terror

date: november 1st, early morning location: ffh ( furry frat house ) availability: closed ( @carsonwilders​ )

when the door to carson’s room finally opened, lola was already waiting for her outside in the hall, leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed. most of the others were either still in bed or haven’t even gotten home yet. hell, it’d be hours until sunrise. but ever since having seen carson’s reaction to the dead wolf, she’s had a funny feeling about what the younger one might be up to next. turns out she was right, for once.

“where you headed?” despite her sharp tone, there was worry in her voice. understanding, to a degree. still, she couldn’t let her do it, not like this.

Mostly, there was the question of the body and whether anyone would come back for it. Killers came back within days of a murder most times, to hide their hands or relive the sweetness of a slick death. She was a killer, she would know — how a victim’s pulse became the new perihelion of one’s orbit, how the exact anatomy of a kill was easier than one would think. Funny how death worked. How easy it was to get away with it. How someone’s fierce and complicated gaze could blink out in an instant and they’d become a question, a body — how if Carson had done it once when she was prepubescent and runty, how she could do it again and again and again. 

“Lola. Hello,” she said, knocking the other with her shoulder as she made her way out of her bedroom. She started to nudge past the woman but thought better of it and wheeled around, leaving a hair’s width between the two of them. So what if Lola was stronger? Carson wasn’t going to let her trap her here like some child under quarantine, and she was looking for evidence tonight, going for a walk. “I’m heading out. And what are you doing, princess? Stalking me?”

The wolf in the square felt like an omen. It had put the whole of Blackrock into a mood – a slow-dripping, cold sense of unease that spread itself like tar across town, thick and heavy. It had turned up the volume on the static inside her, made her restless. Not even halfway through winter and I’m already fucking sick of it. She’d yet to text Sam. Told herself he probably had more than enough on his plate, though she wasn’t sure how long she could hold out. And so she’d taken to the dim-lit streets of Blackrock, trailing the evening dark like a ghost.

Spotting Carson by the bridge was both a surprise and yet not surprising at all. 

“.. I could say the same t’you.” The world around them was quiet, and so Mar kept her voice low; watched their shadows grow long over the carpet of fresh snow. “I’ve got–” A brief pause to fish around in the pocket of her black coat “– caramel candies. Raspberry-flavoured. Y’want some?”

Mar's voice is low against the river yet feels deafening at the same time. Maybe because there's only silence between her and the water without some form of verbal acknowledgement, between her and the water and Mar. She exhales and the mist of it brushes the outline of the other’s shadow. She exhales again and pushes Mar’s breath-cloud from her own. It’s juvenile, Carson knows, this kind of stand-off, but she’s never claimed composure in maturity, and anyone who'd expect this of her sees a trained dog when there's only a mangy, horrible wolf instead. 

Nighttime is better for animals. Better for Carson, too — when the sun’s down and nobody can find her, when there are no searchlights nor sirens nor sound. Her father was the same way when he was allowed to live in Blackrock: a cigarette under the bridge after a day fraught with people, a Miller High Life alone after a morning shift. She doesn’t want to talk about today nor the body, but someone is breaking the stillness she’s found here and she’s not sure what to say. “Bad things happen at night, you know,” she says, finally. “Better get home before something hurts you.”