Lilly Jo (lillyjo) wrote in immune_ic, @ 2011-11-14 09:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2011 [11] november, evan |
Who: Evan and Lilly (and Jacob, NPC)
What: Close calls
Where: Outside Grand Central
When: Early Tuesday morning, before the Reeves head to the Public Library
Warnings: Violence and Imagery (zombie killing)
Dawn was only fifteen minutes old: the November night's chill had still clung to everything in a thin film of frost. Some places, it looked like snow. In others, it added a strange, muted shimmer, especially on the thousands of windows in the quiet and dark monoliths that used to be New York's businesses and high-rise condominiums.
Lilly was tired. For one reason or another, Jacob had a hard time sleeping last night, and Alex had been off--somewhere. Meeting with someone who's business wasn't her own until two in the morning - something she'd been used to long before he came into her life. Puffs of steam rolled from her lips, slightly open after a coating of peppermint flavored chap-stick; she adjusted the sleeping toddler in her arms, and warmed a little as she felt his head loll, and that sweet, comforting breath against her neck. Alex and the armed detail wasn't ready to go yet: something she thought (and expressed, quite succinctly) should've been conveyed to her before she bundled her little boy up and headed out into the cold.
Her weight shifted, crunching gravel of the broken sidewalk under her tennis shoes. Had this been years ago, her choice of footwear would've been a lovely pair of Jimmy Choo pumps and a matching pencil dress. A nice cashmere cardigan and silk lined trench with a scarf scented lightly of her favorite perfume - instead of the jeans she wore over a pair of plaid tights to keep warm, and an Old Navy pea coat. Jacob would've been super warm in a Northface down parka. Not several layers of brandless borrowed clothing. In times of great fatigue and annoyance, Lilly's thoughts went to these places, like now.
Until a sharp noise around the building's corner caught her ear.
The security detail was still milling about in the front of the building when she turned over her shoulder to listen (the one not being used as a pillow). The sound triggered what she liked to call 'mom instincts'; a tight twist in her stomach that reached out to hear something that definitely was not the wind.
She heard it again. A warbled cry, high in pitch and pitiful, it reeked of pain and desperation. Maybe one of the kids had wandered outside and couldn't find their way back in? Maybe a straggler had made it to the station but collapsed before anyone could help them... With Jacob on her shoulder, his little legs curled around the curve of her hip, Lilly turned to investigate the sound. It couldn't have been far - and Alex wouldn't leave without her.