They left the currents of chaos behind, the crowd drawing in around Jensen like the maw of a hungry beast.
Much like everything else here the bathrooms were a feat in architectural marvel. Marble and gold inlaid vaulted ceilings and pristine floors; more space than the entire apartment Ori had spent her childhood. But she was more interested in scrutinising her own skin than her surroundings. In front of one of the gilded mirrors she pulled the lace from her shoulder, running curious fingers over the unmarked flesh, where moments before had hidden a constellation of bruising. The only place she could easily inspect, though she knew what she'd find once the dress peeled off.
Nothing.
When Jaxen spoke her gaze tugged up to watch his reflection. He'd not called her Ori before; only Carmen used the familiarity with any regularity, but the longevity of that relationship was underpinned by Kallisti -- and even those foundations crumbled. Everything had an expiry, after all. The connections Oriena pursued were only ever on a visceral level, usually fleeting. Her palms pressed together in the perfect picture of piety. Bloodstained fingers and a careless smear across her cheek ruined the image somewhat. That and the toxic smirk. She laughed. "He's been usurped."
Her mother prayed to angels and feared the demons that stalked the shadows outside their house. As a child she remembered Dezhda worrying at her rosary beads until her fingers cracked and bled. But God did not save her mother. Nor did the Ascendancy. It was Oriena who clawed them both out of the gutter.
Her lips daggered a sharp smile as she ran the faucet, aware but mostly disinterested as Jaxen leeched pinprick bubbles of blood from his shirt. Jensen preached the difference between light and dark, but to Ori that was a meaningless distinction. When the crowd witnessed the work of miracles, it was no god they'd worship, but Jensen himself. He thought he wielded something pure, but for a man like him, it was more likely to end up the rope around his neck.
Pink swirled against the porcelain while her thoughts twisted along the paths of curiosity. She wanted to know where Ascendancy kept transgressors. And she wanted to know who else might languish in such a prison. Ori was not opposed to direct methods, as her bloody fingers attested, but her gaze moved to catch the eye of the devil in the mirror, considering. Only to then notice the globe of red.
"What's a little more blood? Try it. See if you enjoy the consequences." She was smirking, but the words wavered between a challenge and a threat. He might invoke nothing more than the playful swipe of a kitten. Or the swift snap of a vicious temper.
Jaxen pivoted to face her, little red orb bobbing alongside.
Her threat dripped with consequences.
Head cocked, he studied her. Would it be worth dealing with them to see her dripping with her own blood? Damn that was a weird thought.
He shrugged.
"I'm fine with that," and the orb rocketed toward her.
"Unnecessary between those two, yes."
She understood why Evelyn had been discomforted by the lech of his stare now it pinned her. He saw a sum of parts, dissected them up like a meal with all the subtlety of a predator baring teeth. But Natalie was hardly the delicate flower appearances suggested her to be; she did not wilt from it, just raised her defiant gaze to treat him in insulting kind. Openly scrutinising the web of scars stealing half his face. The pale orb of his ruined eye.
He was not Russian, but perhaps from one of her neighbouring sisters. Brandon had been laughing when they passed him in the hallway, but she could not imagine natural buds of friendship between the two. Nikolai's lips had barely pressed into a smile the entire time Natalie had spoken to him before -- aside from the briefest flutter when Evelyn's name came up. She might not have given it a second thought, but now the question cast a shadow. Her eyes narrowed faintly; a curiosity captured and swept aside for later.
Because his name came with an apparent price. The slight pull of his grip was unexpected; such intimidation hardly seemed warranted given their difference in stature, and she hadn't anticipated pettiness. It tipped her weight forward, slamming pain that flinched her expression. Her jaw tightened with the effort to reign back the flash of weakness, flattening out her stare.
Standing in his shadow was like night with no stars. But she weathered it nonetheless.
Once she would have feared the consequences of a retaliation she could not control. It snaked like flames against her soul, twisted with the burn of chloroform against her face. But now that she'd snapped down the bars of control, she was loathe to lean on it like a crutch, despite the temptation to treat him to some discomfort of his own. Though the challenge hardened her pale gaze, she did not reach for the gift.
Her hand released, but she refused to immediately pull back from his uneasy proximity. "A gentleman, I see." Words bone dry, the sarcasm sharply dismissive. It rang like judgement before she finally stepped back, whatever had driven her to seek him out apparently satisfied, or perhaps left wanting.
Oriena watched him in the mirror. He tilted his head, considering the challenge in her words. The razor of her smile. The glaze of anticipation in her stormy eyes. Jaxen enjoyed subtlety, and she had been prepared to give him that to meet her own ends. But the glimmers of those intention paled in comparison to the blaze evoked now. While he'd played at faces, Ori's casual path had set fire to the Atharim's home the last time they were together. Given the choice, she preferred the unpredictability of reckless action.
