RADIO

chapter 14

"Let's go" Everett put one hand on each of their shoulders and pushed them forward. They broke off into a run. Everett had to pace himself due to him being faster than the both of them combined.

Duchesses radio then squawked. She shoved a hand into her duffel bag while running, pulling the radio out and responding quickly, "what?" She asked while panting heavily.

"Riders hurt! We need you here" Janes voice came from the other end.

"Perfect timing, we're on our way" she panted as the wanderers behind her started to creep closer. She then put the radio back in her bag and came across a chain link fence.

Everett climbed over it effortlessly, hopping up and over the barbed wire that was wrapped around the top of the fence.

Next Duchess took her chance at climbing it. Anxiety climbed in her throat and she reached the top quickly with Haze behind her. Haze lifted her foot to help her get up, panic starting to swarm in his chest. She couldn't lift herself over the wire so she jumped for it. She landed on the other side painfully and accidentally pulled the wire down with her, getting her arm caught in it.

"Shit" she panted heavily.

Haze made it over and tried to help unravel her arm but only ended up tearing her skin more. "Ow! Fuck! Stop" she cried, fighting tears of pain.

"You're gonna have to pull it" Everett stated, anxiously bouncing on his heels. He wanted to run so badly but he couldn't leave the two of them there so he stayed to instruct them.

"Here, move these" he made his way over to the dark haired woman and managed to pull some of the wires away. "Pull!" Haze ordered.

The crowd of wanderers were about to reach the fence and Duchess took a breath through her nose. She ripped her arm out from the wire with gritted teeth. They continued to run and Duchess followed close behind.

They reached the train and Everett hopped in,helping Haze and Duchess up into the cart. Rocky barking brought Duchess out of her trance of trying to block everything out.

It did for Haze as well. He looked over at Rider panicked and shocked at the bloodied scene.

"let's get this rust bucket up and going!" Duchess ordered.

"Can't! The only person who can is blind!" Dibbs squeaked, gesturing to Rider who was sat against the wall, holding a cloth over her eye. "Can you?" Duchess asked Dibbs.

"No! What makes you think I ever could?!" He squeaked.

"I'll try," Haze volunteered.

"Just pull the cord over the brakes, that should get it moving" Rider panted. He ran to the front of the locomotive and did as she said. Duchess crouched In front of Rider removing the cloth, revealing the brutal scene.

"Yikes" she muttered to herself, "do we have ice?" She asked, not turning away from the wound.

"Nope" Monty replied.

"Then give her something to bite on because this is gonna hurt like hell" Duchess ordered. She shuffled through her bag, finding the two medical boxes she found earlier. She opened one immediately.

“I would like it better if you wouldnt say that” Rider whined a bit.

“Okay then, this wont feel like anything” Duchess obviously lied.

"Ah here's something" she gasped, grabbing an instant ice packet. She popped it and placed it over the eye. "Whatever you do, don't look around too much" she told Rider, "if its in your iris it could make the glass go deeper"

Rider nodded. 

"Oh your arm" Monty winced, seeing the tears and streams of blood coming from the cuts from the barbed wire fence. "It's fine I can walk it off" Duchess shrugged.
Rocky still barked and only then did they notice the corpses that made it through the fence. Everett grabbed his gun that was latched onto his side and shot at them.

Duchess looked around at everyone else, scanning for any further injuries and making sure to do a headcount as well. The train started to move forward, jerking everyone back slightly. "Got it!" Haze called from the front.

"Anyone wanna explain to me how exactly this happened?" Duchess asked, taking a bandage from the Med kit and starting to wrap them around her bleeding arm.

"She made a prosthetic and went to test it on mons but the spring came loose and one thing led to another" Tris explained, sitting on one of the boxes. Duchesses jaw dropped and she looked back at Rider, "a spring?!" She squeaked.

"Maybe, can't you get it out?" Dibbs asked.

"Of course I can but I can't guarantee anything" she sighed. Duchess sat In front of Rider and removed the ice pack. Haze came back and seen the new situation. "Holy shit" he gasped.

"Don't make it worse" Duchess glared at him. He put his hands up in surrender and walked back, sitting next to another box. "Rider, why did you do that? I told you to let mons rest" she sighed.

"Sorry, I-i wanted to test it out" she whimpered, tears starting to prick at her eyes.

"Test it out on Dibbs, Monty isn't the only one that's tall as fuck" Duchess sighed through her nose, grabbing a pair of tweezers and blue gloves from the med kit. "Hold still the best you can," she advised.

Rider didn't respond. Instead she closed her eyes and braced for pain. Duchess took a small cloth and wet it with a water bottle. She used it to clean up the blood around the eye and reveal the small shards of glass that were stuck.

She took the tweezers and pulled them out one by one. Rider squeezed the bottom of her shirt tightly, tears flooding her eyes as pain rang out in her head. Within the hour Duchess was able to get all of the shards of glass out.

Duchess did her best to clean up the area but she noticed that the blood wasnt coming from the glass that cut around the pupil but the large cut that was created by the spring. Although she couldnt see it anywhere.

“You got hella lucky” duchess breathed a sigh of releif, “the spring isnt anywhere in or around her eye but from what i assume, she cant see out of it much either” duchess reported.

"I can't believe this is happening" Jane groaned in disgust. "Me either Jane, me either" Duchess said, taking a deep breath to resist the urge to throw up. "How are you doing, Rider?" Monty asked.

"Fine," Rider said flatly.

Duchess continued to clean the wound and finally put a gauze pad over it. Making a makeshift eye patch with the bandages, the bleeding had stopped and her wounded eye was covered.

"Let's hope you don't get any sort of infection like tetanus," Duchess said.

This was almost too much. Everything flooded the teens minds on what happened that day.

Haze could barely keep it together as well, looking out the side of the boxcar to try and get his mind off of everything. Not only did the apocalypse take everyone they knew to hell but monty lost his leg, and now Riders eye.

Tris spoke up from on top of one of the many carts with brownie in her lap, "If this was the bare minimum of bad when it came to world ending situations then I can't imagine what the universe has in store for us later on" she sighed, closing her book.

Brownie purred loudly and she stroked the Siamese cat's soft fur. "Tell me about it," Haze scoffed.