Highway To Hell

[Tal]

Tal's expression softened when she caught Rory's smile and she forced herself to relax. This was a different desert, and she wasn't alone. She'd felt that same tension creeping back into her muscles, that same sense of dread she'd had in Gaza. But she wasn't alone. She wasn't surrounded by people that she hated, or that hated her. People that she was supposed to call comrade...

Breathing out slowly through her nose, Tal nodded.

"Maybe it's more complicated, but to me the difference has always seemed clear. What separates us from the monsters is that we don't take pleasure in it..."

Her words faded off as Rory made his slow spin and her steps slowed.

Shit.

They must have gotten lost. Taken the wrong street. Maybe headed in the wrong direction as soon as they'd started walking away from the motel.

"We should backtrack," she advised. "Maybe consider ordering in after all."

She didn't really feel like going out anymore, anyways.

[Misty Shore]

"Huh? Fine. Walk me all the way out here for nothing! Actually, its fine! The walking was good. Not. Now I'm hungry." Misty thrust out her chin defiantly.

"Whats the big deal anyway? They do it. We do it back. Its the world turning, ain't it? Do we all have to be, like, Catholic or something?" She mimed a prayer before she could stop herself, oblivious to the affiliations and affections of her companions. "World ain't pretty." She sniffed.

Regardless, she was turning back dejected. Part of her had been really banking on that Saloon...

[Tal]

Tal didn't reply. They'd talked enough. Or, maybe to put a finer point on it, she'd learned everything that she'd needed to. She couldn't trust Ursula or Misty. It was her and Rory, with two liabilities on heels.

Silently, she tried to corral the others back towards the motel, her eyes refusing to rest easy, frequently glancing backwards, and to the sides. She didn't like this desert town. It was too much like another town she'd been to, with broken buildings and dust in the air.

[Rory]

"Heading back... ?"

At least that's what he gathered from Tal and Misty's movements. He didn't have a fine-tuned sense of danger, and the truth was, he just assumed they'd both lost her appetite from the conversation. Misty wouldn't be the first to take jabs at his faith and he was beginning to get the vibe from Ursula that she wasn't clarifying as much as trying to provoke.

Some people were like that. The same sort that might try to get a Buckingham guard to smile or laugh. He'd lost count of how many times he'd been on the receiving end of dares and bets that culminated in short, tight skirts and 'confessions' that invariably involved fantasies of the clergy.

"I think we all have our own reasons," he offered. The words had a soothing tone to them that implied understanding rather than just placation. "But whatever they are, however different they are, we're in this together, hey?"

"We can count on each other to finish... whatever we start."

[Tal]

Actually, it wasn't cinnamon. It was a series of laboratory fabricated chemicals designed to taste like cinnamon, and fool your brain into craving more of it. But what was the point in trying to tell Ursula that?

Tal's eyes fell on the dyed curtain of hair swinging along as the younger Abbey member walked, and then moved to Rory.

Could they actually count on each other to finish whatever they had started? Could Tal really count on two psychopaths to watch her back? Or was Tal, herself, missing something. There had been something vaguely apologetic in what Ursula had just said. Something...conciliatory, as if some part of her whacked out mind realized that maybe, just maybe, she'd sprinted a bit too far over the line.

And who knew about Misty. She might have just been trying to keep up with the woman who's apparent birthright was their fucked up little hunting club, especially when it sounded like the other members of the club didn't exactly think the veteran actress was quite as good company anymore.

Or maybe there were a thousand, thousand other reasons that she hadn't paused to consider, and maybe some of those thousand, thousand reasons had to deal with her. And with memories of shouts and flying stones, of sunlight and dust, and the smell of gunpowder...

"Look," Tal said from the back of the group, "I just want to keep people safe. That's what I care about. If you want to get your rocks off doing this shit, fine, but I want to make sure you two understand at least that much about where I'm coming from."

It was hopefully self evident which two she meant.

[Misty Shore]

"Fine. Fine."

Misty blurted as she trudged behind the group.

"Like, what? Of course we're going to finish what we start?" The actress gave a confused look to both Tal and Rory. "Oh. I get it. Just because what, we got the Abbey badge we don't take things seriously enough? This isn't a job! Its a calling!" She snickered and with some effort schooled her face to seriousness. "We have the reputation of the Abbey to, like, protect. Or something. Just so you know. We don't just flop about from one show to the next. You just got your own reps to worry about - not like us. Ours is a... a noble order..."

She stopped, as much to control her features as keep an eye out for suspicious characters watching them.

"OK. So its just rich people who do this hunt for the kicks. So what. You got your reasons and we got ours. But we made that choice. You made that choice. Not many folks make that choice. But we did. You think we're going to fuck around with the only other fuckers who give a fuck and what we see and do. About what we have to do."

She walked on in silence.

"Lets just eat. We got that estate to check out soon, right?"

It was what they had come for, after all.

[Saber Sloth]

As the Cell turns back the way they came, it's quickly realized that yes, the took a wrong turn. Meandering away from the main roads and onto something that would have been considered a dirt one, were it not for the asphalt and concrete.

Four sets of eyes take in the the scene that lay behind them. Signs of life returned. Though they were stilted, wrong. Not one light within or without of the houses lining the street were lit. A few of the once cheery Halloween decorations, were pulled from their places of honor by the bitter wind, finding themselves in tatters as they tumble on the ground in a mimicry of freshly fallen autumn leaves.

It was then that Tal and Rory remembered something they had been told when they payed for their rooms. This small desert town had a curfew.

One they had better heed.

[Rory]

"Oh, I don't know, I would have gone for Ghostbusters?"

Rory took the olive branch and stick of gum. It was probably the tights versus baggy jumpers. Plus most of the movies he knew were the ones old enough to be found on VHS tapes. The sort of out-moded technology a church gets donated boxes and boxes of. He tore the gum in half, saving a foil-covered bit for later and slowly folded the remaining half into a square before making it disappear into the thicket of facial hair.

"You know," he added thoughtfully as Misty wound down, "I've been meaning to ask about that. The Abbey."

Why wouldn't he ask? It had the word 'Abbey' in it.

"Oi, I think I took a wrong turn?" He figured he'd take the blame before they devolved into assigning it. "And it looks like they weren't just having a go at us with that curfew business..."

He glanced up and down the street, looking for signs of patrol cars.