IT'S GOING DOWN I'M YELLING TIMBER (aka the one where Millicent dies)

[facethewolves]

i. Let's Make A Night You Won't Remember [closed to Jean-Claude]
a bar, earlier this week

Alex doesn't know who she's supposed to be meeting, just that somebody wants to meet her. She arrives twenty minutes early, makes notes of the exits, and orders herself a dry martini to blend in. It doesn't hurt to take a few extra precautions when apparently half the city knows that you're planning to murder a high-ranking official, which is why she also has her silver knife hidden in her pocket.

She doesn't touch the drink, just sits and glowers at the bar's main entrance, waiting for the person she's supposed to be meeting to show.



ii. I'll Be The One You Won't Forget [open to all]
Westminister, May 26

Millicent is leaving the Night Council building, and Alex plans to follow her. She's not going through with the hit for a couple more days, but she needs a better grasp of the vampire's schedule. So she's lurking about half a block away from the building, waiting.

To the untrained observer, she looks like a bored girl leaning against a wall eating a muffin. Someone paying closer attention, though, might notice how often she looks down the street, and the fact that she's been very slowly eating the same muffin for the past forty-five minutes.



iii. The Bigger They Are, The Harder They Fall [closed to Evie]
Islington, May 28, nighttime, before Millicent dies

For the past week, Alex has been sharpening her stakes, going over all the info she has on Millicent's usual habits and schedule, planning the hit. She's decided on a close-quarters kill. For once thing, she's not sure that a wood-tipped bullet, even if it hits right between her eyes, would actually kill Millicent. For another thing, and more importantly, she wants it to feel personal. She wants Millicent to know who's killing her and why.

She knows it'll be risky, but risk never stopped her doing anything before. On the night she's picked to do it, she makes her way stealthily into Islington territory, towards the place she expects Millicent to be. A few blocks away, she pauses in a doorway to double-check her weapons - three stakes and a gun with wood-tipped bullets - and to go over the plan, such as it is, one more time in her head.

Maybe she's just jumpy, but she thinks she sees something move out of the corner of her eye. She whirls around, but nothing's there. Frowning, she goes back to checking her gun.



iv. I'm Slicker Than An Oil Spill [open to first response]
Islington, May 28, nighttime, after Millicent is dead

One of the vampires saw her. Which is bad, really bad. She ditches her jacket on a bench as she hurries past it, hoping that changing up her look slightly will shake off any pursuit. If they're looking for a girl in a black jacket and they spot her... It's not much. It's barely anything, really. If they spot her they'll know who she is. She should have kept the jacket, it was a stupid idea to lose it.

If she does get stopped, she needs to not be carrying suspicious things like stakes and guns with wood-tipped bullets. So she finds a sewer grate under a broken streetlight and pulls out three stakes and her gun. It's not that she has any sentimental attachment to her weapons, but it's not always easy to get replacements. She drops two of the stakes down through the grate without hesitation, but decides to keep the third. She'll need to defend herself if she does get caught.

She catches a shadow moving out of the corner of her eye and turns towards it, keeping the third stake and the gun out of sight.

"Somebody there?"



v. End of the Night, It's Going Down [closed to Natasha]
Ealing, May 28, late night

Alex can't go home. One of the vampires saw her face. It won't take them long to figure out who she is and where she lives. She's ditched most of her gear and her jacket, but that won't throw them off the scent for long. She needs somewhere to lay low for a while. Maybe a long while.

She can't go to any of her known acquaintances, either. The vampires will look for her there, and she doesn't want to put anyone else in danger. She needs someone that nobody knows she knows, someone nobody would expect her to hide out with.

It takes her longer than she'd like to admit to think of Natasha. She'd cautioned Alex against killing Millicent, so it's entirely probable that she'll want nothing to do with the fallout, but it's worth a try. Alex makes her way to the Redbright Institute and sneaks around until she finds a familiar smell. Carefully, just in case this goes south fast, she pulls her stake out and keeps it down by her side as she quietly follows Natasha's scent.



vi. One More Shot, Another Round [closed to Kyle]
Kyle's secret new apartment, May 31, morning

For the past few days, Alex has been in hiding. She can't risk anyone finding out where she is, so she's been very careful about contacting people she knows. When she gets a note from Kyle telling her to meet him at an address she's never heard of, she briefly wonders whether it's really from him or a trap set by someone trying to catch her.

