With her armed escort, she headed to her room.  She collapsed gratefully on her bed.

She knew she’d regret it, but she used her power.  She had to know.  It would be one more use, to hold her over, and she would stop using her power for the next few days, at least.  Weeks, if Coil let her.

Know what, exactly? Whether Crawler will come back?

Or maybe, whether she’ll be saved, now that Sundancer brought up that possibility?

She clutched her covers and bit her pillow as her head erupted with pain.  More than half of the groundwork she’d so carefully laid in place over the past hour fell apart as she pulled the scenes into two groups.  Minutes passed before she had her number.

31.6%.

If it’s the latter, which I think it might be, that’s not that bad a chance.

More than four percent higher than it had been yesterday.

Okay, definitely not about Crawler, and this is something she checks repeatedly. I think I was right.

Thirty-one point six percent chance she’d get to go home someday.

Bingo.

She’d have to wait until a period of calm before she made any real headway.  The passage of time would help as well.  Then it wouldn’t be so painful to use her ability.

I thought it was going to get worse?

She got caught up in the painstaking operation, and it was some time before she realized the banging had stopped.  Still, the gathered people in the room waited.  Just in case Crawler was bluffing them, waiting until they opened the door.

That is probably a good call. Especially since he seemed well aware that they were almost certainly in there. Otherwise he probably wouldn’t have banged on this door anywhere near as long.

Long minutes passed before Coil gave the order.

Dinah was blind.  Her power too fragile and painful to use, so she couldn’t see the future that awaited them outside the door.  Her heart pounded in her throat as the door was opened.  The first squads moved out, fanning through the complex to find if Crawler was lurking in some corner of the underground base.

…I think we might not actually get to see Crawler in this chapter.

The mood of this last portion has been very horror-game-esque, and while I’m not big on watching or playing horror stuff, I do know that one of the best ways to maintain scariness for a monster is to not show it until you absolutely have to. Instead, convey its presence with other senses, like sounds, things that don’t allow the audience to become certain of the monster’s form. The uncertainty as to what the monster is like is key.

That’s part of what’s going on with Noelle too, I think, besides her form being saved for a future reveal. For the reader, there’s a degree of uncertainty as to what is happening to her (much like there is for the characters, but the venn diagram between what the characters know and what the readers know is not quite a circle), and it makes it all the more worrying.

They returned and gave the all-clear.

For now. Maybe.

Noelle didn’t reply.  The silence lingered, punctuated by the heavy blows on the metal door, echoing through the concrete chamber.

“Come on, Noelle.  Let’s go back, before you or someone else here does something they’ll regret,” Trickster urged.

Yeah…

The banging continued.

“Come with me, Krouse?  We can talk alone?”

Oh yeah, that was Trickster’s civilian name! I forgot about that.

“That sounds good,” Trickster said.

Dinah felt the tension in the room ease.  The pain in her skull didn’t get any better.  She set about the tedious task of trying to reorganize the images in her head.

Noelle and Trickster talking hopefully helps keep her calm and distracted from the hunger. As long as it doesn’t lead to her eating Trickster, that’s a good thing.

Meanwhile, Dinah’s still trying to use her power even after everything she’s just been through.

Building a house of cards in an unpredictable wind.  Every time the numbers changed, what she’d started to sort out fell apart.

And considering they seem to change as every moment passes, that house of cards is doomed.

“No.”

“And these guys, as good as they are, I can’t be positive that one of them won’t shoot you in a moment of panic.  We don’t want that either.”

Yeah, probably not, though I do suspect it might prevent trouble down the line.

“I’d live.  Don’t want to, but I’d live.”

“You would.  But would I?  Would Oliver and Marissa, if you went berserk?  They’re in here too.”

Marissa is a nice name for Sundancer. I like it. 🙂

Sundancer spoke up, calling out, “Remember the promise we made together.”

Whatever happens, you stick together?

Noelle sounded like someone who was very, very tired.  “Can’t wait.  Can’t wait at all these days.  I can smell them.”

