Deadly Duet [YKW]
Apr 20, 2013 21:13:20 GMT -5
Post by Aubre Ellen McKenna on Apr 20, 2013 21:13:20 GMT -5
The shop had been left a mess. What little cleaning supplies she had, a broom, dustpan, cleaning spray, and small cans of paint had made little difference. The floor had still been a charred mess (like her skin may have been if it had continued). Products had dyed the walls a myriad assortment of colors as they had burst apart. The cameras, expensive even now, had been turned into puddles of sticky plastic. The counter had a crack from where a certain girl had slammed frantic knees into it. The windows had soot-stains. One of the shelving units was a crumpled piece of metal wedged between the pharmacy door and counter. In other words: it looked like a tornado had swept through the store. Aubre had been the only one there as her boss had stomped down the stairs (at the lack of business). With a hastily written sign, one which declared the shop closed for remodeling, Aubre had grabbed her worn hoody and fled from the store. Contact had only been made a few hours later with an ancient cellphone; the ginger-haired girl was nearly deaf from all the screaming. Not knowing what to say, well aware very few people would believe her over him, she had just claimed to have taken a break to return to that wreck. The yelling had not stopped for an hour.
Aubre was just grateful not to have been fired; with damages totaling over two thousand dollars it appeared her services were worth something. In truth, with how outdated the store had been, the owner had been thankful for the insurance-paid updates. The man had been waiting for an incident to allow him to upgrade something besides products and the cash register. Her boss had given her two weeks off without pay for the unexplained incident; the majority of her next two checks (another month worth) would go to covering whatever the insurance company did not. The end of her probation was drawing near and the small envelope holding her savings was dangerously empty. A few nights in the last week, after she had drowned her depression in a variety of unhealthy food, the girl had been forced to eat cereal without the milk and vegetables straight from tin-cans. Her boss had been generous to offer her job back, even with his stipulations; even though she hated to do it, refusing that degree of charity was beyond ungrateful, Aubre would not report for work on Monday.
That man knew where she worked and would make her life a living hell if she was that stupid. It would have only been a matter of time, if she kept the same habits, before he was able to get even closer; eventually her boss would lead him right into her apartment (if he was still angry over the incident he might even do it on purpose). The large amount of charity smelled far too sweet; it might have been a trap. The mouse had retreated into the safety of its hole (and solitude) for most of her 'vacation'; most of her Pokemon had been sent off to various training locations with various associates (though she was never truly alone) to prepare for a fight. Surprisingly, even with all her nightmares, the last week had been quite restful. After a few years of working her ass off for minimum wage, with no breaks, it was not too bad to have a few days off. It had taken a strong telling-off from Achilles and the words of a kind woman (who was going to help her further) to convince her that this change might not be horrible. Leon was unable to track her from work and she had gotten a few nights' sleep.
With an early class to teach (and a late one the night before), tonight had been far from restful. As soon as class had finished, her others in less than six hours, Aubre had collapsed into her bed. It had taken a while for her eyes to finally drift closed; the thought of her dreams terrified her. The alarm clock started going off at eight o'clock with a shrill chime. It was not until just before the second ring, nearly an hour later, that she rose from her nightmarish sleep. The clock seemed to chime out a single word as she awoke: 'kitten'. Her eyes shot open at an astonishing rate as her heart hammered in her chest. A knife had been descending toward her when something had stopped the nightmare.
It had not been her alarm clock; that went off a few seconds later. Something, or someone, had made a noise in the living room. Green eyes moved from her bed to where a Persian slept in the corner; a Rufflet still dozed on a perch on the opposite side of the room. Her other Pokemon (minus a few in their balls) were elsewhere. The door to her room was locked tightly. The front door, all seven locks, had been triple-checked.
No further noise emerged from the main room. Green eyes drifted closed again; nothing had ever actually been in her apartment for the three hundred times she had checked. Her eyes refused to stay open. The woman felt like she had been hit by a truck; a large bruise beneath her chest and one on her hip (where a Rhyhorn had collided with her last night) helped it feel like an eighteen-wheeler. Her back felt tight and slick to the touch with her scars screaming in protest to a sleep cut short. Neither Pokemon seemed alarmed by a potential intrusion; if she had heard a noise, with weak ears, she had no doubt her companions would wake up. It might just have been a nightmare. With a sigh she nuzzled deeper into her pillow for another ten or twenty minutes of rest.
