AIM Log Setting: A mortuary and a clinic Time: Late, late night Characters: Shilo Wallace and Graverobber Rating: PG-13
"Are you sure you're all set for the night?" A rough male voice stirred young Shilo from her thoughts and forced the pencil she had been precariously trying to balance along the bridge of her nose to fall as she jerked her head up. Her pale cheeks holding a faint flush of pink at being caught fooling around while on the clock. Not that she could be blamed, her night shifts were generally long and boring, filled with filing paperwork and checking on the bodies from time to time.
She turned her attention to her boss, a tall middle-aged man who had somehow crept up behind her, standing uncomfortably close, so close that if she shifted in her chair, her shoulders would have brushed him. "Oh, sorry Mr. Brasky, I didn't see you come in and thank you for asking, but I'll be fine." Her soft voice replied in a rather meek tone, being careful not to betray her nervousness as he lingered so close. She tried to tell herself that Mr. Brasky was a good man, that he had given her a job here even though she had no skills or experience, that he was just a bit overfriendly.
"Are you absolutely sure that I can't get you anything, anything at all?" Brasky dropped his hands to her small shoulders, smoothing his fingers up and down her arms, never seeming to notice how Shilo seemed to tense up and freeze in place. "Your skin is so soft, Shilo....and so pale."
Shilo fought back the frightened squeak which threatened to slip out, her eyes quite wide. Overfriendly indeed... She was well aware of his advances towards her and she did her best to play on her innocent and naive nature, acting as if she either didn't understand what he wanted or just didn't notice. Her bossed kept getting bolder each night, sending Shilo to new heights of unease. It came to the point where she was uncomfortable around him. "N-No, sir." She managed to squeak out, fighting the urge to shudder as his hands stroked the bare skin of her arms.
"Oh look, you dropped your pencil." Brasky mused and Shilo was more then happy to jump out of her chair and swiftly bend over to retrieve the pencil, unaware hungry eyes roamed the expanse of skin made visible as the hem of her black pencil skirt slipped up, revealing the fishnet thighhighs beneath. She was wearing a white ruffled blouse and black pumps. "Got it." Shilo was back on her feet in no time,nervously holding up the pencil.
"Good girl. Well, I suppose I'll be on my way now. Have a nice night, Shilo." Brasky seemed satisfied with his little peek, whistling a merry tune as he left the mortuary.
"Finally..." Shilo sighed as she slumped forward, shivering in disgust.
Guarded mortuaries weren't usually Graverobber's port of call. The pay-off was good - the rich who could afford such services could often also afford lots of surgeries, and therefore had Zydrate rich brains - but it was a little too much work. The necromerchant had a certain amount of freedom when it came to his business because of Miss Sweet, but it didn't go that far.
But he'd happened to hear through the grapevine that this particular mortuary had a green new nightshift attendant. Someone who very well might not be on the ball enough to even notice he was there, let alone call the security in time to catch him once he had gotten what he needed. Which was what brought the tall, raggedy man to and over the gates of the 'rest home', peering around at the outside tombs with interest as he fingered the crowbar in his jacket.
Shilo waited until she heard the sound of Mr. Brasky driving off in his car before letting loose a long and relieved sigh. She straightened her back and raised a hand to sweep a few rebellious strands of long raven black hair from her eyes. She still wore a wig, since her real hair had only just started to grow back after the poison had left her body.
She was alone now. Just Shilo and the dead bodies being stored in the cold nearby. She stood and went to the file cabinet, taking out a stack of papers which contained the medical histories, names, and basically the identities of the newly interned bodies. She piled the papers neatly on her desk and began to shift through them, singing softly to herself as she worked through the night.
It would be sometime before the noises from outside would faintly, faintly filter through - Graverobber had given up on the cement lined outside tombs and was using his crowbar to pry open one of the side doors that didn't look alarmed. There was a metal scraping sound, then a creak and pop, and the man was slinking through the door, peering around. There should be a room around here, in the mausoleum, that had walls of vaults.
It just so happened that Graverobber's timing couldn't have been worse. His break in coincided with her hourly checking of the storage vaults. She was indeed every bit as green as the gossip suggested, but she did happen to be very vigilant. The raven haired and deathly pale girl stood up and stretched for a few seconds before leaving the office.
"It's the twenty first century cure..." Her soft, lyrical voice echoed through the empty hall, uttering the last few words just as she pulled open the door to the vault. She sang because it helped to pass the time and there was obviously no one here to listen or criticize.
