He's Out Of Rehab

Participants:

cat_icon.gif peyton_icon.gif

Scene Title He's Out Of Rehab
Synopsis Peyton tells a tale of Danko.
Date February 23, 2010

The Verb, Penthouse

Arriving by any of four elevators, visitors will find they open into three foot corridors facing wide double doors made from sturdy southern pine which swing outward and have the strongest locks available. The stairs lead to single doors, also outward opening, at the end of three foot corridors. Entry requires both a key and a keycard; other security measures are a video camera and voice communication terminal at all doors. The 4th Street side has floor to ceiling windows interrupted only by the access points. Cream colored curtains are normally kept closed.

This level has enough space for sixteen apartments. There is an office space with reception area, conference room, and executive office; a room for archery practice and other forms of physical exercise; a very well appointed kitchen and dining area; a music zone with an array of instruments, electronics, and amplifiers; an entertainment area with an HD set covering an entire stretch of wall from floor to ceiling; a locked room where security footage for the building is recorded and can be monitored; a laundry room; a staircase for roof access; central air and heating; the main bedroom and a few smaller guest rooms; plush deep wine carpet everywhere except the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms; and track lighting everywhere overhead. The light levels can be lowered or raised in the entire place, or selectively by segments. The overall decor suggests the occupant is a woman.


11:00 or thereabouts, back at the Verb after visiting Hana, having invited Peyton over along the way. She's got things timed out fairly well, standing by the elevator down the corridor left of security desk, and with two bags of food from Piccoli's in hand. An Alley Cat courier from the Chelsea branch who has no idea Cat owns his workplace was met as he arrived with the goods and tipped well.

Peyton enters the building looking a little more like her former self — that is, giant Olsen-twin style sunglasses cover her face, despite the overcast and cloudy nature of the sky outside. She doesn't remove the glasses in the lobby. She sees Cat and gives a nod to security as she moves toward the owner of the building. "Hey," she says simply. As she moves closer toward the elevator, it's easy enough to see that Peyton sports a cut and swollen upper lip, the left side puffier than the right, giving her a slightly off-kilter countenance.

Oh God. Cat stares, surprised by what she sees, and it causes her to flash back. To September 12, 2008 at Dorchester Towers.

The brunette has looked better, to put it mildly. Dani's in a little black dress, which seems soaked through at the front skirt. Barefoot and limping. Hair tousled, makeup a -mess-. Purplish bruise marks on her right upper arm, like someone grabbed her hard there. A "stripe" sort of bruise rising diagonally over her torso, where a seatbelt would be. And the entire right side of her face is bruised, her lip split and face bloody, like someone fairly large and fairly strong hit her rather hard.

A few steps are taken, she settles onto the sofa and collects her thoughts further, forcing herself to push aside all those scenarios she was playing out. Cat's eyes close for a short time, and when they reopen she just stares across the room. Because there's a painting near the window which she's depicted in, brandishing her guitar like a weapon, with two figures silhouetted in black and bearing arms in an alley. One has a gun and the other a knife. Her mouth opens and closes several times before words emerge. "That's that's me. Is that why you turned up back there?"

But the topic is left for later when the sound of feet on the entry hall carpet tells her Dani's back. She stands and moves to assist the shorter brunette, taking in her appearance with concern and anger.

Peter looks at Cat, his expression softening when she sees the painting. His stare drifts over to it, then to the floor in front of Cat. He crouches down in front of where she's seated, nodding once, "Yeah, I I was trying to paint something for you, and it" When the door opens, Peter isn't expecting what he sees. "Dani?" Spotting Danielle in the condition she's in is enough to make Peter falter, his eyes growing wide in disbelief. He stands there, dumbstruck for a few moments as he sees her limping, then runs across the apartment to her side along with Cat, "Dani, damn" He gently places a hand on her back between her shoulderblades, the other trying to take her hand enough to keep her steady. "Cat, she's gotta go on the couch," He squints, looking around the dark apartment, "Do you have a first-aid kit? And get some lights on so I can take a look at her better" His tone of voice, while authoratative, is much more gentle than usual. "Dani, what what happened?" He leans in, looking at her head, trying to see if she had hit it anywhere in the dim light.

Dani's not to proud to take help from the both in fact, now that she's gotten -here-, the adrenaline rush she's been running on is fading, leaving her shaking and pale. "Linderman's goons. The purse. Don't let anything happen to it. My recorder. Got the whole thing on audio." But she paid for it, certainly.##

When she forces herself from the recalled event, Cat's eyes are haunted and her jaw is set. She doesn't speak a word, intent on getting into the elevator and upstairs to converse in private.

Peyton frowns at Cat's expression. She knows she looks like hell, but she hasn't even taken the glasses off. It's her her bruised raccoon eyes that are truly the piece de resistance. "I'm fine. Unfortunately, they didn't arrest Danko," she says tersely, anger at the fact that Danko is once more out and about and free in the world, able to track her down. Anger at herself for letting him know she was afraid at him — his words from Monday night revealing the fact he probably has no real idea why she has reason to be afraid of him.

