Who: Savannah Posey and Jacob Graves Where:Savannah’s office What: talk of Fox Grove, kids, jobs and the politics of Austin When: September 9th, mid morning (after Rodeo's texts)
Jacob Graves ~violentgraves
Savannah Posey ~jurisdoctor
CONTINUED WITH COMMENTS
because with html it's too long :|
He’d been stitched up and kept under observation. He’d been told how to keep himself from doing anything too crazy - like fighting people and or zombies - until his back was healed up, and that he needed to keep a close eye on himself for more signs of the infection getting worse, and of course there was the headaches and all that. He wasn’t in as good a shape as he’d thought he was, basically, and that was irritating as all hell.
But he’d finally been cut loose enough that he could go see Savannah. He still wasn’t quite sure how he was going to deal with things now. Fox Grove apparently didn’t do adults, so he was worlds of unwelcome there. He wasn’t at all sure what his next move was, and he wasn’t used to not knowing that sort of thing. He was always someone with at least a loose plan, and if he didn’t have that he was good at winging it in the moment - but this was his daughter here. He wanted her to be living with him, but living with him when he didn’t even really have a place yet and the idea of what that meant anymore was so different… He just wasn’t quite sure what the next thing was.
But if he was going to talk to anyone about it, he’d talk to Savannah. See what she had to say, he guessed, at the very least.
Plus, if he was being honest with himself, he just wanted to see her.
So, he went where he was directed, her office, he guessed, and he rapped his knuckles on the door before he reached out to open it, peeking his head in.
Savannah had one hell of a headache forming right between her eyes, all of the worries in her brain pushing and pounding in time to her heartbeat. Medicine was so scarce that there was no way she could justify taking an advil, so she’d settled on resting her face in her hands, blocking out the light of the day. It seemed to be helping, right up until someone knocked on the door. Each rap on the wood sent extra shocks of pain and she pulled her head out of her hands to look up at her guest.
Though the ache still pounded, her expression softened when she caught sight of who it was.
“Jacob, hi. When did you get out of quarantine?” She asked, pushing herself more upright in her chair. He was looking much better than when she’d first found him, so even if he was never at risk of turning, his time down with Babs had served him well. “Well, come in,” she added, motioning for him to do just that.
“Just now,” he told her, coming in and shutting the door behind himself. He glanced around as he made his way further inside. “Nice office,” he told her. It was a nice building in general, from what he'd seen – which was very little. He hadn't gone wandering around quite yet, he'd just come straight here. This office, while not huge, was cozy, though. That was something he hadn't experienced a lot of since everything had gone sideways in the world. It was a thing of the past. Or, it had been to him, til now.
Still, from what he'd viewed along the way, it was nice. He got to her desk and looked down at her, crossing his arms over his chest. “You look tired,” he told her, though it wasn't meant to be insulting. She just did. She looked like she could use a good night's rest. He eyed the couch, then opted to sit there, stretching out a bit as he did so.
“It’s a replica of Lady Bird Johnson’s office. She was LBJ’s wife,” she replied, “Seemed fitting when I set up my office here.” She’d been called the First Lady around the library when Gray had been running the shelter so it only seemed logical that she should have a First Lady’s office.
She pursed her lips at his words, not fond of anyone telling her that, but especially someone she hardly knew. That just meant her appearance must be worse than she thought if strangers were noticing. Great. Day was going to scold her and Savannah just didn’t want to hear it.
Turning her chair to face him, she crossed her legs and crossed her arms across her chest as she looked at him. “Lots to do but so little time,” she said vaguely. “So, yes, I suppose I’m tired.”
“Lady Bird?” he asked. He didn't know a whole lot about presidents or their wives. While he'd been in prison he'd read a whole lot, but studying things like that hadn't exactly been high on his list of things to do.
When she told him there was a lot to do, he believed it. If she was running this joint, then there was probably a million things to do. He had no idea what it would entail, but imagined he was going to have to figure it out relatively soon. He was part of this section of the world now, and the sooner he worked out how to survive in it the better.
“Headache?” he asked. She had a look around her eyes like Sasha used to get when she had a migraine coming on. Hers were usually brought on by eye strain, stress, or quite frequently by the end, him. But he knew the signs, or thought he did, anyway. She could also just be tired, he guessed.
