The man’s attitude isn’t exactly welcome but she can’t honestly say she’d be much better if their positions were reversed. She doesn’t bother with a verbal reply, offers the sharpest of nods, and turns on her heel to get to work. That, she thinks, might be the only thing he would agree with.

She decides to start on the second floor since the first seems, at the moment, to be set up as headquarters. There are probably more items missed or overlooked as useful upstairs, as she ascends the staircase. She tucks her whip into a pocket she finds sewn into the inside of her fur coat though she doesn’t dare think she’s safe from attack.

On her left, the first door is wide open. She peeks in and spies an overturned room service cart. The cart itself looks bent and not worth dragging back. Even so, she pulls it upright and finds two sharp steak knives. Those can be used; she picks them up, holding them both in one hand, before examining the rest of the room. It’s mostly been picked clean, except for the few things that are either impossible to move or bolted down.

It’s not until she’s nearly at the end of the hallway that she finds anything else she can use. It’s not soon enough, really, after she’s been yelled at, had a phone thrown at her—she’d had to stop herself from snickering when its cord had made it land a good three feet away from her, and had one too many invitations that had made her consider using the steak knives on something else entirely. Still the mattress, what’s left of it anyway, is a welcome find.

There’s a massive hole in the bottom corner from which most of the stuffing has been torn out. It dips oddly but there’s fabric and some of the innards to be used still. What she’ll use it for, she hasn’t quite decided, even as she grabs a hold of one of the thick corners and begins to heave it out. It’s surprisingly light and she only gets hung up on a few sharp turns before she shoves it down the stairs. It ends up propped against a wall and she manages to get a young man to agree to watch it. He looks pissed as hell and she doubts anyone will dare to cross him.

She heads into the back next. There she quickly comes across a cleaning supply cart that is half-empty. There’s still some cleaning supplies, a few trash bags, even a couple rolls of toilet paper, and towels. It doesn’t scream “useful” for adding a lair of defense to the hotel but she places the two steak knives from earlier under a layer of towels and begins to push it as she continues her search.

It’s not until she gets into the kitchen—which looks half still in use and half demolished—that she finds anything else to use. Near the delivery entrance are two sturdy wooden crates. Those she can either use as is or break down. She stacks them and puts them on top of the cleaning cart before making her way back to the main room of the hotel. Now that she has some items, she needs to determine where and how to use them exactly.

Two steak knives, a mattress, a cleaning supply cart, and two crates are the haul she surrounds herself with as she ponders how to use them. There are definitely a few windows that could use boarding up but she isn’t sure she wants to break the crates up yet in the event they’d be more useful whole. The doors actually seem pretty secure, though the supplies seem just dumped into a pile.

Pulling the knives out, she decides, it’s best to tear up the mattress—with half the inside missing it’s not as much of a block as one would think—and she sets to work. She ends up with a number of window-sized pieces of fabric and stuffing that she ends up using to block the two windows that have small holes in the glass. It’s not as sturdy as wood but it may help with the temperature inside and at least provide some resistance.

Once the windows are dealt with, she takes a solid look at the supplies taken from the cleaning cart. In the yellow bag, she drops the clean washcloths, a first aid kit, and the paper towels. There’s a broken broom handle and decides she can use that to help barricade a door further. The cart itself, she thinks, might be able to be pushed against an interior door to act as a second defense in case the first fails. She moves it into position and locks the wheels. It ends up wedged, fairly solidly, against the second door that leads out to the deck.

The two crates, she eventually sets before her. She breaks them up, handing out pieces with nails sticking out to use as weapons—along with the two knives she used earlier—while the less dangerous pieces she opts to set aside in case they need to light a fire. It’s the best she can think of at this point and she rises from her work, if not proud then satisfied that she’s done the best she can for the moment.