EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
[ chapter five—death is not the end ]

Madison took the gun from Adaline's hand, rushing to put it in Jeremiah's hand. Nick wrapped his arms around his sister, pulling her into his arms as she began to sob.

"He was going to—" she sobbed, Nick, cutting her off. "I know. You saved my life." He assured, running his hand over her head.

Madison rushed over to the window and back to her daughter. "You need to do exactly as I say." Adaline furrowed her eyebrows, nodding profusely.

"No one can know. If Troys finds out you killed him." Her mother spoke, pointing back at Jeremiah's corpse. "He will kill you." The sound of heavy boots approaching the Otto house.

Madison wiped her daughter's eyes. "He was a racist- misogynistic old white man. Who tried to kill Nick? You did the right thing."

Troy ran into the room. "Dad?" He mumbled, rushing to his father's lap. Troy collapsed, sobbing against his father's knees.

The Clarks migrated to the porch, watching the Ottos take their father to his final resting place.

      ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ᴅᴀʏs ʟᴀᴛᴇʀ —

Adaline took her friend's hand. "You need to stop staring." She whispered, helping her into the pantry. Nadia smiled at the ground, leaning back into the wall. "Have you seen her?"

The girls looked across from them examining Mikaela Ramírez, one of Qaletqa's best spies. She stood with a lollipop between her lips and her gaze set on Troy. Adaline exhaled sharply leaning into her friend, trying to avoid the girl as she stared back.

Lee gained his sister's eye, smirking as he recognized the smiles shared between the girls. However their bliss didn't last long as Troy began to express his hatred toward Ofelia.

"No, not her." He hissed as Ofelia followed inside. Jake stepped toward his brother, shaking his head. "Troy, this isn't the time."

His brother scoffed lightly. "What are you talking about? It's the perfect time." Adaline glanced at the girl beside her. "She has no right to be here."

Qaletaqa stepped toward Troy, "She has every right. Ofelia is a hero to my people." Adaline's eyes shot up to meet the men, rage boiling through her body. "We're here because of what she did."

Adaline scoffed, stepping forward. "Yeah, her daddy must be real proud." Ofelia lunged forward pressing the girl against the wall. "You wanna go again?"

Qalataqa pointed to the girl against the wall. "If you can't accept her, how can you accept any of us?"

Jake stepped closer toward his brother and Qalataqa. "We accept her. We accept the Nation here under negotiated terms—"

Troy stepped back, shaking his head. "No, no, we don't. We don't accept." He began. Adaline watched as the scene began to unfold, noticing Troy's hand on the grip of his pistol. "We tolerate, all right? So, let's just—"

Adaline held her hands up. "We're good." She spoke up, glancing at Troy and back at the girl inches away from her. "We're good," Adaline repeated, slipping out of Ofelia's grip and heading for the door.

Troy exhaled sharply, nudging shoulders with crazy dog as he followed after the blonde.

Adaline scooped up her bow and arrow heading toward the front gate, Troy following close behind, chuckling lightly. "What?" She hissed, turning to face him.

Troy shrugged, smirking at the girl before him. "You going hunting?" He asked, looking down at the bow in the girl's hand.

Adaline continued toward the gate. "I was going to practice my aim on the dead.. but that sounds more fun." She answered, hoping he wouldn't follow after her.

"Alone?" He continued.

Shit. "Guess so." She mumbled, walking up for the gate log, sighing her name, the time, and where she'd be.

"Where to?" Coop asked, opening the gate for the blonde.

"We're going hunting," Troy spoke up before the girl could. The blonde glared at him as he took a gun from the gate post lockbox. "We'll be back before the big dinner."

The pair walked in a awkward silence, that freaked the blonde out. She feared Troy had bought her out into the woods to kill her and avenge his father.

Troy had been too busy trying to make his mind up on whether there was someone following them or if it was an animal. Information that could have avoided the raging headache all this overthinking had given her.

"Would you shut up?" Troy hissed, moving to the grass and off the gravel road. Adaline knitted her eyebrows together, looking at the boy confused. "I haven't said anything since we left." She hissed back.

