Illstar

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She didn't know anything? Now he really knew she was having a nightmare. He watched as Rifle came up to nudge her and she snapped back to curl into herself further. It spurred more tense reactions, making Aerin the only semi-calm one in the entire room. He risked shifting forward again, his head lowered so he could capture her gaze should her eyes lift. "Nova, I don't want to hurt you. I'm not asking you to tell me anything. I just want you to wake up."

He glanced at the wolves, a question in his eyes. How often could this happen? It was clear that she had some baggage, one that Aerin didn't want to open, but he sort of feared for her life in that moment. He had little experience with this kind of thing. And by little, he meant none. Being an only child had its perks, but not when it came to understanding how to take care of someone when they were having a nightmare. "I don't want to hurt you," he repeated, his mind pleading that she awaken and wipe her tears and come back to the real world where she could control whatever was running rampant in her head.
 
Words. Words. So many words she didn't understand. Hurt? Yes, she knew about hurt. They didn't have to tell her she was going to be hurt. She already knew that. Wait....don't hurt? No, no...don't want to hurt. They didn't want to hurt her? Nova met the green eyes watching her with a confused look, but it was a start, something breaking past the fearful haze in her expression. Green eyes. One pair of green eyes. One person...who didn't want to hurt her.

The rest of the images around her started to fade away and Nova blinked, the tears slowing as she uncurled just a little, eyes flickering around, catching sight of the wolves and then back to Aerin again. Aerin. Green eyes. Aerin. Wolves. Store. Storm. The howling in her ears suddenly made sense and she finally registered the words Aerin was saying clearly. Wake up. He wanted her to wake up.

Complete awareness snapped into Nova's face then and she sucked in a ragged breath, immediately reaching up to wipe away the tears, though she couldn't still the trembling just yet. Oh stars, she'd just had a complete breakdown before a complete stranger. Her brown eyes looked away as Nova tried to regain some control. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'my sorry I woke you. I'm fine." And she needed to stop saying that...

The brunette closed her eyes for a moment, just telling herself to breathe and she soon felt a nose nudge at her side, Shadow having army-crawled her way forward. Nova's gaze opened, calmer and she rested her head on the black head, looking to Aerin again with a forced smile that almost looked genuine. "I'm okay now. I won't trouble you again." She wasn't going to sleep again.
 
Aerin remained silent throughout her registration of his presence and her surroundings and her wolves and her dream world shattered. Concern broke the serenity in his green eyes, even after she repeated her current state. No, she wasn't fine. She was carrying something around in her head, something that prevented her from sleeping on some days. As far as he'd known, it hadn't happened the night before. Now, he wasn't so sure.

Instead of moving to sleep again, Aerin sat cross-legged in front of her, between the other wolves. He didn't reach out to touch her or the wolves. He wasn't trusted enough for that, a fact he was all too aware of. "It's alright." Well, it wasn't, but there was no point in stating the obvious. "It would only be troubling if you'd punched me." It was a poor attempt at a joke, but a quick smirk still graced his features.

"I'm guessing it something you don't want to talk about. I guess that's alright too. I can understand hard pasts. I mean, my own mom didn't even want me. That's about as hard as my past ever got. Sounds like you have it worse than I do. Not that this is a contest to see who's messed up worst." The nonchalance in his tone didn't waver, even if it should have, given the weight of his words.
 
When he settled before her, Nova looked almost panicked for a moment before she blocked the emotion from her face, pushed it down and watched the male. His joke made her blink, unsure for a moment before she offered a faint smile, knowing he was only trying to make light of the situation, and partly appreciating that, but wishing more that he'd just leave entirely. She knew that was the wrong thing to wish, especially when someone was actually showing some concern, but she was less inclined to trust people, to trust that they meant her well. The brunette kept near the wall, but the wolves around her had relaxed, Rifle even moving his body to lean his back against Aerin's leg.

Shadow had her head in Nova's lap and the brunette was calming slowly as she caressed the black fur and Fang was laying down as well, but more aloof from both humans.

