I swear up and down Naomi was supposed to be a comedic character, but her characterization has taken a few turns for the dramatic. Considering her past it's understandable.
o...o
"I need to see her! I need to know! Let me through! Goddamn you! Shut up! Let me go! Let me through!" The woman shrieked and struggled against Becker as he tried to hold her back. She charged forward anyway, trying to break the man's hold and failing miserably. Her face was tearstained and her hair was a mess and her voice rasped, exhausted from screaming.
"Miss, we can't do that. Regulations forbid it," he said calmly with practiced military discipline.
The whole area was a mess of devastation—broken windows, ransacked shops. Downed powerlines had taken hours to clear away so the Arc could safely get in and survey the damage properly. It was always their goal to protect the creatures as well as the public and make sure everybody involved got home with as little fuss as was possible but, with the best of intentions, that wasn't always plausible. No one knew how many Utahraptors came through the anomaly, but two were dead and a third was being transported to the Arc in the back of a truck. The rest were herded back through the anomaly; it was locked and under guard in the basement of an office supply store.
But they didn't respond to the call fast enough to stop the fleet-footed carnivores from wreaking havoc. Try as they might to clear the area, there were some people who, instead of heeding the order to evacuate, ran into hiding to wait out the chaos in ignorance of the danger. Drug dealers, runaway kids, petty criminals, streetwalkers—the type who, on reflex, mistrusted police officers and military types and authority figures of any kind. The result was disastrous. They were still counting casualties, looking in the path of destruction for survivors. And for the dead. One of the victims was a young woman. That was all anyone knew—someone covered the body with a tarp and a thin line of blood trickled out from under it near her head.
"Fuck your regulations with a hammer!" The woman screamed, taking a step back and then headbutting the soldier in the face. He drew back sharply, his nose dribbling blood down to his collar, but kept stony and refused to let the woman go by.
"Naomi," he said calmly, hefting the hysterical woman and keeping her back. "Einhorn! Come help me, please."
She squeezed through the line of guards and spectators, coming to stand by the woman's side and resting a hand on her shoulder.
"Becker, let her go," she said firmly. His eyes were hidden by his sunglasses but she knew they'd just gone very wide on surprise. He wasn't required to heed her orders but he did so anyway, releasing his hysterical captive and stepping back, gripping his gun.
"What's his deal?" The woman sobbed, looking back and forth between them. Her eye makeup had begun to run, making her look many years older than she was. She couldn't have been more than twenty, Naomi found herself thinking.
"He's army," she said. "They're all like that. C'mon, this way." She tugged the young woman's arm to lead her away from the body on the ground. She resisted, but Naomi gripped her arm harder and led her into a shop doorway.
"What's going on?" She sobbed, her hands shaking. "No one's telling me anything! What happened? They're not telling me! Who are you?"
"My name's Naomi. They used to call me Birdie," she said. The young woman's eyes went wide in disbelief; some things were not lost in translation and one prostitute could recognize another by name alone. "Take a few deep breaths. Try to calm down."
"I can't!"
She looked from side to side for a few seconds. "Well, I can't get you a drink, but..." she did the only thing she could think to do and offered her a cigarette. "It might help."
The young woman—girl—took it with shaking hands, trembling so violently she couldn't even light it. Her breathing evened eventually, and she sniffled into her sleeve before saying, "Dayla."
"I know it can't even begin to help, but are you all right?"
She shook her head.
"Your friend?" Naomi asked.
Nod. "I think so. We split up when we heard the sirens. I... we... I don't know what happened. There were sirens, and the soldiers, and those... things... and then... I don't know..." she sobbed and sniffled. "And he won't let me through. I don't know if it's Mya or not. She isn't answering her mobile. I can't find her, the whole street is blocked off...!"
"It's okay, sweetheart," Naomi murmured. She reached over and hugged her. The girl was eight inches taller and crumpled against her shoulder, hugging her back, shivering. Her cigarette fell from her lips and she cried loudly.
