She was struck frozen by his words. Leave the others? Abandon the children? SHe outright laughed at him before she could stop herself. Even as the battle wage outside the flimsy tent walls, Megan let out a bark of laughter so filled with raw nerves and uncertainly that it hurt the back of her throat a little. "I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen... I need to be out there... I need to help them."

...Was it just her, or was there a hint of desperation in her voice? Fidgeting on the spot, she was suddenly aware of how vastly unprepared she was for a fight. She hadn't laid so much as a finger on anyone in... in nearly a year. Everything had gone to hell, and with it had gone the urge to take her frustrations out on the world. As this fact slowly dawned on her, she found herself wondering if she was trying to convince this man of where she needed to be, or if she was trying to convince herself. She fiddled with the safety on her gun, slinging the bag over her shoulder, and took a hesitant step toward the door.

"We can come back for them... but if you don't want to die, you need to come with me. Do you hear me?"

Her lips curled into a tight, anxious smile. If she didn't want to die... how many times had she heard that before? She felt suddenly dizzy, and couldn't figure out if it was the tension in the air... or if she had stopped breathing at some point. She let out a breathy reply, just in case... "...I have to try... I can't just...just... " More random images distracted her, forcing her to furrow her brow and pause mid-sentence. With them came the sudden onset of a headache... a dull throbbing at the back of her head, spreading slowly toward her eyes. "..leave them here."

Outside more men fell. Raider and settler alike... but her burned companion was right, even if she wasn't aware. Their forces were being cut down quickly, too quickly. Every man and boy with a gun fell as the enemy rolled in. Their targets were food, weapons, the medical supplies they had heard about... and women. The camp wouldn't survive through the night.

His fists clenched when he heard her laugh. Nervous laughter... great, she was a wreck. He was damned sure that there were lots of people who were just as unprepared for this as she was outside. That's what happened when you tried to live peacefully in a world as filled with hate and desperation as this one. It left you alone just long enough to grow complacent, and then tore you apart as soon as you thought you were safe. The sound of automatic weapons and screams echoed into the tent, and a burnt hand reached up to grab the girl's shoulder.

"You have two options... you can go out there, and die for nothing... the kids will get sold off, so will the women, and there will be no hope for them... or you can come with me through the back of the tent, and we can save them later... after you help me with something... It may not seem like it, but I can fix this... I can save them. I just need some things in order to do it." Another bullet zipped through the tent, and a dark shade of paint stopped some of the light from shining through... He wondered how far they were from his stash... the raiders would probably be done here by the time he got to it, but he was sure they could track them.

"Those spiders you always have crawling around... can you tell them to keep an eye on what's going on here?" He wondered just how surprised she would be that he knew about her spiders, but it was just a fleeting thought; they had much more important things to think about than his one man play titled 'Helpless.' The man gave her shoulder a tug, and then turned and started walking toward the back of the tent, grabbing a scalpel from one of the surgical desks on the way. The way he walked, it was painfully clear he wasn't as impeded as the rest of the camp had thought, but he was still a little slow and careful about it; like he was moving in low light, and afraid to bump into things. A loud scream very near the tent told him the raiders were past the front gate, and getting into the heart of the compound. They still had time to escape if they left now... but only just enough.

Her resolve cracked slightly. Go out and die, or flee and live to fight another day. She managed to pointedly ignore the little voice in the back of her head that reminded her of her own womanly state, and how very possible it was that she would end up being sold right along with the other women.

Better to die, at that point.

What good was she with a gun anyway? She'd hardly ever fired one in her life... The cracks of gun fire grated on her nerves, and as he spoke she cast one solemn look toward the front entrance. All that stood between them and the battle outside was... cloth... and it was doing a pretty poor job at keeping bullets out. Her eyes turned back to him and she raised an eye brow at his question. How did he know about her children...? No... nevermind, it wasn't the time to start asking questions like that. They needed to do something... something soon. The squeeze of her shoulder mixed with the... hope?... in his words, and she found herself unable to argue. He was right.... she would be no help in the fight, and walking out there would only serve to get herself captured. A grim smile overtook her lips again, and she dropped the gun next to the body of the man on the ground. It would serve her no purpose anyway...