He spoke of hard pasts and Nova looked away with a tight expression. She didn't think she'd answer and then the words came. "My past wasn't hard. It was good. I had a family. Sure, they were a bit demanding, but...they were mine and they loved me. And then...the Illstar happened and I lost them all." She gave a wry smile and let her head thump back against the wall. "And I thought that was the worst thing that could happen." She hadn't realized how wrong she was.
 
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"Yeah, but it's still behind you. You know, it's... passed. I let go of mine, but it sounds like you ran into something that's sticking in your mind." He stopped himself before he looked down. "Sorry. I promised myself I wouldn't pry. It's not really my place, I suppose. I don't know you, you don't know me, all that good stuff." Her breakdown threw a spin into their tentative relationship. She could easily decide he wasn't really worth hanging around and sic a trio of wolves on him. It wasn't like she, or her mental issues, were a problem. In fact, he was lucky to find she was sane, at least during the day.

"For what it's worth, I dunno what happened to my mom, so I guess I know how you feel. She just... didn't love me, but I still feel sort of lost that she may be dead. I don't know. Part of me doesn't want to find her, even though I want to find anyone who's immune. Like you. I wasn't expecting the power or anything, and you've got stuff that happened to you, but you're better than most of the others I ran into." Aerin was nervous, and he talked when he was nervous. A character flaw, to be sure, but he couldn't stop the words spilling out.

"...Sorry. I should probably just go back to sleep." He stood up, brushing the dark dust from his pants before he took two steps and flopped back down onto his own sleeping bag. He folded his arms under his head and said no more for the remainder of the night.
 
He was a curious specimen of human and Nova found herself watching him for the rest of the night on and off. He spoke of the past being the past, but he had no idea what she'd 'run into' as he put it. No, it wasn't in the past at all and perhaps it was unfair of her not to warn him about that, but he had made a good point; she'd wanted to find others too. No, she didn't necessarily want to travel with them, but...to have contact, to know you weren't the only person out there, to see another human who wasn't trying to kill you...it helped the spirit.

He didn't pry. It was more than most people would have done. Many, many people and Nova found her respect for him increasing a notch for that reason alone. The rambling...well, that was just something to get used to she supposed.

Wait...did that mean she was still going with him? Brown eyes flickered back to the male. Yeah...yeah it did. Interesting.

------

Georgia. Or what was left of it. It was nothing like it had been, but at least the low mountains were still standing - though, they came with difficulties of their own - with the greenery mostly dead, the cities abandoned, looted, burned. It was just like all the other places, but out of a lot of the states, it looked better than could have been hoped for. At leas there WAS some growth here, there was some wildlife.

And the city was big enough that they might find something to scavenge.

The last week had been touch and go for Aerin and Nova. She'd had another nightmare when she finally slept - one day out of the week was healthy, right? - but they hadn't discussed it and the rest of the time was silence and occasional back and forth conversation. Nova didn't volunteer more than a story to two, but Aerin lived up to his promise of speaking of stories he knew or had been told and over time they seemed to settle into some type of routine.

The wolves were certainly fine with him by this point, getting used to the new normal fast and give them another two or three weeks and the blond would be part of the pack in their mind completely. At the moment, though, they were weaving between cars, chasing a rabbit as the two humans weaved and climbed their way over debris. This was Atlanta...or what was left of it.
 
Atlanta was bleak. It wasn't like the surrounding areas, with its tall buildings still standing and the immune plants growing over the streets, but it was still bleak. Aerin shifted his pack over his shoulder and patted the pistol beside him. They hadn't had to use it all week, luckily. Nova and her bow had proved far more useful than he'd originally thought. They hadn't run into too many wild animals, but they took advantage of it whenever possible. Maybe they could find clean water here, though the thought was fleeting.

"Well... Let's go. I don't know what we're going to find here, but lingering probably isn't the best idea," he said, jumping down from the pile of cars they'd hopped onto. Illstar was known for violently invasions in some people, and car crashes began to be commonplace in the first few months of the virus infection. It wasn't a surprise to find the overgrown leaves curling around the broken windows and snapped metal. The dust stirred from the whooshing land he made on the street. He thought he heard a metallic squeal, but the wind was still battering them, so he couldn't be sure he could trust his hearing all that much. The buildings provided a reprieve from the sand obscuring his vision, but the sunlight was still dimmed.

