[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019e7cbe-43dc-713a-9c31-7e0fc5f6a725.webp[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=9174cb][I]Eve; featuring Dominic Dusk [@Sep][/I][/color][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=9174cb][b]Death and all her Friends - VII[/b] [i]Earl Grey[/i][/COLOR][/right][/sup][/indent][center][COLOR=dimgray][SUP][sub]_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sub][/SUP][/COLOR][/center]

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In the Awareness, Paloma Torres’ apartment had been spacious and its bay window would let in all the light of the city and beheld the glow of the moon at night. Unfortunately for Eve, it wasn’t the ground floor.

Eve had only the events of the Awareness that had been forced on her; its narrative neither true nor untrue, just a series of images and memories strung along an axis and within it. Memories and images of horrors that she dared not yet speak about or put words out into the real waking and material world. They sat in her skin even now, appalled at what had been revealed to her but as she stepped forward, her mind was quiet. As if everyone inside it was simply observing now. Paloma's horrors had been plain and simple and complex all the same and even now the feelings had not paled or lost their flavour. Eve thought that she could climb the fire escape, and shimmy across each unsafe ledge to reach the window that found itself to open at a particular motion of Paloma’s hand. She’d walk the apartment, find something real there that could speak to and silence the witness marks that had been clawed to her. 

She thought that by entering the apartment of Paloma Torres, perhaps a breath would enter and the bones of it all would appear and she’d find truth to her many questions. And she could leave, and she could forget.

She climbed on as the neons and the streetlights flushed and flickered until finally she made it to the edge with the window that she now had the gift to open and so she did, with a dis-quietening ease and then a feeling of derealisation ran cold up her spine and she felt acutely aware that this was a place she’d lived and breathed in before.

She had opened a cupboard door first when she became alert to a sound in the room beside this one, and then of slatted light slipping through the doorway as the front door opened with a creak. She reached to her pocket suddenly grateful she'd thought ahead and armed herself but no sooner had she touched it, ink black poured in from outside and engulfed the light.

The shadow sprawled out and elongated intself in lines until the room became one with the night that hung outside, only a coldly starless sky and an abyss at that. It held an astral quiet. She could not even see own hands or the light of her phone as she pressed at the screen; it had all gone but she did not fear the dark. She turned to face the direction of where she thought it had snaked in from and spoke with a voice into its vortex. [COLOR=9174cb]“Hello?”[/color]

The darkness began to recede just enough that light pooled and outlined her in chalk-like silver. [color=slategray]“Eve Raciti?”[/color] A man asked. A gun in his hand was pointed right at her. Her eyes widened at that and she took in a sharp breath. There was a confused look upon his face but something in his eyes; his eyes lacked surprise about it all. It was as if pieces of a puzzle were clicking together and as they did he lowered his gun and let the darkness crawl back away, all moving, moving into the fabric of a herringbone trench coat.

As the light re-enveloped the room, a flickering blue light in Eve’s own sleeve crackled away as it was powered up and she steadied her breathing. She released the trigger of the device and eyed closely the man who stood in the doorway now. Her keen eyes tracked him. Had she met this man? She’d remember him, surely. But oh and she did remember him. Paloma did, her memories found his face and his cause. Some Detective. Eve remembered him from somewhere. Elsewhere in the pools of a memory that wasn’t hers, just imprinted to her; his name floated in the abstract, untethered to anything but the sudden collapse between realities as he stood in living flesh before her now.