Graverobber froze as he heard the sound of the damned vault door opening, dark eyes swinging toward the sound, shoulders tense. he relaxed a little when he heard a girl's soft voice, though - it was the new one. She shouldn't give him any trouble. So he looked positively at home when she walked in, leaning against one of the vault drawers casually, regarding her slim form as she walked through the doorway, not yet recognizing her.
Shilo didn't see any movement as she entered the room, which was why she didn't notice a figure lounging against one of the vaults until she had glanced around the room a few times. Her mind reminded her that something was wrong with this picture, which forced her to take notice of him. "Hey, you! You're not supposed to be in here." She took a few steps forward, her skin breaking into goosebumps at the chilly temperature of the room. "Wait..." She paused, her large doe-like eyes suddenly widening to eye-popping proportions. She would have recognized that rainbow tipped hair anywhere and of course the furry lapel of his coat.
"Graverobber!" She squeaked, slamming the door to the vault shut behind her, feeling her heart hammering in her chest. She could get into soooo much trouble if anyone found him here. "I have to alert security...you have to leave!" So, why wasn't she racing to press the little red button next to the door? "W-what are you doing in here? You're going to get shot!"
As her voice echoed through the empty space to him. Graverobber realized just who the new night staff was. "Kid!" he exclaimed in genuine pleasure and surprise - he'd wondered what had happened to her. the papers had been full of all sorts of speculations, but no one seemed to really know. he hadn't cared enough to come looking, but he had mentally wished her well in whatever she did. She was an interesting specimen - so weirdly, ridiculously innocent.
"You aren't going to shoot me, are you?"
Shilo didn't know if she should be flattered that he seemed to remember her or not. He had certainly left an impression upon her... Heat blossomed across her cheeks as she heard his familiar name for her. She loved his voice, and she really liked it when he called her that. "I'm not going to shoot you, but Genecorps are going to be all over this place at a push of that button." She motioned towards the little red button, which was stationed just below a familiar poster stating that Graverobbers would be shot on sight.
She didn't seem to know what to do. On one hand, she didn't want to see Graverobber get hurt and on the other hand, she couldn't let him extract Zydrate from these bodies. Her only solution was to get him out of here and quickly. "You need to leave." She punctuated that sentence by approaching him and shoving lightly at his shoulders, urging him the direction of the door. "You can't be here..." She seemed just as distressed as their first meeting. "I could lose my job."
"Yeah, but you aren't going to push it, are you?" The question was phrased playfully - he obviously wasn't worried about her calling in anyone, let alone any Genecorps. He allowed her to push him, and he sauntered toward the door at a maddeningly slow place. "And you're not going to lose your job. Who's going to know I'm here?" He smiled down at her, eyes wide in that manic sort of grin he had at times, that made him look so unhinged.
Shilo placed her hands on her hips at his playful tone of voice. He wasn't taking the situation seriously at all...but he was right. She couldn't push that button. She struggled to keep her face schooled in a serious and grim expression. She kept pushing him towards the door, pausing at the question he phrased to her. Who was going to know? Shilo chewed on her bottom lip in thought, struggling to keep her eyes off of him. He was flashy and...utterly distracting. "I'm going to know. Those people in there have relatives and...and you can't just shove a needle in their skulls. At least have the dignity to wait until they're buried." Oh, how naive and innocent she was.
"They're dead, they don't care. It's one of the benefits of being deceased," he explained, amused. "You don't have to worry about people shoving needles up your nose - though really, it's a little more complicated than that - because it's all the same to you. I like dead people. They don't bitch and moan."
He planted his feet before she could get him all the way out the door, though, his superior size and weight making it easy. "But kid, don't you want to catch up? Everyone's been wondering what happened to you - the famous girl who almost inherited the Largo fortune!"
Shilo wasn't worried so much about the sensibilities of the dead as she was about their relatives and...and really it just didn't seem right. These people weren't completely forgotten about just yet, not like the bodies in the graveyard. Shilo kept pushing even after he had planted his feet, shoving with all of her strength, digging in her legs...but it was useless. She was too frail and he simply had a bigger body mass in comparison to her tiny, delicate porcelain doll frame. She gave up on trying to move him, drawing her hands back and crossing them over her chest, heaving a soft sigh at his words. "Of course I want to catch up. Forgive me for being frantic at having a Graverobber on the premises when it's my job to alert security in cases like this." She said with a sarcastic lilt to her voice, though her words had no bite to them because of that radiant smile on her face.
