FicWad

Two days passed without incident. The girls went about their business unaware that danger crawled ever nearer. Kim was getting tenser as the hours passed and it had taken a lot of Rachel’s reasoning skills to get her to keep her original promise.
They were all sitting in the living room. The sun was already high in the sky. Kim had been so concerned about keeping the fact that an Origin would be dropping in for dinner that she had forgotten to set the alarm. Rachel was leaning up against the wall next to the LCD screens with her hands in her pockets. Her face was blank as she surveyed the room. Naomi was pacing up and down in front of the computer giving worried yet angry glances to Kim who was sitting behind her desk with her head bowed. Lindsey and Caroline were standing and sitting, respectively, behind the large wooden table. They kept exchanging nervous glances. Kelsey on the other hand was still close to the doorway lounging in a chair. She looked quite content about being able to sleep in for so long. Naomi had just finished freaking out about how the alarm didn’t go off. There were a lot of chores that needed to be done today as they had piled up again because of Kelsey’s ‘flu’. But the day was now half gone which meant there was no possible way they could all get done. Rachel looked back at Kim. Tears were silently beginning to fall. Rachel sighed. She had hoped they wouldn’t have to mention the Origin today. She needed more time to set her plan in motion. Naomi stopped pacing and Rachel took the opportunity to speak.
“I’m sorry Kim. I had no idea it would do this to you.” All the eyes in the room swiveled back and forth between Kim and Rachel. Kim merely nodded her head. Naomi looked through narrow eyes at Rachel. She was about to speak when Rachel interrupted.
“Please don’t start with the integration. I will explain to all. Just sit down your making me dizzy with all the pacing.” Naomi shut her mouth. She usually would have protested but Rachel’s willingness to explain seemed to satisfy her, for the moment. Rachel directed the next comment at Naomi.
“No interrupting,” Naomi opened her mouth to protest. ”Ah no. stop right there. Please,” Rachel pleaded. A snicker sounded out of Kelsey’s mouth.
“You can just shut right the fuck up. One more god damn sound from you and it will be your last.” Rachel’s face was one of pure hatred as she spoke the words at Kelsey. This was not up for negotiation. The pair locked eyes. Rachel couldn’t explain it but just looking into Kelsey’s dull eyes just made the hatred she had locked up long ago threaten to break through its barrier. Her little voice spoke. ‘Just slit her throat, it will be so much easier without her.’ Rachel’s hand twitched towards the knife that sat on her left thigh. Lindsey cleared her throat, trying to diffuse the situation. She needn't have bothered. Kelsey saw the twitch and broke eye contact. Rachel blinked hard; she folded her arms and pushed the voice to the back of her mind again. She hadn’t heard it in a long time. Since she had promised herself not to let it control her.
“Well Kim and I set up a microphone system around the perimeter and also in select spots around the city border.” Naomi’s face instantly portrayed anger and Rachel raised a hand as she carried on.
“We put them where we believed that they hosted secret meetings. We got lucky. We tagged six.” She paused and re-crossed her arms.
“We came across some information. Well more gossip than anything, but all of them are talking about it.” Rachel took a deep breath and braced herself.
“Their sending someone down from some front line to finish us off. Their sending an Origin.”
The response was instantaneous. Kelsey tensed. Lindsey slumped down into a seat. Caroline put her hand over her mouth to stop from screaming and slowly drew her legs into her body. Naomi’s face was the one that worried Rachel the most. It changed completely; it was full of pain. The memory of a person was causing her to go into a type of shock. Rachel hated knowing his memory caused her pain. The Origin was just as dreaded a word to Naomi as it was to her.
“Naomi,” Rachel spoke carefully. There was no response and Rachel knew it would be a while before she snapped out of it. Naomi’s mind went into lockdown when she was surprised with something, but it had been so long since this had happened that Rachel had forgotten about it. Caroline got up and went over to her she checked her over.
“She’s in shock again. We need to get her to bed.”
“No she has to hear this,” Rachel knew this would be hard but Naomi would have to hear this still.
“But –“
“No she has to hear this. Trust me it’s better this way.” Caroline gave up and returned to her seat. Although Naomi’s mind was somewhere else Rachel knew she could still hear everything. Rachel continued.
“Kim, can you bring up the audio of last night's conversation please.” Kim nodded to Rachel and tapped the keys on her computer. The LCD screen next to Rachel switched on and the sound file started to play through the TV’s speakers. The sound filtering out was the voice of a woman.
“He’s coming down in two days. Apparently the master is angry that the one is not coming down.”
“Look I know all of this, what did you call me down for?” another woman’s voice asked.
“Well for two reasons actually. First I wanted to know if you would go out with me tomorrow night to the usual spot.”
“What just the two of us?”
“Yeah and also there’s something else you don’t know but the Origin.”
“I hear everything that’s said in those meetings.”
“You haven’t heard this.”
“Sure what ever, tell me.”
“Well the Origin’s not supposed to kill the Red head.’ Rachel looked over at Kim.
“Turn it off.” The group was in silence for a few moments.
Rachel had thought a lot about the woman’s words. Relief spread through her when she had first heard them. This meant that it wasn’t HIM coming down. The words sounded like the Origin had been ordered not to kill her. The problem that arose was that her old plan was obsolete. Originally it had involved sacrificing herself, going back to him, as much as she didn’t want to. She would have done it in exchange for the girls to be left alone. If he had refused she would have slit her own throat in front of him.
Now that had changed. This was good for her. The order had meant that she could fight to her hearts content and not worry too much about being killed before she could kill him. Naomi would object strongly to her tactics so she knew she need more time to get all her traps and her final ambush into place.
