Continuo

[Sunnybunny]

((Betty Quinn continued from Aria))

There was something humorously dramatic about having to move a wardrobe to access a trap door, and the fact that Quinn chuckled at it before she could spot herself said something about her mental state, though she couldn't pinpoint what it was exactly. This wasn't the best place to stop, but it was enclosed. Her peacoat felt as much like a target as it did a shield, so she let herself give in to her need for security. Nothing wrong with that, it was human. Natural.

Paranoia wasn't healthy, at any rate. Indulging in it, however justified, wouldn't lead anywhere she wanted to go.

Quinn wished she could put the wardrobe back over the door, but it couldn't be helped. She left the tag of her coat near it regardless, knowing that Colm should be able to recognize it. Then she wished a lot of things, not least of all that-

She hadn't yelped so loudly as a rat skittered over her foot.

[backslash]

((Angelo Lee continued from It's Not Like I Like You))

The last day was a blur of aimless movement and helpless anger. Angelo got the names he needed, but none of the answers. Fitz and Cedar had some kind of a thing, so he could draw some conclusions from Cedar and Tull being left in the same place.

Cedar had been laid out with care, and Tull had just been left in a heap. For all Angelo knew, maybe Tull and Alex had been in on some kind of shit together after Mildred left the group. No sign of Jacob or Dawn around either. Angelo felt like a shitty private investigator in a noir film, holding a dozen clues that didn't fit together in any coherent way. All he knew was who was dead, and who had killed, and that basically left him where he'd been yesterday morning, only with a deeper pang in his chest now and then.

He hadn't wanted to stay in the research station after finding Cedar. He'd gotten as far away as possible in the daylight that was left, sticking to the road instead of trying to cross the snowfield again. The town looked a lot more run-down, but also more like a place people would want to make livable. More welcoming in a weird kind of way. For better or worse, he figured he was more likely to run into people there.

The church seemed like an obvious place for people to gather, but it was empty when Angelo paid it a visit. The big main space made him weirdly uneasy, so he'd already been making his way to the back room when he heard the scream.

A dozen thoughts about who could have been screaming and what might be happening to them ran through Angelo's head in a second. In a flash, he had been barreling down the cellar steps - and right into Quinn, whom he nearly bowled over.

[Ruggahissy]

((Colm Forsyth continued from Buckingham Green))

Colm gingerly entered the church, the place they'd agreed to meet the next day after Betty collected her weapon. He had some evidence now that her initial thinking was flawed by bumping into, talking and flirting a bit with Jacob, though he'd leave that last part out so that she didn't think it influenced his thoughts on the matter.

It seemed peaceful, as was expected for a place of religious gathering. Colm had naught allegiance to any kind of religion and was of the idea that there was nothing greater out there, and nothing further after life, but a lot of people didn't like hearing that and he wasn't out to convert people to the religion of nothing.

These musings were cut short by the sound of a feminine scream and then some kind of thudding from below.

It probably wasn't from hell, so that meant the answer was likely a cellar.

Colm located it and awkwardly manoeuvred his torch from his bag while also holding his weapon. He descended, shining the light ahead of him.

"Hello?"

[Sunnybunny]

One of her classmates nearly knocking her down was much less startling than disturbing the furry creatures that had made this place their home. If she wanted to drift into her memories, she could recall this sort of thing happening at JEM from time to time. If she longed to pull from something happier, Quinn could think of the laughter her and the Betties shared during particularly rowdy lawn games.

She only allowed herself the brief recollection of her friends before focusing on the matter at hand, grunting at the impact and forcing herself to hold steady. When she realized who had run into her, Quinn mentally braced herself. Angelo wasn't the worst of the people she could have run into, though he was generally a passionate person.

Crimes of passion happened every day.

"Are you alright?"

Forget that she'd gotten so worked up over something so harmless, please. And-

"Colm?"

She was glad to see that he had gotten here safely, and let herself smile.

[backslash]

"Fine, I'm fine," Angelo muttered on reflex as he stumbled back. His focus was split between finding and then keeping his footing, keeping his hold on the khanda, and the pain that the sudden jolt had sent lancing through his head, so it took a minute to put together who exactly he'd run into.

"Ah." He took another step back from Quinn, finally finding himself steady on the cellar floor. A quick glance around didn't reveal exactly what had made her shriek like that before, but he wasn't exactly willing to spare more than a glance. Normally he wouldn't have spared her much more than a thought, either, except- well, you know. That little tidbit about braining someone with a rock and getting a shiny new toy for it.

