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Post by Tori Kane on Feb 6, 2011 15:35:47 GMT
Tori struggled to find a reason to disagree with the other girl but ulitmately couldn't. They didn't have a reason to stay in the station, they had transport and since when wouldn't people have been glad of a few extra hands?
She sighed. "Sure, why not?" She downed the rest of her coke, put the mug down on her desk and stood up. "Gimme a sec though." She fished in the drawers again, pulling out her guns and knives and attached them to herself in various locations, left the room and came back a minute later carrying two night sticks from the amoury. She tossed one to Eliza. "Better safe than sorry." She explained. "Right, lead on then."
She dreaded getting in a car with Eliza, not least because she'd seen the pink smart car outside earlier that morning and had no doubts who it belonged to.
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Post by Hadrian Beaumont on Feb 6, 2011 16:06:03 GMT
Hadrian looked up at the Captain from where he was sat on the dirty blood streaked floor, slowly, he pushed himself upright, not meeting the man's eyes.
"Yes sir," he rasped quietly, pausing briefly to rub his bloody hands almost desperately clean against his leg, "Sir, thirty individuals, human, varying ages and nationalities." He faltered slightly, "We have... we have twenty five survivors hooked up onto life support. Blood draining equipment disconnected. Deceased... two caucasian females, 34 years of age and 14 years of age, one caucasian male, late twenties. One black male of indeterminate age and one Asian female in her late fourties," he reported quickly, forcing the words past his swollen tongue and the hard lump in his throat.
Five people. Five people dead.
He'd fucked up. He fucked up so badly. Those people were dead because he fucked up.
He couldn't look Wright in the eye.
Those people... he failed them.
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Post by Eliza Flowers on Feb 6, 2011 16:24:04 GMT
Eliza watched with wide eyed fear as Tori armed herself. Guns! Lots of guns! Somebody should call the police! Hold on, wait...
Eliza remembered what was actually happening, and took the night stick nervously. She tried to figure out how to clip it on her belt, failed, and just decided to carry it awkwardly. She grabbed the address, and headed down to the car.
Like cars owned by people like Eliza everywhere, the interior was a mess. She scooped a fashion magazine, a hand bag, a pair of shoes, three lipsticks and a cuddly toy off the passenger seat before Tori even had a chance of getting in. The inside of the car, true to Eliza's form, stunk of perfume and hairspray.
"Like, so do you know where this is?" Eliza asked sheepishly showing Tori the address as she wrestled to start the car. The car fought back, because it was a machine in the presence of Eliza, and refused to start. "Don't, like, worry. It always does this." She assured Tori, like Tori was going to be worried she DIDN'T have to go anywhere in Eliza's car.
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Post by Tori Kane on Feb 6, 2011 16:31:21 GMT
Tori sighed. "Sure, I'll give you directions as we go. I thought you were from here?" She added. Although she was fully prepared to believe that Eliza wouldn't know where she was going even if she had grown up in Edgehaven.
She got in the car, hoping that the girly smell wouldn't stick to her too much and buckled her seatbelt. "Right..." She replied, nervously. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
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Post by Eleri Mortymer on Feb 6, 2011 16:41:05 GMT
"Ah, that's what it was." Eleri said with a small smile. She sat back in the chair as Wright took off towards the building and watched the chaos around her. She closed her eyes and focused on Hadrian, hoping the young corporal was alright and wondering why it hadn't occured to her to use her limited pyschic powers before now.
After a few seconds, her eyes snapped open and she stared in the direction Wright had run, horrified. She'd seen the basement, and for a brief moment, felt what Hadrian had felt. She struggled to stop herself sobbing, settling instead for grabbing a passing paramedic and having him pass her a set of crutches out of one of the ambulances.
She hauled herself up on to the crutches and hobbled over on one foot towards the door, trying to stay out of the way of the medical crew and watching intently for Hadrian. She might not be able to help the paramedics or the 30... 25,she corrected herself, people in the basement, but she would do her best to help Hadrian.
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Nicholas Wright
Human
Go on. Say 'what's all this then'. I DARE you.[A1i:4]
Posts: 647
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Post by Nicholas Wright on Feb 6, 2011 17:40:11 GMT
Wright recognised the words. Two precise ages. That meant at least two had been conscious and talking. Now they weren't. That had to be tough.
"Good work." Wright said, knowing that he had to support him right now. "You just saved 25 lives." He reminded him, nobody could have saved them all.
Still, 14 years old. That must have been hard.
"Report to Sergeant Mortymer." He added. Sometimes motherly empathic vampires could do more than grouchy captains.
He turned back to the room with a sigh. It wasn't the first den of death he'd been in. At least this time they were mostly alive.
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Post by Eliza Flowers on Feb 6, 2011 17:54:38 GMT
Eliza gave Tori a confused look as the car continued to splutter and refuse to start. She wasn't sure where Tori got that idea from! Of course, Eliza didn't understand the fact that to an American Bellepheron and Edgehaven were practically the same place.
"No, silly! I'm from, like, Bellepheron." She explained, trying and failing to hide a frown as the car refused to start. This was still pretty normal for Eliza, but even she was starting to feel embarrassed.
