Information

Nick
Legacy Name: Gambled

The Glacier Tigrean
Owner: nicolas

Age: 10 years, 7 months, 3 weeks

Born: August 31st, 2015

Adopted: 9 years, 6 months, 5 days ago

Adopted: October 20th, 2016

Statistics

• Level: 18
   
• Strength: 22
   
• Defense: 17
   
• Speed: 10
   
• Health: 10
   
• HP: 10/10
   
• Intelligence: 31
   
• Books Read: 27
• Food Eaten: 0
• Job: Getaway Driver

Minion overlays made by SavvyCYNZ!

So kiss me now
This whiskey on my breath
Feel the lives that I have taken
What little soul that I have left
And oh, my god
I'll take you to the grave
The only love I've ever known
The only soul I've ever saved

He could feel himself lagging behind the others. Hell, he could see it plain as day that they were much further ahead of him. The storm on their way back had stirred up the zombies, to the point that the group could barely walk three feet without getting jumped.

They'd all agreed to move as fast as possible when the brunt of the storm died down and find shelter when it picked back up and that had saved them a lot of blundering around in the rain that was for sure. But they were all taking a beating from it, the conman most of all.

He had to assume it was the suit – the white in the storm giving the zombies something to beeline at. But of course he was too proud to admit that to the others, even when Coach suggested he take the thing off for now (it wasn't doing him any good soaked through anyways). He'd scoffed at the idea, told the other off with a snide remark. But in the back of his mind, he knew that the older man was right. And the universe seemed to want to prove that to the gambler.

Nick heard the tell-tale cough before he could spot the Smoker and dodged as fast as he could to the side in the almost-calf-deep water. The last thing he needed was to be dragged even further away from the others.

When he felt no tugging pressure on his chest from constriction, he let out a relieved sigh – the tongue had missed; now he needed to actually focus and get himself caught up with the others. But he couldn't do that with them hurrying ahead and leaving him in the dust. With the echoing sound of crying Witches all around them, he really didn't want to get separated either.

He opened his mouth to call out to them, to finally admit that he needed them to wait up a bit so he could keep pace in his hurt condition, but before he could say anything he felt himself lose his balance like a rug had gotten yanked out from under his feet and he fell face-first into the gathering rainwater, the gas can of diesel on his back falling away and disappearing under the water's surface.

He quickly got his head above the rainwater and gasped in a breath of air only to sputter out a few curses as well, most pertaining to his injured status and the shitty weather. But a jolt of cold shock went down his spine when he felt something yank hard at his ankle before twisting itself up his leg. He squirmed around to get a better look at what had caught him and another string of colorful profanity left his mouth.

He didn't dodge the Smoker tongue completely, he just managed to make sure it drowned him rather than strangled him to death. "Guys!" he yelled out, looking forward to keep an eye on the others, who were starting to become only silhouettes in the rain. He hoped to whatever sickly-humored God there was up in the heavens that the group could still hear him over the storm that was picking back up again. "Guys, I could, y'know, use some fuckin' help here!"

One shadowy body turned – the hat he could barely make out at the distance identified the hick immediately – before he started running back towards the conman as fast as he could through the water with frenzied shouts.

The other two turned as well and started to make their way back, but the storm chose that perfect moment to pick up again, the howling gales of wind carrying the sounds of the approaching horde of zombies to them. "Shit, shit, shit!" Nick snarled as the Smoker started to drag him back towards its hiding spot. He attempted to kick his caught leg out hoping that maybe it'd snap the tongue, but to no avail.

He didn't have any melee items he could use either, having decided to rely on a Magnum and a well-favored assault rifle for the trip, both of which had fallen off his person with the diesel can and vanished under the rainwater.

His hands scrabbled for purchase on something, anything that he could grab to keep the Smoker from dragging him out of sight, his eyes fixed on the flashes of gunfire he could see in the distance. If the horde distracted the others for too long and the Smoker dragged him out of sight, he was dead.

