#valleyverse

A transatlantic plane ride presented more than ample turbulence to ware through the last defenses of the woman who, at that point, felt more like a carefully situated construction of shards of glass than a human. Charlotte spent the majority of the trip intermittently forgetting to breathe, testing the elasticity of the gash on her palm until whatever had healed once again came undone, and avoiding the safety in the green hue of Daniel’s eyes. Each peripheral glance of the man’s profile she stole felt like fresh poison.

Stole. It was the only word that sat comfortably with Charlotte, and of course there was no one to blame but herself. Daniel definitely shouldn’t have been in the seat beside her. Each moment that the girl didn’t hold her shallow breath as the plane trembled or she squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her jaw against the pain of the pressure to stop the bleeding the palm of her hand again, was spent in a deep, furious meditative state. This exact situation, this heavy leaden weight in the pit of her stomach, the white hot pain lodged in her chest, this return of the basic human feeling of guilt… It was everything she had warned herself not to let back in. It was everything she’d purged herself of until Daniel somehow knocked down every hardened, fortress and defense she had with the grace and ease of a gentle summer storm.

This was never supposed to happen, and now she loved him so much it would probably kill them both.

Once the two were on steady ground again Charlotte hoped her nerves wouldn’t bite back at her so severely. Outside of the airplane’s cabin she found it harder than ever not to look at Daniel. Instead, she lagged behind him purposefully and stared between his shoulder blades as she followed him to a car. She slipped into the passenger’s seat without a word. She nearly managed to start the drive without incident, but when Daniel took his seat to her left a slight, unintentional movement of his arm sent the woman’s hands upward to protect her head as she turned her face sharply away from him. She waited for the blinding pain, the stomach-churning crunch as she connected with the car window, but they never came. Neither did the two fangs hungrily sinking into the gentles arc of the curve of her neck, but the ghost memory of Alexander burned against her flesh just as badly as if he’d been in the car with her.

Charlotte lowered her hands slowly. She hadn’t expected to feel quite so vulnerable on the ground, but it was time to face the reality that it would be much easier for her demons to catch up to the both of them now. There was no outrunning hell. She thought now, perhaps the worst time of all to finally understand the complexities of the playwrights and poets admired by the father, how apropos the quote of the French writer Sartre: Hell is other people. From years of experience it was frighteningly true. Alexander, Evangeline, Cameron, Roxanne, Jefferson, Charlotte…

“Alexander,” Charlotte explained, though perhaps even that single word was unnecessary to frame the explanation of her sudden, cowardly reaction to Daniel starting the ignition. She tried to sit back against the passenger seat, but she felt tense and rigid. The space between them felt like dead air, no music with subtexts had been prepared today in hopes the hunter would read into them, no more time left for the two of them to pretend their flirtation with Charlotte’s freedom would end in anything but a heavy price.

Charlotte knew better now. She had pictured herself back then a lion in sheep’s clothing. She was still the sheep, and the beast that held her reigns had been angered. Now she sat in the car with Daniel not emerging as her enigmatic self, but as the obvious sacrificial lamb. Daniel knew better now. He knew the truth of what Charlotte was now, too.

Three days in Camden was all it had taken. Three days from the time the landing gear hit the tarmac for the body to hit the ground. Three days for everything to be as miserably fucked as it had ever been. Charlotte tried to remove the plastic casing she had put on her steering wheel to keep any evidence from contaminating it, but her hands were trembled and shook too wildly to be any use. She didn’t bother to check for missed calls from Daniel, though she was almost certain there would be several. Instead she looked at the digital clock on her car’s dashboard, nearly three am. For a few minutes she considered waiting in the car for the next few hours. Each moment that passed gave her a better chance of walking into a quiet house where Daniel was sleeping and she could slip into the shower and out of this second skin without being detected. By the time three minutes had ticked past on the display the stains on her skin felt like burns, her dry throat ached under the lump that had formed in it and her chest felt so tightly constricted she could barely breathe. She was terrified of Daniel’s reaction once he saw her walk in that front door. Three days in Camden was all it had taken before Charlotte betrayed Daniel and bent to Evangeline’s will.  

Whether Daniel saw the truth of what Charlotte did tonight or another time, she wouldn’t be able to hide it from him forever. What good would it have done her at this point anywhere? By now Daniel had seen every dark, twisted corner of her, but could he still love her when those parts of her were on constant display? She felt dizzy and nauseated as she turned that question over in her mind while she pulled the keys from the ignition. She stumbled to the front door and sorted through several keys before finding the one that would grant her access to Daniel’s home. Because of her tears and spiked anxiety she missed the keyhole twice and produced a few scraping metallic sounds that grated her nerves. Finally she heard the lock click and slipped inside his home.

At worst, her first killing had been more successful than tonight’s execution. Logistically, the evening had been a triumph. The hunt was always the same. Names, dates, familiar haunts that Charlotte became a new ghostly follower at, that was the easy part until suddenly it wasn’t. She learned things now outside of a dependable schedule. For example this man took his coffee with two creams and sugar, he was in a deep state of unrequited love with his young secretary, and he never double knotted his shoes. But he was exactly where she had expected him to be that night. Logistically, things were always simple. Mentally things had never been harder. The first killing had been terrifying and exhilarating all at once. Tonight the only thing she was scared of was herself, and that was why she had hesitated. She hadn’t made such a rooky mistake even as a beginner. Tonight she pulled herself together and stiffly walked through that door more bruised and battered than she knew she her body could withstand.

