Changing her major at the start of her junior year was the best course of action. She's still sure of that. The economy had a meltdown and she was lucky to have parents who were informed enough to see at least a little of the path the country was taking. It will get worse before it gets better was the phrase she kept hearing. To tell the truth, she got really sick and tired of hearing it. She's glad now, though. And changing her major never stopped her from singing, it just gave her a degree that she could actually get a job with.
It's not an amazing job. A lot of it, despite her longwinded title, is tech support and a lot of troubleshooting via e-mails between various offices. But she does get to do programming, too. Jason isn't bad to work for -- mostly because he does his job well -- and he calls her his 'minion'. There's a sticker of one of the little yellow guys from Despicable Me on the frame of her corkboard in her cubicle: minion, get it? He'd like to move laterally within the company, which means she has a decent shot of moving into his job when he does. She hopes.
But she has a salary in the mid-high five figures, which is nice. She has health benefits. Once the economy gets better the company wants to re-institute its tuition assistance, so she could maybe go back and get her Master's. Maybe then she'd be able to buy a house of her own and ditch the roommates, which would be ever so Grown Up.
For Thanksgiving this year, she's making the cranberry sauce. She's already bought her tickets to go back to Kansas for Christmas. She read something about how most breakups happen right before major holidays, so she's kind of grateful that Bryan went with 'random day in August'. She chalks it up to the inevitable fate of most first-relationships-out-of-college, but it doesn't mean she wasn't bummed out. At least she hadn't taken him home yet, Jesus.
The house the three of them rent is in an okay area -- they aren't the only group of single people under the age of 30 living there, which means there's a general consensus to not call the cops on a Saturday night just because of a noise complaint -- but she still takes her mace with her when she takes Bubby on his evening walk, her right hand holding the cool canister in her jacket pocket, her left hand holding his leash. He's eager at first, sniffing at everything, making sure he knows which other dogs are peeing where, but he settles down after he does His Business, walking along next to her on a relatively slack leash.
He was a spaz when she first drove him out here. She felt like a monster, moving him like that from where he'd grown up as a puppy, but she couldn't stand him being back in Kansas and only seeing him on breaks, and she certainly wasn't going to move back there. There is nothing to do in Wichita. There is also no ocean.
Back at the house, shedding her jacket after letting Bubby off his leash, Melissa mentions that they're going out to karaoke tonight. Maybe clubbing after, or something.
Sure, says Heather, just let me change.
Karaoke crowds love it when someone gets up who can not just sing but can move, can work a crowd for laughs and sing-alongs. They love a girl in tight jeans and long blonde hair who has the twang down pat and line dances while singing Friends in Low Places, even if it's such a cliched karoake song you usually hear it multiple times in a night. By the time they leave Tommy T's and head to the gaslamp quarter, they're loose, they're laughing, she's walking with her jacket open to let the air cool her off a little, Julie can't stop laughing aloud at just about everything Melissa says. Melissa can crack wise like a total bro, Heather says, and Meliss says that doesn't even mean anything, and this makes Julie laugh so hard that tears come to her eyes, and they tease her about being drunk til she's fanning her eyes at her face saying it's their responsibility tonight to make sure she doesn't do anyone stupid.
They all lose their shit at that, when Julie realizes what she actually said
They are a trio of girls, all average or above-average Pretty, every one of them practiced with a flat-iron, a curling iron, a mascara brush. Two of them are surfers, two shared a sorority, two are blonde, two of them have noticed that their third hasn't really so much as flirted or gone on a date or accepted an advance since stupid Bryan was stupid, and they are already a little tipsy when they get to the line and are waved in with a pretty minimal wait.
Of course they are. Even if they don't buy a lot of drinks, several will be bought at them. Or drunk to psych up before approaching them. Their presence gets the club good reviews.
Outside it's a waning half moon, but to tell the truth, Heather never really pays attention to the moon unless it's like... a weird solstic eclipse thing like last year. She checks her coat. It's already half past eleven, and November has not calmed the Saturday night crowd down at all. It's packed in here -- the see-and-be-seen types are hanging at the edges, a little awkwardly, while the ones who come to move do so en masse, a throbbing throng of bodies, sweat, the bass and the shots making the air seem to vibrate. The DJ is an androgynous type all in white leather and white fishnet, neon makeup, an unspiked mohawk, and s/he fucking loves what s/he does, dancing in the booth, headphones held to one ear, engaging with the crowd. It makes the club feel smaller than it is, more intimate than it ever could be when its very purpose is to strip away the scary parts of intimacy even while you're dancing so close to a complete stranger you can feel what their shirt's made of.
So around twelve, twelve-thirty, Heather takes a break and goes up to the roof lounge. It's still in the fucking sixties. To be fair, it's a warm night for mid-November, but still. She is never moving back to Kansas. Ever ever ever.
The camisole she's wearing is sparkly as hell, draping over her breasts, her waist, her hips. She moves the bangles around on her wrist and tries to gauge how long she can stay up here before she gets chilled. There are vast white sails criss-crossing the roof as shade for daytime parties or just to give something colored lights to reflect off of, so she goes to the edge, looking past them at the sky and drinking some water for once tonight.
Leaning on the edge of the wall, she thinks she can feel the bass from downstairs pounding through the building itself. It's a good feeling.
AlexWhen Alex changed first, Aaron couldn't wait to follow. That's how they were their whole lives: Alex led, Aaron followed. And for a couple months Aaron was a little freaked out, worried that he hadn't changed yet, worried that he wouldn't change, but Alex told him no way, man, just settle down. There's no way Gaia's gonna be that big a bitch. And he was right. Aaron ended up Firsting close enough to Alex that they joined the same cub cohort; moved through the same classes, the same tasks, the same drills and trials and rites, graduated at the same time.
Weird thing is, after that their paths totally diverged. Hyperion's Sept was so damn Glass Walker Ubermensch, so damn Glass Walker Ingenuity and Glass Walker Adaptability, and Alex just got sick of the nonstop traffic of inflated egos and gunner mentalities. They drove him nuts. He wanted to go somewhere where 90% of the people weren't on twenty-four seven. He wanted to go somewhere where he didn't have to worry about politics or interpack relationships or ten-year-plans or any of that shit; someplace where he could just break a head or two. Set some fires.
