Re: log: hannah and ren
Hannah's anger was a quiet thing. It was a maelstrom inside the copper-haired girl. It was a quiet thing with teeth that would rend someday. But, for now, she just sat with a quiet and wide-eyed stare. She'd known how bad it would be, but she'd wanted to see, and she was glad she'd come. It was cowardly not to watch with her own eyes wide, to not experience it in all its awful. Knowing it was happening, reading about it and talking about it with people who shared her thoughts and views, it wasn't the same as living it. Living it was fighting the desire to look away, away, and she wanted to close her eyes. But the boy on the table didn't have the choice not to suffer, and why should she have the choice not to watch? No, she looked and looked and stared, eyes forward and attention straight ahead.
Until Ren spoke, and she shifted her gaze to take in his countenance. This was no laundry room and Jane Eyre's pen scratching on paper as she planned the romantic futures of her sundry heroines. This was something different, and she squeezed his hand when he looked at her. She was okay, and she was okay, and she would be okay.
Or she would be, but then the shot rang out and she too wondered if it was part of the show. But, no, no, the blood that poured from the wound in the man's forehead was real, and around them chaos was beginning to reign.
Men stood and yelled, and the other host ran away. Another shot rang out, and the second host fell and twitched, a bullet having pierced his back.
Hannah looked around, and then she moved. She tugged on Ren's fingers, but she wasn't going to make him go into the fray with her. Tug, tug, and then she let go. But she ran straight into the center of that ring, where the boy was still unable to move upon the table. She didn't have a way to fix him, but she took off her coat and covered him, and she smoothed his brow. "It'll be okay," she told him, because whoever shot the men would help, right? Why else do this? To her right, the other AIs were trying to free themselves from their ankles and arm bracelets, and some members of the crowd were trying to steal the smaller ones away, because there was profit in that, and the man that approached the table where Hannah shielded the boy was likely after the same. But she didn't back down, and she hoped Ren ran and ran and got himself safe.
She'd thought they were here to watch, and she hadn't meant to get him involved in this. That was her thought as the man, 6'2 and bulky, approached with an electric shock in his hand, and she began to realize that maybe this wasn't about saving anyone at all, maybe the deaths of the hosts was about something different.
She scanned the crowd for Ren, tall and dark and Rochester.