Old and New
Kelly's stood on the corner of Whitehead and Caroline, in a tidy, white building that was built in the 1920s. Once used for the sale of airline tickets, it was now home to a Caribbean bar. A canopy of thick threes covered its brick patio and a micro-brewery out back produced Havana Red Ale and the Southern Clipper Wheat. It was a little upscale for Rhiannon's usual style, but she liked the patio at night. Holiday lights twinkled in the tree branches like stars and the beer was the best on the island. She took a book and sat by herself at a two-top table in the backmost corner, sipping from her mug and listening to the white noise of conversation. In jeans and a burgundy tank top, she was a little underdressed, but nobody cared. By the time she tucked her paperback in a hip pocket and went on patrol, she'd be loose enough to forget about her recent injury, but not enough to be impaired.
The wind rustled the palms. Their waxen leaves moved like fingers. Tonight she drifted away from her book and just watched those, a finger between the pages to keep her place. Out back, beyond the patio, she heard muted voices, things thumping, and assumed them to be employees taking a smoke break or loading supplies in and out of the food preparation area. Rhiannon eased back in her chair and lifted a boot onto the seat, her fingers twining into the laces. She watched the world beyond the garden through the tiny gaps in the trees trunks, where she could see the ocean and sand on one side of the patio, Whitehead Street on the other.
A man's work was never done, a saying that seemed intent on circling Joseph's head at the most inopportune moments; moments such as the one he was in right now. He'd methodically taken apart a bar from the inside out, killing all but a couple witnesses in the hopes of sending another strong message to the superiors, a message that clearly said: there's a new player in town and they're looking to tear you apart one man at a time.
He'd unfortunately overlooked the bathroom and the gun wielding maniac in one of the cubicles. Luckily for Joseph he'd come prepared and so the bullet shot haphazardly out of a hastily drawn pistol had grazed an impressive bullet-proof vest previously hidden beneath a tank-top and shirt. Not that it hadn't hurt, bullets always did. Joseph was going to be bruised come morning and he knew that, but better bruised than dead.
After a scuffle the gun wielding maniac in question had made a run for it, meaning Joseph had set off in quick pursuit, moving through the back alleys like a shadow playing across the brick that surrounded them as the chase took them away from the bar and farther into the city. Joseph scaled a fence and dropped onto his heels, managing to balance his weight easily enough before setting off in another sprint, one that had him bearing down on the escaping man quite effectively.
In such close quarters, it would be stupid to use his gun, so Joseph chose an alternative option; he drove the weight of both shoulders into the man's back, tripping both himself and the would-be escapee to the ground. At that point it became a struggle, one that could and would end only one way: with one of them dead. The positions were reversed and soon Joseph found himself on the ground, with two big hands around his neck, squeezing. Fuck this. Joseph drew a blade he held at his side and drove the hilt of it into the already injured ribs of his opponent, causing a breath to be sucked in, the very same breath that allowed Joseph to kick the man off of him.
In the man's flailing, he disturbed precarious placed barrels and set off what could only be described as a chain reaction that caused a cacophony of sound. That wasn't good, it might draw attention. It would be in everybody's best interests if this ended sooner rather than later. Joseph had places to be and other chaos to cause. He didn't really want to give Agent Kottler anything concrete to use against him; it was the last thing he wanted or needed.
Joseph shook his head and flipped the hilt of the knife until the length of the blade sat neatly along his forearm, before he moved towards his previously downed opponent to slit a throat and end the disturbance once and for all. Yes, it wouldn't be pretty and yes, the man's body would not be found with the others, but one had to improvise on occasion. Not that it was ever that easy, given that the man had reached for his pistol and managed to fire off another round - a round that would undoubtedly draw all the world's attention - the very same round that caught Joseph across the shoulder. A sharp pain shot over his shoulder, up his neck and then ventured quite rapidly down one arm, meaning Joseph was disorientated enough for the other man to get a firm grip on his neck, slamming him into a nearby wall with all the intention of strangling the life from him.