If she had been mistaken, she could have felt it finally whispered into her ear as a gift. [COLOR=9174cb]“Dominic Dusk,”[/color] she said in response. [COLOR=9174cb]“Where did you find my name?”[/color] 

[color=slategray]“How have I, a former law officer in Calder City heard of [i]a Raciti[/i]?”[/color] His words were uttered sardonically into the clearing of the space. Eve felt the weight of the surname and watched as he indicated with his own weapon for her to lower the stun gun. He deliberately showed her he was putting it back into its holster on the way down. As slowly as his hands had unarmed himself, he removed from a smaller pocket a set of keys that flickered in the light as they jangled; a keyring balanced on the tip of his finger. A feather. [color=slategray]“Considering I have keys, perhaps you want to tell me why you're here, and how you know my name?”[/color]

[COLOR=9174cb]“Why?”[/color] she asked back. [COLOR=9174cb]“Are you here to arrest me or something? Get your hands on [i]a Raciti[/i]?”[/color] Her eyes narrowed and her stance relaxed only slightly at the sight of the key and that feather motif swinging beneath it. [COLOR=9174cb]“She told me to be here. I know why and then I don’t know why. Maybe it was to run into a midnight stranger like yourself.”[/color]

[color=slategray]“Pah-lease. If I was to arrest you it would be for B and E.”[/color] He had rolled his eyes and sighed as he deposited the key back in his pocket. [color=slategray]“That is if I didn't want to go accusing you with kidnapping and murder, which is much more impressive.”[/color] He scanned the room from its periphery; likely to keep out of the distance of being shocked and thworped. The thing packed a punch.

He stopped his scan, and fixed his eyes squarely upon Eve. [color=slategray]“Tell you to come and get rid of the evidence she found before you left her in that alley did she?”[/color]

That rattled something in her chest she didn’t like, and it was her words that shot out sharp and electric. [COLOR=9174cb]“And that would be [i]quite[/i] an accusation.

I’m here to help Paloma,”[/color] she relented. She would have to make the decision to herself that he was not here to harm or hinder her. She let her own weapon fall into her pocket and began yet again on her search of the apartment. She was here, yes, but she didn’t want to be. She didn’t think she wanted to be. [i]I do.[/i]

[COLOR=9174cb]“She left things behind. Probably for [i]you.[/i]”[/color] Her fingers moved across furniture, and she directed her attention away from Dusk. As she popped open a drawer, a sharp pain flooded through her head; a stream of images of Dusk from Paloma’s point of view and in the moment, Eve winced and rubbed at her temples, breathing through the ache and the persistent message from Paloma. [COLOR=9174cb]“You were helping her with something.”[/color] It wasn’t a question, but she expected an answer.

He did not answer for some time. Satisfied in some way simply watching her and Eve wondered if he would move from the doorway. [color=slategray]“Well, it's kind of what I do,”[/color] he said at last before taking one last look inside the room. Then he did, in fact step in. The fabric of his jacket folded around him and she was relieved that the gun was not in his hands anymore. She turned and looked at him, stood there with his hands in his pockets like an idle window shopper. [i]Does he even know what he’s doing?[/i]

[color=slategray]“So, she told you to find something, who I am, that it was probably for me. She seemed to tell you a lot for someone who, as far as I can tell. Didn't know her.”[/color] Dusk arched an eyebrow as he looked at Eve from behind a framed photograph he'd picked up.[color=slategray]“Let me guess…”[/color] and then she watched as placed his fingers to his temples; almost as she herself had done. [i]A mocking gesture.[/i] He remained like that until, in a manner in which he maybe thought he was being humorous, clicked his fingers and pointed at her. [color=slategray]“-Psychic?”[/color]

[i]Ah. So he’s a moron, then.[/i]

She stopped then, snapping her gaze from the inside of drawers over to Dusk. [COLOR=9174cb]“Worse than that,”[/color] she said quietly. Her hands followed the structure of the lining until she had brought them back and could place them upon the front of the drawer. She pushed it closed with a slam in the dark. Fixed to him, she walked steadily in his direction to close their distance. [COLOR=9174cb]“Do you believe a soul can be possessed by another?”[/color] she asked; at his side then, her own face close to his ear, the words trickled to him.

