Chapter 22 - In Which All Men Are Equal

Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!

Lozen smacked the butt of her gun against the wood constructing the manors service tunnels and heard them reverberate throughout the walls, but still nothing replied to them.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

She struck the wood again before spinning her weapon back around and sticking it into the back of her human shield, hoping that was enough to get the creature's attention. Finch must have know what she was doing, but her entire body had started to shake like it was trying to fling off it's skin and her hands were squeezing the arm Lozen had wrapped around her neck. She may not have talked, but there were a few whimpers that tumbled out of her every once in a while that Lozen assumes we're some sort of emotion ploy. Finch had to be planning something, a mod if escape or a what of convincing her to let the former patron go. Not cowering in her arms and waiting for the inevitable.

However, after a long while, Alberta managed to blurt out in a voice that was struggling to maintain it's composure "You know, I can be much more useful to you alive. You don't know where Isacriot is, right? He's always scurrying around the outback and-"

Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!

Lozen kept her ears peeled, hoping to hear the sound of footsteps come bounding out from any part of the manor. "Why don't you use one of those people from that basement?! It'll respond to them better and-" Alberta started right before Lozen raised her gun right next to her ear and fired a single shot. Finch let out a yelp as the gunshot shatter led her eardrums and cut off that damn question. Lozen didn't need to hear it from someone like her. She didn't even need it repeated at all.

Over and over she was worried about having to hear this pathetic excuse for a living creature question her actions when she had already done enough of that. She thought about it more times then she would have liked, but those eyes back in the basement, the way they had looked out at her with that dead, hollow gaze, they brought back too many memories. The thought of having someone so familiar lying limp in her grasp, waiting to be killed like a lamp to the slaughter, wasn't one she wanted to make come true. She didn't know if she'd be able to handle that again and knew less about what she would do if it came to that. When it came to this creature, she had to be at the top of her game and all she needed was one, clean shot.

"Look, I'm sorry that he did all that! I didn't know he was that desperate for help, but it should have never happened! Your people have already suffered enough and they deserve-" Alberta tried saying again and the second Lozen heard her start talking about "suffering" she fired another shot right next to her head. "I swear, if I have to hear another person talking about my suffering, I will bury you under this manor and burn it down! Is that clear!?" Lozen found herself crying out as a pure reaction to which Alberta replied in a panicking voice "Sorry! Sorry! I'm sorry. I know-"

"No you don't. You really, fucking don't. So don't say you do or else the next one will do through your ear!"

"Alright! Alright! I'm sorry! I don't know! I really don't! But I can help! That's what you want, right!? I have a very large sum of money and even have access to Cane's!! I can use all of that to help you, your tribe, even the people back there!"

"Like in the train?"

Alberta fell silent after that and even stopped her struggling, finally letting silence consume the corridor again.

They hadn't gone very far into the manor caverns. There was a tunnel connecting the slaves holding room and the manor, the entrance to which appeared to be the sets of stairs she had seen next to the exit that stepped out onto the grass. However, they didn't start down through the tunnels again and stayed right at the junction connecting to the outside, waiting for something to come crawling their way. It was better than just stumbling through an expanse that was easily a mile long. She had open views of every tunnel in front of her and was waiting for a blue to be cast across the walls before her. It wasn't the best plan, but it was the best one she could think of.

And one that seemed to be working, against her expectations. Though, instead of seeing anything, she instead heard a voice come echoing through the corridors, infected with a strange, yet familiar accent "Are you the one from before? The one who stopped me from ending that colonizer's life." They were speaking Iroquois. Unsurprising, but a little difficult to translate through the echoing and impossible to tell where it was coming from. "And who are you?" She called out through the corridors, hoping to kept him talking to try and find out where he was coming from. "Did none of the people you talked to tell you?"

"No, but I know what you are and I know how to deal with creatures like you."

"Is that so? Would you care to tell me?"

"Why don't you come out here and we can talk like adults?"

Silence gripped the hallway for a moment, leaving Lozen to only hear the beating of her own heart before she heard something else come echoing through the corridors. The sound of footsteps followed shortly after the silent break and soon she saw a blue light cast against the wall in the hallway right in front of her. She steadied her aim and kept it trained on that corridor as the light grew brighter and brighter until the spruce came rounding the corner. Her finger wrapped around the trigger and-She saw it again. The skeleton turned around the corner and wrapped itself in an attire that only caused more memories to burst out from her mind. More faces overlapped with the creatures and caused her to hesitate for just one moment in which the creature was given a chance to act.

