holiest of holies.

[Evan McCollach] He had left Danicka for a second before going to get his car. He still was iffy about driving, considering he didn't have a license nor any true experience. But for the time being he had to just suck it up and drive her.

And the drive back into the city was a rather quiet one. He went out expecting one sort of hunt and came back for another. Danicka was wounded still, not to the point of bleeding to death, but still wounded. He had driven quickly, but carefully. His eyes were careful of where he drove as well. He knew he could not, nor would he cross into the area that the sept declared caern territory. He was not invited and he knew better than to trespass where he wasn't allowed. But the Brotherhood was close enough to be dangerous, without treading to deeply.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The Brotherhood is quiet tonight, which might explain why Lukas is out in the common room with his phone call instead of in his room.

The Ahroun is stretched out on the sectional couch, his head pillowed against one arm, his feet pressed against the corner where the couch takes a turn. One hand holds his cellphone to his ear; the other is atop his head, riffling idly through his damp hair.

He's in his bum around the house gear. Soft pajama bottoms, a white t-shirt. "I don't know," he's saying; his tone is far too quiet, far too musing, for this to be a business call. "I suppose I should, but -- no; it's just I'd rather see where this goes for now. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it can't hurt."

A car pulls up outside. Plenty of cars pull up outside the Brotherhood, day or night. Lukas thinks nothing of it.

[Evan McCollach] He looks to Danicka first once he stops the car outside the Brotherhood. She was still a little weakened at the moment, probably still from the blood loss and the injuries. He had just moved around the other side, opening the door to help her out of the car and towards the door of the cub, (if she was willing to accept it). She was still most likely a little dizzy and might have some trouble walking.

Evan would help her to the door. Waiting outside with the wounded young woman while he knocked at the door. This was not his territory, he would await permission to enter.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's the back door Evan takes, the front behind a restaurant entryway. This late at night the kitchen staff have retired to their beds; the proprietors of the place are asleep.

Everyone's asleep. Or out. Lukas isn't sure which, but he can hear the knocking distantly, and then a little more insistently. Sighing under his breath, he rolls to a sitting position, swings his legs off the couch.

"Yeah, ask around for me, will you? His name's Vladislav. -- Goddammit. Hang on a second, some idiot locked himself out. No, keep talking, I'm listening."

His feet are bare on the floorboards, and thump all the way down the stairs. The kitchen tiles are stone, and colder beneath his feet. It's raining outside, the drizzle taking away the warmth of the day.

Evan can hear the locks behind undone, the bolts unbolted. Then the back door of the Brotherhood opens and Lukas stands in the doorway, one hand holding a phone to his ear. He looks faintly cross at the interruption -- for the instant before he registers the sight, anyway.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (er. the front BEING...)

[Evan McCollach] He looked right back at the Shadow lord when he comes to the door. Danicka had muttered something about someone's last night, but it was highly unlikely that he would even know who that was, let alone how it was pronounced.

"May we come in?"

Awaiting permission still. He didn't expect a warm welcome from the lords. He had a pack mate once who was a lord, he watched over his widowed mate. Most shadow lords he met kept to sterotype. Maybe it was a tribe wide memo.

[Sam Modine] While Lukas is opening the back door downstairs, his packmate is only just arriving, soaking wet with rain he takes his shoes and socks off before even coming inside through the roof access he seems to prefer of late. The wet clothes make him shiver just a little, smiling as long hair whips off water in every direction. "Hello?"

He calls out across the shared space poking his head into the common area, the bathroom and talking a full circut of the hallway he seems to note the Sam thing the Shadow Lord had earlier.

It's quiet here tonight.

Probably best after all the hoopla last night, there had been company, noise and drinking. There had been diplomacy and politicking and Sam had smoked his first true joint following a single puff as an adolescent that had made his head spin. They'd played Host to the Eagles and it had turned into something of an occasion.

After he changes he makes his way back across the front of the television and to the bookshelf, his pajamas swaying in the warm air from the register as he crouches in front of it. He searches for something for the moment, his finger tracing the row of spines while the Modi bites the corner of his lip absently.

[Danicka Musil] No one knows how badly she does not want to cry, or whine, or show weakness. The woman's been shot. Her liver was ruptured. She needs to be in a fucking hospital before she continues bleeding to death. When Evan leaves her, she makes a quiet noise in her throat that she quickly stifles, and closes her eyes. She doesn't think about where the bottle of nightshade has gone, or the dart. She reaches into her purse, fighting not to sob out in pain, and takes out a cellophane-wrapped package.

By the time Evan comes back with his car, Danicka has color in her cheeks. She is leaning quietly against her car, her back to the head behind her. She looks drained, her skin is still mostly pale, but that dazed, trying-not-scream look is gone. She's still hurt.

She's still hurt in the sense that there's a cut on her neck and pain up and down her spine from the car wreck. But when Evan returns, she is ending a call on her iPhone and putting it away again. She seems shaken, her eyes dark, but she doesn't talk much. She even digs around in her car before she leaves, stuffing a USB key and her registration and so forth into her purse. She doesn't move like a woman who was nearly dead when he showed up. Through the holes in the back of her shirt, there's no sign of torn flesh.

=========

At the Brotherhood, Danicka does in fact wait for the unknown Garou -- whose name she has not asked -- to open her door for her. She lets him help her, but does not lean on him really. Her hand is on his arm almost as though it's a formality...which it sort of is. She's drenched in drying blood. It's all dry by the time they drive all the way from Tekakwitha to this part of town. She hasn't called Lukas. Evan knocks, and Danicka doesn't say a word. She holds her head up, some of her hair stuck to her cheek, her purse over her side still, her hands holding the strap.

Lukas opens the door. Danicka meets his eyes for a moment, then drops them. Her head bows slightly.

As though she's ashamed.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (WP!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's not, in the end, the sight that he registers first, after all.
It's the smell.

It's the smell of blood, thick and coppery in the air. It's the smell of viscerae, of internal organs, of bile and stomach acid and the contents of the intestinal lumen; the smell of crushed heads, broken bones, shit and piss, battle and death.

It's the smell of Danička's blood on Danička's body, and it simply arrests Lukas.

He's not saying a word on the phone. He's not standing aside. It's possible he's not even breathing. He just stares. It's not until Evan speaks -- promptingly -- that the Ahroun's pale blue eyes snap back to the Fostern.

"I need to call you back," Lukas tells his phone, quietly, and shuts it without waiting for a reply. He doesn't drop it, though it's a near thing. He puts it down and, ten seconds later, will have no idea whatsoever where he put it. He stands aside for the Child of Gaia and the bloodsoaked blonde who was, undeniably and absolutely, one of his tribe.

"This house is open to all of the Nation." He's reciting by rote. "Come in." He can't stop glancing at Danička, though he makes an effort, an immense one, to give Evan a once-over. "Do you need healing, Rhya?"

[Evan McCollach] He moves into the house once invited. Even if the place was open to all of the Nation, he still had to ask. It was only polite and proper.

"I am not injuried. However I believe this young woman is one of your own."

He moved with her into the house, still assisting her if she was willing to take it. Shadow lords around other shadow lords did change their posturing, kin and true alike. Then again it was also possible Lukas might take her from him, a small chance it probably was.

"I was hunting in the woods and heard gun shots. I found her wounded."

[Maija] Like as not, they don't even know she's hear. Like as not, she prefers it that way. However, when the session was suddenly ended, bills exchanging hands hurriedly and uncounted, and one Mrena Armstrong disappearing into the Umbra with a *pop* - Maija was left alone in the ShadowLord's room, staring at an empty space.