The boy turned swiftly to the girl pressing his finger to his lips, pointing toward the trees. A deer stood just on the tree line watching the pair.

Adaline drew an arrow, and Troy's hand snaked up her arm. "Not yet." The girl lowered her bow, continuing off the path toward the trees. "Not him."

⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Adaline sat beside the fire, regretting her choice to not kill the deer they'd seen earlier. They hadn't seen anything since. Troy dropped a couple of logs of wood down beside the fire and finally sat down himself.

Adaline glazed over Troy as he nudged the wood in the fire with a stick, "Im sorry about your dad." She finally spoke, breaking the silence between them.

Troy glanced up at the girl and back down at the smoldering fire, "You hated the man, why do you care?" he asked, The blonde across from him lowered her head, tossing a twig into the fire.

"I did, but, we're friends." The blonde shrugged, her hand meeting the green stone against her chest. "Are you, okay?"

Troy rolled his shoulders back wrapping his arms around his knees. "No." He confessed, looking down at the flames as they roared over the wood. "Im hell and gone from okay."

Adaline watched his hands as they balled into fists. "I wanna dig him up." Troy shook his head, "I wanna dig him up and kill him again. For what he left us with."

The two sat in silence again, Adaline was too scared to speak. "Nothing to say, Clark?" Troy asked, meeting her gaze. "I- I don't know. I think he left us with what he thought was best."

Troy raised a brow, scoffing lowly as he looked away and regained her gaze again. "You-- you think that," He paused, pointing back in the direction of home. "That is what's best?"

Adaline shifted uncomfortably on the rock she resited on. "Our people get to live." She shrugged her shoulders, averting her gaze. "He was a hero--"

"He was a drunk." Troy scoffed, tossing the branch in his hand into the flames. Adaline looked down at her hands, extending out her fingers. "I lost my dad, too. it was a while ago, but.. point is I get it. That's why I asked."

Troy glanced up at the girl, her gaze remaining on her hands as she continued. "We didn't see much of him in the months leading up to it. He was depressed a lot, it was hard to watch. I can't imagine what it was like for my younger siblings to have to live in that house."

Adaline paused, scoffing beneath the cover of her breath. "Did he off himself?" Troy asked, examining the girl as she shrugged. "He wrecked his truck on the freeway. Cops said he fell asleep at the wheel."

"You don't believe that."

Adaline sniffled as she looked back down at her hands. "I don't know what i believe." Adaline smiled briefly, "The father Nick and i grew up with was so different to the father Lee and Alicia had. They barely had parents at all."

She hung her head in her hands. "Sorry, Im- rambling." Troy shook his head, "Dont be, i like listening to you talk." Adaline chuckled shortly, lifting her gaze to his.

A tree branch snapped somewhere in the trees around them, and the pair jumped to their feet. Adaline drew an arrow looking around anxiously for whatever or whoever was out there to step forward.

"Stay here," Troy muttered, disappearing into the woods toward where the sound had originated from. Leaving the blonde with her anxious thoughts.

Moments had passed and nothing came into her sights, Troy had yet to return. "Troy!" She exclaimed, turning swiftly as another branch broke to her left.

It's probably a dead one. She thought.

The girl yelped out as a boar almost the same size as her charged toward her, knocking her hard against the dirt.

Adaline winced as she tried to hold the animal back from her face. "Troy!" She screamed, wincing as her body was trapped beneath an animal twice her size.

Adaline searched her surroundings for a blade, begging for someone to save her from what she thought to be an embarrassing death.

"Christ!" She exclaimed the boar's growls growing louder the closer it got to the blonde's face. "Troy!" She exclaimed once more, her arms shaking as she tried to hold it off.

A sharp squeal sent chills through the girl's body. A warm, thick liquid poured out of the boar's throat and onto the girl below.

Adaline gagged, raising her chin to keep the blood out of her mouth. "You good?" Troy mumbled, pulling the boar off the girl.