In that instant, it must have noticed the weapon she aimed at it and grabbed it's own rifle out of thin air and aimed it right at her before Lozen could react. All at once, what she had hoped to be a trap was now a standoff with that rifle aimed right at her head and ignoring the human shield she had in front of her. She returned in kind, keeping her revolver pointed at the creature and as much of her body behind Alberta as possible as she and the creature locked eyes.

"What are you doing?" The creature asked and Lozen replied "Just put the weapon down. This is the same weapon that took that hand of yours and I bet it will take your life as well."

"I don't want to hurt you, but I don't know if you want to."

"You have one arm left and about one shot before I return the favor. And I have a shield."

"Please. I would rather not have to kill a fellow Iroquois."

"I'm not a part of your damn tribe."

"Really? Your Iroquois is perfect."

"And my aim is even better, now drop your weapon!"

"Stop. If you really wanted to kill me, you would have already taken a shot and let your human shield take the bullet."

Lozen froze for a moment, realizing she hadn't put that together and tried shaking away whatever was making her sloppy before saying "That doesn't mean I'll never pull the trigger. My standing is still better, but since you're still talking, I take it you don't mind. Now what do you want?"

The creature paused before saying "Alright. I see we got off on the wrong foot. I really don't want to hurt to hurt you. I just want to talk."

"I figured."

"Please. Just give me a minute. That's all I ask. And then you can shoot me if you want, but I just want to talk to you."

Lozen raised an eyebrow at that and glanced around. There were quite a few tunnels she could vanish into if this all went wrong and as she stood, she didn't have the best feeling about her chances. That thing was holding a rifle with one hand and yet didn't seem to have a problem with it at all.

Given Judas's lackluster mind, spirit, and default body, she didn't think he had been the best marksman when he was alive and probably had no right being as perfect as he was now. If this creature was the same as the other deadman, she felt confident in betting that it wouldn't miss, even if she just poked an eye from out behind Alberta. Hell, it didn't even need a clean shot. Just a graze would do.

She wasn't even sure her own weapon could kill the creature, only wound it and she didn't like her chances of surviving if she couldn't put it down. This house was a maze that only it had been raised in. If this failed, her only hope was to get back to the slaves before it could reach her. Maybe Judas or the people could give her enough time to disable it. For now, she'd need to play it's game. Besides, maybe she'd learn something useful,

"Fine. But you have one minute." She said as she straightened out the hand that held her weapon. "Thank you. My name is Hiawatha. Yours?"

"Lozen. After the chieftain?"

"Yes. My Father thought it would bring me strength."

"Doesn't look like it did."

"Yes.....I don't remember where we came from. My family and I have been running since as long as I can remember. We never had a tribe or village or anything of the like. My father told me we came from a great people out East who fought back against the colonizers with all their might. He said he even was a warrior for those people. Once."

Lozen has been scouring the area around her, trying to come up with a better plan as this thing started talking, but that last part caught her attention. She knew that story all too well. It was one she had been through before and struck just the right cord to make her stop. She tried telling herself it was just a coincidence. Lots of tribes had the men do all the fighting, but her emotional mind had already drawn the comparison and pulled her attention more towards the creature.

"Not that I ever saw him like that though. We ran more than we lived. Town by town across this land and not a single mile of it was easy. We tried disguising ourselves whenever we rode into towns, but the people there always found out. Most of my childhood was just me outrunning crazed gunmen more than anything. I was fine with it though. It was all I had known. But my Father, oh, my Father lived in a time when we were revered. When we were masters of these lands and fought back against whatever force, man or beast, that would try to harm us. When there were still Champions to lead us unto the dawn."

She knew those stories. Her father told her the same ones. Beduiat had loved them. He'd try making her act them out with her, but she hated playing pretend with him in front of the others.

Her eyes twitched for a moment before she refocused back onto the creature and swallowed down those recollections.

"He yearned for those days when he could still fight back. 'Controlling our path' he called it. No matter how often we were run down and how far from home we became, he always believed that one day we could rise from the ashes or so to speak. And I loved him for that. There weren't any hopeless times when he was around. Even when we were close to death, there was this one little flicker of hope that made me believe we could survive."

A smile had crept onto the creature's face and it's eyes seemed to soften up as it started that recollection, causing Lozen to waver for another moment, but not for long.

"And then one day....one day he couldn't take it anymore. The running, the hiding, always having to look over our shoulders in fear, he hated all of it and decided to do something about it. So once we were past the Mississippi, he gathered some people and he set his sights on an armed convoy of troops marching towards some village he never even heard of before. I wanted to go with him....I'm glad I didn't."

