cruor
Verna wakes.
Verna wakes, and she is in the same position she was when she slept back before, back at day's break. Verna wakes, and her muscles aren't sore from the position she's been in all day, she doesn't have the need to suck in a breath, all she has - the first thing she feels - is a wick of hunger.
When she opens her eyes, she'll see that she is alone in the basement, although there is a folded towel on the bottom of the stair. A fluffy purple thing, far nicer than it should be. There's a blouse, too, and a pair of slacks. They are roughly her size.
Verna Gardner
If she were still living, Verna's sleep would be fitful and fruitless. But she rouses slowly, groggily, as though she really just spent a restful night on a soft mattress with high thread-count sheets. It's almost a shock to wake up here again -- hungry and strange. Certainly, last night had been a dream? But one she's still stuck in, apparently.
Waking in the same spot, in the same position? At least that's a relief. No one touched her while she was passed out. And yes, her mind goes to such things, checks for such things, because the only way David makes sense to her is if he is one of those men who takes 'no' so well that he kidnaps women to avoid being rejected.
At least he kept his promise of privacy and a change of clothes. And at that small little gesture, gratitude hits her like a flood. Is this what they call Stockholm Syndrome?
Whatever. She will take his little gift.
The sweater goes first, and she has to peel it from her skin where the blood dried. She holds it out in front of her, horrified. The hole in the middle, the brown splashes, it's all just as she remembers -- a memory that isn't real. She folds it up neatly (as well as everything else that will follow) because her clothes are not going to the incinerator in a messy lump...
It feels so wrong down here, all naked and vulnerable. Her pale, dead body looks like someone made a Rorschach test of it in brown ink, with just her face and hands cleaned off. She can't get the purple fuzzy towel wrapped around her fast enough, lest her captor comes bursting in the door at any time. Everything gets laid out and ready for her shower so as to reduce that feeling of powerlessness to the minimum. It's a quick, if thorough affair. Wasting time is an impossibility.
So, it's not long before she'll emerge from her rituals, blood washed down the drain, looking less like a victim. The slacks and blouse aren't quite her style, but they're nice enough, and best of all -- she might be able to run down a street in them and not look insane.
She spares a look toward the refrigerator first. It's a nagging drawing thing. She's so hungry, and she remembers how that popsicle tasted. Surely it would be okay? But no. It's tainted. It's all tainted in this place. She needs to get out. So after that look, she checks the dark passage up the stairs. There's probably a locked door, and if there is, she'll try to break it.
[Str 2 = I can totally bash this door down with my wimpy self!]
Roll: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 8) ( success x 2 )
cruor
There is, indeed, a locked door at the top of the stairs. There is a poster on the door for the 14th Symposium on Telescope Science, looking as worn as one might expect a nineteen-year old poster which has been fading on the back of a door for so many years. The door is metal and implaccable even though she does her absolute best: one's limitations cannot always be surpassed by sheer will( and Verna is, tonight, still far from willful. She put so much of herself in trying to escape, trying to survive, trying to call for help -- and now can she even guess how long she has been asleep?).The door doesn't even have the good manners to rattle, and if she takes some time to study it now, she'll see that it is reinforced and specially fitted.
And if she listens hard, she'll hear music coming from somewhere. Which means maybe someone can hear her, right?
Verna Gardner
Verna stands there for a few seconds, just appraising the door. Metal. Reinforced. Like her captor was expecting this. How many women has he locked up down here before, she wonders? Or was this put in just for her? Her forehead hits the door with a thud and her eyes close as she tries not to completely lose herself to the fear that she'll be down in this box for the rest of her short existence.
The last thing she wants to do is summon him. So even though the music filters through the door's cracks, she doesn't call out. Instead, she takes a breath that does nothing, and lets it out in a slow shake.
God, so hungry...
How long was she passed out? Long enough to become so famished? She glances over to the refrigerator that has nothing in it but rotten or drugged food. Is this the extent of her life now? It's enough to make her want to cry.
She pushes back against tears. They'd only make him think he's won, wouldn't they? But then, hasn't he?
cruor
The hunger is a need. The need is a drive. Drive is what she used to have to breathe. To drag air into her lungs. To let her blood circulate. To push the heart. To beat. To live. Drive is what she has still. To feed. To bring blood into her system. To keep moving, to keep wick. To be awake. To be aware. To be. Or not to be: that's the question that most kindred find themselves asking in their callow youth. Verna is so new into her callow youth that she doesn't quite have the questions yet.
She has the memory of a terrible night. A silent heart. Suspicion. She has a life crafted by the Masquerade and she has music playing from another room. She has had a shower and she has dim lighting and she has not much else. She has time.
She has time, and she has hunger, and quite some time will pass before David comes to the door again. But he does come, eventually. Where is Verna in an hour, or two?
There is a knock on the door, muffled, dim, dull.
"Are you decent?"
Verna Gardner
It's an hour alone with the refrigerator, like a poisoned banquet before the starving. After realizing the door was going to be too solid for her to budge, she had to deal with that.
After a while sitting in the good chair and nervously fussing about her hair (no hairbrush in sight) she gets up to wander, and realizes he left his books. It's something to distract from her stomach at least -- a distraction from everything else too. It's so strange, in that dark place inside where she refuses to look. Strangely silent. No pulse racing to the beat of her fear. No need to breathe. Every need to eat something. If she doesn't look at it, it will go away. It's all just the drugs that she knows are in her system. Working their way out. It'll be okay.
The copy of Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution gets selected, and she loses track of how many times she forgets to breathe while trying so desperately to concentrate on the words while her world has been reduced to this room.
Just don't look at it. It'll go away.
The knock on the door startles her, and she shuts the book silently, placing it on one of the sheeted tables.
Are you decent?
Well, yes. But you aren't. No amount of clothing would fix that.
Not answering yet, she gets up from the chair and makes her way to the other side of the room, and then: "Yes."
cruor
A measure of silence. Behind that too too solid door David waits without saying anything, and then once Verna is safe (as safe as one can be, eh?) on the far side of the room, the door opens and David comes in. He looks somewhat different than he did last time Verna saw him. He is less grad student with some punk influences and more young personal assistant. He's wearing a suit jacket, charcoal gray, over a black shirt. His trousers are a shade darker than the jacket but not quite so dark as to be black. His jaw is clean shaven and his hair is combed.
His expression is determined and perhaps he looks cautious. "Evening. Do you feel better? Have you fed yet?" He's still hovering at the top of the stairs like he can't decide whether to stay or to go. The door is not shut behind him, and the music is louder now, albeit still somewhat distant.
