Jiskastya

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

She had the calm, reasoning voice down to pat, he had to give her that. At the moment, he was perfectly willing to let her talk, let her ramble on as long as she pleased, as long as she didn't try and come close to him. The last thing he wanted to do right now was rush his plans. The numbers always responded better when changes were gradual.

The wind had already begun to pick up a bit. Ethan could feel it pulling at the hem of his pants, and hear one of the tarps over one of the windows fluttering on the level below. He needed time, and, despite the differences in situation, his mind flashed back to his many conversations with Kevin and Josie back in Port Townsend. They had always wanted to know all about him, but it had been remarkably easy to get them talking about themselves instead. People always wanted to talk about themselves, whether they realized it or not. Perhaps applying the same tactic on a certain FBI agent. Whose name he still did not know. It seemed important somehow, and a thought struck him, unexpected and quite welcome. She could only have one name she went by, and the chance of that being her name, whatever it was, had to be certain.

He swayed uneasily on his feet as numbers and names flooded through his mind. Had he been anyone but himself, the sudden lack of concentration would have sent him falling to his death. Of course, had he been anyone but himself, the situation would have never come to be in the first place.

Luckily, her name was relatively common, and it didn't take him very long to find it. The additional numbers slowly faded away, and he was left with only one certainty. Her name, perhaps not her given name, but the name she gave herself, was Bree. His smile was surprised and honest, although the hand he placed on his sweaty forehead hid some of the delight in his expression.

"That is actually an excellent question, Bree," he replied conversationally, tottering warily on the edge just in case she got any ideas of trying to grab him. "What did I do to make you so desperate to speak to me?"

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

... Kinda. It is the reason she would need Ethan again, and I imagine that Tanner would have been a long-standing partner. The mob boss just seemed like a good connection to the first part of the story, to make it less of a random element and tie things all together in a nice way. We could probably work around it, but why would she need/want Ethan then? And why would he go along?

I kind of assumed since Bree is the one who's been working the case for years, and she is the one who knows the most about it, she'd be kept on it until they could find a solution, I guess. We can probably work around it, though, if it wouldn't make sense to include it.

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

As soon as the FBI hit two floors below him, the numbers decided it was important for him to realize. He bolted up in bed, eyes going wide, before squinting against the bright light that was streaming in through his "window". This had been the first time that he had been able to sleep deeply since entering the run-down apartment, and he cursed the agent for not giving him at least until that night. It took him a moment to recognize that he wasn't even surprised to realize that she had found him. Perhaps it was the little clues, the things he really shouldn't have ignored, but had anyways.

The night manager was the first big clue. He had been acting different ever since that one night where someone had called 911 and no police had shown up. That must have been the tip-off. The homeless man huddled in one of the little culverts on the outside of the building should have been the second clue. Ethan had reached a point where anyone staring at him brought a touch of suspicion, but the stare had been so abstract that he had been willing to dismiss it, even when he realized that the man was not truly homeless, but an undercover cop. He had let himself assume that the cops had finally gotten a tip-off about the meth-lab and were preparing to close in. He had even dismissed the arrival of a couple stealth cop cars, tacking it to the meth lab.

She certainly had come in understated, or he never would have missed her presence. Now he only had a few moments to prepare, to find a way out. There was only one set of stairs in the building, and she would certainly have the lower levels blocked off. That left only one direction for him to go, up. All he had to do was find a way down once he went up, a way down that the FBI woman couldn't follow him.

He got out of bed quickly, pulling on a hoody and shoes so that he wouldn't stand out in the middle of the street when he did find a way to get away. And he was certain that he would find a way, one way or another. They couldn't hold him, even if they did get him now. It was impossible. He would only need the tiniest mistake to work off of, and he would be gone.

