Episode: 1.3

--- Allison “Rook” O’Hara ---

(Shit, shit, shit!)

(What the fuck was that little psycho thinking?!)

Rook placed her head against her apartment door.

(He stole Chris’s gun, killed someone, and stole who knows how much money from who knows who…)

(I should gut him and strangle him and leave his body to rot in an unmarked grave, and… and…)

(And…he needs me…)

“Fuck…” she cursed, before making her way to the elevator.

Her eyes briefly drifted to the ground as she kept watch for any blood, only to be mildly surprised when he saw none.

(Well whatever damage he’s taken, he’s not bleeding at least.)

(I’ll have to take a better look once he gets all that blood off him…)

“Shit, there’s no way all that blood came from one guy…” she sighed, calling the elevator.

(And however, many bodies he dropped were all done with Chr- my gun.)

That was something that bothered her for a number of reasons, most of which Jericho had no way of knowing. (Though that doesn’t excuse the ones he should’ve known.)

She barely resisted the urge to punch the elevator wall over Jericho’s idiocy. Just barely.

(Why the fuck would he take my gun?)

(I get he doesn’t know how to file a serial number or buy an untraceable, but still!)

Once more she contemplated killing her only remaining friend, before stopping herself.

(No, this isn’t helping anyone.)

She ran a hand down her face, as the elevator doors dinged open.

(Just be glad he didn’t bring a knife to a gunfight and move on.)

(Hm, knowing his weird thing with pocket knives I wouldn’t put it past him.)

The image of Jericho trying to be intimidating with a knife brought a slight grin to her face, especially when imaginary Jer opened a coat full of twenty blades like some kind of anime character.

Shaking her head, she stopped the doors from closing, before stepping out into the half empty parking garage.

(On the plus, that gun can’t be traced by the cops… not to him or me.)

(On the minus, that gun can be traced by Asylum…to Chr- to me.)

(Since no Deviants were involved Sanctuary has no reason, and they’re the only ones with any connections to Asylum.)

(If I’m lucky, he was sloppy enough no one will think an Asylum Agent had anything to do with the job, given our… more cautious tendencies.)

She pulled out the keys and clicked the unlock button causing white van in the back to beep.

(Probably was, he’s never been trained to do this kind of thing, doesn’t have any experience. Hell, I don’t think he’s ever even been in a fight either…)

She bit her lip, as she made her way to the van.

(It’s a miracle he’s still alive.)

Her eyes gave the car a once over before she even touched it, looking for anything that could make the vehicle stand out, or give her an idea of just who Jericho robbed.

(Non-discrepant, white. A regular work van, probably hundreds of them in the city.)

She moved the driver’s side and popped the hood, before taking a closer look.

(Been customized, not enough to be spark-tech, but definitely top of the line under the hood. They’re maybe a few dozen cars tricked out like this in the city, and all of them belong to professional groups… namely the CME.)

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“Fuck!” she couldn’t help but curse under her breath.

The last thing she needed was the Central Market looking into her, they were almost as bad as Sanctuary doing a background check. Since they had ties in the black market for more than half the country

(And if Jericho did take over one of their jobs…)

She didn’t let herself finish that thought, before re-doubling her efforts in finding any tracers or other tracking devices in the car, even going so far as to rip apart the radio, just in case something was piggybacking off the signal.

(Nothing hooked up to the electronics or the engine… Not even a navigation GPS.)

Which was a good thing, but it didn’t change the fact that her paranoia was screaming something was out to get Jericho, and by extension her. She just didn’t know what that something was.

Deciding to be safe rather than sorry she opened the sliding door, to make sure there was nothing hidden in the more or less empty back. The only thing she found was several duffel bags full of money, and another filled with a number of rifles and explosives.

She blinked, opening one of the bags and counting… (a lot of money…)

(Yeah, these’ll… these’ll definitely help with our money problems.)

She zipped the bag shut, and contemplated driving the thing back to the bank, and hope the cops just label this whole incident to some crazy bipolar vigilante. (Wouldn’t be too far off the mark…)

She glanced at the money bags and shook her head.

(Nope, not that selfless.)

(Still…)

She tossed the car keys a few times.

(It’s probably been about fifteen minutes since Jericho got here, I could maybe still ditch the car somewhere, throw off anyone looking for it… but I’d need to spend another fifteen dragging all the money upstairs.)