"Like, sure, why not?" She asked, before the car finally spluttered in to life. "YES!!!" She shrieked victoriously, the sugar rush encouraging her, before she realised how silly she'd sounded. When Eliza realised this, it was pretty damn silly.
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Post by Hadrian Beaumont on Feb 6, 2011 17:59:12 GMT
Hadrian nodded, "Yes sir," he croaked and slowly made his way out of the room, waving off paramedics who tried to accost him, he was fine, physically anyway.
The young man slowly made his way to the stairs, feeling his stomach roll unpleasantly, he took a deep breath, not even gagging on the smell anymore, trying to settle his stomach.
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Post by Tori Kane on Feb 6, 2011 18:03:03 GMT
"Ah, I see. My mom's from there." Tori replied conversationally, still looking nervously at the dashboard. She couldn't decide whether to be relieved or not when the car finally started. She couldn't help but grin at the other girl's reaction though. "Ok, you need to hang a left at the end of this road." She said.
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Post by Eleri Mortymer on Feb 6, 2011 18:08:46 GMT
Eleri's face broke into a mask of relief as Hadrian emerged from the paramedics still streaming into the basement. She hobbled over to him as fast as she could, dropped one of the crutches and pulled him into a tight hug before he could protest. The fact that he was covered in blood didn't even register until a few seconds later, and when it did she ignored it. Hell, she'd just drunk a cup full of the stuff, a bit more wouldn't kill her.
She struggled to find something to say but, knowing how Hadrian felt, she couldn't. Instead she released him from the hug, picked up her other crutch and gestured to the chair she'd previously occupied. "Come on, let's get out of their way." She said simply, making her way over.
One of the paramedics had dug a second chair out from somewhere, and she sat down, indicating to Hadrian to sit in the other one. "It wasn't your fault, you know." She told him softly. "You did your best."
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Post by Hadrian Beaumont on Feb 6, 2011 18:17:58 GMT
The hug almost destroyed him, almost. If he hadn't been so busy trying not to throw up over her he would have broken down in tears.
He shook violently as he sat down, still trying to scrub the blood off his hands by wiping them on his filthy trousers.
"I fucked up," he croaked, "I spent too long trying to get the elderly hooked up, their vitals started to crash, I panicked and tried to keep them going but, they all started fading at the same time. They were awake. The girl and the woman. They were awake and they didn't know what was going on," he stuttered out, leaning forward and gripping his hair harshly, taking deep ragged breaths.
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Post by Eliza Flowers on Feb 6, 2011 18:40:59 GMT
Eliza grinned back to Tori, glad to see her smiling. She was so much fun! The little car moved off with all the power of a hairdryer. At least Tori wouldn't have to worry about Eliza's driving. She could drive surprisingly well for somebody as girly as herself, but even then, if she hit anything the car would just bounce off harmlessly, or so it seemed.
"Like, really!?" Eliza asked in shock at Tori's news about her mother. "Like, wow, what, like, a coincidence, you like, came here! It's like, right near Bellepheron!" Eliza clearly hadn't fathomed that the fact her mother was from near Edgehaven and that Tori had come there were related.
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Post by Eleri Mortymer on Feb 6, 2011 20:12:13 GMT
Once Hadrian had sat down, Eleri leaned across her chair and hugged him again. "Hadrian, you saved the lives of 25 people. It wasn't fair to expect you to save even that many, and I don't think anyone did. You saved the people you thought were in the most danger - I'd have done the same thing and so would the captain. That's what makes you human."
She let go of him again, but kept one arm around his shoulders. "You can't save everyone by yourself, and if you try to convince yourself you can, you'll go mad." She leaned down to look Hadrian in the eyes. "You're a hero, Hadrian." She told him sincerely. "You hear me? And those people that didn't make it - they knew that. I promise you, nobody blames you for losing them. Nobody. And neither should you."
She looked around and waved at a passing paramedic with her free hand. "Can we get a glass of water please? He's in shock." She told him. The man nodded and left, returning a moment later with a polestyrine cup full of water. "Thanks," she told him, passing the cup to Hadrian. "Here, drink this."
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Post by Tori Kane on Feb 6, 2011 20:27:36 GMT
Tori nodded. "Yeah, she moved to New York when she married my dad. We came back when I was around 12." She decided to ignore the fact that Eliza clearly didn't see a connection between the two events. It wasn't worth explaining.
"Oh, that's it right up ahead." She said, pointing. "Wow, that sure is a whole load of ambulances." Tori wasn't quite sure what she'd actually been expecting, but the hive of activity she was confronted with wasn't it.
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Post by Hadrian Beaumont on Feb 6, 2011 20:40:37 GMT
Numbly, he accepted the water and took a sip, feeling the cold as it practically scraped the greasy filth from the back of his throat and hit his stomach, the cold making the knot of emotion seem all the harder before it disappated.
"She kept asking for her mama..." he whispered, the little girl, the fourteen year old, she kept asking for her mother, not understanding what was going on, where she was, why she felt so strange. She didn't realise that she had been kept in stasis, vaccuum packed and drained for the last ten years. She had the mental age of a four-year-old.
He took another long swallow of the water, ignoring the cold trailing down to his stomach and the hot burn of tears on his cheeks.
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