Waiting to Die

Eve:<I have felt similarly for a while now.>

*Lilith looks away, ignoring them. Eventually, Schreiber puts the stove on low & pops the cans with a pocket knife, heating them directly on the stove.*

Shcreiber<There isn't much of anything left in this mill, so you'll have to make due without fancy tableware. Or any tableware, really. There is indoor plumbing, though.>

L"We can't just hide out here forever. Ira will be looking for us. We need to find him first."

V"How?"

L"We know he's working with people. The police, the priest...someone knows where he is."
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*Grimm is rudely awakened by the noise of stomping & a door slamming. Roatha snaps on his bedroom lights, looking quite pissed off, & paler than usual. He also happens to have a shotgun slung over his shoulder.*

"Hey! Wake up! You've got some 'splainin' ta do!"

"I don't know if any of them would 'know' where he is, but they might get us closer."

"Yes?" Grimm rose and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

Eve:<Our best bet would probably be the priest, unless we want to try ambushing a police officer alone.>

L"I guess...we could hide in his church under cover of night. It hasn't been used since Ira vandalized it."
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*Roatha begins pacing the room, gesticulating wildly at Grimm with the business end of the shotgun. As his eyes adjust, he notices that Roatha occasionally winces when stepping with his right foot, & the clothing on the right side of his abdomen appears torn.*

R"Those hooligans showed up at my fuckin' house, of all places, with that STUPID kid of yours in tow, & I can't get anything out of him because Special Ed there apparently lost what little was left of his mind, & I've got some shells with Ginger Bitch's name on them, but I can't give them to her because I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE FUCK THEY WENT!"

*Roatha whacks the nearest piece of furniture with the gun & hits it a couple more times until he's wheezing, then goes back to pointing it at Grimm, glaring at him.*

R"So--you'd better talk--& I mean EVERYTHING. If I find out you kept something from me, I will literally pull out all of your fingernails, one by one, & shove them RIGHT UP YOUR ASS! Just to start with, of course. Don't want you to think I've gone soft, or anything."

"I feel like every one of them would anticipate that."

"I see," Grimm stretched his neck and shoulders. "I threw the boy Stefan out of the church because he lost his nerve and broke down. I assumed he would be dead before long, or collected by the Shadow. Do you need some kind of bandaging?"

Eve:<That church is also somehow connected in all this. I think we would do best to avoid using it as a hiding place.>

L"Then I guess we're gonna have to find out where this guy lives, because we can't waltz right in the middle of downtown in broad daylight with the cops out looking for us."
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R"You mind your own damn business!"

*Roatha covers his side & twists away from him, lightly squeezing the trigger as a warning.*

R"I'M asking the questions here! Where was he going?! How did he find them!? Where would he have taken them!?"

"We might be able to find him in a phone book," Astarte suggested. "He couldn't be far from the church anyway. I don't think he has a car."

"I can only imagine they stumbled upon each other, or else he somehow sought them out for safety. The only use he could possibly have had to them I would think would have been to get to me. Too late for that now. He was useless otherwise."

Eve:<Does the church have a website? If so, we should easily be able to find his name.>

L"We already know his name, it's Issac Grimm. We just don't use it because he's a jackass."

Scrheiber<Do you honestly believe that there's a phone book on hand in this building?>
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*Ira shakes with rage & seems on the verge of blowing Grimm's head off until, suddenly serene, he smiles.*

R"So...you say they'll be coming after you, then...?"

"Yeah, and I also think we're never going to leave this building either," Astarte smiled at Schreiber.

"They may well do that. I- we- will obviously know it's coming, but what else could they do?"

Eve:<There should be a phone book online that we can use. One moment please.>

*She heads into the other room, unplugs her laptop, then returns with it and starts looking it up*

R"Nothing, really. The only way they could hide from me is to just hold up in the woods forever. Even then, I'd find something to sniff them out eventually, like the little green beastie I found in South America. Assuming Old Tophat didn't find them first."
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*He lives on 221 HabermehistraBe. Schreiber looks over her shoulder.*

Schreiber<The stream here feeds into the Enz River, which runs through that neighborhood. It's about a mile from the church, but still fairly urbanized.>

*Meanwhile, Lilith does something on her phone. When Vanessa tries to look over her shoulder, she scoots away, looking annoyed.*

"What could possibly be private right now?" Astarte asked Lilith with a flash of genuine alarm.

