Jena turned back to the group, motioning them outside, telling them it was safe. Then her eyes fixed on Anna. She looked stoic like she always did when she didn't want anyone to know her feelings. But still something seemed off about her, and there was a small bit of blood on the side of her mouth. Jena waited for the rest of the group to pass her before walking over to Anna and gently placing an arm around her shoulder. "Anna," she muttered, "are you ok?"
Everything seemed to be going well. Reese and Stewart seemed to be on good terms, for now, at least, and the others were all acting civilized; however, when Jena stopped to talk to Anna, Keira stayed behind with the two. Us girls have to stick together, after all, she thought with a slight smile, but that smile quickly disappeared when she got a good look at Anna's condition. "Are you alright?" she repeated Jena's question, concerned.
"Don't touch me!" Anna snarled, pulling away. For a moment she looked at Jena's face and saw first the leering laughter of her brother as he hurt her again, then she saw the first person she had ever trusted, the one who had in turn married her and then broken her heart. She backed away from Jena, knowing full well what she was seeing wasn't real, but all the same it stung. Her fingers reached for her belt, unhooking her pistol holster with years of practice. With tender love she carressed the handle of her gun; it was all she could do not to pull it out and shoot herself. One bullet through the head and it would all be over...
Reese stared at Anna. He sighed deeply. "Anna I think it's best you calm down and rest," Reese said, "Either that or I can make a leash out our belts and make you guys adult size kid leashes."
Jena took a careful step back. Something was wrong, something was most definately wrong. But it was inside of Anna it was some personal demon. Jena watched Anna take out her gun and in an instant had a horrifying idea of what Anna was thinking. "Anna," her voice was still quiet, "Anna, put the gun back please. Look don't do something stupid ok? We all have demons in our past, and all of us here seem to have really bad ones. But you can get past them, commiting suicide won't help. Look just like with Stewart, you have friends here that will help you. Please Anna."
"Listen to her, Anna," Keira said, fearing the worst. "Listen to Jena. She knows what she's talking about. This is no way to behave. We've gone too far to give up now. Is that what you really want? To go so far and give up in the end? I won't allow it." She wasn't going to let her friend do something stupid. It wasn't going to happen.
"Try to stop me," Anna whispered icily, drawing the gun and pointing it at Keira. "Take one step and I swear to God I will." At Reese's comment about the "leashes" her head snapped towards him, the blood dripping unrestrained from her lip. There had been a time... that... She fought the urge to turn and shoot him for that. He didn't know. How could he?
"Anna! I don't know what happened to you or who has hurt you, but I do know that when you keep it all in it never solves anything it just gets worse. You've finally snapped, I know, I already did. But there was someone there to help me, and him being there made me realize that you can let someone help you. That's all we're offering. We're here now, and we cna help you. Please, think of what you're saying, and doing. We're your friends, we only want to help."
"Who?" Anna glanced at Jena, her fingers biting into the grip of her gun. "Everyone. I have never met anyone who didn't."
"Us, Anna; Keira, me. We are your friends, we want to help you. You can't keep going through your life without trusting anybody ever. It's not possible. Sooner or later you'll have someone. Right now, that's us."
Reese stepped forward and stared at Anna with a dark look. "Point that gun at me and only me, not Keira nor Jena nor Vic," Reese paused, "You can't give Stewart a speech about not hurting himself and the people around him being his friends when you aren't going to take your own advice...drop the gun on the floor if you truly believe in what you told him; don't drop the gun and shoot me now to show me you don't truly believe in what you told him....you only have those two options at this moment.
Jena stared at Reese, being nice was one thing, but when had he become superhero guy? In all her time working under him, and in this deadly race to get home she had never known him to step infront of someone and try to protect him. She had never known him to put his life second, he really must have sustained some kind of blow to the head...But that didn't matter right now, Anna did. "Anna, please. Listen to Reese, put the gun down."
No, Anna thought. Jena and Keira, and no one else, they were not her friends. She had trusted someone, and he had betrayed her. As hard as she had tried, she had put all her faith in him after everything that had ever happened to her, and he had broken her heart, and her trust. She really didn't want to put the gun down; she really wanted to shoot herself. Maybe she had been lying to Stewart, she didn't care. He had lied to her, too. He had lost it and betrayed her. Why should she carry on? It would have been easier to drop the gun, but instead she forced herself to put it back in the holster, her eyes somehow blank and defiant at the same time. Still she said nothing.
Jena coulds see that Anna still didn't trust any of them, but she put the gun away. She couldn't exactly fault the girl, after all as much as she wanted too she still couldn't bring herself to completely trust Vic. She was too afraid of Vic doing the same thing as Marcus. But she had gotten better, and it was her turn to try and help someone else. She took a careful step closer. "Anna, look I understand what you're feeling to some degree. I gave my heart to someone and he broke it, he destroyed it. Even now I still can't totally trust people. But not everyone is like that, you have to believe me. I'm not asking you to tell me things, you don't want to tell anybody, I know; I get it. But you have to believe me, not everyone will hurt you; and even if you don't want us, we are here for you and we do want to help you."
