Participants:
| Scene Title | Bound By Blood II |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | When one of the suspects teleports into a hospital, Veronica and Allison are sent to get as much information as they can about the girl in the hopes that it might help catch the brother. |
| Date | June 24, 2010 |
Two Hours Earlier
Antiseptic reeks in this place, used liberally to kill anything unwanted that may try to flourish on the wall, floors and instruments. In one room, a man with a gash across his forehead is being sewed back up, result of a construction site accident. One of his buddies waits with him, joking about how his wife is gonna love the new scar.
"She's bottoming out" A paramedic rattles off as they run on by with a gurney, surrounded by three other people. An elderly woman, intubated, lays feebly on mobile surface even as her heart rate plummets and the monitors go from a weak beep to a steady whine. Even that sounds disappears as they enter into a trauma room and the doors close.
"I've been here four fucking hours now. Four hours. My child is sick and he needs to be seen, and instead you all seem to just be sitting around and doing nothing but drinking coffee and joking about what you did last night" A skinny woman with a jersey accent - and the hair and nails to match - is ripping into a woman at the check in desk.
"Ma'am, we have had a few emergencies come through, and they take priority. I'll ask you again, please return to your seat, we will get to you when we can. That's all I can tell you" The petite Hispanic nurse replies neutrally, brows rising. "We're doing the best we can Ma'am, if yo-" The nurse is cut off at the sucking sound that happens behind them, the wash of air pressure changed from the addition of someone.
Mary-Anne Stack.
The petite blonde wobbles, an imperfect teleportation in to a place she's been only once. SHe'd been aiming for the blood storage room. Gaunt, deathly pale, a pained look on her face, everyone here knows who she is from the pictures that were shuffled around and to pay attention if she showed up. Jeans, a dingy white t-shirt, boots and greasy hair, she's a far cry from the smiling girl on the school pictures that the authorities had managed to procure from yearbooks.
"Help" It comes out weakly and rasped as she grabs onto the arm of the nearest nurse. Two seconds later knee;s give and grip does too and she collapses to the floor, unconscious in the middle of the nursing station.
Present time
"Security has been posted at her door, no ones come in, or out. She hasn't made an attempt to leave. Severe Anemia, how she stayed alive this long, I don't know. We've been pumping her full of blood to try and stabilize her. There's been some organ damage, only time will tell what lasting effects there will be"
The white coated doctor walks with the two Company personnel the clipboard with the one half of the Stack siblings in hand. "She should be awake, I ask that you not take too long, I'll give you half an hour Agent, Doctor. I trust that you'll use it wisely"
One police officer is at the door, standing up when everyone comes down the hall into sight. The door to the room open, sun shining into the room displays the hospital gowned young woman in the air conditioned room. Thin, pallid, eyes closed that show heavy circles under her eyes. Monitors beep softly, signifying a weakened state but not life threatening. A few bags drip into an IV, blood, who knows what else, but Allison would know from looking at her chart. The two are granted access to the room, and the young woman inside.
Allison frowns as she listens to the doctor, and she pauses to grab Mary-Anne's chart. However, she doesn't immediately look over it, instead moving towards the woman, head tilting as she studies the patient, and only then does she glance over the chart, picking out important keywords and ignoring the rest, for now anyway. Half an hour isn't a lot of time.
"Want to tell us what happened, Mary-Anne?" she asks, voice all soft and soothing, as if this were any patient of hers, and not a suspect who's been looked for by the authorities.
Since Mary-Anne is ill, and Dr. Allison Richards is a doctor, no matter what Veronica thinks of psychiatry, she allows the other agent to take the lead on this one, murmuring her thanks to the doctor and the police officer as she follows Allison in. She moves to a corner to stand unobtrusively, smiling in what she hopes is a reassuring manner to the ill woman, though she does flash her DHS badge so that Mary-Anne knows who they are.
The handcuff on mary-Anne's wrist seems a formality really, considering that technically she could up and disappear at any time. Blue eyes show when people enter and questions start to be asked. This was coming, she knew this might happen, and would happen when she woke up handcuffed to the bed.
"I teleported in. I'm not registered and I'm sick. I couldn't wait for an ambulance to come and get me and I didn't have a phone" Still weak voiced, one has to strain to hear her in the room with the noise from outside the hall.
There's a glance at the chart in her hands again before Allison nods. "Yes, you are sick. When did you first start getting sick though? Perhaps when you and your partner tried to take some blood?" she asks, her tone light rather than accusing, despite the words.
The when isn't as much an issue to Veronica as the fact that the more dangerous of the two blood thieves is not with Mary-Anne. "Where's your brother, or if you don't know, when is the last time you saw him, and when and where did you expect to see him again?" she asks a bit more tersely. They only have half an hour, after all, and her brother is the one who must have caused the injuries at the other blood bank.