Meanwhile, Aaron, always the shy one, always the quiet one, seemed to flourish in that atmosphere. Seemed to really find his footing for the first time in his life. It wasn't that he turned into a slicktongued politicians - thank god, or Alex would've kicked his ass - but his thoughtfulness and careful, deliberate way of talking, both such drawbacks when they were in middle school and just discovering sports and girls and popularity, seemed to be an asset at last. He found a pack under Heron. They earned themselves a small reputation as mediators and wise counselors, strikers-of-balance, agents of equilibrium. He, in short, fit in there in a way Alex never did.
So the brothers separated after all. Aaron stayed in Miami. Alex wandered around the nation in aimless loops, running with temporary packs, breaking heads, setting shit on fire. Eventually he ended up in San Diego, and he's racked up enough renown to hit Fostern, but it's been over ten years since his Fostering and Aaron was already well into Adrenhood. Sort of embarrassing, that, but seriously: he was never much of a gifted songwriter, and he didn't exactly have a lot of time to record history when he was busy making it.
By breaking heads. And setting shit on fire.
So he's here tonight. In the Gaslamp, up on the roof of some club, and they're close enough to the ocean to smell it when the west wind blows. He's probably here because somewhere there's a head to break and a fire to set, but really, he leaves to who and where to the scouts to figure out. There's a scout with him tonight, a Cliath kid the San Diego Sept sent out with him, and the kid's somewhere hunting someone... a fomor, he thinks? But the kid's been gone for hours and he's bored out of his mind, so he's been drinking because the San Diego Sept gave him a corporate credit card and damned if he's not going to use it. God, he can't remember what he's here for; he's a little hammered, and the bass pounding through the building itself feels good.
Hey! There's a girl next to him. She's young and pretty and blonde and she has friends with her, two of them, and two of them are blonde, and two of them have surfer tans, and all three of them probably -- and rightly! -- look at Alex like he's the sort of douchebag that comes to clubs to pick up loose women. Doesn't help that he kind of looks like a douchebag: all tanned and shit, in sort of baggy shorts and this bright red TAPOUT shirt, which seems to be a label that only Axe-scented douchebags who fancied themselves some sort of fighter-badass ever wear.
He doesn't, at least, smell like Axe when he leans over and nudges the girl next to him. He smells a little like salt air, and a little like sweat, and frankly, a lot like booze. Yeah, that probably doesn't help either. But he gives her this crooked little smile, and he gives her his very best pickup line:
"Hey."
And hiccups.
Heather SinclairBryan was a surfer, too. It's how they met. She's met a lot of guys on the beach, and at clubs, and sorority mixers, and frat parties, and few of the guys she met in classes -- in either major -- were straight enough or confident enough to approach her. Not that she never makes the first move. It's just rarer. It ain't how her mama raised her. Then again, her mama raised her to not wear skinny-strapped camisoles that look like they're just made of glitter dashed against her upper body and go drink in nightclubs and go ALONE up on a roof and stand anything less than seventeen feet away from anything with a penis.
The guy who was leaning against the wall before she got up here is built. He's not the tall-dark-handsome type. His hair is bleached enough and his skin tan enough that it shows he's outside a lot. He looks like the sort of bro d-bag guy that has to prove a thing or two in order to get attention from the women who are surrounded by hot bro dbags so much they get sick of it. Well. Some of the women. Right now, downstairs, the brown-haired Melissa is yanking the blonde-haired Julie away from a total dbag who smells like Axe and saying sweetie, honey, just... no. Not this again.
Upstairs, Heather doesn't mind standing maybe five feet from the guy and ignoring him. She isn't looking for something to take home tonight -- for one thing, Bubby is so picky about men. But soon enough, the guy does sidle on over.
Smelling like sweat and booze isn't a huge downside; she's drunk enough on her own and sweaty enough already to not notice, and what she does notice, she doesn't mind. She glances at him, sipping her water from the bottle she ordered, and waits to see what he'll come up with. What he comes up with is a nudge, and
Hey,
and a hiccup.
Heather raises her eyebrows a little. Gives a nod. "Right," she says, and looks forward again.
AlexAnnnnd a swing and a miss. Alex turns forward too, mulling over his next move. While he's doing this, Melissa is dragging Julie away from a total dbag, though at this point the only discernible difference between that guy and this one is that this one, at least, doesn't smell like Axe. And while he's doing this, he takes another slug of ... oh, he's drinking a beer now. He frowns at it. That's not good. That makes it look like he got this smashed on beer, which means he's either a lightweight or is on his eighth bottle.
He shifts a little. And then he bends at the waist to put the bottle carefully down between his feet, straightening up to keep leaning against the low retaining wall of the roof. A couple of girls walk by, all bare legs and laughter, and Alex doesn't even pretend he isn't looking.
He turns back to Heather though. "So like," he says, "I'm not usually this awkward. I'm just kinda hammered right now. I'm not usually this hammered either." He thinks for a minute. "I make really good ramen. You hungry?"
Heather SinclairTruth be told, she didn't look closely at what he's drinking. She's been drinking -- not constantly, but semi-steadily -- since around nine tonight. She's drunk enough that while dancing she doesn't feel a thing. Nothing bad, at least. Slowing to a stop for a little while, she's aware that she's starting to get cold, and that she is really, really hammered. And kinda tired. Granted, if she started dancing again she wouldn't feel tired anymore, but there you go.
'There you go' sounds like a good way to end any sentence right now.
Let's get this much straight: she wouldn't give this guy the time of day most nights. She hasn't given him the time of day, though. It's nighttime. He's not asking for the time. He's asking for her time, which is more valuable than a watch. Heather hears 'Womanizer' in her head, but it doesn't fit because that song says he's charming, and this guy did a beer hiccup all but in her face. That's not charming.
She is really, really attracted to him, though. He has nice arms. Those are good arms to have. She could totally see herself fucking him. Except he's really drunk, and she doesn't want to wake up with him in her bed. Except now she's thought of fucking, and there's enough blood rising to the surface of her skin to make her kind of horny. And so she thinks of maybe making out with him awhile. There's only a smattering of people on the roof. A single bar, people getting air. Some expansive couches that are as white as the sails overhead.
He's talking again, after checking out those girls over there. God, what a fucking douchebag.
Her eyes blink slowly as he's talking, then: "I'm here with friends," which is sort of: no, I'm not hungry, or maybe: you think I'm going anywhere with you, are you serious? "Why are you so hammered then?"
Alex"Well they can come too," he says, all reasonable-like, and it's actually hard to tell whether he says this because A) he's actually not that bad, he wants to include her friends, he wouldn't necessarily consider her a foregone conclusion if she should decide to go home with him, or B) he thinks maybe he'll get to have an orgy tonight.