It's a short trip up, Cat's fists clenching along the way. When elevator doors open and she steps out after closing the access panel to rehide buttons for the upper floors, she asks confusedly "Danko? Linderman's goons didn't follow you after the party and rough you up?" For her, sight of a person she knows messing around with Kain and injuries add up to Lindergoons automatically. What the hell does Emile Danko have to do with this?

Once inside the penthouse, holding the door open for Peyton, Cat quietly tells her "I'd hoped you'd stop and talk with me a bit last night. I had something to tell you."

Once upstairs, Peyton pushes the oversized sunglasses up onto her head, revealing her raccoon eyes. They do not seem swollen so much as just mottled beneath — the kind of black eyes you get not from being hit in the eye, but being hit between them, and the drainage resulting in two shiners. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to avoid you — this happened," she says with a gesture to her face, though she manages not to start crying at the memory. "I went up to the roof and Danko was coming down He pinned me, and I tried to fight back." There's a bitter little bark of a laugh at that. "He won. And they didn't keep him. Obviously he's out of rehab." She missed that, somehow, in her monitoring — as did whoever was hired to surveil him in person.

"I flashed back," Cat states in an exhale as she sees the full extent of injury, "to eighteen months ago. My lover was a reporter, she was hoping to make her name by exposing Linderman's mob ties and tried to work a way in through Kain Zarek. It got her beaten up badly. I saw you with him, then I see you like this, and…" She trails off, closing the doors.

"It's the first thing that comes to mind. Danko," she growls lowly, "is someone who needs to be lured out into trying the first move against a false target and shot dead in such a way as he doesn't look the martyr."

"I've been focused mostly on tracking down Russian nazis lately, haven't thought much about him."

There's a frown as Cat explains at least her reaction to the Kain incident at the gala, though she had heard a little of the warning from her mother. She glances down, cheeks coloring a touch, but she doesn't argue. When Danko is mentioned, she frowns, looking back up. "False target? You think it'd work? He was attacking me, and half the people on that roof didn't even …" she shakes her head in anger, dark eyes narrowing. "That Noriko person helped him by cushioning his fall with water, when Magnes tried to hurt him. Something always intervenes when it comes to Danko."

Noriko. Damn. Cat's going to have to speak with that one and explain who the man is. Again. She'd told the Asian about him after he visited Old Lucy's, and now she's helping him? Fuuuuuck. "I do," she asserts. "Danko is who he is, he wants to kill people like us, and if a juicy opportunity appears I believe he'll go for it. Anyway, I know someone who can help you learn fighting techniques. He's a former IDF guy, expert in Krav Maga." She writes down an address and phone number for contacting him. There's no further mention of Danko, though, as Cat slides into another subject.

"I wanted to tell you, too, the dream invading entity was taken care of. It won't bother anyone again."

The clairvoyant gives an noncommittal shrug, the kind that teenagers are so good at, though she's a couple years beyond that age, as she takes the slip of paper apathetically, not even glancing at the name. She isn't tearful but seems simply resigned. "Yeah, I heard. Aaron said he thought it was over when he woke the other night. Not sure why he thought so, but someone confirmed it. That's good. Thanks, if you had anything to do with it," she says. She means it, but the words lack emotion and color.

"I've been training with him for almost a year now," Cat remarks, "minus the time spent on my recent travels. If you train with him, we could also sometimes work on practicing the moves." She sets the two bags of Piccoli's food down, gesturing toward one of them as being Peyton's, then walks a few feet away and makes a brief demonstration of basic moves.

"Aaron did? Good," she comments as the memory of Aaron's tarot card and the flood of emotions which were sucked into her flashes. "I was in the battle," Cat confirms.

Reaching for the bag, Peyton pulls out the food. "Thanks," she says again — the tone used for thanking her for the battle with the Nightmare Man the same used for the take out. "He seemed really different after. Sort of a new philosophy — which is pretty amusing since he was a brat after I felt better about defeating the dream Danko." She shakes her head at that. She banished the nightmare Danko only to find him in the real world on a stairwell.

Her own bag is opened and food extracted as the dark-clad Cat settles into a seat. "I should talk to him soon," she muses idly. The details of what she experienced, that taste of his ability, to be discussed then. "The woman you were with," she muses as thoughts turn toward the Dream Danko and Peyton's victory, "I saw her in your dream that night."

Forgetting for a moment that Faye was her avatar or persona or patronus or whatever the name is this week, Peyton looks confused for a moment before understanding dawns on her bruised face. "She's someone I look up to a lot," she says quietly, not explaining the actual relationship the two share. "I guess the kind of person I'd like to be, if I weren't… well, me." She chuckles a little dryly at that. "Not all of us can have jungle beasts, after all."

"I like my panther," Cat comments with a chuckle. "It comes from my name, and the way I emulated the animal when I played onstage at the Surly Wench. It's been a long time, but a stage with a guitar and an audience is still where I feel most comfortable." She takes a careful bite of her food, the woman's demeanor far from what one might expect of a punk rocker in a place like that. Back straight, features neutral, eating her meal in a manner close to whatever Emily Post may have prescribed. She's content to enjoy the company and discuss her stage days, while hopefully keeping Peyton from thinking of or mentioning Emile Danko again. To provide a break from worry.


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