His arms had slackened to his sides and he'd taken them out of his pockets but she had no apprehension as she approached. He didn't seem ready to defend, or offend for that matter. He'd just got them at the ready; the closest motion to a flinch. She wondered what it would take to unnerve him. She had seen no real reaction to the slam, or to her approaching. Though as she finished speaking he recreated some of the distance, appearing to take interest in a nearby stack of books. [color=slategray]“Now Miss Raciti, I do prefer to leave the metaphysical questions to the second date.”[/color] He turned and graced her with a coy smile.

[color=slategray]“However, in the spirit of good faith. I believe in the human soul, or some kind of essence so I suppose with all the other crazy things in this world. It's possible. Now you, how do you know Paloma?”[/color]

[COLOR=9174cb]“Don't flatter yourself,”[/color] she remarked, letting him wander to his own investigation. [COLOR=9174cb]“It's not here,”[/color] she said, deliberately ignoring his question as she then stepped out of this room and into another. [i]The music.[/i]

She approached into the lounge and living space, finally her eyes met the same window she'd already seen. Floor to ceiling and bordered by sprawling monstera house plants and toward the back of the space an open kitchen. The wall on the left housed the vinyl player and cabinet that had been haunting her and so she approached, crouching down to flick through the records. An intuitive feeling took over and she removed one from the very middle that felt unusually padded. [COLOR=9174cb]“You're looking in the wrong place,”[/color] she called out into the dark. 

[color=slategray]“I wasn't looking for anything.”[/color] A voice called back, before Dusk somehow reappeared from the dark as if from nowhere all over again. [color=slategray]“Well. I was. I was looking for an intruder.”[/color] She heard him sigh and move into the kitchen, start helping himself in the space like he also knew it. A kettle, a cup, a tin box of tea. Eve watched as he hesitated for only a moment but she kept a close eye on him regardless. [color=slategray]“How about a cup of tea? Coffee? Assuming you're not going to kill me of course. You still haven't actually denied being a well dressed hitman.”[/color]

[COLOR=9174cb]“Nope,”[/color] Eve said, wagging a finger, while placing the record on the table. [COLOR=9174cb]“You didn’t know I was intruding anything here. You have her key for what reason, exactly?”[/color] As she unfolded the cover, she felt between the slip and there it was – a stack of papers, stapled all together, hidden in the folds of Lou Reed’s [i]Transformer[/i].

All that came from the kitchen for a second was the sound of the kettle boiling, a mug clinking and then cupboards and the fridge being opened and closed and Eve could swear that she heard his nonchalance ruffling the shoulders of his coat into a shrug. [color=slategray]“I have her key because she gave me it, and I have a letter giving me permission to be here. You still haven't even told me your association with Paloma.”[/color] he sipped the tea while it was piping hot like a maniac, and the scent of the Earl Grey moved and wafted over; blooming behind her senses to pull and tug a memory. The sound of a spoon making circles around ceramic and she thought of her own father in her apartment and she watched as he stirred up their coffee. She watched as her own memory become overlaid with Paloma stirring her tea and taking it to the window; the sound of the silverware being tossed into the sink was like a bell that reverberated and lit up the room in all of its living colour again in Eve's minds eye. A spill of the dream that she could not say for certain was not real.

Eve narrowed her eyes against the tide of Awareness. [COLOR=9174cb]“You don’t... Actually think I’m a killer, least of all hers now do you? I’m just curious where such a loaded accusation came from.”[/color] 

[color=slategray]“Sometimes to get to the truth you have to get emotional.”[/color]

She sighed, annoyed. [COLOR=9174cb]“I don’t know her because I found her, and when I find people like that- When I’m around people like that–”[/color] she paused. [COLOR=9174cb]“Maybe I’m just good at finding people like that.”[/color] She turned, her back to Dusk, and her eyes scanning the window. [COLOR=9174cb]“Because it’s not like I could be good at anything else,”[/color] she added quietly.

