[Dane Wayland]

OOC: Listen, this is so self-indulgent and I apologize beforehand. If I need to make any tweaks just lemme know.

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(CW: Violence, homicide, language)

Dane turned and pretended to be intently fixated upon his reflection in the dirty storefront window. He scratched a fingernail absently at the collar of his jacket as if to remove some invisible remnant of his lunch, tilting his chin while his gaze wandered sidelong; studying the man across the street inconspicuously. The man — well over six foot and notably built — had been poking around the abandoned building in a manner Dane assumed was supposed to be discreet.... but blatantly wasn't. With his fidgety eyes, the way he tugged down his hat and wiped sweaty hands on his jeans... if he was a cop or a detective, he wasn't a seasoned one.

Dane was meant to meet another trio of supposed Guild members at the same warehouse fifteen minutes earlier and he was going to be both horrendously upset and admittedly amused if a bust took place right before his eyes. Tickled to be just another innocent bystander among the sea of curious, gathered onlookers who would no doubt amass but positively annoyed that he'd miss the pick-up. His father would undoubtedly assume the raid was somehow his fault and the resulting reprimand would be merciless.

The pick-up, Antonio said, was incriminating evidence that Jacek had amassed and that'd been confiscated from his dead body. Loose ends that Dane was responsible for since he'd failed to capture the man months ago. He was a little saddened that Jacek had turned up face-down in a ditch, two towns away, with his ugly face busted to a pulp by someone else's fists. It was comforting to know that the little weasel's passing hadn't been an easy one but he'd have liked to personally pay him back for the seventeen stitches in his calf. Oh well, no matter.

The nark finally turned and moved on past the warehouse and Dane snapped his fingers to beckon Snowcone from where she was chewing on a rat carcass in the alleyway closest to him. Her ears perked, she trotted eagerly to his side, and the pair crossed the street and into a narrow alleyway on the side of the building. Dane paused and turned to crouch in front of his summon, slapping a palm against the bulk of her shoulder. "Snow, sit. Sit. Stay." She gave a plaintive whine, tongue smacking at her lips as she shimmied closer to him, tossing her nose beneath his chin. He laughed, steadying her with a sturdy rub of his fingers through the fur of her neck. "You come to me if you see anyone, alright?" Another soft whine. "Good girl." He stood and drew his fingers fondly down her nose before turning and making his way further down the alley to an open side door.

"You boys got a pup sniffin' around," Dane announced himself as he pushed through a number of long-unused doors and through the thick veils of plastic that had, at one time, served to keep the atmosphere in the once-thriving meat-packaging establishment. "Probably need to be a bit more subtle." He grinned as he shoved his hands back in his pockets and set a wide stance before the two gentlemen in front of him; gaze perusing their forms — looking for obvious weapons — before drifting to the crate between them. It was empty. He could see quite clearly that it was empty but his smile remained fixed.

The men turned to face him and Dane's gut twinged as he lifted his eyes to their nasty, sneering mugs. He couldn't tell if they were two of his father's goons or not — most of Antonio's men looked at him with similar, unimpressed distaste. One of them, the uglier of the two, cracked a crooked, rotted smile. "Don' thin' we'll be takin' subtlety lessons from Dane Wayland, ya?" Dane's small, mockingly-cheerful grin fell infinitesimally at the corners. "Ya, ya 'lil arrogant cunt." His eyelids fell a little more over his dark, emptying gaze and he huffed a small, disappointed sigh. Definitely not his father's men. It was something his father's men would say, certainly, but the delivery.... the hygiene... Antonio wouldn't allow it.

"Well, not that this isn't immensely pleasant. But the sooner I get what Antonio wants, the sooner I'm free from your stench and lacking hospitality. That is," Dane beckoned lazily toward the empty crate. "If you have something at all?" The men settled more comfortably into their slightly-challenging stances and one tucked his chin to his chest while the other took his jaw in hand with a sizing grimace. Expressions Dane knew meant that the actual intention here wasn't to hand him any blackmail. Maybe they were Antonio's men after all, given the routine task to rough him up for his mounting failures in the past couple of months. Kill him, maybe? Dane had been doing all he could to piss the old man off.

"S'not empty, Wayland. Papers. Look yerself."

Lips pursing, Dane gave a small hum and moved forward with no inclination of being at all wary or cautious. As he got closer and the pair moved slightly aside to accommodate him, his gaze dropped to the folder at the bottom of the crate. He quirked a brow and, with a sidelong glance at both of the men, knelt to pluck it out.

He saw the kick in his periphery — half-expected it — but he still didn't get an arm up in time. The foot connected with his jaw with a crack that sent him flying back upon his ass. Miraculously, he gathered his wits in time to kick a foot into the knee of the other man who attempted to settle atop him and get him pinned (no doubt to wail on his face until he was broken and bleeding). Just as he scrambled to his feet, the uglier one slammed into him; knocking him against a rusted countertop stacked with old, rotted boxes that his flung arms sent crashing to the floor. A burly fist curled in his shirt and tugged him forward before another connected with his face. Dane gasped for breath as he reeled from the contact. His fingers worked a blade from his belt and, as the man reared back for another blow and Dane felt warmth drip from his nose, he flipped the knife in his palm.

Just as the man's face steeled with intent and the fist began to fall, Dane grit his jaw and shoved the blade between his ribs; lip curling over his teeth with satisfaction at the choked sound it earned from a suddenly-slackened mouth. He dug the blade in further, twisting and ripping, and felt the guy's strength — the fingers curled in his shit — slowly ebb. He shoved him back, ripping the knife free as the man stumbled back and toppled. He gave his writhing body a swift kick while he groaned, cursed, and tried keeping the pooling crimson inside his gut with trembling, scarlet-slicked fingers. "Are you with my father?" Dane asked coolly while he wiped his jacket sleeve beneath his dripping nose and swallowed a coppery mouthful of blood. A pained groan was his only response and Dane nudged the toe of his shoe into the man's bleeding side while he scanned the warehouse for his missing partner.

"Ya fuck— fuck'n nasty prick, you've killed me. You've fuck'n— nrrgh, you've—" the guy gasped venomously and Dane's gaze flickered down. Turning the blade in his palm, he dropped swiftly to a crouch and buried the point in the man's chest; blinking slow as the guy lifted to brace the knife with a single, shuddering exhale.

At an angered outcry, he lifted his gaze from the man's fading eyes and tugged the knife free. The other man — looking positively livid and wielding a thick, intimidating pipe — charged at him from across the room and Dane stood slowly to apprehend him. The brute reared back to strike him but, before Dane could leap away, his gaze pulled to an advancing figure bolting at the man's back. Snowcone launched herself forward with a terrifying snarl and fastened her teeth into the man's forearm. Dane laughed aloud at the man's surprised screech of fury. She took him down easily and the man's anger turned to pain as she shook her massive maw side to side, releasing him only to snap her jaws somewhere else.

"Atta girl!" Dane called encouragingly, wiping his blade on his jeans and swiping again at his seeping nose. Turning his back on the pair, he made his way back to the crate and knelt before it. He opened the folder and leafed his tongue across the back of his teeth when he found the papers inside to be unsurprisingly blank. He 'tsk'ed with annoyance and pulled his phone from his jacket pocket, taking a long, unconcerned moment to send his father a message: 'No evidence, it was a shoddy set-up.' His fingers curled and he shot off another. 'Maybe send better guys next time, pops. <3'

The remaining man's cries were quieting now and Dane stood, pocketed his phone, and approached him. He didn't glance over his summon's gruesome work but, instead, studied the guy's ugly, twisted face. Tried to place it among his father's men. "Wasn't there supposed to be three of you?" He inquired lightly before kneeling to slip a hand in the man's pockets, searching for identification, money, or anything. But the only thing he turned up was an unimpressive knife and a bag of candy. He buried the knife in the guy's stomach — not caring enough to question him. Snowcone pressed the tip of her bloodied muzzle into his thigh and Dane dropped a hand to pat at her head. "Alright, let's clean up this mess and get outta here."


Evening Cadieux

[Evening Cadieux]

OOC: I love it *_* Meanwhile, I apologise for this long-winded mess. Eve isn’t very talkative atm but feel free to drag her around or whatever, she's too shook to fight back~ but I can make her speak if you'd like more to work with c:



A few parts of Los Eurosia were unsavoury. Evening had known it before she’d moved there, even before Sunny had been accepted into its university. The city was mostly clean and safe but it suffered from a lack of law enforcement and Eve knew this, so when walking down unfamiliar streets she didn’t tend to loiter.

It was the dog, in this instance, that made her pause.

A huge thing. No obvious collar (though it could have been hidden under its incredibly fluffy coat) and no owner that she could see. It was sat in a narrow alley, watching her watching it, before it hastily leapt to its paws and pushed through a door into the building beside it – some sort of warehouse, from what Eve could tell, though the condition of its exterior implied its lack of use.

Rocking on her heels, she considered this information as she bit her lip. The dog hadn’t looked unhealthy, appearing neither mistreated nor malnourished in any way. But a part of her still wondered and worried and knew she would keep wondering and worrying until it became too much to ignore, and then she would have to beg her neighbours to investigate with her and drag them out of whatever plans they’d made for the day. It would be far simpler, far less stress-inducing, to investigate now. To duck inside and see where the dog went. Maybe its owner would be there to greet her, in which case she would apologise profusely for trespassing and quickly back out. And if there wasn’t an owner – if the dog was alone and appeared unattended – she would call an animal rescue or attempt to take it to a vet herself.

The hem of her dress flared out around her as turned to cut a determined stride down the alley, following after the dog like Alice had the white rabbit. Despite her nerves (she wasn’t so naïve as to think entering deserted buildings was a safe thing to do), there was a vague familiarity to the interior, almost as if she’d dreamt it before. The recognition encouraged her to push forward, reassured that this was somewhere she was supposed to be.

Old boxes and ceiling hooks revealed the warehouse's original purpose. The knowledge didn’t sit happily with her vegetarianism, but it would explain why a stray dog might seek refuge there. Maybe it could smell traces of meat. Maybe there were still a few bones for it to gnaw on.

Stepping through a few more doors (and starting to think she’d accidentally walked past the canine), she suddenly found herself facing rows of plastic sheets. They hung from above, obscuring her view of the majority of the room, but she noted hazy shapes moving on the other side. One of the silhouettes was too tall to be the dog and she relaxed with the visual confirmation that the canine wasn’t alone.

