Sanctity: Dane NC Forced Out

One version of Dane being forced out of NC and back towards FL. Already tweaked it a little bit.

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GO BACK.

 

It was hard to ignore, especially as it was written in the almost black lipstick that was still in her hand. She was well practiced at ignoring things, like gnawing deep down of how she'd left them in the lurch, fellow junkies stealing from her employer, the final notice on the electricity bill.

She washed up, cleaned off the mirror, dressed slowly, taking care with her arms they were still very sore. Jonas was passed out on the couch, the needle hadn't quite made it into his skin before sleep took over.

She stood and chewed on her lip for a moment. The needle winked at her, but she had to go to work, money was important, they needed it as much as the needle. So, with effort she ignored him too as she went around the piles of soda cans and beer bottles, wine boxes and Subway wrappers to the front door and left.

It was half light outside, the sun was meandering up, but didn't have it in itself yet to actually create warmth.

Dane tugged at the ends of the long sleeved sweater she was wearing underneath the burgundy uniform shirt. She tried to pull her hands up inside the sleeves, against the cold. The tip of her nose was already numb when the first man slipped up beside her.

"You can't ignore me. You know you need to go back."

When she looked up to give her biting retort there was no one directly around her. There was a vagrant digging through a nearby dumpster and a few shops down a woman delivering the newspapers was struggling to hold open the dispenser so she could get the bundle of papers inside without dropping them everywhere. Other than her reflection in the shop window next to her there was no one else. She brushed her hair out of her face, there was quite a bit of brown hair showing at her roots, the rest was black, and pulled into a bun, but broken strands were peeking out all around it, as though it were some demented chrysanthemum.

Paranoia, paranoia everybody's coming to get me.

She picked up her pace and passed the bum daring him to say something.

As she approached the woman she heard, “Could you give me a hand?"

Dane jolted. That was unexpected. She replayed the line of conversation. It didn't seem to fit the normal order.

"Please?"

She blinked. The woman was sincere. She fumbled an apology and took hold of the open door so the papers could be slid in then cut apart.

"There's a reward for doing the right thing, you know?" she said, "He rewards those who follow His will."

"You just couldn't leave it alone, could you?"

"Excuse me?" the woman stepped back pulling the green coat she was wearing tighter around her, "I--"

"Fuck. You," Dane ran the last few blocks to the gas station, realizing too late how tweaked she looked slamming through the door and then wheeling around to scan the street. Her co-worker was laughing at her from behind his register.

Slowly she started to relax.

"Holy crap," Steve remarked, "What are you on?"

"Nothing!" she snapped, reaching for her name tag on the wall behind him and going to the back office to clock in.

"Oh-kay!" came the answer, "Just don't let Turner see you like that. He'll have a fit."

 

Turner didn't come in for another two hours, so Dane busied herself stealing a breakfast sandwich and inhaling three coffees with the super-caffeinated cream put in them. Steve whispered jabs about all that being no help at all and she tried to ignore him. At least focusing on that would better enable her to avoid the mounting pull to get into the next person's car that pulled up and drive it to Florida.

Not going. Not going. She shouldn't have to be there, there was only supposed to be one at a time, and Dan was there, and someone else should have woken up as...it doesn't matter!

“It does matter,” a shadow in the coffee pot was starting to coalesce into a more substantial shape, but she knew if she looked around no one else would be seeing it, and if she asked it would just make her seem more as if she was on something, and she'd worked very hard to act sober enough to keep this damn job. She changed filters and filled them with coffee, and set things going to fill again with avid determination.

"Man," someone nearby said while he was waiting for the coffee to finish, "I've had it with this weather."

"Hm-mm," his friend said, "It's supposed to snow today. What say we move down south it's much warmer?"

"Yeah. I talked to my sister in Florida yesterday. She said they're in shorts right now."

She slammed the coffee pot on the grill slopping scalding coffee up her arm. It took a moment to register both the pain and the shocked faces of the two customers. She narrowly avoided knocking over several other coffee pots as she tried to get away from her own arm. She tried to tear the sweater sleeve off by pulling at the cuff.

"Dude, is she alright?" one of the men asked.

"What do you think?" Steve retorted as he started to pull her towards the rest room.