"Come on...we can talk in the office. It's cold in here." She pushed open the door and motioned for him to follow her. "I don't...want to talk about that night." She said decisively when he mentioned her almost inheriting Geneco. "I haven't done anything really, except go on living. Dad left the house to me and a trust fund when I turn twenty one, but for now I have to make ends meet. This place was the only one that would hire me."
He fully intended to talk her into letting him back into the vaults later on, but he was willing to follow her to the office right now, tucking his hands casually into his pockets as he trailed behind her. "It's not that bad. I'm surprised a mortuary would have you, though - they usually need people with pretty specialized skills." He didn't mention how he knew this, but considering his occupation, it was a good guess he knew the ins and outs of the funeral business as well.
"House all to yourself ... must be nice. Having lots of wild parties?" he asked, with that warm mocking back in his voice.
Shilo seemed a bit relieved to have him out of the vault and away from those corpses. Once they were in her office, she cleared away the stack of papers and sat down at the desk, seeming to open up a bit more here where she didn't have to worry about him conning her into letting him harvest Zydrate. "I was pretty surprised too, especially considering that I had no skills or work experience." Of course, she knew now just why she had been hired. "My boss is a bit...overly friendly, but luckily I only see him at the beginning of my shift for a few minutes." It was one of the hazards of being so sweet and innocent. It was as if she had a big red bullseye on her back drawing perverts and predators to her, seeking to wreck that rare bit innocent.
She laughed when he teased her about parties, picking up a pen and flicking it back and forth. "You have to actually know people in order to have parties." She seemed a bit sullen about the fact that she had basically been imprisoned her whole life. No friends. "I don't really know anyone other then you and my boss. Oh and the people at the grocery store."
Graverobber listened to the implications about Shilo's boss without surprise, but he felt a small twinge of annoyance at the man. He was fascinated with innocence, himself, but to see it spoiled in such a mundane way was a shame. Stupid. He made himself comfortable in one of the office chairs, propping his big boots up on the desk like he owned the place.
"You miss the rest of the world so much? I could introduce you around." His smile was odd, this time, black painted lips quirked in a predatory way. "Good way to pick up some bad habits."
Shilo rolled her eyes, reaching across the desk to knock his boots off of the desk, wiping away the dirt smudge left behind. "I don't know..." She knew the kind of crowds he mixed with. Not that she had anything against Zydrate junkies and prostitutes. She could hear her father's voice in her head, warning her that she could pick up more then just habits from -those- type of people and she quickly squashed that voice. Shilo was a sweet and naive girl, but she did have wild side.
"Actually, that sounds like a good idea." Heat flamed in her cheeks as she noticed at predatory grin on his face and she swiftly avoided his gaze, glancing away from him in typical girlish fashion. "I need to live a little."
He laughed, a rich, mellow sound, and folded his arms behind his head, the very picture of relaxation. "That's my girl. Can't stay cooped up in that house, or living with dead people your whole life." Not that he had any objection to dead people. Graverobber preferred their company more often than not. But he couldn't imagine being isolated in that big house was good for a kid her age. She looked so damn young, like her father had somehow stunted her growth.
She turned away from him, grabbing a folder from the filing cabinet behind her desk, making sure to keep her head lowered so that her raven hair fell in front of her face, hiding her fierce blush. It just wasn't fair. His voice...damn. It was enough to make a girl go weak in the knees. "My shift ends a few hours from now." She replied, shoving the reorganized files inside the file cabinet and slamming it shut.
"What about you? Still singing in graveyards?" Was that a teasing note in her voice? Surely not...
"It's a living," he agreed, laughing a little at his own joke. "Nothing wrong with loving your work." He glanced lazily around the office, vaguely amused by the trappings of middle class boredom, even in the middle of a damn mausoleum.
"I couldn't be chained to a desk. To one place. Birds gotta fly, I gotta defile the dead." There was that predatory smile again, but there was something perverse about it in association with the talk of handling dead bodies. "It's a living," he agreed, laughing a little at his own joke. "Nothing wrong with loving your work." He glanced lazily around the office, vaguely amused by the trappings of middle class boredom, even in the middle of a damn mausoleum.
Shilo shook her head. One thing was for sure, he hadn't changed and she really hadn't expected him to. "If you keep singing while you work, you're going to get caught." She tried to scold him, knowing it wouldn't do any good. Graverobber would do whatever he wanted to and obviously his work routine hadn't gotten him killed so far. He either had a lot of luck or a lot of skill. She wasn't sure which one it was just yet.