And he picks his hands up and gives his face a quick hard rub, trying to put some alertness back in himself. " 'Cause I'm waiting for someone, and they are so late, and I was bored," he says. A pause. Then he narrows his eyes and leans toward her and whispers, "I'm on a secret mission."
Heather SinclairHer eyebrows flick at that. Sure. They can come, too. To the home of the dbag in the TAPOUT shirt offering ramen. She's drunk, but she's pretty sure even a drunk-ass Julie would be like oh honey no if she came up here and found Heather making out with this guy. Or would at least come find her if she texted them to say she was leaving with this guy, don't worry. Wtf, no.
Heather sips her water again. Shivers. "Who're you waiting for?" she says in the pause, not knowing he's -- oh. On a secret mission.
So she leans back over, clueless as to how dangerous what she's saying actually is, but of course she would be: "How do you know I'm not the one you're waiting for, then?"
AlexIf Alex knew how little Heather thought of his ramen, he would be greatly insulted and mildly wounded. His ramen, thankyouverymuch, is no ordinary ramen. His ramen is an ambrosia-like concoction of ramen, polish sausage, some-sort-of-greens-so-he-doesn't-feel-completely-unhealthy, and an utterly unhealthy amount of sodium. In sort: epic.
He doesn't talk about his ramen right now, though. Heather offers something of an alternate explanation, and Alex looks a little shocked. He thinks for a minute. Does that make sense? Could that little Cliathy shit have sent someone else to tip him off? Back him up? Something? Alex rubs his face again, sniffs hard, blinks his eyes wide open.
"Okay," he says, and gives a single sharp little nod. He's sober. He's sober. Really. "Let's get this show on the road then."
Heather Sinclair[fuck, forgot i changed that line]
Heather Sinclair[it should be "How do you know I'm not part of the mission, then?"]
Heather SinclairThere's not a sniff of rage on her. No pure breed, either. She really does look like a normal girl, not a lot different from ninety percent of the girls downstairs. Flat-ironed blonde hair, blue eyes, enough makeup to dim the freckles, a slinky top, tight dark jeans, heels, a clutch purse that is small enough to hold on the dancefloor but big enough for things like keys, phone, cash, mace, and a couple of condoms. Essentials, you know. Just-in-cases. She really waffled over the condoms, too, but you never know.
This guy, who has no name or persona right now except as another extra tanned, sunbleached surfer dude in her life -- maybe a joke later with the girls about how this one offered her ramen as his secondary pickup line -- gets really serious. And she thinks it's just an act. Since he's on a secret mission.
If she were sober she'd roll her eyes and excuse herself as politely as possible, or lie and promise to be back in a second, but then, if she were drunk, she never would have stayed around after his first 'Hey' and hiccup. She's drunk, though, and in no real danger from this guy regardless, and she really does think he's unbearably hot. Of course she keeps that to herself. She keeps it locked away for the next time she's taking a hot bath or just bored and horny. Some little fantasy about fucking a random stranger on a nightclub rooftop.
But that's a fantasy, and he's being kind of silly. Secret mission! Show on the road. She laughs as he tries hard to sober himself up, tossing back a mouthful of cold water. "Yes, sir," she says. "So... who's the mark?"
AlexReally, it's hard to tell what the hell Heather sees in this guy, that she hasn't just walked off. It's hard to tell, even, what attracts her to this guy - purely physical as it may be. Sure, he has nice arms, which he's showing off to best advantage in that red Tapout shirt. He looks like he works out regularly. Runs and lifts weights. He's not tall, and he's not enormous across the shoulders. He's compact and tightly packed with muscle; a veritable wrecking-ball of energy. So he's got that going for him, if she goes for that.
But he also looks like he's probably just a year or two short of thirty, and he's still dressing and acting like he's in college. But then he looks like the type who peaked sometime in his frat years and spends every year hence trying to recapture the lost glory of that golden moment - maybe that fall when they won Homecoming and he fucked Caileigh Tague fumbling-drunk in the backseat before proceeding to the afterparty where he drank so much he vomited off the balcony of the frathouse right on that pledge's head and still had the smartassery to yell headshot, brah! at the poor kid. Except Alex never went to college. And if he had, he wouldn't have gone to UCF or UoM or any of those schools. No matter how much he horsed around or slacked off in elementary and middle school, he was raking in the high marks - when he bothered to do his homework, anyway - acing all the tests, placing in the top percentiles of the aptitude and intel tests. He would've probably gone somewhere nice. Maybe even Ivy League. But --
we're off topic. No college. So god knows what glory years he's trying to relive, unless of course he's just so socially inept that he thinks this is how normal human beings dress and act and behave. That's a possibility. He did, after all, beer hiccup in her face.
Of course now he's all business. Sort of. He's swaying a bit as he heads down the stairs. Putting a hand on the railing, he starts to make his unsteady way down. The coolness and space of the rooftop disappears; now it's all noise and bass and bodies. She's asking him who the mark is, and he frowns over his shoulder at her, giving her his best Stern Look (tm). It's about as effective as his Charming Grin (tm).
"Stop playing around," he grouses. "This shit's ... shit's top secret, and if you keep talking you'll give the game away." He belches under his breath. She has the pleasure of walking right through it; it smells like beer and burritos. "Anyway, you new or something? I've never seen you downtown. You'd think they'd at least, like... introduce us before making us work together. What if we'd hooked up in the men's room all unknowing and shit? That'd just make this working relationship all ... awkward and untenable and shit."
He's on the ground floor now, squinting across the dance floor. "Well, come on now, I haven't got all night. Point the way, gorgeous. I heard it's some highrolling wannabe future Mafia don."
Heather SinclairThe bottom line comes to this:
he hits on her because she's hot, he's bored, and he's drunk. She lets him because he's hot, she's drunk, and she gotten any for three months. Of course now there's a playfulness to her: it's a stupid, lame way to try and pick up a chick, but to be honest, she was bored, too. Always sort of bored after awhile, purposeless and wandering, always feeling like there's more, there had to be more than what she had. Of course, that isn't really something she could tell anyone: good job, nice friends, a pretty little Elantra that is surprisingly loaded for a car of its price, and she's even got a great dog.
She's got a good life. There's no good reason she should be intrigued by playing some stupid super-spy game in a nightclub with a loser douchebag with beer hiccups. Not even his nice arms or the rest of his physique makes up for the downsides. But in the end, it isn't about him.