It was at this point Turner arrived. As he burst through the door Steve froze halfway through saying, "For Fuck's sake, calm down."

Dane was shouting, "I don't care! I'm not going back!"

Turner pushed Steve back towards the counter to check out the observant customers and then he drug Dane back to the restroom.

"You swore to me you were clean! Don't even try. I know what you're like. I know cops, okay? They warned me! But you'd promised me you were clean and now I look like a fucking idiot. What the Hell were you trying to do?"

Pinned as she was against the wall between the tampon machine and the sink she writhed in his grasp burned by the tile.

"Fuck you! It’s the fucking coffee! I just got my skin burned off or something! How dare you!”

"Of course," he said, "because you cracked out bitches are so honest."

He did however realize exactly what he was doing and let go of her and she slumped down before scrambling up to the sink to rinse off her arm and then her face. as she looked up into the mirror Turner was still behind her, arms folded, watching .

Keep it together she swallowed, trying to control her breathing as Turner judged her for weakness and beside him the hooded figure pointed.

"I will make you listen, you stubborn child," the voice whispered in her ear despite it's owner being back there but then it was also touching her shoulders, those cold bony hands tearing at her shirt.

"Get off me!" she jumped up, thrashing behind her. The attack halted as Turner grabbed her non-burned arm and yanked her up out of the bathroom back into the hallway deciding he'd been right in the first place.

"That's it. Get out of my store -- you're done! Just go!" he pushed her towards the exit, and then let go.

She tripped a few paces, and righted herself and began to pull off the uniform shirt.

"Fuck, no! Keep the damn thing. It'd give me Hep. Just get the fuck out of my store before I change my mind about the cops, and don't come back," he kicked the door behind her open and jerked his head towards the empty space.

She balled up the shirt and threw it at the window as she set off towards her apartment. She could feel the hooded one behind her closing in.

Job was gone. $23.46 in cash and a suspended license. Florida was looking only slightly favorable considering the warrants and what happened to Matt, and...well, then there was Dan and she was trying not to think about what might have happened to him that there was such insistence that she should actually go back.

She stopped running and sat down in the street, fumbling for the well crushed soft pack of 305s and cursing at her lighter until finally it worked, using up the last of it's fuel. She pitched it across the sidewalk, and took a long drag, as passerby narrowly avoided tripping over her.

"Get out of the fucking street!" he cursed, "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Go fuck yourself!" she answered, but once he was out of sight she picked herself up and began to slowly walk back towards the hovel.

As much as Turner blew hot air and monkey penis he was pretty connected. There'd be no jobs here any more. She trudged up the apartment steps to room 341 as she was fumbling for her key, hand shaking from adrenaline and the excess caffeine Jonas opened the door and seemed disappointed to see her.

"Whatchew doin here?" he squinted at her through one eye.

"I got fired, you asshole," she retorted, and pushed roughly past him to get inside.

"The fuck?" he said, righting himself slowly and then after checking the hallway both ways twice he came back in and closed the door, "howzzat my faul' you, you ungraceful wench."

She shook her head, but didn't say anything. She pulled off the sweater and threw it into a pile of clothes in the corner. It knocked several mostly empty soda cans off the nearby sideboard as it rolled back down the pile onto the floor. She began looking around for a fishnet top to wear over her tank top.

"What the hell?" Jonas clumsily grabbed her arm and peered at the fierce red welts forming and sloughing off from irritation by both polyester and coffee. Several hashmarks of cuts were starting to bleed again thanks to all this new aggravation. She pulled away from him easily enough, his high was impeding his coordination.

"Leave it!"

"Who didat?"

"I did -- fucking coffee --"

"They fire you for dat?"

"NO, they didn't “fire me for dat”," she said, snidely, "They fired me for being on drugs, dumbass."

This took a while to register with him.

"Butchew..." he started.

She sighed, "Fuck it and you," she started, "Where's the rest?"

 

The air felt so clear and everything was so bright. She stepped through the room and her arms outstretched as they were couldn't hope to reach the walls. She could feel more than see that there were thin wisps of curtains whispering in the breeze ahead of her as she walked towards the opening. It was not a window because it seemed to take up almost the whole wall, and she knew if she just stepped through she would be within the rest of the city, among the others.

