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Eli had been doing a crossword puzzle in the passenger seat of the ambulance when the call came through. Another car crash, not particularly out of the ordinary, beyond that this was the seventh call in two weeks where the ambulance had a rush on it.

Quickly, he jammed the puzzle down into the floorboard and shouted for his partner, the other man making a hustle that vaguely reminded Eli of boot camp way back in the last century. It felt like such a long time since he’d been a fresh faced teenager taking it all in.

Thinking of that wouldn’t help the victims here, so he shook his head and flipped the sirens and lights as Jeff started the ignition and pulled into the street. Eli hoped there wouldn’t be any problems getting to the scene. Most people understood that sirens and lights on an ambulance meant get the **** out of the way, but there were always the ones who preferred to think that their own time tables were more important than that of an injured or possibly sick fellow citizen.

“What do you think it is this time?” Jeff chimed in, voice light as if the grimness of the past week hadn’t affected him at all.

“Preferably not casualties.”

That was Eli’s stock response. Formal and clipped, even if he liked his partner. He couldn’t shake the military out of him and once he was on the clock, so to speak, he wasn’t the affable man the department knew and loved. He was a soldier, even if he hadn’t really been one in nearly a year.

Jeff just shrugged and kept talking, as if by filling the air with his chatter he could ease Eli’s restlessness. He appreciated it more than he would ever let on.

“Maybe they’re just overstating this time, you know. To light a fire under our asses. As if the last couple of weeks hadn’t done it already. Bosses will be bosses.”

Some of the others in the precinct called him LT, despite that he’d been with them for as long as he hadn’t been a soldier. It was a sort of reverence. They saw disaster just as much as he had, but his boots in the sand overseas carried a different gravity. He wished they would stop. He was proud of his service, but he wanted to put it all behind him and start a new life.

They rounded a corner, the lights in the distance showing they were close to the scene. The closer they got, the more firmly a thought implanted in his mind. Five letter word for unmitigated disaster…

“FUBAR.”

“What?”

“Fucked up beyond recognition.” The explanation came easily. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but the pile up and smell of gasoline, the shredded automobiles and the large swath of road cleared by police had dragged it out of him.

Images danced in his vision, changing the dark and strobe lit scene into a hot desert afternoon thick with the stench of blood and the screams of wounded. Instinctively, his head dipped to cover from imaginary gunfire until Jeff was shaking him out of it.

“We have to get out there, Eli.” His voice was calm, gentle, like he’d been taught by their superiors. Kindness without urgency, even in the midst of something like this, was better than fear and stress. That would only make the flashbacks worse.

Eli bit his lip, then pushed out of the truck to help open the back while Jeff sprinted to the officers at the scene, ascertaining if they would need to turn around with any wounded or dying to the nearest hospital.

But even as he worked, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

It's a rarity that Pyper entertains the idea of leaving the Quarantine Zone. She's made herself comfortable among the Flats, acquired an apartment there. Essentially, the entire nesting process was firmly underway. The inside of the two bedroom, one bath, reminded her constantly of work. Preserved animals were erect in their upright forms, like the bear looming not far from her bed. It tucked itself into a corner, both paws extended like the assumed and very stereotypical zombie. A tiger enclosed in a crescent shape around the home computer in her work space, along with several other instances of other people's work in taxidermy. Nevaeh, the one who had been the mind behind the furniture and overall scheme of the apartment. She thought Pyper would like this type of set up. It looked normal, like it was inhabited by someone more organized than she was. The Telepath had ended up maintaining the living conditions better than she imagined she would. Schedules - a simple slip of paper from the night before, a checklist - helped the continual hygienic needs of the inner bowels of her home.

