Comments | estdeus_innobis: And I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

valmont_vicomte in estdeus_innobis

And I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

Jun 04, 2008 12:55

Saturday lunchtime, day 20My birthday party went very well, and I have to say that my night with the new school mistress was a lot of fun. Kaeli turned out to be a lot more amenable - and athletic! - than I might have expected, and the experience was very pleasurable. What is bothering me, though, is how I felt this morning. I felt better than I ( Read more... )

valmont, hermia, jack

Comments 19

jack_hollow June 4 2008, 16:11:04 UTC

I'm just finishing recopying the last of the reports when the door swings open. (Mab'n I really need to get that fixed. The knob's sitting on the edge of my desk, still embedded in door-splinters.) I saw Valmont my first night on the job--before I even really had the job--and around town since then.

Not used to seeing him looking so mussed. He's been hurrying. And he's in his shirtsleeves on what's a pretty chilly day--

--oh, Christ, not someone else. Please not someone else. I start getting to my feet. "What happened?" It's a little shorter than I'd like it to be, but it's been a long night.

valmont_vicomte June 4 2008, 17:08:02 UTC

The deputy's in the office.

"What happened?"

Jack gets to his feet, his nerves obviously already stretched thin, and my sense of something being very wrong increases.

"That's what I came to ask you," I say, momentarily wrongfooted. "I heard something happened at the brothel, and they're shut for business, and Lena told me Kora is -" I pause. "Is dead," I say quietly. "What the hell happened last night, deputy?"

jack_hollow June 4 2008, 20:45:15 UTC

"What the hell happened last night, deputy?"

"Ah." I feel a little guilty at the relief I'm feeling. "Cary Tanner shot Kora Gareth and Maryk Graeb. In the park last night. Maryk got Kora here, but we couldn't save her. It was touch-and-go for him as well." The silence hangs awkwardly in the air. The catch in his voice before is dead...

We haven't had many people in today. But most of the ones we have had didn't take it this way.

"I'm sorry." My voice is low. "We all did what we could."

valmont_vicomte June 4 2008, 20:59:23 UTC

Jack's words seem to come out too fast. He shouldn't be able to say so many important things in so few words. Silence hangs like a lead weight in the room, and there's a ringing in my ears.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "We all did what we could."

I sit down on a chair that hasn't been offered to me. For a moment my head swims.

"What - What the fuck is wrong with this town?" I say, and I press the heels of hands into my eyes.

After a minute I look up.

"I'm sorry, deputy," I say thinly. "It's not like I was close to Kora. And I've seen murders before. Worse than this." I've seen men be shot over a lost bet; I've seen the body of a strangled girl come out of a river. I don't know why this has affected me so. Or maybe it's just that the human body can only take so much, and I have seen more than enough lately. "She was a good girl," I finish. Then relief comes. Karina wasn't hurt. She was with Maryk, that's all. And then there's rising anger in my belly.

"Her boyfriend killed her?"

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