The struggle continued, Joseph pulling himself together for just long enough to use the knife to his advantage, slicing at his opponent's ear. He might end up using his gun after all; it wasn't like he hadn't come prepared for close kills.
The barrels went down and rolled like thunder. Rhiannon sat up straighter in her chair and peered through the trees. It didn't automatically mean trouble, but some employee could have broken a bone out back and might need help. She didn't hear a cry of pain, nobody shouting 'help'. While the other diners settled back into their plates, she kept listening. Already, her beer was paid for, so it wouldn't be a big deal to leave the table and check. Having found herself stranded and hurt recently, she felt a personal interest in making sure nobody else was caught in that bind.
She stood up, in no particular hurry, and put the book in her pocket. Then the gunshot went off.
"Shit."
Her chair scraped noisily on the bricks as Rhiannon hurried to the edge of the patio. It was blocked off with plants and a low, iron fence. She hopped it and pushed through the foliage and around the trees until she came into the alley behind the building, where it was dark except for ambient light from the patio. Behind her, people panicked and ran blindly into the restaurant, yelling obvious things like, 'Somebody's got a gun!'
Well yeah. Good call.
Rhiannon stayed close to the white siding of Kelly's and crept into the shadows. Across from her, she saw two people struggling against a building. The sounds of their struggle clued her into two things: one person could barely breathe, the other person was in a world of pain and trying not to back down. She couldn't tell where the gun was and didn't want to jump in and do what she might've otherwise, which was just grab a guy and separate them. No, too dangerous. She didn't want to take a bullet for interfering.
She bent down and touched a switchblade by her boot, contemplating taking it out, but she didn't. Rhiannon straightened. "Stop!" she called from the shadow of the restaurant. "The police are on the way. If you don't want to get caught, it'd be a really good idea to separate now."
Were the police on the way? Probably. She didn't know for sure.
The two men stilled for all of thirty seconds before Joseph monopolised on the opportunity that had just presented itself. He drew his fist back and slammed it into the other man's jaw, knocking his grip from around his neck. Granted he fell like a ton of bricks, but he was free and that was the important thing. His ears listened for the sirens, ones he was all too used to given his line of work, but he couldn't hear anything.
Maybe the woman was bluffing? Maybe she wasn't? There was no way of telling without those telltale sounds of sirens.
The would-be escapee appeared to be recovering his composure and Joseph was determined to put pay to that, especially as the other man had his gun in hand and he was pretty sure there was still a finger curled around the trigger. He lifted a leg and slammed the broadside of his boot into the other man's side, cracking what had previously been bruised ribs and then made a grab for the pistol.
"Fuck you, man!" The man yelled as he knocked Joseph onto his back, splitting the other man's lower lip open, using this opportunity to run as fast as his legs could carry him.
Joseph turned over and briefly the light from the nearby bar caught his profile, highlighting a distinct bruise on the curve of his jaw, and the way in which he was moving suggested that last blow had knocked him for six. His recovery needed to be quick, especially as the man was escaping and he really couldn't have that.
When the light hit his cheek, Rhiannon's heart lunged into her throat and felt like it might choke her. Joseph. She'd know his face anywhere, from any angle, and the whole scenario was right. It was how he fought. How he 'took care' of things, especially years back in Las Vegas, when they first met and it seemed like he was always nursing a bullet wound. Trouble didn't find Joseph Tropiano. He hunted it down and flung himself into it... A quality she could appreciate and resent simultaneously.
And now he was about to shoot a man in the back. That was bad enough, but there also wasn't a silencer on the gun, which was the reason half the neighborhood dialed 9-1-1 from the get-go.
