Christine Goes to the Bawn

4/6/2005
07:55 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.

Currently the moon is in the waning New Moon phase (15% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 64 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the north at 5 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.83 and falling, and the relative humidity is 56 percent. The dewpoint is 48 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius.)
It is currently 19:32 Pacific Time on Wed Apr 6 2005.

Apt. 15(#2604RAJLh)
The apartment is muted in color, sporting cool blue Christmas lights that blink against the walls occassionally. Most of the mess that was within these walls is cleared to an extent of fair cleanliness. Furniture, it seems, is decidedly lacking save for lumpy beanbags and a puke-colored green Lay-Z-Boy gotten from the Goodwill store. There is a table, but it is a compilation of boxes, a couple of empty metal kegs and a sturdy plank of wood. The entire collection sprawls in a half-circle facing the small color TV and built in VCR, which perches against the wall atop a large metal keg. Its antenna sport aluminum wrapping, curled in some places for better reception. Below that, a Sega Dreamcast and its controllers sit neatly in a small box with games partitioned within it. The other side of the apartment contains boxes, some empty and some not. Set atop them is an old radio. Somehow, the emptiness of the apartment is still set off by little decorations and Stuff set strategically around and on the fuzzy brown carpet that sports a few cuts and scars. Amidst it all, a stamped-on smileyface rug greets the occupants and offers them to Have a Nice Day. (+view for rooms)
Contents:
Joey
Christine
TigerCharm(#3238h)
Obvious exits:
Out  

The apartment is quiet, but filled with the awkward strain of 'we're not talking to eachother'. Joey is at the kitchen table, flipping through a newspaper and spooning peanut butter into her mouth. The new cub has pushed her beanbag to the exact furthest spot away from Joey and flips the pages of her own reading material; a la Bible.

Yi returns from some errands, and though she's looking like she was hurried to do so, there seems to also be some other cheesecloth-thin tension surrounding the asian ragabash tonight. When she returns, her eyes travel from one girl to the other. "Oh bloody hell you two," she states aloud with a rougher closing of the door than intended. "What happened now?"

Christine glances up with her most innocently neutral face, eyes Yi as though she has no idea what the woman is talking about, or indeed, was not aware that there was another girl in the room at all. Then she shrugs, and looks back at her book.

Joey looks over, "She got tired of listening to the truth, I got tired of listening to her excuses. Nothing to talk about." She corks up the peanut butter and licks the spoon one last time. "I needed to see you though Yi, and I know this is bad timing and all."

Yi sighs out as if frustration could be alleviated in such a manner. "Talk to me," she tells Joey, moving for the kitchen briefly to stock the fridge. As she passes by Christine, the girl gets a not-exactly pleasant glance. A disappointed one. But it's fleeting as the ragabash makes her way kitchenwards in the small apartment.

Christine reddens slightly, and otherwise gives no response to Yi's look as she buries herself in corner and beanbag and Bible.

Joey looks briefly to the girl, then lets out a big sigh at Yi. "I'm gonna be going away for a while. A good chunk of a while. I spoke to Olga on it already, and she knows and is okay with it. I'm gonna go try and find out who my mother was... and why she did what she did."

Yi doesn't take long to stock up. The rations of food are few for the poor and supposedly jobless Canto-cliath. As she turns around and heads back out of the kitchen, her reply is less annoyed, and more curious. "It is good to know the truth of who you are," she nods, "and though I do not know what your mother had done Joey... I, and the rest of the Gnawers, will miss you greatly." The latter is spoken softer, gentler. Yi's expression too, is not so much disappointed as inevitably a bit sad at such news. "Where will you go?" Christine, for now, is allowed to read in her silence.

Joey licks at her lips, "Back to the east coast, start at the hospital I was born at. From what I found out last time I poked my nose in the record books- she was taken to Holy Trinity Hospital after being found..." she pauses, "in bad shape from what she did. I'll start there, then hit the foster center, see if anyone ever came looking for me. Either at the hospital or the center." She slumps into the wall, "I'm gonna miss you guys too, but it's what I gotta do. I need to know. Or at least try."

