...

"You crazy fucking bitch." Elias laughs, tipping his head back and exclaiming like he don' know what he's gon' do with me. 

Thai grins, scratching her cheek like she's not sure what to make of my practical joke. 

Trent glowers at me, though I notice when he looks at his food to conceal the corner of his mouth lifting. 

"Look. If you try get to Lake Darling it puts us all at risk. Even if you, manage, to make it, the army will pluck you. You'll lead them to us." I fail to sugar quote or quantify. 

"What are my chances if I go?" He grates.

"Even if you somehow survive the REDZONE and get to Holder's Bay or a farming reserve to secure transport back to Lake Darling, you're still fücked because of the army," Scorpius remarks, watching narrowly.

"Why?" Blu spits, stupid as ever.

"We're fugitives. Wanted." Thai tries to explain, neutralizing the brittle tension.

"You say that like they're gon' send a troop after us." 

Uh... exactly. 

"The army got your identities in its database—all it takes is for one of yous to look at a camera and they'll ID your iris—one look and it'll flag in their system. Any army camera... any, any security drone or tech linked to their system. You's didn't get off scot free when we entered the REDZONE, you's are in this for life." Scorpius's tone isn't teasing, nor is his gaze condescending. He's speaking from experience and the truth in his words rings like a gong.

"How do you know?" Trent murmurs.

"The army got me once," His voice darkens, "Trick got me out. I been a drifter since cause I know how shīt-nasty them soldiers are..." truthfully, that's why he started pulling jobs on CITE.K. When the army forced him underground, he had to abandon his job, his life. He was studying computer science.

I look down, unable to meet Thai or Elias's gaze. Scorpius's mother is a very powerful person, but she butted heads with the army and they took Scor as collateral. It's why he ran away... every time we go to Holder's Bay he comes up with an elaborate plan to avoid her, but this time feels different. What with the guns, we might have to lean on her for support. Maddon Voytah. Manic Queen. Scor don' talk much good of her.

"Trick?" Thai snaps, her perceptive gaze pinning to him when she realises just how influential his position in the Voytek's was.

Scor nods stiffly.

"Alright, say we go Holders. What options do we have?" Elias tries to catch my eye. I know his silent question— "What about Ibis?"

"His kid, right?" Scorpius asks me, "I'll figure it out, should be on the army database, you reckon?" He shrugs, asking my advice, and I nod.

"Will logging in flag our location?" I shift to lean on my knees, and they fall silent as they listen to our deliberation.

Scor scratches his chin, nodding like he'd forgotten to consider the prospect. "You reckon they've got a trip wire on his profile?"

"They know he's important to us." I shrug, "It's easy for them to do... just route a report of anyone who accesses Ibis's data... they see some random Private from a different base they'll figure it's weird, check where the IP is..."

Scor whistles, "Yeah. Fuck, we need Dexo's VPN, aye?"

I drop my hand, looking at the ash at my feet when my stomach clenches. "How long till then?"

"Meet them tomorrow so a day or two?"

"You can find out where Ibis is?" Elias sits forward and Scorpius nods.

"Bloom too," I add as I look at Thai, "We just gotta get to Holder's."

Trent clears his throat, "What would working for the Holder's Bay gang mean?"

Scor shrugs, making certain not to look at me in case it leads them to suspect we're keeping the guns secret, "Odd jobs like what I did for the Voytek's, so Zero runs, trades, mostly just shīt-kicking and grunt work."

"Like wall duty and trades with the Yakuza?" Saxon asks me, adjusting to the idea easily.

I've always liked how straightforward Sax is, even though he tends to spook easily and is a bad judge of character. Once he sets his mind to something he pretty much always gets it.

"Yeah, except the trades take place in clubs with strippers," I wink at him and Saxon's brows shoot up, looking at Trent too quickly like a kid asking for permission.

