Blah, blah, blah. Usual disclaimer, blood, sex, violence not necessarily in that order.
This story is completely my fault I merely dragged Windstar along for the ride. This is our Halloween offering, even though the word Halloween is never used. I hope you enjoy the yarn we’ve spun for you. If you hate it my name is Windy, if you liked it, my name is Zee. Happy Halloween!
Please send all feedback to Zeeamy@Gmail.com an Adarkbow@yahoo.com
A big thank you to Re and Packer for beta reading for us
Thanks
Zee
Chance
By
Zee and Windstar
The double doors of the small clinic burst open. Two women covered in blood rushed through the doors. Once inside, they stood dazed for a moment by the bright florescent lights.
"I need help here!" the more upright of the two women shouted. Her blue eyes flashed with anger and her hair looked even whiter under the harsh lights.
The other woman remained silent, her blue-eyes glassy, one hand on her stomach trying to keep the hole there plugged.
From somewhere, the sounds of running feet could be heard. Two nurses came into the room already in gore-stained scrubs.
"Jesus!" one blurted out.
The other shouted back down the hall. "We need a gurney! And hurry up, it’s Agent Pavel, she's been shot."
The two moved to take Agent Pavel, only to be met with a growl from the white-haired woman.
One nurse halted and the other quickly bowed and exposed her neck. After a beat, she said softly, "Zoya, we need to take her, so we can stop the bleeding."
The white-haired woman blinked feral blue eyes, and then nodded. "Sorry, it’s been a long night."
The two nurses relaxed a bit and nodded. "It always is on a full moon night."
As gently as they could, they took Agent Pavel from her grasp and started checking her over. The agent whined for a moment and looked for her sister.
"I'll stay right here and wait for you, Chance, I won't leave you. Okay? I'll be right here."
Chance blinked tired dark blue eyes and nodded. Then she was being lowered onto a gurney, her guts feeling like they were on fire.
There was a voice speaking over her head, and then a brief sting of a needle in her arm. "Gunshot to the lower abdomen, most likely silver, considering it’s a full moon night."
Another voice chimed in, "Fucking humans, they already have us reduced to this reservation in the middle of fucking nowhere. And then on the one night the Weres have to run in their animal forms, they sneak over here and hunt. We should be hunting them."
"Adam, shush, you don't want to make Agent Pavel here have to arrest you."
"How can she fucking betray us like that by working for the Government…Human-Werewolf Affairs Bureau, my ass? Now her sister is a hero..."
The voices trailed off as whatever they gave her started to work, and Chance wondered at the venom in the male nurse’s voice, if she would ever wake up. Her sister…her sister…she wouldn't ask what Zoya had done to the men that shot her. She knew, without knowing, that their bodies were food for the desert creatures. Her sister was the hero of her people like some sort of night stalking vigilante, while she had chosen to work with the humans to make things better. How could one night so long ago create two totally different people?
She remembered that night, dreamed about it, woke up in a sweat, a scream locked in her throat over it.
They were running. Her family pack was running, at night, it was her father, her pack mother, Zoya, Ivan, and her. She was the smallest, still a gangly pup. Her father and pack mother had separated briefly for two years, and she had been the result. Born to a human mother who had wanted one night on the wild side… Her family pack was large Siberian wolves, made for hunting in the cold and snow. They had beautiful white fur that stood out starkly in the warm desert climate that all the Weres had been regulated to after the war. It didn't matter they were designed for cold and snow; they were placed here with all the others.
Chance was smaller and her fur was black, helping her blend in more with the night. Then out of nowhere came the first 'bang', which was like thunder rolling over the night, and her farther fell, blood spraying the rest of them as the top of his head crumbled away.
Then her pack mother…
She yipped and was crushed under her pack mother's body and came to a tumbling, wrenching stop. There was more gunfire and then silence.
She tasted blood and death. It stung her nose. Then her ears came up with the sounds of booted feet crunching on the desert floor. Laughter coated the wind. Words like 'Monster’ and ‘Killer' and such were bantered around.
Her heart pounded in her chest as the footsteps got closer. She whimpered and growled, trying to get free of her pack mother's greater bulk. And then came the sounds of screams and bones crunching, and then Zoya was there, covered in blood.
That was the night that shaped both of them, setting each sister on a different path. Her with the humans, and her sister against them, both wanting better things for their people.
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The humming was definitely off tune. In fact, it was so very off tune that it almost sounded like someone was doing their darnedest to hum very loudly as far off tune as possible. It wasn't a particularly good song to hum even, although that didn't seem to bother the person humming it as loudly as she could.
The humming stopped when the door to the room banged open. "Ah, there's my lovely nightingale," the voice that belonged to the humming person said.
"If you keep humming, I swear to God I'm going to slit your throat and string you from the roof!" the newcomer growled, which was followed by the sound of a metal tray being slammed down on something.
"There, dinner!" The door to the room opened and slammed shut again.
"I love you too, dearest one!" the hummer called after the nurse then laughed and set to humming again as she cheerfully started to investigate the sloppy contents of the dish.
Chance's forehead wrinkled into a frown, dipping black eyebrows into a sharp V. The slam of a tray caused blue eyes to crack open. The room was blurry, and her mouth tasted of nasty things. As things focused a bit more, she realized she was, yet again, in the recovery room at the clinic.
The hospital was a sad state of affairs with the government funding only allowing for so much. Public opinion was that they were Shifters, and Shifters had inhuman healing powers. That caused another bitter thought, yeah like those healing powers had done her family a lot of good when they had been shot in the head.
Weakly, she tried to reach the glass of water next to her bed, which was tempting her, all ready to be drunk, it even had a bendy straw.
The humming cut off in mid note, which was probably a blessing. "Hey, super agent, you're alive over there?" The woman sounded surprised at that. "Well damn, I think I just lost my bet with nightingale."
Chance wanted to say 'Fuck off!" but it came out more like a raspy death rattle. She stayed focused on her hand, which was making slow progress to the cup.
"Hey, least you could do is be neighborly and say hi back." There was rustling and a muffled curse from the next curtained-off area. A second later, said curtain was shoved aside to reveal a gangly looking woman with shaggy, unkempt brown hair and a mischievous look in her eyes.
Hobbling on a cast foot, she moved over to the bed.
"Ah, the water crawl, I've done that before. Usually after a bender though." Using the tip of a finger, she pushed the water cup closer to Chance's hand, slowly.
