It was psychological warfare. How could Abigail possibly keep her act up when such a cute lil’ doggie was sniffing around her?! Her face broke into a hesitant smile as her attention was briefly diverted, and despite the overwhelming urge to reach down and pet it she could barely move - paralysed with fear and the prospect of getting a gut full of lead. “C-cute…” she stammered, laughing nervously. What happened next killed the laugh in her throat.


The girl who Abigail thought she saw earlier had quite literally re-appeared in front of her. ‘what the fuck’, she mouthed at Christi for a split second before looking down at the dog and pretending nothing happened. She pulled another smile and tried to keep the persistent knot of fear from taking over and affecting her body and expression...the nerves were getting to her, she either didn’t notice Christi coming or she was too distracted, there had to be some logical reason why Abigail didn’t see Christi until the very last second. She wasn’t losing her edge, was she? Oh god, not here, not now, she can’t start missing things during one of the most dangerous times of her life…!


As her panic increased, Abigail began to shake even harder. The act was half-genuine now and she didn’t know what to do, it was as if a big wall had suddenly risen between her reasoning and her conscience. All she could do was stare at that gun and pray that Eli wouldn’t pull the trigger-


And then ‘Cornwall’ suddenly blurted out the truth. Or, well, it must’ve been the truth because tattoo man immediately cursed after he said it. Abigail’s internal response was half-relief and half-anger, she couldn’t believe it but she knew they wouldn’t make something like that up. It meant that the man in front of her was even more dangerous than she thought, and also had no logical reason to be pointing that gun at her; they were on the same team now. Instead of politely talking away the situation, Eli chose to order tattoo man (dubbed Lover Boy) to take away Brooks' gun because an old man and a little girl were really scary to this hillbilly warrior. Abigail glared at Eli...she was sick of being scared and her patience was wearing dangerously thin. Suddenly, the idea of throwing the truck at the whole damn group seemed like a tempting and easy solution. She knew he was watching her more than he was watching Brooks and that did nothing to improve her mood...she hated being the centre of attention when she didn’t want to be.


“That means you’re the Gala survivors…” she murmured slowly, raising both eyebrows as if she had only just figured that out now. “The whole world’s looking for you guys. They keep talking about wanting you in for questioning but I don’t think anyone’s buying it, they’ve been making you out like terrorists in the media…!” Abigail looked away and cringed as if the thought alone was terrifying. “Oh-okay, okay, okayokayokay. You want our story? Fine.”


Abigail looked over at Brooks briefly, but she knew the quick glance wouldn’t be enough to try and communicate with him. She thought on the spur of the moment. “We’re...damnit, it sounds crazy. We’re also Gala survivors. Kind of. Look, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time and then everything went to shit and...and unlike you lot we knew we couldn’t stay at home.” Abi rubbed the back of her neck, shifting her weight. Her arms hurt from holding them up for so long. “So we got whatever we could carry, took out as much cash as we could and bolted it from Buckhead. Took the long way around until we were certain we weren’t being chased like you. A friend of the family told me he knew about this-...this safehouse in the country we could hide in until everything blows over. But it’s fucked now, isn’t it?” she couldn’t keep the growing irritation out of her voice. “Instead of keeping our distance from trouble we just found the holy fucking grail of it. We’ve got nowhere to go and now we’re looking at the most wanted p-people in America…”


The nice part about being emotional and sleep deprived meant it was much easier to fake a breakdown, especially when you’re a few threads away from freaking out in the first place. Abigail did just that - in the face of the suspicious redneck renegade and his merry band of superfreaks she suddenly broke into loud sobs, falling to her knees. Despite all of her planning, all her schemes and the preparations, double and triple checking routes and being positive the safehouse actually existed...right at the last hurdle, with nowhere to run, she lead herself and Brooks into even more trouble. If she was caught with these people, she would be shot down on sight, and all these other people would be shot too. That was more than enough to push her over the edge. 


Abigail was so angry, so upset with herself that it fueled her muffled wails. She kicked up a fuss. She made a scene. In the eyes of these people, she was a normal 18 year old girl who had to flee from her normal life and was scared shitless of the big man with the gun in front of her. This normal 18 year old clearly had no grasp of the situation, and certainly didn’t comprehend the importance of staying quiet during the early hours of the morning near the town when you’re trying to stay hidden. She cried into her sleeve to try and muffle some of the noise but kept it loud enough to threaten detection; at this point she’ll either get shot or someone will rush over to comfort her and try to quiet her down, and Abigail knew Eli couldn’t pull the trigger else he’d get the attention of everyone in the holler.

“P-please don’t kill us! D-don’t, I can’t-...I can-...!” Abigail’s begging dissolved into incoherent sobs, hands over her head, convulsing with every shuddering cry that escaped her mouth. She was certain now that she had them cornered; if the gun wasn’t put down she’d just keep crying louder until they complied. The townsfolk wouldn’t ask questions, they’d see a crying girl and her dad and a man pointing a gun at her. She could play the victim card and get Brooks back in the truck and get the hell out of here if she had to. All she had to do now was keep crying, keep focused on the unfairness and indignation of it all to keep her temper tantrum as genuine as possible, and wait to see what they do.