Reese stared at Anna and shook his head. "I thought you were much stronger then that Anna," Reese paused, "You should see that we should be trusted because we all may have one thing in common we were the very few who suffered the neglected and abusive touch of someone who was to care and love for us....and if you can't see that and if you dare come over and shoot yourself, I'll have you know you won't be able to shoot yourself, cause I'll take that gun from you."
Anna didn't like Reese's threat, but she didn't let anyone see it. Her hand instinctively fluttered to the knife she kept strapped to her leg, wondering how satisfying it might be to witness blood fly. She didn't even want to try anymore; pushing the thoughts away was such a hassle. Besides, what was the harm in thinking them...? She wiped the glare from her face, replacing it once more with that blank mask she wore so well. No one would know what she thought. Not now, not ever.
Jena gave Anna a sad look. Nothing was getting through to her right now...nothing. And there wasn't anything any of them could do about it. Slowly she turned away and faced Reese. It really was about time they left. "Come on, lets go find a place to rest. We all need it after what's happened, we can find a way out tomorrow. Let's go." And, still holding her gun at her side, she stepped out into the empty corridor and started walking forward. If only Anna would realize that they really did have her best interests at heart...if only she would realize. Jena hoped that would be soon.
Donovan steped up to Anna. "Look I have been hurt to, I understand your pain. The entire time we have been here have I tried to hurt you? Please put the gun down and listen to us. We are here to help you" Donovan grabbed the barrel of the gun hoping anna will let it go
"This is rescue ship, Seven, eighty, two, we are coming down for a landing," said the pilot of the plane. As he began to enter the atmosphere with his ship, something he noticed on the barren land shifted. Large tentacles came from the ground and grabbed the ship and snapped it in half. As bodies fell the tentacles grabbed the falling bodies ripping people into two halves. Gizzards and guts spilled out. As a secondary spaceship saw what was going as they entered the atmosphere. They tried to lean right, but lost sudden control. And went pelting towards a rough land. The ship glided and slid into the so close facility towers. The facility shook and the crash would surely be heard by someone. But the discovery would not. * * * Reese stared at Jena. The facility only trembled a bit something must have happened to the other side. "No," Reese paused, "Every time we go f@#king insane in the membrane we always have to rest, we can't afford more loss we can't afford more danger to come...we need to move somewhere safe, I do not want to forfeit our lives when safety is only a few steps away."
Jena looked at Reese. "That's pretty much what I was saying." There was a slightly cold edge to her voice, she may like the new Reese, but that was limited, "I don't know how far the ships are. If we cna get there soon, fine, let's go. But I want to move now!"
"Fine, start moving," Reese said. Reese began to walk out of the room, they needed to get to the control center of the underground facility. Then they could release the switch to get to the airport, then they could just get the f@#k out of here. He was tired and sick of how desolate this placed looked like. How desolate the bottom of his soul felt? How much gloom could one feel without falling and collapsing? How much more could they take before going over the edge?
Jena followed Reese out of the room, checking that the other's were behind her. "He's back" she muttered under her breath. And it was true, some of the old Reese was deinfately showing through the new facade. But as she contined to follow him she noticed a slump in his shoulder....could Reese Maris actually be sad...or afraid? A sudden and surprising bout of compassion and empathy made her reach out and touch his shoulder. "Hey, Reese, we're going to get out of here."
Reese stared at Jena. "I hope that option is true, and we all get out of here," Reese said, "i don't want to lose more people, I don't want to lose people I ca...I just don't want to lose any more lives." Was he actually going to say care about? That felt like an odd thing for him to say, he even felt odd almost about to spill it out there like that. Jena couldn't see him fall apart. Only Keira was allowed that privilege,no one else should seem him fall apart. He was suppose to be the fearless leader.
Jena looked him straight in the eye. "No one wants to lose more lives, all of us or going to work our damn hardest to reach home safely, you can be sure of that. We've all come to far as a group now to back away from each other, by now we're all in it together. That gives us a better chance. You have to believe we'll make it. Because we will."
For a second Anna wanted to surrender to Donovan. Of all the group he had always struck her as the closest to her own life. He was the one she thought would be easiest to trust. But she didn't want to trust; not right now. It didn't matter if Stewart was possessed, alien, split-personality, or otherwise. He had betrayed her just as everyone else had. It was him she had thrown her all into over the past few years. She had let her guard down far enough to become good friends with him, but nothing more. He didn't know her, and apparently she hadn't known him, either. Yet it was the last straw. She couldn't take anymore. Everyone had betrayed her; she wasn't ready to take anymore of a beating. As hard as she tried to hide the pain behind her mask, she was afraid Donovan might see the sadness in her eyes as she pulled away, trying to stay strong as she followed Reese and Jena, her expression as blank as ever.
