Sierra

Chapter 7

So far she had offered to try and get them out alive, and it.. No, he, had offered, that she wouldn't end up with a death sentence. Actually, that was the last thing she wanted. Dying would be better than life sentence in City Central Prison.

She told it as much and it-he, only turned away and went back to pacing the floor. Pacing... She would have considered that a human tick and she wondered if it actually helped him think, or if he just mirrored what he had seen humans do. Shadows cast against the wall from where he passed back and forth in front of her flash light. 

Sierra sighed and leaned back against the metal mold they had camped in front of for the time being. He turned back, his mouth opening as he looked at her again. Then his mouth shut and he turned away again. It was weird regarding "it" as a he and she hadn't quite decided what she preferred yet. It certainly looked human. It was male, with short, military style hair, brownish... He paced in front of the light again. Brownish blond hair. It was tall, but not taller than average, and just dark enough to be racially ambiguous, not leaning too hard into any one race to be pinpointed. She thought he looked perfectly average in every way, probably on purpose.

She didn't like psychology tricks being played on her though. He could look human and act human, well semi-human, but he was anything but. 

"How is your arm?" Sierra asked.

"What?" He turned back to her.

"Your arm,"

"You broke it,"

"Yeah but does it hurt?"

"No, it doesn't hurt." He went back to pacing, "What about if I do my best to get a reduced sentence."

"You do your best for a reduced sentence? What's that, 30 years instead of life? No, I'll starve to death down here first."

"You'd rather down die here than go to prison?"

Sierra hesitated and looked away. She had to play it careful. No, she didn't want to die down here, but she didn't want to give him the excuse to start interrogating her with his stun gun. Her excuse about being lost wasn't going to hold up forever. She glanced over at him again as he lifted his arm and looked at his forearm again. Why he hadn't already started interrogating her, she didn't know, and she wasn't about to ask.

Then again, she knew it didn't matter what he did to her, it would never be as bad as what they would do to her once he got her to Central. They would want to know information, even if she didn't have it.

"What about you?" she asked, avoiding the question.

"What about me?"

"Are you willing to die down here?"

He stared at her and then looked down at his arm again, not answering the question. His arm slid against his side, covering the panel in his arm with his shirt His eyes shifted to the wall in the distance and Sierra turned her head to look behind her.

"I can't die," he said as he stepped forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her from the ground.

"Where are we going?" Sierra asked, "I thought you were lost." She leaned down to grab the flashlight and pointed it at the tunnel doorway across from them. The symbol above the hallway lit up. Scavenger symbol. A curve with an X inside, in a circle. Storeroom. All of the runners had the scavenger symbols memorized, so they knew to stay the hell away from them.

"If you wont tell me the way out, I'll find it myself." He pushed her in the direction of the door but Sierra dug her heels in, pulling back.

"We can't go that way."