Gangster's Paradise [Open]

[Prudence]

‘Tick-tick-tick-tick’ went the large oversized black clock on the middle wall in her anatomy and physiology class. The redhead beat her eraser on the red colored number two pencil on the white and black printer paper that held the exam questions and diagrams on it, while the woman kept in rhythm with the clock she was staring at. The rapping or tapping tapped at it lightly, so not to distract anyone, or be more obnoxious than the professor’s clock on the wall behind her; the very clock that drew in Prudence’s attention every few seconds with its repetitive ‘tick-ing’ noise.

She knew this stuff like the back of her hand, but that ******* clock was so loud while the rest of the room was as silent as the day in a cemetery. Labeling parts of bones on a skeleton shouldn’t be this hard!

Prudence sighed, collected her exam and relocated to the back of the classroom at the last table with the shiny, solid black surface. She attempted to drag the stool out from under the lab table with her left foot, but failed and made a long drag across the grey colored speckled colored tile. A few heads turned to look at the woman in the off white tank top, with a dark denim colored skirt with a random skirt she stole from Nathaniel’s wardrobe. The shirt that was a little bigger than she was due to his larger male size, hung off one of her shoulders, causing the woman to tug it up for a second before she looked at everyone that was near her. “Sorry.” The lengthy redheaded woman said before she sat on the stool and proceeded to bury her face in the palms of both hands before the woman’s eyes bore down on the paper that was speckled with random bouts of black ink on it.

Though the ticking of the clock could still be heard, its subtlety since her relocation was actually comforting. Blue eyes focused on the clock, scanned the time and went back to working on the exam. With only forty-two minutes left, Prudence needed to get going. She had more than half the exam to go.

Suddenly, it was like the back of the room made all the difference-it was a significant game changer. The tall, redheaded killer started writing down the parts of every bone on the spaces provided next to the bone-starting with the easier and more larger bones on the skeleton. After those were labeled, Prudence would move on to the smaller bones, located primarily in the hands and feet of the skeleton she named Shelton for Prudence’s own amusement. Blue eyes would shoot up to look at the clock to see how much time was left-seventeen minutes, before moving on to the muscle section. Labeling parts of muscles and their functions, along with some multiple choice questions and statements about both bones and muscles.

Finally, with the five page exam done with four minutes to spare, Prudence once again collected her things; a backpack on one shoulder and the light orange colored spring coat over the other, scanned the name section to make sure her name was on the front. She walked to the professor’s own lab table, flipped it upside down with the others so that it came to rest front side down on the professor's desk with a final parting thought and hope that she had gotten a B at the very least. To shove it in the face of all those who said she couldn’t ever be in real school, or ever be successful at anything other than the high wire act.

Once the towering woman was out of the science based classroom, she dropped the red and black colored backpack that has been on her right shoulder to the ground outside the classroom door. The woman shrugged into the water proof columbia coat, zipped it up and recollected the backpack to now be placed on both her shoulders instead of just the one. While the woman might be dead and could easily be able to carry far more weight than what was in her bag on a singular shoulder, Prudence had to pretend otherwise though. The sole thought about how it was nice the university hadn’t put in those metal detectors popped into Prudence’s mind as she thought about the small glock that was in the very bag that was now secured on both of her shoulders.

The metal door with a large singular window just above the push bar was opened with the raising of her right foot that landed on that very bar. A few curious glances were tossed in the athletic woman's direction, only to receive a casual shrug in reply from Prudence. “What?” She said to one in particular, some bitchy thing that had finished her exam about ten minutes before Prudence. The class know it all, who was rubbing up to the professor’s leg like a cat in heat. If only something unfortunate happened to this woman...WIth that thought the woman with fire colored hair just shook her head and kept on walking out the door. It wasn’t worth it, not in this situation.

Once she was outside, the rainy and damp night air was inhaled into Prudence’s lungs, as she filled them with fresh oxygen. To her, doing this every so often would [in her mind] fill in her chest cavity to show off her non-existence upper assets for Nathaniel to enjoy at some point in the night. Prudence wouldn’t summon him right here, right now for a quickie, but when the woman figured out what the rest of the night held and those plans from here on out, the gigantic red headed woman would waste no time bringing him to her.

As the lengthy killer walked the grounds of the university, her boots tracking through the plush, green thicket of grass, her mind wandered. A phenomenon that well and truly rarely happened these nights, or any prior for Prudence. She was typically a well trained and focused woman-thinking seldomly of things like the things there were running through her mind right at this very time.

