Alone and Disgruntled - 8.19.2013 [Tommy]

Molly Toombs

Monday, August 19th

2:30 am

Just south of Downtown Denver

The night had been frantic, and Molly Toombs was exhausted by the end of her shift at two o' clock in the morning.  There was a bar dispute that had turned violent, and in the last two hours of her twelve hour shift Molly found herself putting pressure on a fighting man's leg to keep it from bleeding out.  The EMT handling him was a man who was catching cold (why was he even working anyways?), so his grip slipped when transferring the man from a fold-up cart to a sturdier hospital bed.  This resulted in Molly getting punched in the side of the head by the gunshot victim's flailing, swinging fists.

She was fine, there was no bleeding or concussive damage, but there was a goose-egg on the side of her head and she had to take ibuprofen for the headache.

She just tended to the gunshot wound after the man had been sedated, drank a coffee and finished her shift.

Molly didn't own a car.  She hasn't seen the need to since she moved to Denver.  First she lived in the dorms on campus while attending college, and then when she got her job at the Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center she found an apartment less than ten blocks away so she could walk even on a cold night.

This is why she was walking south from Downtown at two thirty in the morning, alone and disgruntled and exhausted, drinking an iced coffee from a to-go plastic cup with a straw.  Her dense dark-auburn (obviously dyed, this apparent from the freckles across her nose and cheeks) hung just above her shoulders and was tucked behind her ears.  She wore white sneakers and a pair of navy blue scrubs.  She wasn't aware that the gunshot victim had spurted blood across the bottom of the back of her shirt, or that this was the reason a loose dog had taken to following after her, curious about the strong smell.  She'd patted the thing on the head when she passed it, so she figured that was the reason.

She didn't know this oversight could make her a flag in the dark for some.

Tonight, though, she may just find out.

Tommy Lynch

Denver's not the same city it was but a year ago. Not as safe, no longer under the cold and exclusive stewardship of the Camarilla. These days, the streets are contested, and consequently violence is on the rise. Molly Toombs no doubt has noticed as much; the number of incidents she gets called out for have risen, as has the severity of the cases. More blood, more death, more senseless atrocity. If Denver were an ocean, then its waters have been filled with chum, and the sharks are circling just under the waves.

Not all sources of danger are immortal, however; some are disgustingly prosaic. As Molly walks down the street, disgruntled and nursing her coffee, two men walk up it toward her. They're young, late teens or early twenties, one giggling as the other shoves his shoulder, both of them clearly a little the worse for wear for drink. The giggler is sporting a Beatles-era moptop, legs encased in skinny jeans, lantern jaw and a bottle in his hand, while the shover is taller, sporting an athletic build that strains his muscle-T and a heavily pocked face that ruins what might otherwise have been a good looking mug. 

The pair approach, the giggler about to make a retort, when the shover elbows his mate in the ribs and nods toward Molly. 

A certain new kind of tension enters their bodies as they straighten, and a new smile spreads across the giggler's face. "Hello love," he says, in a mock British accent. "Where are you headed to, hey?"

Molly Toombs

Denver was a safer city a year ago.  Maybe not significantly, because as was the case with any city there would always be crime and violence and hate.  That's just what happened when you crammed too many people together in one geographic space.  Population density almost always increased your risk of... well, damn near anything really, at least within the realm of man-made tragedy.

But this wasn't new.
Molly has worked in the E.R. for a few years now, she knew what man could do to one another.

More than that, she's been a single woman living alone in the city for the better part of a decade now.  She's been walking home from work unescorted since she started the swing shift about fourteen months ago.  So when a pair of young-ish men approached her, both looking rough and like they desperately wanted trouble that night, she almost couldn't be bothered at all.

They were coming from the opposite direction that she was.  She glanced up to them, and frowned a display of exhaustion and impatience.  She wasn't immediately intimidated-- rather, she reacted as a school teacher would if she caught students putting tadpoles in the drinking fountain at the end of the day.

"Oh, don't even worry about it," she said to them.  Her tone wasn't confrontational, but it was definitely dismissive.
She would try to get around them without breaking her pace-- if they were in the middle of the sidewalk she would move one direction or the other.  Hell, she would step off the curb and into the gutter if need be.  Her eyes hopped past the pair after she'd spoken, focused already on the direction she was headed, and another sip of the iced coffee was taken.

Tommy Lynch

It's hard to place them, exactly - they're clearly not cold blooded types, sallow faced and moving in for the kill, but nor are they high school buffoons who have never done anything worse than kill strippers during a game of Grand Theft Auto. Molly speaks her piece, asserts her independence and disdain like the prow of an icebreaker ship, and they part before her, the giggler holding up his hands as if asking her not to hurt him and going, "Ooooh!" while the shover steps aside, just barely giving her enough room to get by. There's the smell of alcohol, thick and pungent, and then she's past, striding down the sidewalk, away from them, away from their juvenile mysogyny.

Except. 

She's five steps away when the giggler lets out a cry of hilarity. "Look at that! She's on the rag! Hey, yo, lady, you realize you're missing a tampon? Yeah?"

Footsteps. Amused, delighted by the blood splashed across the back of her shirt, all kinds of images flooding their mind, they begin to follow her.