"Why did you come here instead of the cemetery? Don't tell me that you've used up all the resources there."
He shrugged. "Heard you were here." Of course, he didn't mention that he hadn't known who the new girl was, but it was close enough to the truth, in his opinion.
Shilo wasn't sure that she could trust his answer, though it was simple enough. "You couldn't wait until I got off work? You know where I live..." She frowned, crinkling her nose in a rather adorable rabbit-like way. Nope. She didn't buy it. He'd looked too shocked to see her in the vault. She had caught him in a half-truth, or even a bold faced lie, yet she moved on to another subject, spending the next half an hour exchanging small talk with him, laughing, teasing, generally having one of the best times since her father's death.
Then suddenly she heard the sound of a car driving up, a car door slamming shut. Her heart immediately jumped into her throat. "Hide!" She made a frantic motion, glancing around the room. A file cabinet and her desk pretty much made up the layout of the office. "My boss is coming! Oh no.." Her hands went to her head, gripping her wig as she struggled to think of someway to make Graverobber disappear.
Boss? Graverobber looked interested, though certainly not panicked. He could move quickly when the mood struck him, and he grinned, eyes widening in that manic way he had. "I'll just hide in the vaults ... "
Shilo looked utterly stressed out, the thought of losing the only job she had, the only job she was ever likely to have; made her blood freeze in her veins. She placed a hand over her chest, coughing a few times as her stress triggered a small flare of the poison left in drugged blood, but this attack was nothing compared to the ones she used to have and she was swiftly ushering Graverobber out of the office and towards the vault. "Go. I'll...slow him down." That being said, she raced back to the office and struggled to smooth her clothing back into place, calming her breathing and even smiling as the door opened to reveal Mr. Brasky. "You're here early...something wrong?"
The middle aged man actually didn't look that bad, probably thought himself as quite the ladies man, so when he caught that girlish smile, he immediately made a beeline to her desk,dropping his hat onto it. "No particular reason. I left some unfinished work in the vault. Since I'm here now, you can go home early, Shilo."
She froze in place, biting down on her lower lip. He couldn't go into the vault. Not yet! "Oh, but I don't mind staying." She said with a particularly sweet batting of her eyelashes, trying very hand not to cringe as her boss leaned in and stroked a hand through her hair. Both of their heads jerked up as a sound came from down the hall.
"What was that?"
"Nothing!" Came Shilo's high pitched squeak. Too late. Brasky was already heading down the hall and Shilo trailed along behind him, watching as he threw open the door to the vault.
Graverobber knew he shouldn't have made any noise. He knew he should have been quiet and hid meekly in the vault - but it simply wasn't in his nature. Not when surrounded by so many lovely corpses. While Shilo talked with her boss, he eased the crow bar from his jacket and levered open one of the drawers. He made a soft coo of delight at the freshness of the body - the skin had started to tighten and dry out, pulling it tight to the bones and giving the illusion that the hair had grown, but the features were still relatively clear. The necromerchant's pale fingers skittered lovingly over the dead flesh as he drew his kit from his pocket.
The long, heavy duty steel needle was slide with expert precision into one nostril, and then Graverobber gave it a good hard tap with the heel of his hand, so that the needle broke through the bone with a promising crunch noise. Ahhh. It was just a matter of working the needle into the right place - the Zydrate tended to collect in the frontal lobe for some reason, though the brain processed pain in many parts throughout its dense matter. There was a telltale soft spot ... and then the sweet blue glow lit up the barrel of the syringe.. Oh, it was so beautiful!
It wasn't until the end that things went wrong. As Graverobber was pulling the needle out, he patted the corpse fondly, smoothing a bit of dried hair back from a shiny forehead, and in doing so jostled it enough to shift and land heavily against the metal side of the drawer. it wouldn't have been audible, except that the corpse was wearing heavy soled shoes, which made a faint clang.
So when Brasky entered the room, he saw one of the drawers partially pulled out, and a tall man in bizarre, Kabuki-style face paint pocketing a glowing blue vial and starting for the door.
Shilo hid her face in her hands as she caught sight of Graverobber making his exit, moaning softly in despair. Brasky immediately recognized him from the many wanted posters that littered the graveyard. "A graverobber!" The older manner rushed to push the red button and he would have succeeded if Shilo's small hand hadn't caught his wrist.
"What the hell are you doing? That man is a graverobber!" There was a long pause. "You know him! You little tramp." He didn't hesitate to backhand the suddenly frightened girl, the resounding smack of his hand against her face echoing through the vault.
