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Her apartment is a disaster.
It's even worse than it had been the night she'd found Les here and as April picks her way through shattered glass and broken furniture, she realizes they'd probably spent the rest of the night searching through her things, hoping to find something they could sell in order to get their money. It makes her furious, even though she hadn't been particularly attached to any of the things they'd destroyed. Her entire life is in the bag she currently has over one shoulder, but these were still her things. They didn't belong to her mother, she hasn't even seen her mother in twenty-five years and yet she's somehow still fucking up April's life.
"Jesus," she murmurs when she walks into the bedroom and sees the state of it. Her bed has been destroyed, the mattress shredded, her pillows torn apart. She can understand looking for money there, but what she doesn't understand is the way they've completely ruined her wardrobe as well. It doesn't matter, they're only clothes, but they've been ripped to shreds. A lot of anger went into this and she knows for certain at the sight of it that this has never been about the money. Not entirely.
Even if she paid them off -- which she won't, mostly because she's too stubborn -- it wouldn't matter. These men want to hurt her mother and since her mother is dead, they'll settle for hurting her.
She's relieved she isn't here alone and though she still feels like she's treading on ground laced with landmines when it comes to Les and Corrine, she reaches for his hand anyway. She threads her fingers with his and turns to look at him and Lara. Since Les had asked Lara to help, April has felt strangely safe. She doesn't know what to make of that either, but she is glad they're both here.
"We have about ten minutes before they're supposed to meet us," she says, gently kicking aside a shredded pair of jeans with the toe of her boot. "I thought it might be enough to just have you send them away, but..." She looks at Lara. "They're dangerous. Do whatever you have to."
Because she won't put Les in danger again. She can run if it becomes necessary, but she won't let him get hurt.
It's even worse than it had been the night she'd found Les here and as April picks her way through shattered glass and broken furniture, she realizes they'd probably spent the rest of the night searching through her things, hoping to find something they could sell in order to get their money. It makes her furious, even though she hadn't been particularly attached to any of the things they'd destroyed. Her entire life is in the bag she currently has over one shoulder, but these were still her things. They didn't belong to her mother, she hasn't even seen her mother in twenty-five years and yet she's somehow still fucking up April's life.
"Jesus," she murmurs when she walks into the bedroom and sees the state of it. Her bed has been destroyed, the mattress shredded, her pillows torn apart. She can understand looking for money there, but what she doesn't understand is the way they've completely ruined her wardrobe as well. It doesn't matter, they're only clothes, but they've been ripped to shreds. A lot of anger went into this and she knows for certain at the sight of it that this has never been about the money. Not entirely.
Even if she paid them off -- which she won't, mostly because she's too stubborn -- it wouldn't matter. These men want to hurt her mother and since her mother is dead, they'll settle for hurting her.
She's relieved she isn't here alone and though she still feels like she's treading on ground laced with landmines when it comes to Les and Corrine, she reaches for his hand anyway. She threads her fingers with his and turns to look at him and Lara. Since Les had asked Lara to help, April has felt strangely safe. She doesn't know what to make of that either, but she is glad they're both here.
"We have about ten minutes before they're supposed to meet us," she says, gently kicking aside a shredded pair of jeans with the toe of her boot. "I thought it might be enough to just have you send them away, but..." She looks at Lara. "They're dangerous. Do whatever you have to."
Because she won't put Les in danger again. She can run if it becomes necessary, but she won't let him get hurt.
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"Don't worry. After tonight they won't be back, one way or another."
She paced out the length of the room, clearing the floorspace with her feet as she passed until she got to the window which she opened, leaning out to see that the fire escape was sturdy and led to a short service alley before hitting the main street. She kept clearing until she was back at the door which she drew wide open, and then out into the main room. It was much the same here so she repeated the motions, clearing a path from the bedroom to the hall. It always paid to have an escape route available.
When she was satisfied, she looked at Les. They'd been around eachother for a long while now. She trusted him but he was fiercely devoted to his friends. Sometimes it robbed him of his objectivity and she needed him focused.
"Mr Parker," she said, knowing using his title would jar him enough to make him pay attention. "I know you want to tear them apart right now but I need your logical head on for this." She waved a hand at the empty floorspace and the path she'd cleared. He'd know the escape route for what it was, she had no doubt. "I want to listen to them when they come in. Ignore me. You talk to them and let them talk back. Maybe they'll give something away and we can get a look at who they're working for. If not we'll get creative."
When Les nodded, she moved over to the window in the living room and leaned against it, watching the door. She breathed deeply for a while and forced her power down until she had locked away any sign of her status as Matriarch. It was risky and if she had to fight it might take her a second or too longer to reach her power again but she didn't want to tip their hand too early and spook the other sirens.
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They aren't leaving without the money and without hurting April.
As angry as he is, he's admittedly nervous about the latter. It's safer with Lara in toe, but if anything happens to April tonight he's...he doesn't even know what he'll do. Things are extremely messy and fucked with him and Corry, and he knows that some of it is about April. Still she didn't do anything to deserve all this either, and he cares about her. All he wants is to protect her tonight, that's all. He's grateful when she takes his hand into hers because it manages to calm him down. He squeezes her hand back, giving her a small smile in reassurance that he's here for her.
