As Sins Undress the Night | Hyde (Casual) FINISHED

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

Crying out in pain

These were streets pawed with tears and worn by fears that manifested from foreboding alleyways and slumbering shadow that coaxed ones inner trepidation to the forefront. While there was an indubitable beauty in the clutch of night, it was those that inhabited the night that tarnished its divinity. The velvety blanket of darkness, with its formidable sheen, and the orb that was the moon in full luster, bathing the streets in pallid luminescence.

Vestiges of civilization and city, the darkened husks of a small number of buildings under construction occupying space. Clusters of other unsightly buildings loomed, the procession of vacant and stationed vehicles lining this particular street. Walls desecrated by smeared paint in almost riotous patterns and designs, graffiti essentially, perpetuated by the disenchanted youth of the city. The occasional functioning streetlight shone upon few wayward souls transfixed by the beckoning of nightfall and the seediness of the coming hours of darkness, their dreary eyes overwhelmed by the decrepitude of their own lives. The sounds of the nightlife like dirty decibels drummed relentlessly in one’s ears, the hot breath of harlots scorching the flesh of passserbys and the heat of their lasciviousness weaving into their whispers of beckoning seductions.

Amidst the slew of marionettes employed to entertain the dark, Kitty was an irreverent participant. She occupied her own corner, clad in the color of lust and sporting wispy garments intended to inspire that exact sentiment in others, her whispers just as tinted with that promise of immorality that it always caused her stomach to inwardly turn. She could practically taste the turpitude in the seemingly wintry night air, feel it in the cold that bit deep. Bone deep. The frigidity would have been cause enough for surrender, but Kitty knew exactly what that entailed. Far preferred was the bitter frost than the heat of blood pulsating beneath newly-forming bruises. So suffer it she would until the last of her resolve died away with the final shreds of darkness. Ill-considered was her wellbeing, but that truth went disregarded in favor of avoidance. Avoidance of violence and the suffocating silence that remained once the bloodshed had settled.

In a subconscious and half-hearted attempt to distract herself from the jarring chill, the heart-shaped necklace she wore found itself in her right hand, clutched in between her fingers and its rhinestones being caressed by her thumb. It was the only trace of her past life, as far as she knew, and she clung to it in as similar a manner as dutiful followers clung to crosses. That necklace was a tormenting reminder of a memory desiccated in the morass of life’s cruel happenstances. She wore it still if only to prompt the notion that the sentence of disillusionment she currently served had to be far worse than any sentence she’d possibly received in her past life.

The slightly tamed wind combed through her dark locks of chocolate brown, loose strands carried lightly and splaying across her face haphazardly, the fingers of her free hand brushing them away reflexively. Kitty stared out at the immense squalor, her eyes glinting with the reflecting moonlight, engaged in rumination and adopting the countenance of pensive meditation. Sporadic glances flashing from underneath dark lashes, she half-consumedly surveyed for potential clients and possible threats. In truth, if wandering gazes fixed on her own, it would be somewhat perceptible that her eyes kept lingering on the vastness of the night sky. She watched for the first rays of dawn with an almost rapt desperation as that always signaled the cathartic conclusory notes of this symphony of dissoluteness. She watched and waited for the goal of fractional freedom that glittered dimly at night’s end, the vision of eyes of a spellbinding bluish-gray and a smile bolstered by inexplicable adoration heralding the dawn and inciting blessed euphoria. However, her hopes were set aflame by what her concentrated observation revealed.

The caliginosity that had overtaken the skies would persist for longer than Kitty’s serenity would likely endure.



(M’kay, I made just a vague reference to Henry himself. Figured that’d be safer than to include a lengthy exposition on him, ‘specially since we haven’t yet decided on what’s going to occur in that Henry/Lucy thread other than the major event that opens it. This opening post is not as lengthy as my usual posts, but I’m too much of a lazy bum at the moment to add any more to it. Also, I’m not sure if you wanted me to title this thread like you titled your Polyvore set for it. :3 I’m cool with changing it if that’s the case since I’m not stellar with titles. Surprise, surprise. ;D)

[ricketts]

what are you trying? don't even tempt me

Now to practice an art that afforded but a limited variety of methods, even to the expert: the art of aquiring a partner when there was none. The practitioner must imply, merely by expression and attitude, that he had set him upon an errand; and, if possible, the mind of Edward Hyde must be directed toward a conclusion that the errand of his devising was an amusing one; at all events, he was alone temporarily and of choice, but not deserted.

His eyes, beaming with secret fun, were hidden under blacked-out glasses and a kerchief was tied over half of his face, over an added fine detail - his half smile, with the underlip caught. The problem was, the body - currently stuffed under a shrub, was a great big fat fuck. There was no moving him, not with Jekyll's sinewy arms. Hyde knew that his present performance could be effective, and not the good kind. Leaving a body about, it was never wise. During his only interval, he hid the body as best a lean man could, and set out. The plan, if any, find a whore - there were plenty about, get her to help, then show her what silence meant. At a sharp corner, he tensed, guarding himself as he counted over the partnerless young women lounging together in doorways and street corners.

The device of the absentee had the defect that it could not be employed for longer than the night, it made for so much effort - but a stringy little woman was so much more easier to dispose of in a single evening. A single mercy, indeed, was weak, and proved a betrayal.

Hating the fatuous girls in the streets more bitterly for every instant that he had to maintain his tableau, the impatient Hyde felt his heart go hot with resentment. His glance quickened over a lone woman, rejected her - but then, by fierce impulse sprang back. She was doing nothing, killing time, waiting for the next money to roll by in a black car. But she so, smacked of familiar. For a girl who was a belle, it was harder to live through the bad times than it was for one who had never known anything better. Like a figure of painted and brightly varnished wood, she stood against the wall through car after car with glassy imperturbability; it was easier to be wooden.

Kitty, he was left with. Knowing at last where these shreds of thoughts were coming from. Just th' slut I'm lookin' fer.

Sharply, Hyde withdrew from the corner. Hands in pockets, he began to lounge over to her own little whorestore, where she was no more than so much as beef in clothing. Very little clothing. Wasn't she at her lowest value while killing her time? Evidently not, and it seemed a deliciously cruel thing of heaven to let her go on believing this was life. Gorgeous though, she was. So gorgeous. It was easy to see why Jekyll liked her. And when Hyde finally lounged across the road and spoke to her, he was the very one to whom preferred her loneliness. An all-American vocal prominence smothered out Jekyll's Irish giveaway, she wasn't going to know. What was the use in having a toy, and not playing with it?

