"...Carol James Fletcher! Front and center, I want you too look at me this time." The diner's owner calls out, tone scolding, as Carol enters.
The seventeen-year-old winces. "Hey, Ma." She answers, gruffer than she means to, dipping her head as she passes the older woman up, ignoring the instructions entirely as she heads off across the dining room.
"Oh no, you don't get off that easy." Her mother chases after her. "You're late. Again."
"I know, Ma." Carol answers as she slips back into the kitchens to grab an apron. "I'm sorry, I was just..."
"Just what? You're always late this summer, at least three times a week and you'll never tell me, just what?" Her mother corners her, hands planted firmly on slender hips.
"I'm just sorry, alright?" Carol answers, huffing. "Look, if I'm late already don't you just want me to get to work?"
"Hey, Joanie!" The cook yells from further back in the kitchens. "Trucks comin' tonight, Jim's askin' if you'll come help make room in the freezers!"
Carol raises a triumphant eyebrow at this; she's just been saved the trouble of an even healthier scolding.
"Discussions not over." Joan says, all business, bringing a finger up to point at her daughter for emphasis even as she heads back towards the freezers.
"Yeah, yeah." Carol grumbles, only because the older woman can't hear her now. "Three times a week. Every week. You ain't figured anything out, old woman, it's your fault for bein' so..." She huffs as she slips back out to the dining room, now toting a bucket to collect dirty dishes and smiling bright as the sun as she greets customers.
Anyway, her mother will have forgotten about it by closing time. She always does.
...
"Hey, you sure you don't want a ride?" Carol asks, eyebrow raising as she watches the one remaining waitress check her keys to make sure her pepper spray is still on them. There's is a small and fairly innocent town, but it's past midnight, and one never knows what could be lurking. Carol knows that better even than she should.
The girl smiles, but shakes her head. "Not even worth yahr trouble, Ah'm just across town, it's not even a mile." Her accent is American-southern, thick and syrupy. Carol thinks it's about the only thing authentic about the woman.
"...which just means it wouldn't be any trouble for us to give yah a ride, anyway." Carol points out, as though this should be obvious. Because it should.
"Ah'll be fine." The waitress answers, a little more firm. "But thanks for the concern, hon."
Carol just shrugs as the woman disappears out the door. Something's off about her. Carol can't pinpoint what it is, but it sets her on edge.
A few brief moments of blissful silence are afforded her, until her mother slips out from being back in the kitchens. "Alright. I think that's everything." The older woman pauses a moment, as though going down a mental checklist. "I think. Dish area was closed down...I know I turned off the oven and the fryers, and the griddle wasn't hot anymore."
"So nothin's burning down tonight. Time to go, then?" Carol asks, hopeful. Chomping at the bit, really. It's Friday. The sooner she can urge her mother home, the sooner the older woman will get through her usual nightly routines and go to bed.
"Yes, yes, it's time to go. Come on. You know, most girls your age wouldn't be so excited to be leaving work on a Friday night if they were only going home. I wonder about you sometimes these days."
"Eh." Carol just shrugs as she slips out the door after her mother. "A girl needs her beauty sleep."
.
It's Friday. It's Friday, it's Friday, it's Friday...
She can relax some on Friday nights. Because she can sleep in Saturday and her mother won't even question it.
She listens. Waits, patient as she can manage to be. Her mother spends some time shuffling around downstairs. Doing dishes, fixing herself a cup of tea, watching television. An hour or so is all it really takes, but Carol's so ready...
Her mother climbs the steps. Calls out in her pleasant, church-bell voice 'goodnight, Munchkin. Love you.'.
"You too, Ma, night." Carol calls back and then counts to herself. "3. 2. 1." Her mother's door shuts.
Quietly, Carol starts getting ready. Boys blue jeans, just the comfiest level of oversized. White tank top beneath basic blue flannel. Hair shoved up into a braid, haphazard, just an effort to keep the unruly brunette mane from getting in her way. Black lace up boots, combat style. She takes her time, pads around making not a sound. Waits long enough...
She opens her door slow, peers out into the hall, inspects her mother's door and listens with bated breath...
There's no light emenating from the crack beneath the door, and she can hear the distinct white-noise sound of the oscillating fan her mother always turns on. Yep. The old woman is finally asleep. Carol slips back over to her closet, removes the old jean jacket hidden in the back, and slips it on as she darts out of the room and down the stairs.