Hours later, the scene of the fight was far behind them. The ratta-tat-tat of gunfire has long since faded, and she'd lost contct with her spiders. Regret and guilt had settled heavily on her shoulders for leaving so many behind... people she had spent a good deal of time with since their world had virtually ended. There was no going back now, though... No changing her mind after the fact. They were either dead, or being dragged off to only god knows where for some new unknown torture.

For the majority of their journey, she hadn't been able to say anything. The tight-lipped smile had long since faded, replaced by a placid mask. She hadn't so much as questioned where they were going, but had instead set about going through and memorizing everything she had managed to squeeze into her bag. It wasn't until the roads and ruins of buildings started to look familiar that she bothered to really look up and take a gander at her surroundings. She didn't really like what she saw...

... What are we doing here?... This place is a graveyard." She didn't have the energy to try and mask the discomfort in her voice, or in her expression for that matter. Nor did she really care all that much. Her mind was too busy stumbling over everything that had happened, including how someone who really shouldn't be able to see too much, let alone a teeny tiny spider, knew about her pets.

... and how did he even know she could communicate with them? ...Who was this guy, anyway?

She'd guided him well... He wasn't surprised; she knew this area. He knew she knew the area, though she didn't know he knew she knew it... (Note:That made my head hurt)

He seemed to grow more apprehensive and silent as they neared their destination... He was breaking a promise to himself, coming here. That wasn't important now, though. Saving those helpless people who were foolish enough to think that they could live in peace... that was important.

They were low on time. "The remains of the mansion... how close are we?" His eyes wandered about, but he couldn't make out anything with them; instead opting to jerk his head about in order to sense the movement around him in relation to his body. It might look a little odd.

He paused after a moment as he caught sight of a familiar form... the crumpled gates of the Xavier institute... It had survived the shockwave, oddly enough... it was the people who'd torn it down.

"You have to help me... find a yellow driveway marker sticking out of the ground... where the garden used to be... far east side..."

How close were they, he asked?

Too close. She thought to herself. It had been a while, a long while, since she had event allowed herself to think of all the people... the kids... who had once resided behind the impenetrable walls of the school. Oh, how deluded she had been thinking that this place would be the one building the chaos left unmarred.

Faces of people she had met, had known and... and even loved in a way, floated to mind and she was forced to shove them back into the shadows. "Yellow marker...?" She echoed, well aware that she hadn't replied to the guy's first question. It didn't seem like he needed an answer anymore, anyway. Blue eyes instead turned to the task of picking through the rubble, and when she found that she could not see anything from her current position, she begrudgingly forced herself to step through what was left of the ruined mansion gates.

Leaving him behind for the moment, she wandered. The ruins, as that was the only way she felt she could describe them, made her shudder. As did the makeshift graveyard she avoided, and the garden. It was as she was wading through the brambles of a dying prickly bush, some form of weed she was sure, that she spotted a flash of yellow. With a grunt, she latched onto the dried, thin branches bathing her up to the knees and yanked. Thankfully as they came away, her gloves kept her from shredding her palms to pieces.

When she was done clearing a sizable path, she didn't bother to try and decipher whatever it was she was looking at, instead choosing to turn on her heel and head back to pick up her companion.

"I think... I think I found your marker. Come on, i'll take you there." Thinking that it was best to help the guy through the little maze of a path she had made in the brambles, she held her hand out to him and touched him as gently as she could on the arm.

"Yes."

She'd heard him the first time, right? She was distracted... Apparently she had more memories here than he'd thought... He'd just caught her on the security feed a few times gallivanting around with... oh... He wondered how far away the young knight's grave was... Which one was his...

