Chapter Text
A pale crescent moon sheds dim light on Amanda’s cache. Her cache: the weapons, the ammo, the clothes, the food, the water … all of it is hers. Sitting down on the rough stone ground, she begins taking inventory. Pushes a mess of purple hair out of her eyes again. Wishes it was just a little longer. Just long enough to put into a ponytail. Maybe long enough to cover the fresh bandage over her right eye.
She touches each gun, checks each trigger, calculates how many bullets she has — how many shots she could get off before needing to find more, how many bodies she could put on the ground before she had to get out of there. She’s been off-base for recon missions before; she knows she’ll need to get some money as soon as she can. But she has a plan. She always has a plan.
That’s the thing Citizen Dawn doesn’t get about her: she’s smarter than her mother. Taking your strength from the sun means you depend on it. Dawn is no stronger than the weather outside, Amanda tells herself.
Amanda tells herself a lot of things; she makes a lot of plans. It’s the only way to fight back if she stays on Insula Primalis. No, not if she stays. It’s the only way to fight back until she’s gone. Until this place isn’t her home anymore, until Citizen Dawn isn't hurting everyone in it, until it isn’t anything but a bad memory. Her ex-country. Giving her head a little shake to clear it, she returns to counting. Will it be enough? Enough ammo? Enough guns? She knows now that her powers are never coming. No one and nothing will ever save her. Which was fine by her because she’s about to save herself.
Two guns rest on her hip already: Rebel Lock and Rebel Key. As she whips them out, she smiles at the names. It’s just a little joke for herself. She fondles the triggers and tests the recoil as she considers what she is about to do. Lock and Key. They could have been her younger siblings if her mother wasn't so obsessed with wiping out Amanda's weaknesses. Amanda doesn't have any weaknesses. Or, at least, Citizen Dawn will never get to know any of her weaknesses. Citizen Dawn will only get to know her real name after it is too late. The very last word the dictator hears will be "Amanda. I'm Amanda." It's dark thought, and Amanda almost pushes it out of her mind. But she needs that thought. Even The Sun knows she needs something dark to light her way tonight.
Amanda knows a solo rebellion is a suicide mission. Without a story to leave behind, she’ll be a martyr who is forgotten by sunrise. If she doesn’t win this fight, there won’t be another one after it.
She checks the safety on Rebel Key again. Still off. She knows shouldn’t wait another month. She knows already missed the new moon once. There isn’t going to be a next time. She won’t let there be a next time. No one can keep her here. And no one can bring her back. Not this time. Not ever, ever again. She’s accounted for every single detail. In spite of her apparent lack of any valuable skills, any little talent of hers that might make her someone, might make her a person instead of her mother’s fucked up science experiment, a real woman instead of a failed prince — in spite of all that, she’s learned a few tricks in her 18 years of torture in this dinosaur-infested hellscape. She knows her objective, she knows her plan, she knows exactly how do to this.
Any second now, she tells herself. Just start running. Run back towards the gates, back towards the compound, back towards the worse of two evils, back towards the devil you know. Back into your mother’s arms.
Any second now. She’s losing moonlight again. Time is the one thing she can’t afford to waste. Looking down, she notices Rebel Lock shaking in her hand. She can’t have that. This has to be perfect. But then she notices her hands, the little scars on them, the purple hairs standing out against her white skin. Amanda looks down past her flat chest, past the wiry muscles she’s gotten, to the damp floor of this sweltering cave. The muscles themselves look like scars to her. They’re her mother’s muscles, her mother’s DNA, her mother’s training…
She keeps looking down as she starts to cry. As the first tear rolls down her cheek, she realizes she’s failed again. She knows she can’t do it tonight, hell, maybe she can’t do it any night. She’s just too scared. She’s been kidding herself all night long. You can’t fight God. You can’t shoot the sun and expect anything to happen except for your bullets to burn alongside your corpse.
Collapsing to the dirty stone floor, she wraps her arms over knees, makes herself a tiny ball, and begins to weep in earnest. She can’t hear anything over the sound of her own sobs echoing off the walls of her cache, her stockpile. Her safehouse.
The ceiling breaks above her.
The first thing that hit her was the noise — like a stampede of Velociraptors breaking down a barricade. The second thing that hit her was a soft, sweating body. A boy yelled something incoherent as he tried to scramble off her.
Too slow. She flips him over and has him pinned before he has time to react. Rebel Lock was curled against her chest seconds ago. But now? Now it is pressed against his temple. Her finger shakes as it hovers over the trigger. “What is this? How did you find me? What the fuck are you doing here? I don’t give a fucking shit who are. I will kill you right now if you don’t--” She tries desperately to sound like someone who knows what they are doing. Like someone who wasn’t completely broken and curled into the fetal position mere seconds ago.
He just stares at her. And she realizes this is not a face she knows. He’s not a Citizen. He doesn’t look like a poacher either. He looks like … well, right now, he just looks like a lost teenager.
Without moving any of the muscles keeping him pressed to the floor, Amanda pulls the gun away from his head. She hardens her gaze and softens her voice, “Who are you? What— How did you get in here?”
Amanda feels the stranger shaking in fear as he stammers: “My name’s Pete. Uh, nice to meet you; please don’t kill me.”