Seeing the unseen (Levi)

[Lorelai]

This RP takes place on Tue Dec 02, 2014.

The turning had been hard on Lorelai but she was doing her best to maintain control of herself and not to slip into nothingness. It had been easier to cope with everything that had happened to her as a human as she could drink her problems away; a few shots of vodka and handful of pills and she could drift away. Of course, as a vampire, the things that had made life liveable were no longer there. What was worse, was the fact that she'd of rather died than been turned into what she was now. A part of her hated Pru for what she'd done and yet a stronger part of her thought Pru the most amazing woman on the planet. She'd considered the woman to be some sort of angel before her turning, having been fed her blood had only deepened this knowledge for her. Lorelai would be forever devoted to Prudence, whether she wanted to be or not. She no longer had a choice in that. Not that Lorelai was the sort to look unfavourably on anyone. Given time, she likely would have grown to love her sire in her own way, as she always sought to see the best in people. Nature had just given her a helping hand in this in the moment she'd been reborn.

Nature had not been so kind to Lorelai though, or so she believed. She'd loved being a sorcerer and now she was what her sire called a mind raper; she was a telepath. It was perhaps a fitting path for her but at this time in her life, she was unable to see it. As a sorcerer she had been susceptible to the energies of others and could feel their life forces. As a telepath she was still susceptible to the energies around her only it was on a different level now. She was more in tune with the energies of the technological world. Unfortunately for her, she had retained her ability to see the dead and so not only was she hounded by echos of people past, she was surrounded by lines of communication. So much information. Too much information for one as young as her.

Lorelai had tried wearing noise cancelling headphones and they did help a little but her mind, being what it was, interpreted things in a visual form too. Whether the lines were there or not, she saw them in her own mind. She believed she could reach out and touch them. Pluck them one by one like guitar strings and make them speak to her. Wireless signals were literally everywhere.

The female had been out on the streets when she'd become overwhelmed by it all. She pulled her woollen cardigan tighter around her and slipped down an alleyway so that she could speak to the apparitions that had taken to following her thus far.

"I can't hear you if you all speak at once," she told the dozen or so spirits that had gathered around her. "You all have to stop talking. Please!"

She listened as one by one they told her who they were and what they wanted. Some wanted messages passed on. Other's wanted her to retrieve items and deliver them to their loved ones. One wanted to possess her and say a very personal goodbye to their other half; that was one request she couldn't or perhaps just wouldn't do. In the end it settled for her writing a very a personal good bye letter.

The fact that she could tap into the signals around her at times like this was quite useful. She could piggyback onto almost any connection and do what needed to be done without the fear of what she was doing being traced back to her. This was part of the reason she had a "ghost" account. Messages to loved ones didn't always get a civil reply. People had called her all sorts in the short time she'd been doing this. Recently she'd resigned herself to just clearing the inbox out without reading a word of it.

By the time she was finished, she was little more than a jabbering mess huddled against the wall. She grabbed the hem of her long dress and wrapped it around her ankles, ignoring the cold that had now become second nature to her. The snow didn't bother her; she'd walked around barefoot in it as a human, so a wet bum wasn't going to get her up and off the ground. It wasn't like she was going to catch a cold. Arms around her legs, she placed her head sideways on her knees, staring down the entrance of the alleyway and began to weep; for the ghosts, for her child and for herself.

[Levi DAmico]

“I dunno why you have a problem all of sudden, Spinelli,” Levi growled down the phone line. “When we set up the terms of our agreement, you were fine with how things were going to proceed.”