The world had gone to hell, and they were standing in the middle of it.

Aerin sighed, shoving a car door shut so he could maneuver between the dead vehicles, keeping his eyes peeled for anything. Movement he saw was from the wolves while they scampered for their meal, but something just felt... off. He couldn't place it. Maybe it was the lack of people, the lack of human life. He couldn't tell. All he knew was that he didn't like it.
 
Nova rather agreed with that statement and she jumped down from the car pile as soon as he moved a safe distance away so she wouldn't land on him. Her landing was lighter, more controlled than his had been, but Nova had some experience in rock climbing from before the Illstar and she wouldn't fault him for any lack of training. No one had expected something like this to happen to the world and the virus hadn't picked based on height, weight, skin color, culture....it hadn't cared. Just because she happened to have more of an athletic ability than the blond meant nothing. It only increased her chances of survival by a slim margin.

Still, it made her think on what factors had been present for the Illstar to choose its victims. Her mother was a geneticist, her father a scientist with a medical degree before that. Both had been impressive, distinguished and respected in their fields. They were geniuses and Nova might not have inherited that, but she wasn't stupid either. And she'd been privy to their work, to discussions, pushed to understand all this, to go to med-school, to follow in their footsteps....so she probably had a better idea than most how to figure out this virus.

It did help that her father had been the one to create it, even if he'd not meant for it to be a virus. So much for alien organisms being helpful. It had been too good to be true.

It wasn't hard to wonder why Nova often wondered if she was even fully human anymore. Who knew what the Illstar had done to those like her, those who'd survived but had been affected. Still, what had been the common factor in people who'd died of it? Not diet or blood type or living conditions. Nothing about them was the same and it made her wonder if maybe it didn't distinguish between those it killed so much as it singled out an anomaly in the people who survived.

Hmm... What about her and Aerin was common?

Nova was deep enough in her thoughts that she didn't see the signal from Fang until he gave another; a snarl. Now all three wolves had been doing a bit of barking and growling as they chased the rabbit, more for play than hunt, but this was a different tone that made her head snap up and her eyes dilate, flashing with that unmistakable light, a glow. The wolves were staring at a building, hackles up and the brunette felt a shiver travel over her arms, up the back of her neck.

"Get down!" She shouted it, ducking behind a car right as a shot rang out and then more besides.
 
Aerin heard the shout as the bullet slammed into the car beside him. He skittered around a corner and hit the ground on his belly. He didn't want to be shot, but he risked peeking over the hood of the car he was hiding behind, but he didn't immediately see anything. Then, behind another building, there was movement. Human movement. And it wasn't Nova. It was a group of people, two males and three females, as far as he could tell. Of course, he couldn't trust any of his senses what with the insane weather and everything else.

Another shot thudded near him, and it reminded him to put his head back down. Part of him wanted to shout and negotiate, but that wasn't going to happen. With a sigh, he pushed his pack to the ground and pulled the light machine gun from his shoulder. He wanted to shoot, but they were maybe immune. There was no way to tell. Maybe they thought they were infected. They were running around with three wolves after all.

Waiting for a lull in some of the shots, Aerin darted back to where Nova was, gun in one hand and pack in the other. He wasn't made out for this. It wasn't very easy to tell, since he never stayed by one person's side long enough for them to gauge his fighting prowess. But that wasn't the time to think about that.

"Are they infected?" The wolves had been able to tell if he was or wasn't, so maybe they could smell the sickness from a distance, even with the firing.
 
Nova cursed as a shot got too close for comfort and when Rifle came to her side, she grabbed his scruff and pulled him down despite his whimpering. "Stay down! You must stay down!" She looked down into brown eyes and the wolf-dog growled softly. "Fast-rocks. Hurt Shadow."

"What?" The brunette breathed the word in the beginning of understanding and horror as her brown eyes searched for her wolf as the shots continued to come. Idiots. They'd waste all their ammunition this way. They couldn't possibly hit them right now. But then again, if there were more of them, they could surrounded she and Aerin and flush them out. Damn. Nova had found sight of Shadow and she felt a rage boil in her to see Fang crouching over her black form. Her body coiled, ready to rise as she reached back for an arrow, but Aerin's presence semi-snapped her out of her rage.

