Le Manoir du Diable

[Cicada]

'How the fuck do you forget to use protection?' First thought that came to mind, faster than knee jerk post doctor hammer. Kelly wasn't particularly ribald as far as she was aware, it was definitely a bit of a swerve. One of those other little oddities of life she'd have to file away and stop ignoring in a place safer and dryer than this. A place like a land of the free, and a home of the assembly line, bargain-price deodorant. She'd only grown used enough to Lucas' smell to tolerate it. No more than that.

Tonya's all-access and exposé laugh proved a good deal more grating in its novelty. Shin bone found nearly sky high for that one.

"In the heat of the moment." Kelly sighed that over-dramatized affect of hers once more for flavor. Tasting it, testing it like a Costco sampler. A bit too sugary, but it was at least momentarily filling. It rung in her ears, how much she seemed to possess emotions of a genuine stock. Plenty more left on the shelf, too. She liked it: tactically, spiritually, so on.

"I tried," she emphasized with a thin whine. "To do right by her." A nervous pause, for breath unneeded. Hyperventilation aloud. "Obviously it didn't work out. But I take the blame. I get to live with her last breaths. Sleep on them. They weren't pretty. My fault, but..."

She trailed off. Haunted by the memories just as phantom-like, in how they weren't particularly of substance.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Lucas grimaced under Tonya's harsh laughter. When she put it like that he felt more than a little foolish. Like his optimism was misplaced. Maybe it was. He would be lying if he said a little part of him didn't trust her. He sincerely wanted to believe in Kelly's story, that there wasn't anything more to it than what she had already told them. Nick killing Beryl wasn't murder, this much he knew. So why couldn't this also not be murder?

Kelly spoke now, sounding sad as she spoke about what happened. As she trailed off, gingerly he placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze and offering a sad smile.

"Look, Tonya," Lucas said. "I get that it is hard to believe. Really I do. But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt because..."

Be paused, hesitating to finish. He inhaled deeply, steadying himself as he prepared to continue.

"Back on the first day of... all this, I saw Beryl die." He voice cracked a little, emotion seeping its way into his tone. "Nick didn't murder her like the announcements tried to make it seem. Darlene... Darlene Silva shot her. On accident. She didn't know how to work the gun. Beryl was trying to help her and... she got shot. Beryl couldn't move and..."

Tears started to form in his eyes as he remembered what had happened. Remembered his failure...

"I-I tried to hep but I... couldn't. Nick showed up and... and..."

He found himself trialing off now, the tears flowing now as he started to breakdown.

[Emprexx Plush]

Well if he was aiming for pity that got them there. Tonya didn't buy Kelly's story, not for a second, but Lucas was wrapped around her finger so tight she wanted to feel bad for him, but it was kinda pissing her off. All this shit about Beryl and Nick and Darlene, it was a bunch of names she couldn't place in the heat of it. She'd heard them, sure, but like near everybody else round here they were ghosts to her, nobody out in the woods making hard decisions on her watch y'know? So he caught a bad scene and now he wanted to give a pass to anybody with a body count? Easily a dozen bodies dropping every day but this boy still wanted to give everybody a fair shake?

Fine.

Tonya didn't have any moral high ground to push here, a couple things went different and maybe the two of them would be trying to question her. Still might go the other way on that one. If they wanted to live in this fantasy world though, that was with them. The tension left her arm with a sigh. "If that's the way you wanna play this that's on you. Mercy, Doesn't make much difference to me. I don't remember her name so if you think I'm gonna come in for revenge or something you can ease off." No more tension, but she didn't move. Her eyes stayed up on the doorway chewing on her cheek. "One thing? Either y'all start eyeing me up and feeling a lil' mercy tugging in your chest?" Her hand tightened. "You bury that deep and forget where you left it. I am not the one, hear me?"

[Cicada]

.

.

.

"I don't think I could do it... No. Not again."

She believed herself in the best-feeling way. She meant it for as long as circumstances dictated. It was easily believable, as far as she was concerned.

She'd heard Lucas' story before, of course. In a moment about as intimate, give or take the obtrusive voice percolating in the other room. Lucas hadn't then trusted her with the weakness he'd now shown her. He hadn't flipped over to her the side of himself best struck with the knife. In that moment she could feel a radiating sympathy for him. Uncomfortably warm, one layer too many to wear. Only so many burdens she wanted to take responsibility for bearing.