Verna Gardner
That's... different. She appraises his choice of clothing with a question -- why the drastic change? He's standing there with the door halfway open, and maybe if she disguises her intent, she might be able to use it?
She walks up, timid steps, one two three... "No. No, I... Do you have anything else?"
Like, some actual food perhaps?
cruor
"Yeah."
He regards her as she takes a couple 'timid' steps toward him. His expression is a puzzle, but he does seem different tonight. Pulled together. Put together. He's not in a panic any longer. There's not the slightest hint of an Irish accent. He sounds as American as Verna does, more forthright.
"In the other room. I think maybe we'll go talk there instead." His tone is very frank. There's a purpose to it, perhaps. Or not. Who knows? The blonde man is a stranger to Verna, as much if not more so than Verna is to him. "You must be tired of the safe room." Beat. "Why do you think what's in the refrigerator is tainted?"
cruor
"Still think I'm a liar, right?"
Verna Gardner
Her eyes open a touch at his suggestion that they go to the 'other room' to have something to eat. Okay, maybe that metal reinforced door isn't the last one she has to get through, then?
Breathe, Verna.
She walks towards the door, pretty desperate to see something besides the concrete hole she's in. She is tired of the 'safe room'. It has felt anything but safe.
Still think I'm a liar, right?
"Well, can you blame me?"
cruor
"Not really," he says. He takes a backwards step and another, so he's on the same level as the door again. His ears stick out. There's nothing he can do about them. He stuck with them for an eternity. Verna, hope you like your current haircut, because it's a pain in the ass to change your hair every night.
"Come on. I'd like you to tell me what happened last night while we get you a snack."
Look, he even steps back again so she can go through the door. Leave the safe room safe haven basement her first grave only grave so far but oh she isn't dead there is no grave. She is the grave.
When - if - she goes through the door, she'll find herself in a long hallway, covered in posters for various bands across the ages and a few old convention fliers. Mostly computer science conventions, but at least one Comic Con or GenCon poster thrown in with the rest. Look, there's Franz Liszt!
There are two more doors on this floor, and then an industrial elevator lift at the far end of the hall.
Verna Gardner
Her eyebrows come together as he speaks. "What, you mean, you don't remember? Or you want to hear my side of it?"
She climbs the steps while keeping her eyes fixed on him. She's jumpy, ready to bolt, if there were anywhere to bolt to. And the closer she gets to him, the worse it gets. Still, she tries to keep the conversation civil -- a glaze over the roiling of fear.
The hallway surprises a bit. The posters are a bit of an odd touch. She remembers the one she beat her head into earlier -- Telescope science. And now these varied numbers that all practically scream 'nerd'. Something about that is a bit heartwarming, isn't it? No. No it is not. Stop that.
On the way down the hall, she'll try to keep her distance if he'll allow it. Following, perhaps, but not close.
cruor
"I want to hear what you think," David says, firmly. "It's important to listen, no?"
He doesn't try to get close to her once she comes into the hall. He doesn't crowd her. He watches her without moving very much at all, without so much as a fidget, and glances once at the ceiling. There's a sprinkler system: state of the art. Wouldn't want anything to burn, eh?
And he does try to direct her to the door before the service elevator. It's unlocked. There's light coming from below it, more light than the basement's singular lamp has at any rate.
Verna Gardner
She can hardly believe that he really wants to hear the truth from her. "Is it?"
It's also important to placate those who have your life in their hands, Verna thinks.
That other door -- where does it go? She really wants to go up that elevator, but somehow slipping that one by him seems unlikely.
It takes a few seconds. There's a flicker of fear in her face when she realizes the 'other room' is next door, and freedom is probably well out of reach, but eventually something hardens in her face. If she's marching to something horrible, at least let her do it bravely.
And so she walks up, looks him in the eyes. "I think that you were planning this from the beginning. I think that I was right about you from the beginning too -- that you're one of those men who doesn't want to take a 'no' from a lady. I had to be mean about it, because otherwise you weren't going to actually realize I meant every 'no'. But then, you hated that, didn't you?"
She looks into the room, then. What does she see?
cruor
They're both playing the placation game, in a way. Verna isn't screaming at David right away, and David isn't launching immediately into a speech about how she's a vampire. These are the bricks unlives are built upon: eh? Pretense. A pretense. Many pretenses. Pretending.
He hesitates, and then says, "So that's what you think about my motivations, wrongly of course but that's to be expected for now. But what do you think happened? That's only what you think, ah, I was thinking."
The room is a furnished study. There's a real desk and real carpets and real bookshelves, although most of the bookshelves are full of records rather than books. There's a computer which is less ancient than the one in the 'safe room,' and there's even a printer and a fax machine. A 'work' table with pieces of a radio dismantled and strewn across, plus various other parts if you enjoy trying to make mini-robots.
It looks very ... work-orientated, this study. Unlike the 'safe room,' which looked like somebody's sad carved out hidey hole, didn't it? Doesn't it. With its cot and its shower and its refrigerator.
Verna Gardner
"I think after you got mad, you stabbed me with a needle. Gave me some hallucinogen. And then, took me here when I blacked out," she says, emotionless as she can -- though anger leaks through.
"You want to keep me drugged and compliant. So of course I don't trust the food."
At least he's taking apart a radio in this room, and not a person. That much is a relief. She looks around at the place, notes the computer and the fax. If she can get access to that, it would be nice, wouldn't it? A connection to the outside world?
cruor
"So I planned all of this, but it was also a crime of passion, which I just happened to have the right tools for. What do you know about hallucinogens?"
He follows her, of course. He stays by the door, watching her. He rests a shoulder against the door, both hands still in his slacks.
Verna Gardner
His attempt at logic falls flat. Of course he planned all this. Why was he asking to walk her to her car? To make it easier. The anger was just a secondary thing. People who don't get angry at women for having the audacity to have a voice also don't go to such great lengths to silence them.
"Oh, yes, I am someone who does a lot of hard drugs?" Verna says, biting with sarcasm. "I don't know what you poisoned me with, but it was something."
And at that, she hits a truth. He did give her something, right? Just not what she yet wants to believe.
cruor
"Grad student with too much on her plate and recent upheaval in her past, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you were on something to help you with the workload. Don't act like you're so fucking pure. The only thing I know about your personality is that all the students hate you, and you're supposed to be brilliant," David says, in a display of the charm Verna already knows him for. His jaw tightens and his gaze turns inward, grows distant.
"And I know that you want to survive, and you're willing to fight for that even though you look like a pushover. Would you call yourself a pushover?"
Verna Gardner
Don't act like you're so... pure? Verna flashes a look of hate at him that, for a split instant, would burn if she could will it.
