Participants:
| Scene Title | One is the Loneliest Number |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Huruma returns to the safehouse to an impatient Jessica. |
| Date | September 24th, 2008 |
???
More time at the safehouse. And Jessica is getting impatient. And irritated. They've moved multiple times, staying on the go, and yet Adam is still to make with the kind of progress that she'd feel more comfortable with. Elle is shrill, and best unconscious most of the time, which is where she is now. And Huruma's been…out. It's left Jessica with far too much time to be alone with her thoughts, which is never a good thing. She's pacing at the moment, trying to find some peace inside the quiet.
Huruma may leave, but if she has a reason to come back, then she will in time. It is about that time again, when Huruma ventures back into the newest safehouse. She has the black jacket on over her still bloody clothes, a hefty plastic bag swaying at her side. The woman takes a rather long route to get home, entering the empty building in absolute silence; the first thing she does is discard the coat onto the floor, where the inside is a dank tone of red.
That crumpling of the clothing inside of the door is the first sound to herald her arrival, and soon she is sauntering back into the bowels of the building towards where they keep Elle, and where they commiserate— all with that deceptively boring plastic bag twined between her fingers.
The blonde woman looks over to Huruma, frowning a little as she looks to the plastic bag. "Where were you?" Not that she doesn't trust her…but then, they're villains. Trust is in short supply in general.
The look Jessica gets back from Huruma is much like one might get from a housecat trying to be pushed off of its perch. Disgruntled, mildly annoyed, et cetera. Full lips press together for a few seconds as the taller woman observes her peer, strolling over to a strategically placed, rickety table. The plastic bag thunks down onto the top, and Huruma lifts a hand to slip a sheathed, curved knife from the waist of her bloodstained black skirt, then depositing the weapon on the old table.
"Out. Why d'you ask?" Her voice is not rigid, but it does sound just slightly guarded in its smoothness.
It doesn't take an emotion-reader to pick up the suspicion off the blonde. Though again, that's one layer of a three-layer cake. The woman replies, "Because when we're all equally as screwed and on the run, and we barely know each other, wandering off for hours at a time tends to be a bad idea. Makes people worry that they're getting sold out."
Huruma remains quite neutral, lidded white eyes flicking towards Jessica for a moment of silent observation.
"I'ave been through worse." Huruma remarks, her tone now something more tired. "If I had wanted no part of you, Miss Bishop, or of Adam— I woul'not still b'here. I woul'be gone before you knew I was even leaving." The dark woman's voice is steady, both eyes resting on Jessica as her hand slips into the plastic bag.
Jessica frowns a little. "I won't get into a pissing match with you over which of us is the more dangerous, so let's not try." she says, flatly. "What if you'd gotten caught though? There are practical considerations."
The hand in the bag comes back out with a fat black wallet, and a thinner, slimmer object. "If someone tries t'catch me, they'ave t'best me first. Elle— " Huruma tilts her head lazily, eyes flickering there to the girl and back. "— lucked out. This fellow, however…did not." Long fingers slide open the wallet, then the other black holder so that she can coast them with her eyes once more.
"I believe…he was important. Is? I don't know if he lived…" Huruma's casual tone wins over in her now pleased and purring voice. She sidles down the length of the table closer to Jessica to languidly hand off Matt Parkman's wallet and Homeland Security badge and identification. There's a prize. Do you like it?
Jessica takes the wallet and looks at it. "Oh, him." She says, with a bemused tone as she looks at the picture there. "He's got more lives than a cockroach. I threw him out a window once."
"Maybe I should'ave gone f'his throat, in hindsight." Huruma steps back to where she had been standing, pulling a smaller bag out of the bigger one. This one has a box shape inside of it, and some sort of a bottle. "I wasn'even tracking him. He got a flat tire." At this, Huruma does laugh, lips curling into a smile. It is a low, rippling laugh, as always.
The blonde looks amused. "So did you kill him? Is he finally out of our hair?"
"I had t'leave him…but I did relieve him of an arm. He lost out on th'blood loss, bu'I canno'say if he is alive or dead. I prefer t'think dead. If I see'im alive again— " Huruma coos thoughtfully during her words. "— I will tear ou'his heart." No coming back from that one.
Quietly, silently, invisible and unfelt, Huruma's sensory reaches out to feel at the cusps of Jessica's different emotions; she has been standing here in this conflicted presence for long enough that it is warranting an unseen investigation.
Jessica smiles. "Well, if you get the opportunity…and if he's still drawing breath…by all means, give me a call. I'd enjoy removing a few of his parts myself." One layer of the cake is indeed amused. Vicious. Sadistic. Another layer in there is just confused. And a third seems angry, and thrashing about.
Huruma trails a hand over the smaller bag on the table almost distractedly as she watches Jessica, eyes unmoving.
"«A puzzle is what you are.»" The woman begins with words that are decidedly not from an English vocabulary; definitely an African one, obvious for more than the plucks and clicks littered in the words.
Jessica speaks English and Bad English, so African languages are right out. She frowns, as she looks to Huruma. "What did you say?" Since she didn't understand it.
"You are many." Huruma responds quite bluntly and vaguely; that is not really what she said, but Jessica will be perfectly fine in not knowing that.
Jessica narrows her eyes immediately. Two of the layers don't change in their reactions; it's like they're not aware of Huruma's comment. But the third goes angry, hostile, and suspicious. "Stay the hell out of my head." Jess isn't a fan of mental things.
"I am not in your head. I d'not need t'be near your mind t'know you are emitting three sets of emotions, asadike." Huruma rolls her shoulders in a feline motion, twining her neck so that it gives off a pop of the idle bones inside.
Jessica snaps "I am not emitting anything. You're mistaken." Except for the fact that at least one of those three sets of emotions is just frantically, furiously trying to get out.
The tall, dark woman does not look very convinced. At all. White eyes simply stare back at the snapping Jessica. "I am neve'mistaken."
Huruma silently goes back to what it was she was doing with the bags on the table; the smaller is emptied of its contents, which appears to be eye contacts and what goes with it. No, she doesn't have bad eyes— they are cosmetically labeled lenses, judging from the box.
That's one of the problems with crazy tall crazy women. Jess can't just walk up and loom over her and be intimidating, like she usually would. She snarls once, repeating herself. "You are this time." And she starts towards the door. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Huruma does nothing to deter Jessica from her leaving; she simply turns her eyes to watch after her disappearing form. Huruma knows that she is not mistaken, but Jessica seems content on not clearing things up. Perhaps someone else might like to, off of the record and out of the blonde's earshot. For another time, it appears.
 September 24th: Wounds of All Sorts |
 September 24th: Pizza and Plotting |