Yi nods slowly, crossing over to the other ragabash and stooping with a slight stiffness in her right leg. "Joey," she says quietly with eyes seeking out the other's. "You do what you must do. To question our place is just our way, you know that. So, I will miss you truly, but remember that we Gnawers are never truly alone." Her eyes swivel this way and that. "Mama Rat watches over us all. And she will watch over and help you find your self. I know you are strong inside Joey, and you are smart. Smarter than me, I would say. When you do find that strength inside, you will be great no matter where you are."

Joey smiles a little, then reaches out to grab the other in a big squeeze. She holds the hug tight for a moment, then backs off with an 'Oh!' She hands four twenties to the other, "Hold this for me till I get back. Sorta like... I dunno, it's a promise. And don't spend it!" She grins a little.

There's a tiny, incredulous cough from Christine at the mention of "Mama Rat". Then, once again, silence from that quarter.

Yi is drawn into the hug without protest, and rather gives back her fair share warmly. Then as the money is offered, she takes it and looks down at the eighty dollars. A bit of curious musing is done over the money, and then Yi looks up with a nod and a smile. "I will do that gladly," she states in completion of her half of the promise. "And hopefully by the time you get back, /Christine/ could be the one to be the first to welcome you." Incredulous cough ignored, Yi glances back over her shoulder.

Joey nods her head, "Yah, hope so. Plus, this'll give you guys time to worry about just one young lady at a time." She steps back and shoves her hands into her pockets, "I'll probably go in the next day or two, once I situate a bus schedule and stuff."

Yi nods again, accepting the ragabash's plans. "If you happen to see Raul Fixes-Stuff on the road," she says, "or Anneka Bridge-Mender, or Bernie Stomps-the-Wyrm... say hi for me, hm?" She slips the money into her pocket. "And I'm sure this ol' ragabash can handle one stubborn cub at least."

Christine is backed up into the farthest corner from Joey and Yi she can manage, sunk down into a beanbag with her Bible on her lap, mostly obscuring her face. Her breath flutters the multicolored post-it notes that stick out between the pages, and she takes no part in their conversation. The one that Olga gave her yesterday has been closed, but is otherwise untouched where it was left.

Joey nods her head, "If I see Raul, I am asking his permission to steal Badger." She chuckles, "Keep an eye on him for me, okay Christine." This is offered to the girl, "He likes you, and he's gonna be bummed out for a while." One last hug is given Yi, and the younger Ragabash scoots out towards the door, "Oh hey, Yi... you can use at least $3 of that money, I ate all your PB."

Yi chuckles softly, the last hug a bit tighter than before. "I will consider it a small farewell gift. Oh, I nearly forgot. Lyra Four-Leaves lives out in New York City, last I heard. Maybe you can say hello to her at the sept there." She apparently is comfortable with mentioning all this information in the presence of the cub.

Joey nods, "I'll see what I can do on that list of yours," she grins. The door opens and out goes the young Gnawer.

Yi watches the door close, and the brave facade she had put on crumbles and cracks. The ragabash crumples down onto the LaZBoy heavily, arms splaying over the armrests as she sighs out. After a bit of silence, she looks back up to the cub. "Does it not bother you that you and her are left with this tension between the two of you?"

Christine regards Yi over the little fence of green and yellow notes in front of her. "I'm not the one who left," she says, dropping her eyes again.

Yi narrows her gaze, eyes turning upon the cub. "You know what I mean," she states with no disguise of her annoyance. "Joey was only looking out for your welfare, and you repaid her with your childish, stubborn pride and blinded beliefs."

The door opens again a while after it's shut, it comes rattling forward on its hinges until it meets the wall with a satisfying thud and goes bouncing back. This time it's met by Olga's sizeable splayed-out hand, as she comes peekingly into the room, taking small but certain steps, craning her head up and looking around to take quick tally of everyone about. Coming in close behind her, dwarfing the big woman like a monstrous shadow, comes Simon, and he too looks around himself but with a decidedly more casual air, less like a stockboy taking quick inventory.