Chance looked up with a glare, her blue eyes flashing like stormy skies. "Wh…who…who…the hell...are you?" she rasped out.
Tsking, the woman pushed the cup of lukewarm water closer. "You should really drink some water. Then you can yell at me. Or I could sing for you. Would you like that?" Without waiting for an answer, she dove into a truly horrible rendition of Bird on a Wire.
Chance tried to growl, but she just hurt too much. Finally, she snagged the water and took a healthy drink, nearly choking on it. "Shut up!" she rasped out then promptly vomited over the rail of her bed, her empty stomach unable to handle that much water.
The shaggy woman held up a hand, suddenly stopping her singing and dodging vomit. "Hold that thought!"
She hobbled quickly back to her side of the room, jumping up onto the bed just as the door from the hallway slammed open.
"Ah, nightingale..!" The disgruntled old nurse in the door glared at the woman. "I'd like to lodge a complaint. Super agent is disturbing my restful slumber by singing horribly off key. I think you should transfer me to a private room." She smiled, hopefully. When the nurse continued to glare, she sighed. "And she vomited." That got the nurse moving, towards Chance.
The nurse helped the agent to lean back on the bed and whisked the curtain closed. "You really shouldn't drink that much water, Agent Paral," the old woman admonished, stepping around the vomit as she checked vitals.
Chance flopped back onto her bed, groaning and holding her stomach, where a shattered silver bullet and all its remains had been dug out.
"Pavel, it’s Agent Pavel," she croaked out.
"Well, Agent Pavel, you should know better than to drink so much water after a stomach wound." The gray-haired nurse shook her head and took away the glass. "I'll let the doctor know that you're awake and send someone to clean up the mess."
"Goodbye, fairest nightingale, until you come again to brighten this room and shine a ray of sunshine into my very heart!" the woman closest to the door called out as the nurse left, receiving a one-fingered salute from said nurse.
"She loves me dearly, can't you tell?" the woman laughed.
"Thanks?" Chance said to the nurse as she left, before turning to the woman next to her. "Who are you?"
"A law abiding citizen who has the privilege, no…wait, the honor of being in the same room with super agent Pavel, sister of the great and merciless Zoya!" The woman seemed to find that quite funny and laughed until she looked over at the expression on the agent’s face, and sobered. "But before you go looking up my social security number, which I don't really think I have, but anyway, name’s Kehpri."
The bit about her sister immediately had her on edge. "Kehpri..?" She sat up and set her feet on the ground, testing her balance. Already she was doing much better. "What kind of name is that?" She reached over and switched off the extremely out of date monitor then pulled various needles and tubes from her body.
"Chance..? What kind of name is that?" Kehpri snickered then made a face as she saw what the agent was doing. "Not that I really care, but shouldn't you be in bed, you were just puking all over the floor a minute ago?"
"Chance is a name I haven't given you," she grumbled out. "And I have work to do." Kehpri was bugging the shit out of her, and since she felt like shit, she wasn't in the mood to stay here, no matter how hot Dr. Miller was.
Lacing her hands behind her head, Kehpri whistled a few bars of something that wasn't recognizable as a song. "So you're out of here, with a hole in your stomach? Wow, so those stories about how stubborn you are were actually telling the truth."
Chance managed a somewhat decent growl. "No, but I'm sure it’s more having to do with the stubbornness of Federal Agents."
"Yeah, about that, where are all your fellow agents. Aren't all the boys in blue supposed to swarm the place when one of their own gets hurt?" Kehpri sat up in her bed, watching curiously as the last of the needles hit the floor.
"The few agents are probably out swamped with all sorts of shit storms. It is a full moon night." Which answered her own question, Kupie doll here wasn't a Were, because obliviously she wasn't all furry.
"Oh, right, I got so caught up with auditioning for American idol that I forgot all about that moon thing. Huh, pesky moon…" She swung her feet out over the floor and stood up, leaning against the bed to take some weight off the cast on one leg. "So, you going to turn all furry?"
"American what..?" She shook her head and took a step, ignoring the pain that came with each step. "I'm not talking to you about my personal life."
She hobbled to the end of the bed looking for her clothes, which normally should be in a bag at the end of the bed. She bent over to pick them up, grunting at the pain that radiated up from the stitches in her stomach.
"You know, even people who can heal quickly have a hard time with a bullet to the stomach. Even worse if it's silver." Kehpri grinned, leaning closer to the door so that she could peer out the small window into the dim corridor beyond.
"Woops, gotta go to the bathroom." She hurriedly shuffled her way into the small toilette and locked the door behind her.
"What the fuck?" Chance mumbled out as the other woman disappeared. Slowly, she straightened up, but she could smell blood coming strongly from the clothes in the bag.
The sound of arguing came from the hallway, followed a moment later by the door to the hospital room opening fast enough to bounce off the other wall.
Her eyes turned towards the door, and her sister’s menacing frame filling it. The hospital clinic wasn't that big, and she was surprised Zoya waited as long as she had. Zoya was the spitting image of their parents.
Strong Russian ancestry radiated out of her: white blonde hair, blue eyes, and every other dip and curve of her body.
Chance, other than the blue eyes and height, looked every bit like her birth mother, with her black hair and dusky skin.
"I know you think you're the Alpha of these parts, Ms. Pavel, but you can't just burst in without waiting for us, it causes trauma for the patients," the nurse bit out, already on her last nerve because of the loony in her ward.
"I told you when I dropped her off that I would be back for her," Zoya snarled over a shoulder then slammed the door shut in the nurse’s face.
"I'm going to get the doctor!" was heard from the other side.
Zoya snorted, dragging the lone chair in the room with her over to where Chance stood. "Here, you look like you're going to fall over," she shoved the chair towards her sister.
Chance felt like she was a child again. But unlike when she was a child, she wasn't trailing after her bigger sister hoping for approval. "Zoya, I'm fine. I just need to get dressed and get back to work. I can't afford this, not tonight."
Not on a full moon night when humans and Shapeshifters were out doing all sorts of stupid shit to each other.
"As if you're in any shape to do anything about it," Zoya countered, going over to the small barred window in the wall and peering outside. At one time the hospital had been part of a military base, and it retained all of its charm from those past days. "Why do you have to be so difficult about this, Chance? Just sit down and heal without dashing off and getting shot at again. You know my pack and I can handle it tonight."
