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It had been an unfruitful couple of weeks for Penny. With Rowan and Kimberly spirited away to some government blacksite, it was left to her to continue the task of tracking Annabelle. Penny soon realized it was something for which she had no talent. Throw Annabelle at her face and she’d be ready to go for as long as her body would hold together, but actually finding her proved to be a mountain of a challenge. Penny imagined an unstoppable killing machine that turned people into flesh-eating monsters wouldn’t be so hard to find—just follow the piles of corpses and go—but there wasn’t even a drop of blood as far as she could tell. Either the attacks were kept from the news, perhaps buried beneath the exploits of Florida-Man, or Annabelle was in hiding. By the end of the two weeks, Penny had accomplished little more than clean up the room that the DENS had trashed and convince the Coven to let her use it for the time being.

At the very least, the DENS agents had taken care of the Dollhouse mess. The last thing Penny needed was a throng of angry apparitions hunting after her while she played detective. Still, it didn’t forgive them for booking Kimberly. A larger part of the reason why she even bothered to hang near the Coven was to hopefully get a lead on where they were keeping her friend. Orchestrating a full on jailbreak fell under the category of “even too stupid for Penny”, but if she could somehow get a picture to the girl? The exact plan never formulated, largely because she couldn’t find one that didn’t end up with her getting unpersoned also. 

These frustrations stewed in the back of Penny’s mind as she leaned against the railing of the deck and observed the Coven meeting, wide-brim hat blocking out the beating sun while an ignored cigarette threatened to jump from her fingers. For a second the cigarette did free itself and began its free fall to the poolside below, but in a blink of an eye the sigil between Penny’s collarbones flashed and the cigarette’s attempt was thwarted as it reversed back into her hand. 

She took a drag and glared at Emily as she spoke up when Lyss said there would only be two cures available. It was unsurprising that Emily would want one of them, although Penny’s stare softened and she felt a slight tinge of guilt as Emily explained why she needed one of them. Suddenly, Emily’s fuck-you attitude seemed, whle perhaps not necessarily justifiable, familiar. Penny knew the pains of losing a sibling. Meanwhile, the big guy, Herik, had nearly lost his mom. Penny sighed. She should probably call hers. When was the last time they had talked? 

Nobody seemed to fight against the vote, which came to Penny as a surprise, although the girl who had given up her cure looked dejected. Penny didn’t know what her deal was, but it must’ve not been anything major. With all of that figured out, Madison brought up something that Penny was actually interested in: Annabelle. She smashed her cigarette out against the railing and straightened herself up, arms folded over her flowery sundress. 

[color=goldenrod]“Yeah, so about that: I’ve been trying to pick up her trail this entire time and there has just been nothing, like, literally nothing,”[/color] said Penny, a hint of exasperation at her failure to locate the abomination breaking through. As she spoke, a phone began to ring. [color=goldenrod]“I don’t know if the Forgiven have managed to pull off some media blackout or if we got lucky and she bit it or if—”[/color] Penny interrupted her own thought with an annoyed groan as she shot a look towards Lyss. [color=goldenrod]“Dude, just answer it!”[/color]