Molly Toombs

They gave her just barely enough room to pass.  Molly took it for what it was, turned her torso sideways so her shoulder wouldn't have to clip this kid's, and continued on her way.  The smelled strongly of alcohol, the scent was sour and unpleasantly familiar in her nostrils.  She had to breathe it the whole time she worked to patch up that gunshot wound earlier tonight.  He smelled more like vodka, though.  These guys smelled like a mash.

She didn't quite know their age group.  She would've pegged them for anywhere in the range of their 20's-- they could just look rough due to substance abuse and a lack of basic personal care.  She didn't think they were necessarily dangerous, not immediately anyways.  Obnoxious?  Sure.  But she's encountered plenty of drunks before.  Usually they didn't have the focus or the energy for pursuit or a fight, so if she kept on walking they tended to leave her alone.  Maybe they'd go knock over some garbage cans before passing out on a nearby friend's couch.

But...

Realize you're missing a tampon?  Yeah?

They were following her.  She didn't want to have to shake them, and she didn't have the patience to gently dissuade them from following after her either.  She knew to wheel around and spit fire at them would just egg them on-- they liked a little bit of fight, that was more fun.  She didn't have pepper spray in her small tote bag that she used in place of a purse-- she'd neglected to replace the first little red plastic canister after it expired and her officer friend told her she should get rid of it for safety's sake.

She didn't have pepper spray, but she did have...

..the knife.  It was a switchblade, and she pulled it from an easy-access pocket within the tote that she carried.  She'd practiced with it some, just enough to be able to spring the blade forward and hold the knife like she knew what to do with it.  Had she ever actually stabbed someone in self defense (or otherwise)?  No.  But these scoundrels didn't need to know that.

She turned about, planted her heels on the sidewalk, and held the knife in front of her-- not too far out, just a foot or so before her torso, at approximately chest height.  It was a warning more than a true threat of attack just yet.

"Boys, I'm tired, but I'm not unwilling to take at least one of you down with me if this doesn't come to an end right fucking now."

Tommy Lynch

That sure changes things. Giggler immediately blinks rapidly, hands back up again, but this time in earnest. He cuts a worried glance at his friend, backs away, but his friend, the shover, doesn't move.

In fact, his friend hasn't said anything this whole time. Or even made a sound. His pockmarked face is dour, angular, and his eyes are sullen and leaden. He stops, of course he does, and stares at the knife. Then, slowly, raises his eyes to meet Molly's. There's a new glow there. As if the baring of the blade has taken events to a new level for him - aroused him in some way that the sway of her hips hadn't. 

"C'mon Max," says the giggler. His voice tight now, fighting for bravado, disdain, overwhelmed rather by fear. "Fuck the bitch, yeah?"

Max doesn't answer. He's staring at Molly now, eyes wide, a smile creeping across his features. "You'd cut me?" His voice is quiet. "You'd actually cut me?"

He takes a step forward. Not close enough to bring him into cutting range, but a deliberate provocation nonetheless. His breathing is coming in slightly shallower breaths. His hand slips inside his voluminous jacket, takes hold of something within.

"C'mon Max, yeah?" Giggler's getting even more worried. "What the hell?"

Max continues to ignore him, and then gently, almost delicate, pulls out a small gun. It's the kind of weapon that might be kept in a lady's purse, small, almost swallowed up within his palm, but it fits snugly in his hand, its blunt barrel shorter than his index finger, its muzzle black and final and pointed now at her chest. Max smiles now, smiles wide. His face is growing flushed, and he raises both eyebrows. "You gonna cut me now?"

Molly Toombs

She should've expected this, really.
Or, at minimum, accounted for it being a possibility.

She drew a weapon first, and it stood to reason that if either of these punks had one they might answer back.  The scrawnier of the two, the one that giggled and jittered, had put his hands up in a clear sign that he didn't want that much of a fight from the night nurse.  The other, though, the big brute of a man with a rough face that spoke of awful teenage acne or possible meth use, liked what he saw.  He held her eyes with his, stepped forward, and spoke with quiet excitement as he approached her.

He had a gun, and when it came from his jacket and leveled at Molly's chest she straightened her figure so she stood straight as a rod.  There was a momentary pause wherein her brain whirled quickly, seeking out endings to scenarios for each action she could take in this moment.  It only took a second for her to realize her only real option.

Her hand opened, and the knife clattered on the ground.  Both of her hands went up, palms out, and now her posture mimicked what the skinny friend of this Max person had done for her.  Molly kept her shoulders back and her chin level with the ground.  Though her knees shivered and her guts twisted, she stood still and kept her voice level.

"No," was her answer, quiet in return.  "There's an iPad and about eighty bucks cash in my bag."

She could only hope that he would just take her belongings and be content with that.
The look on his face told her she was kidding herself, though.

Tommy Lynch

There's something ghastly about how he drinks up her fear. How it lights up his eyes like St. Elmo's fire seen deep in a marsh, and makes his smile tremulous. Her knife clatters to the ground, and he blinks, as if the sound of metal clinking against the pavement were physical and coming at his face, and then he lifts his chin and examines her more closely. He doesn't know what he wants yet. Or, more accurately, this is what he wants. Her vulnerable, without defense, afraid. Of him. 