Then there were nights like these ones. The ones where water would brim around the outer surfaces of her eyes and spill over with a blink, unnoticed. The ones where the same project would stare back at her. It was another unproductive night. A decision needed to be made, about the specific adhesive that would hold together the bones. They would bloom in a spectacular, skeletal floral structure. Stuck together cat whiskers. Super glue meant risking the tear drop shaped cast off at each of the joints. An alternative didn't immediately come to mind, so there were hours dedicated to trance-like states; the glassy eyed blonde felt and heard most of her joints pop when actively becoming mobile again after these spells. Little movement, the catatonic state broke in its own time. Sometimes there was a direct catalyst to entering back into a fully conscious state. Jittery nerves in not being able to complete this self inflicted project, and begin on the next one made her restless. Maybe all she needed to do was find, and collect more bones.

Ethan had been created out of a necessity. He had knowledge she didn't have the years to cultivate and nurse. He had been prematurely torn from his comfort zone, so it was natural that the assimilation into a vampiric life (not to mention the band of Altaires) wasn't going to be an easy one. He was sleeping on her couch, having had to be dragged there from the elevator and before that, the sewers. Finding him a new chair might be easy. Hospitals house those sort of contraptions. It was with this in mind that Pyper found drive to lead her out of the Quarantine Zone and into the other areas that made up Harper Rock. While she was out, she could look for a better alternative to piece together the floral arrangement she imagined for the past several nights. And if she really felt active enough to, find more bones and other materials to work with. She envisioned her uncle, their music. It got her thinking, of things that she missed now. That she could resurrect.

Ethan's outer appearance was examined, as best as she could without touching him (he didn't seem to like that). It had to be; if there were wounds, Pyper could close them up. She could stitch them. There were none, that she could find. No blood that stained the air around him. Ethan was clean.

The door was quietly closed behind her, lock turned with the key fixed inside its slot. The routine sounds put her at ease. There's the firm ding of the elevator as it counts down from her floor to the ground. Chatter sometimes fills the Flats, people whispering things to each other but the gather of their voices carrying along the furniture balled the jumbles of words into an indistinguishable lull. Outside of the standing structure, the groans of the undead or the monstrous call of the mooncalves warn trespassing humans - and maybe even some of them - not to enter the grounds. The ferals dart from edifice to its neighbor; Pyper's eyes followed one in particular. She looked like that, she believed, once. Some nights, still looked like that.

Rats greeted her in the sewers, chirping and scrambling over one another. They wouldn't be the first ones to abandon their posts; some vampires had to survive off the scavengers. Away from any shops, Pyper relied on their tiny bodies to keep her sustained, until she found her way back. Their blood had a inferior, savory taste to the human. The way that the blood packs were compared to a live being. One that ran. As they scurry, some of them direct her towards the other grate. The one in Wickbridge. That, and Honeymead were the only towards she's familiar with. Honeymead, for the library. Just as her hand pushed the sewer grate from its underside, it was knocked down and a brain impairing wailing cast down the tunnels of the sewer. She hooked her arm through the handle bars to cover both ears.

It stopped, leaving it safe to proceed up and resurface. She did, but the lights even from yards away hurt and forced her pupils to squeeze the light from them. It had turned the corner, and people were gathering to see the origin of a twirling tunnel of smoke. The area from the inch of space left to view whether it was to come out or not, was a challenge that she reluctantly accepted. It was about five full minutes after the last group of people stepped off the curb to cross the street to survey the damage in their neighborhood. Pyper had to be careful putting the lip back on the manhole, or people would think to start paying more attention to what happens in the sewers. Find them, kill them.

Driving home points and characteristics that met with the standard concept of 'normalcy' dictated to her that being the only person in the block to not be interested in what was happening was just the opposite. She had to camouflage herself, just as Charles said. She had been hesitant to agree to his suggestion of pretending - being viewed as a looser chain on her freedom - but upon dismantling his idea and taking away key phrases she agreed with, she compromised. Hands went into her pockets, and her feet directed her to where the pack of humans had meandered to. The people in uniforms looked frantic. Why? It had been such an spectacular collection of metal and flames. Beyond it, Pyper watched the men that had been in the screaming car. It had 'hospital' written on it. There were two men, one had darker hair. It was shaved on the sides. He looked worried, and the other one had managed to slip away from her line of sight.

Pyper focused on the remaining hospital worker, and stepped off the curb across the street.