Bunker aftermath

“I don’t know, Rook, maybe Jacob was right-”

“What?” Cabe stops in his tracks; as eager as he is to be gone from this place he isn’t completely sure what he’s hearing.

Staci, though confident in what he is saying, slows too. “It was you,” The cut on the inside of his mouth blossoms with blood, still fresh and he spits off to the side before continuing. “All that time up in that Center- the Bunker; everything I’ve seen and everyone that I- we’ve lost and this whole time,” He looks as though he is verging on the precipice of either madness or supreme scientific discovery, “It was you.”

“I don’t like this,” Cabe isn’t sure where Staci is going with this, but it feels wholly and intensely bad - after everything that’s happened he is more than anxious, “Stop it Staci.”

“Don’t you understand?” Staci is nearly raving like he had been back in the bunker about weakness and purpose, grabbing to take Cabe’s hands up into his own, “It was only ever you that could have saved us.” 

Nerves running on overdrive the rookie deputy barely manages the others' name, interjections falling out unabashedly, “Staci- no, I mean: what?”

Staci takes a step closer, squared boot tips scuffing opposing rounded ones, “You saved me.”

As the sun dips over the horizon the McKinley Dam facilities blaze in the distance, fizzling out in popping explosions and brilliant, fiery reds. A set of chapped, bloodied lips press against his own, sunset washed shadows melding as one.