But… there was a strange sound.

Unease ghosted its icy fingers down her spine and raised the hairs on the nape of her neck. Her heart began to pound, fluttering uncomfortably in her chest like a butterfly in a jar, but try as she might, she couldn't turn away, and as though possessed she moved towards the noise on shaky legs, carefully navigating through row after row of translucent curtains. The noise was almost a keening. The type she might expect from a hurt animal. Yet something about it was not quite animalistic enough. She couldn’t place it. Hadn’t heard anything like it before. And there was a smell becoming more and more apparent. As unidentifiable as the noise and somewhat… coppery. She could almost taste it in the air.

With trembling fingers, she pushed aside the final sheet.

Blood.

She’d heard, once, that freezing was a fear response of deer – more so the fawns. She’d heard that they became so still and quiet, ducked down in the grass, that predators’ eyes skipped right over them. The fawns went unnoticed. Overlooked. Rabbits, on the other hand, had been known to jump headfirst into the waiting jaws of whatever was hunting them because, terrified and not knowing what to do, springing forward was an instinct regardless of what stood in their way. Some documentary she'd watched suggested they did it purposefully. To make their deaths a cleaner, quicker thing. But Eve couldn’t imagine how they could possibly know that. To her, it felt far more likely that it was simply bad luck and coincidence – the same two things that had brought her to the warehouse.

Evening was neither rabbit nor fawn, but at that moment she felt very much like both.

She’d frozen, and by doing so had thrown herself into a maw. She should have quietly backtracked. Tip-toed away while the last man standing was preoccupied. But the gore brought a wave of nausea that went far beyond any physical retching and she was stuck, glued to the floor with her eyes locked onto a crimson-slicked torso, unable to quite process what she was seeing. Movement drew her attention to another body, one with deep gouges in its forearm that oozed the same deep red.

The nausea crept from her stomach to her head, dizzying her. Her fingers curled so tightly into the plastic curtain that her knuckles turned white. Her stare – unable to linger for any longer – flinched away from the body to the dog beside it – the dog, the one she’d followed in the first place – and trailed slowly up the hand that patted its head. Up the blood splattered shirt. All the way to the man’s face. More blood was smeared under his nose. He spoke but she could not hear him over the static in her ears. Could barely see him through her blurred vision.

She exhaled.

The dog’s head snapped in her direction.

Tears finally spilled over her cheeks and she choked back a whimper. Even now, some distant part of her begged her not to cry. It reminded her that she shouldn’t do so in front of others, especially not strangers, and it kept her quiet. Ensured any sobs that otherwise would have wracked her frame were smothered. She only stood there, shivering and silent, with her eyes streaming uncontrollably.

There was blood on the dog’s muzzle. It was a faraway observation that crossed her mind, so unreachable that she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d heard it from someone else. Would it chase her if she ran? Heels or not she wouldn’t be fast enough. The maze of plastic would undoubtedly be a hindrance as well. And while the dress was not one she’d trip on as it only reached above her knees, the soft fabric and sheer sleeves would hardly provide any protection from teeth that large and sharp.

She swallowed thickly. Her lips parted as though to speak. Tell him you didn’t see anything, she pleaded herself, the same way she’d whisper advice to characters on a TV show. It was always so easy to tell them to move. To act. Sometimes she became frustrated with them for being so slow-minded. Tell him you won’t tell anyone. But she couldn’t unscramble her thoughts enough to lend them to her tongue. Couldn’t force her limbs to move, not even to take a slow, shaky step backwards. It felt like her innards were being replaced by some kind of black hole and she was powerless to escape its gravity.


Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

Snowcone's attention snapped away, bloodied maw clicking shut and ears perking as her head lifted and swiveled; abruptly and acutely intent like the ever-vigilant beast she was. Dane's gaze followed the point of her snout with a distinct lack of urgency, feeling his eyes steel and his fingers tighten around the blade still in his hand. He half-expected to see the mysteriously-missing "third" Guild member or the spring-chicken "cop" that'd been poking about (if they weren't, in fact, the same person), but his eye fell on a woman instead, positioned in the same doorway he'd entered through earlier. Framed by dingy sheets of plastic and suspended in shock.

She was beautiful.

Beautiful, not because she was a pretty, dark-haired woman in a nice, black dress, but beautiful because she was so visibly and palpably afraid. The obvious rigidity of her stance. The tension in her stillness. The tears slipping freely down her cheeks. The difficult bob to her throat that followed a swallowed, choked-back noise he could only presume was going to be some sort of wavering bleat. And the way her lips parted around words that shock kept from forming, from finding voice. Dane drank it all in, his eyes widening infinitesimally and his own lips parting to allow an appreciative inhale. It was an immediate high — a wonderful push of pleasure through his veins to follow the thundering adrenaline of violence.

Fear was always so intoxicating to see, most especially when he was the root of its cause. Perhaps it was because he himself had never truly felt it and could only imagine its paralyzing grip. Could only guess what its icy touch felt like as it ghosted down one's spine and plunged them into waters so terribly cold. Abhorrence and revulsion were close contenders — he loved being regarded darkly or spitefully as someone looked upon him and his atrocities — but they still couldn't hold a candle to fear. Loathing was too common. Disgust, too easy to invoke. Fear was much more intimate. Far more special.

Remorsefully, Dane only allowed himself a quick moment to revel in it. This was a problem after all. He had two dead men on his hands and a scene to clean up already. Adding another (presumably quite innocent) woman — whom he imagined was worlds more decent than the two, ugly brutes at his feet and might actually be missed — to the bodies wasn't horribly appealing. It would just serve as fodder for Antonio to use against him. Which was... particularly annoying since, at present, Dane saw this whole situation as a great opportunity to question his father. Wonder pointedly where he got his intel and why he'd sent Dane hastily and alone, chasing bad leads. Killing some girl unfortunate enough to stumble upon him would just be an excuse to turn the whole thing back on him. Make it his fault. Stress the whole thing as some "exceedingly barbarous, short-sighted misstep" that Dane was already well-known for.

He angled to face the woman squarely, slowly lifting his hands in the air beside him, palms out as if he'd been caught out doing something particularly bad and expected a reprimand. He splayed his fingers and let a warm, mollifying smile curl at his mouth, consciously keeping his lips pressed together like an animal not yet resigned to baring its teeth. Tried to appear nonthreatening and friendly; the mocking insincerity of it marked by the nonchalant (and purposeful) way he wiggled his fingers, hoping to draw her attention to the scarlet slicking his hands and the blade held against his palm by only a thumb, waving about like a trifling toy. Perhaps belaying that he wasn't genuinely trying to put her at ease.

He clucked his tongue twice and Snowcone, still poised and alert beside him, lurched forward with a low-throated, acknowledging whiffle. She bounded toward the woman, shoving from the floor on massive paws and moving in a determined sprint that was surprisingly fluid for a beast of her lumbering size. Dane simply let her, his heart pounding a bit harder in his chest as he coolly (hungrily) watched the woman's face for a reaction. But before Snowcone could get close enough to bunch the muscles in her haunches and prepare to leap, he lifted his voice in a firm, fierce command. "Aap aap! Gentle! Be nice!"

The dog's step faltered, gait falling a moment later into something controlled and heavy as she dropped her body low and slunk closer, posture still vaguely threatening as she skirted to the side, giving the woman a small berth and looking very much like a dog trained to shepherd. Prepared to cut her off if she tried to run and herd her back to him. Dane's smile returned and he stepped after her, adopting an unhurried stride of his own and keeping his hands before him. "No need to be hasty, right? We can be nice?"

He swallowed the last bit of distance quickly, face slipping into something a little more honest as he closed his fingers around a thin wrist and yanked her fully into the room. He pulled her uncomfortably close, shushing and tutting softly as he gave her a quick, necessary glance-over, seeking visible tattoos (one could never be too careful). When he found none, he allowed his eyes to soften and linger more indulgently. Took a moment to watch the tears skip from her jaw, admire the tremble to her parted lips, and blink fondly at the widened terror in her eyes. She looked fragile. Like a delicate doll. Breakable. With pale skin that'd make blood look very dark and pretty.

He chuckled. No need to be hasty, he reminded himself. He should at least learn who she was first. Give her the chance to tell him she wasn't alone. Convince him with all those typical, thoughtless lies that she was "meeting someone" or "someone was waiting for her". Shock had silenced her for now but he knew she'd find her voice; terror would loosen its grip only for desperation to clutch in its place and then the words would finally form. They'd tumble out of her in an increasingly-incoherent torrent, made sharp by desperation and pleading as she said whatever she could to keep herself alive. To change his mind. It was always so amusing.

"Hey now, why are you scared? Don't be scared." He breathed the words toyingly, with enough unsettling soothe to make them almost a promising purr. His fingers tightened only a fraction around her wrist and he tipped her chin toward him with a knuckle, smiling in a way that was — by design — supposed to be reassuring, but decidedly wasn't. "Don't you worry. These things happen. We are gonna. Figure. This. Out."

He cast his gaze about the room, looking for a solution. The warehouse was mostly bare, everything left behind obvious trash, large structures too bothersome to remove, or evidence of squatting. But tucked behind the boxes he'd knocked over earlier, he could see the metal leg of an upturned chair — some flimsy, ridiculous thing that'd seen better days. He stepped toward it, pulling the woman unkindly with him; steadying her stumbling, stilted step with each tug.

With his fingers still circled about her wrist, Dane knelt to right the chair and dragged it toward the middle of the room. He shoved it beside a small table — a rough, wooden thing he could only picture aforementioned squatters rescuing from the garbage and hauling in — and then forced her into the seat with his hands on her shoulders. He gave a "comforting" squeeze and then drew away, not yet concerned enough to bother finding something to bind her hands or feet with — especially with the faint tic-tac of Snowcone's nails on the linoleum as she sniffed about the corners of the room. He couldn't imagine that the woman entertained any delusions she would be able to disable them both. Besides, a little bit of trust went a long way sometimes.

As if to further inspire a bit of trust, Dane turned away and drove his knife, point down, into the table, freeing his hands. He studied her subtly from his periphery — first in greedy anticipation of a delightful flinch and then, second, watching for her eye to draw toward it. He imagined her imagining taking a stab at changing their tune. Growing bold or scared enough to grab the knife and gamble. To fight for her life in whatever laughable way she thought was possible. She'd look so cute wrenching the weapon free, clasping it in trembling hands, and pointing it at him as if it could save her. He doubted she had the capacity — what a little mess she was — but it was a delighting image. It would make him giggle. It'd be so silly and he'd be so proud of her.