She recognized that feeling straight away. Not knowing, missing a friend. Suddenly she was 22 again and it was the morning after her best friend went missing; no one helped her, no one cared to talk to her. The only person she had—the only person she loved—in the world was gone and she had nowhere to turn. Even the worst answer was better than not knowing at all.
"Becker," Naomi strode over with her chin out, looking like a short little bulldog strutting up to a bigger animal. "Let us by, please?"
"I can't—"
"She needs to see."
"It's... not pretty."
"Death never is. But that's her friend and she wants to see."
"I'm not allowed to let her—"
"So let me!" She snapped. "And if she happens to follow me, well, then, so be it!"
He thought, looking back and forth between Naomi and Dayla and the covered body on the wet ground. "If Lester finds out, this is on your head."
"Yeah, yeah, everything's on my head. Turn around and play with your toes or something."
He grunted and casually took a few steps away, pretending to be fascinated by a pillar.
"C'mon," Naomi took Dayla by the arm and led her haltingly towards the body. The guard standing by knelt and peeled the tarp back.
"No! No! Mya! Oh my god, no!" She screamed again, sobbing and fisting her hands in her hair. The man quickly covered the body back up and the women stepped away.
She gave Dayla the rest of her pack of cigarettes and wrote her number on the carton with the stern order to call her if she needed anything.
"I know what this is like," she said gently. "If you need help, I might be able to do it."
The whole trip back to the Arc she was silent, her face pale and drawn and her posture rigid.
Once back in the sterile confines of the Arc's facilities, where the crew dispersed, she slipped away and hid in the toilets.
No one thought to look for her until lunch came and went and Naomi—usually more food-motivated than any dog—was nowhere to be found.
Connor toed open the door to the ladies, peering inside. Lester was starting to ask questions—goodness knew why he was harangued into looking in the loos. "Hello? You in here?"
"No," she croaked. She was sitting on the floor between the sinks, her elbows on her knees and her hands cupping either side of her forehead, as if to regain her balance. She looked up and almost smiled. "You're almost thirty and you're still wandering into the girl's toilet?" She joked. "Thought you would have grown out of that by now."
He snorted a little, remembering. They were so close, once, he and Naomi. She was someone strong and smart he needed in his life when he was young. The news that she was leaving when they were sixteen was the first real confrontation with loss he had. Before she left, he remembered what she told him:
'I can't be here forever, you know. You can't depend on me all the time. There's a big, scary world out there and you've got a good lot of time left in it. You can't spend the whole time hanging out in your imagination with your macho pals from Marvel and Middle Earth. You've gotta grow a thick skin, Conn, or the bastards will get you.'
She was the toughest person he'd ever met in his life. He'd never met anyone—not even Abby—who could take a hit from anywhere and keep right on going. She was his shield once, standing between him and the world and absorbing all the blows and slings it threw at him. He couldn't even recall having seen her cry before; he'd certainly never seen her look so small, and sad, and... frightened.
"What happened?" He asked, slipping inside and letting the door close.
"I puked."
"Before that. Was it the girl?" He knelt down next to her. "I know it must've been a shock. You never get used to seeing that, not really."
"Yes," she said. "And no."
She breathed shakily for a few minutes.
"I've seen death before. All kinds of it. Blood poison, disease, homicide, suicide. Death runs the gambit from messy to clean—you know there was a homeless guy who died on my subway route and no one noticed he was dead for three days?"
Laughter would have been a totally inappropriate response, so Connor bit his cheek and said nothing.
"Every gnarly, sick way someone can die, I've seen it," she went on. "It's not new to me."
"Are you just shocked? Thought you could handle it?"
"No, I think it's more that... it wasn't new. It's not the first time I've seen a girl off the street die like that."
She shuddered and hugged her knees, burying her face in her knees and sniffling messily.