[COLOR=9174cb]“We… Interlinked,”[/color] she said, finding a word which might best describe – her way of trying to explain. Paloma had trusted him and even before then, whatever Dusk had seeped in hadn’t felt malevolent. She didn’t feel unsafe with him, not entirely safe nor unsafe. [COLOR=9174cb]“I… Do that. I interface with death. I saw things.”[/color]

Dusk nodded at her over his cup of tea and she waited for his explanation. [color=slategray]“I'm not sure what I saw-”[/color] he seemed to visibly relax as she told him the truth, at least, and he didn't balk at what she'd said either. It was a disarming reaction but she remained on her guard. [color=slategray]“-But I saw something connecting the two of you. I just didn't know what it was.”[/color]

There it was, her suspicions answered. [COLOR=9174cb]“So... You were there and saw me in pain and distress and you saw her body– and, and then. I… I assume you just watched and didn’t help?”[/color] She sighed. [COLOR=9174cb]“Are you [i]sure[/i] you’re not a cop?”[/color]

He shrugged. [color=slategray]“Your knight in shining armour whisked you away before I even knew what was going on. It's not something I've ever experienced before.”[/color]

She paced back across the room and slammed the papers down in front of him, it was all notes and clippings, various missing persons reports. [COLOR=9174cb]“I [i]didn’t[/i] kill her.”[/color] [i]You have to know that.[/i]

He looked at the notes and reports, at first a look of admiration on his face that was then whisked away by a momentary glimpse of sorrow. He sipped at his tea again and Eve watched as the sorrow melted and he cleared whatever the feeling was away with a small cough, misplaced. Eve tilted her head to watch with curiosity as his expression changed while he fanned through the files as he came to a set of what appeared to be aerial photographs that had taken his interest. [i]Maybe he does know what he's doing. Not so likely.[/i]

[color=slategray]“Are these, did she take these?”[/color] She barely had time to answer before he held them up between the two of them and into the light, obscuring his own face behind photos.

[COLOR=9174cb]“I don’t know that much detail,”[/color] she responded, a brow quirked in his direction as he began reviewing the files.

Holding them closer, Dusk appeared to scan them more intently like his mind was at work and reading every detail. [color=slategray]“She found a trail.”[/color]

She was surprised he hadn't asked her a far more pressing question. [COLOR=9174cb]“What do you mean a trail?”[/color]

He shook his head dragging his attention away from the files, lowering them slightly as at last he met her gaze and she blinked slowly. [color=slategray]“Wait a minute," he gave a pause. "If Paloma is in there, in your head, shouldn't you know what she knows?”[/color] He featured towards the files. [color=slategray]“Couldn't you just explain all this, and what happened to her?”[/color]

[COLOR=9174cb]“That's not how it works, it's… [i]pieces[/i] of her.”[/color] Eve wrapped her arms around herself and drifted a sidelong stare over the room and from his eyes while the place flickered between dead and alive. [COLOR=9174cb]“I saw what consumed her at the end, I… I lived it like it was my own life. Flew through her rolling skies. Came upon her like she was myself in a mirror.”[/color] Eve stepped sideways from the bench, a hand held up, fingers moving as though touching delicate strands in the air and her eyes closed but she knew the steps of this apartment like the back of her hand. [COLOR=9174cb]“Maybe she was, maybe I am.”[/color] She paused, opening her eyes to look ahead again and out at the city before she turned back to Dusk. [COLOR=9174cb]“Blood,”[/color] His eyes were not dark like the shadows he conjured. They were kind. [COLOR=9174cb]“They wanted her blood. Again and again-”[/color] her voice wavered. [COLOR=9174cb]“They took her blood to make something perfect. Kept her in a cage. A concrete cage,”[/color] the images swam around again and the feelings and she twitched and flinched as if the needle had stabbed her again. 

[COLOR=9174cb]“She was so frightened at the end. So afraid. And maybe I came here to comfort her.”[/color] 

She heard him mumble something then and wondered if he'd even listened. She heard the rustle of each sheaf of paper as he picked them up, and then the loud and intrusive knocking at the door; violent punctuation that severed her from within the stream of trance and returned her to her own thoughts and to herself.

