For the Hopeless

Tawny gazed out the window of the car for a long moment, taking in the sight of the fluffy snowflakes falling gently from the gray sky. It was so peaceful, so calm and so beautiful, and yet...

A smile only graced her pinkish lips when she turned her eyes to Bailey, sitting in the driver's seat beside her. The woman tore her eyes from the road when Tawny's small hand moved to rest atop her own upon the steering wheel, and she couldn't help a small, sweet smile of her own. The way Tawny looked at her...

As her gaze drifted back to the road ahead, Bailey asked so very tactfully, "So, are we, like, girlfriends now or what?"

Tawny's face reddened in embarrassment. "Er...well...I..."

Bailey's smile broadened into a full grin. "I'll take that as a yes."

Neither of them spoke again as they parked in front of the massive Walmart Supercenter; neither of them had much else to say. They continued to smile like idiots, however, even as they made their way into the densely populated store. In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to come during the wee hours of the morning, but really, with the store open 24/7, there would be people around no matter what. They were bound to attract a nasty mess of attention this early in the day, but Bailey wasn't about to stand by and wait as another slew of Novie were tortured, tested, and ultimately killed. God only knew how many of the poor people died every hour, every minute, every second of the day.

With this sad truth in her mind, Bailey walked right up to the front counter of the pretzel shop with a fake yet oddly charming smile plastered on her face. "Excuse me, miss," she said to the young girl behind the counter, a teenager of about 17 or 18 with a nose ring and just a bit too much make-up. She eased into conversation with the stranger, innocently asking about her job and the store, sweetly complimenting her hair and her beauty. Her tone grew more persuasive, more soothing, even as she spoke, Tawny noticed as she watched from the woman's side; so much so, in fact, that Tawny herself was nearly sucked into Bailey's thrall – and she could only hear the words in Bailey's mind. She couldn't imagine the effect her tone was having on the employee, who was getting the full brunt of it.

"So, I was wondering," Bailey began just as Tawny snapped out of the stupor the devil's tone had put her in, "would you mind letting us take a peek at the back room? We'll only be a minute, and your boss will never know." A gentle tilt of her head and a bit of extra wattage to that beautiful smile seemed to drive the point home, and the bit of hesitation that had entered the girl's expression left in a rush.

The teenager smiled back at Bailey, clearly awestruck, and replied simply, "Sure." She lifted up the foot or so of counter space that blocked the entryway to the shop, not looking away from Bailey once. Tawny noticed that the girl's mind was eerily empty of anything but Bailey, and even her own words were a bit of a muffled mumble in the background. "Just make it quick, okay? Tara's supposed to be coming in for her shift soon."

"Will do," Bailey said in an annoyingly perky voice, slipping through the small opening in the counter and heading hurriedly toward the door at the back of the tiny shop. Tawny followed her, and as she passed the teenager, she saw an empty look to her dark brown eyes, eyes that wouldn't leave Bailey's slowly fading back, that left her deeply disturbed. She pushed it aside, however; it wasn't important, not now.

Once Tawny had passed through the door and closed it behind them, Bailey sagged against the wall, as if her body were too heavy for her to hold up on her own. A closer look revealed signs of serious strain on the woman's face and an intense pallor to her skin that hadn't been there for a few days now. Her radiant smile was gone. Her red-brown eyes were no longer inviting and hypnotic. She was just a girl, panting and overworked.

"Are you all right?" Tawny asked softly, pushing a strand of auburn hair out of the woman's face to allow her a better look at those eyes. The smile returned to them at her words, but a heavy exhaustion still hung behind it.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said as she straightened, leaning away from the wall. "It just...It takes a lot of work to do all of that," she explained with a vague gesture toward the door. "At least, for me, anyway."

Devilish persuasion, was the only term Tawny could come up with to describe her train of thought. Normally, devils can easily persuade humans to do their bidding, but Bailey... She felt a frown lightly curve her lips, and a sudden exasperation entered Bailey's expression.

"I'm fine," she repeated, not sounding happy at all. Tawny's worry was likely more of an annoyance to her than a flattering sign of caring, and honestly, that stung a bit. "We need to worry about the task at hand, anyway, not on my well-being." She turned from Tawny, then, beginning to search the dimly lit, dusty room for any signs of the entrance they had come looking for.