Chance stiffened, and before she could stop herself, she blurted out, "Handle it, like the men who shot me." And she wanted to take it back, ‘cause she didn't want to know how Zoya had handled it. Didn't want to know because as she had lain bleeding out into the sand and dirt of the high desert floor, she had fumbled for her cell phone and called Zoya, called her and said, "I'm dying. I'm dying with the moon and the stars pointing at Orion, with the wind blowing from the east where the rabbits and the badger make their nests together."
She called her sister because she had known, without a doubt, Zoya would find her and make it right, and her fellow agents would still be lost in the scrub.
"I handled it exactly like they tried to handle it for you," Zoya shot back, stiffening as well. This was a familiar fight for the two of them. "Your fellow 'agents' haven't even noticed you’re gone yet! They're still out there trying to track down the hunters. Now you tell me which one of us is more effective?"
She raised a hand and lowered her head. "I'm sorry. Please don't say anything else." Anymore down this slippery slope and a line would be crossed. She sat, suddenly tired, and noticed a small stain of red on the hospital gown; she'd popped the stitches. "That's not fair. We do the best that we can. And, and we've made so many changes to the policies that used to surround this shit hole."
Zoya was spared from giving a caustic answer that would have helped neither of them by the hospital room door opening again. The woman who stepped inside was as different from the dour and rather large old nurse as was possible.
Dr. Miller exuded an unconscious aura of sexuality around herself. Her straight blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and model-like complexion only strengthened it and helped explain why almost the entire hospital staff was in love with her.
"Zoya, you have to stop coming in here and terrorizing my nurses." Even her voice had a smoky quality to it. The older sister's posture immediately changed as she smiled.
"Sorry, Dr. Miller, I'll try to be nicer next time."
"Oh, I'm sure you're plenty nice when you want to be," the good doctor answered as they locked gazes, leaving Chance sitting there.
Chance bristled as she felt she wasn't even in the same room with those two. Jealous feelings rose in her and she wondered just for a moment why her sister couldn't be straight, leaving her a more fair advantage with the fairer sex.
Seeing her sister standing next to the doctor only made her realize what ungodly beautiful children they'd have if Zoya were capable. And the way Zoya bragged sometimes; who knew, maybe some of the pups running around were hers.
"Hello, remember me? I'm the one with the bullet wound: and a badge and gun."
"Agent Parel…" Dr. Miller switched the full force of that personality to the wounded woman in the chair. "I'm glad you're looking better than earlier."
Zoya gave her sister a dirty look and went back to stand by the window. The good doctor picked up the medical chart at the end of the bed and started to flip through pages, frowning briefly.
"Been going through your own records, Agent? I didn't know you knew how to read these." She rearranged the records into the order she liked and kept reading.
"It’s Pavel, not Parel, just the same as Zoya." She sighed and glared at her sister, who just stuck her tongue out. "Of course I went through my records, that bullet will be evidence."
"Hmmm…well, for some reason, you were checked in as Agent Parel." The doctor scribbled something on the paper. "How are you feeling now?”
"I'm fine. Just need to get dressed and get back out in the field." She crossed her arms over her stomach to hide the slightly larger red stain.
"She broke a stitch or something, she's bleeding again," Zoya happily betrayed her sister.
The doctor sighed and went to get a pair of gloves. "Agent, you were told to stay in bed, exactly to avoid hurting yourself."
Chance threw the bag she had picked up with her bloodied clothes at her sister in frustration. "I hate you." But they both knew she didn't.
"I'll just leave you to the doctor’s care," Zoya smiled and headed for the door. "I look forward to seeing you around later, Doctor Miller." The doctor met her eyes and smiled as they both stared at one another for entirely too long. Zoya gave a rakish grin and headed out into the hall, where members of her pack were waiting.
"Zoya, wait! Doctor, can I have a minute with my sister?"
"As long as you promise to get back into the bed after?" the doctor demanded, masking it as a polite request.
"Yeah, fine. I need my cell phone..." She paused at the look. "Or a phone of some sort to report what happened. I promise I'll stay here until the morning."
"Good enough," Dr. Miller agreed. On purpose, Zoya lingered in the door so that the doctor had to squeeze past her to get out of the room. Grinning, the older sister closed the door and looked at her sister. "I think I should come back with a splinter or something and get the doctor to examine me."
"Please don't rub it in my face that women will always prefer you to me, even though I have a badge and handcuffs." She sighed and looked everywhere but her sometimes painful, estranged sister.
She cleared her throat then quietly said. "Thank you, for coming for me when I needed you. I know you don't agree with me or my choices in life, but you were there when I needed you."
Zoya studied her sister seriously. "I'm your sister, what else was I supposed to do?" She smiled quickly though, the seriousness fading. "Besides, now you owe me big time. I'll see you later, got to go see to the pack." With a mock salute, she was off.
Chance made a face that could have gone better. “Well, that blows,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair.
"What blows?" Kehpri asked, easing open the door cautiously. When the room looked empty, she stepped out of the small bathroom and closed the door quickly. "You might not want to go in there anytime soon." She waved her hands back and forth at the air in front of it as if blowing away a bad smell.
The dark-haired woman developed a tic in her right eye and buried her face in her hands. "I'm stuck in the hospital over night with an insane person.”
"Really..? There's someone else here?" The wild-haired woman peered out the window into the hallway. "Wow, your sister and that doctor would make such beautiful children."
"Shut up," Chance bit out between clenched teeth.
She didn't look, not wanting to see her sister intimately invading the hot Dr Miller's personal space.
"I thought she was supposed to come back here to fix those stitches for you," Kehpri ignored the command, still watching the hall. "Guess she's going on break or something. Hmm…on break with your sister."
"Shut up," she said again, only this time there was a little more bite in her tone.
"Ok, ok, shutting up," Kehpri muttered, hobbling back over to her bed and hoping up onto it. She stayed quiet for about two minutes. "So...seen any interesting movies lately?"
Chance groaned and desperately pressed the button to summon the nurses.
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It was long past lights out for the hospital. Only a dim light shown in from the hallway and then there was a stray beam or two from the moon through the thin curtains. Kehpri cursed as she tripped over something and moved towards the bed that super agent was sleeping on. "Hey, you awake?"
"Unfortunately… Please stay away from me; they've already had to re-stitch me twice now." Chance was almost to the point she wanted her gun.
"Well, that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't thrown that vase at me." Kehpri sounded amused by the entire thing.
The dark-haired woman rolled on to her side. "You are insane."
"Probably," she chuckled, leaving the agent’s side and hobbling towards the small closet where her personal things were. "But I'm an insane person with a pickup truck. Want to get out of here?"
