Pamela is made of (hemlockandhoney) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-06-05 01:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | poison ivy, red hood |
Who: Brielle & Jack.
What: Jack requests a meet with Brielle to give her money she doesn't want.
When: Recently, aprox. the same time that Alex is in/getting out of the hospital.
Where: An abandoned lot at night.
Warnings: None?
Jack was at the lot well before Brielle was meant to arrive. The cash was folded into an envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket. Some men might have worried about carrying thousands of dollars out on the open street, but the idea of being mugged hardly concerned him. No, he was more worried about Brielle - about her likelihood to take the money (or not), about where she was staying now, and who she was staying with. When it came down to it, he disagreed with what she’d done. It had come across as a bit manipulative, all told, and Wren was an old and good friend. But that didn’t mean Brielle didn’t deserve a place to stay, or an opportunity to prove she was genuinely apologetic.
And there was, too, the issue of Ivy, of course, impossible to ignore. He expected Ivy had been true to her word, and hadn’t told her about what had happened at the casino, or who he had rolling around in his head. Still, where did that leave them? He didn’t think he could trust Ivy, but there was something about her, something difficult to pin down, something underneath all the slink and seduction. Since the things he’d done in the hotel, he’d been so busy sorting through his own guilt that thinking that problem through had fallen to the wayside, but it remained, nevertheless.
The abandoned lot was between two ramshackle apartment buildings, a good distance off the strip. His bike was parked on the next street over. It was starting to get dark, and the lot stretched far enough back that it avoided the glare of many of the streetlights. He stood amongst the scrub and scraps of concrete that remained of the building that had stood there until recently. A sign declared that a new development was coming, but the projected date was from several years ago. He’d noticed the place when he was first learning the city - a good quiet meeting spot, perhaps not the safest, but one of the more remote within the city limits. The fence out front separated it from the street, but the large hole chopped in it almost all the way to the top allowed easy access in. If Brielle didn’t want to be seen, no one was going to see her here.
Brielle was late, but that was mostly because she couldn't decide if she was going to show up at all. She hadn't seen Alex since returning from the hotel, and it left her a bit apprehensive about what that meant and when he'd come back. He hadn't asked anything of her except that she spend her evenings at Turnberry Place, and Ivy didn't seem to mind spending her days in Gotham. Ivy was a creature of sunlight after all, and most of the more distracting crime fighters were night-based entities. But even Ivy was almost silent after Brielle's rough return from the hotel. Just a bit of instruction here and there, but no real explanation for the soreness in her body or the familiar etchings of violence. Then again, anything that didn't end in a gunshot seemed not worth complaining about.
The sun was going down, and the falling darkness cloaked Brielle in fleeting panic. Maybe she should turn around, go back. What if Alex knew that she'd left? Although if he knew that, it was really too late. She watched the cracks in the sidewalk with a distant sense of numbness that kept her from relating them to herself, and everything was beginning to slip into that silent, still sea. Brielle wondered briefly if there was something wrong with her, that she should grow so detached from everything now, after the fact, after she'd gotten away. But maybe it had all been too real then, in New York. Because nothing felt very real anymore, when her days got lost in her nights, and the world felt kind of cloudy even if the sky was clear. Brielle frowned, and rubbed a hard palm against her eyes as she came upon the lot. Resigning herself to this meeting, and somehow still calling it off in her head despite her approach. Five minutes, two minutes, five seconds. No questions. Goodbye.
Noticing Jack, she drew a breath and moved forward. Even in the descending shadows, she didn't look well. Sleeplessness devoured the sockets of her eyes, and she moved with a faint limp from the healing bruise high on her hip. It was too hot for sleeves, and Brielle wondered about his jacket as she closed in. She crossed her arms, feeling like she should extend some greeting or hello, but not knowing what to say as she came closer. A trio of fingerprint bruises vanished beneath the capped sleeve of her pale dress, and the dark color crawled even further along the exposure of one collarbone.
The bruises were what caught Jack's eye, standing out starkly from Brielle’s skin. Something about them made him uneasy. Part of the reason he was holding so still was the continuous ache of his broken rib, slowly, slowly mending, pinching just a bit with each breath. He'd become used to it over the past few days, taking light painkillers so he could breathe a little deeper and keep his disused lungs from falling into disrepair. No one had made it out of the hotel without some damage, it seemed, though he considered his own well deserved.
His arms were folded over his sore chest. "What happened?" he asked, directing those inverse eyes up to her face once his perusal of the bruises was done. The jacket was warm, but he wore it anyway. It would be a very rare thing if she ever saw him without sleeves.