He stepped sidelong, giving the blade a bit of breathing room — perhaps, in some subtle way, inviting her to try — and crouched before her, not directly but a bit off to the side, fingers clasped together in front of him. "Good, there we go. Nice and quiet, no fuss. I wouldn't wanna have to tie you up and dangle you from a butcher hook like some cliche movie." He chuckled, the tones warm and friendly as if it were just any other joke. His eye pulled to the purse hooked by her arm. "Now. Will you hand me your bag?"

It was a thin veneer of courtesy; a request that wasn't really a request. He'd take it from her if she refused, but he imagined giving her a chance to hand it over herself — to think, to comply, to force voluntary movement through her locked limbs — would do her some good. "What's your name?"

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Evening Cadieux
OOC: If Eve isn't carrying any sort of bag/purse at this time just lemme know and I can edit that last bit out. If she is, and Dane gets into it, would it be alright/plausible for him to find her Moondweller's Cauldron cards? Go through her phone/contacts/messages/pictures? Totally okay if you don't want that lmao. Otherwise, just give me a nudge if you want any other tweaks! I know this was a lot, so if I moved her too much, feel free to give me a holler.

[Evening Cadieux]

OOC: of course! Go ahead c: Her phone probably has face ID and/or fingerprint recognition, so feel free to unlock it with either of those or force her to type in her code~ Fear is so hard for me to write smh but here ya go



Both man and dog stared at her, and Eve felt as though her very soul were dimming under their gazes, anticipating that soon its light would be snuffed out entirely. When the man finally turned towards her, lips curled into a smile and hands held up, it did nothing to quell her fear. And he knew that, she could tell. Knew he was doing it intentionally to make her feel worse – especially as he wiggled his blood-slicked fingers at her, the knife held as casually as a prop and not like the dangerous weapon it was. She almost expected (futilely hoped) for him to say – oh, this is just a drama project! Don’t worry, everyone's fine! So sorry to have scared you. Off you go. He didn’t. And (perhaps unnecessarily; the tears made it difficult to see anyway) she purposefully kept her gaze trained on his face to avoid looking at the red. It was a miracle her stomach hadn’t emptied itself already.

The cluck of his tongue sounded, to her ears, like a crack of lightning as it broke the silence of the room. She jolted. Relinquished her grip on the plastic sheet as the dog sprang towards her. Her breath caught again and she faltered backwards, only making it one step in the time it took the dog to take five. She couldn’t outrun it. There was no way she’d succeed. Could barely get her thoughts in order enough to try running before it reached her. But the owner’s voice sounded again – sharp and commanding – and the canine obediently halted.

Evening’s entire body shook. She tried to control her breathing. Even in the briskest of nights and the coldest of winters she hadn’t shivered so much. The dog hadn't attacked but it didn't withdraw either. Simply lingering, watchful. She froze again and her eyes shot back to the man as he approached, still with that deadly, glittering stare accompanied his shark-like smile. It twisted the nausea in her gut. Resumed the shivers and propelled them more aggressively down her spine. His teeth glinted at her like a warning.

The odds of her fainting were increasing by the second.

He snatched her wrist and yanked her towards him and she stumbled, her free hand instinctively raising to steady herself on the nearest thing to her – him. What was that about rabbits leaping at predators?

The lack of space between them kept her pulse in rapid-fire, pitter-pattering hard against the confinement of her ribcage as she tried to pull away. He didn’t let her. Kept her uncomfortably close, shushing and cooing at her. His thoughts – the ones she could hear over her pounding pulse – weren’t encouraging. Fleetingly bizarre (a tattoo? Why look for a tattoo? Was this murder scene gang-related?) then horrific (ideas of how breakable she looked, how prettily blood would contrast against her skin).

She flinched. Pressed her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to turn her face away. He only chuckled. And the thought crossed his mind that he should give her a chance to plead for mercy, even as he breathed false reassurances and tipped her chin back toward him. Her eyes cracked open, glazed and red. He was still smiling at her.

For a moment his stare left her and she remembered to breathe. It wasn’t pretty, more of a choked hiccup that simply happened to make her inhale air, but her lungs hurt a little less in the aftermath. She tried digging her nails into what remained of her hope. He hadn’t stabbed her immediately. Hadn’t let his dog maul her to bits. Maybe he was right. Maybe they would figure it out and she’d live –

It was far more likely that he was just toying with her. That he wanted to torture her first.

He yanked at her wrist again, pulling her further into the room. She felt she should be looking around for an exit – for something that would help – but her gaze dropped to the floor and she focused all her energy on not toppling over. She didn't want to accidentally catch sight of the bodies again.

The drag of a stool across the ground hurt her ears. Made her wince. Then she was being shoved down onto it, his hands on her shoulders warm and wet. Wrist, chin, shoulders. There would be traces of blood on all the places he’d touched, wouldn’t there?

She lowered her head and tried to hide behind the curtain of her hair, looking at her hands curled tightly on her lap. He let go, and she flinched a moment later at the loud thud of his knife plunging into the wood beside her. He could probably do the same thing to her skull. But… he wanted her to fight back. Was almost giddy at the prospect. The knowledge squirmed like a tangled ball of worms in her gut. She wouldn't. Couldn't. Wasn't capable of hurting someone else and even if she was, she doubted she'd be able to pull the knife free from the wood.

Lightheaded and pained, her mouth dry and skin sweaty, she lowered her chin closer to her chest, still trying to hide as he crouched down in front of her. The request for her bag only made her gaze trail sideways to where it rested on her lip, and very briefly she was amazed it hadn’t slipped off her shoulder. It had been there the whole time. She hadn’t tried reaching for her phone once. She could have called the police. And maybe she wouldn’t have had time to say anything, let alone give her location, but if she had dialled the number at least, they’d have been able to track her down, right? Like in movies?

Complying felt like the wisest choice. As much as she wanted to refuse him she didn’t think he’d amicably drop the matter if she told him ‘no’, so she took another breath and handed him her bag, continuing to keep her eyes averted from his. Her bag… Was that what this was? A mugging gone wrong?

He asked for her name and she strongly desired to lie – to give him a fake moniker like she might to a flirtatious stranger who couldn’t take a hint. Except, the cards in her purse would soon expose the truth. Why risk angering him? “Evening,” she murmured. The answer was given a fraction of a second longer than it would usually be given. Her quivering lips just managed to form the shapes necessary.

Her gaze drew to the dog once more. It sniffed around the edges of the room so naturally, so contentedly – the way she’d seen dogs happily snuffle around foliage and fences at parks, delighted simply by being out on a walk with their owner. In the slow, still processing parts of her mind, she recognised that her wish to rescue the dog led to this. “I thought… she was a stray.”


Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

Dane tipped his head as he looked at her. She was hiding, with her chin tipped to her chest and her hair curtained about her face, and he liked it less. He strongly desired to scoot closer and make her look at him. Just so he could watch the emotions (his emotions, the ones reserved for him) swim in her eyes. Whatever was there — fear, horror, disgust — it would all be familiar and warming. He would wrap himself in them and roll around until he drowned. But she handed him her bag and he contented himself with a pleased smile. Good girl. A moment later — a moment she perhaps spent weighing the pros and cons of refusing him, considered lying, or just struggled to find her voice — she offered her name.

"Thank you, Evening." Dane settled back from his crouch, seating himself on the cold, broken linoleum with his legs bent before him and her bag pulled into his lap. He smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket, wiping the worst of the blood from them, then unzipped the purse and pulled out a very impressive and busy set of keys. He beamed as he took the time to study each little trinket the ring had to offer — each little cry given freely to the world about who she was as a person. A red pom-pom, ridiculous and fluffy. Stones and crystals — too many, did she have trouble choosing? Cat enamels — he snorted as he drew his thumb over one that said 'Good Luck'. How ironic. How little it had brought her.

Evening murmured softly and Dane lifted his eyes to her to see her gaze had drawn to Snowcone. He chuckled as he returned his attention to her bag and pulled out a smaller purse with a cartoon cat and mushrooms on it. "Oh, we can't really blame the dog though, can we, Evie?" The words were warm and rueful, his tone lightly chiding and slightly distracted as he unzipped the wallet and pulled each card out into one neat little stack to shuffle through. "Most people would have kept walking. But not you. It's such a shame what having a kind, caring heart will getcha, isn't it? Terribly sad."

Credit cards. Debit cards. Library cards. Insurance cards. Loyalty cards. All of them with her name on them. Evening Cadieux. There was a tickle of appreciation to see she hadn't stupidly lied. Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing terribly interesting, though he said the name of her bank and her library in his mind a couple of times, trying to imagine her standing in line at the ATM or browsing books in quiet corners. Unafraid and unknowing of what horrors her future would bring. Did she have a good rapport with the people who worked there? Would they notice one morning, maybe a couple of weeks or a month down the line, with a sudden, wondering stab, that they hadn't seen her in a while? Would they be sad? Were any of their worlds or their daily routines brightened by her presence and would be dimmed in her absence?

There were a handful of business cards, all the same, and he turned one over in his hand to study the fine, flowery script. Metaphysical supplies and tarot readings. So, she was one of those astrology girls, then? The crystals and stones on her keychain made more sense and he found the whole thing amusing as he leaned forward to slip one of the cards into his back pocket and returned the rest back to their place. He left her money unrifled through, zipped the purse back up, and placed it beside him while he reached inside her bag and pulled out her phone.

"Cute," he snorted fondly, as he turned the device in his palm to gaze upon the decorative case with its cartoon cat and pretty flowers. He clicked the button to see a silly black cat on her lockscreen and his lip quirked at the corner. A swipe of his thumb prompted him for a passcode or a fingerprint and he peered up at her for a considering moment. Then he levered himself forward and — moving slowly, watching her face — forced two fingers between the hands clasped tightly together in her lap. He pressed them into one of her palms and eased it from underneath the other, his touch gentle enough not to harm her, but solid and direct enough to perhaps promise less kindness should she try to resist. He pulled the hand toward him, smoothing his thumb down her fingers to straighten them, then pressed the pad of an index finger to the sensor.