"That isn't true, ma'am," she Christine primly. "I told her I forgave her, and she got angry at me again. I asked her not to leave, and she got angry again. I'm sorry if I think it's tacky for her to take off looking for her mother while she's the reason my mother is looking for me. I can't help that." She takes a post-it from the back of the book and sticks it on her current page before closing it, and sitting up for the arrival of Olga and the stranger. "I thought you were all girls," she complains, composure straining.

Simon takes his cap off, once he's inside. The big man holds it awkwardly for a moment and then tucks it into the side pocket of his jacket. He offers both Yi and Christine a wide-mouthed smile. "Evening."

Yi is about to reply to Christine as the door opens, and then she starts to get up off the chair. "Olga," she greets, and moreso there is a bit of surprise seeing Simon. Here the ragabash smiles more genuinely. "Good evening Simon." The new entrants are gazed at with no shortage of curiosity. "What brings both of you back out here tonight?"

Olga steps aside to give Simon some room, she steps heavily into the apartment, taking up a place somewhere between Christine and the entering kinfolk, now, conversationally distant. Her face is sallow and strained but saved from grime today by a recent bath. Even the smell isn't as bad as it normally is, she has about her the nose-slapping stink of mango shampoo and cheap scent. She answers Yi first, and simply: "Figured it was time to take 'er onto the Bawn, someplace safe, 'less you think otherwise." Then her hand stretches out, flat-palmed and hard, pointing first at Simon, then Christine. "Duff, this's the Christine I was telling you about. Christine, this's Simon, but we all call him Duffy, 'cause - uh actually, I don't know why." A perplexed look directed at the man is cut short by a glance back at Christine and further explanation: "And he's not one of us, Duff's human, pretty much. Though we're not all girls, anyway."

Simon answers Olga's unasked question. "MacDuff," he says, striding forward a step or two to offer Christine his hand. "Simon MacDuff. But like she says, you can just call me Duffy. That's a pretty name, Christine."

Christine is on high alert. She snatches up her broken-strapped bag and sticks the Bible into it as though she expects to be dragged out of the apartment any minute. "What's a bawn?" she asks, gaining her feet rapidly. She stares suspiciously at the approaching man, and gives him her hand after a moment's hesitation. Her handshake is uninspired stuff. "Thank you, sir."

Despite the size and obvious strength behind Simon's hand, his touch is oddly gentle. He releases Christine's hand quickly enough, as well, and then steps back behind Olga. For the time being he's content to fade into the background.

Yi doesn't seem to be so patient these days, and gives a rather sharp nod to Olga. "If you think it is best. And perhaps so - that way she can meet the others." Her glance to Christine and Simon's handshake is fleeting. "But I heard from Brom that there is some kind of taint working itself out southwest of the farmhouse. Dakota has been keeping an eye there as well as the other Guardians, but we should also be careful."

Olga finds a convenient wall to rest against and with a jerk and a shuffle she dislodges her bag from her shoulder and it hits the ground heavily. A hand goes into an inside pocket, her cigarette pocket, and it fumbles around in there with small movements so that on the outside it looks like a flailing fish kept out of water, and on its last fins. "Not gonna take 'er to the farmhouse," she answers Yi, casually. "Not quite yet. Don't want the others corruptin' her, eh?" This's said with a smirk and a wry twist of her neck but it's at least somewhat serious. Looking back to Christine she answers her question too, "There're certain places called caerns, where the spirit world and this world here're close, tight together, and it's easy to pass through. We guard those places 'cause they're strong and 'cause it's what we do. The bawn is the area around one, where we keep watch for our enemies, the bad guys, the forces of the Wyrm. It's safe there."

"Outside the city," Christine observes, and is instantly unhappy with the observation. "I'm fine here. I don't need to go anywhere." Every one of Olga's various expressions is met with a uniform gray scowl. On the other hand, she seems to have taken to Simon--at least considering that lately, not scowling incessantly at someone is the closest kind of rapport she's managed with anyone. And anyways, the news that he's human seems to have won him big points here. She gives the man an utterly expectant look, like suddenly, 'human' is the new 'saint', and he's supposed to back her up against Olga.