She gave him a glance and grit her teeth, looking to Rifle. "Sick?"

The canine bared his fangs, fur bristling to the sky and that was all the answer Nova needed. It was all the permission she needed, too. "Yes." It was a word she spat out even as she rose and with a fluidity she'd not even shown before while hunting, she nocked the arrow to the string and fired off a rapid shot that hit its target dead center....in the stomach. It would be a painful death.

Nova ducked back down, expression hard and without remorse. They'd hurt her wolf.
 
Since the people were caught off guard by the arrow, the shots stopped for just a few seconds. Aerin took that time to pull himself up over the car, snapping the trigger in a short burst of bullets. They caught one of the women in the shoulder and she went down beside her comrade. There was no way to tell if she was dead, but if she was smart, she would stay down. The others didn't seem to care that she had dropped, however. They recovered from their first shock, but this time, they attempted to go a different route. They were outnumbered, but as far as Aerin knew, the Illstar had given its infected hosts stronger muscles and impressive reflexes. It wasn't anything that couldn't be achieved by normal standards, but the growth was so rapid that it seemed unlikely.

The infected disappeared from their post behind the car, and Aerin risked raising his head. He couldn't see Shadow, the injured wolf. "They aren't gone but... I think you should go find her." Even as the words left his mouth, one of the infected males popped over their barrier, barreling into Aerin and knocking him back. The machine gun slid from view, unable to help him fight off the grappling man. He saw the other two go after Nova and Rifle, but he couldn't focus on them. The man on top of him was snapping like a rabid animal, the infection driving him to kill, even if by primal methods. He grabbed Aerin's neck, trying to squeeze his last breath. Aerin coughed, his hand scrabbling for one of the knives at his belt. The man swiped his free hand on Aerin's arm, his sleeve having slid down during the fight, and his nails gouged skin and left three dirty, bloody streaks. Aerin finally got a hold on a knife, bringing the sharp point up into the man's side.

Screeching in pain, the man released Aerin's neck before his fist connected with the tip of Aerin's jaw, slamming his head to the side. Aerin stabbed again, this time aiming higher on the man. His blade bit into the flesh of the man's neck, and he shoved the slowly dying infected man away from himself, watching as blood poured from the fatal wound. His hand clutched the knife, and he was doing his best not to shake. He'd killed people before so he could survive, but it was always from a distance. A close up fight was never something he'd been good at, and that was evident in the wounds he'd sustained. Panting, Aerin found himself trying to recollect his thoughts, and he hadn't thought to look at Nova or her canine friends.
 
Nova started at the sudden attack, but she had her own problems to deal with in the two infected that went after her and the wolf-dog. Rifle lunged for the woman immediately, snarling horribly as he grappled with her and from a distance Fang snarled savagely in approval, even if Rifle was the omega in their pack. Nova for her part, though, immediately sliced at the male infected that came for her, just missing his throat and instead cutting through his chest as he moved. She swore at the screech that ensued, the male's bloodlust only increased by the pain as he leaped for her and they both went down in a tangle.

She wasn't as strong as him, but Nova was damn near as savage. As the male tried to go for her face with his fangs, clawing at her, she brought her knees up and kicked him off, rolling away and grabbing the knife that had slipped from her hand. She felt searing pain in her calf then and let out a short scream, looking back to see teeth sunk into her leg, tearing through her pants. She grit her teeth and used her other foot, slamming it into the infected's face, making him release her with for more tearing than his teeth had done initially. She pulled away, struggling to a stand and the male screeched again, face blooded, nose broken and Nova felt a familiar sensation come over her.

When it was done she never knew how to describe it, but in the moment, it was like a rush of adrenaline, a sharpening of...everything. Her mind slid into a place she didn't recognize and her eyes glowed with a tawny light, her stance changing, instinctively becoming predatory and the infected seemed to pause for just a moment. One fraction of a second and that was all Nova needed. She darted forward, ignoring her protesting leg and darted past the male, blade flashing through the air.

She didn't look back as the infected fell to his knees, blood pour from his slit throat.

