Instinct

14. The Search for Nowhere

"Okay," he said. "So where do you plan on going?"

Stephanie suspected that the only reason he could look at her so coolly, unperturbed by her sudden declaration besides the slight widening of his eyes, and speak to her as if it were a perfectly logical solution, was because he knew as well as she did that she didn't have a plan. She had to tighten her grip on the back of the chair to stop herself from curling her lip at him. Her discontentment, her frustration and confusion- they were her burdens to deal with, and Brennan didn't need to fend off her unjust anger. Instead, she shrugged, knowing that she must've looked like a pouting, stubborn child.

"I can't stay here," she repeated.

As if that changed anything. Brennan scrubbed a hand over his face, and Stephanie wanted to sigh for him. He had to deal with so much, and she only added to it with her selfish whims and inability to decide what she wanted.

"But you don't have anywhere else to go."

"No," she said, keeping her voice measured. "I just-"

"Well, then what exactly is your plan?"

The first hint of impatience slipped through the cracks and Stephanie had to stop herself from physically recoiling away from it. She summoned courage and defense from many, many lifetimes ago to stand where she was and not back down, but she looked down, unable to hold his gaze. Brennan didn't understand, she could see that much in his eyes, pleading for her to explain what was going through her head.

"What happens to you if you go back out there?" He asked. "No money, no ID, nothing."

Stephanie knew what she didn't have, but she couldn't very well do anything about it. What use was she? Holed up here and just surviving, just making do, not striving to be happy but just to be safe and warm. What existence was that? She was done with that. Everyone else deserved their happiness, why couldn't she have it too?

She'd survived for years that felt like eternities. Even Stephanie knew when enough was enough. And if she went out there, with nothing and didn't make it, then she figured she'd tried.

"Do you think you'll just be able to go back to how it was before?" He asked. "You don't even know what's gone on in the past few years."

She couldn't drag her eyes back up, and she crossed her arms over her chest, trying and nearly failing to keep herself here and now. The anger, Stephanie understood. Fear and a lack of understanding were the very roots of the emotion. Brennan just wanted to understand her, to help her so much that it was enough for him to be afraid for her. It should have counted for something, and it did, more than he knew.

"Out there?" He pointed out the window, to an empty street riddled with shattered glass and cracked pavement. "You're so out of practice with life that you wouldn't last long. You'd have been better off in that facility-"

A growl pried itself from her chest, permeating the room with anger so quickly that Brennan immediately quieted.

"Don't you dare say I'd be better off there. Don't you dare," she snarled, slamming her palms against the table so hard that it shook. "You have no idea what that was like, and nothing will measure up to that. Do you understand me?"

She read the shock in his eyes. He had never seen her reach remotely angry. Her blood pressure had skyrocketed in no time at all and pulsed behind her eyes as she breathed through the fury, the indignation.

"What do you plan on doing, then? Because I fail to see how you could be better off anywhere but here."

Brennan had taken pains to lower his voice, to take the sting of anger out of it, for her benefit. Before Stephanie's mind had caught up with her mouth, she revealed her only scrap of a plan.