It's a good thing she seems to be missing the 'curiosity' gene, as she does not take this opportunity to rifle through Mrena's belongings, to dig through her desk to see if there's anything interesting there. No, Maija simply stares at the place that once held the Theurge for a few, long, minutes. Finally, she shakes herself, and straightens the bills in her hand, before folding them and shoving them deep into her pocket. It's still the easiest money to make, though easy is not exactly how she'd describe these awkward sessions.

Tonight was even weirder than the one before as Mrena did not question her, but worked in silence. To say that Maija is tense and sore and desperately in need of a massage and bottle of tequila would be an understatement. She finally tugs her sweatshirt over her head and into place, tugging the hood low to cover her features, and makes sure that she has everything before she opens the door and slips out into the hall, closing the room behind her, before making her way quietly to the common room.

[Maija] (...here.didn't know she was here. i kin tipe!)

[Danicka Musil] She waits, notably, until Evan enters before she follows, stepping up into the kitchen. She's moving under her own power now, but watching the ground and her shoes like a child who has done something wrong. She doesn't speak, because no one has spoken to her yet.

Oh. But she does stop, and close the door to the alleyway behind her.

She's wearing jeans today. They're mostly black now, with her blood. Her long-sleeved shirt was covered by a light jacket -- both are torn up, have no color left but a swiftly oxidized brownish-red. There's a deep cut on the back of her neck.

Danicka locks the door again, and turns around once more.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (also, manip/subt: I'M FINE.)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's hand twitches at his side. He clenches it into a fist; tears his eyes off the woman. Draws a short breath, and then looks levelly at Evan and doesn't look back at her.

"Badly wounded?" He sounds mildly curious at best.

[Evan McCollach] (Percept+Empath)

[Evan McCollach] He looks at Lukas a couple of moments, his fist clenching, the twitch in his side. His body language, his voice. He nods and turns to Danicka first. Lukas wouldn't say it, but he would.

"Maybe you should get cleaned up and rest a bit. You had a bit of an adventurous night. Of course if that is okay with your tribe's man?"

He looked back to Lukas, seeing if he would dismiss her to recoup the rest of her wounds and get out of those clothes. He would wait until she was gone before he said anything, letting him ease slightly.

"She was shot pretty badly. I healed her slightly, but she seems to have recovered nicely. She might need some more rest before she is fully healed."

[Danicka Musil] [Per/Emp: Just to be a dick.]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] For a moment it seems Lukas will stand stoic until the bitter end. Evan suggests Danicka go upstairs, if it's all right with Lukas, and the Shadow Lord barely glances at her to nod a short acquiescence.

Then she's passing him by. And his hand is coming out to catch her wrist, as though drawn, iron to a magnet. He turns his head to look at her. He's gripping her arm almost too hard.

"There are towels in the laundry room." That's all he says, quiet. "I'll see if Dylan has anything you can wear. Here. Take my keys." His free hand dips into his pocket. He presses the keys into her palm; lets her go.

[Danicka Musil] [Again!]

[Danicka Musil] She was shot.

Danicka takes a deep breath, remembering that. She hears Lukas's tone of voice but pays it no mind, still holding onto the strap of her bag as she stands there. When Evan addresses her it takes her a moment to realize that he's talking to her...or it seems to take a moment. She turns her head, looks up at him slightly from behind her matted and now-straggling hair.

A thin, soft smile tightens at the edges of her mouth. It's closer to a wince. She looks back at Lukas: at his hands, because her head is down. She's waiting for the same thing Evan is: to know if it's all right. And he nods, or waves his hand to dismiss her, and she pauses only to nod to the redhaired man who brought her here.

"Thank you very much for helping me," she says softly, and turns to go. Her head stays down, her shoulders bowed, and a tremor of tension goes rapidly up her spine when Lukas grabs her wrist, freezing her in place. Her wrist itself, however, goes utterly limp, as though to try and avoid being immediately snapped. It takes her a second to grip his keys in her hand, nodding. "Okay."

She doesn't move until he lets her go, and then she heads for the stairs, climbing slowly up.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't watch Danicka go. He turns back to Evan; there's a faint frown sketched over the Ahroun's brow, but it's not anger. It's almost a sort of perplexity, as though there's too much, too suddenly, for him to respond adequately to.

They've met before, once, almost four months ago now. Right here in the Brotherhood. But those circumstances were very, very different from these. Lukas was focused then, intense, driven, confident.

He's stiff now -- so tightly controlled that there's a sense that he might hum like a plucked guitar string if he were so much as touched.

When the woman has left their immediate earshot, he exhales a half-breath. Looks away; casts about the darkened kitchen for something to express hospitality with, to express gratitude with, to distract himself with. After a second he goes to the industrial-sized fridge, pulls it open, rummages around until he finds some leftover pot roast from the night's dining.

He puts this on the kitchen table. He finds plates; forks; knives. He finds a bottle of red and he pours Evan a glass, setting it beside the place setting clearly intended for the Fostern.

Only when this is done, and only after Evan has either sat or indicated he doesn't want any, does Lukas take a seat himself. He has a feeling Evan saw right through him. He has a feeling Danicka saw right through him. He has a feeling everyone, everywhere, would see right through him right now, as though he were glass, made transparent by the burn of rage and fear inside him.

He doesn't touch the pot roast he served himself. He does drink his wine, though. It's only after a healthy gulp that Lukas says, "Tell me everything that happened. Please. As much as you can."

[Sam Modine] Sam for his part is still scratching at his chin and squatting halfway to his knees in front of the bookcase, now on the third shelf to the floor and still without finding something suitable. This puts him in a position to hang his hands nearly all the way down to the floor and let fingernails and the printed pads at the ends of long hands spin little spirals in the bits of dust on the hardwood while his elbows rest evenly on the tops of thighs.

Not Call of the Wild again. He shakes his head, puts the thin blue Jack London back on the shelf.

Were it not late he'd already be yelling out to Lukas for a suggestion, wherever he is; but it is and he doesn't. His tongue pokes from the side of his lips in some thought as he pulls another two small paperbacks out idly with his fingers. "Hey Luke do you h-" He turns to note the figure now at the top of the stairs is in fact not his packmate.

"Dani." Beat. Wait for it. "You don't look so good." The Full Moon stands but doesn't cross or approach her. "You feeling okay?"

[Evan McCollach] He watches as Lukas grabs her wrist a moment, before letting her go. She seemed to move onward and upstairs. With that it seemed a little of the tension that had seeped into Lukas abated. A little. Hospitality was offered, a fine sample of the food they had, but he shook his head.

"Thank you, but I am okay."

Then it came down to business.

"I cannot say everything that happened. I came in after she was laying down. I noticed a large man with a shotgun and a true born figthing. The true had a silver collar about his neck. I disabled the shotgun and came to aid, but noticed her laying face down in her own blood. I went to take care of her as it seemed she had suffered serious wounds. She said she had a friend with her, but I didn't see anyone else. The true born after the fight ended just walked away."

He watched the Shadow Lord a moment before continuing.

"She said something when I healed her, what does Vla mean?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
to Danicka Musil

[Danicka Musil] It takes her a little time to walk up the stairs. Her body has done a strange regenerative dance that, had she not felt it so often before, she would be reeling from. Lost blood has been re-made. Unwanted, foreign bodies have been pushed out of her own, litter the hood of the crashed BMW on the highway, soaked in her blood.

God, it's a lot of blood. It's stuck in her hair, splashed on her face, saturating her shirt and jeans and the purse she's holding. She's pale, as much from shock and suddenly coming back from the brink of death as anything else.