The blonde's hands rushed to her face wiping the blood splatters from around her eyes and mouth.

Troy held his arm out for the girl, which she took happily. "This was not fun." She mumbled, the boy chuckled pulling his jacket off for the girl.

⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Adlaine waited in line for entry to the dinner tent. Most of the boar's blood had been washed from her body though it remained in her hairline and splotched on her skin.

Crazy Dog gestured for Mrs. Able to step forward, she refused and stepped into Cooper's line.

Adaline glanced at the woman before stepping toward Crazy Dog, taking the bow and arrow bag from her shoulders and putting it into his hands. "Can you tell her I don't bite?"

Another man from the militia spoke up. "I don't know your appetites."

Coop narrowed his eyes at the man as he unclipped Adaline's belt, tossing it into a tray behind him. "Your mama name you crazy dog?"

"No, my platoon." He answered, turning the blonde in front of him to double-check for weapons.

"This is how it's gonna be, man." He continued, nodding his head for the girl to go inside. "I don't like it either but this is what Walker wants."

"It's what Jake wants." The other man spoke up.

Adaline spotted her mother and sister in the crowd, both discontinuing their conversation as they noticed the girl.

The blonde glanced at the back of the tent, Troy and his militia sat at a picnic table in the far back. Her brothers were with him.

The night grew darker and the air colder. The boar the pair had bought back had been left to bones.

"Everyone?" Jake spoke up, clearing his throat.

Adaline sat on the top of the table, Lee between her legs wincing as she tightened the first braid. The clattering and quiet chattering around the tent came to a stop.

"Our path has been hard. We've all suffered loss. But we can't dwell on that and move forward. We can't hold grudges and forgive. This place has always been about building a better future. And if we share our supplies and our skills. We can have that. In a generation, we can be whole. That's what this place should be." Adaline glanced up at Jake from her brother's braids.

Qalataqa spoke up from his seat, "You're afraid. As afraid of us as we are of you. Fear creates fury. Fury let's blood. No more of that. Jake is right. We must forgive." The man stood, slowly making his way to Jake's side.

"My grudge died when Jeremiah made a sacrifice." The blonde's eyes met Nicks who sat with Nadia at a table across from them. "We can be one now. We can fight against the hell outside. Give that our fear. Our fury." The man raised his cup, and scattered arms in the crowd following him.

"To our newfound peace." He began. "And to Adaline and Troy, for the boar." He raised his cups to the pair, The blonde raising hers In gratitude. The boy seated beside her couldn't say the same.

⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Adaline moved her brother's head to face her soothing her mind with the relief that she hadn't made any of the braids wonky or forgotten any hair.

"We're sleeping with the enemy, brother." Troy looked up to his brother who stood close behind Alicia.

The blonde ignored the Otto brothers, hugging her sister. "They killed Gretchen." The sisters, turned back to the table their eyes darting between Troy and Terrence.

"Walker denies that." Jake defended.

Terrence set his cup down. "You think he'd tell you that?"

Adaline took a sip from her cup, glaring at the boy ahead of her. "They're here with us and we have to live with them. We were at war, now we're not. Just get right with that, brother."

Jake turned to Adaline and Lee wishing them a good night and continued with Alicia.

"First Phil, then the Trimbols. Then they damn near wipe us all out. Makes you wonder who they're coming after next." Adaline flung a hair tie at the boy, hugging her brother good night.

"Don't put that shit in his head."

Two steps forward, three steps back.

⭑ ⭑ ⭑

Adaline took a piece of bacon from the tray, smiling as Nadia spoke about Mikaela. "I wish I was here for that." She groaned. "I wouldn't have had to have two showers."

"Alright, eat up. Infected don't wait." Troy spoke up from behind them.

Adaline bit into her bacon, following Nadia to their table. Nick embraced his sister, his words fading as he noticed someone. "Terrence, no!"

The boy pressed down on the trigger, crazy dog averted his hands shooting one of the other men at their table instead of him.

Adaline followed after her brother, the crazy dog had Terrence in a headlock and another man had Nick on his ass in a matter of seconds.