So many had died that day... the day he made that ignorant promise to himself... The one he was about to break. He must have known he would do it, too; why else would he mark the location of this forgotten place?

He felt her moving around in what appeared to be some overgrowth... the multitude of small moving structures made it tough to... well... could you call it seeing? It was too much for his adapting sense. When she reached out for him, he instinctively pulled away slowly, just out of reach. "I... should be fine if you just stay close and lead the way..."

A short trip later they were at the marker atop a small mound... Deliberate hands dug down into the dirt slowly, and grasped a handle tightly...

With a groan of effort mixed with pain, a small emergency access hatch creaked open... he wondered if she knew where it led... Milky eyes looked up to her for a moment, and he stated bluntly. "Take the ladder... Don't jump." He then proceeded to jump into the hole. Apparently he wasn't going to take his own advice.

She watched as he pulled the hatch open, not bothering to show her surprise at the hidden entrance. Back when she had lived there... er, kind of lived there, anyway, she hadn't much cared about the mysterious inner workings of the school. She'd had Gawain to follow around, and his new girlf--..

Ah, balls... Her chest constricted without her permission, emotions stirring on the inside. She avoided the man's damaged gaze as he looked at her, as if he would see the pain in her expression, the tightening of flesh at the corners of her lips and eyes. A silly thought, given how badly his eyes had been wounded.

Still, she waited for him to look away before leveling her own gaze back on the new hole in the ground. It hurt to think of those days... of the faces, her on and off roommates in particular. She'd never wanted friendship back then, too stubborn to let anyone fully in... god, how she wished she had before everything went to hell.

With a mute nod at his words, she waited for him to ease himself in... and then he jumped. Her heart skipped a beat as the man she had been looking after for quite some time vanished into the darkness of the hole. All she could think about was him injuring himself further, and how difficult it was going to be in order to try and take care of him in some unknown location.

"H-hey!" She was at the lip in an instant, her feet already on the steps of the ladder as she- wisely- followed his advice and crawled down. Once her feet were on floor again, she turned to figure out if he was alright. "You can't go throwing yourself around like that, you'll aggravate your injuries more." The soft scolding tone of her voice stepped aside as worry set in, and she fiddled with the flap of her bag. "Are you okay?... " Aside from the cone of light filtering down upon her from the open hatch, she found herself staring into pitch black. He was nowhere in sight... and for a moment, she felt a jolt of fear shoot through her.

She'd followed him, lead him even, all the way here... some strange man she didn't even known the name of. Now she was alone, in the dark... and very much at a disadvantage.

"...Hello?" She took a hesitant step, then another, slowly trailing her way into the darkness with one hand pressed against the wall... all while chewing savagely on her bottom lip and praying she hadn't made a very, very foolish mistake.

Slowly, a voice echoed from the darkness before her. "Wait here a moment... Don't move."

The dark hallway of the mansion sub-level would go silent for a moment, and then in what would surely be another room, shuffling would be heard... and then that distinctive sound of pants unzipping, and trow dropping. He wondered for just a moment how the poor girl must be feeling about now... Heck, the situation actually might be funny, not being what it may seem to her, where anything funny anymore.

There was no reason to laugh, though... There hadn't been for a while, and anyone who did laugh was lying to themselves. That, or they were a nervous wreck, like spider girl waiting in the hallway. Too much was bad in the world... The innocent were outnumbered by the guilty.

That was why he had promised never to do this...

Footsteps would approach the dark haired girl, standing alone in the blackest of black hallways... They took turns, one being heavy, one light, until they finally met her...

"You're a damned fool, you know... following a man you don't know into a dark hole in an abandoned area... Especially in these times."


The footsteps then continued past her, until their maker was revealed in the low-light offered by the hole in the ceiling. The Judge stood before her, in almost pristine uniform... A year ago he'd decided that the judge couldn't exist in this world... He'd told himself that it wasn't the fault of the people, but the circumstances that lead them to their crimes, so he couldn't punish them for the crimes of the time.


