Thank you for your patience, tell me what you think!
Two weeks. Two goddamn weeks.
Yang paced holes in the floor of her motel room, mumbling obscenities under her breath. She growled in frustration, clenching her fingers, fighting the urge to pulverize and throw everything in this dingy little room. Frustrated didn't cut it. Yang was livid. Undeniably furious. Smoke gathered on the ceiling from her flaming hair.
Another trail had gone cold. Another potential avenue for hunting down her sister's sniper was long gone, all from one informant's mistake. One wild goose chase had led her in the opposite direction from where this bastard was supposed to be, but by the time she noticed, the sniper was long gone. Then again, the joke was on her. Why put your faith in some random bandit, led by the mother that held the record time for leaving to get milk?
She sat down and took a deep breath, gripping her jean shorts tightly, until her knuckles were white. It was a big mistake. All the hopelessness and despair came flooding in. Yang pulled the dusty, smelly pillow to her face and screamed until her throat was hoarse. When her pity party was over, and her throat was sore, she flung the pillow at the wall and collapsed onto the bed, kicking up a cloud of dust and mites that carried almost to the ceiling.
It was supposed to be so simple. Trace the bullet jacket found in that forest to a seller of antique rifles, find his inevitable black market connection, get the buyer's name, and then happy hunting. Then came the monkey wrenches. Her underground intel was false- she'd spent the entire afternoon interrogating the wrong salesman.
The silver lining? One of the largest Devil Dust drug cartels in Vacuo was just raided and shut down by an angry pyromaniac, but it brought her no closer to finding that mystery man. The obvious downside was missing her mark on the original seller of the weapon. The poor fool was found in a pool of his own blood with a bullet straight through his chest before her interrogation was finished. Back to square one.
She wanted to curl into a cocoon and never come out. Better than telling Weiss- or god forbid, her dad, that she failed to follow a simple trail any junior Huntsman worth their salt could follow blind.
What she wouldn't give to call Blake right now. That hole in her heart just expanded.
"You're losing your touch, Yang. Shape up," She mumbled to herself.
Creak!
The Motel door swung open. Years of disrepair and lack of oil made that door creak more than a stereotypical horror movie. Yang sat up quickly, hands already squeezing the activation latch on her Ember Celica, but the familiar face at the door put her mind at ease. A young man, tan-skinned with curly brown hair and gleaming golden eyes, poked his head through the door crack, waving his hand.
"Don't shoot at me, Teach. I've got your coffee," He mused, not the least threatened by the high-powered shotgun gauntlet aimed at his head. He offered her a steaming paper cup with an absurdly strong smell.
"Coffee. Right," Yang sighed in relief, taking the cup from his hands. Immediately, her nose crinkled. The smell was atrocious- it could singe the nose hairs off a rat. There were still gritting, dirty grinds on the bottom too, although if it kept her awake, she would down ten cups of this sludge and ask for more. "Thanks, Ronan."
"Don't thank me yet." He sat down, pinched his nose, and fired the coffee like a shot of vodka. He stuck his tongue out afterward, trying not to gag. Yang snorted- seeing that focused, determined, almost deadpan face twist and turn like that was a treat. He scowled at her. "Try the coffee and not vomit anything out. I dare you."
"I think I'm good," She replied, putting the coffee down. "Did you find out anything?"
"Scouting isn't easy over here. Everyone is always on edge, but I think I pulled up some interesting information."
Yang leaned forward, interested. "What've you got?"
"Just the logbook," He answered, dropping a singed notebook on the table. The top edges were burnt yellow and black, and the plastic spiral holding the book together was melting, but it was still intact.
"What is that? A diary?"
"A ledger. Even black market hacks need to cover their bases," Ronan answered. "There is a list of names, dates, and methods of payment dating back to six months ago. We may not be able to physically find this guy right now, but knowing his name will be a good start."
Yang cocked a brow. "How the hell do we find this guy's name out? There are dozens in there."
"There aren't that many that would buy that kind of bullet. We could go off that and be set."
Yang relaxed, flopping limply back onto the bed. Another cloud of dust flew toward the ceiling. She winced, thinking of all the dust gathering into her blonde mane. Yang Xiao-Long, the world's biggest dust bunny.
