Something Wicked This Way Comes
Characters: Matt and Pippa Setting: The library
The flickering light from a lone candle traversing the otherwise inky darkness was the only real indicator of Matt’s presence as he made his way up and down the empty aisles of the library, the storm outside masking what little noise he made moving around. It wasn’t perhaps the most obvious place to be in a blackout but outside of his room, it was where he felt the most comfortable and he had needed to see for himself the damage that had been wrought on the library’s small, now even smaller, collection of books. Unlike at Roger Williams, he wasn’t totally familiar with where everything had been shelved but he had photographed every stack in his first couple of days at the facility and while he couldn’t name every book that had been lost, it was all too clear the extent to which the vandal had gone.
Setting down his candle, he lifted his camera with handles that trembled with barely contained anger, forcing them to stop as he took a photo of another empty shelf, the flash illuminating the room for a moment, as brilliant as the lightning outside.
Ah, the library. Pippa watched the small, ghostly light that danced through the aisles of books and let the light reflect memories of what she'd done just earlier in this library. When it came her way, she stopped where she was outside of the room and looked down to see the candle held by a man that she could only describe as bookish as well and grinned.
Stepping inside, she kept her steps as quiet and short as possible for a while, grinning when a pound of thunder sparked her feet even quicker than she expected it to. Hoping to come closer to him without making too much noise, Pippa stepped about as far into this as she thought she could before losing the ability to keep quiet and then spoke in a deep, dark voice, "Boo!"
Given his general skittishness and the angry tension thrumming through him, it was no real surprise that Pippa’s little stunt startled him. It was a blessing he’d already set down the candle and, not for the first time, he was grateful the camera he’d been gifted by the administration had come furnished with a strap otherwise something would have undoubtedly gone crashing to the floor. Heart racing he turned in the direction the voice had come from, and while he didn’t yet trust himself to speak, he did fix the blonde with an unimpressed look, the still flickering candle sending the frown on his face into stark relief.
Pippa grinned, though, a laugh on her lips as she watched him. "Lighten up. It's pure ghost story territory here. If you didn't get scared at least once tonight, you're doing something wrong." And if she wasn't out there trying to scare everyone, she was doing something wrong. "And you, especially, all alone in this old, creepy library? You're asking for it."
Matt continued to scowl, unwavered by what she considered to be good humor. “I don’t think your opinion of what’s right and wrong lines up with mine Pippa,” he said quietly, voice oddly flat. The moment he had turned to look at her and seen the face tattoo, he knew exactly who he was dealing with and it was taking a supreme amount of effort on his part to not simply lay into the woman. “Not given your recent handiwork.”
Oh? Tilting her head to the side, Pippa regarded him carefully. What did he know, exactly? What was he accusing her of? It had her incredibly curious and perhaps a little wary around him, as she wasn't prepared to have this mousy librarian tell her something like that about herself. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Mr. Fraidy-cat."
A humourless smile crept onto Matt’s face at that and he gave a small shake of his head as he reclaimed the candle, not believing for a moment that Pippa didn’t know what he was getting at. “Oh I’m p...pretty sure you do Miss Wanton Destruction of Property,” he replied, emotion starting to bleed into his tone. He may not have known for sure it was her who set the fire in the courtyard but the laundry room and Edan’s injuries were an entirely different matter.
Oh, and he stuttered too. This was too much. Grinning, Pippa watched him, unable to stop sizing him up as he spoke to her. "That's a big accusation for such a small person. Do you have the balls to back it up?" She asked, leaning against the nearest bookcase but always, always keeping her eyes on Matt.
Angry as he was, he couldn’t help raising an eyebrow when Pippa described him as small given that, even in the dim light provided by the candle, he could see he stood almost a foot taller than her. He didn’t miss the way she was sizing him up either, an experience he was more than used to from prison, and he took a small step back, wanting her to think she had him unsettled. “It’s h...hardly an accusation if there’s proof,” he said. “If you were stupid enough to let someone see you.”
Height wasn't the only discerning factor for Pippa to judge someone on. He was a slim guy and besides, calling someone something that they obviously weren't sometimes messed them up. She watched him step back, still curious about him. He was mad at her, accusing her of things, but not standing his ground. "What, exactly, are you accusing me of? Because it looks a lot like you've got a big bark but a teeny tiny bite and I can assure you, my bite is just as bad as my bark."
Matt took another step back towards where he knew the study tables were, his grip on the candle tightening. “You trashed the laundry room,” he replied, making no attempt to hide the anger in his voice as he continued with “You hurt Edan.” And that was just what he knew for certain. “And don’t for ooo...one moment think you know me or what I am capable of.”
Now it was getting interesting. Following step for step, Pippa walked closer to him as he backed up again. "Is Edan your girlfriend," She asked, deciding to taunt on that for now since he had hit on something she'd done and she wasn't sure whether she wanted to lie or accept it yet. What she really wanted was to get him flustered enough to stutter again.
Her question brought a rush of colour to Matt’s cheeks but thankfully his blushing was hidden by the murkiness of the room. “She is my friend,” he said, voice sharp. “And you hurt her. If you’d done nothing else, that would be enough.”