Seemed to him though that there was more to her, and he wondered about it. He hoped he got to scratch the surface. She was one of the first people in what felt like ages to actually capture his attention.
Savannah didn’t know a whole lot about presidents or their wives either, but having in a office that replicated a First Lady’s office had piqued her interest. Unfortunately she couldn’t just google for information anymore, so it largely remained a mystery to her. All she really knew was what was on the plaque outside the door and that was surface level information at best.
“Yeah, it’s buildin’ up right now,” she confirmed, blinking hard for a moment to try and push it away. “Must be the damn heat. Suckin’ all the moisture right out of my body.” Though stress and lack of sleep certainly were contributing to her headache situation, she was also not drinking nearly enough water. But she often just forgot to take care of basic needs with all the shit that was on her plate these days.
“Anyway, you feelin’ better? Did Babs fix up that cut you had goin’ on?”
“C'mere,” he said, holding out one hand and motioning her closer. “Gimme your hand,” he added. He'd done this sort of thing for Sasha before, too. It wasn't a one hundred percent thing, but it worked a shockingly frequent amount of the time. If she'd let him.
“Sort of. It's weird, stopping. I've been on the go constantly since the outbreak, it's a pretty big adjustment to settle anywhere, even for a few days,” he confessed. “But I found my baby girl, and that makes the world a better place,” he added and a smile touched his lips, lighting up features that seemed better suited toward scowls. But with Jacob, it seemed to brighten everything about him, taking the weight out of his shoulders, the shadows from his eyes.
“She's at the school, and I've been assured that she's safe. I apparently can't go there, whatever that's about, but still. I heard from her.”
Savannah just looked at Jacob for a moment, trying to guess at what he was going to do, but ultimately decided that whatever he might try was better than doing nothing. Moving over to the couch, she sat down beside him and tucked her feet under to get comfortable. She’d slept on that couch more times than she could count, so even just sitting somewhere that wasn’t her stiff office chair was already helping the headache situation.
“Oh, Fox Grove? Yeah, they’re a special bunch. No adults there. I hear they have a council, which is actually quite democratic and progressive of them, but they also have some unique punishment methods. Mind you, the leader of the school gave an interview a little while back and spoke about it and said they only hang the ones that are convicted of murder or rape, but even so, that’s an awfully big decision for kids to be makin’.”
She shuddered a bit at the thought. And to think if things had been different, Maizie might have ended up there. Obviously not for long since Gray would have fought through hell and high water to get his baby girl out of there. But even still. All those kids without parents made her sad. “You think she’ll come live here then?”
He arched a brow when she said the words 'they only hang the ones' because that sounded a whole lot like they hung people. He was going to have to see this interview. Or talk to Lily, or something, because yeah. “That...doesn't make me feel better about where she's living,” he admitted. “And I hope she wants to live with me. Here, if I decide to stay,” he added, making brief eye contact with her on that.
Reaching out, he took her hand. His own were rough, and hers seemed silky smooth, which was nice. He didn't let himself linger on that idea though, and instead guided his fingers to a point between her thumb and forefinger, toward the middle of her palm but still in the webbing between those digits.
“This isn't going to feel good, but just give me a few seconds, and your headache should be gone, and the pain in your hand will fade fast.” He pinched her hand then, finding the pressure point in it and massaging it. He knew it sucked for a few moments, but it really did work most of the time. He even tended to do it to himself when he didn't have access to anything that resembled medicine, which had been often out there in the wasteland. He released the pressure and smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand when he was done, expecting her to snatch it back considering that pressure point really didn’t feel great in the process. But the effects should already be hitting her.
Seeing as Savannah had been in Austin since the beginning and knew all about the different factions around the city, she forgot sometimes that the different dynamics weren’t common knowledge to all. Her eyes widened with guilt at the look on Jacob’s face and she quickly said, “Oh, shit, honey I’m sorry. I’m sure your daughter’s okay. You’ve talked to her and you’re her daddy. If she was in trouble, I’m sure she’d tell you.”
Her hand felt small and delicate when he took hold of her hand and she couldn’t help but look down and watch them move together. That didn’t last long, however, because then he was pinching in that sensitive spot between her index finger and thumb and Jesus it hurt. Her breath hissed out through gritted teeth, but she let him finish what he was doing before she withdrew her hand, holding it to her chest and placing her other hand on top of it to rub at the affected area.
