[color=696969][center][url=https://fontmeme.com/fonts/punk-typewriter-font/][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/240122/96b51cbc48bd377db299e57ead156677.png[/img][/url][/center][b][color=634533]Time:[/color][/b] P.M.
[b][color=634533]Location:[/color][/b] A holding cell somewhere
[b][color=634533]Equipment: [/color][/b] Confiscated
[center][h3][color=634533]✠✠✠✠✠[/color][/h3][/center]

Darkness came and went. A lantern somewhere. Shadows. Voices. Boots on stone. Metal against metal. Vasco floated through it.

Then Josephine was there.

Not real. But he felt her—a cool and damp towel pressed on his busted face. Worked quiet, like always when he'd come home with blood on him. She whispered his name once, twice. He tried to answer but the dream folded in on itself and she was gone.

When his eyes opened, a young face hovered above him. Wire-rimmed specs catching the dim light in this hole. Lips moving.

Nothing.

Cold panic hit him. Maybe the pipe scrambled his brains for good. But then he caught the steady drip of water from the murk, each drop hitting stone clear and sharp. Not completely deaf yet. Kid was just talking under his breath.

[color=C2B4A7]“Can’t hear ya, bud,”[/color] came out graveled.

The kid’s eyes went wide behind the lenses. He jerked back, glanced away, as if he’d catch one for looking. His fingers fumbled at his sides. Second try, his voice had some volume to it, though it still shook. [color=LemonChiffon]“I... I asked h-how are you.”[/color] A breath. [color=LemonChiffon]“How are you feeling?”[/color]

[color=C2B4A7]“For taking a sap to the head?”[/color] Vasco’s mouth tried something like a grin. [color=C2B4A7]“Jake.”[/color] He pushed himself up.

[color=LemonChiffon]“Wait, I don’t think—”[/color]

The joint tilted. Everything went swimmy and the nausea rolled up from his gut. The kid’s hands steadied his shoulders, guiding him back down flat. Wooden planks under him. Not even a bed. Hay thrown on top, damp. The whole thing suspended by chains he could hear creaking with his weight.

Reaching for a wooden bowl on the floor, the kid wrung out a rag and laid it over Vasco’s eyes.
The cold helped dull the throb in his skull. After a minute his head cleared some. Place stank of rot but he didn’t give a damn. Lay there listening to water echo off stone.

[i]Drip.
Drip.
Drip.[/i]

[color=C2B4A7]“Where the hell am I?”[/color]

The kid hesitated. [color=LemonChiffon]“I’m not really sure, but I think we’re in one of the holding cells for huma—”[/color] He stopped. Started again. [color=LemonChiffon]“For people-trafficking.”[/color]

Vasco lifted the towel enough to expose one eye. Got a good look at the half-breed. Chink blood in there somewhere. Average height. No scales, no fur, no wings. And underneath the messy brown mop, round ears.[/color]