"He didn't stand a chance." Lozen found herself finishing.

"I don't know. I never saw him again, but-"

"He's dead. Don't deny it."

"I don't. And I take it....you know what that's like?"

She only needed a moment before replying "I don't need to. It's a tale as old as time. An idiot sets out to live like the mythical figures they were told about as children and get themselves killed because of it."

"He wasn't an idiot. He was a brave man-"

"Who left you all alone to relive the glory days and got himself killed. That's not bravery, it's stupidity."

"How can you say that? He fought for what he believed in."

"Exactly. Stupidity. All when they could have just kept running."

"For what?"

"Isn't it obvious? To just stay alive."

"When life is hell what would be the point? My father tried to help us."

"No. He shot himself in the head and called it bravery. Now what do you want?"

The creature paused with its face growing long and its eyes dimming as it looked on at her.

"You're not alone in this."

"I swear if I have to hear someone else try and sympathize with me-"

"No. You misunderstand me. You need to hear this, because I have a feeling no one has told it to you yet. You are not the only one who has dealt with injustice. Those people back there, have had to suffer much worse. Do you know why I died?"

"Disobedience mixed with a short trigger finger."

"He made us tend to his gardens before his guests arrived. My family and I used to take care of a flower bed by the south-most gate. I cut down one of his precious primroses and then, he brought me before those people. I tried fighting them, I even managed to get one of their guns, but in the end, he had me executed. All for a single flower."

It's head swug from side to side for a moment, a sneer creeping onto its complexure.

"And he made them watch."

She never needed to, not that she ever could through the fire and smoke.

"So why are you so indifferent to their pain?"

Lozen tried shaking away the thoughts for a moment and started talking before she was certain she had dashed them "I didn't know I had to care."

"No. You don't have to do anything. But you have to care. You don't even have to do anything, but at the very least you have to care."

"And why on earth should I do that?"

"Because that's exactly what they want. If no one cares, if we don't care, nothing changes and they can keep abusing us."

Her mouth twitched as she heard that and felt a small quiver crawl down her spine. Still, she managed to continue as more and more thoughts started spiraling through her mind "I've spent my entire life learning how to survive in this world. Why would I want it to change?"

"Because your people deserve more than a chance to just survive."

"What do you know about my people."

"I know their story isn't as unique as you may think. It may entitle you to pity from these people, but not from me."

"I don't want pity."

"Then why are you acting so pitiful?"

"You don't get to say a word about me!! Not some dead fool who didn't know when to run!!"

"Yes I do. Look at me. I've gone through worse. And I can tell you, what you're doing, just taking their money and walking away, it doesn't make anything better. For you, those people, or even your own tribe."

"Don't talk about my people!!"

"Well they're the ones you're leaving to suffer."

She fired, barely even noticing she had pulled the trigger only trying to rip off the faces that had supplanted themselves over its own. Then another shot followed close behind and in a moment of pure reaction, Lozen leaped over to the side of the corridors and pressed her back against the wall as the twin shots rang through the tunnel. She quickly pulled back the hammer of her weapon and squatted down against the only cover she had.

Her eyes flung all over the compartment before she saw the thing she had been missing. On the other side of the doorway, she could see her leap had propelled Alberta to the other side of the opening. She landed back first on the ground before somehow managing to scramble up against the wall. Neither of them seemed harmed in any way, though for the sound of it, the creature appeared to be in the same condition.

"I don't want to fight you!" I cried out, it's voice sounded dulled as if it were hiding behind something.

"I just want your help! If we can kill the master of this house, all of those people can be free!"

"Shut up!" Lozen spat back, a pressure building behind her eyes as more and more memories kept flooding into her mind. She could see everyon. "By god, how can you be so naive!? You think they're strong enough to take their freedom!! You've seen their eyes! If you open their cages, they won't take a single step out!"

"I will not leave them."

"Why!? You could go anywhere, be anything! So why are you wasting your time with such pathetic excuses of human!?"

"I've been there before and I know there's a way for them to be better."

"And when the dust settles and you've shot your way through everyone in this manor, you think they will be?! All those bullets flying through the air, all the people you've killed, how would any of it make them better!? They're barely even alive!"

The creature fell silent at that, a moment of weakness Lozen used to try and toss the faces clinging to her vision and continue "And you're right! So my story isn't unique, so everyone else has had it the same way, but that's why you should quit it with these theatrics!! All those tales end the same! The hero ends up dead in a ditch and the families they leave behind have to pick up the scraps! Time and time again, so many of you idiots think that just standing up for what is right will make you victorious, but it won't! And when the dust settles and you're just another mound of worm food, I have to do what no little girl ever should and pull everyone left out of the ashes!!"