Her mother leaves the job, in it's entirety, of running the diner up to her favorite manager on Saturdays. So, it'll be at least 10 a.m. before the older woman graces the world with her presence again. Carol's free as a bird as long as she makes it home before then.
Her pickup roars to life with it's usual vigor, but the noise of it, Carol had long since noted, is mostly contained to the garage. Her mother won't hear it, not with her fan going. Carol backs out, careful not to revv the engine too much until she hits the road. And then she floors it heading up that road - up the hills and further away from town.
The drive is about an hour. It's worth it every time.
The warehouse she pulls up to is massive. Built, at one time, to store weapons. Big weapons. Or, so the sTori goes. No one really knows anymore what it's original purpose was. These days...well.
Carol parks her truck and glances around as she starts heading for the entrance. There's a whole gang of bikers parked not far down from her; they don't pay her any attention at all. Past them there's a couple big boys just getting out of their truck; one eyes Carol up as she passes, lust clear in the look. Stocky as she's grown to be already, and even in the baggiest clothes that she can get her hands on, it isn't difficult to tell she's a girl. She only sends him a smirk. She's not afraid.
She's learned by now. Size isn't important when you can do what she can. In fact, she's learned to enjoy schooling others in this. Thoroughly.
"Alright, I'm sure you know the drill, need some I.D. and..." The bouncer guarding the entrance of The Warehouse stops short when he actually lays eyes on Carol. "Jamie."
"Hey, Hunter."
"Damn. What's it been, two weeks? I was startin' to wonder if we'd ever see you again."
She'd been on 'vacation' with her mother. Which is to say, her mother had wanted to go see Carol's aunt and hadn't given Carol any say in the matter. "Come on," she answers Hunter, smirking, "you couldn't get rid of me if you tried."
"Hell. Who's tryin'?" He answers back, wiggling his eyebrows. He stamps her hand with the symbol that passes her as of age, even though she isn't quite yet. "Go on in. An' hey, any chance I'll, ah, see you later?"
"I knew yah'd miss me." That, and a wink is the only answer she gives him. It's entirely possible she'll find herself in the mood for what he's offering later, if she thinks she can risk it time-wise. But tonight she's got a much more prominent itch that's just begging to be scratched.
The crowd tonight isn't too disappointing, but she's seen it on better nights. She makes it up to the bar with ease and flags down the bartender. The girl behind the counter recognizes her as easily as Hunter had, and doesn't wait for Carol to say anything further - she lays down a beer and a clipboard with a list of names. Carol adds 'Jamie F.' onto the end of it, tosses it back to the girl. Snatches up her beer, turns around, and starts sizing up the crowd surrounding her.
Now all she has to do is sit and wait and watch the others already in the cages set up. Sweet release is just a few minutes away.
She downs her beer pretty quick and flags a girl down for another. It does her little good, she know she won't get drunk this way, but it helps her blend in.
She's not the only woman around. She never is. Bar flies swarm this place, some of them little older than Carol, some of them twenty years her senior. All dressed provacative. Some tend the bar, other's dart about the rest of the warehouse floor with clipboards similar to the one Carol had been handed. Some flirt with the men crowding the cages and preparing to step inside them, offering an entirely different brand of entertainment - probably for a price. And they have plenty of customers. Money changes hands fast here.
Carol remembers coming here for the first time, four years ago. At only thirteen, she'd been a good few inches shorter than she is even now, and though she'd had a strength far disproprtionate to her awkward and heavily under developed body, her skill had been somewhat lacking, and she'd known it just by watching the guys stepping into the cages. But Hunter, he'd snatched her up and taken her to his brother, who began teaching her.
She learned fast. Almost as though she was made for this. By the time she hit her fourteenth birthday, he declared her ready. She lost twice in the beginning, and hadn't lost at all since.
Usually, she'd be working it out about now, whether she wanted to make her fights quick and clean or whether she wanted to put on a show for her audience. She's gained a bit of a reputation by now, and is well aware of this. But tonight...tonight she's in no mood for any extra showmanship. After spending two weeks cooped up with her snooty cousins and bobble-headed aunt... something inside her head is pacing restlessly in the cage she shoves it in. It won't keep contained forever. This is the safest place for her to let it out.
"Oh shhhit." The words spat out in a woman's oddly familiar voice, and before Jamie can do or say anything she's being doused with a healthy dose of the same cheap beer she's been drinking.
