(no subject)
There was no way around it: she was going to have to go back to the apartment, and soon. Her pockets were completely empty but for the little business card acquired from Kilraven the morning before and a tube of chapstick. It wasn’t like what little cash she had ferreted away in the apartment would do much good, but Hell, it was something.
Aside from that, the encounter with Eleanor earlier that night had left her battered and exhausted. It was well after midnight, and she still hadn’t slept more than the scant pre-dawn hours she had spent in fevered slumber the past night.
Perhaps more than the physical trials she had endured, the mental and emotional stress had left her numb and soul-weary. It’d be nice to be home, if only for a few moments to rifle through her stuff. It was soon enough that her things probably hadn’t been cleaned out. Hell, the cops might even be watching the place. Bryn admitted to herself that she really didn’t care all that much. Cops were pussycats when compared to the lions and tigers she had been running into of late. New York was more of an urban jungle than she had ever imagined. She wasn’t quite sure where she herself fit into it now, but improvisation was a skill she had picked up quite a long time ago, and it seemed to be serving her well.
At that moment, whatever jungle creature was her analog, Bryn felt like a thief. She tried to think of a jungle scavenger, but all she could think of was a raccoon. Not exactly a National Geographic thriller, but she couldn’t come up with anything better. She was casing her own apartment, watching it from the shadows of the opposite side of the street, watching for any sign of movement within the dark windows. It was her home, shithole that it was, but in some part of her mind, it meant safety, it meant loving arms and a cup of hot coffee in the morning.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes, threatening to spill out. “Dammit, don’t start crying now Bryn. You’ll never be able to stop…” she whispered harshly to herself, swallowing hard and struggling to push aside the hurt and anguish at Zach’s death that was still so painfully fresh. For a few moments, her view was blurred, the dingy light from the streetlights streaking across her vision, but by he skin of her teeth Bryn managed to fight it all back and lock it into the sturdiest mental box she could manage.
If she kept just sitting here, she was going to lose it for sure. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered beneath her breath. She began to cross the empty street, her footfalls silent on the filthy, trash-strewn pavement, every moment fluid, melting into the next, controlled, and deliberate. She hadn’t seen anyone aside from a couple of drunks stumbling down the sidewalk in the past few minutes, so she was pretty sure she was safe, at least for now.
She ascended the steps onto the small landing in front of the door, groping in her pocket for the key to the apartment building, cursing her fumbling brain for not having it ready from the moment she started across the street. She could feel her heart beating with a frantic strength within her chest, and imagined that you could hear it a block away like some huge Chinese gong rhythmically struck.
She finally managed to open the door and slip inside, wincing as it closed with a rickety banging behind her. Up the stairs she went, three whole flights, cursing viciously and silently every time a step creaked. There, there was her door, marked, as expected, with a long strip of yellow caution tape.
My apartment is a crime scene, she thought bitterly as she gingerly tested the doorknob. It resisted, locked. She slipped the key into the deadbolt, clenching her teeth as she slowly opened it inward, ducking beneath the yellow tape. The apartment was completely dark, and Bryn really, really didn’t want to change that. Leaving the door cracked behind her, she edged around the outside of the living room, knowing that the carpet had likely already been sanitized, but not wanting to risk it.
She made for the bedroom, groping around in the dark. She knew the apartment layout well enough to make her way through it blindfolded, but the sheer horror of what happened here made her almost unable to operate within this space in any capacity. Her chest felt constricted, like she imagined how that old method of torture would feel, where they kept piling rocks on top of your chest until you couldn’t breathe any more, slowly crushing the life out of you.
The weight seemed to ease a little bit when she made it to the bedroom. Here, here were the happy memories. She could think again. Blindly she sought out the nightstand, pulling out the top-drawer and feeling for the cold metal shaft of the little Mag-Lite she kept there. She seized its cross-hatched handle, twisting the end until a beam of light burst forth, painfully bright to Bryn’s night-adjusted eyes. She blinked away the bright after-image impatiently and headed for the chest of drawers.