It was a lie, though... A bad person was a bad person, and as long as they existed they would prey on the helpless. What he'd seen today had proven it...

"You should be more careful... Let's go."

The Judge was back... And in this world... no one was innocent.

A voice stretched out of the black, and she stopped in her tracks. Never mind the fact that she was actually doing as he had asked, she was too busy straining her ears to care. ...Was that the sound of...?

... no.. It couldn't be. Why in the hell would be be getting naked at a time like-

Ohshit. Her mind reeled, and some part of herself that she had all but abandoned reared its ugly head and back handed her. Instinctively, her hand flashed back and tugged the knife she carried tucked into the back of her pants out. It was old... hadn't been used in ages, but it was sharp. She made damn sure of that. Megan stood shock still already on the balls of her feet like she was a gazelle waiting to spring away at the slightest hint of danger.

"You're a goddamn idiot, Rova." She muttered to herself, blade out before her like it blocked her safely from the enclosing pitch black. A damned idiot. All was silent until odd foot falls started her way. Her eyes flicked back to the light filtering down from above behind her, and she mentally calculated how fast she could get to the ladder before he was upon her.

...Not fast enough, she decided. Instead, she flattened herself against the wall, her blade ready and waiting. The foot steps grew gradually closer, and with them her heart rate spiked. Each step pounded in her ears, and then....

"You're a damned fool, you know... following a man you don't know into a dark hole in an abandoned area... Especially in these times."

The words caused her to jump. She hadn't expected them so close... Really, she was in poor shape when it came to fighting or defending these days. The added fact that while in the darkness she was just as visually handicapped as he was didn't help to settler her nerves, either. Before she could act, whatever action that may have been, the foot steps started up again.

A strange confusion washed over her, which didn't feel at all good when mixed with heavy fear. He was walking away.... after such ominous, strange words, he was leaving? The vague notion that he was perhaps toying with her jumped to mind... maybe he knew about her knife or something, and was waiting for her to lower her guard again?... He'd known about her spiders, after all.

But.. before she could think of what to do, whether to run or question him, she finally caught sight of him in the light by the ladder.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she had to brace herself against the wall. Good god, she'd lost her marbles. Really... for reals this time. Up ahead of her, standing almost as tall as she remembered, was the goddamn Judge. A bloody ghost from the past. It was.. it was more than she could process. Megan slid down on her rump, her back against the wall, and stared off into the darkness for what seemed like hours.

Really, it had only been a few minutes. When she finally managed to gather herself together, she worked her way back over to the ladder. He was already up and out by the time she got there, and for a moment she found herself wondering if he would also be gone by the time she crawled back out on top. When she looked up, her eyes locked on a turbulent, darkening sky... she felt a small bloom of hope blossom in her chest for the first time in...

"...God... it's been an eternity."

***

Later, and she honestly didn't know how much later for the life of her, Megan found herself crouched down behind the remnants of what had once been a grocery store wall, listening intently to the sound of a child wailing in the distance, and a man screaming something foul in reply. She didn't know what was more distressing... the words flying out of the man's grubby maw, or the fact that she could recognize the child's voice, and knew he was probably crying because he had missed his normal dose of medication. He was probably in a lot of pain right now... and all of the creative cuss words in the world wouldn't stop him from letting the world know just how unfair the situation really was.

With her armored companion off to her left, she clenched her teeth and forced herself to stop listening. It would only serve to distract her from the current mission... and she was going to need to pay close attention to what was going on around her. "... What's the plan?" She asked quietly, unable to hide the edge in her voice that gave away nearly all of her emotional distress.

She had yet to be able to rid herself of the.. the joy that had sprung up at the sight of him. Hope, admiration... a little bit of shame, even. She couldn't help but feel them with him alive beside her. A hero. A true hero!