"Max?" Giggler is uncertain now, perhaps even more afraid. Clearly out of his depth. "Max?"

"An iPad?" Max's voice is amused and low and almost a croak. "Money?" He slowly begins to wave his gun from side to side, undulating in the air but always pointed right at her sternum. It's mesmerizing, careless even, and his eyes grow wide as he savors the thrill of adenaline rushing through him. 

"Max? C'mon man, quit foolin' around." Giggler sounds like he wants to laugh this one off. But he can't.

"I know what I want," says Max. He takes another step forward. A sheen of sweat has broken across his rough forehead. He grins, and then the grin disappears just as quickly. "I want you to beg. Go on. Convince me to let you go. To not do what I'm thinking... of doing."

Molly Toombs

"I've never been the best begger," Molly said slowly, cautiously.

The skinny fellow, the one that had been so giggly up until this uncomfortable turn of events, was unsure and almost as uncomfortable as Molly seemed to be.  When the knife hit the ground the iced coffee had as well, and that was leaking around her shoes and into the gutter.  She slid a foot back, followed by the other.  This was slow, intended to be apparent that she was just trying to take her shoes out of the pale tan puddle that the iced coffee was creating on the pavement.  She dropped her eyes from this Max person's face, looked at his gun as it waved about, then looked over to his friend's increasingly pale face.

Max was sweating.
So was Molly.

He wanted her to beg, but the words were lost somewhere in the chaos that was her brain.  She hadn't been firing on all cylinders to begin with, and even though the adrenaline had slammed her into full alert it did nothing to clear her mind, and in fact only made things worse.  She couldn't summon dialogue, couldn't come up with anything convincing.  She also didn't think that playing into his wants would help her situation any at all.

"You're scaring your friend, Max...  Maybe we're getting a little carried away, huh?"

Tommy Lynch

"Yeah Max, yeah," says the giggler. He rubs his hands on the fabric of his jeans, eyes trapped by the gun. "You, I mean, you're just messing, but enough, you know?" Half desperate, the rest all wishful thinking, his buddy seems on the verge of bolting.

"Shut it, Pete," says Max, and there's something of a growl to his voice, almost like he's imitating a Sergio Leone protagonist, almost like he's now starting to act like somebody, the kind of person who might see this through. "You don't like having fun, get lost."

Then he hesitates. This is clearly new ground for Max. He's looks at Molly, blinking several times, thrown off by her cool approach, her calm tone, her reasonableness. It doesn't fit the mold he's after. Doesn't fit the bill. He blinks again, clearly thinking, and then smiles.

"The way I see it, I can shoot you in the leg if you don't do what I say. Even if you die, that wouldn't be ruled as murder. But it could kill you, right? Cause you to bleed out, if I shoot you right in the thigh? You wouldn't want that, now would you?" He's almost entrancing himself with his own words. Visualizing it. The gun lowers to aim at her legs. "So come on. Let's move this someplace private. Over to that alley there. Or feel free to say no. And I'll shoot, and run, and who knows what will happen next?"

Molly Toombs

Molly was many things.  If you asked her teachers, two traits would top the list:  Bored, and Smart.  They complained it was a dangerous combination for a teenage girl.  They were absolutely right.  These days, though, as an adult, the boredom just took a backseat.  It was there, but it wasn't nearly so important, nor as dangerous.  It was simply a part of living an adult's life.

The Smart, though, that could save her tonight.

Or make things worse, depending on how Max reacted.

He told the jittery skinny one-- Pete, the name was revealed -- to get lost if he didn't want to play along.  Max the Brute wavered.  Molly's suspicions were correct.  This was the kind of kid that probably lost girlfriends because he choked them during sex without asking if it was okay.  He probably pulled wings off of flies and tossed kittens off bridges to see what would happen.  To take this outside of a relationship, though, where boundaries were meant to be pushed and redefined-- to take this away from animals and test it on a strange woman he met in the middle of the night?  That was brand new.  He wasn't sure how far he was able to take this, or what would happen once he hit the point of no return.

It thrilled him, but it probably worried him a little someplace underneath.

Would Molly try to appeal to his worry and make him see the error of his ways?
Not at all, but she could try to get him to doubt himself.

She listened to him talk, but didn't react.  He expected her to do precisely that-- he probably imagined she would be trembling, in tears, explaining that she had a family and that she would do anything but please please don't kill her.  Instead, he waggled the gun at her legs and explained that he couldn't get pinned for murder if she just bled out rather than dying immediately from the gunshot wound.  He said that she should come with him someplace private, or he would shoot her thigh and let her bleed.

She glanced about, hoping that there would be a pedestrian someplace dialing 9-1-1, but not relying on that.  Instead, more practically, she was hunting for a better 'someplace private', one that she wouldn't be dumped in a dumpster when he was done.  Unfortunately, the only other options were more alleys, so she nodded and started moving toward the alley.  She didn't turn around, though.  She didn't want her back to this Max fellow or his uncertain friend Pete.  She wanted to watch that gun and the man's manic, unsure eyes carefully.

As she side-shuffled her way toward the alley, intentionally taking her time, she explained in that same simple, calm, and matter-of-fact sort of voice:  "It would still be murder, Max.  But don't worry about it, huh?  I'm going.  I don't want to die tonight, no more than you want to get in trouble for killing a girl, and no more than Pete wants to be guilty as an accessory to crime."