She opened the third drawer for the bottom, clearing away the flotsam of shirts thrown into it and sticking her arm through the mess, fingers running over the bottom of the drawer above. They soon found the shape of a wad of bills taped there. She tore them off gently, trying to remember exactly how much she had stashed there. Couple hundred, maybe. It might be enough to get her out of town, which was an idea that held no small amount of appeal for her right now. She stuffed the bills in her pocket, deciding to count them later.
She swept the flashlight’s narrow beam once around the bedroom, only planning to say a little mental goodbye and head right back out the door, but in that harsh beam for a moment she highlighted the picture that perched on the nightstand, a picture that depicted more happiness than Bryn thought she would ever have, and now doubted she’d ever have again. Unable to stop herself, she walked to the bed and sat down, taking the picture in one hand, fingers lovingly caressing its cheap copper-tone frame.
It wasn’t a fancy or particularly artistic picture by any stretch of the imagination, but even so, Bryn loved it. It showed the two of them, dark-haired, petite little Bryn and her merry, round-faced, fair-haired love entwined on a park bench in Central Park, looking not at the camera but at each other, paying no heed to the friend who decided to take the snapshot.
Unbidden, tears sprung up in Bryn’s eyes as sorrow consumed her. She didn’t sob or wail, but tears ran down her face in two delicate, shining rivulets, falling in glittering drops from her chin to her shirt, forming a sloppy dark blotch there. Her chest shook with harsh breaths, though no sound was wrenched from her vocal cords.
She wasn’t quite sure how long she wallowed there in misery, staring at the picture with vision so blurred she couldn’t even make out the image. At some point, however, a sound penetrated through the emotional haze that dulled her senses, muffled footsteps in the apartment’s living room.
Cursing herself, Bryn darted from the bed into the closet, the picture and flashlight still clenched in her hands, though the light of the latter object she quickly doused as she burrowing into the thickly packed closet, praying that her presence would go unnoticed by whoever was coming.
OOC: Enter Lor/Curtus/ friendly neighborhood cops. Basically whatever takes your fancy. ;-)
Aside from that, the encounter with Eleanor earlier that night had left her battered and exhausted. It was well after midnight, and she still hadn’t slept more than the scant pre-dawn hours she had spent in fevered slumber the past night.
Perhaps more than the physical trials she had endured, the mental and emotional stress had left her numb and soul-weary. It’d be nice to be home, if only for a few moments to rifle through her stuff. It was soon enough that her things probably hadn’t been cleaned out. Hell, the cops might even be watching the place. Bryn admitted to herself that she really didn’t care all that much. Cops were pussycats when compared to the lions and tigers she had been running into of late. New York was more of an urban jungle than she had ever imagined. She wasn’t quite sure where she herself fit into it now, but improvisation was a skill she had picked up quite a long time ago, and it seemed to be serving her well.
At that moment, whatever jungle creature was her analog, Bryn felt like a thief. She tried to think of a jungle scavenger, but all she could think of was a raccoon. Not exactly a National Geographic thriller, but she couldn’t come up with anything better. She was casing her own apartment, watching it from the shadows of the opposite side of the street, watching for any sign of movement within the dark windows. It was her home, shithole that it was, but in some part of her mind, it meant safety, it meant loving arms and a cup of hot coffee in the morning.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes, threatening to spill out. “Dammit, don’t start crying now Bryn. You’ll never be able to stop…” she whispered harshly to herself, swallowing hard and struggling to push aside the hurt and anguish at Zach’s death that was still so painfully fresh. For a few moments, her view was blurred, the dingy light from the streetlights streaking across her vision, but by he skin of her teeth Bryn managed to fight it all back and lock it into the sturdiest mental box she could manage.
If she kept just sitting here, she was going to lose it for sure. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered beneath her breath. She began to cross the empty street, her footfalls silent on the filthy, trash-strewn pavement, every moment fluid, melting into the next, controlled, and deliberate. She hadn’t seen anyone aside from a couple of drunks stumbling down the sidewalk in the past few minutes, so she was pretty sure she was safe, at least for now.