He sat down, settled a gloved hand in her hair. Until a few months ago, he had only a passing knowledge of where Naomi Einhorn's life had gone once she left England. It wasn't surprising, certainly—she was already a heavy drinker and casual drug-user by the time they were fourteen. But this was someone he watched cartoons with. The candid way she spoke of her past life on the street softened the blow of learning that his childhood friend had been a drug-addict and prostitute for years, but she was always straightforward and honest about everything. He might never know everything that happened in the twelve years since they lost touch, but he suspected he didn't want to find out. The seedy world she inhabited for so long was so startlingly different from even the gritty life in the Arc that he wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to handle it.
"I never got to find out, you know?" She went on, her voice cracking with every syllable. "I was her, once—both of them. Desperate, young. Feels like no one in the whole wide world cares about you. Usually 'cos no one does care. You're just a statistic—drugs, sex, and death. Half the world just wants to use what you offer and the other half would sooner you fucked off and died a horrible death. To have someone—anyone—there for you is priceless. And now she's gone..."
She squeaked and choked and went silent. The memories were a deluge, a flood of fear and sadness and loss and pain that she kept tamped down.
"You can't save everyone," he said. "You always tried."
"You turned out all right," she said softly.
He laughed softly and hugged her—their places were swapped, him offering her comfort when she felt totally overwhelmed by life. She leaned against his shoulder and shivered.
"Don't care what anyone else ever said about you—you're a good kid."
She looked up questioningly, then smiled shakily, her cheeks wet with tears.
"Still are."
o...o
Over the next few days, Naomi was mostly quiet. She didn't rise to any argument or make any quips, even when the situation all but presented itself on a silver platter. Even when Lester was making cracks about Mormon Utahraptors she kept to herself. She dealt with her problem the way she always did, which was by not dealing with it at all. Memories of Yannee haunted her—she could see her old friend in the mangled face and body of Mya, the girl killed by the Utahraptor. Every time she closed her eyes she could see the blood, the gnarled flesh, the enormous slice down her middle that exposed her organs and through which her liver and lungs had been dragged.
The images of Yannee in Mya's place were all fiction, the conjuration of her memories. She never saw her body, never found out what happened to her, but the odds were in favour of her having been killed. There were thousands of places between Staten Island and the Canadian border to lose a body, and she was almost certainly killed and probably dumped into the Hudson River.
Her demeanour was worrying. She had been long enough in the company of the people in the Arc that by now they knew it was nearly impossible to ruffle her feathers. To see her so rattled, unsteady, was unknown—and disquieting. Even Connor slipping on a pile of dung in the menagerie failed to so much as rouse a smile.
But as the weekend neared she seemed to be getting back to her old self, much to everyone's relief. She still kept in her desk in the corner as much as she could, though—and meekly obeyed all the rules and turned in all the reports on time.
Which was where she was passing the afternoon now.
Lester came by her desk with his usual bored pose.
"Naomi," he greeted her absently.
"Sir. I'll have this damage report all set up by the end of the day—the power crew was a bit steep but it was either that or we'd all be electrocuted."
"Are you... all right?" He asked slowly, as if he couldn't believe he was even saying the words.
"For me, sure," she said. Then she looked up and frowned. "Why?"
He straightened and tugged at his collar. "I just... don't want another employee quitting out of emotional distress. It's hard enough to get people to take these jobs for the pay we offer without having a turnover rate faster than a pancake house."
"Don't worry, I'm not leaving," she said, not cracking a smile.
He stood for a few moments before leaving her be, and she went back to her paperwork.
Her phone buzzed to life—she picked it up without looking to see who it was.
"H'lo?"
"May I speak with Naomi Einhorn?"
"Speaking. Who is this?"
"Miss, are you acquainted with a... Danielle Kent?"
She sat staring blankly into space before her, holding the phone to her ear and racking her brain for an answer. The name didn't sound familiar. She felt the gears in her head grinding rustily. "Uhm..." she answered dumbly. "Can I have another hint?"
