Adah moved to knock on the door of the editor's office, the sobbing stifled as she shifted her weight towards the door. Whatever was on the other side had heard her movement just outside the office. Adah raised a hand to tap on the glass and just before she could touch the door was greeted with--
"
D-don't come in... please." An effeminate voice pleaded.
Who was Adah to ignore a person's request? Her arm fell limply to her side in the darkened hallway. "
Okay."
"
Ummm...."
Adah stood in the hallway.
"
I didn't hear you walk away... are you still there?"
Adah giggled, "
No shit, dude."
Whoever was behind the door seemed to flinch at this, "
Umm...." she stuttered, "
Could you go?"
"
I totally could..." Adah began with a smile, "
But see, I figure you crying has something to do with all the shit going on outside. Maybe a loss or something, I don't know." Adah shrugged, "
But what I do know is that-- honestly, just holing yourself up somewhere and crying is something I've been thinking about a hella long time, kinda thinking of joining you and just bawling right now. Course I don't have much to cry for the loss of is my problem."
Adah paused, taking the woman's silence as permission to continue, "
Anyway-- I got to congratulate you on finding a place where no one, living or dead, was actually going to look-- but, and maybe this is just my half-finished anthropology degree talking, but I think all people long for contact. I think whatever drove you in here wants you to be alone-- but I think you... I think something in you must have fluttered when you heard someone out here." Her body slid down the wall, sitting against a wall opposite the door, "
Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass though."
The woman behind the door sniffled.
"
Besides," Adah's grin turned devilish, "
You've got a cute voice," Adah leaned nearer to the door, "
I'd really like to know the face behind it."
She immediately became flustered, "
Wha--? I-- Well I'm not--! I don't like--!"
"
Pffftt," Adah leaned back, "
I don't like this, I don't like thaa~t!" She mocked the woman, "
All I know is, guy or girl, a tongue is a tongue-- if there's a difference, my tongue will make you forget it."
The woman was silent for a while, but then, unmistakably, Adah could hear a soft laughter coming from behind the glass.
"
Funny and a charmer..." The woman laughed, "
Is there a girlfriend I should be looking out for?"
"
If only..." Adah replied, allowing the laughter to die down before continuing, "
So tell me, Miss...?"
"
Fowler..." She said, stuttering as it came out, "
Ummm, Alexandria, umm... Ria Fowler. J-just call me Ria." Ria moved over, Adah could tell she was pressing her weight against the door-- leaning against it as she sat.
"
Okay, Ria. That's pretty, people usually go with Alex or something." Adah got to the point as Ria gave a nervous chuckle, "
Ria, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the world is ending outside-- what are you doing here?"
She sniffled again, "
I... I-I... I saw... I go--" She stopped in the middle of her sentence, deathly silent, "
Can we... not talk about it?"
"
Okay." Adah sighed, opening up her purse, "
Hey... you mind if I smoke a little?"
(Darius + Levi)
Darius blew out a plume of smoke as his 5th cigarette burned to the butt. He didn't usually smoke this much, but he wasn't going to go to town on himself for it all things considered. He didn't usually have to live through shit like this, either. The adrenaline of driving away from the hell that was LA was wearing off-- the shots fired from the looters, the men who wanted him dead just to do what they wanted with Adah-- seeing his ride flung off a pier into the ocean.
He and Adah had dealt with a lot in the last few hours, that was for sure-- and this was the first real time they'd spent apart since shit had hit the fan. Darius noted how he felt at that. He wasn't worried she wasn't going to come back-- she was better at avoiding the shamblers than he ever could be, and when shit got tough, she was better at taking out the living. She'd killed at least 20 gang bangers and looters to get them out of LA in one piece. He'd needed to ram through one, and shoot some kid gunning for her back-- she'd killed 10 times the living people he had, bloody and violent and she was still somehow fine...
That was what he was worried about. The come down. She'd catch her breath away from him and Levi... and...
Darius opted to put a pin in that line of thinking and light up another cigarette. He set aside the pack and glanced over at the still sleeping Levi.
He'd need the rest way more than me...
(Adah + Ria)
"
Adah?" Ria broke a silence in the air.
"
Yeah?"
"
How long has it been now?"
"
How long has what been?"
"
Okay..." Ria gave a weak laugh and asked again, "
How long have we been... here, I suppose? Talking, smartass?"
"
I dunno..."
"
An approximation?"
Adah glanced at the time on her phone, "
At least two hours."
Ria gave a ragged sigh, "
Yeah..." She coughed, "
I can feel every second..." Ria paused to breath, "
Now's as good a time as any."
"
You sure?"
"
Yeah, It's okay--!" She gasped for air, "
This is how I beat it!"
"
Okay." Despite being on opposite side's of the door, they both knew to stand at the same time. Ria leaned against the glass of the fogged editor's office, her silhouette became illuminated by the light coming from the light of her phone. "
You know..." She said, "
I'm kind of... giddy? A-and nervous of course."
"
Yeah."
She gave a happy sigh, "
What should I be thinking of?"
Adah was silent for a minute, before saying the first thing she could think of, "
Something you love."
"
My Parents!" She shot out brightly, "
It wasn't them that bit me! I know that now... and I'll get to be with them soon..."
Adah only half-listened, it was all she could do to maintain her composure, she mindless said another "
Yeah?" As she loaded her gun.
"
You wouldn't know it, but I liked this place too."
"
You were a reporter?"
Ria laughed, "
No way!" She sighed, "
Just an intern with dreams..." She gave another dry chuckle that ended in a coughing fit, "
I wanted to be the editor! So... In a way this is all kind of fitting." Adah went silent.
"
Adah?"
"
Hmm?"
"
You stay strong too!" Ria was crying-- but they were the type of tears one cries when they're on the precipice of something they've been waiting for, "
The world needs people like you! You gave this dying girl hope, at least!"
Adah scowled, and the two were like that for a while. Two bodies on the opposite sides of a door, one with a gun raised toward the silhouette of the other.
Then, Adah pulled the trigger.
The explosion of the bullet in the enclosed place was loud enough to give Adah a brief white out. When she could hear and see again, there was a smoking bullet hole where the work
'in' used to be on the door, in
'Editor-in-chief'. Ria's body was slumped against the door. Unmoving. That was what happened when you hit the brain, they just died like normal. That was how you "Beat it" according to Ria.
Adah sniffed. "
Yeah."
Adah left the scene without opening the door, she wasn't one to disturb resting places-- whatever Gods there may be probably weren't fans of that. She pulled out the map of town, and with the weak light of her phone, began to guide her way to the her way to the 7/11. She needed some weed. Leaving The Sentinel, she put her earbuds back in.
kapuchu