'Hey baby,' He said, unpleasant smile hidden. 'Waiting for someone?'

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

Kitty was a woman far beyond reproach, one so tarnished that her own reflection seemed to her marred with the vast distresses that her somnolent heart endured. No imaginings of grandeur in which she hoped to obtain the atonement she so greatly coveted. Yearn all she liked, she was all the wiser for dismissing that notion as swiftly as it came. Women like her, unfailingly damaged by their own frailty and grudging surrender, were far more acquainted with the gripping solicitude of sin. Carnal and sinful vices, none her own to indulge, kept her absentee sanguinity at bay. Redemption bled the anguish of those who sought after it and Kitty no longer had any blood to spare. Just enough to keep her living, even if vicariously through someone else.

As sullen as her natural disposition conveyed, even the tenacity of her jadedness could not challenge the verity that something within her had been altered lately. It had been remarked upon by a close few that she actually seemed at least the vaguest sense content, genuine contentment that brightened those glossy eyes of hers and broadened her smile. The source was one she only admitted to under the guise of detachment and impassivity. A ruse only evident to eyes trained in her deception. As foreign and frightening as the sentiment was, deny its presence she could not. For the first time in years, she was startlingly hopeful, but in a sense that begot her other aspirations to slumber. Perhaps redemption did not only take the forms of grandiose cathartic displays or the immersion of sanctifying water. Perhaps redemption was as subtle as the ardor emanating from a lover’s gaze and a warm caress, thus all the more powerful.

The permittance of such rousing thoughts was dangerous, however. Made even more so by the actual setting of her musings, amidst the dregs and squalor. Best to have wits about you and she sincerely doubted that wits were accounted for in such a pensively dreamy state, even if the countenance she wore didn’t betray her. Seemingly, her reservations about the possible menace that lie in wait, shrouded by darkness and preying on her momentary lapse of vulnerability, bound out of her mind the moment she thought it up.

A man’s voice broke upon her reverie, shattering the obscure seclusion she had weaved for herself on that sordid little street corner. A voice typified by a deep and rumbling resonance, tinted with hauteur and that mischief she was sure had willed him to approach her in the first place. Something else resonated, however, in it that dimly echoed familiar. Unsettlingly familiar since it appeared she could not trace how or why it was so, just that it was. Akin to the search for sanctuary in a blurring haze of miasma, the task of trying to place the voice was one undertaken in vain.

Eyes of a lustrous brilliance attempted to meet the ones of the man before her, but there were no eyes to be met. As if the darkness alone wasn’t enough to veil him, he had finalized his masquerade with a pair of masking sunglasses, along with a dark bandana and beanie. Slightly narrowing her eyes at him, she was fully aware that this exchange called for grave scrutiny and high-alert. He appeared as formidable as he likely intended to appear and she would have been remiss not to question her tactics for dealing with him, if even dealing with him at all.

Strangers of the variety that treaded these grungy streets and sought the attentions of one of the assembly line of deviant marionettes could never be allowed a glimpse of vulnerability. They were strangers, after all, and with that title came the fitting description that their intentions strayed on the side of unknown. It was an entirely plausible assertion to make that the next car a prostitute baited or the next stranger she’d hooked could be her last. Kitty liked to think that she could read the intention in the eyes of those beckoned by her sinful proposition, but even she had found herself at the fearsome mercy of a few of her past clients. The man who lounged in front of her, an air of bewitching guile about him, merited her scrutiny. She was a woman in need, however, for the contentment she had attained from time spent apart from the life of dismal servitude she was subjected to came with a price. Spider was not in the slightest pleased about her less than profitable shirking, as the concealed bruises on her face spoke of. Whispered, more like, for the make-up she’d applied did work to hide the evidence significantly. Her need to uphold her livelihood collided with her defense and she was left with but the decision, which wasn’t one she would have made otherwise, to offer him what he desired. If her decision turned out to be a foolish one, she could always loathe herself later.

Relinquishing her position against the wall, the worn brick flaking at her touch, she sauntered a trifle closer, shrugging herself into the demeanor better equipped for handling sleaze the night had to offer. One corner of her mouth rising higher than the other, it was the fabricated smirk of one who knew genuine smiles got you nowhere fast. You weren’t supposed to be real. You were just supposed to be theirs for however long they paid for.

“Maybe. If you’re looking for something other than small talk and aren’t planning on mugging me,” she remarked, deliberately giving him a once-over that hinted at his intimidating style of dress, “then that someone I may or may not be waiting for could just be you, doll.”

She took care to treat her voice with a certain amount of enticement, one best implemented to aid her charm and attract those who heard it. Subdued deception, but deception nonetheless. It was a dangerous game to play, but it was a game of lesser evils. Who was she to stop the games?

No one, that's who.

[ricketts]

Hyde was almost unaware of his own reveries in which his being appeared, reveries often so transitory that they developed and passed in a few seconds. And in some of them the being was not wholly a stranger; there were moments when he seemed to be composed of recognizable fragments of a young man she knew - a smile she had liked, from one; the figure of another, the hair of another - and sometimes he might be concealed, so to say, within the person of an actual someone, someone she had never suspected of being her seeker.

Anything might reveal him to her: a look, a turn of the head, a singular word - a slip of the glasses. Thank fuck for a good disguise.

In a tone in which there was a tinge of unconscious surprise, Hyde answered, 'No, no. Function over form here. Don't think I'm some stupid shit that wears sunglasses at night all the time.' then let out a low, lazy laugh and shook his clothed head. From this, he abandoned his air of amusement, looked rascally, and glanced at the sumptuous Kitty leaning on the wall. 'In all seriousness though, baby. I hope you're working tonight, because I think I might have a .. special, job for you.'

But he interrupted himself with some asperity, tipping his head and touching his beanie with two fingers like a gentleman might tip his hat. 'Edward Hyde, at your service.' If only she could have seen, just how deep his smirk was.

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

It was through subservient resignation that Kitty lived the semblance of a life she led. True, that manner fell by the wayside if her continued existence was threatened, but for the most part, she forged ahead with hooded eyes and falsified stoicism. Absorbing the lessons the streets had taught her and taking care to tread only on paths already traveled, she always arrived at the same conclusion. Perpetuating her life solicited a concentrated vigil, even if the life in question strayed far from precious. Repetition of it played unceasingly in her mind, a constant reminder that the safety she vaguely assumed was one that could be scattered to the winds in as swift the time as it took to conjure the breeze.