The screen lit up — came to life with a plethora of apps — and he lowered her hand back to her lap with a comforting pat before settling back with an encouraging smile. "You're doing so well, Evening. See? I knew we could figure this out." He navigated to her messages first, scrolling through the list of conversations and studying their names and contact pictures. Both of her parents were there, the glimpses of their last messages giving him the immediate impression of a favorable relationship between them. He clicked on a few of the most recent conversations, scrolling up just enough in each one to get a good read on the dynamic within them. It was all so sweet and harmless. Invitations, cheer, exchanged pictures, friendly conversation and teasing banter. Love — apparent, spoken freely and often. So adorable, cute, and warm.

With a fond smile and a quick flicker of his gaze in her direction, he moved on to her pictures. More of the same. Cats — so many cat pictures. All of them were black but Dane could pick out enough distinction between them to confidently say the photos weren't all of the same one. There were at least three that he could differentiate between and, remembering a bewildered, loving message from 'Dad', he imagined there were five in total. He tried to imagine her taking the pictures, tongue poked from between smiling lips as the felines rolled around before her. There had to be hundreds of deleted, blurry outtakes.

There were photos of Evening herself, posed in her living room, in restaurants or bars, in front of lakes, sunrises, and snowcapped mountains. She was pretty, even when her face wasn't tortured by terror and her eyes red-rimmed with tears. He wondered who took the pictures and whether or not they would be able to visit the same places again or if they'd be too haunting, too painful, without her. There was only one other person whose face cropped up in the images as often as Eve's own and Dane recognized her from the contact image attached to their conversation.

"Sunny? Is she your sister?" Dane lifted the phone between them, the screen turned in her direction to show her the image he'd settled upon of the younger woman looking pouty, sleepy, or jet-lagged in front of a plane window. After a moment, he brought the phone back to his lap and scrolled through it a couple of seconds longer before turning it off and dropping it back in her bag. He returned her belongings one by one, zipped up the bag, and nudged it across the ground so it was in reach by her side, leaned against a leg of her stool.

He scooched a little closer to her and tried to peer up into her downcast face. "I've got some clean-up to do around here. But I want you to do something for me." He offered a close-lipped smile and considered slipping a hand into her own with an encouraging squeeze. But decided against it. "Tell me about your sister, Evening, and how much you love her. Tell me how much you love your cats. And whatever else you love about being alive."

He wanted her to think over her life. Wanted to hear from her lips the things she cherished and held dear as she faced the end of it. It was a torturing sort of kindness reserved for those people who hadn't earned an end more violent and unforgiving. And Evening seemed to live a life full of things Dane couldn't fathom and, very briefly, wanted to imagine. On the multiple occasions when he'd faced his own mortality — and wasn't it such a shame that he'd lived when people like Evening fared little chance? — there had been no fond remembrances. No worries about whom he was leaving behind. His death would be a surprise to no one. A celebration to most. The world would be no less bright because of his passing and he'd known that every time he'd felt his strength ebb and his blood leave him.

But Evening's... people would feel her being gone, wouldn't they? Like a wound that couldn't be salved and bandaged.

Dane pulled himself to his feet, arching his back and making his bones pop. Then, with a weary sigh, he bent forward and brushed some of her hair behind her ear. "Hey," he brushed a thumb along her jaw as he urged her to look at him. "Tell me what you wish you would have done more of yesterday if you knew you were gonna meet me today. Can you do that?" He straightened and turned, stepping away from her and moving toward the bodies across the room, pausing only to turn his head and gauge her from his periphery. "Make it convincing, Evie."


Evening Cadieux
Lemme know if I got anything wrong or changes are needed~

[Evening Cadieux]

Tears splattered sporadically on Evening’s lap, dripping from her chin to be greedily soaked up by dark fabric. She kept her gaze lowered, refusing to look elsewhere while the man thanked her and settled down to look through her bag. Seeing him was not necessary to know he was overall amused by everything he found in there, and absently she wondered if it would be misplaced for her to feel embarrassed. Whether it was appropriate to question if her likely murderer thought she was weird. She’d always encouraged people to do as they liked; wear what they wanted, buy what they wanted, keep whatever made them happy. But now she felt small and childish for following her own advice, feeling that she had too many crystals, too many things adorned with cats. If she hadn't loudly proclaimed who she was with every single item she owned – if she were more of a blank slate or mystery that he could project his own imaginings onto – would that make him less likely to hurt her?

The urge to ask for his name in return (as if a name would somehow make him feel less threatening, or at least more human) was tempting but remained unacted upon, dismissed completely once he chuckled at her murmured comment about the dog. He gently chided that it was her fault for caring, that she could only really blame herself, and he was right; most people would have kept walking. She should have. And was foolish for not doing so.

She tried, inadequately, to shrink herself further.

He mentally repeated the name of her bank and her library. From the periphery of her vision, she saw he kept one of her business cards. Why? Nothing he did made sense to her. Was he planning to visit the places she’d frequented once he was finished with her? A twisted search for insight into the life he’d taken? He didn’t take her money. Barely spared it a thought. The blood and gore were not collateral to a robbery, then. Unless he was planning to take it after he’d dealt with her.

“Cute,” he snorted fondly, and she risked peeking upwards to see he was holding her phone.

She froze. Trapped under his stare as it flicked, without warning, to meet hers. Blood rushed in her ears. He moved closer and when his hand slipped under hers she could barely feel it, as though she’d clenched her fingers so tightly into her palms that they’d become numb. A moment too late, she realised what he was doing and her phone was unlocked. She blinked rapidly at the sight of her home screen, her brows slanting together, and though he returned her hand to her lap and she could finally breathe again, his actions and praise did little to put her at ease as she scrambled to identify why he’d want to look through the device.

And then he spoke her sister’s name.

Presented with a picture of Sunny, her heart tightened painfully in her chest. She managed a tiny nod, wondering if it would be better to deny – to pretend they weren’t close, to try diverting his attention elsewhere. He wouldn’t threaten her, would he? A new form of panic swept through her and sweat broke anew across her skin. She lifted her head ever so slightly, eyes wide and a plea forming on her tongue to leave her alone. It didn’t make its way past her lips. Stuck there as though dipped in tar. And when he turned the phone screen away from her, Evening was desperate to ask for it back – to look at Sunny one more time. Maybe… maybe if she asked politely, he would be kind enough to let her look at a family photo while he killed her...

He returned her belongings to her bag, leaning it against the leg of her chair when he was done.

Her heart skipped a beat. Disbelief made an appearance within her along with a muted flicker of hope. The bag was in reach. Her phone was in reach. He told her he was going to clean up the crime scene and she wondered if (when his back was turned) she could she call the police. If she lowered the volume to nothing… if she carefully folded her skirt over it to hide its light… would he notice? She wouldn’t be able to talk, but could they still find her? Overhear enough of her conversation with him (if it could be called that) to understand she needed help?

She risked a glance down at it. Felt her shoulders instantly sag in defeat. The sound of her bag’s zipper would be too loud, giving her away in an instant. And even if it had been open, her phone close enough to the top to swipe it into her lap with ease, she supposed she was too much of a coward to have tried. It was a stupid plan.

The man asked her to tell him about her sister. Her cats. How much she loved them and what she loved about being alive. She felt bile rise in her throat. Her stomach churned like a promise. What was he hoping to gain from such a thing? To taunt her with all the things she would soon be without?

He stood, and she flinched when he bent to stroke a strand of her hair behind her ear. There was something perversely gentle about the action. About the way he spoke to her. Her stare instinctively flit away from his but she didn’t dare to pull away as he brushed a thumb along her jaw, terrified that it may spark some sort of contention and turn his grotesquely amicable demeanour into an thunderously violent one. Only when he stepped away did she look up at him, eyes wide and pleading as she tried to swallow back her nausea.

Make it convincing, he’d said. Did that mean he could be convinced? Could she humanise herself to him? Make him decide it was better to let her go? It was as though the two of them were cocooned in that cavernous room and that was all that existed. Just that moment that she had to get right.

“I love my sister more than anything in the world.” Her voice wobbled like a beginner on a tightrope. Hope, somehow, was crueller than the dark resignation that had settled heavily on her chest before. It dangled in front of her – he dangled her life in front of her like a schoolyard bully. She sniffed, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see whatever he had planned for the poor dead men on the floor. “I love my parents. I love my cats. Talking to them, playing with them, having them wind around my ankles and curl on my lap after a long day. I love my friends. I love having dinner with them and hearing about their lives. I love the beach, paddling in the sea and collecting shells, looking for creatures in the rockpools. The smell of it. I love the forest, its flowers and trees and rocks and even the mud. I love people. How they – how most of them aren’t truly mean – just oblivious or scared or having a bad day or having one of those faces.”

“I wish I’d called my parents yesterday. I wish I'd talked to my mom about her gardening and my dad about his tarot readings for this month. I wish I’d spent the whole day with Sunny – made her breakfast, lunch, dinner. Taken her to the beach. Bought her ice cream... I wish we’d gone home afterwards to play with the cats and make a pillow fort and watch TV until we fell asleep–” She choked on a sob, feeling her entire frame shake again.

“Please,” she whispered. Her eyes slowly opened but did not raise from her hands. She forced herself to be louder. “Please just let me go! I don’t know who you are, I doubt I’d even be able to describe what you look like – and I wouldn’t! I won’t tell anyone about anything. If you – if you –” A strangled whine sounded in her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘kill me’, as if doing so would seal her fate. “You’ll only be making everything harder for yourself. That’s more – more work. Another person to disappear.” The fact that he were bothering to clean up the scene – that had to mean he was trying to hide the crime, right? She clung desperately to the thought. Needed to believe it if she ever wanted to see Sunny again.

“She needs me.” Evening was practically a second mother to her. She'd raised her. Helped teach her to speak, to take her first steps. Sunny loved to shrug her off, complain about how smothering she was – but she always came back. For dinner. For another hug that she was always last to pull away from. For band-aids when she’d scuffed her knees or for shopping trips or for Evening to do her makeup for prom. Sunny was the only one in their family to have gone to university. If Evening disappeared, she’d drop out. She’d go looking for her or go home to Williamsburg to comfort their parents. She’d be in debt and have no degree to show for it, and her dreams would be at risk of never coming true.

Evening pressed her palms into her eyes, smearing makeup across her face as she tried to control her sobs enough to keep speaking. “Listen – you – you can kill me – I understand – I – but not now. Please, just – two years. Give me two years. I know it sounds like a lot – but – it won’t be. Let her – let my sister graduate. Let me get a will in order. I need to make sure she’ll be alright.”

