Who: Kyle and Wren What: Chatting with law enforcement Where: A cheap hotel bar When: Sometime this week Warnings: None
Wren was out for the night.
She wasn’t working, not actively, her shoulder keeping her from it still, sore and tender and with less motion that normal. But she couldn’t just sit home and not work, and so she’d dressed the part of ingenue and gone to listen around corners. She knew the places the girls worked, the hotel lobbies they used to ply their trade. In a simple, short blonde wig and a sundress that had seen better days, she slipped into their spaces and hid around corners. She listened, and she watched, making sure to stay back and away and unnoticed. She heard about the recent deaths on the streets, and she heard about the men who made girls bleed and cry, and she memorized it all, cataloged it away for when she was better and could work again.
Her thigh-high boots held her blade, and she touched it once as she made her way to the hotel lobby bar for a drink. She knew she’d get carded if she tried to buy something alcoholic, and she didn’t want that sort of attention, so she leaned against the smooth surface, and she ordered a Coke, and she looked over at the man beside her.
Kyle was working for the night, he kept his ear to the ground as much as anyone else did, and it wasn’t news to him what went on in some of the dark recesses of this city. The pacific northwest usually touted itself as being so forward thinking, green energy, blue state, the home of Microsoft and the last place on earth that a hippie could retire comfortably. These were all things Kyle approved of, and believed in. The biggest issue at hand was that it wasn’t so cut and dry, when communities moved forward, when they embraced change and moved forward with gentrification there were always those who were left behind. There were people being victimized in this city every day, every night, everything from burglary, rape, homicide, domestic abuse, drugs, guns...This place wasn’t immune to the rest of the world’s problems. It was Kyle’s job to do something about the things no one wanted to talk about. He reported to people richer than him who reported to people richer than them, who reported to the lawmakers who reported right back to these very people that Kyle was sworn to protect. Except things really didn’t work that way.
So Kyle was here, late at night, in a hotel bar, almost itching someone to fight with him. But mostly just keeping his head down and his ears open. He noticed the girl next to him at the bar and he naturally surveyed her out of the corner of his eye and ordered himself another drink. He might have felt bad about drinking on the job, but he knew by now that he was either going to drink on the job or fail miserably at doing his job. He lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke slowly as he turned his head and looked around the room once more.
Wren didn’t generally talk to strangers while she worked; Hal had been an exception. It looked like tonight was going to involve another exception.
There was something about the man beside her, about the way he dragged on the cigarette and held his beer, something about the way he looked over the crowd that spoke of a strange sort of helplessness that she didn’t see very often in these dark and dingy places. She matched the dark and dingy place tonight, looking just as homeless and unkempt as some of the souls that wandered in to avoid the dark and rain. The goal wasn’t getting hired, and she had been very intentional in distressing the dress she wore and unevenly trimming the faded wig.
She didn’t smoke, and she didn’t drink what he was drinking, but she moved closer anyway, and her voice was soft curiosity. “Doctor? Cop? Politician? Advocate?” she asked, the cant of her words too refined for the clothing she wore.
He didn’t look over until she spoke, not even when he noticed her moving closer he took her in for a moment, and wondered immediately what her story was. “Cop,” he said quietly, almost under his breath as he took another pull on his cigarette. He had looked away when he said it, he wasn’t exactly undercover, his firearm was under his jacket, visible if you were looking for it, his badge was easy access, he didn’t even bother trying to play at being someone else, unless it was absolutely necessary.
She touched his arm softly, a learning touch, and then she looked down at his firearm. “Are you a good cop?” she asked, because she’d been working in the profession long enough to know there were three sorts of police officers - good ones, bad ones and indifferent ones. He was young, and he still cared, and that was something she didn’t see very often in these circles. “What have you heard about the prostitute murders?” she asked, all soft candor and harmless curiosity. Sometimes cops liked to talk, sometimes they liked to do other things - she was counting on this one liking to talk.
