a kiss to Effy's hair, I step away to grab my gun just in case, glancing over to Ellie. "Can you get a good look at 'em?" I step over toward the window to see for myself. I want to know how many we're dealing with and how armed they are.

[and_survive]

"Not unless they kill the headlights," Ellie said, frowning, twitching the curtains a little but reluctant to look too directly. She wanted to keep as much night vision as she could.

Maybe she should have keep watch outside. Too late to worry about that now, though. They'd just have to deal with what they had.

"When they get out, I'm going out there," she said, checking she had a round in the chamber of the rifle. "When I do, kill the lights. I don't wanna be a big silhouette saying shoot me."

[formicine]

Blue sits for just a second as the car comes to a stop, as though something's going to happen: as though someone's going to come running at her and she's going to have to back the fuck up, or they're going to come piling out of the house needing to get in or -- god, who knows what. Nothing, probably.

She pauses, and nothing happens. No light, no sound from the cabin, or from the phone, either, which isn't reassuring either way. Blue parks, and pats around for her switchblade and the messenger bag and turns off the car, getting out.

[and_survive]

They'd turned the car off. Ellie wasn't entirely sure what that meant. Maybe they just didn't want the sound; maybe it meant they planned to stay a while.

Well, they'd find out. She swung the door open, staying behind it in case someone fired at the open space. When they didn't, she ducked around it, leading with the gun, catching it with her foot so it swung shut behind her as she moved forward.

"Hold it right fucking there!" she barked, getting a bead on the figure, She could work out who it was and what they wanted after they stopped moving.

[formicine]

Blue hears the creak of the door more than sees it, and when it doesn't close she tries to focus, nervously, to see if it even was a door or something else. There's no light on inside, no one calling hello to her; everyone could be dead in there for all she knows, and she moves past the cab of the car nervously.

By the time she hears the answering slam of the door, she's being yelled at. It's Ellie, in a tone she's never had to hear from her; her brain doesn't wrap itself around that until after she freezes, heart thudding into her ribs like some poor seatbeltless passenger. Her eyes find the end of a rifle, the familiar half-click of a hammer.

Oh god. She's going to get shot. By her girlfriend.

"It's me," she says, but it doesn't quite make it out of her throat, more a strangled whisper, and she lifts her hands, more as if she's soothing a wild animal than getting arrested. "Ellie," she says again, trying to take a breath and talk herself into Ellie's head, how scared she must be right now. "El. It's me, it's just me."

[and_survive]

She didn't register it on the first, strangled words, only getting it on the next, when recognising the voice resolved the dark figure into something more familiar. Less her night vision coming in and more her brain knowing who it was looking at in the dark.

"Blue?" She dipped the gun, down and to the side. "Jesus, you spooked us. C'mon, get in the house."

[formicine]

Blue lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, like her whole body relaxing, and stumbles the last few feet to wrap her arms around Ellie's shoulders for a moment. Her heart's still beating a drumroll against her chest, the image of the business end of a rifle still glinting in her memory, but she puts it aside. They're all scared and they should be. "I'm sorry," she says, "I'm sorry. Everything's crazy." She's afraid for a moment that her powers are going to do something else, and she drops her arms to her side before even processing that Ellie can't be affected by that. Never has been.

"I fucking spooked you," she retorts under her breath after a second as they duck inside.

[bloodycrescents]

Even as they step inside, my heart's in my fucking throat. I know Blue — at least, I've met her once, and Ellie's mentioned her enough that I feel like I know her better than that — but even the sound of her name doesn't calm me. I thought someone was out there. I thought they were coming for us.

Setting down the gun again, I nod a greeting, trying to mask the way my heart's still pounding away. "We're all pretty fuckin' spooked," I say dryly. "Glad you made it in safe."

[backward]

It takes a while for Effy to find her voice. It had been possible to hear some voices muffled outside, but not to make out specific words — and even though the tone seemed to suggest that Ellie wasn't in any mortal danger, it's hard for Effy to pull her mind away from the worst possible scenario.

She's no stranger to death. No stranger to either sudden violence or slow deterioration.

Her breath catches when the door opens, and upon finding familiar faces, she tries to be subtle about lowering the dagger clutched in her hand.

"You alright?" she eventually manages, prompted by the sound of Harley's voice, her gaze wavering between Ellie and Blue as she instinctively returns to Harley's side.

[and_survive]

She backed past the porch to the door, watching the road in case someone had followed Blue's car out here, looking for lights, listening. Nothing, yet, so she stepped back into the living room, swinging the door closed and lowering her rifle as Effy spoke.

It occurred to Ellie that this probably should have been her first question, or at least her second after Who is it?

"You got out of the city okay?" she said, as a way of reaching towards that, less a separate question and more a reinforcement of Effy's. She'd thought about asking simply how it was in there, too, but she thought she knew, already. She knew how it would be.

[formicine]

Blue lets herself catch a breath, and glances back behind her to where Ellie's covered their backs. She takes a moment longer than Harley and Effy, though they both are pretty shaken up and ready to fight, and Blue can tell Ellie's not quite all here with them, too focused on survival.

"Yeah," Blue answers both questions, moving away from the windows. "I mean. Did you all feel the earthquake out there? That..." She doesn't want to give all the details, because she still feels like it's all her fault, and even implying that Magnus was in some way behind it seems like a betrayal.

"Let's just say this Virginia girl was not prepared for it," she decides on, with a heavily sardonic smile. "But I mean, still have all my limbs. Just gunned the damn thing." Her accent is a little heavier than usual, more Appalachian, and she figures it's no time for pretentions, nor a crowd that will care.