He says she looks like a pushover, and she huffs out a puff of breath. "No."
She could never call herself that. Not after all she's been through. Not after all she's done.
cruor
"Would you..." He trails away, hesitates again. He looks good tonight in his sharp, sharp suit, all put together, all clean and somehow more assured, but he's still David, self-professed black sheep, never quite lives up to expectations. "How would you describe yourself?"
Verna Gardner
"Beleaguered. Terrorized. Not just by you," she says, and some of the hate gives way to sadness. "But every day, I get up and I keep walking."
Except, not any more. Days have been taken from her now.
"People who expect me to push over get surprised as a general rule. You're not the first man to attack me."
And yeah, David, she plotted to kill him for it. Not that she'll tell you that.
"My students, if they hate me, it's because here I am being hounded and hunted and people disappear around me and I still manage to get my homework in on time. They come to me and say they had a headache, and I can't help but deduct points like it says on the syllabus. They expected life to be easy after high school or something, I don't know."
cruor
David is, essentially, a sap. A sucker. Verna doesn't know that (oh, doesn't she? Bad joke), but she'll maybe begin to get that picture now, when he responds. "Mostly people just want some kindness. I doubt most of your students know very much about you and the struggles you face."
A flinch, not of self-awareness, but as he considers -- something; has to push it away with a shudder. He steps into the office, away from the door, takes one hand out of his pockets to unbutton his jacket.
"Who else has attacked you? Do you have a stalker?"
Verna Gardner
Most people just want some kindness, he says, and she shrinks. She doesn't expect to be getting any. Not anymore.
"A couple of them," she says, and considers. Should she tell this man about her life? Play to his sympathetic nature? Would it work on the insane, perhaps? Make him feel sorry for her? Enough to let her go?
She looks to the floor. "My old boss, he was a very kind man. He got me a grant to go back to school again. And then, one night, the lab was broken into and all that was left was a little bit of blood. I never saw him again. I went back to school like he always wanted, and I've tried, I have tried so hard. But I have enemies. Horrible people. Maybe the ones who took him, I don't know.
"A friend of mine had an abusive boyfriend, and I said I'd watch her kids so she could escape. Well, he found out and had his friend stake out my apartment. He thinks I know where the kids are? I don't really. And I think I know why he wants them, which is horrible. He runs some kind of underground fighting ring, and he... uses children. Or so I hear. He's dragged me out into an alley, broken into my place, broke a lot of my things while he was at it. He hasn't killed me yet because he thinks I know something I don't."
Again, she takes a breath that has nothing to do with needing to speak. Just a calming exercise, because whenever she talks about this, it's as though she's speaking with venom in her mouth.
"So yes. You could say I have a stalker. And more than one kidnapper or murderer in my life."
cruor
His jaw goes somewhat slack as Verna recounts the tale of the abusive boyfriend who is 'using' children. Don't they say even hardened rapists and murderers don't have patience for paedophiles? That's how David takes Verna's remark: as this abusive boyfriend is a paedophile with a criminal ring to back him up.
None of this is information that he was looking for when he approached Verna to ask about strange goings on outside of her professor's office.
Ah well. Sometimes we get more than we bargained for.
He purses his lips and pushes them to the side, brow wrinkling. "How would you like the police records on the investigation into your old boss's disappearance? How would you like to know that the police were actually working to stop the abusive boyfriend; or to stop him yourself?"
Verna Gardner
"The police are useless. They said that I must have gone on a rampage in my own apartment when that freak broke into it. I had to pay back the complex and move out because of the police. I had to fight to even get them to take the missing persons case seriously for my boss' sake. Even then, it's been so many months. And nothing.
"Do I want to know what they are really doing? I think I already do. Nothing. They see me as a troublemaker. Someone who attempts to force them into getting up off their behinds and doing something. They just don't want to deal with the paperwork involved in helping people. It's easier to just point the finger at the victims."
And there, David, another rant. This time about the incompetence of police. Note that she did not go on about her stopping him herself, right? But wasn't she packing a pistol for some reason?
She looks at him with such eyes, such a pleading face. No hate there, or at least she's trying hard not to show it. How the mask of proud, defiant Verna falls when she wants it to, no? Hasn't she been through enough, she seems to say.
cruor
He looks skeptical when Verna waxes lyrical on the incompetence of the police force, not because he has faith in them, per se, but because - "I don't know why you think they'd include you on the progress of an active case. They don't even do that for family, most of the time, but I won't argue with the lazy cop image. Mostly they're fat cat bureaucrats on the take, out for whatever they can get. B&Es they barely look at."
"Would you like to change that? To go after that guy?"
Verna Gardner
She looks skeptical when David talks about her going after that guy -- as though she has a future outside of this underground lair.
"I'd have to get out of here first. There's a lot of things about that idea that seem pretty far away right now. No offense."
But the way she says that? Does she really mean that 'no offense'?
"You said... You said there was something to eat in here?"
cruor
"Yeah," he says, and his tone is suddenly heavy; it's a rock thrown in a pool; it's flat, it's solid, it's gray as a sky without sunlight. Leaden. Lead sinks, finds salt. His tone's brine-careful.
"Taking you out would be a disaster right now," and David takes his jacket off. He does it quickly and he does it smoothly, and the shirt he's wearing beneath has short sleeves instead of long. Verna can see the scrawl of his tattoos just beneath his sleeves. They're not colorful, mostly blue lines and writing, symbolic, alchemical.
His fangs unsheath, too, and he bites his own wrist open. Vitae. Blood. The smell of.
Verna Gardner
He takes his jacket off, and Verna can only hope it's to get some air. She steps back, but then -- when he grows fangs and bites himself -- her eyes betray the same terror that's been haunting her since David has known her.
She isn't so much afraid of what she sees him doing as much as she fears her own madness. The smell brings back false memories of waking up hungry with his wrist to her mouth -- of her drinking his blood. It brings to mind the unbearably wonderful taste. And the rational Verna, denying Verna, can only explain this with the loss of her mind.
"No. No no no. N...n... NO!"
Not this. Not again. It's not going to stop is it? He's not going to stop. Torn between the desire to run from him and the desire to drink from him, she can only stand in place.
cruor
He is sorry. He has apologized. He still feels that he has not done well. His shoulders are bowed by it, but he is very steady tonight. He doesn't look hesitant. He doesn't look pleading or desperate, at least not that Verna can see (can she?), in current state: standing struck-still, torn between.
"You don't need to take much," David says. "Just enough to tide you over for a night. I'll go away if you do it without a fuss," okay, okay, he's wheedling a little again -- he's not proud of this. Of any of this.