"No!" She kicked his pistol hand hard with her steel-toed boot, hoping he'd drop the gun or the shot would go wide. The other man's footsteps grew faint, but not as fast as they should've. He was running injured. The plunk-plod suggested a serious limp. "Are you insane?!" She hurriedly positioned herself between Joseph and the other man, confident -- though maybe she shouldn't be -- that he wasn't going to shoot her in the chest just to get a round off at the man from a distance.
Joseph cursed in a dialect that would have sounded familiar to Rhiannon's ears, as the other Joseph had spent hours serenading her with the very same language, but this word was far from pleasant. His entire wrist throbbed from the impact and it had served its purpose, the shot had gone wide and Joseph was pretty sure he'd just used the last bullet in that particular gun. Thankfully he had his own and that had a couple bullets left in the clip, so it wasn't like he was totally out of options.
Of course the interfering brunette could prove a problem.
He tossed the gun after having wiped his prints off of it and reached into the depths of his jacket and pulled a fully customised berretta from its holster, aiming it at the brunette in front of him. "Insane? No. Pissed off, yes." The safety was off, that much was evident, and Joseph's finger was placed across the trigger. "Now kindly move the fuck out of my way." He wasn't a man who hurt women or children and he wasn't about to start now, but he needed to take care of the man escaping in the opposite direction. "Trust me," Joseph muttered darkly as his eyes seemed to glisten beneath the stray strands of sweat dampened hair. "You really don't want to be between me and the man running in the opposite direction."
"You're not going to shoot me," Rhiannon said, with perhaps a bit too much confidence for a stranger, and that's what they were now. Even in the dark, she knew he was different. Felt it in her bones when he spoke to her with that jagged edge in his voice. But it didn't phase her. How different could he be? Her knees trembled inside her jeans, from a case of nerves rather than fear, because she could never be afraid of him. All else gave off the appearance of total calm.
"Besides, by the time your finger flexes, I'll have kicked that one, too. But good luck if you want to try." Arrogant at the end of his gun, Rhianon held her ground. Inside her mouth, the slayer's teeth cut into her lip, biting that flesh instead of grinding together. If he shoots me, I'll kick his goddamned ass.
Joseph's eyes narrowed, wondering how the brunette could speak with such confidence. How did she know that he was one of a few men who chose not to harm women and children in the pursuit of work? "No?" He asked, lifting an eyebrow. "And what makes you so certain of that?" He listened to the movements of the man fleeing and his lip curled as he knew just how far down he was and what he'd need to do in order to cover the distance.
"You have no idea what you're meddling in," he muttered.
His tongue flicked out to catch the drying blood on his lower lip and his finger flexed around the trigger, tension running the length of his arm as he fought against his first impulse, which was to pull the trigger and worry about everything else later. He took this stand-off as a moment to analyse his current predicament - he had a man on the run and a woman in his way, a woman that would be a witness to a murder if he continued. He didn't want to draw unwanted attention to himself and his objective here, not when he had Agent Kottler breathing down his neck.
"Goddamnit!" Joseph cursed as he dropped the hand holding the gun to his side, glaring at the brunette. "Just be glad that you're a woman." He consoled himself with the thought that he could track the other man down later, finish it then, without witnesses.
"Oh yeah." Rhiannon's shoulders dropped and she stepped back a bit. "I thank my lucky stars I'm a woman so you can't shoot a guy in the back. That's very classy." The disdain in her voice could've peeled paint off the nearest wall. She couldn't help it, even knowing nothing of the situation and how bad of a guy Joseph had been trying to take down. It was the contradiction between the man she'd known, who'd gone straight and grown out of this phase of his life over the years, and the younger one cussing at her on the ground after threatening to shoot her.
Remember yourself at your worst. God, that wasn't even worth contemplating.
She lowered herself into a crouch opposite him. Now the slant of light caught her face, too, which was youthful, freckled, but darkly colored around the eyes. She saw a wet-looking spot on his shoulder and just like that, her expression turned from acidic to concerned. "You're bleeding." She reached, but snatched her hand back just as quickly. It wasn't her place to fix wounds anymore.