Reaching the top of the stairs, she sees Sam, and she freezes. Her eyes haven't changed since they left the woods. They're still a dark, vivid green. There's a long pause before she speaks. "He's downstairs. And I'm fine."

She turns a corner, her back straight, to go get towels from the laundry room. One is held gingerly, since her hands are only slightly less filthy than the rest of her. She stops in the hallway again, realizing she has no idea who Dylan is or where Dylan sleeps. With a slow blink, Danicka walks towards the showers.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (LET'S JUST BLOW WP.)
to Danicka Musil

[Maija] ..and, apparently, her stealth is still the stuff of legends. Fortunately, that's all right with her. She hesitates as someone comes up the stairs, but it is little more than a stutter in her step as she moves toward the stairs, her hands shoved deep in the pocket of her hoodie, moving fast and quiet.

The girl covered in blood is not her business, and down the stairs she goes.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas stills for a moment. He turns half away; then back. Picks up his wine and drinks.

After he sets it down, he says, low, "You're humble, Rhya, but I think I might owe the life of my kinswoman to your healing." A pause; he adds, "And to this mystery Garou's battle prowess."

Then Evan says, She said something when I healed her, and Lukas's ice-blue eyes flick immediately to the Fostern's. It's the first time all night -- Evan realizes, and this is a realization that can only be had in retrospect, with the difference before him -- that Lukas's eyes have looked anything but shellshocked.

What does Vla mean?
And Lukas blinks once. A frown crosses his brow.

"I'm not sure," he says, truthfully, "but I suspect it's something personal that I cannot discuss openly."

[Evan McCollach] He shakes his head. It as possible that she could have died on that road. It is also possible that her friend could have returned, someone could have found her, or those goons could have picked her up and taken her elsewhere.

"She is healed now, somewhat, and out of immediate harm's way. That is all that is necessary."

Humility was not what he was after. After the incident with his own mate the previous weekend he would not want any kin to suffer so, die without anyone to find them. A tribe unknowing other their kin, or a mate lost without any word.

"Well then I believe I have to be going. I need to return to my mate. I do not wish to worry her. Have a good night ~yuf. Take care of course and your kin."

(Sorry but I really need to crash)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas stands as Evan turns to go. "Rhya." He holds his hand out, grips the other man's forearm firmly if he allows him.

"I owe you one." He looks him right in the eye. "I don't say that because I think you're the type to keep track of boons and debts. I say it because this kinswoman is important to me, and I'm grateful for her safe return."

A pause.

"I'll make sure the Sept knows of your selflessness."

[Sam Modine] "No you're not...."

She goes off for something, which on it's own is unnerving. Why is she looking for things in their home, or at least the place where they live and very notably and not a few of his pack would say thankfully she does not. That's not normal behavior in someone else's home and it is, still he's been back long enough to know she hasn't moved in. Oh, towels. He's following just a few feet behind her and when the Kin stops for a moment and then heads for the bathroom Sam speaks up.

"You're covered in blood, do you want some clothes or something at least? I'm sure we've got something in Dylan's stuff or Kat's." He seems to size her up, his head tilting one way, then the other. "Mrena's probably a lot smaller...." this to himself. "I can find something, I'll set it out, go clean up." In truth he's himself only now turning around to go about the fetching duty and he does it well. Less than five full minutes in the glasswalker's wardrobe and she'll have clean clothes folded and set neatly on the corner of one sink. There aren't underclothes here as he'd felt odd even considering opening that particular drawer for any number of reasons but she'll find the jeans while not her own do actually fit her nicely and the t-shirt is witty enough that she'll approve a pink extra small number that sports and NES controller (the rectangular one of course and not the releaease wit hthe curcular ergonomics , no.) and light gun with the words 'Know Your Roots' emblazoned above them.

"We'll be right out here if you need anything," he calls in to where by no the shower is running. "Here." The final thing she'll hear from this young fenrir for now is the kick-slide of a small black bag down the floor and under the shower. Beneath the zipper she'll find all the necessities of a shower fit to travel. There's soap, bodywash, shampoo, a razor even, name it. It's actually packed fairly full after he'd packed in post-gabbie coming in looking so similar just last sunday.

[Danicka Musil] [Willpower -2]

[Danicka Musil] [Willpower -2: Yes, Again For the Same Post]

[Danicka Musil] At least...he leaves.

Danicka's spine is tense as iron as Sam walks behind her. His Rage is like a wall of heat, an encroaching fire, a closing room sinking down around her. It's a locked door and a man sharpening a knife and someone crying while hiding in a cupboard. She doesn't even hear most of what Sam says while he's there, walking behind her. It takes effort not to drop the towel and run, but she manages. She breathes, and she manages. His words are fuzzy impressions in her ears. But then he leaves.

And she walks to the bathroom, going to one of the shower stalls and turning on the water to let it heat up. She takes the bag off of her shoulder and hangs it on a hook, throwing the towel on another. But she doesn't take her clothes off. She doesn't step into the hot water when it's steaming. When Sam comes in and leaves the clothes by the sink she jerks behind the stall's curtain, but doesn't gasp. She jumps slightly when the bag of toiletries comes her way, nudges her toes.

"Thank you," she whispers. It's not audible over the crash of water. She's not visible behind the drawn curtain.

She just stands there.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He just sits there.

After Evan leaves, and the kitchen is empty, and there's just him -- he just sits there. His hand loosely grips his glass of wine. His other rests palm-down on the table. Little by little his head bows, his shoulders sag, and then, rather at once, he clenches his hands into fists and presses the heels of them to his forehead. Pounds his own head dully once, twice.

A beat. Two.

Then he looks up. And jesus fucking christ, he's not the only one in the kitchen after all. There's another, a kin, no pure breeding, no rage, nothing -- he hadn't noticed her at all. Lukas flinches to see her, and then he grimaces. It's nearly a snarl.

He says nothing. He picks up his wineglass and drains it. Leaves everything else where it is. Unless she addresses him openly, the Ahroun doesn't even look at Maija as he starts up the stairs.

[Sam Modine] "It's no problem." A farm boy speaks simply, humbly. As he's always been known to, no matter how that might get twisted about. And he turns with that and heads into the other room, retrieving first the two paperbacks he'd dropped on the floor in the hallway so that he might return them to the shelf.

Which he does and then turns to go sprawl out on the couch and wait for his packmate.

"Sports Center. Box Scores. Win."

[Maija] She flinches from that gaze, but the chances of her saying anything are practically non-existant. She simply lets herself out and is gone.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's head is down when he comes up the stairs, but he's not hanging his head. His shoulders are rounded and tense; his head is down the way a charging bull's head is down, and he bulls his way up into the common room. The glance he flicks Sam is only mildly surprised.

"Sam," he says. He's heading out of the common room again almost as soon as he's entered it, going for his room. He's forgotten he doesn't have the goddamn key.

[Sam Modine] "Yeah," His eyes leave the glowing light of the televised sports wrap-up almost before they land on it. "Dani's in the shower," The young man, though one older than Lukas, than all of them until they'd decided to start taking on locals.

Long legs swing in an arc for the floor once again as he sits up. "She's looking pretty messed up, she gonna be ok?" The remote switch is flipped and the thing goes dark.

[Danicka Musil] She's in the shower...sort of. In the stall, behind the first curtain (the Holy Place) but not behind the curtain where the water falls and the steam rises (the Holiest of Holies). She's standing there. Purse and towel on the wall, toiletries at her feet.

Technically, physically, she's not in shock. Technically, psychologically, she's not in shock.

She's just never been shot before.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas pauses on his way out. Stops; doesn't turn. He thinks for a moment.