“You weren’t kiddin’ were you?” She asked, squeezing her eyes together for a moment and blinking away the wateriness that had begun to well up. Surprisingly, though, she could already feel the pounding between her eyes to start to dull. She’d never done that before and if she’d know that trick, she could’ve saved herself a world of pain in the past couple years.
After a couple more moments, she lowered her hands back down to her lap, and leaned against the back of the couch. Picking up her train of thought from before he pinched her hand, she looked over at Jacob and said, “Can’t see why your daughter wouldn’t want to live with you. Family’s more important than ever now. And you came all this way to find her.”
Jacob didn't say it out loud, but he wasn't positive. He wanted to be – he'd always had a very close relationship with Lily and she'd always gone to him in the past, even when she was in trouble. But it had been two years, the roughest for humanity as a whole on record, and he hadn't been there. He didn't know if there was going to be resentment, or simply her just having worked out how to take care of herself, and he might get in the way now.
He skipped over his insecurity on that score, though, knowing there was nothing for it til he saw Lily and talked to her. He smiled, though, when his trick seemed to work. “You're welcome,” he said, even if she hadn't thanked him.
And she was back on Lily. He sighed and shrugged. “Haven't seen her in two years. I have no idea what to expect. Being a teenager is shitty and hard enough as it is, without having this thrown on top of it. I don't know what she's like by now. I just hope she's okay.”
Nevermind that without her to tether him, he had no idea what he was going to do in this world.
Savannah’s mouth quirked up slightly as his presumption, though it was really just a lapse of manners on her part. “Thank you,” she said, still rubbing at her hand. “Feelin’ better already.”
Honestly her headache seemed like a minor issue in comparison so she hadn’t bothered to spare the effort on it, instead focusing on Jacob’s dilemma. “There were some extenuating circumstances, though. It’s a damn miracle you made it here in one piece all the way from Detroit. I’m sure she’ll realize that. What matters is that you’re here now.”
Mouth pursing a bit at the thought of teenagers, and the fact that Savannah had one of her own (even though she had no biological or legal claim on her, she still regarded Maizie as hers), she took a moment before saying, “It’s true that bein’ a teenager is hard, but I think maybe they’re the ones who can adjust the easiest. My daughter is much better at all this than I am.”
“Good,” he said, laying his arm out across the back of the couch. His eyes found nothing to focus on in the room ahead of him, but settled on a middle distance for the time being. “You don't know my daughter. She's her father's kid, that's for sure, and has a temper. I wouldn't be surprised if she blew up at me. Maybe not right away, but eventually. Sure, we can sit back and look at things objectively and know that what happened happened and it wasn't my fault, but last time I checked, teenagers weren't all that well known for being rational all the time.”
He gave a rueful smile. When she said she had a daughter too, he looked at her. “yeah? I'm glad she's okay. And that she's adjusting well. I know Lil is a strong girl, she'll have made it through at least on that. I didn't raise her not to be able to stand on her own. But I...” he paused a moment. “I'm just aware it's been two years, where monsters were trying to kill her, and I wasn't here for it.”
She could understand Jacob’s concerns, but even after everything she’d been through lately, she still didn’t like to assume the worst from the get-go. That was just a default to some, though, and it wasn’t easily changed. All of her hope and optimism was probably falling on deaf ears. “Well just wait and see how it goes, then,” she said, shrugging. “And if she’s mad about what happened then just make up for it now. S’all you can do really. We can’t change the past.”
‘Okay’ was a loose definition to how she and Maizie were doing, but out of the two of them, at least Maizie’s outbursts were a normal teenage thing. “Can’t believe she’s almost 18. Guess that means she’s almost an adult,” she said, smiling a bit herself. “Her name is Maizie. I’m sure you’ll run into her eventually. How old is your daughter?”
If he'd known what she was thinking, he would have agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment of him – he was in fact a person whose mind was geared toward automatically finding the worst case scenario. It was just how he functioned, a product of his life going the way it had. If he tried looking on the bright side and waited to see how things went, he wound up fucked over.