She looked for a clock, but there wasn't one. It was after midnight, things would be settling down and it would be another month until the full moon. She should check on the agents under her, and start paperwork. Being involved in a shooting would hamstring them for a while.
On the other hand, Kupie doll, or whatever the hell her name was, didn't seem to be that sane. "Yeah, okay," she found herself saying.
A pair of pants went sailing through the air to land on the wounded woman's bed. "Here, your clothes are all bloody." The woman stripped off the annoying hospital gown and started rummaging for her clothes naked.
"I can't use them; they won't fit over my cast," she grumbled.
Chance mumbled something about insanity being contagious and picked up the pants. Rolling over she paused, having no problems seeing the other woman in the dark. She pulled the pants up, finding them slightly short in the legs and baggy.
She eyed the other woman again in confusion then noticed how she could count Kehpri's ribs and the woman's malnourished state.
A pale blue dress shirt was pulled on, hiding the woman's ribs from view and draping down to her upper thighs. Kehpri hummed off tune as she found her sneakers and shoved them on over bare feet.
"You ready?" she asked, not able to see as well in the dark.
"Yeah…" She stuffed her feet into her hiking boots. "Fuck," she moaned, realizing she had no idea where her gun and badge were. Probably still with her car in the middle of nowhere, next to the hunter who had shot her just as she shot him, and heard his friends run off.
"You all right..?" That was an actual note of concern. "You tear open stitches again? I thought you would have healed that by now."
Chance left her stuff covered in blood, not wanting to ruin the chain of custody. "No, I haven't healed, and what makes you think I would have healed, you don't know anything about me. I was moaning because I have no idea where my gun and badge are. Well, I have an idea, but...never mind let’s go."
Kehpri sneaked to the door, something that would have been more effective if every other step wasn't followed by the thud of her cast. "Shhh…be very, very quiet, we're hunting rabbits," she whispered with a funny accent and then creaked open the door and peered out into the hall. Making sure no one was in eyesight, she went out.
Chance pinched her nose. "We're what? Never mind…" She pushed ahead and started down the hallway to the backdoor. Her, Ivan, and Zoya use to play in here, before it had been converted to a clinic.
"Hey! Wait up," Kehpri hissed, thudding along as she tried to catch up with the fast moving woman. Damn those long legs moved fast.
Chance paused, waiting for the other woman to catch up. "Hurry up, gimpy."
"Now you're just being mean," the brown-haired woman huffed, already out of breath. The heavy steel door opened surprisingly easily. Kehpri squinted in the darkness trying to make out her truck. "Ah, there it is. Over there, near the far wall."
"I'm a federal agent, I don't think people associate us with nice." She bit her lip for a moment, weighing her options of letting Kupie doll make her way to the truck or helping. While it was sure to be a laugh riot, it would take fucking forever. "Here." She wrapped an arm around the woman's waist then put Kehpri's arm around her shoulders.
"Yeah, you're a real mean one. Just like your sister, right?" Kehpri huffed glad for the support. It was certainly faster this way, as they crossed the mostly empty parking lot to the far side.
A rusting hulk of a pickup truck was parked under a flickering streetlight. Most of the original paint was impossible to see, as the body seemed to be one large piece of rust. The back bed was rusted through and a sheet of plywood had been bolted in to replace the missing metal.
Chance stiffened then swung the other woman around to face her. "How in the hell do you know about me or my sister? How do you even know she's my sister?" A burst of paranoia caused her heart to pump faster and eyes to dilate in the dark.
Kehpri eeped in surprise at the sudden move, "Because you told called her your sister while I was in the bathroom!" she stammered, quickly.
"No. You knew before that, when I woke up in the recovery room. And for your information, I'm a lot nicer than my sister, and I have a gun and handcuffs." Belatedly she realized how tightly she had grabbed the other woman and let her go. "What is this magic power you have to get under my skin and piss me off?"
"My winning personality," Kehpri rubbed the arm, certain that by tomorrow there would be a hand-shaped bruise there. Ignoring the question, she hobbled to the truck and opened the unlocked door.
Ducking her head under the seat she grabbed a set of wires and sparked them together until the truck's engine turned over. "You coming?"
"Yes, but you can't drive. So go get in the passenger seat...please." The please hurt her.
"Fine," Kehpri gave in easily. "Just watch out for that rust spot in the middle of the floor. I don't think it would hold you." The woman climbed over the bench seat to the passenger side.
"I'm not being controlling; you can't drive with your leg in a cast." She said a prayer that the truck wouldn't fall apart and got in. "Where am I taking you?"
Slamming her door shut, Kehpri put her cast leg up on the dashboard. "You know where Painted Rock is?"
"Yeah, I know where it is?" She backed the truck out.
"Good, drive that way. I'll tell you where to go." The gears ground horribly as she backed out, but it settled down when the agent put it into first and then second. "And you are being controlling."
Chance smiled. "The title Agent before my name kind of gives away the controlling part." She frowned as she realized she was smiling and joking around with the annoying insane woman.
"Aha! I saw that, you smiled."
Chance's frown got deeper, and she decided to concentrate on the road. After a while, of minutes slowly ticking away as they drove along the flat dusty road to what looked like nowhere, Chance cleared her throat, "So how'd you break your foot?"
"It's not broken." Kehpri began fiddling with the radio, trying to find one of the two stations that came in clear on the antique radio system. Finding a country and western channel, she started in on her finest twang singing.
"Then..." As the singing started up, Chance gritted her teeth and slowly counted to ten, trying to resist the urge to put her fist through the radio faceplate. "…why are you wearing a cast?"
Only when there was a pause in the singing to indulge in some soulful guitar did the other woman twist in her seat to look at the driver. "It a nice sort of accessory, don't you think?" She hefted the cast and let it thud back down on the dashboard. "Besides, for some reason, you need to be sick to get into a hospital."
The tic returned to Chance’s eye. "Why would you fake a broken foot to hang out in a hospital, which, I might add, I'm fairly certain is a crime?"
"I should probably take it off soon; hard to drive stick shift with this on." Kehpri turned back towards the windshield, singing until another pause in the deep, sorrowful lyrics. "Because I meet the most interesting people in hospitals…"
She flashed a white-toothed smile in the darkness. "Oops, turn here!"
Hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, until knuckles turned white. She turned sharply, the truck fishtailing, and for a moment, Chance imagined the rust bucket breaking apart, but it held together.
"Good driving," the brunette applauded. "They teach you that in super agent school?"
