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[sub]collab with [@fiber] and [@Ruby][/sub]

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[i]Meanwhile, hovering in the air...[/i]

Sights. Sounds. Smells. They all collided with one another in an instant. It was as though certain danger was looming overhead like a shadow. Like a ghostly serial killer from a cheesy 80s slasher film. Nicole felt like screaming inside, but had to remain calm, especially in the presence of people she did not know. But she had to trust them. Right? The mysterious one in the dark overcoat and sunglasses seemed familiar, even after mentioning a time they had met in the past. Nicole wanted to remember, but present circumstances just made it impossible to focus enough on something that may have happened years ago. 

“A friend.” She leaned forward and eventually commented on the context of the card that the other woman held out, and reeling herself back into the current conversation. “Someone I should probably reach out to.” She paused for a moment, wondering if she was being hasty. “Or...maybe not. We parted ways-or rather, I left them to come back to LA…”

Honestly, Nicole didn’t know how Eva would react after she had slipped away from the comfort and safety of the Elder vampire’s home along the coast. Did she even care? Had Nicole been too distant in the later weeks of them being together.

“Either way, it’s probably not important.” The Gangrel shrugged and sat back against the seat once again. “But if you have a place to lay low, then I suggest we head there. I mean, assuming I can trust you and your friend.”
Grace was as motionless as a statue, tuning out the background noise of electronic communications and thoughts of a thousand things happening on the other side of the world. She stared at Nicole. It was harder to read someone’s intentions when they lacked the normal signs of life. Perspiration, heart rate, microscopic twitches of muscles, all of them were things that Grace placed more trust in than the actual words coming out of their mouth. Grace said
“I have safehouses available to me, but they are reserved for those who have proven themselves valuable. Your recent change makes you an unknown quantity, all I have to go off of is that you had a falling out with a friend and a trip outside the city. Even if someone says that their plan is something clear, such as ‘Survive, and try to get Los Angeles under some kind of control’, borrowing a phrase I heard from another one of your kind, I find myself wondering if there is something deeper lurking beneath”
 For a moment she thought about doing a further dive through the databases of Nicole’s activity, but doubted that any reports of whose facebook profile she visited most in High School or what auto parts she had been shopping for would reveal anything useful.
“Time is short these days, and I prefer to spend it with those who are both useful and trustworthy.
She could feel the women's gaze even without making eye contact. Her judgement. "That's fair." Nicole sighed after a few moments. Besides, they didn't know one another enough for trust to have set in.
"Do what you need to do, but I'm pretty sure we can't hover above the city forever." She said rather sharply. "Maybe just drop me off somewhere. I know the city like the back of my hand, so if anything, I could find a good place to lay low. I feel like a fucking worm dangling over a furnace right now. I just-”
Her own thoughts cut her off suddenly. Sharply. Like a jab to the brain with an icepick, the memory flashed to the forefront of her mind causing the woman to twitch. She pressed her fingers up to the temples on both sides of her head and squeezed her eyes shut momentarily before reopening again. 
“Grace.” She whispered just loud enough for the other to hear, as Nicole’s eyes met the woman’s. “Is that your name?”
Grace nodded when she heard her name. There were only a few possible vectors for how Nicole could’ve found it, most of which gave Grace cause for concern, especially one particular possibility. She said “It is a name I use for some purposes. I thought you said you didn’t remember our prior meeting. Before the fire, what were your plans?”

“I-uh” Nicole couldn’t really find the words initially as she had no idea how the name surfaced. Visions, voices, and memories that were never her own had riddled her mind since the embrace, a few being those of her supposed sire, but the others...so much closer to her. Emotionally connected thoughts that would tug at her nerves and at her heart almost simultaneously. There was only one answer to the puzzle. But could it be?

“Eva.” She finally blurted out, unsure if the very mention of her blood-bonded host would even resonate with the woman across from her. “You and her have some working relationship, yes?”

The Gangrel only knew so much about Eva -at least what she would want the fledgling to know- but since feeding from the elder vampire twice those few weeks prior, thereby developing at least the beginnings of a [i]bloodbond[/i], Nicole felt that much closer to Eva, and vice-versa. 

That confirmed Grace’s suspicions. Like the Pacific Ocean, every stream eventually led back to that woman. She chose her next words carefully, and said

“A working relationship is overstating it. We’ve been in contact, but I find myself working around her operations more often than taking part in them. I’m told she’s supposed to know more about recent events, yet what I have received from her is lacking in detail. I have my reasons for keeping my distance, especially concerning those with such deep personal magnetism, to put it obliquely. Become too devoted to someone and you will lose who you are, who you could be. ”

After speaking she thought about what this meant. Was Nicole another piece in some scheme of Eva’s? Was everything just part of it? Was Nicole here truly as vulnerable as she appeared, a rare piece of leverage sitting right here in the helicopter, or was it best to drop her off quietly and safely as soon as possible.

The tension behind the words was thick. The woman seemed to have a similar reaction to Eva as no doubt others have had. Nicole also noticed certain personality conflicts with the Elder during their more serious conversations, and the lack of detail in situations that called for more than a few words. But perhaps it was her way of protecting whatever semblance of secrets she had left, after living for as long as she has. But even the Gangrel neonate wondered just how far their relationship would go, or would it hit a wall. 