Brielle barely reacted to his question, although she didn't immediately know what to say. Old habits die hard, and this was a woman trained to field away worried eyes with an easy smile and a halfhearted shrug cast in the realm of her own clumsiness. Script lies from the tongue about falling or muggings or car accidents that never matched up with any reports. She used to know how to do all of that, how to rotate emergency rooms like clockwork, how to deter the curiosity of neighbors. It took her a minute to remember that she didn't have to do any of that now, she was not in New York. She paused and held his eyes, reminding herself that she didn't have to lie. "Something happened in the.." Brielle shrugged, looking for the word to a memory that she didn't even hold. ".. hotel, I don't know."
The fact that she’d picked up her bruises at the hotel sent off mild alarm bells, but unless she went into detail there was no way to really know. It was dark, and what he remembered of the tumult, the fighting, the horrible things he’d done, was all tangled up in touch and sensation. There had been times where he didn’t even know where he was connecting, if at all. It might have been him, or it might have been someone else. Regardless, the unsure words resonated with those memories, calling up guilt.
Jack slid his hand inside the open jacket and pulled out the envelope, brown paper and folded in half over the bulk inside. “It’s about fifteen thousand,” he said, quietly, though it wasn’t like anyone was around to hear. “Enough for you to get a place to stay and eat for a while.” Depending on how she spent the money, it could last a year or a month. He had a feeling she wasn’t accustomed to spending that kind of cash in one place, however, and that it would keep her going. He extended the envelope to her. “If you need a safe place to keep it, I can help you find one.”
Spring-flecked eyes fell to the brown envelope, although Brielle did not reach for it. With that kind of money, she could take off to some far away paradise. Alaska or Kansas or anywhere in between. Some place quiet where bad things didn't happen, although she couldn't really imagine that such a place really existed. She'd have to hunt for it, and she wanted to, but she still didn't reach for the envelope. "I can't take it with me." Brielle glanced back up to Jack's face, anticipating anger after he'd come all the way here to deliver it. Alex had been quiet since she'd gone along with his instructions, and she didn't know if it was her compliance or not that kept him seemingly ambivalent, but it didn't seem like a risk worth taking. Not yet. If she left and something bad happened to Wren or her little boy, Brielle would never be able to live with herself. "You can tell Wren that I took it," although she clearly didn't expect him to lie. "But I can't.." If Alex found that much cash, she didn't know how she'd explain it. Another risk not worth taking. "You could hold onto it for me?" She prompted with a glimpse of hope.
There was no anger, just some confusion and disappointment. The truth was, Jack didn't really believe she'd found a decent place to stay, not after how important Wren had made it sound that she take the money, and he didn't like the idea of Brielle staying somewhere miserable, or with someone she shouldn't be staying with, just to have a roof. "Can you at least tell me why?" he asked, and sighed, a little. It had been a very, very long week, and he was starting to get used to the idea that things were never going to go as planned. "I'll hang onto it for you if you promise me you'll take it soon."
"I won't be able to explain how I got it," she said before realizing that such an admission might sound strange. Backtracking was impossible, and she grit her teeth with a glance cast to the side, as if she didn't entirely trust the solitude of this lot. Brielle wondered if this feeling would ever truly go away. Even if she was going numb to her past and her present, the paranoia kept her smart.. so maybe she didn't want that to go away, but it still wasn't comfortable. With the darkness upon them, it was easy to imagine the worst. Maybe that's why she fell quiet for a minute, giving a brief shift of attention over her shoulder. Jack didn't have any obligation to her, how could she trust that he wouldn't let somebody sneak up on her? There was nothing behind her but evening shadows, and she turned her eyes onto Jack once more. "Something bad might happen if I take it right now, that's all."
“Who would you have to explain that to?” Jack asked, immediately and predictably. He didn’t like the sound of that one bit, and he stepped a little closer to her. “Is someone threatening you?” If something bad might happen to her and she’d have to explain the money to someone else, then that seemed like the most logical conclusion. “Do you owe someone some money?” He was already attempting to come up with a solution, were that the case. Admittedly, most of them involved physical violence on the person in question, whomever they might be, but he’d found it was generally extremely effective. The look over her shoulder seemed only to confirm that guess. “Who are you worried about following you, Brielle?”