It took reconciling with her own dim imminence and perpetuated servitude for her to surrender her aspirations and render them lifeless. There were some things in life that would never change, no matter how much strenuous effort one put into altering that truth. They were meant to persist, unleavened by the passages of time or onerous labor intended to rearrange them. The streets where she roamed and Spider’s far-reaching jurisdiction reigned supreme were never going to function as anything but the sentence she served for her sins. Her little street corner, in all of its drab beguile, was her solitary confinement. A term that suited her better had yet to be given Kitty’s attributable rumination and thus the designation remained.

Nothing ever changed except the faces.

Quirking a sculpted brow at his mildly mirth-laced response to her prompt evaluation of him, she regarded him with only a wry twist of the mouth, implicating acknowledgement. “Maybe not a stupid shit, but depending on the function, possibly a dangerous shit,” she remarked, treating her voice with a measurable insouciance. She was adept in her thinking that displaying any sign of intimidation could very well leave her open for dissection. She couldn’t say she was too keen on that notion. “Everyone’s got something to hide, I guess. Whatever you do, that’s your own business,” she rounded off her unwarranted commentary with passive discount, adding a temperate shrug to emphasize her fictitious calm resolve. After all, he was trying so hard to mask his identity and, to her unease, succeeding in that particular endeavor. Didn’t exactly stir any sense of reprieve within her, especially with himself seeming so painstakingly familiar. There was an indistinct recognition accounted for. That was as far as her deductive powers extended.

At his next statement, she quite literally had to summon all of her self-restraint to refrain from rolling her eyes. He’d likely said it for clarification purposes, but it was still imperceptive nonetheless. Of course she was working. Unless she knew herself less than she thought, Kitty was fairly positive that parading around scantily clad and consequently chilling herself to the bone was not her concept of entertainment. As far as her fellow streetwalkers went, she felt reasonably safe in the assertion that they shared her sentiments on that matter. Kitty relented and did not comment on it, however. Undoubtedly, that variety of sarcasm and thinly veiled derision would not be received agreeably.

She tried to take solace in the fact that he had given her his full name, though that could’ve either signified trust or the fact that she was about to die and therefore it was not a pressing matter if she knew his name or not. Either way, some miniscule fragment of her was marginally appreciative of that gesture being bestowed upon her, false as it would likely turn out to be. Edward Hyde, if that was even his given name, was the first seeker to do so of his own accord. Troubling, that verity was, made even more so by the actual magnetism he exuded almost effortlessly, never mind his contrasting attire. Kitty made a mental note of it to reconsider grouping him with her regulars. Solely a note, though. Whether that note would be undertaken into actual practice was still to be decided upon.

Venturing a small smile at his slightly suave introduction, she reciprocated by attempting a sophisticated curtsy. An ungainly task, to be sure, considering her defining body-hugging outfit allowed for very little litheness. With an enticing cadence, she partook in the sharing of names. Hers wasn’t her own, anyway. “Kitty, at your service.” Finishing with a flirtatious wink, her grin broadened for the briefest of moments before degenerating back into a smirk.

“And just how special are we talking here? I can do special, but it’d be helpful if I had an idea of what exactly I’d be dealing with. I’m all about maximizing . . . satisfaction, babe,” she practically purred, exhibiting the guile necessary for a street-wise temptress.

Deceptive, in nature. Deceptive, out of pure necessity.



(You better have caught the RE reference in there. I should probably be trying to abide by Nessie's law, but RE references are so much easier. >>)

[ricketts]

Watching her, Hyde felt, that through all this playful commotion, she was dispelling from herself all verses of dread instilled into her mind. His appearance frightened her, he knew that much - quite rightly too. If he had been a little whore on the street corner, he might have felt a slither of apprehension himself. She was making a supreme effort though, bracing herself against her own weakness.

He approached her a little closer, voice light with the comedy of human life. 'Who's hiding something? Not me.'

The calm and sparkling cold brought his mind back to the realities of life and enabled him to recognise the true condition of his mind. Of course, for now, he had to hide. Walking upfront to her, as Jekyll, there was nothing in it. Nothing in there to savour those little .. moments. Once more the enigmatical aspects of his character occupied him, crowding in upon him tumultuously, persistently. But he had the strength of mind to co-ordinate them, to attack them one by one, with singular lucidity. The deeper he went in his analysis the more lucid became his mental vision, and he worked out his psychological revenge with cruel relish. At last he felt that he had laid bare a soul, penetrated a mystery.

'You know, that was just what I wanted to hear,' Hyde chuckled quietly, then with cold lucidity, he mapped out his plan. 'Exactly, what I wanted to hear. See, baby, I have a little problem and I need someone really .. special, to help me.'

He was even closer now, ready to snatch her arm should she try to run for it. Letting a brief pause settle, he said in a tone easily understood. 'I got a dead body waiting under a bush down the street, we're gonna go take care of it. Okay?'

The confession was perfectly sincere, as was the calmness also, though both were uttered in a tone of strange gentleness. Like a patient parent coaxing their child to their first steps. These, Hyde evidently felt, would be Kitty's first steps under his direct.

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

A sort of eeriness pervaded the dark little corner that shadowed Kitty and Hyde, telling of the taciturn doom that should have read well from her interaction with him. It was no small wonder that they both obscured themselves with their individual masks, Kitty’s professional one and his albeit literal one. What vexed her, however, aside from the unnerving familiarity she could not pinpoint, was the intrusion upon her carefully constructed defense. He kept catching her unawares with his mannerisms and bewitching demeanor. A small fragment of her was marginally intrigued by his cavalier approach, but in a light that strayed from favorable. There was a justification for that confidence that she had yet to deduce and it vaguely perturbed her. Anonymity usually served as an effectual cloak, but one could never take comfort in the unknown. Those were murky waters with a calamitous pull that could drag you to the depths of oblivion if not cautious.

As he stalked ever closer to her, Kitty found his looming presence growing even more formidable and thus she inched slowly backwards. The further she remained from him, the less her unease managed to peek through her visage.

He was toying with her; purposely deflecting her inquiries and remarks with the mastery of one who had such practice in a game of cunning and deceit. She could feign participation, but her skills in such a game were lax. Her recognition was refined, but she was far surpassed. Not especially reassuring, to say the least. With a settled patience, she awaited the crux of his proposition, awaited it with a biting sense of premonition. Then it came and her teasing smile fell from her face entirely.

Fuck.

