- Chapter Thirty-Eight -

Somebody Get This Girl A Barber (Or Even A Linguist Would Be Fine)

Invited in with a warm smile that was so much deeper than the flesh, a dizzy Daniella shambled in alongside Elena, her head moving this way and that to take in her new surroundings. One might think that after spending so much time in hotel rooms appearances wouldn't matter, and that might have been true, if this cozy abode didn't remind her so strongly of Mama's place in Maui. Light, breezy, perfectly spread out, and everything anyone could ever want in the summer, the heiress genuinely dug the setup, although she had no clue how to express that without coming off as snobbish or condescending. No, it wasn't in her top five places she'd want to model her dream home after, but the girl thought it was charming and... well, unlike Mama's polished and photo-ready getaway, it felt like a real home.

Aware that it was common courtesy to offer a compliment AND guilty of not catching a name on the blonde that had zipped her away, for all her lessons Daniella wasn't quite sure how to break the ice. What could she say? An introduction was also in order, but Sam hadn't explicitly stated that she could just go around using her real name around these people - as a matter of fact he hadn't said a whole lot since she'd waken up - so what did that leave her with? The place was legitimately her idea of cute, and she was deeply grateful that this appeared to be a temporary safe haven, however would any of that even suffice at this point?

Saved from her dilemma by the increasingly insistent swaying of the earth joining forces with the gravitational master of all, the heiress stumbled sideways as a yellow streak darted in from the front door to follow an invisible path deeper inside. The dog from earlier, or the kid? As if it mattered. Graceful as ever, Sleeping Beauty had nearly knocked the woman over as well; thankfully the blonde had a much better sense of balance and had caught them both before there was a collapse of limbs.

"Thorry... err, sornks..." Tongue-tied and jumbled in more ways than one, she tried again, "Thank you. And I'm sorry. I... I haven't felt like myself for a while now..."

Apologizing at once, the etiquette classes forced on the young woman were strongly suggesting in the back of her mind that there were probably a handful of other things to add to the list. Her pitiful and heavily distressed state for a start, being less invited and more dragged along (not to mention the circumstances being less than ideal), and more importantly coveting what wasn't hers. Alright, so maybe it didn't make much sense to have that last one on the receipt, but it wasn't like the situation saw her at the top of her game, or even playing with half a deck for that matter.

"Oh," taking his self-prescribed role of doctor very seriously, Rafael chimed in, "that's probably just the effects of the Telazol and morphine." Crawling the wrong way at the sudden contact despite hearing his voice first, Daniella still practically jumped out of her skin when she realized that a third person was at her elbow. Assuming that their professional arrangement continued (and from where she was standing there was no reason it should stop), the heiress hoped that his touch would become more familiar over the course of time. "A little disorientation is to be expected." The way he spoke, it was clearly with the presumption that she was merely referring to the past few days in general.

"Morphine...?" What the hell was that first one, Telazol he said? Her inner bookworm didn't have the faintest of what that was, but she had heard of morphine (who hadn't?). And at least now that much now made a world of sense from what she could remember reading about of the side effects of the drug, although it didn't do much to comfort her. "I see."

Wait a pretty little minute! All that blood unfurling scarlet and ruby in the bathwater, waking up with additional stitches from what Ang... what had happened with the Orange Tiger, could the controlled substance have been the bookends to this latest episode of lost time? Dots connecting one by one in her head as she was seated, the phrase 'if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck' came to mind. So if that was the case and she'd been dosed up, could this have anything to do with why Sam was avoiding her? Did he blame himself?

"But..." trailing off as she muttered to herself, Dells hadn't realized that she had spoken aloud, not immediately, "I'm the one that..."

Concerned about his patient, the sign of her father pressed the back of his hand to her forehead to check on her temperature. When he opened his mouth, it was more towards the pretty vision than to the potentially delirious bankroll, "Mumbling to yourself? That's not normal. At least I don't think it is..." Hopefully, being so much older than he was, the woman would have a more concrete answer on what was out of the ordinary for someone just coming out of a morphine coma.

She did not.

Really! Annoyed by the false conclusions masquerading as concern when she probably ought to have been counting her blessings, the final straw was the woman. Already staring with nothing but pity in her kind hazel eyes, it all became to much to bear in docile silence! Poor little rich mess, she must have been thinking, product of money and abandonment. Auctioned off like one of the antiquities of yesteryear to the highest bidder and broken in the move - better talk to the guy footing the bill or else hope he doesn't notice.