Ugh. It's in her hair. "Hey!" She near growls. "Watch where yahr goin', you..." The last word dies on her lips as she looks up to see who the culprit is. The room is crowded, the lights are dim, and there's too many foreign and vaguely unpleasant scents assaulting Carol's sensitive nose for her to pick out one from another, but she's almost positive the woman standing before her with a now empty tray in hand is the new waitress her mother had hired for the diner.
Her hair is down for once. Long dark waves fall with a streak of stark white to either side, and she seems a little less fake this way.
Recognition dawns behind the woman's eyes. She doesn't look scared or worried or apologetic. She looks like she's processing. "Sorry, hon." She says. "Slipped. Easy to do with so many people around. But, hey. Good luck up there." She nods towards the nearest cage, and darts back off to get lost in the crowd.
Warning bells start going off somewhere in Carol's mind, but...but...what even just happened? She doesn't understand, and before she can start to try and figure it out, her attention is drawn back to the fight she's supposed to be waiting for.
"Listen up here, guys and gals. We got a treat for you tonight!" An announcer with a loud speaker - Hunter's brother, actually - places himself in the largest cage, the one right in the center of the room. "Our undefeated guest here," he gestures towards the man leaning against one wall of the cage, "has requested his next opponent be none other than... Wild Thing!" The crowd erupts into cheers, forcing him to pause a moment. "Who! Who, I'm told, has just arrived and has yet to face anyone. So where's my girl at?"
Carol begins shoving her way through the crowd, trying to forget about the strange woman and eyeing up her challenger as she catches glimpses of him. He's tall and beefy, all muscles and tribal tattoos and an oddly contentious mohawk. Somethings different about him. Something...his eyes. She meets them for a brief moment, and she thinks she sees... Are they reflecting gold in the overhead lights?
Gold. The same wolf-like yellow that hers fleck with when she gets worked up.
Well. This might prove to be fun.
She shucks her jacket and the flannel shirt, tossing them to one of the girls that mills around the cage to serve just such a purpose. Smirks as she steps up and greets Hunter's brother.
"Here she is, here she is! Hellooo beautiful." He shouts to the crowd, playful, as he throws an arm around her, leaning in close enough to murmur to her. "This guys been here kickin' ass since we got things started for the night hours ago and he ain't slowin' down. Watch that pretty little ass of yours, gorgeous, this ones dangerous."
"My pretty little ass is in just the right kind of mood to kick his for thinkin' to challenge me." She winks back, cocky. "I got this."
The announcer shrugs and brings the speaker back up. "Alright then! Now just to be sure we all know the rules of the big ring here, three rounds won's a match, KO's only require a count of five - space it out, folks, lets be fair -, aaand," he gestures to a string hanging down above his head - it trails up to a large old church bell that's hung down from the ceiling, "three rings is a tap out! Other than that, well, anything goes! It's show time!"
The crowd erupts into more cheers. Left alone now in the cage with her challenger, Carol rolls her shoulders a bit, ready for whatever he's about to throw at her.
Her opponent tilst his head, watching her. "Funny, I wasn't expecting you to be a girl. And just a kid, too. You don't look like much."
"Famous last words." She fires back.
"You think you'll beat me?"
"I think there's a damn good chance you ain't never gone against someone like me before."
"Oh, I'm counting on it." He takes a fighting stance. "Don't expect I'll go easy on you."
"Let's just do this, asshole." She dips into her own fighting stance, fists up.
He throws a punch, aiming a little high, clearly unused to fighting an opponent who's so small. She dodges with ease and responds with a fist aimed at his ribs, not using her full strength yet, just testing him. His response is automatic; he blocks the hit with ease, dancing out of the way. He's fast. For a moment they just circle the cage, each deciding what move they want to make next.
He darts forward first, his fist aimed lower this time, the move calculated. He's fast. She dodges, though, sweeps to the left and uses the momentum to send her own fist flying towards his ribs. She hits home this time. He staggers to the side, swings around, and clocks her in the jaw.
Damn.
They circle eachother some more, thinking again now that each has an idea of what the other can do. Finally, he darts forward again, and Carol's not playing anymore. She dips down just at the last moment, sweeps a leg around to cut his out from under him, hauls back as his knees hit the floor, and swings her fist around to fly into his cheek. He's fast. But she's small, and always faster.
He hits the wall of the cage hard enough to be staggered, and the first round goes to her.
He drags himself to his feet. "Not bad for a runt." He grunts, cracking his neck.
Her eyes narrow as she wipes a drop of blood from a split lip that's just healing. Runt? "Oh, you ain't seen anythin' yet."