Shaking herself, she plopped her forearms on her thighs and sucked a slow breath in. The ten or so spiders she had scattered around the large temporary camp were almost constantly filling her in on little movements of men with guns, or what so-n-so was doing with this person or that person. Some of the information... she really didn't need floating around her head... But, every cloud, you know? Because of the little arachnids, she knew a lot of key things. Exits and entrances, where food was, and where weapons were. She knew where the poor people from her camp were being held, and that there were more than a few armed guards standing patrol. The only things she really didn't know were names, and the location of the leaders... if there even were leaders. She'd taken time to lay out the area as much as possible, and fill her companion in on what she knew as the information slowly came together. She was waiting on him now.. on his experience to shine through.

They called him Milwaukee... why? Cause he was F$^kin from Milwaukee, and he could drink with the best of them. He'd really only been with this group for a week or so, and he'd already scored himself some tail. He was liking this outfit for sure.

What he didn't like was that they didn't maintain the crappers... Apparently there weren't any plumbers left; maybe they were off saving princesses or some s@#%.... "Heh... Princesses... Gotta find me one of those..." He drunkenly muttered as he opened the door, and walked out into the hallway, where he was planning on making a deposit. On his way he tripped on a can laying about, and cursed loudly.

"Mil, you alright out there?" A voice called.

"Ahh, godddamit, can't a guy crap in peace?! Mind your own business, Chuck!" Chuck... little punk... too soft for a real man's outfit... Most of these little B#%$@s were... Yeap... if he stuck to his guns, maybe wasted a few of the ballsier ones while no one was looking, he'd be running this place in a week.

"Okay, okay... jees man..." Chuck wandered off to do his own thing... Milwaukee was alone.

THUMP!

"F$&$%in hell, Chuck, I told you to leave me alo-"CRASH!

Milwaukee's head was now in a wall, his body slumped in a slightly comical wall ostrich position... Slightly comical with the exception of the fact that Mil was very much dead.

The Judge stared at him for a moment... his first sentencing after the end of the world... What a mess.

He turned and headed for his next victim.

"Hey... Mil... I know I wasn't s'posed to bother you but-GHAUUK" Chuck suddenly wasn't very talkative... He soon joined Mil in the wall. That was two down with very little struggle... He would have to go back to the spider queen for a status update... He propped a chair against the hallway door to slow anyone getting out; it was an obscure part of the building anyway... by the time anyone found the dead couple, it would be too late.

The kid had stopped crying.

Her guts clenched, and it was hard to breathe.. Her partner had been gone for a little while, not too long... but the silence that had followed the child's keening wail was nearly unbearable. The urge to stand and turn the corner, effectively abandoning her hiding spot in order to find out if he was even still alive was proving hard to ignore.

...maybe... maybe she could just sneak a little closer, yeah? She more or less knew where the bad guys were stationed. They didn't seem to move too far from the posts they had apparently been given. But... more or less was a little more risky than she was comfortable with.

'Where is the child? I can't hear him any more...' Her thoughts reached out to her children, and though a few excruciating moments of silence followed, one got back to her swiftly.

Many young ones

The aggravated smile that was becoming ever present on her lips slipped back into place momentarily. 'The one we have watched before... the frail one' Her thoughts slipped back to the day he and his mother had wandered into the camp, dirty and very malnourished. The boy had been no older than three, and was suffering from a rather bad infection to an old wound that ran the length of his back. She could remember clearly the doctors asking the mother what had happened to him, as well as the stricken look that had settled on her features, and the way she chose to stubbornly hold her tongue. Whatever the cause, his would had refused to heal quickly. Daily administration of fresh bandages and half of a pain pill kept him happy and as lively as a child his age should be. Megan had watched the both of them gain some weight back. It had been a rather happy sight, amidst the vision of a wasteland New York had become.

