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| Scene Title | Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Once upon a time, Little Red thought the Big Bad Wolf was friendly, and just misunderstood. Then one day, she learned. |
| Date | February 16, 2011 |
Roosevelt Island is a station on the IND 63rd Street Line of the New York City Subway. Located on Roosevelt Island in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens, it is served by the F train at all times. The exterior of the station is poorly maintained, with two of the streetlights outside having been broken during the damage from the explosion years ago, and have yet to be repaired. Graffiti mars the concrete walls outside, and on the stairs descending to the station proper. Fare control is in a glass-enclosed building off of Main Street.
Underground, the station has two tracks and two side platforms. It is one of the deepest stations in the New York City Subway system, at about 100 feet below street level (approximately 10 stories deep). Due to its depth, the design of the station is also unusual. Similar to the stations of the Paris Metro and Washington Metro, Roosevelt Island station is built with a high, vaulted ceiling. Roosevelt Island Station also features a mezzanine visible directly above the tracks, common amongst stations on the Washington Metro, but not common in New York. The station contains elevators to street level.
Curfew still exists. Supposedly. Law and order still exist.
Somewhere.
Outside of the walls of the dome that's encapsulated the majority of Roosevelt Island. It feels good to be out at night again, Odessa decides, in face of all the folly behind it. Satin heels stained by water and blood sound over the floors of Roosevelt Island Station. It wasn't a hard destination, a planned stop. But her meandering path took her this way somewhat out of habit. She's considered heading toward the water, but decided that is an excursion better attempted with numbers. Maybe. She at least has decided not to pursue that line of action without a solid plan in place first.
In her red peacoat, Odessa Price's figure is something of a beacon. She should be concerned by this. Should have worn darker colours. She's already weathered a calculated attack on the Suresh Center and her kind, however. Where this might make others wary, it's given her an undeserved sense of bravado. Stitches in her back should mean she knows better. Maybe she does. She always has been one to enjoy tempting fate.
"Still 'asn't 'ealed."
The low voice practically crawls from the darkness. For a moment it is difficult to discern where the voice actually came from. Silence following the words. It might be possible that the words are just imagined for copious moments that proceed in suffocating silence. Eventually the impenetrable darkness allows a quiet stirring sound to be emitted from its still depths. "You shouldn't be loiterin' in a subway station."
A black boot clips out into the dim lighting, the Wolf moving forward silently. His features eventually visible as he stalks forward. A heavy black coat draped over his shoulders, the man is clad in all dark tones, his hands bare. For the moment. Crossing the space in between them, while giving them a wide berth at the same time. "Wearin' bright red?" A light smirk flicks up his lips. "All the better t'see you, my dear."
Little Red always did ignore all the warnings about the Big Bad Wolf.
Odessa shrinks in on herself at the first sound of that voice so familiar and so distant ringing off the walls and in her ears. Her heels scrape on the floor as she turns a circle to try and discern what direction he's about to come from.
And then she turns, and he's there.
A gasp, involuntary, escapes her lips and the young woman takes a step back, hand fluttering to her chest. "Some scars never do heal," is what Odessa opts to address. She's nervous, but she doesn't flee. Perhaps she's trying to prove something to him. Or herself. Her lips move, but it's a moment before the words actually come. "Silly to be afraid of the dark."
It isn't the dark, but the things lurking there that she should take more care about.
"Very silly."
The agreement comes readily. His hands hang neutrally at his sides. Though Odessa might notice that he seems a little taller than he used to stand. Perhaps time is not as good an ally to her as she thought. Or perhaps he had a very late growth spurt. Taking a circling step, Holden stares over at her as he does. "Dark can't 'urt you." He stops in his circling to face her fully. His hands tucked into his jacket pockets.
His head tilts to the side as he shifts his weight onto one foot, a near-smile hanging on his lips. "'ow've you been, sweet'eart?" The Wolf asks quietly, looking rather casual and comfortable despite the clandestine context of their meeting.
Odessa's breathing is coming in shallower than she would like. Every step Ethan takes is met with a reactionary step of her own, making sure she never remotely gives him her back. Fingers absently drift upward from where they were splayed across the front of her coat to wrap around the white gold pendant of a nightingale at her throat. It doesn't cover the worst of the scars in the way the necklace the man in front of her gave her years ago did.