Not really. But she doesn't quite know that herself, yet.
And he's off. Quickly now, pretending to be sober. Heather blinks, and goes ahead and takes her water with her. "Hey," she says. "Hey -- slow the hell down," but he's having to hold onto the railing to keep himself straight now, trying to give her a Daddy look. She just raises her eyebrows at him.
"Oh, forgive me," she says drolly, rolling her eyes. They keep walking. She exhales, doesn't breathe through her nose for a few seconds, and is suddenly put off of making out with him even as an idea. Oh, well. "Give me a break," she smirks. "I've been here longer than you. And if your M.O. is taking girls to the men's room, no wonder your best pickup line is 'Hey' and then the double-O-seven bullshit."
Heather passes him on the stairs, tossing her hair off her shoulder. "You know better than I, buddy," she says, finishing her water bottle and tossing it into a nearby bin. "I'm just your Bond girl."
Alex"Man," Alex wheels around, abruptly frustrated, "you are the most incompetent -- "
"Hey!" A shout catches Alex's attention. It's some chick; not some skimpily dressed club girl, either, but a lean, lanky, pierced creature with razored black hair and bleached-blonde bangs. She clomps over in her boots and shoots Heather a glance. "Where the fuck you been? Who's she?"
Alex grimaces at her. "Upstairs. Waiting for you. Don't make me put your head through a wall. And what, you didn't send her? That explains a lot. She says she's from the Sept though."
"Fuck my life. Why do I always get the random undercover ops audits? Whatever, girl," she's addressing Heather now, "just try to stay out of trouble. And don't take notes, you'll blow our cover." She turns around and starts across the dance floor. "We gotta move, brah, target's in motion. I can distract the entourage, but you're gonna have to take down the head honcho."
Alex mutters in Heather's ear, "Just stay behind me. I'll protect you."
Heather SinclairThis is just weird now. Drunk dude isn't trying to get into her pants, and he's being a crabby douche instead of just a douche. She gives him an affronted look, frowning and about to tell him to back the hell up when he calls her incompetent. "Excuse me --" she starts, but then
there's a girl with hair straight out of the 1990s stomping over. Heather's brain instantly pings lesbian, and she's bewildered and annoyed now, and this nameless guy is talking about putting a head through a wall and wait you didn't send her and she just -- interrupts. Talks right over razored girl. "Look, fuck this," she says, ignoring the bitch and shaking her head at the douche. "You two are freaks," she manages to toss it, before walking away.
No freaky drug deals or revenge between gangs or bizarre pranks for her tonight, thank you very much.
AlexAnd she walks. And Alex and Smoking Gun - because that's Smoking Gun, of course - exchange a look. "Who the hell was she?" Smoking Gun wants to know.
"I have no fucking idea. She acted like she was in on it."
"Think she's going to be a problem?"
"I didn't tell her shit. Don't worry about her." He turns Gun around and pushes her toward the dance floor. "Lead, let's do this."
Heather SinclairBut Heather is, at her heart, a good girl. She's a rather pure spirit, despite her use of the F word -- Alex wouldn't know how rare that is. She's just angry at herself, a little disgusted with herself, and she can't walk away from something that weird without
going to someone wearing a black t-shirt and black cargo pants and the black t-shirt has the word SECURITY in white on the back and logo of the club on the front. He looks like he's a foot taller than Alex, somehow, twice as broad, the sort of guy you hire in a place like this.
He wonders if this blonde is upset because someone touched her or something and it sucks but seriously there are a lot of people here. And she confers with him, describing two people, at least one of whom would stand out in any crowd. Seriously, who in this club has that ancient of a hairstyle? And what kind of dyke would be hanging out with one of the douchebros that populate a place like this?
She tells him what she knows, which isn't much: something about a 'secret mission' and a 'mark' who looks like a wannabe future Mafia Don or something, and the direction they went.
She is, at her heart, a good girl. She tries to do the right thing.
AlexAlex is just bulling forward, trying to figure out the best time to hit Glabro for a second so he can burn off this alcohol haze. He's following Smoking Gun, but Smoking Gun is frowning after the blonde barbie (which is, of course, how someone with a defiantly ancient hairstyle and dykeboots in a club like this would think of a blonde surfer girl) as she
goes
to
security.
"Oh, fuck no," Smoking exclaims, "she did not just do that."
"Do what?" Alex looks. "Aw, fuck." Neither of them have a problem with f-bombing. Carpet f-bombing. The bouncer's already on his way, scowling and talking into a two-way, pushing his way through the crowd. "Change of plans. I'll be the distraction. You'd better disappear and -- "
he looks around. Smoking is already out of sight. Alex gives a grim little smirk, turns back, and then throws his arms wide in a come at me, bro gesture.
"What?" he yells at security. "Just trying to get my groove on here. Paid my dues. Paid your salary, bitch. You gonna throw me out for that, you fucking troglodyte?"
And the answer, as it turns out, is yes. The scowling bouncer reaches to grab Alex. And Alex ducks nimbly under that great swing of a meaty arm, somehow ends up behind the bouncer, gives him a brutal kick to one knee - pops it sideways. There's a crunch. The big guy goes crashing down, lands on the bad knee. There's another crunch. Dancers leap back; there's a collective gasp. The bouncer is rolling around on the ground screaming. Alex kicks him in the kidneys for good measure, and then leans over him.
"And down he goes! One!" he counts. "Two! Three! Four..."
The bouncer's colleagues are heading over, grimfaced, police batons in hand. Over in the corner of the club, a wannabe mafia don frowns at the ruckus and gestures two of his four personal, besuited bouncers over to assist in quelling the disturbance. These are his stomping grounds, and damned if he'll tolerate that sort of disrespect.
Heather SinclairHeather is back in the mix of people -- well, sort of -- after she talks to the bouncer. She's getting her phone out, leaning by a wall, trying to see if Julie or Melissa are texting her (they have) and if they wanna hit a new club or something (sending... sending...). Meanwhile the bouncer is heading towards AnachronDyke and What's-His-Douche, and it isn't the fast-talking black-haired girl who comes up with something. It's the Fostern who should have been an Adren but was too busy being irresponsible to get there who comes up, on the spot, with a new plan. Good for him.