Angelo squinted warily between Colm's flashlight beam and Quinn herself. "You're, uh. You're not really who I was hoping to find. No offense."

But maybe he'd been hoping on some level to find somebody like her. Maybe.

"...Look, we all know the elephant in the room here, right?" He asked, finally settling his gaze on Quinn. "Like. What's your deal?" He figured he didn't need to elaborate.

He'd only heard her name once - twice, he guessed, counting the prize announcement on the first day - but still. Maybe there was some deep backstory with Oakley, some wrong he'd done her way back that nobody knew about. But for all Angelo knew, Quinn had just gone through school all these years daydreaming about what it was like to bash someone's brains in. Like Alex might have.

He wanted to know the answer, needed to know. He couldn't help pursuing what was dangling in front of him, even if he could guess the conclusion and didn't like it.

[Ruggahissy]

Colm shined the torch at the two person-shaped figures in the cellar. One was Quinn and he smiled back at her despite himself, despite knowing exactly what her deal was.

The other was Angelo, with a face half bandaged.

"As long as you don't take offense that you're not really the one-eyed monster I was hoping to see today," Colm said flatly in response to him.

He walked down a few more of the steps in time to hear him ask the question that most sane people would ask and kept as sharp an eye as he could on the situation.

[Sunnybunny]

She wasn't offended. Quinn didn't know who Angelo was looking for, but she would have much rather he found those people than her, especially since he had questions. Frustrating, but a rational reaction. Salvageable, perhaps.

Her shivering could be contributed to the temperature, if you were generous. She turned her face to Angelo, the weight of her burdens making her adjust her stance.

"Some of our classmates are already inclined to play. To treat taking a life as playing, as if this was a game and not the cruelest hostage situation imaginable. If I could call emergency services to handle this, I'd gladly do so."

Colm had already heard a version of this, and it didn't sound any more practiced out of her mouth than it had then.

"I'm attempting to stem the tide of deaths as best I can."

Judge, jury, executioner. She would have rather not been either, but that wasn't the hand she was dealt.

[backslash]

Angelo half-shrugged at Colm. "You know what, that's fair. I'll give you that one." The rest of his attention stayed focused on Quinn, her words, his own grip on the khanda. The tension in his arms as she determined whether or not he was going to lift it.

Her explanation for what she'd done was... simple. Killing the killers, or at least the people who wanted to kill. "If I'm picking up what you're putting down, then... you know, I think you've been doing kind of a shit job," Angelo said frankly. Shrugging all the blame off herself and onto the terrorists, even though she'd taken up the role of deciding who else on the island was fit to live.

His tendency was to act first and think later most of the time, and blurting that out was in line with the usual. Every so often though, Angelo could also take the time to really consider something, so he gave that consideration to what Quinn was actually saying underneath the excuses.

"So basically, anybody who definitely intends to go on killing is fair game. Not just every killer, but the ones who plan for it. They're the ones 'playing the game' to you."

He waited for Quinn's affirmative response, chewing on it for an uncharacteristically long time. He glanced between her and Colm again as he did so. Colm had always seemed like a chill guy.

"...Yeah, okay," he said finally, sounding almost resigned. "I think I get it." He adjusted his grip on the sword's hilt.

"I think I agree." With all the force he could put into it, Angelo hefted the khanda, lunged, and swung it down again onto Quinn.

[Sunnybunny]

It was foolish.

Which of them was the bigger fool, she couldn't say. But as Angelo pretended to consider her words, Quinn found herself feeling uncharacteristically vexed by him. She wouldn't describe herself as anything less than a murderer. Being treated coldly for what she had done was natural.

Hearing him saying she was doing a shit job made her feel the same way the terrorist's praise did. She followed his eyes, from Colm and back to her.

When Quinn felt herself getting off-kilter at home, she counted up to ten in her head.

At six, Angelo lifted his sword. There was no way to subtly heft something, but it was still an attack, and she wasn't exactly a hardened combatant. Quinn didn't so much dodge as fall, landing hard on her shoulder.

Down with the rats.

[Ruggahissy]

"Aw beans," Colm said quietly, frustrated. "Aw shit. Oh fuck."

Angelo agreed with Quinn's mindset which of course, logically, meant time to kill her per her own parameters. Colm couldn't fault the logic, even if the actions made everything go sideways immediately.

Colm bounded down the stairs, leaping off the last two to hit the ground. He raced over, hitting Angelo with his shoulder. Hopefully that would put him off his balance long enough to give them enough time to get out of the cellar, especially with that big sword needing some time for the wind up.