"It would be enough to what?" She asked him, still stepping in tandem with him each time he stepped back. She thought she saw a hint of a blush on his cheeks and it spurred her on. "What are you going to do to avenge your girlfriend's injuries? Against a harmless, innocent girl, no less? You talk a big game, but I'm curious as to what you might actually do about this. Enlighten me."
For a moment he said nothing, his silence giving no hint the building rage inside him as he continued moving backwards until his free hand met the back of a chair. The iron set of his jaw might’ve given him away if someone knew what to look for, so unlike his usual mild expression, but he was a stranger to Pippa and he counted that to his advantage. Still he didn’t answer her question and then without warning, snuffed out the candle with his thumb and plunged the library into total darkness. Before either of them had time to adjust to the lack of light, he yanked the char from beneath the table and flung it towards where Pippa was standing, letting it’s clatter cover his footsteps as he put the table between them. “We both know you are neither harmless nor innocent so don’t even try to act otherwise,” he told her, voice low.
Immersed in darkness, Pippa heard a clanking and felt the rush of air as the chair just narrowly passed her. He wouldn't be able to see it in the dark but her lips had contorted into a deep grin. The chase was on. There was no way he would have thrown something at her and then just stood still. She stayed immobile for a moment, letting her eyes try to adjust to a room of complete darkness, and when it failed she reached out to let her fingers run across the bookcases, using them as guides. "Come out, come out wherever you are, little rabbit…Trust me, I'll show you how harmless I am."
Life had taught Matt the value of not rushing into things and as much as he was tempted to rise to the taunting, he resisted the urge. Instead he closed his eyes and staying silent, edged along the table letting his fingers tell him where he exactly was, just like Pippa was doing. What was different between them was the purpose for doing so; he knew the room like the back of his hand and with the blonde continuing to talk, he knew roughly where she was even if he couldn’t see her. Instead he was seeking out something in particular and when he found it, it was his turn to smile grimly in the darkness.
"Now, if you wanted to get me alone in the dark, you could have just said so. You still haven't even told me your name…but I guess names can be meaningless sometimes." Pippa had one hand out on the bookcase, the other extended out to her side and when her fingers brushed the edge of the table, she shifted her direction to following it instead. "Marco…"
He was all too happy to let her prattle on, the sound of her voice covering his movements as deft fingers trailed along a wire to the wall and gently pulled out a plug. If she wanted to treat what was happening like a game that was her prerogative and while he couldn’t help but think ‘Polo’ as she drew closer, his eyes rolled behind their lids. Adjusting his grip on his camera so his thumb hovered just over the shutter, with his other hand he picked up the now free-standing desk lamp.
She slowly walked around the edge of the table, bumping chairs in her path. She wasn't exactly as stealthy about this as Matt was, not yet, not when she still felt she had the upper hand based on sheer personality differences. Or what she observed as personality differences. "Come on, now. You started the game. Don't be a fraidy-cat and end it before it's even begun. It's no fun if you aren't actually playing."
Matt wanted to laugh in disbelief at the arrogance of the woman but it was far outweighed by just how much he wanted to hurt her for what she’d done to Edan, for what he had convinced himself she’d done to the books. From the sound of her voice he could tell she was nearby but it wasn’t close enough yet for his purposes so he purposely let out a loud laboured sigh before saying, “Who said I was scared?”
She turned in direction of the sigh and the voice, grin still present on her face, if only there was light enough to see it. "You're running from me. It's a telltale sign of fear, don't you know that?" She reached out with one hand, trying to see if she could grab a fistfull of shirt or something on him to drag him closer.
Pippa may not have been close enough to actually catch hold of him but it was a near miss on her part, the movement sending a small breeze across Matt’s front. What it did do was tell him it was the moment to strike and turning his head away, he tilted his camera upwards and pressed the shutter, setting the flash off in the woman’s face before slamming the lamp into the side of her head. “I wasn’t running.”
The flash blinded her and came followed by a scream of discomfort as Pippa shielded her eyes. She wasn't prepared for the hit and all she heard before it was the woosh of air from an object swinging her way, then the crash into her head, instant pain, and finally real darkness. Pippa dropped to the ground from the impact, unconscious only moments after the initial hit from the lamp.
The moment he made impact, Matt had stepped back in case he had misjudged the swing and Pippa had been able to retaliate, spots dancing in front of his eyes despite his keeping them closed. Even when she hit the ground in front of him, he gave it a few moments before he dropped down to his haunches, turning on the small screen on the back of his camera and using the light it produced to check his handiwork. Even with the minimal light, he could already see a lump rising on the blonde’s hair line and a gash oozing blood to which he gave a small nod of satisfaction. Confident she was still breathing, he set down the lamp on the table and stepped over her body, applauding his own self-control when he made no move to kick the woman or step on her fingers, satisfying as it would have been. Then he made his way outside, taking the small pool of light with him and leaving Pippa’s unconscious form in the darkness, and while he could hardly be described as having a spring in his step, his walk was that of man untouched by regret or remorse.