He tipped the pendulum.
Power wreathed her, a languorous warning that filled her up to the brim until she felt high from it. Her hands braced either side of the sink as the last of the water drained away. Blood rolled cold down her cheeks, the white of her smile bright against it, and she laughed, apparently amused that he would dare. Did he even consider what the entire hall outside the door would think if she stumbled out now, panting breathless, drenched in blood? Knowing what Jensen did now about her concealed injuries.
Fortunately her sight was set on other violent delights. Though possibly not ones he would enjoy any better.
"So you want to play? You'll recall I like to cheat." Blunt force abruptly slammed him back, savage enough to splinter the mirror he impacted. She turned, all devilish smirk and sultry challenge. Violence and lust blurred shamelessly, apt to fall either way on whim. She crooked a playful finger, inviting retaliation. The power still burned a bright and purposeful beacon.
Relief flooded. Jay helped Jensen escape, unfortunately all too easily. The guests saw what his brothers did with the policeman, and the insinuating conclusion that it was unwise to piss one of them off hung like bad smoke in the air. Not that Jay would retaliate like that. But he didn't mind letting them think him capable.
The force of the power subsided now the need was passed, but he couldn't release it completely. The void of its wrapping was too necessary a shield. His voice was colder than he expected when he replied, "A teenage girl dying of cancer. Come on, we'll show you." He looked at Jensen amidst scanning for Natalie, gratitude and relief betrayed the dark veil normally hung low by the power.
A brief look halted anyone from interrupting, until his own two feet slammed into place. He found Natalie. She was steps from Amengual. Confronting the operator from the hallway.
Jaw clenched, he pushed forward. Yet with each step he fell further into that void. Grateful for the stillness it offered.
He met Ryker's eyes briefly, blazing the face into memory alongside that of Amengual. The man himself was not ignorant of Jay's presence. When they locked eyes, where shock previously crashed rocky shores, now it bled away on calmer waters.
He silently begged Natalie to not linger any longer. Jay wasn't sure how much more of this he could take before every shred of fear and every drop of dread betrayed him. El Tiburon's was the Shark, after all. If Amengual so much as sniffed blood in the water, vulnerability, weakness, the ensuing fight would be bloody.
Ryker's face fell flat when Natalie turned away. She teased icy flashes daring he emerge from protective dungeons only to depart just as fast. He considered letting her go. She was nothing to him but a peripheral accessory to a bounty he barely bothered to collect. The brazen approach and retreat tickled, though. Like an itch he couldn't scratch. "You meant some other pairing?" He called after her without chasing her down. His voice was enough of a lure.
He studied the fall of her hair, but it was her legs that betrayed her. The lean to one side was subtle. She hid the pain, but Ryker was trained to identify weakness. If a man had a bad ankle, he crushed it. Evidence of a weak ACL, he ripped it in half.
She was unlikely to be tempted by threats, but the probe to her pride might pop her little bubble and bring her back. "You limped all the way over here just to say that?" The humor in his voice carried.
Until Amengual's bounty arrived.
The kid was either stupid or brave. Knowing the need for the bounty in the first place, Ryker assumed the latter. But the former wasn't completely discounted. A flicker of admiration, dumb as it was, crossed their interlocked gaze. He followed the trail on to Amengual, and smirked at the result.
To Ryker's surprise, Zacarias was the one drawn near.
He inserted himself into the group like a gentleman, lifting his glass for some kind of mutual toast. Yet his eyes scrutinized every one of them there as though judging which insects were likely to bite.
But it was ultimately upon Jay that his attention settled. "Buenas tardes," his voice dripped with delight for the turn of events. He peered long into the eyes of his brothers' killer.
Zacarias was toying with his prey before devouring it. Ryker's smile was genuinely amused.
Evelyn helped guide Jensen on a path back to Jay. When they were reunited, Evelyn took her leave, pleased with the outcome. God's light lifted her spirits. Cayli could be treated. Jensen praised the good intentions of channelers. All was well.
She considered following the injured woman to make sure she was alright, but her date protectively took over. Instead, she wound her way through the group, beaming proud for the moment.
"I did," she agreed easily, understanding by the tone of his voice that their meanings differed, but choosing to ignore it. He'd offered the measure of himself with a brutality she mostly found distasteful, and she'd wade in those muddy waters only as long as was necessary to retrieve what she wanted. In this case a name, and an acknowledgement.
More words snapped at her retreating heels, but insults rarely stung below the surface. Though she had not felt its full scrutiny for a long time, Natalie had nonetheless lived her life beneath the media's lens. He would have to try harder than that to wound her, else discover a sharper weapon. "It's important to know all the players, Ryker." The snap of her words were thrown careless behind her, lure of their own. She did not turn back, and her attention shifted as a new problem presented itself.