The man on the other end of call gave his excuses – vague as they were and thinly veiled – and Levi wasn’t really listening anyway. His focus was on the cigarette that was being brought to and from his lips as he paced an empty sidewalk. The nicotine seemed to be working again, which was nice. Another nicety was the warm breath that pushed out of his lungs, creating a mist within the smoke out onto the cold, Canadian air. It was strange how trivialities such as these could be missed when one never really paid attention to them in the first place. Initially he’d missed being human, but as time went on and he learned more about how he could control his Vampiro differences, he was starting to relax and appreciate this new world. Still, that didn’t mean he could neglect his old world. Vampiro though he was, he was still bound to his mortal responsibilities. He was Mafia after all and even if he wanted to change, he couldn’t. Levi took pride in his life as a capo for the Patriarca crime family of Boston. His position meant that he didn’t have to deal with things personally, but he still liked to. His experience in getting involved in the day-to-day modern grit was invaluable, and although he was passing this experience on to his minions – as he liked to call them – Levi preferred the efficiency of getting stuff done himself.

Levi knew what this problem with Spinelli was about, what it was always about: greed. Spinelli wanted more money for this deal – maybe he’d finally found a calculator and done the sums or maybe him and his retarded friends had drawn around a table and counted their fingers. Either way, it didn’t matter. It was too late to change things. You don’t make an agreement with the Mafia and then change your mind. The only way Spinelli was going to get out of this deal was inside a coffin. The Mafia always had to be careful about making such declarations over the phone, but Levi was pretty apt at portraying this message in just the right way to scare the client and yet be vague to whoever else was listening. Levi cut into the middle of Spinelli’s tired excuses and let his coarse Bostonian accent take over.

“Ah cut the crap. I haven’t got the time to be dealing with your ********. This is how it’s going to work, Spinelli, so listen real ******* closely because I hate repeating myself.” Levi paused just long enough to hear a quivered breath down the line back at him. “The deal’s gonna remain how it is. No changes. If you don’t like that, then let’s meet in person and discuss it. Is that what you want? For me to come all the way down there for a chat?”

Spinelli was quick to sputter a ‘no’ even if his pride was raw from the acknowledgment. It was like admitting defeat – no man liked that. Levi understood, he just didn’t care. There were winners and losers in this business and right now, he was winning. A dark grin emerged on Levi’s face, which made taking a drag on his cigarette difficult, but he managed.

“Good,” he practically purred, blowing the smoke into the mouth piece of the mobile phone. “So we’re settled then. Nice ******* chatting with ya.”

Levi closed the call, immediately regretting his decision to take this one while on the run. There were few sweeter feelings in the world than slamming the phone down on some ******* idiot – mobile phones couldn’t give you that. Still, he’d had to go out so there was no real way around it. Tucking the phone back into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, Levi paused. He could hear some kind of whimpering nearby and he immediately felt the need to check it out. If someone was close enough that their hushed sobs could be heard by him, then his rather loud threats could be heard by them. He thought he’d been subtle, but, you never know. Walking away meant that the person may not have to see the face connected to the threat, but he couldn’t risk it if the person had already seen him. Levi glanced around, but the streets were still a graveyard. He remembered walking past an alleyway a couple of steps back, so retraced his steps. It didn’t take him long to find the source of the sobbing. He stared past the mouth of the alleyway and in the darkness, low and behold, he’d found her; sat on the floor, knees held tightly to the chest, face half-hidden under a shroud of blonde hair. Levi sighed; two bluish eyes were staring up at him. Ah crap, he thought. Now I’ve gotta play nice.

“You alright, sweetheart?” he asked.

Levi instantly chided himself for that sugary nickname, but at the same time he was adamant that he’d had to compensate given his gruff appearance, the cold dark stare he’d given her and that obviously indifferent tone. If he didn’t care though, his conscience told him, why bother to ask her anyway? Why not move along? Ignore her? Levi stomped out his cigarette; he wasn’t going to have this discussion because he needed to listen out for a reply from sobs-a-lot. His conscience happily complied.

[Lorelai]

Ambient street noises were par for the course, so Lorelai paid little to no attention as people passed on by. The streets weren't crowded, far from it but she'd watched several people pass by without even so much as glancing in her direction. At least this was her perception. The truth was that several people had cast their eyes her way and just carried on walking. Her tear filled eyes blurred the world around and people were nothing more than colourful hazes; each blur beautiful an unique.

