V
Trouble
They shared a room at the Dancing Cat. He must have fallen asleep next to her -- something that only happend when he was completely exhausted. His time in foster care taught him how important it was to be the last one to go to sleep and the first one to wake up, and so he'd trained himself for certain survival skills such as eat sparingly, hold your water, sleep only when you knew you were safe, along with how to fight like your life depended on it. He'd actually been safer on the street than in foster care, but whenever he wasn't in the library or at school, he would frequently get caught and sent back to his foster family.
Mina slept so quietly.
He reached over to touch her, but she felt icy cold.
How strange was that?
He rolled her over to see her lifeless eyes staring back at him, the gaping hole in her chest where her heart had been, and the rising terror within him made him scramble away from her corpse...
He landed on the floor with an audible THUMP!, and could feel that weird pain that came from having a bruised tailbone. If it was a blunt force injury, he'd come to know it intimately when he was a Cage Fighter, one of the things that had made him some seriously PHAT cash, not to mention a reputation as somebody not to mess with. His mother's ghost would appear to him at that time and scold him relentlessly about his choice to fight others, but she didn't have to survive in a world full of merciless takers like he did.
'Frickin' Joyous.' He thought, irritated.
"Shannon!" Mina called out. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I'm fine."
And so was she. It had only been a bad dream. He didn't get those very often; being haunted by the spirit of his dead mother had certain benefits. Of course kowing that she never approved of any of his girlfriends was a pain, but it was something he could live with.
He got dressed, putting his pants on and then his sword belt. Mina walked around the bed and wrapped her arms around him.
She was warm, and loving, and most of all, alive.
A knock came at thier door. Mina answered it. He heard Fearless say: "Gear up. We're still on the job."
Mina got her things together and the two of them left the bedroom for the tavern downstairs.
When they got downstairs, they saw Josie naked and covered in blood underneath a blanket. She reminded him of a disaster victim -- this lost, empty sort of look on her face. She shivered under the blanket.
"What happened?"
"I found her like this when I opened my doors this morning." The Barkeep said.
"Are you hurt?" Jenna asked.
"I...I don't know. How did I...what happened to me?"
"We don't know."
"She doesn't look hurt to me." Moonshine said. When he went to touch her, she flinched as if he'd tried to burn her with a lit cigarette. The look of confusion and fear on her face made him want to find out who did this to her and make them bleed thier own blood. That was another mixed blessing for him -- an overwhelming need to deliver two fisted justice to anyone who preyed on those unable to defend themselves. It had won him more than a few enemies in the schoolyard, but also gave him the kind of reputation that quickly earned him a lot of respect.
