"Again."
Hands, shaking, reach for the gun. Fingers wrap around the barrel and skim across the rough grip.
"A- a girl." Hands clench and release against filed grooves and ridges in dark, worn metal. "S-she was scared. Could barely lift it, she was shaking so bad. She c-couldn't, she had to-"
"Focus."
The gun clatters against the table, and hands, shaking, retreat. "She did it. She shot him."
"I know that, idiot." The gun is pushed back into those trembling hands. "Give me her name."
There's a stifled whimper at the unexpected touch, and fingers twitch under the gloved grip. The gun presses against palms, gloves against the backs of bare hands, and there's no escape from the onrushing sensations. It's hard, to filter past memories written stark and bold in lines of terror to quieter thoughts, the ones that remain at the bedrock of personality, facts so ingrained that surface thoughts rarely touch them. The face of the dead person appears, snarling in hatred that bleeds into fear at the sight of the gun.
"Larissa, it's Larissa-" not enough, not yet - "Holbrook, Larissa Holbrook."
Hands, shaking, let go of the gun, poised to pull away as soon as the gloved grip permits them. No such mercy is granted, however.
"Find her."
"N-no, I can't, I d-don't, I don't do that, I can't, it's too far, too much, I can't-"
The departure of one gloved hand is too quick to trigger relief before it returns - fast, cracking back-handed against the side of a blindfolded face, which snaps to one side with a frightened, pained cry. Gloved hands wrench at trembling, rigid wrists, slamming trapped hands back down on to the gun.
"Find her."
Tears dampen the blindfold, streaking down hollow, freckled cheeks as the instinct to build walls against sensation and foreign memories is overridden, forced down in obedience to the drive for survival. Instead, the reader pushes outwards, bridging the fading connection between the object and it's user to open a link in real-time. Hands, shaking, become conduits between the reader and the girl who killed a man.
"She's..." It's hard, it's so hard. "I don't think I can do it, I don't think I can find her-" a flinch, as one of the gloved hands withdraws. "Sorry! Sorry, I'm sorry, I'll keep trying-"
The gloved hand does not return to strike the reader, but it doesn't cover the reader's hands again, either, and the mystery of its' location adds anxiety and another layer of fear to the pain growing in the reader's head. The link is growing, stabilizing, almost enough to see a shadowy imprint of the girl. The reader shakes, full-body trembles wracking their underfed frame in the cold metal chair.
"She's, she's in a house-" pain lances behind blindfolded eyes. "No, it's a motel, room, room number-" elbows brace the reader's sagging frame on the table. "204, it's room 204."
"Give me a name." One gloved hand tightens on the reader's wrists.
"Hhn, it's..." something plips against the surface of the table, under the reader's head where they lean forward, near collapse. "Aah- please, it hurts, I'm sorry, I'm trying, it's, it's, sun, sunset, hhngh, pines - Sunset Pines Motel, here, it's here in the city, please," the reader keels forward, resting their aching, flushed forehead against the cool surface of the table. The smell of blood, iron-rich and warm against chilled steel, wafts thickly from the nosebleed that pushing their power too far, too fast has given them.
Finally, finally, the gun is taken away and the reader's hands released. It's only a moment, though, before touch returns, gloved hands yanking at their arm to pull their exhausted body out of the chair and tug them along behind the owner of the gloved hands. The reader stumbles, reaching up blindly to clutch at something, anything, for support, only to have their hands slapped away as they're steadied roughly.
"No touching, you know the rules!"
"Sorry, 'm sorry," they tuck their hands close to their chest and try to keep themselves upright through dragging, sucking exhaustion and pain. A door opens; they turn a corner, walk up a hall. Ten steps, twenty, twenty-five - keeping count is as natural as breathing, by now. Thirty-seven steps, and their guide pauses - good - keys jingle, another door opens, and they're pushed through into their cell.
The door slams behind them, and the reader sags, tipping into the wall and sliding down to huddle in the corner of the small space. They tuck their hands into their armpits and tip forward to rest their forehead against their knees, and focus on putting away the sense-memories of the girl and her gun until their head feels a little quieter, a little more their own.
Only then, only once it's as close to quiet as they can ever get in this place, does the reader reach up, with hands still trembling from the aftershocks of overextension, and unwrap the blindfold. The small grey cube, kept dim for the scattered moments they're allowed sight, is bare but for the black circle in the ceiling, keeping watchful, ever-vigilant eye over what little solitude they are allowed. The reader tucks the blindfold close to their chest, where they can put it back on at a moment's notice, and rests their head back on their knees, watching the blank grey walls until blankness bleeds into shallow, restless sleep.