In retrospect, it was entirely too obvious that he was one that she would have fared better not having acknowledged. Tell-tale warnings practically flashed from non-existent neon signs that were bolstered to his being. A right fool she had been to disregard them and there was the dread prominent in her features that gave her away. Lovely. All that she ever “desired” was additional torment and, as fate would have it, she always got what she desired. Just perfect.

“Look, you’ve got the wrong girl for whatever sick shit you have in mind,” she asserted, attempting to sharpen her tone to a lethal edge, even if it was a task undertaken in vain. Sink went her heart when her back met with the flaking brick wall behind her and he drew nearer, though she tried to shrug it off by drawing as little attention to it as possible.

“If I knew who the right girl was, I’d point you in her direction, but . . .” she trailed off, shrugging the comment away and perceiving through her peripherals the mouth of the alleyway that lay right beside them. Already weighing her odds of escape, Kitty focused on keeping her panic at bay. A frivolous pursuit, to be sure, but one that she’d be foolish not to attempt. What good it did her at present, she did not know. He had already seen her façade falter and slip away. Hyde had been gauging her fear all the while, touching upon it here and there with the utmost subtlety that she had not noticed it whatsoever. Had failed to notice it until she was practically weaved stiflingly into the web he’d spun.

Her eyes flickered with a semblance of determination, of strength of will that propelled her to act and not lie in wait for the repercussions of her lapsed judgment. “You know, I figured that you were a little strange when you came up to me, dressed like you are. Then you drop this whopper of a surprise on me and I figured you’re off your meds, but if you honestly expect me to go anywhere with you, you’re fucking insane.”

With that, she cast a perfunctory glance downwards, before she raised her foot and slammed the heel of her shoe onto his own. Utilizing that distraction to her advantage, she made to round into the alleyway and sprint towards a glimmer of liberation.

The forceful and sudden grip on her arm proved that he had other intentions for her, as did the hand that muffled her cries for her help.

[ricketts]

This subject excited him. Encouraged by her resistance, he listened. Hearing her voice now, that never-to-be-forgotten voice. Taking a subtle pleasure, he could see she was still young. With her pure and regular profile, her burning umber hair running smooth and loosely, she looked like a broken beauty in a cracked keepsake. A certain affectation of aestheticism had clung to Hyde, since Kitty's liaison with Jekyll.

Hyde fell back upon an air of amused indulgence, as the girl outright refused to obey. Hoping thus to suggest that her little stand would do little to help her standing, now infirm; and although the calmness of the man called for no such elaboration of her sketch, she ornamented it with a little fit and with the remark, she dropped her heel onto his foot.

This had the effect she desired and Hyde, hissing and swearing, staggered back from her. Quick she was to take off and try to abandon him. From a sidelong eye he watched Kitty run, whereupon giving a look of open fury, struck out after her with a staggering start, the pain in his forefoot unbreaking to his speed. The infuriated young man, red with annoyance, tore in her wake down an alleyway, hastening upon her in nearly no time. Unlike Henry, nature had designed Edward Hyde for hunting, and the second she was within reach, he snatched her arm, rushed her up against a black-brick wall and with the other hand, muted her screams.

With restless breath, Hyde secluded his voice to a strange, sort of wild whisper. 'God, I love a woman with fire.'

His rapid breathing slowed dramatically, emaciated chest proving itself equal to demand and coming to a fast halt. He had released her arm, and with that hand he struck out his murder weapon - a blood flecked pocket knife. 'Now you listen to me, you fucking slut.' Hyde said, with husky indignation. He teased the very tip of the knife on the side-lines of her neck. 'I don't think you're getting it, see, I wasn't asking, I was god-damn telling you. You, and me, we're gonna take that body and we're gonna take it to the Aqueduct. Nice and dark, nobody around. Then we're gonna toss his ass into the Harlem River, then that's it, you can get back to fucking random strangers. '

There was a silence where he moved the blade moreover to Kitty's throat, after which he gave forth whispering sounds as of laughter, his hidden expression the while remaining sore and far from humour. 'And I promise you, baby, any more of that,' Very quickly, he gestured down at his injured foot with the knife. ' .. you'll be following him off that bridge.'

The ruthless Hyde would have his way, and she was going to know it. 'I like you, Kitty, and you know what? That makes you a very lucky woman, 'cause really, I've taken fuckers heads off for less.'

Sharply, he withdrew the blade and took an indulgent moment to look at her, greatly interested. It was to be a long moment before he slipped his hand from her mouth to the side of her head. Fingers hooking into the loose tumults of flown hair, Hyde was once again lofty with her. Treating his voice to a condescending, patronizing manner.

'Do we get it now, Kitty?'

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

(Witness the battle of the muse! -.- Well, there was some RE in there, although it’s fairly scattered throughout. It’ll have to do for now. Again, I gave you jackshine to work with. Apologies.)


There’d been no glimmer of hope for escape, she originally surmised. Rather, she chose to believe. It was a mental route she’d rarely treaded and one that was less harmful to her own self-worth. True, the peril she was currently trapped in could have been averted if she had paid heed to the niggling forebode that had refused to desist and had strengthened with each word exchanged between the two. What had been perceived, albeit somewhat disbelievingly, as banter came to be something of a far less jovial manner. There was a lesson learned, however, almost concurrently with the impact of her back colliding harshly with the alley brick wall and the large hand suppressing what minimalistic means of escape she attempted to release from her mouth. A lesson of basic survival and instinctual fortification that needn’t be elucidated. She wouldn’t be fooled again.

A momentary resistance took form in which she tried, failingly, to keep him at length. Shoving, nails seeking to penetrate skin that his cloak prevented contact with. The noises reverberating within their seclusion in the alleyway sounded out as ineffectual cries and Kitty realized not a moment later the extent of the menace she would likely endure.

Her breathing erratic and the rising and falling of her chest correlating with what befit the situation, she nearly moved to deliver a deft kick to his shin when she noticed the menacing glint of a knife, gleam slightly obscured by the specks of ominous crimson adorning it. That fierce determination that had been working to render her stare fiery was extinguished right then and there. What seized her gaze was no longer a steadfast obstinacy, but unbridled fear. Fear blossomed in those irises of hers, and her eyes darted wildly this way and that, her entire being visibly focused on inhibiting the waves of panic that rushed in with the tide. The kiss of the blade seemed wintry against the skin of her neck and would have caused a shiver if she hadn’t already been trembling slightly.

She did not need a state of mind free from crippling dread to discern that his words were far from comforting. Their intent was to get a message across, one that she interpreted as Hyde assuming the charge and governing the remainder of the night. The command in his tone pierced through the haze, as did the sincerity in which his words were uttered. She had been struggling with refusal to hearken to his outrageous demands, but when the steel of the knife lingered on her throat, she had no choice but to listen.