And then the fight really begins.
Punches, kicks, he even pulls at her hair once or twice just to try and immobilize her. The longer it's drawn out, the more angry she finds herself becoming. No one keeps up this long against her. No one. She can smell the anger growing on him too. The same feral rage, though when she meets his eyes she sees satisfaction. He's enjoying this on some level.
Truthfully, she is too.
They go back and forth for a while. He wins the second round, and the third. Then she wins again, and now their down to the wire. Time to pull all the stops. She'd seen the fights in the big ring get pretty brutal - no one was kidding when they said 'anything goes'. And by now the bets being passed around the crowd around them will have skyrocketed, which means the amount put in her pocket will have done the same - and her truck needs new tires. So she doesn't hesitate. They're both beginning to tire, but as tiny as she is, she can still move faster. As soon as the announcer calls for the last round to start, she flies forward and throws all of her weight into slamming him back against the wall of the cage. He swings a fist wildly, catching her in the jaw again, enough to daze her some, but she gives him no quarter. She hauls back and lets loose a feral snarl as she sends her fist flying into his stomach, hopefully knocking the wind out of him. It works. He goes half limp. She lets him go and watches as his knees give out and hit the floor again. Gasping to catch his breath, he looks up at her with eyes flushed more gold than hazel, now.
Hazel. His eyes are the same exact color as hers.
This realization couples with another and gives her pause. He scent. Something about his scent is...just, different. Wild in such a way that it almost seems more animal than human, which is why she can pick it out above anything else she's smelling.
Coughing and gasping for breath, he meets her eyes. "Come on, then, half pint. Finish it."
Ugh. Half pint. Well, now he definitely deserves it.
She throws one last punch, an uppercut, slamming his head back. He collapses entirely and the crowd tears into the count down with no hesitation, then erupts into raucous cheers, shouting 'Wild Thing, Wild Thing' as she throws a fist up into the air. Just because of her opponents last comment, she snatches the speaker from the announcer as he enters the cage. Makes a show of glancing back at her opponent, eyebrow raised as she rolls her shoulders again. "So, ah. Who's next?"
The crowd erupts again, and Carol just smirks.
...
The beast is more than satiated. The chunk of change she'd just earned is satisfying enough, and she still has at least three hours before she needs to be home for the night.
Naturally, she wanders off to find Hunter.
"Well hello, beautiful. Caught a few glimpses of you up there in the big ring. I was like, damn, that's my girl."
"Eh, I do what I can." She winks. "You still up for, ah..." She looks him over, shimmying her shoulders suggestively.
"Back of my new truck is covered." He answers. "So, hell yeah I am."
Incidentally, this only takes up another twenty minutes, maybe. Not that she's complaining. Any longer and they'd start to be bothered by the cold, anyway.
"I gotta get back over there, they'll be wonderin' where I went."
She pulls him back to devour his lips one last time, nipping at them so they'll be reddened, and scrubbing her hands through his sandy blond hair to make sure it's good and mussed up. "This way, they'll know, eh?" She grins wolfishly as she gets his hair just right. Undoes one of the buttons on the shirt he'd just put back on while he swats at her hands playfully. "There you go."
"They'll know it was you, is what they'll know." He rolls his eyes.
She shrugs. "I seem like the kinda girl who gives a shit?" She presses one last kiss to his cheek and flashes him a wolfish grin before jumping out of the truck and...
Stops short, sniffing the air. She smells him before she sees him. Turns around slow, and there he is, leaned against the truck casually, hands stuffed in his pockets. "Clearly, you aren't." He answers the question she'd directed at Hunter.
Hunter climbs out behind her before she can answer. "Oh." He blinks at the large figure leaned against his truck. "Erm. Somethin' you needed, pal?"
"Just a chat with the little princess here. Alone."
Hunter's jaw sets. "Jamie?"
"I'll be fine." She answers, gruff.
"I'll just, ah, have my smoke over here, then." He hands her a cigarette from his pack and wanders off a few paces, only just far enough. If she yells, he'll hear. She appreciates this, although she has a feeling he'll be little help if she's found trouble.
"So who the hell are you, anyway?" She asks, stalking forward a few steps to face the tall man. "I'd remember a face like yours if I'd seen it before." She lights her smoke.
"I'm just passing through." He answers, calm. Clearly unbothered by her hostile tone. "Heard your name start to come up, thought maybe I'd found myself a worthy opponent."
