Author: Robin Nance
Story Type: Drama
Rating: R (language, sexual situations)
Summary: It's been too long since I spent quality time with my favorite Angst Princess from "Profiler." This is my take on what dark things might have befallen Frances while she was on the run after shooting her father in "Venom." The song snippets are taken from "Blood From a Stone" by Jonatha Brooke – a very respectable Angst Princess songstress herself.
Disclaimer: "Profiler" belongs to some big bunch o'Powers That Be who aren't me, else certain characters would've had a lot more fun than they did and Steve Kronish would be doing an after-hours Reno lounge act even as we speak. I promise to play nice and put them back, happy and tired, when I'm finished. Erm, whenever that may be….
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It's as if we're chasing some familiar fault line
Running down the coast from you to me
Dark potential just beneath the surface
All the worlds colliding in a tragedy
Blood from a stone, wine from water
I'd die here alone, only daughter
His name was Trent. Von-something-or-other, she hadn't caught the rest and she didn't really care. It was some fine old-money moniker, reeking of trust funds and country clubs and the Right Thing that her mother had always been after her to do. It made it all the more ironic that Trent was on the run just like she was, escaping his expensive demons in a late-model Trans Am and more than willing to take on a passenger. He thought Frances was an edgy kind of name. He hadn't bothered himself with the rest of her name; she didn't care about that either.
He'd driven her to what he called Club Central, just south of the Stacks. It was a neighborhood to give middle-class parents nightmares, just skirting the tired tenuous rim of the inner city, where broken-down row houses with their plywood-covered windows and hollow-eyed crack addict residents had begun to make grudging room for renovated store fronts. Trent called it "dangerous chic." He'd furnished Big Macs and vodka for the trip, because he thought that combination was chic too. And so she'd filled her belly with grease and Stoly, then ground her knees into the custom floor mats as she paid her dues and sucked him off. He'd pulled a glassine bag and a needle out of the glove box while she washed the taste of him out of her mouth with the rest of the vodka. He'd expressed surprise that she wasn't into the hard stuff when she declined.
And she'd decided then and there that Trent had exhausted his usefulness.
The Trans Am had been warmer than the shit hotel room she was in now, but she had privacy and a working shower for a couple of hours, and that was worth the price of four or five Trents at least. The nightmares only woke her up once that evening, and they weren't as bad lately, she didn't feel the gun grow hot in her grip anymore, didn't wake up screaming and trying to wipe the blood off her hands. In some ways, getting used to the horrors scared her more than the nightmares themselves.
She checked out at 2 AM. She could only afford the rent-by-the-hour rates every few days, and then only for four or five hours at a time. She was down to about fifty dollars in cash, and she didn't dare use the credit cards for fear there'd be a tracer on her in no time flat. But the after-hours rave clubs had opened at midnight, and she could hang there for a while and stay warm, until daybreak or until she found another Trent to get her through another twenty-four hours, whichever came first.
She had to pass by a pay phone to exit the hotel lobby. She hesitated, staring, some marginal image from her dream hell still hovering in a corner of her mind. Not forgivable, this fucked-up tangent she'd gone off on. Not understandable either, no, but he used the important words all the time, right? Love, protection, acceptance. Daughter. His. So just maybe it was…fixable. Nice word, that, nice concept.
Five or six steps across the lobby to make it to the phone, okay, easy enough. Simple, non-threatening phone with a greasy plastic handle, worn smooth from years of desperate grasping fingers, cool against her face as she pressed the buttons. Seven digits…seven digits and she could be safe, she could be fixed, only shit, she had to dial a "1" for local calls here and the fucking phone ate the quarter, and she had to remember to breathe as she dug around for more change, had to stay positive and picture him smiling and opening his arms, not still and pale and prone and oh so very red where she'd….
Two rings, then a grunt and a thumping sound, like the phone had been knocked off its cradle by someone still half-asleep and grappling with his own nightmares.
"H'lo?" He sounded…healthier than the last time. She opened her mouth.
"Hello?" Irritation in the voice, then something else.
Hope.
Fear?
"Frannie? Baby, is that you?"
As if on cue, high-pitched mechanical screams shattered the air just outside the hotel, and she almost dropped the phone as the police car sped by, lights flashing blue and red and distorted in the dirty glass doors. Not unusual in this neighborhood and nothing personal, but she was bathed in it for a split second, she was red like blood, like his, and the timing of the whole thing was sheer horrific fucking brilliance because right then she knew.
"Frannie? Don't hang up, baby, please – we can work this out –"
Bad idea, bad bad bad fucking idea. Not fixable, never fixable again except by penance paid in locks and bars and flashing lights the color of blood. Can't fix, don't try, don't think. Heart pounding, she slammed down the phone and ran on shaky legs, out of the lobby and south for two blocks, not stopping until she reached the warehouse with its blacked-out windows and the rave party in full swing.
******