The man moved to go further into the pier - alone - and Weave had to tighten her jaw against the surge of anger that Romeo and his crew were going to kill another innocent.
It's not that she liked humans. They were pathetic and weak, and they saw the Roaches only as assets and then threats. Not a single one of those white-coats considered that the subjects they obsessively observed and pushed to limits were living, breathing creatures with thoughts and feelings of their own. Not a single white-coat treated the Roaches with any level of empathy as they were getting used and monitored and played with.
But unlike Romeo, she did not harbor the ideology that because those humans were cruel stains on the earth, all humans deserved their vengeance.
She could still taste the blood of a white-coat spraying onto her face as she sliced a blade along his neck, but her revenge ended there. The ones who had wronged them deserved what came to them, but that didn't mean that there weren't innocent humans out there.
The fire simmered a bit as she remembered a kind wrinkled face with a birthmark on the cheekbone and a few missing teeth in the wide smile. 'Now, now, dear. Y'don't gotta brandish that skewer at little ol' me. Here, darling, you're bleeding. Let's get you cleaned up, now.'
Very quickly, Weave stepped in front of the Exterminator. Perhaps a moment too late, she remembered to look distraught. "Oh, you're going into the shipyard alone?" she asked, feigning worry. "I - I know you're a trained officer or whatever, but at least let me assist you. I don't really want to be here all by myself, anyway."
Because maybe she could at least distract him away from where Romeo had just cornered her, demanding she see reason.
Or maybe she'd have the blood of another dead human on her hands.
"You can call me Weave," she said as she moved beside him and faced the pier.
-
There was a cacophony of horns and shouts through windows as Sasha drove through the streets of the city. She didn't pay them any mind. People could be mad all they wanted, she would go at her own pace, one that she felt comfortable and safe with should something occur.
She wasn't expecting to make a pit stop, but when she saw the shop, she couldn't really help herself. And so she found herself in the driver's seat of her car, knuckles white on the steering wheel, with a rifle tucked below a blanket in the back.
After the interview, she'd reached out to the Exterminators. Offered her help. Offered anything she could.
They laughed.
Her grip grew even tighter as cars soared past her on either side as she coasted a comfortable five miles below the speed limit. She wasn't going to just sit there and let her guardian die in vain. She had to do something. She couldn't go back to her life of smiles and photo shoots and recording studios.
It wasn't hard to hide the rifle under her sweatshirt as she walked through the university campus. She kept her head low and avoided the streetlights because the absolute worst thing that could happen was her being recognized right now. But it was dark and the wind was the only thing keeping her company.
She didn't consider that he wouldn't be there until she saw the door to the building his office was in, but persisted anyway because she didn't mind camping out if he wasn't.
And yet, in the middle of the night, as she located the office he was supposed to be in, she let out a breath of relief at the light filtering through the blinds on the other side of the window.
Mustering up all the courage she could, she raised a shaking hand and knocked. |
