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“Cassie Meyer.”
“Stunned” wasn’t strong enough a word to describe what Serena Collins felt when she found the only remaining Meyer twin, hiding out in Ben Finnick’s old bunker. She took a hesitant step backwards from Cassie. “Are you… living here?”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed. Judgmentally, she glared at Serena, then replied, “Not for long if all of you Undaunted scum and your alien friends have found me.”
“Oh!” Serena yelped. “No, no no no, I won’t– I won’t tell anyone you’re here…”
With bated breath, Serena awaited Cassie’s response, which happened to be nonverbal. The lone twin stared at Serena, then at her gun… and lowered the rifle.
Serena heaved a sigh of sheer relief, then as she adjusted her stance to approach Cassie and talk more to her, she lurched forward and hit the ground.
“Shit,” she muttered. The bookworm-turned-survivalist tried, shakily, to stand on her feet, but she realized that a mute wolf had injured her. She glanced over at her left leg. Sour yellow hues painted the back of her shin, and the wound was embroidered with dried clots of sickly red and green, like the color of a zombie-vamp’s sallow face. The skin surrounding the injury was swollen as well. Serena could practically feel the wound pulsating in sync with her heartbeat; the uncomfortable sensation elicited a wince from her. Cassie noticed this discomfort and asked, calmly, “Do you need a bandage?”
It was surprising to Serena how Cassie seemed willing to help her, but when she nodded, Cassie replied, “I’m guessing you’ll wanna clean your wound. Antiseptic and cotton balls are up in the big blue cabinet in the infirmary, once you want to get up and walk there. Surely you remember how to navigate this place?”
Her tone was taunting, almost bitter. Serena bit her lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t have expected you to willingly help me, then.”
“What?”
“I thought you might show some compassion and at least help me to my feet if not grab the medical supplies for me,” Serena coolly stated. “I should have known that you would just leave me to fend for myself.”
Cassie’s coffee eyes narrowed. “I told you where I keep the shit you need. I’m being merciful by letting you recover in my bunker… I could always throw you out for those mute wolves. They must be awfully hungry…” Again, her voice harbored an air of knowing yet cruel amusement. When Serena met this remark with a deadpan stare, Cassie grumbled, “Fine, I’ll help you into the infirmary… But after that, I’m going to bed. Don’t try anything.”
“I- I won’t. Don’t worry. I don’t care about the factions or territory or hurting anyone. I just… I just needed… I needed- I think I needed—”
“Needed to get away. A breath of fresh air. Some peace and quiet.” Cassie was calm and aloof as she guessed the end of Serena’s sentence. When Serena raised a brow in surprise, Cassie took it as an affirmative sign, and continued, “I know the feeling. It’s hard. We both lost our moms. Those, God, those damn aliens are just using them as skin, and our families think it’s just fine and dandy even though that’s not my fucking mom…” Cassie trailed off, bitterly sighed, then started up again.
“It’s not fair. They expected me to adjust as easily as everyone else did. They expected me to abandon all thoughts of mourning my sister. They expected me to just— To just carry on? Like nothing happened?” Cassie gritted her teeth. “I’m all alone. I’ve been alone ever since Alice died. I needed to get away. I needed a quiet place. And this is… this is my quiet place.” Cassie turned to Serena. “... How have those creepy ‘Ranger’ fucks been doing, anyway? Our families still trust ‘em?”
Cassie was willingly striking up a conversation with Serena Collins, a sworn enemy of Cassie’s disbanded faction. Alice would be disappointed, Cassie thought for a fleeting moment, but she tried her best to brush it off when Serena opened her mouth, then closed it into a morose frown.
She spoke up while Cassie leaned downward, grabbed her hands, and helped her to her feet. “They keep fighting. My dad, my mom, and the alien sharing my mom’s body. My mom thinks that my dad is cheating since she’s sharing the body with the alien, but Vylla—that’s her name—says that there’s no harm in it. That it’s alright because her connection with Dad isn’t as deep as his bond with Mom. and Dad is just trying to keep one body from getting angry at itself.” A shaky sigh parted Serena’s lips. She continued. “Mabes and Charles are off doing God knows what, and Leo has just been doing dumb engineering stuff on the ship with Evan… And… I’m all alone now.” Then, Serena paused. “In a way, we’re almost similar. We’re both alone now. And like you said yourself, both of us have lost a mother to the virus, and now the… the aliens…”
For a long moment that seemed to drag on for years, Cassie was quiet. She processed Serena’s words. Her brows knitted together in thought.
“Similar,” she echoed.
Never had Cassie looked at it that way. But she could see where Serena was coming from, as disgruntled as she’d be to admit it. As Cassie crossed her arms and dwelled on it for a moment, she absentmindedly mumbled, “I guess.”
Then Serena said one word that Cassie had never, ever expected.
“Truce?”
The young woman looked mildly apprehensive, yet, somehow, held her gaze warmly. She extended a hand for Cassie to shake and patiently waited.
Just before Cassie could move a muscle, she seemed to almost feel a familiar voice in her head, like a wisp of what used to be.
“You can’t seriously be thinking about this,” Alice breathed, “not when her sister killed me. Her father left us to die. Her family is scum, Cass; don’t give her the satisfaction.”
And the silence that followed stretched an eternity. Cassie thought, and she thought for a long time. Her eyes became downcast as she mulled over the decision. It would be beneficial to have an ally in the world. Sure, it was being “repaired”, but there were still factions of cannibals and trigger-happy survivalists and mutes. And all were deadly. If Cassie hadn’t been with the rest of her Resurgent friends, she would have died in less than a month. But she had learned to survive without allies. Not that it was easy, of course, but Cassie knew that nothing in life was easy, especially in a post-apocalyptic world. If Cassie made a friend in Serena, she could have someone to find supplies when she needed to get stocked up again. She could go to Serena if there were ever any problems in her bunker. Besides, Serena was staying with those creepy aliens, and more than likely had plenty of food, water, and shelter. Cassie only needed to offer her bunker as an occasional hideout in return for a valuable asset.
But Alice was right. Serena Collins was the daughter of a cold leader who abandoned his own friends for the sake of his own survival. Furthermore, his oldest child was the one who murdered Cassie’s other half. Because of that damned Mabeline Collins, Cassie was left to wander the desolate world in her own lonesome, and this unfamiliar coldness was agonizing for her to experience every waking moment. Serena called these people her family.
Serena herself has never done anything, though, interjected Cassie through her own ambivalent ponderings. I mean, she even invited us to play Risk, back when the apocalypse first started. It’s not like we weren’t intimidating her, but… it’s not like we threatened or pressured her or anything, right? She was pretty polite to us, actually. She made an effort. Cassie bit her lower lip so hard that her mouth was filled with the metallic, salty taste of blood. Her hands shook with the weight of the decision. She couldn’t judge Serena for the sins of her family.
Cassie winced and squinted her eyes shut before reaching out to shake Serena’s hand, mumbling, “I guess we can be allies. My bunker is available to you, as long as you’ve got my back when I need you. Fair enough?”
“More than fair,” replied Serena with a warm smile. “I’m glad. It’ll be nice to get to know you, instead of our factions trying to, you know, murder each other…” A peal of awkward laughter, clear and cool, escaped Serena’s thin lips. “Anyways. Umm, the medical supplies are still where they always were, right?”
“Hey,” said Cassie with a voice whose calm concealed her strained anxiety. “I’ll help you. Come on, bookworm. We’ve got a leg to patch up.”