Repose

[The drive from the lookout to the lake wasn't a long one. The Ranger Service-issue jeep was old and loud, but it could go anywhere, man, and Patrick planned to drive it right up to the dock. He was dressed in cargos and plaid layered over white thermal, and his hiking boots were caked with a day's work. His badge was on his belt, mostly hidden by his layers of Abercrombie & Fitch, and his blond hair flopped long over pointed ears that he was majorly still ignoring. He was packing heat, but he tucked it into the glove compartment. Dude wasn't going to need bullets with his bro's magical Casanova in attendance.

It occurred to him, because this particular thing always occurred to Patrick, to call Con up on the way. Yo, Con, our bro's something called an obscurial. It had occurred to him, and he'd only intended to call, dudes, but by the time Con was on the phone the jeep was already turning toward Casa Gunster. All right, so Newt might be severely uncool with this turn of events, but Con would never let him live down not cluing her in. And, Patrick knew, that once clued in Con would want to accompany them. It was her older sister instincts, man, and Adrian was firmly in Kid-Bro camp.

He filled her in while he drove, and then he honked the horn and disconnected. Once she was in the jeep, he turned toward the lake.] Newt says the blown up homestead in the woods was Adrian. I talked to the dude on the forums, man, and didn't sound like Adrian, Con. Newt says it's like another personality or something, and that they don't know about each other or something maybe. He isn't sure, so we want to use the chronometer to see what happened at the lake, to see if it's Adrian or something else. [He turned onto the dirt road that led to the dock, and the jeep rocked as it covered uneven ground.] Dude, you know this would make us the normal Gunster kids.

[Louis D.]

I'll be back tonight. Sorry for the delay. Everything alright?

[Sam A]

Post - party damage report? I left right after - any idea what I'm coming home to?

[Seeing the name Holly R. pop up on the forum shook Stephanie to her core. It couldn't be her, right? But, Eddie wouldn't lie, and he wouldn't ever be wrong about things like this. Not when all of them had cried for days and days when they thought Holly had died. She was their kid sister, the one she, Eddie, and Cat wanted to foster and help grow and get the fuck out of her situation. They all loved her, and all of their hearts broke into pieces when she 'died.' Only, she didn't die, and here she was in Repose. Of course, she was in Repose. Didn't they all wind up here? DIdn't they all wash up on the allegorical shores of Repose to suffer in mundane and not so mundane ways? But, Holly had been alive, and none of them had known, and that striped Stephanie down. They had searched, and they had worked, and they had begged for her to be alive, and she actually was.

Yeah, Steph was shook. But Eddie? She knew he was much worse off. So while maybe she should have been working harder to figure out where the kid was or what she was doing, she wanted to make sure he was okay. She wanted to see him. So, she jumped into that beat up car of hers, still in soft clothes -- black harem pants, a pair of dirty purple converse, and a hoodie over a white tank top -- she was lounging around in, and drove the short distance from her apartment above the ice cream shoppe to the arcade. It was dusk at this point, and the sunset painted the horizon with a slew of pinks, yellows, and oranges. She stared ahead, fingers clutching the wheel, and then? She cried. Oh, did she cry. Guilt bubbled up in her throat, and bile followed behind, and it was all she could do not to vomit out of the window.

Parked in front of the arcade, she took a handful of moments to collect herself, to swallow away the crying and nausea. When she did get out of the car, she walked directly to the back to his office. She knocked, even if the door was ajar, and then peeked through the door. She adjusted her glasses.] Hi, you. [She stepped further into the room.]

She started at the scene of the party. (Par-tee. Par-tay. Not a fucking party, but whatever. Her time had been decent. Leena had gotten exactly what she wanted.) Around the lake, the house, the sitting area, into the woods (unlike the movie), and finally caught a track that seemed worth following if for no other reason than they were footsteps mashed into the earth and etched in blood. Never a good sign, and no surety that they were actually Claire's, but if someone was hurt, maybe it wouldn't be a huge detour.

Maybe. Such optimism.

Leena had traded in her skirt for her typical jeans and boots, three layers of tops and the over-sized army jacket that was still a size (or two) too big with her hair pulled back into her standard ponytail. She fished some almonds out of the package in her pocket, crunched on them to ignore the complaints her stomach was trying to issue about the lack of food lately. Which, had to be nothing compared to Claire, who was fasting. And yeah, she was maybe a little worried about that.

And maybe she should have called some other people too, reached out to Cat or Bruce to let them know she was going searching for her missing friend, but she didn't even think about it. There was one person in the world she trusted besides herself and that was the woman she was currently in search of. She'd been dealing with things by herself or with Claire for so long, someone else never became a consideration. A branch broke under her boot as she wound deeper into the trees.