The tic got worse, and Chance feared a migraine was coming on. "Yes," she bit out in a clipped tone.
"Cool." Kehpri pointed towards what looked like a dirt path off the seldom-used road that they were already on, "That way. You have to put it in low gear, it’s a steep climb."
Chance did as she was directed and shifted the gears. Again she lamented on her mouth’s answer of yes. She should have stayed in the hospital and soaked up Dr. Miller's bedside manner.
As the pickup truck rumbled up over the hilltop, Kehpri pointed out the window. "Ah, home sweet home." The silver Gulf Stream trailer was parked off to the edge of a cleared out area. White plastic picket fencing had been placed around it to form a sort of yard populated with bright pink plastic flamingos.
Chance made a face at the garish pink of all the damn plastic flamingos. Then it dawned on her. "Why the hell didn't you tell me your foot wasn't broken? I just drove you out into the middle of buttfuckingEgypt for no damn reason. You could have just dropped me off at the bureau office."
Kehpri rolled her eyes and got out of the truck as soon as it had come to a stop in what was more or less its parking space, "Because I couldn't take off the cast at the hospital. Then they'd know I was lying." She shook her head, hobbling towards the Gulf Stream.
Chance got out of the truck, slamming the door, her hands itching for her gun that wasn't there. "I-you-GODDAMNIT!" she howled out and kicked a large rock then groaned and doubled over in pain.
She'd probably popped her stitches again.
She straightened out and stared at Mother Moon, wondering if the universe was laughing at her.
"You probably shouldn't kick things when you're still recovering," Kehpri said helpfully, hobbling back towards the agent. "You coming in?"
Holding a hand to her abdomen, she eyed the trail fearfully. "I don't know, are there more flamingos inside?"
"You think I’m insane? They need to live outside." Putting an arm around the taller woman's waist, she helped her towards the trailer. "Come in, rest, and I'll drive you wherever you want me to in the morning. Sound good?"
"You know, there are laws against kidnapping a federal agent?" she muttered out. God she'd been outsmarted by an insane one, nobody would ever find her body.
"Ha! If I wanted to kidnap you, I would have drugged you while you were sleeping." There wasn't anything resembling a lock on the door, a swift kick opened it.
Chance frowned again as she noticed the lack of lock. As she sat down, she asked hesitantly, "Um…is it just you out here?"
"Hold on a second." Kehpri stepped outside and cursed a few times, pulling on something. Another kick, with the cast foot, and a little portable generator kicked over and started rumbling. The lights inside the trailer gradually became bright enough to see by.
A lone human female in the middle of the reservation, that probably wasn't really all that safe…especially on full moon nights, or if Kephri went into heat. Some of the more wild shifters, who went feral, could smell that for miles and track down a female and rape her, not being any the wiser that his attention was very much not wanted.
Then others would just rape a lone female because she was alone and human, and then others might just hunt her as prey. And the list of things that could go wrong with Kephri out here in the middle of nowhere continued on in Chance's brain.
Kehpri thudded her way up the stairs and into the trailer. "See, better than that hospital room, isn't it?" The inside of the trailer had seen better days back when the truck had been bran new. Grabbing a fishing tackle box that now served as a toolbox, the slim woman pulled out a saw blade. "Help me with this, will you? This thing itches like crazy."
Chance sighed and got up. "What do you want me to do?
The hacksaw blade was thrust towards her. "Saw."
"I thought you'd never ask," Chance muttered out and took the saw and started to cut.
"Hey, you’re good at that. If the super agent job falls through, I'm sure you could make a great nurse." She paused. "Or mass murderer, I guess." The skinny woman flexed her leg, grinning at the sensation of not having the cast on. "Next time I'll just say I have a sprained ankle or something."
"They didn't x-ray it?" She sniffed and didn't smell any pooling of blood under the skin. Judging from Kehpri's temperament, the outdated x-ray had probably been in use and the nurses had put it on to get the woman to shut up.
"Nurse Nightingale fell in love with my charming personality and was putty in my fingers," she proclaimed happily, tossing aside the remnants of the cast. "So, you want food? I've got Spam, and probably some more Spam."
Chance's stomach rolled over and died at the mention of Spam. "No thanks. Look, if you have a phone, I'll just call one of my agents and have them come pick me up."
Kehpri laughed as she walked over to the corner of the room that served as a kitchen and grabbed one of the two cans of Spam that were left in the cupboard. "Does it look like there's a phone here?"
Blue eyes darted around hopefully. "No, it doesn't." …Which brought her back to the question of safety. "Don't you think this is kind of risky? Being out here in the middle of nowhere by yourself, a human female."
"Why? Are you offering to protect me?" She mock leered and started to rummage for a can opener. "Besides, it's safer out here. No electronics, no credit cards, no web, no computer access, nothing to draw attention to me."
"And why wouldn't you want attention drawn to you?"
The Spam came out of the can with a wet, slurping noise that even made Kehpri wrinkle her lips at it. That didn't stop her from finding a fork and starting to eat like she hadn't eaten in days. "Because," she mumbled around a piece of what was kind of meat, "they're out to get me."
"Right, and who is they?" Chance drummed her fingers and wondered what the fuck she had gotten herself into.
"Them, all of them… You sure you don't want any of this?" The mass actually quivered a little as Kehpri shoved it towards the agent.
Chance turned green as she got a whiff of it and bolted for the door.
"Aw crap, now she's probably going to pull more stitches," Kehpri sighed. Stuffing her face with what was left, she went to find the medical kit.
Outside, Chance was fighting hard not to vomit. She was on her hands and knees, her forehead resting against the cool ground.
"Hate her, hate her, hate, hate, hate, hate her," she mumbled over and over.
"You don't hate me, you like me, actually." Kehpri took a seat on the edge of the door, watching the rocking woman. A rather large red case propped up on the door jam next to her.
Chance laughed hollowly, "Don't flatter yourself." She sat back on her knees, groaning as the healing muscles of her stomach protested the treatment it had received today.
"You should probably rest so that you can finish healing." Kehpri stretched out her legs, staring up at the sky above. "It's amazing how many stars there are out here…worth everything just for the view."
“You have a needle and thread in there?”
Holding up the kit with the red cross on it, she responded, "Yup. What do you need it for?"
"You made me pull open my stitches again." She stepped over Kehpri and went to the sink that was in the living room/kitchen. She pulled up the hospital gown she was wearing as a shirt and looked down, where blood was dribbling down to her belly button.
