Lullaby

[Jacinda]

The night was more than she had expected. She'd come here with the intention of probing for information. What she'd discovered was far more pleasing.

Dane was every bit the gentleman, although far different that what she might have expected. Course, she had no experience with what people might call high society, much less someone who hoped to be called a Baron one day.

And truth was, such titles had no meaning for her. The people around her were unimpressive despite their fine clothes and manners every bit as elegant as Dane. No, it was something different. There was a shadow that came over his face at times he didn't realize she was watching, a hint of malevolence. A cat in disguise watching mice move about freely, as if it were declawed. Somehow, she saw it.

It was the same way Regan watched things. She was thirteen years old again, so small compared to him. And yet he had chosen her, had claimed her. He was the embodiment of strength. He was pointing minimally with his chin through the clearing, his eyes calm and still, forcing her to see it. She struggled, looked back at him. His eyes were glacial, a hint of a smile on his face. A slight nod. She nodded back and looked, let her vision expand, take in the chaos of the surrounding, the pattern of life. Gradually, she saw what did not belong. It stopped being hidden. A smile flitted across her face in pride. She looked at Regan again, heart beating insistently.

He looked at her and the smile remained. But in his eyes was pride and her heart beamed. He turned his attention to the creature and suddenly the look was replaced by that of a predator, calm and certain, ready. He did smile then, a slow lazy smile that said this was the best part of the hunt. It was foreplay, the drawing out of the moment. The hunger built, the tension, and even so, he became so still he was almost a rock.

And then he moved faster than she could see, only the sound of the shot and the scream of the wolfkin saying what had happened. Even as there was a feral roar, Regan's knife was out and they grappled. It was over in moments, though it felt like an orgiastic eternity, the screams of the youthful creature echoing through the trees, primal, terrified, the specter of death made flesh to it. And then the screams that had gone on forever went silent. Jacinda quivered as she saw Regan stand, blood staining him, the hunger in his eyes. And then-

The music had stopped and she came to from her reverie. There was Dane with those eyes, hooded as she remembered from so long ago. And for the first time she felt a longing. Not for sex. For Regan. For the man he had been. The man who had taught her to be strong.

She had not expected to see it in this so very unimposing man. The spirit though, the spirit was the same.

Dane excused himself with apologies and went to speak to a man. She took the opportunity to collect herself. She was unsure for the first time. She was not herself, not the cocky experienced Jacinda who had hunted all manner of pray across this land for 30 years. Part of her was terrified at that thought.

Part of her didn't want to let it go. For the first time in decades, she felt those first feelings all over again.

Dane returned and was expressing his delight at her company and his need to leave before she knew it. His lip touched her hand, those shadowed eyes on her.

"I very much enjoyed that Dane."
She used his familiar name. "Yes, I would very much like to see you again."
She handed him her contact information she had brought for her earlier ruse.

At his departure, she took another champagne glass and downed it quickly. The fogginess remained but she was uninterested in making it go away. If anything it became sweeter.

Suddenly, the party seemed drab, dull. Oakland hadn't showed anyway. The night had been a bust for intel. But for something else, though...well, she'd found something she'd not seen in a long time.

[Dane Gregory]

He was already looking over her shoulder even before she finished expressing her eagerness to see him again. The people behind her were rearranging themselves to accommodate two individuals about to leave: his two shadow friends. In a moment Dane would sift through the bodies as well and pour from the room like sand through broken glass. His eagerness spiked as well, but the anticipation had nothing to do with Lucy. Days under Damien's thumb and he was finally going to stretch his wings. Not as his Mockingbird moniker, but as Dane Gregory, someone to dismiss as yet another queer twat on the verge of shitting his pants, or so the other kids would say. What would they say now? This one in the hospital waiting for him probably had a few things to add; Dane liked to coax it out of them before correcting their misinformation.

He walked away from Lucy without taking her contact information. She was nothing important. Not when greater lures beckoned.

[Jacinda]

She felt a little stung that he refused her information. More than a little, really. As he walked away, she watched him go, lost in thought. She'd let her memories of Regan cloud her mind. She'd let her guard down for what, exactly? A quality that reminded her of him?

It wasn't Dane. Dane was nothing. He was just like everyone else here. No. She missed Regan. She went to the balcony, leaned on the balustrade and looked up into the cobalt night, the moon just a sliver. Despite being January, she wasn't cold.

She ignored the sounds of the party, instead letting the slight breeze through the trees fill her ears. Twenty-five years had passed. God, when you said it like that, twenty-five years- it seemed an eternity. But she could almost imagine a tunnel between herself now and the girl she was back then. She smiled at how naive that girl was, how trusting and hungry. She suddenly realized that she was Regan's age, now, as he was back then. A man. What had he seen in her? She tried to see herself as he might have, but whatever it was, she didn't get it.

All she really knew was that suddenly, on this night of all nights, another man had, for whatever reasons- and very likely they had been imagined- reminded her of the man who made her the person she was. It would have been nice to talk to Regan, to tell her how her life had turned out. Show him what she had become, in large part because of him. They would be equals now.

She held up her glass to the sky, making a silent toast. Your girl grew up, Regan.

She stayed there, enjoying the view.

[Dane Gregory]

A man in scrubs and a doctor's coat strolled unaccompanied down the hall of the hospital. As he came upon a room, he adjusted the surgical mask wrapped around his face and pushed a pair of surgical goggles higher onto the bridge of his nose. His vision was always perfect and had never any need to wear eye glasses, even if he had been born into the unfortunate circumstances where he would not be allowed correction surgery. Beeps and rings sounded from a nurses' station farther down the hall. A nurse pushing a patient in a wheel chair rounded the place where he stood. And there was a single individual posted outside the hospital room that gave the doctor a long look over.

This particular doctor called up the chart on the hospital room and scanned its contents. Quique Apodaca Espino was the patient inside. He was seen here tonight for a minor head injury and dizziness. He had required stitches on his scalp from an apparent cut from broken glass. The doctor scrolled through the list of medications Quique was taking. Apparently he was a little worked up from the ordeal and was complaining of insomnia. They were going to keep him in the hospital over night to monitor his condition, but he was having trouble sleeping.

The doctor nodded politely at the individual seated outside the room. The individual, seeing only another skinny doctor, gestured that he go on in. The doctor entered unmolested.

The patient was watching tv in his bed. "Good god man. I've been asking for a doctor for half an hour. How long does it take to get off your ass and walk in here?"


The doctor crossed to Quique where he used the bed's settings to lay it back flat. As the gears of the bed buzzed their movement, the doctor pulled an IV bag off its pole and laid it beside the patient. The pole itself, he wheeled around and tilted it horizontal.

Given these were likely strange behaviors for a doctor, Quique started to shift but found himself unable to move. Behind his mask, the doctor smiled.

"What is this? Muro!"
He yelled to the man in the hall. Moments later, the larger man pounded into the room, hand reaching under his jacket. He paused, taking in the sight of the doctor holding the IV pole like a jousting stick. It was too late.

The doctor let go of the pole as it shot forward powerful as a bullet released from a gun. It pinpricked Muro's belly, skewering him to the wall like a stuffed pig. He screamed of course, but the sound was muffled by wads of invisible pads shoved across his face.

About this time, Quique was rather upset. Dane turned to comfort him.

In his own special way, of course.