Paying the Price (RP)

- Emma and Persephone -

You eventually give up trying to get Chablis to drink the unappetising blood. Kenedi is surprised how little was needed, but relieved to get the needle out of her arm so she can stand-by with her baton in hand. (Persephone: This looks like a useful weapon, don't you think? It might be worth asking about the legality of such items in this repressed land.)

Chablis shakes her head, not really remembering anything much about the fight. She nods, confirming that she went to cover Sarah's shift. "Where is Sarah?" She asks, sounding concerned for her friend.

"I need Sarah." It is a difficult conversation, but you glean that, without Sarah to 'keep her calm' —Chablis almost does not seem to realise that this meant feeding upon her friend— she could not risk going out, she had 'bad thoughts' about the cattle... uh... people on the street, so she hid, waiting for Sarah to return and make everything alright again. You get the impression that this had been going on for months, Chablis dimly recalls an assault on the street before New-Year† and thinks she may have been bitten.

Bev has been poking around and produces a large glass bottle. "GHB." She says. "Just sitting in the medicine cabinet for anyone to find." (A place a nurse would look.)

"It's just a bit of fun." Chablis objects.

What do you do?

- Persephone -

"It was just for fun. We both used it." Chablis objects when you accuse her of 'drugging' Sarah, though, if true, it may not have stayed that way after the change.

"This is why 'helping the police with their enquiries'" the standard euphemistic for being interrogated, "takes all day." Kenedi says. She is taking notes, but does not step in to ask the questions, she does not know what the objective is here.

Circling around to the topic again, you confirm that Chablis' memory and understanding of the whole situation is more than a little hazy, but she appears to have been assaulted on the street and possibly bitten —she can not remember this detail very well, does not recall going to the hospital— months ago, and after that her appetites ... 'changed', and 'Sarah helped her'. She continued dancing at the club, and this coincides with the staff's reports of ... troubles and personality changes.

Kenedi used her radio and requests a report, both on the New Year's assault —inconclusive— and on the strip club since then. "There have been no reports of patrons of the strip-club, Velvet Bliss, being fed upon, nor anything special in the area around there or here." She points out. She reserves judgement, but it sounds like Chablis has done a remarkably good job of limiting the collateral damage, under difficult circumstance, all alone.

What do you do?

- Emma -

"I'd never hurt anyone." Chablis objects, and, from what she put herself through to avoid hurting the people on the street, you can well believe she believes that. She just looks confused about all the rest of what you say, like the memory of going feral and attacking is fading or being bricked over by trauma.

She also does not understand any of what you are saying about 'vampires'. You sound like a crazy person to her, most people would look at you in the same way if you spouted such things outside of a fictional setting. Maybe she is in denial about just having drunk your blood, maybe she convinced herself it was something else?

Kenedi takes special note of your points about the vampiric community being in a mess and there being no one enforcing order, she looks poised to interrupt and question you about what you know if you don't cut her off. She also seems interested in this ancient, experienced vampire you speak of. You called the police into this, do you really want to inflict them upon poor Benji? (You don't know that Kenedi and Benji already know each other:).

What do you do?

- Emma and Persephone -

"I didn't! ... I wouldn't! ... Did I?" Chablis sounds confused, but also with a large dose of understandable denial mixed in. The frequent GHB use might also have affected her memory as it did Sarah's, maybe as a coping mechanism?

As the evidence mounts it becomes harder for her to deny what you are saying, she holds the shredded, bloody Stella McCartney in her hands, the smell of blood makes her gag, but also raises confusing feelings inside her. She starts to hyperventilate, and tries to gain control over her breathing... which brings your fact about her not actually breathing anymore into focus which make her panic even more.

She opens her mouth to deny being a vampire. But what comes out is: "Please help me!"

What do you do?

"Emma! Hello! It’s good to hear from you." Benji happily prattles on about nothing for a few minutes (he seems inordinately fascinated by some rats that have recently taken up residence in his walls), before Emma gets down to business. Emma hears him sigh over the phone when she mentions that Chablis was only recently turned. "A new vampire? That’s very dangerous, Emma. I mean, she’s exhibited remarkable self-control for a new vampire so far in that she didn’t kill Sarah, but… Well, it’s only a matter of time. I’ve never met a vampire who never killed anyone and young vampires are especially volatile. Are you certain you’re safe?"

"Yes, you can’t exactly keep exsanguinating yourself to keep her fed," Benji agrees. "But you’re a friend of Bev’s, right? Maybe you could ask her if she could supply this… Chablis, with some of those awful blood bags from the hospital on an ongoing basis. Jacob used to procure them for me sometimes, although I’m not sure where he got them from." There is a brief pause after Emma suggests that Chablis needs someone to help her ‘come to grips with what she has become’. "…Do you want me to come over there and talk to her?" he offers, somewhat reluctantly.

"Benji?!" Both Bev and Kenedi exclaim in unison, then look at each other in a 'it's a small world' way. Bev sorta expected that was who Emma was talking to, of course.

Chablis is confused by the request, but then everything is confusing at the moment, so she shrugs and goes out to invite Benji in with a shy smile of greeting. He can now enter.

What do you do?

"This is all fascinating stuff." Bev says, her absence from work will already have been noticed, and she does not want to face that just yet.

Kenedi checks the time and thinks about it, but does not leave.