“I can’t say I disagree with you.” Nicole sighed, looking out through the dark windows of the helicopter onto the bright lights of the city below. “I have no idea who you are personally, other than the few memories floating in my head from the perspective of another, but what I do know is that we aren’t safe up here. Call it intuition.” She shrugged. “[i]Maybe.[/i] But I think I can trust you enough to get us where we need to go.” 

Nicole didn’t know, but what was the recourse? The city was going through something on a level she could not deal with, at least not on her own. She needed help, and the woman across from her was somehow connected to the many dots forming in the vampire’s new life. She could feel Eva’s presence in a profound way. Was this through the blood they shared? Had it become a homing device? Or a way of keeping tabs on the other? Who knew. But the fledgling kindred’s thoughts focused in on a single place.

“Have you been to the Venice Beach docks?” She asked, still peering out the window. “Specifically, Marina Del Rey. I think that’s where we’ll find Eva. Maybe. I don’t know.” She allowed a slight nervous laugh to escape. “I have no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.”  

Grace said “It’s as good a place as any to look.”

Marina Del Rey was a short flight from their current location. Once they were above it and had surveyed the area, Grace noticed an especially large vessel in the water off the coast, that docking records and the prior aerial photos of the area showed it was seldom there, spending most of its time moored at Catalina. Trying to find out the actual owner would be a fool’s errand, but it had all of the hallmarks of one particular woman’s appetite for luxury. Grace reached into a locker by her side and grabbed a small case containing a pistol, which she tossed over to Nicole after transfering a little data through the port on the side with a cable that snaked into her coat.

Grace said “I can’t provide you with a safehouse, but I hope a pistol will be of use. It’s got an electronic trigger lock coded to your fingerprint taken from your police files and it’s ballistics should be untraceable by any law enforcement database. The case has some magazines loaded with nanothermite based incendiary rounds, they will be highly effective against most threats you would encounter. I trust you will use it wisely.”

After Nicole had gotten a solid grip on it, Grace said “Please hold on to any items on your person now, if they are lost I may have difficulty returning them.” Then Grace made a motion, and the belts of Nicole’s seat pulled taut, making it hard to slip out. When Grace’s handwave finished, the door at the side of the chopper opened, and over the billowing wind, Grace said “Miss Stathos, please tell Eva I hope she is doing well.” 

Nicole’s seat lurched, and then some kind of force sent it shooting out the side of the helicopter. The second it had gotten clear a parachute began to deploy; it would be followed by more to guide it down safely. The helicopter flew on into the night, vanishing from sight in the darkness.

Before the vampire could even react much to the offer of a pistol that seemingly came out of a high-budget espionage film, the side door of the helo slid open and the seat she was sitting in quickly jerked forward and out, sending her flying through the air. What followed were screams of both confusion and fear that Nicole never knew existed, as the dark water below them drew closer. The chute deployed, pulling back on the seat and its rider, before smoothly floating downward. The woman’s vocabulary consisted mostly of profanity, several words directed at no one, and other choice words directed at the woman who essentially kicked her out of the chopper. This was not how she expected the night to go, and once her eyes stopped darting around and focused on the Yacht below, she also realized that the descent would place her several yards away from the vessel. 

“Shit!” She screamed, but before long, the seat hit the water’s surface hard and, upon impact, deployed a flotation device that kept the seat upright as though in the center of a small, yellow circular raft. 

“This isn’t how I imagined the night would go.” She mumbled to herself, pushing the release on the seat belts. Nicole took a moment, as she could feel the rage growing inside her, which was something she didn’t need right now. She needed to get to that boat. She could feel what could only be described as anxiety welling up inside her, but she knew she had to keep cool. The beast wasn’t going to win this round.

With not a moment to waste, she slipped into the water and swam as fast as her supernatural strength could muster, which didn’t take her long and the ladder near the rear of the vessel was down. “Oh thank god.” She sighed, pulling herself up onto the landing and regaining her bearings.

"Who is it?"

Andre shrugged, as casually and calm as he would have been if she had asked what time to show up, or if he was hungry. "Based on the lack of serial on the tail...I'd guess organized crime or off the books federal. It's slowing down, turning on anti-air system. They'll hear the lock on."

He moved out of the room, out the back sliding door, and onto the weather deck of the white yacht draped in neon pink lights along the sides of the yacht, the deck bright in accent lights under every stair step and along the railing.

"Someone jumped."

She tasted the presence the moment they jumped out of the helicopter. "It's Nicole."

"Why the hell didn't they just land?"

"Maybe whoever is piloting is afraid of us."

Andre snorted. "Ima turn on the helipad lights."

"Why?"

He shrugged, again, somehow more casual than the last shrug. "Just to be a dick."

It made her laugh, a smirk lingering after the laugh faded away and she took up position at the stern where the water lapped over the polished wooden planks of the step down, where two jet skies were tied off and the ladder extended into the black water of the Port of Los Angeles. A few barges were alit a few hundred feet to the west, an industrial dock and it's floodlights further off in the distance to the east.

"Nice of you to drop by," she said it as she leaned down and extended her hand for Nicole, the amusement heavy in her otherwise soft tone. "Here for the meeting?"