She slapped a hand over her mouth the second she heard those words leave her mouth and stifled the gasp that would have followed them. For a moment, she didn't even believe she finally said them, but the dying echoes that bounced between the walls proved her fears true. And the creature had to have heard every word of it.

"You lost someone too, didn't you? Someone who took a stand?" It said, kicking the dirt of so many more memories and this time, she didn't care anymore. It had heard more than she would have wanted and all the fury it's insistence had risen back up came bursting forth from the back of her mind. Her pulse spiked until it threatened to pop and the rage wove it's bloody arms around her voice, propelling her to speak without a single rational thought "I lost more! And I swear I am not losing anymore because of people still listening to bedtime stories! You wanna be a hero and throw away everything you have, I don't care! But I promise you I won't let you drag me down with you! I'm not going to become another one of you walking piles of regret who cared more about his antics than the ones thy needed them! I'm not going to leave anyone behind!"

"Except the ones in the basement."

"THEY'RE NOT MY PEOPLE!!!" She cried out.

"MY PEOPLE ARE MINE ALONE!! I CAN HELP THEM!! I CAN SAVE THEM!! BETTER THAN ANY OF YOU EVER COULD!! WHEN EVERYONE ELSE LEFT, I CAME BACK!! I HELPED THEM WHEN NO ONE ELSE WOULD!! WHEN YOU LEFT THEM TO DIE, I MADE SURE THEY SURVIVED!!!"

"Sometimes it's not about coming back."

"AND NOW WE'RE ALL ALONE!!"

"I can help them."

"REALLY!!? I SAW THEM TOO AND IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE YOU WERE HELPING ANYONE!! YOU JUST RAN AFTER YOUR PRIZE!! WHETHER YOU LIVE OR DIE, YOU WON'T STOP THOSE PEOPLES SUFFERING!! SO SHUT UP AND DIE SO I CAN MAKE SURE MY PEOPLE DON'T END UP THE SAME WRECK YOU LEFT YOURS IN!!"

She was breathing heavily by the time she finished and her own words were left bouncing between her ears as she stared off, widened eyed into the darkness. Her hands were trembling ever so slightly and her teeth was bearing down on each other so much it felt like they would crack their complementary row into pieces. Yet still, the creature spoke.

"I'm sorry."

She wasn't quick enough before a sharp inhale was forced on her by it's tender tone of voice. And that one word, echoing through air, it was so small, but it fitted perfectly into place in a puzzle she didn't know she was looking at. Nothing changed or suddenly started making sense, but the fact that it was enough to make an attempt forced that tiny gasp out.

"You shouldn't have been left behind and I'm sure whoever did so would regret what they did. I would have. And you aren't the only one who was left all alone. That's why I want to help. There can be a world where no one gets left behind. Where no little girls need to look at anymore ash."

The hand she had placed flat against the ground rolled itself into a fist, dragging canals through the dirt as Lozen spat back, quite, subtle venom burning through the empty air "Only in a story. You could never live in the real world, so you try making it like the ones who imagined being as a child. That's why you died. And it's why I'll live."

"Your partner seems to understand. Quite vocally too."

"That man is a fool!"

"Better a fool who does anything, then the good man who does nothing. I am sorry you had to go through any of that, but....I suppose you're right."

She thought she misheard that at first and felt the rage knocked out of her for a moment, but she still managed to stutter out in her native Apache "What?"

"Killing that bastard.....I suppose it won't help."

It still took a moment for her to believe that before remembering her goal and saying "I figured. Now give yourself over and let me take the shot."

"I'm not going to do that. You're right. Those people need a reason to step out of their cells. Your partner seems to know that. Maybe he can be more helpful than you."

"He doesn't care about us! The only reason he even mentions those people is because he knows that freeing slaves will make him popular!"

"But at least he's still freeing them."

"You can't trust him!"

"More so than you. I'm sorry. But I also have people I need to protect."

"Wait!"

"If you want to help, I won't stop you."

"I don't have to help you!"

"And I really wish I could say I cared....I hoped you'd understand."

"I do better than anyone!"

"And I truly hope that's enough for you." Immediately after it said that, Lozen heard another sound come echoing down the corridor, one that made her heart skip a beat. The rhythmic tapping of footsteps getting quieter and quieter with each repetition. "I wish you and your people the best of luck." Came echoing back down the corridor, every word quieter than the last and by the time Lozen managed to crawl back onto her feet, she could barely hear the steps anymore. "Wait!!" She spat out as he clasped her fingers around the revolver and sprung back onto her feet before darting around the corner. One hand lashed out to grab Alberta, but she only managed to start dragging her down the hallway behind her before she started chasing after the creature.