Shilo's frail form barely managed to remain standing, clutching her hand to her cheek. Grasky's patience appeared to have worn thin as he grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look at him. "Now I've got you. Letting a graverobber in a mortuary, what on earth were you thinking? I should fire you on the spot..." He paused, smirking deviously. "Unless...you give me a reason to let you stay."
Shilo grimaced as his hand slid up her thigh, fighting an urge to throw up. "I can't...I can't breath." She squeaked, but he only pressed nearer, a predator gleam in his eye that was so different from the one Graverobber gave. He must have mistaken her soft, short gasps for breath as arousal because his hand slid further up, centering between her legs and beneath her skirt.
"There there...I knew you'd give in sooner or later. You sweet little thing..."
Shilo's struggles had lessened and it would appear that she was giving in, but in reality she was merely conserving her strength for....
An unholy and rather high pitched wail filled the air as she jammed her knee into his groin and backed away from him. "Consider that my resignation." She hissed, grabbing something heavy, a metal instrument, and throwing it at him before making her escape the same way Graverobber had. Once she was safely away, she shuddered, feeling an urge to scrub her skin until it was raw and bleeding. His touch had been disgusting.
Of course, if she followed the alleyway long enough, she would run into the tall man that had gotten her into so much trouble, lounging against a wall and smoking. His eyebrows raised in surprise as he saw her. "Kid, what're you doing out here?"
Shilo glanced up at the sound of his voice, her heart still hammering in her chest, still struggling to draw breath. "I told you to hide..." A red imprint of a hand was beginning to form on the pale flesh of her cheek. "I can't believe that jerk! He tried to...and I..." She slumped back against a wall, sliding down onto her knees, drawing them to her chest, taking deep breaths as her father had always advised her to do when the world closed in
Graverobber blinked at her for a few moments in confusion. Sometimes it was hard to remember that perverse bosses and getting hit weren't commonplace for her. "Oh, hey," he said, coming up and crouching next to her, coat puddling raggedly around him. "You all right?"
The only response from the gasping girl was a frantic shake of her head as he drew near. Her hands shook and she took to coughing for a few minutes before the fit left her. She was dizzy from lack of oxygen as the poison in her blood retreated. "I thought I'd gotten all of that out of my system..." She whispered, blinking as she raised her head to see him beside her, eerily close. "It's done. I'll never be able to get a job anywhere else....and after I kneed Mr. Grasky to the balls, I doubt he'll give recommendations." She heaved a small sigh, curling her knees tighter to her chest. "I didn't mean to....he was touching me and I couldn't breath. I panicked..." s
"Yeah, they'll do that." He patted her lightly on the back in an attempt at comfort, though her reaction was still startling to him. Almost cute, in a way, that such a little thing was such a huge deal to her. How was she ever going to manage at this rate? "I guess you have more free time, now. Want to come with me while I get rid of this?" He produced the vial again, black lips quirking up in a small at her.
Shilo was at a loss. What could she do now? Her father had left her everything he had, but she couldn't access the trust fund until she was 21 and until then there were bills to be paid. Electricity, water, garbage, heat, etc. "I'm tempted to go home and take a bath." She said with a tight lipped grimace, rubbing a hand over her fishnet covered leg. His hand on her back helped somewhat to calm her frazzled nerves.
"You know, you're the reason all this happened in the first place." She pointed out to him as she stood up, adjusting the length of her black pencil skirt, managing a weak smile as he held up a familiar blue vial. "I'll go...I could use something to distract me anyway."
It wasn't in the older man to feel much guilt ... but it did provide an interesting idea that he fleshed out in his head as they walked along. "Come on. I know a place where there's always someone looking to score. I'll buy you lunch after."
Shilo wasn't really surprised that he seemed to feel no guilt over what had happened. Really, she should have made him leave earlier, but she'd become too engrossed in catching up with him and she had to admit, interesting things tended to happen when she was around Graverobber. "Amber Sweet isn't going to show up is she? I've kinda been keeping a low profile because of the Largo family..." It should have been obvious why she didn't want to come face to face with Amber Sweet, she liked her body parts where they were and she didn't want to stir up any grudges.
The offer of providing food made her stomach growl and had the girl smiling sheepishly as she followed along at his side, only not quite as skittish over every little shadow as she had been the first few times she'd seen him. "Thanks..."