"You're getting really good at this, you know," Yang complimented. That wasn't blowing smoke up his ass either. She didn't order this from him. This was raw intelligent detective work at its finest. Yang considered herself lucky that she decided to take her apprentice with her.
"It does help that I've had a good teacher."
"Flattery doesn't get you anywhere with me." A big fat lie. She was grinning ear to ear. "Anyway, hand it over."
"Mm, not a chance."
Yang raised an eyebrow. "Pardon?"
"Look at you. You're nodding off as we speak. When was the last time you slept?"
When was the last time she slept? The last few weeks were a blur of busting through copious amounts of testimonies, research, and figuring out where to investigate next. After the second night, she promised to catch a couple of hours, just to clear her senses. Ten cups of coffee later, she's running through day four, twitchier than a mental patient.
"I don't have time."
"We have the rest of the day. It's barely morning."
"And this asshole could be halfway across Remnant by now. I'm gonna find this son of a bitch and-"
"Tear him limb from limb in your dreams, Teach," Ronan cut in, giving her his trademark deadpan stare. "I'm more than capable of looking through a ledger. Just breathe and go to sleep."
Ronan was pulling the winning hand on the conversation and Yang hated it. Why couldn't she be the logical and intelligent one in this conversation? The student shouldn't be becoming the master this fast, but she could worry about that later. He had a point. She eased herself back down on the bed, and stared at the window.
The orange glow of dawn beamed through the cheap, plastic shutters, revealing every speck of dust the Huntress was heavily breathing in and sneezing out. The lights blurred away as her eyes closed and she drifted off, not noticing the buzzing from her scroll.
/
Ruby tried calling again, mashing the call button on her scroll before it was ready. "Come on, Yang, please just answer," She whispered, wiping the rolling tears down her cheeks. "I'm about to lose my mind."
"Hey, this is Yang-"
"Yes! Thank God! Yang, I'm-"
"'Comin' at you with a Bang! I'm not here right now, so just leave a message and call me back soon-"
"Goddammit!" Ruby howled, throwing her scroll down on her bed. Dear God, she was losing her mind. "Calm down. Calm. Remember what parts went into your baby. A carbon-laminated titanium frame… with an old Messer sniper fifty-cal- Wait, Weiss!"
In her madness, she forgot. She had her best friend's phone number. She dialed her number in Weiss violently and let it ring. Nothing. It didn't even go to the message log.
"God…"
Something was happening. No, something was about to happen, and she couldn't tell what. It was driving her insane. It felt as though a Grimm was about to burst through the door and swallow her whole.
The room was ungodly silent. The heart monitor was off, and no one had come in to repair it. The hum of the air conditioning was gone. A pin drop would sound like a cannonball in this room. Wasn't someone going to come in and deal with that? They usually would be on top of it before Ruby noticed there was an issue. What changed today?
She gripped the sheets of her bed, mumbling prayers and crying under her breath. Her hands never trembled like this before, even during her first mission as a Huntress. No, this is a different kind of tremble. There was no anticipation or nerves, nor just some adrenaline reminding her of just what situation she put herself in. All she could feel was the absolute dread that something was about to happen.
She shuddered violently. A cold breeze snuck up on her bare skin. Wait a moment.
Who opened the window?
She stared out the window. Her heart was in her throat, and her entire body shook like an earthquake. She could make something out in the distance. A glimmer of glass in the sunlight.
Ruby swallowed.
That could've been a glass reflecting from a wine glass on a beach. This was a popular vacation spot after all.
Crack!
Ruby shrieked, diving rolling off the side of her bed onto her back, instantly recoiling in pain. Despite the throbbing in her back, she curled up into a ball, her head clutched between her knees, and awaited the next gunshot.
"Ruby!"
A strong hand touched her bare shoulder. Ruby couldn't stop the sudden scream that came out of her throat, despite how familiar that hand was. Tobias stood over her, pale in the face, somehow more concerned with her than the gunman outside.
"Toby, what are you doing? Get your head down!" She shouted, reaching to tug him down by the collar, but he resisted and held her hands instead.
"Ruby, your heart. You have to calm down," He said gently.
"Calm down? That crazed bastard could be outside, and you want me to-"
"There is no gunman, Ruby. It's just thunder. There's a storm cloud behind the building," He explained, tightening his grip on her hands. "Just look at me. Everything is fine."