Her glowing eyes glanced to Aerin even as they started to fade back to brown and Nova, seeing he was fine, moved toward Shadow instead. She knelt down by the black wolf, Fang making room and Rifle came to her side, having defeated his own enemy. The black wolf wasn't dead, but Nova could clearly see her shoulder had been hit rather well. If she lived, she'd always have a limp.

If she lived.

"S**t."
 
Aerin stood up, shaking his head and nearly toppling over again with the sudden dizziness that overcame his vision. He took a few steps, his eyes refocusing. He remembered that Shadow had been hit by a bullet, and he saw Nova kneeling beside her, the other two wolves hovering protectively. Instead of going to her, he looked up and around. Wind whipped his ears, trying to tug him down, but he stood up straight. Finally, he saw the building he was looking for. Shepherd Hospital Center was near them, a stroke of luck considering what had just happened.

"We can try to patch her up over there," he said, pointing to the building. "They may still have some supplies." He knew hospitals had been the first areas to be stripped of supplies and food, but there had to be something. There was no way anyone could have gotten everything.

"Do you want me to carry her? Unless you can manage it." He didn't want to assume anything about her. She had already proven herself a worthy combatant with a strange dip into the supernatural with her abilities and everything else about her. She certainly was an interesting one. Aerin retrieved his gun, slinging it over his back again before grabbing his pack. He scraped the blood from his knife on the edge of a broken car window, the metal squealing with the unnecessary pressure he was applying to the weapon.
 
Nova looked the direction he indicated, surprisingly calm despite the hysteria that simmered just beneath the surface of her eyes. She looked to Aerin at his offer, looking back down at Shadow for a moment before she pressed her lips hard together and growled under her breath, not liking the decision she had to make, but able to make it. "You carry her. My leg isn't going to take it and I can replace arrows if we need to shoot at something." He couldn't replace bullets and the odds of finding more were slim. Not impossible, but slim.

She looked down at her own leg, at the blood starting to soak her pant-leg. She cursed again, muttering under her breath as she reached into her pack and grabbed a shirt, tearing it into a strip. Sure, the hospital might have bandages, but she might also lead more infected right to them with a blood trail. Better to sacrifice a shirt and stem the bleeding for now. Nova wrapped her leg tight and then shouldered her pack, went and picked up her bow and then nocked an arrow.

"Let's go."

The wolves surged ahead, no longer playful, but alert, growling to themselves as they looked for danger. The going was slow, but far swifter than they would have worked toward the hospital if none of them had been injured. Now they NEEDED it and that changed their perspective. They reached the building soon enough and Nova went before the group with Fang at her side to make sure no one was hiding in the halls and rooms as they moved through the hospital. The brunette followed the signs to surgery and once they were there, she directed Aerin to lay the wolf on the table as she discarded her pack, dropped her bow on a counter, took her quiver off and then proceeded to remove a great deal of her black garment, too. She had to make this environment as sterile as possible and with the amount of dirt and blood on her, that wasn't going to help.

She went down to an army-styled tank-top and soon needle scars inside her elbows and her wrists, incision scars on her arms, a gun-shot scar on her right shoulder and razor-wire scars around her left wrist and into her palm were made visible. Nova didn't give them a second glance as she searched the room quickly, actually having some idea what she was doing as she got alcohol wipes from a cupboard and started to tear open the packages, scrubbing her hands with them and then her wrists and up her arms.

"See if you can find any masks, gauze, uh....surgical pliers..."
 
Aerin hefted Shadow into his arms, finding she wasn't too heavy. Lack of substantial food with a large amount of walking every day could slim anyone down. He kept his grip light, doing his best not to jar Shadow's shoulder or hurt her otherwise. He followed Nova to the surgery room, following her orders. She was far more educated in this, and he knew it. Suddenly, his desired career as an artist seemed stupid compared to what she knew.

And then he grew completely distracted as Nova began to remove the top half of her clothes. Part of it was because, well, he was a guy, and he hadn't had a girlfriend in quite some time, and so he certainly hadn't seen much skin. But the other half was more innocently curious. She had many scars lining her limbs, and he wanted to ask why. But it wasn't the time. Shadow needed immediate care.