As of this month, the woman had been not only married, but bound to Nathaniel for six months, something she never dreamed was possible, but here they were. Still newly weds by anyone’s reference in time, especially those with fangs, but in a comfortable and laid back routine where it didn’t appear that they were newlyweds. To her, it just didn’t seem possible; the idea of being married AND bound to someone. Once upon a time she believed in happily ever after, but after two failures, it just didn’t seem to be something Prudence would ever do again, let alone be wanted in that aspect by someone again. She had been a right *****; avoiding any attempts at getting to know her, any tries of getting close to her unless you were one of her mini’s. Having been left at the altar [or in her case The Necropolis] in her wedding gown by Brody, then watching her second chance at love; Cliff, become the man he was now and the one he would never be again, Prudence had well and truly grown out of the idea that love and happiness was ever meant for her; for people like her anyways. So she started focusing and training again; harder and more than she had done in the last two years. Her senses grew sharper, her barriers protected her from a couple of slaughter attempts by big baddy bosses in a couple of buildings and all seemed to be flowing so nicely. Smoothly, even, without a single person at her side.

As Prudence thought about the people she surrounded herself with in the last two years or so, Prudence thought about Lori. The overgrown Killer started to suspect that Lori had a crush, or maybe even some sort of strange love for Prudence that she would never understand. That suspicion or inkling had gone away after the blonde haired, sheltered woman found Levi. And as much as the woman was wary of Levi, she was thrilled Lori had found someone that could give her what Prudence would never be able to give Lori, at least not at the time and maybe not even now [if she wasn’t married and bound, mind ya]. She was glad, even if it was ******* weird as they were opposite sides of a coin, that Lori was able to get away from the hurt of the drama fest one of her mini’s, Cinnamon Cherrywhip ensued for the naive, younger vampire.

Which was good for them all; how everything ended and turned out to be. At least in Prudence’s mind everything had worked out nicely. Even though Prudence was bi-sexual [or was it pansexual?]; Lori, while being very pretty wasn’t Prudence’s type. Truth be told, Prudence was afraid she might break Lori one night and that wouldn't be good for any of their current or possibly potential relationship. Not for their sire and mini ‘ship and not as a potential lover relationship either. The woman was just too fragile and after years of hardships, Prudence just didn’t know how not to be anything but tough and hard with someone.

While it was true Prudence hadn't exactly been looking for ‘love’ or any romantic relationship-which was what she told Loti and meant it at the time….it didn't mean the muscle toned woman’s eyes couldnt or wouldnt appreciate a good looking man or woman’s badass physique. WHich was what she had first noticed about Nathaniel. How could someone NOT notice all that god like physique he had under those clothes of his and the way he plowed through all those baddies in whatever place he was in? Truth was-she couldn’t help but be enamored by it all and even turned on. And that's what turned into a small girl crush, that moved on to something that might be borderline psychotic if you talked to anyone who had a mind degree on the wall of their office.

In reality, Prudence hadn’t been only ‘stalking’ him because of his large muscled arms, toned legs with those firm abs. She had an appreciation for the way he handled his business [kills] and enjoyed watching the way he carried himself with swift, abrupt, relative ease. There was something sexy about it, even if Prudence wasn’t an overly sexucal being. At least not when she wasn't in a relationship with someone. It was hot or cold with the redheaded woman in that regard. The woman had been primarily talking him to learn from him and if Mordie wasn’t too smart for all three of them, Prudence and Nathaniel probably wouldn’t be where they were right now today. After all, he had tossed her out to Nathaniel after he realized Prudence was ‘following’ the guy. If it weren’t for Mordie they wouldn’t be at their half year anniversary today, even if she was madder than mad at him for ratting her out to her future husband at first.

Absent mindedly as the woman cut through the two side by side dorms; one named Evans and the other named Swartz, her fingers traced over the engagement ring, then the band that went along with the first promise towards eternity just below the band. While she did this, the woman recalled the series of events that trans folded over the over the last year or so between the two of them. She suspected it was time for another well earned nerf game, maybe some rock climbing or anything. Something! It had been a long winter and the two of them needed to get out and remember what it was like to be at the prime of their relationship pre-marriage; something she was only reminded of because of the fact of the inscription on the ring she touched at this time.

Dark blue orbs focused on the library she was passing by foot. It was one of the busiest times of the year on the campus, being it was mid-term time for everyone. If you didn’t have an exam, then you had a big *** project to complete for some class. Slews of young adults sat at tables alone, or in larger groups at either the rectangular shaped tables, or the round ones that only fit a group size of four maximum. Books, notebooks, laptops and ipods were strewn across half filled or fully filled tables making it [in her mind] darn near impossible for anyone to really study or do a project successfully. The woman laughed lightly before looking at the pool hall that had been closed for a couple hours already, but had probably been abandoned most the day and night due to the week it was.

