Faces Rearranged

[holiday_pirner]

The car windows were down, wind kicking up her hair. Her fingers tapped the steering wheel in time to the music pumping out of the radio. Holly sang along to Blondie's "Heart of Glass", humming when she didn't know the lyrics.

The brunette was in a good mood. She could really only attribute it to one thing, and when she thought about it, she smiled to herself. She caught sight of it in the rearview mirror.

"I look like a bellend."

She glanced over to the side of the road. The air was hazy with heat, doing that funny wavering thing. Then she saw him, and nearly slammed on her brakes.

"No fucking way." Her smile widening, she slowed up on the accelerator and turned the music down.

"Hey, sexy!," Holly called. "Show me some leg, and I might give you a ride."

High Art

[wolfs_daughter]

The tattoo had scabbed over. It itched, but she'd been told not to scratch it. She didn't really feel different, per se, but it had been an accomplishment of sorts.

Echo had finally finished cleaning out the van, and she'd chosen one of her earliest pieces, which she'd done when she was fifteen. It was a wolf in full howl, and she was proud of it despite the slightly primitive quality of it. She'd had to dust it off a little, since she'd kept it in storage before the move, but after taking a whisk broom to the thing to get the cobwebs off of the muzzle she set it out in the front yard of the trailer. She felt a little nervous about showing her art to a relative stranger, even though Devin had seemed like a nice guy.

The hybrid poured some tea into a tall glass in the trailer's tiny kitchen, dropped three ice cubes into it. She'd left a note on the writer's motel door since he'd been out, asking him to drop by. Today wasn't as scorching as it had been yesterday. Maybe she was getting used to the desert heat.

Hunger Pangs

[daniel_stacy]

Daniel was starving.

No, really.

If asked, the vampire would swear he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Spending time with Holly was akin to fasting at a dinner table piled with sizzling, juicy steaks. He jogged to his car with the biggest ‘fang boner’ of his life, his face morphing into demonic features and remaining as such for the entirety of the drive into Las Vegas, where he hoped to arrive in time for the casinos to unleash drunken, giddy tourists onto the sidewalk. He parked his car and struck out on foot.

Where, where, where are you going? Get your game face on. Not that one, the pretty one.

Great. Now he talked to himself.

Screw it. He didn’t have the patience for sweet talk. He abandoned the casino plan and swung into a parking garage stairwell, taking the steps three at a time. Sooner or later, a woman who dressed like an extra from Knots Landing would toddle to her car, inebriated and ripe for the sucking. Daniel stopped on level four and meandered between the parked automobiles, in search of one with the hallmarks of womanhood: lipstick tube, emery board, hairbrush. He shielded his eyes and peered into the driver’s side window of a silver Miata.

[Thread: Open to Theresa]

Aggravation

[st_clare]

"What do you mean, she's gone?"

The desk clerk was fat. Not just chunky, but fat, and there were sweat-stains under the arms of his white t shirt. Julianna had braced her hands on the formica top of the counter because if she didn't she was going to slap the disgusting sod across the face. This was getting ridiculous.

"She seemed real anxious to get out of here," he told her, and the Watcher breathed in through her nose and then out through her mouth to control her temper. "She even left her car behind, but I think she was havin' engine trouble or something. I'm gonna have to have it towed if it's still there in a few days. I can't have abandoned vehicles cluttering up the parkin' lot."

"Do you know where she went?" "What do I look like, a travel agent? She paid her bill and left. I think she was gonna try and thumb a ride, 'cause she left on foot. A lot of truckers come through here. She could have gone anywhere."

Not anywhere, the Watcher thought wrathfully as she exited the motel's office. Just away from me. I should have given him more than a hundred dollars, then he might have kept his buggered mouth shut. You'd think he could have at least had the courtesy to stay bought.

She sat behind the wheel of her rental and tried to gather her thoughts. Should she call the authorities? Alerting the police might do her some good in the short run, but it would also bring scrutiny to the reasons she was looking for Rhiannon. Julianna swore, banged the steering wheel with both hands. Then she tried to calm herself.

The Slayer couldn't have gone far, not without a vehicle. There were miles of highway between Searchlight and anywhere else, not just Las Vegas. And Julianna had the sneaking suspicion that the girl wouldn't go so far as to leave the state. Not her, not as arrogant as she was. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

"You can run all you like. I will find you."

( Note left on Holly's door )