"Her name is Danička."

He says this quietly, and the way the woman's name sounds on his tongue -- soft, aspirated -- is not something Sam can replicate. Or Mrena. Or Katherine. Or anyone whose first and native language was not Czech. Times like this, there's no doubt that Lukas was not, for all his perfect pronunciation and flawless enunciation, born on this side of the Atlantic.

The Ahroun turns briefly -- looks at Sam. "And she's kin to the Shadow Lords. She'll be fine." Pause. "But thanks for asking."

He doesn't stop again. He goes to his room; before he reaches for the knob he remembers that it's locked, and he doesn't have the key. So he goes down the hall instead, and he gets another pair of bath towels. Reverses his direction and heads for the shared bathroom.

[Sam Modine] Sam just leaves.

[Sam Modine] (g'night.)

[Danicka Musil] The water is crashing down to the tile, the first curtain of the stall is closed, and her feet are visible underneath it. Steam is rising, filling the area. It's not hard to smell her, to track her down even without sight, and to realize that she's just standing there, breathing.

If he says her name, or if he simply tugs aside the edge of the curtain, she's standing there looking thoughtful, and then lifts her eyes to his. "I didn't want to be naked with him out there," she says quietly, not in a halfhearted whisper but a level, carefully pitched tone of voice.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He does say her name. The same way he'd said it outside, which is the same way he always says it, which is the right way, and perfectly, and --

-- complexly.

Even before he knew he was in love with her; even before he'd ever touched her, or kissed her, he was saying her name like this. Danička.

If she doesn't open the curtain, he does, a beat later. She's just looking at him. He's just looking at her. He's not even bothering to hide the way he looks at her now, and it's not anything so simple as fear, or concern, or jagged-edged worry, or even anger.

Lukas looks at her as though he might've lost her. Which they both know is the truth.

Then he turns to shut the drape. It's heavy, plastic; there's mildew in the seams. He hangs the fresh towels up on the rack, though she has her own. "I know," he sighs, and then he reaches for her, slowly, as though she might startle and run away. Or vanish.

He starts to undo her clothes, his eyes on his task. He's amazed to find the tips of his fingers quivering; clenches them into his palm. They're still quivering when he opens his fingers again, but it's less noticeable now, he thinks, and that's good enough for him.

"I know Sam is not ... as good as I wish he was," he continues, low. "But so long as he's my packmate, my brother, I have to believe he is."

[Danicka Musil] "I do not."

She says it flatly, so much so that the stoniness of her voice is a vicious as the ground rushing up to meet you as you're falling. That sort of voice could break glass, break bone, shatter consciousness. Her eyes are venomous for a moment, filled with a sort of terrified loathing. But it's too much. She pulls back from the feeling, lifting her hand and covering her eyes.

The black toiletry bag is between their feet. It remains ignored. Her own bag is hung up, so there's just her open jacket, the longsleeved shirt, the sneakers, the jeans. All of it stiff now with drying blood. She lets her hand fall as he steps forward and she shudders when he starts to undress her. It's not because his hands are shaking; she doesn't know they are because her eyes are shut tightly. It's because she is drained of most of her reserves and she can barely stand with his Rage.

"This isn't the way I wanted to see you again."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] This isn't the way I wanted to undress you again, he thinks.

She's been healed. She's healed herself, too. But her clothes bear mute testament to what was: not merely in the blood dried thick and sticking, brittle and flaking, but also in the pattern of holes. The back of her jacket and her shirt is nearly obliterated, punctured through and through with countless shotgun pellets. There are the cuts from the flying glass, too, and though the impact of the accident hadn't damaged her clothing, he can see that one plainly himself: a bruise on her forehead where she'd smacked against the wheel.

He takes her jacket off one shoulder at a time, one arm at a time. He moves her as little as he can, shifting around her instead as necessary. It falls to the floor and he leaves it there. Her sleeves then, the cuffs undone if she'd buttoned them, then the buttons that march up the front of the shirt.

His eyes flicker up to hers, briefly.

"Are you ashamed?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] This isn't the way I wanted to undress you again, he thinks.

She's been healed. She's healed herself, too. But her clothes bear mute testament to what was: not merely in the blood dried thick and sticking, brittle and flaking, but also in the pattern of holes. The back of her jacket and her shirt is nearly obliterated, punctured through and through with countless shotgun pellets. There are the cuts from the flying glass, too, and though the impact of the accident hadn't damaged her clothing, he can see that one plainly himself: a bruise on her forehead where she'd smacked against the wheel.

He takes her jacket off one shoulder at a time, one arm at a time. He moves her as little as he can, shifting around her instead as necessary. It falls to the floor and he leaves it there.

The shirt beneath has no buttons. He gathers the hem in his hands. Blood has stuck the cotton to her skin in places. He tugs at it where he can, where there's no wounds visible through the gashes in the cloth, but the back may as well be welded to her. He gives it up for now, moves on to her jeans; undoes the button and the fly, and then drops to his knees to take her shoes off one at a time, cradling her heel in his hand.

There's no sensuality in this; no seduction. But there is a certain carefulness. A care.

His eyes flicker up to hers, briefly. "Are you ashamed?"

[Danicka Musil] His hands are shaking, eversoslightly, while he works at undressing her. Danicka doesn't know about the bruise on her brow; all she knows is the ache in her body, the soreness up her spine and across her shoulders. She lets him take off her jacket and then shivers...and not from a chill.

"What would I be ashamed of?" she asks back, quiet because they are close and there is no need to be, only just loud enough to be heard.

He tugs at the t-shirt and she flinches backward, bodily though her feet don't move. The hem drops again, and so does Lukas, and she relaxes slightly. Slightly. She lets him work her sneakers off. There's blood on her socks. It ran into them when she had to stand up, before she used the bandage.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Nothing." His hands pause. He looks at her, steadily this time. "Nothing, baby."

He goes back to what he's doing. He puts the sneakers aside; peels the socks down. The warmth of her feet in her shoes has kept this body semiliquid -- a gel-like consistency that allows him to peel the sodden socks away. He tosses them aside, and then reaches up to work her jeans down her thighs.

She's soaked in blood. Most of it is from the shotgun blast across her back, but if not for the lack of holes in her clothes elsewhere, he never would've known. There's blood everywhere; it's soaked all around her long-sleeve t-shirt, and it's sheeted down her jeans. She's absolutely soaked in blood, and most of it is her own. He knows; he can smell it.

He didn't think she had this much blood in her body. It makes his blood run cold to think of it. He has to fight not to wrap his arms around her thighs and pull her into him and bury his face against her body.

There's a patch where her denims are stuck to the back of her thighs. He works his fingers between her skin and the fabric, gently, works it loose until he can pull her jeans down. When they've puddled to the floor he pushes them aside.

"It's just the way you looked at me when you walked in," he adds, and gets back to his feet. "You looked -- I don't know. I didn't know how to read it."

The shower's been running for a long time. Even in this imperfectly sealed space, there's steam and heat. He pulls back the second shower curtain, this one a lighter plastic, both in texture and in color, and he gets in before her. It doesn't seem to matter that he's fully dressed. He puts his back to the blast, breaking the high-pressure water against his shoulders, draws her in after him.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (kept this body? kept this BLOOD.)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]

[Danicka Musil] [WP -2]

[Danicka Musil] The Fostern Child of Gaia who healed her enough so that she could heal herself, who brought her here without asking any questions other than who held the claim on her, who escorted her to that Garou without requesting recompense, had not told Lukas that when he found Danicka she was lying facedown, riddled with the remnants of a shotgun blast. A kick in the ribs would have killed her at that point. Evan had not been so graphic. All Lukas has to go on are those holes in her jacket and shirt. There is no way he healed her slightly and then she 'recovered' this much on her own.