Yi nods slowly and turns to head into the bedroom. "Even on the small moon, the bawn would be a safe place for her. The Guardians have been keeping their watch well," she says before slipping in. When she returns, it is with a slight change of clothing from before. Upon emerging, she looks to Christine.

Simon returns Christine's expectant look with little more than a wan smile. If she was looking for an ally, at best what she gets is a sympathetic witness. The kinfolk exchanges a quick look with Olga, but he does little more than stand there and wait, otherwise.

Olga gives a shove against the wall, standing wobblily up straight, patting her pockets down and then tucking her hands each in underneath the opposite arm, watching Christine again. "Yeah well this isn't just about you," she answers, simply, honestly, unchastising, voice flat as a brick wall. "This's about the safety of everybody in this building. You don't understand yet, but y'will, soon. If you stay here you'll endanger all of 'em." She hunches over then, lets a hand slip out and snatch up her bag, and looking up at both Yi and Simon she asks the two, "You ready, guys?"

Simon is certianly ready. His Borsalino cap is pulled from his pocket as he turns for the door. In a soft voice, he tells Olga, "I'll git the car and bring'er around to the front, ok? It'll be waiting outside."

Christine carries her own bag cradled in one arm like some sort of ugly wounded animal. For once, she doesn't scowl, but only lets Olga's words pass through her, snagging nowhere, eliciting nothing. She watches Simon blankly.

Yi steps forward, a hand reaching into her pocket. It seems like she's going to withdraw a weapon, but instead, it's a set of keys. "Christine, go with Olga." She looks back to the Gnawer elder. "I'll lock up here."

Olga bobs her head at Yi and follows Simon slowly out the door, her bag slung over one shoulder like a soldier's musket, or a jailor's, while the other keeps free and prepared, though for what isn't clear. As Simon moves towards the elevator Olga veers away, making sure Christine keeps with her: "We'll take the stairs," she tells the man, with a strange sort of gravity in her voice. "See you at the bottom." She makes very sure Christine is accompanying close behind.

Christine looks back at Simon, frowning at Olga's whim, and following it too. She keeps close behind Olga, her footsteps almost in sync with the woman's, and her eyes following her captor's feet intently.

Yi isn't too long after the others, perhaps a few seconds of sprinting distance from them. Either way it seems like Yi doesn't want the two to appear more strange than it could be already with the young girl following the theurge.

Simon disappears into the elevator, the box shuddering under his weight just a bit. The doors close and the big man disappears to make the trip downstairs.

It's just a flight of ugly grey concrete down to the first floor, and Olga takes it at a lazy pace, one eye on Christine, the other on the path ahead of them. The stairwell is dark with just a dingy dangling bulb and doors to block it off from both the downstairs lobby and the second floor hallway, and it has the distinct smell to it of old urine.

When the others reach the ground floor, a Cron Victoria labeled Columbia Cab Company waits out front. The engine is running, and the big man sits comfortably at the wheel.

Christine takes no interest in her surroundings, and for most practical purposes, Olga is part of her surroundings. An eagerness to be out of the tenement speeds her steps when she gets near the door, but ultimately, the ceiling of her speed is dictated by Olga's, no matter how little she chooses to acknowledge it. She blinks a little at the sky she hasn't seen in a couple days.

Outside of the apartment complex, Bridge Street at night sports little by way of fancy lights and more towards the slummy section of southeast St. Claire. Just a few people loiter around the night time streets, most located further north on Elson where the commercial districts lie. Here, the occassional spotted light of apartment complexes and drawn shades can be seen up and down the south side of Bridge, and mild traffic flows in and out up to the late hours. Yi follows up slowly after the pair, though once the two are at the front with Simon and the cab, she speeds up to join them on the slightly cracked sidewalk. "Let's get going, hm?"

Olga's hand moves casually out to yank open the rear door with her habitual rough ease, but no duplicitous expression can hide the way she dumps her bag to the floor before touching the cold chrome handle, so that she's always got a free hand within reach of the small girl beside her.