“CPD Open up!” Dusk flinched; not at the knock, but at the voice and then the files were forced into Eve’s hands as he commanded her to hide with a word before straightening himself and he smiled before the shadows once more dropped from his jacket and cocooned a dimension of black around her. 

[i]“Dominic?”[/i] The female voice called from the door.

[color=slategray]“Hello Lucy,”[/color] he breathed out and Eve could hear him pace back to the bench; the cadence of his step against the floorboards was unhurried. [color=slategray]“Cup of tea?”[/color] From her vantage point, she could see him move and could hear him, but it was akin to watching and listening from behind a wimpled surface of water.

“What the hell are you doing here? And who the hell are you talking too?”

[color=slategray]“Oh,”[/color] Dusk began again. Eve could swear she heard the smirk that curled at the corner of his mouth and a sparkle in his eye. [color=slategray]“I have a letter from Paloma giving me power of attorney, so I was coming just to settle her affairs. Water the plants, that kind of thing.”[/color]

The woman barged in; her silhouette all sharp lines and seriousness as she looked around. [color=slategray]“Me? Talking?”[/color] Dusk started, Eve could see as he turned on his heel. [color=slategray]“Nobody really,”[/color] he sighed out, [color=slategray]“just myself.”[/color]

“You’re talking to yourself?” As the woman spoke, she had fixed her attention to Dusk and yet she came so close to the shadow veil that was concealing her where she stood. Eve drew herself further back and held a breath.

[color=slategray]“Well yes, I needed some expert advice, so I thought. Who better to ask?”[/color] 

The woman scoffed and paced away from the shadows then. “I swear Dusk if I find anyone else here-”

As Lucy once more turned her back and made to storm off, through the ripples, Eve sensed Dusk look at her, as if his stare could pierce through it on the very notion that it was his creation and under all of his control. His head tilted and Eve did not need to be told twice. Quiet, quiet she moved. She knew by heart where the troublesome floorboards were and how to avoid them, and under the cloak she moved with an agility that almost reminded her of her ballet, years ago. His head had tilted in the direction of the door; Eve walked beyond the threshold, Dusk’s strange darkness had followed and she stood for a while as both Dominic Dusk and Lucy left. Each of them, a temper that flared but mostly her. Eve gave a sigh of relief which was followed by an amused smirk. The two of them had bickered like divorcees. 

He caught up with her outside, clapping his hands together looking remarkably unruffled by the situation, like this was simply another unremarkable evening. [color=slategray]“Well. Shall we get a late dinner?”[/color]

There was a curious glint in Eve's eye that belied what still roiled within. [COLOR=9174cb]“Silvio Raciti wouldn't approve of me having dinner with you.”[/color] She handed back the files to him. All of them, having realised they were still in her hands; all scrunched and messed up around the edges now. She had helped, she had done all she could for him. She had done all that she could do for Paloma. [i]I have, haven't I?[/i]

[color=9174cb]"Goodbye Dominic Dusk."[/color]

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Eve had made her way away from Dusk then. Leaving him back there, under the shimmering orange of a streetlamp that coated him in a luminescence that did not suit and set the pattern of his coat to a colour out of his palette; a warmth in the light that set a stark mask of grim shadow about his face. And she, a phantom that blurred into Calder City's gloom and fog. 

She watched as even at this hour, traffic moved along the streets and became sucked away by the dark. Eventually, she flagged down a cab, some streets away from where she had left the Detective, some streets away from the strange apartment. Home and unhome. The perspective changed then, it was the streets and buildings the moved and erased into the dark as the cab moved; the city was passing in streaks of light and streaks of dark. The driver was quiet, didn't bother her. Eve supposed he just wanted to get home too, to not have to pick up poor and unfortunate strays like her on the streets this late. It was better than one that talked and talked and talked and talked on.

Eve tried a fragile smile, a small thing that pushed back against a swell in her chest. The weight of a long day and the echo of having tried to help and be useful. In the back of the cab, as the city moved by, Eve cried.


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