A spirit hovered unseen nearby but did not approach the shivering wreck of a woman. It could see she was suffering and so had rather thoughtfully decided to keep its distance. What it wanted could wait. Would have to wait. Lorelai was in no condition to be of any use to her.

She'd heard the vague hum of voices of the people that had passed by. Some laughing, some chatting, some whispered ad yet she couldn't pick out a single word of what they said. The voices grew louder as people approached and faded as they passed her by. Her mind tried to make sense of the murmurs but all she heard was the crackling of electricity. The world was a much noisier place than she ever imagined it could be when she was human.

When one of the blurs stopped and stared at her, she found herself drawn to it's form. The fact that he'd passed her by and then come back had escaped her, she couldn't. Despite their uniqueness, she'd forgotten each of them the moment they left her sight. When he spoke, she raised her head up from off her lap and began to wipe away her tears on the cold, damp sleeve of her cardigan. Lorelai blinked a few times and tried to focus on him; the fact that she could already tell that it was a him was a step in the right direction.

"Are you..." she looked off to the other side of the alley and back to the man. She noted the spirit that was still observing her but didn't let her eyes pause upon it in case it took that as a sign to come and talk with her. Her still watery eyes scanned their way back to the man. "Are you talking to me?"

Lorelai was a trusting soul but in her current state she was nervous and not a little jittery. Her hands dropped from legs and moved to the wall behind her. It would have been a rather awkward looking posture had she have held it long, but as it was she was just using the wall to help her right herself. Her hands padded ever higher up the brick work as she got to her feet. Once standing, she pulled the thick, beige cardigan around her, her arms remaining crossed over her chest. She briefly moved one hand to push the hair on her right hand side, back behind her ear, and quickly replaced it when she was done.

She looked as if she were shivering but it had more to do with the emotional stress she was under than the weather. The back of her dress, wet as it was, clung to her backside, the cardigan she was wearing not really doing anything to hide this fact. Luckily, she was facing the man and had her back to the wall, so as of yet it was unnoticeable.

[Levi DAmico]

The little blonde mass of sulking shifted and began staring in his direction. Ultimately, Levi didn’t know what to think. Maybe she was just some human trash, blowing to wherever the wind would take her; maybe she was a run-away, perhaps a prostitute, a junkie, or a combination of the above. Or, just by chance, she was a victim of abduction and had finally fled her captor, leaving her no place else to go but in this alleyway. Yeah, or just as likely, she was a freaky little ****** hiding out in the darkness ready to knife any poor sap that walked past. Levi grumbled to himself in thought, but stubbornly held his ground. If she was going to attack him, ask for some change or proposition him, then she would quickly find that she was barking up the wrong Mafioso. Two loaded guns would give her an answer she wouldn’t be expecting, but luckily for her, Levi wasn’t the type to shoot first and ask questions later… mostly.

To her odd and quiet question, Levi just grunted and rolled a shoulder. He looked down the street to his left, almost disregarding her. “Yeah,” he said in the same indifferent tone. “I was talking to you. And curse me for asking, but, ya don’t look like you belong out here.”

By the time he’d finished that sentence he was looking back at her. She hadn’t attacked yet, which was fairly surprising, but maybe she was waiting for a better opportunity. His mind was running a hundred different thoughts, but ultimately he decided on the one: why was he bothering? There were like a hundred people out here on the streets and he’d ignored them, what made this one any different? What was he going to gain? He wasn’t into blondes, so that wasn’t it. Was it just the fact that she looked so freaking pathetic out here? Maybe, but then again, didn’t they all? And besides, what did it matter how sad and pathetic she looked if he wasn’t going to benefit from this encounter?