A small whimper was voiced, muffled against his palm, and her movements stilled completely. Her eyes widened with that ever-familiar terror, fixated on the hidden countenance before her, in a riotous sense of pleading. Not a whisper of breath was expelled by her and her grip on the wrist of the hand he was implementing to silence her tensed considerably. The contortion of her expression into one laced with trepidation worked against her, feeding Hyde the fear that she gambled he prized. The threat he edged her way, glinting as dangerously as his weapon was, stirred her into further despair.

It was a trying task to try and piece together coherent thoughts, much less ones that would provide her some respite amidst a conflict that boasted none. All thoughts that formulated, nourished by the apprehension that gripped her, were ones undertaken in vain.

Panic.

“Find a way out,” she told herself.

“There isn’t one,” Hyde’s looming authority seemed to remind her, voice lilting with that manic glee she knew he was all too capable of gathering.

Panic.

He’d come out of the dark like he was made of it, composed of madness; a sort of structured chaos that stemmed from a sense of self-derived control. Exacting control by removing it from within the grasp of another. His tactics struck familiar and again she felt the fool for it being so effortless to overpower her.

The implication seemed to be that if she cooperated, he would spare her life and perpetuate her existence. Fairly sound of her to challenge that assertion given the circumstances. Rather incredulous she was of trusting that he’d make good on that and he no doubt knew it. Lucky? If she wasn’t so thoroughly shaken, she might have scoffed. There was no earthly way of knowing what her fate would come to be by nighttime’s end. That was an obliviousness to add to the amassing pile.

She started somewhat when he withdrew the blade abruptly, a sharp intake of breath synchronizing with that action. That moment afterwards in which both regarded each other, him with what was likely something akin to triumph and her with comingled fear and rage, seemed as lengthy as the span of the ocean. It was one of the longest moments of her life, wrought with the uncertainty of her next breaths.

Kitty’s eyes followed close behind the sliding motion of his hand, brows furrowing at the placement and grimacing fleetingly as his fingers threaded through her hair. From the way she recoiled, bare flesh of her back drawn upon with scratches from the dark brick, it seemed that she wanted to disappear completely into the wall behind her. Be anywhere but here. Be anyone but herself. It wasn’t the first time she had entertained such notions and, if circumstances foretold correctly, it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Acknowledging the condescension in his voice with a glare that she hadn’t the sense to restrain, anger flickered over her delicate features. Anger at being trapped, anger at being so easy to trap. Fear and anger tangoing in synchronicity, reminiscent of a cornered animal. The only restraint that kept her from biting back was the fact that he undoubtedly had the upper hand and the only reason for her explicit display of contempt in the first place was the fact that the blade wasn’t trailing along her flesh anymore.

In his demand, there was an inherent choice. The same type of choice she had been discussing with Henry not too long ago. Her life must’ve been part of some cosmic gag reel with the way fate administered its cruelties. That was the one constant in her life; it never lacked misfortunes.

Though the choice was not much of one at all, she made it without exception. It wasn’t a question of how much she wanted to die, but how much she wanted to live. She’d arrived at a new place in her life recently and it was one worth sacrificing for.

As a single act of defiance, she took hold of his wrist, prying his hand slowly from her tresses of brown, before slackening her grip and releasing his arm with a slight shove. In a very small, trembling voice that she hated the moment it sprang from her lips, she answered in defeat, “Yeah, I . . . I get it.”

Fractured by the weakness in her voice, something he’d undoubtedly pick up on, her stare wavered and she sunk her head dourly, awaiting his direct. Not the wisest move considering that the bowing of her head could have been interpreted as a sign of servitude and too close to the truth for her to be set at ease with.

[ricketts]

The man remained impassive, though he responded with a faint gleam as Kitty, looking back at him, produced for his benefit a scornful distortion of countenance which offered confirmation of his account of things. Right now he was the object - the despicable object looked upon with contempt and distain - but all above all, she looked upon him with fear. No fear as sweet as hers.

Kitty seemed to consent, for the moment, at least, and suffered herself to be escorted by him with too much delicacy to inquire further. Thus rebuffed, she snatched her arm back to herself. A little more eagerly than responded, Hyde took a small - and only small - step back from her, but inwardly resolved that he was pleased with this. In a manner of committal , he nodded and with these thoughts elevating and cheering his mind, he beckoned her to follow.

'This way, and don't get cute.'

**************

They went down together. Hyde made no show of indifference or good spirits - to make jokes before engaging in a serious job seemed to be execrably bad taste especially in the company of a beautiful whore woman, but he was perfectly calm.

He consulted his watch, nearly fifeen minutes from when they set off. Kitty had been smart following him without much restraint, and she probably knew too, that he was going over and over in his own mind, certain points of attack he would employ successfully upon her if she tried to make for the get-a-way. The miracles of light and shadow playing fitfully through the interlacing laurels distracted Hyde's attention, and so they had arrived. While his mind was occupied with the position and placement of the body, his eyes were attracted by the reeds shivering in the night breeze, and the trees, tender as the amorous allegories, sighed gently over a head that was wholly absorbed in plans of dealing a mortal misery.

The spot chosen for the encounter was a at the side of a path, in the shade, and covered with fine rolled gravel. Shoving the shrubbery aside with a few kicks of the foot, Hyde revealed to Kitty the badly battered corpse - with multiple dents and cuts, even with signs of biting - that was already stationed there, at the further end. There was a brief silence, that wore a grave, not to say solemn, air.

The two were placed opposite to one another on either side, and Hyde stepped over the dead man, proceeding to the upper body. 'Get his legs.' He instructed.

(Another Red Eye ref, and you just know I was looking at this the whole time.)

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

Kitty moved to trail behind Hyde, her sinister guide into an inauspicious underworld that never seemed as distant as it should have to those eyes trained otherwise. She was well versed in adversity, but none so harried as the escapade set upon at present. Fear had stolen over her, the tendrils of it slowly wrapping themselves around her mind, burrowing their way into every crevice until it was touching upon every part of her. The solicitude forged from that grip of fear turned her thoughts inward, even whilst her eyes searched frivolously for a flicker of escape.

At said moment of concession, she had done away with regard that did not directly relate to her own well being. Only now –with her thoughts, the deadened alleyways of a hushed city, and a madman keeping her company –did she acknowledge the true gravity of the predicament she now found herself in. She was following a murderer, obedient to his authoritative command by will of self-seeking judgment alone. A choice she had been given and true to her nature, she chose rather to live with self-reproach than to die free of it. She was the furthest from a woman of virtue, this was true, and it seemed as if Hyde was adamant in reminding her of that.