Ethan scanned the number feverishly, trying to find the best way out. He grabbed a dilapidated nightstand and dragged it over behind the door, picked up a pillow and the blankets and set them in front of the nightstand, before unlocking the door and standing on top of the nightstand. When the SWAT man kicked the door open there was little resistance to the movement. The man stumbled forward and the door bounced violently off of Ethan's nightstand, swinging forward and clubbing the man in the head with the doorknob. Even as the SWAT man was falling to the ground with a bloody lump on his forehead Ethan was leaping over him, desperately relying on the ninety five percent chance that no one would shoot at him, and the eighty four percent chance that, if they did, the bullet would not hit him.

All of those nights of running paid off, and Ethan took off like an Olympic sprinter. He knew they were chasing him, and knew that he would need to find some way to get rid of, at the very least, both of their guns. He pounded his way up through the stories, taking steps two at a time. On the thirteenth floor, he found one of his outs. He sprinted past the reinforced door to the meth lab, the two police hot on his heels. The woman made it past the door, but as the SWAT man was trying to pass it swung open suddenly. The guard posted inside had heard the commotion, and decided to come take a look. "Police," he bellowed at the top of his lungs, before diving forwards at the SWAT man, sending his gun spiraling down the stairs to clatter to a halt one level down. The man would probably be fine, but there was no way he was coming after Ethan now.

It was just him and the strange woman who seemed inexplicably bound to him. Just as it always was.

In one last, quick burst of speed, Ethan hurtled his way out onto the rooftop. He was breathing heavily but deeply, and he didn't slow as he hurtled toward the edge of the building. In one smooth movement, he jumped on top of the concrete barrier intended to keep people from accidentally falling off the roof. But there would be no accidents today.

As soon as the wind hit his face, Ethan found his way out. It was simple, elegant, and damn near suicidal. But he was probably the only person in the world who could pull it off. The problem was he would need time to get things set up. Time that he no longer had. Ethan stood carefully on the wall, keeping the numbers forward in his mind. He raised up on the balls of his toes, and teetered precariously on the edge. He wasn't falling, not unless he wanted to, but the FBI agent wouldn't know that.

He knew how to stall her, too. He could almost see it written on her face. She didn't want him to die. She wanted to escort him downstairs in handcuffs, not letting him out of her sight until she finally got a chance to ask him all those questions that burned inside of her. But it wouldn't take much to get her to spill them now.

"Very good," he congratulated her warmly, his arms spread wide and the wind teasing the hair on his forehead. "You finally caught up with me. But I think you know that I'm not going to go quietly."

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

Cool.

Wait, is she just in counter-terrorism now? Or are we still going to be going after the mob boss? If I recall correctly, most FBI agents worked many things, and had a different partner for each, but I may be wrong.

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

The building was fifteen stories of old brick, plywood, and glass, constructed back in the mid 1900's and in desperate need of repair. Many of the windows weren't even properly boarded up, but were rather covered in large pieces of canvas, which fluttered in the wind, but were too large to be pulled out the window by a passing breeze. Sometimes the wind would tear them out, though, and the person in the room would have to yank it back inside before the sound of the tarp fluttering turned everyone in the building against them. Many of them were ripped up billboards, scavenged in the middle of the night when no one would notice the vandalism. The building manager was too lazy to bother with repairing anything, and he got enough desperate people willing to dish out some money for the small apartments that he made a small profit. That was all the landlord cared about, so this was all those kinds of people got.

Ethan was ashamed to say that he was one of these desperate people. He had been here just under two weeks, eking out a quiet existence in southern Chicago while he waited for his situation to finish cooling down. It had been three months since his daring escape from the Seattle jail, and he was starting to think that he had won. There hadn't even been a close encounter during that time, nothing to give even so much as a hint of his location to that female FBI agent. This was not enough time to completely throw her off, one tip-off would set him back to square one, but he was starting to get a little more confident.

Ethan had spent a couple of days in Seattle after his escape, trusting to his obsessive attention to the numbers to keep him safe. From there he had taken a mostly empty bus down to Olympia, and then to Portland. He hadn't stayed in any city for longer than a week, only long enough to gather the funds for his next expedition, and make sure that the FBI had no lead on his whereabouts.