Joseph's expression darkened and he turned to spit out a mouthful of blood, reaching up to mop up leftover traces with the back of his hand. He would've said something had she not been in his personal space all of a sudden and nearly touching him. "A scratch," he muttered roughly as he began to right himself, wondering just how far the other man might get with his injuries. Hopefully not very far at all.
He took a moment to look at the brunette that had meddled in affairs not of her own, noticing the dark eyes that seemed misplaced on a pretty face. Joseph reholstered his gun and drew back from the brunette, hissing in a breath as he turned his wrist over before scowling, as sure enough a delightful bruise was already starting to form. Jesus, how hard had she kicked him?
"I've had worse."
I know. "I bet."
Rhiannon stood up. She wondered to herself, if they had met in a bar in this place, too, instead of an alley, would Joseph have been such a jackass? Then again, she couldn't 100% blame him. If he dove headlong into a fight of hers and let a vampire go, she'd be pissed enough to punch him. But that wasn't a vampire, and a gun's not a stake. Rhiannon crossed her arms and dug her fingers into her shirt, unsure of what to do with herself, now that the immediate danger was gone. Should she walk off? Stay and make sure he didn't tail the guy and shoot him two blocks away? Leaving would be better for her emotional state, surely, though Joseph was making it easier on her by being so abrupt. Her former fiance wasn't home in that body, though it looked and sounded like him.
"Sorry about your wrist," she lied. "My legs are strong. Freakishly." Rhiannon hoped she hadn't cracked the bones. The darkness was a relief to her, not having to see his full features, the hand without the ring she gave him. This let her ease in. Thank god she had talked to Izzy already, or she would've been incoherent right about now.
"I noticed," Joseph remarked with a wry smile, one that finally caught a dimple. He blew out a breath and then sought his pockets for a cigarette and his lighter, feeling the need of one now more than ever. God only knew how far that guy would get and who'd he talk to before Joseph could put an end to him. He ignored the twinge in his wrist as he flipped open the zippo and lit the cigarette, inhaling a mouthful of smoke in an attempt at getting some composure back.
He turned to regard the brunette over his shoulder and shook his head. "I could say something about your legs being, as you put it, 'freakishly strong', but I might get kicked in the balls for doing so and I'm already sore enough as it is without that." Joseph leaned back against the nearby wall and tipped his head into the drag of the cigarette, willing his pulse to settle and for the adrenaline to ebb already.
Blood continued to seep out from the wound on Joseph's shoulder and he took a moment to take a look at it, hissing in a breath. Shouldn't have worn his favourite shirt tonight, not when he was gonna have to cut it apart to take a better look at the graze. "That'll teach me to wear a good shirt on nights like this."
There he is. The slight similarity made her mouth hitch up at the corner.
"Aha." Rhiannon took a lean across from him, her bare shoulders pressing onto the vinyl siding of the restaurant. It was cooler than the air and a little slick on her skin. "So you weren't chasing down a purse snatcher. You planned this." Of course he had. But she had no idea of knowing how eventful Joseph's night was, or that the reason the cops hadn't shown up was because they had their hands full at the bar he just trashed. A straight gunshot down the street was small potatoes.
"Can I ask what he did to piss you off?" Rhiannon hoped he'd say something terrible and justify the attempted murder, but she had a gut feeling it wouldn't be like that. Hopefully her gut was wrong. She fixated on the red embers of his cigarette, how they flared when he inhaled. The scent triggered an urge to ask for one. Her body wasn't chemically bound to them anymore, but God, she loved how a cigarette felt between her fingers, and the way nicotine calmed her down. "Not that it's my business, but I'm not a cop. Obviously."
Joseph chuckled, low and throaty, smoke curling around the corners of his mouth. "Long story." He flicked ash aside and drew another breath of smoke in as he shifted the way he was stood, peeling a visibly flattened bullet free of the kevlar that had kept him from nursing a considerable injury. Joseph regarded it for a moment before simply tossing it aside apparently unaffected by the near miss he'd had.
