Outcast Villiage

"You should have told us in the first fuckin place." Alex told, though he was surprisingly calm.

"Evelyn can't ask someone to fight, it's against who she is, even Evelyn herself doesn't kill, so asking her to do it is like setting off an emotional time bomb." Xander explained, and he looked down as somethign tugged on his jeans and he saw Ariadne dragging herself. "What's up sweetheart?"

"Mummy's crying Uncle Xander, and I'm scared."

"And would you have agreed to the contracts then?" Ranger asked quietly, rubbing his jaw where the bruise was forming. "Knowing what you'd have to do them? It was better in the long term. They would have died. It would have been painful, and messy. If they survived, they might not have recovered. I mean, this sort of time constraint isn't great either, but at least you have something to show for it. Or, perhaps, did you want me to start digging unmarked graves in the backyard? The longer you leave it, the more they start to deteriorate but at least now they have a chance."

That seemed to be it for what Ephraim could handle because, still violently trembling, he ducked out of the room. Even knowing what the contract detailed, he still couldn't handle it that much.

"No, but now one of us is going to fucking kill you and bury you in an unmarked grave." Alex told him. "If you'd told us sooner we could have dealt with it, but now you've made us watch them die anyway, is there anything you can do which doesn't destroy what's left of someone?" Alex asked him before he left the room as well.

Evelyn was sat in the bottom of the hallway in front of the front door, she had tried running but she couldn't and in the end sat on the floor and sobbed, though she was silent for everyone else.

"E-Evelyn?" Citlali had seen her after creeping out of the kitchen and, after a few moments of silence finally reached out to gently touch her shoulder. "I-Is everything o-okay?" She seemed determined to stay there, at least until she got confirmation, but the sound of Ephraim slamming the back door startled her so badly that she skittered back a few steps until she hit the kitchen doorway again.

---

Ranger moved to take a seat on the sofa, twisting his fingers on his lap. "This was the best outcome," he muttered. "Too soon, rejection breaks the contract. Too late, being unfulfilled kills anyway."

"Then well done you've fucked us all over." Xander told him

"Xander language." Moira told him as she sat on the sofa.
_______

Evelyn just sat there nodding and crying.

Alex walked out of the living room and saw them but h knew better and he walked to his room, sitting on his bed after shutting the door and he looked over to see Anjuli in his bed still asleep.

"Oh? So you'd rather they wasted away, being experimented on and wondering when they would next be seen as free?" Ranger asked sharply. "Wondering if this would be the last day, wondering if they were going to die killing their loved ones? Why don't you take a step back from the now and listen for once? Wow, big shame, you have to make them do one small thing to survive happily the rest of their lives or you can watch them waste away in a miserable existence. I've seen an unfulfilled contract, Xander." Ranger sort of deflated then, hands falling to his lap. "Its like watching a car crash. Horrifying, but there's nothing you can do and you can't even look away. I-I couldn't let that happen to any one of them. It wasn't just about keeping Citlali safe, it was making sure these kids, my kids, made it out alive. And this was the way to do it. If you're all too squicked out to take it, its no effort at all for me to take each and every contract as my own and do it myself. Would that be any better at all?"

---

Citlali tried to calm her breathing, on the edge of a panic attack before she slowly moved closer again, sitting about a metre away from Evelyn, knees pulled to her chest. She was still underweight, but looked a lot healthier thanks to the contract.

"A-Are you sure?" she briefly winced, as if expecting to be hit for asking questions. "B-Because you d-don't look - oh...oh, you were t-told, weren't y-you?" Citlali curled up smaller. "Y-You're regretting the decision? N-Nobody likes keeping c-contracts in the end. S'too much r-responsibility to k-keep someone alive. W-Who needs that, huh?" Muffled, into her knees, Citlali added, "We all w-would have been better o-off dead. Not a b-burden then."

"I can't ask people to kill others, none of us can, so we can't help you after all, and it's tearing Alex and I apart, we shouldn't have put you all through this." Evelyn told her.
_________

"Maybe you should be the one to also listen, by telling them now you've made the situation worse." He told him and somehow Xander was the calmest. "Maybe you should stop hiding valuable information until it suits you the reveal it at the original opportunity, but instead you played on our want help people and those we love to protect your children."

"Kill s-someone?" Citlali's voice pitched. "N-No. No, you d-don't have to do that. I was the f-first contract. Ever. S-So they had to use the o-original method for me. E-Everyone else gets it wrong." She nervously drummed her fingers on her knees. "I-I c-can tell you? O-Only if you like."

---

"The ones you love are my kids." Ranger pointed out. "At the very least, the numbers are mine. I'm the oldest and so they always gravitated to me. I was doing what was best for everyone."