She faltered, words failing her. What else was there to say? If he didn’t want to strike a deal with her, then there was nothing she could do about it. A lump rose in her throat and she whimpered, ultimately unable to stop herself from bursting into a fresh round of tears a moment later. Everything she’d said... he probably didn’t care. Maybe he’d simply wanted to watch her break down and beg for mercy. His smiles, his chiding tones, the almost gleeful way he’d held up his knife and bloodied hands – it all pointed towards him being a sadist who’d want to toy with her emotions in such a way. She shouldn’t have had hope for even a second.


Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

Dane began dragging the closest man's body across the room, not caring to be neat, mostly just getting them out of the way; intending to tuck them somewhere out of view of anyone else who happened to stumble into the building. Clean-up was never his job. He couldn't be assed. Antonio would send his people to pick up the pieces. To rid of the evidence. To 'tsk' at the needless brutality and carnage that Dane laid at their feet.

He smiled to himself as Evening indulged his request and began recounting what she held dear in her life, not missing the wobble to her tone and admiring each interjecting sniffle. She loved her sister and her parents. Her cats and her friends. None of it was particularly surprising, though a lot of it was alien to Dane in its simplicity. The way she spoke of the forest, the sea, and the normalcy of quiet intimacy between her loved ones. It was beautifully boring. A great, thundering contrast to the things Dane thought to be fun and entertaining. The moments he shared with people. The aspects of life he appreciated and how he spent his time. She lived in a world completely different from his own. Untouched and unsoiled by all that defined his existence.

Then she couldn't take it anymore. Just as Dane knew would happen — just as he intended — the torture of recalling the things she loved and the things she wished she'd done became little more than choked, shaking sobs. He smirked as he heaved one man's body atop the other, subtly pleased with the sound of her breaking in the background. People were just so predictable in the end.

Then came the pleas. They began as a whisper, only raising into something stronger on her next attempt.

She wouldn't tell anyone. She wouldn't be able to describe him even if she wanted to.

Dane lifted his brow and snorted quietly to himself, faintly amused. He wondered if she believed herself to be telling the truth. It was a typical claim; a promise he'd heard uttered in the throes of desperation countless times before. It was easy to swear to silence now, when a person would say anything to save themselves, but what of tonight? Or tomorrow? Next week? When she was lying in bed, staring up at her ceiling, unable to forget his face — silly girl, too, to think she'd be unable to recall every detail about him; to think he wouldn't still haunt her if she lived — and imagining who else he was hurting. Who else he had cornered in dark buildings and shady alleyways. Would she be able to keep quiet then? Knowing he was out there, threatening and killing others less fortunate than her? She didn't seem the type. People with consciousness rarely were.

Killing her would only make things harder for him.

Dane chuckled inwardly, lips quirking into a small, private grin. That was true. But it would mostly be trouble for other people. Those accustomed to sweeping up after him. And yeah, his father would get huffy about it and make sure Dane suffered his displeasure, but that was already unavoidable at this point. Adding an innocent woman to the slaughter would be an easy excuse to turn the whole thing on him but, even without it, Antonio would find something else. Some other reason, real or fabricated, to punish his son for not taking the beating (or dying) like a good boy.

He tore through the man's shirt to expose the tattoo etched on his breast then fought the urge to laugh — it was a pigeon, its delicate, black lines undeniably Antonio's work. Fitting for the bird-brained dolt, certainly. He wondered if his father had chosen it as a bitchy, underhanded slight. It would be just like him.

Her sister needed her.

Dane's fingers stilled and he blinked at the stupid tattoo, mind emptying as he listened to Evening sob behind him. She continued in fragments, speech broken by her crying and he remained unmoving, his breathing even and gaze unfaltering while something cold threatened to edge its way into his chest. She begged for more time, not for herself, but for Sunny. For her sister. Who needed her. The amused tuck to Dane's lips faltered and his fingers curled back into his palm.

He stood slowly and turned, gaze settling on her trembling form. She was bent over herself with her palms pressed into her eyes, body heaving with her weeping. Her words echoed in his head, feeling much like the pounding throb of anticipation that preceded a brewing brawl, and for a moment he only watched her. Struggled to solidify how he felt. He was momentarily angry — angry because she remained seated where he left her. Hadn't reached for the phone he'd left in reach. Hadn't made a desperate dash for the exit or for the blade he'd left behind. She was so helpless and pitiful. Too scared to fight. Could only cry and beg to be spared even as she spoke of her sister. Her sister who needed her. Angry, simply because the familiar heat of it was the only way he knew how to beat back that sneaking cold.

He stepped forward, crossing the room with the decided intent to pull her from the chair. Wrench the knife from where he'd buried it in the table and force it in her hands. Demand she fight if she cared so much. If she had so much to lose. If her sister needed her then she should fight. Prove it. Convince him.

But the anger — so quickly risen, fiercely unbidden, and obviously misplaced — lessened with each step he took toward her. It fell away completely, exhausted before he could even reach her, and he slowed as he approached the table, hand lifted to brush fingers gingerly against the hilt of his knife. For another moment, he lingered, listening once more to her sobs. Then he sighed and stepped forward to close the final bit of distance between them, leaving the knife where it was.

"Oh, Evening, shhh, shh shh shh," he curled his fingers around her wrists once more and pried the hands from her face, saturating his voice with too-soft sympathy as he coaxed them to her lap. He cocked his head as he again brushed a knuckle beneath her chin, tipping her visage toward his gaze. "Look at me... hey, it's alright." He willed her to open her wet eyes; to see himself reflected there in those large, dark pools shimmering with tears. "You're making such a mess of yourself, darling. Why?" With a touch as gentle as it had been before, he cradled her jaw in a palm and smeared the dark tracks from one cheek with a thumb. "I said we were going to figure this out, didn't I? That you didn't have to be scared?"

His eyes traveled slowly across her features and he prepared himself to assure her of everything she feared. To tell her that she was going to die. That her cats would go to shelters. Be separated. Live days, weeks, or possibly the remainder of their suddenly-shortened existences in small, cramped cages, confused and frightened. One or two of them could get lucky and be picked up by strangers. But it was more likely — especially with them being solid black cats — that they'd be passed over or adopted by those with less-than-kind intentions.

Her parents would grieve the rest of their lives, exquisitely tortured by the not-knowing. Their hope of some miraculous resurfacing would whittle to nothing through the months, then the years, that passed in her absence. Gnaw at them. Become some empty, consuming chasm deep in their bodies and bones that would poison them. Change them. Friends and neighbors would put up signs. Send messages. Start campaigns. Hold vigils. Live by their phones and jump at every ring, terrified to pick up and be confronted with the truth.

And poor Sunny. Oh, she would never be the same. She would spiral, untethered and without direction, the loss of her older sibling feeling so much like a piece of herself had been carved away, too. But that was just the cruel way of things. Sometimes the person you depended on most left. And lonesome, abandoned Sunny would cry, cry, and cry some more until she was eventually vacant. Scream and curse at the world for being so unfair. But it would change nothing and, eventually, the helplessness — the loss — would break her. She would seek to fill the void left by Eve's passing with things that didn't matter. Try to bandage that permanent wound with temporary fixes. Drugs, alcohol, reckless highs, and lovers who didn't care about her. Perhaps she'd even grow uglier herself. Meaner. Vengeful and hard. Come to love taking because of what was taken from her.

Dane's eyelids fluttered and a thin smile pulled across his face. He dropped his head and closed his eyes, blowing a dismissive breath through his nose. No, of course... Sunny probably wasn't like that. He was projecting. It was more likely she'd be embraced by a community of people all wounded by Eve's disappearance. Those people whose lives she'd touched and made better, willing to share in their hurts. Family and friends who would hold one another close and heal together. Help shoulder one another's grief and keep young Sunny from stumbling into despair.

Dane let his eyes slowly open and, through lowered lashes, studied the place where her pale, tear-slicked skin met his dirtied fingers. For the briefest of moments, he hated the sight. Felt self-loathing unfurl in his chest and threaten a disgusted tug to his lip. He withdrew his touch and settled in another crouch before her, seeking the hands in her lap with both of his own and giving them a squeeze. He propped his elbows lightly on her thighs and lifted their hands between them, turning her delicate fingers in his own while he tried to find the words to begin. Suddenly, the toying — the well-practiced monologues, the torturing "comforts", and the nonchalant descriptions of all he planned to do to her — lacked the promise of joy and satisfaction he was used to.

"Two years is a big ask." He finally began, voice level and less lilting than the unsettling coo he'd used before. Still quiet and soft, but in a way that was more genuine than intentionally discomforting. His eyes flickered from their hands to her face, where they fixed with cool, steady appraisal. "But I'm willing to compromise." He blinked, giving her hands another brief press. "I'll give you two weeks."

Two weeks was nothing. He could die a dozen times between then and now. He could let Evening go unhounded. Leave her to live the rest of her life in peace. But he was suddenly curious to see what she would do with the time. How would she spend it? How much of the two years that she tried bargaining for would she successfully squeeze into the finite number of days he granted her? And how would she face him when her time was up? When her eye caught on him as he sought her out at the end of it? With a tipped chin and acceptance? Would she fight, then? Run?

What would she say to Sunny — the sister who needed her — if she knew she was going to disappear?

"Now listen to me, this next part is very important." He let a moment of silence and gravity linger in which he dragged his gaze between her eyes imploringly. "I've been doing this for a very long time. My whole despicable life. You can tell whoever you want, I don't care. They will never catch me. They'll end up like our friends here and I will disappear. But trust me, Evie... before I do... I will find you. And, if you make me do that, I'll find Sunny. And I'll make sure my dog is real hungry when I do. You understand? We won't be so nice then." He lifted his brow, nodding slow as he searched her face.

"Two weeks, Evening. What do you say?"


Evening Cadieux

[Evening Cadieux]

OOC: oof this is a mess but I’ve kept you waiting long enough, RIP sorry!



Everything she said felt inadequate. Not poetic enough, not detailed enough, not convincing enough to truly reflect how she felt about the world or the people in it. Over her sobs she could hear him cut across the room towards her and she knew this was it. She’d failed. Not enough, not enough, not enough.

But then he sighed and took her wrists, prying her palms away from her eyes which she continued to squeeze shut even as he lifted her chin and asked her to look at him. If she were to die, she would rather not see death approach.