A noise over all the gunfire in the distance and the howling winds made his blood run cold, however: the low, pissed off growling of a Witch somewhere to his right. Like a shot of adrenaline to his body, he struggled against the tongue pulling him away, managing to get some distance between where the Smoker was. But that meant that he still had the Witch to get away from, something he'd never be able to do in the state he was in right now.

The Smoker, having enough of his victim's struggling, gave a hard yank to his tongue, dislodging Nick's grasp of a large piece of concrete he'd anchored himself to, causing the conman's head to disappear under the rainwater momentarily before he managed to break the surface with a hacking cough. 'Fuck, this thing has a strong-ass tongue,' he venomously thought, trying to give his leg another hard yank and failing as he was dragged backwards. Smoker tongues usually broke at the force that this one had to use to dislodge him with.

He could hear the Witch getting angrier, her growls turning into snarling and almost-screams. It was only a matter of moments before she pounced on him and he was caught by a goddamn Smoker.

'What a fuckin' way to go, on the ground like a dog,' he though, a scowl coming to his face as his hands lost grip on the thing that he'd been using to keep himself steady, sliding back even more as the Smoker relentlessly dragged him through the water.

There was a flash bang of lightning and Nick could see Ellis desperately trying to make his way to where the gambler was in distress, Coach and Rochelle effectively holding off the zombies. "There's a Witch! Grab the can of diesel I had, and help Coach and Ro get to Virgil, damn it! I'm as good as dead!" he shouted to the hick, watching as the other man stumbled to a stop, a fallen and crushed look crossing his face that immediately disappeared to be replaced with a look of pure terror.

"Nick!" the kid screamed over a roar of thunder, a sound that was even more gut wrenching than the angry, shrill shriek the Witch made as she finally lost all patience with the gambler in her space and bee-lined towards him with full intent to rip him apart, not slowed at all by the calf-deep water.

There was no way to break the tongue without a sharp weapon, and the most he could do about the Witch was wait for imminent death. There was no conning his way out of this problem.

He knew when she reached him, because he felt sharp claws cut through the fabric of his suit and scrape painfully across the skin on his back. He heard a shotgun blast, and was saved the pain of claws for a moment as the Witch paused to snarl in pain.

But the pause wasn't for long and very soon, he felt the deadly zombie's elongated nails carve some more of the flesh off his back, prompting a pained scream from him. More shotgun blasts, all in quick succession, and he heard the Witch give out a pained noise before a responding splash of a body collapsing into the water next to him told him that the deadly Special Infected was taken care of.

A loud wheeze sounded from nearby and another blast of the shotgun followed it, the pressure around his leg going slack. He grunted, the effort to keep his head above the water becoming a bit too much for his neck, and he tried to push himself up on wobbly arms.

He heard the splish-splish of footsteps in water drawing closer and a strangled gasp before another, much louder splash sounded. He felt himself being pulled to the side, being bundled into someone's arms... heard the hick call out for Coach and Rochelle to give him a hand with carrying the conman to safety.

They were so close to being out of the mill, the safe room wasn't too far away. If they could just get to it, they would be safe from the horde... safe from the other infected that wished to see them rotting in the gutter.

Nick didn't even noticed the amount of blood he was losing, especially since the wounds were on his back, but the Georgian could see that the other was in immediate danger of bleeding to death if they didn't do something to staunch the blood-flow immediately and that frightened the absolute hell out of Ellis.

After a few more seconds of calling for the other two to hurry up, Ellis realized that Nick had passed out from the pain and just about had a heart attack, but Coach and Rochelle finally appeared by his side, the horde now dealt with, and they managed to make their way to the safe room; hell, they even managed to find the diesel that the gambler had fumbled into the rainwater before they left, which was good because they were not making a damn return trip back just for one can.

------------

The next time Nick floated into consciousness, the first thing he registered was the near-blinding pain his back was in and the fact that he was laid out on his stomach. The pain coaxed a hiss out of his throat, though he silenced it immediately when he heard something shift next to him.

"Nick!" a familiar voice stage-whispered and the conman groaned slightly, turning his head to groggily glare at the hick who was practically falling off the edge of the box he was sitting on as a makeshift chair.