"Nobody, I--" She shrank back a step when he advanced. There was nothing threatening in Jack's movement, nothing to justify the wincing apprehension in Brielle's eyes, which seemed to only convey resignation and sadness. Was somebody threatening her? Only every day of her life. The irony of that question could have made her laugh on a good day, but there weren't many of those anymore. She didn't think of Alex in that moment, but of her husband. The chaotic and handsome gunmetal of his eyes when he'd crowd close, If you ever try to leave me again, I'll.. She chewed on the edge of a nail to disguise her frown. "Not.. exactly." Alex's threats weren't against her, just everyone else. Every word was carefully formed with the awareness that she should have never said anything at all. What happened to all that determination walking up here? All that inner monologue of no questions, no questions? The shame was painful, when she was forced to acknowledge the weakness that had become of her. The way she wilted under inquiry and gave into confessions at the drop of a hat because of the chronic, fleeting anxiety that any confrontation caused. Even with people that she had no reason to fear, it was just like what happened with Wren. She should have stood up for herself and explained, but she'd just caved into the quiet guilt of a scarlet letter, which only let Wren assume the worst apparently. "I can't tell you that Jack," that denial had the rest spilling out in quick appeasement, "for your own safety, I'm sorry."
Jack watched her shrink back - now that he wasn't likely to forget any time soon. For his own safety? At that, he actually smiled a little. "Brielle, whoever is frightening you, or threatening you, this person you don't want to tell me about? I assure you I can hold my own against them." It was calm, not cocky, the kind of confidence born of having been through one too many conflicts to fear much of anything, and a certain level of surety in how far he could trust his own abilities. "If you don't tell anyone what's happening, then no one can help you. The best tool of a coward is to keep others afraid and isolated, and if someone is trying to do that to you, don't let them."
Brielle did not doubt that Jack could handle himself, but Alex didn't exactly bring fighting fair to mind. Having experienced the fear gas herself, the idea that somebody could defend themself against it seemed somewhat impossible. "Maybe," she said with a smile that was too sad to be believable. Like it was a good thought, if she could just believe it. "But it's not just you, Jack." She hesitated and drew a breath before adding, "He said he'd go after Wren's little boy." If anything, she hoped that could convey to him why she couldn't say anything more about it.
Jack stiffened, visibly. Theoretical threats to his person were one thing - explicit threats to Gus were another entirely. It took all his self-control not to grow so intense with her that she'd close up. He had to approach this carefully, or risk losing the identity of the threat.
His eyes narrowed. Now he remembered. He'd already been told at length about Alexander, of his threats and the fear that he'd put one of the girls under his thumb, forcing them to agree to a deal in order to keep the others safe. He didn't like how smoothly what she was saying matched up with that particular theory. "This person who threatened Wren's boy. Did he make you agree to something, so he wouldn't go after anyone else?"
Brielle regarded him with the dark hazel of unmade eyes, the timid stretch of dancer's posture softening into something resigned, but at last lacking the deep-rooted fear that reigned her from the moment she'd walked up to him. "Yes." The word was a slow admission, single syllable drawn out into something so hesitant it bordered on a question. Then all of that careful composure wilted into the metallic glint of panic. "You can't say anything, Jack." That lost step of previous retreat was regained in a rush of adrenaline. She nearly reached for the sleeve of his jacket, but in realizing it, her hand flinched back with curled fingers and fell once more to her side. "If he finds out I said this.." Brielle drew a shallow breath, and she looked up at him with endless sorrow. "I couldn't help her before, and I know she doesn't understand why I couldn't or why I came here, but in this I can.. and it's not so bad, what he asks.."
Jack wasn't sure he wanted to know what Alexander was asking her to do, and his gaze hardened as she went on describing the circumstances of why she'd agreed. He had to get her away from Alexander. He had to get her away from him yesterday. So he decided not to coddle her, and to ply her with the hard truth instead. It might be the only thing that could snap her out of it, after all. "Brielle," he said, as gently as he could manage. "Wren can take care of herself, and her son. She has Luke, too, who cares a great deal about his safety, and me. You're not helping her by sacrificing yourself. If anything, what you're doing will only make things worse, in the end. If you do something horrible to try to keep her safe, you'll only bring her guilt, and misery. She'll feel responsible for anything that happens to you. I think your intentions are been good, but this has to stop now." He glanced behind her, verifying for himself that no one had followed her. "He's trying to manipulate you to make you and everyone else miserable. His grudge is against Wren, not against you, and he's using you as a tool to hurt her. Don't let him do that." He smiled, faintly, and tapped the long scar under his light eye, a cipher for years of pain. "I learned a long time ago that you are never responsible for the decisions violent people make. If you try to be, you'll only become a puppet to them."
He tucked the money back into his jacket. "Come on. As of right now, you've left. You're not going back there, not even to get your things. We don't want him to know where you've gone. We'll find you a place to stay, somewhere safe and quiet."
