Chapter Twenty-One.

She woke up later in the dark on a cold dirty stone floor. The only light was from the gap beneath the door, one that locked from the outside. Her entire body hurt, as though she had been beaten while unconscious.

Her weapons were gone. She had been stripped and redressed in a cloth sack with holes cut for the head and arms. After a brief exploration of her cell, she determined she had been locked in a supply closet.

After hours of sitting in the dark thinking about what they would do with her, the door opened. Two men she didn't recognize flanked one she did, MacCready. He was carrying a length of rope and a policeman's nightstick. The two men next to him were armed with machine pistols.

"If you give me any trouble, you're dead," MacCready said. "You're dead anyway, but if you fight now I get to do it myself."

He waited, seemingly hoping she would attack him so he could be the one to kill her. She looked into his face and saw a familiar coldness there. It shined through the dirt and blood like the first stars that came out in the evening, and while it meant the end of her, it was strangely comforting. It meant he would do what had to be done for the good of everyone else, including her.

She stood up and smiled as he braced himself. "Do whatever you want, asshole," she said. "You always do." There was not hostility in her voice, just the tone of casual observation. "So how's it going to be, firing squad, hanging?"

"Dinner," MacCready said, and seeing the face she made added "Ew, no. We're not eating you. I'd eat shit first. You're getting fed to the radscorpions."

"How long will the hive last with the queen dead?" Princess asked.

MacCready laughed. "Lesko says they'll single out the biggest one and start feedin' it until it gets bigger and starts laying eggs. They've already carved up the queen and that fucking mutant you brought over, but they'll need all the food they can get so you're on the menu, bitch."

"Fine," she said, holding her hands in front of her. "Let's get it over with."

He tied her wrists, leaving a length to lead her by. She followed him up a flight of creaking wooden stairs and out into Big Town's main street. The entire town had come out, forming a pathway up to the radscorpion's nest where MacCready led her.

The people were loud before getting to the nest, shouting jeers and insults. Most of the people, Princess surmised, didn't know her personally, but a few did. She recognized them not so much from their voices but from the nature of the insults tossed, references to old wrongs and personal observations likely made safely behind her back up until now.

She was led to the mouth of the nest, which sloped down at a steep angle into darkness beneath a pile of ruined cars and scavenged junk. The sound of the radscorpions' movements could be heard and she thought she could see them moving.

"They haven't left the nest because we've been bringing them food," MacCready said. "So they're all down there waiting for you."

She stood there with her hands tied, waiting to be shoved forward, but nothing happened. "Am I supposed to walk down there or something?" Princess said. "Because that's stupid."

He shoved her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach. "Stupid? What's stupid is you acting like you own the place," he said, rolling her over with his boot and straddling her. "What's stupid is you thinking you're any kind of a leader."

She felt his fist crash into her jaw, then the rest of her face. As he beat her, she couldn't help but wonder if he was hitting her as hard as he could. Likely he wanted her conscious for when the radscorpions came to finish her.

He stood and picked her up by the front of her makeshift dress. She felt him slip something made of glass down her shirt, then punch it, causing it to break. "There's a tunnel way in the back. Go through it," he whispered, and shoved her hard down the steep dip of the tunnel.

She rolled down the hill to the sound of cheers, feeling confusion and pain in her chest from where the broken glass was digging into her. She was covered in darkness when she bumped against the first radscorpion. It scuttled over her, but didn't pinch or sting and neither did the others.

Hands still tied, she got up and stumbled through the dark, cutting her bare feet on the sharp rocks of the cave floor and bumping into walls as well as tripping over radscorpions.

The nest became hot as she went deeper and a sheen of sweat broke out over her skin, mixing with the dirt and blood. The sour smell of the radscorpions mixed with the stink of rot from the corpses they were eating made her want to vomit, but there was nothing in her stomach to throw up.

Princess walked as far as she could before bumping into a wall. She sat down and tried to take deep breaths of the thick, rank air and let the buzzing in her head subside. Lack of food, the sedative, and the beating she had taken now weighed on her and later she would think she had fallen asleep at some point, but it was hard to tell without light.

When she felt better she began to move again, keeping close to the wall and looking for the tunnel MacCready told her about. She had time to think. What was his game? Was he really trying to save her or just prolong her misery? He could be sneaky, but letting her wander around in the nest looking for a tunnel that didn't exist all while thinking he cared for her until the pheromone wore off didn't sound like something he would do.

Then again, letting her get away didn't sound like him either.

The tunnel ended up being a few inches wider than her shoulders. By the time she found it, the radscorpions were acting aggressive and she was glad only the smallest of them would have been able to get through the tunnel with some effort. She guessed the tunnel might be for ventilation, as there was a warm breeze drifting down it. She earned herself more scrapes and bruises going through and had never been so glad to feel the night air of the wasteland on her skin when she finally reached the surface.

