Cassie took Wednesday for herself. She had no leads on her assignment from Locke, no gang contacts were talking, and to be frank, after an emotional evening and a long-overdue reconnecting with her sister, she needed time to collect herself, to stuff her heart back into its box. She didn't like it, but it was too hard to do her job wearing her emotions on her sleeve and opening herself to the guilt and the grief that she pushed upon herself. She'd gone home, put her burner phone down, stuffed the bag with her Quintain outfit in her wardrobe, and then changed into a breezy dress with tights and a coat, pulling a scarf from the back of her apartment's front door and throwing it around her neck as she locked up. She smiled politely at her neighbour as they brushed in the hallway and then she was down in the lobby and out through the glass doors and into the light again, breathing deep in the air. She hadn't had much time to see the city from ground-level recently. In all honesty, since her time on the streets, she'd been avoiding it.

She took a walk through Thistle Park, enjoying the greenery and the river gently bubbling by her side, and then hung a right to come out into Kilbride's illustrious shopping district. There were one or two malls which proved to be the main attractions to the retail-frenzied masses of Kilbride (and it's tourists) but the extravagent high street was Cass' preferred haunting grounds. Grand shops, sporting gold and marble, pristine whites and subtle, elegant greys, selling beautiful dresses and sleek suits and the kind of jewelry that a man like Locke would buy for his illicit mistress. Such stores were frosty to Cass when she walked in, but when she found something she liked and produced the means with which to pay for it, they got awful friendly. Cass found it amusing, a little in-joke about what money could do for you. 

She started in the mall, though. Got a drink (salted caramel hot chocolate, the sugar injecting some energy into her still-sleepy mind), browsed the CD store. She saw a group of similar-aged girls across a few aisles, flicking through posters and pointing at the boys featured in them, nudging each other with elbows and then chuckling amongst themselves. Cassie felt a a strange pang of jealous nostalgia, and thought of it as a window into Jo's life. A lurking monster of resentment threatened to rear its head somewhere deep in her belly, and she quickly left, music she'd been planning to purchase left scattered on the shelf. She went to lose herself in the highstreet among the gowns and cocktail dresses but failed, that beast in her belly growling low. She ignored it, faking a smile and browsing jewellry and idly chatting at a furious pace to the various Personal Shoppers. Strained small talk as she tried on dresses that she didn't even pay attention to, leaving stores with bags and a scratched credit card. 

The sun was down by the time she left, and she walked home with the right sleeve of her coat pushed up and her wrist on display. Her tattoo on display. She couldn't call her Focus in an instant, and she wasn't strong or fast. Her tattoo was the only protection she had. It usually worked. There had been one or two frightening moments, split second decisions in the face of someone desperate or mad or drugged-up, fleeing as best she could with heart pounding in her chest, taking flight back to her apartment and sitting in the middle of the kitchen, hidden from sight and calming herself, slowing her pulse and focusing her mind to bring on her ability, simulatenously traning and soothing herself. People moved in the streets around her, but they were mostly shoppers like her, headed home with bags on their arms. Cassie lapsed into a strange calm serenity, an uncommon feeling of safety washing over her.

She jumped when she heard the sirens. Head up and darting, eyes scanning, scrutinizing the street. Still some light to the air, still a quiet road with streetlights beginning to flicker on and spill orange ambience onto the sidewalk. The sirens were further away and there were...four of them? At least three, she thought, and then there was a dull, subtle sound of horrendous wrenching beneath the sirens, and a vibrating crash after that. Something...[i]big[/i], she couldn't think of another word with all her processes devoted to listening, something big was happening. Something that attracted the attention of the police, or at least their attention had been pointed at it. [i]Something that might attract the attention of someone who's just gotten their first taste of fighting back...[/i]

With that thought whispering in the back of her mind Cassie weighed her options. The sirens were still blaring but they wouldn't be for long, and she didn't have time to get home and then back out as Quintain. Home was the opposite direction to the sirens and still too far off. [i]Shit. Shit shit shit shi-[/i] She cursed over and over, agonising over the possibility of being identifiable. Of going toward danger without her rifle, or her armour. Of going unprepared..but what other lead did she have? [i]Shit,[/i] she thought, one last time, before dumping her bags of shopping and turning on her heel, booking it in the direction of the sirens, listening intently for their direction.

She found the street soon enough, panicking slightly as she rounded the corner and the sirens she'd been following stopped, only to realise that they'd done so because they'd reached their destination, and then realising that by proxy she had too. A bank, a big bank, one of the biggest in Kilbride. Four cruisers, officers sustaining fire, the metal-framed doors of the bank foyer ripped off at their hinges - [i]well that explains the wrenching noise[/i] - and loud noises coming from inside, undoubtedly the criminals responsible. There was a larger [b]boom[/b] from inside and a wave of dust slowly rolled out of the hole where the doors used to be. Explosives, then. Assault rifles and explosives and something or some[i]one[/i] who can rip metal doors straight off the wall. Cassie cursed. She should have gone back for her rifle. 

She ran around the building she was behind, a shop with a flat above it on the end of the street, and dived into the alley by its side, darting through to get a better look at the bank's front wall. There was no convenient rooftop, no elevated position, and Cassie hated it. She felt exposed, out of her element, vulnerable. On a rooftop, blocks across watching through a rifle scope, she was in control. Right now, she was improvising. And Cassie hated improvising. But with any luck, she wouldn't be the only one doing so. All she had to do was wait and watch.