WARNING! This scene has graphic descriptions of violent gore. Do not read if you are sensitive to such things!
Setting
Parking Lot - Memorial Hospital - Lake Shore Drive: North
The large parking lot where visitors and patients of Memorial Hospital park. There are tree filled dividers amid the jungle of asphalt and painted yellow lines. Streetlamps illuminate areas in yellowish pools of light.
ST
Cast
RL Date
Sunday, June 21, 2009
IC Date
Thursday, March twenty-fifth 2010. 08:07 pm
The sun is down. The first quarter moon isn't up. <43.3% full and growing>
The tide is low and ebbing.
A cool breeze blows from the west, driving dark clouds before it which blot out the stars in patches overhead. Elsewhere they glitter brightly in the dark sapphire sky. The average temperature is around Thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit, One Centigrade.
Scene
It's been over a month and all has been quiet on the Origami Killer front; at least on the surface. Underneath it all there have been countless hours of research into Osteogenesis Imperfecta, wrestling with the courts and the hospital system to get records pulled on all patients suffering from the disease, and questioning of families and patients who use Memorial Hospital's services for physical therapy. Worse, it all had to be done as quietly and surreptitiously as possible so as not to tip their hand to the killer.
At the end of all of that, they had a plan. A sting operation was developed to catch whoever was kidnapping the victims from the parking lot of the hospital. One of the hospital's patients seems a likely candidate for the killer to target and their safest bet, considering that the other two victims had chloroform in their systems revealed at autopsy. Roger Obermeyer is a 30-something man suffering from the same brittle bone disease the other two victims had. He is also Brian Hadley's height and hair color and, with the right clothing to conceal build differences and his face as much as possible, the detective can pass for him in the dark. Add to that the fact that Brian doesn't need to breathe, so chloroform isn't a problem, and things started to look promising.
Moreover, Obermeyer agreed to assist the police in this matter. He signed waivers and things were set up so that he and Hadley would be given identical outfits. He let Brian observe how he walks so he can imitate it. He agreed to drive to the hospital shortly after dark for his scheduled appointment and go inside for his physical therapy. On the way out he would stop to use the first floor bathroom and there Brian would emerge in his stead. Eleanor and Swat Team Bravo would be set up around Obermeyer's vehicle and on the path from the hospital door to it. There, they would lay in wait for the kidnapper to strike. Orders were to keep them alive, because there is at least one more victim out there who belongs to the single extra bit of origami at each crime scene.
The waiting is the hardest part. Eleanor and SWAT team Bravo have trickled into their places casually all afternoon. Wickham is in a white van with a "Pet Therapy" logo on the side, which gives the excuse of the vehicle being there for the last twenty minutes. It's parked just a few spots from where Obermeyer's minivan is sitting, where the man pulled in about an hour ago to attend his therapy session. SWAT members have been lying down in a variety of cars driven in since mid afternoon all along the path, waiting for the signal that the perp is sighted.
Inside, Roger Obermeyer has finished his therapy and heads into the first floor bathroom in his burnt orange zipped-up hoodie, White Sox baseball cap, and black sweat pants. There he immediately hands off the hat and hoodie to Hadley to wear so even the casual wear and tear and sweat on the items will match. A cowboy hat, denim jacket, cowboy boots and jeans are put on Roger so he and a plainclothes cop can exit the restroom a few minutes after the disguised detective.
For Hadley, what lies ahead is a long walk. The first floor bathroom hall is a short ways from the automated doors leading outside into the chilly night air. From there it's a walk through an expansive parking lot with area dividers planted with trees. Roger explained that he parked in the third from last row, beside one of the dividers. It's easy to spot the van the cops are using not far from it as well. There are streetlamps shedding pools of light along the path but, at this time of night, this area of the parking lot is mostly filled with cars of people who got here a while ago and are going to be here very late. Because of this, there are very few living beings wandering around the cars.