"That's enough!" Walker exclaimed. "Enough!"

⭑ ⭑ ⭑

"Terrence is dying." The blonde girl mumbled, trying to hold back the anger that coerced through her veins. "Your grudge against the Nation has to stop... before someone you care about dies."

In Troy's mind, the poison he spat into Terrence's ear was one of the many things he'd do to protect the ranch. Peace with the Nation wasn't an option.

The girl continued up the stairs to her room when Blake knocked at the door.

Troy turned to the porch door, scoffing lightly as he glanced back at the blonde. The door creaked open. "How are the sheep treating you, Blake? You like the flock?"

"I'm keeping the peace, Troy," Blake spoke up. Troy scoffed, "That's one pussy-ass rationalization."

Adaline sat down at the bottom of the staircase, listening to the conversation. "We need to search your house." Madison finally spoke.

"Well, you live here, Madison, so, you know, you don't have to beg entry."

Nick glanced inside through the glass panel doors. "We need your weapons, Troy."

"You know where they'll be and you know they'll be safe." Madison continued.

The brunette scoffed, leaning against the door frame. "Oh, what about my safety?" He paused, nodding his head at Crazy Dog. "I mean, asshole here is dying for a shot. Hand him a little fire water, he'll start blasting. Am I wrong, Kemosabe?"

Adaline furrowed her eyebrows at the Kemosabe part. "Kemosabe is the Lone Ranger's Indian name. You mean Tonto." Crazy Dog explained.

"No offense."

"None taken." Nick stepped toward the brunette. "Come on man, you don't wanna die on your doorstep."

Troy nodded, glancing around at the group. "Okay, okay." Adaline watched as the brunette stepped back from the door and walked over to the desk.

The group stepped inside taking a look around when he spoke again. "This is where he died." The blonde on the staircase looked between the railing at the boy. "Right here. You uh— you ever spill blood on the unsealed wood, Nick?"

Troy asked, looking up at the boy. "It's porous. It just, uh, absorbs." He continued, putting his watch over his wrist. "I had to burn what wouldn't come clean."

Adaline's eyes met her mother's. They hadn't spoken much after the last time they were in this room together and here they are again with history repeating itself.

"Search upstairs," Qalataqa ordered, the blonde turning to look at him. "No, don't do that." Troy stood behind the desk, pistol in hand.

The blonde jumped to her feet, grabbing the grip of her pistol. "Woah, woah, Troy." Nick began, standing in front of the boy with his hands leading his mother out.

"Get out of the way," Troy warned. The men in the room raised their arms.

Nick now directly in front of the gun spoke again. "Troy, you are making this so easy for them." The blonde raised his arm to the ceiling, letting off a warning shot.

Adaline leads her mother and brother out of the house, ignoring their protests.

The girl followed Troy with her eyes as he raced around the room. "What the hell are you doing, Troy?"

The boy put his pistol into his holster, flicking the lights off in the room. "We're gonna be a beacon in the dark and do what my father should've done."

The blonde furrowed her eyebrows, a beacon in the dark. She repeated silently, rolling her eyes at his insanity. "Jeremiah made sure we survived." I killed him so we'd survive.

"No, he wanted more than that. He wanted to build something." Troy opened a small box from in the cabinet behind the desk, pulled out a hammer, and attached it to his waist.

He was going to build a graveyard. "That's what we're doing, Troy."

The brunette shook his head. "So, we can all live in perfect harmony except it doesn't work like that, Adaline. We regress into our own. That is human nature."

"We tried to break from that in the end." The girl spoke, though the boy spoke louder. "Why are you in this, Adaline, huh?" He asked, stepping closer to the girl. "Huh? we lead and others will follow."

The girl knitted her eyebrows together, "No one's gonna follow." He's an idiot. "Troy, the people out there, they just wanna live." She argued, the boy ignored her and knelt to the ground beside them.

He wedged the back of the hammer beneath a plank of wood, and two M4s' lay wrapped in cloth in the hideaway.