He takes a step towards her; another one. "If everything I give you is drugged, what's the harm, right?" Cynical David. "Relatively?"
Verna Gardner
Her thoughts are racing, but she can put together his words well enough for now. What's the harm in drinking blood from someone? About 50 or so blood-borne diseases. Oh, but it's so good, so good.
He steps forward, and she can't take her eyes off of the wound anymore.
"I don't want..." I want. I want.
"Please..." Give it to me.
cruor
"I can let it ... uh, drip into a cup if you'd prefer," David says. He holds his finger to the wound, then holds the finger out to her: tempt, tempt. "But you need to drink tonight."
He's not going to stop, but he does pause. Gives her a choice. It's no choice at all, but he wants her to have it. The illusion of it. The necessity is making his expression belligerent: lower lip thrust somewhat out, eyebrows lowered. Concern? Yes, concern.
Verna Gardner
He holds his finger out to her, painted red with blood, and it has to be the most enticing gesture she's ever known. It can't be real, can it? The fangs in her mouth can't be real either. So what's the harm, relatively? Aside from playing along with one's own delusional fugue state?
In the end, she really doesn't have a choice, does she? Even though she fights it, she needs this like she used to need to breathe. It's like being tied to the bottom of a swimming pool and denying an offered oxygen mask.
Her mouth opens, and he can see how ready she is to drink, how it looks like she's about to lick at his finger, if that weren't such an undignified idea otherwise.
cruor
David watches her reaction without a word. He's a fuck up. He knows he's a fuck up. He often cares because he's a Ventrue. He's a Camarilla Ventrue. He hasn't even told Verna his name but he's told her the name of their clan, just in case anything happens. He's told her anything's better than being Caitiff. He has no idea that Verna knows one of the caitiff. He has no idea Verna knows a Ventrue with some clout. He's a fuck up. He knows he's a fuck up, and he often cares. Right now, he cares about (is concerned with) Verna. He isn't warm, but he knows his duty. His conscience is a vampire's conscience and the bonds of humanity are only so strong. Her mouth opens, and after a beat, he runs his bloody fingertip gently across her lip. His face naturally falls into belligerence sure but it's a contained belligerence.
"Come on." He watches to see that she licks her lips. His wrist is still an open wound, which he is holding carefully, so as not to get vitae on the carpet. He half-turns: " - I'll get a cup."
More indignity, really. All he's got are a few wax paper cups.
Verna Gardner
His finger isn't warm when it brushes her lip. It's a cold act, for all the inherent intimacy. But when she tastes him again, tongue flicking out between her fangs to get at the blood, oh... a half-lidded expression crosses her face, wiping out the terror for an instant. It's amazing how heated this cold can seem.
David doesn't know, and neither does she, how close she came to being bound to another -- that she spent months pining after a man who did this same thing to her. This time, it is different. She had reason to adore István, and that's the way she made sense of her growing obsession. A crush. Something childish, but strong. Now, she isn't falling in love with a kind and decent man whose eyes remind her of the sky and the ocean. Now, she's developing a compulsion towards her kidnapper. His importance is magnified because he's the only other person with her in her new underground territory. And his body is where the addiction flows from.
It's probably heroin, right? Something horribly addictive and wrong. But that rational, scientific voice in her is so small right now, and she doesn't much care for the frayed duct tape of reasoning holding her sanity together. There's something else crowding that out: the question of how to get more.
The answer? A little paper cup, apparently.
She watches his every movement as he goes about it, like a dog waiting for a dropped bite of meat. She doesn't know what's going on or why she feels this way, but that thought is nothing in comparison to the feeling itself.
As she reaches out for the cup, she puts a small voice to her questions. "Why?"
Why does his blood make her so hungry?
Why does she want more of him so much?
Why did he do this?
Children always ask why, don't they? Why is the sky blue, dad? Why do stars twinkle? Why why why...
cruor
The transition from mortal to conditionally immortal is a difficult one even under the best circumstances. Nobody would say that David's turning of Verna was a best circumstance scenario unless they were being extremely sarcastic. It's a confusing time, the body's urges transformed and then sublimated. Nobody will find it strange that Verna is confused or is justifying what has happened to her by making up stories. Drugs. Hallucinations.
And of course she wants to know why.
David hands the cup to her, carefully. It's almost full and of course the scent of vitae is intoxicating, is Frenzy-inducing, is Ecstasy-inducing, the Ecstatics and their bacchanals and the Mystery that they keep might well be vitae vitae vitae life incarnate life most delicious.
She wants to know why.
"Drink up," he says, and will watch her do it. He has the wary posture of someone who expects a struggle, the hangdog posture of an old hound. And then he says, "Because..." A pause.
"Because we all must learn how to be safe. Why did you choose to devote your life to science?"
Verna Gardner
She takes the cup because its contents want to be inside her like lightning wants to strike the ground. The body reaches out, even if the mind protests that this is not something that normal people find so enticing.
He dripped his own blood into a paper cup, and she wants it.
There isn't much of a struggle, just one regarding her fangs and figuring out how to take a drink with them in the way. After the cruel temptation of his blood on her lips, it's hard to protest anymore.
Afterwards, it's hard to resist the urge to lick the cup clean, but that would be too uncouth. There's someone watching. Someone who holds her life in his hands. Someone so important and imperious. So she tips the cup back again, trying to get the last few drops that she can.
Oh, this can't be real. Nothing is real. She stares down into the empty vessel as he talks about how she must learn to be safe. That sounds so wrong, coming from him. He's the danger in her life.
"It's beautiful," she replies. And she could be talking about the tiny beads of his blood that stick to the wax of the cup, couldn't she?
Verna can go on and on about science and its beauty and her reasons. She just can't right now. Those couple of words are tiny, tinny things, and when she looks up at David again, she's still so afraid and sad. Her face twitches with all the thoughts going on behind it, voiceless.
cruor
"Do you still want to science?" He turns it into a verb. Somebody is a nerd, at least sometimes. There's no reason she shouldn't still want 'to science,' but he's asking her for what sounds like, given his tone, a very specific reason.
Verna Gardner
A couple of confused twitches cross her face, and then: "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
Why would he ask that? It's not something that fits into her framework for what happened -- that he is a kidnapper who intends to keep her here. She hasn't a clue what he means by that.
"I'm sorry. I'm not very..." she trails off, looking back down into the empty cup, her hand comes up to her mouth so she can suck the last traces of blood off her lips. "I don't understand."
David
"What, specifically, would you like an answer to? Right now? I'll answer five questions, truthfully and completely."
There is an unspoken 'and then.' He can see how confused she is, how scared, he can hear how small her voice is. He fixes his coat sleeve carefully, as if he found a speck of dust upon it.
