The command came easily, an order she was happy to oblige. Trembling digits, blood tacky within the prints, clutched for the cigarette. Lena ignored the way the paper held the bloody prints, evidenced to her murderous crimes from earlier, some corroboration of the sins of the past hours. The silence dragged out as the smoke filled her sinuses, tamping down the adrenaline rush with a ten pound hammer. Hells, she was tired.
Before Lena could blink, the cigarette was gone, some greedy suck lost to the blur of a heartbeat, addiction fulfilled and left wanting for more. Another one appeared between her fingers, courtesy of Cole or of her own pack, she wasn't quite sure. But the world didn't seem to be crashing down around her anymore, and the weight of a dead man on her conscious had faded to a painful thrum compared to the stabbing, abrupt pain.
Cavernous, deep silence stretched, a hundred meters deep and fifty meters wide, voice lost to a rasping echo within the smooth sandstone. Twice she tried again, lips twisting open, but the sound faded each time as emotion capitalized, quicksand sucking her back in again. It was only the third attempted that finally bore language, a hoarse thing against the deadly silence of the alley.
"He pulled a knife. I tried to talk him down, but he wasn't listening, said I was in his space, wanted my money or something." The memory blurred into a disorienting smear of colors. Something sparkled, the dull promise of a blade cutting through the painting, memories clicking back together as if a cogwheel snapping back into place.
Lena withdrew a hand, dragging back the tacky leather of jacket, revealing a bloody slit in the comfortable t-shirt below it. Not life threatening, thankfully, with blood already beginning to coagulate and sealing it closed.
"He swung and I - I guess he got me." Lena pressed two fingers against the wound, grateful for the sluggish ooze that promises a clean cut. Something she could fix in her kitchen, hopefully.
"I tried to run, to just walk away. I didn't want to kill him, Cole, you have to believe me - he followed me, pulled the gun, and -" A blank page sprawled out from there, mind fuzzy over the action of him grabbing her shoulder, wheeling her against the wall, the gun -
Lena pressed the cigarette between her lips, the comforting smoke not quite enough to soak into the problem this time, drift it away, but she'll take the meager bandaid. Her breath leaves her in a smoky huff, shoulders slumping forward. The delicateness of the situation was abandoned, obscured, by the smoke that halo'd her head. Oh Lena Oxton, you fallen angel.
"You should seriously go. They won't ask questions if you're here, and I don't want you taking the heat for a crime you didn't commit."