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 Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:05 pm
Position of leadership be damned, Caroline Kercher--no, <********>, Kendall--was not one to pass up a free drink.
This was the sort of beautiful chaos that she thrived upon in better days. It was the sort of environment where everyone lived on the very edge of reality, toes curled around the brink of nonexistence as they danced along the line between Here and Now and the World That Never Was. She and Vanessa knew how to work the people at a party like they were made for it, and it always provided a sense of power like nothing else. Knowing that everyone wanted to look at you, be you, be with you. The secrets you could learn, the lives you could make or break on the slightest whim. And the fun you could have...
"God damnit, Victor," she muttered into her drink, downing it all to wash out the soured taste of his name.
This was what she'd never meant to lose. But she had, and not even being thrown right back into the middle of it really brought that back. Nothing ever could.
Still, as with everything else in her recreated existence, that didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy it. She took a deep breath, savored the feel and taste of the air in the back of her throat, and smiled.
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Nothing Yet rolled 5 12-sided dice:
8, 8, 5, 11, 9
Total: 41 (5-60)
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Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:27 pm
So maybe she didn't have her Lady Luck.
The absence of the woman by her side was especially evident here. Somehow the emptiness felt heavy, like it had its own gravity, compelling her to think of it over and over again, pulling her towards it until she felt the ache. She hated the feeling; it wasn't like she'd otherwise forget.
Without her she might not have been very fortunate, but she'd made a lot of gambles and come out on top so far. No use giving up on that now.
"Gentlemen," she purred in greeting, sliding onto a plush seat at the poker table. Her patient smile remained on the dealer until she was dealt a hand, and faded into something much more impassive as she examined her cards. Playing cards was even easier than playing people - it was all in the numbers, and she had the nines in her favor.
It was an easy win.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:08 am
Slipping back into old habits was almost too easy after that. She flirted her way into the laps of two men, finding great pleasure in the ability to distract them away from their games and their winnings. With whispered promises and woven strings made up of of oh the things she would do, she took their drinks from their hands and accepted every offer to buy her another. She introduced herself by brushing her fingers across someone's lips to steal his cigarette, forgetting his name by the time she was done with it. She left her lipstick smudged along a petite woman's collarbone in lieu of giving her room number.
Everyone had something that she wanted, and she played until they gave it up, and played until a better game came along, and played until they were no longer fun.
The sticky sheen of sweat that covered every inch of her was not unexpected by this point. Having followed a stranger to the bathroom, the dizzying rush in her head wasn't either. Her fingers fumbled with the third button of his neatly-pressed shirt, and she laughed at words he spoke that she never really heard.
She woke up.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:33 am
On its own, the missing time wasn't all that concerning. Aside from her familiarity with exactly what happened at parties and places like this, there were countless hours of her life that she would never be able to recall again, and that hadn't worried her for a long time. Not even the ropes that bound her to a chair were particularly alarming, though they weren't the most pleasant thing against the dull pain in her wrists.
But the shock of the lights and the sound of the voice over the speaker said nothing but danger, and Caroline knew that she was trapped. An animal in a cage again, left to fend for herself against herself, and the panic came on in an instant. It wrapped more tightly around her than the ropes had, squeezing the air from her lungs and sinking its teeth into her eyes, holding her in its clutches until the world faded in and out again and again, a blur of words she couldn't understand. Her mouth moved just barely, parting for pleas absent of her voice, and she made no other sound.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:41 am
To compensate for her inability to breathe, her body switched off her mind.
In the space between unconscious and waking, she saw the monster full of darkness who wore her daughter's smile.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 12:53 am
Now she woke in a wide-eyed panic, much more prepared for the horror of her present reality. She wasn't safe. She wasn't safe, not here, not sleeping, not dead, not anywhere. She wasn't safe, and she didn't want to bother with the loud voice that left ringing echoes in her ears of earning freedom. It didn't matter, because she wasn't safe. She wasn't safe anywhere.
She wasn't safe, but she wasn't property even more so, and the word jarred her out of her panic and back into a relative state of awareness. Her teeth clenched so tightly together that she only saw a blur at the corners of her eyes, and she stared straight ahead, tensing every tired muscle in her body.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 1:19 am
There were no questions left to ask. Caroline knew the answer to the only question that mattered here, and it wasn't anything that she was particularly inclined to hear repeated back to her. She had nothing to say at all - her mind had emptied itself in her panic, and had only just begun to refill itself again. None of the connections it made at the start did much to lend towards any kind of conversation, especially in a time like this.
She didn't protest when she was picked up and carried off into another room, where the announcement introduced her to the others. If she had been more capable of coherent thought, she would have tried to give them more than vacancy in her eyes when they looked at her with such terror, or at the very least wished that she could. They wouldn't find any comfort there, but she was given the option to provide some comfort to one of them.
The boy seemed to be a fair bit younger than the girl, but they were both still somebody's children. The girl must have been around the same age that her own daughter would have been if she'd survived through birth, she thought, and every bit as lovely as she could have been. It was a choice that many might consider impossible, but she was incapable of perceiving more than one option.
There had never been a chance to save her daughter before she was gone. She refused to let another mother feel the same way.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 2:21 am
Cleaning herself up wasn't anywhere near the top of her priority list. She was trapped and could feel that she was trapped, and cleanliness had never been important in that case. She did it anyway, mechanically wiping the sweat and dirt from her skin, pinning her hair back up again. The pen had come loose at some point, but managed to catch itself before it was lost forever. With care to secure it more firmly this time, she wrapped a small portion around it and tucked it back in its proper place.
Despite her cautious attempts at convincing, they wouldn't let her help the girl. It didn't feel the same to just wait outside the door, but it felt like something; at least she knew that she was fairly safe this way.
All the girl wanted to do when she emerged was to thank her, a gesture that Caroline met with a smile. She reached to touch her cheek, to give just a little more comfort, and was barely able to rest her fingers against her skin before they pulled them in separate directions.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2015 2:25 am
As she stood staring at the open door in front of her, Caroline wished she believed that open doors had anything to do with freedom. [ Acquired: 55 Casino Coins ]
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