Trash Panda

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

When Iris said the districts outside the capital didn’t have taxis, Caspian stared at her blankly. Cab services were something he’d thought existed everywhere in Aspiria, but here—he didn’t believe she was correct about taxis being unavailable everywhere else—the industry must have died off somehow. Maybe the people who lived here preferred to drive themselves around, or maybe Tongsen was so crime riddled, the locals didn’t trust the men and women sitting behind the wheel of a car to get them to their destination without robbing them before they got there. Whatever the case, the lack of public vehicles was quickly proving to be an inconvenience.

“Okay,” he started slowly, furrowing his brows as he thought of an alternative. “We can just take a bus then—” He faltered as she went on to explain to him just how deep the roots of the rebellion had grown. If she was right, it the Scourge was even bigger than their intelligence officers had estimated. He glanced over his shoulder at one of the people sitting on a doorstep, troubled. If his father found out that most of his kingdom had turned against him, he would probably strike many of the rules that were currently in place to keep civilians outside the capital safe. The war was close to exploding into something much more devastating than it already was.

As she went on, disappointment flickered behind his dark eyes. When they’d left her father’s basement, a part of him had begun to hope that he would be back inside his own home by the end of the day. Now, it was beginning to sound like he would be lucky to get there tomorrow or the next day. He loathed the thought of spending any more time among the rebels than he already had, but he had no choice. He couldn’t find his way back by himself, and if Regis was just going to cut him off before he could get to safety, he had to wait out the threat.

“Fine,” he exhaled reluctantly, following after her as she continued walking to wherever she had decided they were going to be spending the night. Even though he wasn’t happy with the way things were turning out, there was no sense in arguing. He just hoped that if they were going to a hotel, it would be cleaner than the buildings he was looking at now. The threat of getting an infection in his arm was very real, and he dreaded getting examined by a doctor only to be told that the limb had to be amputated. He would have felt better sleeping in a place that wasn’t covered in trash and dirt.

Unfortunately, it looked like the place where they would be staying didn’t even have room service. Cas watched in dismay as Iris opened the door to what appeared to be an old, abandoned bomb shelter. This is the best we’ve got? He was tempted to tell her that he preferred to stay somewhere with running water, but they’d been walking for so long that he wasn’t sure if he could make it all the way to the closest hotel. It had been yet another long day without any food or water, and on top of that, his wounds were making him feel stiff. All he wanted to do right now was lay down and rest. If that meant putting up with a hovel for a shelter for one night, then so be it.

Without a word, he followed Iris into the dark room. Earlier, he might have been hesitant to go with a rebel into a pitch-black space, but he was too tired to care if it was a trap anymore. He stumbled in the darkness until he found a bed and collapsed onto it with a weary groan. The mattress was uneven and dusty, but compared to the cold, hard floor of the basement that he’d been sleeping on for days, it felt heavenly underneath him. He sprawled on his good side and fitted his forearm comfortably beneath his head, tempted to doze off right then and there if not for the sound of his company rustling around on the other side of the room.

Curious, he tried to watch her, but it was impossible to make out exactly what she was doing when he could barely see her outline. Only when she came closer to hand him something did he realize she had been getting out supplies. He propped himself up on his arm and took the objects from her, his eyes widening with the realization that she was giving him food and water. Immediately, he sat up again and opened one of the bottles, lifting it to his lips to down the whole thing. Once he was finished, he dropped the empty container on the ground, panting to catch his breath.

“Why are you doing this?” the question escaped before he had a chance to filter it. He opened the package of bread and removed a slice to eat, absentmindedly fingering the plastic seal that held it shut to preserve the food’s freshness. Given the fact that no one had killed him yet, it seemed like Iris really was helping him escape. He’d decided she was an ally, but he still couldn’t figure out why she was putting everything on the line for him. “Your dad is the leader of the Sco—of the rebellion. And isn’t your boyfriend going to be mad when he finds out you’re helping me?” Just mentioning Ethan, the reminder that Iris had never really had feelings for him, left a foul taste in his mouth, and he took another bite of bread to get rid of it. “I just don’t get it. You said you came to the capital to kill me, but now you’re keeping me alive even though everyone close to you wants to see me dead. Why?”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

That is lucky! I'm probably going to have to buy some things on Amazon, since I can't find it all in the stores. Also sorry that one took a while! I kept getting distracted

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

“Twelfth district…” Cas repeated in a murmur. That was Tongsen, just south of Bel Bicis, the two districts with the lowest GDP per capita in Aspiria, if he remembered his economics lesson correctly. Even though the number had been low, it still reflected a better quality of life than what he was looking at now though. He glanced at Iris. Whether she was helping him or not, she was still a rebel, so they were probably in the slovenliest part of the city and she was just playing it off as if this was what the entire district was like. There was no way the rest of Tongsen was equally as filthy. The numbers he’d seen just didn’t add up to that.