"Let's just say he's not a very nice man." He swept his hair back and held onto the long lengths, tipping his head to regard the brunette. "Pretty sure if you were a cop I'd be in handcuffs and we'd be having a totally different conversation." His lips pulled into a more suggestive smile before he simply curled them around the filter again, inhaling and exhaling smoke in what seemed to be a mouthful.
Joseph had noticed the shift in her when he'd lit the cigarette and was bold enough to offer her the cancer stick.
Ah, shit. Rhiannon eyed the filter. The familiarity of it was immediate. So, too, was the question of whether or not smoking his cigarette was appropriate, given her circumstances. Fuck it, it isn't the same, and neither is he. Get over it now. It's a small island. She held her breath and reached across the distance to take it from the man she'd only just met. She inhaled deeply of it, but only once, and passed it back.
"You say it like you're a nice man." Leaning onto the wall, Rhiannon allowed the smoke to escape her nose and make a cloud around her face. The lack of a cough or any strain in her voice indicated she wasn't new to the habit. "If I find out you aren't, should I come after you?" Aside from the kick, he had no way of knowing she could do any damage. She was of medium height and small-statured, in no obvious way imposing.
"Guess that's up to you," Joseph remarked with a shrug of his shoulders. He did wonder how this woman might take him down, given her stature, but that kick of hers had certainly hinted at an underlying strength that was not to be trifled with. He took the cigarette back from her and returned the filter to his mouth, drawing in the smoke and holding onto it. "Everybody's got an expiry date."
He held the cigarette in his mouth as he placed a knife back into the sheath at his side. "Not that I ever claimed to be a nice man." He ripped a piece of his shirt off and used it to mop up some of the blood on his neck, trying to make it less obvious that he was hurt.
"I wouldn't know." Rhiannon watched him sop up the blood and wanted to tell him to get stitches, or at least a damn tetanus shot, only he'd probably scoff at it and say that scars were nothing new. "But you're not a complete jerk. You didn't shoot me and there's the cigarette thing. You give yourself away in little pieces."
She bent her knee and braced the sole of her shoe against the wall. From there, her leg rocked back and forth. Are you still in? Do they still have you? Do you want that? The questions hung in the back of her throat. Whomever he was, he looked comfortable in his role. Rhiannon reached for a necklace that hung near her collarbone and looped the beads around her index finger tightly, until the tip turned blue and felt cold.
It was those little pieces that were going to get him killed. He wasn't busy enough with his cigarette and blood to notice the look in the brunette's eyes.
"You look like you want to ask me something," he remarked.
"I do," she said. Rhiannon had never bullshitted him before, and she wasn't about to start now. "It's just that the things I want to ask won't make sense to you." More like he'd get suspicious, and his suspicions might lead him to think she was some kind of threat to him. Truthfully, even if she found out he was a murdering asshole, Rhiannon wasn't sure she'd go after him. Her business was demons. 99% of the time, she stuck to her business, and even with demons, she could be flexible. "Can you promise that no matter how weird it is, you'll tell the truth?"
She knew Joseph didn't owe her anything, including answers. But what the hell? If he said no, whatever. She was no worse off.
Joseph lifted his eyebrow slowly and straightened against the wall, dropping his cigarette as he'd all but burned it down to the filter before he crushed it beneath the sole of his boot. A stream of smoke escaped him as he finally exhaled the breath he'd been holding onto, meaning the grey haze hung around him, obscuring all but the sharper features. "Alright," he muttered with a nod of his head, figuring it wouldn't hurt him to give a stranger a snippet of truth. It wasn't like he'd see her again, least he didn't think he would; she didn't seem like the sort who hung out in the places he hung out.