But he also got that not everyone dealt with life that way, and he was kind of a morose bitch sometimes. He glanced back in her direction when she went on. “Eighteen,” he answered. “And they know each other – Maizie, she messaged me when I was looking for Lily. She said she knew her. She's a sweet kid,” he told her.
“Maizie is sweet. I’m glad you were able to talk to her about Lily. It really is a small world, though. Who would’ve thought our girls would know each other?” she asked, more rhetorical than anything. Fate must’ve had a sense of humor when it led Savannah outside and Jacob to the library.
Shifting slightly to get more comfortable on the couch, she angled herself to face Jacob more. “When do you think you’ll go to Fox Grove? I’m sure someone around here would show you the way. It’s not too far away but you’re new around here. Wouldn’t want you gettin’ lost.”
“According to them, I'm not allowed in, so I have to come up with a place I can meet her, or walk her to when I wait outside while kids tell me they're keeping my daughter safe,” he said. Yeah, he wasn't overjoyed with the situation. But he didn't sound actually angry. Just frustrated.
“I wouldn't say no to someone pointing me in the right direction,” he admitted. “It's a big place, and I'm new here. I never really set foot outside of Michigan before all of this,” he added. “So, yeah. I'd take someone helping me out on that score.” Then he looked at her again. “But not for free,” he added. “So, what could I do in return?”
“Yeah, I just assumed you’d meet here there. Doesn’t seem like you’d let her wander around alone out there,” she said, his protectiveness of his daughter very clear in the short amount of conversation they’d had with each other. “Don’t suppose you’d want to bring your kid to a bar,” she frowned. “Not many other places to ‘hang out’ these days.”
“I can ask one of the scouts to go with you. One of ‘em might know a safe place y’all can be for a bit.”
She was quiet for a moment, just looking at Jacob, trying to figure out what was going on in that brain of his before she continued talking. “I gotta say, you’re way too hung up on this repayment thing. But if you insist, I’m sure having an extra set of hands out scouting wouldn’t hurt.”
The idea of a bar didn't actually bother him, though he would have liked someplace to catch up with her that was less public. But he noted the fact that there was a bar at all. “I'd appreciate that,” he told her. “We'll need to figure things out,” he said. And he had no idea what that would entail and didn't even want to try and guess.
He met her gaze when she was studying him. “Not hung up, I just don't trust anything that comes for free. In my experience, nothing ever is, not really. I'd rather pay up front for something, to know what I'm in for, than have someone come calling later for something I want no part in.” Unless it was handing out favors to pretty blondes, apparently, but he didn't say that.
“What does scouting entail?”
“Do you distrust birthday gifts as well?” Savannah deadpanned, still looking at him and pursing her lips. She had no idea what he’d experienced out there, and it was bound to be quite a lot considering how long and far he’d traveled, but she knew she wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on him. The fact that he didn’t trust that in her hurt just a little, even if they were practically strangers. She just hated to think that there wasn’t good left in this world still and to see how this new world could affect people.
“Scouting is short for the Supply Scouts. They’re responsible for goin’ out into the city and gatherin’ whatever they can find that’s useful. Gotta get food from somewhere, after all. A while back the government gassed the city, tryin’ to kill off the biters, but it just turned everythin’ into a barren wasteland. Not much grows ‘round here anymore.”
She worried that they’d run out of things to scavenge soon, but they didn’t have any other options right now. Something was going to have to be done before long if they were going to keep surviving in Austin.
“I already know you know how to take care of yourself out there if your journey here was anything to go by, so you can do that to earn your keep if you’d like. Unless you have some other useful skills you ain’t shared with me yet? Now’s the time to do so, since you’re so keen on bein’ square with us.”
Jacob smirked. “I don't know, who's the birthday gift from in this scenario?” he asked rhetorically. He nodded, however, when she went into what scouting was all about. “That I could do. It's what I had to do this whole time, so I can get something like that done easy.”
That would be up his alley. It would mean he wasn't holed up in the building all the time, which he was thinking most of these people were, and he could do something he was good at. Sounded like a win-win, for now. But he did have a question. “If nothing grows around here anymore, why don't people pack up and leave?”
“And I do have other useful skills, but you won't see them unless you need dirty work done,” he said. There was that half smirk on his lips, but there was also a touch of seriousness in his eyes, too.