But it... sort of isn't a good one. At least, not from a human perspective. It's a very dumb plan. He could lie, fast-talk, persuade -- but that's not what he does. He moves faster than someone that drunk should ever be able to, and he provokes him further than any half-sane person would. And the bouncer, larger than almost anyone in this club, shouts loud enough to be heard over the bass when his knee goes sideways. He yells again when he lands on it, swearing, tears coming to his eyes. The shouting turns to screaming. Alex is going to town on him, and everyone is backing away -- even as bouncers come closer.
Heather is staring. Her mouth is a little open, her eyes a little wide, and she's horrified. She's sick. But she is a lot of other things, too, and half of them she's clueless about. She's smart, and that's one of the ones she knows about. She's more tenderhearted than another life would ever let her be, and what Alex does to that guy breaks her in half. She's the first one to call for an ambulance, and is on the phone with them as the rest of the meatheads get to Alex, and as her friends get to her. They want to leave; she says she's not going anywhere, what if --
one of the bouncers with a baton has just lost consciousness. And the baton. Which is how he lost consciousness. Wait, back up, replay:
He gets close. Alex shouts something assholish. The baton goes up. It comes down. An arm breaks and the baton changes hands. There's a sharp upward swing, and blood on the baton now, blood on the back of the bouncer's head, and Heather is just saying:
oh my god. oh my god.
She's not the only one.
AlexReal life fights aren't much like the ones in movies, where everything's smooth and choreographed, the lines of motion long and traceable. This fight's abrupt, chaotic, and it's hard to tell what the hell's going on. The less you know about fighting, the bigger you make your motions. So the bouncers, who were hired mostly on basis of size and intimidation, are flailing their arms and hurtling their bodies, and meanwhile the dbag in the red shirt is keeping his fists up and close to his chin, his elbows in, is twisting and ducking and dancing around on nimble feet.
Somehow he's got a baton, and someone's clutching a broken arm and screaming, and then he's got two batons, and people are going down with hits that look deceptively light. Just short sharp little jabs of a fist or a baton, nothing wasted, nothing given away for free: all that energy cocked and unloaded within a few devastating inches of space. The human body is frail. It doesn't take much: just the right amount of oomph in the right place. A crack to the chin, a head snapping back, eyes rolling back and a body thumping to the floor. A drive to the back of the neck, a body slamming stiff for an instant like it was hit with a cattle prod, another body thumping to the floor.
"Well come on, bitch!" the asshole in the red shirt is yelling, brandishing those batons. "I'm just getting started here. Get up!"
Club security's rolling around the floor in varying states of consciousness. Clubgoers have cameraphones out, and some look shocked and others are excited; this is the coolest fight ever. The big guys in the suits, though, the private brigade of that mafia don wannabe: they're just getting into the action. One of them strips his jacket off and hands it to some unsuspecting girl. Puts his fists up. The other adjusts his tie and assumes a bow stance. Alex shoots one glance toward the darkened corner where the mafioso and his two henchmen are watching the fight with great and fixed interest. Then he turns to face the latest contestants,
lets out a barbaric yawp,
and just goes for it.
Heather SinclairHe's much the same in another lifetime: a good fighter, a compact one, quick and tenacious. But in another lifetime, the blonde who ratted him and his compatriot out is just downright savage about the way she fights. There's nothing loose or lazy about it, nothing wild, but she barely has to think about what she does. She's vicious.
She's not this girl at all. Not when she's fighting, at least.
This girl -- this one right here, in the tight jeans and the heels and holding her clutch purse -- can not believe what she is seeing. Bouncers go after the guy who was hitting on her, and he's all but killing them. He's psychotic. He's completely fucking evil. Nothing about it appeals to her, arouses her, makes her froth at the mouth with eagerness. This girl, in her sparkly top, is terrified and disgusted and will be disturbed over this for weeks.
No part of her soul remembers ancestors who would have roared in approval of all of this. She's disconnected.
A henchman shoves his blazer into Heather's hands and she throws it right back at him. "What the hell, you asshole!" she shouts at him, her girlfriends trying to urge her out, they wanna leave now, they really want to get out of here. The place is going a little nuts now; people have realized there are no more security guys to take care of them. No police or EMTs have gotten here yet. There's not even anyone for Heather to tell that the guy in the red isn't the only one they should be looking for. She scans the crowd for the bitch with the weird hair but can't find her.
She does, however, find the guy who looks like a wannabe, would-be mobster. "I have to go warn him," Heather tells her friends, shaking them off, disentangling herself. "You guys can go, or wait for me, or -- I just gotta go tell him, there's --"
But she doesn't finish her sentence. She pushes through the crowd to the mafioso, her cheeks flushed with energy and drink, her eyes so pale, so fair, so bright.
AlexAlex, unfortunately, is not actually packed with Smoking Gun. If he were, he'd be able to warn her. She'd be able to update him on her progress. All in all, everything would be much more convenient.
As-is, he sees that meddlesome little brat start heading over, all crusader-like, probably trying to warn the mark. And the mark, who was looking this way anyway, is now sitting up in his seat, frowning, his eyes getting that squirrelly look that says he might be scenting danger like a fox. Damn it, Alex thinks, damn it damn it damn it fuck, and then he realizes he's actually saying this out loud, and the mafioso's bodyguards are smirking because they think he's saying it out of fear of an impending beating.
Which just pisses him off. "Don't look so fucking smug," he snaps, "you think I'm actually afraid of you?"
And then he proceeds to prove them wrong. Because this is Alex: even when he knows the mark might run, even when he knows the best thing to do is to bail out of this fight and chase the real target down, he can't resist proving his superiority. Which, in three or four cracks of the baton, he does.
Then he's tossing those weapons aside, clattering to the dance floor. Dancers jump back like they might turn into snakes. Someone's yelling hey, we can press charges, we've got it on tape! and Alex can just about hear the bitchery he's going to get out of the MoR. Goddammit, he think/grumps again, and the crowd is falling back wherever he goes, jumping out of his way as he heads, in fact, toward the mafioso that Heather is trying to warn.
Who sees him coming. Who sees her coming, all wide-eyed and earnest-gotta-warn-the-victim-y. He doesn't wait for her to get there. The penny drops and he bolts to his feet, spilling his drink, turns and leaps over the back of his couch and starts sprinting for the emergency door while his goons, predictably, try to put themselves between him and Alex: a veritable wall of Italian silk suits and muscle.
"Now look what you did!" Alex shouts at Heather. He runs past her. He's lost his batons, so this time he just uses his fists.
Heather SinclairAnd... that's it.