Or was the melancholic gaze because she caught - or at least thought she did - something in the way the thief and the heiress interacted? Dismissing that as impossible, the moment had come and gone too fast. And anyways, what could there possibly have been to imagine in those few brief seconds on the dock? Could this shining gold saint have witnessed the hope come alive in Daniella's eyes when they touched, or had she seen the cruel imitation reveal itself in the breath that caught in her chest? Perhaps the beautiful stranger had only heard the young woman's knees buckle, the bone and remaining sinew turning to mush in an instant that could never last? Suspending further disbelief, maybe this divine goddess was empathic and/or had an eye for seeing the overcast shadows of doubt lift only to crash back down harder than necessary?

However you wanted to spin it, the long and short of it was that the very moment that Sam's arms wrapped around her, Daniella was ready to forget and forgive the cold shoulder. In fact, the truth was that there wasn't a lot that she wouldn't have forgiven in that instant, but that was fairy tale again, and this was the real world, where she had to feel what was left of her mortal coil whither from his ice. She knew that that was probably wrong, that this was just going to be another Jay all over again, that it was already too late to change her fate. For the moment at least, that infernal contract for her soul was on the table and just awaiting a signature.

Was this almost hypnotic slow-drip attraction what Mama had felt the first time she laid her eyes on Daddy? Because it sure sounded like it. God she hoped not.

Speaking of the devil, Sam himself came into the room the same instant realization took hold, and he wasn't alone. Obviously it wasn't her father miraculously risen from the dead after all this time, however this model wasn't so hard on the eyes... Despite being a hair shorter and of a slightly different build, it was plain to see that the younger (and more groomed) of the two was the thief's blood. Admittedly a part of her wanted to see an exact replica like she had in a dream, but that never ended well in any universe, so it was for the best that she saw the other man as his own person and not as as clone. All in all, this younger sibling was kinda cute in his own right - especially for being a dad - but she still preferred the older one.

Ditching the mismatched carry-on at the first available opportunity no doubt - that is if he had even bothered with them in the first place - the brunette turned his attention to his brother. Honestly the heiress wasn't too bothered by where the luggage had vanished to, because the rational side of her brain that actually paid attention to those little details figured that if there was anything for her to change into, it had probably been picked out by Miss Chloe. Oh Christ no!

The ravenette had fine enough taste in clothes when it came to herself; not forgetting the exchange they'd shared in the car before all of this had spiraled out of control, Daniella was honestly a little scared of what she would find. Hopefully it would just be something basic to blend in, ideally with a modest cut that covered just about everything, but something told her that there would be at least one top in the bunch that was meant to tease. All in good fun, of course, but 'fun' wasn't quite an option just yet. Although, maybe now that she looked like some old Sally Stein, it would be fine...?

Funnily enough, Dells had the hunch that she wouldn't be so lucky. Unless maybe someone else had already gone through the bags and discovered anything that the older woman had meant for her to find... "Um, pardon me, do you have a bathroom I could use?"

It was the girl that answered, pointing the way to the first door on the right-hand side, "The going rate is usually twenty-five cents, but considering inflation," tilting her bespectacled head back a few degrees, she pretended to crunch the numbers, "I think we're looking at a good five bucks."

"Yeesh." Despite having his own designs to pull the same trick on the shrew that called herself a businesswoman (only on a considerably larger scale once everything was said and done), Sam sucked in the air through his teeth as if the decision affected him personally. Although in a way, it kind of did. "A little Harsh, don't you think Cass?"

Unsure if this Cass was being serious about the fee or not, his playful banter wasn't making it any clearer. On a good day the young woman might have gotten that they were just messing around, as the Drakes tended to do, however her head was beginning to pound against her skull. Also, the need to pee was very much a real thing. "I don't..." Knees knocking together as she rose and made to just barge in if absolutely necessary, Daniella looked to the other adults for salvation. "I really need to go."

Sighing at the joke, the blonde woman motioned her on, "Go. Cassie's just being her wisecracking self."

"Wow," still avoiding Daniella's general direction as he gazed fondly across the front room, the thief turned to his niece's parents as his own charge splintered away from the rest, "this must be a real relief for you little brother-"

"One more thing?" Cutting across Sam with no outward display of remorse, the young woman addressed her companions with forced cool that she wasn't even remotely close to feeling, "Can I see our bags? Do we have any bags?"

Lugging everything in without so much as a single thank you, the brunette was left with no other option as the toady, so he replied with the minimal amount of effort and merely jerked his thumb over his shoulder to the door. If he had been stung by how rudely she passed to retrieve the cases or was even the tiniest bit flustered that she had nothing else to say, he hid it rather well. Jerk. "Where was I? Oh yeah, as I was saying, this must be a real relief for you little brother, not having to-"

Business taken care off outside the restroom, Daniella closed the bathroom door with a moody snap.

