Baby

[Rune]

Time passed. Rune ate (like eight times). She showered. She cleaned her weapons. She washed clothes. But often she glanced the basement door, wondering what was going on down there. Never did she descend the stairs herself. Jacinda was on it.

Jacinda. Rune barely remembered her. She wasn’t the same as the glimpses of memory Rune recalled. Then again, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to remember. So they were all Atharim. Rune wasn’t surprised, really. The old world was full of Atharim, and Moscow HQ was a concentrated vat of them. In America, they were few and far between, scattered like ants roaming Mars, unlikely to ever encounter each other. Here, practically anyone with a gun was Atharim.

“She’s sick isn’t she?” Rune asked next time she saw Tenzin, like the woman automatically knew what was happening in the basement. Rune didn’t want to check herself. Interrupt. Or watch Amy slowly die off. For all the violence Rune recognized in the world, the prospect of dying slowly from your wounds frightened the shit out of her.

“Maybe we should take her to a hospital. We’re not doctors.” Brow furrowed pensive, Rune sat on the couch, arms propped on her knees and laid her face in her palms.

In the end, Rune growled with frustration and thought about leaving.