Jay's face was grim, pulled together by shadows she was only just beginning to understand spoke of the power writhing beneath his skin. He complicated matters by approaching like she were in need of rescue, and swept Jensen into the bargain when he should have been leading the man to safer waters. Jay's gaze locked over her shoulder in utter misunderstanding of the one in need of protection. She had been the one to warn of enemies. She hadn't meant hers.
The choice to approach Ryker and not his companion had been a calculated one, in part because she stepped lightly around Jay's demons and the secrets they guarded, and in part because Ryker's proximity to Brandon had insisted either the greater threat, or the greater ally. Confrontation had not been among her intentions, but as consequences were wont to do they snared her when Ryker's companion approached like a shark guided by the scent of blood. The raise of his glass caught light from the chandeliers above.
Tension fizzed Natalie's skin. Whoever this man was, he could do nothing here, in the seat of Brandon's power, surrounded by the world's most elite channelers. But she had no way to remind Jay of that fact. The brand of the stranger's stare devoured all before feasting upon Jay, while base amusement rippled from Ryker in her peripheral. Memories that didn't quite sit right in her mind flashed a warning that felt misplaced. But really, she was unsure how Jay might react.
So she acted without thinking.
Her retreat had caught her at an awkward angle, and she twisted as though to better greet the newcomer, jarring the wound on her foot with casual purpose as she did so. The sharp intake of pain was not feigned, though the casual way her hand steadied her balance against Jay's arm was pure artifice. Not a touch of connection this time, but an assurance that they were now leaving. And maybe her grip pinched a little harder than it might for the sheer idiocy of his presence.
Cautiously, lest anyone think to call lie of the sudden weakness -- or perhaps in simple defiance of the accusation she had 'limped all the way over here', she brushed the beaded hem of her skirts briefly away from her foot. Neat bandages had tucked its sole, cushioning what had been a half-healed wound mere hours ago, hidden without ruining the clean lines of her heel. Her ill treatment had worried the injury; she'd felt it split earlier, and it burned now, but surprise netted her expression to witness the dark stains leaked into the pale fabric of the shoe.
Her gaze lifted to implore the pastor. "Mister James? Thank you for coming. You must be in sore demand, I realise, and I'm sorry to--" Natalie bit her lip as the pain crashed and ebbed. She insinuated the reason for his presence, but spoke no real lie. They had asked for his help. But not for Natalie. "May we go somewhere private? I do not wish for a similar spectacle."
Jensen had stepped into a battlefield. Unknowing and innocent. The plea in her gaze was honest. Not for her foot, but that he would agree to lead them away.
Jensen was quick to follow.
It was an odd mixture of feelings that welled up within. The thought of a girl's life cut brutally short was tragic. Yet the chance to be the one to see her health restored quickened his pace. Clearly Jay sought for the other half of the 'we' referenced in who would show him the ill-girl, but the abrupt halt sent Jensen stumbling.
He offered polite smiles to those they approached. Naturally, he looked upon the webbed scars of one man's face. Was it even possible to restore someone previously scarred and healed? He'd never tried, but neither would he offer unless asked. The deformity may be a sensitive subject. Instead, Jensen smiled but sought Jay for guidance regarding the girl with cancer.
Tension drew the air heavy. Only the Latino man spoke, all others poised as though balanced on the edge of a cliff. He was about to introduce himself when the girl tripped.
Worry bubbled his brow. "Yes of course, miss." His long, Texan drawl replied automatically. He offered the lady a hand and made pardons for their hasty departure. He smiled at her as they passed, "You know me, but it is not fair that I don't know you. May I ask your name?" He teased in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Danika gasped, "Oh my gawd I love karaoke!" Her grin lit up the room as favorite memories came to life. Grad school was all about karaoke night. Berlin had a killer club scene for that.
The offer of a coat was declined. After all the dancing, the pebbles on her neck were a welcome relief. Unlike Chicago. Now that place was cooooold.
"You are? I guess I never realized that. Where'd you grow up? I can see you in some kind of Highland Park loft. With a view of the skyline on one side and the water on the other. Decor all industrial cables and exposed beams." He would fit right in with that kind of scene. Like something out of a magazine.
"We were really more in suburbs than Chicago itself, but I went to school in the city."
The touch on her arm flashed sudden awareness of every gangly limb. Naturally, she eased closer to his stance. His warmth was inviting, though she was likely to start sweating any moment as the butterflies in her stomach fluttered.
She knew that he liked her. She was pretty sure anyway, and that lady from the bathroom was totally right. He was hot in the ways that made her incredibly nervous to stand so close to him.
She had to think rationally, though! They worked together! He was technically her boss. This was all kinds of unethical and probably a bad idea, but oh my gawd his arms. She'd never seen so many muscles before.
She found her palm laid across his wrist and she grew nervous enough it was as though the touch was forbidden. Scandalous as turning an ankle before the eyes of a beau.