Well, his conscience began – apparently no longer hiding behind the façade of a bottle of alcohol – maybe there was something in him that had changed to make him now give a ****, to make him put someone else’s needs over his own.

Levi wasn’t happy with that. It made it sound like he was going soft. His conscience had no real rebuttal and it was just as well too because Levi needed his energy to focus on the girl again. She started to get up, pushing herself onto her feet with the aid of the wall. It was then that Levi rolled both shoulders back – a sort of warm-up, anticipating the worst. She wrapped her cardigan around her and began to shudder, Levi just stared at her; umber eyes stern and focused. If she was just acting and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike now, then he wouldn’t give her one. Maybe it was a little negative of him to always expect the worst out of people, but being prepared for the shittiest fallout had always kept him safe. It was when he didn’t put much thought into things that life threw him curve balls, dunking him into situations such as these where he wasn’t sure whether to try and swim back to shore or wait for something to come along and solve his problems for him. Obviously, drowning wasn’t an option and he just wanted to get this **** over with.

“So," he began, unable to really lift that unconcerned tone of his. "What are you doing out here, Miss…”

[Lorelai]

"Lee," she says glancing nervously over her shoulder. "Lorelai Lee."

Lorelai took a couple of tentative steps towards the guy before offering him her hand; a hand that, much like the rest of her was shaking slightly. While Lorelai might not be entirely within her own mind, she was still her and that meant that she was polite, honest and open. It didn't occur to her that a meeting down a dark alleyway was something to worry about, even when the man pointed out that she didn’t look like she belonged in there.

"I was..."

She looked over her shoulder again and then quickly back to the gruff looking but well-dressed man before her. Telling him that she was talking to spirits probably wasn't the best idea, even if it was the truth. She wasn't entirely sure what she could tell him. By way of stalling, she wiped at her eyes with her sleeve clearing a little more of the moisture from them and looked the guy over again. As a human she had begun to discern the difference in vampire and human auras only her mind could never make sense of it. Now she was a vampire, she much more adept at the skill and as she observed him, she was able to make out that he was of the same species as her. New to the life though, she was not yet able to sense what his path or lineage maybe. There was however a tiny glowing ember of recognition in the back of her mind; not that she'd ever met Levi. She had however met his sire and she there was possibly something of Prudence in him too. None of this information registered in her conscious mind however.

Having recognised him as kindred though, she now had to weigh up her reply. She always believed in the best of people, so she wasn't afraid to tell him that she was overwhelmed by her powers, however, she didn't want to make a bad first impression. She had somewhat of a habit of that and the guy had already found her in moment of undeniable weakness.

"I was trying to compose myself," she explained her arms once more across her chest in a somewhat defensive position, as if to explain the shivering, which was something she had noticed when she offered her hand, she rubbed lightly at one of her arms as if trying to keep warm. The fluid art of deception, however, was not a skill Lorelai possessed and so the movements looked calculated. So focused she was upon this one act, that she actually forgot to breathe.

"I'm sorry if I worried you."

This part rang true. She didn't even have to think before those words passed across her lips. She didn't wish to inconvenience anyone. If anything she was perhaps a little grateful that he'd stopped at all. She knew so few people in the city and the kindness of strangers wasn't something she avidly believed in as she once had.

[Levi DAmico]

When she gave a name, Levi really began to inspect her. It was like he should have known her, but couldn’t say why. How many blondes did he know? None that he could remember, which wasn’t entirely surprising. Still, his instincts told him that she reminded him of Prudence. He wanted his instincts to explain, but of course, they didn’t so he had to figure it out himself. First, he considered her hair. It was long, wavy and because of the snow, had tangled at the ends. The wild look could have been a connection to the red head, who, really was not far off from strawberry blonde. They had the same eye colour, Prudence and Lorelai; he’d noticed this when she stepped a little further out of the alleyway to give him her hand. Levi didn’t shake hands, so he just ignored it and looked back into her features. He wasn’t really the type to pay attention to people who he didn’t give a toss about, but he was always pretty perceptive when he needed to be. Lately, Levi had decided that he’d needed to remember the faces of those outside his usual circles too, so he had a picture of Prudence in his head while he was examining this street-urchin, Lorelai.