Scorpius's handsome smile broadens, "Well tomorrow morning, after Trent and I find that fuel, my mate Sphynx is gon' buy the ute. He's trekking it back to the Voytek's, so the army is gon' track them to the wrong city while we hike into Holder's Bay. If we head into the farming districts on foot we'll be mistaken as manics and shot, or the plantation guards will give us to the army... so we have to trail the river which is pretty rough terrain, but no one except this Reid bloke is injured, so we'll help him out and we should be sweet."

"How long's the hike?" Trent asks.

Scorpius rubs his hands together, "If Sphynx takes us as far as the M1, it could be ten minutes. Otherwise a couple hours?"

"Is it safe? If the army wants us?" Thai questions.

"I got friends who're working on getting your profiles scrubbed. Till then just make sure you put Reflex drops in and you'll be sweet." 

"Reflex?" Elias asks.

Scorpius grins, shrugging his hand into his pocket and withdrawing the vial of eye drops, "Yeah. You ever heard of them?" 

"No?" Thai asks. 

He flashes her a smile, glancing at his phone and opening the camera before he passes me the drop. 

I grimace in complaint, but he pouts at me, "Please."

I pout back at him.

"But mini I'm phobic." He whimps and I cough a laugh, instilling the drops. He's phobic of bodies of water, not eyedrops. "Take a photo." He tosses his phone at Thai who catches it with an arched brow.

Scorpius scoots his ass and leans in, grinning, whilst Elias darts forward, grabbing my knee so he can lower his head and stick his tongue out. Right as she takes the photo I close my eyes, expecting a flash, but then she laughs, "Oh what, even with her eyes closed I have no idea who she is!"

Elias perks up at the new toy, "Let's see, let's see," Sax says as Elias goosenecks to see the picture, but Blu glares at Scorpius like he's shīt stuck to her shoe.

"What the fück are you phobic of?"

Scorpius's smile slips, but Thai beats me to an explanation as she flicks through his phone. "Vi said that a symptom of M.A.D is phobia of water, but he's only half-Manic so he's not gon' Zero out."

He nods, "Means I get wound up when it rains and I don't like swimming none. Dark water freaks me out the most... but Zero's can't even look at the river without flipping their shit. Them like people who got rabies." Scorpius clarifies.

"Aren't you crazy, but?" Sax asks innocently, and his clueless expression makes Scorpius's lips tug. Exhausted, I glance at Thai, Sax and Elias who scroll through his camera roll with reactionary faces.

"Dyslexic. Can't read none... except weird enough, I'm good with code." He shakes his head like that's irrelevant, "and I got a bad temper sometimes." Scorpius glances at Trent "But the dyslexia is probably from my actual brain. Not M.A.D."

"How you hack shit if you're dyslexic?" Trent scoffs. 

Scor shrugs, "That's gods business, man... all I know, is I can."

Elias tosses his phone back, "Oi fück it, I wanna see them clubs now."

"Yeah, that looks mint bro," Sax laughs, but Thai watches my silent, simmering glare perceptively like she's trying to figure out why I don' wan' talk.

They all start yabbering, so I glance back at the ute, too tired to even yawn, but too wired to consider sleeping.

"Will Reid be awake?" Thai follows my gaze.

I clear my throat, "The compound would have worn off, he's just gon' be sore and hungover." I rub my arm slightly as I contemplate my next move, surrendering to another yawn. 

"Yous square now? Any more questions?" Scorpius asks. 

"Nah, I'm good man. How bout you tell me who the chick with the blonde hair was, she's fuckin' deadly." Saxon fan girls, making Scor laugh.

"I'll introduce you man." 

Sax perks up, Elias wanting a chance too.

But then Trent clears his throat, looking at me. It makes me wan' rip my hair out. What more is there?" "Why you acting like Myers not got M.A.D? Surely him a Manic now." His tone hits a nerve, like the way he says Reid's name is a slight at me.

I squint, preparing to scoff, but Scorpius clears his throat in warning. 

"You want a scientific answer?" I pick something out of my tooth, though if I'm honest my voice is laced with sarcasm. 

"Bite me," Trent mutters, tossing his hand like I'm a stuck-up bitch. 