"We head upstairs and we snipe them from up there. Your a better shot than me." He explained, holding the M4 out for the girl.

The girl's eyes widened. "This is gonna end badly, Troy." She mumbled, backing away from the boy.

"We'll, this was always how it was gonna end, Adaline. What, you— you think you were gonna die in your sleep? Come on, you love this too, pick up your rifle."

The girl stared at the brunette with no emotion. This wasn't going to end well. She'd be exiled for staying in the room. "This doesn't have to be our fate."

"Hey, I am gonna die the way my father did. That's— that's apt."

"My father died for nothing, Troy. Your father died for nothing. That's how you wanna go? For nothing!?" Troy stepped closer to the girl. "Troy, listen to me when I say this. This is crazy. We haven't done anything yet. We can still get out of this."

"Why— why do you care about what happens to me?" That's a good question, she'd asked herself often. Why did she care so damn much?

Troy wrapped the girl's fingers around the rifle. The girl focused on the hammer on the ground beside them.

Hit him just enough to knock him out and we both live.

He pressed the rifle more firmly into her hands. "Take your rifle." He whispered, his attention drawing to the porch door as something creaked outside. "Here we go."

Adaline turned to the window as Troy stuck the stock through it. She slowly approached him. Troy raised his gun at the incoming body. "It's me!" Madison exclaimed, throwing her hands up.

"This isn't the way Troy." She began, glancing at her daughter and back at Troy. "The ranch is looking to you right now."

The boy looked at Adaline as she pressed her body against the wall beside the window. "I hope they are. I hope they follow!" Troy exclaimed.

"They turned over their weapons. No one's following." The girl looked at Troy.

"You can still get out of this." She spoke, the boy's eyes meeting hers. "You're assuming that I want to." He smirked.

"Lay your weapons down. Come out."

"And then what, huh? There is no way back from that. We— we give up our guns, that is total surrender." Troy looked up to Adaline, completely oblivious to the fear that coursed through her veins.

"This is survival," Madison spoke, stepping closer to the window.

The boy scoffed, "Oh, come on, you just wanna save your daughter, Madison."

"I wanna save both of you!" She hissed, a light flickering behind Troy's eyes. "I want you with me." Troy looked at the girl against the wall.

He's gonna give it up.

Gunfire shattered the remaining windows, the pair inside ducked their heads. Adaline winced, shielding her face with her forearm. Gunfire from the window to the left of them.

He's not giving it up.

The blonde crouched down begging god for his mercy as she ran across the room behind the desk. The girl took the scope from beneath the floor clicking it into the gun. She sat behind the desk, praying to whatever god was listening.

Adaline set the gun up on top of the desk, loading the chamber as she searched for her first victim.

She didn't want this. She wasn't a killer. They shot first.

One down from behind the Otto truck.
Another from the porch.
Another from the porch doors.
And another as he emerged from a dirt mound.

The girl crouched again behind the desk, crawling to the support pillar beside the stairs. I can still get out of this, I killed four of them but I can still manipulate my way out of this.

Troy stood beside the girl, shooting at the porch door as someone slipped their hand inside, unlocking it.

He took out another on the porch, dropping to the ground re-load.

The gunfire masked a quiet assassin who'd come up from the other side of the room, lungeing for Adaline with a knife.

Troy grunted, putting his hand through the knife, Adaline took a knife from her belt plunging her knife into his neck. Troy pulled the girl toward the stairs, laying down cover fire as she raced up the stairs.

The girl ran to her room, pulling the boy inside and pulling her dresser in front of the door. Troy leaned against her bed, wrapping his hand in a piece of cloth.

Adaline ran to the back window she'd set up for this type of thing. Escaping. From what she could tell there wasn't a soul in the back trees.

She pushed the window upwards, turning to the boy. "Come on." She hissed, checking the other window for any signs of life.

"I'm not done."

Adaline sat on Nadia's bed.  "You've lost." She muttered, pulling a bag out from under the bed. "No." Troy denied. "I can make a fist."

