In Case of Fire, Break Glass (closed)

[Nhysa]

   
Natalie & "Toma"

After returning Adrian to his hotel, Nhysa did not find herself surprised to discover Natalie was emphatically not where she was supposed to be.

The signal had been dead for a while now. Given the less than salubrious neighbourhood, she had ditched the luxury car in favour of something more in keeping with the local flavours. The engine idled beneath the dulcet tones of some rather existential death metal, and the debris of a quick and largely unsatisfying meal littered around her lap. Nhysa buzzed through screens on her wallet while she sucked on the straw of her smoothie. Adrian had also claimed to value information, a sentiment of which she naturally approved. She’d performed all the rudimentary searches whilst they were still talking in the club of course (as she had on all the members of that little bar-side coterie, beyond the one who drew a blank). Who Adrian was, what he did for a living, his known associates. What manner of man he was she not interested to discover, for ultimately she did not care who Natalie decided to fuck, but while she was waiting she did skim for any red flags that might make her job more difficult. Nothing jumped immediately out, until eventually she grew bored. On the surface at least, Adrian Kane was quite dull and repetitive. As much as the sad sparks that had fallen limp from his fingertips.

Eventually the tracker signal flared back to life, meaning Natalie had finally switched her wallet back on, and Nhysa sat back in her seat to wait, fingers drumming the steering wheel. Her shadow billowed curiously in the footwell, lured by the shift in her attention.

She did not particularly care where Natalie had gone or what she had been doing. The client asked for feedback on her activities now and then, but Nhysa was usually interpretative in what she chose to share. Natalie was restless as wild horses. If she felt even a whisper of the leash her family aimed about her neck, she would only rebel in ways that her history suggested would make Nhysa’s job more difficult. And, despite late-night sojourns to interesting parts of the city, ultimately Natalie seemed more than capable of looking after herself. Not that the Northbrooks didn’t have good reasons for the assignment. Nhysa had seen the file.

What Nhysa did care about was discerning the trigger, though – and she did suspect there was one for Natalie to have fled so abruptly from her apartment. Fortunately she was good at assessing people. The best death’s were intimate, and where she could Nhysa took great care in tailoring her work to be a fitting celebration of the life to be lost. She liked to understand people, even the heinous ones – and admittedly, in that particular vein of her profession, they usually were. Her approach to bodyguard work was not so dissimilar. In fact the knowing part was usually more important, owing to the fact that someone somewhere decided said life was precious enough to protect. Given the interchangeable nature of either role Nhysa had no preferences in the jobs she took. Dead bodies were usually kind enough to stay where you put them, though.

She watched the woman emerge from the subway station and onto the shadowy street, nose buried in the screen of her wallet. In the washed out glow her expression was as hard as diamond, and famed by all that pale hair she looked positively ethereal. She also looked incendiary angry, though, and Nhysa pondered the rare insight. Natalie was usually as closed off as if she’d been sculpted fresh from ice. Though much like a statue she paused for a long time over whatever it was she was looking at.

After a while Nhysa beeped loudly on the horn, and Natalie visibly flinched. A delicate swirl of power mingled her aura, but went dim just as quickly. A little amused by the reaction, Nhysa leaned over to shove the passenger side door open. Then she discarded the remains of her drink on the backseat, and flicked off the blare of the violent music. Natalie returned the device to her pocket, pulling composure around her like the edges of her coat against the chill, but she did quite obediently get in the car.

“You’re not surprised to see me,” Nhysa said, laughter spilling from her throat like the purr of a cat. In her lap her shadow stirred.

“I expect you to be good at your job,” was the tight reply as Natalie pulled the door behind her. The hint of a smirk hitched her lips, but it smoothed quickly to blandness, like all the feelings within were pulled inward like a riptide. “I’d be disappointed to find otherwise.”

Nhysa only chuckled at that, and pulled them back out into the darkened road. For a while they roared at a swift pace, at least until they hit the congestion of the inner city. Again. Moonlighting as a chauffeur was decidedly not the best part of this job. Nhysa gave an audibly displeased sigh when they became seized in the giant snakes of twinkling traffic. She leaned back and nudged the steering wheel between her knees. They were going that slow. Natalie seemed removed from the boredom, mired entirely in the trap of her own thoughts.

“Dear one, you left him as unravelled as a present on Christmas morning,” she commented after a while of silence. Natalie’s pale stare was turned to watch the smearing lights outside the window. She did not react to the jibe. Nhysa watched her slyly from the corner of her eye. “If you didn’t want to invite him in, you should have just finished up in the back seat. Perhaps you wouldn’t be so snarled up now if you had...”

“I’m so fed up with being lied to, Toma.” The words erupted sharp, out almost before Nhysa had finished speaking. There was a particular edge to the name that suggested it was one such lie, but Nhysa only shrugged the accusation off. Truthfully it didn’t matter what Natalie called her; all the names were fabrications of a moment, even the one she used most often. If Nhysa even had a birth name, she did not know it. And it was clearly not the crux of Natalie’s distress. Her face was unreadable, but her breathing had hitched like the control cost a toll she was not used to paying.

She released her belt and reached for the door. Nhysa let her. Her shadow bristled and swept out after, the vague outline of its catlike body all but disintegrating as it clashed with the city lights. A little curiosity stirred, but it was mostly a motherly fascination that prompted Nhysa to kill the engine and get out too. She left the car. It was borrowed anyway. The driver behind railed on the horn and began yelling when they realised both occupants had abandoned the vehicle in front, but Nhysa only offered a wink and a rude gesture as she turned to follow Natalie’s form weaving through the stationary cars.

The girl had demons. Fortunately Nhysa got along very well with those.