Tommy Lynch

"Fuck Max, what are you doing?" Pete is watching like this is a live horror show. "Are you crazy? Who knows how many people are watching, huh? Through the windows? Or--or, the cops man, they can trace everything, bullets, and--like, like, security cameras, traffic cameras, you know? Don't you watch CSI? For cryin' out loud man, will you--"

Max is drifting behind Molly, at a distance of perhaps ten feet, and finally as Pete's voice builds to a crescendo he simply closes his eyes, presses the base of the palm of his hand to his temple, and then lashes out, "Will you shut the fuck up? Huh? Can you do that for me, Pete?"

The air quivers between them, and Pete just stands there, shaking his head, eyes wide. Then, unable to meet Max's eyes, or even look at Molly, he simply turns and flees.

Max looks back to Molly, at whom the gun has been pointed the whole time. "Jesus." Almost like he's asking her for sympathy. He shakes his head. "Just doesn't know when to shut the hell up." He rubs the back of his sleeve gingerly across his forehead, as if used to inflamed skin, and takes a deep breath, raising the gun more assertively. "OK, keep moving. Just you and me now."

Except, it's not.

Somebody's been bound to turn onto this narrow street. It's almost a miracle that nobody has thus far. So it's no miracle when a pedestrian rounds the corner at the end of the block, boots clumping on the pavement. He's big -- pro-wrestler big -- and even at this distance he seems unreal. Almost seven feet tall, shoulders as round as bowling balls, heavy leather trench coat straining at the seams. Buzz cut, a hint of a lantern jaw and heavy brows as he passes beneath a street light, white A-frame t-shirt under the trench. Still a good twenty yards distant, but it's clear he's seen both Molly and Max, and he keeps coming, his stride not changing pace.

"Fuck," hisses Max. "Hurry up. Get in the alley, now."

Molly Toombs

Max had been lucky so far.  This wasn't a terribly busy street, no, but it was still not too far of a cry from downtown Denver.  It was a relatively straightforward walking route between the heavily populated Downtown streets and avenues and an older neighborhood-- a little less nice, less classy, peppered with apartment buildings and squat bungalows most of which are rental houses and a decent percentage of which has been on the sales market for extended periods of time.  Molly had been biding her time, speaking and moving slowly, hoping that someone would stumble across them.  She was growing more disheartened by the second that it hadn't happened yet.

Pete had a little bit of a freakout and exclaimed to Max all of the ways in which he was sure to get caught.
Max lashed out at him, exasperated and stressed out, and the scrawny shrill man spun about and ran away.

It was just Max and Molly now.  Or, well, Max, Molly, and whoever that block of a man that just rounded the block corner up ahead was.  Molly's chin lifted, her eyes rounded, and she stared up the street at this big imposing man.  Her face was aimed at his, and he was clearly looking at the spectacle that was happening up ahead.  He didn't slow down, though.  He didn't stop, didn't reach for a cellphone.  He wasn't acting a hero either.  He didn't shout for Max to drop the gun or to stop, he didn't pull any weapons of his own or run to defend her.  He just kept on walking, clearly seeing what was happening but either not caring or too far gone on some intoxicant or another to be able to really comprehend what he was looking at.

Max hurried her now.  He hissed for her to get in the alley, and Molly's feet started moving again.  Now, though, she acted tremulous.  She played like the gravity of her situation had finally settled on her shoulders (although it certainly had long before now) and let her knees wiggle and quake enough to provide an excuse for slow steps.  Max might feel the need to push her, to usher her forward, for her lack of urgency.

"Max," she said softly.  She wasn't a good enough actress to make her voice wobble with fear, so she didn't even try.  "Your friend was right," she insisted gently, but kept moving as he directed, not wanting to give him a reason to actually fire that little snub-nosed gun.  "Your best bet is to just go-- please, come on, just go, okay?"

Tommy Lynch

Max brings the gun close to his belly now, pressing it against his ribs in an attempt to make it less conspicuous. He casts a worried look at the approaching stranger, and the sudden strain, the sudden exposure makes him draw his lips back from his teeth in a frozen half snarl. Molly's unsure if he even hear's her words, or makes out more than her tone, but he keeps glancing worriedly past her at the man who keeps on approaching, step by ponderous step, walking up the pavement right at them.

"C'mon, c'mon you bitch, move it already!' His free hand moves forward as if about to shove her, and then caution--or fear--causes him to jerk it right back. Doesn't want to touch her, not yet, not out here in the open. 

The stranger draws closer. The pavement is only so wide. It's obvious as to what's going on here - a mugging or worse. The gun, pressed against Max's side, was clearly displayed but moments ago. Molly's tone, her body language, her direct stare at him, communicating her distress. Any normal pedestrian intent on not getting involved might turn around, or at least cross the street. The large stranger does neither, and instead walks right up behind Molly just as she reaches the alley's mouth, and there comes to a stop, not inclined, it seems, to weave between her and Max.

His face looms above them both. It's a worn face, hard, the features striking and strong, the combination just this shade shy of ugly. Old scars, nicks, and notches mark his face, and his nose has clearly been broken several times. There's something primitive about him, in his ham hock hands, the great busted and scarred knuckles, the sheer size of his feet. The menace that he radiates, without even having to scowl. The sheer physical presence of the man.