Come on, Vi. 

"Myers ain't got M.A.D." Scorpius intervenes, "M.A.D is just the psycho-physical brain disorder resulting from the viral pathogenesis of rhabdoviral iodine."

Everyone blinks at him, Blu curling her lip in utter dismay like he just made up a language... but his science gets me off the hook. 

My gaze rises to the ute again. 

"Rhabdoviral iodine, R.V.I, is the radioactive virus from the bombs that gets into the human brain and eats it. The brain defends it by killing R.V.I, but the radiation in the virus is poisonous. Hence, in someone without active R.V.I like Myers, his body is withdrawing from the toxic element left in the dead viral cells that they made him drink." He sounds like a textbook.

I place my bowl down, vaguely entertained by the resounding silence. Took me like two months to understand him. Scorpius has always been fascinated by M.A.D, in fact, when I had my eSight installed, he made the doctor give him a holographic copy of my brain so he could compare it with his own. He hacked into a dead university database, and by now, I reckon he has at least two degrees.

Says he likes when all them dead professors explain it on their little videos, because books trip him up too much. Crazy fuck.

"You gon' put that in english?" Elias asks. 

Scorpius sighs, leaning forward and tapping through his camera roll. He selects an image, and it shoots out from the flashlight beside his camera, projecting a red holographic replica into the air.

"Wow," Saxon drags, leaning in. 

"That's Vi's brain." He twists the phone, demonstrating the life-sized projection of my mind, "This is my brain," he swipes to the next image, and out shoots another hologram. "See how it's got that tiny spot, there?" 

"Oh yeah, what the fuck?" Elias leans over, fascinated.

"See, that?" He points to the border of the spot, which is colourized by a white, glowing rim. "It's the live R.V.I cells trying to eat my brain." He points inside the spot, "when the virus wins, it leaves dead matter," he points inside the spot, "and all the thoughts that used to run through that part, have to find a new way. That's what causes, M.A.D." He swipes once again, this time projecting a brain which is nearly halfway consumed by the virus.

"Oh jesus, who's brain is that?" Saxon balks.

Scorpius stifles a laugh, "This, this crazy ol' fucker named Spack," his name alone earns a laugh, "he's like, sixty, so he's got a lot of M.A.D."

Their conversation picks up slightly, however with every turn of the topic I grow increasingly resigned, until I fall spectator to my own thoughts. I'm glad to find they're less petrified of Scorpius.

Thai gazes at me, but I swallow slightly and push myself up from the sand. "Hey," She grasps my hand, concerned, "You okay?"

I nod, "Wan' get clean of Wilkes's blood." I rasp, failing miserably to hide the exhausted lag in my body. 

"Okay," She murmurs, and I stiffly trudge through the sand toward the back of the ute. 

Without the fire to light me, and nothing beyond the car but forest, I blink for a long moment to let my eyes adjust to the moonlight showering down from an otherwise starlit sky. The black of night is paled by the glow of the cold, hazy moonshine that paints everything in an ephemeral quality.

I circle the ute, arriving at the handle of Reid's door. My stomach clenches, however I don' let myself think.

The second I pop the door it rouses him. He'd been resting his head back, his brows pinched and his eyes closed, as though he were amid a reluctant internal battle to move from the shell of a cab he's been imprisoned in for the last thirteen hours. 

I find his eyes, my heart squeezing, however I'm met by an exhausted, raw glare. His attention roves from my face down to my arm, which rests around my middle in a poor attempt to negate the begging ache. I clear my throat, "Sorry, jus' wanted to check." I murmur, the weight of his rude expression bearing harder against my guilt.

He don' trust me. 

"Yeah you seen me," His voice is hoarse and deep.

Irrational, exhausted frustration grips me, so I glance away, "yeah, right," I excuse myself from our failed conversation, occupying myself by patting around in the shadow-coated boot for my hiking pack. 

However, when I fail to find it, or fail to find the words that might get me past his glare, I place my good arm on the boot and bow my head, gritting my teeth as I give into the pulsing ache in my shoulder. 

