Repose

[Group: Jason Woods, Peter Carter, Babs Baker]
[After this.]

Hi. I kind of think Mbali might be in way big trouble. (Babs, Mbali is the girl from back home that we were going to embark on a social excursion with.)

[Cris M]
Evening, Sheriff. Sorry that we haven't been formally introduced yet.

[Private to Melody B]
[After this.]

Hey, can you do me a favor?

[It was like waking up from a fitful sleep.

Flashes of lucidity, cycles of consciousness and unconsciousness, and then more darkness. Less remembered, more forgotten.

A deep breath in, a gasp, and all of a sudden, everything from before: family, friends, home. Stephanie Miller snapped her neck back and forth, and she recognized the insides of a tinny, old van. In the front seat sat two men, one taller and one shorter, dressed in all black with their eyes on the road. Not a word exchanged between the two of them, though once and a while the taller of the two, hands gripped on the steering wheel, would glance to the shorter one with this sort of look. Bored or distrustful or pained, Stephanie couldn't suss it out completely. All Stephanie knew? Was that she need to get out of there ASAP.

Hours later, with sore feet and bruised knuckles and blood matted sticky in her bright blonde hair, she stumbled over the town line. Her fingers clutched a phone taking from the short man, where Repose's location blipped as a beacon of home. Of freedom, escape from whatever they had done to her. Street lamps lit the empty sidewalks. It was late in the evening, far later than most people in this quiet town liked to wander out, so she was alone in the silence, the shuffle of her feet the only thing keeping her company in the darkness.

She could have gone to the police, where Cris or one of her other former co-workers could have helped. She could have just gone to her apartment and slept off the pain. She could have used that phone, smeared with blood, to call a plethora of different people. Instead, she found herself in the doorway of The Mean-Eyed Cat, searching for a familiar face. It was past closing time, she assumed, and as she peaked into the window, she saw no one at the bar. Customer or bartender. Stephanie groaned, letting her head fall against the door as her bones began to scream from pain. Her knuckles were on fire, and she was sure that a couple of the slashes on her arms needed stitches. Clothes hanging off her thinner frame, she looked worse for wear. But, she knocked still, loud and purposeful, even if the point seemed moot.]