Grimm nodded.

Tirea:<So we'll have to stake the place out, right?>

*Eve looks up at Lilith when Astarte speaks*

Schreiber<If we wish to have any hope of cleansing Ira, it seems that way, yes.>

*When Astarte speaks, she looks at Lilith, who lets out a rather cold & derisive bark of laughter.*

L"The better question is, what can I afford to share with you, her, & Schreiber?"

Schreiber<You shouldn't be so paranoid. I's what Ira wants.>

L"Oh really? Well, maybe it IS time for a little show & tell!"

*She jumps up, pointing to her phone.*

L"You get a chance to see the info my sister collected, or did we only send it to students? Funny things, it says."

*She starts reading off of her phone.*

L"Our dad, supposedly died in a car crash going through these mountains. Funny, now that I think about it, they never DID find his body."

Schreiber<Well, I'm very sorry for your-->

L"ASTARTE'S MOTHER, she disappeared in this forest too. And I'd be willing to bet that, if we did some digging, we'd find that Vanessa's birth parents never even made it to France. They probably disappeared in the Black Forest too. Finally, we have this fascinating little tidbit added by Ira himself."

Schreiber<So? He's a liar.>

L"Maybe so, but is Campus Psychology lying too? It says that you had mandatory appointments. Related to disappearances in the Black Forest. And then right AFTER that, THAT'S when you started taking in students like Vanessa here."

*Vanessa is now staring at Schreiber, looking doubtful. Lilith shakes the phone in Schreiber's general direction.*

L"So, if we try to Google that, will we really find nothing? You can't deny it any more, Schreiber. Thiera may have been too trusting to connect the dots, but now I see what Senthose saw when he said not to trust you!"

*Schreiber does not stand, but only raises an eyebrow.*

Schreiber<Are you finished with this outburst yet? And did you consider that maybe Ira planted this information to try to drive a wedge between us? You know that he has been trying to get to me for years, & if he does so, you will all lose your last line of defense as well.>
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R"So that just begs the question...will they come here, or aim for the church?"

Eve:<...Did you have mandatory appointments with Campus Psychology?>

"She didn't deny it, of course she did."

"They ought to realize that the church would be where we expect them to come. If they have the means to find it they should come here instead."

*Roatha squints.*

R"'If they have the means to find'--you mean Google? Get with the times, ya fuckin' dried up fossil."
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Schreiber<...Very well, I did. But that doesn't prove this crazy conspiracy theory.>

L"Then who were you with? Who disappeared?"

Schreiber<I wasn't "with" anyone, it was simply assumed that we may have encountered each other, since we went missing around the same time. Maybe they were your relatives, if so, I would not know.>

L"Really? You didn't follow ANY news of the event?"

Schreiber<I sort of had my own problems to deal with, hence the shrink appointments?>

L"The form says you were hiding what you knew."

Schreiber<The shrink was wrong. He assumed, because he couldn't make my sense of what happened, that I must have been lying and crazy. You should know that feeling by now.>

"You weren't exactly forthcoming with this, why not?"

"...Do you have any instructions?"

Eve:<Surely you can see how suspicious this looks to us.>

Schreiber<Ever hear of a little thing called doctor-patient confidentiality? If someone leaks your medical records, should I show up at your doorstep demanding all of the sordid details?>

L"A convenient excuse for someone who's hiding things."

Schreiber<Note that I was not declared dangerous.>

L"Nothing says the shrink couldn't have missed something important in the facts you were hiding."
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R"No. I'll just have the pigs keep an eye on this place & the church. I've got places to be, victims to find. But I'll keep a spare body around just in case something goes down."

Tirea:<Can't you see why this is so important to us? We're literally fighting for our lives here.>

"...I hate to say it but, maybe our best option of the bad options available is to trust her," Astarte suggested, glancing from Lilith to Schreiber and back. "Unless anything can be proven, where does this get us?"

"If the police are spotted watching this house, they might not come in."