She goes for 'the mark' to try and warn him, and he doesn't need any warning more than her approach to jump up and bolt. That gives her only a half-second of pause, a frown. Shouldn't he be surprised? Shouldn't he be confused? The guy in the red shirt is a fucking sociopath, murderous and vengeful with every swing of those batons and every throw of his fists or elbows. He's dangerous. He's clearly out of his mind, and she nearly -- Christ.
But this guy looks like he knows something is going on, and that makes no sense to her. She certainly isn't threatening. She's about as threatening as a dandelion, truth be told. She jumps in startlement, yelping, as the psycho rushes past her, yelling at her, and stumbles out of his way.
AlexAnd there more chaos. "Goddammit, Gun!" the asshole in the red shirt is yelling, which of course makes nearby clubgoers start screaming even louder because they think he's either warning about a gun or about to pull one himself - more likely the latter - but no, he's actually calling somebody, maybe it's the anachronistic bitch with the boots, and then
somehow
the mafioso dude, most of the way to the door now, just stumbles. Sways in place. He's staggering now, he's reaching one hand up behind his back like a man trying to scratch an annoying itch, and no one's really even noticing him because over here Alex the asshole is taking on two guys twice his size and improbably winning. In movies every punch or kick is accompanied by a satisfying thud. There's really nothing like that in most real-life fights. Just fists that barely seem to connect, heads that barely seem to snap back, and then two more bodies slumping to the ground.
Three, actually. But no one really watched the mafioso go down. That was so anticlimactic: just a buckling of the knees, and a slow crumple. Well - no one except Alex, who watches, who sees it, who takes a breath. Mission fuckin' accomplished. He kicks one of the bodyguards in the head, and then, with a last flashing glance at the blonde girl who made his life just about fifteen times harder tonight, turns to walk out.
Heather SinclairWell of course she maces him.
Of all the people in this place -- in this chaos -- she's one of the only ones who is really paying attention. To the 'mark' that this guy is supposedly going for. To the fact that 'gun' sounded like he was yelling for someone. Maybe to hand him a gun. She doesn't think it's a name, she's not that out there in what her mind is willing to wrap around. But she gets out of his way as he chases after the guy, and she sees the guy go down. Suddenly, and without any explanation. She flashes her eyes to Mr. Tapout. Mr. Tapout is looking at her like he's about to snarl, something animalistic and brutal in his eyes that isn't madness.
So she maces him. Right in the face.
AlexAnd that just does it.
Mr. Tapout, Mr. Bro-Douchebag, Mr. Asshole Who Beats Innocent Bouncers up: he claps his hands over his suddenly burning eyes. He yells FUCK! He bends over double, and then
Mr. Poor Impulse Control, Mr. Irresponsible, Mr. Really Shouldn't Be Let Off His Leash -- right in the middle of a crowded club on a weekend night -- rips into a shape out of nightmare. This is not happening. This cannot possibly happen. Like a monster out of some horror flick, his body just rearranges itself, his skin grows fur, his face sprouts a muzzle and he's snarling, scrubbing mace out of his eyes, lowering his hands from that horrible animal-face of his, those burning inflamed eyes that are already beginning to heal.
Now people are really screaming.
Heather SinclairOf the big bouncers and the mafioso's henchmen and the mob of people in the club, it's the sorority girl who takes down Mr. Tapout with My First Self-Defense Weapon (tm Go Little White Girl, Inc.). What he doesn't see -- of course he can't -- and what no one else sees is that hers actually is pink, and brushed metal, and it looks like a fucking tube of perfume. She was going to get something Very Serious and black and all that, but come on. This thing was marketed to her so hard she couldn't resist. Also, it wasn't even that expensive.
Also, it supplies a UV dye that makes Mr. Tapout's face all kinds of bright and shiny whenever one of the blacklight beams from the wheeling strobe hits him but is otherwise invisible.
He screams and swears and doubles over. And gets bigger. And it isn't her imagination, she's maybe three feet from him at most, and he's not human, she knows this isn't how he really looks, she was up close and being nudged and hiccuped-in-face by him on the roof. She watches, horrorstruck, as he unfurls a little and glowers at her, his face monstrous. People around them begin to really, seriously freak out, running for the doors.
Heather, frozen for a second, sees that he isn't screaming like any other human being would be with pepper spray in their eyes.
So she fucking maces him again, then turns to run.
AlexOkay, this time he sees it coming. Fool me once or twice, and all that. He throws a handpaw up and manages to catch most of the blast there, but it's still all over the place and burning the sensitive membranes of his nose, making him double over and sneeze and wheeze and meanwhile the Little White Girl is Going, indeed.
A side benefit of shifting at last: he's clear suddenly. The last of the beer haze lifts away and the world is crystal-clear, and he realizes: dude, that was a planned maneuver. Freaking out humans, humans with just enough willpower to resist total shrieking terror, will often attack him. In fact, look, here comes one now, frothing at the mouth, screaming incoherently before flailing at him with a wallet. That's what crazed humans do. They don't actually plan, and they certainly don't have the presence of mind to mace him in the face.
The girl, on the other hand, did.
Alex swats Walletman aside impatiently. And he goes after Heather, taking two steps before deciding to just bound ahead - leaping tall humans in a single bound, landing five feet in front of her and cutting her off.
"Come ... with," he manages to garble out.
Heather Sinclair[odds we go the horror movie route]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Heather Sinclair[*shakes head*]
Heather SinclairHe's lucky. It isn't gel or foam and it doesn't stick to his face. He's lucky: it isn't tear gas. He's lucky: he was born Garou, like his twin, and things like this only sting, they can't stop him any more than a crowd of bouncers and henchmen. He's lucky: Heather is still drunk, and in heels, and he's not either of those things. He's lucky: he's smart enough to realize that she wasn't freaking the fuck out. She wasn't panicking. Well, she was, but it was semi-controlled.
That was planned. Disable him, if she could, and run. Put some distance between herself and the monster. She's still thinking clearly, or as clearly as a drunken human can: get her friends and go. And Alex is lucky: he can see that.
Heather isn't as lucky, and not just because of the neon-colored drinks she had earlier or the height of her heels. She's not lucky because Mr. Tapout is paying attention to her. And because he's paying attention to her, he can stop her. And jump over human beings who scream, run, shove and trample each other, and one faints --
to tell her to come with him. In something sort of like English.