He's good. There's no physical way to tell he's lying, at least none that she can see, but there's just the faintest hint of nervousness in his scent. She's yet to meet anyone who can lie without at least a trace of apprehension making itself known in some form. She takes a drag from her cigarette, blows smoke at him as she replies. "Wrong answer. Try that again, and I walk."
A smirk tugs his lips upwards. He holds his hands up in surrender, placating. "Ha. Your a real pistol, aren't yah? I just wanted to be good n' sure I was right. But if you can sniff out a lie like that, there's no question." He looks her over. Something behind his eyes shifts, changes. Softens, just a fraction. "Damn. See now me, I'm not all that much like him actually. Got lucky. My mama's boy, through and through. But you...you're his spittin' image. I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. Easy now, princess," he sobers some, clearly sensing her growing tension, "I'm no threat to you."
"Call me princess one more time and I'll break your nose." She says, decidedly not in the mood to play games. "What do you want?"
"You already did break my nose. Don't tell me you didn't hear that. Hurt like hell, by the way. All healed now, though, so no hard feelin's I guess." He shrugs, flippant. Looks her over. "I can't help but notice, you don't seem to be too much the worse for wear either. Had enough energy left to come all the way out here and knock boots with the bouncer, that's something. Oh, right. Sorry again. I haven't answered any of your questions. What I want, who I am, it's all tied together, but I'm not sure you'll believe me too well if I give it all to you now, you understand."
He heals like her. He's got senses like her. He can fight like her. "Don't seem like you got much to lose, just try me."
He shakes his head. "No. Not now. I want you to sleep on this first, but I do need to warn you. There's someone up this way that's lookin' for you. Someone that's known for being trouble."
"I can take care of myself."
"I saw and felt that, Princess, but it's hard to guard against something if you don't know it's comin' in the first place. This guy, he's like us. Just like us. So I'm your warning. Watch your back, and I'll come find you again soon."
Fair enough, Carol supposes. She nods once, and watches as her new 'friend' walks off to disappear back inside the Warehouse.
"Sooo...the hell was that about?" Hunter comes up to ask her.
"Don't know." She shrugs. "But somethin' tells me I'd better get home."A few days worth of business-as-usual pass, but Carol isn't stupid. She knows better than to forget the strange encounter. In fact, it puts her increasingly on edge. The fact that nothing of interest is happening around her...she feels like she's waiting out the calm before the storm. She just doesn't know the nature of the storm yet.
Incidentally, the waitress at the diner - Anna - doesn't miss a beat when next she sees Carol. It's as if nothing happened, save for the way she eyes Carol up as if she knows...
...
"Oh, it's such a lovely day - you know what sweetheart, I'm glad I left Danny to close up the diner tonight." Her mother's chiming voice calls from the kitchen.
Carol peers out the window and is greeted by the sight of a sky turning all the prettiest shades of pink and orange. "So am I." She answers, meaning it. "You work too much, Ma."
"What can I say? That diner was my dream when I was your age, even. Stews about ready, how about you get us some bowls and plates and we'll eat outside?"
Carol shuffles into the kitchen and sets about the task happily, placing a kiss on her mother's cheek as she goes.
Sometimes she kind of hates her life. And then there are nights where her mother actually acts normal.
The evening is peaceful calm. There's a breeze, but it's barely strong enough to rustle the grass. Carol sets the table on the patio up for dinner and then pauses a moment, breathing in deep and enjoying the...
Breathing in deep again.
She's imagining it. Or..or it's just an animal. They get cougars up here, on occasion, that's kind of what it smells like, a big cat. But they never wander this close to the house and the breeze isn't strong enough to carry a scent too far...
The breeze picks up again just for a moment, and when she sniffs the air again, the scent has vanished.
"Carol?" Her mother's slips out of the house with a bowl full of cornbread muffins and butter to put on them.
Wild Thing takes over. Pause a minute, ignore the old woman a moment longer, try to reach out with her senses, try to...it smelled like a cougar, but not. The guy in the cage days ago, he'd smelled like an animal, but not. Just like Tierney does, too. The not-a-cougar is gone now but...but...
"Honey, what's wrong?" Her mother's tone turns a little more urgent.
Carol hadn't realized she'd stepped down off the patio. She's down in the grass now, tensed, poised as if she's in the cage readying for a fight, and it's startling. Instinct had taken over without her giving it permission.
It could have been a cougar. But somewhere in her gut Carol knows that's not the scent she'd picked up.