"Explain to me why you aren't healing?" Plopping the kit down on the small counter top, she opened it and snapped on some exam gloves expertly.
Chance made a face, and her jaw took on a stubborn angle, "Again, I'm not talking about my personal life. Just ‘cause my sister is a Were, doesn't mean...never mind." But she was healing. Any human that had taken a gut shot wouldn't even be up and walking around.
"Doesn't mean you are also? Sure it does. You have the genes, just maybe not all of them." Kehpri doused a pad with an anesthetic disinfectant and started to carefully clean the area around the split stitches.
Chance gritted her teeth, at the sting of disinfectant. "Zoya and I only share one parent, so no, I don't have the genes."
"Uh huh… That's why you're standing right now after getting shot in the stomach." Wiping away the last of the blood, she took out a smaller pack and started to thread a needle, humming again while she did. “I’m going to have to stitch this again.”
"Erm..." Chance turned, staring at the gloved hands and the needle. She pursed her lips and wondered how to phrase what she wanted to say.
"Why should I let you come anywhere near me with a sharp object?"
"Oh, don't be a baby." Then she moved remarkably fast and pushed the needle through the first part of the wound.
Chance released a hiss of pain. "Shit!" she barked out. "That better be fucking sterile," she grunted out and just gritted her teeth.
"It was when I stole it." Kehpri squinted in the bad light and pulled the rest of the thread through the wound, pulling the two pieces of flesh closed. Expertly tying it off, she moved down an inch and started again.
"Don't move, you don't want a scar, do you?"
"You do realize you just told a federal agent that you have stolen goods." But Chance stood absolutely still. Her brain was picking up cues and processing them. She saw how focused and steady Kehpri was, how her personality seemed to change. She cataloged that she’d probably worked in the medical field at one point.
Snipping off the last bit of stitching after tying it, Kehpri gave her a crooked grin. "You do realize I could be joking." The needle was tossed in the trash bin and the case zipped back up. "There, and I probably didn't even give you hepatitis."
"Thanks," Chance said tersely. She crossed her arms over her chest and asked, "You have an extra shirt I can borrow?" Again she wondered why she hadn't stayed in the hospital.
"Maybe," Kehpri waggled her eyebrows. "Why?"
Chance rolled her eyes and sat down. "Because I don't have one, and I don't know you well enough to be naked in front of you."
"Really..? Because I'm pretty sure you know me more than most people I've seen naked." But she went to the small bed in the back and pulled a drawer out from under it. Finding a t-shirt that had been snug on her before, and now hung off her frame, she tossed it to the other woman.
Chance struggled a bit and finally got it on. "Thanks."
It definitely looked better on the tall agent. Unfortunately, the day was catching up to her, and she was in no shape to try what her libido wanted her to do, besides all of the obvious reasons that it was an awful idea. "The couch is all yours," she said suddenly.
Chance grunted, looking around the small room for the couch, and found it being used as the table, "‘Night."
"Yeah…" Kehpri got up and brushed the shirt she was using as a skirt, "‘Night."
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It was a few hours before sunrise, when even nocturnal animals were starting to slow down and before any hint of the coming sunrise lightened the horizon. From the other side of the trailer whimpers started, followed by thrashing as the woman on the bed started to struggle.
A blue eye cracked open, and the first thing Chance realized, was despite her best efforts, she had succumbed to sleep. The next thing she picked up was the sounds of someone in distress. She uncurled herself from the ball she had somehow managed to get herself into on the couch and stood.
She unconsciously made a face and wondered, since there was only one other person in the trailer, if she really wanted to put herself in Kupie doll’s shit. She sighed, ran a hand through her hair, and slapped herself a couple of times. She was a federal agent, that’s what she did, help people. She was a fucking idealistic civil servant. She chuckled at that one. Maybe she'd have it put on her business card.
Unconsciously silent, she padded over to the door that she had seen Kewpie doll disappear into this morning. She tapped on the door. "Kewpie…err, Kehpri, you okay?"
When there was no answer, Chance cracked the door, easily seeing the thrashing figure wrapped up in her sheets. Chance made the face again, the one she made when she really didn't want to do something, but did it anyways. She opened the door wider and stepped inside the room.
"Hey, Kehpri, it’s me, Chance. Um, super agent." Standing hopefully out of fist swinging distance, she reached out and tapped a shoulder, "Kehpri!"
Kehpri came away with a scream and swinging. A fist lashed out as she screamed at the top of her lungs, scrambling backwards and blindly lashing out at anything near her.
"Whoa, whoa, hey now, no assaulting the federal agent," Chance easily caught both failing fists.
"No!!!" Kehpri kept struggling, trying to get free from the hands holding her. On the fourth tug she realized who it was and collapsed forward, against the agent's shoulder, shaking.
Chance was stunned for a moment, and awkwardly wrapped her arms around the skinny frame. Her victim sensitivity training going right out the window, "Hey, hey, hey...hey...now, it’s okay."
"No it isn't," the shaking woman whimpered. "So don't patronize me by telling me it is." Skinny arms wrapped around the dark-haired woman's mid section as Kehpri shifted closer. "Stay here," she whispered, "just until light."
"Okay? It’s not okay," Chance readily agreed. God above, maybe she had burnout, she had to wonder, because when her day started, she never envisioned this. "You want me to stay here, with you, in this tiny bed?" She just wanted to clarify.
"Unless you prefer the floor," the muffled response came as the shaking slowed to mild tremors.
Chance reflected on all the times she had woken up, with the nightmare of the death of her family, alone, shaking, and wanting just someone to be there for her. "Yeah, I'll stay, but no funny stuff. And I better not get hauled in for a sexual harassment charge."
A laugh that was half a sob caught Kehpri by surprise. "No wonder you're single." Shifting, Kehpri pulled the thin blanket up over them both and found a comfortable position.
"I never said I was single. For all you know, I have a husband or wife who's really pissed at me right now." Fuck yeah, that was a pipedream. Maybe normal agents got partners and family life, not the ones who worked the Reservation; they just got burnt out and killed.
The woman tucked into her shoulder using it as a pillow made a disbelieving sound, "As if you would ever cheat on someone. You're so full of moral fiber it hurts to look at."
Chance just made a face. "I try, but it’s really hard sometimes. This, however, is not one of those times, so...yeah...just to be clear."
Kehpri was silent for a bit before she shoved herself up enough to see the other woman's face in the dim light, brushing curly hair out of her face. The generator had run out of gas a few hours ago, so the night was quiet once again.