Max looks up at him, panicked, frozen. Doesn't know what to do, how to play this off, his mind racing. The stranger finally does scowl, though whether it's because his progress has been blocked or because he doesn't like the situation is hard to tell.

"Go on," says Max, and at this he pulls the gun free and gestures with it. "Go on, this ain't your business." Bravado creeping back into his voice at the last. 

Molly Toombs

Dilemma bled into the air around the brute with the gun.  There was someone else on the sidewalk with them, and the closer this other man got the clearer it was that he was headed directly toward them.  This man wasn't going to just walk around them and let them be.  Molly's eyes begged for help too hard, the situation was too apparent even though Max now made an effort to hide the gun against his side and make it blend in with his jacket and silhouette.

This new man came to a stop behind Molly, near the mouth of the alley, half-blocking her entrance.  Technically she probably could squeeze between the alley wall and this new behemoth's side, but why ever would she want to?

He didn't say anything, just stood and towered.  Molly turned so the giant wasn't directly behind her, turned so she could crane her neck and get a better look at his face.  She was an average-sized woman, her height wasn't impressive but she wouldn't qualify as 'petite' either.  Even still, she had to look a good ways up to view the scars and marks on this man's face, to immediately know a good estimate of how many times that nose had been broken based on the angles and lumps of its bridge.

Max told the giant to be on his way and mind his own business.
Molly didn't say a god damned word.

Instead, she slowly dragged the heels of her tennis shoes to edge behind this newcomer.  She moved at a sluggish and steady pace, not wanting to draw Max's attention away from this new threat and back to her.  This new guy could very well just be muscling the smaller predator out of his way so he could take advantage of the cornered woman-- that didn't matter.  He provided a distraction to the man with the gun, and that was an opportunity that she couldn't waste.

Tommy Lynch

"What the--get outta here!" Max's voice is starting to spiral up like Pete's did, the tension and adrenaline getting the better of him. It doesn't help that the towering stranger doesn't look that impressed by his gun. Doesn't even react, other than to take one very slight and significant step forward and to the left to help Molly place herself completely behind him. He stares down at Max, not even looking at the gun, and remains infuriatingly quiet.

"What the hell is this?" Max almost looks around for sympathy. Shit was not supposed to go down this way. If you had a gun, you had control. That was a fact. Yet Max feels anything but in control. He extends the gun again, and points it at the stranger's abdomen. "Now. OK. Move aside, and keep going. I'm not going to say it again, you hear me?" 

"You're starting to annoy me, son." The stranger's voice is a rasp. 

"Annoy you? Annoy you? Yeah?" Wide eyed, Max takes a step back, his outrage building up to overwhelming proportions. "Well how about this then?" And Max shoots the stranger in the gut. 

Molly Toombs

The ringing in her ears was something that Molly wasn't very familiar with.  She didn't grow up in a hunting family, nor did she own a gun of her own or ever go shooting for sport.  The closest experience she ever had with a gun personally was shooting cans with her cousin off the fence in his backyard, and even then they were just using a little BB gun.  She knew gunshots were loud, but she didn't entirely expect how heavy the sound would hit on the inside of her chest and how odd the temporary symptoms of deafness that followed were.  She felt like someone had set off a firecracker in her ears, then immediately stuffed them full of cotton so that the ringing, while it faded, would be balanced with muffled nothingness.

This stranger was, for some reason, her protector.  Maybe he was just a good Samaritan?  Whatever his motive, though, it earned him some lead in the belly.

Molly had startled, hard, when Max fired his gun right into the stranger's belly.  There was zero doubt that he could have missed-- they were too close in proximity, and even if Max had never fired that gun before in his life it was still downright impossible to miss when you considered the scant feet of distance and the size of his target.

Her hands jumped up to press into her chest, like doing so would prevent her heart from actually leaping out of it.  She twisted the fabric of her scrubs top in her hands and shouted.

"Jesus Christ!   What did you do?!"

As though Max weren't high strung enough, here was his supposed victim for that evening yelling at him for fucking up.  Molly waited for the man in front of her to stumble, to drop to his knees, to grab his belly.  She knew how to help him, but first, foremost, and so dominantly this evening-- there was the boy with the gun to be worried about.  If she was lucky he would realize he just shot a man and take off like a dart into the night.

Tommy Lynch

Max stands there, gaping. Not because Tommy doesn't seem to react right away, but simply in awe of what he has done. In disbelief. He stares at the gun, holding it in his palm as if it were an object defying comprehension, and then drops it. Before it's hit the ground, he's turn and taken off, just like Molly hoped he would, sprinting so fast his tip toes barely touch the pavement, elbows pumping, head thrown back, elated, terrified, euphoric, panicked, who knows what.

Tommy stands there, lower jaw jutting out, brows lowered over his eyes, and then stares down at his gut. Reaches down to touch his side. Not dead center - but by the ribs. He presses his broad palm against what must be the bullet hole, and then mutters, "Mother fucker." Two distinct words.

He doesn't take his palm away to check for blood. Doesn't seem to feel much by the way of pain. Instead, he watches Max run off down the street, then scowls and half turns - rounds almost - on Molly, looking down at her with a mixture of annoyance and something less identifiable on his craggy features.

