hunter walks along the mine's corridor, small flashlight in hand. her boots crunch the gravel under them softly as her fingertips slowly drag along the dusty leftside wall. silent except for her footsteps, and the quiet, repeated chant under her breath of the instructions. she stops in her tracks and falls silent once she feels a shift in the rocks. the slightest imperfection.
clicking on the flashlight, she finds the outline of the false wall. just like she said. she presses on it. it gives and cracks ajar. unsheathing her knife, she pushes the door open and shines the light through.
- @thebubblybutcher
[As soon as the door opens, a few things happen - first, what little light was originally in the room shuts off, extinguished. Then, quiet - but not quiet enough, she hears footsteps, just beyond her light, then the sound of something above creaking with someone's weight. Then, finally, the dim lights come on again - and the door closes to snap the rope holding up a net.]
[Someone's trying to give himself a head start.]
[The space itself is strange - curtained mirrors replace every wall. A makeshift desk with newspaper clippings and maps is pressed against one, a bed on the other.. far too extravagant, however, for the rest. A few stolen paintings on the walls echo Kat's style - but is far more organized. It's clear where she got it from. She can hear him in an adjacent room.. one wall must be false.]
she jumps away before the net catches her. she expected a place like this to be booby trapped, and being a trap maker herself, was familiar with what she'd encounter. cautiously making her way into the room, knife in hand, footsteps silent, she does a little spin to check all of her surroundings. empty. here, at least. she approaches the desk and scans over the clippings, then the artwork. recognizing the style, she aches just a bit for kat.
she perks up, hearing something. she stands quiet for a moment, pinning down the sound. her keen ears never fail her. she's lead right to where it's coming from behind. she can't help but appreciate the methods of this mystery man, these false walls would fool anyone else.
she pushes in the wall. but when it opens.. she's not there. it's only left creaking open slowly, the doorway seeming quiet and devoid of a presence to wheover it was she had opened it to. like it was the work of a poltergeist, almost.
[A moment, and then another, and nothing happens but the shifting weight of someone above her. Then, something dark flashes past her and her neck is ensnared by a rope, being pulled back by her adversary - intent on asphyxiating her. The shadow that pulls on it seems to drain all of the light around him, and swings down - not too close, but close enough to continue to tighten the rope.]
[The figure is tall, with the slight edge of a venetian mask over the usual baclava being the only thing differentiating them from her team's spy - in silhouette, at least. He continues to pull on the rope until he gets a better look at her. Yellow eyes. How fascinating. He's got an accent, but he's much quieter - almost raspier than the regular type. Still, just as insufferable..]
"If you've come for Katherine, I'm sorry to tell you that I know nothing about the little monte-en-l'air.. and I pose no threat to her. I am curious as to how you've found me, however, so feel free to stay a while."
with a startled choke, she squirms for a moment before flipping her knife in her hand and sliding the blade under the rope, at the high risk of slitting her own throat with one wrong move, but she cuts through the material unscathed. she certainly wasn't expecting that. she thought herself clever, pressing into a hiding spot, though it seemed he was quicker on the draw.
the second she was free, she spun around and pressed the tip of her blade to the shadowy man's neck. instead of anger or anything of the sort, however, she simply stared up at him with wide eyes and a blank expression, tilting her head as he spoke. the knife not backing off, it was unclear if she intended to use it or not. her expression was entirely unreadable. uncanny, even, with how notably disheveled and out of it the wiry thing appeared.
her voice comes out rough, low, and gravelly. perhaps partly due to just being strangled.
"a little bluebird told me."
[He sighs, in the way one might when facing an unruly child or impatient at a red light. He isn't so much mad at Hunter as he is tired of the whole situation. He pries the knife off of his neck and steps back, almost casually, and turns away from her temporarily to pull out a bottle of cognac. He pours himself a glass, and leaves an empty glass and the bottle on the table.]
"Then it's worse than I thought."
[ He's definitely more deflated when he's present, in front of her - not hiding. Still, there is a certain presence to the man, almost ghastly. He wears a black mask, and a stuffy old suit - that much wasn't new, but something about the way his face moved under the mask was almost disturbing - like his jaw was loose, or something of the sort. He sighs. He turns his back often..]
"Katherine was worried about her sister - for good reason, of course - she's very talented.. but, as I presume you've figured out, she's also.. quite overconfident."
[He looks through cabinets, pulling out stacks of newspapers, and a few pictures - some of Kat, herself, some of other seemingly insignificant things.. at some point, he had lit a cigarette.]
"They were both rather jealous... "
[He smooths out a newspaper - a few years ago, when Kat was in her late teens..]
PROVO PENNYWEIGHTER PRESUMED DEAD AFTER FACTORY CATCHES FIRE.
"But, of course, our merlebleu was the first to try something. We had to split after that, and.. for a long time, I had let Katherine think that she had left me to die."
[The black mask is lit up by the red ember of the cigarette.]
"I only tried to contact her recently. After a few of my previous teammates pulled something that's been keeping me from respawning normally.. presumably, a test run before they do the same to her - an eye for an eye, something or other.."
she stands there and narrows her eyes at him. she never removes her sharp gaze, not allowing him the comfort of being unseen.
"overconfident is right. her sister certainly wasn't hard to kill." she rasps coldly.
she finally trails behind him to take a peek at the papers and photos. her knife doesn't leave the hand at her side. in fact, she seems to be gripping it much too tightly, her knuckles white by the time he finishes speaking. though, she clearly wasn't going to use it on him. perhaps it was a comfort thing. her eyes follow the spy, all the while narrowed with suspicion, brow furrowed.
she hasn't smiled once. behind the stiffness of her body language and the quiet rage in her stare, she looks so, so tired.
".. how did you know i was here for her? and that i wasn't someone looking to hurt her?"
[He laughed - a short laugh, a sick noise. He sighed.]
"Oh, mon dieu.."
[He pinched the bridge of his nose, yellow eyes briefly flickering in what seemed to be amusement underneath the mask.]
"I worked with the girl since she was very young, you think I wasn't at least checking on her? I've seen you around before - most of the time, you haven't seen me."
[He laughs, before straightening up. The whole place smells like dust and cigarette smoke.]
"Then again, I worked on blu for a long time before I was discharged and ended up.. here. I'm not right in calling her an ally now, as far as I know."
[He closes his eyes, and shakes his head, regretful.]
"But I've seen the way she goes to you for comfort. She doesn't do that with just anyone."
she shoots him an irritated glance. so he was the one kat kept seeing in the night. bastard. she idly rubs her neck, where a rope burn was quickly forming.
"she saw you. you scared her, you know."
she stands silent for a while, thinking about his last statement. her face was unreadable. finally, reluctantly, she sheaths her knife in favor of crossing her arms. her gaze lingers on the pictures and articles on the desk during a long silence.
"... what if she went back? to utah?."
[She laughs - and then sighs. He looks tired. There is scarring up his neck like a jagged pattern, noticeable when he looks down at the stack of newspapers. In a motion like laying out a spread of cards, he fans them out.]
"There's nothing for her there - not to say that she wouldn't, but my best guess is that she's going back to the atlantic, hitching a ride on a boat or on a train, then dissapearing somewhere in Europe. She hides when she's guilty."
[He sighs - a hint of regret in his voice.]
"I noticed. I should have been more careful, I suppose.. she was never afraid before, even when she didn't know it was me."