"Are you saying I'm not attractive?" she demanded.
"What? Shit, I'm not answering that. I know better."
"Humph." Kehpri settled back down. "You suck," she mumbled.
"Like I haven't heard that before," Chance muttered then wrapped hands in safe places on the woman's body, holding her securely. "Okay, loony, go back to sleep, I'm here, and I'll keep you safe from whatever haunts your brain."
"You better. If they kill me in my sleep, I’m coming back to haunt you," the other woman mumbled, yawning and throwing a leg over the other woman's hips and fading off.
"Can't have that," Chance said as she stared up into the black, inky ceiling of the trailer. She was awake now, having more sleep than she normally got. It figured a woman hit on her, and she was fairly certain Kehpri was hitting on her, and the woman was insane.
####################
She stayed good to her word and watched over the crazy woman until night gave way to dawn. Her thoughts had already typed up various reports, and figured out where the remote was for her stereo, not that she'd been home in a week to look for it.
As daylight poked through the blinds, she poked the malnourished woman attached to her side and was currently drooling on her shoulder in a disgusting manner.
"Hey, you need to get up and take me to work now," she whispered.
Kehpri mumbled something and held on tighter, turning her head so that she could shut out the light.
"Come on, Kewpie doll, I'm already in enough shit. Please don't get me in deeper by being late."
"Hmmm…don’t want to get up," she mumbled, stretching slowly. That had been the best sleep she'd gotten in months. Feeling good and enjoying the slow wake up, she started to press her lips to the warm skin near her lips.
Chance jumped and croaked out, "Please don't! You promised no funny stuff." She quickly started unwrapping the woman from her body, trying to get out of the bed.
"Party pooper," Kehpri grumbled, yawning and stretching. Still half asleep, she stumbled up out of the bed, past the other woman, and towards the closet-sized bathroom.
"Whatever. Hurry up. I'm going to miss the morning brief."
"Ah, I should have known, you're married to your job." Using a wet washcloth, she finished cleaning up and did a quick tooth brushing. Not really caring that she was naked from the waist upwards, she emerged and rummaged through the clothes piled near the bed for something to wear.
"Yes, I'm faithfully married. So put those away, I'm not tempted at all." …Which was mainly true. Chance liked her women with more meat than bones, and Kehpri would have been plenty attractive if she would eat a gallon of cheeseburgers or something.
The woman was too skinny to be considered healthy. Chance shook her head, her shoulder length black hair moving, as she tried to get any ideas of caring or concern for the idiot woman out of her head.
Finding a red t-shirt that had seen better days several years ago, Kehpri pulled it on and grabbed a threadbare backpack from next to the bed. "All right, oh annoying one, I'm ready. Let's go."
Chance said nothing, just happily followed like a puppy dog. Now that they were moving, that meant that this would soon be behind her.
Patting the head of a pink flamingo that was near the path on the way out to the pickup truck, Kehpri pointed to the passenger side. "I'm driving."
Chance made a face. "But if I drive I don't have to bother giving you directions."
"It’s my truck." Yanking open the driver’s side door, she ducked under the dash to spark wires together until the engine decided to start.
Somehow, Chance doubted it was her truck. More than likely, the woman had found it deserted on the side of the road, but she really didn't want to get into that. "Okay, fine. Can we stop at my apartment so I can change? Then you can drop me off at the office and we never have to see each other again.”
"Wow, did you just wake up a bitch or were you like that last night and I missed it?" Hurt by the words, Kehpri slammed her door shut and barely waited for Chance to get in before shoving the shifter into gear and spinning the tires.
"What?" Chance blinked at the outburst. "What did I say?"
"You know what, how about we just don't talk? If I'm so annoying to you, just sit there and point at where I have to go." Kehpri turned on the radio and raised the volume annoyingly high.
"Fine," Chance said grumpily, and rubbed her stomach.
It was a quiet ride down the dusty washed-out path to the main road. Kehpri glared out the cracked windshield at the dirt road. "I'm not insane," she finally said as they pulled out onto the larger road.
Chance said nothing. She just stared out the window. In the distance she could see the old military housing of Fort Nelson that the Pack Zoya now ran lived. It was one of the better towns on the reservation.
"I'm not!" Kehpri shouted, nearly sending the truck fishtailing off the road as she glared over at the dark-haired woman.
Overcorrecting, she managed to get the truck back under control, knuckles white on the steering wheel as she focused on the driving again. "Sorry. I just have this thing about being called insane."
Chance looked over at the other woman, opened her mouth, thought better of it, and then went back to looking out the window.
The silent treatment was really starting to get to Kehpri, and the woman tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, fidgeting. Ten miles down the road, she broke. "Could you say something?"
She almost said, ‘you told me not to talk’, but then changed her mind. "If you're not insane," which she doubted, "then why act like it?"
"I like the term strange, instead of insane." She tried a little smile, but when the other woman continued to look at her, she sighed. "It makes people underestimate you. Also, people tend to stay away if they think you’re insane."
"If you want people to stay away, why did you kidnap me? That makes no sense."
"Had to get you out of the hospital somehow…" The entire truck bucked as she drove it up onto the paved road. The springs were in as good a shape as the rest of the truck, and Kehpri nearly hit her head on the roof.
"It’s a hospital. It’s not like I was in any danger in there." Chance's fingers started drumming against the glass of the window.
"Ha! That's what you think. Hospitals are dangerous places." The first signs of civilization were starting to appear around the edges of the road.
Chance pointed to the right then whipped her head around as they passed the road she wanted. "I clearly pointed for you to turn."
"Fuck." The tires screeched as she did a completely illegal u-turn in the middle of the street to get back to where they should have turned. "I thought we weren't pointing anymore."
"We weren't? Why didn't you tell me?"
Kehpri did a respectable growl of her own, "Which way now?"
"Follow it until you see the sign for the Old Grove Apartments." More and more buildings were popping up, most of it the uniform pattern of military housing.
"Apartments..? I thought I was taking you to work?" Not that she really relished that idea, in fact, now that she was thinking about it. Reaching around into the space behind the bucket seat, she got out a beat-up ball cap and an old style pair of sunglasses.
"I can't show up to work like this," she pulled at her shirt. "Just drop me off at my apartment and I'll have Quinton come and pick me up and take me in to work."
"Oh, right." Kehpri relaxed. Not driving up to a federal building was a good thing. The apartments looked like they were cheap buildings even for prefab buildings. "Eww, you live in one of these?"