Wait for what? Food?

She wants food as badly as I want my ‘candy‘, Dinah thought.  The difference is that she can and will take what she wants, even if it means eating one of us.  I don’t have that power.

Hm, yeah, seems like and apt comparison.

God, her head hurt.  Worse, she knew this was the calm before the storm.  Her head would hurt more with every passing hour until she wanted to die.

Nothing quite like feeling shitty and being fully aware that it’s going to get worse.

“You can hold on,” Trickster said, his voice gentle.  “You don’t want to come any closer than that.  You know what your power does.  None of us want that.”

What does it do?

By the sound of it, it’s something unusual, considering it’s something that could harm Crawler, but not something that would kill him (but probably would kill a mundane).

A series of hits collided with the metal door.  A roar rattled through the air, painfully loud despite the muffling effect of the intervening wall.  It was a roar heavy with frustration and anger.

“Hey, guys, let me in! Come on, it’s boring out here!”

I wonder how strong he really is, offensively. His power seems primarily defensive, even if the parts that grow back get “stronger”.

There was the sound of guns cocking.  She almost missed it in the midst of the steady, relentless crashes that came from the metal door.

What do you see, soldiers? Noelle making a move?

“I’m so hungry,” a girl’s voice echoed through the chamber.  She’s close.

This whole scenario seems right out of a horror game.

“I know, Noelle,” Trickster answered.  “Just a little while.  Let’s go back to the other side, away from these people.”

Yes, that would be nice.

I like how gentle he seems when dealing with Noelle.

Then a massive impact against the vault door made the room shudder.

I told you he’d come here…

Is the vault door strong enough to withstand his attacks?

Sundancer kept talking, as if oblivious to the ongoing attack.  “When you’ve been through hell and back again with a group of people, when you’ve all lost everything, and you collectively stand to lose more?  I- I don’t even know what I’m saying.  Maybe there’s no justification for letting you go through what you are.  I just… they’re all I’ve got.  I’m sorry.”

I see, so it’s a loyalty thing. She can’t do anything because she risks having to cut ties with the Travelers, and they’ve gone through so much together that she really doesn’t want that to happen.

That explains why she sticks with them despite the problems she was talking about in Hive, too.

Dinah reached up and fumbled around until she found Sundancer’s hand.  She didn’t have a response, couldn’t speak if she’d been able to think of what to say.  She just held the hand tight.

This is nice.

“I’m sorry,” A girl’s voice whispered in Dinah’s ear.  Sundancer?

I would guess so.

Dinah tried to answer, but her voice came out in a croak.

“I’d help you if I could, but I can’t, you understand?” Sundancer whispered to her.  She had her arms around Dinah.

Hmm. I wonder what would happen if Taylor and Sundancer had a talk about Dinah. Sundancer is resigned to the idea that while what Coil is doing to Dinah is horrible and she wants to stop it, she just can’t. Meanwhile, Taylor is doing her best – sometimes a little too much – to do just that, even though she doesn’t have much greater chances than Sundancer as far as I’m aware.

She smelled like barf, but that was Dinah’s fault.  “It’s not just that my friends and I are in a bad spot, or having to help Noelle, or even that I don’t think I could save you on my own…  We made a promise to each other, when everything began.  Fuck, it sounds so stupid, sounds so lame, when I say it like that.”

…oh?

Does this also have something to do with the internal issues in the Travelers that you were talking about in Hive?

There was a crash nearby, the sound of metal on metal.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Do it,” Coil ordered.  He strode over to one of his squad captains and spoke in the man’s ear.  Dinah thought she might have overheard something about night vision goggles.

Ah, that makes sense. They’ll still be able to tell if Noelle fails to keep the killer instinct in check.

She closed her eyes, as if it could help shut out the pain that continued to tear through her skull.

The pink of the light shining through her eyelids turned to black as the lights went out.

And we’ve officially reached the future. Dark, cramped, and smelling of meat and soon sweat.