Christine casts her eyes speculatively to the street. "Is it far? Which way is it?" She does her best not to touch Olga as she slips into the car. She takes stock of her side of the car's interior: window, lock, handle. She scoots as far up against it as she can, handbag in her lap, and then reaches to dig the safety belt out.

Yi steps up after glancing up and down the street, as well as parts of the tenements across the way in a kind of habitual scanning. "You can take the front seat, Olga," she notes to the theurge elder. "I'll sit with her." That said, the ragabash slips in after Christine at the back seat, though doesn't yet buckle her seatbelt.

Olga dumps her bag into the trunk and it closes with a slam that bounces the vehicle's whole back-end, and then tracing her finger along the top of it she squeezes herself into the shotgun seat, soon filling the car with the heady nose-clotting smell of mangoes. A smile breaks out across her face as she reasons that most of the hard work is done, that things are, for a little while at least out of her hands, and her "Welp, here we go," is cheerier than the neighbourhood and purpose of the ride would warrant.

Simon drops the Crown Victoria into gear once everyone's inside and the doors are shut. A moment later, the cab is cruising out onto Bridge street and beyond. In general, they head east, towards the bridge itself and Kent Crossing beyond.

From time to time, Christine turns at different angles to the window and holds them like poses. She begins to cut that out as the bridge approaches, and to put her eyes to the road with singleminded intensity. There's a growing tension in her, and the only thing that prevents her from being /completely/ readable is the fact that she's hardly been anything but tense for the last few days.

Yi still hasn't buckled her seat belt - no model citizen is she. Or perhaps a sign of trust to Duffy's driving skills, the ragabash keeps her eyes mostly gazing straight ahead or slightly off to the side out the windows and windshield.

Simon is not oblivious to the tension in the cab. The kin can feel it in his bones, even if his eyes are busy watching the road. He does the only thing he knows how to try and ease things--he begins to sing. It actually starts as a soft humming, the kind of thing any cabbie might do. But when that's not enough, he switches the radio on and begins to accompany old blues singers as they pour out of the speakers.

Olga's seat is pushed as far back as it'll go and she's turned around in it at right angles, so that her back's leaned dangerously against the door, one leg's tucked in underneath her, and the other is sprawled out equally dangerously near the gearshift. It doesn't look terribly comfortable but at least from here she can watch everything, head lazily hanging from her hand like it's dead weight. Simon's suddenly breaking into song draws a quiet throttled laugh from the woman and her lips stretch wide, exposing teeth and amusement, appreciation; she looks like she'd join in, if she knew the words. As it is though she just watches the cub, from her strange vantage point, and as they approach the bridge says calmly, though with the girl's tension beginning to etch itself equally along the woman's brows, "Yi, make sure and watch 'er, eh? Sure she's buckled in."

Christine is buckled in all right, and bracing herself like she knows something's about to happen. But something happens too early--she's too tense, too much on edge, and Olga's voice startles her. Her hand, which she has crammed apprehensively against the handle since she got in, squeezes it spasmodically. It clicks. She loses a second to sheer surprise, and another second to surprise that there's no child safety lock. Then she kicks the door out as hard as she can, trawling for cars that pass too quickly, drivers who just aren't deft enough. And she bows in against the impact of whatever comes first: car, or Yi, or Olga.

Next is a whole scant seconds of chaos that feels like slow motion. Yi's surprise gives way to her reflexes, and she is quickly clambering over the back seat for Christine first, car door second. "Watch out!" is the instinctual shout over the blues, as suddenly the cars passing alongside the cab swerve and horns blare. Yi grabs for the cub first to jerk her back into the car proper.

Simon's singing abruptly stops. The wheel of the cab is jerked to the side to veer the car away from on coming traffic that might hit the now open door. He slams on the brakes, as well, and the cars behind him follow suit. More horns blare.

