Never Turn Your Back On The Corpse (TAG)

[Jaina Gaben]

Jaina closed her eyes. She was still going to fight, sure. But she'd rather not see when one of them pulled a knife or something and stabbed her. It was never pleasant, she'd rather be surprised. She felt the hot blood soak into her jacket and inwardly sighed. That was going to be hard to clean up and get out. She really liked this jacket though, she'd much rather try to fix it than throw it away and get a new one, and--

There was no pain. She was dropped.It wasn't just her voice screaming anymore. She opened her eyes, and realized what was happening. She was laying in a pool of blood, yes, but for a change it wasn't her blood. It was theirs. Jaina watched, wide-eyed and slack jawed in amazement as a fucking werewolf of all things dismembered each member of the gang. In the moment, she wasn't sure if this street was about to become a lot safer or a lot more dangerous.

Then it transformed back into a person and...

"Holy shit."

It was the cop that had helped her. Any lingering doubt that he was out to get something from her had pretty much gone away at this point. What would a werewolf want with her?

She stood up, wiping blood off on her pants. "Um. Yeah. Yeah I'm fine. I... you're a fucking werewolf."

Suddenly, she had an idea. Her eyes brightened, and she held her arm out towards the man. "Bite me. Come on! Bite me! If I'm gonna be stuck living forever I might as well get to be a werewolf too. If it sticks around more than a day that is. Wouldn't be surprised if my shit would cure werewolf-ism. Werewolfitis? Whatever it's called."

@lupo

[Deleted]

Luca looked at her in amusement, slowly grinning at her reaction. He stood up after she did, and glanced around, before laughing quietly. “I get that a lot…hate to be the bearer of bad news though, I -” He smiled apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke, but trailed off when she held her arm out and pleaded for him to bit her and turn her into a ‘werewolf’.

“Lycanthropy. It’s ‘lycanthropy’, you mean, but no, it’s not that at all,” He chuckled lightly. “I’m not going to bite you. It doesn't work like that” He gently grabbed her arm and lowered it to her side as he fixed his eyes on hers. “I’m not what you think I am. I may look like a werewolf from the stories, but they’re just that - stories, nothing more.” Another smile formed while he talked to her mildly. “You can call me what you want though. I don’t care. Just know that my bite or scratches won’t change you into what I am. Sorry.”

He glanced around the alleyway and down at his bloodstained clothes. He’ll have to spend the rest of the night cleaning his clothes, after spending some time here picking up the bullets, or any other evidence left behind that would incriminate him. It’ll be awkward if he was sent here to investigate his own crime scene as soon as someone discovers their remains in the morning. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time that happened to him.

“Look, I need to clean the crime scene up a bit here,” he explained, shoving his hands inside his jacket’s pockets. “You need to go to where you’re staying before anyone notices you. And, if you don’t have any other pair of clothes stashed away, you should use the money I gave you to buy some.” He paused, thinking, and as an afterthought, he added, “And…if you need to clean those clothes you have on you, uh…I live in the Liberty Heights area in an apartment complex.”

He paused again, rummaging in his pocket and pulled out a notepad and pen to write down an address, and ripped the page out to hand it to her. “If you want to, you can crash at my place anytime. I have a guest room, a washer and dryer, and it’s better than dealing with this.” He smiled warmly, studying her curiously before repeating what he said to her a little bit ago. “You need to go. Now. Please.”

Jaina Gaben

[Jaina Gaben]

Jaina sighed, disappointed. Being a werewolf would have made this curse at least a little more bearable. But no, she couldn't be that lucky. She looked around at the gore. She'd seen similar messes, but it was usually in the aftermath of her death, one that didn't get found. She usually didn't bother cleaning it up.

"When I make a mess like this, if I wake up in it, I just leave it. I'll get myself cleaned up."

Jaina grabbed the slightly bloody wad of cash and shoved it back into her stained jacket pocket and started to walk off. She paused and looked back at..

She pulled out the business card. Luca, she looked back at Luca. She still didn't quite understand why he helped her. At all. He was going to clean up all this mess and that was going to take a shit ton of time and he could have just left it. She'd be fine.

"HEY! Luca! Why the fuck do you give a shit? What are you getting out of this? It's not going to change anything. There's always going to be more assholes, and I'm going to die some other way and wake up again. Why are you bothering?"