He wanted her to help him rid himself of a life he had taken, without question or comment. Posed in such cavalier a manner, she supposed that the stealing of lives was something inherent in his nature.

**************

That ominous repose of a cloaked familiarity stirred her to her core and as she followed a few paces behind, she surreptitiously glanced alleyways and slumbering streets they passed, her eyes flashing with the internal pleading of escape. Met with only faces of stoicism scattered here and there, her silenced pleas went unanswered. More than once had she nearly purged the horrors of her waking nightmare only to be stifled by the reminder of Hyde’s presence. His breed was something akin to a hunter and she was nothing more than the hunted. There was not a sliver of doubt that should she try to belittle his command by attempting to flee once again, he’d have more than enough incentive to collect himself another life and add another corpse to his undoubtedly amassing pile. As woeful as her life persisted, she would not allow it to be so swiftly taken from her. Perhaps if Hyde had come along at another time, at another place in her life, she would have protested with much more fervor. Such was not the case, however. Kitty was no longer living solely to breathe. How very fortunate for Hyde.

Some time later, suffering silence and an air of tension, they came upon a sparingly vegetational area with the sounds of gravel dissettling beneath their feet alerting them of their arrival. Cowering in all of her weakened resilience and a sudden chill exhaled from the overhead trees, she crossed her arms about her chest and shrunk into a sort of hunch, aiming for a semblance of warmth. Nights tinged with the bitterness of a coming frost were detrimental to a streetwalker and were increasing in occurrence. Kitty, outfitted in pitifully minimal garments, was freezing and suffice it to say that Hyde had also had his desired effect on her blood, rendering the course of it cold. Colder still did it run when he revealed to her the mangled mess of a body lying in wait.

Her instinctual reaction was to screw her eyes shut tightly and turn her head away, mentally attempting to will away the image. The man had been brutally murdered, that much she could tell from the flash of smattered dark colors of crimson she had caught sight of before she turned away. After a moment, that intrinsic human pull, one of a darker and sicker curiosity, brought her gaze back to the macabre scene. The corpse greeted her once more; skin waxy and purple, hands a deathly blue pallor, stout body riddled with slashes, bites, and indentations from which he suffered damage. This man’s last moments were spent in agony, victim to a form of brutality conjured from the darkest depths of something barely human. A wave of queasiness flooded her, but with a determined will she was able to suppress the sickness of self she experienced. With her eyes widened fearfully and the back of her hand pressed against her mouth, she imagined her reaction must have seemed comically cliché to Hyde. Her stupor was broken upon by none other than him and that break from seeming paralysis stirred a line of thinking that had been momentarily forgotten.

Now that she had witnessed what Hyde was capable of, it seemed ever of the utmost importance to continue her compliance and not challenge his dominion. No one wanted for a fate such as the one handed to the victim of Hyde’s murderous mania. Kitty was no exception.

Along with acknowledging the truth of his homicidal tendencies, she was quick to formulate a puzzlement of her own. Why, out of all the working belles, had he chosen her? It could not have been just wretched coincidence or terrible luck, she now realized. She maintained the belief that he was indeed known to her somehow and that she had been selected from that recognition of his own. Not exactly the most brightening revelation considering that she was still oblivious to the face behind the veil. Yet again, she was at a disadvantage. Her initial supposition was that he had been a client of hers. There existed no other explanation for the intense yet hazy familiarity. During no other moment had that been called to the forefront than when his hand had buried itself leisurely in her hair.

With as much courage as she was able to muster, she attempted what was to be a feat. She visibly shook the dread from herself, inhaling and exhaling a deep breath, before moving closer to the body. In all truth, it was easier a task to manage than she would like to be given credit for. This was not the first dead body she had had the horrors of seeing, though this particular one was set apart by poles. There had been the dead prostitute fished out from a dumpster, a testament to the fatality of the streets. A black bag was all that Kitty had witnessed and so the experience was one of a lesser intensity. Then there had been Spider’s numerous demonstrations of violence, demonstrations that had taken those dangerously close to the brink of deathly silence, but never had a life been taken in front of her. What she was faced with at present was something of a different variety altogether. Kitty supposed that she should express a diminutive amount of gratitude. If it hadn’t been for the barbarism of those past experiences, she would have fallen apart entirely the moment she had laid eyes on Hyde’s handiwork. Moderately prepared she was now to reclaim her façade of detachment and dispel whatever noticeable anxiety she could.

“I’m gonna as-” she faltered and inwardly cursed herself for that slip. It seemed that she could successfully shake the fear from her body, but not entirely from her voice. Swallowing once, she tried once more. “I’m gonna ask you something and since you’ve been honest enough for the most part, I expect more honesty.”

Positioning herself at the dead man’s legs, she bent down and with a great deal of revulsion she tucked her hands underneath his bulky legs and grabbed a hold of him, waiting for Hyde's go-ahead. Leveling her eyes with Hyde’s own behind the sunglasses, she asked candidly and with that sarcastic bite she was surprised she could still manage, “Why me? I'd like to know exactly what I did wrong to attract a guy like you.”



(ARG. Again with the rambling posts. >< Heh, you bet your ass that I was staring at that image the entire time also. =P And listening to a lot of Marilyn Manson. >> You’re doing the leading, dude, but damn do I give you so little to actually work with. xD)

[ricketts]

Into the comedy of human life, Hyde liked to bring some highly perilous elements, and was thereby the occasion of ruin and disaster. Under the glamour of his own imagination, every caprice assumed an appearance of pathos. She was the woman of fulminating passions, of suddenly blazing desire. She covered the lusts of the flesh with a mantle of ethereal flame, and could transform into just whatever he wanted her to - and that was merely a base for his appetite.

The calm and sparkling cold brought his mind back to the realities of life and enabled him to recognise just what he was doing. He looked proudly over Kitty, a sincere delight in his heart as she gathered the hefty body's legs into her arms. 'I'm always honest, baby.'

Once more the enigmatical aspect of his character occupied him, naked truth crowding in upon his mind tumultuously, persistently. But with such a feel of moment confidence, he had the strength of mind to co-ordinate them, to attack them one by one, with singular lucidity. The deeper he went in his analysis the more lucid became his mental vision, and he worked out his psychological revenge with cruel relish. Lay bear a soul, penetrate a mystery. Make this body more than his own.

