Outpost 30-130

After spending yet more time in school and at home Deuce longs for the freedom she once used to have. She learns that she can go out on summer patrols with the guards and help protect the farmers during the planting season. This excites her to end and makes her feel like she has a chance of having a purpose in Salvation after all. She finally mustered up the courage to go tell Fade about the patrols. She went up to him and told him and he was interested in doing it. He told her that he was still her partner and that he would be glad to go out and do them with her. This made her very happy and excited about it. She trains getting ready to show off her skill to Longshot so she is accepted into the group and worthy of going out on patrols with them. She also wants to find out what is wrong with Fade so she confronts him on the subject. He tells her that he thought she was interested in Stalker since they spent so much time together out in the field and in Salvation. Fade thought he had lost her so this made him very upset and distant. Deuce then explains how they were just training that she still really liked him and that she does not want that to change. Fade then takes her hand and they go to the swing behind Deuces house and sit together and hold hands. They exchange kisses and feel like everything is back to normal. Fade introduces the idea of them becoming boyfriend and girlfriend and Deuce likes the idea because she only likes Fade. She then locks her windows so Stalker could not come in anymore and stopped training with him. She tells him later and this upsets him a lot but still wants to go out on summer patrols with them. They train and continue on with Salvation life. Then the day comes where Deuce needed to prove herself and she called out one of the guards. She brings him down with ease and everybody watched astonished with what they just saw. She is accepted and is in need of more people to be in her squad so Fade and Stalker step up plus some guards. They go out on their first patrol and are ambushed by freaks they lose a couple guards and get back to Salvation. The freaks seem to be getting a lot smarter and this worries everybody because they have never seen them act like this before. The next time they go out to protect some farmers plant their crops. Everything is quiet while they do it and they return back to Salvation. Days later they go out again to go check on them and all of the crops have been dug up by the freaks and victims of the freaks where decapitated and their heads where mounted on sticks in the ground. This horrid sight scares everybody and a town meeting is called. They go out yet again to replant the crops and are overrun by more freaks they get back to the gate running from them and are ambushed again at the gate by freaks that have camouflaged themselves in the grass around the gate. They fight their way in and are greeted by all the town folks. They now see that the freaks are very different than what they are used to and the need of guards to be posted outside of the walls at all times would be necessary. Deuce and all of her friends wanted to be apart of the permanent patrols and were not scared to do so. Deuce invites Fade to sleep at her house the last night in Salvation because she learns his caretaker was whipping him. They fall asleep together on the couch and awaken ready to head out on the first of many days out on the field. That may have been the last alone time her and Fade get for a very long time.