The girl was pretty, in a mousy kind of way; her small and delicate features reminding him of girls who were almost young women. It really wasn’t as twisted as it sounded, the youthful doe-eyed look didn’t do anything for him. Prudence had these similar small and rounded features, but hers had sharpened with experience – or maybe just because he was around. Levi did have a habit of pissing people off and maybe, given enough time, Lorelai’s soft eyes would squint and her delicate jaw would tense as he began to piss her off too. He was oddly looking forward to it. He was also wondering what she would be able to do after he’d managed to piss her off. As frail and twitchy as she was, it could be hard to tell. Would she shoot him, maybe chop off a leg? Or, like many an ordinary woman before her, just storm off with a pout? Lorelai might have reminded him of Prudence with the little that he knew of the pair so far, but maybe that would change given time and the right stimulus.

Levi was distracted from his mulling when she spoke, supposedly explaining what she was doing in an alleyway. It didn’t explain ****. Composing herself from what? Had she just broken up with a fiancé and had taken to crying in the dark? Or, maybe she’d had a mental breakdown because she had lost her favourite duck earrings. It could have been a million and one different things, so saying nothing had given him no indicator as to whether she was crazy or not. Not knowing one way or the other, he had to find out more information. He was about to question her on the subject when she cut him down with an odd comment. She was sorry to have worried him? What kind of charitable son of a ***** did she think he was? Madonna, he thought to himself, before the rather blunt comment came out of his mouth.

“You didn’t.”

When he realised that was a bit harsh though, he decided to straighten up. Rolling both shoulders back like he was working out some deep-rooted knots, Levi took a deep breath before trying again.

“I was just passing by and spotted you,” he said with a softened tone, but just as quickly as he’d piped up, he’d run out of conversation. Not knowing what else to say, but feeling a need for the conversation to go on, he decided to just go for the first thing to come to mind. “Now that I’ve looked at ya properly though, you seem kinda familiar...”

He had to pause. He couldn’t speak any more than that right away because it felt like he was rambling and Levi didn’t ramble. It would be good if she said something, maybe confirmed that they knew each other, maybe blew his theory out of the water – it didn’t matter just so long as she said something. If she didn’t, this was going to get even more awkward.

[Lorelai]

She was drawn in as he spoke to her once more. Not by his words though, but rather by his essence. He reminded her of her, her once angel. His eyes caught her attention as she forcibly pushed any thought of her ex-lover from her mind. He had nature's eyes. The colour. Earthy. She found herself stepping closer to him, one shaky hand stretching out as if she were about to touch his face. She caught herself mid action and all too quickly pulled her hand back.

"Familiar you also seem to me," she whispered as her mind fought to try keep what should have been obvious to her, from her. "We're the same."

She didn't mean path or family, she meant they were both vampires. Similar creatures, passing one another by. One calling to the other without meaning too. Both responding as perhaps they should.

Don't think about her.

Lorelai looked over her shoulder to the apparition and back to Levi.

"Do you see it too. Can you make it go away?"

Try as she might to hide her crazier nature, it slipped through. She didn't want to think about that certain someone and so the only thing she could think to speak of was the ghost that was waiting for her help.

"They won't leave me alone."

Lorelai's voice was little more than a whisper as she spoke, partially as she was worried it might overhear her. The main reason for the hushed tones however, was shame. She didn't want to see the things she did and half hoped that if he could see them too, she would find some piece of mind. She'd met one person once, a woman, that could do what she did. She seemed to handle it with far more grace but then this was all still so new to Lorelai and she had blocked them out for so long. Spirits had only shown themselves to her after the death of a dear friend. The alcohol and pills she had taken after her child’s death had proved an effective manner of ridding herself of the nuisances. Now of course, those methods no longer worked. Drinking was out of the question and every other manner of substance abuse didn’t leave her feeling much of anything. She was finally having to face everything she’d been trying so desperately to avoid.

