Who: Loren and Meredith What: A meeting of the worried Where: Outside of Passages When: Immediately following this Warnings/Rating: None
He was a mess with nowhere to go. How did you hunt down an idea, a threat? Maybe the anonymous journal was lying, that seemed like a hopeful possibility, although something inside of Loren knew that it wasn't likely. Too many coincidences, considering the events of the masquerade. Too much glee expressed over the suffering of such a small thing, and Tate knew all about that. If somebody like Tate had Hannah, it was probably too late. The idea wrung his stomach like fetid laundry, which only sufficed to remind him of that scrap of bloodied ballerina get-up that had been found in the lobby. Where would somebody take her? The options were endless, the city was just too big. Loren was outside the hotel, a hand against the building, forehead against the back of said hand. Just think..
After that strained conversation on the journals, Meredith all but raced to the hotel, the cab going entirely too slow for her panicked mind to cope with. She sat in the back, hands fisted in the thighs of her pants, white-knuckled grip and tense arms, one leg bouncing in time with the frantic beat of her heart. She knew she shouldn’t have engaged the anonymous person on the journals, but it was as if she had no choice, that burning anger welling up inside of her at the injustice, the insanity of someone being treated like that. She couldn’t just stand by and let it happen.
When the cab came to a stop, she was in such a hurry to exit that she nearly forgot to pay, and it was a holler from the cabbie that brought her back, grabbing the money she had shoved in her pocket and peeling off a few bills, shoving them at him before racing away. Coming to a stop outside the hotel, she took in the sight of the man standing outside the hotel, her steps slowing as she approached him, warily. “Loren?” Meredith asked quietly.
Loren glanced up at the sound of his name, and it was written all over his face for one heartbreaking moment. Hope. He obviously thought, for just a second, that she might have been Hannah. The accent was wrong and the voice too, but his mind wanted to believe. A flicker of crushing disappointment later, and he was straightening. He was tall, groomed and polished because Caesar's security was expected to be. He blended into the night unconsciously, dressed in a dark t-shirt and slacks. His posture turned rigged as he regarded her, "Who are you?"
Sensing his caution, the way the tension rang through his body, Meredith halted several steps away, her hands clasped in front of her, fingers laced together. She was dressed casually, dark jeans and a white top with a cowl neck, red hair a fire against the pale shirt. “I’m Meredith. I- We spoke on the journals. I know Hannah. I’ve been... worried about her.” Her brows creased down in concern, but she still kept her place, not wanting to alarm him even more than he already was.
The name was familiar, even if the events of the journals was a blur of anxiety and rising fury. "Oh," realizing his defensive pose, Loren shrank back a step and his expression softened. "Right." He'd never heard of Meredith before now, not that he could remember. Which isn't saying much, considering his issues with memory. But now that he considered it, he did recall seeing her name in interaction on the forums. Particularly with the anonymous one. "You knew her?" Meredith had said she did, but he wanted clarity.
Meredith gave a nod of her head, and picking up on the caution he displayed, she continued to keep her space from him, her posture unthreatening and her expression open, warm. “I met her at the masquerade a while back,” she explained quietly. “I found her by the lake, and pulled her out of the water after scaring off whatever it was that had attacked her.” Her expression darkened slightly at that, eyes closing for a moment as she tried to keep her calm, though her own posture tensed somewhat just at the memory.
There was an uncontrolled step forward when she made mention of the attack from the masquerade. "What was it?" His eyes widened slightly, grasping desperately to any clue he could find. "What kind of creature?" Loren didn't bother considering the fact that he'd been something horrible at the masquerade as well. That supplied nobody with an excuse, for Loren was fairly positive that he'd never been a very good person to begin with.
“I’m not sure,” Meredith answered immediately, and there was something guilty in her voice colouring her words. “It was in the water, and I didn’t get a good look at it. I was more concerned with helping her out of the water than anything else.” She quieted for a moment, then stepped towards him, trying to keep the worry out of her expression. “The one on the journals. The anonymous one. He was that creature, that night. I don’t know who he is, just that he’s not nice, and that he will kill.”
He will kill. Loren's expression disintegrated into something hopeless. "You can't know that for sure," he straightened as if ready to argue for Hannah's case. The smear of blood in the journals did nothing to strengthen this belief, but he had to hold onto something. "Where does she go, other than church and work?" If Meredith knew her, maybe she could give him some insight.
“I may not know it for sure,” Meredith started, glancing towards the sidewalk at their feet, her brow furrowing down, thoughts drifting back to the words that had been exchanged, the talk about the look in the eyes just before- She shook that thought away with a vicious shake of her head, looking back up towards Loren. “I don’t know where else she goes. I was supposed to join her for dinner Monday. She said it would be at the Willows. Introduce me to her friends. She mentioned you and someone named Gideon and another named Nathan. I was really looking forward to it.” Her voice broke at that, something deep in her stomach already settled on the very real possibility that the meeting would never happen, and that crushed something within the redhead.
He'd heard the name Gideon before, but Nathan was new. It would be something to look into. Although how you track someone down with only a first name, and with no intention of clueing them in, was not something that Loren remembered how to do. He might have to employ outside help with this, and his thoughts briefly drifted in that direction before he sniffed and straightened. Whether she knew it or not, Meredith's approach had at least managed to snap him out of a chaotic, anxious undertow. He might not have been thinking clearly, but he was thinking in all directions, and any movement was good movement. "I'm going to find her," and there was nothing heartbreaking in his voice because Loren really believed it. He had to. "And we'll have dinner." The idea of hosting some ridiculous dinner party for her friends would have aggravated Loren before, but right now he'd agree to letting her redecorate his pad in the theme of a monastery if she'd just come home.
Meredith looked up sharply at that, the belief in his words, the strength that was obvious in them. She didn’t say anything for a long time, managing a smile that was tremulous and shaky, but it was a smile nonetheless. Stepping closer towards him, she reached out to touch his arm with the fingertips of one hand, her touch light and undemanding. “We’ll find her,” she corrected quietly, emphasis on the word ‘we’, because it wasn’t worth anything to shoot down that belief. If Loren believed it, then she needed to as well, if only for him. Besides, she had been wrong in the past about things, and she truly hoped that this was one of those times.
His eyes found the night, the line of horizon where the light met the dark and the sky was more of a muddy blue than its true black. The touch to his arm was unexpected, and Loren glanced down to her fingers with an uncertainty that betrayed the confidence of prior words. In any other instance, he might have demanded to know what she could do, what the hell was she going to do to help? But right now, he couldn't stomach it. He had to place hope in her, as she clearly did with him. His eyes raised to her, husky blue even in the cover of dusk. "Yeah," he took her hand, "we will."