Verna Gardner
Who makes a statement like that? Five questions? It's like she's in some kind of fairy tale, almost, if it weren't so bleak. The old fairy tales, maybe. The ones where people died horrific deaths all the time? Maybe more like that.
Eventually, she seems to come to a conclusion, finds a voice that's not so streaked with fear.
"What do I have to do to get out of here?"
David
"Learn the laws of our kind, and follow them. Hide what you now are from other people, successfully. Display an ability to control your hunger, so you do not kill somebody innocent -- " a pause. His voice doesn't break. He fiddles with the coat-sleeve again, then puts the coat back on. He'd taken it off, hadn't he? He puts the coat back on and adjusts the collar. "As you were, before."
Verna Gardner
She listens, hangs on every word. She doesn't yet truly believe what he says, but maybe -- maybe she can pretend? Say the right things that he wants to hear? In this, frankly, delusional state she's in, it's hard to hope. She might be off having a dream in the safe room, drugged out of her mind right now. But maybe, if she plays along with him... if he's even real...
He tastes real. Oh, God, he tastes so good.
She nods at him, although without any real understanding. Next question, then.
"Why... whenever I see your blood, I can't stop myself. It's not... I shouldn't..."
She takes a breath, closes her eyes. It's just playing along, right? Asking the questions he wants her to ask. It's not real. "Why do I want it so much?"
David
"We have elevated tastes. Rarefied. Other Li - uh, other Kindred, they can grab anybody off the street and it will fill them up, but we develop a taste for a certain kind of vessel. We can taste the difference. I don't know how, because even without Auspex I could... well, it won't fill us up. Vampiric blood is an exception to the rule. We can always drink that. It's just... better, more potent. It's what gave you this second life you've got, so of course you'll like it. Mortals like it, too. They get addicted and behave... poorly, sometimes, in pursuit of the drug."
Verna Gardner
He talks about it like it is a drug. A drug that leads to bad behavior. Oh, that's not good. In fact, everything she's feared. She is addicted. And what poor behavior will she get up to now that it's too late?
But she's a good person, and it's not her fault. It was all forced on her. Surely people will understand?
He talks about grabbing people off the street and filling up on them, and a memory -- of him eating her. Not real, not real.
She looks off at the wall for a while, and then her eyes return to his -- rather striking, now, aren't they?
"Who are you? Perhaps... not a very fair question. But I don't know anything about you."
David
Verna doesn't know anything about David.
David doesn't know anything about David. He doesn't know what to tell her. "I'm ... a junior associate. I'm a neonate of clan Ventrue, 10th Generation, sired by Elspeth Duncan in the ... Er, quite a few years ago now. I look into problems ... I was trying to look into a problem at your university. But looking into problems is how I know if you want the records to that police investigation or you want to find out more about your stalker, well, we can make that happen. It's my job. I'm usually okay at it."
He sounds pretty wistful.
The wistfulness cuts out: "And I'm your sire, so I'm responsible for you now until which time you are no longer my childe."
Verna Gardner
An investigator? A detective? Something like that? Maybe he is with the police. Or a freelancer, something like that... If he can get police records, then he'll be able to get what they know about her disappearance too. Not exactly a comforting thought.
"I... I would like that. If you can find anything about me or my stalker in the police records. It would be nice."
Nice. She's being so civil now, isn't she? Maybe that's the new tactic of playing along, but there again -- the way she looks at him? So sad? Like she wishes he was a nice man. It hurts that he isn't.
"What was the problem you were looking into?"
David
There is a correlation to be made between Verna's sad why can't you be nice looks and the look a very pretty and well-groomed basset hound puppy might give a not very great owner. David might've been a dog person, once. At least Verna won't have pets who now can't stand being in the same room as her.
"Heh." He actually hehs, aloud. A hesitation. "There's been reports of some people using vampire blood in a drug in your university; in your department, actually. That's what I was going to ask you about. The behaviors those exhibit who are on the drug are specific and easy to notice."
Verna Gardner
She's got her last question to go. And she knows what she wants to ask, but it's another unfair question. He says he'll answer truthfully and fully, and she doesn't quite believe him on that -- he talks using bizarre words and the vampire stuff. But maybe he really believes that. If he's even real...
"What do you think of me?"
Maybe it's fishing for a compliment, but then maybe it's trying to gauge where she stands, how much she has to do for him to find her acceptable -- to let her go. Maybe it's something of both. She needs to know how to be perfect in his eyes.
Verna Gardner
[Perception + Empathy!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )
David
His naturally belligerent (pugnacious) face becomes more belligerent in response to the question. In truth, he's just thinking; he can't help looking like a hobbit or a gnome or an Irishman in the right light. He is one of those things. "What do I think of you? I think you're... I think you're going to be trouble. I think you might do very well in the clan if you just... if you could try to play the game, try to learn, try to... They say you're brilliant and a bitch. Both of those things could come in handy."
He's not telling her everything, but he's not lying. He seems to be trying to be diplomatic (hah), for a certain value of diplomatic. He's afraid.
Not of her, but he's afraid. He doesn't think they're wrong about her.
"And that's five, and I need to go take a meeting. I'll be back in a couple of hours, closer to dawn. Do you want to stay in the study or do you want to go back to the basement? There's an old nintendo in the other room..."
Verna Gardner
He says that she's a bitch, and that stings a little. Why couldn't she have been a little less... well... like a bitch to him? He might be deserving of every word, but not all of those words have been helpful have they? Maybe her tongue was what got her into this mess to begin with. She yelled at him. And then he attacked her. But what is the right thing to say? Where's the line beyond which the psychotic will snap?
It's so hard to tell.
He says she might do well if she learns to play the game. Well, she's certainly trying -- trying to figure out how to play it with him well enough to earn her freedom. Maybe it's all a lie, maybe he's a figment of her imagination. Maybe none of these past few nights has been real, and she's off in the corner of some psych ward somewhere straitjacketed against her dreams.
It's so hard to tell.
"I don't want to go back to the basement," she says. It's got bad memories written on the floors in her bloodstains.
David
"All right. You can stay here, then." He walks over to the fax machine and unplugs it. He takes the plug with him, coiling it around his hand like a whip. He doesn't look regretful as he does so, he just looks like he's thinking about something apprehensive and distant but not distant enough. A boy before a spelling bee.
"Verna, I want us to get along. I want us to be able to work together. You can hate me, but I hope you won't. I hope you'll realize how much I'm going to stick my neck out for you."