@lupo

[Deleted]

Luca started searching for the spent bullet casings from each of their handguns, and the bloodied bullets, which were pushed out of his body when his wounds healed during the fight quickly. Thankfully, they were poorly disciplined at firing a gun, and using small caliber bullets. Stupid thugs, he thought. He glanced back at Jaina, who was still there and told him how she would wake up after a mess like he left here, and left without cleaning it up, only herself.

“That’s great,” He commented sarcastically as he returned to his task. “I’m only finding the bullets they fired at me. I don’t want them to be found. I don’t care about the viscera or the dead bodies.” He smiled, finding a blood-stained bullet, and picked it up using his claws of his pointer and thumb as if they were tweezers, and slipped the bullet into his jacket’s pocket, along with a couple more he found next to the first one he spotted.

He quickly headed down to the body of the thug he ran after down the alley, and took a minute until he stood up after finding the remaining bullets as she practically screamed his name, and bombarded him with the questions she’d asked him earlier, and thought maybe she still couldn’t believe some complete stranger could care about another. He tilted his head to the right, and stared at her for a good bit before he approached her.

“Is it so hard to believe I give a shit about you, or anyone else I interact with on a daily basis? I spent so many hours, days, weeks, and sometimes months with families of victims during the worst days of their lives. I see their faces when I bring them news no parent, child, or friend of the dead loved one wants to hear, and work my hardest in order to give them the closure they need, or justice they deserve.” He paused, it was obviously an emotional topic for him, and one could tell from the faint pain in his voice.

“There are also times where I see someone struggling and feeling like absolute shit, and trying off themselves, who I go out of my way to help them, because they remind me of myself when I was at rock bottom during my early part of my life.” He shrugged, not sure what else to tell her, and subtly shook his head. “That’s why.”

Jaina Gaben

[Jaina Gaben]

Jaina stared into his eyes, trying not to tremble. She didn't believe him. She didn't believe that he actually felt like that. But... there was an honesty to his voice and body language. She didn't understand, and it scared her a little. She swallowed, and took a few steps backwards.

"Okay. Sounds fake, but okay."

She didn't believe herself. She didn't understand. She turned away, but looked back over her shoulder. "Um. If. If you want to. Uh. Check on me, not that I need it, uh, the warehouse on the corner of 8th and Shepard. It's where I, well, hang out. Not that I need it or anything. Might even be annoying, if you bother me too much."

She turned and ran, ran away from this confusing werewolf man and to the home she had made for herself. She took off her bloody jacket, reminding herself that she needed to go to the ocean later to wash it off, and grabbed a dirty, beat up plushie of Disney's Stitch character, hugging it tightly as she flopped down on a ratty mattress. He was a comfort when things were confusing, and she was really confused tonight.

@lupo

[Deleted]

Luca tilted his head to the left now, narrowing his eyebrows slightly when he heard her swallowing and saw her take several steps back. He didn’t know why she seemed scared, but she was.

He sighed, “You really love saying that line a lot, but all right, then,” A small shrug. “I understand.”

Before walking away himself, he nodded at what else she said to him. “Okay,” he smiled warmly at her. “Don’t worry, I won’t be an annoying dad and bother you too much. You have my card and you know where to find me, Jaina.”

He watched her run away from him, and stood there with a faint smile, before walking away, and headed back to his Jeep. He opened the back of the trunk open, dropping the bullets he collected into a zip-lock bag he had in there, and then dropped the back into a plastic bin he kept in the back of the vehicle. He would need to dispose of them sometime tomorrow. He glanced around for a moment as he stripped his long coat and hoodie off, rolled them up and added them into the bin to be washed as soon as he returned to his apartment. Ready to go, he slammed the trunk closed and walked over to the driver’s side, peering up at the clear night sky, and gazed at the dusting of stars glistening against the pitch black canvas and then at the bright full moon. He smiled a bit as he unlocked the door and climbed into the driver seat, feeling good after dealing with those thugs and helping Jaina, and hoped she’ll start to trust him - a trust he knew he would have to earn from her. With that, he turned on the ignition and headed home.

“Until next time, kiddo,” he whispered before driving off.


-end of thread-

Jaina Gaben