His hands disappeared into the pockets of his leather jacket and the material was pulled snugly around him until it hugged him like a second skin. "Shoot."
Trouble was, Rhiannon had about five questions. How did she boil it down to one? And how would she feel if the answer was negative? She made herself look at him, because either she'd have to get used to it, or she'd never see him again and this was the last time she'd see Joseph Tropiano in person. "How do you sleep?" She let her arms hang loose at her sides. The fingers curled into her palms, nails making half-moon shapes in the soft center. "I mean, is it easy? Do you have nightmares or just... stay up staring at nothing?"
Joseph's first reaction was a forced easy smile that didn't quite meet his eyes, shrugging his shoulders at the same time. "Who says I have time to sleep?" And then he remembered he'd made a promise, hating on himself for doing something so stupid. Why was he such a sucker for a pretty face?
"I don't sleep a lot," he finally shared honestly. "And when I do, it's kinda... crazy, I guess. Lots of dreams." Read: nightmares. "But I get enough and that's all that really matters."
Half the time he went out of his way to make sure he never slept alone, even if it meant taking a random woman home for the night.
Rhiannon pressed her lips together. After a moment, she nodded. "Thanks." Okay, she'd hoped it would go the other way, but what did she expect? Joseph chased guys through alleys, dodged bullets, and slept like a baby? Unlikely. Pushing off the wall, she took a few steps on the cracked pavement until she stood right in front of him. Then she extended her hand. "I'm Rhiannon. Just in case we make a habit out of this, because I have a tendency to run around at night, too."
Joseph eyed her hand before he finally pushed away from the wall and straightened to his full height, pulling a hand out of the depths of a pocket to wrap firm, callused skin around hers. "Joseph, and I gotta say, Rhiannon, you've got yourself an interesting way of spending the night."
He couldn't help but notice the strength in Rhiannon's handshake and made a mental note of it. The girl had strong legs and hands. Interesting.
She smiled in spite of herself. "Believe me, you don't know the half of it." A quiver at the corner of her mouth hinted at things, which could just as easily be dirty thoughts as any earth-shaking confessions that circled her mind, like 'I fight demons' or 'I know your social security number'. "Um." She reached up and rubbed her eye. "Yeah." She let go and pushed her thumbs into her hip pockets. It felt like she was holding onto the world's biggest secret, because she knew things about Joseph and he knew nothing about her. Rhiannon understood that if she kept standing there, sooner or later she'd vent some small part of it or risk exploding with the entire thing. Which would be a bad idea.
"Anyway, you're one to talk. How many guns were you carrying? Two?" Rhiannon pointed at his torso. "Also, nice vest."
Joseph stepped back and gave a deep throated laugh, hands coming up palms together until the tips of his middle fingers were pressed against his mouth and chin, teeth barely hidden behind them. "I believe in being prepared." For practically anything, given the contents of his wallet and pockets. "And if it wasn't for this vest, I'd probably be dead right about now." The crumpled bullet he'd peeled out of the material earlier was evidence of that.
His hand slipped free of his mouth and found its way to the back of his neck, tips of nails scratching over skin. "Can't ever be accused of being boring."
"So you're a cocky boy scout. Noted." She nodded and pretended to file the information away with all the other important details. Rhiannon rocked back and forth between her feet, looking at the shredded vest while she thought something over. Then she bent and hitched up her pant leg; underneath it, a small utility belt was strapped around her calf muscle. She pulled out a slender stake and offered it to him. On a scale of things, it was a small declaration and one she didn't mind making, if it kept him safe. "Do me a favor, Mr. Prepared. Carry one of these. You may not believe in the bogeyman, but it's better to be safe than sorry. For some things, bullets are just an inconvenience."
"Something like that," Joseph returned smoothly and with a charming smile.
He arched an eyebrow as she bent down and appeared to produce something from her pants of all places. Joseph was more than a little taken aback when she pulled out what appeared to be a sharp piece of wood commonly known as a stake, if you believed all those vampire movies.