GAME> Hadley rolls 91 against 65% : 26% failure (Observation check)
GAME> Eleanor rolls 79 against 30% <+21% +20%> : 8% failure (Observation check)
The vampire detective has been pretty well behaved tonight. It can't be easy to know that you might be a target for a crazy person, so Hadley is especially nice to Roger. He doesn't say anything to him at all when he takes the stuff and gets himself situated. The walk is done to mimic the man he's trying to be and Hadley makes his way out of the automated doors and out into the cool night, pausing only briefly to get his bearings on the parking lot before he starts heading toward 'his' car.
GAME> Eleanor rolls 17 against 50% <-22%> : 11% success (NPC Grapple check)
A shadow detaches itself from behind a vehicle. Normally Hadley would be able to smell them before he can seem them, but the sweat smell in the hoodie and baseball cap may be hindering him. The fact that Eleanor and the rest of the cops also don't notice immediately is probably a good argument against sitting still for as long as they've had to. The figure walks away from the hospital, on a parallel path to the disguised detective with his hands in his hoodie pockets. Then suddenly he course changes and darts at Brian with a cloth appearing in his hand and looking to clamp over the vampire's mouth and nose. He's wearing jeans, a hoodie with the hood pulled up, and black leather gloves. The cloying stench of chloroform assaults the vampire's senses but, fortunately, not his systems due to that whole ‘being dead’ thing. So although that rag clamps down in place and an arm wraps around Hadley's waist, it doesn't have the intended effect of the victim slumping down unconscious.
GAME> Hadley rolls 25 against 126% : 101% success (Grapple on NPC)
Being a vampire has some advantages, obviously, and when he's targeted and taken way too much by surprise for his tastes, Hadley reacts quickly. He lifts a hand to grab the wrist of the hand trying to cover his face with chloroform and twists to grab for better purchase with his other hand, too. Once he has his attacker under grip, though, Hadley seems momentarily uncertain what to do with him. "I don't really like people touching me," he growls under his breath and he can't entirely hide the flash of fang.
One thing Hadley notes immediately. This person's smell doesn't match that of the one he chased through the woods behind 1200 W. Harrison. The boy, for he isn't much more than that, maybe late teens from the looks of him, screams like a little girl and flails in Hadley's grasp in a panic. "DON'T EAT ME!!!" he hollers, with eyes wide as saucers.
The scream wakes up the rest of the cops. Like a swarm of locusts, SWAT members pop up out of vehicles and Eleanor and the rest of Bravo team stream out of the van with weapons leveled at the young man. The sound of safeties clicking off and shotguns being pumped echoes in the nearly empty lot.
Tousled blond hair falls in the perp's pale eyes and a pathetic attempt at a mustache quivers along with his upper lip. "I was just getting you for him!" he pleads, holding his hands to his throat as if vampires only feed from there and that would somehow ward Brian off. The guns seem a secondary concern with an undead man above him. "He threatened to kill my mom if I didn't!"
Ignoring the boy's reactions to his nature, Hadley focuses on what he thinks is important instead. "Where would you take me?" he asks, gaze lifting to search the area around them and then back toward where he knows Eleanor is by the feel of her energy. "It's just a kid. It's not the one we're after," he doesn't sound happy about it and when he turns back to that kid, his words might be a little gruff, "You're safe. But we need to know more. You're going to have to stay with us. Do they have your mom?"
There is a frantic shake of the boy's head in response to Hadley before Eleanor motions the SWAT team to stand down. "Let's have a chat with him in the van," she suggests.
And so it happens.
The young man turns out to be Tony Dudley, a university student whose mother is a nurse in the physical therapy ward at Memorial. He confesses to having stolen her password and broken into the computer system to help choose victims for the man he said is hurting the patients. A man with a name and an address. Vernon Black, of 1515 Napperville Street. The irony of the street name is not lost on anyone.