"Cool your jets, Ace; how – shit, that hurts – long have I been out?" the gambler mumbled, cursing under his breath as he moved slightly and a sharp, jagged pain arced up his back. The hick put a hand out and placed it on the other's shoulder, holding him down with a firm but gentle grip.

"Ah, a couple hours maybe?" the Georgian estimated, grinning weakly as a string of curses left the other's mouth. "The storm stopped not long ago, Coach reckons we'll be able ta make it back with no problems at all."

"Good, because I'm so fucking done with rain right now, I swear to God..." Nick growled, attempting to push himself upright and shrug the hand on his shoulder off.

"Nick, I don' think ya–" the kid started, but the withering look he got from the conman put him back into silence, his hand retreating from the other's shoulder as well. The conman kept the other's gaze for a few more cold seconds before he continued to sit up, grimacing in pain.

After a second, he realized that he was so much better off on his stomach, but he took a good look at himself before he moved again. Bandages wrapped themselves all around his suitless, shirtless torso and, with the amount of bandages he could see, he really didn't want to know what his back looked like.

"Bitch really went at me, didn't she?" he sighed, laying himself back down on his stomach on the table – a table, he noted, that once was home to some of the throwables and medpacks of the safe room before it was cleared as a makeshift bed for him. Said table was also fucking cold as all get-the-fuck-out. "Do me a favor, sport, and grab my suit for me would you? This table is cold as hell." He saw the Georgian hesitate for a moment before getting up from his box seat and disappearing from the conman's view to shuffle around on the shelves that were behind him.

"Don't get mad at me when ya see the state yer suit's in..." he heard Ellis say lowly as he came back to the table, holding the suit out to the other. Nick lifted a hand to take the piece of clothing from the other, but his hand froze inches away from it, face becoming a sickly-looking pale.

"That... isn't all my blood, is it?" he asked weakly, his aloofness evaporating as he reached the rest of the way out and took the suit, bringing it closer to stare at the bloodstain that was bloomed out on the back of the white clothing amidst the slashes from the Witch claws.

"I- we almost thought we lost ya, honestly," the hick said softly, sitting back down on his box. "Ya just lost so much blood an' were barely breathin'." The conman looked over at the other, this time actually taking in the details of the other: the redness of his eyes, the large splotch of blood – his blood – that was down the other's front, the generally ragged and disheveled look of the other. "Th' other two... they were talkin' about what'd happen if ya died n' turned or somethin'... how we'd have ta go about... well... y'know..."

"Yeah, I get the idea," the gambler grumbled. That explained why the hick looked like absolute hell. Probably threw a fit over the thought of having to put one of the group members down. Sighing, he started shifting and moving around to place the suit under him before lying down again, rubbing his face with his hands. "I'll have to see if Virgil has some thread and a needle or something on his boat, I'm gonna have to patch my suit up..." He fell silent after a moment, moving his gaze over to the other, who had a lost look to him. "Get some sleep. We need to get moving before Virgil thinks that we died or some shit."

A slightly indignant look crossed the Georgian's face for a moment before it fell away into a more submissive one as he sighed. "Yea, yer probably right. Th' others told me ta watch you just in case but I don’ suppose ya need watched anymore," he mumbled, getting up and kicking his box chair out of the way.

He moved to the corner near the other table in the room and settled himself down on the ground, tipping his cap down to cover his face. "G'night," the hick tossed towards the other, who gave a grunt in response.

Needless to say, it was nearly dead silent without the storm going on except for the faint sounds of the infected outside. It gave the conman far too much quiet time to think, seeing as he couldn't move from the table unless he wanted to rip the stitches in his back all to fuck.

He had to admit, he didn't blame the group for having to think the worst about his situation, what with the amount of blood on his suit and the hick's shirt. He was surprised he wasn't fucking dead right now from the blood loss.

The thought of coming back as one of those fuckin' things made his stomach churn nauseatingly and a sour taste seemed to coat his mouth. Death was all around them every waking moment now days, the thought of dying shouldn't have hit him quite as hard as it did. But he'd brushed with it and that was way too close for him...

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