This Broken City Sky

"Look," Dylan extended one long arm out, to the ground below the hotel, "That one, right next to the gas station. Leopard...Dress, I guess you could call it." A small smile formed on her lips, as Lily focused the binoculars she held on the woman Dylan had indicated. Through the lenses, she could just make out the torn and rotting flesh that hung from her arm, and the blood that stained her face. Lily smiled faintly.

"HEY!" Dylan bellowed, placing her hands on the cold steel railing of the balcony, and leaned over it a bit, "YEAH YOU BABY, HOW MUCH!" She yelled, as loudly as she could. The city was so quiet--save for the occasional groan of the undead below--that Dylan's voice bounced off the buildings around them, and echoed everywhere. The walking dead below turned their decayed and ravaged bodies toward the sound, but didn't really know where it came from. Eleven stories up, Dylan cackled to herself.

Two weeks had passed since Dylan and Lily taken refuge in the hotel, as well as Kat and Johnny. Though they had lived side by side for nearly fourteen days, the group was severely segregated into three factions; Kat and Johnny, Dylan and Lily, and Gerard, Mikey, Frank and Ray. They slept and ate and lived with one another, but tensions were always tightly strung. After the first initial week, mostly everyone stopped talking to one another, save for the really vital questions like "Do you want to shower first?" or "Are you going down to the kitchen?". Other than that, no one wanted to talk to each other. And that mentality was working just fine.

Dylan tried her best to keep Lily entertained, which included what they were doing on the suite's balcony. They'd stand out there, looking through a pair of binoculars they'd snagged from one of the room, and look down at the undead dragging around below. Some days they did that, and some days they went down to the gym. Obviously everyone needed clothes, so they had scoured a few floors worth of rooms to find some. Dylan managed to find a pair of running shoes that fit her, and when she wasn't with Lily in the suite, she was running. Of course on the gym's treadmill, but she still ran as hard as if she were running from this place. Running home. Thats all she wanted anymore, was to get herself and Lily home. She wanted to see her dad, and her brother, and Ben. It wasn't that much to ask for, was it?

"You're awful." Lily said quietly, with a little smile as she chomped on her gum. Dylan smiled, and rested her elbows against the railing, squinting out across the expanse of Belleville before them. Off in the distance, the vague shapes of Manhattan skyscrapers were just barely visible.

"We should try the phones again." Dylan stated, and Lily brought the binoculars down from her face to look at her cousin.

"Dylan-" She started, with a sigh. Lily was confident they'd survive, but she didn't want Dylan obsessing over something that probably wouldn't and couldn't help.

"I just want to see..." She mumbled, and glanced at her cousin before turning toward the open door. Dylan stepped inside the suite, with it's pristine living area and quiet kitchen. She paced over to the end table beside the far end of the couch, and flung herself down on the black cushions. Then she picked up the reciever, and punched in a familiar number. For a split second, hope flared in her mind, and she began to smile. But then three tones sounded, and a woman began to tell her the number could not be reached.

"Nothing?" Lily asked, feigning surprise for Dylan's sake. The brunette shook her head fervently, and set the reciever on the hook. Her eyes were brimmed with glassy tears as she pushed herself up from the couch. Lily stood near the open balcony door, the binoculars around her neck and the shot gun in her hand. When Dylan walked over to her briskly, Lily handed over the gun. Just as the cousins were about to depart from their small reprieve, the door to the suite swung open. Mikey stood there, a little breathless as he looked at the two. Lily frowned at him, watching as he pushed up his glasses

"Hey we-we just need to get some of the snack things from the rooms...Figured you could get some on the way down," He waved his hand at Lily, "And you didn't leave the master key this morning." He sighed, and Lily nodded.

"Yeah sure." She smiled slightly, and glanced over at Dylan, who had a hand clamped over her mouth. With Lily's look, she brought her hand down and nodded.

"Alright." She said, just above a whisper.

So the three went down a floor, and began to gather the small snacks from every other room. They'd developed a not-too-sophisticated ration system; every other floor, every other room when they needed it. Also they'd gather some of the dry or canned food from the kitchen when they needed a more significant source of nutrition. Already everyone was starting to look a bit thinner, a bit more pale.

