ellectrical (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ellectrical) wrote2010-03-20 11:08 pm
ellectrical) wrote2010-03-20 11:08 pm
Entry tags:
June 2007, Three Weeks
After three weeks, everything had finally come into place. It had rained until late into the previous night, but the sky was clear by morning, and Elle had packed her bag (a large black purse) with what she'd borrowed from X, her map, her gun, even another plastic bag of Girl Scout cookies, before locking the door to her room and heading out to the street.
She gets an early start, making her way to the alley a couple hours before she thinks he'll show up. After double-checking that the employees of the club have really cleared out, Elle checks her surroundings, then moves to the double doors, and sets her purse down on the wet pavement.
About ten minutes later, with the aid of a torsion wrench and bump key, the padlock on the door has slid open. She leaves it hanging on the chain, puts her tools back into her purse, and moves away.
There's a space on the other side of the alley - it gives her cover in the form of the hair salon's dumpster and is kept dry by a short, striped awning that juts out from the wall, over the dumpster and the door on the other side. Elle positions herself, and waits.
Patience is not one of her virtues.
But sometimes, when she wants something bad enough, it doesn't really matter.
She gets an early start, making her way to the alley a couple hours before she thinks he'll show up. After double-checking that the employees of the club have really cleared out, Elle checks her surroundings, then moves to the double doors, and sets her purse down on the wet pavement.
About ten minutes later, with the aid of a torsion wrench and bump key, the padlock on the door has slid open. She leaves it hanging on the chain, puts her tools back into her purse, and moves away.
There's a space on the other side of the alley - it gives her cover in the form of the hair salon's dumpster and is kept dry by a short, striped awning that juts out from the wall, over the dumpster and the door on the other side. Elle positions herself, and waits.
Patience is not one of her virtues.
But sometimes, when she wants something bad enough, it doesn't really matter.
no subject
"It was ages, years before I -"
He sighs, and looks back up to her. "Bennet and I had this job in Boston, a precog or something, and they wanted her in - your place was closest, we had to stick around for the paperwork, but I told him to go back to Texas -"
Her shoulders stiffen, for a moment. She knows exactly why Claude would have encouraged Bennet to go home. He was the one with a family. I didn't want her to become you. But Elle doesn't move any more than that, and Claude continues -
"I was upstairs, there was a TV on - probably why I didn't hear it all - but the door opened and I didn't look up until no one said anything -"
He shakes his head. "You must've thought you were hiding, but you weren't good at it - you just sat on the floor and watched the door. And you were - how you were, then -" He gestures slightly with his free hand, like Elle should know what he means. "Like the others they put there.
"And of course, they found you, and you probably set a couple of them on fire, but one of them slammed your head on the floor and that was it."
His tone is nearly matter-of-fact throughout it, though there's a thread of something like doubt or regret beneath it. He looks away from her for the first time as he says, "You - I don't know, maybe -"
"Twelve," she interrupts, her own gaze falling to the ground. It gets a curious look from him, but Elle doesn't explain herself - she just looks up again, and mumbles, sounding like she means it, "Thank you."
And then, she fires another bright white bolt of electricity at him. Claude doesn't yell again, but slumps over once more.
Elle moves forward, checks over him once, and then pulls a small key from her front pocket, which she uses to unlock the handcuffs.
no subject
"So, ah - we're done?"
no subject
She shifts the handgun and cuffs to her left hand, and uses her right to take the knife out of her back pocket, and lay it on the floor next to his coat.
Elle returns to the table to put her things back in her bag, and tells him, with the same stilted cheer she had before, "But I want to leave before he wakes up and stabs us."
no subject
"I'm well in favor of that," he says instead, already moving towards the door - then, remembering his groceries, doubles back over to the chair and grabs up the bag, keeping a wary eye on the unconscious man all the while.
"Have you got a place around here? We can go back to mine if you want."
no subject
Elle doesn't look up from zipping her bag as she says it. It sounds like a sudden, offhand decision.
But it's not.
As she pulls the bag back over her shoulder, Elle offers, "I'll buy you food."
no subject
"All right," he says, brightening. "Must be lunchtime by now."
no subject
They leave the same way they came - Elle makes them stop in the alley so she can pull the chain around the doors and put the padlock back in place. She's mildly hoping Claude won't make a mess when he wakes up. Either way, he'll probably be out of the city by night. Like she should be.
But Elle doesn't say any of that to Jamie. They step out from the alley into the street, now a little busier in the early afternoon, and head for the nearest underground entrance.