"It’s cheap, and well, this is where all non-shifters tend to live, safety in numbers and all that. You can park in spot 312."
Making a wide turn, she parked in the spot marked by the pale white spray paint. "A lot of people live here?" She peered up out the windshield at the cement monstrosity in front of her.
"No, only a handful, most humans don't want anything to do with the Reservation. You get a few bleeding hearts, hippie back to nature types, college kids writing thesis on Weres or Reservation life. A few mix-breeds, those who have one human parent and one Were parent, they tend to feel really lost in the world. The only regulars that stay here are the agents." To say she lived here was stretching it, more like stored her stuff here and lived out of a work jeep and the office.
Shoving down on the parking brake, Kehpri turned towards the federal agent. "I'm serious. Stay out of the hospital. Bad things happen there."
Chance chuckled. "I think the people who work there took an oath to help mankind, or something." She got out of the truck and started up the three flights of stairs to the top floor. Fishing around in her pocket, she realized with a groan her keys were in the middle of nowhere with her gun and badge, probably having a fucking tea party.
As she reached her door, she jumped up, grabbed the lip of the roof, hauled herself up and walked across to the flimsy balcony on the other side. She dropped down and entered through the balcony door she never locked.
Her apartment wasn’t much to look at, but she was never home. It was fairly large for a one bedroom. Truth was though, she hardly slept in here.
There was an overstuffed couch, a tiny TV on a huge TV stand, a punching bag, and a sickly plant she called Tree.
“Hey, Tree,” she grunted out as she slid the balcony door shut. In a continuing pattern of normalcy, the plant didn’t talk back. She pulled the borrowed t-shirt off and walked into the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush.
Furiously brushing her teeth, she went over to a closet, opened it up, and grabbed dark blue slacks and a white buttoned down shirt, and then started looking for the jacket that went with the slacks. It was a standard suit for all agents, although when she was out in the field, she shucked it for jeans and a T-shirt, especially in the summer around here.
She frowned when someone knocked on her door. “Just a moment,” she gurgled out, her mouth full of toothpaste. She slipped on the shirt and walked over, stopping to spit toothpaste in the sink before ending up at the door. “Yeah?” she said, opening the door. She sighed seeing Kehpri, assuming their time together was over.
“What?”
The brunette ducked her head to one side, looking around the irritated agent to get a peek at the apartment. "Huh. Not bad, kind of empty looking though. Don't they pay you enough to buy furniture?"
"Um...did I forget something?" Chance tried to block the doorway, but Kehpri was slippery to stop.
"To invite me up," was the blithe reply as the skinny woman slipped past and started to poke around, investigating the rooms.
Chance made a face as the woman slipped past her. "No, I didn't." She turned around and barked out, "Put that down!" She walked over and ripped the framed photo out of the woman's skinny fingers. The photo showed three kids, two girls and one boy, rough housing with a large white canine.
"Is that you as a child?" Kehpri tried to get a better look, even as Chance held it out of her reach.
She looked at the photo as if it had changed suddenly. "It’s a family picture."
"Oh." Kehpri stopped her attempts to look, but watched with interest as the agent put the picture back down. "Where's your bathroom?" she asked suddenly.
"Over there," she pointed out the door in the wall.
"Thanks. I can give you a ride to work after, if you want, since you don't have a car here," Kehpri called out. She nearly whined with envy when she saw the full sized shower and bath. A second later, the shower started.
Blue eyes tracked back to the photo. You couldn't really see her face, but she was certain that she was happy and smiling. Her dark-haired head standing out next to her sister and brother's white blonde, and her father was huge in his animal form. Sadly, it was the only picture she had of him and…and she couldn't see him. Now she couldn't even remember what he looked like.
Her head whipped up as the shower started, and she huffed and rolled her eyes.
Stalking over to the closet, she finished getting dressed. She snagged a ring of keys from a hook and pulled down her extra gun and unlocked the case it was inside.
"Don't worry, you're already late anyway!" Kehpri yelled from the bathroom. The hot shower, after weeks of sponge baths, was orgasmic in its pleasure. Shuddering, she started to scrub clean.
Disgusted that the first few minutes of water ran brown down the drain, Kehpri spent a bit longer in the shower than she'd expected. It was more than just a couple minutes by the time she emerged from the shower and helped herself to one of Agent Pavel's towels.
Chance was feeling almost back to normal as the shower turned off. She started to button up the shirt, but paused for a moment, checking out her stitches. They didn't seem to be seeping anymore, and even now, she was questioning if she had been hurt as bad as she thought she had been.
She finished buttoning up and tucked her shirt in. Frowning at her closet, she wondered yet again where the hell the blazer was that matched the pants she was wearing.
The bathroom door cracked open enough to let a cloud of steam billow out into the hallway. "Hey, do you have some clothes I can borrow?"
“I got the stuff you let me borrow yesterday.”
Kehpri muttered something that sounded like a curse and stepped out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around her. "Where are they?"
"I got ‘em, one sec." She scooped the pants off the floor and the shirt off the couch. Then felt a pang of pity or guilt or something like guilt. "Hey, I'll get you something clean."
Kehpri appeared in the door of the bedroom, wet hair dangling down her face and back. "No, no. I'm not good enough to wear super agent's clothes. Just give me mine."
"Jesus…I was trying to be nice," she threw the clothes at Kehpri.
"Don't strain yourself." Grabbing for the clothes let part of the towel slip, but Kehpri was proud of herself for keeping up her affronted anger, and stalked back to the bathroom to change
"I won't!" she huffed out then slammed over to her dresser and pulled out an old shirt and some shorts. Then still in a snit for some reason she couldn't even fathom, she pulled open the bathroom door. "Goddamn it, I'm being nice here. Take the fucking clothes...." she trailed off.
"Err, um, you're naked."
"That’s what happens when I get changed." The skinny woman stepped into her pants and pulled them up. When there was no comment, she raised an eyebrow and looked at the woman in the doorway. "Are you going to tip me for the show?"
The dark-haired woman reached up and rubbed her nose. "No, I'm not tipping...arghhh." She shut the door, stomping off to her kitchen that was separated from the rest of the place by a counter, and pulled a box down from on top of the fridge and grabbed some power bars.
Feeling better with herself after getting the better of the last exchange and being clean, Kehpri emerged from the bathroom in her clothes. "I borrowed some of your soap and shampoo. You ready to go?"
Chance grunted and threw a snack bar at the woman, and followed her to the door.
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