luke: narrative Who: Luke What: Narrative: making a couple of bodies ~disappear. Where: Hospital mortuary. When: After this, before going to the Mansion. Warnings/Rating: Little bit of violence. Oops. Notes: Safe to say the bodies would be reported as being 'misplaced', more details pending further investigation.
There was one teeny, tiny thing Luke had to take care of before he went to Wren.
He had to get rid of the bodies.
Those men, they'd been looking for Jack, which meant they worked for whoever owned that warehouse, whoever had kidnapped mutants and performed twisted experiments on them. And that whoever? They wouldn't just let this go. No way. And so the autopsies couldn't ever be performed. He couldn't let it happen. It was too risky, and so there was only one choice. One thing he could do. No bodies, no proof, and he had a lot of experience with covering his tracks and disposing of corpses. This would be a walk in the park.
And it would keep Wren (and Evie) safe, which was always, always his top priority.
Getting into the mortuary at the hospital, where the bodies were being kept pending the autopsy, was easy. It would have been easy before the pulse and it was laughably easy now, when he could slip past unseen, limbs smooth as water, too quick to register as anything more than a flicker of movement. No one paid attention to him, jeans and a baseball cap pulled over his eyes. No one even saw him. And once he found his destination he went up, into the ventilation system, and waited. Waited for the mortuary to empty, for the voices to fade. He waited for the door to click shut behind them.Then, and only then, did he drop down, soundless, and set about looking for the right drawers. In and out, that was the plan, but somebody had other ideas.
He'd locked the door behind himself, confident in the fact that he'd be able to hear anyone approaching, which he did. He froze, waiting for the footsteps to pass, but they stopped outside the door instead. The lock jiggled. Someone was trying to get in. Two seconds, four, six, and the door opened.
His reflexes were good; he was out of sight before the man stepped inside. Flicked on the lights. He, too, locked the door behind himself, but he didn't stop there. He bolted it, shoved a metal cabinet against it just on case. Not hospital staff, no, not this guy. He had a look to him, big and rough and ferocious, sort of, like he'd been around for a while. Some kind of hired muscle. Had to be, grumbling about the weekend and money and couldn't fucking wait under his breath. And his scent-- he just smelled plain rotten, and Luke felt his hackles rise, felt a growl starting in his throat.
There was a gun at his hip, under his suit jacket (he wore a suit, shiny shoes, but he wasn't all that impressed) and he knew why he was here. For the bodies, which wouldn't be autopsied until after the weekend. Maybe somebody didn't want to wait that long.
He didn't really think. He dropped down, soundless, and straightened. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
The man said nothing. He reached for his gun, and Luke knew he was reaching for his gun, as he turned, but he was too quick. Snap went his wrist, the gun fell, and the man opened his mouth to cry out in pain but only a pained wheeze came out.
Fingers on his throat, squeezing, would do that to a guy.
For a few seconds, he regarded him. Eyes gone slit and yellow bored into narrowed, angry brown, and he smiled. It was a too sharp smile, not nice at all. He shoved him back against the wall of drawers, and all this man's strength was for naught because he was pinned like a bug, helpless, at the mercy of someone who wasn't really feeling all that merciful just then. Adrenaline sang in his veins, blood pumped, and Luke could smell the other man's blood beneath his skin. He could hear his heart beat, practically see his lungs struggle for air.
"Who sent you here?"
The man managed a choked laugh. "Fuck you," he wheezed. "You're gonna kill me anyway, why should I talk?"
He tipped his head to the side. Was he going to kill him? He hadn't decided yet. He shouldn't, he knew. Wren wouldn't like it. But the urge was there, deep in his bones, and he was trying so, so hard to fight it. "Maybe I'll let you live. Maybe I'll kill you quick instead of slow. Are you really willing to die for whoever you're working for? Suffer for them?"
The man glared, but he could sense a hint of hesitation. He wasn't loyal for loyalty's sake, no. It was probably money, and maybe just a little bit of fear. But the moment passed and he cursed him again. "Go fuck yourself. You think I'm the only one? Go ahead."
His head was pounding. Do it, don't do it, do it, don't do it, an endless rhythm round and round. Slowly, slowly, Luke loosened his hold. Dropped his hand. Stepped back.
And when the man lunged, as he'd expected, he let instinct take over. He had no choice; there was no time to fight for control. No time to do anything but react. Claws dug into the meat of his throat and tore, overlapping a snarl and spraying blood in a wide arc. The man's eyes widened in surprise. He tried to speak but gurgled instead, blood bubbling up between his lips, and then he fell. For a long, long moment, Luke failed to fully absorb what had happened; it was all so fast. He looked down at himself. He looked down at the man and the rapidly pooling blood.
Oh.
There was guilt, just a little, mostly because he knew Wren would be really, really mad if she found out. He'd said he wouldn't do this again, but it had been instinctive and he'd just... acted. But just this once, he told himself. Never again. And now he had three bodies instead of two to dispose of, but what was one more? It might have been a problem before the pulse but not now, not anymore.
He cleaned up the blood, first. Got rid of his mess. No one else came. No one else bothered him. His hands shook a little but he hadn't done this in a while, that was all. He was okay. He was good.Then he found body bags to transport the corpses, and one by one he dragged them up into the ventilation shaft. Metal creaked and groaned but held their weight, and one by one he dragged them out. Out to the back by the dumpsters and the fences, where there were no cameras, where he'd nabbed himself a van for transportation.
All he had to do now was get rid of them. Burning, he thought, was better. It was a holiday. People had fires. Burn, burn, and then he'd bury the ashes so deep no one would ever find them. And then he'd go see Wren, and everything would be just fine.