When her clock chimed out its final warning, leaving her only half-an-hour to get ready, Aubre painfully crawled from beneath the worn covers. Bare-feet stumbled across cheap hardwood flooring as the door to her bedroom was unlocked with a click. Sunlight flooded in the now open doorway The same noise of feet on wood continued as the woman walked into the kitchen;one hand clumsily snatched a banana from a nearby bowl of fruit . A flash of white, below her left wrist, caught her pine-colored gaze. A small note, written in her own neat script, offered up a gentle reminder (which she read aloud):
"Timothy, Anthony, and Delilah need their homework from last week--it's in the front drawer; do not forget to grab the berry blocks from the fridge at the center."
Sight clouded with sleep took a few tries to read the note properly; her sleep-leaden tongue tripped over itself a few times. Her hair stuck up at odd angles from sleep. The upper part of her body was hunched to keep any pain from rousing itself. All of the scars shivered in the cool spring morning. The area below her chest was an angry purple. Her left arm was still bandaged where shrapnel from small explosions had riddled it with glass. The woman would need a long-sleeved shirt to hide her injuries:
"....I think Cassidy has those still; we can always just show the children how to make them on their own without those expensive machines."
Without anyone around, besides her Pokemon, Aubre had a lot less of an issue with allowing her thoughts to flow out uncensored. The woman bent over the counter to read over the mail left there earlier in the morning. Her head bobbed back and forth in time with the gently sway of her hips (which resulted from shifts meant to comfort her back).
Unlike her arms, hidden beneath cotton bandages, her back was exposed to the open air. Raw cotton sheets had a habit of leaving it red and inflamed. The swirls at the bottom, which she knew to be a name were particularly sore this morning. To most people, who had a hard time differentiating the burn scars from the knife scars,
The note was laid back on the counter as the redhead, with her fruit, limped back to her closet of a room. The noise had been completely forgotten in her sleep-clouded mind. Something about the door bothered her. Hands reached down to straighten tight pajama pants from where sleep had twisted them. The woman saw no reason to do the same to her top; to preserve her back while sleeping, even if it was just an hour, she never wore one to bed. While a pleasant enough sight, one her Pokemon were used to, it was something she would never do with anyone else around. Her back was too disturbing to even allow her a bikini. The woman was not the exhibitionist type; the lack of shirt was something she never thought about.
Something prompted her to speak as she sniffed at a small pouch of ground lavender atop the counter; the potpourri usually helped wake her up in these morning hours. Her eyes caught pale skin and she forced out a greeting:
"Good morning..."
With a wave to whoever was in the apartment (and a squeaky yawn), Aubre walked back to her room to get ready for class. The children were rather demanding and a lot more difficult to restrain than the adults; she could not socialize, she needed time to plan. The lesson plans had to be checked over, again; the girl was still paranoid of some stupid mistake in the text (after a fourth proofread).
The sound of a creaking mattress stopped abruptly (as she sat upon her bed held together with duct tape and prayers); a sound of quiet alarm followed. The sound of quiet rock music drifted out from the bedroom door as her heart began to beat like a large bass drum. Her brain had begun to shake free from the grips of sleep and came to a frightening realization. Who had she been waving at? Who was she supposed to be socializing with?
Papers fell to the floor. Tiny feet slapped against the floors as she moved timidly back into the main living area with bright green eyes narrowed in suspicion. Two confused gazes, one black and one warm amber, followed Aubre with some befuddlement. What was wrong with her? Why did she look so worried? Did she even care that she had stepped all over her immigration paperwork?
The evidence slowly began to stack up as more questions raced through her paranoid mind. Her mind began to recall all the things that had bothered her. Maybe that earlier noise was not the result of high-strung nerves.
Why had the door been unlocked? Better yet, as she did not recall flipping the switch, why were the lights on? Why had that photo-album, that usually sat on the bookshelf, been missing? Did she have time to indulge her paranoia? Maybe it really was taking over her life. That thought did not stop her from calling out to the other rooms with a question:
"H-hello...? Is s-someone here?"