This is what her murderer says. This is what Caine might have said to his First Childer. You can hate me, but I hope you won't. Sometimes they offer power, sometimes they offer 'eternal life,' but regardless of what they offer the truth just comes down to hunger hunger and need need.
It's a lonely life. It's no life at all. It's the best life. It's lonely.
And it's hungry.
David keeps Verna in his sights when he approaches the door; he keeps Verna in his sights as he backs out of it. "Is there anything I can bring you? Any clothes? A particular kind of shampoo? Notes from university?"
Verna Gardner
He's careful, David. When she first arrived in the room and saw that fax machine, of course her mind went to using it. Now, that isn't going to happen, is it?
He watches her closely as he exits the place, trying to keep her from rushing the door, perhaps. And it's a good idea, too. She's been watching, waiting for an opening that never quite seems to reveal itself.
"I use um... it's called Giovanni shampoo? It's sulfate-free. The 'smooth as silk' kind," she says, and of course she has exacting needs in haircare, David. It's not super expensive, but one of those brands that hits all of the right buzzwords. "I would like... unscented soap. Please." Because, you know, you gave her Dove for Men to wash up with, and she smells a little sharp and musky now. It's just not right.
"Also, I need a hairbrush."
Maybe she's afraid to push it? She wants all of that. More clothes, notes from the university (whatever that means). But giving him a lengthy list of demands just seems so out of place at the moment. Let's just start with the basics -- grooming. Work from there.
David
He makes a slight face at the word 'Giovanni.' Because won't he have to see whether or not that family has its hooks into the shampoo? But the face is slight; it passes quickly; shadow on a curtain.
"Okay," he says again. And, "Uh. Practice... practice control, I guess. Get familiar with your... How strong you can be, how fast you can be. How quickly you can heal. I'll be back."
It's a promise.
Or a threat?
He closes the door after what he means for a reassurance. He locks it, too.
And another night passes.
Verna Gardner
He says to practice. Practice what? None of what he says makes any sense. She doesn't feel stronger or faster, and that healing thing... That never happened.
But then, with him gone, it's like she's just that much emptier. There's no longer his presence to fixate on or appease. Only that one command to practice. And it's like he just gave her free reign to... do what? Laps around the room?
She's not going to go on a rampage in his workshop, trying to bench press his desk. What is he thinking?
So, she takes the time to examine the room. She looks for another cord for that fax machine. She tries to find something else she can use. She's really kicking herself for never learning how to pick locks. In the end, she tries not to become familiar with her new self. What purpose would that serve other than to scare her? In the end, she picks over the possessions of her sire, trying not to remind herself that she counts as one of them.
Verna wakes.
Verna wakes, and she is in the same position she was when she slept back before, back at day's break. Verna wakes, and her muscles aren't sore from the position she's been in all day, she doesn't have the need to suck in a breath, all she has - the first thing she feels - is a wick of hunger.
When she opens her eyes, she'll see that she is alone in the basement, although there is a folded towel on the bottom of the stair. A fluffy purple thing, far nicer than it should be. There's a blouse, too, and a pair of slacks. They are roughly her size.
Verna Gardner
If she were still living, Verna's sleep would be fitful and fruitless. But she rouses slowly, groggily, as though she really just spent a restful night on a soft mattress with high thread-count sheets. It's almost a shock to wake up here again -- hungry and strange. Certainly, last night had been a dream? But one she's still stuck in, apparently.
Waking in the same spot, in the same position? At least that's a relief. No one touched her while she was passed out. And yes, her mind goes to such things, checks for such things, because the only way David makes sense to her is if he is one of those men who takes 'no' so well that he kidnaps women to avoid being rejected.
At least he kept his promise of privacy and a change of clothes. And at that small little gesture, gratitude hits her like a flood. Is this what they call Stockholm Syndrome?
Whatever. She will take his little gift.
The sweater goes first, and she has to peel it from her skin where the blood dried. She holds it out in front of her, horrified. The hole in the middle, the brown splashes, it's all just as she remembers -- a memory that isn't real. She folds it up neatly (as well as everything else that will follow) because her clothes are not going to the incinerator in a messy lump...
It feels so wrong down here, all naked and vulnerable. Her pale, dead body looks like someone made a Rorschach test of it in brown ink, with just her face and hands cleaned off. She can't get the purple fuzzy towel wrapped around her fast enough, lest her captor comes bursting in the door at any time. Everything gets laid out and ready for her shower so as to reduce that feeling of powerlessness to the minimum. It's a quick, if thorough affair. Wasting time is an impossibility.
So, it's not long before she'll emerge from her rituals, blood washed down the drain, looking less like a victim. The slacks and blouse aren't quite her style, but they're nice enough, and best of all -- she might be able to run down a street in them and not look insane.
She spares a look toward the refrigerator first. It's a nagging drawing thing. She's so hungry, and she remembers how that popsicle tasted. Surely it would be okay? But no. It's tainted. It's all tainted in this place. She needs to get out. So after that look, she checks the dark passage up the stairs. There's probably a locked door, and if there is, she'll try to break it.
[Str 2 = I can totally bash this door down with my wimpy self!]
Roll: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 8) ( success x 2 )
cruor
Verna Gardner
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Verna Gardner
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Verna Gardner
cruor
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Verna Gardner
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Verna Gardner
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Verna Gardner
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Verna Gardner
cruor
Verna Gardner
cruor
Verna Gardner
cruor
Verna Gardner
cruor
Verna Gardner
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Verna Gardner
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Verna Gardner
cruor
Verna Gardner
cruor
Verna Gardner
cruor
Verna Gardner
cruor
David watches her reaction without a word. He's a fuck up. He knows he's a fuck up. He often cares because he's a Ventrue. He's a Camarilla Ventrue. He hasn't even told Verna his name but he's told her the name of their clan, just in case anything happens. He's told her anything's better than being Caitiff. He has no idea that Verna knows one of the caitiff. He has no idea Verna knows a Ventrue with some clout. He's a fuck up. He knows he's a fuck up, and he often cares. Right now, he cares about (is concerned with) Verna. He isn't warm, but he knows his duty. His conscience is a vampire's conscience and the bonds of humanity are only so strong. Her mouth opens, and after a beat, he runs his bloody fingertip gently across her lip. His face naturally falls into belligerence sure but it's a contained belligerence.
"Come on." He watches to see that she licks her lips. His wrist is still an open wound, which he is holding carefully, so as not to get vitae on the carpet. He half-turns: " - I'll get a cup."
More indignity, really. All he's got are a few wax paper cups.
Verna Gardner
His finger isn't warm when it brushes her lip. It's a cold act, for all the inherent intimacy. But when she tastes him again, tongue flicking out between her fangs to get at the blood, oh... a half-lidded expression crosses her face, wiping out the terror for an instant. It's amazing how heated this cold can seem.
