Paper Trail

[st_clare]

She should have gotten a last name, because as unusual as 'Rhiannon' was, there was no trace of the girl, at least not in Las Vegas.

Julianna had gone back to her hotel suite and slept restlessly after having a few drinks, and she paid for it the next morning by waking up with a blinding headache that forced her to stay in bed with the heavy curtains drawn for most of the day. She wasn't accustomed to hangovers, but after the confrontation with the Slayer she'd over-done it with the vodka. Terribly sneaky stuff, that vodka, because it didn't taste like anything.

The Englishwoman was currently ensconced at a table at a different bar, her single drink on a napkin in front of her. She had a map of Nevada unfolded next to her, weighing the odds of her erstwhile quarry being in one of the nearby towns. Not in the suburbs, where she had an appointment to look at some houses later in the week, but in the city, where it would be easier for her to hide.

'You're going to have to catch me', Rhiannon had said. Well, she'd tested the wrong woman.

Fresh Air

[holiday_pirner]

The library had been stultifying. Holly tried to get settled with her books and do her impression of someone studious, but it just wouldn't work. Her foot kept tapping of its own accord, her eyes drooping, the drone of whispered voices enough to lull her into impending sleep.

Instead, she found a postage stamp-sized park, a stretch of scrubby grass that resembled straw more than anything. Still, it worked for her purposes. Holly had gone back to her hotel room briefly to grab a threadbare sheet, a bottle of Coke from the vending machine, and her new pair of sunglasses.

The brunette fashioned herself a little picnic spot, taking a long sip of soda and flipping open her first book. She figured it was best to start by reacquainting herself with the classics, and so Holly dove into Bram Stoker's Dracula.

The sun was pleasant on her skin; she had packed about five bottles of SPF 30 before heading off to the desert. Every few pages or so, she glanced around surreptitiously. So far, she was alone. If the trend continued, she would roll herself up a spliff.

It wasn't half bad, as days went.


[Thread Open to Echo]

Night Swim

[rhiannon_lee]

As a girl, Rhiannon loved to swim. There were no pools in her neighborhood, save for the indoor facility at the YMCA and her father couldn’t pay the monthly membership, so she grew up with the mindset that swimming was a special treat. She learned by doing; when she was five years old, her father took her to the lake. The trip made a vivid memory. Mitchell Lee wore a pair of green trunks. His chest hair tickled Rhiannon’s fair skin as he strode confidently to the water. She saw herself reflected in the round, blue lenses of his sunglasses, and then she was airborne. He watched from the shore as she bobbed and sputtered and learned to doggy-paddle, never realizing her toes could reach the bottom.

Her mother, so pretty and healthy at the time, scolded him and wrapped her skinny, shivering daughter in a towel. “Again!” she shouted and Mitch was redeemed, long ago in a life so far away it ached.

She stood on a flat expanse of rock and looked down.

It was fifty feet or more to the surface. Lake Mohave was deep and cold, an anomaly in the desert. At night the surface looked as black as asphalt. Rhiannon unlaced her boots and set them aside. She stripped off her clothes and stood in her bra and panties. Years of running through a lawn sprinkler in her underwear had taught her that they were just as functional as a bikini. Who cared?

What would it feel like to dive down and swim to the bottom? Could she go so far that her ears popped and she ran out of air and her muscles seized up from the cold? If it happened, would she panic or decide it was okay? She stretched her arms overhead and inched to the sharp edge of the promontory. Her toes curled over it.

She imagined Duncan’s hands on her back. They pushed her.

Rhiannon fell into the open air.

[Thread: Open to Devin]