I tug the deck from my pocket and wedge another cigarette between my teeth, casting my gaze at the ridiculously large off-roading wheels at my feet. 

The tires are characterized by thick, zig-zagged grooves. Reid clears his throat, "Did I attack you?" He croaks.

I inhale, sniffing slightly to clear the congestion from my nose, patting my pocket for my lighter as I place my boot on the wheel. "You revved up at Scor a bit." Reid hoists himself out of the ute, however I fail to acknowledge his presence as I rest my elbow and lazily lean my cigarette over the lighter.

Reid raises to his full height with a grimace, trying to shadow the wounds burnt into his leg. He watches the lower portion of my face as I pull on the cigarette, however I gaze at his body, guilt pinching me as I observe the full expanse of his wounds.  

Reid's torso is smattered by an arsenal of black bruises which lurk beneath his intimidating tattoos. His muscular abdomen appears more lean than normal, as though his body shed a few kilos whilst fighting the poison off. 

My original assessment was correct. They took to kicking the shit out of him.

Unable to look at him any longer, I rub my cheek against my arm, failing to meet his eye as I offer the cigarette. Reid favours his leg as he approaches me, though he ignores the dart and strings his arm between me and the car, collecting the deck from my bad hand.

His proximity to me puts some of the tension between us to bed, but his short glare is vaguely hostile.

"What happened Vi?"

I bite my cheek, casting my gaze at the black camo fabric of my knee, "Scorpius was working with Barra. The guy who set the quote was Jewel, but Barra was my father's man too." 

He wrinkles his nose flinchingly, his glare descending into a lash of hostility, though he closes his eyes, waiting for me to continue. I try to discern meaning from his reaction; however, I fail to gather anything more than questions. 

"I," I clear my throat, reluctant to continue. The burn of distrust grips my stomach, coiling with the guilt that I can't even justify. I got him out. I did right by him...

But I saw his eyes right before they took him. I failed to share an important detail, and sure, my timing was shit poor, but I saw when the Lake Darling in him took my confession and twisted it into a betrayal, into the decimation of his hopes and violation of his trust. Was it a hard-wired reaction? Was it a pressurized over-reaction? Or is it truly his new perception of me? 

One thing I know about Myers is he holds a grudge, and his trust burnt is his time gone. He's unfortunately like me in the sense that trust ranks higher than love. Not that I like to toss that word around.

"All the same anyway. We're out." I sniff again, pulling on my cigarette before I flick the ashes, pegging it between my lips and collecting my bag from the boot. I need to slow down, I'll be up to half a deck in a minute.

"You got a First Aid kit?" He mutters as I pass, so I pause to look at him. Reid rests against the car, dipping his head as he lifts the cigarette to his lips, his black hair falling, and a web of blood splattered across his cheek. His eyes are dark as he gazes at me, but the fire in the distance outlines him with an orange glow whilst the moon enunciates every angle of his face. 

"I gotta wash my thigh out or a blood infection gon' start in my sleep," He grunts, "I feel it." The dark bruise on his cheek is characterized by the little pink scar beneath his eye. 

I glance away, "I can check with Scor."

He glances at me, then my pack and the river in the distance, putting two and two together. "Don' know I'm gon' make the best impression on your boyfriend right now." He bends forward, closing the door as he takes my bag from me and slings it over his shoulder. "Where's that lighter, Warrendale. I'm fuckin' hangin'." He mutters.

My brows shoot up, and I offer it to him, unable to make heads or toes of his hostile demeanour and his decision to come with me. 

He's a walking paradox.

Reid trudges ahead, disguising the pain in his leg as he hoists the bag higher, ignoring the group entirely. 

All he seems interested in is lighting the cigarette between his lips. He tips his head back as he sucks hard, letting in a tender breath before he pulls again and finally collects the dart from his mouth with his masculine fingers. It strikes me as the single most attractive thing I've ever seen. Toxic. 

His possessive infatuation with the cigarette is enough to make me jealous.

...

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