It was easy enough for him to get enough money to survive in a city like this, especially when he no longer thought much about the legality of his actions. Chicago rang with a massive underground market for just about anything, and with the right luck it was remarkably easy to exploit. Normally he would have moved on again by now, but he was starting to feel somewhat safe in this city. He couldn't help but feel that its dark spaces and narrow streets were there to welcome him. And even if by some miracle the FBI did manage to find him again there was no worry about him being able to disappear in a city like this. He could escape a single chaser the first time he rounded a corner, and even a series of pursuers within a few minutes. However, out of a small measure of caution, he stuck to leaving the apartments only during the night, when the shadows and a baggy hoodie made him unidentifiable.

The apartments were managed by a man who controlled all the profit, but it was run by a group of managers who kept an eye on the place 24/7. It hadn't taken Ethan very long to figure out why a run-down place like this needed someone watching over it constantly. The man who owned it had devoted almost an entire floor, hidden behind several locked doors, to a meth lab, and the product that flowed out on a nightly basis was more than enough to make up for a series of guards. It was well disguised so even if the police came by, responding to some basic 911 call, they would never find it. It would take a thorough search of the building to find the lab. A new night manager had been hired three days ago, a squint-eyed man who watched everyone who entered and left the building during his shift. He had given Ethan a very thorough once-over the first time Ethan had tried to leave, but after he had reassured the man with a fifty dollar bill that, yes, he really did belong here, they had gotten on well enough. That didn't stop him from eying Ethan up every time he walked down the stairs or back in from the street, but as soon as he recognized Ethan he always let him by with a wave of the hand.

He seemed to be particularly paranoid this evening, because when Ethan walked in he saw the man visibly flinch, before turning boldly towards the door. Ethan tipped back his hood, ran a hand through his messed-up hair, and offered the guard a weary smile. The fact that the manager refused to meet his eyes gave Ethan pause, and he stopped long enough to quickly scan the numbers. The FBI agent was still far away, and the night manager had recognized him. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Ethan tipped his hood back up and walked towards the old stairs at the back of the room. His apartment was on the ninth floor, and with the elevator out of order it always proved to be a long and tedious climb. However, since his encounter with the agent in Port Townsend, Ethan had been forcing himself to go for runs every evening, and his endurance had grown quite a bit. Therefore, he was hardly out of breath after briskly climbing his way up all nine levels. He used an old key to unlock his door, and stepped into the apartment before closing the door behind him with a weary sigh. Ethan was not a messy person by nature, but there was nothing he could do to make this apartment "clean". Compared to some of the places he had stayed, back when he had been dancing from casino to casino and rubbing elbows with some of the wealthiest gamblers in America, this place was hell. Compared to some of the places he had stayed in the last three months, it was more than acceptable. It would have been funny how quickly his standards of living could change, if his situation wasn't so serious.

In the apartment above his, the shouting was beginning again. The couple had moved in after Ethan, and as he listened to the shouts slowly change to screams he felt his hands clench into fists. He did relax a bit when he saw that someone in the building was calling 9-1-1. As little as he wanted the cops showing up in his apartment, they would deal with whatever was going on, and had absolutely no reason to bother him. He fell onto his bed still fully dressed, pulling the numbers forcefully to make sure that the bugs that were the unofficial tenants of the apartments stayed out of his room, and allowed his eyes to begin to close.

__________________________________________________________________________________
"911, what is your emergency?"

"Yes. I saw a poster for that man that the FBI is looking for. I think he lives in the apartment building I work for."

"Which man?"

"The man who broke out of that police facility in Seattle. Black hair, green eyes?"

"And what is the apartment's address?"

"Umm... 7947 S South Chicago Avenue. South Chicago."

"And what is your name, sir?"

"I'm Robert Milton, I'm the night manager at the apartment."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Milton. Someone will come to investigate soon."