Olga response is small but significant, she moves quick and self-assured, jerking herself forward to grab the Christine's leg and just her leg, keeping her bulk out of the tussle in the back seat, but also in her quick frantic movement shoving the gearshift into reverse. The car squeals and screeches like a monkey being swung by its tail in large unpleasant arcs, only twice as loud, and it's soon joined in its sounds by a heavy jarring jolt and the scrape of metal against metal, though only aesthetic damage results as the car behind bumps in against them. Olga's eyes are wide and angry and with a sudden furious tightening of rage she yanks as hard as she can at the leg she holds, like she's determined to pull either Christine right out of her seatbelt and into the centre of the car, or the hipbone right out of its socket.

Christine gets in a last tiny victory before she's reached--she scrapes her handbag off her lap and out the door. It's gone, to roll under someone's wheel, or hit someone's window, and to be, if she is really lucky, found. She tries to kick at the door, clutching her seatbelts with terrified force, but Olga's got her leg with unexpected suddenness. She's off balance, whiplashed. She makes a noise of dismay, and then of pain. She tries with a few uncoordinated thrusts to hit someone--hits no one, and begins to scream something that isn't exactly coherent yet, but it's definitely got a biblical flavor to it.

Yi is saved only by her wits and a fair share of luck to not get tossed out of the spinning car. She instead gets jammed against Christine with the sheer centrifugal force. Hand clamping down hard against the handle of the backseat door, the ragabash hauls in like a fisherman with the prize catch of the day, slamming the door shut with an added bang of metal on metal. "Drive!" she tells Simon, and makes to attempt to shut the girl up quick.

Municipal Bridge, Center
The center of the municipal bridge lies around you, a rotting monument to the more prosperous days for this part of the city, now gone by. The murky waters of the Columbia River run below, moving north to south. Silhouetted to the distant north are the skyscrapers of the upper-class business district of the city, but all around you is a feeling of despair and poverty. Potholes and rusted chips from the bridge's infrastructure litter the street.
The bridge leads east-west from here, and automobile traffic is generally pretty light. West is the city, and east is the wilderness. The maze of decaying supports for the bridge hangs above you.
Contents:
Christine
Simon
Olga(#4061PJceq)
Obvious exits:
East  West  

Simon turns around to see what the heck is going on in the back seat, when he hears Yi's emphatic command. Without thinking about it, the cabbie reacts, swinging back around to grab the wheel. His foot comes down on the gas pedal hard enough to make the tires squeal a second time, this time as the Crown Vic burns out. He has to swerve to miss a car, but then they're in the clear and he's speeding across to the other side of the bridge.

The sudden lurching back and forth has the normally heavily impassive Olga trying trickily to maintain both her balance and her hold on Christine and as she struggles she manages just the one, plunging quite unintended headfirst into the backseat like a human cannonball, straight towards both of the women scrambling there. Within a half a second she's dumped heavily on Yi's back and Christine's lap with her legs still dangling haphazardly behind in the front seat, staring into Christine's face and looking quite distinctly nonplussed.

Christine is just lashing like it's the end of her she stays still, and while she's got a fair bit of strength in her, she doesn't have an ounce of coordinated purpose. Yi's efforts to stifle her have at least muffled her 'deliver mes' and her fevered invocations of everything from brimstone to AIDS. Then Olga's unexpected arrival in her quarter takes the breath from her--she's quite literally winded. She chokes a little, and blinks owlishly at Olga.

Yi clamps her hand firmly against the girl's lips until she's finished, holding it there even as Olga is shoved into her back. It takes a visible effort of willpower to hold the CantoGnawer there, but the glare of death she gives Christine is undeniably serious. A stream of Cantonese is cussed out at the girl, and she lets go now that the car has once more steadied itself on its four wheels. The ragabash shifts a little under Olga's weight and peers out the back window, fully expecting lights and sirens. "You really have a bloody deathwish don't you?" she hisses at the cub maliciously.

Simon is looking in his rearview mirror, as well. And although there's no sign yet of the police, the grimace the big man wears is proof that he'll probably have to deal with them eventually. "I may need a new hack license, after this," he tells Olga, but with the Gnawer elder's front half now in the backseat, he winds up talking to her feet.

