Loonie hadn't realized that she's dozed off again until she was awoken by a loud 'thud' on the back of the van she was riding within and the door swung open. Peering out of the door as she pushed herself up and off of the floor of the van revealed her to be in the city, though it didn't quite look like the one that she remembered. She frowned, looking at what details she could spot, at least until one of the man-mountain guards leaned over and peered inward at her. "Out." The command was simple and spoken with enough malice that she didn't particularly want to test whether or not they were going to follow through on the implied 'or we'll make you' part of that.
Her arms and back and - frankly, everywhere - hurt as she forced herself up, then scooted out of the back of the van to stand up. A quick look around confirmed what she'd thought, they were in a different city, and it seemed to be very, very late at night, or maybe early morning. "Where are we?", she mumbled, though she didn't think either of the guards that stood outside of the van would actually answer her.
To her further surprise, someone did - but it wasn't the guards. It was Reed. "It's best if you don't talk and don't ask questions for a bit." Her head whipped to the side to see him - he just looked tired, and he was seated on the curb at the side of the street. They looked like they were parked in front of some old motel that looked like it had seen far better days, and what had once been a larger parking lot had been mostly paved over and converted into a street but beyond the sidewalk was still a parking lot. At her confusion, he just gestured to the curb next to him.
The size difference between the two of them was borderline comical when she settled down next to him, even slouching she was almost two entire feet taller than he was. But she took his advice and kept quiet, which seemed to suit him just fine because he kept talking once she'd settled down. "You have really gone and kicked the hornet's nest. It was everything I could do to keep them from sending you back on the spot, and I had to give up almost every part of the test that made it valid to do so. You've been moved, your freedoms are restricted, they took your phone", he listed off bullet points on his fingers, "you'll be watched far more closely, even your activities have been restricted, and they took the spellbook - they were pretty suspect about letting you keep that, to begin with."
Loonie made to open her mouth to protest - what was she supposed to do with all of her things taken away - but he held up a hand toward her to silence her before she could get out more than a sound or two. "It was this or go back. And once she realized you'd burned off all her hair - which admittedly was kind of funny-", she raised a brow at the fact that he actually seemed amused by that, but he kept going, "- she was planning on your trip back being particularly long and arduous. I had to call in most of my favors to make sure that didn't happen."
After letting him talk for this long, she finally couldn't keep herself quiet. "But why are you doing this?" Both guards moved forward, they seemed particularly twitchy about her even so much as talking, but it seemed like what she'd done had set off something and she was incredibly unpopular at the moment.
He lifted a hand to wave them off, then lifted it to rub under his glasses along the bridge of his nose with thumb and pointer finger, squinting his eyes for a moment as he did - he looked like he hadn't slept in a while. "Because I believe that this is still our first and best opportunity to study one of your kind up close in a non-hostile..." He reconsidered his wording, "Well, somewhat-neutral environment." He lowered his hands to his thighs and then simply turned to watch her for a time before positing a question. "Why didn't you go back? You could have gone back home, been 'rescued', and yet you stayed. Why?"
Loonie took her turn to look down at the pavement between her paws with a quiet sigh. "Because... I didn't want to go back. I feel... peaceful up here. Like I never did down there. Seeing you humans and mortals going around your lives without ever having to worry about being purged once a year, without wondering when some maniac is going to throw a bomb through your window or wondering when you might get gunned down on the street just because another demon thought it'd be funny. It's just... different. I feel calm, I guess. It makes me want to..." She sighed and kicked a bit of dirt out of the street's gutter with her foot. "I know this probably sounds suspect at best coming from me, but... It makes me want to do better, be better... somehow."
Reed remained silent, listening, while she spoke, but once she was finished he ran his hand through his short-cropped hair. "That is more or less why I have fought so hard for this. Aside from the chance to just... study you, we know so little about demons that isn't 'how do you kill them', some of us have never quite agreed with the blanket 'murder them all' policy that we've adopted over the years."
Loonie let out a quiet snort through her nose and glanced to the side at him. "I don't know if I'd change that policy, personally... Most of us are pretty fucking terrible people."
"Ah, maybe on a case by case basis. You'd be the first." He looked out over the street again before he continued speaking. "There will be weekly inspections, as well. Our men making sure that you don't have anything you shouldn't. And the council insisted that you cooperate with questioning - how Hell works, what weaknesses of demons are, what we should expect should one come up here. They want a tool."
"Well, as far as I can tell, you've got one", she muttered, before she turned her gaze up. No moon tonight, it seemed, only street lights to light the night. "I don't want to go back. Certainly not yet, anyway."