She decides to risk it. She puts on a pair of shades and, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, takes an extremely circuitous route to the address, hoping to shake anyone tailing her. Finally, she makes it. Instead of going through the front door, she climbs the fire escape and knocks on the window of what she hopes is the right apartment.




[If anyone wants their own prompt, hit me up at notverywool!]

Comments

[emotioneater]

She's got guts, he'll give her that much. She's already killed one vampire tonight and Cooper isn't looking to become the second. He watches that gun carefully, his muscles ready to move with unnatural speed if she should fire at him.

"Why'd you do it?" Her answer might be the thing that decides whether Cooper will spare her life or try to leave her bleeding out in the gutter. He knew that Millicent wasn't a popular leader, and as of late, he'd even disagreed with her on many of her policies. That didn't mean she deserved to die. Such a move would have repercussions, as they always did. Cooper could only hope that one of them wouldn't be plunging the nest into chaos.

[facethewolves]

Alex's grip on the gun tightens and then loosens as she glares at him, waiting for him to make a move. She expects an attack, so the question comes as a surprise.

"She decided it was open season on wolves." There's no point in lying. At worst, he'll try to kill her because of her answer, and she expects him to do that anyway. Besides, she's perfectly happy for the vampires to know why their leader is dead. She wants them to know that killing wolves has consequences.

[emotioneater]

Cooper laughs, a low chuckle that he doesn't bother to hide. "That's it? I was expectin' something a tad more noble." He supposes that's what comes from watching too many TV shows and movies. He expected something personal, perhaps her parents or siblings had been killed by the millennium-old vampire.

"You're just a young pup with a lot of luck." His fangs still haven't come out. Cooper's undecided as to what to do with her. On the one hand, she's killed the leader of his nest. Such an act is worthy of death. On the other hand, all she'd done was something that Cooper himself had thought should be done on more than one occasion.

[facethewolves]

"What, you want me to say it was for the good of the city? That I'm protecting innocent people?" She'll be the first to admit that her desire to kill Millicent was entirely personal, motivated by nothing more than a desire to strike back against the vampires for what they'd done on the full moon.

She pulls the safety back on the gun and scowls at him, baring her fangs. All the talking and questions just feel like delaying the inevitable. "Are we gonna do this, or what?"

[emotioneater]

"One moment." He seems far too unconcerned about the fact Alex is pointing a gun at him. He taps out a text message on his phone, sending it off to several members of the nest, stating he's found the girl. Even if he can't beat her (unlikely), delaying her long enough will allow the nest to still bag the wolf tonight.

Sliding his phone back into his pocket, he looks down the barrel of the gun without any fear whatsoever. Part of him, small, bleak, and dark, is tempted to just stand still and let her pull the trigger. "Let's do this, Fuzzy." Cooper moves with blinding speed towards Alex, his own fangs on display as he tries to avoid getting shot.

[facethewolves]

Alex tries and fails to snatch the phone out of his hand before quickly backing up again, giving herself room to use the gun. She doesn't wait for a signal or permission - the words are barely out of his mouth before she fires three shots in quick succession towards his chest.

She's fast, he might just be faster. She moves as quickly as she can to brace herself in an attempt to keep her footing if he slams into her.

[emotioneater]

Cooper hears more than he sees the bullets and he's not quick enough to avoid all three. One slams into his right shoulder and the other creates a stabbing pain lower down in his chest. The third misses completely. It hurts, but he's experienced pain before. She'll have to do better than that to make him give up completely. His momentum is halted only a moment or two before he draws himself up and slams into her. He's small, so it's not enough to knock her to the ground.

His fingers latch around the gun, forcing it up between the two of them. He's trying to draw it away from Alex, the movement impeded by the fact he can't fully move his right arm. "Let go," he growls out. He moves his head and tries to snap at her wrist with his sharp teeth.