She ascended the steps onto the small landing in front of the door, groping in her pocket for the key to the apartment building, cursing her fumbling brain for not having it ready from the moment she started across the street. She could feel her heart beating with a frantic strength within her chest, and imagined that you could hear it a block away like some huge Chinese gong rhythmically struck.
She finally managed to open the door and slip inside, wincing as it closed with a rickety banging behind her. Up the stairs she went, three whole flights, cursing viciously and silently every time a step creaked. There, there was her door, marked, as expected, with a long strip of yellow caution tape.
My apartment is a crime scene, she thought bitterly as she gingerly tested the doorknob. It resisted, locked. She slipped the key into the deadbolt, clenching her teeth as she slowly opened it inward, ducking beneath the yellow tape. The apartment was completely dark, and Bryn really, really didn’t want to change that. Leaving the door cracked behind her, she edged around the outside of the living room, knowing that the carpet had likely already been sanitized, but not wanting to risk it.
She made for the bedroom, groping around in the dark. She knew the apartment layout well enough to make her way through it blindfolded, but the sheer horror of what happened here made her almost unable to operate within this space in any capacity. Her chest felt constricted, like she imagined how that old method of torture would feel, where they kept piling rocks on top of your chest until you couldn’t breathe any more, slowly crushing the life out of you.
The weight seemed to ease a little bit when she made it to the bedroom. Here, here were the happy memories. She could think again. Blindly she sought out the nightstand, pulling out the top-drawer and feeling for the cold metal shaft of the little Mag-Lite she kept there. She seized its cross-hatched handle, twisting the end until a beam of light burst forth, painfully bright to Bryn’s night-adjusted eyes. She blinked away the bright after-image impatiently and headed for the chest of drawers.
She opened the third drawer for the bottom, clearing away the flotsam of shirts thrown into it and sticking her arm through the mess, fingers running over the bottom of the drawer above. They soon found the shape of a wad of bills taped there. She tore them off gently, trying to remember exactly how much she had stashed there. Couple hundred, maybe. It might be enough to get her out of town, which was an idea that held no small amount of appeal for her right now. She stuffed the bills in her pocket, deciding to count them later.
She swept the flashlight’s narrow beam once around the bedroom, only planning to say a little mental goodbye and head right back out the door, but in that harsh beam for a moment she highlighted the picture that perched on the nightstand, a picture that depicted more happiness than Bryn thought she would ever have, and now doubted she’d ever have again. Unable to stop herself, she walked to the bed and sat down, taking the picture in one hand, fingers lovingly caressing its cheap copper-tone frame.
It wasn’t a fancy or particularly artistic picture by any stretch of the imagination, but even so, Bryn loved it. It showed the two of them, dark-haired, petite little Bryn and her merry, round-faced, fair-haired love entwined on a park bench in Central Park, looking not at the camera but at each other, paying no heed to the friend who decided to take the snapshot.
Unbidden, tears sprung up in Bryn’s eyes as sorrow consumed her. She didn’t sob or wail, but tears ran down her face in two delicate, shining rivulets, falling in glittering drops from her chin to her shirt, forming a sloppy dark blotch there. Her chest shook with harsh breaths, though no sound was wrenched from her vocal cords.
She wasn’t quite sure how long she wallowed there in misery, staring at the picture with vision so blurred she couldn’t even make out the image. At some point, however, a sound penetrated through the emotional haze that dulled her senses, muffled footsteps in the apartment’s living room.
Cursing herself, Bryn darted from the bed into the closet, the picture and flashlight still clenched in her hands, though the light of the latter object she quickly doused as she burrowing into the thickly packed closet, praying that her presence would go unnoticed by whoever was coming.
OOC: Enter Lor/Curtus/ friendly neighborhood cops. Basically whatever takes your fancy. ;-)