The woman wrapped both her long arms around her body as she dug in the small pocket in the front of her backpack. Fingers brushed against the hard shell cover of the cell phone after a few seconds and pulled it out from the pocket she was in and started writing a text message.

Hey, baby! Date night tonight? I don’t care what we do as long as we do it together. Miss ya and love ya! fast fingers swyped at the message board on her Samsung Core as she typed out the message before Prudence would hit the ‘send’ button. After it was sent, Prudence stuffed the phone back where she got it from, her thumb and pointer finger zipping the bag closed with some subtle force behind the closure process that would hold her possessions securely.

So how did she go from one side of the spectrum to the other? Was it possible someone could change another person’s mind? Just like in those sappy love stories and movies that Prudence came across as she flicked through the channels on the television screen in their bedroom? Or had the woman genuinely grown as a person since all this **** went down in the last couple years? Evolved? Progressed? Whatever the word was in this situation.

Prudence wasn’t positive what made this change; from potentially wanting to settle down, to kicking and screaming, to avoiding the idea of settling down altogether, to finally doing the thing she avoided for years with Cliff. Whatever it was, the woman was happy. She and Nathaniel had a fun, easy and simple marriage with little to no squabbling. They were just allowed to be themselves, which was the greatest gift anyone could have in their marriage, in Prudence’s mind.

Her feet scraping against the damp asphalt of the barrier between the university zone and the real life zone snapped the woman out of her private, but reflective thoughts. A few seconds after that, the vibration of her phone against a small empty bottle used for nothing more than decor or show that was in the shared pocket also drew her attention into the here and now. Overly excited arms snaked around Prudence’s body a second time tonight as the woman once again, wrestled for her hot pink colored phone, half expecting it to be Nathaniel returning her text with a call instead of a quick message.

The smile fell off her face and was met with a roll of her eyes when she saw the ‘selfie’ of her bounce J.J’s face on the screen, tagged along with his name and number below that picture. “It’s a school night.” The redhead all but snapped at her bouncer with a booming voice while he interjected with a couple of apologies, and buts, before he was met with silence from High Noon’s owner. The killer was also met with silence as J. J. tried to figure out if he should go on with more interjections and apologies, or just disconnect the call in fear of pissing off his vampire employer more. Deciding that there was just silence and not the sound of a dropped, or call that had been deliberately ended by Prudence, Jeremiah went for it.

”That group is back again. That gang with those bandanas. Making all kinds of problems in here tonight.” Another eye roll came from the woman, even if she was well aware that he wouldn’t and couldn’t ever see it. “So do yur ****’n job. It's what I pay ya for J.J. Duh!” This time the words and instructions came out a little--no, a lot more snappy than before.

”I did. I was and I am.” His tone raising to match Prudence’s as he explained his reasoning for calling her tonight. ”But I think. No, I know you need to start coming around here more. We didn't have this **** goin’ down when you were here every night.” Before, you know…” He didn’t have to say anything more than that, because Prudence knew. She knew exactly what and who he was talking about without having to go on more. Before her and Cliff split and coming to the salon every night was a painful thing for the usually calm and cool collected woman.

”You’re married now. Happy too. Don’t say otherwise, cause I’ll call you a ****’n liar Prudence.” The woman sighed slowly and nodded her head. She couldn’t and wouldn’t lie. Nothing he said so far wasn’t true, so there was no chance to lie about anything, or even debate it. She did love Nathaniel and was more than happy with her agreement to get bound, so why was it still so difficult to return to the saloon night after night?

“Yur right, I’ll be there soon.” The call was disconnected, the phone was secured back in her dark colored pack that was line with red so she could pull out a copy of the time Lori had made for everyone in their family. She read it and found herself smack dab in the middle of what used to be Lori’s apartment, which was now Robin’s apartment. Thankfully, he wasn’t home, or they just didn't see the other in her short stint in the apartment before she wound up walking to another portal and ended up at a train station in the city.

As the length woman stood at the platform, the tall redheaded woman started thinking about her course of action once she got to her Saloon. It seemed, that only putting a bullet in the skull of those assholes didn’t and wouldn’t work. If anything, it seemed to draw in more of those *** clowns, because for every one that was killed, two or three cropped up in their place. It wouldn’t be long before someone got smart and figured out where these gang bangers were disappearing from; if those there tonight didn’t already know or suspect something was up.

When the woman entered the bar, without security at her ******* door, Prudence’s mood shifted to remotely irritated to entirely irritated with Jeremiah. Even if there was **** going down, he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere but at the door. There were supposed to be two other bouncers on duty inside the club, not far from the bar to maintain the **** going on inside the club, but as soon as her narrowed, beady eyes landed on Ryker and the other staff she understood exactly why he called her when he did.