As if thinking about the boy triggered something deep within her, the strange feeling she had already experienced twice that day came creeping back. Her vision blurred momentarily as she struggled to pull herself out of it... but the moment she stilled visions danced before her eyes. Weeping faces, huddled bodies, darkly dressed silhouettes outlined against a raging fire. One image stood out among the rest, and Megan felt herself go weak in the knees. The crumpled form of a child, clutching a filthy blanket to his side... Alone, tucked into a corner... bathed in a puddle of deep black (or was it dark red?), lifeless brown eyes gazing forever forward as if into her own.

Suddenly, blackness. Unbeknownst to her, a guard stomping by the boys still form and crushed her scout spider underfoot. She was released from the terrible vision instantly, and with the freedom, she promptly turned and wretched quietly against the wall behind her.

... The boy was dead. Murdered because he was in pain and could not express it in any other way, then left in a corner without a care. A rage she had not felt in ages spread through her. The injustice of it all, the unfairness... Her palm was wrapped around the smooth leather bound handle of her knife without her even knowing, and she had swiftly gotten to her feet. Anger fueled her, for what exactly she didn't know yet. She clenched her fists at her sides, before turning around and moving to take a step away from her hiding place.

She bumped into an unexpected form, and her knife was immediately up. It was a slow movement, slow and terribly predictable... but the surprise of bumping into someone forced the reaction out of her nearly instantly. She didn't even realize there were little hot tears at the corners of her eyes, or that she was gnawing on her lip again viciously. She also didn't lower her weapon after realizing who it was, mostly because she wasn't thinking about the action at all.

"They killed Tommy... those... those" She was trembling with anger, an emotion her body had nearly forgotten how to wield. "... I'm going to kill them."

He'd run into another one of them by chance on the way back to the meeting spot... It wasn't an expected encounter; the man had run out to get a beer he'd left out to chill, and had practically collided with the armored man.

"N- no.... No F*$^kin way, man." He said as he stared at the figure that had to be familiar... It didn't matter, though... the Judge silenced the raider quickly, and permanently, hid the body and moved on. When he got to the spot, he actually did have some one collide with him.

"Where were you going?"

The woman was livid... she said something about someone killing someone... He looked up for a moment... and then frowned. The child wasn't wailing anymore... "You're staying here... Let me know which one he is... Put a spider on me, me it give me a sign when I'm near him... we'll punish him last... For now, you have to focus... Are there any more strays... anyone I can thin out before we engage the group?"

"You're staying here... Let me know which one he is... Put a spider on me, have it give me a sign when I'm near him... we'll punish him last... For now, you have to focus... Are there any more strays... anyone I can thin out before we engage the group?"

Yeah... yeah, he was right. There was no use rushing head first into a battle now... the child was dead, and nothing was going to change that fact. Though it took every last shred of effort she had left in her, Megan forced herself to stand down. The knife flopped by her side as she nodded and dropped her eyes to the dirt at her feet. Silently a call went out from her to her spiders. They called back in turns, each relaying the position of the men they were stalking. With a mental map in place, she set about figuring out the current positions, before kneeling to drawn out her map in the dirt.

"There... there are seven left. Three off to our left, around the side of the camp. The other four are off to the right, one not to far from this room over here, while the other three are together in this room."

It really didn't occur to her that he might not be able to see what she was drawing, but she wasn't paying that much attention. Her mind was still clouded with anger and thoughts of the boy's mother... where was she during all of this?

"These three... " She continued, "..haven't left in a while. I don't know what they're up to in there either." Her hand drifted over to the other side of her shakily drawn map, and she circled two of the three dots that represented their targets. "These two on the other hand, have been talking with each other the whole time, and are armed with some of the larger rifles." She'd forced her children to be clear about what the guns looked like, since they didn't know exactly what the weapons were, or did, aside from kill things.

"Neither of those two groups have parted ways yet, so it might be hard to take them down without shots being fired and attention being drawn your way." She knew that he could handle himself, quite easily in fact... but with his unexpected return still as fresh and dominant in her mind, she couldn't help but worry about his safety. Losing him, she was sure, would be like losing the last shred of hope for a good future, and not one ruled by greed and violence.

