pups_dt (pups_dt) wrote in morningstar_mnr, @ 2009-10-02 15:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | anastasia, chad, emma, icene, jazz, npc |
Rutherford Uni., Early Night
There was still a stretch of purple-pink along the horizon line, but otherwise night had well and truly fallen by the time Jazz had made her way outside after her Friday night dance class. She paused just outside the door to zip up her sweater part way - it wasn't cold, but there was a chill, Fall was definitely around the corner - and scroll through her iPod for a better song. Popping the little device back into her pocket, she pushed one earbud into her ear and left the other one dangling as she skipped down the steps and starting across the quad, heading for the parking lot.
Doug and Bob were waiting in the parking lot. It was finally night time and they had the cover of dark going for them. There were a few lights in the parking lot that were out and that coupled with the shadow cover from some obnoxiously large student cars, made for great cover. An unsuspecting victim wouldn't notice any extra shadows hanging about. So Doug and Bob waited. A few groups of students came by but they didn't mess with groups. It was too messy and it was more likely that they'd just wind up in trouble themselves. But then Doug spotted her. They were crouching near a hummer she was heading right toward, Doug whacked Bob's shoulder and nodded. Bob nodded in agreement and the plan was set in motion. Now they just had to wait for her to get close enough.
Jazz looked up once, orienting herself in the direction of her car, but then her eyes settled on the ground a few feet in front of her. Her mind wandered. She hadn't done well tonight, her pride was stinging, and she knew why. She couldn't keep the events of the previous week out of her mind. That night with Thomas...then, just the other day, that talk with Lucas - it didn't make sense. It hurt. And it left her feeling - off balance - inside and it was translating to her dancing.
She closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head, berating herself internally. She needed to get over this.
Doug was in the human equivalent of a cat's ready-to-pounce crouch in front of the hummer. He spotted his moment, right when the girl closed her eyes. He lunged out, wrapping his left arm around the front of her and pinning her arms against her just above the elbows and forcefully clamping his hand tightly down over her mouth with his right hand. He yanked her head back against his shoulder to make her a little more immobile.
"Make a sound and you die." He grunted out in a low growling tone as he dragged her back into the shadows and over by Bob, who was nearly bouncing from foot to foot excitedly.
Surprise, not fear, had her freezing, the fear came after, seeping through her like ice water as realization of what was happening slowly dawned on her. Her breath left her in a rush and she struggled to catch it again, a voice in the back of her mind telling her that she'd need it. The voice, Olly's voice, fought through the instinctive haze of panic and reminded her to be calm, insisted that she couldn't let this person get wherever it was that he wanted to go.
It will not be good, the voice said.
Her fingers curled in the pockets of her sweater, she felt her iPod against one palm, her keys against the other. Keys. An idea blinked to life and before she could really think it through she was fitting the biggest key, her car key, in between her fingers. She twisted her wrist, freeing her hand from her pocket and with as must force as she could muster with her arms pinned, thrust her hand down, jamming the key into the man's leg just as she jerked her head and bit down. Hard.
Doug let out a startled cry, followed by a few cusses. Bob was just a foot away though and he sprang into action. Just as Doug lost his grip on the girl, Bob reeled back and threw his fist forward and hit her squarely in the jaw. The skin on some his knuckles broke open a they collided with the bone and he shook his hand out with an excited cheer as he bounced on his feet again.
Her head whipped back, pain exploding out of nowhere to drive everything else out of her mind. The keys fell from fingers that couldn't hold onto them and her vision spotted with black as something hot and salty started trickling into her mouth. She'd been trying to get away, but now her own feet seemed to betray her, getting tangled beneath her so that she tripped and one of her palms took a grit filled swipe across the pavement as she tried to catch herself.
Bob stooped and scooped up the keys before hurling them as far down the row of cars as possible. He turned back to the scene of the girl and Doug, trying to recover from their wounds each. He laughed nervously.
Doug gritted his teeth. "Bitch!" He said as he looked at the blood that was on his hand from pressing into the gaping hole the key left in his leg. He planted his foot and swung the other into her rib cage before he leaved over and spat down at her. He looked at Bob. "Get her wallet. Search her pockets." He ordered.
Bob gave a single nod and then then went to start patting the girl's pocket's down and digging items out of them. He kept her iPod and stashed that in his own pocket. "This is it?" He asked with practically a scoff.
Air ripped out of her lungs when he kicked her and stabbing pain kept her from being able to pull it back. She gagged on it, choking for breath. Distantly she was aware of hands on her, patting her legs and sides, of the earbud being ripped from her ear and the music falling away, and she tried to struggle away from them, but failed miserably, going down completely instead.