“The gift is from me,” Savannah said with a roll of her eyes. He certainly wasn’t making this easy on her. No use dwelling on it, though, so she just let it go. Instead she focused on the scouting and nodded back. “Good, then you can do that. I’ll direct you to the Head of Resources’ office and you two can chat about your schedule and locations. Usually scouts go out in pairs so at least you’ll have someone to show you around.”
It wasn’t as though leaving hadn’t crossed her mind before. In all honesty, they really should leave, but it was easier said than done. “There’s over a thousand people in this shelter including some elderly and infants. Would be one hell of a task to move everyone. The other shelters have similar numbers. Seems like a pretty big task and one we don’t have resources for,” she said giving a slight shrug at the end.
There was safety in numbers and people were reluctant to leave the familiar. Austin had become Savannah’s home and she would be sad to leave it, though eventually she might not have an option. “I try to keep my messes to a minimum but I’ll keep that in mind.”
“If it's from you, I might trust it,” Jacob said. “If it was from Cap, hell no.” There was amusement behind his gaze though. “I don’t need a babysitter,” he said. “I know how to adapt real fast,” he added with a half quirked smile. The only way he’d agree to a pair was probably if he thought some other scout looked like they couldn’t hold their own, or something, but even then, he wasn’t sure. He knew his daughter was alive now, that should mean he took less risks, right?
Not that that had ever stopped him before. Deep down he knew that he’d be exactly the same. It was his nature.
“It'll eventually be one hell of a task to keep that many people fed, if you can't even try to grow your own food, though,” Jacob reasoned. “If you scouted out for a better place outside the no-life zone, you could find someplace, then move people in small groups,” he suggested. Jacob sometimes had a tactical head on his shoulders.
“You do that. I'll...figure out what comes next,” he said.
She cracked a smile at his mention of Babs, though it wasn’t all that fair to have amusement at the other woman’s expense. She’d been to hell and back just like Savannah had, but maybe it was the fact that they were cut from the same tree that made her able to see the irony in it all. Everyone coped in their own ways and Savannah couldn’t fault Babs for that.
Jacob really did look like the type of person who could take care of himself, but that didn’t mean Savannah liked the idea of him going out alone. She didn’t like any of the scouts out there alone. It seemed too risky, but going out at any time no matter the circumstance or party size was always a risk. “Then you just make sure you’re careful.”
She could appreciate Jacob’s ideas and filed them away for later consideration. But for now she just couldn’t imagine making such a dramatic move. She had unfinished business in Austin and wasn’t sure she could bring herself to leave until it was settled. “And what’s next for you?”
Jacob winked at her. “I'm always careful,” he said, though his tone suggested he really wasn't. Jacob was the kind of person who thrived on the moment, and as messed up as it was pre-apocalypse, he'd thrived on a good fight. These days, it was a skill that was looked favorably upon. Guess he'd found his time, or something.
“I don't know,” he said. “I need to talk to Lily. I'll have a better idea then, but I'm thinking here, if I can be useful doing what I do, might as well. See how I do trying to fit back into civilized society,” he said, glancing around. He wasn't sure how he'd do, but he'd have to work it out for Lily's sake. Plus, if he stuck around here, he'd be able to talk to Savannah again.
The wink took her by surprise and her eyes darted down to her hands resting in her lap. She saw just a sliver of who Gray had been in that moment and it hit her hard. She already had enough on her plate with not talking to Lita and the Hellhounds cooking up from kind of fight with the Capitol over Rodeo’s sister and trying to keep everyone in her shelter safe despite the odds. She didn’t need to go down that dark hole of grief right now.
“Civilized,” she said with a slight laugh. It was certainly better than being out there, but sometimes Savannah wasn’t so sure how long society could hold out with the way things were turning in Austin. “We do try to be accommodatin’ sweetheart. These days we can’t complain if we’ve got a roof over our heads and somethin’ to eat. When’s the last time you had that on a regular basis?”
He saw her avert her gaze, and wondered what it was about, but didn't press for right now. They didn't know each other well enough for him to go asking if she was alright. Maybe at some point. Just not quite yet. He filed it away, however.
“Before Sasha left,” he said, being totally honest. He'd floated for a little while before he'd gotten himself an apartment for Lily and himself. Her leaving had left him kind of desolate, though he still didn't blame her for leaving. Just for taking their baby with her.