Danicka counts in her head. One shoe, two shoes. One sock, two socks. One button. One zipper. Two hands. Ten fingers. She stares at the heavier curtain past Lukas as he is undressing her. The look on her face is not blank; it's thoughtful. Every last drop of blood on her is her own. Liadan wasn't hurt, the last time she saw her. Evan didn't bleed. The Garou in the trailer had killed things, but...all of it is Danicka's.

It's not as though she's never come close to death before. But so quickly, and for no reason she could understand, and by a shotgun of all things. She stares at the liner and blinks slowly as Lukas peels her jeans away. There's blood on her thighs. Of course. There's blood everywhere. She sighs softly and steps out of her jeans. Whatever color her panties were before, they are the color of dried blood now. They may have once been blue.

"I didn't know him," she says, as he goes to get in the shower. She turns slightly as tragedy rips apart the sheet separating the place where only the priests may go from the place where god is said to live, opening them both to each other, and blinks again. Danicka is just standing there now in her shirt, her underwear, her bra, all of it so stuck to her she's thinking they've become a part of her skin. "I didn't want to embarass you."

Lukas pulls her towards him, and without a flicker of hesitation, Danicka steps into the Holiest of Holies and goes back in time before that curtain was torn down, before the screaming, before --

"Lee," she says, as the rings on the curtain clang. "I don't know what happened to Lee. I gave her a nightshade talen. She ran. I don't know...I don't even know where she is." Danicka reaches up and puts her hands on her cheeks, closes her eyes, looks as though she's trying to hold herself in.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas frowns when she says she didn't want to embarrass him. She's lifting her feet over the lip of the shower -- a small 3 inch ledge of tile that serves to keep the water from splashing out overmuch.

"Embarrassed," he tests the word. "Because you'd been injured?"

[Danicka Musil] "By being weak."

Enough to get injured. Crashing her car. Losing her friend. Not running when she should have.

"Or stupid."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He drew her in by the hands, but he lets them go now to put his hands on her cheeks. There's blood on her hands too -- blood on his now as well; blood on her faces. There was always blood on her face, and all of it is hers. He holds her face between his hands and looks at her so intently that in her state, with his rage, with what has happened, she might barely be able to bear it.

She might not be able to bear it at all.

"Nejste slabá." He says it like a vow. "To není slabost."

[Danicka Musil] [WP -2]

[Danicka Musil] They have layers. Not just in terms of conversation or the way they look at each other. Danicka has her clothes on, the warm water hitting her and starting to loosen the shirt and her underwear. Lukas is still clothed.

She flinches when he touches her face, looking at his chest because no...she cannot bear to look at him. She doesn't say anything in response, has nothing. She doesn't go for water or try to scrub her hair clean.

"Lee," she says, as the rings on the curtain clang. "I don't know what happened to Lee. I gave her a nightshade talen. She ran. I don't know...I don't even know where she is." Danicka's eyes widen. "Oh my god."

Her eyes flash upward to his. "Lukáš, I got shot. This guy with a shotgun came out of the trailer and my car, Lukáš, it's completely fucking wrecked I've never had a car before I bought it when the Sokolovs let me go I've only had it a few months."

She's trembling, looking horrified, looking like she expects to get in terrible trouble for this. "Oh god. Oh my god, Lukáš, I wrecked my car and I got shot and I lost my roommate and there was a head on the hood of my car, what the hell? Co to kurva, nevím, co se stalo s Udainao."

That last bit makes little sense. It sounds like you-die-now.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The shower is hot. It plasters his shirt against his back, his pants against his legs. Water is starting to seep around the front of his body by capillary action, and by the spray off the tiles. His white t-shirt is turning translucent, and his grey slacks are turning so dark they're nearly black.

His hands are still on her face, and as she begins to speak -- as she begins to babble -- he strokes his hands back over her cheeks, takes her by the shoulders.

"Danička. Danička, listen to me. It's okay. It's okay.

"We'll deal with it. One thing at a time. The car isn't important. Forget the car. I'll go look for Liadan. Okay? I'll find her, or Mrena will, or Caleb. She'll be fine. And first thing tomorrow I'll ask around the Sept, figure out what the hell really happened. And we'll deal with it."

He doesn't ask about you-die-now. Perhaps that's best.

[Danicka Musil] [WP -2]

[Danicka Musil] When he starts to pull her closer, she almost yelps. Danicka bites it back and does not resist but doesn't move towards him. She all but vibrates with the tension of one or the other: the wish to be close to him, the fact that right now being close to him is horrifying.

And then a shaky little whimper that almost sounds like a hiccup shoots up her throat.

"But it was my first car!" she all but squeaks, as tears fill her eyes and then start to roll down.

It's really not about the car. It's about the wreck. It's about the shambles. The broken glass, the darkness, the sound of the car horn and the sight of empty, crumpled, when earlier that day it had been so different. When yesterday had been so different. Danicka starts weeping but just covers her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. Even with the water making all this racket, she tries not to sob.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (emp!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] She can't see the look on his face when she bursts into tears. She's covered her face. She's weeping into her hands. For all she knows he's trying not to laugh.

He's not.

He's nothing close to laughing. He's watching her and the expression on his face is pained; he looks at her like it was his back that had been flayed to the bone, his organs that had been punctured, his blood that soaked his clothes.

And he lets go her shoulders. He takes a step back, and the water beating down on his back crests over his shoulders now, sprays against her bare legs.

"I wish I could tell you this won't ever happen again," he says, "but I can't. And I wish I could tell you it'll be easier next time, but I don't know that it will."

This has nothing to do with what she's talking about; but then, what she's saying has nothing to do with what she's talking about either. This is the best he has to offer right now.

"But I can tell you that I wasn't embarrassed, Danička," he says. "I'm not embarrassed by you, or any of this. I'm terrified, and I'm just -- " a breath here, drawn with the sudden uncontrollability of a sob, though it's nothing close to one. It's just a breath, sucked in past his teeth, " -- so fucking glad you're still alive."

A pause. A long silence.

Then, gently: "Do you want me to leave you alone, or do you want me to help you with your shirt?"

[Danicka Musil] She's very lucky that she was knocked unconscious as soon as she was shot. She's lucky she doesn't remember what a ruptured liver feels like. She's lucky that she didn't end up in the hospital, in a coma, for years.

Then again, it's not luck. It's Mother's Touch, which has kept her out of the hospital over and over throughout her life. It's the bandage soaked with Lukas's own blood that she had in her purse, because she was a governess once and she believes in preparation. She hasn't confessed that she lost two of the other talens, wasted, gone, forgotten. She feels guilty for that.

For awhile, all she does is cry, her shoulders hunched and her arms drawn in tight, her face hidden. The fact that she is, always has been, and will remain uncomfortable in the Brotherhood of Thieves is all too evident now; she's surrounded and hedged in by Rage and it's choking her. Her lover is standing there and she simultaneously wants him to hold her and wants him to just go away. Then again, if he were not here, she would not be crying.

She would not be here. If Lukas had never told her that he held the claim on her now, Evan would have escorted her to Milo.

Danicka sniffs hard, trying to stop crying. If his words are helping, he can't tell. It's not fair, but...right now things are not going to be fair. And that is how it is, how it must be, how he must accept it. Because he --

I'm terrified

-- loves her.

But does she want him to leave her alone?