David doesn't know, and neither does she, how close she came to being bound to another -- that she spent months pining after a man who did this same thing to her. This time, it is different. She had reason to adore István, and that's the way she made sense of her growing obsession. A crush. Something childish, but strong. Now, she isn't falling in love with a kind and decent man whose eyes remind her of the sky and the ocean. Now, she's developing a compulsion towards her kidnapper. His importance is magnified because he's the only other person with her in her new underground territory. And his body is where the addiction flows from.
It's probably heroin, right? Something horribly addictive and wrong. But that rational, scientific voice in her is so small right now, and she doesn't much care for the frayed duct tape of reasoning holding her sanity together. There's something else crowding that out: the question of how to get more.
The answer? A little paper cup, apparently.
She watches his every movement as he goes about it, like a dog waiting for a dropped bite of meat. She doesn't know what's going on or why she feels this way, but that thought is nothing in comparison to the feeling itself.
As she reaches out for the cup, she puts a small voice to her questions. "Why?"
Why does his blood make her so hungry?
Why does she want more of him so much?
Why did he do this?
Children always ask why, don't they? Why is the sky blue, dad? Why do stars twinkle? Why why why...
cruor
The transition from mortal to conditionally immortal is a difficult one even under the best circumstances. Nobody would say that David's turning of Verna was a best circumstance scenario unless they were being extremely sarcastic. It's a confusing time, the body's urges transformed and then sublimated. Nobody will find it strange that Verna is confused or is justifying what has happened to her by making up stories. Drugs. Hallucinations.
And of course she wants to know why.
David hands the cup to her, carefully. It's almost full and of course the scent of vitae is intoxicating, is Frenzy-inducing, is Ecstasy-inducing, the Ecstatics and their bacchanals and the Mystery that they keep might well be vitae vitae vitae life incarnate life most delicious.
She wants to know why.
"Drink up," he says, and will watch her do it. He has the wary posture of someone who expects a struggle, the hangdog posture of an old hound. And then he says, "Because..." A pause.
"Because we all must learn how to be safe. Why did you choose to devote your life to science?"
Verna Gardner
She takes the cup because its contents want to be inside her like lightning wants to strike the ground. The body reaches out, even if the mind protests that this is not something that normal people find so enticing.
He dripped his own blood into a paper cup, and she wants it.
There isn't much of a struggle, just one regarding her fangs and figuring out how to take a drink with them in the way. After the cruel temptation of his blood on her lips, it's hard to protest anymore.
Afterwards, it's hard to resist the urge to lick the cup clean, but that would be too uncouth. There's someone watching. Someone who holds her life in his hands. Someone so important and imperious. So she tips the cup back again, trying to get the last few drops that she can.
Oh, this can't be real. Nothing is real. She stares down into the empty vessel as he talks about how she must learn to be safe. That sounds so wrong, coming from him. He's the danger in her life.
"It's beautiful," she replies. And she could be talking about the tiny beads of his blood that stick to the wax of the cup, couldn't she?
Verna can go on and on about science and its beauty and her reasons. She just can't right now. Those couple of words are tiny, tinny things, and when she looks up at David again, she's still so afraid and sad. Her face twitches with all the thoughts going on behind it, voiceless.
cruor
"Do you still want to science?" He turns it into a verb. Somebody is a nerd, at least sometimes. There's no reason she shouldn't still want 'to science,' but he's asking her for what sounds like, given his tone, a very specific reason.
Verna Gardner
A couple of confused twitches cross her face, and then: "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"
Why would he ask that? It's not something that fits into her framework for what happened -- that he is a kidnapper who intends to keep her here. She hasn't a clue what he means by that.
"I'm sorry. I'm not very..." she trails off, looking back down into the empty cup, her hand comes up to her mouth so she can suck the last traces of blood off her lips. "I don't understand."
David
"What, specifically, would you like an answer to? Right now? I'll answer five questions, truthfully and completely."
There is an unspoken 'and then.' He can see how confused she is, how scared, he can hear how small her voice is. He fixes his coat sleeve carefully, as if he found a speck of dust upon it.
Verna Gardner
Who makes a statement like that? Five questions? It's like she's in some kind of fairy tale, almost, if it weren't so bleak. The old fairy tales, maybe. The ones where people died horrific deaths all the time? Maybe more like that.
Eventually, she seems to come to a conclusion, finds a voice that's not so streaked with fear.
"What do I have to do to get out of here?"
David
"Learn the laws of our kind, and follow them. Hide what you now are from other people, successfully. Display an ability to control your hunger, so you do not kill somebody innocent -- " a pause. His voice doesn't break. He fiddles with the coat-sleeve again, then puts the coat back on. He'd taken it off, hadn't he? He puts the coat back on and adjusts the collar. "As you were, before."
Verna Gardner
She listens, hangs on every word. She doesn't yet truly believe what he says, but maybe -- maybe she can pretend? Say the right things that he wants to hear? In this, frankly, delusional state she's in, it's hard to hope. She might be off having a dream in the safe room, drugged out of her mind right now. But maybe, if she plays along with him... if he's even real...
He tastes real. Oh, God, he tastes so good.
She nods at him, although without any real understanding. Next question, then.
"Why... whenever I see your blood, I can't stop myself. It's not... I shouldn't..."
She takes a breath, closes her eyes. It's just playing along, right? Asking the questions he wants her to ask. It's not real. "Why do I want it so much?"
David
"We have elevated tastes. Rarefied. Other Li - uh, other Kindred, they can grab anybody off the street and it will fill them up, but we develop a taste for a certain kind of vessel. We can taste the difference. I don't know how, because even without Auspex I could... well, it won't fill us up. Vampiric blood is an exception to the rule. We can always drink that. It's just... better, more potent. It's what gave you this second life you've got, so of course you'll like it. Mortals like it, too. They get addicted and behave... poorly, sometimes, in pursuit of the drug."
Verna Gardner
He talks about it like it is a drug. A drug that leads to bad behavior. Oh, that's not good. In fact, everything she's feared. She is addicted. And what poor behavior will she get up to now that it's too late?
But she's a good person, and it's not her fault. It was all forced on her. Surely people will understand?
He talks about grabbing people off the street and filling up on them, and a memory -- of him eating her. Not real, not real.
She looks off at the wall for a while, and then her eyes return to his -- rather striking, now, aren't they?
"Who are you? Perhaps... not a very fair question. But I don't know anything about you."
David
Verna doesn't know anything about David.