Again, he assured her that they were going to figure something out. Again, it sounded insincere. Taunting. He wiped her tears like her parents would, back when she was young enough to openly cry in front of them. And it brought forth another round of sobs at the thought that they would never comfort her again – that she hadn’t allowed them to comfort her for so long. She didn’t even have a reason for hiding sadness from them. One day she’d just… stopped wanting others to see her like that. Felt it was burdensome, even though all they’d ever done was make her feel loved and understood.

How foolish she’d been. How selfish, to have created boundaries and distance where there was no need.

He withdrew his touch from her face only to prop his elbows on her thighs and take her hands, and the sound of moving fabric indicated he’d crouched in front of her. When he spoke again… it was different. Still terrifying, but less openly mocking. A little softer.

He offered her two weeks.

She felt as though she’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. Momentarily shocked out of her fear, she jolted and her eyes blinked rapidly open again to find his, watching her imploringly.

Threats followed. The promise that anyone she told would be unable to stop him. Would die for her having confessed to them. And worse – Sunny would pay the price, too. Fed to the man’s monster of a dog. Evening couldn’t bear it. She felt paper-thin, like the faintest breeze could blow her over, and she closed her eyes again, shuddering.

Two weeks. She tried to imagine it. Considered the expanse of it compared to her previously imminent death. The things she could do in that time...

It was more, yes… But was it enough?

Greed did not often tempt her. She was someone who was steadily satisfied with most aspects of her life, never truly desiring nor asking for more of anything she already had a little of.

Now, she’d never felt more greedy for anything in her life. Greedy for time.

She was pushing her luck. The aventurine crystal on her keyring would need some serious recharging after she got home – after she got home. The concept felt a little more possible than before. There was still the possibility that he was playing with her, stretching and twisting her feelings in her last moments like he were making taffy, but she didn’t get that impression from her frantic reach for his thoughts.

How on earth was she supposed to negotiate? She’d done well enough to earn herself more minutes, let alone two weeks.

She took a deep, steadying inhale, taking a moment to find her voice again. Yet, try as she might, when her eyes opened she couldn’t hold his gaze. She studied her hands held in his instead, yet she didn’t truly see them. Not in detail.

“I’m sorry but that’s – that’s not enough.” Her voice was piteously small. Weak. And her heart flinched into overdrive once more, uncaring of the slower breathing pattern she had tried to force upon herself. “Two… two months?” Too much. Her fingers curled into her palms. He didn’t even need to say anything; she could already imagine him refusing, scoffing and throwing his previous offer from the table altogether. “One month?” she amended quickly, desperation mounting in her voice as she hastened to explain why she would need that time. Like a salesman pitching a product: this is the timeline that I think would be most profitable to us both – will you invest? “With – with enough time, I can write letters and postcards. Ask someone to send them for me so it… looks like I’m travelling for the next two years, not – not…” She swallowed thickly. “Dead.”

“Or I can… I could be…” She licked her lips, tasting salt. “I could be useful.” It sounded like a lie to her own ears. To him, looking at her, a quivering mess who couldn’t bear to look at him, it was probably pathetic. “I don’t know what happened here but…” She couldn’t offer to fight for him. Couldn’t protect his back or help him hurt a person – innocent or not. She would be as useless as she would be unwilling. “People may be more willing to approach me than…” She winced. No. She couldn’t offer herself as a lure either. That would be sick. She tried again – “Or they might trust me enough to let me in places, carry things without getting searched thoroughly…” Was she really offering to be some sort of spy? A drug mule? She was grasping at straws. But there was one other card to play. One that she hoped and prayed would be an ace.

Another deep inhale. “More importantly than that, any plan you have – if this is something that you do – we will know whether it will work because – I can check the future.” Finally, finally, she raised her gaze to his. She trembled violently and barely managed to hold on, but she needed him to believe her. Needed to pour all the persuasiveness she had into her last offer. “My tarot readings, I – I’m not a fraud, my predictions really do always come true. I know it might sound crazy but… I can hear thoughts too, if I’m close enough. I can prove it.”


Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

(TW: Implications of sexual abuse and its aftermath — I've spoiler tagged those couple of paragraphs, they could possibly be uncomfortable)

----

At his offer, Evening's eyes shot open and she blinked rapidly. Then, almost as quickly, they pinched shut again as she presumably imagined his threats come to pass. He watched it all, quietly hungry and silently reveling. She took a deep, steeling breath and let her eyes open again, slower. Her gaze — large, dark pools wet with tears — skipped to his, lingered for a fraction of a second as if intending to hold, but quickly dropped. He could have chuckled. Poor thing.

He was content to give her a moment if only to watch the beautiful flutter of slingshotting emotions wrack through her. He allowed her her silence as she mulled over his offer and weighed the time she had; resigned herself to the finite amount of minutes he whittled her life down to. And when she finally did speak — concluding his terms were unsatisfactory — Dane's brow leaped and his mouth tugged askew. Amusement thundered through him and he had to bite his lip to keep from barking a genuine laugh. He hadn't expected that.

Even though her voice was quiet and he could feel her fingers clench under his, he had to admire the audacity it took to barter with him. She asked for two months. Quickly amended the demand to one month as if her first ask had been wholly unreasonable. She wanted to write postcards and letters. Salve the wound of her passing for those she loved. He wondered if she thought it was very noble — very martyr-ish of her — to be facing death at his hands and be worried about everyone else instead of herself. He wondered, too, if his own brother had been so selfless. Had considered who he was leaving behind and what his absence would do to them. Whether or not he had tried to fight for more time.

He doubted it.

She swallowed hard, almost forcing herself to say the word 'dead'. And something in Dane warmed at the acceptance. She was very brave, he decided quietly, eyes half-lidding as his smile curled into something vaguely fond and he gave her fingers a squeeze. As if trying to offer some absurd, horribly misplaced comfort. Stroking the dog as you put it to sleep.

SPOILER: Click to show

His gaze flickered to the poke of her tongue over her lips as she said, with a hesitant start-and-stop, that she could be useful. Oh? Was she about to offer herself to him? His eyes darkened. He could feel the corners of them tighten with the beginnings of disappointed indignation. He loathed the idea. Not only the idea of it being a last-resort bartering chip she felt she had to put on the table, or that he could be swayed in such a way, but more simply the idea of spoiling her.

As much as he lapped up her sniveling and helplessness, they were undesirable when coupled with the image of his hands — dirty hands — slipping the strap of her dress from her shoulder. His fingers would trail filth wherever they touched. Invisible, consuming filth, unable to be scrubbed away.

He liked to be feared. Loved to occupy someone's mind. To be unforgettable and to haunt. But never like that. He had no interest in being the ghost in her bedroom. Didn't want her to feel his remembered touch beneath someone else's fingers at night or be the reason she couldn't take someone she loved to bed. To be a scary whisper under a more sincere lover's soft voice in her ear when she was wrapped around them, unable to forget him and what he'd done.

But no, that wasn't it. Evening continued and indicated that she could help him. Dane felt himself soothe, demeanor making a slow creep back toward amusement, though the earlier thoughts left something tangled in his gut. Left his hands feeling too thick and brutish around her dainty fingers. Would she be able to do that? Make herself an accessory to the Guild's gruesome crimes? He doubted it. Especially when she could hardly make herself form any of her suggestions into whole sentences. Could barely speak the idea before recoiling with a wince. No, he didn't think she was made for it.

She took a deep breath. Dane's lingering amusement abated slightly — transformed into a muted intrigue — as she admitted to being some sort of clairvoyant, able to pull predictions from her tarot cards. She lifted her eyes to him, immediately trembling like some terrified Chihuahua, but decidedly held his gaze. He watched her steadily, waiting for her to break. For her newfound nerve to whittle to nothing in the face of his stare and for her gaze to flicker away. But she held on and, after a long moment, a corner of his mouth gave a tiny tug, perhaps feeling just a little proud of her.

He let her have the win, breaking the stare and dropping his own gaze to her lap. "There you go. That's a little more convincing." He rumbled in a quiet, pleased purr, turning one of her hands over in his briefly before he withdrew his touch and settled back so he was sitting comfortably in front of her, legs crisscrossed and posture less domineering. She had earned the space; a break to perhaps breathe without his very intentional crowding. "I guess I'll consider your offer." He propped an elbow on his knee and planted the side of his face against a closed fist, looking up at her thoughtfully.

"How close do you have to be to hear?" He asked after a long moment, and then — thinking very clearly, very distinctly — added a beat later in his head, 'Is it not a bit arrogant, to think that your sister won't be okay without you?' He blinked at her, curious. "Can you talk back?" 'You'll leave her one day, Evening. Tomorrow isn't guaranteed for anyone, with or without awful guys with knives and dogs.'

Evening Cadieux

[Evening Cadieux]

Cw: mention of sick, blood

The man was interested. His thoughts and the upward twitch of his mouth indicated as much, followed by verbal confirmation that he would consider her offer.

Evening breathed out slow, relieved to feel his touch withdraw as he settled back on the ground. He was still too close to feel truly at ease – but then, she imagined any distance would be too close. They could be on opposite sides of the room – on opposite sides of the world – and she’d still feel unsafe.

It was silent for a moment (or it would have been if not for the murmur of his thoughts) and she made no attempt to interrupt his musings. They seemed lean favourably towards her than they had before. That had to be a good sign.

Her eyes drew briefly to the dog again, still sniffing around the warehouse without a care in the world. She was almost thankful it didn’t seem interested in her. Just imagining it sitting beside its owner while he spoke to her, its stare fixed on her keenly and its body poised to lunge at her throat, made her tremble all over again. She felt as weak as a moth covered in rainwater. Flightless. Half-drowned.

The man spoke again, asking how close she needed to be to hear his thoughts. She blinked, hearing his mental additions aimed directly at her, and felt her lips part as he asked if she could 'talk' back.

She could.

More importantly than that, it would be unpleasant for him.

Her mind raced, flooded with the new possibilities this reminder came with. Speaking telepathically was something she tended to avoid, not only because it was unnecessary but also because it tended to bring nausea and nosebleeds to everyone involved. Once, a fellow witch had fainted when Eve spoke in her mind, though whether that was due to the telepathy’s influence or the shock of it being possible at all was anyone’s guess.

Evening swallowed. It wasn’t a wonderful experience for her, either. She wasn’t immune to its effects but, since she was more accustomed to it, that meant she would probably handle it better than he would, right?