“Let's call it 'a long time',” he added. “Why the laugh at the word 'civilized'?” he asked curiously. “Shit not quite as put together as it looks?”
“Let’s just say we got some political struggles,” Savannah said, glancing back up at Jacob. She hesitated for just a moment before continuing, “If you’re gonna stay here, or even if you’re not, you need to know that the Capitol ain’t someone you can trust. We’re not tryin’ to start somethin’ with them but they aren’t our allies.”
Her elbows rested on her knees and she cradled her head in her hands. Jesus, she could feel the headache coming back already, having to talk about this. “Two months ago the Capitol’s Patrolmen killed the foundin’ leader of this shelter as some bullshit power play and blamed it on people who have helped us. That’s why you need to be careful out there. They’re goddamn lions in lambs clothing.”
Jacob arched a brow, and listened. “Really? Huh.” He wasn't quite sure what to think about that, besides this was maybe the perfect place for him. A world where what he was good at meant something and wasn't frowned upon, and the government wasn't on the up and up. He'd always been a criminal, after all, in some form.
He felt his stomach twist a little when she talked about the murder. Okay maybe not, and he needed his daughter somewhere he could keep an eye on her at all times. Jesus.
He watched her for a second. “I get it. But I've always been one of the wolves in the world, darlin,” he said. “But even more now – you just let me know if shit starts going sideways, alright?” He paused. “How protected are you?” he asked. “I know I saw the guard with you and all that shit, but how well trained is anyone here? Are you safe?”
There was no way she was going to pull anyone else in on this and put them at risk for no reason, even if he felt he owed her some silly debt. This wasn’t even Jacob’s fight and it was going to stay that way. “You don’t need to worry about how well trained our security is. Day -- who will probably make you call her Jadyn -- is ex-military. She knows what she’s doin’ and makes sure her men do too.”
Combing her hands through her hair, she sat back up and sighed. “I’m safe here. Nothin’ to worry about.”
Nothing Jacob needed to worry about anyway.
Jacob sighed. “She might not be the only person in the world who knows what they're doing,” he said, but again, he didn't know her well enough yet to press. Even if he didn't like the sounds of things. Ex military was good. Definitely good. But he didn't know what one person who knew their shit did in terms of being able to keep this whole place safe. Or just her.
“Uhuh,” he said, eyes still on her. “Well, just remember what I said. And, just keep this in mind – if I am going to stay here? That'll be high on my list of concerns.”
“You sure have a lot to say for someone who has been here for like, five days,” Savannah said with amusement. “Not that I’m sayin’ that’s bad. I’ve always encouraged the survivors who live here to give feedback so we can keep things honest ‘round here, but it just seems like you should find a bit more out about this place before you make up your mind about how you think it is here.”
Jacob shrugged one shoulder. “Guess I'm not a sit back and do nothin in my old age,” he told her. “And I know. I just also knew I could have taken your security guard down in about five seconds, if I'd wanted to,” he added. It wasn't a threat or anything, or even him trying to show off. More just a validation that he wasn't making completely baseless assumptions. Just mostly baseless.
He gave her a half smile. “Hopefully he was still in training, is all I'm sayin.”
“Accompanyin’ the First Lady while she takes her dog out for a walk isn’t exactly a big security risk,” Savannah countered. “I was only a few feet away from the front door. Nothin’ was gonna happen to me.”
She wasn’t really addressing the bulk of Jacob’s concerns, but it was mostly because she just didn’t know how to interpret them. “If you have concerns about security then you should talk to Day. I’m sure there is nothin’ that would delight her more than makin’ sure someone competent is keepin’ tabs on me.”
Jacob shrugged, and didn't think that was true. Shit happened. Didn't matter if you were right outside your front door, shit happened. There were zombies out there and apparently the Capitol wasn't to be trusted and the first person in charge here was dead.
He saw a whole shit load of things to be concerned about.
Jacob eyed her for a long moment then nodded. “Maybe I will, if I decide to stay,” he said. He was still in the process, though he was thinking it was more likely than not that he would end up here. “Got one question though – why was the first guy in your shoes offed?”
Talking about Gray's death was never easy, but it was especially painful to try to explain to a near-stranger. He didn't know the history of LBJ or what kind of man Gray had been or that she'd loved him and lost him and was doing her best not to fall apart.
