Day 36: Waiting Room/Lobby 1

[forgot_my_life]

Oh yeah. This was bad. Grabbing a chair and ignoring the woman who had brought him in, Takaya crossed his arms and glared at the wall. He wasn't going to participate in this bullshit. Being told he had 'company' and that he should he happy about it had ruined what was otherwise an okay day

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[damned_visitors]

The first thing Victor noticed on his way up here was the reception on his cellphone cutting out. If all went well he wouldn't have fifty messages on his voicemail when he got back to town. (Yeah, he'd landed himself a promotion about a year ago, so as office manager, he could say he'd skipped out on, uh, 'business'). Of course, he hadn't made the trip for nothing - time was money and he wasn't the kind of guy to waste either, not for anybody. The new secretary wasn't what he'd had in mind for a replacement, that was all there was to it. A skirt with smarts? Now that's what he called an asset. Human resources like María were few and far between, and that's exactly why he needed her back on the team. With a little persuasion, she'd be dying to work for him after she was released - they'd had a falling out before she got admitted - and without having to spell it out for her, he was going to make her wish she'd never gotten in tight with Tony. Hell, maybe he wouldn't have to; her recent 'transfer' should've done the trick.

He glanced around the lobby over the rim of his sunglasses and pushed them up again when he found the pigeon, looking kind of out of place without a stack of reports to file. Every suit was his best suit, but he'd made a point of wearing this one today - the last suit she'd seen him in, the day he'd watched them come into the office and take her away. A yellow collar stuck out against dark jade, and his shoes were shined to perfection. He noticed the body filling them was getting more than a few glances from the staff, as well. He was raring to go twenty-four seven with his strapping build and his immaculate tan and his professionally styled hair kept in place with designer gel - and a smile that could bend any client to his whim.

Victor flashed his admirers a grin before making his way towards María, both hands behind his back. He halted about two steps in front of her. His smirk only widened as he studied her new clothes.

"You lost your mind and your wardrobe?"

[sheisthecause]

Her throat, her chest, her muscles, her whole body seized up as soon as he walked through the door--sensations she'd never felt like this even when she was alive and so couldn't place. If she'd been forced to put a name to them--that shortness of breath, that lightness of head--she would have had to have gone with "terror." And she would have given a lot to have it be anyone else in the world standing there, scanning the room for her.

Domino.

The one person she least wanted to see. Ever again. Especially like this. Even with skin, she wouldn't have needed the lines of his body, the sound of his voice, or the well-remembered and hideous colors of his suit to pick him out of a crowd. Show her that smirk, anywhere on earth, and Meche would have thought: Domino Hurley.

And then the man himself was right there in front of her (in the flesh) and all she could do was gape. Stop doing that, her brain was screaming at her, he'll take it as a compliment! but Meche couldn't move. Domino.

So Landel was willing to bring someone back from the dead just to torment her. What was going to happen to Domino after he walked back out that door? Would he disappear, or would they kill him again? And then what--would he end up back in the Eighth Underworld with a second chance, or would he just go right back to...

...those coral crushers flashed in front of her eyes again. Domino. That smirk being devoured into ashes.

She'd thought she was over all this.

But Meche knew Domino well enough to know that her window for making a snappy comeback was closing fast, and that only bad things were going to happen if she missed it. Working on instinct, she shot back, "Too bad they don't judge insanity on the basis of fashion; we'd be trading places. Teal and canary, Domino, seriously? Why did you come here, anyway--just to inflict that painful color combination on me?"

[damned_visitors]

Victor held back a laugh. That's what he liked to hear. The kid still had spunk.

"I'm afraid you aren't in a position to be making calls on what's 'fashionable', sweetheart," he sneered, tilting his head back. He grinned and waved a hand, brushing that aside, then gave an exaggerated sigh. "As far as I know, giving me a pet name wasn't part of your contract," he said gently, as if talking to a slow person, which in fact, he was.

"I'm here for what's mine," he went on in a tone of feigned innocence, seeming a little colder now. "I thought you might be interested in coming back to work for me. Once you're on the home stretch, that is."

[sheisthecause]

"Pet name?!" Meche demanded. "The closest I ever remember getting is 'sleaze ball!' Which I guess you could call a pet name, if you take into account how much nicer it is than what you deserve." She had a few choice "pet names" for him right now, in fact, but it didn't seem like the best time to get into a cursing match. Domino'd never been one to hesitate about locking her in the vault, and Meche bet he wouldn't be shy about convincing the nurses to put her in whatever form of solitary confinement they had here. That damn salesman smile could do anything.

But what the hell did he mean by "work for him"? The man was dead. Hector's operation had been shut down. Unless...maybe he only had memories from before--before the crushers. Maybe he honestly thought she was just going to go back to being his obedient little secretary on that godforsaken factory island in the middle of the Sea of Lament. Filing his papers. Making his coffee.

Think again, Buster. Even she didn't want to get out of here that badly--not yet.

"And listen to me, Domino Hurley. If you think I'm ever gonna agree to waltzing back to you and being trapped in that hellhole of an office again, you've got another thing coming," she snarled. "Just in case pointing a gun at you didn't make that quite clear enough."

[damned_visitors]

He laughed out loud.

"With that attitude," he said once he'd collected himself, "I'll be glad to show your replacement the door."

"... Are we on the same page here? I'm Victor, remember?" He placed a hand on her shoulder, as if it might help get the message across, but ended up shaking his head in disappointment and releasing her. "That was a fantasy, María. Brought on by your delusional co-worker."

[sheisthecause]

"Get your dirty hands off of me. I don't know where they've been," Meche snapped a little belatedly, and then something clicked. That was what she'd seen in the others' conversations: this moment of missed recognition. Domino obviously knew who she was, but they'd told him to talk to her as though she really were María. As though he himself were somebody else, from her "real" self's life.

Well, he wasn't bright enough to keep that up forever. Sooner or later he'd have to slip up, and she might be able to use it to her advantage.

In the meantime, though, it couldn't hurt to find out who María was supposed to be and what she'd done to land herself here. Was her "delusional co-worker" supposed to be Manny?

"Sorry," she forced herself to sigh, raking her fingers through her hair. Ugh. Like apologizing to the snake in the chicken coop. "It's just that being here makes things a little...fuzzy, sometimes. And you know what else I'm confused about: I can't think why you still want me to work for you. Or are you developing a taste for spit in your coffee?"