[center] [img] http://i383.photobucket.com/albums/oo276/metalsonic2nd/78d46da8-cd62-496d-bb45-bc0a6f01e053_zpskrx5azdo.jpg [/img] [/center] [center] [i] How do you mend a broken heart? [/i] [/center] A question that Lynne had asked herself countless times over her short stretch on the earth; with each thorough investigation yielding a different answer. When it was finding herself halfway through her senior prom, suddenly minus a prom date and plus an ex-boyfriend, the answer had been a Friends marathon and a tub of Cheesecake brownie ice cream. When it was a two year relationship, and her dreams of a family, being suddenly and cruelly snatched away, the answer had been late night camping trips, coupled with a fucktonne of MDMA. When it was her entire family being blown to kingdom come, with seemingly no way of finding the person responsible? She hadn’t quite figured that one out yet. But she was getting there. It had started with a two month mourning period, and a three month stint in hospital. After the surgeries and the psychologists, it was quitting the force and taking time to carefully orchestrate her next move. Having just inherited twenty dead relatives worth of cash, she wasn’t exactly wanting for money. But she’d inherited more than just money, and one particular piece of her inheritance had proved to be tremendously interesting. Amidst all of her father’s possessions, there had sat a letter. A love letter to one “Bedisa Taylor”. Bedisa Taylor was not her mother. Bedisa Taylor was a student at Blúdhaven Community College, and Bedisa Taylor was going to give Lynne the answers that she so desperately craved. [center] [i] How do you mend a broken heart? [/i] [/center] Vengeance. Vengeance tastes better than Ben and Jerries, and the high lasts a hell of a lot longer than 200 milligrams of molly. [hr] Mason Belrose lounged in front of the television, the belt which ran through his jeans hanging loosely across his lap. Once upon a time he’d been a nobody. A dropout with no family and no future. Until he’d met a man named Damien Simitiae. The most recent girl that Simitiae had sent him was propped up next to him on the sofa, leaning on his shoulder with those big sad eyes of hers fixed on the television; drinking in the next episode of Rawhide. [i]You ever see a girl look so good in Daisy Dukes?[/i] Mason grinned to himself, stealing another drawn-out gaze at her ass, whilst she looked the other way, pretending not to notice. “C’mere.” Mason demanded, and the girl complied, shifting all 120 pounds of her onto his lap. He ran his fingers across her skin and through her hair, pressing his lips against the soft of her neck. “I’m good to ya, ain’t I?” He asked her. “Yes, daddy.” She replied quietly. He wrapped one powerful arm around her waist, squeezing her gently as the evening slipped away. [hr] [i] Looks like the princess has found herself another prince[/i]. Lynne watched the hillbilly and his whore from her spot, out in the darkness. [i]You were always such a fucking idiot, Dad.[/i] She thought bitterly. [i]I bet you thought you were the only one she was screwing[/i]. Despite all her digging, Lynne had never found any mention of Bedisa sleeping around, or hanging with white trash scum like Mason Belrose. That didn’t mean she was innocent, it just meant she knew how to cover her tracks. [i] What did you see in her Dad? Why throw away your family for that skank? [/i] Her parents had always seemed so happy, and full of life and laughter, right up until the end. She’d been in relationships in the past when she’d fallen out of love with a boyfriend, but to the rest of the world she’d seemed happy and content. [i] Was that how Dad felt? Hollow and tied down, longing to be out of a loveless relationship? Was he too much of a coward to confront Mum? Was Bedisa his easy way out?[/i] Having seen enough, Lynne crept quietly round the back of the house, her feet crunching softly on the gravel pathway. She ducked down below a window, and crept steadily up to the back porch, slipping effortlessly through Mason’s garden, with the night shrouding her every movement. Three years studying criminology, five years on the force, and a lifetime growing up in Blúdhaven. Picking a lock was child’s play.The door was protected by a laughably simple mechanism, and it took a whole twenty seconds of fiddling with a pick and screwdriver, for it to click open. Lynne carefully placed her tools in their pouch, eased the door open, and slipped into the kitchen. Her hand shot down to her satchel, fishing out the mask which was hidden within the leather bag. [i] Mask on. Unleash the beast [/i]. The flick of a wrist. A switch blade in one hand. A .45 Peacemaker stuffed down the back of her pants. Lynne fluttered through the house, her footfalls blending it perfectly with the world around her. It was a small, single-floored building, and the happy couple were making far too much noise for finding them to be any real challenge. [i] One. Two. Three.[/i] She burst into the living room, barging through the door and striding over the coffee table. The whore screamed. The hillbilly swore and jumped to his feet, one hand still down the whore’s shorts, but Lynne forced him back down with her foot. “One word leaves your dumb cunt mouth and I’ll cut off your ear.” Lynne barked at the hillbilly, her voice muffled from behind the porcelain white mask. “You got some nerve-!” Her hand wrapped around the back of Mason’s head, as she jerked him forwards. The switch-blade came screeching forwards in a flash of steel as it shot through the air, and bit into his white trash flesh. This time, both the whore and the hillbilly screamed. She ripped through him, and his ear game away in a splatter of dark carmine. The whore screeched and sobbed, shooting back across the sofa, as the hillbilly clutched at the bloody tatters of his ear. “That was four words.” Lynne said plainly “But I won’t push the point. Do we have an understanding, white trash?” “Motherfucker…” Mason hissed, but otherwise stayed quiet. Lynne turned her attention to the quivering body of Bedisa Taylor. “Alexei Riordan.” Lynne snapped “What does that name mean to you?” “Oh god…” Her voice wobbled “please don’t…” “The past has come calling. Answer my fucking question.” “You stupid bitch!” Bedisa screeched, shooting forward with sudden fierceness “He was a good man! Why can’t you people just let him rest in peace?!” Lynne grabbed hold on the scruff of the whore’s shirt and yanked her forwards in one swift movement. When Mason tried to stop her she struck him with the back of her glove-clad hand. “What do you mean?” She demanded. “Fucking hell…” Bedisa sobbed “I loved him, okay?! And he loved me! You people put him and his family in the ground! What more can you take from him! Crawl back to Simitiae and tell him that Bedisa says he can go fuck himself!” Fighting through tears, Bedisa glared daggers at Lynne. “He’s taken my future, my innocence, and the man I love. There's nothing more he can take from me.” From beneath her mask, Lynne grinned. [i]Simitiae.[/i] She had a name. She struck Bedisa for good measure, then swept back across the room, through the kitchen, and out the back door, scampering away into the night. But still there was that void in her chest; dark and gapping and empty, as it swallowed up her insides. It could never be filled. She could never be satisfied. And no matter how many times she tried to beat it back, she would always need more.