She screams, and is turning to run a different way, yelling for help, except these shoes aren't made for running in, and they aren't even made for dancing in, and her feet are already killing her. What undoes her is the spot on the floor where some motherfucker spilled a drink earlier. She skids, and slips, and it's only through some rather impressive natural grace that she doesn't sprain her ankle. Her hands smack to the filthy floor and she's pushing herself up already, scrambling to her feet, but let's be honest:
he probably already has her, if he wants to.
AlexAnd he does, in fact, want to. So he does, in fact, have her: scooping her right up off the ground where she's slipped like every terrible horror movie cliche ever, throwing her over his shoulder like every terrible caveman movie cliche ever. That shoulder is solid hot muscle under fur, FUR, the beat of his blood through his subclavian artery palpable under his skin. He leaps again, soars twenty feet and slams into the ground in front of the door - bashes those double-doors outward and crashes out onto the street.
There's a line of humans out there, and most of them already look confused and rattled by the demented screaming people running out of the club. They get one look at Alex and turn into demented screaming people themselves - scatter over the street, car horns blare, tires screech, brakes squeal, Alex doesn't even look back. He leaps straight up, girl on shoulder like a barbaric prize-of-war, grabs clawfuls of wall and hauls himself up onto the rooftop. Runs across that rooftop on all fours, in great leaps and bounds, soars across the street to another rooftop, and another and another, until some three or four blocks away he slams down on the roof of a Wells Fargo and,
at last,
lets Heather down. And shifts back to Red Tapout Shirt Douchebag. He's actually had training for this sort of eventuality. That was one of his first year cub classes, but it was like a half-assed one-hour lecture: Identifying, Handling, and Retrieving Lost Kin. He wasn't paying much attention. He vaguely remembers something about speaking gently and reassuringly, something like prematurely displaying your non-human form may severely traumatize a Lost Kin, so: oops. Might as well go for broke.
"I can't believe you maced me back there," is the first thing out of his mouth. It is neither gentle nor reassuring. "TWICE. What are you, fucking nuts?"
Heather SinclairOh god, the screaming. Except he has her voice, her rather powerful and trained and fucking soprano voice right in his fucking ear, which folds back while she kicks and flails and scratches and goes for the eyes and every last thing her lizard brain can churn up. She grabs a fistful of fur and yanks on it, tearing several follicles out. Yes, it's fur. And it's Mr. Tapout Mr. I Make Good Ramen Mr. Beer Hiccup. She'll work that out later. Right now, she just wants there to be a later. Right now, she just doesn't want to be that woman from King Kong, tossed about and thrown over a shoulder.
Julie and Melissa are in that crowd somewhere, screaming. Heather is, somehow, maintaining a grip on her bag even if she lost her mace, and now she's just holding onto that fur, shrieking, telling him to put her down, you fuck, the word burning out of her mouth.
They are moving upward. She sees the ground pulling away from her and clutches at him all the tighter, going silent. She's shaking now. Was shaking before, really, but now she's aware of it. He's going to drop her. This is a vendetta thing. Oh, god.
The screaming starts up again when he starts leaping rooftop to rooftop. She screams every time, til you'd think her throat was raw, her knees hitting his ribs mid-flight just because she's curling up in a ball, terrified he's just going to drop her, kill her, terrified she's going to fall.
They come to a stop and he doesn't drop her. He just lets her down. She hasn't pissed herself. She's scrambling away, though, instantly, trying to yank off her one remaining shoe -- the other one is about two blocks away, sailing off her foot during one of his leaps. The roof is made out of gravel and it hurts, and she's throwing that second shoe at him. He's trying to remember that first-season cub class that they never really expect any of the cubs to remember but have to teach anyway. No one ever picks that as an elective during the second season, or third. The few who do end up as Executive Kinfolk Liasons and Interns and shit.
Who wants that job?
A high heel flies at his chest right as he's shifting, and the girl is bolting again, toward the rooftop door, only it's locked. Of fucking course it's locked. She beats on it anyway, screaming for help, but it's not a residential building, and her throat really is raw, her screams raspy from alcohol and chill and terror. She's barefoot, has dropped her clutch to her feet, but after a few more pounds, just
gives up on the door and puts her back to it, staring at him. He can't believe she maced him. Twice. Fucking nuts.
A part of her wants to go off on him. Scream, throw things, hit, anything she can. But he's a psycho. What do you do with psychos?
"Look," she says. "I will never in my life tell anyone anything about you if you just let me go. I just want to go home and make sure my friends are okay. Just let me go. Please. Just let me go."
AlexAnd now Alex actually sort of feels bad. She's so obviously freaked out. She's pounding on the door yelling for help and he goes hey I don't think anyone's down there but she goes on banging on it anyway until she gives up of her own accord, turns around, more or less pleads for her life. And he shifts from one foot to the other, uncomfortable, rubs his nose a couple times.
"Look," he says, "if I was gonna hurt you, don't you think I, like, would've already? Just saying."
He drops his hand to his side. Then tucks them in his pockets. His clothes are miraculously unripped. The mind shies away from any rational explanation of that, but then again: he turned into a werewolf. Or... he is a werewolf. Because these things apparently exist outside of Red Riding Hood and the Twilight movies.
"And," he goes on, "if you wanna go you can totally go. But to be honest I gotta report this to the head honchos of the area, and they're just gonna send the EKL out to talk to you at some point. And the guy's such a bore. So, it'd probably be easier if you just followed me to the Caern. That's like... werewolf headquarters. I gotta go there anyway after the giant fuckup I was just a part of."
Heather SinclairIf the planned maneuver earlier hadn't been a nail in the coffin, the fact that he's shifted back to homid and she's still scared, still remembers what he is and what all happened, clinches it. Even humans with iron wills will forget. A fog rolls over them sooner or later. They rationalize. They do what they need to do to stay sane. But she remembers. She remembers everything and her behavior -- while panicked -- is still very, very sane. She isn't berserk. She isn't bewildered. She's just scared.
"A cairn is a grave," she says, her voice just barely audible to him across the distance she put between them. She doesn't much care for his attempts at logic, or the balderdash that is his clothing. And she doesn't react much, at first, to his explanation of things. EKL. Head honchos. Someone else is going to come out. Werewolf headquarters. She grabs the information she knows: a cairn is a mound of stones erected as a marker over a grave. Freshman Humanities. They did a thing over the Celts or something.
"Why don't you just give me the address and I'll go there myself later?" she asks, because: oh. She's so clever. And he's still a psycho.
Alex"Yeah but a caern with an e, because the goddamn Fianna couldn't even be bothered to spell right when they ripped their own culture off but that's another story, is a werewolf headquarters. Well, it's a bit more than that, but let's just stick with that for now.