Tawny glanced around the room, slowly scanning the walls. Boxes were stacked high against each of the walls, and the occasional old shelf was interspersed between stacks. The light wasn't quite bright enough to make out the details of the walls behind all of these objects, however, so Tawny was amazed when Bailey confidently approached an exceptionally high pile of boxes and carefully pushed them to one side. A dingy red door, marked "Fire Exit Only," soon appeared, hidden perfectly in the shadows of the corner it rested beside.

"How much do you wanna bet that this 'fire exit,'" Bailey began, adding in sarcastic little air quotes, "actually leads to mutant babies instead of a fire?" It was a silly, stupid joke, but Tawny laughed, anyway. It was so cute when inherently evil creatures tried to make funnies...

"Twenty bucks," the petite telepath said, throwing in a lame little addition to the joke. Bailey only responded with a grin and pushed the door open. Tawny braced herself for the echoes of fire alarms in the woman's head, but none came. "Mutant babies," indeed.

They stepped into the darkness of a basement-like space together, cautiously following the stairs down to a small pool of light below. It was dimly lit, much like the room they'd just left behind, and about the same size. Another door stood a few feet away from the bottom landing of the stairwell, looking very unofficial and oddly approachable. The pair glanced at one another, then quietly made their way toward the door.

Do you hear anything from in there? Bailey thought, unwilling to make unnecessary noise by speaking aloud. She glanced at Tawny, who nodded slowly and whispered, "I hear nothing hostile, though. Only the thoughts of the captured." Bailey nodded once in return, then carefully turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Inside was a scene much like the many that Bailey had seen before, but it took Tawny by surprise. A long, rectangular room stretched out before them, brightly lit but sparsely furnished, and another door stood on the other side. There was no paint and no carpet, not a sign of comfort in sight. The walls and floor were of a rough cement, damp and dreary, leaving the many people chained along the walls to sit or lie upon the cold stone. Most of them were female, and most of them were unconscious or just barely awake. The only thoughts Tawny could make out among the jumble of incoherent murmurs from the half-dead and barely conscious seemed to come from the far corner of the room, in the voice of a young woman.

When they come back, I'll tear their throats out, she thought viciously, a snarl apparent even in her mental tone. They won't do to me what they've done to the others! I won't let them! But then, that tone softened, and a sigh seemed to shift her thoughts. Or perhaps there really is no hope. Perhaps I'll just be tortured and left to die...

"No," Tawny said without meaning to, her voice strong and filled with a hint of panic. A few of the nonhumans lying around her shifted, and she noticed that a brunette girl near the corner across from her straightened, a lucidity to her sullen expression that the others lacked. "You're not going to die here," she said in a quieter voice, looking right at the girl. Her light brown eyes widened when she realized that Tawny had heard her thoughts, filled with doubt as they were. "None of you are, in fact," the petite telepath added with a glance about the room, though only three other Novie had their eyes trained on her.

"You...you're..." the girl in the corner began to stammer, rising to her feet in spite of the heavy chain weighing her down. "You're here to...help us?" She whispered the last, as if afraid to even breathe such words of hope in this dark, forbidding place.

"Well, we're surely not here to kill you," Bailey remarked, her eyes darting about the place as she quickly scanned the chains and their fastenings. This, plus the echo of the woman's choppy, unfinished thoughts, told Tawny that she was already busy planning the escape of these dozens of captives. "I mean, I don't often break into government facilities looking to kill all of their captives. That would just be silly."

"It's silly that you're here to save us," a man said in a raspy tone from Bailey's left. He was one of the few who appeared to be capable of standing, though he still had to lean heavily against the wall to remain upright.

"I won't deny that," Bailey remarked with an honest smile that brought a smile to Tawny's lips as well. But when the woman turned to Tawny, her expression darkened, and Tawny's own smile fell. "Most of these people can't move, and there's no way we'd be able to walk out of here together, anyway," she stated, her brow furrowed in thought. "I'm going to have to teleport them out of here, but...there are so many." She bit her lip, the only small gesture of worry she was willing to show, and scanned the room again. "I've only regained enough of my power to take two, maybe three, at a time; and even then, it might not hold out for long." She turned her gaze back to Tawny and finished with a frown, "I may not be able to get all of them out of here. We may not be able to get out of here in the end."