"Hey, he always leaves in the middle of the night, and sleeps through the day."

"Thank you, sir."

"What about the reward?"

"Excuse me?"

"The thousand. The 'reward for information leading to the capture of'."

"That will be handled once your claim has been investigated, and the man arrested. Thank you for your time, sir."

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

I'd be willing to help if you wanted me to. You don't have to do it alone, and we could build it piece by piece. I just didn't want to make you feel like I was leading you through things again, so if you want to just go for it and make everything up, I'm more than willing.

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

The cops booked him efficiently with a measure of distrust and confusion. It was clear that they had no idea what was going on, or why an FBI agent had told them to apprehend a man coming off a ferry from a small port town. Nor could they understand why he had gone with them so willingly, and submitted to everything they asked of him, if he was on the run from the FBI. Of course, they didn't know that everything they took on him, the fingerprints and the photos and the DNA, was going to be corrupted before they even had a chance to put it in their system. He didn't give them a name, and they didn't find the wallet he had tucked into the inside of his shoe before leaving the ferry. He also didn't plan to stay long after they took their eyes off of him. He didn't know what exactly he was planning to do, but he did know that it wasn't likely to be hard to figure out. A police station may seem like a secure place, but it relied on a number of things that could easily be fluctuated. Any lock could be sprung, any code could be hit on the first try. And there were so many things to distract the good guards who were supposed to be keeping their eyes on him.

He could not deny that there was a small measure of trepidation in his heart at the thought of finally going against everything he had ever believed in. He had always believed in living low profile, in making enough to get by, and then a little bit extra to have a bit of fun. But he had never done anything truly illegal. At least, not until a month ago. He had realized on the ferry that there was no turning around from that point. He had stepped over the edge when he had set the mob upon Victor, and there was nothing for him to do now except accept the fall, and brace for impact upon landing. If that meant breaking out of prison and disappearing into a teeming metropolis, if that meant going against cops and the law at every turn, so be it.

What he had not known was how long the booking process would take. He did not have access to a clock of any sort, but he didn't need one either. After all, there was only one thing that time could be right where he was, and the numbers told him that when he looked. Nor did he need to know how far the Agent had to drive, or how fast she was going. It seemed this agent had become a part of his life, and the numbers were aiding him in it. He barely had to focus at all to bring her forward in the numbers. In some ways, it was disconcerting. She must be at least a hundred miles, maybe two, and distance usually had an incredibly strong impact on his abilities. Why could he still find her? And why hadn't he been able to do that this morning, when a little bit of heads up would have given him all the notice he needed to get away cleanly? The answer to the second one, at least, was easy. He had allowed himself to believe that she would never be able to track him across the country. He hadn't been looking.

By the time they were finished booking him, he was already almost out of time. He released the numbers relating to the samples they had taken, allowing them to settle back into the general world. The chances that they would get anything useful from their time was almost zero. Had he allowed himself the time, it would have been an easy thing to gloat over, as it had been a particularly skilled example of his ability. But he had bigger concerns at the moment. If he wasn't careful, that FBI agent was going to walk into the building before he had a chance to get out of it. And she had such a strange effect on him and the world around him that he did not want to dare risk that. Which meant he was going to have to get sloppy. He would miss something, and his getaway would not be perfectly clean. With days to prepare his escape he could make sure that nothing, human or machine, noticed him leaving. With ten minutes, his ability to get away without any human noticing him was not even close to certain. There was no way he was going to be able to make it look as though he just vanished.

But he knew that, the moment he stepped off the ferry and accepted the handcuffs. He knew what the price for his cooperation at that time would be, and he was fully prepared to pay it. This was no moment to be getting cold feet. The police officer who had led him through the entire booking process, plus the few additional measures they had taken at the agent's request, now led him towards the back of the precinct, and walked him into a cell. He sat down quietly and waited with blank eyes while the officer uncuffed him and walked out of his cell. And it wasn't all luck that she didn't stay to keep an eye on him. There was a call waiting for her, a call that her boss had decided was important enough that she needed to take. And the man who was coming to replace her had just spilled half a cup of coffee all over himself, and was rushing away to the bathroom to clean himself up. The fact that this happened to be the new white shirt that his wife had just bought him last weekend, though, was a happy coincidence.

