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Fuck.
They really need to be more careful.
Gally can feel his missing lung, the way he struggles to get enough oxygen while running. Maddie keeps on giving him concerned looks over her shoulder. She’s a fast little bugger, lost of practice from running from monsters. Or so she says at least.
‘I look like the tastiest bloody demigod-nugget any moster’s ever seen, Gal’ she told him once. In her defense she was kinda drunk. Drinking age isn’t most people's biggest concern in the middle of an apocalypse. Gally still tries to keep her away from it.
They were scouting for more weapons, a few days walk away from the Right Arm compound when they had heard the unmistakable sound of WICKD drones. The sound of bullets hitting the ground around them came much too soon after, at least for Gally’s liking. And to think this was going to be a simple mission. He really needed to start listening to Maddie when she told him not to jinx it.
Sprinting over the broken pavement, his shoe caches on something and the hot cement (or what's left of it anyway) knocks the air out of his lung. Unable to breathe, he lays there for a moment before he gets a face full of wild blonde hair and hands pulling him up.
‘Come on Gal, that's it. Don’t think. Just go, don’t stop!. Come on!!!’
Gally can hear the worry in her voice, the desperation as she helps him to his feet and they take off again. He thinks a bullet might nick his arm, but the fingers intertwined with his don’t let him stop.
‘Just a little further, we can make it’ The determination in her voice gives him the energy to move just a little bit faster, before he’s pulled into an old subway entrance.
The old station smells of decaying bodies, the few lights still there are spars and flickering. Their footsteps ecco of the walls, only getting louder when the WICKED people follow them down.
‘Maddie?...’
‘I know, believe me I know. Almost there’
They speed up a bit, ragged breaths making Gally think it's a miracle they aren’t caught yet. He stops dead in his tracks when they reach a body of water. From what he’s heard, it's probably left over from the solar flares. Gally hates water, the feeling of drowning, pounding desperately at the glass before the world goes black is something he’s not going to forget anytime soon.
Maddie knows this better than anyone. Yet, he still follows her, the water soaking his shoes and jeans, panic slowly creeping up and settling in his chest.
Maddie is in to her shoulders, still pulling him deeper before she turns to him.
‘Do you trust me?’
Gally huffs a slightly panicked sound, WICKD getting closer every moment they waste.
‘You really need to ask?’
She pulls him closer, eyes searching for something Gally can’t grasp.
WICKD is right around the corner, the shouts making both the teenagers turn their heads.
‘Stay completely still’
That's the last thing he hears before his best friend shoves his head under the grimy water, hand clamped over his mouth to keep him quiet.
The shock of the water stops him from fighting back immediately.
It’s an icy lukewarm temperature, the inability to breathe sending him right back to the moment in the labs. Panic seeps into every part of his body, paralyzing him like the snake hair lady Maddie likes telling him about. Gally thinks her name might be Medusa.
He’s getting incredibly light headed from lack of oxygen at this point. Right before he blacks out he’s pulled up and out of the water.
They’re both gulping down air, hair and clothes soaking wet. Maddie looks down when something seemingly bumps into her leg, wrinkling her nose when she discovers its a half rotten skull.
‘Eww, let's get out of here, yeah?’ She starts making her way out of the water, looking at him over her shoulder when he doesn't follow.
‘You planned this, didn’t you?’ Gally’s voice is rough and raspy from silently screaming, shaking slightly from being forced into water.
‘Talent of an overthinker, I always have a plan’ She shrugged her shoulders like everyone spends half the night awake, planning escapes from evil scientists just in case.
He follows her out of that shuck awful water, muttering curses under his breath all the while. WICKD seemed to have moved on, assuming them dead bodies floating around.
While Gally certainly didn’t enjoy it, he had to admit it was annoyingly smart.
They stumble out of the Subway exit again, this time checking every corner for both soldiers and drones. They end up finding an abandoned apartment, or what's left of one to stay in for the night. While eating Maddie startles him by speaking for the first time in a while, which is unusual for her, being the chatterbox she is.
‘I'm sorry, you know’ She’s looking out onto the abandoned city below them, crank screeches piercing the deafening silence.
His confusion must have shown because she huffed a laugh before elaborating.
‘For shoving your head under water dumbass’ Her expression is neutral, but gally has known her long enough to look for her emotions elsewhere, the guilt in her eyes, the anxious tapping of her fingers against his leg.
‘You don’t seem very sorry shank’ He leans over while saying this, ruffling her still damp hair to show her she’s god. He’s never been good with words, but they work, the two of them.
She stops him from pulling his arm away again, eyebrows furrowing when she sees the graze from the bullet. After sending him an accusing look, she starts getting out the bandages. Once his arms mummified they sit quietly side by side until Gally hears low snoring next to him, and sure enough, with her head on his shoulder Maddie is fast asleep.
That night Gally thanks the stars he met the closest thing he has to a sister.