[facethewolves]

Alex staggers when he collides with her but stays on her feet. She starts firing the gun again at nothing, trying to empty it so that he won't be able to shoot her if he manages to get control of it.

She cries out in pain when his teeth pierce her wrist, and she loses her grip on the gun but immediately moves to elbow him in the face.

[emotioneater]

Cooper doesn't get a chance to drink in any of her blood before her elbow smashes him right in the nose. He pulls away with blood streaming out. Cooper takes a step back, brings the gun up, and pulls the trigger. It produces nothing, as all the bullets have been expended.

His left hand comes up wipe some of the blood away from his nose. He hasn't thrown the gun away. Sure, it's out of bullets, but it's still a nice blunt object he can use to whack Alex over the head with. Cooper doesn't really have a fighting style besides trying to do enough damage to the other person so that they don't get back up. He charges towards Alex once again, his stubbornness outweighing any common sense he has.

[facethewolves]

Alex wasn't been counting the bullets, so she doesn't know the gun is empty when he aims it at her. She blinks, breathing in sharply in anticipation of being shot, and breathes out again when the gun clicks.

She doesn't wait for Cooper to come at her. She rushes towards him, and her shoulder slams into his chest even as the impact knocks the breath out of her. She grabs at him, trying to overpower him or shove him to the ground. She just needs to hurt him enough that he won't follow her.

[emotioneater]

There's no chance to react to the unexpected move. He falls back onto the pavement, his head cracking hard. That stuns him for a few moments as he tries to recover his breath. Blinking the stars out of his eyes, the vampire brings up the gun, trying to whack Alex with it. His movements are slowing down now, his injuries catching up to him. Bullets can be just as bad to a vampire as to a human when he can't heal from them.

He's trying to struggle back to his feet and doesn't quite make it. "Is that all you got? My grandmum had more fight in her." Yes, because taunting the girl with the upper hand in this fight is the smartest thing he can do right now.

[facethewolves]

Alex tumbles to the ground on top of him, but quickly pushes away and gets back to her feet. She sees the gun coming and sidesteps. It just brushes the side of her leg, no damage done.

At some point during the fight, she'd lost her stake, and she goes looking for it as Cooper tries to stand up, eventually spotting it a few feet away. She picks it up and turns back to him.

There's probably some witty quip she could make, but she's angry and more scared than she wants to admit and all she wants to do is lash out. Seeing him lying there just makes her want to hurt him more. But she takes a deep, unsteady breath, and snarls, "I just killed the most powerful vampire in the city. And I'll kill the next one too if they come after the wolves again."

[emotioneater]

Cooper glares at her from where he's lying on the ground. "You stupid young fool. You've just made it so much worse for your pack of mutts," he hisses out at her. What a short-sighted move, as if killing Millicent would solve all the problems caused by her. Blood would run in the streets before this was all done and over with, thanks to this girl.

"Better kill me now 'n be done with it. I won't be the only one looking for you in this city." He can feel his phone chirp in his pocket, somehow still miraculously intact after the fight he'd just been in. No doubt it was some other member of the nest, calling to let him know that they were only a few minutes away.

[facethewolves]

Alex's hand tightens around the stake, then loosens and tightens again nervously. She'd just wanted to hurt him enough to make sure he wouldn't follow her. Or enough to make herself feel better. But now he's telling her to kill him, and she can't.

It's one thing to kill in a fight, or to kill someone who wronged her - she's already done both those things tonight - but it's another thing entirely to kill someone lying defenseless on the ground, some stranger who's never really done anything to her. That's not heat-of-the-moment self-defense, or revenge, or protecting her pack, it's just murder, and even after years of training and everything she's been through, she's scared of being a murderer.

She steps towards him, trying to will herself to jam the stake through his heart, but the panic rising in her chest wins and she sticks the stake into her belt instead.

"Fine. Look all you want." Yes, killing him would be the smart move, but she can't bring herself to do it. She turns to leave.