"And, no. I'm not giving you the address. Because you might not go." What does she think he is, a dumbass? "Or worse, you might turn that address over to the police or the FBI or the X-files," and now he's dating himself, "and then I'd really be in trouble.
"Look, like I said. If you'd rather go home tonight, bury your head in the sand and pretend none of this happened, you can. You'll get that little delusion shattered again in about twenty-four hours, but hey, whatever floats your boat. But if wanna figure out why the hell I can, y'know, go all GRAARGH, and why everyone else in that club freaked the fuck out and had a bad trip but you didn't, then you might as well come with me."
Heather SinclairThe thing is, most lost kin in her situation would just be overwhelmed. Not processing a single word. Adamantly refusing to accept any of it out of... shock, or whatever. No no, you're not making any sense, and so: just ignoring what he says. He won't give her the address because she might not go, not because she's a threat. Apparently her not going is a threat. She wants to argue with him: if he gives her the address and she doesn't go, what has he lost? But he speaks up: because she might send police.
Heather closes her mouth. He keeps saying werewolf like it's a thing. And the truth is, at no point can she look at what she saw, look at what he turned into, and deny that's exactly what he is. So he's a werewolf. What he's saying right now about headquarters and culture and caerns, is not the babbling of a psychotic in his own little wonderland.
He's a werewolf.
"I freaked out," she tells him, after he's done, surprisingly steady. "But just because you decided I was the one you wanted to King Kong across San Diego doesn't mean you're the good guy, here. You probably killed some of those guys back there, or damaged their brains, or permanently injured them with the shit you were doing. I know you had something to with the guy that did die. All those security guys were doing was their job, and for all I know, the guy you and your friend murdered was an altar boy.
"So even if in twenty-four hours I'm going to be initiated into this whole thing, or bitten, or turned, or what, I don't know why I'd be on your side."
A beat.
"You fucking beer-belched in my face."
Alex"That guy wasn't an altar boy," Alex says, offended. "More like a Catholic priest, in the sense that he really liked little boys. You're catching my drift, right? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. He was a nasty piece of work, and I am not one single bit sorry I came here to assassinate him tonight."
Wow. He just said it, just like that. It doesn't even stall him; he goes right on:
"And you're not gonna get initiated or turned or anything. Sorry to say this, but you're already as initiated as you're gonna get. You'll just get some stuff explained to you, and way better than I could do it. That'll happen whether you come with me tonight or you wait your twenty-four hours." Alex sighs suddenly, holds up his hands. "Okay, fine, look. I'll give it a shot. Here's the deal.
"You've taken bio, right? A little bit of genetics in high school maybe, homozygotes and heterozygotes? Well, okay. Think of werewolf-ism as a recessive trait. You need to have one werewolf gene from your dad and one from your mom, aka werewolf-werewolf homozygous, to actually be a werewolf. On the other hand, say you're a heterozygote. You inherit the werewolf gene from mom but not from dad. Well, then you end up ... what you are. We call it kin. It's like... a carrier of the werewolf gene, but you don't actually express it fully. You can't burst out of your skin into rar-monster form. You just don't freak out when you see me do it.
"I know that kinda sounds like you got jipped. But it's a really important role. Really." Alex sounds a little doubtful of this himself.
Heather SinclairShe catches his drift. He can tell because she looks sick for a second, tensing at the shoulders. She'd argue more, but -- well. There's no room for it. If the mafioso were just that -- a would-be don, a made man -- she'd say that killing him isn't really going to change the underlying problem. But it's not that big. It has nothing to do with the underworld. It has everything to do with: he was a sick fuck who wasn't going to ever stop because no one would ever be able to make him.
So they stopped him. He could be lying, but again: she doesn't argue. Not right now. For what it's worth, she seems to believe what he says about the guy. The guy he came here to assassinate.
It's relief in her eyes when he says they're not going to bite her and turn her into a werewolf. In the movies it always looks painful. He didn't seem like he was in pain tonight, at least not from the change -- just the pepper spray -- but maybe it's only the first time. Doesn't matter to her, though. She's not going to get turned into something like him. And she looks relieved.
Then he gets into bio. Her eyebrows hop up a little in vague bewilderment. She can't believe this is the discussion they're having. She can't believe Mr. Tapout is talking about heterozygotes and homozygotes, which she doesn't even remember. Recessive traits, however, she remembers. Like blue eyes. Which she has, clear and bright even in the dark, as clear and crisp as the sky is in winter, as cloudless as the sky in summer.
"That doesn't sound like I got jipped," she shoots back, as he's acting like he really believes that being kin is important, and she can hear the disdain and derision underneath it, intuits all of that bullshit he hasn't even dipped into yet. "I'm 'kin' and I raise money for children's literacy. You're a werewolf and the only thing differentiating you from all the other violent, douchey losers is that out of the ten guys you tore into tonight, maybe two or three actually deserved it."
Insert slow clap. Not really; she doesn't take her hands off her bag, the door she's leaning against. It's in her tone though, dry and flat, a brutal and unrelenting
truth.
"I need to go home, and I need to make sure my friends are okay and know that I'm okay. But this door is locked and this building doesn't have a fire escape. So I'd like to get down to street level, and then I'll take the boring guy in twenty-four hours over you, right now."
Alex"Who sent 'em after me, huh?" Alex's temper cracks like a whip. "All those poor guys who didn't deserve the beatdown they were gonna try and give me."
A beat. Then he reaches past her, grabs the doorknob in hand, and with not much effort at all twists it right off. There's a KLUNK as the inside knob falls off as well.
"Off you go, then."
Heather Sinclair"Pepper spray to the eyes, twice, should put a man all but out of commission for forty-five minutes. You got over in about four point five seconds," she snaps back. "I'm pretty sure you would have survived. And given the way you were hollerin', you can't stand there and pretend you were just doing what was necessary."
He grabs the door. Yanks. She jerks away, startled again, and hisses as her feet press into gravel. Heather looks at him, wary still, but goes inside. Goes inside and goes down the steps, wondering if she'll be able to get out the front door without setting off any alarms or getting caught on any cameras. She doesn't know. Given the night she's had and the fact she has no shoes, she finds it hard to worry too much. She goes down the stairs.
A few steps down, he can hear her calling her friends. "Julie! Where are you? Are you guys okay?" And her voice getting dimmer, as it gets farther away.
No comments:
Post a Comment