A body slammed against the door. "Make a fist." She scoffed. "If I can make a fist—" Troy's voice trailed off as he reached under the girl's bed pulling out another M4 she didn't know was there. "I can fire a gun... and if I can fire a gun I can kill."

Adaline sat confused, she knew what Troy was. She's known since the day they first met, but this... this was something else.

The boy pulled the ammo clip from the gun. "Oh, you are so beautiful." Adaline's eyebrows knitted together. Bullets we're beautiful?

The girl across ran her hands over her head stopping as he spoke. "Thank you, Adaline." She straightened her arms. "What?"

"You're the last person I thought would have my back." Adaline's jaw fell, straight panic and confusion flooding her facial expressions. "And I don't mind dying. I don't. It's good to have company."

Adaline squeezed her eyes shut, sliding off the bed to the ground.

He's officially lost it.

The incoming gunfire lasted for a while. Regret had begun to flood Adaline's soul. "I don't wanna die." She admitted, glancing around the room.

"Yeah, you may have backed the wrong horse." The girl flared up at Troy as he went to shoot another bullet flying past him instead.

"I don't want you to die!" She exclaimed, pulling Nadia's things off the nightstand and into the drawer hoping to protect the only photo she had left of her family.

"You backed the wrong horse." Troy continued, glass shattering from the other side of the room. "Troy, think about your brother." She exclaimed over the gunfire. "This place, your father."

Troy crawled back toward the girl. "I think we're at the point-of-no-return territory now."

"Throw the gun out the window. We can still walk out of here."

Troy leaned back against the bed, turning to Adaline. "It's too late for that now, we tried truces." We. This is a we thing now. "Are you ready?" He asked, the girl shook her head profusely. "No."

The boy cocked his head. "Don't go weak-kneed on me, Clark." Adaline turned to face the boy. "Nothing good is going to come from this."

"Im taking some back." Troy turned to the door pressing down on the trigger.

A sniper on the roof of a car outside shot through the glass across from them, a bullet soared through the shoulder of the blonde and into the mattress behind her.

Adaline groaned setting her gun on Nadia's bed and adjusting the scoop with her right arm. Troy fell back against the bed Adaline set her scope on, "Are you hit?"

The blonde girl ignored him as he spoke, feeling nothing but the pain he'd induced by applying pressure to her wound.

He's reloading, the next time he won't miss.

Adaline pressed the trigger taking care of the sniper, she grabbed the first aid kit, laying it out on the ground before her.

Beside her Troy returned to spraying bullets at the door. "Jeremiah sacrificed himself for this place." She continued, tossing the bag to the back window. "Don't ruin that, Troy! Don't take that from him!"

"It's in or out, Adaline. It's in or out." Adaline sighed, standing up and making a run for the distracted Troy, hitting him with the stock of her gun.

The boy stumbled back, Adaline threw him onto the ground covering his mouth with her hand. "We surrender! We surrender—" The girl's words turned into screams and Troy pressed his thumb into her bullet wound.

"Don't ruin this, Adaline." He muttered, pulling the girl off him. The men outside ceased fire, though one man inside the room didn't plan on doing the same.

The girl raced for his gun across the room, Troy pulled the girl back. Somehow in the heat of things his finger ended up near her mouth and the blonde chomped down.

Troy screamed out, pulling the girl back and crawling over her to grab hold of the gun. Adaline dragged herself upright against her bed.

"Now I'm pissed. Now I'm beyond pissed." Troy hissed, pulling himself up against Nadia's bed, and raising the gun to the door.

Adaline sniffled, pressing her hand to her shoulder. "You know what, your right. Your father didn't kill himself. The man was too much of a limp dick fuck to do the right thing."

Troy clenched his jaw tight, looking back and forth between the door as it was slowly being broken down and the girl across from him.

"You're father didn't kill himself. I killed him." Troy slowly turned to face her, anger fuelling his body. "I killed him."

Troy slowly raised his gun at the blonde. His finger shook against the trigger. Troy's jaw trembled as the gun fell to his lap.

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word count — 4037

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ₊˚ପ⊹ *:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