It also helps Lara's words sink in somewhere. Even though he wants to hurt all the men that walk in this door. He cares about April more, and he knows he needs to be calm. Follow the plan. He nods at Lara. "You got it. Creative is my expertise," he assures her watching as she moves into her position. "We'll keep them talking as long as we can. But they already know I'm a witch, so they won't trust that this isn't a trap for very long."
That's when he hears footsteps coming in from down the hallway.
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She just wants this all to be undone. A small part of her even wishes she'd never come to Siren Cove.
As they enter her apartment, she realizes she hadn't paid any attention at all to what they looked like the other night. The leader is as big as she remembers, but she hadn't realized that he had a heavy beard until this moment. She hadn't seen the scar above his eyebrow until now and she feels like maybe she should recognize him, but she can't place him.
"You brought friends," he says, his gaze going from April to Les to Lara. Then he looks back to Les and smiles, clearly a threat, showing his pointed front teeth.
"I brought people to make sure I don't turn up dead on the beach," she answers and her voice is steady, it doesn't waver. She can do this, she's done far more dangerous things than this before. Of course, there's never been anyone she cares about in danger, and that's the difference.
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The man wasn't interested in Lara for the moment, he'd dismissed her out of hand along with April. He clearly considered Les his biggest concern and he wasn't wrong. Lara watched Les smile back at the boss and there was nothing amused in that smile. April is standing strong though, back straight and clearly not prepared to back down. That was good. It'd force the boss to make the first move.
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Les isn't impressed by the men that walk through the door. While they'd had the jump on him the other night, it had clearly been a cheap shot. Two of them barely looked interested in the proceedings, it was the other man the one baring his teeth back at April and Les that is the one out for blood, the one with the grudge.
Les gives him the attention he deserves, smiling in a glare, ready to pounce as soon as necessary. He talks like Lara suggests hoping to keep them unconcerned with Lara's presence. "Yeah. Forgive us not exactly trusting your word. I still have the bump on my head to prove that ill-advised. But she has your money---" He waves vaguely in April's direction.
"We just need to know you're taking it and leaving. Don't show up here again."
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Her mother did something to him. She did something and now he's looking not only for his money, but for revenge. It doesn't matter that April has never known her mother, that she hasn't been in her care since she was two years old. It doesn't matter that Lara is a stranger. They're women. That's enough for him.
"Good," she says, her voice tight. "But I think it's only fair I know what I'm paying off."
"I told you," he says. "Your mother had a problem with drugs."
"A sixty-four thousand drug problem?" April asks and she's trying to get him talking like Lara wants, but he's not interested.
"I charge a high rate of interest," he says with another dark grin, then takes a step toward her.
TW: violence, threats, general arseholish behaviour.
She smiled sweetly. "Unfortunately, my young friend isn't responsible for..." she waved a hand dismissively. "whatever money you seem to think her mother owes." Spreading her hands apologetically, she gave him a sympathetic shrug. "You've come a long way only to go home empty handed."
The siren snorted derisively. "Oh yeah? And why would I do that? I know she's got the money and I have to have something to show for this trip or my boss'll be upset. Of course, I could always take it out of her skinny hide. Or yours." He eyed her up and down and on anyone else it might have looked disgustingly lustful but on him it was just plain disgusting.
Lara held down the instinct to shudder and look around for the nearest shower and instead nodded agreeably. "You could certainly try that, yes, but I wouldn't recommend it. Not if you want to leave here with all your limbs attached."
He was moving before she'd finished, stepping back and shoving the bigger men forward. The man snarled the order for his heavies to "Fuck her up!" and in the second it took them to react Lara let the walls surrounding her power fall and changed. In another second she'd started to change and thrown her power out, smothering the two charging bulls, forcing them to their knees.
They weren't resisting but she couldn't keep her focus on them and the boss if he decided to attack the others. "Les, April. Could you maybe deal with these two?"
Re: TW: violence, threats, general arseholish behaviour.
He remains as calm as possible when the two men charge at Lara, hoping she'll be able to handle them using her powers. They drop to their knees almost immediately as Lara's facade changes and her claws come out. He smirks watching them surrender to her power and steps forward when she calls out to him and April.
"It would be my pleasure, boss," he says, taking the one on the right, the one that had held the knive to his throat. He uses his powers to conduct a spell building a waist-high wall of fire around the man securing him in place. The flames burn a bright cobalt blue, hot enough to scald skin but tame enough Les can control it from overtaking the room. It takes most of his concentration to keep it in place.
He looks at April nodding his chin at the other guy. "You got him?" he asks her. "Make it hurt. That asshole hit me in the head."
Re: TW: violence, threats, general arseholish behaviour.
She could just let him go, she knows she could, but instead she pulls the trigger.
Because he hurt Les.
He goes down hard, his muscles jumping with electricity and April knows it hurts. She's glad it does and she risks a glance over toward Lara, watching her with the man who's clearly in charge. On the floor near her feet, the siren lets out a pained gasp, but she barely glances down at him.