Olga's fist comes up like a swinging log, for a second it looks, both from its direction and the furious look on her face, like it's direction is Christine's face, but instead it just impacts solidly with a plastic hiss against the seat, bracing Olga so she can force herself up and into the front seat again. Like a tempest in a teapot she's back almost as soon as she'd left, sitting more properly now, glaring venomously out at the bridge's supports like she'd like to snap every last one and just drown them all in the river. Trusting Yi to control her Olga ignores the girl in the backseat, staring out the windows, the only concession she makes to the others a guilty-looking, sullen glance at Simon, and a grumbled "Sorry, Duff," that's as genuine as it is frustrated. It's not long before she's fumbling in her jacket for a smoke.

Christine's reflexes hop to it seconds too late to protect her, had Olga's fist been after her face. When she finds herself unhurt, she goes little limp, filled with adrenaline that has no place to go, and stifled by a suffocating sense of failure (and not to mention Yi's hand). She looks like someone who's come awful close to a jackpot, and picked a number away from the winning one. Her black hair is all over the place; her face floats in it whitely. She's leadenly quiet--not that that means she's adding any good karma to the pool. She's got the most persecuted look she can summon from her persecution repertoire--more to the point, she's got the mother of all sulks on.

Yi rankles, part with guilt and part with irritation from deeper down than just the happenings and rush. After she is freed from Olga's halfweight, the ragabash secures the lock on the door on Christine's side and also from her clothing pocket withdraws a gleaming knife seemingly out of nowhere. This is flicked open, and she makes sure Christine sees it's there. "You wanted a kidnapping? You Got one, missy," she breathes out lowly, the street lights in passing hitting the blade just so. "The next time you try something like that, God help you."

Simon darts quick glances Olga's way whenever he can spare them from the road. At her apology, he makes a concerted effort to be nonchalant, shrugging and offering her a soft, "No problem, really." But despite his easy words, the big man is clearly uncomfortable around angry garou, and yet his driving is impeccable. The cab makes a turn once they've crossed the river, to get as far away from Bridge street as possible as quickly as possible. He weaves in and out of smaller, quieter streets until he finds his way on the southern half of Kent Crossing, meandering down Sunrise Road. It's not long before the main street gives way to trees and sparse hosues, and then nothing but trees.

Olga's reprimand to the Ragabash is unpointed and unsure, a dull raspy speaking of her name showing her distaste for the action more than her disapproval of it, and she doesn't ask her to stop. Instead she turns her face to the road again, watches as buildings melt into trees, and sucks at her cigarette first in angry puffs and then in slower, calmer drags. She glances back at Simon, equally, her face etched with thin lines of embarassment and guilt, occasionally building into frustration and then sloshing away into less sharply-defined feelings, but she doesn't speak a word for the remainder of the trip.

Christine sucks in a breath. Her fury is draining out of her, about to leave her unarmored against the flickering trees, the knife, its unnatural wielder, and the terrifying absence of angels. "I fear not what flesh can do unto me," she whispers. She doesn't look like she believes that in the least. Her eyes focus and unfocus on Yi's face. Finally, she's reduced to a shaken and utterly unbiblical: "Don't kill me."

Yi manages to uncontort her expression out of the tense frustration it settled into, only at Olga's word does she, like a policedog, back off and flick the switchblade closed. It disappears again, located likely somewhere on her person. "I /won't/ kill you, Christine. I don't even mean to hurt you," she huffs out, sliding back into her seat, this time her eyes kept on the cub from a sideways gaze. Only once do her eyes again turn back to the driver and front, as Yi manages a quiet, "Sorry about that."

The cab continues to roll down Sunrise, the traffic thinning to nothing. Soon, they are the only car within sight. one of Simon's casual glimpses at Olga catches the Gnawer's contemplative and slightly guilty aspect. He gives her a wan smile and a wink to try and cheer her up. When Christine's plea comes, he looks in the rearview mirror to offer her a small, sympathetic look. For the most part, however, he leaves the cub to the Gnawers. Then, a dirt road appears on the eastern side of the road. The cabbie slows the car down and makes the turn. A hundred feet in off the main road, he stops and shuts the engine off. Turning to Olga, he says, "This should be close enough."