Danicka pauses, and then spread her palms across her cheeks. It smears blood loosened by steam. She looks like something out of a horror movie when she looks at him, eyes red-ringed and yet only more striking than usual, more feral if not ferocious. She thinks about the question, possibly for longer than he would hope, but she has to. And then she swallows, hard, and points slightly with one finger to the curtain.

"Could you just...stay right out there? So I know you're there?"

But not touching me. Not helping me with my shirt.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] When Danicka looks at him, he's looking right back at her. He's watching her carefully, inquisitively, trying to read what he can from what she gives him.

She points at the curtain. She asks him to wait outside.

And Lukas nods. Not offended; not upset; not disappointed. Understanding. "Yeah," he says. "I'll be right here."

He steps out, closing the curtain again behind him. His clothes are soaked through, and they'll be cold soon, so he wrings them out the best he can, and then drapes one of the two -- no, three -- bath towels over his shoulders like a cloak. There's no place to sit, so he leans against the wall, frowning at the tiles and the speckles of water that flick out from the shower stall, thinking; waiting.

--

[Danicka] It takes Danicka the better part of an hour to scrub the blood off of herself until she feels clean enough to exit.

When Lukas leaves her in the shower, companionably close as much as ostensibly standing guard, Danicka closes the curtain behind him again and works her shirt and her underwear off. They fall with wet, thick slaps to the tiled floor in one corner of the stall when she drops them aside. At one point or another she asks him to hand her the soap and the shampoo that are in the little bag by his feet, but that's all the talking she does. She washes every inch of her body, works blood out of her hair, hisses as the cut on her neck gets re-opened, but mostly she's quiet.

Sometime while she's in there, her iPhone vibrates inside of her purse. It goes to voicemail.

Eventually she comes out, shockingly clean. The human body is a remarkable machine, already scrambling to heal and close the place where the glass sliced the back of her neck. The bruise on her forehead where she bumped the steering wheel could use some ice, the ache in her body could use some ibuprofen, but considering the way she looked when Evan found her, considering even the way she looked when Lukas stepped in and saw her standing there shellshocked, she looks like she's going to be fine.

She is going to be fine. There's color to her now, a light in her eyes that wasn't there before. She's not perfectly okay, but some of what happened has been processed. The first thing she does is check her phone, and breathes out a sigh of relief as her eyes close when she listens to the voicemail.

"Lee is still in the woods," she says, typing out a text on the touchscreen to tell her roommate Stay where you are. We're coming to get you. "She's okay. She's not far from the wreck."

There are another woman's clothes by the sink. Danicka changes quickly, tensing if Lukas goes too far away, flinching if he gets too close. She asks for gauze and tape before they go, using the mirror to dress the cut on her neck, and then takes her bag -- as bloodsoaked as the clothes in the shower stall, which she would be fine with never seeing again -- to go to leave. Whenever Lukas is ready, wet clothes exchanged for dry ones, they're off. Danicka sits curled up in the passenger seat, lost in thought, until they're getting along the road she recognizes.

She has had her phone in her hand all this time, the bag at her feet. She looks from the window to the screen, and calls Liadan.

[Liadan] Liadan Whelan walks alone on a dark deserted highway on the ass-end of nowhere. To make matters worse, it's after one in the morning, she's been in a horrific car accident that somehow left her unscathed, and oh yeah, can't forget the part where she turned into a shadow for goodness knows how long. It's cold, she's tired, and the only saving grace is that her camera bag is slung over her shoulder. Her hands are buried in her pockets, the fingers of her right hand wrapped around her blackberry. She had debated, when she first started out on her trek, whether to turn the volume all the way up, or leave it on vibrate. Now she waits, trying to tell herself she's not waiting, for the phone to buzz and jump to life in her hand.

It does. It's a text from Danicka. Stay where you are. We're coming to get you.

In the dark, alone, without even a passing car to light the way, Liadan whimpers. The angle she took to leave the woods and reach the road angled away from the wreck. She steps off the pavement, curls into a seated position just beside the road, and texts back. I'm past the crash. Not sure how far. Waiting.

Sometime later—Liadan refuses to look at the time on her phone—the phone buzzes in her hand. “Where are you?” is the flat question. She's scanning the road in either direction for a sign of headlights.

[Lukas] When Danicka gets out, Lukas is leaning against the wall with his head tipped back and his eyes shut. They come open when she steps out. He studies her. She looks better. He looks -- better, too. Steadier; businesslike.

He cranes his head around to get another towel off the hook, which he hands to her. While she's toweling off, he leans down and picks up the bag of clothes. Hands that to her too.

She checks her phone. She tells him where Liadan is. He says, even as she's texting back, "Tell her to stay put. I'll go get her."

On his way out, Lukas does a few things, efficiently. He takes all of Danicka's wrecked clothes, puts them in a black garbage bag, and dumps them in the trash chute. He changes his clothes. She's seen him like this once before -- the nondescript semi-athletic gear, too dark to show blood, loose and suited to physical work. He calls his own cell phone to figure out where the fuck he left it. He opens the drawers of his desk to get his car keys out, and an envelope that contains two scraps of bloodied cloth, and, after a moment's consideration, a bottle of Royal Lochnagar's out of the bottommost drawer.

He hands this last to Danicka. If she doesn't want it, he says, "It's for your roommate."

Then he locks his room door and escorts Danicka down the stairs. Or more likely, she follows him down the stairs. He doesn't even ask if she'd rather stay behind in the Brotherhood; just goes out to his car, unlocks it, gets in, drives off.

The drive is long and silent. She doesn't speak. He doesn't either. She's thinking about -- whatever she might be thinking about. He's thinking about how he couldn't hold it the fuck together when Evan brought her to the Brotherhood, and how Evan could see right through him, and how the brat, whoever the fuck she was, the kin brat coming down the stairs, saw him with his head in his hands like his skull was coming apart.

He thinks about 'Vla--', and thoughts move behind his eyes like shadows in the deep.

--

There are two interruptions to the silence of the drive.

At one point, as they're leaving Chicago proper, he makes a call of his own. He calls the Fianna elder and informs him of the location and status of his kinfolk. He tells him he'll heal Liadan if necessary and bring her back to the Brotherhood, where Hatchet could come and collect her. He ends the call and puts the phone aside.

A little later, he reaches into his pocket and takes the envelope out. Two bloody bandages, which he hands to Danicka.

"Use one," he says, but if she doesn't, he doesn't press the issue. "Save the rest for later."

For Liadan, one supposes. Or for the next time. Because there will be a next time, because this is a war.

--

It's probably nearly an hour before the Lincoln MKZ is sweeping along the winding roads. Lukas goes about 40, 45mph, which is reasonable. He doesn't squint into the dark. He seems relaxed: shoulders loose, back comfortably cushioned in the leather seats, one hand atop the wheel.

Danicka calls Liadan. He takes this, rightly so, as a sign that they were getting close. He slows to about 35, and sits a little straighter.

A moment later, he points. "Is that her?"

[Danicka] The whisky goes into her purse, which is going to need to be unpacked and thrown away when she gets home. She just has nowhere else to put everything that's in it right now. So away they go. She notices the scraps of cloth. They're not unlike the second one she has in her bag at the moment. In fact, they're exactly the same. So when he hands her the other bandage she licks her lips and shakes her head.

"I'm all right," she says, and doesn't take it. They keep driving.

When her roommate answers, she breathes out a heady sigh of relief. "We're almost to the wreck," Danicka says, sounding drained. Not as tired as she should be, the way Liadan last saw her. The way Liadan last saw her, there was a strong chance that Danicka was no longer walking among the living, not after being blasted by a shotgun. "Are you -- do you see the headlights? Lukáš," she says, half-aside, "flash once."