Once they were finished, the trio walked into Mikey and Gerard's room, their arms full of Pringles cans and Oreos. Kat was sitting crosslegged on her bed, her gun lying in pieces on the comforter with a rag dirtied with black smudges in her hand. Johnny sat at the end of the bed, watching TV When Dylan, Lily, and Mike walked past the bed to the table in front of the window, Kat's eyes turned up toward them. She watched as they spilled the food out onto the table, and began to sort things out to be separated.

"Decided to actually contribute today, Dylan?" Kat said, as she picked up the hilt of her gun, and swiped the cloth over it before tucking her blond hair behind her ear so she could glance over at Dylan. Her hands slowly stopped moving over the packages of snacks, and turned her head to look at Kat.

"Like you, right?" Dylan raised an eyebrow and went back to sorting, hoping that was the end of her little tiff with Kat. They'd been butting heads at an increasing rate, and it was wearing on her nerves.

"Well, I can't say I spent all day yelling at the walkers outside, but I did manage to get the washing machine working," She pursed her lips, and gave a little shrug, "I'm trying." She put as much venom into her last statement as she possibly could. Her lips already bent into a little smile; she enjoyed taunting Dylan just enough to get her angry.

"We were up there for like, an hour, and we weren't fucking yelling." Dylan snapped defensively, and looked back at Kat who lifted her head to see her opponent.

"Are you kidding me? I could hear you seven floors down!" Kat frowned, and pointed toward the window. Dylan's face pulled back in an angry expression, and she put a hand on her hip.

"Is that right?" She asked, her voice a little higher than usual, "Then what was I saying?" Dylan challenged, and Kat sat up a little straighter, her hands resting on her knees. There were so many answers to Dylan's question, it was ridiculous. She'd been up there at least once every day, and Kat could pick a phrase from each time.

"You tell me," Kat's spoke a little louder this time, on the verge of yelling, "Stupid, derogatory shit, that usually doesn't make any sense." At this, Dylan sighed dramatically, and rolled her eyes.

"See, you're lying. Just keep your crazy mouth shut for once." Dylan stated rather plainly, and turned back to her job at hand. Kat's mouth fell open a little, and she raised her eyebrows at the tall brunette that stood across the room. Johnny turned around to look at his sister, maybe stop her from doing something rash, but he knew this would probably escalate. This fight had been a while coming, or so he thought.

"Excuse me, you fucking brat?" Kat unfolded her legs, and began to stand up, "You spend your time taunting those poor fucking people down there, or running for like three hours at a time, and I'M crazy?" It was obviously a meaningless statement to Dylan; just something she threw out there, but to Kat it was an opportunity to teach Dylan a lesson in respect. Lily glanced up at her cousin across the table, as Kat approached from behind. Dylan sighed, slammed her hands down onto the table, then turned around.

"They're fucking dead!" She hollered, holding out her hands slightly, "What difference does it make what I do, what I say to them?! Why do you even care!" Dylan's eyes got wide as she stared at Kat, who's cheeks were a light shade of pink. The questions hung in the air for a moment as Kat thought for a second.

"They didn't choose this, to be a walking plague, you idiot, thats the difference," Kat took another menacing step toward Dylan. If this comes to blows, she thought, thank god, "Those people were like you and me, not two weeks ago. They had brothers and cousins they needed to protect. Mothers, daughters, wives, sons. They're not just...just some fucking wild animals that wandered into the city. Those people had lives," She paced forward again, so She and Dylan were standing nearly toe to toe, "They were just like you, me, Lily, Mike. Like the guy who gave you that ring." Kat finished quietly, calmly, and glanced down at Dylan's left hand.

"Fuck you." Dylan replied with the same demenor, staring straight into Kat's chilly blue eyes.

