The sound of the machine on Horace's back reaches Salem and Ruby's ears long before his footsteps do. Ruby freezes, sitting perfectly still behind her pile of scrap. The burning dread rushing to her stomach, The beating of her strained heart rocking her body. Salem however, felt a familiar sense of defeat. She had a bone to pick with this particular gang of assholes, Salem knew why the man was here. This isn't the first time she's been beat down for her meager fix. It was going to be her last.
She was not going to let it happen again.
The hissing sounds of steam and pistons going through long healed holes in the man's rib cage. Reach her ears long before her eyes fall on the man. The dim magenta lighting only barely revealed his dark form. The worn desaturated brown of the device on his back blending near seamlessly with the pallid sickly skin of his arms. Salem couldn't tell where the man ended and the machine began.
a shiver runs up her spine, but she can't tell if that's because she needs a fix, or the fear gripping her nerves.
"I know what you want! You can screw off!"
Salem spits bitterly at the man.
"Well… I... Get... anyway..."
the man groans out, wheezing between words, the dry pain evident in his voice. His voice is cracking, just above a whisper. He sounds like he's trying to talk around something in his mouth. He sounded like a long dead corpse was having its voice puppeted.
Something unclicks from his belt, a similar weapon used to shoot that man in the town square is pulled off. "LIKE HELL I'D GIVE IT TO YOU!" Salem screams at the man, opening the small canvas pouch. Sitting inside are a dozen or so brilliantly pink hexagons. Salem picks one up and pops it into her mouth, crunching it, the drug was mixed with sugar to mask the disgustingly bitter taste. the nauseatingly sweet taste floods her mouth. She swallows and the glowing pink begins to emanate from her chest, flooding her already unsettling eyes with a certain craze only someone high could get.
She picks up a copper pipe from the heap of scrap Ruby is currently covered in. the knuckles of her fingers a faint pink hue. she runs at him screaming at the top of her lungs. The shrill sound of screaming filled the air in the alley. The narrow space is small enough for the small woman to run on the walls like some character in a novel. But she instead runs directly at him.
Horace walks calmly forward, the distance between them quickly closing. The man's joints creak, raising his gun and landing one shot into her thigh. It doesn't stop her but it allows him to burst forward grabbing ruby from her hiding place.
"Pouch... Or... bang…"
Horace chokes out holding ruby in a headlock.
"Let me go you metal porcupine!"
ruby screams struggling against his arm. But stops as soon as she feels the cold metal against her head.
"You shoot like a noble!"
Salem yells at the man, pulling the canvas out of her pants. She holds it up and dangles it.
"But the life of a random twig doesn't mean much to me!"
a little pang of guilt hits her as she says those words. But this is hers. She runs at him faster than a girl her size should be able to, she hits his chest hard enough to throw him into the wall. She grabs the skinny women and starts running deeper into the winding maze of alleys. Leaving Horace in the alley, his breathing device broken and him wheezing in agony. His last thoughts were of how it can't be the end, not yet.
"It won't be, don't worry."
an old voice speaks up before his vision goes black.