He stood, staring at the camera in the corner of the wall that was pointed right at his cell. He closed his eyes, focusing all of his attention on the numbers. After a brief glance at the location of the agent, only five minutes away, he pushed her out of his mind, and began to quickly work. He didn't have much time, and there was so much chaos in the precinct that nothing could go perfectly. He would have to break the lock, rather than getting it to spring open, and many of the cops were going to find themselves suddenly engaged in rather unexpected and embarrassing situations. He gave himself two minutes, two minutes to try and account for every variable that could possibly arise. And then he began.

In the security room, the guard watching the cameras suddenly felt something damp spreading through his pants. He let out a surprised yell, turning away from the monitors. What on earth could have possibly caused him to just lose control of his bladder? The lock holding Ethan's door closed suddenly gave way on his third violent tug, and he stepped out into the hallway. The officer that had been about to pass in front of the door to the cells found the papers in his hand tumbling to the floor; as he bent down to gather them Ethan calmly walked out of the jail. The one man who did notice his progress took one look at his calm attitude and purposeful stride and dismissed him as someone who was supposed to be there.

The secretary who had pressed the button for the elevator felt her phone begin to vibrate. In an attempt to answer it she dropped her suitcase, which popped open, scattering pencils and paper everywhere. The nearby officer quickly walked over to help her clean up, just in time to miss a certain green-eyed man, who stepped into the elevator just as the doors began to close.

The first floor was significantly more empty, but there was almost nothing Ethan could do about the security guard who was watching the front door. All he could hope to do was stall the man long enough to gain a little bit of distance. He didn't have time for anything more elegant. When the guard looked his way, Ethan raised a friendly hand, but didn't slow. The guard only spared him a glance before returning to his magazine. But Ethan wouldn't make it to the door with that alone. The guard was going to look up again when Ethan was right in front of him, and this time there was no way he would mistake him for one of the officers that worked here. By the time he stood and tried to top Ethan, he would be out the door.

The alarm sounded only a couple seconds behind his egress. Perhaps the security guard might have been willing to let him leave, except the man who had brought Ethan in from the ferry had stopped briefly to speak to that same guard, who had gotten a very good look at Ethan. There would be chaos behind him shortly, as every guard began to respond to the alarm. The fact that the fire alarm went off when a person who had been popping popcorn noticed a burning smell and opened the microwave would only add to the confusion.

The agent was less than a minute away, but now that he was clear of the building Ethan broke out into a run. The two alarms were drawing a lot of attention on the street, which both aided and hindered him. People swarmed to anything out of the ordinary, but therefore many more people might notice him and be able to point in the direction he went.

But when he slipped into the side alley undetected he released the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. Now he was safe. By the time the officers got everything figured out he would have vanished into the teeming humanity of Seattle, with nothing to mark where he was going.

This, That, and The Other Thing ~ PopeAlessandros x Jiskastya

You know the drill. Let me know when you are done.

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

Cool. So, we've got a bit of information about how their interactions for this start. Any ideas on the case itself? I know how it needs to end, but that doesn't really help us in the beginning.

Penny in the Well (Jiskastya x Igraine)

Ethan walked away from the edge of the ferry, his eyes cold and sad. The water was splashing up from the wake of the ferry, but none of the droplets made it inside the carport. It took the ferrymen a few moments to notice him, and when one of them finally looked away from the little distractions Ethan had provided, his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"Sir," the ferryman said, trapped somewhere between fear and exasperation. "You can't be down here while the ferry is in motion."