David doesn't know anything about David. He doesn't know what to tell her. "I'm ... a junior associate. I'm a neonate of clan Ventrue, 10th Generation, sired by Elspeth Duncan in the ... Er, quite a few years ago now. I look into problems ... I was trying to look into a problem at your university. But looking into problems is how I know if you want the records to that police investigation or you want to find out more about your stalker, well, we can make that happen. It's my job. I'm usually okay at it."
He sounds pretty wistful.
The wistfulness cuts out: "And I'm your sire, so I'm responsible for you now until which time you are no longer my childe."
Verna Gardner
An investigator? A detective? Something like that? Maybe he is with the police. Or a freelancer, something like that... If he can get police records, then he'll be able to get what they know about her disappearance too. Not exactly a comforting thought.
"I... I would like that. If you can find anything about me or my stalker in the police records. It would be nice."
Nice. She's being so civil now, isn't she? Maybe that's the new tactic of playing along, but there again -- the way she looks at him? So sad? Like she wishes he was a nice man. It hurts that he isn't.
"What was the problem you were looking into?"
David
There is a correlation to be made between Verna's sad why can't you be nice looks and the look a very pretty and well-groomed basset hound puppy might give a not very great owner. David might've been a dog person, once. At least Verna won't have pets who now can't stand being in the same room as her.
"Heh." He actually hehs, aloud. A hesitation. "There's been reports of some people using vampire blood in a drug in your university; in your department, actually. That's what I was going to ask you about. The behaviors those exhibit who are on the drug are specific and easy to notice."
Verna Gardner
She's got her last question to go. And she knows what she wants to ask, but it's another unfair question. He says he'll answer truthfully and fully, and she doesn't quite believe him on that -- he talks using bizarre words and the vampire stuff. But maybe he really believes that. If he's even real...
"What do you think of me?"
Maybe it's fishing for a compliment, but then maybe it's trying to gauge where she stands, how much she has to do for him to find her acceptable -- to let her go. Maybe it's something of both. She needs to know how to be perfect in his eyes.
Verna Gardner
[Perception + Empathy!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )
David
His naturally belligerent (pugnacious) face becomes more belligerent in response to the question. In truth, he's just thinking; he can't help looking like a hobbit or a gnome or an Irishman in the right light. He is one of those things. "What do I think of you? I think you're... I think you're going to be trouble. I think you might do very well in the clan if you just... if you could try to play the game, try to learn, try to... They say you're brilliant and a bitch. Both of those things could come in handy."
He's not telling her everything, but he's not lying. He seems to be trying to be diplomatic (hah), for a certain value of diplomatic. He's afraid.
Not of her, but he's afraid. He doesn't think they're wrong about her.
"And that's five, and I need to go take a meeting. I'll be back in a couple of hours, closer to dawn. Do you want to stay in the study or do you want to go back to the basement? There's an old nintendo in the other room..."
Verna Gardner
He says that she's a bitch, and that stings a little. Why couldn't she have been a little less... well... like a bitch to him? He might be deserving of every word, but not all of those words have been helpful have they? Maybe her tongue was what got her into this mess to begin with. She yelled at him. And then he attacked her. But what is the right thing to say? Where's the line beyond which the psychotic will snap?
It's so hard to tell.
He says she might do well if she learns to play the game. Well, she's certainly trying -- trying to figure out how to play it with him well enough to earn her freedom. Maybe it's all a lie, maybe he's a figment of her imagination. Maybe none of these past few nights has been real, and she's off in the corner of some psych ward somewhere straitjacketed against her dreams.
It's so hard to tell.
"I don't want to go back to the basement," she says. It's got bad memories written on the floors in her bloodstains.
David
"All right. You can stay here, then." He walks over to the fax machine and unplugs it. He takes the plug with him, coiling it around his hand like a whip. He doesn't look regretful as he does so, he just looks like he's thinking about something apprehensive and distant but not distant enough. A boy before a spelling bee.
"Verna, I want us to get along. I want us to be able to work together. You can hate me, but I hope you won't. I hope you'll realize how much I'm going to stick my neck out for you."
This is what her murderer says. This is what Caine might have said to his First Childer. You can hate me, but I hope you won't. Sometimes they offer power, sometimes they offer 'eternal life,' but regardless of what they offer the truth just comes down to hunger hunger and need need.
It's a lonely life. It's no life at all. It's the best life. It's lonely.
And it's hungry.
David keeps Verna in his sights when he approaches the door; he keeps Verna in his sights as he backs out of it. "Is there anything I can bring you? Any clothes? A particular kind of shampoo? Notes from university?"
Verna Gardner
He's careful, David. When she first arrived in the room and saw that fax machine, of course her mind went to using it. Now, that isn't going to happen, is it?
He watches her closely as he exits the place, trying to keep her from rushing the door, perhaps. And it's a good idea, too. She's been watching, waiting for an opening that never quite seems to reveal itself.
"I use um... it's called Giovanni shampoo? It's sulfate-free. The 'smooth as silk' kind," she says, and of course she has exacting needs in haircare, David. It's not super expensive, but one of those brands that hits all of the right buzzwords. "I would like... unscented soap. Please." Because, you know, you gave her Dove for Men to wash up with, and she smells a little sharp and musky now. It's just not right.
"Also, I need a hairbrush."
Maybe she's afraid to push it? She wants all of that. More clothes, notes from the university (whatever that means). But giving him a lengthy list of demands just seems so out of place at the moment. Let's just start with the basics -- grooming. Work from there.
David
He makes a slight face at the word 'Giovanni.' Because won't he have to see whether or not that family has its hooks into the shampoo? But the face is slight; it passes quickly; shadow on a curtain.
"Okay," he says again. And, "Uh. Practice... practice control, I guess. Get familiar with your... How strong you can be, how fast you can be. How quickly you can heal. I'll be back."
It's a promise.
Or a threat?
He closes the door after what he means for a reassurance. He locks it, too.
And another night passes.
Verna Gardner
He says to practice. Practice what? None of what he says makes any sense. She doesn't feel stronger or faster, and that healing thing... That never happened.
But then, with him gone, it's like she's just that much emptier. There's no longer his presence to fixate on or appease. Only that one command to practice. And it's like he just gave her free reign to... do what? Laps around the room?
She's not going to go on a rampage in his workshop, trying to bench press his desk. What is he thinking?
So, she takes the time to examine the room. She looks for another cord for that fax machine. She tries to find something else she can use. She's really kicking herself for never learning how to pick locks. In the end, she tries not to become familiar with her new self. What purpose would that serve other than to scare her? In the end, she picks over the possessions of her sire, trying not to remind herself that she counts as one of them.
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