Calls go out, a warrant is almost immediately granted, and the SWAT team find themselves in a van now marked for pizza delivery within an hour, heading towards the alleged home of the Origami Killer. Hadley and Eleanor are in Tony's beat up pickup truck instead, with Eleanor at the wheel in Dudley's clothes, her hair pulled back under the hoodie, and Hadley lying in the back still playing victim. A SWAT member is on the floor of the passenger seat, huddled down with a black tarp over him, wearing similar clothing to Eleanor.
Tony wasn't too terribly useful outside of that info. He never went inside the house, only the garage, where he deposited the unconscious victims on the floor then left. His vehicle has a handy garage door opener for just that purpose, and the intent is to use it to get the pair of detectives inside without alerting the killer. The SWAT member will drive the vehicle back out once their inside and close the garage door, just like Tony would, so Black isn't alerted to anything being out of the ordinary.
"Final comm check," Eleanor says to make sure the tiny earpieces and pick up mics they are wearing are transmitting to the equipment in the van behind them. "All systems go," comes the quiet response. "You ready for this?" Eleanor calls back to Hadley as they turn onto Napperville Street.
"No," Hadley says without hesitation. He's not ready for this. He might be if Eleanor wasn't wearing Dudley's clothes, but since she is, it's just not that cool. "You gonna be able to drag me up there?" he asks, maybe trying to stall just a little bit. He doesn't move anything but his mouth, though. Wouldn't be very good if he was flailing around and the bad guy was watching.
"The garage door will be closed. He won't know that you just climbed out under your own power, Hads," Eleanor says in as soothing of a voice as she can manage, which is about as soothing as swallowing broken glass at this point. It doesn't help that she has been in the foulest, blackest mood he's probably ever seen her in all day. She taps the comm on again. "This house is registered to Veronica Black, Vernon's mother," she relates, to give all the SWAT team members the information and make sure everyone is on the same page. "Records indicate she is 65 years of age and has been very ill for a long time. She suffers from the same brittle bone disease as the other two victims so it is /imperative/ that, if she is still alive, she is handled with extreme care and gentility. Once Detective Hadley and I locate the perp and assure that she and any other living victims are safe, we will give the signal to come in. Be sure to clear all rooms and be exceptionally mindful of any woman of her age." She looks back at the vampire to make sure he's got all that too. Don't break spindly old ladies in two.
"Right," is all that Hadley says, quiet. That's all he really can say since he doesn't have nearly enough say on what Eleanor can and can't do or how any of this will actually go down. But his energy is tense and maybe not nervous but near enough to it. "Be careful, Eleanor," he says. "Let’s get this over with."
Eleanor nods and she focuses on driving. This is not the nicest street around. There's a fairly high crime rate associated with it and some of the homes are shabby and in various states of disrepair. It looks like it's headed for the same fate as the places the bodies were found. Eleanor stabs the garage door opener and a few doors from their current position the attached garage of a home still in decent repair slides open. The interior light does not come on, but the nearby streetlamp shows that the garage has no vehicles in it, and just some simple storage shelves with the usual assortment of holiday decorations and camping stuff packed on them in neat and tidy order. An aging sedan is parked in front of the property.
"Here we go," Eleanor says quietly as she turns into the driveway and pulls into the garage. She hits the door opener again once the truck has cleared it so it begins to close. That was part of Tony's instructions. The door had to be shut before he removed the victim so no one on the street could see.
Scene Change
1515 Napperville Street
A one story ranch style home with attached garage, it is painted a dull grey with blue shutters. Compared to the rest of the neighborhood, it is in decent condition despite it's aging structure. The yard looks a little wild, and all the windows have heavy curtains to hide the inside from the outside.
When the garage door is closed, Hadley lifts up a hand to open the car door and gets out of the car with a all the ease and grace of, well, a vampire. He's trying to keep his energy reined in since a magic user or something was suspected to be involved, but it's really not a strong ability of his. He doesn't say anything, but looks at Eleanor for a moment and listens to the sounds inside.