Ruby stared into his eyes and tapered her breathing as best as she could. Deep breathes. Little by little, she could feel her heart again, which was pounding faster than she'd ever felt before.
"There… There's no-"
"No gunman, everything's alright. I'm right here," His brow furrowed, as if trying to figure out why he would say that, but he kept his word nonetheless.
"Right… Right." After a minute of silence and breathing, Ruby could make out everything in the room again. The beeping from the heart monitor never stopped. She just couldn't make it out from the horrific roaring in her head. "I'm really sorry…"
Tobias shook his head and helped her up slowly, helping her back into her bed. While she would've normally complained, this time, it was wholly welcome.
"Don't ever be sorry for how you're feeling,"
"But it was so ridiculous. Nothing was happening. Nothing. But I… I felt like everything was happening at once. I just can't explain it."
"It's only natural. Wounds like this don't just affect the body, Ruby. This is going to stick with you for a while. That gunshot came out of nowhere, Ruby. It's okay to be scared-"
"I'm not scared!" Ruby snapped.
Tobias raised his hands in defense. "Sorry, sorry, I just…"
"No, I'm sorry," Ruby sighed. "I already have a physical report to argue against, the last thing I need is to argue whether or not I'm mentally equipped for the field. She was a Huntress. Taking damage and fighting monsters was the name of the game. She wasn't afraid of anything, let alone some random gunman.
"There's no question you've got the attitude for it."
"If only the Doctors here did too. I haven't seen that many in days."
The cycle had stopped a couple of days ago- there weren't that many doctors that came and went through her room. It had all but stopped entirely. The only souls coming through that door were nurses to change the unnecessary IV they stuck into her vein and the only doctor she trusted at the moment, Toby.
The silence. That damn silence that perpetuated over a long course of weeks was like being stuck in solitary confinement. No one was telling her anything. The few nurses that did come in barely so much as spoke two words to her before taking her vitals, replacing her IV bag, and carting her out faster than they came. All this and Ruby still wasn't allowed to leave. The Huntress was left to pace the brightly lit room, wound up tighter than a drum.
"I asked them to give you space, but I think they took it a little bit too much to heart," He explained.
Ruby offered a weary smile. "Can I just apologize for being an issue-"
"The only thing being an issue right now is your 'sorry's', miss Rose,"
The edges of Ruby's lips pricked up. "Oh no, you called me 'Miss'. Am I in trouble, Toby?"
Just Toby. The formalities were dropped days ago. Ruby had even taken to giving him a nickname. Lately, he'd become more of a very intelligent and sweet friend than someone paid to look after her health. Whether he was genuinely a socially anxious alarm button naturally, or he was just really good at his job, it didn't matter. This was a silver lining in some of the darkest days that Ruby had known since the day her mother died.
Toby shared her smile, along with a chuckle. "Only if you apologize again."
"I might if I'm stinking the place out. Don't think I didn't see that cringe just a bit ago."
"Oh, you're not that bad," Tobias waved it off.
"Give it to me straight, Doc. Do I stink?"
He rested a finger on his chin. "Uh, you smell like someone who's not been bedridden for weeks on end."
"Oh no…"
"I mean, you smell much better than the norm! Far better in fact," He quickly added. "Like, flowers and… you smell the flowers, right?"
"That's the air freshener," Ruby whined, curling up into a ball again. "Can I just fade away, right now? Just reach for the light?"
"Maybe you're freshening the freshener," Tobias managed.
Ruby snorted. "Okay, that'd sound stupid even if he made sense."
"Don't blame a man for trying…"
Ruby relaxed, suddenly feeling weak and tired, but the fact that Toby was here was relieving. Without him, the last few weeks in this place would've been hell.
"Hey, Toby, when this is all over and I'm up and out of here, can you… we-"
A knock on the door took the wind out of her sails. "Excuse me, am I interrupting?" The doctor at the door asked.
Thank you, Doctor, for ruining a prime, grade-A opportunity. Even Toby looked a little put off.
"Not, not at all," He said cordially. "Come in."
"I won't take long, and you can stay here, all things considered,"
"Just so long as it's quick. Ruby needs her rest," Tobias pointed out.
"Then I will be as brief as possible," He cleared his throat. "As of noon today, Ruby Rose must vacate this room. She is officially discharged."