Another day of getting up to fight; For sleight_of_fate

[silentstrigoi]

Hemlock Grove was a small, backwater town in Pennsylvania, not really notable for everything since the Steel Mill in town had closed. Well, that was before Friday night, which came with headlines about a dead highschool girl. The bottom half of her body was still unaccounted for. The local sheriff were grudgingly chalking it up as an animal attack

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[sleight_of_fate]

Industrial towns on the downward slide tended to draw monsters, in Rhys's experience. Just something about the emptiness, the desolation seemed to cast a pall over these places that made them entirely too appealing to predators, Rhys had tended to notice in his years of drifting. So when a particularly bizarre death caught his eye, easily picked up from the local papers...it sounded like it might be worth staying a few days, hanging around to see if he could pick anything up.

There weren't many natural animals that would take a full-grown human. Unnatural animals, though? Oh yeah. And that was the kind of thing that was Rhys's business. If he needed help, he could always call in for some backup, but for the time being, a little poking around wouldn't hurt. Long black hair braided back simply, dressed in flannel, jeans, and a plain, worn leather jacket to blend in with the more conservative small-town locals, it wasn't difficult for him to get a motel room, get his gear together, and find out exactly where the body had been found. Sure, he still got some odd looks, but his easy smile was enough to keep him from being chased out, and that was good enough.

Normally, he was smarter to head down into isolated areas at night alone, but setting out in the late afternoon, the hike down from the back road where he'd parked his car had taken longer than he expected. It was a good thing his night vision was sharp, even if he was too much a city boy to really appreciate the joys of the woods at dusk. That, at least, was what the flashlight, hex chain, and Glock were for, and the rest? Well, it was easy enough to figure out as soon as he got within fifty feet of the spot. There'd been a violent death here: it made it feel haunted to him, and it was with complete caution that he approached the area. Even if not for the fluttering scraps of police tape, he still would have noticed it anyway by the heavy silence and psychic reek of death. Even with the body long gone? The place itself still remembered, and would for a long while to come.

[silentstrigoi]

Roman waited a little while in the shadows, trying to see if it was someone he recognized, make sure that he was actually ducking past the yellow tape and heading for where the girl had been killed. He swallowed, his heartbeat thrumming in his throat as he watched the strange man move around in the shadow of night. He was sure he'd never seen him before, and in a town like Hemlock Grove, that made him new, different, a stranger. Had he killed her? He wanted to know, and there was this part of him that wanted to ask what it had been like. He swallowed, tongue flicking over full, dry lips, before he finally moved.

His feet nearly-silent as he moved over the dry ground, avoiding the leaves as he moved, his jade green eyes bright and fixed on the man as he moved toward him. His hands were at his sides, and Roman was unarmed; risky, perhaps, but he was more overwhelmed with this need to know, to find out, than he was concerned with his safety. There was something not-quite-human about him, something off, not quite right, if you were sensitive to those kind of things.

"Did you kill her?"

He asked finally, head cocked slightly to the side, watching the man. Roman's tall, but he's young, still in his teens, with that youthful look to his face, but a conflict, darkness in his eyes.

[sleight_of_fate]

Rhys's skin suddenly felt like it was going to crawl away and try to hide without him at the voice, and his head snapped around, braid flying. That little something else inside him curled in caution, freezing and waiting as he stopped and turned slowly.

Younger than him, but that blood-borne warning still whispered in the back of his head, and Rhys set his shoulders, feeling the weight of both his knife and his gun in his coat. Not going for them yet, not looking for a fight, but willing to defend himself. Because the younger man's question made him think that he wasn't talking to the killer, either. Probably. Still someone- something- to be cautious of, though, and something about those eyes made him look away quickly, gazing around at the trees instead.

Voices carry in the stillness of the woods, and Rhys's is quiet. "No, but thinking I might get an idea of what did," he said, rubbing his palms across his jeans as though that could remove the crawling feeling of unease left behind by the imprint of violence.

[silentstrigoi]

"You said what. Not who."

Roman points it out after a pause. Sure, maybe the man's talking about the sheriff's claim that it was done by coyotes, but Roman would like to think that neither of them here are that oblivious. He tilts his head and he watches him, takes a few steps closer, and the way he moves isn't threatening; he's tall, with almost half a foot on the man, but the way he moves is just slightly gawky, like he's just coming out of a growth spurt. There's still that tinge of something not quite right about him, however.

He looks at the scene of it, the little shed set out near the edge of the forest, in the dirt and surrounded by a lightly grassy field. The structure now decorated with the remnants of bloodstains and yellow police line that flutters in the slight breeze. Roman swallows, tilts his head to the other side as he looks him over.

"Who are you? You're not from here."

[sleight_of_fate]

"News is sayin' maybe a bear attack." Rhys raises dark eyebrows, gazing around again somewhat pointedly. He doesn't protest the younger man moving closer, just watches carefully for now. It's not entirely surprising that a strange crime scene would draw another...outsider. They're the ones who have the most vested interest in the real culprits if they want to be left alone to live in peace. Policing their own is part of their responsibility if they want to blend in.

Of course, a killer might hang around the scene to make sure that no one 'in the know' shows up, but that's cynical even for Rhys. He can give the young man the benefit of the doubt, for now, until shown otherwise. Very careful benefit of the doubt because the shorn hair on the back of his neck is still prickling, but there's no hostility yet and Rhys doesn't see a need to start any.

"I was just passing through, actually, until I heard about this and thought I'd have a look. Name's Rhys," he says mildly, glancing back over at Roman. No accent to speak of, but he doesn't sound local, either. He spreads his hands as he says it, a nonchalant gesture to go with the easy, relaxed set of his shoulders. Whoever, whatever you are, I'm not here to piss in your territory. It's all yours, soon as I'm done here I'm gone. "...take it I'm not the only one who's curious."