"You OK?" 

Molly Toombs

She wasn't the most sociable creature, but Molly has seen all walks of life come in and go back out the Emergency Room doors at her hospital.  She's seen plenty of men like Max-- young, stupid, without direction, and almost always in trouble.  Usually when she saw people like him their pupils were dilated and directed up at a ceiling, or down at their own hands while she made sure they were in no danger of passing out or overdosing after some 'concerned friends' dropped them off in the parking lot.

Men like this were not brave, nor were they confident.  She almost felt a little smug when he did precisely as she had hoped and spun about to race away.  His head was thrown back, and she wasn't sure if the wild noises she heard whooping around the corner were sounds of terror or victory.

In this precise moment, it was irrelevant.

"Sir, I--," Molly had started, but the mountainous man that had come to her rescue had turned about to look down at her and ask if she was okay.  Molly looked okay-- she was tired, there was a hint of shadows under her eyes to indicate improper sleep and overall exhaustion.  Her face was pale except for pink patches on the apples of her cheeks, and her eyes were as wide as they were blue.  She was ruffled, her heart was still hammering in her throat-- fight or flight still flapped its wings inside of her skull and crackled along with the cottony feeling in her ears.  Aside from all of that, though, she was unharmed.  Healthy, even.

"Uhm.  Yeah.  Yes.  Thank you."  The words come out of her mouth in sharply punctuated bursts-- she was answering, but in a hurry to move to the next topic.  Already her hands had untangled themselves from the front of her shirt and were hovering in front of her waistline, itching to be put to use.  They wanted to encourage his hand to press harder, to guide him to sit on the curb.  But this was a big rough man, and he was astoundingly still on his feet after taking a bullet in no glancing way.  She was almost afraid to touch him.

"I'm Molly.  You need to sit down, and keep pressure on that wound.  I'll call 9-1-1," she said, and started digging in that tote bag for her phone.

Tommy Lynch

"Molly, huh?" His eyes are dark, but there's a remote kindness there, or perhaps it's a detached interest that's as mild as the light at dusk. "I'm not shot," he continues. Takes his hand away from his side, and shows it to her. No blood. Just a big splayed hand carved deep with seams, the calluses thick, the strength obvious. Tommy turns and looks back down the street. Max is gone by now, rounded a corner, out of sight. Brooding, almost as if he's thinking of striding off after the punk, Tommy considers the empty street, then turns back to Molly. "Not shot. Guy missed me from three feet." He shakes his head, and then straightens. Steps over, and bends down to pick up the gun. It looks puny in his hand, and he raises it to his nose, sniffs, and then looks back to Molly.

"Here. You want this?" Extends the gun to her, handle out. A ghost of a wry smile on the corner of his lips--or is that her imagination? His craggy features are hard to read. "Could come in useful some day."

Molly Toombs

"How in the hell....," the woman muttered quietly, under her breath when this mountain of a man-- this Tommy-- moved his hand to show her that there was no blood coming from his side, and that he hadn't been shot at all.  She leaned forward, eyes squinting through the dark of the street as though she were struggling to make out the details, or having a hard time believing him at first.  "He was--"

Missed me from three feet.

"Yeah, three feet away.  I didn't--," she started, but shook her head to cut herself off.  Why would she disbelieve him?  He was still standing, showing her for herself that there was no bloody sucking wound from a bullet tearing its way through his thick body.  She straightened up, accepted that as a fact, and was presented with the gun that Max had dropped (they were lucky the damn thing didn't go off again when it hit the ground).  She leaned back some, like she was surprised by the weapon being offered to her, even if it was being held handle first.

Her expression was still worried and uncertain.  She was just in a life or death situation-- one for herself at first, and then she was sure a second for the big man that had stepped in to save her.  Adrenaline still circulated, her heart still hummed.  Her breathing was under control, but now that the thuggish danger was gone she had the opportunity to actually experience the fear.  It made her pulse fast, and made her feel the prickle of sweat on her back.  Her hands lifted, palms out at first, reflexively declining the offer.  Her lips parted to verbally affirm her refusal of the gun, but the words stopped in her throat.

Maybe she should.
You keep a knife for protection-- you can't handle a gun, you don't know how to use one.

Well, we'd better learn, hadn't we?  A fat load of good that knife did just now anyways.

"Yeah, thanks."  She accepted the gun in her hands and turned it over, but kept her finger well away from the trigger.  It took her a few seconds to find the safety if Tommy let her take her time to hunt it down.  She'd find it sooner if he thought it appropriate to point it out for her.  One way or the other, the safety was put on and the gun was gingerly tucked away into her tote bag.  She looked back up at Tommy, stared at his face and worked to better understand his expression (motivation) for a few seconds, then cleared her throat and moved to fetch the knife that she'd dropped.

As she went, she spoke:  "So, big stranger, I owe you a thank you.  I'm pretty damn sure you saved my life."

