<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=184573.msg8877426#msg8877426">Quote from: ShainaDean on September 09, 2013, 07:23:33 pm</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Gina looked out at the fading sunlight, and decided she'd pushed it as far as she could. Hefting the small backpack that contained her meager supplies and the day's scroungings, she headed for the door, eager to make it back to her hideaway before full dark. Suddenly she paused. Her danger senses were tingling, and she couldn't figure out why...<br/><br/>It hit her like a hammer blow. <em>Footprints!</em> Gina backed herself towards a corner, away from the aisles of the store. <em>Mine were the only prints here when I came in,</em> she thought, berating herself for her inattention. <em>How did I not hear them?!</em><br/><br/>She pressed herself against the wall, drawing the revolver at her hip and holding it up in front of her in a duelist stance. She strained her senses, but could hear nothing besides the pounding of her heart and her own ragged breathing. The terrified girl considered her options. There was only one set of tracks, which meant that it wasn't a raiding party. Whoever it was, they were alone, like her. Those evened her odds, in the event the person was a threat. When you were a 17-year-old girl, though, most people these days were a threat.<br/><br/>nGina steadied her breathing, the thumbed back the hammer on her revolver, mentally cursing herself the moment she did so. The hammer locked back with a <em><strong>CLI-CLACK</strong></em> that echoed in the silence of the convenience store.<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/><br/><strong>If she believed in such things as God or the fates, she would be praying and thanking them right about now. But since she believed in neither she was grateful for the bandages, hydrogen peroxide, and the solitary bottle of water she did find. In truth the wound needed to be sewn shut, but the things necessary for that would most likely be even harder to find. At the age of twenty four, Alexa had lived more than her fair share in the past year since things had gone to hell. Some higher power, somewhere, was watching out for her because she truly shouldn't be alive right now. Trouble was something that managed to find her regardless of how hard she sought to stay away from it. She placed her dirty, barely white baseball cap on the shelf and let her long dark locks fall about her shoulders as she lifted her shirt and dumped a fair amount of water over the wound. The hiss of pain that escaped her lips might have given her away to raiders or anyone else nearby, however the loud click of a gun as the hammer was kicked back drowned out the sound.<br/>    Picking up her dagger from the shelf she had placed it on, she lowered her tee shirt once more before moving quietly and quickly to the opposite end of the store from which she had heard the noise. She prided herself in her graceful silent movements as she came around the the back side of the shelving unit, her would be attacker with her back present. Alexa's friend Aria had once said her movements reminded her of a cat, but Alexa knew it was her years of being trained in dance under her mother's strict guidance.<br/>    Without so much as a hint that Alexa was even in the store, she moved behind the young girl her hand slipping to tangle in her hair and pull the unsuspecting victim's head against her chest, the dagger perched against the shorter girl's throat. Even one slight movement would draw blood.</strong><br/><br/>"You even so much as flinch, you are dead. How many of you are there?"<br/><br/><strong>This close to sunset, only the most foolish traveled alone. Alexa wasn't about to make the mistake of thinking the two girls were alone in this building.</strong>