[Levi DAmico]

Maybe he should have rambled on, it might have prevented her from showing her true, crazy colours. When she moved toward him, Levi stepped back sharply, watching her fingers curl back and withdraw. She began speaking to him rather like Yoda – dammit Shiro was starting to rub off on him – then she looked around rather panicked. Lorelai asked him if he could see it. Levi’s glare tightened. This poor chick had lost her damn marbles. Ordinarily, crazy people didn’t bother him because they weren’t generally directing their crazy at him. Because he’d gone and got himself involved, however, now he was a magnet for it. Growling under his breath, he was about to give her a piece of his mind and slam down her crazy ramblings, but he stopped. There was something still bothering him about her. He caught a glimpse of something in Lorelai’s eyes, something he couldn’t explain to himself. Fear was familiar and came as a standard in his business, so it never concerned him before. He didn’t know if he was just taking pity on her or if something else was going on, but he felt like he couldn’t ignore her. Instinct told him to stay with her, that there was more to this one than a surface glance could reveal. Gritting his teeth, Levi took a glance behind him.

The streets were vacant to his eyes; night-stained, cold and uninteresting. Still, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t something out there. After all, he’d never thought Vampiri were real until he became one, never thought the undead could rise up like a plague until he put them back down with a bullet. Lorelai could have been a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket, she could very well have been, but what if she wasn’t? What if Lorelai could just see more about this supernatural **** than he could? What if she could see ghosts and spirits? If zombies and Vampiri are going to exist, not to mention a plethora of other strange creatures, then why not ghosts? He’d seen apparitions in Sheol and had fed on them like they were humans. There was all manner of strange **** going on in this city – he shouldn’t be so closed minded. Besides, he was getting that odd feeling of familiarity with this one and it was worth exploring. He didn’t know what she meant by them being the same, but he had to know what was drawing him to her.

Levi turned back to Lorelai feeling a bit more settled. His glare had become more like a thoughtful frown – a trademark look for him. He wasn’t happy about this situation, but he could live with it, which was generally how he approached things.

“I don’t see anything,” he said quietly.

Unsure of how to really approach this new situation, nevertheless, Levi knew that he had to be careful not to provoke any further mania. If she started losing her ****, she wouldn’t be any good to him. Maybe he would try changing the subject.

“Do ya wanna maybe… go for a walk?”

Sure that probably wasn’t the best suggestion a vulnerable young woman could have received from a gruff-looking male, but it was suggestion one in his growing arsenal.

[Lorelai]

Lorelai looked a little disappointed but not at all surprised when the familiar looking male said that he didn't see anything. She sighed softly and looked to him, her eyes then filled with quiet appreciation as he suggested they take a walk together. The seemingly invisible information about her was quietened in his presence, another subtle sign to her that he was related to her in some fashion and yet still that fact hadn't filtered through to her conscious mind. It was weird the way Pru could quiet the voices for her; just being near the woman seemed to settle her some. It was something that Lorelai both loved and loathed, much like she did the woman herself. She'd told herself that it was Pru's presence was calming as it meant that she was not alone in the world but even she had to admit that just wasn't right. She'd talked to other people, humans and spirits, both of which could draw her focus and help her to maintain a little balance but nothing and no-one worked half as well as Prudence until now.

"I'd be very happy to walk with you. But first I would like to know your name. It's only right that I should have that information, seeing as how you already have mine."