Tommy Lynch

"Saved your life," he says, quietly, as if repeating the words to himself. Looks down the alley, at the dark heart where Max was leading her, and then frowns and shrugs uneasily, as if unsure how he feels about her assertion. "Yeah, maybe." Assessing the odds of her having died down there. He turns back to Molly, looks down at her, still frowning. There's something about his features, their blunt forcefulness, that speaks of a rough promontory thrusting out against an embattled ocean. Of a crude idol, features exaggerated, from the broad lips that don't seem almost ashen to his rough skin, from the countless little scars that notch his face as if he'd been through a storm of flying wood chips to the steady, almost detached way he gazes upon the world. Gazes down at one Miss Molly Toombs.

He straightens the jacket. It's black, heavy, draping him almost in its capacious folds, though it does strain at his bowling ball shoulders. It's almost impossible to see the bullet hole. Smooths it down with one broad sweep of his hand, and for a moment looks as if he might just nod politely to her and keep on keepin' on, heading down the street. As if this exchange weren't really worth remarking on, weren't that strange or unusual. As if he'd just helped her right a falling shopping cart, and little more.

But. There's something that holds him, draws his eyes back to Molly. He considers her, and then a reluctant grin cracks across his face. It's a broken expression, one that he doesn't look like he often hosts, but it shows broad, white teeth. "You were playing that fella, weren't you." He sucks on his teeth for a moment, and the smile smooths away, leaving only his gaze amused. "Playing scared at the end there. You're plenty scared now, ain't you Molly. But in the moment. You were calling the shots." 

Molly Toombs

The man did look like something rough, carved from stone in ages before man had the cotton gin and industry had gripped the land.  He looked like he was displaced not just in this decade, but in this century, and the one that came before it.  Medieval is the word she would go with.

He straightened his jacket and stood awkwardly.  Molly folded her knife closed and tucked that away into the tote she used in place of a purse.  Tommy was about to walk away, to leave Molly to her night as though he didn't just save her from an evening of horrors that very well could have been the last night she saw.  His weight had shifted a little, but corrected itself when his eyes landed back on the woman in scrubs with the blood stain on the back of her shirt.

He grinned, and the expression was best described as jagged, even though his teeth were impressively straight and white.  The comment he had didn't ratchet her anxiety any higher.  He'd gained the woman's wary trust through his actions that night, and while it would only go so far (no, she wasn't going to invite him inside for tea before turning in for the night) she still felt easy enough in this moment that her guard could relax.  He said she was scared now, huh?  But instead of becoming uncomfortable with that call out she shrugged, then let her shoulders relax so they were more rounded.

He looked amused, and had even gone so far as smiled.  Molly wasn't there quite yet.  Her expression was more neutral than it had been, the worry creases had smoothed from her forehead and nose at least.

"Well, you know how it goes.  Like when your car starts sliding in the snow-- you're really calm in that moment, but once you get yourself out of the fishtail and parked against the curb you find the time to shit your pants and notice how close to the cliff's guardrail you were."  A hand lifted to rub across her forehead with the back of her wrist, taking the anxious sweat that had bloomed away along with it.

"He was just some dumb kid.  He didn't know how to do what he was trying to do."

Tommy Lynch

There's something tentative to how Tommy's standing now, as if still half drawn to leave, to give her a final nod and just walk on off down the street, leaving this interaction, this conversation, safely behind him. As if something's tugging at him, holding him here, that he doesn't quiet understand himself. 

Molly replies, and the amusement slowly leaves his eyes, until it's with sober reflection that he looks down upon her. "Yeah, some dumb kid. But dumb kids have done some of the worst things I've ever seen. Don't know what they're doing even as they doing it, and then after they're all blubbering how they didn't mean to do what they did."

There's a slightly awkward pause then, as if Tommy's realizing that isn't exactly the right avenue of conversation to have with a lady who's nearly been mugged or worse, so he shifts his weight slightly on his feet and peers down at her again, scrutinizing almost. "Name's Tommy. Tell me something, Molly. I know it ain't gentlemanly of me to ask, but what year were you born?"

Molly Toombs

The explanation that dumb kids committed some of the worst sins upon mankind had Molly nodding her head in agreement.  He was absolutely right.  Dumb kids were the ones that you found on the front page of a local newspaper for months on end because they popped too many of daddy's pills and wound up killing his little brothers when he was supposed to be babysitting them.  Dumb kids were the ones that got a hold of a gun and tried it on for size, just to see how much power would titillate them.  Then, after pulling the trigger, they would be slammed back into reality and buckle under the gravity of what they had done.  Max was almost that kid (would have been if Tommy had been almost anybody else).

The boulder of a man still seemed like he wanted to go.  He was awkward, and Molly picked up on that with ease.  The way his weight was spread between his feet, how his shoes were angled out from his ankles all spoke of a readiness to start walking again.  It rubbed off, and Molly started to shift her weight occasionally too.  While she had been standing simple and upright before, she has now shifted from leaning her weight dominantly on one foot to switching to the other.  This caused one knee to buckle and the hip above it to jut out.  She held her tote bag by its strap, just in front of her armpit, with both hands.

What year were you born?

That was a weird way to ask how old she was.  It was an odd question, but Molly could never understood why women would insist that their age was such a treasured secret.  Like they were embarrassed by how long they'd been walking the earth.  Besides that, this guy did just fend off Molly's would-be killer, so she was willing to indulge him.

"June of eighty-eight.  And Tommy, nice to know your name.  Why do you ask?"