Just one more step...

and another...

and soon there would be nothing just the freedom of...

 

She came down with a thud, it had something to do with falling off the bed. Her legs were tangled in Jonas's. She pulled herself free of his almost iron grip, clumsy with the dregs of her take. She scraped her knee on a bent soda can, stick with week-old contents as she did so.

She rubbed her eyes dry for a few moments trying to readjust. Her mouth tasted foul. Everywhere had been so warm, the walls sparkled, the huge windows, the curtains billowing, trying to caress her.

She stood slowly and lurched towards the bathroom, but stopped when she saw the extra person in the doorway. Her stomach curled in on itself and dropped towards her toes at the same time her hands clenched up as her nails dug back into her palms.

“Leave me alone! I'm not going!” she picked up something to hurl at them—but it turned out to be a sock and didn't have much strength behind it anyway.

“Oh, relax. I'm not here for you this time.”

She whirled around, almost falling over in her haste to look at Jonas. The slight discoloration of the skin. The stains on his clothes from shitting himself. The tightness of his arms and legs from convulsing into the next plane.

“No! No! No!” she screamed resisting the compulsion to drop back to the floor, “Haven't you done enough?”

“Not nearly.”

She could only see it in portions now, the reflection in the light bulbs of the bedside lamp which had never had a cover, in crumpled chip packets, the buttons on Jonas's shirt. She could feel the back of her eyes beginning to burn. She wanted to curl up on the floor and just ask, “Why? Why? Why?” but she realized that she knew. As long as she wasn't doing what they wanted it would continue, anywhere she went things would burn, just as they had when she'd first encountered Them.

She had to keep moving.

She stood up slowly, rocking on uneven legs, and drug herself to the bathroom, picking up a mesh bag and a plastic bag on the way and starting to scrape things into them from the bathroom sink. She stopped at a razor blade, and then dropped it in, catching the hooded figure in it as she shifted her weight against the counter, and went back into the other room. She found several shirts and dumped them into the mesh bag, movements coming easier, she tied a knot in the plastic bag that contained various toiletries and squashed that in as well. She hefted the bag's strap over her neck and one arm and picked up her satchel which was discarded at the foot of the bed. She was about to turn and leave but thought better of it.

Still it took her a few moments hovering over Jonas before she could muster the stones to reach into his pockets and see if there was anything there. She came away with a few quarters and pennies and a bundle of keys. He did have a car, after all, not that he'd driven it in at least a week, choosing instead to stare at the wall for hours at a time and drool.

It was not long after that she had rifled the entire length of the tiny apartment, rooted what little money he had stashed, more from forgetting where it was than any effort to save it.

Halfway across the parking lot her determination began to crumple again, “You told me, you told me then that even though you're all split up like in Terry Pratchett there can't be more than one in the same area! Why do I have to go back?” she folded her arms and stared accusingly at the car window waiting for it to show up.

There was silence though, but she could feel it staring at her intently, waiting for...

“Oh, no!” she slammed her first against the roof of the car. The hooded figure moved, flickering, the image wasn't entirely clear given the car wasn't exactly clean. Dane leaned her head against the car. She felt hands on her shoulders but they were warmer, for anyone else it would have been a comfort, but she knew very deeply what else they could do.

“Fuck,” she muttered, mad that she was almost in tears. She'd known Dan for all of a day and yet she was more upset about him than Jonas, “You are so unfair--” she started but was cut off by the snicker from the hood as she unlocked and opened the car, “I know you never said you were.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

She couldn't tell if it was beside or behind her any more and that thought seemed to amuse it even more.

“Fine, fine,” she muttered, “I'm fucking driving,” she continued to mutter and curse as they left the apartment complex. There'd be more questions, more warrants, more bullshit. She hadn't cared for a while. Now it seemed like no matter what she did life was going to keep it's clammy hands on her, and Dan, it wasn't his fault about the bitch woman and he got to die?

“Are you going to whine about this for the whole trip?”

“Why don't you go lay waste to a bus full of cheerleaders?”

“Honey-child, you know it don't work that way.”