He took another drink and nodded, “Yeah, I’m a good cop,” he said finally looking over at her again and making sure she knew he meant it. He didn’t know who he was dealing with but if she was looking for someone to trust in this place, better him than anyone else. The prostitute murders, he’d seen a couple of them happen, hadn’t been able to make it in time, and the visions hadn’t given him any leads, but he had a head start on anyone else. Still, he wasn’t sure why she was asking, but something told him that she no doubt had more information than he did when it came down to it. “What have you heard?” he asked curiously. “We don’t have much, I’m trying to do something about that.”
“No one remembers seeing him,” Wren told him, because she hadn’t been able to find one person who had seen anything strange at all. “That means he looks harmless, which means no one notices him until it’s too late.” The johns that looked dangerous were so much easier for girls on the street to avoid, she knew. It was the one with the nice cars and winning smiles that were the problem. Shiny cars and silk always made desperate girls dream of being saved, and they let their guards down because of it. It made Wren unbelievably sad, and it showed on her face for a brief moment. She looked at this man, this cop, and she made her own leap of faith. “Can I have your name?”
Kyle frowned a bit and finished his drink, then took a last drag on his cigarette before he put it out. No one remembering seeing him wasn’t the best lead he’d ever had, and unfortunately he knew the kind of sickos that managed to roam the streets. Serving any amount of time in homicide or special victims, two departments he knew well, was enough to make his mind veer into the seemingly “nice and normal” folks that turned monstrous given the chance. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his PD business card and wrote his personal mobile number on the back, “Kyle West, look you seem like someone who knows a thing or two about a thing or two,” he turned a bit to look at her more seriously, “You get the word out for me if anyone needs some help, I can be reached anytime. I know sometimes there are no other options, I’m not here trying to arrest prostitutes,” he said seriously. There was evil in the world, and there were circumstances that were unimaginable to most, people had to make a living and as far as he was concerned they had a right to be alive when they got done working for the night.
Wren took the card, and she nodded. She’d been thinking about what the vigilantes were trying to do, about what they wanted to accomplish, and someone on the force that was open to what they did had to be a good thing. She didn’t put much stock in law enforcement, however, because law enforcement generally didn’t care about her kind. They saved the good people, and the rest of them were on their own in the big, bad world. But there was something in his eyes that was trustworthy, and she took the card and tucked it into the side of her boot. “Is there anything else you don’t arrest?” she asked plainly, with an open expression that said she waiting for him to tell her if he could be trusted beyond normal law enforcement.
He regarded her for a moment, it was easily clear that she was much more than she seemed and he smiled a bit, “I don’t arrest good people in bad situations,” he said pointedly. “It’s a matter of principle, wanting to the right thing doesn’t make you a criminal.”
“And the vigilantes?” she asked, openly, candidly, but without any indication of her own opinion on the topic.
“No,” he said simply. And waved for a refill on his drink, once it was full again he took a long sip.
She smiled, and she turned toward him a little. “No?”
“No. I don’t arrest vigilantes,” he clarified, though he knew he didn’t really need to. “Do you?” he asked smirking a bit.
That got her smiling, a warm, wide smile that made her look even younger than the bad wig and dirty sundress. “Not normally, no,” she said. She touched his sleeve again, and she looked up at his face for a moment, as if she was deciding on his trustworthiness. In the end, she squeezed his arm just a little with her fingertips. “Kyle West,” she repeated. “I’ll pass your name around.”
He nodded, “Do you have a name? You don’t have to give it to me if you don’t want to,” he assured her. He returned her smile, “Please do,” he said seriously.
“Wren,” she said, because she had given up on finding a code name. She didn’t give her name to the men she targeted, and that would have to do. Her real name was something she kept close and tight, and given the fact that it would reveal her identity to her uncle (which she was trying to avoid), she’d rather it not become Creations currency.
“You feel free to use that number too, Wren,” he said finishing his drink with a swallow and setting the glass down. “Not everyone has given up,” he said quietly. It was hard to remember that in places like this bar, in the darker corners of the city, it wasn’t always to keep your head above water.
She looked at him a moment longer, a long, slow look that was too old for her, and then she smiled. “Don’t drink too much, Kyle,” she told him, and then with one more squeeze of his arm she turned and left the hotel bar, and then the hotel itself.