The commencement of his actions were slightly abrupt, dropping sharply and catching both arms around the broad torso of the dead man. He cluthced his fist and held his wrist hard, summoning an innerborn stength and lifting. 'God, you fat fuck!'

He drew up, and pulled them back, checking over his shoulder every other moment. At the room of his actions, Hyde had a natural gift for carrying out a pre-arranged, and spontaneously impulsed, scheme, for playing a dramatic part or organising a striking scene. He did not spare their - being he and Henry's - most memorable episodes, one which being that first meeting with Kitty. Yes, he remembered it. With scatching judgment too. So frigidly, he withdrew the range of his eyes from the path and faced her.

'Oh babe, come on.'

Then with cold lucidity, he answered with a snap to his tone. 'What the fuck else were you gonna do tonight? You know what, I've just answered my own question but hey, if you weren't here you'd be somewhere else having your ass shunted off for six dollars. That is the behaviour of, and I've no qualms saying it,' His cheeks glowed with anger under the mask. '.. a WHORE.'

Freed almost immediately from his measure of anger, Hyde lapsed back into a voice that was both grave and kind. 'Besides, if it wasn't you then I'd have some other hooker here asking me the same question. It's nothing personal, Kitty.'

It was very personal.


(Direct quote from On The Edge stealing winnage.)

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

It was the scribe of all those who had yet to know any better to take for granted the most understated teachings buried in far from pleasant experiences. It was the preferred choice to try and forget rather than immerse one’s self in that wretched discomfort and take from that a lesson which could be readily applied in its own time. To fault someone for that would be callous, but to disregard its negative effects would be unwise.

Kitty was a creation of the streets, streets wrought with violence whose face shifted constantly. There had been a great deal of meetings between her and this chameleonic violence. So many, in fact, that she had grown to recognize its coming. It could wear whichever face it chose, but the expression of that violence was universal to her. She had learned its effect on a human voice and the sharpness it loaned like the serrated edge of a blade, much like Hyde had exhibited. She had learned the contortion of the facial muscles, the flaring of the nostrils, and the tugging of the mouth that could shape a scowl, similar to what she knew Hyde’s disguise hid. What she had taken from her experiences was basic survival. That recognition of rage in others that she provoked, inadvertent or otherwise, aided her far more than any other tool at her disposal. Used appropriately, she could implement that proficiency in rage recognition in two ways.

The first was to know exactly when to switch to tactics that roused the least ire or to learn best how to avoid incensing the person further. A valuable skill to say the least and one that had meant the difference between expressed and latent violence. The second use she had found for her skill was, if all else failed and she had reached a point of no return with someone, that she would know the exact moment in which she could steel herself mentally. Obviously that didn’t detract from the pain she would undoubtedly feel, but learning to brace herself held another valuable teaching. It was one thing to submit physically, quite another to submit mentally.

This skill was hindered by a mortal flaw of hers that was illumined by a select few, however. Where emotions and the reactions they caused were concerned, Kitty was a creature of impulse. An action undertaken through impulse was the more honest. Thus, she was a woman of warped and mangled honesty. She had not the cunning of a brain that could excel in matters of strategy. Hyde could scheme with a troubling mastery, that much was evidenced by the plan they were currently executing at his behest. No doubt he was vulnerable to spurts of impulse as well, very few were not, but it was bolstered by fractional control.

Inwardly Kitty bristled at his words, honest as they may have been. With fear at the helm, given its orders by bridled anger and further antagonized by his unsavory response, a fierce impulse took charge. She looked daggers at him, defined jaw clenched; all the while struggling to keep her hold on the bulk that was the man’s legs. There were some that could expose that mortal flaw of hers and Hyde had quickly cemented himself as one of them.

Voice tinged with bitter derision that she hadn’t the sagacity to suppress, she spoke. “What else was I gonna do tonight? Hmm . . .” she tilted her head and simulated musing, flashing him a look of thinly veiled contempt. “Oh, I dunno . . . not this, maybe? I have you to thank for that because as fun as ‘having my ass shunted off’ is, being an accomplice to murder really is the cherry on top of a fantastic year.”

As soon as the visceral venom had spilled from her mouth, she bit the inside of her cheek and averted her gaze. That viper tongue of hers was going to be her undoing one day and if she kept it up with him, she could see that day fast approaching where she would be the blood-smattered corpse claiming an aqueous grave.

Kitty was able to discern, however, from his comment about her involvement being nothing personal, that he was lying. She was a slender, wisp of a girl whose strength lay not in physicality, but elsewhere. Not exactly the most apt choice for aiding in disposing of a heavyset body. Then there was the biting sense of familiarity with him that she now firmly believed was not imagined. He knew her and she somehow knew him, but a thought nurtured by a moment of clarity suppressed the voicing of that. It was a possibility that if she were to reveal to him that she had her suspicions about the ‘stranger’ he claimed to be, he would have more than enough reason to silence her as well. Rearranging the countenance she had previously displayed, she shrugged herself into a tamer temperament.

“Look . . . whatever. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner . . .” You can leave me the fuck alone. “. . . we can go our separate ways,” she lowly uttered, tone slightly resigned and glaringly less hostile, though still strained by the effort of hauling the body. Numerous times she adjusted her grip on his legs, trying to assess the hold that would afford her arms the most alleviation. A minutely insensitive thought considering how dead the man actually was.


(Winnage for you. >D I managed a much muddled Mean Girls quote. It’s in there somewhere. =P)

[ricketts]

(You and your cherries)


Deliberately, with the body held rigidly on a level, Hyde pushed forward a pace or two into the inky blackness, and grasped the wrists so hard the nail of his thumb dug. He gazed in awhile, a black oblique shadow flung across his face, his eyes fixed like an animal's, then drew it steadily towards him. And suddenly some power that had held him tense seemed to fail. He thrust out his head, and, his face quivering with enervation, spat defiance as if in a passion of triumph into the gloom.

Cramped and heavy-limbed, he felt his way across using his shuffling feet. He stood listening awhile: his eyes fixed on the ground. Again Kitty's voice broke out, and he answered more impetuously and yet with a certain restraint and caution. 'Couldn't have said it better.'

The deed, none the less, and in spite of its unintelligible inequity, did begin to take shape and consistency. He had no intention of letting her go, not now. The man himself, breathing, and thinking, began to identify the area, though not in quite so formidable a fashion as might have summed up. The bridge and it's edge, that was all he needed. But as the west began to lighten with the declining moon, the same old disquietude, the same old friendless and foreboding ennui stole over Hyde's solitude once more. He did not have long before he had to rest again. Shielding himself for now, he moved more slowly, with chin uplifted and began to raise the dead body.