The lights of Bug Town were behind her a good distance, and looking at it she realized MacCready's game. Dressed in a bag alone in the wasteland, she wouldn't last long and her end would likely be slower than being torn apart and eaten by a nest of ravenous radscorpions.

"Thought you'd died down there," said MacCready from behind her. She spun around and caught sight of him. No longer dressed in power armor, he looked more like himself. He was carrying a bundle under his arm that looked like her gear.

"Was that the plan?" she asked, knowing it wasn't. "What the hell are you doing?"

He threw the bundle at her feet and turned around as she got dressed. She noted he had separated her bullets from her guns and turned around to face her when she started to reload. "I'm giving you a second chance, one you don't fucking deserve."

"Gee, thanks," she said. "Big fuckin' deal. This entire world is a shit hole."

"Some places are less shitty than others, like Bug Town," he said. "The radscorpions protect us from raiders and mutants and that gives us time to make things semi-fucking decent. But you couldn't fucking appreciate that, so fuck you."

Her throat began to close up and it felt like there was a fire behind her eyes. "Fuck you, MacCready," she said. "Just…fuck you."

"Why?"

"What?"

"I asked why. Why do you fucking hate me? Okay, I slugged you that one time when you wanted to be the princess of Little Lamplight. I'm fucking sorry. You hear me? I'm sorry I fucking broke your damn nose and became mayor. We don't live there anymore, we live her. It's a big fucking town and you didn't have to deal with me if you didn't want to. Hell, you could've left and come around to visit when you felt like. But no, you had to be a bitch when you got into town and then you had to bring that fucking mutant around along with those two slaver assholes. What the hell is your problem?"

"I love you." The words had come out of her mouth like flatulence, the kind where the mind wasn't paying attention and let the body act unsupervised. As soon as they were out, the urge to claw them back in from the air with her hands hit her and she covered her mouth.

MacCready said nothing. In the dim light, she could see his mouth hanging open. "You what?"

To hell with it, she thought. She had been ready to die several times in the past few weeks, what was this by comparison? "I love you," she said. "I used to have a crush on you, but then you hit me and took over and I thought I hated you. I did hate you. I love you, too, and that doesn't make any sense."

"No, it doesn't," he said. "Nothing about you makes and fucking sense."

"I know."

They were silent again, then MacCready spoke. "Alright, so you love me. I don't have time for that shit. Running Bug Town isn't like Little Lamplight, it's in the open and we got new people coming and going all the time. I don't have a girlfriend and I don't want one, least of all a crazy bitch like you."

The fire behind her eyes was dimming, and the tears she felt were slowly drawing off. She wiped the ones from her face, shook her head and rolled her shoulders. "Why the second chance?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe it's because you're from Little Lamplight and did a good job guarding the back gate. It pisses me off when Little Lamplighters get their shit killed, even if they have turned into mungos."

"Do you hate me?" she asked.

"I hate most people," he said. "You're in the top three, right behind that fucker Eulogy Jones and whoever runs that fuckin' Enclave. President Eden, or whatever his fuckin' name is."

"You can add a man named Littlehorn to that list," she said. "He lives up in the scrap yard. He's the one who hooked me up with those two freaks and armored up the mutant. He wants this town flattened."

"Well shit, thanks, Princess," MacCready said. "I guess if you bring me the fucker's head you can live in Bug Town with us."

"Really?"

"No. I might be the mayor, but when I say fuckin' jump people don't ask me how high like they did in Lamplight. They'd rip you apart regardless of what I said or what you did. They'd probably fuck me up for helping you like I'm doing, so maybe you could show your love for me and not be seen around her for a long time. Like, ever again."

She nodded. "Okay. I guess I'll go to Rivet City."

"No, we see a lot of people coming and going from there. On the other side of the river, a little south of the memorial, there's a guy who gives boat rides to a place called Point Something or some fuckin' shit. I heard it's a good place to make a living for people who've got the hair, and you did manage to capture a giant fucking mutie and ride the fuckin' thing, so…"

"Thanks," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I guess I'll go. Just one thing."

"What?"

She swung and imagined her fist going through the back of his head as it connected with his chin. It was like she was riding a Jet high, and could see everything in slow motion. The ripples on his skin from her fist, his eyes rolling back into his head as his head snapped back and he toppled backwards.

Before he could get to his feet, she jumped on him and pinned his shoulders to the ground. As his eyes swam from confusion to anger, she made her final move and planted a wet kiss on his dusty lips.

"Good bye," she said, getting off him and jogging west towards the river, hopefully getting out of rifle range before MacCready could gather his wits.

The End.