Armed with all of three suitcases and one extremely battered messenger bag that was decorated with a number of pins, she figured that two people on the run wouldn't need that much space between them, so at least one of these belonged to Rafael. Name something she might never fully get over if truth be told, the heiress felt guilty for rummaging through his things... Although if he was just going to be so careless as to not secure anything important that he wanted to keep secret, the invasion of privacy was really on him. Yeah, that's what she told herself as she opened the first storage container.

Glacier blue, marked in a faded sable with the initials A.P., and the only real suitcase in the various assortment, the first thing Daniella found was the medical supplies. Gauze, syringes, plastic tubey-things, everything seemed like proper healing instruments, which made her recall the sounds of silver slashing through the darkness, the coppery taste of bile and blood that filled her mouth when she bit her tongue. The laughter as she was ripped open, piece by little piece...

Quickly sealing the case up with all possible haste, a breather was required before anything else from that period came back to the surface. Once she was as close to good as she was gonna get, Dells was on to the second unit. A forest green hiking pack in a former life, much of the tawny lining was home to dislodged pine needles; the majority of the contents were a jumble of clothes, one article of which appeared to be a bra. At least she prayed that that was what the pink lacy thing was. Foolishly braving further explanation, the young woman found a handful of travel-size toiletries in the side pockets, including a handful of liners. Thank the gods!

Finished with her business and satisfied by what she had found (and more so by what she hadn't), Daniella set the final two bags aside. Another day, perhaps.

Trippy polychromatic sink something to see, the tired young woman washed her hands, used the purple plastic toothbrush from the backpack, and splashed some of the cold water across her face before gazing into the mirror. Terrified of what would be waiting for her in her reflection, it was no accident that it had taken this long to look at herself since being kidnapped. Or had it been longer than that even? Hands trembling as she gripped the outer corner of the counter for support, the Adler heiress made herself really look at the monster she'd become.

On the bright side, it looked like the sutures in her head were ready to be removed. As for the rest...

Miserable on a cellular level as well as mentally, Daniella appeared as worn as she felt, her skin a good shade paler than it had been before she'd ever learned Mama's truth. Frail, feeble, literally every sorry descriptive word under the known sun came to mind to describe her countenance, because of course. Adjectives in no short supply, her muscle tone was all but gone; considering that she had been out for the better part of weeks, that was hardly surprising. In fact, it was probably a miracle that she hadn't atrophied.

Never the biggest fan of what she saw staring back, if the mirror hadn't belonged to someone she had every confidence that she would have busted it. How that feat would be accomplished, she wasn't entirely sure, but it wasn't like there was anything redeeming about her face.

Mama always said that with enough effort, there could have been something salvageable - frankly she didn't see it herself - something to attract the opposite sex. Marriage wasn't exactly a priority that was pushed in their house, but Dells figured that her mother saw it as healthy to get out there on the field. One to have it both ways where she could, recent experience told her that Mama would undoubtedly freak out if she ever caught her daughter in a compromising position... Whoa boy, if the bespectacled beauty only knew about the kinds of things that interested her little girl...!

Practically speaking, while all of this damage to her mortal shell was almost enough to give pause to the average passerby, there wasn't nearly enough to make it harder to see her for the heiress on the TV. The thought of adding to the toll did cross Daniella's mind in truth - quite strongly at that - however something told her this was neither the time nor the place. It may have sounded strange, especially considering everything, but Dells felt safe here - she couldn't begin to explain it (okay, maybe the fact that this was Sam's family had something to do with it), it was just a gut feeling. Except this was obviously only a temporary sanctuary on the journey, not a forever fix.

What was forever anyways?

Returning to the backpack for a third time, among the can of spare lighter fluid and other odds and ends the young woman also discovered a folded pocket knife. Setting the blade on the counter, it was clear what needed to be done.

Offering a prayer to the fallen soldier, she undid the knot at her neck and allowed the hair to tumble freely down her shoulders and back. Like most girls, Daniella had been growing her hair out since at least elementary school, and like most of those, she hadn't expected to part from her silent identifier. But it needed to happen. Grieving period fairly short, the girl hacked mercilessly at the rich coffee-colored locks until they came away free in her fist. Getting a tad bit ahead of herself, step three would be the acquisition and immediate application of hair dye; in the meantime, step two consisted of getting assistance in straightening her messy lop job.

Tucking a newly shortened strand behind her ear, she smartened up the scene before leaving the bathroom.