[sub][sub][h3][i]Devi Rana | Regalia Safehouse | Kali Yuga[/i][/h3][/sub][/sub][hr]
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Devi was standing, staring, too stunned to even be afraid.  The television screen may as well have been showing them the end of the world.

Vivian's Comfort Food, she'd refused with a polite gesture. "Thank you, no, you're very kind.  Just... really not hungry right now."  [i]And not going to be held even partially responsible when that bag runs out, either,[/i] she added silently.  She'd stolen a few cautious glances at Hong between swipes across her phone, unable to shake the impression that the woman was noticing her do it, peripherally, each time.  Watching her back with some invisible sense.  Some half remembered caution about staring into an abyss stirred at the back of her memory.  

There were other arrivals.  The lawyer, as loud in person as she was on the phone, whom she'd mostly spoken to remotely when negotiating some rather [i]indelicate[/i] financial requests, and a young woman, unfamiliar, accompanied by an older man whom Devi took an immediate dislike to.  It was the way he walked in as though he owned the place.  

She'd seen it before.  

She'd given him a dark look and gone back to her pensive, circling thoughts.  

And the beleaguered Ms Rana had been the only one who hadn't laughed at Mamushi's rapid-fire cracks.  She hadn't even smirked.  She had only stared at him with awkward concern while he paced and rummaged and talked, and then she'd just... looked away, one foot bobbing nervously in midair.  He didn't look well.  Well, alright, he looked as though he'd spent the last year floating in a cheap nutrient vat in the bad part of Neo-Tokyo, but it wasn't that;  He looked shaken and strung out and regardless of the cocky witticisms that were stumbling a little too quickly out of his mouth, he looked as scared as she felt.  Possibly more.  And everyone else was just chortling away like this was another day at the office.  [i]Was[/i] it?  Obviously she knew most of these people were far more inured than herself, but really?  A [i]sword?[/i]  Wasn't this more or less the hard-boiled equivalent of their sysadmin?  Clandestine activities aside, mortal combat can't have been something he penciled into his calendar.

...What would [i]she[/i] have done, if due dilligence hadn't saved her life?  

She grimaced to herself.  Gone through the window, obviously.  What [i]could[/i] she have done?  All her alleged security had just melted away in the face of her would-be murderers.  

As if they'd known.

She had buried herself in her phone, ruminating bitterly on the thought until Quinn spoke.  And when he did, she leaned forward, hanging on his words, waiting, yearning for the part where he explained how they were going to rectify this disaster and correct everything.

It never came.  

[hr]

And now she was on her feet, with no memory of having stood up, staring at the same thing everyone else was: John M. Ariella, master and founder of one of the most infamous and feared criminal organizations on the continent, reduced to a damning flatscreen obituary.  Beneath the shock and the rapid beating of her overwrought heart, Devi felt a deep, dry emotion flickering in a part of her that had been dormant for years.  

It was too far.  It was unacceptable.  

	[i]“I always thought the Crest was a shit club.” [/i]

"Fuck off!"  Devi's shivering composure exploded like a china teacup.  She whirled on the other woman, gesturing to the screen with both hands.  "How can you joke about this?" she snapped, "The narcotics smear, the purge, and now this?  The Ariella patriarch?  Here?  [i]Now?[/i]  An [i]earthquake[/i] couldn't do this much damage!"  She looked to Quinn, now, appealing to him even though she knew he had no more answers than she did, anger and panic flashing in her eyes.  "What was he [i]doing[/i] there?  Who... [i]could[/i] have done this?  Don't even try to tell me this is a coincidence!"

She made her way forcefully around to the kitchenette, swinging open cupboards until she found what she was looking for.  The brandy was barely in the glass before she was slugging it down, letting it burn in her throat, joining the fire growing inside her.  No, it wasn't top-shelf, but here and now she truly wasn't fussy.  

Their techspert was thinking out loud, now.  That calmed her too, even if she was too dazed to follow half of what he was saying.  It was reassuring enough that somebody was thinking at all.  And he was right.  The sands were running through the glass.  And there was a perilous chance this safe house was about to join the growing list of places that weren't very safe at all.

	[i]“Or I can fuck off and you run this your way."[/i] he finished, awkwardly. [i]"Y’know. Either or.”[/i]

Devi half-turned her head, setting the glass down on the counter.

"No." she spoke up, letting out a tense, musical breath. "Until this is over, the only people we can really trust are in this room.  Whatever we all may think of the idea, we're in this together.  Til the bitter end." her eyes flitted between them, one at a time.  "Aren't we?"  

She looked back up to the television screen, as though locking eyes with an opponent.  Her silk-draped shoulders rose once, then fell.

"...And I want to hurt these people," she said, in a soft, rough voice which left no doubt at all she meant it. "I want us to find whoever's doing this, and I want us to hurt them."

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