At her request, he snapped himself out of his thoughts and began to pull open drawers. Like Nova, he shed both jackets as well as his top shirts. Underneath all that was a muscular torso covered by a thin tank top with a small hole in the side. He had taken what he could get, and many of the clothes he'd found during his travels had been too tattered to wear. The state of their clothes wasn't his concern. After his fingerless gloves were set on a table, he found a small stack of gauze squares in the back of a drawer. He set them beside her before diving into other cabinets. He only found one mask, but he handed it off to Nova, taking a few wipes to disinfect his arm. He hissed in pain as the wipe came into contact with the scratches, but he bore with the hurt. Once that was taken care of, he was able to find a small pair of pliers for her.

"What else?" he asked, stepping away from the table as he wiped his face with one hand, trying to free his features of dust and dried blood. His jaw was swelling from the punch, but he did his best to ignore it.
 
She took the mask with a nod, putting it on and then starting to arrange the meager supplies she had on the table as Shadow whined and the other two wolves paced, unhappy to the extreme. "Shh, easy. You'll be all right." she soothed softly without touching the canine, knowing that would make her have to wash again. She glanced up at Aerin, noting his injuries with a doctor's eyes, but also knowing he would be fine. There was no lasting damage there. "Saline, scissors and any ace bandages if you can find them." she intoned steadily as she started to slip on the gloves she'd already found.

As the blond searched for what she needed, she started to feel around on the injury, feeling a sob pull at her chest as she felt the damage done. The bullet hadn't simply hit muscle but bone as well and Nova knew in that moment that this...wasn't going to work. She could feel shatters. She shouldn't even be doing this. She shouldn't be bothering, but...she couldn't not. She had to at least try, no matter how futile it was.

So Nova worked at getting the bullet out, but as Shadow started to whine and yelp and snap, she stopped. The brunette had tears running down her face as she set the pliers down on the table gently and pulled the gloves off. The other wolves had gone still, alert as they sensed the change in the atmosphere and Nova struggled to breathe steadily as she went to Shadow's head and began to stroke gentle.

"Shh, it's all right. No more pain. No more, my sweet Shadow."

Brown eyes looked to green ones then and Nova shook her head just barely, more tears dripping. "W-will you see if...if there are any..umm....narcotics?" A strong enough dose would send the wolf into sleep...permanently.
 
Aerin turned to search for what she needed, rifling through the drawers with steady hands. Even as the fear and adrenaline rush was dying, his artist's hands were taking over, remaining still and calm. He didn't know how his body did it, but he didn't dwell on it. He managed to procure a short roll of an ace bandage, but as he looked at Nova and the injured wolf on her table, something was wrong. Nova's gloves hadn't hardly been on for ten seconds, but they were sitting beside her, and she was petting Shadow's head with her recently sterilized hands.

It was then he realized Nova had accepted the situation. Shadow was going to die, and there was nothing she could do to ease the pain. She turned to look at him, but their gazes, his calm and hers watery, only locked for a second before she forced her eyes away. She wanted him to find something... anything that would reduce the pain, or something to induce permanent sleep.

With a sigh, Aerin turned back to the cabinets, the ones lined with empty bottles for pills or otherwise. There seemed to be nothing until he managed to peer at the very top shelf. There was only a small amount of a liquid left, but it didn't hurt to check. He stood on the tips of his toes to reach it without crashing the other bottles down around him. With a quick sweep of his eyes over the label, he identified the dwindling liquid: Ropivacaine. It was an anesthetic, as far as he knew, but there was no way to tell how much Shadow would need. Besides, it was only intended to knock someone out for a few hours. How they were going to deal with the injured wolf after that... Well, it was up to Nova.

"This was all I could find," he said, coming near her, but not too close. Everyone was on edge, and his mind was following suit. "If... If you need me, I'll be in the other room." He couldn't stay. Watching something suffer stirred too much in his soul, and he found his feet carrying him to a dusty chair in the waiting room. His head dropped to his hands and he groaned.

Illstar had ruined everything.
 
Nova knew she should have thanked him, but she couldn't find the words and when he left she could only focus on the canine before her. Shadow's eyes held her own brown ones steadily and the brunette tried to smile. Shadow wasn't a pet and Nova wasn't normal anymore. They could understand one another and the black wolf understood far better than any animal had right to that she was not going to be all right. The others knew it, too and Nova worked carefully to get the black wolf to the floor. The two males came over then, whining softy as they nuzzled the female and she licked at their faces.