"Get her up," Doug ordered Bob. Doug started pacing then, just a few feet back and forth in every direction. She had nothing worthwhile to steal and she'd stabbed him with a fucking key! It was time for some payback in this case.
Bob obliged, reaching down to get a firm hold of the girl under her arms. He hoisted her to her feet and then twisted her arms behind her back, hard, to keep her as under control as possible.
"Think you're smart, do you?" Doug asked before getting a good punch right into her gut, hoping to knock the wind out of her further.
Jazz tried to look at him, tried to see, but then she was doubling over, a guttural, wounded animal like noise escaping from her as his fist met her stomach. Bile leapt into her throat where the taste of it mixed with that the blood from her mouth. She coughed and wheezed, sputtering drops of blood, and only the man holding her arms kept her on her feet.
Bob laughed, excited. "Nice shot," He cheered Doug on. "I want another turn!"
"I'm not done yet," Doug retorted. This time he swung a left at her nose and then a right to her temple. Then he smirked at Bob. "Let her go." He said with a wave of his hand. Bob followed orders pretty well. He let go of the girl and put his hands up as he snickered.
She tried to turn from the blows, she did, but it was no use, they rained down on her, hard and relentless. The pain overwhelmed her until it was a continuous throbbing blanket without end or beginning. Numbness followed, then darkness. The man released her and her body slumped, dropping to the ground, mind completely, blissfully, unaware of anything further.
Doug smirked as the girl collapsed, like a pile of bricks. He leaned over to go through her pockets one more time, just to make sure nothing was missed. Bob planted a foot and swung the other at the girl's back for a last kick. It was overkill in Doug's opinion but he didn't scold the other guy.
Anastasia and Emma were walking toward the parking lot together, laughing and talking. Emma had been the last student in the room for the open studio time that Anastasia had been supervising, and she was grateful for someone to walk with as walking to her car alone late at night always made her a little nervous.
"So really, what I do and it makes no sense but it always works for me, is I use more paint thinner then anything and--" she paused at the sound of some sort of commotion, hearing the sounds of male laughter and what sounded like flesh smacking against flesh. Chills shot all over her body and she put a hand on Emma's shoulder, sensing danger but not knowing where it was coming from. She looked ahead and saw two men standing around something that looked suspiciously like a woman.
"Oh shit," she breathed, her hand digging in her purse for her phone to dial 9-1-1. "Hey!" she said louder, not worrying about her own safety, just knowing she had to help whoever these two men were attacking. She sped up, looking for something along the way to knock them in the head with if she had to. "Get away from her! I'm calling the police!"
Emma had her backpack by the straps, and she went with Mrs Wentworth, keeping up easily in trainers and her paint stained jeans, even outpacing her slightly. One of the two guys, still with his back to them, got a backpack in the head, and with some force considering she'd full-arm swung it at him. She pulled back, ready to swing again if they didn't move away, her eye taking in detail, trying to get faces to come together in her mind so that hopefully she would remember them.
Doug looked out for number one, so when he heard the first woman yell, he turned on his heel and started running, putting his hands up around his face to block it, hopefully, from view. Bob on the other hand doubled over from the blow to the head. He let out a groan and yanked himself to his feet with the help of a nearby car, but he made the mistake of glaring at the girl with the backpack before he turned around to run away.
Anastasia slid to her knees onto the pavement next to the injured woman, panic making her shake as she connected with the 911 dispatcher and gave them the location and the details. "Oh fuck," she muttered as she dropped her phone on the ground and checked the woman's pulse which was weak, but there. "Thank christ, she's still alive at least. Do you know CPR or anything?" she asked Emma.
Emma stared after the two youths for a moment longer, then crouched down on the other side of the woman, she looked familiar, but it took a few seconds for her to realise why. "Oh, she lives in the Manor, I er, can't remember her name though?" A quick check of Emma's own revealed a pulse, and although the unconsciousness part worried Emma, at least the woman was breathing easily, and didn't appear to be bleeding too heavily from anywhere. "Do you think we should let the Manor know? I mean, I don't know who she is, and surely the paramedics are going to want her name at least?" She looked round, "Did she have a bag do you think?"
Anastasia looked around. "Oh, possibly? Uhm..." She scooted down to look under the car, not seeing anything right away and struggling to concentrate over the adrenaline that was making her hands shake. "What about her pockets? Maybe she didn't have a bag and kept everything in her pockets?" she said as she continued to look. "Check. If we can't find any information we'll just have to call the manor if you're certain she lives there. Someone will have to be looking for her, the poor thing," Anastasia said with a glance back at the fallen woman.
