Shannon - New Orleans - James
The morning stretched onward and Shannon's surprise company continued to sleep the day away. She couldn't turn away Rob and the other man last night in the rain, but she knew that eventually she'd have to tell them that they weren't welcome to stay. They hardly had the supplies to sustain more people and, besides that, Shannon was not exactly comfortable expanding the group. A larger group only brought complications and heartache, two things none of them needed right now. Of course, as Shannon continued to linger outside their tent, her resolve faded quickly. She didn't know what she would do if they argued about staying. She wanted to be strong after being weak for so long, but she knew it just wasn't in her. Her apprehension only grew the longer she was forced to wait, and Shannon realized she just really didn't want to deal with any of this at all.
She turned to James and touched his shoulder, waking him from his drowsy state. It was likely he didn't get much more sleep than she did the night before. "Go put a sweater on. I think it's time we go looking before the wind gets any heavier," God, did Shannon miss the days of weather reports. Some dull clouds had settled high into the sky, so Shannon reasoned that it would rain again soon. It meant they wouldn't be able to look for Valentina long, but hopefully James would understand. She smiled at the boy when he returned with a sweater two times his size and he managed to smile back. "Right, come on then," she said, placing a hand on his back and leading into the forest.
They made their way toward the city proper, as that's where Shannon reasoned Valentina would have went. It was only a short walk, as they wanted their initial camp to be close in case of an emergency. That was probably why the two men managed to stumble into the camp in the first place. When they eventually hit the streets, James wanted to head deeper in toward a business sector of the city, but Shannon decided that Valentina would be more likely held up in a more suburban location. They settled on having a look through each residence they passed, though Shannon insisted James stay behind her at all times. The boy had come a long way, but he still got afraid and nervous around firearms. Shannon knew they couldn't hold off on teaching him much longer, but a part of her felt like that would be taking away his last remaining innocence.
They weren't anywhere near close to clearing the street when the wind began to pick up and the sky began to darken. Neither Valentina or anything substantial had been found by the time Shannon realized it was finally started to rain outside. She swore under her breath, but James didn't say a word, only staring glumly out the window. "We have to stop," she said, pulling the hood on her sweater over her head. Shannon didn't like the idea of leaving Emma and the others alone in a storm so she felt that they were obligated to push through the rain in order to get back to them. James had no objections as he followed Shannon outside, though she could hear him whimpering slightly whenever a strong gust of wind hit them.
They had only just reached the tree line when Shannon was shoved backwards and slammed into James. They fell to the ground together, both unable to reorient themselves in the heavy winds. A cracking noise erupted from somewhere nearby and Shannon felt something heavy fall around her. James cried out and Shannon desperately reached out for him. He fell into her arms and held her tight, both unable to move. Eventually, Shannon looked up to find that a tree had toppled over mere feet away from them. She knew then that going back wasn't an option. Perhaps she knew that before, but she had to have at least tried. "Okay, come on! Come on! Move!" She yelled to be heard over the storm as she pulled James and herself up shakily. Her head down, Shannon then led James back toward the houses. If they didn't find shelter soon, Shannon was sure that they would be carried away by the wind and never seen from again.
Myriah - Outpost - Enrique
No one noticed her as she made her way through the tents with an umbrella in hand. The rain put mostly everyone's jobs on hold for the day, though the watchers and scouts were still required to keep Outpost secure. She had climbed on to the wall in order to speak with Elliot, who assured her that he was fine working in the rain. Myriah didn't like it, but she knew Elliot had something to prove so she refrained from arguing with him. From there, Myriah was at a loss for what to do with herself. She wanted to head to her cabin and work on her class itinerary, but she found she couldn't put her heart into it much. She'd worked so hard and did everything she could for this community, but all she had to show for it was blood.
And she couldn't tell a soul.
Who would believe her at this point? She could come clean about her hand in the mutiny, but that was more likely to get her ostracized than Matt. He could say that she had been working with Reggie and she knew it would be easy to convince everyone. She didn't much care for her own life if it meant revealing Matt for the manipulative man that he was, but she couldn't possibly sacrifice herself in vain. She had to stick with Outpost for as long as possible, until she could figure out some way to solve all of this.
She made her way to Outpost's gates and made small talk with the boys stationed there. They soon let her outside the wall where she found Enrique walking the perimeter. She twirled her umbrella unconsciously as she stared at him, her eyes examining his every movement. The way he carried himself, his posture and appearance. She tried to recognise some sign of the man that had attacked her a month ago, but she couldn't quite remember much about him. The event had happened so fast, and being knocked out didn't help Myriah's memory much. Enrique certainly had the right physique to match the attacker and, if Rudy's suspicions were correct, Myriah had to consider Enrique one of her top suspects.
As the man came closer to her, Myriah smiled. She took off her glasses momentarily to clean off fog from the rain. "So, how's the patrol going?" she asked. "Can't imagine it's fun being out here right now."
Tyler - Baton Rouge/Bingo Hall - Katie/Jacob/George
As Tyler waited for Katie to answer, he saw movement from outside the window. He quickly put a hand to his lips to tell Katie to be quiet before making his way toward the entrance to get a better look. From there, he saw a young man carefully making his way down the street. Then, the man stopped suddenly and did something Tyler couldn't quite believe: he answered his cellphone. It was something Tyler hadn't seen in what felt like forever. All he could do was stare out the window, his mouth slightly agape at this man talking on a phone. He watched as the man proceeded to stop paying attention to where he was going and walk out of sight. When Tyler heard a muffled crash from outside, Tyler turned to give Katie a quizzical look. He almost told her to stay with George while he investigated, but after his panic attack over her going to the bathroom, Tyler figured that wasn't a good idea. "We'll be right back!" he yelled to George he put a hand on the front door. "Stick with me, Katie." He opened the door to let her go first, his eyes narrowed on the kitten in her arms. There was no time to argue, he supposed.
To the side of the bingo hall was an alley with a rain barrel next to the building next door. It was toppled now, a large puddle formed around it. The man who had crashed into it was on the ground, so Tyler let out a heavy sigh. "Are you okay?" he asked, walking forward. He held out a hand for the man, his eyes looking to see where the cell phone had gone. Tyler didn't much care for interacting with yet another stranger, but if he had a working cellphone somehow, Tyler had to know what was going on.
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