As they made their way into what looked like an abandoned shopping center, he lifted his gaze slightly to take in his surroundings. Like the rest of the area, he guessed all the buildings had been standing since before his great grandfather had made the decree to renew Aspiria’s architecture and infrastructure. There weren’t many people around, and all those he could see looked homeless. They were probably living here to avoid being arrested for trespassing in the more populated parts of the district. Not used to being around people who lived on the streets, he walked tensely behind Iris. He’d seen statistics that told him many homeless men and women were criminals, and they were both very exposed out in the open. His wallet had been missing since he’d first woken up in his cell, but no one else knew that. If anyone recognized his face, they might think he was carrying money and try to rob him.

Just as he was starting to feel paranoid about being mugged, Cas jumped at the sound of someone shouting behind them. Turning around, he watched confusedly as someone sprinted away from one of the stores. It looked like his hunch about thieves was correct. He shivered and averted his gaze, heeding his guide’s advice. If any of the people around them were potentially dangerous, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. His goal was to make it back to the capital without taking any more injuries than he already had from Regis.

Subconsciously sticking close to Iris, he followed her around to the side of a bakery and stopped while she dug through a pile of trash bags. He shifted his weight restlessly from his left foot to his right, and a wary frown creased his mouth. She had said she was going to be taking him back to the capital, so he wasn’t sure what she was doing by sifting through literal garbage. For a fleeting moment, he worried she had brought him to this back alley because it had been a trap and she was going to kill him, but his anxiety was quickly laid to rest when she stuffed a bag into her backpack. It probably wasn’t a weapon. He relaxed, though a bemused and mildly disgusted expression lingered on his face as he wondered what she could have possibly wanted with someone else’s trash.

“I’m fine,” he answered without hesitation when she asked if he could keep moving. In truth, he was practically swaying on his feet with exhaustion, but he wanted to get out of the run-down part of the district as quickly as possible. “But I thought we were going back to the capital,” he added, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at her comment about finding somewhere to stay for the night. “Why don’t you just call a taxi? You can have them drop me off at the edge of the city, and I’ll go through border security on my own. The soldiers know who I am, so it doesn’t matter that your rebel friends stole my wallet.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

It looked like the apocalypse xD Everyone there was wearing surgery masks and latex gloves and avoiding each other like the plague. My husband and I did the same thing, so no judgement. It was just interesting to see everyone doing that all in one place.

We got most of what we needed, but we can't find soap or hand sanitizer anywhere :( All the hoarders keep buying it up as soon as it hits the shelves. We genuinely need it because we're about to run out too.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I just got back from grocery shopping (that was an experience) so I can work on a post soon!

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Had a busy evening and semi-busy morning, but I finally got a post up ^^

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Cas flinched when Iris touched the towel to his open wound. The alcohol stung, but he knew it was necessary to keep the area clean—he understood at least that much about taking care of cuts—so he bit his lip and soldiered through the pain without complaint. All the while, he pondered over her decision to treat him in the first place. Maybe she really was trying to help. If she had been about to lead him to the rebels who were going to kill him, there was no need for her to stop and tend to the injuries of a soon-to-be corpse. It would have been a waste of resources. However, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she was still putting on an act to convince him to trust her, so he didn’t let his guard all the way down.

Once she finished tying off her makeshift bandages, he looked down at his arm to inspect her work. With no prior experience dealing with stab wounds, he didn’t really know what he was looking for, but it seemed like she’d done a good job. The cloth was tightly bound around his bicep, but not so much so that he was losing feeling in his fingers. Hopefully it would be enough to get his arm to stop bleeding so profusely, so he wouldn’t pass out from blood loss. If she really was helping him escape, he was going to need the strength to make it back to the capital without keeling over. He was already short on the energy he would have gotten from sufficient food and water, so bleeding out would probably worsen his odds of getting away quite a bit.