Reed pushed himself up from the ground with a grunt of strain and a muttered 'too old' before he turned and presented the hound with a key. "No more walks, no more work. You're to leave your room only when escorted. And if your friend shows up again, you'll be executed on the spot. They're watching you much more closely."
Loonie stood more easily than he'd seemed to and plucked the key out of his palm. "I don't think they'll be coming back any time soon, trust me." She closed her eyes and let out a quiet little sigh, then lowered her voice toward him. "Could I at least have my phone back? What am I going to do with myself?"
"I'm afraid that's out of the question at the moment, but I'll see what I can do. Cooperate and it'll be easier."
The hound loosed a sigh. "Where have I heard that before?"
He glared at her for a moment before he continued. "I can walk you to your room or these gentlemen can, it's up to you." He hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the two guarding the van.
"I think I'll take you, thanks." Reed began to walk, and Loonie followed after him, padding across the ground. "Where are we, anyway?"
"Next state over, a small city near the border. We keep a close eye on this area, have a base nearby, you'll be easier to keep track of and control should it come to that." He led her up toward what looked like it had once been a motel, but judging by the smell and the people they passed - many who leered at Reed's suit and expensive shoes - it seemed to have been converted into some kind of flophouse or drug den.
"What the fuck is this place?", the hound muttered as she took it in. Through the outer wall, there was a large inner courtyard that looked like it was about a decade overdue for some maintenance and was slowly gathering trash and other debris. "I've seen places back home that didn't look this bad."
Reed glanced over his shoulder toward her as he led her toward the back and right, then up a staircase. "You could say it's our own personal corner of Hell on Earth. Used to be a motel until the '80s, then it was bought out and converted into low-income housing by the local government and was basically forgotten from there. We have some assets in the area who can watch you 24/7, so this is what you ended up with."
"And what are they doing?"
"I'm sure you know I can't tell you that - you're on thin ice as it is with what we're willing to share, they don't even want you to know names." He stopped in front of a crooked door, paint flecking off of the outside. "232." He motioned toward the lock.
A glance behind told her that the mountains had followed them, and once those two had made an appearance the rest of the various denizens seemed to have vanished like so many cockroaches when someone turned on a light. "I know yours, you know", she said lowly to him as she stuck the key in the lock and - with some difficulty - turned the key and opened the door.
What greeted her was... Well, it was worse than she'd expected. To the left in the tiny space was a simple cot with a ratty blanket thrown over it and little else, a sink and toilet jammed directly opposite of each other where she'd effectively have to sit on the toilet to use the sink, and a curtain in front of what had to be the 'shower'. Her incredulous gaze turned back toward him. "This isn't an apartment, it's a closet."
He held his hand out toward the room, indicating for her to go in. "I don't mind if you do know my name, but I wouldn't advertise if you do. And this is what you get. If you hadn't set her hair on fire, maybe we could have worked something out, but..." He stood in the door and shrugged his shoulders.
She frowned as she settled onto the cot with a protesting creak from aging metal. This whole room smelled like piss and death. "There isn't enough space in here for my things." Her voice sounded too small and quiet, even to herself, but she was trying to imagine living in this... She was pretty sure she'd seen prison cells on TV that were bigger than this was. Loonie turned her gaze up toward him. "You can't leave me here, can you? This has to be a joke - for the hair thing. Right?"
Reed crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm afraid not. We've been instructed to take anything you can't find space for to the dump." He turned to the side and gestured to someone - probably one of the man-mountains - and mouthed a 'go get them' toward him before he turned back to the hound. "So I'd try to make things fit."
Loonie felt her heart fall into her stomach. She'd imagined just how bad it might be, but this was far worse than even she'd expected. She was pretty sure that even demons in Hell didn't live this bad. The hound nodded her head once, then stood up as the first box was shuffled up from the van. She'd try to make everything she could fit, but she already knew that she was going to be throwing out a lot - things she'd spent money on, things she'd had plans for - but she just wouldn't have space. Just about the only 'storage' space she had was under the cot that was her bed, and there seemed to be a small fold-out table mounted to the wall.
The mountains brought up box after box, and the hound's heart sank with every new box they brought up. She was starting to realize that she was pretty sure this was intentional. They'd found the smallest place possible to cram her into with no phone, no TV, nothing to keep her entertained, nothing to keep her busy, nothing to keep her from being alone with her thoughts... They were trying to make her go nuts...
At this point, with box after box piling up that she knew she'd have to throw away, all of her things and belongings... She wasn't sure it wouldn't work.