"Sorry," Ethan replied vaguely, his eyes unfocused. His attention was back at the dock, at the agent standing on the edge of the platform, of the words that he should not have been able to hear. Maybe it was that those words had been haunting his thoughts since that night, that he wondered and fretted and cursed himself for caring, and cursed himself for not caring. "I'm looking for Kevin. He's a friend of mine, and got me my ticket."

When he heard Kevin's name, the ferryman accosting Ethan quickly backed off. In fact, he even offered Ethan a polite smile, and nodded. "Let me get you off the floor, and then I'll go track him down."

Ethan allowed himself to be escorted towards the stairs, hands running along the cold railing. The inside of the ferry was comfortably warm, but Ethan still felt shivers running down his back. He curled up in a corner, biting his lip before pressing his head firmly back into the wall. He wasn't really looking at the ceiling, and he wasn't bothering to look at the numbers either. All he was thinking about was the wind-messed copper hair of the FBI agent, of the light as it caught the tear that slipped out of her eye. And her lips shaping into the words he did not want to remember.

He didn't notice Kevin until the man sat down right next to him. "I wasn't expecting to see you!" Ethan looked over, and his eyes were so empty that Kevin's smile quickly slipped away from his lips. "What's wrong, mate?" the man asked, stretching out a hand and placing it heavily on Ethan's shoulder.

It took him a moment to find his tongue, and when he did it still felt like it was made of lead. "I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Josie. Will you tell her for me?"

Kevin was silent for a moment, but seemed to think better of trying to pry any more out of Ethan. His eyes were already moist, and any more pushing might just push him over the edge. Kevin sat quietly with him for a few moments, before getting back up and heading to work before someone could come and chase him off. However, before he left, he did pause, turning his eyes back onto Ethan's folded form. "You'll be fine, man. I'm sure of it." Ethan was barely able to reply with a small smile, but his eyes were a little softer. Kevin smiled as well, before turning away and heading back down the stairs to the carport.

He tried not to think as he sat there, but the thoughts kept intruding back into his mind. He had managed to push away thoughts of Victor for a month, but that woman's arrival had pushed them all back into the forefront of his mind. And now there was no avoiding the guilt. The guilt that eventually began to transform into indignation.

He didn't move as the ferry pulled into the small island town of Coupville, ignoring the passengers who cast strange looks at his huddled form. It was so much easier to shift the blame to someone else. He was not a killer. He hadn't been the one to pull the trigger. The mob would have gotten him eventually. And the easiest justification; he never would have had to do any of it if that woman had just ignored him, just left him be to escape later, when he was away from scrutiny. She had forced his hand in the same way she had forced him to run. He had set up the situation so that he could escape. Victor's own choices had gotten him killed.

He settled down slowly, as the ferry passed slowly through the water of the bay. His breathing slowly settled out, and his justifications slowly slipped away from him, leaving him naked. Perhaps he had killed Victor because there was no empathy in him anymore. Maybe he believed he was better than the rest of humanity. There was no doubt that his justifications were all true. Victor had made his own choices. He probably would have lived a nice, long, healthy life if he hadn't signed up to work for the mob. And maybe if he hadn't embezzled money to fuel his gambling habit he would have never had to leave the mob. But he made his choices, just like Ethan, and there was no changing them now. There was no going back.

The numbers slowly began to shift, and Ethan looked at them lazily. The tears that had threatened since he had boarded the ferry finally spilled over, but only two managed to roll down his cheeks before his emotion was bled out. He was left empty, empty and tired. He didn't care anymore what that lady thought of him. It didn't matter if she sent the entire FBI after him. He would always get away. He was done trying to hide, trying to play it safe. Let her throw at him what she would. He would anticipate it all, and he would be ready.

The ferry docked into the Seattle port, and he could see the men moving in his minds eye, throwing out the ropes and slowly pulling the ship into the web. He stood, dusting himself off. And he didn't look behind him as he walked down to the off-ramp, into the waiting arms of the Seattle Police Department. He greeted them with a smile, and presented his hands.

Let her chase him. He would be ready. And there was no way she would ever be able to catch him for good.