Her wording was formal but polite enough as to hopefully earn her a reply. It didn't really matter to her what his name was, or even if he gave her one, it was just the right and proper thing to ask in that moment. Lorelai could and would talk to anyone, usually. It was a skill she seemed to have lost a little in her transformation. Her sense of self had been taken from her the night she died and she was still struggling to come to terms with what she was. As such, she was unable to approach others with the same kind-hearted openness as she had before; though it was possible this withdrawal from the world was actually brought about by the attack itself, the one that lead to Pru ending her life in the first place.

Before Lorelai even had her reply, she had reached out to take a hold of Levi's arm, wishing to walk on his arm as she might with a close friend. The moment she touched him however, she recoiled, pulling her hands back to her sides before folding them across her chest.

You can't go around grabbing people like that. Not here. It isn't safe.
But I wanted to.
I know but city people aren't like the people back home. You can't go being all familiar with people the moment you meet them.
But he is familiar to me. I recognise him don't I?
You're asking me? I know what you know remember?
Oh... of course.

The spirit moved closer to the pair when it realised that Lorelai was about to leave and that they were yet to be heard. It began to speak to her and as it did she closed her eyes. She needed to concentrate on the man before her and she was determined not to let the entity interrupt them; at least not in that moment.

[Levi DAmico]

It was a risky move to ask a potentially insane woman to go for a walk, but it seemed to be working well so far. Levi hadn’t even been sure that he was fishing with the right bait, but here she was snapping it up like a greedy catfish. He was content to reel this one in and make do with it, but that didn’t mean he wanted to touch her. When she reached for his arm, he flinched like she was going to cover his sleeve in grime. She probably would have actually; metaphor aside, she had been sitting on the ground up until he’d found her. Levi watched her move away then, maybe second-guessing herself, maybe reading his discomfort and thinking better than pushing him too far. Whatever the reason, he got his result, but still felt a little bothered by it, like he almost felt guilty. It didn’t make any sense to feel guilty about not getting physical with this chick, but then again, there wasn’t much that was making sense tonight. Ever since he’d laid eyes on Lorelai, things had been feeling weird with him. Sighing, the thought escaping on a breath, the Italian rolled his shoulders in a shrug and let the feeling go quite effortlessly. There wasn’t really much he could do and no real point in lingering on the subject; he’d give Lorelai his name and then they could walk – side by side, but not touching – and move on from here.

“Name’s Levi,” he said shortly.

He wasn’t leaving any room for questions about the uncommon, but in his opinion right, pronunciation or in fact for any questions about a surname. He was Levi. End of story. Deal with it and start marching. He cocked his head to the right as an indicator to start walking in that direction – he was heading away from his place of work, away from people who might know him. Levi couldn’t handle any more questions from those idiot underlings of his, who, by the way, were getting too big for their ******* breaches lately. They were mouthy fuckers, asking questions about ****, questioning him, making complaints, and he was taking it like they deserved an opinion. On second thought, maybe they did. If he was going to be soft and let people walk over him, then they had every right. If he wanted it to stop, all he had to do was put his foot down on some ******’s head and put an end to it. It wouldn’t take much to make an example, prove that he deserved his nickname of the Leviathan. But he was busy being careful, walking on eggshells and playing nice so he didn’t provoke suspicion from the people that mattered. His ego was already taking blows from having to bow to those pansy-*** motherfuckers who called themselves his superiors, what was a few sucker punches from underlings and whores? He was too apathetic to deal with them anyway – let them scratch and bite like little mice all they want, he had bigger concerns.

By the time Levi was through arguing with himself, he realised that it had probably been about thirty seconds since he’d last spoken. If she’d said anything in that time, he wouldn’t know and neither did he care. Silence had taken a strangle-hold of the situation, crushing and squeezing out any glint of patience that had remained in him. The streets were still dark and cold and empty, offering up nothing in the way of stimulation or distraction, leaving them alone – together. Since Levi didn’t have any patience for politeness, he decided to come straight out with a question that had been bothering him for a while.

“So you say we’re the same,” he addressed her with sharp eyes. “How?”