"...I really suck with a knife, I know... but i'm pretty fast... I could run as a distraction if you need me too, to keep them off of your back while you work." She reached out to touch him, a fuzzy black spider already in the process of crawling down her arm and onto him. It would find a safe place to hunker down and latch on, and from there she'd be able to keep tabs on him.

"When I find the guy that did it, i'll have my friend here give you a little nip. He's not venomous, so you won't have any lingering nasty effects, but it should be enough to grab your attention."

He stood a distance from her drawing, his head twitching to observe the details as she drew them, using the difference between his head's movement and the stillness of the ground to get a somewhat fuzzy, but accurate enough picture of the 3-d image she was creating....

He thought he recognized the basic lay-out from his first trip into the compound, and while the diagram wasn't even close to perfect, he could still make out which rooms she was talking about... He was pleasantly surprised by the level of detail she was able to summon up; it was good to know that some of the men had rifles. He would have to approach them last... The other group of two was closer to them, so they would have to go out after the group of three... That left the issue of taking out three armed men without making enough sound to alert the other four raiders... That would be tricky.

"...I really suck with a knife, I know... but i'm pretty fast... I could run as a distraction if you need me too, to keep them off of your back while you work."

He paused for a moment. "No... running out haphazardly will get you killed..." His head twitched again to feel out the diagram once more as she deposited the spider on him, which drew a slow nod from him. "I have an idea, though... for that group of three..."

She was gonna have to bear with him...

The amount of expletives that ran through her head as she walked toward the room had reached a staggering number. What was she doing? She was walking into an unknown situation with three armed men... and she had somehow been talked into exposing a good amount of stomach. Why was she doing this? Because this was the judge's idea of running a good distraction.

Sonofa...

Worry gnawed on her insides as she approached the room, that solitary door that led into an office. She didn't know what awaited her on the other side. The sounds issuing out from being that door, though... Ooh, they were enough to make her shudder fearfully.

"Alright, Megs... you can do this. Just... deep breath in, and..." With a grip on the doorknob, she swung the thing in and announced her presence. The sight that greeted her was horrific. Three men, two in various states of undress, stood above a woman in the center of the room. She was sobbing and curled in on herself, arms thrown up to protect her face as one man sent a vicious kick straight into her unprotected midsection. All eyes turned to Megan, however, and the woman was temporarily forgotten.

"Who the f@#k is that?" A pistol was leveled her way, from the man with all of his clothing still intact. Megan instinctively raised her hands up, and tried to slap the most innocent looking expression she could muster onto her face. "...I...I... I saw the light of a fire... and heard people yelling..." She let her eyes widen and forced a visible shiver, before taking half a step back. "... I-i don't want any trouble... really. Please don't hurt me..."

The man with the gun lowered it slightly, clearly assuming she wasn't a threat. He was partially correct, even with a knife stuffed down the back of her pants, she wasn't much of a danger to any of them. "Man... b*tches just keep falling from the sky, don't they? I'm gonna go get the boss."

Another man threw out his arm, stopping his companion from moving. Megan kept her eyes on the man with the only visible weapon as of yet. "Not yet, I don't want to get shafted with no sloppy seconds this time." Even from her spot by the door, Megan felt a jolt of fear, anger, and revulsion race up her spine. The two unarmed men advanced on her. She attempted to backpedal out the door, but tripped and ended up landing on her rump. They didn't waist any time before latching onto her legs to drag her quickly back in. In their haste to throw her into the center of the room where the other woman was huddled, they neglected to close the door. Megan bit back the worry that her plan would fail somehow, while keeping her back to the floor, and started crawling slowly backwards. A pair of pants went flying across the room, as well as a belt and a shirt. They really weren't wasting any time...

Damnit.... He'd better get in here fast..