"Jack," his name was a soft thing that said she found his optimism to be a strangely youthful trait. Her smile was very slight with a knit of brow that said she wasn't convinced. "And what if you're wrong? What if something happens?" Wasn't playing it safe a much better option? Mahogany eyes followed the tap of that finger against his scar, and she mapped it with a slow sweep attention that ultimately oscillated back up to his mismatched eyes. "Somebody hurt you?" It was not surprise that carried through her voice then, but a kind of absorbent reality. Bad things were to be expected with constant familiarity. After all, Brielle knew all about being hurt.
"If something happens, he would have done it anyway," Jack said, eyes hard and dark, like stones polished by deep water. "You're not responsible for him. He is responsible for him." His head tipped back a little when she asked if he'd been hurt by someone. It seemed to him that she was changing the subject, but he had pointed it out. "A long time ago," he said, with the tiniest uptick of a smile. "And what they did to me didn't matter so much as what they did to someone else."
Jack gestured to the back of the lot. There was a throughway that cut over to the next street, where his bike was parked. "come with me, Brielle. I promise you that the worst thing you could do now is to go back to that maniac and sacrifice your life to him. He'll bring you nothing but pain, and then laugh that you ever believed his lies before he hurts everyone he told you would stay safe."
Brielle tucked the edge of a budding frown along the edge of capped teeth. Funny how those false parts because just another extension of herself, at once all she could think about, and ultimately forgotten. The pins in her elbow, the veneer implants, the internal stitches that by now had likely melted away to join her bloodstream. Her autumnal eyes followed him and the glint of his scar, flicking briefly to the rear direction of the lot when he gestured. She knew what it was like to lose somebody to a violent person, although in her case, the one that died had been herself. All of her energy and warmth, the passion and pride.. all lost to ashes.
"Promise me," and when she stepped close with an upward tilt on that delicate, gently bruised chin, her dark eyes begged. "Promise me you'll keep them safe." She didn't know much about Jack or his skillset, but if Wren had hired him on as security, there must have been something in him that Brielle was not privy to know. He didn't seem like a dangerous man or a violent one, when she looked at him all she saw was kindness and determination. For the first time, she could feel Ivy bristling somewhere in the backlot of her mind, so amused at this thought. It wasn't discomforting, and while momentarily distracting, she fastened her attention onto Jack once more. "If something happens to me," because the very real potential of her husband finding her still lurked with barbs through so many of her thoughts, "You'll tell her I'm sorry?" Her eyes were glassy, but shed no tears. There was nothing deceitful in this one, nothing conniving or malicious. The downtrodden and wounded were rarely more than that, abused ghosts to haunt the halls of their own life. Never to focus, only flinch.
Jack didn't know that the girl across from him was privy to a history of violence. All he knew was that he wanted to keep her and Wren from finding any fresh hell here and now. The promise was one he couldn't really make, but sometimes promises were what kept people from going off the edge, from doing things they shouldn't and losing their way entirely. He could make Brielle that promise, if only because he planned to keep them safe as best he could, and if that promise would broken, it would only be because he'd done everything he could to stop it. "I promise," he said, without wavering. If that promise was broken, the reliability of his word would be the least of his worries. "Nothing is going to happen to you," he said, almost automatically. That was a promise, too, one he'd made before, one he'd failed people with before. He tried to shake off the feeling of impending doom it brought. "I'll tell whoever did it to you to apologise to Wren before I kill him." It was stated with all the kindness of a parent putting their child to bed at night and telling them they'd already checked for the monsters under the bed. "Are you coming?"
Brielle glanced back over her shoulder one final time, playing cartographer to the darkness. She moved alongside him with a nod of solemn acceptance, because even she ultimately knew that she couldn't stay trapped in the cell of Alex's suite forever. If Brielle could only ensure that Wren would be alright, she could move on. To where, she didn't know. Maybe Northwest. There was nothing for her here, she'd come to Las Vegas in hopes of rediscovering her family, but the potential for that was gone now. The only thing to the East of her was nightmares, and again she envisioned a quiet grassland farm where not even the Devil could find her. "Kill him?" Jarred from her thoughts, Brielle glanced aside with a sharp inhale of alarm and disbelief. Just like Jack knew nothing of her past, she knew nothing of his. She came from an innocence that was faberge delicacy, and it was there in her eyes, that she could never imagine hurting another person. Killing one was, needless to say, unfathomable. "Don't joke Jack," she had no way of knowing the reality in that threat. Turning her attention ahead of them as they started in the direction of his bike, Brielle dropped her chin and let plainjane dark hair obscure her face. "I wouldn't want you to do something you couldn't come back from," she said with all the naive sadness of a girl who still believed in souls.