"I don't know where Jacob is. He left this morning, didn't tell me where he was going. He just took off in the truck" It hurts her to say it, but they know about him and he left with the gun. Who knows what he's going to do. "We didn't meant to hurt anyone." The whiney sick protest of someone who knows they did something wrong. "I just needed the blood. I'd get sick without it. No one noticed before. Please don't shoot my brother, he's all I have"
Allison glances to Veronica, but doesn't say anything about the change in questions. "What do you mean you'd get sick without it? Why?"
The fact her brother is a hemakinetic and the fact she is apparently anemic seems either a cruel, cruel irony or too coincidental, but Veronica keeps the second thought to herself — telling a sick girl her brother might be making her sick isn't something she wants to do today. "We have no intentions of shooting your brother. We don't just shoot people, unless they pose an immediate threat, and even then only if we're out of other options, Miss Stack. Do you have any idea what's causing the anemia? How long ago did it start?" the agent asks.
"Little.. under a year ago" Maybe if Jacob had been here, maybe if she had a lawyer, she might not be talking, might have clammed up. "he took me to a, a doctor when I started getting really tired. Doctor told him what it was that… it would go away, eat more red meat" Eat more red meat. Mary-Anne's eyes close, but still keeps talking, twisting the sheets in her one hand from her anxiety. "It went away, but came back. But.. But I was, I started…."
Allison's voice remains soothing. "Mary-Anne…Your brother, he's evolved too, isn't he? He can affect the blood around him, can't he?" she asks softly, her eyes apologetic.
"But you started what?" Veronica repeats, trying to get the girl back on track to what she had been saying before she trailed off. "What happened that made it so you two needed to start stealing blood instead of just going to a hospital — someplace like the Suresh Center, maybe, that specializes in Evolved matters, maybe?"
"Because they disappear people. Jacob said if anyone found out what I could do, if they did that test on me, he'd never see me again. I'd be taken from him, and I'd be shoved in some room and they'd experiment on me" The handcuff clanks against the raid, Mary-anne pulling on it, a habitual reaction done by most when in a situation like this. "He's not. Only I am. I teleport. That's what he calls it."
The monitors beep a fraction faster in response to the young woman, squeezing her eyes shut tight instead of just closed. "He's not like me. He said no one would miss it. We'd walk in, get the blood, walk out. He learned how to give it to me, give me the transfusions when it got really bad. I'm sorry. I tried to stop him from shooting that guy, I didn't know the gun was loaded, he always had it unloaded"
Upon hearing that Jacob isn't evolved, at least according to the sister, Allison glances at Veronica with a faint frown. She draws in a deep breath, because really, she can't trust Mary-Anne, and her eyes fade silver. "Mary-Anne, what happened right before you started getting sick? And are you sure your brother isn't evolved?"
Not wanting to interrupt the interview while Allison's power is in play, Veronica picks up her notepad and scribbles on a blank page: Either her brother is hemokinetic OR she's capable of TP-ing PARTS of blood — in order to cause anemia last week. Possibly she TPs out parts of blood that she can't use but I've never heard of anything THAT specific with TP. Banking on the brother - possibly he made her sick without knowing it.
She pauses, then adds: Ask if she knows where he went again while under your power.
Allison's ability comes into play, the enhanced hypnosis and the blonde on the bed relaxes a fraction after noticing the silver eyes with confusion. It works though, the ability soothing over, sinking it's fingers into the teleporters mind and she stops rattling her arm, fingers uncurling and resting on the bed.. "He's not evolved. I'm the only freak in the family. Nothing happened. I was graduating, we were getting out from having to deal with child welfare all the time. I was going to go to college and.. I started getting sick, I wasn't feeling well, I was tired and I just… I'd get dizzy and shit. I fainted and he took me in"
Allison glances at the notepad and nods, then smiles a bit and murmurs to Veronica. "You can ask questions as well. I'll tell her to answer you." Then with a normal volume, but the same hypnotic tone, she asks, "Do you know where your brother is right now? If you don't know for sure, give me your best guess." She doesn't ask the rest, because if the girl is teleporting parts of blood without realizing it, then it's kind of pointless to ask. And the other part was answered.
Nodding to Allison, Veronica studies the anemic girl. "What happened to those people at St. Luke's? They came down with severe anemia — sudden onset anemia, with no prior history of it, after seeing you and your brother. Do you have any idea what caused that?" Veronica asks. "Do you know what caused that? Did you cause it in anyway?"
"At home. Or… at work at the Daybrie farm. I don't know, he always tells me where he'll be so that I can get him if I need to. He didn't tell me today which was why I came here. He wasn't at the farm" She tears her gaze away from Allison to Veronica when the other company agent starts asking question, doe eye'd, saline starting to leak from the corners. 'Something happened? He shot.. he shot the gaurd, I know that, but… I don't.. Oh god, do you think it's part of what I do? Is my… is my teleportation making me sick? Did it make others sick?" The shock and horror across her face is not feigned, and since Allison's ability still seems to be in play, it's the truth. If her brother is evolved, she has not a clue.