(And that’s not even with avoiding the other tenant’s…)

Her apartment was cheap, and so long as a tenant paid off the skeevy landlord didn’t care what happened. Meaning half the tenants were either criminals, wanted to keep their heads down, or to poor to actually raise a fuss.

Not that she could complain about said corruption, given her own situation.

Especially, since she’d taken advantage of said corruption whenever she’d had to deck that jackass down the hall on the occasions, she’d caught him beating his girlfriend. And of course, the landlord said nothing about said assault, though the extra hundred she had to pay that month for ‘disturbing the peace’ showed his thought process on the matter.

And with all of the criminals living on her floor, not one of whom would think twice about breaking into the single blonde’s apartment if she brought too many ‘goodies’ home. She’d have to be cautious about taking the money back to her apartment.

All in all, she’d have to spend have the day taking care of everything else, before she could even get to ditching the van. As risky as it was, it was better to just leave the money in the car…

She grabbed a bag full of money.

…most of it anyway.

She took a step towards the elevator ready to head back before she remembered something Chris used to tell her whenever they had to ‘commandeer’ a vehicle on the job.

(No one bothers remembering their car’s license plate number, until their car ‘s stolen.)

She gave the garage a once over, her gaze eventually settling on a similar white work van near the back.

(Well… we are stuck with the van for the time being…)

Dropping the duffel bag, and tucking it under the van, before flicking out her pocket knife and unscrewing the license plate from the back. License plate in hand turned and made her way to the other car, before switching the plate out with the one from the stolen van.

A few more minutes and she grabbed the duffel bag from under the van’s new license plate.

Locking up the car she went head and checked the time on her cell, before frowning.

(That took me nearly fifteen minutes… Used to, I could do it in five.)

She ran a hand down her face before making her way back to the elevator.

Checking the car over had taken longer than she was expecting, and she’d rather not leave Jericho alone for too long.

(If Jer really is in shock, then it’ll probably take a day or two to fade but I’d rather deal with it now than letting him develop PTSD from this mess.)

(Mine’s bad enough on its own…)

She tapped her foot as she watched the numbers slowly light up as the elevator made its way to her.

(Damn it!)

(What was he thinking pulling this shit, I mean robbing a bank? By himself? He’s worse than I thought if he actually believed he could pull that off.)

(Maybe if I’d helped, but…)

She shook her head, as the elevator doors opened.

(No, he’d never let me get involved, I’d talk him out of his crazy just like he does me.)

(Besides he’s got no idea what I’m really capable of.)

She adjusted the duffle bag as she leaned back against the wall, the shifting money drawing her mind to less stressful thoughts.

(Almost a hundred grand… nine bags, plus the one upstairs… and if we chop shop the van, to round it up…)

(Heh, that dumbass actually managed to steal a million dollars…)

She couldn’t help but laugh at that.

(Maybe I should’ve helped him out.)

(No, he got lucky. And my shit luck would’ve gotten us both thrown in jail.)

The elevator opened, to her floor just as a cute brunette with a laundry basket stepped out of her apartment.

Normally upon seeing a cute brunette, she’d throw out a flirty comment or two. The fact that she actually knew this brunette as her straight as an arrow neighbor Diana, being the main deterrent.

Well that, and the black eye that had Rook remember thirty-seven different ways to dispose of a body while in a metropolitan area, (fifty-four if I framed the local gangs.)

“R-Rook.” Diana stumbled, as they passed in the hallway.

“Diana,” she greeted cheerfully, “Everything alright?”

The brunette glanced away, her hand subtly rising towards her face before slamming onto the basket.

“E-Everything ‘s fine.” The brunette lied, not meeting her eyes.

She watched the meek woman dart down the hall and couldn’t keep her fingers from twitching towards her knife, at the thought of both Diana’s abusive boyfriend and another seven ways to make him disappear if she framed him for a different crime.

(They’ll never know what happened to him.)

She bit her lip as she watched the elevator close on Diana, before shaking her head.

(I’m not that person anymore…)

(That part won’t ever die.)

Shuddering as even more means of killing someone flowed through her head, she turned and made her way to her own apartment, to deal with her own problems, in hopefully someone else’s way.