Igraine — Roleplayer Guild

The cold water hissed into the porcelain basin like white noise as her grey eyes stared, unseeing into its swirling, un-depth like a medium over her crystal ball. The difference between Bree and this fictional medium was, however, that she was not looking to see a single thing, but desperately to unsee what had just been seen. And she did have a hope, a miniscule distant hope that what she had just witnessed would one day fade from her memory.

There was not a chance in hell she could ever - not ever - un-hear those desperate, heartbreaking cries.

Somehow she managed to pry her desperate, white-knuckled grip from the granite edges of the office restroom sink, cupping them beneath the cold, running water and splashing her face yet again. The water was a cold, welcome shock, and she ran her wet fingers over and over again on her face, her cheeks before she raised her head to look in the mirror.

Bree had probably read a thousand times over, in one novel or another, that so-and-so character had "haunted eyes," whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

She understood now, exactly what that meant. Pink-rimmed and bloodshot, her grey eyes stared back at her from a thousand miles away, desperate, pleading, sickened... Terrified. She thought she had seen so much, so damned much in this shitty, evil world. But this was... It was just...

Bree squeezed her eyes shut. Tightly. And in that moment she just could not give a good damn who walked in on her, or who might see be able to tell the beaded water from those hard-wrung tears.

Victor's defection, the object lesson of his brutal and oh-so-public assassination - that had not been enough. Every snitch turned fed-informant knew he faced that possibility if he ran, that the U.S. Marshal's wouldn't be good enough, smart enough this time or hide him in a hole deep enough to keep the mob off him. Always, always there was that paranoid whisper in the back of his head, that "old friends" would be just around the corner, even the street corner of the podunk town in the butt end of Montana. It was simply... The way of the world really. If you made the company of very bad men, then very bad things might just happen to your limbs and your life if you turned on them.

And yet informants turned on the mob every day. It was almost an expectation really, that someone somewhere would become a rat and snitch out his old buddies eventually, or simply turn tail and run, try to disappear like Victor. That was a status quo, however, that had simply become intolerable. One faction of these very bad men, had been watching the new, brutal wave of the underworld: the Russian mob, the Mexican drug cartels...

Fear. Terror kept their own people in line. Horror kept the local communities and even some of the cops in line as well. Someone in the mob had been taking notes, and doing an awful lot of thinking.

Her name was Marianna. Marianna was 6-years old, with long, wavy black hair and great dark eyes and, from what Bree noted of her first grade photograph, graced by the most impossibly long eyelashes she had ever seen. Marianna had a little brother named Jacob, and a Mommy who loved her so very much, and brushed and braided her beautiful hair every day and told her fairy tales before bed every night.

She also had the great misfortune of a Daddy who knew far too much about "the books," about bad money gotten from doing very bad things. Her Daddy knew what was moved where, and when, and just how much. But her Daddy did not want to be a bad man anymore. He loved his little family so much, he wanted to talk to the very good men, and make things right again.

Marianna and 4-year old Jacob had been missing for some two weeks now. Of course the FBI had been on the kidnappings in an instant, but whoever snatched these kids from their home in broad daylight had been thorough, uncannily thorough and until yesterday, there had been absolutely no word at all. No threats. No ransom demands. Nothing until the arrival of a generic thumb drive at their family home, in an unmarked, untraceable package.

There was nothing on that thumb drive, but a single video.

They had put her in a box, so tiny, like a little coffin. Only a single touch light attached within illuminated the dank space, but it was just enough to give for the pin camera to focus unerringly on her face.

'Oh God... ' Bree whirled around, slammed open the bathroom stall door and fell to her knees at the toilet, heaving absolutely nothing but bile into the bowl until all she could do was try to spit the sticky bitterness from her mouth.

For hours hours, to the very end when there was simply no more air, Marianna had cried, whimpered, begging for her Mommy and Daddy... Bree groaned as she forced herself to her feet, eyes closed as she leaned against the wall of the bathroom stall to keep her upright. Her gut ached with the hollowness, the helplessness.

Jacob might still be alive out there, somewhere. And all the resources of one of the elite investigative agencies on the planet could not produce a single, solitary clue, where to even begin to start searching.

Should you like Kraft, Vasily can be an uncle, cousin or even a big brother to Petya. He is 26-years old, and his little Antonina is about 3-years old. She is undiluted sunshine, a bright little girl with golden blonde curls, wide blue eyes and an eternal smile. She got most everything but her eyes from her Mama who is in heaven. A young hunter would be well known to the woodsman I imagine, very friendly if you like, coming over for dinners on occasion perhaps though Vasily cooks like garbage. Thank heaven for Vasily's in-laws, who adore their little Antonina and help to keep both their granddaughter and their son-in-law well-fed - those nights, of course, would likely be the best night to have dinner guests, I imagine.

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