"No we've learnt you don't do things for the best of others."
_______

"Considering that I'm close to a breakdown, then please tell me." Evelyn tod her.

"You think I'd be so cruel about something this serious?"

---

"Blood is given, blood is taken. The contract is forged with the colour red." Citlali sounded like she was reciting something, scrubbing nervously at her face. "You need blood unwilling, and blood given freely. The contract is blood u-unwilling. I mean, nobody r-really wants to have their throats slit wide open." She wrung her fingers together. "So, to finish the contract, all y-you and the others have to do is o-offer blood, just a l-little. Given freely of c-course. So, n-nobody has to die. Do you think we like h-having to kill p-people?"

"So either way, I'm going to snap Ranger's neck and bring the bastard back alive to repeat the action." Evelyn sighed, her head hitting the wall. "Would dieing have been kinder to you all, instead f forcing you to keep living?" She asked her.
________

"Yes." Both Xander and Moira told him, though now Xander was trying to rock his niece to sleep in his arms.

"Everyone is frightened of dying," Citlali whispered. "B-But if you'd have left us to die, that w-woman would still have had our contracts. A-And should we have been b-brought back...I rather d-don't like the thought of h-having to hurt anyone here. D-Did you not want t-the contracts? B-Because if you leave us now to d-die, at least it won't be w-with her. I-I didn't like going t-through it again, but I-I'd rather A-Alex than anyone else. E-Ephraim is the s-same. H-He's happy someone w-who cares for him has the c-contract." Citlali curled up a little tighter, shivering absently and sniffling into her shoulder, clearly cold.

---

Ranger gave a sarcastic laugh and stood before disappearing, choosing obviously to be anywhere but there at that moment.

Evelyn slid over to her and wrapped er arms around her which had now become a blanket and she sighed. "We do not regret our choice, but we don't know what we are doing, and we don't know what you all want. Do you want to go back to being Alex's fiancee and a mother figure to Anjuli and have a family with him? Does Ephraim still want to be my boyfriend and a father to Ariadne? Or do you all want freedom, away from us and to live in peace and sanctuary where you can be safe?"
_______

Moira sighed and she looked at Xander. "What do we do?"

"I don't know."

"We've never wanted anything d-different." Citlali had frozen when she moved but started trembling out of fear more than cold now, still unused to human touch. "B-But we're a-all scared we're s-seen as..." Citlali took in a deep breath and tangled her fingers tightly together. "Scared to be seen as m-monsters, or b-broken, or unwanted."

"We're all monsters in our own way, but we ould never think of any of you like that, what youare is what you are, you're not a monster because of what you've done."

"S'alittle hard to not think of that once you've crush a six year old's windpipe between your fingers." Citlali's eyes were downcast and her breathing had hitched. "Killed an expecting mother because her husband disagreed with facility protocols, picking her apart piece by piece." The trembling had intensified and Citlali was suddenly and abruptly on the other side of the hallway in less than a second, hitting the wall with a bang and then sliding down as she got caught up in a panic attack.

"I've seen Alex do worse." She sighed. "You shuld talk to him, he doesn't know if you want to be close to him, and Anjuli is scared incase she causes you to have a panic attack like this one."

Citlali took a few minutes to collect herself and said, in a weak voice, "I don't w-want to see him because I-I'm embarrassed. I-I've burdened him w-with this. W-Who wants to deal with someone who c-can't even control herself."

"He loves you Citlali, he always has and he always will."

"I-It's kinda hard to t-think he does w-when he hasn't looked at me since the c-contract. I h-haven't been trying to avoid him or anything but..." Citlali shivered quietly, and mumbled, "I wish i-it was back to normal s-so I could just go for a r-run."

"We all wish that, why don't you join him and Anjuli for their walk in the morning?"

"Outside?" Citlali asked, and winced when her voice cracked. "F-Five might be able to go outside, b-but if I did...I'm not sure I-I'd come back knowing I could just go." She wrapped her arms around herself. "F-Freedom is a strange concept." She made a face. "Half f-free. There's still the contract."

"If you wanted to leave then no matter what he felt, Alex and I any of us, would let you go."

"But I don't want to," Citlali mumbled. "I want to stay, but t-there's a part of me that's still so frightened and wants to run away. Like I'm still in danger." She doodled patterns on the floor next to her leg and was startled by a clatter from the kitchen. The person who had been sat by her, Chiquita, had finished what she was doing and was now in the doorway. There was a red mark on her cheek and her hair was mussed, since she'd fallen asleep on the kitchen table while waiting for Citlali to return.

"Chiquita, come and join us." Evelyn told her. "We have blankets." She looked at Citlali. "Talk to Alex, let him take you somewhere safe, he has many safe houses, but for the sake of humanity, keep Ranger away from him."