Five years.

Five long, painful, migrane-filled years, of her mind twisting and writhing about in her skull. Five years where looking in a mirror gave her splitting headaches. Five years of knowing excactly what must be coming, yet being let down year after year. 

No longer. 

Siobhan's head felt fresh, clean... Quiet. She had no splitting migrane. No more gestation of power. For the first time in five years her head was at peace. Standing on the sixth story balcony of a small apartment building, she would bring a cigarette up to her face, sparking it with a battered old zippo. Snapping the steel lid shut, she would look out into the night sky, hearing the noise that was civil unrest. A gun chattered out a challenge, and then came a few staccato pop-bangs in reply. She scoffed to herself. When her cigarette burned low, she stubbed it out on the metal and reached into her pocket, cardboard and foil crinkling softly as she drew out the last of the little white sticks. 

How long had she been standing out here smoking and thinking? She didn't know. The thought was oddly liberating. Bringing the last of her smokes to her lips, she would then light that one as well, her fist replacing the zippo with the empty package, unceremoniously crush it into a something no bigger than a golf ball, and drop it down onto the steel grates. Just as she was about to savour the last light she had, her phone vibrated. Odd- she didn't know anyone that'd be texting her to wish her a happy New Year, if people still did that what with the Dawn and all.

Her eyes flicked over the text. She sighed deeply. Looking down at the half-smoked light in her hand, she would at last and with great reluctance admit that perhaps she had had enough cigarettes for one night. Flicking it over the edge, the dim orange amber flame snuffed out as it span through the cold January air, she would turn on her heel and re-enter the grotty little building she had called home for four days. Luckily for her, there was almost nothing she needed to pack up. Once she had bundled up her laptop's cable and stuck the device itself into her rucksack, she was already pretty much done. She kept her clothes, dirty and clean both, in her bag, and most of the small little items that made day-to-day life so much easier were in her rucksack.

All she needed to do was to zip her little carry-on case shut, sling her backpack over her shoulders and step out the door, leaving the key half-fallen out of the lock. She took the stairs rather than the escalator, one at a time, no need to risk injury, exiting out through a fire exit. Although the writing on it warned of a fire alarm going off automatically, she had 'accidentally' tripped and fallen on it day one, and had found out that there was nothing of the sort.

Closing the door quietly behind her, she would do exactly as the text had instructed her. Sure, it could have been a trap, but then why risk potentially waking her up and getting her moving? It would have been much easier to capture her on a sixth story balcony or in her bed than it would have been to assume she would do what they wanted and walk to their arms... At least, that was what she reasoned to herself. Reaching into her jacket, she would pull out a small switchblade, keeping the actual blade hidden within the dark handle. Sure, if it was FOE, her little snake's tongue wouldn't do much, but at least she'd have the satisfaction of sending at least one of them to the hospital.