"Apparently not as well as you," Odessa surmises. That he looks taller and more confident is not lost on her. Where she was skittish an unworldly before, now she's skittish because of life experience. Because of past deeds. "Did you miss me?" If only her voice didn't waver just the barest bit to betray her when she speaks, she might have managed to sound callous.
"You took away my daughters sight."
It's the only answer Odessa gets to her question. And the curtness of the words clip into the end of Odessa's question as if he wasn't even listening. There were always several facets to Holden. The one rarely seen is the protecting Wolf. Standing guard by his pack, treating them with a certain kind of fatherly care. Odessa got to see that side a lot. What was rarer for her to see is what stands before her…
The stalking warrior, the hunter who toys with his food, the killer. His head rolls to the other side, smile coming up a little wider. "Did you want to kill 'er? Completely?"
"I did." There isn't any sense lying about it. Odessa blinded Eileen Ruskin. Not long ago, she'd have said I didn't mean to. Because she didn't mean to. She was meant to simply die, rather than go blind. But it doesn't change anything. "I did want to kill her. She killed me first."
She does remarkably well without her sight, would be a compliment, but also an insult. "She took my eye." The white patch adorned with a red even-armed cross shows that much. "It was a mistake, what I did to her. It was horrible, and I want to help her. I know a healer who I think can restore her sight."
At the admission, Ethan's hand comes out of his pocket and hangs readily at his side. As if about to spring into action, but something Odessa says gives him pause. It is most likely the thing about healing. A pregnant moment of silence passes. "Continue." He commands quietly, taking another step forward.
"You're alive." He argues. "Y'never died. I never died." His lips close for a moment. "Th'old man died and that's it." He growls out quietly, hand still hanging by his side. "Y'need t'tell me about the 'ealer."
Ethan steps forward, Odessa steps back, her throat working visible with an anxious swallow. "I had to be brought back. The man who healed me can heal her. He… rewinds people. They eventually catch up again, but I posit…" Her head tilts to one side, white hair spilling over her shoulder as she sets her mouth and thinks about her words, how to offer them simply.
Odessa's head lifts after a deep breath, and she continues. "If he rewinds her, and her sight is restored, I believe that even as she starts to regress - go forward again… Eileen lost her sight due to poison in her system. I believe if the poison is not reintroduced, she should not again lose her sight. And if I'm wrong, and the poison is somehow dormant in her system, I can treat her for the poisoning and prevent it." She hopes. She isn't one hundred percent certain how Darren Stevens' ability actually works.
"It's very convenient that you're needed alive for this plan." Holden states quietly. Taking a few steps forward, Holden's chin dips down for a moment. When he looks back up the smirk that had been hanging on his lips is all but gone. "When the walls come down. You're going to go to 'er under my direct supervision. If it works. I won't kill you." He might still take her other eye. "But I just need you to remember.."
The hand hanging at his side flexes and an instant later a gun has slid out into his palm from his sleeve. He doesn't move to aim the weapon, it is simply held there. Holding the gun firmly, Ethan watches Odessa quietly. "You should live every day like it's your last."
It's generally a good policy to follow.
"Self-preservationist," Odessa offers unapologetically when he points out the need for her to remain living in order for this plan to work. When the gun comes out, watches it for a moment. And then, she disappears. At least until he feels the cold touch of steel against his throat and her body pressing to his back. Display for display. "Wise words," she murmurs in his ear, her mouth curving into a grin against the shell.
There's a beat of tense silence. A quick inhale signals she's about to speak. "I don't want to have to kill you," sounds sincere. "There's a part of me that still loves you, Ethan. And I regret everything that went wrong between us. And everything that went wrong between Eileen and I." Odessa plants a kiss where jaw meets ear and withdraws her knife from his throat. "I'm sorry I ever doubted that you would come back for me."
Leaning back some a light laugh has his neck pressing against the sharp of the blade. His eyes roll over to the woman partially behind him. "You couldn't, even if you wanted to." He murmurs confidently. When the knife withdraws, Ethan does not yet move. His head tipping back some. Remaining still. "I could 'ave already killed you a dozen times.." He whispers. Sort of the little boys contest. I SHOT YOU FIRST.
"Don't push it." He murmurs. "When I turn around. I think it might be best for you if you were gone."
And when he does, she is.
Only decaying echoes of footsteps betray her retreat.