When the clothes she ordered arrived, Vander retreated to the shower with yet another word of thanks. She set the bag of new clothes on the counter and worked her way out of her old ones. The full-size mirror in the bathroom allowed for her to finally take inventory of her bruises. As Mason had said...her body was dying from the inside out. The purple and blue spots along her spine, the result of lying against the hard ground of the alley, would barely have registered on a healthier body. Her skin clung to her bones, no fat and very little muscle lying in between. Her eyes flickered to the skin at the inside of her elbow. There were numerous scars, the result of clumsy injections with a hypodermic. Too many to count. 

She sighed, climbing into the shower and turning the water on. The sound of the pressurized stream blurred into a dull static. With Lucid, she would have felt as though she were hearing every individual droplet crashing against the walls of the shower. But instead, it was subdued. Even the heat of the water felt lessened. Vander had to turn the heat to a nearly scalding level before she could even feel it. 

She washed robotically, scrubbing away the Zone Beta dirt and grime. As she did so, her mind was racing ahead. Breakfast was going to be an ordeal. She wasn't hungry...rarely was, nowadays. Food made her nauseous most of the time. And right now, when she wasn't on her drug, it would definitely leave her stomach irritated. But she would force herself to handle something small. Toast, maybe something to drink. As soon as it was over, she could return to her apartment and grab a syringe. 

A wave of intense dizziness caught her as she stepped out of the shower, bad enough that she had to steady herself against the bathroom counter for several moments. At this rate, it would be a herculean effort to even last through breakfast without taking off for District 16. She scowled slightly, frustrated with herself, and quickly continued getting ready. 

A few moments later, Vander stepped out of the bathroom. The new clothes fit well, with the addition of her own belt to the pants. Her hair was straighter now that it was clean, brushed over to the right and pulled back off of her face. The shaved left side still marked her as distinctly [i]not[/i] from Zone Alpha, but at least she was clean now. And the worst of the bruise had been covered by makeup. Aside from her obvious exhaustion, she looked almost put-together. She offered a smile to James and Mason as she stepped out, mentally prepared to control her drug cravings until after the three had eaten breakfast. "Thanks," she said, yet again. "Best shower I've had in ages."