"So we do what we can," Tawny said without hesitation, that raw determination that Bailey loved entering her sky-like eyes. "When," she frowned and mentally berated herself. "If you run out of power, we'll find another way."

The door at the other side of the room opened with a soft creak, and both of the women turned. A man and a woman stood in the doorway, their expressions so calm and empty of surprise that worry became obvious on Bailey's own face. Confident in what they do, Tawny heard her think to herself, her stance shifting into a much more aggressive one. Or they know something we don't know. Either way, we're in trouble.

"Intruders," the woman remarked in an almost robotic tone, though her words were tinged with a faded Irish accent.

"What a surprise," the man said in a similar tone. Without missing a beat, his hand darted out and slapped the big red button next to the door. No audible alarm sounded, but Bailey could hear heavy footsteps from behind the unusual couple and Tawny could feel a quickly approaching source of brain activity. When the man and woman stepped aside, Tawny felt any hope of escaping this place with the captives drain from her mind.

An ogre. A big, tan-skinned, musclebound ogre. It turned sideways and ducked down to fit through the doorway, where it stood before the couple wearing nothing but a pair of ill-fitting human shorts in a khaki color that was ugly against his dark skin. His body was hairy, his face heavily bearded, and behind all of that facial hair, Tawny could make out a set of rotting, yellowish teeth bared in a malicious smile. Such a beast would be nothing for Bailey, but...

"I'll fight him," Tawny said, taking a step forward to stand in front of Bailey. The woman made a noise of disagreement, but Tawny went on. "You need to use your powers to free these people, not to fight an ogre."

"What?" Bailey asked indignantly. "Fighting against one ogre wouldn't drain that much of my power."

"Every bit of your energy is needed to make sure we can get all of these people out of here." Tawny turned now, offering Bailey a gentle smile. "Besides-" But heavy footsteps began to shake the ground once more, an ugly battle cry filling the room. The ogre didn't care for their conversation and had decided to charge right at the woman.

"Be careful," Bailey said quickly before rushing to a group of unconscious women nearby. The ogre veered toward her, but Tawny leaped into its path. The top of her head barely reached the creature's belly button, but she prepared to strike him nonetheless.

As Bailey vanished with the three emaciated women, the ogre reached Tawny and knocked her aside with a simple swipe of its oversized hand. Naturally, she was sent sailing through the air, stopping only when she collided with a concrete wall. The moment she'd landed on her knees on the floor, the ogre started toward her once again, uttering another hideous battle cry.

The small girl lurched to her feet and looked quickly around the room, searching for a weapon of some sort. She found none, though, and could only cartwheel to one side when the beast hurtled toward her with a hand outstretched and ready to strike. He followed her, moving awfully fast for such a large creature. Tawny ducked beneath a sloppy punch but couldn't dodge a follow-up swing, flying helpless into the wall once more. This time, however, as the beast ran toward her crumpled form upon the cold floor, she noticed that his pants were beginning to sag. They appeared to be weighed down by something in his right front pocket – possibly a weapon?

Bailey appeared across the room from her, taking stock of the situation before grabbing on to another trio of people and disappearing. She hadn't looked overly worried, which gave Tawny some hope. The devil, at least, had faith in her.

As the ogre approached her again, she dodged another swing and dove at its legs. She slammed into them with a grunt, hooking her fingers into the waist of his loose shorts before he could shake her. Bending at the knees, she let all of her weight dangle from that waistband, and his pants fell the moment he reached for her. She fell with them, managing to gag only a little bit when something fleshy and smelly slapped her in the face on the way down.

She hit the floor and rolled away from him, and the ogre, being too stupid to think about it, attempted to run toward her again. With his pants around his ankles, he didn't make it far, toppling face-first to the floor below. He landed upon an unconscious man with a crunch of bones and an odd squishing sound, but Tawny didn't have time to worry about one half-dead captive; she had her own skin to save, after all.