[Liadan] [manip + subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Danicka] [Perception + Empathy -1 ('Hurt'): O RLY]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 7, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Lukas] Lukas doesn't bother to flash. "It's her."

It's the quiet certainty in his voice as much as anything else -- his rage, his okayness with blood soaked clothes and mindboggling violence -- that proves him a werewolf. He knows it's Liadan not because he can make out the details of her face, or even possibly recognize it in a crowd.

He knows because he can sense her breeding, which is that of the Fianna.

[Danicka] [Ha! Nevermind, she's FINE.]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2 (Failure at target 6)

[Liadan] “I-yeah.” Liadan stands up, gives herself a mental shake. Even manages a lopsided smile and a wild wave as the headlights wash over her. The sleek black car pulls up beside her, and she hears the doors unlock. She takes the side with more leg room, behind Danicka.

“Man, I don't know about you guys, but I need a fuckin' drink,” she says brightly. Nothing in what she says, in what they see of her gives even the slightest hint at her true feelings. She seems perfectly okay, aside from the chattering teeth. She buckles herself in, then shifts so that her back is pressed into the corner made by the door and the seat, and slides her feet to the floor of the seat next to her. There's more leg room behind Danicka than Lukas, but not much more.

[Danicka] In comes Liadan, and out comes the Royal Lochnagar.

It's passed back without a word. It's a hour-long drive. Yes, an open container. Yes, a moving vehicle. No, no one in the car currently seems to give a good god damn. Danicka's hand isn't shaking when she hands the bottle back to the photographer, but there's a square of gauze on the back of her neck. Otherwise she's fine. She looks like nothing ever happened to her, otherwise. Even the bruise on her brow is gone.

After awhile, when the car is moving on again, Danicka twists back to look at Lee. "I'm really sorry."

[Lukas] The MKZ is a fairly large sedan, but in today's era of expanding waistlines and expanding cars, it's classified as a mid-sized. There's a certain sportiness to its lines: a broad low hood, a tucked, high tail. The back seat is roomy, though, and it's warm in the cabin.

This is the second time they've met, and like the first time, Lukas's eyes are penetratingly direct; they move over Liadan as though he were cataloguing everything he could see.

Which, of course, he is. He's judging for himself if she's hurt, if the blood -- and there is blood on her -- is hers. When he's satisfied that she's only a little bumped, only a little scratched, he turns back forward. Danicka passes the scotch back. Liadan closes the door, and it's dark in the car.

"I called your tribesman," he tells Liadan. "I told him to meet you at the Brotherhood, if that's all right with you."

That wasn't really a question. Lukas doesn't turn a one-eighty and head back to town. He pulls away from the shoulder and keeps driving forward. Danicka apologizes to Liadan; Lukas glances sideways at the blonde, but doesn't say anything.

A little later, interrupting them if he needs to:

"I need to stop by the site where it happened and make sure there's nothing I need to clean up," he says, then. This is more of a question, "Can you two handle that, or should I park somewhere and go in on foot?"

[Liadan] Liadan accepts the bottle gratefully, uncaps it, downs a mouthful of liquid. She sputters and coughs as the liquid burns burns burns down her throat. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, closes the bottle back up again. It does the trick. Warmth hits her stomach and spreads outwards through her body. She doesn't take another drink, choosing instead to pass the bottle back to the front. She's very careful not to come into contact with the driver.

The truth is, the axemurder feeling, the Rage as Taggart had called it, is strong within the confines of the car. She wants to argue with him, to meet her clan elder—Taggart? All she wants is to go home, take a nice long hot bath, and forget this night ever happened.

And then Danicka is apologizing. Liadan tilts her head to the side, considering the bandage on the back of Danicka's neck. She remembers the shots in the night, remembers that in her terror she had fled into the woods without a thought for her roommate. “I'm the one who should be sorry. I'm the one who took off after...um.” She stammers to a halt. What had happened to her in the woods? Did she really turn into a shadow? Did Danicka know that's what would happen to her?

She's barely listening when Lukas mentions stopping to clean something up. After years of being a passenger, subject to the whims and schedules of other drivers, she has a certain degree of apathy when it comes to drivers needing to make unexpected stops.

[Danicka] Having only seen Lukas once, only seen Danicka in his presence once and briefly, there's no way for Liadan to know other than by picking up small cues what their relationship is like. He seems terrifying, in a dark car with dark clothes, talking about cleaning up what looks like a massacre. Danicka is not at ease, clearly, but when he looks at her after her apology to Liadan, it is not terribly unlike the way she looks at him a few moments later, when he asks if they can handle going back.

The two women are both well-trained, though of different tribes. They were trained like this for different reasons, taught a certain way to be for different motivations, but neither one is used to speaking up and saying Yes, That or No, This or I want or I need...at least not in a situation like this. In Danicka's case...she is used to going along with what the present Garou say.

It's hard to remember sometimes what he said at the aquarium.

She looks at him, then turns back to Liadan and just shakes her head at the apology, paling slightly. Her eyes drop; she starts to twist back around. "You should take the car close," she says quietly, "in case you need the trunk."

[Lukas] This brings another turn of Lukas's head. He looks at Danicka for a moment. Then he shrugs.

Lukas normally dresses to disguise his strength. He picks fabrics and colors and cuts that make him sleek and civilized. In his dark track pants, his black sweatshirt, his torso has a solid, triangular look. He seems to occupy as much space himself as the two women together, and when his shoulders move, there seems to be an awful lot of breadth to shrug.

"All right."

About a half-mile down the road he slows again, and then stops. He brings the MKZ in close. They've approached from the truck side of the wreck; Danicka's BMW is obscured by the toppled, wrecked trailer. The accident site looks surreal. If no one bothered to turn the truck off, it's still rumbling away, the running lights on the cab still on.

Lukas kills the headlights when he parks the car. He leaves the engine running, but pulls up the handbrake. Then he opens the door to get out.

[Liadan] Liadan watches Lukas leave, feels the space that was once filled with his presence suddenly fill with cold air from the outside, fresh and clean yet tinged with burned rubber and carnage. She doesn't watch him as he sets about his work. Instead she unbuckles herself, tucks her legs back behind Danicka's chair, then slides her upper body as far between the front seats as she can.

“Hey,” she says, her eyes flicking first to Danicka's bandage, then back to the woman's face. You okay? It's what she should ask, what a good, kind, thoughtful, caring person would ask. Instead, “What happened here?”

[Danicka] Her body is turned sideways in the front seat, left shoulder against the back, her head tipped to lie on the rest. Driving up to the wreck she had averted her eyes, looked out the other window, stared at the trees instead of the remains of her BMW and the truck and the head that was on the hood of her car. She takes a deep breath and doesn't reveal what she's thinking, but her eyes are present rather than far away. But when Lukas stops the car she stays right where she is, turns, and unbuckles her safety belt for the sake of comfort.

It's not her job to go out and clean up bodies or anything like that. She's supposed to wash the clothes, mend the socks, and raise the children. She's supposed to have the children in the first place.

As Liadan scoots forward, Danicka takes a deep breath as though she knows what's coming. It comes: not the concern, not the sympathy, because she is not expecting that, but the questions. What happened?

"I think whoever was in the truck was trying to kidnap a werewolf." Beat. "There was one, right before the wreck. I don't know if you saw it, but it leapt --"

The image flashes in her eyes, and she pauses. "I think there was another one inside the trailer, but everything after I started to get out of the car is...hazy."

Those last few seconds are gone, a buffer for her mind to keep her from slamming headfirst into the moment she was shot. She also does not remember waking up and seeing Evan, doesn't remember what she almost said.