GAME> Eleanor rolls 85 against 50% <+21% +20%> : 6% success (Listen check)
GAME> Hadley rolls 35 against 85% : 50% success (Listen check)
Inside the garage light streams out from beneath an interior door, giving Eleanor some visibility and Hadley plenty. Wickham opens her door and gets out, even as the SWAT team member slides into the driver's seat. The detective clears her Glock from its holster. Once Brian is ready, she moves to put her back to the wall behind the door to the interior and signals the SWAT driver to depart.
Hadley pulls out his gun slowly, distracted, though not overly so, by sounds. It only takes a moment before he murmurs, "Down," then nods that he's ready. He'd probably be more comfortable in clothes that didn't smell like another dude, but he already knows that he can't have everything that he wants.
Hey! Try being in ones for some teenage kidnapper! With a rumble, the garage door opens again, and the truck is backed out of the driveway, and heads down the street. The door begins its descent once more, plunging them into the darkness. Eleanor takes in a deep breath and then, when the garage door is completely shut, nods to Hadley to try the interior door. "Going in" she whispers quietly into the comm..
Hadley moves forward at Eleanor's nod to try the door with his left hand. One way or another the door is going to open, but it already being open would, of course, just be easier and quieter. When the door opens, Hadley goes in first. It's not so much a male thing as a knowing he's a lot harder to kill thing. Not to mention he can see into any dark corners and rooms and whatever a little easier.
It was locked, but with one of those flimsy twist locks that cannot hold up to vampiric strength, not even remotely. The door opens without much noise having been made. Immediately inside the home is a laundry room that looks meticulously tidy, much like the garage was, but very outdated. Beyond it there is what looks to be a small hallway with a closet directly across from the laundry room, the front door of the house to the right, and opening into a wide space to the left, probably a family room of some kind, where the light is coming from.
Eleanor takes her spot on one side of the door, gun held in both hands and sweeping the line of sight before being raised again. There is a musty sort of smell emanating from the house. Just an old smell really. She lets Hadley take the lead, since he's far more durable and can see better than she can in dim light.
GAME> Hadley rolls 16 against 69% : 53% success (Stealth check)
GAME> Eleanor rolls 26 against 30% <+13%> : 17% success (Stealth check)
The vampire moves quietly into the house and his gaze searches for a door that could lead him down toward where he hears more noise than up. But he's watching and he's still listening for anything on the same level as them. Now that they're here and not just anticipating, his energy evens out, almost like it's searching, too.
Beyond the family room is a small, very outdated kitchen, with brown laminate cabinets, yellow linoleum in a horrible geometric pattern, and 70s era "avocado green" appliances. Like the family room, it is empty and has a hallway branching off of it. It likely leads to bedrooms further back. There is also a door leading most likely to the cellar. There are sounds emanating from beyond that door, although the rest of the house sounds eerily quiet.
Eleanor is being damned quiet for herself. She's very focused tonight. Must have been the special tea she had earlier at Seventh House Café. She looks to Hadley and points at the hallway versus the basement door to see which way he wants to go.
Hadley has probably noticed Eleanor being moody and unusually quiet and focused. But right now isn't really the time to talk about it. If ever there is a time that Hadley would choose to talk about such things. That's what women have girlfriends for, isn't it? Hadley gestures to the basement door after glancing toward the hallway and moves toward it slowly enough to maintain his silence.
Eleanor nods her understanding and she whispers, "Front half of house clear. Bedrooms unchecked. Noises in basement, heading down." Then she reaches carefully for the doorknob with her left hand, keeping her right free for her gun. She turns the knob carefully, silently, and discovers it is unlocked. She pulls the door towards herself, so it's a barrier between her and whatever is within.
