Chapter 35 - Riot

Lend a helping hand.

One year previous

A shadow in the distance caught my eye as the sun rose over Heathen Heights. I set my cold coffee down on the fence and cocked my head. The shadow was moving. It collapsed and when it struggled to its feet, I realized it was a woman.

Something compelled me that morning to open the gate and walk, unarmed, the quarter mile to her. As I got closer, a person took shape. A tan, brunette young woman in a weird dress. She looked like she'd stepped out of a billboard for the American Dream.

"You alright, miss?" I asked, stopping about 15 feet from the strange woman. Her head shot up, and black eyes met my emerald ones. Her face was dirty and scuffed.

"Help," she croaked.

"Help what? Where'd you come from?" I demanded. In the 20 years I'd been on this earth, you learned real fucking quick not to trust anyone. If I sensed a threat, I'd leave her here for the beasties to get.

"Bunker 237." She punctuated every number as if that meant something to me.

Was 237 meant to mean something to me?

"You're from a bunker?" I raised an eyebrow. I was curious now. "What's your name, darlin'?"

"Myrtle. Do you have water?"

"Do you have a gun?"

She looked at me as if I'd said the most absurd thing she'd ever heard. She stood up straighter and slowly raised her arms. "Feel free to check, but I don't even have pockets."

Cautiously, I stepped forward and patted her down. Deciding she wasn't carrying, I nodded.

"I've got water. Follow me, you can rest at Heathen Heights."

"What's that?" She trailed behind me at a bearded snail's pace. I slowed, letting her catch up.

"It's my house. How long have you been outta that bunker?" I opened the gate and welcomed her inside. She stared up at my house, her mouth falling open in surprise.

"This is all yours?"

"Mine and my sister's, but she's traveling down Mercury Mile right now. She'll be back eventually. Come on in, you hungry too?"

"Mercury Mile?"

She came inside and I fed her some bread and gave her glass after glass of water. I waited patiently for her to speak, and finally, she looked up from her cup.

"Thank you. I thought I was going to die out there."

"Where were you headed?" I leaned against the counter, fascinated by the woman sitting in my kitchen.

"Anywhere but there. I ran. But... I need to go back."

"I'm confused. Are you staying or going?" I'd heard about the bunkers. Not a whole lot, just that the people inside them were trapped in time, and they had no idea what it was like to live in the wastelands. I'd never met one in real life until now.

"I have to go back, but then I'm leaving again. I-- I left something I shouldn't have."

"What? Shoes?" I smirked.

This woman looked like she'd never done anything difficult her entire life. Her hair was disheveled, but looked shiny and taken care of. She wasn't gaunt and her eyes weren't sunken in, like wasteland babes. She was tired, but not worn. She was scared, not wary. Even if she wasn't wearing the old-fashioned dress and shoes, she'd stick out like a sore thumb.

"My daughter."

I let her rest in Cherry's room, and didn't see her until nightfall. I was outside, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer solo, and thinking about her and her daughter she left behind, when she came out.

"Thank you for saving me."

"No problem. So, tell me about her."

"Who?" She frowned, as if not recalling what we'd talked about earlier.

"Your daughter."

I didn't particularly care for kids. I had no real desire for my own, and I didn't go out of my way to hang out with people who had them. But something in her eyes when she'd said it earlier made me curious.

Myrtle smiled softly and looked off into the night.

"She's beautiful. They didn't really let me bond with her after they cut her out of me, but I've been watching her this whole time from a distance."

"Cut her?"

She explained the procedure in its entirety. How she wasn't impregnated the usual way. How they'd taken a syringe and put the man's spunk inside her. She didn't even get to pick the man. After she got pregnant, they kept her on a small, secret floor until the baby was ready and then they performed surgery to get it out. She even showed me the scar.

"She was beautiful. Dark hair, dark eyes. I didn't get to hold her, but that's okay. When I go back for her, I'm never letting her go."

For weeks, Myrtle stayed with me, telling me all about her daughter. How she liked to color, and how the people raising her put bows in her hair to make her look even cuter. She planned to buy her all the dresses and bows she could want. The longer she stayed, the more I wondered if she'd ever actually go back. But I never said anything. It didn't feel like my place. The trauma she'd gone through in Bunker 237 was something no one should experience, and I didn't blame her for being hesitant to go back.

She'd started to become happy and even laugh on occasion. She danced to the music on the radio and she retold me stories she'd read while in school. We never had formal education like that, let alone reading for fun. She was a great story-teller. Sometimes I'd forget I was being told a story at all, and I began to believe them.

"They were vampires but he was also into organized crime."

"The Goblin King shapeshifted into a man, a woman, and a demon, at will."

I loved hearing the stories, and it was nice having a companion at Heathen Heights. Other than my biological sister, I'd never had a platonic friendship. And we'd never once shifted from one space to the next. Myrtle was my friend and I was hers.

But then one day, she walked into the kitchen without her usual sweet smile.

"I'm going back. It's time. If I don't go now, I'll never go and I have to do this because they've got her and they'll--" She launched into her speech and I put my hand up.

"Hey, you don't have to explain anything to me. I get it. You need to do what you need to do."

Her eyes fell to the floor.

"Riot, I have to ask you something." She played with her hands.

"We've already discussed this," I chuckled. "You and your daughter are welcome here until you get on your feet. It'll be interesting having a kiddo here."

The idea had actually grown on me. I looked forward to, a tiny bit, meeting the tyke. She talked about her so much I felt like I knew her. The dark haired, dark eyed, tan little girl who loved to draw and color and had a bit of an attitude that was more adorable than annoying.

"No, not that. I know we're welcome here and that is the plan. But there's a chance I won't succeed and I need a backup plan."

My insides twisted at the thought. If she didn't succeed, that meant she was dead. I couldn't imagine a life with Myrtle gone.

"I'm listening."

"Riot, promise me, if I die, that you'll try to get her out of the bunker."

"How do you propose I do that?" I smirked, but stopped when she didn't smile back.

"Promise me," she insisted. "I don't care what it takes, how you do it, who dies in the process, but if I die, please get her out."

I stared at Myrtle.

"Okay."

I would have never agreed if it were anyone else but she was my friend, and I'd cherish that for the rest of my life. I'd do anything for Myrtle.

"I want to solidify this moment in time. Make sure you never forget your promise to me."

"What, like a blood oath?" I smirked again.

Her eyes drifted to the suitcase on my kitchen table. Two days ago, a man came through needing new brake pads. The only thing he had to trade was a tattoo machine.

"You're not tattooing a whole book on me." I shook my head.

"No, of course not." She moved to the suitcase, opening it. "I just want to make sure you never forget her."

I swallowed my nerves and sat down. She asked for my hand, and I winced as she struggled with the machine. We'd played with it a bit but neither of us were professionals. She dragged the needle and ink across my hand for 20 minutes until she pulled back and nodded. "There."

I lifted my hand and looked at the fresh ink.

Eleanor .

"What's this?" I looked up, into her face. A single tear fell from her right eye.

"That's her name."