"Nothing." She forces herself to relax. There's not a lot she can do about it now and if she rushes her mother back inside she'll just stress the older woman out over what's possibly nothing. On top of that, if someones watching, and that's a big if, it won't do any good just now to let them know she knows. So she heads back up the steps just behind her, joining her mother at the table. "Just..thought I heard something."
...
And then she smells it again.
It's Saturday and she and her mother are just leaving for a half shift at the diner. (Her mother's favorite manager got sick, and Carol hasn't wanted to leave the older woman's side.) It's been a warm but blustery summer day, and Carol stops to tie back her wild mane of brunette waves, and just as she lifts her hands to her head she stops dead in her tracks.
The wind carries the scent better. It's stronger. Wild Thing knows that it's not a cougar.
"Carol?" Her mother calls, already at the car, worry etched on her face now and making shallow frown lines cut deeper.
"You know what, I'm..I'm getting a headache." It's not a very good lie. Carol doesn't get headaches. Carol doesn't get sick, period, hasn't since she was about twelve, though she's carefully faked it few times for the sake of appearance.
"A headache?" Her mother skirts back around her car, reaching out to feel Carol's forehead. "You don't feel feverish. Is your stomach sick?"
"No. I'm ok, Ma." She snatches up her mother's hand and squeezes lightly. "I just, I'm gonna go lie down. I'll come out to the diner a little later, see if you need the help."
"Oh. Well. You're sure you're alright?"
"Yeah, Ma, I'm sure."
The older woman looks skeptical, like she's debating with herself, but someone has to go and run things at the diner and Joan hates to have to call in anyone else on Saturdays. "Well, ok. Go lay down and then I want you to call me when you wake up."
"I will, Ma. Get going so Phil can go home."
The older woman leaves. Carol watches her go and blows out a breath once the older woman's car is out of sight. With her mother out of the way, she's got less to be worried about.
The wind picks up again. Carol breathes in deep, but only picks up the barest hint of that odd scent this time. "Ok." She mutters, eyes scanning the trees surrounding her house. And then, louder, almost shouting, "Whoever the fuck you are, why don't you just bring it on already!"
No response, of course.
Carol shuffles back inside. Plops herself in the living room, on the couch, television playing some kind of random nature show with the volume on low. Gets to her feet, paces the room. Opens a window. Gets no hint of the scent on the breeze this time. Sits back on the couch.
This goes on for over two hours.
Carol's nerves are just about fried.
And then there's a knock at the front door.
Already on her feet, Carol's fists clench. Her knuckles start to itching something feirce and a low growl rumbles up her throat, the noise barely human. Someones been toying with her for weeks. If they have the nerve to walk right up to her front door now, she won't bother with any niceties herself. She stomps up to the front door, takes the handle in a fist that's trembling with rage and apprehension, and yanks open the door with a snarl already parting her lips.
"Oh - ah, hello." It's a woman. Grown, maybe, but not too much older than Carol. She offers up a hesitant, sheepish smile. "I'm - I'm really sorry to bother you, it's just that my cars got a flat, I'm supposing the leak was a slow one, I'm stuck just up the road here and I'm already using my spare and of course my phones not getting service. Do you have a phone I could use?"
Carol stares at her a moment, hazel eyes wide and wild and quite possibly still flushed a bit with gold, though the stranger doesn't seem to notice. After a moment, she blows out a breath and her thoughts manage to catch up with her. "Phone. Erm. Yeah. Yeah, we've... I've got my cell, it'll work. Hold on." She closes the door halfway and darts into the living room to grab her cellphone, then wanders back over to hand it to the girl on her front porch. "Here yah go. Got someone you can call? I can, ah, get you the number for a tow truck if yah need it."
"Oh, no, I've got a number, thank you. I'll just be a moment."
Carol leaves her to it, wanders back into the house, rakes her still trembling hands through her hair and tries to calm herself down. She feels like she's losing her mind.
Her ears pick up on the woman's conversation, just enough to hear that she sounds distressed. Just frustrated, maybe? Ending up with a flat when you're already rolling on a spare would do that to you. Doubly so if it happened only for you to realize your phone wasn't working. There's a knock at the door. Probably just the other woman giving Carol back her phone. Feeling a little calmer now, Carol opens the door with the intention of apologizing...
And staggers back, eyes going wide as her stomach drops. "Holy shit, oh no..."