At Iris’s instruction to put on the hoodie she’d given him, Cas nodded and slid the warm fabric over his shoulders. Moving his left arm was painful, and he noticed that it seemed to briefly increase his bleeding again. Once the jacket was on, he made a mental note to avoid trying to move it again if he was able, so he could give himself a chance to start healing from the damage Regis had done.

Ready to go, he stood up from the floor to follow her and then faltered, leaning his good hand against the wall. The motion had made him woozy, and in retrospect, he realized he should have gotten up a little more slowly. Between the lack of food and water, the beating he’d taken from Iris’s father, and the blood loss, he was in pretty bad shape. Nevertheless, he walked carefully after her once he’d given himself a moment to recover from the dizzy spell, pulling his hood over his head somewhat awkwardly with only his right hand.

“‘Quick’ may be an issue,” he admitted with a sigh. Shuffling up the stairs, he felt like an old man. Everything hurt, and he had the urge to grunt and groan every time he ascended a step. He’d never been this sore in his life, and he longed to lay down in his warm bed at home with something warm to drink and a tablet in his lap to watch the current season of basketball until he got better. Some strong painkillers sounded heavenly too, preferably the kind that would make him a little loopy, so he could forget about everything he’d had to endure in Regis’s basement.

Fantasizing about the capital, he was jarred from his thoughts by the sight of the run-down street Iris was leading him toward. Where the hell are we? He thought, looking over the worn asphalt and the pockmarked buildings with distaste. This entire area is filthy… If I get back, I’ll have to let the city planners know they missed a spot in their restoration project. It was surprisingly to him that the unrestored area was so vast. He knew there were a few places in Aspiria that still looking like this, but he’d thought they were small enough that one could still see the accomplished skyscrapers and impressive, modern architecture on the skyline. Wherever they were, there was nothing to see but old, dingy buildings for miles.

“Which district is this?” he asked, too curious to keep his questions to himself. Noticing the way Iris held her head down, he mimicked the posture and lowered his own. As he did, he noticed in the daylight that both of his hands were covered with drying blood. His left had a few thin trickles that had rolled down from his upper arm, but his right was veritably covered since he’d tried to use it to apply pressure to his stab wound. With a grimace, he shoved both into his hoodie’s pockets. “I hope you didn’t want this back,” he warned her, thinking about how bloodstained the inside of the jacket probably was since it was laying on top of his soaked shirt and left arm. “I don’t think it’ll be salvageable after this.”

~Bonsoir~

At first, it looked like the Saints’ plan was working. Vail and Victoria swept past the first few barricades with ease, leading their pursuers straight into the jaws of the waiting hunters at every checkpoint. The Wynters were too frenzied by the smell of her blood to comprehend the trap that they were willingly stepping into, and they were being picked off one by one the closer they got to the Crest manor. Occasionally, the Hygrace heir peeked back over his shoulder to see how many were left. The majority of the rival clan was still hot on their tail, but it was encouraging to see their numbers dwindle every time he checked up on them. The longer the hunt went on, the more confident he felt that the Order and the Moncourier clan were going to come out of this battle as victors. There was just one barricade left.

He turned around to look forward again after glancing at the Wynters one more time. The manor was just up ahead, so he hastened his pace alongside Victoria’s horse, eager to end it. However, in the next moment, his eyes widened as a new scent struck him suddenly. The smell was Wynter, but it wasn’t one of the vampires who had been following them thus far. It was a new individual who was somewhere up ahead. He swore under his breath and turned to warn Lady Crest that they needed to alter their course to avoid an ambush, but the enemy was faster. Much faster, in fact.

He inhaled sharply as a figure darted out from a nearby alley and dug a set of cat-like nails into the stallion’s neck, tearing clean through its flesh with one sweep. The beast crashed to the ground, and Vail skidded to a stop to avoid tripping over its body. His blood ran cold at the sound of Victoria’s scream, but fortunately, it seemed like she had just been surprised by the attack, not injured. Determined to protect her from the new threat, he rushed to her side and looked over his shoulder with a concerned frown. The vampires who hadn’t been taken down by the Saints were closing in on them quickly. They had to keep moving because he couldn’t take them all on by himself.

When the new arrival spoke up, Vail turned around again. He didn’t care at all what a Wynter thought of him. What caught his attention was the fact that the vampire was able to hold a silver crossbow bolt in his bare hand without cringing. He gawped incredulously at the sight. He’d never met any vampire who could handle the metal so effortlessly, and he couldn’t understand how this man seemed to be impervious to the arrow’s sting. For half a second, he wondered if this Wynter was part human like Victoria’s brother, but that option was ruled out quickly. He didn’t smell at all like a human. The vampire standing before them was a pure-blooded immortal.