“Stop IT!” she slammed her wrists on the steering wheel, this time at least that caused a goodly amount of pain.

It was going to be a long drive.

South, she always hated, south, and through one and a half states to boot.

Jonas's car had sucky gas mileage.

Sanctity: Dane NC Leave

Oh, hey, look. It's the other one.
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[Dane]
“Go, away…” a brief effort, flail-like to wave, and a shifting in the bed, pillow chewing, not wanting to wake up.
[Dane]
“Unless it’s the cops, I don’t care…” more mumbles.
[No enforcement]
“Enforce…” Noone uses that phrase, bolt upright in bed. Conquest still sleeping, right? Brief check. No sleep-talker, or sleep-walker, or even wake up and leaver. Passed out. A-okay. Okay. Look around. Nothing.
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
Nothing.
Nothing means...Shit.
[Dane]
Sinking, slowly. It happens, every once in a while. The hope that if they can just melt into the bed, under the scrap of blanket not cocooned around the bed’s other occupant it will all go away. All the while the deep-seated knowledge that it’s a stupid idea flickers but is ignored because of that desperate need to be right, even though wrong. No, please. No, please. It was supposed to be over. Why isn’t it over?
Bathroom.
Streak away and bolt for the door. The bathroom is a hazard zone. It takes a moment for them to realize that the reason they didn’t even realize they owned men’s deodorant is—oh, wait, not my bathroom. Hello. That would do it. So, instead they scrabble around trying to remember if they actually hit the bathroom the night before and left things in there.
[Please tell me you’re not going to try again] the shadowy corner peels away folding in on itself until there could be shoulders and perhaps the impression of what could be a head, without features, properly, more like a…well, a shadow.
They try to not shake. Don’t scream. Don’t cry.
[We went through this before]
Pointless it’s all pointless and why the FUCK AREN’T THERE ANY CIGARETTES? “Please…” it’s a desperate attempt to even find any voice in the face of this, “Please, just leave me alone, please…” The face is wet and they can barely see, as their fingers clutch around a lighter, but nothing with it, “I know you’re not even here. Just please go away and leave me alone. I found him for you. You were supposed to leave me alone after that…please.” They slump down in front of the counter, not even caring that they’re sitting on stale, musty towels, which have been bunched up on the floor for at least a week, some discarded underwear, empty boxes of something. The shadow seems to be denser near their bare and slightly bruised feet. Wearing a several sizes too big eighties hair band shirt grabbed from a chair on the flight to the bathroom. A pair of jeans is near the toilet, one hand limply grabs for it and pulls it towards, hoping for a find, “Are you even still there? Did you just show back up to FUCK with me? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
[It was temporary and you knew that. Division made me easier to ignore. I’ve always been here]
“No,” a fervent head shake, “You had him and you were to leave me alone. What do you need two of us for? Surely that’s confusing. That confuses the fuck out of me…”
[Because you persist in thinking you’re human]
The head drops until the forehead is resting against the edge of the toilet bowl, and the body shakes still terrified, and at wits’ end.
[You still don’t take care of yourself]
“What’s the point? What’s the point? What do you need this time? Where are we going?”
[Back]
“Back? Back where? Back wha--?” she stumbles to her feet, waving a hand towards the far corner of the room, “Oh, no-no-no-no. I’m not going back there. I’m not going back there.”

“I’m going back there,” more decently dressed and actually with a cigarette, Dane finds herself throwing a bag across the front seat of Steve?’s car, and flopping down into the driver’s seat after several frustrated and angry mutter filled minutes of adjusting the setting so that she can actually reach the pedals, and then beating her head against the head rest for a little while. A brief, oh-so-brief, idea that perhaps she could just turn around and go the completely opposite direction, wind up in Alaska rather than where she was supposed to be going, but that wouldn’t work, and she knew it. She had the sinking feeling that even if she drove in the opposite direction somehow, by some trick of the universe all roads would go to Aurous anyway, and she’d—what was the point?
She leaned forward and fumbled for the ignition switch and pulled out, winding down the window and throwing several tapes out of the window as they proved to contain very, very crappy music.
The sign said 200 something miles. It was going to be a LONG night. She didn’t even know what time it was.