The human of the pack continued to cry quietly, not able to stop and she gently felt Shadow's shoulder again, careful not to harm her, but confirming all over again what she'd felt before. Even if the wolf lived, she would never walk properly without major surgery, pins and therapy...all which Nova didn't have. And now blood was starting to leak from Shadow's mouth, her breathing becoming more labored and the brunette understood immediately that there was internal damage.

A sob pulled its way from her as she met the female wolf's gaze once more and Shadow whimpered softly. "Pack-strong. Good Nova. No-hurt?"

"No-hurt." Nova responded softly with a nod, stroking her head before she rose to her feet unsteadily and frantically searched for a needle. She found one and opened the packaging and popped the cap off with her teeth as she grabbed the vial. She drew all the fluid out, but when she knelt beside the wolf and then looked at the other two watching her, she faltered. She'd killed many people since this had started, many animals, but never someone she cared about. No one should have had to kill someone they cared about.

But Shadow was in pain and she'd promised no more pain.

Nova willed her hands not to shake as she carefully found the vein in the wolf's leg and injected the Ropivacaine slowly. When she was done, she flung the needle away and carefully gathered the wolf's head and upper body into her arms. That much of the drug would cause cardiac arrest in an animal and Nova stroked the canine's head as the other two laid huddled around them, sending Shadow off as a pack. The brunette started to cry in earnest when the canine in her arms slipped off and then started to jerk and thrash slightly before going still again. The wolves knew. Even if Nova doubted in human reaction, the wolves knew she was gone and Fang was the first who stood, nuzzled her and then lifted his head to let out a howl. Rifle soon followed and Nova merely sobbed.
 
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Aerin might have escaped the sight, but he couldn't run from the noise. The heart-wrenching sounds filled the halls with a sorrow so strong, he could have cut it with his own knife. He wanted to bolt from his chair and run all the way to Virginia to find his father, even if it meant leaving Nova and the saddened wolves. But he knew he couldn't do that. She was down a wolf, a friend. Not that he was there to fill the gap, but he could, he supposed.

Against his heart's wishes, Aerin stood up, his boots sliding on the dusty floor as he failed to pick up his feet during random steps in his gait. One hand braced on the doorjamb as he moved inside. The sight was just as bad as the sound. Nova, normally a strong person from what he'd seen, had been reduced to trembling sobs, and the wolves weren't much better off. Aerin pushed himself away from the door to stand near her. One hand stretched to touch her before his fingers curled away. She didn't seem like the type to want to be touched, even in the face of her tragedy.

So he only stood there, hands in his pockets, sad but calm. If he broke into hysterics, it would get them nowhere. He tried not to let his emotion show, but the sorrow still creased his lips into a scowl and his brow was furrowed, like he was thinking of ways to... not think.
 
Nova didn't know how much time had passed when she finally moved. She'd stopped crying some time before, but she'd not moved, remaining quiet as she held the body in her arms, petting the fur slowly. Now she stood, though, and the two males wolves rose with her in unspoken communication. It was time to leave. They had grieved acutely and now it was time to survive once more. Humans were not wired in such a way, but the Illstar had forced everyone to think that way now, think that way or die. So the brunette rose and she calmly got a sheet and covered the black form on the ground, resting her hand on the still head with a deep sigh before she rose again.

She didn't acknowledge anything around her, not at first, as she redressed in her gear, slung her weapons back on and grabbed her pack. Brown eyes rose to meet green then and Nova's gaze was blank, neutral as she gave a wordless nod. Thanks for staying. Assurance that she'd be fine. A signal that they were ready to go. She left the surgery room then and didn't look back. The wolves followed silently down the halls as they worked their way out of the building.

No one wanted to stay here and the only thing the brunette paused for was to search a few supply rooms on the way, taking what could be useful and what was left over. They hit the streets then and Nova looked around at the darkening landscape before she directed her attention to Aerin, finally speaking, her voice slightly hoarse but unwavering. "Pick a building, I guess. We won't get out of here before nightfall."
 
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