"You know that's what you're wondering, why you try to get the phone working so god damn hard. In the back of your mind you know he's probably dead, out there wandering around Time's Square, hoping to get a bite of someone who's unlucky enough to cross his path. Just like the rest of them. THAT is the difference. Any one of those people could be your fiance, do you understand that, you stuck up bitch?" Kat finished, a frown unconsciously forming between her eyebrows.

Silence hung in the air, tense and expectant. Lily watched her cousin's back anxiously, waiting for her to respond, hopefully with something that would bring the arguement to a close. Obviously that was too much to ask from Dylan, who was breathing hard through flared nostrils as she stared at Kat. Her hands were clenched into little fists at her sides.

"You don't even know what you're talking about," Dylan spoke quietly, so Lily had to strain to listen. By now, Gerard and Ray had emerged from the other room silently, to watch and listen, "Because you have no one outside, the way I do. No one is wondering about you, worrying. Nobody." Dylan murmured, feeling the slightest bit triumphant. Kat's face went slack, void of any discernable expression, and again the room was quiet. No one moved, or said another word.

"You don't even KNOW WHO I AM!" Kat yelled, finally, and took that last step to close most of the space between Dylan and herself, "How DARE YOU assume anything about me. You don't know anything!" She bellowed, and Dylan's mouth fell open.

"How dare I? You're doing the exact same thing, you fucking hypocrite!" Dylan yelled right back, her nose nearly touching Kat's. Just as the blonde opened her mouth to reply, the door that connected the two rooms swung back, and everyone looked at Frank, who stood there with a tooth brush in his mouth.

"What the fuck are you two yelling about now?" He asked calmly, and Kat nearly flung herself at him, yet again. Johnny shot up to block her way as she yelled at him, thought it wasn't really clear what. In a sort of chain reaction, Frank began to shout, and Dylan joined in, mostly because she could. The yelling was honestly a bit therapeutic.

All the while, Lily ground her teeth together as she watched. She'd had enough; enough of standing around watching Dylan make faces at the other "tenants", or listening to Kat's sarcastic remarks toward Dylan. Lily was never one to discriminate on the grounds of appearance, or something so superficial the way Dylan and Kat seemed to be doing. Of course Dylan would, with her Upper-East side, holier-than-thou mentality, there was no excuse for her. Lily couldn't understand Kat's prejudice against Dylan, and she wouldn't try, but still, she thought it was petty on both parts.

So, taking Dylan's shot gun, Lily cocked it the way she'd seen her cousin do, and pointed it at the ceiling above her. As usual, no one really noticed what Lily was doing, save for Mikey, who gave her a strange look just before she pulled the trigger.

A few of the company uttered random obscenities as they crouched impulsively, then turned to look at Lily. Plaster from the ceiling crumbled over her head, looking somewhat like snow in her black hair. Everyone watched her, wide-eyed and completely confused.

"Shut. The fuck. Up. For ONCE! PLEASE!" She yelled as loud as she possibly could, and tossed the shot gun to the floor, "I am so fucking SICK OF LISTENING TO YOU FIGHT!! It's petty, and stupid, and not helping anyone!" She turned her eyes to her cousin, "Get off your high-horse already Dylan, it's not cute anymore. You're pushing us away from the whole group, you're lucky they haven't kicked us out. And the phone's aren't going to work any time soon, so you might as well give up any hope of reaching Ben," Dylan's mouth-which was already hanging open with the shock of hearing her cousin speak so angrily-went completely slack, "Kat I know Dylan is a bitch ninety-nine percent of the time, but it's because you don't even know her. Right off the bat you didn't even give her a chance. You're not giving anyone a chance. Letting us in even the slightest bit isn't going to get Johnny killed," Kat just stood, blinking at Lily, an unpleasant look bending her face, "Frank, stop being such a little shit, you're not the only one with issues," Lily snapped, the faintest bit of sarcasm lacing her tone, "We have got to stop living like this. I'm not saying we need to be BFF's, but fuck, we at least need to suck it up, be civil, and get to know one another 'cause god knows we're going to be here a while," Lily sighed, and glanced at Mikey before looking at Johnny, then Gerard, "If we can't learn to live together, we're going to die alone."