The woman is splayed out on the porch, Carol's cell still in hand. There's blood pooling beneath the poor thing. The source of it seems, mainly, to be the young woman's neck, which has been clawed open viciously. In fact, if Carol didn't know better, she'd say at first glance that it was the work of a wild cat. But Wild Thing knows better. Her fists clench as her eyes flush almost completely with gold, and she steps carefully over the broken body and out into the front yard. "Bastard!" She snarls the word, knowing that whoever just committed the crime will certainly hear her. "You got some kinda fight to pick, pick it with me, damnit!" She glances back at the dead woman and rakes a hand through her hair again. Oh God oh God oh God oh...
So much blood. The air reeks of it.
Carol collapses as a wave of nausea hits her hard enough to weaken her knees. What little is in her stomach feels quite close to emptying out into the grass before her; she's stuck like this for several moments, unable to catch her breath.
Grass rustles. A twig snaps. Carol catches that scent again, stronger than ever. Not a cougar. Not just a man. Something kind of oddly in between, like Carol herself. All at once, she remembers herself. The nausea clears. Anger takes hold, hot and raw. That itch in her knuckles starts back up and quickly grows impossible to resist; razor sharp spikes shoot out, two from each hand, long and strong enough to cut through metal. She staggers to her feet. "Come on! Face me!"
Something lands in the grass just behind her.
Lands. As in, fell from higher ground, probably the roof of the house. Carol hears the thump, feels the woosh of air being displaced. Taking in a final deep breath and letting it out slow and shaky, she turns around.
Oh shit. It's a he. And he's massive. Probably standing at well over six feet, he must weigh at least two of Carol. "Are-are you going to kill me?" She asks, tears welling up and spilling over without her persmission. She can't fight this. She'll try, but there's no way she'll win. Even being as fast as she is, he'll get one blow in and she'll be down for the count, and then who knows what he'll do with her.
He tilts his head at her, letter-perfect like a cat eyeing up it's dinner. "Kill you?" He rumbles, his voice a deep half-growl of a rumbling baritone. "Now just what is it your brother fed yah, anyhow? Why would yah think I want to kill you?"
Carol shakes her head. "You - you tore her up." Gesturing to what's left of the poor woman who just wanted to call up a ride home. "I doubt she deserved it."
A smirk plays at his lips, though his eyes remain calculating as he studies her. "Been tryin' for weeks to get yah good and worked up. Figured, if this didn't get your attention..."
Anger. Carol feels the reaction physically; feels the affect of her veins flushing with a fresh dose of adrenaline. Her heart rate speeds up and her control starts to slip as Wild Thing howls with rage. "You'd kill someone just...just..."
"Oooh." His smirk grows; one sharp fang peeks out from beneath his lips. "Look at those eyes. You're a pretty little one."
"What do you want from me?"
"Oh, nothing you'll be too likely to give me just yet, sounds like. Guess we're gonna have ta do this the hard way. " He lifts a hand and Carol's eyes zero in on the claws that a grow outward.
Coherent thought leaves her entirely. Wild Thing takes over at the issued threat and charges the massive feral. His smirk turns to a fang-baring grin; he takes her by the shoulders, stops her in her tracks and tosses her like the rag doll she is to him. She flies forward and straight into the house - through the large bay window dominating the one wall of the living room.
Normally a fall like this might've slowed her down. As it is, she pays no heed to the cuts scattered over her body, or the wrist she sprained trying to stop her momentum. She pulls out the largest shard of glass embedded in her wrist and backs away slow as her opponent jumps into the house through the window.
She just needs a minute...just long enough for the cuts to heal.
"Feisty little cub." He looks her over. "Even for a runt I'm bettin' you can do better than that, too." He keeps talking as he chases her across the living room, slow and predatory. "Wonder if that's why Jimmy left yah. Too small. Wouldn't have been much his style when last I talked to him but, ah, he and I ain't exactly on speakin' terms anymore."
The minute the last piece of glass dislodges itself from her fast-healing skin, she picks up the nearest object she thinks might do some damage, hauls back, and hits him with it as hard as she can. It's the coffee table she'd been standing next to. Made of glass and solid metal. She hits him with it so hard, it shatters over his head.
He's staggered, of course.
She flies forward, claws out again, and embeds them in his stomach as he's doubled over. Uses them and her momentum, lifts him as best she can considering how much he weighs, and tosses him into the television - which is sitting on a set that's also made of glass. Which, in turn, also shatters.
Breathing heavy, Wild Thing then staggers back to just watch him as her body finally heals her wounds the rest of the way.