"You're giving me a stake," he muttered slowly. "And here I was hoping for something a little more... interesting, like your number." It was hard to tell if he was being serious or not, very hard. Joseph took the stake and looked at it, gauging its weight and assessing its usefulness.
"My number is more interesting than handing you a stake?" Rhiannon questioned. "Wow. That's flattering." Well, it was intriguing to know that some things didn't change, like Joseph's initial flirtations, even if he seemed a little darker to her now. He wasn't all slick man of mystery. He had a serrated edge. Then again, maybe her perception was skewed by having looked down the barrel of his gun. "Relax, I'm not suggesting you pitch a tent with it. Meaning, the stake. Or my number." Jesus, she thought. What was this, word soup?
"It's useful. Here, let me see." She took the weapon back and put the sharp end towards his chest, right at the heart. "Point, jab. Even if you don't believe in monsters. I mean, think about how confused your enemies would be. It's the 'what the fuck' element."
Joseph's eyebrow lifted at that deliberate innuendo and simply tongued the back of his front teeth. "I'll have to remember that." He tilted his head when the sharp end was pressed against his chest, keeping his hands at his sides even though every inch of him screamed to react, the overpowering survival instinct that had kept him alive this long. Joseph was pretty sure had she had bad intentions he would have felt them by now.
"It's definitely got the 'what the fuck' element." He reached down to take the stake from her, turning it over in his hand until the full width of his palm had encircled it. He brought it up towards her chest and stopped just as the tip touched the area right above her heart. "Point, jab. I think I can do that."
Rhiannon adjusted it, so it was more square. "I wouldn't give it to you if I didn't think you could handle yourself." He had always accepted demons easily at home, and maybe he would here, too. The ugly underbelly of people he dealt with made monsters not so hard to imagine; besides, the territory often overlapped. She sidestepped the weapon and put her palms against her lower back, flexing her elbows. Yeah. If I didn't think you could handle yourself. Said by a stranger in an alley, because that makes sense...
"We should get going, before the police catch up." Rhiannon's foot rolled a broken chunk of asphalt back and forth. She contemplated how to make her exit, whether it was best to simply turn around and walk without looking back, or if she should trade information with him, because it was important to collect allies in new places. Inwardly, she laughed. Allies. She wasn't even sure if Joseph could be counted as one of the good guys or not. But sometimes allies weren't strictly good, were they? No, sometimes they were just people you trusted, and in her heart, she still felt like she could trust him.
"Okay, don't flinch." Hurriedly, Rhiannon went in and gave him a one-armed hug, staying on his uninjured side. "Stai attento, Joseph. Buona notte."
She thought he could handle himself? Joseph found himself wondering how she'd come to the conclusion, maybe it was the fact he'd been chasing somebody through an alleyway with weaponry?
"Mm, you may have a point there." The last thing Joseph needed was to draw attention to himself that could easily get to Agent Kottler. He definitely didn't want that pitbull on his case. He turned the stake over in his hand and made a mental note to get something to hold it, for the next time he was out.
He wasn't entirely sure what to make of the one arm hug, nor the fluently spoken Italian that sounded almost natural - woman was full of surprises. Joseph figured it couldn't hurt to return the favour. "Buona serata, bella ragazza." His voice took a more husky tone when he spoke Italian, deepening on the syllables.
With the spoken good evening and compliment, Joseph stepped back, tossing Rhiannon what was left of his smokes. "Enjoy, Rhiannon." He winked and turned on his heel, heading back the way he'd come.
Rhiannon breathed out. She looked over the remaining cigarettes, which she definitely should not smoke, if she wanted to keep herself from kick-starting the habit. It only took a few. But she held onto them anyway, pushing them into the back pocket of her jeans. At least she wasn't carrying a lighter. Then, before anybody could come out and catch her standing there with blood near her boots, she took off the other way.