She couldn't let it get away, but the reason why was getting harder to remember. The money, her tribe, the ones down in the bunker, or maybe just all the words it had tossed her way, but they were all just clutter in her mind. Everything blended into a temperamental cauldron of rage and recollection, every inch of which propelled her every forward through the caverns. She dodged left and right, scurrying around the dusty, old corridors and trying to find where that monster had gone to in a labyrinth she could do nothing but get lost in. Everything twisted and turned, throwing her from one corner of the house to the other, none of which was filled with even a trace of blue light.

She ran until she no longer knew where she was. She ran until her heart threatened to give way. She ran until she reached the very last miles she could race to and kept going when her legs turned to dust and slug under her. Second by second her pace slowed, exhaustion encroaching upon her rage until there wasn't enough to remember why she had run so far in the first place.

Her lungs were sucking in as much air as they could by the time she came to a gradual stop in the dead center of a random section of the tunnel network. She rested a hand on her hip, trying to suck in as much oxygen as she could and realizing that creature was truly gone. Though she didn't get a second to let that fact finish sinking in before the silence of the corridors was cut through by Finch's voice "So I assume negotiations didn't go as planned."

Lozen knew she should have been furious upon hearing the colonizer's voice, especially with all those thoughts and memories still cycloning within her mind, but she was far too exhausted. Physically she felt like she had been encased in lead and the wildfires that had erupted through her in quick succession had burned away her mind's tinder. Even the thought of Judas wasn't enough to incite her anger and without that rage shielding her, other sensations started leaking from her memories. One that slithered their way down her limbs and held her tight in the melancholic embrace of a child who hadn't been given the chance to cry. Woeful words whispered into her ear as they whisked on by, only staying as long as she listened before fading away like the last cold wind of winter.

And then it was just her. The girl who got left behind and without a fire in her gut and no more tears to shed, she was just left stuck in that moment. She couldn't remember the past or think about the future. It was just herself isolated and left to wander aimlessly inside the walls of the manor. She knew she was supposed to be thinking or wanting something, but for a split second, she hadn't the faintest idea of what it was. There was only one other soul in there with her and at that moment, she was simply that. Another soul.

"Alberta." Lozen found her lips moving on their own. "If you could make a perfect world, what would it be like?" She didn't know why she asked. Only that she was confused. That creature's words still echoed through the halls and without the inferno of rage to burn them away, they were given a chance to settle within her. One that blew away everything she could have used to press onward and the reason she did so in the first place. Only Finch was down here and she needed someone. Anyone.

"Why would you want to know that? We have more pressing-"

"Just answer the damn question." Lozen said, the bandana masking her face coming partially undone and handing from her check as her head swung low.

"Alright then.....why on earth would I do something of that sort? In a perfect world, there would be no place for me. When things break or people need something broken, they come to me, so what purpose would there be to me when not a soul needs either?"

She paused for a moment at that and raised a hand to grab the end of her chin as if she were trying to remember something. Then she let out a laugh like someone who had remembered a long forgotten, yet still humorous joke and said "Peculiar isn't it? In a way, I'm lucky that this whole charade is so unlucky." Unlucky? No. It was more than that. Cruel, harsh, bloody, violent, unjust, dark, burning hot, freezing cold, famished, red and black. Lozen knew that all too well. All she needed to do was go home or to what was left. She knew that, but she could survive that. She had to for so long, it was all she knew how to do. Was that really so-No.

Like it or not, this was how it was and she needed to be better at surviving then it was at killing. If she didn't, what was left would fade away like what was lost. Not a soul would be left to mourn them, not even death would be kind. It wouldn't be quick like the first time they were faced with calamity. It would be slow. Second by second, day by day, life after life it would draw closer until there was nothing left, but not if she was still here.

There wasn't time for anything else. She needed to get back home. She needed to survive. They needed to survive. They were all that was left. And that wasn't accomplished by standing in front of the stampede as if it would make a single difference.

Remember what could happen, what you couldn't let happen again. Keep them alive. Keep yourself alive. Live because there wasn't anything else to do. Now keep your head down and do just that. Then they'd live. Then they'd survive.

She reached a hand up, grabbing one end of her bandana and pulling it back behind her head, tying it back into the knot she had practiced every day of her life. Once she was properly concealed once again, she straightened herself out, let out a shaker breath of air to bring her some catharsis, and started back down to their labyrinth with the former patron in tow.