Allison considers for a moment, a long moment, then she glances to Veronica, for just a moment, before looking back to Mary-Anne. "Mary-Anne, until either myself or Agent Sawyer, this woman with me, tells you otherwise, you cannot use your ability." Not will not, cannot. Alli isn't sure it'll work, since she's never tried something like this before, but it can't hurt to try.
"We don't know, Mary-Anne. It may not be you who did it, and if you did, don't be hard on yourself. You didn't mean to," Veronica says quietly, the girl's sincere tears making her feel perhaps a touch bad. She nods to Allison, and then glances back at Mary-Anne. "Once you are feeling better, it's possible we can have someone work with you and your ability and see if that's what is making you sick. It would be in your best interest to be as forthcoming about your power and what you know of it as you possibly can. We won't put you in a dark hole," if she can help it — Institute is another issue altogether — "so don't be afraid."
As for the brother, Veronica frowns. "Do you have his cell phone? I can possibly locate him that way. I'm sure he would like to know where you are, and how you are. We need to talk to him to, in order to find out what's making you ill. The more both of you cooperate with us, the better. These crimes — most of them were crimes of necessity — I know you're afraid, but the more you cooperate, the better it will look for both of you."
"We don't have a cellphone, I'm sorry." Looking between the two of them, nodding her head, hair rustling against the pillow, still in need of a wash from the sweat and exertion of getting there. "He'll go back to the house. If he doesn't find me, I don't know what he'll do. I sometimes leave, go out and try to have some fun" Bella knows this, Bella ran into the duo one night at a club.
The doctor stcks his head in the door, looking at the trio, a strongly cautioned "ten minutes" Falling from his lips before he exits again and all attention goes back to the pair standing by her bed.
Allison glances back at the door and nods to the doctor before turning back to Mary-Anne. "What do you know of his habits, Mary-Anne? Places he likes to hang out, or works at?"
"And where do you live right now? Can you give me the address of that and the farm?" Veronica adds, poised to jot down the pertinent information, hand already moving to her Blackberry to text it to the dispatcher to send agents to go look for Jacob Stack.
"There's.. a bar I take him to. Over in New Jersey. There's the Daybrie's farm" That address is rattled off, the name of an address in pleasantville belonging to a Jenny Staunch. Another address, later to be traced to pleasantville but outside of it, right on the limits of the village. "Used to be our grandparents. Old farmhouse. Jacob said we'd be safe there. nobody would ever think to look there cause it's so old and never been lived in for years. Not even any electricity"
Allison nods and smiles, then looks to Veronica, giving her a questioning look. Seems she's done, and is just Vee time to ask any other questions she may have.
"Thanks," Veronica says, with a smile toward Mary-Anne, as she immediately types the addresses into a text form, and sends it off. There's no pace maker in here, so it should be safe, right? Besides, all the doctors have cell phones. "You've been very helpful. Please, don't use your power, like Dr. Richards said. It is possible that it might be some aspect of it that's making you ill, and we can possibly help you find out what it is. I know it's frightening to be here, and that you might want to run away, but with your illness, that's no kind of life. You can't keep hiding and raiding blood supplies. Let us help you. We'll find your brother." She gives a nod to Allison, and heads for the door.
Mary Anne looks resigned, a faint nod to the instructions vocal and planted in her mind by the shrink and agent alike. "Yes Ma'am" The pretty young blonde leans back into her pillows, closing her eyes again as the two seem to make their way out. Dread and fear warring with relief at what's to come.
Allison's eyes slowly fade back to hazel, only after saying, "If you think of anything, tell the doctor and he'll let us know." Then she nods to Veronica, and Mary Anne, before starting for the door.
At the door, Veronica gives cards with contact information to both the doctor and the police officer on guard duty, thanking both for their time. "Her brother might try to break her out of here. We'll send some agents to ensure that doesn't happen," she adds, glancing over her shoulder with a furrowed brow. This is one of those she will try to save from the Institute — Mary-Anne Stack doesn't deserve to be locked in a coffin for just trying to survive. "I wonder if someone could heal her…" she adds to Allison on the way out.
"I have no idea. Depends on whether the condition is persistent and linked to her ability," Allison says, shrugging a little as she steps out of the room. "I just hope that if it is her ability, that my command works as it's supposed to."
"Let's just hope there's no fire or something and she doesn't need to teleport to safety," Veronica adds a little wryly. Allison's power is useful, though it seemed like the girl was forthcoming anyway, and the threat that comes with the order Allison gave might outweigh the good it might do. "Now to find her brother…"