Still, she stood at his side. A hand on his shoulder, wearily delicate given his tendency for male gaze.

"Hold on."

She shushed his tears with the suggestion of a finger to her lips. A smile, meaningful as it was meaningless. Dependent on who was looking at it- her side of the story, or otherwise.

In a confident stride she crossed the thresholds between their rooms and held up both hands in her lackadaisical interpretation of surrender. Palms empty. Well-framed shot, if you asked her.

"See? No ulterior motive. That's, uh... not me. Never will be." She, Kelly Nguyen, was a girl defined by others. What was asked of her, what was expected of her. What was to work to her advantage.

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Lucas managed to collect himself as he felt Kelly's delicate hand on his shoulder. He looked to her, tears in his eyes, and saw her smile. It was a small thing, but it meant something enough to help him feel somewhat better. He rubbed his eyes to clear the tears away, and returned her smile. He didn't know whether or not if it truly mattered to her, but even if it was meaningless to her, it meant something to him.

Kelly moved away from him, hands up, to enter the threshold between rooms.

Lucas shifted uncomfortably, but didn't stop her. His grip on his gun tightened as he silently watched her as she tried to prove she had no hostile intent. She had a sort of confidence about her that he had to admire, and found alluring in a way. Although, given the current situation his own confidence in the situation was at a low. He liked to believe Tonya wouldn't do anything, but this place changed people. He just hoped Kelly knew what she was doing and that things didn't go wrong.

[Emprexx Plush]

So that's what a killer looks like out here. Beaming and posed looking like a politician stepping out a rally. All proper, no blood on those pretty little upraised hands. Tonya bet she didn't look the girl in the eyes when she went. Poison, right? Coulda dodged being in the same room. Same house. Same zip code for all it mattered. If all this mercy nonsense was her play that was the center of it, deny deny deny. The only way to get the truth out of her would be to hold her down with a knife to her throat, see what kinda story she spins then.

Tonya could do it. Twice as big, easily four times as mean? That porcelain grin wouldn't have time to crack before she was on her, fuck all the waterworks and indignation. Fuck waiting for the twisted ass truth she'd tell too, Tonya knew her score and the little snake wouldn't twist out under her. So why even give her the chance? One swing and she'd be ready to go home. Nobody could say a word about after what they all knew Kelly did.

Except Lucas, who for some reason went and put all his hopes right here. He wasn't saying nothing during her show and tell, and as far as Tonya could figure that meant he'd bought it. She shouldn't care about that, they were all looking out for theemselves now, but...listen. Maybe Tonya wasn't the nurturing type, and she wasn't here to mess around with anybody that got between her and Patrice. As much as she wanted to either cut this girl down or get on out of here though, either one would break Lucas down something major. Way he was acting he couldn't handle another murder, and the second it was convenient he'd serve himself up to Kelly on a silver platter. Once those dots connected Kelly's smile got a whole lot more predatory. She knew, didn't she? This bitch knew, and she knew Tonya knew, and she knew they both knew there weren't shit they could do about it right now that wasn't a big L for whoever was left standing. That's it. That had to be it. It was cold, but it was real.

Tonya smiled right back at her, wide and fake without hiding it cuz her message was loud and clear: go ahead girl, play these games with me. She was gonna see the ice in them veins close and personal real soon, just as soon as she could wake Lucas up to the real world. That could come patient though, time was all any of them had left to spend. "Well if we're all good, maybe we should hang awhile. Sounds like we could all use some peace." Tonya wasn't mind gaming chess playing wheels on wheels or whatever type, but she could ride this one out. Get her one notch and get it doing something worthwhile. Time this was over she wouldn't be a killer. She was gonna save more lives by snatching this one, that was fact.

Maybe then the dreams would stop.

[Cicada]

Kelly knew Tonya knew Kelly knew. Cliche sounding as it was accurate, wasn't it? It was almost insulting, as if to say the two of them were that blatantly obvious that this would be their pedigree of back-and-forth. The sort of tween-but-taller passive-aggressiveness that Kelly had spent the better half of her life drinking down between cafeteria milk cartoon sips. Easy enough, anyways. If Tonya wanted to go for the blatantly chintzy smile Kelly was more than capable of obliging. What was one more day's worth out of an entire lifetime?