Dim light emanates from a bare bulb just inside. The basement seems to be old and unfinished, with rickety stairs with no risers on the backs of them leading down into darkness, with the occasional bare light bulb casting a pitiful pool of light. There is a long hallway visible below, with concrete floors and walls that are no more than studs and drywall with pink fiberglass insulation poking out here and there. Doors suffering from dry rot dot the walls at odd intervals, and the smell of mold mingled with chemicals is all pervasive.
GAME> Eleanor rolls 60 against 50% <+21% +20%> : 31% success (Listen check)
GAME> Hadley rolls 22 against 85% : 63% success (Listen check)
GAME> Hadley rolls 91 against 69% : 22% failure (Stealth check)
GAME> Eleanor rolls 11 against 30% <+13%> : 32% success (Stealth check)
Moving past the opened door, Hadley starts slowly down the stairs. He takes a couple, but there's one that creaks. He pauses almost immediately, but it's not like he can take the sound back. And it's clear he'd kick himself for it if he could. He moves down the rest, stepping more toward the outsides and moving quickly since making more noise probably isn't going to mean a whole lot. His gun remains poised and he looks down the hallway where he hears crying and quiet talking.
The stairs do not creak when Eleanor steps on them. Someone has been practicing her ninja skills in her spare time, or just hanging out too much with the wolves. She sticks to the more solid outer edges of the treads as well, but she winces as Hadley makes noise. She sinks her teeth into her lower lip as she begins moving faster to meet his swifter pace, but she's hindered by the dim light and has to move more cautiously than the vampire. She stops before the first closed door, pressing her back to the wall and looking to Hadley for a signal to either open the door or keep moving.
The crying sounds increase, but the talking sounds seem to have stopped. They seem to be coming from the door at the far end of the 40 foot long hallway that seems to extend past the bounds of the house so that it would be under the back yard somewhere.
Hadley pauses when the talking quiets but only for a moment. He moves marginally slower, like he can make up for making the stairs creak moments before. He seems focused on the doorway with the most obvious sounds but his energy sweeps other doors that they pass as though trying to find something to react to while he moves.
GAME> Eleanor rolls 88 against 40% <+21% +20%> : 7% failure (Listen check)
GAME> Hadley rolls 47 against 75% : 28% success (Sense check)
Eleanor can't hear anything coming from any of the rooms they pass the doors of. She swallows hard and realizes that her own pulse is pounding so hard in her ears she can't hear much of anything at all. She wipes her right hand on her jeans to get the cold sweat off her palm before adjusting her grip on her gun. She follows Hadley at his cautious pace, trusting enough to follow his lead.
Hadley continues down the hall until he's standing outside of the door that he wants, the one that's drawn all of his attention and even some small amount of excitement out of his power. Blood just has that sort of affect on him these days. He waits for Eleanor to catch up to him and stands outside of the door, ready to kick it in or, y'know, open it when she's ready.
GAME> Eleanor rolls 14 against 50% <+0%> : 36% success (NPC Stealth Check)
Eleanor moves to one side of the door, and she checks to confirm that it opens inwards. She takes a quiet, steadying breath, then she turns the knob and pushes it open, leveling her weapon immediately. She stops and blinks at what is revealed.
Inside the back room is a nightmarish object lesson in juxtaposition. Through trailing plastic bands that form a curtain, like in a meat packing plant, the smell of death and blood and chemicals is all pervasive. The room is split into two halves, one which is cheerfully and stodgily decorated much like the home above. It's set up as a bedroom complete with dresser, night stands, ceramic lamps, flowery wallpaper, and bad watercolor paintings. There is a bed in the center with a quilt over it and an elderly woman who is lying beneath said quilt, crying in pain. She is hooked up via IV to several drip bags, with oxygen tubes up her nose, and machines monitor her vitals with soft bleeps and whooshes.