He dropped the wrists - causing his half of the corpse to hit the pavement with a sickening sound, and bent forward a little over the arch edge. Stanging motionless and drawn up, the pupils of his eyes slowly contracting and expanding as he gazed down black vacant gloom; past the dim louring presence of the water below.

'Perfect.' Hyde grinned like a fool as he stole back over the body, lifting it by the underarms with his all his might, sharply turning his head in a way that would encourage Kitty to do the same. Once it was lay flat, from crown to toe, on the border between air and water, he seemed to think intensely for the merest fraction of a moment while he caught his breath back. Then he turned, breathing a sigh of inward triumph and speaking to Kitty with exaggerated candour.

'Well, sweetheart. We're here, welcome to the aqueduct.' He said almost gaily, then extending a welcoming hand to the body. 'You wanna do the honours?'

[LUCY "KITTY" HARRIS]

Eyes of a green silence remained fixed on even the most miniscule of distractions. Their avoidance was thinly veiled and motivated by a deeply rooted fear. Hyde and Kitty suffered the remainder of the journey in quiet resolve with naught but the heavy breathing of their struggles to fill the glacial air. Kitty, exhausted of the night’s trials and growing wearier with each strength she labored, was of a particular mood. By no means did she boast any physical strength and it was clearly illustrated by her exertion. There had been many a moment that she had nearly let the vice-like grip slacken and the half of the body she had been charged with drop. Exhausted as she was, there was this one something that kept her from crossing the boundary between merely entertaining the notion and actually executing it. This something was a something she knew and yet not at all. Paradoxical in bearing, but easily enough understood.

Hyde terrified her into obedience and for reasons not unlike her puppeteer of woes, Spider. The difference here was the mystery of this entity. Spider was wholly known to her, intimately even, but this Edward Hyde was not. Fear of the unknown, fear that remained obscured by anonymity. She was exposed while he was hidden; safe in disguise, he held every vantage point with disconcerting ease. There was a truth to accept, though. Kid herself all she wanted, in her depths she knew that even with a face he would still have a power over her. That was simply the nature of him. There were the terrors and there were those to be terrorized. At least she knew her suited position and that the more she dwelled on him, the more he terrified her.

Her delicate face bearing an almost pained expression, she trudged onward. Kitty could not afford to incense him and thus she exhausted all of her strength keeping the body aloft. Moments had arisen where her will had nearly failed her and the body just about dragged across the ground they treaded, but she would remember the all too possible violence that might’ve been directed her way as reprimand and recovered instantly, straightening herself and adjusting her hold on the man. This continued for what seemed to her an age too long before they finally caught sight of their destination.

With careful restraint and prudence, she forbade her heart the peace it sought to seize as they neared the climax of their night together; Hyde, the murdered, and this forlorn marionette at his command. She knew better than to give rise to the belief that her terror would be stricken from her once the task was completed and the moon died away with his presence. The concurrence forged between them on the matter of their parting might have consoled her if as soon as it had been made her mind had not summoned forth the thought of his definition of departure differing from hers. Alas, her fatalism bore fitfully upon her already assailed mind and birthed the thought all the same. There was no respite to be conjured.

Kitty started when he let go and the body collided with the ground, emitting a sound that turned her stomach. The victim’s legs slipped from her grasp slightly and she scrambled to reclaim her hold, not daring to gather a bit of rest even though Hyde was. With the chilling sort of glee in which he uttered “perfect”, as if there was nothing more glorious in the world than what he had done and what he planned to do, she could envision the maddening Cheshire grin that must have spread across his face with the rapidity of wild fire. His eyes too, most likely, might have also gleamed with a manic possession if she could see them.

Kitty followed his direct as he led them on, rummaging within herself the might to see this despairing deed through. At long last, with plentiful vigor withered, the body was positioned just upon the bridge’s edge. Ever the weary, she stooped and placed her hands upon her knees, sparing a moment to catch her breath in heavy heaves for air. In vain that was with what Hyde propositioned next.

She looked him with widened eyes and once she had registered his words entirely, her countenance clearly read of an aversion to such misdeeds. The glint of abhorrence and detest, fiercely flashed from beneath brows pulled together, formed the words she couldn’t. A resounding “no”, maybe even a biting “get fucked” or any variation of it. Kitty noted how close he himself was to the bridge’s border and the smug triumph in which he seemed so enraptured. The murmuring of a heinous crime attempted to seduce her, to drive her to see Hyde tumbling over the bridge instead of the body.

However, her glowering amounted to nothing. She made sure of that with the return of her submission, evident in both look and demeanor.

She stole a glance at the lifeless in front of her, taking in all of the brutality this man had suffered at the hands of one so learned in delivering it. She knew nothing of the man, nothing that would have enlightened her to the justification for his death, shallow as it would no doubt come to be. Perhaps he had a family, friends, achieved even a meager form of gratification with the path his life had taken before his fateful meeting with his murderer. Perhaps he possessed none of the aforementioned, maybe wrought with his own meager and lonely existence. No longer.

The realization angered her just as much as Hyde’s scheme did, but she conceded defeat. Although he had phrased his proposition in askance, she knew the choice had already been made for her. Refuse and anger him or accept and please him. Only one earned her his favor and more importantly, insurance for her life. She’d already given him enough reasons to silence her forever. No need to pile on a final one. With that rationalization that she loathed as soon as she’d made it, Kitty stepped forward, hesitantly positioning her hands on the man’s side and with one fleeting look Hyde’s way, she depleted her last bit of strength and pushed the cold, lifeless body over. With plentiful consideration, she peered down at the aqueous grave, concurrent with the sound of his body being claimed by it. Much as she tried to tear her gaze away, she could not. She stood stock still, her regular breathing returning to her slowly but steadily.

The sight and the act itself would be committed to her memory for her mind to later cultivate nightmares from. There was its host, wracked by guilt and seething hatred, hollowed by the deed. Hatred like poison coursed through her veins, but her dainty features remained pulled into a pitiful expression of gloom, not rage.

Kitty’s stare still fixed on the troubled waters below them, she addressed Hyde in what betokened a grudgingly conquered tone. “There’s the satisfaction you’d wanted, what you’d been looking for, right? Now what?”



(Yeah, in case I didn’t beat you over the head with it enough, bitch is scurred of Hyde. That’s what you need to take from this post. xD Musey muse.)