Sunrise Road, South of I-90
Sunrise Road is a wide two-lane strip of blacktop without any lines, though the road looks almost newly paved. Majestic trees, both conifers and deciduous, grow a short distance off from the road, seeming to widen out and thin out further north and pack closer and denser to the south. Now and again, a mailbox and the beginning of a driveway can be seen on either side, and the glimpses of houses you sometimes catch through gaps in the trees are impressive. Sunrise Road is known as a place where nature-lovers with a lot of handy cash live. However, interspersed between the grand new homes, the occasional old farmstead can be seen. Through the widening area of open land to the north, you can see the grey concrete structure of the I-90 overpass.
The road runs north toward I-90, and south into the woods. On the eastern side of the road, a gravel lane extends to the east before turning north and running parallel to the road.
Contents:
Simon
Christine
Olga(#4061PJceq)
Obvious exits:
Gravel Driveway  Hawk's Haven  Escrowe Farm  North, Under I-90  South  

Olga takes a deep breath of cigarette smoke before opening the door and letting in fresh air, like she's clinging to the foulness of it, the comfort. She looks at Simon, her small shoddy smile apologetic and painful, and she looks for long seconds like she doesn't really know what to say, what to do, and wandering eyes fail to help her much; finally looking up at him she just says quietly "Thanks, Duffy," the words raspy and thick with smoke, and she looks down before snapping the door open and dragging herself outside, blinking up at the sky, and moving around the car towards her bag without a glance at the towering trees surrounding them.

"There's nothing here," says Christine. "I don't see anything here." She looks at Yi. If Yi let go of her, she'd be throwing herself at the door again; she doesn't have the presence of mind to conceal that. Just now, all of her spare presence of mind is being channelled into not vomiting for the second time this week.

Yi let Christine go awhile back down the road, when the cars had trickled to a nothing. When the cab rolls to a stop, she opens her door after Olga, slipping out of the cab with a short note of thanks to the kinfolk as well. "I might be able to find someone to fix your car for cheap," the ragabash adds, glancing sidelong at the damage. Luckily the license plate is still barely hanging on a hinge. At least with the rest of the ride, Yi has been able to smooth her composure back over and keep her expression neutral. It softens only when she regards Simon and then Olga. Back to Simon though, where the ragabash's main concern lies, "Are you going to be ok, Simon?"

Simon climbs out on his side. Unsure how to help beyond his career expertise, he winds up simply leaning against the side of his trusty Crown Victoria. A grin is offered to Yi, and he nods his thanks. "I'll take you up on that offer," he tells her. "And, yeah. I think I'll be ok. Maybe I'll just dump the car and report it stolen. They'll find her and bring her back to me." Then, he looks to Olga, and then the cub. To Olga, he asks, "You need some help carrying stuff?"

The trunk pops and heaves and Olga drags her bag from its now-gaping maw, like she's tugging the tonsils out of a great beast, and dumping them on the floor she slams its mouth closed and walks back around to the other side of the car. "Lemme get some fingerprints on the steering wheel then," she says to the man. "Otherwise it'll look suspicious, if you do that. You got gloves?" As she reaches the driver's side door, though, she looks away from him, over to Christine, and she leans over and says in a slow whisper, raspily, knowingly, with dull and untested conviction, "_Everything's_ here."

Simon watches Olga carefully as she approaches the driver's side of the car, a nervousness the perceptive might equate with jealous lover watching someone else touch his girl. He allows the Gnawer to touch the wheel, however, and adds a simple, "Yeah, I got gloves. That was a good idea." When Olga makes her whisper to Christine, it draws an even wider, more amused smile form the big man. And as he climbs back into the vehicle, pulling on his gloves, he's laughing. Before he leaves, he calls the young cub to the window.

Yi smiles a bit at Olga's words too, like she's also in the know. "I can stay and help Simon fix some parts of his car, I think. If you want to take the cub, Olga?"

Christine unbelts herself with unsteady fingers and slides out. Her eyes flick up to Olga without understanding, and then she looks towards Simon and drifts towards him.

Simon waits til Christine is close before he whispers, "If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us unto This Land." Winking, he adds, "Numbers fourteen, eight."

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