"This is important, ma'am," the man on the other end said. "This is the police."
She jerked mightily, as if shocked, and knocked her stapler, empty tea cup, and bag from the desk. "I'm... sorry? What?"
The officer explained himself quickly—"Your telephone number was found on a cigarette carton in the possession of a Danielle Kent when her body was found this morning—"
She sat staring blankly into space for several minutes, racking her brain and trying to connect a face with the name. She had no idea who Danielle Kent was and said so. But as she said it she thought, cigarette carton? No...
"Dayla?" She asked, her voice cracking. Before she got an answer her phone slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor, the battery popping out. She swore and dove under the desk to grab the pieces. She tried to put the battery back in but her hands were shaking and her mind racing, and she failed to complete the task about twenty times before she clicked the pieces together.
The phone on the desk rang, startling her into jerking upright. She mashed her head and swore colourfully so loudly a few people looked around corners at her. She picked up the phone.
"Naomi Einhorn, please?"
"Yes, speaking—I'm sorry, my phone battery popped out—"
She explained herself quickly—she only met Dayla once, and she gave her number because she wanted to help the girl if she needed it. She was hysterical, Naomi said, she couldn't help but feel for her.
"What happened to her?" She asked, croaking, fighting the knot rising in her throat.
"We can't say for sure. She was found this morning, and the officers on the scene thought it was probably an overdose..."
She held onto the phone this time, but only just. She finished talking with the policeman on the phone but she couldn't remember a damn thing either of them said. Then she hung up, grabbed her bag, and ran outside. She paced back and forth in the alley where she took her smoke breaks, her head spinning and her mouth going dry.
Dayla. Dayla was dead. 'Overdose', they said—she knew what that meant. They would try to make light of it, call it 'potentially accidental', but she knew better. Her friend was dead, her life was going downhill. The poor girl killed herself. Naomi knew that feeling, she'd felt much the same way herself when Yannee disappeared. The poor girl. She was a baby...
She looked for her fresh cigarettes in her bag and couldn't find them, so she upended the contents on the wet ground. Her hairbrush, keys, notebook, pens, bottle of headache remedies, lighters, and cigarettes clattered all over. She sank to her knees and snatched up the desired items; her hands shook as she tried to peel the clingfilm from the fresh pack, but she couldn't make her fingers work. She ripped the cardboard and couldn't manage the little tinfoil packet inside, so she threw the pack and lighter down and kicked them away. She sank onto the pavement, her head in her trembling hands.
"That wasn't too clever," she heard a voice behind her.
Danny.
He stood over her, in his customary plaid shirt and jeans.
She looked up. "What?"
He cut to the chase. "What happened?"
"It's nothing."
He shut the door behind him and sat down next to her with a grunt, his knees crackling. "You can't bullshit me," he said. "If I'm not allowed to bullshit you."
He picked up her cigarettes and opened the pack; he made noises about her quitting all the time, didn't like that she did it, but in the end he knew there were significantly worse habits she could have, most of which she had had in the past.
Her hands were still shaking and her breathing was uneven as she took it and crushed two cigarettes before getting one to her lips. When she couldn't light it, she threw the pack and lighter across the alley again.
"She died," she said softly. "That girl, from the other day. The one whose friend got torn apart by the Utahraptors."
"What happened?"
"She killed herself."
He froze. "Naomi..."
She clasped her hands in front of her and rested her forehead on her forearms, as if praying. "Her only friend died and she thought she had nothing to live for."
He put his arm around her, expecting her to push him off, but instead she turned into his hold and sobbed quietly into his chest.
"I've seen it all before. I've been there before. This isn't the first time I've had a job where people die or kill themselves all the time!" She turned suddenly and hit him in the chest, her hands thumping harmlessly like kitten's paws. "I've never been scared before. Why... am I scared now?"
He nuzzled her hair carefully and she turned and sobbed helplessly against him.
"Maybe... maybe now you have something to lose."