Most of that lifetime yet to be lived, anyways. Kelly's brow smiled as much as she herself did. Rising into her bangs, the crevasse atop her eyelid vanishing into unblemished skin. Was BS, then, as light as helium? Ascendant to the heavens themselves?

Kelly was sure, in the karmic cycle of things, that both girls on both sides of the doorframe between rooms held presumptions about their dead to rights to remain silent. However much was unsaid, the obvious remained- that their own was the life worth living. Something something, 'I have a child waiting for me'. It was a fair excuse, Kelly supposed. She bore no explicit ill will against Tonya championing such a cause. It was just one of many, however. Evolution did not pick and choose the best of reasoning. Just the most successful.

She breathed in, expanding her focus onto that ugly visage of sweat streak and day's gone without cleanliness, before rejecting it.

"I think we're good here, Lucas." Kelly smiled sugar sweet, glancing back at her most well-armed of friends. She'd hate to see him left out of the fun. "Let's talk it out."

[TheLordOfAwesome]

"All good here"... Despite those words, Lucas felt oddly tense regarding the situation. It seemed like Kelly and Tonya had reached some kind of accord, but he couldn't help but feel just a slight bit of unease. He felt that perhaps he was reading too much into it. Maybe he really was too optimistic here but he didn't know what else to be. Why could things just be simple? All he wanted to do was make movies with friends, not be caught in the middle of a passive-aggressive stand off on a backwater island.

He just hoped these two were really okay with each other, at least for the time being, so they could work together. Maybe they could even find Camille.

Slowly Lucas made his way over to Kelly, shotgun in hand. He stood next to her and looked through the doorway to Tonya.

He smiled at her, an expression that was both parts relieved to see her and melancholic at their current situation. As previously stated, he'd much prefer he had not been in this situation. But it was good to see a friend here, even if the circumstances weren't the best. At least the situation was deescalated somewhat and they could talk without the threat of death hanging over them. At least, he hoped anyway.

"Sooo..." Lucas said, trying to bring himself into the discussion. "What now?"

[Emprexx Plush]

Tonya looked around thee room, way more intact than she planned on leaving it but still worse than she could have managed. Whose idea was it to hunker down here of all places? It was an okay spot if you could hold it maybe, but with just the two of them there were about a thousand ways in that went bad fast. That's assuming Lucas could post up round a corner with that shotgun and actually use it. Good luck leaning on that when he'd just sobbed his way through admitting he couldn't even shoot somebody that was already dying. What a mess...was this her plan? Did she get something outta being in here? Yeah. Yeah. That was the only way it made sense. She'd talked him into it, had something up her sleeve to get rid of him that Tonya'd busted up. This bitch! At least when Tonya tried to do somebody she was up front about it.

Tonya shrugged at Lucas before pointing to the door she'd slammed open. "Now I think we get out of here, yeah? No offense but you can see this place from all over the damn island, desperate people are gonna start showing up on the daily if we hang here. Y'all wanna avoid trouble, we gotta go." She thought about watching Kelly's face to see if that cracked her, but why give it up like that in front of Lucas? If she was wrong, everything she said was still true, and if she was right she was gonna find out how well little miss mercy did thinking on the fly. Keep 'em moving, keep 'em active, and keep her away from anything they touched. Let's see how long the poor me story held up then.

"C'mon, my stuff's outside. I've got a couple spots we can check."

((Tonya Collins Continued I'm So Fucking Grateful))

[Cicada]

Favorable enough, when the situation for all its mind-numbing complexity happened to break in her favor. Heartening to know that was the balance of the universe's direction. Forward, in case that wasn't too obvious.

Kelly was content in her interpretations.

((Kelly Nguyen continued in I'm So Fucking Grateful))

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Lucas let out a sigh of relief. Now that things had deescalated it looked like they were going to be on the move now. He was gonna miss having a nice bed to sleep in but at least he had people to keep in company.

Lucas followed Kelly as she left, quietly wondering to himself if there was a chance they would find another place to sleep at night that wasn't the hard dirt ground.

((Lucas Abernathy continued in I'm So Fucking Grateful...))