[Liadan] Liadan consider this, even remembers it, vaguely. Jesus, it only happened a few hours ago and I'm already forgetting it. That's alright, though. That's what she wants. To forget.

She sits back, leans her head all the way back so she looks up at the sky through the rear window, and she sighs. “I'm starting to think maybe Chicago was a bad idea.” The words come out on a groan tinged with sarcasm as she raises her hands to run her fingers through her hair. They're just words, words said half-jokingly. Perhaps it's a sign of the bond these women share, have shared over the past few years. Even though she doesn't know her very well personally, Danicka is still Vyv, her fellow guildie, and even though neither has opened up to the other, that bond of friendship is still there. If it were anyone else, she would have kept those words to herself.

Her eyes have almost closed in the darkness. She snaps them open, sits up, moves back to lean between the front seats. The silence has lasted a handful of rapid heartbeats, at most. Looking at Danicka, she realizes the woman has changed her clothes, that her hair hangs differently, like it was washed, maybe brushed or combed, and then left to dry. She doesn't think, 'Oh gosh, she was so worried about me that she left without making herself up!' Instead she thinks, Bet she enjoyed her nice hot shower while I was out here freezing and alone in the middle of BFE. The thoughts are unfair, after all in the heat of the fight she ran off into the night, leaving her roommate, her thin slip of a roommate, behind in a firefight between men and monsters.

“What about the other thing? After I drank that stuff you gave me, I...I couldn't see myself. What happened to me?”

[Danicka] A thin huff of laughter makes it out of Danicka's nostrils, mirthless and flat, at the comment on Chicago as a good or bad move.

What they've shared has been so limited as to make learning one another's first names a feat. Other than a vague mention of working with children, Danicka has made no attempt to tell Liadan what she does for a living. She has to do something, to support her WoW habit as well as to afford that apartment, but she sleeps at whatever hours suit her from day to day and she gets no calls that sound like 'work'. Some people would wonder how much Lukas is paying for her. It leaves so many gaps, what with both women in their own world most of the time and Liadan taking off occasionally for her job, that it's small wonder they don't reach out too far, too hard.

There is that. And the shotgun pellets littering the hood of the crashed BMW. The ones that were pushed out of Danicka's body when she healed. The ones coated in her blood and bits of tissue. There's the fact that when Evan woke her up, her skin was terribly cold. It's not now.

That's something.

"That was a talen," Danicka explains, sounding subdued. "Garou don't usually give them to Kin. The one I have you had...part of a spirit in it, or something."

[Liadan] Liadan frowns. This isn't the first time Danicka's answered a question without answering a question.

“That's not what I asked.” A new feeling starts to rise in her. Panic, fear, anger, it could be any of these, or all. A little over a month ago her life made sense. She lived from day to day just...living. And now she finds herself thrown into a word she doesn't understand, a world that until tonight was just 'weird.' Now she knows it's also dangerous, very dangerous. And the only people she's met so far that know anything about this world she's suddenly found herself in scare the shit out of her, never tell her anything, or she hasn't seen them in over a week. She repeats, with emphasis. “I couldn't see myself. What happened to me?”

[Danicka] "Stop."

It's quiet, but not tired. It's firm, but not hard. There's no rancor in Danicka's voice, not even the exhaustion so plainly written across her face. If anything, there's sympathy in her eyes, understanding of the questions, of the panic and anger and fear that are stirring up like dust on a windy day when there's been no rain, no moisture, all summer. She sees it in Liadan's face as though the other woman is not new to her, not someone she met online and then had coffee with and promptly moved in with. She hears it in her voice as clearly as she is able to hear it in anyone's, these subtle cues that if she does not defuse the situation she is going to end up on the floor.

Danicka knows what happens when she ignores the cues, when she doesn't -- or can't -- give people what they want, when they want it. When she could not let Lukas walk out of the room without telling him Chci t&+283;, a úst ochutnávky, jako pomeran&+269;e. It had only led to his anger, and Sam's, and going home to lie on the couch holding frozen peas against her face. She knows what happens when she doesn't tell the lie the right way or when she says something she shouldn't. She knows better than to tell Liadan to stop, and there's the faintest glint of wariness far, far beneath the calm and certainty with which she speaks.

"I wanted you to be able to hide. If you couldn't see you, they couldn't either. Couldn't chase you, couldn't find you, couldn't shoot you. Even if the bad guys in the truck weren't the only ones out here, you could run away and be safer that way."

Her eyes close for a second, slowly open. "If I understood how talens worked, I would try and explain it to you. But if talens didn't work, I'd still have metal in my back. So please. Just...stop. I can't give you what you need tonight."

[Liadan] So that's it, then. Magic stealth potion, that's all that Danicka was telling her, all that she seemed able to tell her. She sees the weariness on the woman's face, remembers that they were in the crash together, in the firefight together, seen the monster man with the shotgun together. And this woman, this woman who barely knew anything about Liadan outside of a virtual playground, she had tried to save her life. And when it came for Liadan to reciprocate, she fucking ran.

Her stomach gives a painful, guilty twist. She shrivels up inside.

“Oh,” is all she says. And she moves back into the back seat, tries to press herself into the crack between the door and the seat, wants to disappear forever. But of course, she can't. So instead she buckles herself back in and folds in on herself on the back seat, careful not to get her muddy shoes on the leather seats.

A moment of silence, then, “Sorry.”

[Lukas] Lukas shut the door behind him when he went. The light stayed on in the cabin a little longer before fading slowly. The Ahroun pulled on gloves as he walked away, not rubber ones or thick winter gloves but thin leather ones that do little to hamper his dexterity.

He circled around the collapsed trailer. The way the Lincoln is parked, when he circled past the back end he passed out of their view. They couldn't see what reaction, if any, he had to the carnage. They couldn't see what he does back there.

He came back once in the middle, about two or three minutes into the cleanup, pointed at the trunk and mouthed through the window, "Open it." Then he waited until Danicka or Liadan figured out where the trunk release is and popped it up. He got a big hunting knife out of the tire well: a rubberized grip, a stout twelve-inch blade coated with dark antireflective teflon. Then he unrolled a few large black trash bags and lays them out in the trunk to catch the blood, if there was going to be blood. Took two more bags and -- bags in one hand, knife in the other, disappeared around the far side of the wreckage again.

A little less than ten minutes later, he's back again. The bags are not full, but they are weighted down, swinging heavily from his left hand. There's stuff in it: wet, soft stuff, heavy, like meat from the butcher's. Not enough to be entire bodies, or even large portions of bodies.

He's holding a gun in his right hand, as well as his knife. Not the shotgun, nor the handgun Ryan had executed Ollie with, but the red-gripped handgun, the one that had been loaded with silver. He circles around the back of the MKZ again, tosses the bag of ... whatever into the back. The gun joins it. Then the knife. Then the gloves, and with his bare, clean hands he slams the trunk lid shut.

When Lukas gets back in the car, he smells like an abattoir. There are damp patches on his clothes, but the color hides the blood. He looks at them, his eyes nearly colorless in the dome light, and instead of asking them how they were he just shuts the door and then thumbs the sunroof open a little, enough to let in some fresh air.

He doesn't ask them what they talked about either. And Liadan's concern for the upholstery seems misplaced, because he doesn't care at all. He just start lowers the handbrake and executes a three-point turn to head back the way they came.

It's hard to see what exactly Lukas may have accomplished. They leave the wreckage is almost exactly as it was when he got here: blood-soaked, unreal, with the truck cab still rumbling away in the dark.