[h2]Esme[/h2]
Esme stared at the now toppled chair against the wall, her eyes filled with tears. Her chest was tight and burned with all the pent-up emotion it held. Kicking the chair across the panic room did nothing to relieve it. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, but that would only set a panic throughout the house if anyone heard her, and that was the last thing they needed right now. Punching anything in the room would only result in her damaging her hands and causing Duke to worry about her even more than he already was. Esme was so deep in her mind trying to find a release that she didn’t hear Bobby come down until he spoke to her. She quickly spun around with a gasp and looked at Bobby, noticing the knife in his hand. Sighing heavily, she wiped the tears from her face with both hands and gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Bobby. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to come down and….. I did sleep for a bit.” she told him. Sniffling, she walked over to Bobby and stopped at his side, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him. 

She didn’t say anything else until he hugged her back. “I’m sorry again for scaring you. I’m going to go and try to get a little more rest.” she told him softly. Standing on her tiptoes, she placed a soft kiss on Bobby’s cheek, then released him and left the way she had come in. Esme wanted to stay and help him through his grief, but she was too tired mentally to process her own emotions along with his. When her feet touched the gravel of the lot, the cool breeze hit her like a slap to the face. She pulled her jacket tightly around herself and looked at the RV in the distance. Esme then set off, not to the RV but to the firing range with Sarah following closely behind her. With her mind and emotions in overdrive, she couldn't make herself return to the RV with Duke and rest. What she wanted to do was tinker with her car, but couldn’t do that without waking the whole house. Once at the range, she and Sarah grabbed a couple of the mannequins, then took them to a spot far enough away from the house where she wouldn’t disturb anyone with the noise.

After setting up and stabilizing the mannequins enough so that they wouldn’t fall over easily, Esme pulled her collapsed bo staff from her pocket. Flicking the pin and tossing the staff in the air, it expanded to its full length, and she easily caught it as he fell back down. Taking off her jacket and tossing it to the side, she spun the staff in front of herself and above her head a few times before taking a fighting stance. Esme needed to release everything she had pent up within her, and this was the only other way she knew how, beating the crap out of mannequins with her staff. After briefly closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths, she began her assault on the mannequins full force. She pushed through the physical pain she felt coursing through her body as she visualized them as creatures or demons she had come across that had taken something from her or had royally pissed her off. The assault went on for a good hour and a half, with her throwing out profanities and names under her breath at them. With her final blow, she swung her staff and knocked the head clean off one of the mannequins, then collapsed to her knees, breathing heavily. 

Letting her arms hang at her sides, she leaned back her head and rocked back to sit on her legs. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply. It had been some time since she had used her staff to release her pent-up grief or anger; she had almost forgotten just how well it worked in draining her. She could easily pass out right where she was and not think twice about it, but also knew it would send Duke into a fit of worry if he couldn’t easily find her when he woke up. Once she had caught her breath and collected herself, she planned on going back to the RV, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be found before that happened.