Emma gently patted at the obvious pockets, not finding anything in any of them, "Maybe those two got everything? That would be bad, we don't even know what they might have stolen?" There was one pocket that had a slight bulge to it, and Emma carefully slipped her hand in to pull out a phone. "Aha! Cell phone, maybe this has something we can use on it?"
She held it out to her teacher, "I'm not sure I should look though, feels kind of like invading her privacy, even if we have to?"
Anastasia took the phone hesitantly and looked down at it. Emma had a valid point, but surely the girl would understand. "Well, if I could at least find something with her name on it," she said as she opened the phone and gingerly tapped the menu button. The text folder seemed her best option so she opened the inbox and quickly scrolled through, forgetting anything personal she read right away out of respect for the girl's privacy. "I keep seeing the word "Jazz." Jazz. Could that be a nickname or something?" she asked Emma.
Jazz felt like she were swimming. Swimming in an endless black void. Weightless. Careless. She was beyond worry, beyond fear, beyond pain. She was safe here. She wanted to stay here.
A warmth spread slowly over her, like soothing bath water, and a scent filled her nose. Perfume. Something she hadn't smelled in years - hadn't smelled since she was a child...She struggled, all at once wanting to shake the lead off her limbs, wanting to see her mother. Her eyes opened.
And Jazz looked up into soft brown eyes and a pale face. Familiar, but not the one she wanted to see. Her brow furrowed, "Wha-?" Suddenly she felt everything once again, all the pain from every little wound throbbed through her and robbed her of speech. She could only gasp sharply and try to turn away.
"No, don't move, just in case anything's broken, we called for a paramedic, just keep still." Emma wanted to be sure she was alright, but breathing, not bleeding too much, and conscious were all good signs, "Does it hurt anywhere in particular? Oh, and is your name Jazz?"
Jazz started to nod, but her head pounded and her vision swam sickeningly, forcing her to stop. A sob of pain and frustration broke from her lips. "It hurts," she whispered.
"I know, sweetie," Anastasia said in her softest voice. "Someone will be here soon to help. In the meantime, is there anyone we can call? Any family or friends or anything like that?"
"Some-?" Someone...faces swam in her mind and she felt dizzy. "I - I don't..." She felt nauseous, like she might throw up. Her eyes closed again. She wanted it to stop, everything, it was all to much. It hurt to much. She couldn't think about anything but how much it hurt.
"Don't worry about it, I think I can hear the ambulance, or the police, not sure which, but, help is coming. Do you know if they took anything?" Emma was sure she'd heard something round and about the Manor, and the more she thought about it the more she was sure she'd seen the woman before, but she could not remember her name! Or who it was that had been connected with her. Maybe if there was anything this Jazz knew was missing they could just quickly look about the car park for it?
She looked around. She didn't know what the girl had on her when she was attacked, so she couldn't know if they'd taken anything or not. "Did you have anything on you, Jazz?" Anastasia asked in a gentle voice. "Anything we need to look for while you get taken care of?"
Her fingers curled. She remembered cool metal between her fingers. "My keys," she mumbled. "I had, I must have dropped...my keys."
Anastasia looked around and spotted something glinting from beneath the car directly to her left. "Oh, I think I found them!" She started to pick the item up, then dropped it as she realized it wasn't keys at all but an iPod that was covered in something slick. Taking her hand away, she saw blood.
"Oh fuck," she said as she looked down at Jazz. "Did you get them with the keys or something?" If it was the blood of one of Jazz's attackers on her iPod, that might help the police considerably in finding out who had done this.
Jazz's brow creased, trying to remember through the jackhammering in her skull. "He was holding me, but, I had my keys and..I thought, if I used them...."
"Shh, it's okay. We'll figure it out later," Anastasia said, giving Jazz's hand a gentle, comforting squeeze. "We'll make sure we find your keys and I can see the lights from the ambulance. They're almost here and we'll get everything taken care of, okay Jazz? Just hold on."
Somehow Jazz found the strength to squeeze the woman's hand back in response. "Thank you," she whispered. Her eyes rolled to the other woman, "Thank you," Jazz told her too.
Emma didn't dare to pick up the iPod, instead she stood up more, and moved out from between the cars, so that she could see the ambulance, which it was, followed by a police car. Waving a large page out of a sketch pad (hey, it was at least white!) she managed to attract their attention, which meant medical attention faster, and that could only be good. "Medics are here, along with the police? Did Campus Security get called? They're gonna wanna hear about this too aren't they?"
Anastasia nodded. "I suppose we should." She paused, then looked down at Jazz. "Do you want someone to go with you, Jazz?" she asked, patting the girl's hand. "One of us can stay here to talk to the police and campus security and the other can go with you if you like."
Jazz thought yes, but said no. "I couldn't ask you..."