She imagined the man swaying, lips pressed together queasily as he clutched at his head. She imagined herself abandoning her heels and darting past him on bare feet while he twisted onto his hands and knees, making a weak attempt to snatch her ankle before emptying his stomach onto the cold ground. In her dizziness and haste to run away she would nearly tangle herself in the plastic curtains. But she would make it through. She would burst out into the fresh air, moving like she’d never moved before, sobbing as she bolted into the road and threw herself into the path of an oncoming car, which would stop for her, and she’d beg for help – please, there’s a man in there, he’s killed people, he wants to kill me –

The dog.

The dog would stop her.

The scenario flashed through her mind’s eye again, yet this time the canine came barrelling across the room before she reached the door. It would push her to the ground and rip her flesh like tissue paper, and the man, recovered, would come to stand dispassionately over her and watch it happen.

For what may have been the third or fourth time in one half hour, Evening’s hopes came crashing down. She felt the wild, hysterical urge to laugh. The absurdity of it all… She had been walking down the street, enjoying her regular life, only to follow a dog into a warehouse where a murderer lay in wait, and had the dog not been present her one chance of escaping him would have been to transmit her thoughts into her head. It made for a ridiculous story. What a silly, silly day.

The erratic spark of humour didn’t last for long. “This is close enough,” she replied quietly, and readied herself to think at him. If she confirmed his second question she was sure he would want a demonstration, so why wait?

There would be no joy in it. Revenge was not a good thing and not something she ever wanted to pursue. Despite how much he scared her and how clearly terrible a person he was, she didn’t want him to pay for what he had done. Not painfully. Not by her hands. She didn’t want to hurt him – she didn’t want to hurt anyone – but… perhaps she could make him feel uncomfortable for once. Have a moment where she was the one in control. And perhaps she wouldn’t feel as sorry for it as she would have if he were someone else.

She met his eyes again and forced her own thoughts into his head.

‘Death is a natural part of the cycle; everyone must leave eventually and I know that, I know I won't be with her forever. But my sister has not known grief and she is young, and this is a pivotal time in her life. If I disappear without explanation she will lose faith in the world and in others. If she knows I have been murdered she will learn to fear or hate. I want her to trust. To be happy.’

Evening didn’t want to think too deeply about Sunny anymore. Didn’t want to picture her reaction or anything that could come after. Her brows furrowed, almost sadly. ‘I don't think it's arrogant to love and to know you are loved in return. To know you would be grieved. That's what family is, and I know her. I practically raised her as my own daughter. What kind of sibling would I be if I didn't try to give her the best possible shot at life, the most possible happiness that–’

Nausea twisted sharply in her gut and she hiccupped, slapping a hand over her mouth as she swallowed back bile. A warm wetness dribbled over her fingers from a nostril and she didn't have to check the colour to know it was blood.

“Sorry,” she murmured on reflex. She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand before lowering it back to her lap. She had 'spoken' a lot more than she'd attempted for quite some time and her gaze flit searchingly over the man's face, suddenly wary that she might have pushed him too much. “Are you okay?”


Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

As Evening answered that she was close enough, Dane straightened slightly and crossed his arms across his chest.

Then he winced, one eye giving a fierce twitch, when she lifted her gaze to his and her voice cut through his skull. It was immediately unpleasant, like a sharp drone that his brain simply couldn't accommodate the space for, and he hadn't expected that. She continued to "speak" and he had to pinch his eyes shut. He dropped his chin to his chest and gave his head a tiny shake. Not only was the sound of her "voice" — so unbelonging between his ears — growing more grating, but even more so... he just didn't like her answer.

The unpleasantness dropped to his chest, filling it with unease as she spewed her nice little summation of death and how her sister would be forever changed by Evening's. It was a truth he knew well. A guess at Sunny's fate that he himself had lived through in some part. And the piercing tones of her voice, barreling forward despite his obvious discomfort, were too loud and prominent to keep a careful clamp on the unwanted feelings that accompanied the parallel.

"Stop," he growled in a dark, quiet mutter, feeling the unpleasantness drop to his stomach; giving it a fierce turn and radiating a swift, chilling shudder through his center. Snowcone lumbered slowly from across the room to sniff with concern at the side of his face and he shouldered her as he tipped away. But Evening's voice went on, claiming it wasn't arrogant to know you'd be grieved and to know you were loved. Each word drove the nausea deeper, made it harsher, and Dane wanted to snort and mock at the silly, unrelatable sentiment just as much as he wanted to lift his hands to cover his ears. To drown her out and shut her up.

But that wouldn't work, would it? His eyes fluttered open at the feel of fresh warmth dripping from his nose, carving a renewed path through the blood already dried across his lips and chin. Saliva gathered in his mouth and he smacked thickly, feeling sickness begin a roiling creep deep in his gut. Just as he was considering the knife still embedded in the table a pace away — of entertaining how he could shut her up — Evening stopped short.

Her voice quieted and Dane felt the tension ease in his head. The thumbs pressed bruisingly into the muscle of his biceps gradually laxed and he swallowed hard, tasting bile in his throat. He answered her apology and question about his well-being with only silence. It was so strange for her to be concerned about him. To be sorry when he'd done nothing but scare and threaten her. He wanted to tease her for it, to say something mean and scathing, but he couldn't unclench his jaw to form the words. His skull was too thick, too reeling, to be witty; his mind too thoroughly dizzied to find the purring confidence needed to make the mockery convincing and discomforting.

Finally, he lifted his head and sniffed, gaze flickering across her own pallid disposition and the crimson that still lingered beneath the line of one nostril. "That needs some work," he said quietly, voice no longer steeped in anything playful or cloying. He wondered if she practiced often. If it was so unpleasant, not only to herself but to others, he couldn't imagine her using the Gift frequently. But maybe it'd become less jarring with use.

Silence stretched. For once, he lacked for something to say and, eventually, he lowered his gaze to his lap, uncrossing his arms and slouching forward.

"I think Sunny is very lucky to have you as a sister."

He wasn't sure where he pulled the words from and he blinked rapidly as he pressed his lips together, trying to stop himself from continuing. But she would hear his thoughts anyway, wouldn't she?

"I was a child once, too. Had a pivotal time in my life." He lifted his palms and shook his fingers as if to mock the idea, though his voice lacked any indication of honest tease. "But it was never full of people like you." He smiled then, almost ruefully. He supposed it was full of people like Evening. They were just always on the wrong end of the gun or knife. "I was eleven when I first killed someone." His brow lifted at the admittance, mouth pursing into something bitter and small, as if he was nearly surprised himself that the words had made it past his lips. He'd never really spoken of it. Even with Dino right after. Had never wanted to embrace the brief dip of cold in his chest as he recalled the image of the pleading woman in his mind, still vivid despite the many years and the countless more killings that'd followed. It'd gotten easier. Too easy. But you always remembered your first. "I took the gun from my brother so he didn't have to do it. He was always so snotty and whimpering."

Like you. And it got him killed.

He shook his head, suddenly feeling silly for admitting anything at all. Scoffing, he swiped at the blood on his face and pushed to his feet. "Of course, I'm not telling you this for some sort of sympathy or to justify anything." He looked at her once more, wondering if she believed that. Wondering if it was really true. As deplorable as he was, as ugly and monstrous as he could be, occasionally (usually wrapped in a gentler woman's sheets or drunk enough that he'd never remember it the next morning) he wondered what it'd be like, to be known. Really known. Beyond the atrocities (if anything existed beyond them at all). For someone to see what he might have been had he been allowed to choose for himself. He didn't think so. Not only did he think he'd really let anyone try, but what would be the point? Who he could have been didn't change who he was. There would be no clawing his way back to some unreachable start. No way he could mend the parts of him that'd been twisted from the beginning.

Dane shrugged and bent to pick up her purse. "I guess people just grow up wrong sometimes. We don't deserve sympathy and we won't be grieved." He poked the purse into her chest and let it fall to her lap. "But I suppose it's wrong of me to chase that grief by forcing it on others, hmm? To want Sunny to hurt like me?" He wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and attempted to ease her from her seat and to her feet.

"Come on Evie, up you go. You're almost done. And I'm very proud of you."

- - - - - - - -

Evening Cadieux
Whew, this is a mess. Let me know if it's too much or if I need to make any changes! Or if you want me to go ahead and add some more at the end~ 

[Evening Cadieux]

(OOC: ayo it's past my bedtime, pls ignore any messiness)


For a moment the man did not speak, his whirling thoughts a consequence of the nausea she’d inflicted upon him. His dog had returned to his side during her demonstration and served as a very strong reminder that making a break for it would be bad.

All things considered though, he seemed to have taken it awfully well. He didn’t seem shocked that she could truly do as she’d claimed. Didn’t seem surprised at all – no thoughts of amazement or fear or anger flashed through his skull, no wonderings of how could she do that? Was it a trick? Was she not human? Were there others like her? It was almost as if he had met witches before. True witches, with powers like hers.

The thought made her brow crease. It made no sense. If he knew of witches, of the greater spirits that gave them their magic, why would he live as he did? Hurting others? Threatening to hurt her? Could it be… Was he a witch? Serving different deities to her, following deep and winding paths that she had been warned never to step foot upon? Had she stumbled across some sort of blood sacrifice? A dark magic ritual that she had always thought were silly stories made up by her dad to scare her straight?

She was frowning at the ground when he spoke to her again – a comment on her telepathy needing 'work'. Quiet, but decidedly far more casual than the situation would warrant if he were someone uninitiated, someone oblivious to her world. And in his head she heard him wonder if using her gift more frequently would make it easier, again lending credence to her theory that magic was not new to him. She bit her lip. Momentarily so absorbed by this new information that she forgot to be scared.

Silence fell upon them again and she debated if she ought to break it. If she could take advantage of his state and convince him to act more favourably towards her – perhaps even see if she could build up some form of kinship between them if he was indeed a witch or knew of witches. But he broke it first, telling her he thought Sunny was lucky to have her, and he looked almost as surprised for having given the statement as she felt for having heard it.

Before she could even process that, before she could even begin to pick apart what implications it could have, he was speaking again. Telling her – eleven. He was eleven the first time he killed someone. The image of Sunny on her first day of middle school burst into her head. How small her hand was, tucked into Evening’s who was double her age. Already so brave, all bold declarations and lifted chin and defiant eyes, but still trembling slightly on the walk there. Still the suppressed, private thoughts curling at the edges of her mind, worrying about whether she'd make friends and if she would have nice teachers.