The other side of the room seems to be fashioned in the form of the Spanish Inquisition's idea of a cozy hospital. There is a stainless steel table with thick leather straps to tie down victims. There is tile on the floor with channels routed into it to direct blood and fluids to a drain in the floor. There are rolling carts filled with all sorts of materials from bleach to hand sanders, to metal files and scalpels. Then there are the knives. There is an entire collection of blades resting on the pegs of a pegboard covering one wall: everything from small throwing knives to hunting knives, machetes to stilettos. It's a gruesome collection made more so by the fact that there are enough old blood stains all over the pegboard to indicate they've seen recent and heavily repeated use. There are multiple doors leading out of this room.
Hadley's weapon is leveled and ready but it's not the crying old lady that his attention goes to first. It's the knives and the scent of blood beneath the chemicals that ruffles his power in unpleasant ways. Well, okay, it's probably the fact that it is pleasant that makes it particularly unpleasant for Hadley. He's looking for someone else, though, when he moves into the room, or looking for which way they might have gone. Or which way an attack might come from so he can try to be between it and Eleanor.
"Ms. Veronica Black?" Eleanor says in a quiet tone, "We are police officers. We've come to get you out of here. Please stay calm." She states into the comm, "Veronica Black is secured, take the house. I repeat, /take the house/." Her gun is pointed down at the floor to try and calm the old woman.
GAME> Eleanor rolls 15 against 50% <+27%> : 62% success (NPC Attack Check)
GAME> Eleanor sustains 10 points of damage <minor injuries -05%>
GAME> Eleanor rolls 71 against 50% <-4%> : 25% failure (NPC Attack Check)
That's when all hell breaks loose. The door on the far end of the room to one side of the peg board flies open on its own and in the darkness Hadley can barely make out that a man stands there at the back of another room. He is tall, muscular, and gesturing. He might not be that interesting though, because the two hunting knives that suddenly fly off the pegboard and streak towards the detectives are much more immediately unpleasant. Especially the one that buries itself in Eleanor's leg. She goes down to one knee, bleeding heavily from the leg that has gone numb from the trauma.
GAME> Hadley rolls 23 against 70% : 47% success (To determine the most logical course of action)
GAME> Hadley rolls 25 against 79% : 54% success (To get through the door before it closes)
GAME> Hadley rolls 26 against 113% : 87% success (Attack with surprise modifier)
GAME> Hadley's melee attack does _18_ damage.
GAME> Success: 87, Muscle: 37, Multiplier: 2, Max.Damage: 24
The vampire recognizes the scent of Eleanor's blood but a quick glance her way tells him that her wound probably won't bleed her out /too/ quickly. At least it tells him that through an angry mind. He takes off after the figure he saw in the doorway, quick like a bun, er, a vampire. He probably doesn't notice the door slamming behind him when he gains enough on his current prey to take a swing at him. The aura or barrier or whatever it is that he feels distracts him briefly but not enough for him not to push through it and knock the guy over the head with the butt of his gun.
GAME> Eleanor rolls 41 against 50% <+1%> : 10% success (NPC Attack)
GAME> Eleanor rolls one 3-sided die : « 1 » (NPC Dammage)
GAME> Hadley sustains 2 points of damage <passing injuries>
GAME> Eleanor sustains 5 points of damage <major injuries -15%> (Bleeding)
Perhaps not getting the door slammed in time to cut off the charging vampire off balanced Black. The man's head whips to one side when struck with the butt of the gun, but he turns it back slowly, eyes narrowing in rage. "You would dare to disturb my art!? My craft! I take the broken and twisted, and I make them BEAUTIFUL AGAIN!" He strikes out with his mind, telekinetically picking up what looks like a broken wall stud and clubs Hadley like a baby seal.
The clubbing doesn't really do much but irritate the vampire. "I don't give a fuck about your goddamned art," Hadley growls back and he levels his gun and fires on the crazy person. He doesn't even flinch when the head, Vern's was it?, blows up in such an enchanting way with his first shot. The second is just wasted ammo. The vampire stands there, staring at the body, forgetting about his partner in the other room for a moment.