He groans. Which is satisfying. But then he chokes out a laugh, and she abruptly remembers what the man who apparently is her brother had warned her about.
He's like us. Just like us.
Her opponent gets back to his feet, moving slow but clearly not too much the worse for wear. "Damn. You're Jimmy's girl alright." He cracks his neck, rolls his shoulders. Stalks towards her.
Wild Thing stands her ground, unsure of what to do. Can she wear him down? Or should she just run? He's a feral mutant, stronger than her. It's possible she can't wear him down, but then if she runs, it's also possible there's nowhere she can go that he won't track her down again.
"What do you want from me?" She asks again, more desperate this time.
"What I want is to make sure Jimmy doesn't get his claws inta you. Put all of his funny ideas into that pretty head of yours."
"Who the hells Jimmy? My father?" That would make sense, she realizes hazily. Why else would her mother have named her Carol James? "My Ma ain't even mentioned his name before, I don't know him, you got nothin' to worry about - about..."
He starts stalking towards her again, shaking his head. "Now your brother knows about you. No way Jimmy won't get to yah, eventually. You're comin' with me."
Carol backs up until she hits the dining room table. Tries to scramble around it, trips over a chair, falls on her ass and...
"Carol?" Her mother's voice rings out, loud and panicked. "My God..." Footsteps sound on hardwood as her mother sprints into the house, and then comes to a dead stop. "No." The words choked out now, and barely. "Vic-Victor, no, not her. She's not...she's not like him. It's been..I'd know by now if..."
The massive feral, Victor, turns slow to face Carol's mother. "Not like him?" He chuckles. Glances back at Carol with an eyebrow raised. Faces her mother again, outright guffawing now. "You mean she ain't told you?" He continues laughing, seeming genuinely tickled. "Oh, that's good. You'll have plenty to talk about, then."
"Mom." Carol calls. "Mom, just...run!" The screech makes it past her lips just as Victor lunges for her mother. Chaos ensues. Her mother dodges, darts into the living room and snatches up a shard of all the shattered glass, turning to face Victor with an impressively little amount of fear. Carol scrambles back to her feet, still screeching at her mother to run, claws once again extended. And then, from somewhere far outside it all, a massively loud bang reverberates into the house and through the trees surrounding it, making birds scatter with a frantic flutter of wings.
Carol and her mother both stop dead as Victor is thrown back to hit the wall several feet away, a rather large hole blasted straight through his stomach.
Carol takes a moment to stare blankly at Victor, until her thoughts catch back up with her. And then she's stalking over to the window, claws still out, letting herself keep riding the adrenaline rush, ready to face down whoever the hell just brought such a powerful shotgun to the party.
"Carol." Her mother murmurs shakily. "Carol James...what in the hell?"
Carol glances back at her mother and isn't suprised to find the older woman is staring down at Carol's claws. She doesn't have time to be worried about that though. "Stay here, Ma." She says, voice low and gruffer than usual. She jumps through the window, landing quietly on the front porch, skulks forward slowly...
"Look at you, half pint. Alive and kickin' after facin' Sabretooth one on one, that's impressive, I gotta admit." It's the guy she'd faced in the Big Ring at the Warehouse weeks earlier. Her brother. He's standing calmly in the middle of her front yard, leaning casually against a tree with a large double barreled shot gun hanging down from one hand.
She tilts her head at him. "...the hell did you come from?"
"Never never land." He replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. A smirk plays at his lips. "I know I was a little late to the party, but ah," he holds up the gun, eyebrow raised, "I just wasted one 12 guage shell full of pure adamantium shot puttin' his sorry hide down for the count. You're welcome, Princess."
Laughter escapes her lips, incredulous and maybe slightly hysteric. "Right. Thanks. Uhm..how, how long will he...?"
"Eh. A while. Old man doesn't heal as fast as he used to, and that adamantium will tear you up good no matter how well you heal. We'd better get a move on all the same. We can take my car or you can grab your truck and follow me. Assuming your fit to drive."
She needs a minute. She can't think, can't...her hands tremble violently as she rakes them through her hair and tries not to let her eyes fall on the woman still laying bloodied and very dead on her front porch.
No time, there's just no time.
"I ain't leavin' my truck. I'll..just, let me get my Ma."
He nods. "Hurry. Oh. Names Jack, by the way."
"Jack. Ah. Do me a favor and..don't go anywhere with that bad boy just yet." She nods at the shotgun.
He smirks as he brings it up to pat it almost affectionately. "Don't worry, Sister. I got your back now."
