Scorpio...the name resonated within her. It was was so familiar somehow, that name. And yet, where on earth had she heard it? She filed the question away in the back of her mind for now, and gazed at Dredge. When he mentioned his name, her blood ran cold, and her eyes glinted dangerously with fury.
That son of a bitch, she murmured, shaking her head. Couldn't even give you a proper name.
She was silent for several long minutes, considering just what to do. She couldn't in good consciouse take this child bad to Scorpio. No, that was out of the question, despite his protests. As she gazed at him, her mind raced with memories of her own, admittedly short captivity among a clan of raiders. She had taken her chances when they came up; she'd left when the super mutants ran across their camp, and managed to escape. She'd be dead by now if she hadn't. The boy, though he probably hadn't had to endure the same kind of torture she went through, had suffered possibly even more than she. She felt connected to him somehow, and she knew she couldn't take him to Broken Hills. She would die first.
"look," Kira stammered, hardly able to keep the quavering from her voice, "I can't take you back to Broken Hills, to this 'Scorpio.' You must understand that, child." She sighed, and decided she had to confront her own demons if she expected Dredge to listen to her, to convince him. So, she reached down, grasped the bottom of her shirt, and lifted it, revealing the flat of her stomach, the slight curves of skin clinging to her ribs. The skin was scarred badly; her stomach covered in knife wounds and jagged slashes. There were even crescent shaped marks that looked suspiciously like teeth. Though she hadn't taken her shirt off, merely lifted it, one could easily tell the scars continued along her chest, possibly covering her back as well.
"I know what it's like," she choked, her voice thick. "I know what it is to be a raider's captive. I...I was held by a group of them; my mother and I. They..." Kira's voice broke, her hands trembled, and she turned away from the boy, so as to hide the tears that shimmered in her ice-blue eyes.
"They raped and killed my mother, and they raped and tortured me. I was just 14," she continued at last, still not daring to look at the child--for in him, she saw a piece of herself; a frightened little girl who was still haunted by the past.
"I tell you this, because when I saw a chance to escape my personal hell, I took it. I was ready to die before remaining in their captivity for another second! Kira whirreled around, her eyes red from the tears that trickled down her cheeks. She knelt down before the child, jaw clenched, an aura of pain and fury around her.
"You have a chance to escape" she told him. "you have a chance to be rid of Scorpio. I want to help you, and if you come with me, I promise he'll have to kill me before he can get to you. And there's Iggy too." She threw the deathclaw a sideways glance; he was still several feet away, but upon seeing Kira's emotional distress, he hesitantly began to lumber forward. Kira's blue eyes flashed as she gazed at Dredge.
"I was on my own, with nobody to help me," she said quiety. "I'm offering you what I didn't have; please, accept my help. Believe it or not, I *can* protect you.