"It's up to you, sweetie. I don't mind and I'm sure Emma wouldn't either, but it's whatever you need and want." She looked up at the sound of the paramedics approaching and gave Jazz's hand a final squeeze. "They're here to help now, okay? I'll still be here if you need me, but I'm going to get out of the way so they can help you."
Emma was talking to the medics as they wheeled the stretcher over and collapsed it, giving a brief summary of what they did know, which really wasn't that much. She smiled at Jazz, and then with more relief at Mrs Wentworth, and once she'd grabbed her backpack she stepped right back out of the way, found a patch of light and started trying to sketch the face she'd seen before he ran off. Best to start now while it was fresh in her mind.
Anastasia returned Emma's smile as she stood and called campus security, giving a brief run down of what had happened before hanging up and talking to the police. She pointed out the keys that were covered in the attacker's blood, and explained everything that she'd seen as she went to help Jazz. After she gave all her contact information, she sent the police over to talk to Emma who appeared to be sketching a drawing of one of the attackers, which would be good.
Jazz bit her lip to keep from crying out, or throwing up, as she was jolted and lifted onto the stretcher. Someone was trying to get her to talk, asking her questions as fingers pressed against her wrist. She felt a pinch on her other arm and looked over to see a different paramedic pushing a needle into the back of her hand, attaching an IV.
Chad had been one of the officers on the scene. Seeing that one of the witnesses was Emma and she'd been determined over her sketchpad, he figured there would be no need for the precincts sketch artist. One less person to call out and one more witness that could go home without waiting. Patterson had gone off to see what he could find out and Chad walked up in front of Emma.
Emma looked up very briefly as the police approached, then went right back to sketching the face, it was hard in the dark to get skintones and eye colours, but the shapes were still vivid in her memory and she was confident that it would be a good likeness, if not perfectly portrait type material. "I'm nearly there, won't be a mo, just, have to get this down, before it fades."
He waited without speaking so he didn't throw off her concentration. Her work was quick and the cop in him decided she might make a good sketch artist for the precinct herself, someday. If she wanted to, that was.
She'd registered cop, but that was about it, and it wasn't until she was done with the sketch, which really only took a minute, that she looked up again. "There, this is one of them." She held the pad out, showing the drawing to the policeman.
Taking the drawing from her he looked it over briefly. "Thanks, Emma. We'll get this scanned into the system and see if we can get a match."
"Oh, hi Mr Kennard, didn't realise it was you, just, had to get that done, I um, hope it helps?" Emma smiled briefly, "The other was was about the same height, but I didn't get a good look at him, sorry."
Chad nodded. "It's okay. Every bit that can be remembered and searched does help." He took his notebook and flipped to the pages of the scene to make notes. Sketch by witness Emma Brooks, 2nd guy ~same height, no sketch. "If you remember more later please come see me."
Anastasia gave her statement and contact information to the police, keeping one eye on Jazz as they loaded her up and got her hooked on an IV. She was torn between going to the hospital to sit with Jazz herself and going back to the manor to talk to either security or the TA or both. Someone would want to know about Jazz, and there were certainly plenty of Manor residents attending the college. With resolve, she decided to run back to the Manor, drop her things off and tell Trevor and Gavin where she would be, maybe say something to security to see if the girl had anyone to be contacted, and go to the hospital to at least check on Jazz.
An EMT approached Anastasia and Emma and jerked a thumb toward the ambulance. "Either of you ladies coming with, 'cause we're about to get her outta here."
Emma checked her watch, "Ah, no, I have to get home, I have to check in with the olds, feed the pets. Besides, I'm not good with hospitals. Or blood in general, I just, I wanna go home and shower for a long time."
Anastasia nodded and patted Emma's arm but looked at the EMT. "I'll be along a little later. I'm going to go talk to Manor security and let them know just in case there is anyone that should be notified about Jazz, and then I'll stop in later to make sure she's okay."
The EMT nodded, "If yer sure." Then he turned and jogged back to the ambulance. He hopped in the back and pulled the doors closed. A moment later the vehicle pulled away, lights flashing, to take Jazz to Saint Martins Hospital.
Icene had been waiting for the ambulance to leave, her team were already scouring the car park, and she needed to see if anything was under where the ambulance was parked. She nodded to the witnesses, recognising Emma, but carried on scouring the ground for any bits of evidence that her team might have missed. As the vehicle pulled away she moved in closer with a large torch, and called for swabs, a camera and an evidence bag. Gathering would still take time, but she also had to get to the hospital, as the only female CSI on duty tonight she was going to have to go and process the victim as well as the scene. Something told her it was going to be a long, and rough, night.
OOC: Big shout out to Ceil for writing the baddies. :)