Evening tried to imagine that version of Sunny holding a knife or a gun. Tried to imagine her taking a life now, let alone at that age, but found she couldn’t. Found she couldn’t imagine the man in front of her as a little boy (wild curls and scuffed knees with a colourful plaster on his face and perhaps still waiting for a few adult teeth to grow in) pointing a weapon at someone, anyone, either.

The man – the boy had killed so his brother didn’t have to. A brother who was now dead.

When Evening was eleven, she had held Sunny for the first time.

With a scoff, he got to his feet. He met her eyes then, and Eve stared back, feeling very much like she was peering over the edge of a very tall building, but also feeling… sympathy. A deep and profound guilt and sorrow on behalf of the world for having so horrifically failed him – the eleven-year-old boy who had been forced to kill and had lost his brother regardless. And despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that she knew he still very likely almost definitely intended to murder her, compassion won over.

He told her he wasn’t seeking sympathy. Wasn’t trying to justify himself. But all the same –

“I’m sorry,” she said honestly, keeping her gaze fixed on him. When she had first laid eyes on him, she’d wondered if there was any way to appeal to him, if he had any mercy at all. And now she thought that there was at least one tiny speck of… something good (perhaps love, loyalty, or even compassion) within him. And if compassion was a human trait, then she had found his humanity; he wasn’t some monster lurking under the bed, some fictional remorseless villain come to take all that the hero held dear. Because the man cared about his family (and that was strange as well, she thought, that they should have that in common), had tried to protect his brother, and what’s more – she could hear the considerations in his head, the brief wondering of what life would have been like if he had been allowed to choose for himself.

She could almost hear her mother’s chiding: “There you go again, Ningning, collecting your wraiths and strays. Making excuses for them…” Perhaps it was a defence mechanism. Her brain’s way of gently smoothing out the pages of the horror story, trying to make them prettier to look at.

The man returned her bag and she absently lifted the strap over her shoulder before his hand encircled her arm again, coaxing her out of her seat. Her legs trembled and her steps were wobbly, almost to the point of collapsing beneath her, but she managed.

“I… don’t think that’s true.” She sniffed. “What you said – that some people don’t deserve sympathy.” She glanced up at his face again, searching it for… she didn't know what. “Life can be so cruel. Personally, I feel sorry for everyone.”

With him by her side rather than in front of her, it was far easier for her gaze to flick unintentionally (perhaps instinctively; even if the sight made her stomach roll, her subconscious seemed to want her to take note) towards the two other people in the room – to the two crimson splattered bodies – and it was her father’s voice that came to her then: “Everything dead deserves to be honoured.”

She pinched her eyes shut, unable to decide whether looking would be honouring or dishonouring but deciding she couldn’t bear it either way, and relied on the man threatening her life to guide her wherever it was he wanted.

Once she felt they might have passed them, she took a deep breath and slowly cracked her eyes open. “You have a choice,” she tried softly. “No one knows, and no one will hear it from me.” She half-smiled at her would-be murderer, but it was a tired thing that dragged her face down. “You can keep me alive to be useful to you, or… we never have to see each other again. You don't have to do anything.”


Dane Wayland

[Dane Wayland]

He could feel Evening's eyes. Could see, in the edge of his vision, her face angled up toward him — watching him — as she expressed her doubts and claimed that she felt sorry for everyone. "Of course you do," he scoffed quietly, though it was vacant of the warm, cooing mock he'd so easily possessed when chiding her for her sympathies before. Her stare made him too conscious of himself. Made him set his face harder, not wanting her to see anything. Not after what he'd admitted to her (and possibly invited her to search for). And what an amusing thought, that she could be the one making him briefly uncomfortable. Not by forcing her thoughts in his head and making him sick, but with just a look. By trying to find something in him that he knew she wouldn't be able to. He was glad when she dropped her gaze. "Even bad dogs. That's what got you in this mess, remember?"

She told him that he had a choice. That he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to.

Dane let the faint semblance of a sardonic grin tug at one side of his mouth and breathed something not quite a laugh through his nose. What might have been a laugh, had he found the thought more amusing than distantly untrue. "That's not so often the case," he admitted darkly, thinking briefly of Silene — recalling her pale, sightless gaze turned to the sky — and all the other things his father had asked of him, knowing he would refuse. Knowing too, that he could only refuse for so long before he crawled to eventual obedience, dripping sweat as his tattoo inched wider and longer. "But maybe this time."

In any case, if Evening was going to live, then she needed to leave. Before the nearest Guild contacts came around for clean-up and the choice truly was taken out of his hands. Antonio wouldn't let her go if he knew she'd seen what she'd seen. Especially if he gathered that Dane had been content enough to let her live. And if he learned what she could do? If Evening bartered for her life with him in the same way? Perhaps he would be too intrigued — too aware of the many ways they could utilize a Gift such as hers — to kill her then.

With a decided stride, he moved them from the large, open room and back to the plastic-shrouded doorway where he'd first glimpsed her, bewitching in her fear. Snowcone trotted dutifully at his heels but, as he pushed them through the sheeting and began steadily navigating through the rest of the rooms, he bobbed the free hand at his thigh to signal for her to stop. She lifted her head and froze, watching them until they'd ducked from view.

"Go on," Dane said plainly, releasing Evening's arm and flinging her through the open door once they reached it. Being, perhaps, a little more forceful than necessary — to make up for the "act of mercy" at all, he figured absently. To balance it. To dampen any misplaced thankfulness or whatever else she might suddenly feel implored to turn on him. To remind her, in the very unlikely event that she'd somehow forget, that he wasn't nice. And to stop her from searching. He watched her dispassionately as she stumbled into the daylight, sunlight too bright on her pale skin.

"You're free to go," he continued, pocketing his hands. To the beach. To the forest. To dinner with her friends. To take pictures of her cats and buy her sister ice cream. To the snow-capped mountains that he'd seen in her photo gallery. To text her parents and her friends meaningless, cutesy messages. With only a faint hint of bitterness that he didn't care to acknowledge, he hoped she enjoyed it. And smaller, wanting to acknowledge it even less, he hoped he hadn't ruined those things for her. As much as he'd been transfixed by the idea of Evening's unfair absence haunting her loved ones as they visited all the places they'd once done so together, the idea that she might be there, alive but somehow changed by him, was worse.

He tipped his chin, blinking. "Don't give me a reason to and I won't look for you." Would that be enough? Could she believe it? Forget about him?

"Evie," he called out after a moment, voice firmer than it'd been before as he leaned against the doorframe, waiting for her eyes in the shadows. He wondered if her name might make her think, for a single, dreadful second, that he had changed his mind. "Write the postcards and letters anyway. To your sister." His fingers curled in his pockets and he searched her face slowly, letting his gaze drop finally to the bit of blood he'd smeared at her chin. "You might not get those two weeks or those two years, even without me. If she needs you and you know she needs you, then..." he shrugged a shoulder half-heartedly, letting the thought trail.

"Hug her just a little closer the next time you see her. She saved your life."

Evening Cadieux
Give me a nudge for any changes!

[Evening Cadieux]

Those kind of principles had landed her in such a position, he reminded her. Yet Evening couldn’t help but think  – what if she had been right? What if it had been a stray dog? Lost and scared and hungry. Was she supposed to ignore those possibilities in the future? Was she expected not to try to help anyone or anything, ever, if there was a chance she was marching headfirst into danger instead of leading others to safety?

Wasn’t that selfish? Or would it be more selfish to put herself at risk when she knew the harm her pain or absence would cause to others?

It was too philosophical of a debate to find an answer to at that exact moment. She probably wouldn’t revisit it until she was faced with a similar dilemma – and just how often did the world present her with people or animals in need of such help, anyway?

Her final, tentative appeal was met with the faintest of sardonic smiles and an exhale. He wouldn’t usually have a choice, he told her, but perhaps this time he did.

She blinked rapidly, brow puckered as she continued to look up at him. What did that mean? Was someone forcing him to do what he did? Maybe he really was in a gang or some dark magic cult. But – no. There had been no reluctance there. No remorse when she first found him. And he had enjoyed her terror so much. There was no denying what she’d seen in his eyes and heard in his mind. It was only when she spoke about Sunny and demonstrated her gifts that his excitement lessened.

Nothing made sense.

The man guided her through the warehouse (albeit ‘guided’ was perhaps too soft a word, as he marched onwards and had longer strides than she) and she refocused her gaze on the floor, trying not to trip on anything. His hand did not falter its grip on her arm, but halfway towards the exit he stopped his dog from shadowing them. She would not meet her death via tearing teeth, at least. If she did die and he didn’t dispose of her body, Sunny wouldn’t have to live with knowing she was mauled to death. Wouldn’t learn to fear or hate dogs.

She blinked again, eyes adjusting to a sudden burst of sunlight as they reached the exit of the warehouse, only to stumble and nearly fall with a sharp intake of breath as he flung her out of it. Miraculously she stayed on her feet, but she kept her head down, her hands curled into fists at her sides and her shoulders tense. She expected him to grab her again, to force her somewhere – anywhere – and thought he wouldn’t be pleased if she tried to move without his direction.

His touch didn’t return. She was free to go. And he wouldn’t come after her if she didn’t give him a reason to.

Or at least, that’s what he said.

Was it a trick? His thoughts told her it wasn’t, but they were fainter now she was outside and there was more distance between them. And now that he knew what she could do, he could be keeping more control over his stream of consciousness.

She took a hesitant step, then another. Then another and another until she was walking away.

“Evie.”

She froze. It was involuntary and she wished she’d kept going. Wished she pretended not to hear him so she could reach the main road and eyes of others.

She looked over her shoulder, for a dreadful moment suspecting the dog would be by his side and he’d give her a smile full of sharp teeth before telling her to run.

The dog was nowhere in sight. Only the man stood there, leaning in the doorway, the red on his clothes sparkling vividly under the sun, and he told her to write the postcards and letters even if he wasn’t giving her a deadline. Sunny had saved her life.

Evening gave a small nod, then slowly turned back to face the road and continued walking. A strand of her hair was clinging to her chin, and as she brushed it out the way she realised a small part of it was sticky.

She wiped the back of her hand across her face. Noticed what she had on her chin and felt her stomach churn and quickly changed tactics to wiping away the mascara and tear tracks on her cheeks with the balls of her hands.

Oh. She must look a mess.

Once she’d reached the road, she kept heading towards her home while she rummaged through her bag for her mirror and her pack of tissues.



OOC: bruh I really do struggle at end posts but here we are lmao
~End~
Dane Wayland