"It's a complicated story. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and associatin' with the wrong people. He was with Raiders that have made themselves the Capitol's enemy and that made Gray guilty by association."
He could tell that she seemed to be struggling, even if she was covering pretty well. Still, he could see stress around the edges, and wondered at the bigger story. The story she told, though, that didn't sound right. Wrong place at the wrong time wasn't what she described. Guilty by association was something else. That was calculated.
“Why was he dealing with raiders?” he asked. “And do you figure it was an accident, or they killed him because of the association?” He also ducked his head a little to make sure he captured her gaze. “And if this is none of my business, tell me,” he said. “But I like knowing the score.”
Almost everyone knew Savannah as the grieving widow of Gray Wolfe and knew better than to ask these questions but it wasn’t Jacob’s fault that he didn’t know. If he was going to stay safe in Austin then he needed to know what was going on here. Gray’s death and the feud between the Capitol and the Hellhounds would affect him if he decided to stay at LBJ. He deserved to have all the facts before he made a decision like that. And even if he decided to go, then at least he knew what kind of people were in this city.
“Wasn’t necessarily by choice. They helped him out. He was, well, kidnapped by some ghouls. They live down in the subway tunnels. You should avoid goin’ there if you can because it’s bad news. They messed him up bad, just for the hell of it. When they got bored they had a zombie bite him and then threw him back out into Austin. One of the raiders found him and brought him back to their camp durin’ his quarantine.”
Glancing up at Jacob, she gave a half-hearted shrug. “LBJ has always refused to have Capitol interference here. They wanted to install their Patrolmen here and we said no. Gray is the one who made that decision. Who knows if they’ve had it out for him the whole time or him bein’ with the raiders just presented an opportunity to take out two evils at once, but it ain’t an accident that he’s dead.”
“...ghouls?” Jacob asked. “Zombies haven't for some reason gained sentience here, have they?” he asked, and he really fucking hoped not, because that was a terrifying idea. And one he couldn't wrap his brain around, so he was desperately hoping she would correct that notion.
“They killed him while he was quarantined?” he asked, trying to puzzle through this story. Unless he continued association after he was okay. He felt like he'd walked into a complicated movie halfway through. “Or later? Are they looking to have their hand in here? The Capitol or the Raiders?”
Weirdly, this stuff he understood on a better level. Power plays always came down to the same types of things, and he knew those like the back of his hand. So even if he didn’t know the specifics, he was starting to think he might eventually have a handle on things.
Poor Jacob was going through information overload but Savannah couldn't focus her attention on informing him on the smaller details like that at the moment when she had a bigger message to convey.
"No, the Capitol's Patrolmen killed Gray when the raiders were bringin' him back to the library. They got ambushed on the way, like they knew they'd be comin' through," Savannah said, bringing her hand up to her forehead and pressing between her eyes where the tension was coiling tight once more. "Raiders aren't tryin' to take our shelter. I think the mayor would be happy if he got his foot in the door, though. That ain't gonna happen, though."
Savannah was still a little uncertain about the future relationship she would have with Rodeo and the Hellhound but at least that was a private matter. Only the department heads had to worry about that and the potential consequences.
Jacob listened, and was silent for a long moment, just trying to take everything in and process. In his opinion, in an apocalyptic wasteland in a big city, people getting ambushed on the road seemed a whole lot like an inside job. Maybe that was just his history showing, but he couldn't help but think it.
The question was whether or not he shared his opinion. In the end, he did. “I know a set up when I hear one,” he said. “Sounds like you have a hell of a lot going on. Did you volunteer for the position? Voted in? What happened there?”
Savannah just nodded gravely. There were a lot of loose ends that she didn't know if she would ever entirely understand and it ate her up inside. There was the overwhelming guilt that she was the reason Gray hadn't come home as soon as he could have because he was so mad at her and it was her fault all of this happened. But who knew if the timing would have actually made a difference or if Gray was destined to that fate from the moment he set foot in the Dog Park.
"Gray and I--we were together," she said, averting her gaze again as she stared off at nothing on the opposite side of the room. "I understood what this shelter meant to him and it was the consensus that I knew how to continue what he started." It was a heavy load to carry, but who else could shoulder it?