With one hand, as the other was still occupied with the axe, he encircled her just under the bust and set her on her feet. He grabbed the crook of her elbow and started for the stairs while pushing her ahead of him. If Angelo did recover, he'd have to go through Colm to finish the job.

"Up an att'em, missy" he said, trying to hide the panic in his voice as they went back up the stairs.

[backslash]

The only person that Quinn had killed so far had nothing heinous to his name besides bad fashion sense and a slightly rancid personality back at school. By her own admission, she herself was fair game. It all made sense, at least in the moments before the sword came back down and rebounded off the cellar floor with a clang.

The khanda had a nasty edge, but it was unwieldy, and Angelo had never really swung it before. Half his vision was totally black, and what he had left was dim down in the cellar. He hadn't even tried to test his depth perception, but he knew that had to be shot to hell. It would have been kind of a miracle if he'd managed to hit her even if she hadn't reacted with relative quickness.

But he tried again, fired by adrenaline and the desperate need to do something to grapple with the loss that was eating him alive. He was sick of being helpless and didn't know how else to deal with coming face to face with an unrepentant murderer.

Angelo's second wind-up was interrupted by Colm body checking him from his blind side. He kept his grip on the sword, but was sent staggering, going down to one knee before catching himself. The clamor of Colm and Quinn's retreat back up the stairs guided him back to his feet and after them.

"Why don't you play by your own fucking rules, then!?" He shouted after them. "You think you're so special!?" Normally, he knew ahead of time when a combat scenario was likely, and he would have prepped some snappy one-liners ahead of time. Now he just had furious questions that would go unanswered.

[Sunnybunny]

There was an amusing irony in the fact Quinn had known Oakley much better than Angelo had. He would have appreciated this ridiculous melodrama if he'd been the one to walk away out of the two of them.

She didn't, really.

While she'd been gifted a weapon that could have quickly turned this mess in her favor, it was too risky to try in this cramped space, especially with Colm around. Just when she scrambled for purchase, she was tugged up and to her feet, practically hopping up the stairs.

He was wrong about her.

Being a killer in this place didn't make her special, even if she wished others wouldn't give into it.

There were a thousand ways she wanted to respond to Angelo, but more than that she wanted to just get away from this. She'd be the villain, the coward, as long as it took for someone to take up the role of hero.

[Ruggahissy]

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” Colm whispered to himself as he half-shoved half-carried Quinn out of the cellar.

They popped out, back into the light of the church, but they had to do something or Angelo would come out swinging and try to kill one or both of them. They just needed to calm everything down.

"We just need to calm everything down!" he nearly screamed, taking Quinn by the shoulders and shaking her a bit.

Colm then spied a heavy-looking wardrobe that was near the entrance of the cellar.

Once everyone had had a chance to deescalate and think about their choices, they could figure out what to do.

"OK, I’m going to move the wardrobe and stop him from coming up here, and we can try again."

He threw his axe onto the ground and without bothering to close the trap door they’d come through, Colm pushed the heavy piece of furniture over the cellar entrance.

[backslash]

Angelo's second wind was faster than expected, but it felt right, picking himself back up to make chase. It felt like the kind of role he was used to playing. Say some words, swing the big sword, smite the bad guy. That was what he did.

When it was done, maybe he'd feel differently. Maybe when he got to the top of the stairs, things would look different in the light of day.

He wouldn't know. Angelo reached the upper part of the cellar steps just in time for the wardrobe to topple, without so much as a "timber!" from Colm for courtesy.

Crunch was the edge of the wardrobe catching Angelo right in the forehead, just above the right eyebrow. There was a subtler noise and feeling, more of a pop, in his neck as the force of the impact rippled through his skull and down his spine. He didn't lose his grip on the khanda; his body seized and his grip went tight and rigid before he toppled backwards.

For a second he was airborne. Floating, almost. Then he hit the floor with a final, sickening crack, though the sound might have been lost in the wardrobe's heavy thud on the floor above.

When the piece of furniture had settled, it blocked out almost all of the light that streamed in through the trapdoor entrance. The other half of Angelo's vision went black with it.

[Sunnybunny]

"I don't think another attempt would go any better than this one did, he's made up his mind!"

The shaking, though startling, did help. This situation had gone out of control in a hurry, and Quinn was prepared to cut her losses here.

She was shaken in more than one way, counting in her head kept going on of order. One, six. Eight, six.

"Please, let's just go!"

Back out into the cold unknown, which seemed so much kinder than the heat of the moment.