Peter the sixth gave a shrug

Yeah, sorry I kinda freaked out. Just was NOT expecting to walk in on Michael with the back of his head open and a walter girl wrist deep in wires! [Matt]

So you seriously had NO idea? [Steve]

No! And you'd think that'd be something that'd get mentioned! [Matt]

I'm really kinda shocked Peter didn't bring it up about us. [Steve]

Yeah! That's kind of a 

. . .

Us? [Matt]

*Sigh* Just sit down i'll be there in a minute. [Steve]

O-okay [Matt]

Breath Matt [Steve]

Mikey don't terrorize the new guy. [Steve]

But I mean really! It’s not like I hide it or anything. Am I that good at it? XD [Michael] 

I don't want to talk about it! [Matt]

Seriously Mikey, lay off him. [Steve] 

[Michael] Aaawww, did I scare you? I never figured you for the type to be freaked out by -

[Steve] That's it. Off, right now, Your wifi's going off. Hope none of you guys need anything because he will be Unreachable!

[Michael] XP You’re no fun

::SYSTEM BLOCKS ACTIVATED, WALTER BOT DESIGNATION MICHAEL SYSTEM RIGHTS REVOKED:: [Bebop]

Heh, bet he didn't think I'd actually do it [Steve]

::ANOMALY DETECTED::

::SOUND ENGINEER VERIFICATION CODES REQUIRED:: +Bebop+

Sound engineer voice verification Steve Negrete

What's the problem Bebop? +Steve+

::COMMUNICATION INITIALIZATION REQUEST DETECTED:: +Bebop+

Wait you mean someone is actually looking at our blog? +Steve+

::AFFIRMATIVE:: +Bebop+

Woooww I did not expect tha- *ahem* That is to say - um - uh - Open it up Bebop! +Steve+

Charlotte lifted her shoulders slightly from the bed when the weight of the man above her swayed off of her.  The bed sheets she rest on her clung to the thin gloss of sweat on her back and as she lifted her heavy brown eyes they were framed by a fringe of stray hair stuck against her features. She lifted a hand to smooth away her damp hair and kept her focus on Daniel between the breaks of her fingers.  Eventually they settled on his rusted green eyes she swore lost some of their color each day and she watched them.  As still as he was she knew how heavy his mind was, knew that he was probably chasing thoughts in his mind like fast moving cars he couldn’t quite catch up to, might never catch up to.

The woman propped herself up on her slim arm and leaned over the damaged, muscular body of the hunter she shared a bed with. The thin sheet slipped down the slope of her ribcage and bunched slightly at her waist as she trailed her fingers down his temple and settled her palm to his cheek in hopes that for a moment Daniel might allow her to hold the weight that burdened his mind.  She craned her neck to brush her lips against his once before she kissed him slowly and prayed that if she could only get him to close his eyes the thoughts in his mind would stop racing and give him time to catch up with them.  There was almost the presence of a guilty weight on her heart as Charlotte lingered with her lips pressed to his.  In her mind she was stealing time from him, a concept that couldn’t settle well after such an important piece of him had been taken to satiate the appetite of one of hell’s whores.

Charlotte eased onto her back again and settled against the mattress with a soft sigh.  Her heart still beat hurried pumps and her ribcage slowly fell into pace with her usual state of breathing, but things never felt normal around Daniel for Charlotte.  There was something deep in the back of her mind, something that buzzed at the end of her fingertips, something ever-present in the peripheral of her eye line when Daniel was near.  The thick fringe of her eyelashes covered her eyes as she trailed the rift of cotton sheets between their bodies and she inhaled a shaken breath.  It was as if she could feel every degree of the cold emptiness between their bodies. She needed him so much closer.

Charlotte lifted her arm closest to Daniel and stretched it out to her side.  Her other hand hovered in the air for a moment.  To her, it looked timid and small in the dim light of the bedroom the two were sharing but her hands were the only tools she had.  She envied Daniel his strong arms, his wide smile, the life in his eyes because they weren’t traits she could mirror; they were not things she could learn from him.  She could not give him back his warmth and strength in his hour of need. Instead, she trailed her arm along his broad shoulder, disrupted from the heat of his skin only where the tough scar tissue raised slightly.  “Come here, love,” she whispered once she finally couldn’t stand the silence of her quiet company.

Charlotte guided his head to rest on her chest.  She lifted her chin to settle at the top of his head, her guiding hand now ran trails across the span of his shoulders, down the valley of his spine and over the swells of his muscles that had kept her safe that early morning he had found her bloody form on the floor of the Charlotte Street Hotel.  And she knew that was why they were there in part—Daniel’s unwavering loyalty and willingness to be her keeper. That same morning Alexander had attacked and abandoned her after the feed Daniel had seen her close to naked.  He had laid eyes on the blood trails between her ribs, where her body gave when she breathed, the mangle of scars on her hip, the way she looked stripped of makeup and designer clothing.  Tonight he saw her entire.  She saw him too, stripped down to the barest element and she loved him still now if not more than ever.