Bailey reappeared once more as Tawny darted toward the ogre's pocket, disappearing with more captives when the tiny woman withdrew a large, sheathed dagger. Unsheathing the weapon, Tawny discovered that the blade was nearly the length of her forearm, yet, luckily, it was still light enough for her to carry. It was a bit awkward, and it slowed her down significantly, but it certainly felt good to finally have a means of winning the fight.

The ogre scrambled to its feet and tugged its shorts up, paying no mind to Tawny as she slowly backed away, the knife held defensively before her. Her eyes darted about the room, and she found all of the conscious beings where she'd left them only moments ago. The woman near the corner was still on her feet, watching intently with those brown eyes. She was hopeful now, Tawny could tell. Unfortunately, the man and woman were also still on their feet and watching, and now, the woman's hand hovered over the red button. The second this ogre died, another one would be sent out...or possibly even something worse.

Bailey yet again returned to the scene, glancing at Tawny only quickly before vanishing with a couple more captives. Her face was already haggard, Tawny noticed, her lips set in a tired frown. She wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer – and they'd only freed a dozen of the captives, if that.

Tawny was jerked back to reality when the ogre lunged again, nearly catching her off guard. He tried to snag the knife in her grasp, but she leaped backward to avoid his reach. He lurched forward again, his arm still outstretched, and she ducked beneath it, holding the dagger more offensively now. Its sharp point slid into the beast's heavily muscled stomach with a bit of effort, and he let out an enraged roar. He reached for her, and the woman by the door reached for the button, and Tawny jerked the knife out and jumped a foot off of the ground to slash through the ogre's throat.

She expected to hear more overwhelming footsteps from the mysterious room behind the man and woman as the beast fell to the floor, its throat and stomach oozing a blood of an exceptionally dark red, but none came. Wiping blood from her face, she turned to find that the brown-eyed woman had been freed from her restraints and had taken it upon herself to rip the heads from both of the emotionless beings. The bodies now lay in pools of warm, sticky blood, and the woman stood panting before them, covered in that same crimson.

Relaxing a bit, Tawny began, "How did you...?"

"I did it," Bailey both said and thought in a breathless pant, and Tawny turned to find her sagging against the wall nearby, among a mass of empty chains. She looked like a ghost now, pale as she was, and she was somehow developing dark circles under her eyes already.

"Bailey..." The question was obvious, both because of Tawny's tone and her worried frown.

Bailey didn't even offer the girl a reassuring smile, and that worried Tawny more. "This isn't normal," she said, still in that airy pant. "I knew I was going to wear out fast, but this...this is ridiculous. There's something draining my powers here."

"There's something draining everyone's powers here, actually," a strong, masculine voice said from the opening to the mystery room. "Well, everyone's powers but the tiny telepath's. Those aren't really 'powers,' after all." Both Bailey and Tawny turned. Their eyes landed first on the crumpled body of their now broken-necked friend upon the floor, then on the creature standing coolly in the doorway.

Fiery red skin, a pair of curving black horns, a set of oversized fangs and shark-like teeth, a pair of spiked, bat-like wings...He was a devil, standing at over seven feet tall, musclebound and naked before them. He eyed Bailey liked he wanted nothing more than to sex her up while tearing her heart from her chest.

"And that thing, ladies, is me." He flat-out grinned now, and a shiver ran down Tawny's spine, the ogre's stolen blade slipping from her thin fingers to clatter loudly upon the floor. "Now, then, who wants to die first?"

Bailey turned to Tawny, her red-brown eyes wide in blatant fear and panic. "Run, Tawny!" she screamed, giving the smaller girl a rough shove toward the first door. "Run!" And, starting with a slight stumble, Tawny did just that.

She could fight an ogre; she could fight a human; but even Bailey couldn't fight a devil. Of course, with a pair of leathery wings unfolding from skin as smooth and red as blood, Bailey would beg to differ. She might not be able to win against a devil, but she'd be damned if she didn't at least try.

"Don't die," Tawny whispered as she paused in the doorway, then fled up the stairs.