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 [right][b]Interactions:[/b]  The Ground?
[code]The Coven's Lair[/code][/right][hr]

Sloane pretended to feel her phone buzz and pulled it out of her jacket as she caught Jack palming a note and walking her way. She turned to allow him to more discreetly slide the note into her hand and slipped it behind her phone to obscure it from any of the others, blocking the back of the torn page with her hand as she slid her phone down to read the note. Her pulse quickened. The Void Heart should’ve been sealed years ago, but Sloane focused more on the fact that she should’ve been consulted. She may have just ruined the image she had spent years cultivating by admitting to the break-in, but this plan clearly came together before Auri or Britney knew about that. They were just excluding her as always. 

Sloane resisted the urge to turn her head and look at Jack. She was appreciative that he’d informed her, but furious that he hadn’t gotten her involved. Still, she wouldn’t do anything to blow up their spot. She rolled the tension out of her neck as she pocketed her phone and the vanished note. Unhappy as it made her, she’d have to leave the sealing of Void Heart up to their (in)capable hands, hoping that Jack wasn’t overestimating Auri’s cleverness. As if on cue to stir up her bubbling anxiety, she heard the church doors bang open as Leon demanded information on who had just teleported away. Sloane turned, thinking up some excuse for Jack while two fingers massaged her right temple, yet another headache forming thanks to a Coven meeting.

[color=CD5C5C]”Oh, so you do know how to offer condolences, Sloane?”[/color] Linqian sneered, actually surprising Sloane by her sudden appearance that the woman took a step back. [color=CD5C5C]”You didn't even like Ashley. After everything Jinhai did for him, it's the least you could do, bitch.[/color]

Fingers still to her forehead, Sloane could see the second hand on her watch freeze as her eyes narrowed. Linqian, looking near feral, holding a bible high over her head like an exorcist prepared to literally beat the devil out of Sloane with the good book, mouth open in a silent roar. A shattering window, stained glass bouncing off of the floor, several canisters spraying a faint gas suspended in animation. The front door kicked open yet again, silhouettes of armored figures in gas masks with rifles leveled, a badge flashing above their heads through the haze. The second hand began to twitch forward as Sloane dropped to the floor faster than the orders could come out of the badge’s mouth, snaking her arms out of her jackets sleeves and pulling it up over her head in an attempt to mitigate the pain that was about to come next, hands shakily fishing black gloves out of her inner jacket pocket. 

She acted fast, but not fast enough. Hunkered down inside of her makeshift cocoon, Sloane began to cough as her eyes watered, her skin burned, and her nose felt as if Drake was slamming it in again and again. Coughing, shouting, and the hissing of emptying tear gas canisters echoed off the ceiling of the church, creating a mess of unintelligible noises as if the whole building had started speaking in tongues. She didn’t even get the pleasure of hearing, let alone seeing, Linqian eating a taser. Sloane’s mind raced as she tried to formulate a plan as the badge began their countdown: THREE! 

Sloane didn’t even know who was arresting—no, nevermind, she knew exactly who was arresting them. She cursed under her breath. Kali had been missing from the group, and idiots like Adora had distracted them all from noticing. The dishonorable snake had sold them out immediately. Outside of the jacket, her makeshift shelter would appear to shake as if the person hiding inside was having convulsions. Inside the jacket, Sloane punched the hard floor of the church until her knuckles throbbed. Surrender was the smart option, but seeing as how quick the only fed she knew was willing to break their trust a contingency was necessary. 

Sloane grabbed Jack’s note, crumpled it, and brushed it with her faded tarot card like she was striking a match. There was an orange spark beneath the jacket followed by a blue glow as Sloane infused a quick curse into the page that made the paper yellow like an old book with the ends appearing blackened and smoldering, wavering like a shadow of a candle, as she turned Jack’s blank note into an Object of Obsession. She hid her Channeler and balled the note up in her hand. If the countdown ended with gunshots and screams, she’d toss the cursed page and run. It would force enough heads to turn that Sloane could easily scramble to one of the siderooms and buy herself a few more precious moments on this planet before having her life reduced to nothing more than a redacted report in the bottom of some filing cabinet.