Re: TW: violence, threats, general arseholish behaviour.
The change had almost finished now when she stalked forward towards the boss. Lara let it go far enough so the that other siren knew he was dealing with a matriarch. Her skin was scaled, teeth sharp and eyes glowing golden as her hair flowed together to form the tentacles drifting lazily around her shoulders. It was more of a change than she normally allowed in public but this was the only way.
She smiled at the man. "I believe you're out of your depth, mister...?" She'd left the leader mostly uncompelled. She wanted him clear headed so that he could explain to his bosses exactly what was about to happen.
The man grumbled. "Wade." he said begrudgingly.
"You're out of your depth, Mister Wade. You see, my friends here are under my protection." Lara said. "You walked into a registered enclave with a matriarch in good standing and you made no attempt to declare your intentions towards one of the sirens in my area of responsibility." She stepped closer to the man and dropped the smile. "I'm assuming you understand what that means." It wasn't a question.
The man twitched as if he was going to move but Lara just raised a scaled brow and he subsided. "Yes." He mumbled.
"Who are you working for?" She asked.
Wade looked down and listed a few names. Lara recognised one of them as a siren that had been giving another matriarch trouble recently. Clearly this was a power play or some sort but Lara didn't have time to untangle the web at the moment.
Lara nodded. "Good. So I just have to decide what to do with you. The accords say your life is forfeit to me at this point, you know that, but now I have to decide what to do with it." she said, folding her arms and making a show of thinking about it. "I could let him," she turned slightly in Les's direction without taking her eyes off Wade. "burn you from the inside out. There's an appeal to sending ashes back to your bosses." She turned towards April and smiled. "Or maybe I should let her spend a little time practicing her abilities on you. Let her turn you into her personal footstool. She deserves at least that much for the trouble you've caused her."
Wade swallowed nervously and Lara turned back to face him, letting her power wash over him and dragging it over his nerve endings until he dropped to his knees, agony writ large on his face. "I could always take you apart, scale by scale." She said quietly, leaning forward over him, tentacles reaching for him. "And you'd beg me for it. Even as you were flayed open, you'd beg me to take more of you until there was nothing left to think past the agony."
Lara straightened and pulled back her power in one go and Wade swayed but managed to stay upright. "Or I could send you and your...men," she said looking at the downed heavies with distaste. "back to your masters, whole and unmolested, but without whatever they expected you to collect for them." It wasn't the kind option. The enclave he was from was one of the more strict. His matriarch would be aggressively unimpressed when Lara told her about one of hers going rogue and sending siren hitters into another matriarchs territory. No, it definitely wasn't the kind option. But then Lara wasn't here to be kind.
"Yes. I think that's for the best." She said.
Backing off to stand between Les and April, she smiled again, letting her change fall away. "But before that happens, you're going to answer my friends questions." she said, nodding at April.
Re: TW: violence, threats, general arseholish behaviour.
When Lara sees the two are held, she begins to use her true power over the leader. Wade. Les expects to see Wade surrender to Lara, and that's exactly what happens. He crumbles at her feet, looking miserably between Les and April. Maybe wanting to hurt them or beg for mercy. Les just watches the scene with a smirk until Lara gestures at him, and he just shrugs, knowing he probably wouldn't kill the guy, but he would definitely manage to have some fun with him were Lara to turn him over. And in the end, Lara seems to be on the same page. They don't have to "deal" with this Wade fellow, sending him back to wherever he came from to answer to his leader for trespassing in Lara's territory, would be far worse.
He releases the spell on the dude he's holding. His face had turned docile the moment he saw Lara transform, and he saw that she is the matriarch in this town. All that's left is answers, and even Les wants them. "I'd answer truthfully too. You saw what she did to him," Les says, nodding his head at the guy April had tased. He was still immobile and face-down on the floor.
Re: TW: violence, threats, general arseholish behaviour.
She couldn't have done this on her own.
When Lara and Les recommend he answer April's questions honestly, she suddenly realizes she doesn't want to know. She's never had a family and regardless of why they're here, that isn't going to change. Her mother is dead, her father is god only knows where. She has two half-siblings here and a sister somewhere in Canada, but she doesn't want them. She doesn't want any of them and she doesn't want to get tangled up in her mother's mess.
"I don't want to know," she admits, glancing at Lara briefly before she looks back at Wade. There's nothing about him that's familiar, nothing she knows or recognizes, but she knows the same could have been said about her mother before she died. "The woman who owed you money gave birth to me, but that's it. I have nothing to do with her and I don't want to know. I want you to go and I want to forget you exist and if I ever see you again..." She'll kill him. He might be powerful, but she has anger on her side and she's furious now.
"Don't come looking for money from me again," she says. "The woman who owed you had nothing to do with me."
Re: TW: violence, threats, general arseholish behaviour.
Wade scrambled to his feet and he and the still standing heavy, grabbed their unconscious colleague and dragged him towards the front door.
Lara heard the bang of the door and the hissed curses as they manhandled their heavy load into the back of whatever vehicle they had used and then sped off. She turned to the others and grinned.
"That went well, I thought."