It's kind of like an Indiana Jones movie. The villain shows his uber impressive skills (in this case his telekinetic club wielding powers), then the badass blows his brains out with a gun. Boom. Black's brains now decorate the run down basement room. Positive identification would be a real bitch if his mother wasn't in the very next room. The sounds of the arriving SWAT team can be heard thundering down the stairs and the shouts of "CLEAR!" as they sweep each room echo all around. Over the comm one of the SWAT members shouts from the room outside, "Officer down!" The sounds of them extracting Eleanor can be heard. To add insult to her injury, Vernon locked the door behind Hadley.
GAME> Eleanor sustains 3 points of damage <critical injuries -40%> (Bleeding)
The sounds of the stuff going on in the other room makes Hadley blink and turn back toward the door that had shut behind him. He moves to open it very deliberately, but when he finds that it's locked, he tries to force it instead. He's not in the mood to be waiting for this sort of thing. He's starting to think he probably shouldn't be here at all. "Wickham," he says when the scent of his partner's blood fills his senses. He sounds a little worried even. Aw.
GAME> Hadley rolls 33 against 82% : 49% success (To force door open)
The door bursts off its hinges when Hadley forces it. That has about a dozen shotguns aimed at him, but the SWAT team recognizes the detective and lowers their weapons again. "They're bringing Wickham to the ambulance," the Bravo team lead tells him, looking a bit shaken at the scene. "Memorial Hospital. You can ride with them if you hurry, or you can stay here and tag evidence."
Fuck evidence, is kind of what the growl that Hadley gives the team lead probably means. He stalks off after the scent he can follow toward the evidence as quickly as he can without impeding on anyone else. His gun is back in his holster, at least. "Don't leave without me," he calls after the people with Eleanor when he sees them ahead.
The paramedics have loaded Eleanor into the back of the ambulance, and she is conscious albeit it pretty groggy and far too pale to not be scary. "Hads," she croaks out, giving him a bit of a goofy smile. "Did you get him?"
"Shit," is what Hadley says when he climbs into the back of the ambulance to join Eleanor and whoever else. He's going with. He even reaches to take one of the psychic's hands. "I got him. Real good. Won't be any more creative corpse art around for awhile, I hope."
"Good, good. That means I can sleep at night again," Eleanor quips with a weak smile. Her hand is almost as cold as his. The paramedics put an oxygen mask on her but she half pulls it off to whisper to him. "You can't fix me too much or too fast. I can't afford for them to think I'm a shifter," she implores with worried eyes.
Hadley really looks like he wants to protest. But all he says is, "I could tell them. What I was doing. They should know anyway, Wickham." Or he'd get kicked out of the hospital. Or they'd never really let him leave again. But there's a tone in his voice that suggests he'll do what she asks. "Don't worry about it. Everything'll be fine."
Before they can depart, one of the Lieutenants from the department stops at the back of the ambulance to collect Hadley's gun because there is a very dead person with his bullets in him in the basement. He'll get it back probably the next night after the kill is cleared as a warranted one. Then the doors are shut and the ride to the hospital begins. "Just a little after surgery. Just enough to make it look like I heal quick, but not inhuman quick," Eleanor requests. Then her brow furrows. "I need you to call my sister and tell her I'm in the hospital. Give her my phone. She'll know who else to call." She looks over at the hoodie that the paramedics cut off her to get an IV in her arm. "In the pocket."
Hadley doesn't protest the gun. It's not like he hasn't been through it before, he's just worried about his partner. Or maybe it's more Eleanor in specific and not the fact that she's his partner. He glances at the hoodie and reaches to find her phone before putting it into his own pocket. "I'll call her while they're patching you up. I'll take care of it. You just hang in there."
Eleanor gives him a small smile, but his words that he'll take care of things seem to make her relax and she passes out. The paramedics make sure she's still stable and reassure him she'll pull through.