"I saw her about a week ago," Graverobber said, shrugging. "I can't say when she'll be around, but I don't think so. They've got her on a tighter leash these days." The neon sign up ahead announced that they were approaching the "Hoffman Clinic for Gender Reassignment", and the necromerchant automatically started scanning the area. There were always a few addicts in a group of trannies, and the Hoffman Clinic was known to do cheap and fast work. Not always good, so it was a frequent hang-out for prostitutes looking to get an edge up on the competition.
"Look, I feel bad. You losing your job was sort of my fault," Graverobber admitted, as a preamble to his proposal. "I feel like I should make it up to you."
Shilo could understand why Amber Sweet wasn't able to make her usual rounds on the streets, after all she had a company to run. "She's still hooked on Zydrate? But...she can get all she wants from Geneco, can't she?" Still so naive. Her wide eyes took in the sight of the gender reassignment clinic, gawking at the trannies who were gathered nearby. She seemed more at ease around the prostitutes this time around, though she didn't recognize any from the last time.
Her head turned as she heard his deep voice, fighting back the urge to shiver...and it wasn't from disgust or the chill in the night air. "Sort of? It was your fault." She pointed out,but fell silent to let him continue, wondering just what he had in mind. She could never guess what he was thinking, that was part of what made him so fun to be around. "How do you plan to do that?"
"Well, you need a job, right? A way to make money? And you're not exactly qualified or old enough for much - " His words were cut off by a falsetto cry as one of the lounging trannies recognized him, and in no time flat there was a small crowd surrounding Graverobber. He handled them all with his usual cold, slightly amused attitude, and managed to drive up the price nicely when he produced the vial. Z-heads just couldn't help it when they saw that soft glow - a few of them pooled their money, and the hand-off was made with a smirk and a wave.
The necromerchant glanced back at his small tag-along as the she-males melted away, some in triumph, others bitterly disappointed. "So what do you think?" he asked, as though he'd outlined some plan or offer to her, instead of just pointing out her jobless situation.
This time Shilo stepped away from him just in time to be jostled out of the way by the oncoming trannies, letting out a frightened squeak as one groped her on her way past, causing an echo of laughter. She hadn't gleaned much from him earlier except that he knew she wasn't going to be able to get another job. Once the crowd had left, she filed back to his side, blinking at his question. Wait. Hadn't he just skipped something? "What do I think about...what?" She gave him a confused look. "I know I can't find another job."
"You know," he said impatiently. "Working for me."
Shilo's eyes widened at his offer. Her? Work for him? What could she possibly help him with? He seemed to be able to handle things on his own quite well. "I didn't know that graverobbers needed assistants..." She tried to joke, thinking he was teasing her. He couldn't be serious. She frowned as she thought about it and decided she needed more information. "What would I do?" Ok. She had to be really desperate to even be considering this.
"Well, I'd have to teach you the ropes," he said casually, leaning against the low wall near the clinic. "How to extract the stuff. I doubt you're ready to be selling it right now ... little too wide-eyed." He chuckled. "But there's other things you can do, that I can teach you. Maybe make things a little easier on me if I had another pair of hands."
Shilo frowned in thought, crinkling her nose in an adorable bunny-like twitch. Yeah. She definitely had a long way to go until she could handle dealing drugs around prostitutes and junkies. But...was she willing to learn? What choice did she have. Graverobber was offering her an opportunity here to learn a trade. Sure, it was a dangerous and illegal trade, but it certainly had to be lucrative.
"Ok..." She agreed in a meek tone of voice, crossing to hover near his side. It seemed Graverobber had officially adopted a wide eyed pure breed kitten and somehow had to turn her into an alley cat. "I just have one question. Why me?"
He gave her an speculative look. There were a lot of reasons. She was available. She was gullible. She would probably work hard, and be desperate not to lose her job. But most importantly, she was moldable. Shilo was just a lump of unformed clay, and he had to admit, there was a lot of appeal in the thought that he would get to be the one to twist and shape her into whatever he wanted.
Of course, he wasn't going to tell her that.
"Because you're not greedy, and I think you can learn. You're quick on the uptake, and you're not an addict already," Graverobber said.
Shilo lowered her head, shifting listlessly from side to side as she listened to his reasons, trying very hard not to blush. So, he didn't think she was just some gullible kid and he certainly wasn't doing this out of pity. "I'll work hard." She turned her head up, having to crane her neck because of their height difference. She offered him a sweet smile, all candy and spun sugar. "Thank you!" She lunged forward and curled her arms around him, pressing her face to the ratty shirt beneath his coat for a few seconds as she hugged him and then stepped back, smiling sheepishly.