"The city's a mess, though. Alec got stabbed. He's okay now, but. It's just --" She shakes her head. "Fucked up what people think is fun."

[bloodycrescents]

"Jesus," I mutter, shaking my head. The city at war with itself is bad enough, but the earthquake was just unsettling on top of it. With the way things are going tonight, it feels like a miracle that the worst to happen to someone one of us knows is a stabbing, and that's fucked up in itself.

"The whole thing's fucked," I say. "But things have been quiet here so far. You want a drink or anything?" I want to seem cool and collected, but I know it's not working. I'm pretty sure my hands are shaking. I don't know how I'll shoot straight if it comes down to it.

[backward]

None of it is easy for Effy to hear, but it's all too easy for her to picture. Though she's lived a relatively sheltered life, those she's held close over the years haven't been so fortunate, and the need to empathize, the need to maintain those friendships has painted images across her memory that are so vivid that they almost feel real.

After Freddie's passing, they wouldn't show her his face. There wasn't a point, they said. But sometimes Effy thinks that leaving him covered was even worse, because now she sees a gallery of possibilities in her mind, matted hair under clotted blood, white that peeks through, a dip where the baseball bat took his life — but not quickly, not seamlessly.

The senses pour through as she imagines someone being stabbed, the sickly warmth of blood spilling over skin.

"I'll get the drinks," Effy says, her face paler even than usual. "Herbal tea, decaf. We're saving the hard stuff for after the second siren."

[and_survive]

"Did you see any other cars? I didn't hear any," Ellie said, which wasn't to say there hadn't been. They might have stopped when Blue did, and if they'd driven without lights she mightn't have seen them.

But you had to drive slow, with no lights, and it was a way out. Impossible to say. Impossible to tell what could have happened or what could happen. She just had to stay ready.

[formicine]

"Tea sounds great," Blue says with a flash of a smile, terse as it is, in Effy and Harley's direction. The hard stuff sounds pretty good too, but it's smart not to do that; they need to be alert right now. If Alec with all his training had been hurt... Tea at least feels like it can settle things.

"Uh," she says, "no, not for a little while. Nearly hit a deer, but no cars this far out. A lot more toward the city." The question has her doubting herself. Maybe there had been; had she noticed in her haste to get here? But she shakes her head, anyway. "Not unless they were trying real hard not to be seen."

[bloodycrescents]

I grimace, thinking about that. I can't tell if this whole situation is making me paranoid or if I'm right to be, but all I can think is that, if they're out there, they're trying not to be seen. I can't figure why anyone would want to go to all the trouble of coming out here when we don't have a damn thing worth stealing, or at least not worth the fuss. That doesn't stop me imagining it, wondering if, even with the four of us, we'll be able to hold our own against the coming onslaught. On a night like this, I don't have the first fucking clue what's motivating people. Maybe we seem like easy targets, out here on our own.

"Might be," I say, shrugging, trying to keep my nerves to myself. I'm not sure I do that good a job. "But if they're coming by car, we're bound to hear them first."

[backward]

Tea is the drink Effy prefers out of everything that they have, and she sets herself immediately towards rummaging through the cupboards, considering the different varieties. She settles on a mix of fruit and flowers — a hibiscus base with hints of elderberries and raspberries. If she were to think more deeply about the choice, she might remember all the occasions when her mother came to the bedroom to soothe her after a nightmare, offering the warm mug of tea, a hint of sweetness without requiring a trip to the bathroom and tooth-brushing afterward.

She still listens to the conversation while she busies herself.

"Seems like anyone who comes all the way out here would be doing it for the hunt," she says quietly, feeling almost a thrum from Harley's direction. He can probably picture it even more vividly than she can. Ellie might, too. The type of malice that can come from a person solely seeking to prove their strength.

[and_survive]

"If it was me, I'd stop a ways back, and come the rest of the way through the woods," Ellie said, pacing from the door to the window nearest said woods, as if she was going to accidentally summon someone up that way by mentioning it.

She considered how that sounded, as she went, especially coming on the heels of Effy mentioning the hunt. She'd hunted, she supposed. But only people who'd been hunting her in turn.

"Well, actually, I'd steal a horse, and then I'd just get the fuck out of dodge because I'm not a fucking psycho. But you know what I mean."

[formicine]

Blue heads over towards the kitchen to find mugs; helping with tea is something she knows how to do and whatever it is that Effy's pouring the water over smells relaxing. Like home, a little bit.

It sends a chill through her, though, when Effy says the hunt, and she glances immediately at Ellie, as though wanting it can make her gaze calm her girlfriend. Ellie's not wrong, but it twists in her gut further.

She thinks of Mr Grey and what he would do. Probably wait and watch until they made a stupid move on their own and kill them right here. She wonders if it makes her thoughtful or just stupid that she has mixed feelings about someone like that who can just kill.

"Too bad we don't have horses," she deadpans. "Come on, El," she adds, more nervously, "get away from the windows. I keep imagining something coming through one."

Even as she says it, she hears a noise outside and her head snaps up. It's a deer, she tries to convince her hammering heart. It's just a deer.

[bloodycrescents]

I tense, head snapping up at the sound. Either it's just an animal or someone's made a mistake. I tell myself that both are reassuring, that a killer who knocks into something out there isn't as much of a threat. The four of us can handle whatever comes our way.

At least, I hope we can.

I look to Ellie. "What do you think, something or someone?"