He was wrenched from his thoughts when the Wynter spoke of Victoria’s blood. His skin prickled at the tone of the other vampire’s voice, and he narrowed his eyes. If not for Spencer’s presence nearby, he would have lunged at him to keep her safe. However, he couldn’t leave her side and put her at risk of being attacked by someone else while his back was turned.

Unless.

His eyes flicked down to the crossbow in her hands. She had been training since they’d first met, and she was wearing a full suit of silver armor, so perhaps she could handle her ex fiancé while he fended off the ambusher. The Wynter may have been able to tolerate an arrow, but he was feeling good with a fresh dose of Victoria’s blood in his system from that morning. At the very least, he could attempt to keep the other vampire distracted while she made a run for the castle.

“It wasn’t created for you,” he spat, hoping to draw the Wynter’s attention to him. He could smell Victoria’s blood on the rival’s breath, so he was aware that he’d drank some somehow, but the knowledge didn’t deter him. He casted one more furtive glance at the Crest heiress, praying that his hunch had been right and she could hold her own against one vampire without him, before he sprinted at the man he’d targeted.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Cas still thinks Iris is playing an angle to make a fool of him again, but he'll start coming around when he realizes they're actually running from her father

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

For the next few minutes, Cas tried everything he could to slow the bleeding. He pressed his hand down firmly over the wound, cringing at the way his own touch burned his sundered skin, and whispered urgent mantras checkered with swearing when his efforts didn’t work. He had no idea how to make it stop. The viscous stream continued steadily, ebbing and flowing with each beat of his heart. The longer he remained in the rebels’ captivity, the more he had begun to realize how ill-equipped he was to take care of himself without servants and professionals to do most of the work for him. Now that he was alone, he couldn’t rely on anyone but himself, and he was letting himself down royally.

His face contorted with another grimace as the ache in his arm worsened again, and he drew his knees to his chest. By now, his sleeve and the left side of his shirt were stained with blood. He’d gotten some on his jeans too, and even his face when he’d reached up to scratch an itch on his cheek without thinking about the liquid on his hands. It was hard to believe such a small wound could bleed so heavily, but it was pretty deep. He’d taken a closer look at the pocketknife blade and found that it was a little more than five centimeters long. That was more than half the width of his bicep, so the weapon had cut him done to the bone. He shivered apprehensively, despising the mental image that the thought elicited against his will.

Just as he began to give up on taking care of the injury, he stiffened at the sound of the basement door opening. It couldn’t have been a few hours already, could it? He thought he’d only been sitting in his cell for about fifteen minutes. Cautiously, he watched as someone descended the stairs at a hurried pace. For half a second, he thought it was Regis, back to finish him off personally. However, the silhouette in the doorway wasn’t big enough to be a man.

At the sound of Iris’s voice, he blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected her to come back after her father had been so stern with her. He watched ferally as she approached him, still tense with residual energy from his fight with Regis. She behaved like she wasn’t there to follow in her father’s footsteps, but he had learned better than to trust a rebel. With deep bruises covering his body and an open gash in his arm, he wasn’t in any condition to believe anyone in this house was a friend. So, when she asked him to trust her, a quiet scoff slipped from his lips. Trust you? The woman who led me to this shithole in the first place? The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he restrained himself from spitting them at her. He could see that she was carrying something.

When she went on, he took her words in silence and turned them over in his head. He studied the vodka-soaked rag in her hands without touching it and then lifted his gaze to her face. The gesture was benevolent, and he couldn’t hear any deceit or mocking intonations in her voice. Although he was hesitant to believe her after she tricked him in the capital, he had to admit, she really seemed to be here to help him. And what other choice do I have? He admitted to himself. Worst case, she fooled him one more time and led him to his death—which he was already facing either way. Best case, he had one more shot at escaping with his life. He had nothing left to lose.

“Fine,” Cas murmured indifferently, his own voice becoming more blasé as he came to terms with the fact that he no longer had any control over his own life. Even if he pushed past her and made a bolt for the door, she could just tell her father that he was running, and he wouldn’t get very far. There was no point to do anything other than go along with her game, whatever it was, and find out what the outcome would be.

Having made his decision, he rolled his bloodstained sleeve back to give her access to the wound. “Have at it,” he shrugged with his right shoulder, looking off to the side to avoid her gaze.