Tommy Lynch

"That would be nineteen eighty-eight." Again, said to himself. He scrunches his lips as he considers that fact, and then shakes his head as if amused. "And now it's two thousand thirteen. That'd make you... twenty-five."

These are stated like facts. He takes an expansive breath, chest swelling out, holds it, and then lets the air go with a rush. "Heck, that's a funny thing." He looks down at her again, at how she stands, hip knocked out, her scrubs, her calm, her collected attitude, the tentative friendliness, the guarded wariness ready to creep back in, a young woman, a human being, a child of the end of the century, out here under this night, these stars and moon, just saved from something awful and about to go on with her life, to carry on until within a short span of years she crumbled up and grew old and died. 

How much of that is reflected in his eyes is impossible to say. A weariness, a sense of melancholy, of acceptance. "Oh, no reason." His own response to her question. "Just curious, I suppose." Another awkward pause. A smooth interlocutor Tommy clearly is not. "One last thing. You know you've got blood down the back of your shirt?" 

Molly Toombs

"Yeah....," says the girl, her tone now a touch cautious as well as hesitant.  She wanted to like this Tommy guy.  He had big shoulders, and he saved her.  However, the odd disconnect that seemed to exist between him and the world around him now had Molly wondering if he wasn't stoned out of his mind on horse tranquilizers, or if he had a disorder and possibly shouldn't be out on his own.  Her eyes hopped down to his side again, where she'd seen him holding himself.  She started to wonder if the gunman really had missed his target-- after all, Tommy had clapped a hand to his side and kept it there for a minute, and if he was hopped up on tranqs then he might actually be bleeding into those dark clothes and that huge abdomen without realizing it.

"Pretty funny, isn't it?"  Although her tone said she couldn't find any humor in her age at all.

He said he was just curious to answer her question as to why he wanted to know, and had one last question-- did she know she had blood on her shirt?  The way her eyebrows twitched up for a second and the fact that she immediately looked down and twisted about to locate this blood answered the question for him.  No, she didn't.

When she located the stain, she cussed quietly.  "Well shit."  With a bit of a sigh, she smoothed the shirt she was wearing back out and straightened up.  "That explains the tampon comment.  I was digging a bullet out of some guy at work and he put up a hell of a fight.  Must have gotten some on me when I was turned around."

She didn't give the awkward silence a chance to fall, but instead stuck out her hand to Tommy, clearly offering it for a shake.  "Well, Tommy, I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me tonight."

Tommy Lynch

Tommy's aware that he's coming off strange. He's asking questions he shouldn't, acting spaced out, acting weird. That very awareness is of no help - suddenly, to his great surprise, he finds himself wanting to continue this conversation, to learn more about this girl, to learn about her world, her past, what she thinks her future will bring. But he has no idea how to make that happen. Give him a half dozen Camarilla kindred to tear through and he can rend them limb from limb without breaking a blood sweat. Find a way to appear normal, to speak in a normal manner about normal things with a normal girl? That's like asking him to scale a fifty foot wall.

"Digging a bullet out of a guy at work?" He quirks an eyebrow. "You a coroner or something?"

But he's not going to press her to stay. That would push her unease right into an active desire to get out of here. So instead he takes her hand in his, his palm leathery and cool, and gives it a gentle squeeze. "Don't worry about it, Molly. Hate think about what might have happened to you down that alley."

He releases her hand, and takes a step away. Stops, half turns back to her. "Say, Molly. It's a dangerous town. You keep walking around at night, you might get the wrong kind of attention. If that happens, and you need help, well. I can be found most nights at the International Cocktail Lounge." A craggy, almost rueful smile cracks across his face. "I'm pretty easy to spot."

With that, he gives her a two fingered salute, hunches his coat around his frame, and starts walking down the pavement, heavy boots clomping as he goes.

Molly Toombs

"No, I'm a nurse at St. Luke's.  I work the emergency room, so when assholes like that--," and she jerks her thumb over her shoulder in the direction that Max, and before him Pete, had run off, "end up hurting themselves or overdosing they come to me and I put them back on their feet again."

His hand was large, tough, and cool to the touch.  He didn't shake, so she didn't shake either-- if she tried she'd probably just wiggle his wrist and maybe his elbow, but wouldn't accomplish much considering the density of his arm as compared to her own.  So, instead, she just returned the squeeze and placed her hand back on her tote bag strap.  He hated to think what would have happened to her down that alley, and Molly just pressed her lips together to make her mouth a thin, grim line of agreement and silent speculation on what might have come.

He'd turned to walk away, and she moved to do the same, but he stopped and called out to her, so she stopped and turned as well.  He said that if she ever needs help again she could run to this place called the International Cocktail Lounge.  Then he smiled, and again the expression virtually cracked on his rough scarred up face, and added that he was easy to spot.  This drew the first solid grin of the night across the woman's freckled face, and she nodded her head.  "Got it, the I.L.C..  ....Maybe I'll see you there sometime."

Clomp clomp go his boots as he salutes and walks away, and Molly watched him go for a few moments before she realized she was blatantly staring at the broad expanse of this once-stranger-now-Tommy's back.  So she shook her head, rolled her shoulders into a defensive hunch near her neck, and walked the opposite direction to head home.