The girls were all staring at her now.
“So does this mean that they are going to try to wipe us out or capture us?” Caroline’s small voice sounded out from behind her hand.
“Yeah, probably. This means we have a fighting chance. There’s only one of them and six of us,” Rachel replied.
“He’ll probably attack at night though, try to disable the generators and let the others in,” Lindsey’s unfocused eyes were on the table.
“But I’m not going to let that happen,” Rachel’s voice sounded out loud and clear making all of the others look at her. They knew she wasn’t going to let this happen to them. Kelsey’s face was one of complete and utter resentment and distrust.
“Well why are you not going to get tortured and killed?” her eyes were cold as they buried deep into Rachel’s. Rachel stared back at her. She had an answer but she defiantly didn’t want to discuss it with Kelsey.
When Rachel didn’t give her an answer Kelsey looked at Naomi. Naomi’s face was a million miles away and when she was like that you could get almost anything from her. Kelsey’s lips curled into a mischievous grin; she also knew now was the time to get a straight answer from Naomi.
“Naomi,” Kelsey’s voice was unnaturally soft. “Why is Rachel not going to get hurt by the Origin that’s coming?” Naomi answered straight away unaware of everything around her but the question.
“The Origin that Rachel met in the camps is probably protecting her.”
“Naomi, snap out of it!” Rachel stood up straight as she heard Naomi speak; she didn’t want her secrets out in the open for everyone to hear. She turned her attention towards Kelsey. Naomi may be stressed but Kelsey knew exactly what she was doing.
“I’m fucking warning you Kelsey!” It was a pointless warning.
“Why is an Origin protecting Rachel, Naomi?”
“He wants her to be his mate.” The whole room went deadly silent as Naomi’s words sunk in. Rachel looked furious on the outside, her fists were clenched and she was tapping her right leg up and down, but her mind was screaming out in pain. Naomi had broken her trust just like all the other people in her life. Kelsey finally broke the silence.
“Well this is fucking great. We’re all going to get killed while the mistress over there gets saved by her boyfriend.”
Only Naomi would halfway understand the magnitude of Kelsey’s words. In the blink of an eye, before anyone could do anything, Rachel was next to Kelsey. She had picked her up by the throat and slammed her into the door frame. Kelsey cried out in pain. Rachel stood there squeezing the life out of her. Lindsey and Caroline started to move towards them to attempt to pull Rachel off of her.
Rachel wasn’t thinking as she had crossed the room and gripped Kelsey. She couldn’t of been expected to, seeing as her very being had been filled with a roar. The little voice in the back of her head had quite a set of lungs on it . The roar was slowly fading now and the voice was goading at her to keep going until Kelsey had irrevocably left this world.
Rachel let out a wail and let her go. Lindsey and Caroline would have succeeded in pulling her off but Rachel had come to her senses before they could reach her. Kelsey slumped to the floor grabbing at her throat, although the whole ordeal was not long enough to have left a bruise on her neck.
Silence followed. Lindsey and Caroline were standing either side of Rachel. Lindsey had a firm grip on her arm. Rachel and Kelsey had their eyes locked while Kelsey spluttered and gasped, struggling for air. The blow to her back had knocked the breath out of her. The look on her face was one of terror and alarm. Kelsey slowly stood up and faced Rachel.
“You see this is what I was talking about. You are so unstable. If it wasn’t for the girls here you would have killed me. I don’t think you should stay here anymore.”
“What! You can’t do that. She practically runs this place, Kelsey you can’t kick her out. You’ll kick her out to THEM.” Kim was standing up now a look of anxiety on her face.
“Kelsey, you can’t kick her out,” Caroline whispered. Her long silky hair was pulled back and her plain hair was contorted into one of fear. Not fear of Rachel but the thought of what they would do to her. Caroline was a very straight angled woman, she had no curves and was an average 5’7”. She had the air of old age elegance around her, but she wasn’t your typical beauty. She had inherited a short melded nose from her Chinese mother but apart from that, there was no sign of her Asian background.
“I don’t care she just tried to kill me!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic. You’re not worth the trouble,” Rachel turned around and sat at the table, her eyes glazing over.
It had been so long since she had allowed that voice any control or even allowed it to speak, but now it was shouting at her, asking why she had finished Kelsey off. Obviously locking it up for so long had done nothing to dull it. Rachel decided to try and oppress it in a different way.
“Excuse me not worth it!” Kelsey was shouting.
“Shut the fuck up.” Rachel’s head snapped up and Kelsey grew quiet, although her face wore a frown.
“You don’t have to worry I’m leaving anyway.”
“What!”
“No!”
“You can’t,” Lindsey, Kim and Caroline all shouted at the same time.
“Look I need to go. I’m going to try and kill this fucker before he can get close enough. Like you said Kelsey, he’s not allowed to kill me.” Kelsey opened her mouth and then shut it. She finally had nothing to say.
“I’m going to be gone for a little while. I’ll contact you when I can. Caroline where’s the spare jerry can, I need to finish packing.”
“Um … in the garage.”
The whole group was silent as Rachel got up and hugged them all, excluding Kelsey, who had retreated back to her chair. She then went to Naomi who was still sitting stunned on a chair. She hugged her, but didn’t get one in return.
“She should snap out of it in an hour of two,” Rachel looked around the room at the girls. They were all looking at her like she was a dead woman. Rachel knew as well as them that the Origin would kill her, no matter what his orders were, if he felt he was in danger.
Rachel took a deep breath and walked out of the living room for the last time.