Escape to LA - Independents

[Keira Kelly]

Nora kept to the shadows as they moved forward slowly. She could hear the crunch of gravel under boots nearby but that didn't concern her. She crept forward some more, nearing the train. This was the one that Christine had said was going where they wanted it to go. She peeked out, seeing only a lone security guard walking away, having already checked the area they were now in. It wasn't that if they had been found that they couldn't have dealt with him but it would have gotten messy.. and as they didn't know what time the train was going to actually leave, that could have been dangerous. But in the end, the guard seemed to be more or less oblivious which was to their benefit. She wasn't exactly worried about cameras either.. at least not for herself. It was odd but since that night she'd been taken from that drug den and turned into what she was now, she found that she didn't show up on cameras nor in any kind of reflection.

Eventually she judged the guard was far enough away and moved across the open area, running to get to the train. She grabbed hold of the bar to the door of the nearest train car, pulling on it with all her strength until it started to move. When the door was just open enough, she pulled herself up and slipped inside, waiting for Christine to follow before closing the door behind them. To her surprise, the inside of the cargo car wasn't completely dark. There was a light behind some crates in the far corner. She crept over quietly until she could see the corner more clearly. There was a man with a battery-powered camping lantern. The man was obviously homeless or something, judging by his outfit. They weren't as careful this time as they had been outside.

The man looked up at them, frowning for a moment. "Hello?" he ventured. They obviously weren't security but seeing two well-dressed women on the train was definitely out of the ordinary. He couldn't see much of them as they were crouching behind some of the cargo but the haunted look on the shorter girl caught his attention. His face softened sympathetically as he surmised they must be fleeing something.. or more likely someone. "Come on, girls. Come on. I won't bite." he said invitingly. "It's going to get cold in here. I have some extra blankets if you want."

[rivaan]

Chris focused the man and the first thought was to rip him apart, but that quickly faded away. There was no need for that... for now."Huh.. the irony." She thought when he invited them.
"Thank you mister." The lasombra said and slowly approached, but stopped before getting too close. Then she sat down and leaned on the wall of the cargo wagon." I will pass that offer though." She said and put on the hood of the hoodie she was wearing under the leather jacket. She had almost forgot what it was like to be able to put on clothes as you liked. Without those claws she could wear anythign she wanted! The she patted the place next to her left." Sit next to me if you like." She said to Nora and smiled, then she took out a blanket from her back. Well all she had right now was in that backpack: small laptop with charger,a blanket and some cash. Most of the money she made from selling her pc equipment was in an account her "employees" made for her. Some of it was spent already though. She was just hoping they will have enough to rent a place once they get to LA.

[Keira Kelly]

Nora was ready to kill the man; that had always been the way in the pack. Humans were expendable so kill first and ask questions later became the norm to Nora but she was paused by Christine answering the man first. She was almost disappointed that they weren't going to feed... she was hungry. Really hungry. Maybe once the train was underway and there was less chance of being noticed, she thought. Christine gestured for Nora to join her which she did, sitting down and leaning against the wall. It was quiet in here, not like it had been with the pack. They had always been loud, disorderly and most of them had followed Samuel's lead in picking on Nora. They didn't like that she was different. They may have felt the same about Christine but the Lasombra had the physical means to intimidate the others; Nora didn't. It was nice to be away from all of that for once. Nice knowing that Samuel was just a pile of smouldering ashes by now.

"Once the train starts to move, I'm going to eat." she whispered to Christine. Even if the guy overheard that, he wouldn't have thought twice about it but she whispered under her breath all the same. "If we stop during the day, we don't want someone to open the doors anyways.." she added.

The old man interrupted, calling over to them in a louder voice. "What are you girls doing on this here train anyways, if you don't mind me asking? You running from something? You look well enough off if not a little pale; it can't be that bad back home, can it?" he asked, making conversation. "By the way, the name's Bill."

[rivaan]

"Of course, that what I was planning. Good girl!" She said to Nora. Indeed killing him now may alert the guards if her starts screaming. Once they were on the way, the train noise was gona make sure the "dinner" goes unnoticed.
"Well Bill, I'm Christine and this is Nora." The lasombra said with a smile." Well... let's just say we started to hang around with the wrong crowd." She said and looked down." There was no other way to get away safely..." Chris said and handed Nora the blanket." Here, use this later." It was a pretty think blanket she took precisely for this reason. As much as cargo wagons were closed off. They still weren't perfect sometimes light found a way inside. Chris was pretty heavily dressed so a few random rays weren't a problem, but Nora wasn't. This was gona keep her extra safe during the day.

[Keira Kelly]

Bill grunted sympathetically in reply. "Sometimes you're left with little choice." he agreed. Then he began to ramble on about his whole life story. He was slow in his speech and paused every so often to have a bout of hacking coughing. Nora glanced over at Christine with a 'can we just kill him already' look but the expression she received back was a resounding 'no'. She kept glancing over to the far end of the car where it was pitch dark with shadows. She was feeling like something was watching them and it made her uncomfortable. She knew nothing was over there and she had felt this feeling before and it had always turned out to be nothing but it made her jittery. Suddenly there was a loud clanking sound and then the whole car shifted hard. The train began to move slowly, slowly picking up speed. They were finally underway. Nora felt like jumping up with joy at that but she only barely restrained herself. She knew they'd have to wait a little bit at least, until they were well on their way but her hunger was stirring already. She felt like an animal ready to pounce on the unsuspecting prey.

[rivaan]

Well this guy certainly liked to talk, not that Chris minded it. She kind of liked to have someone to talk with, but Nora was more important than her possibility of talking buddy.
And now the train started moving, finally. Good thing Nora wasn't going to have to wait long till her chance to feed."Alright, count to 300 and you are free to act." she whispered to Nora with a smile. Poor guy, ohh well. It was either him or Nora and she was gona chose Nora every god damned time.
"You can take care of this alone right?"

[Keira Kelly]

Nora nodded in reply and as she sat there. She started to count in her mind but her concentration quickly lost focus as a million different thoughts began to run through her mind, almost faster than she could keep up with. Why did blood taste so good? How did it keep them nourished? What would this old dude's blood taste like? Why was blood red? Oh wait; she knew the answer to that one already. Would it be enough for the whole train ride? Would Christine need to feed on the way? Should they share this guy? Should she keep him alive? No, that would be risky during the days. What was a long train ride like? How long would it last? What would it be like when they got to their destination? Would hiding in here be enough protection against the daylight during the trip? Was it 300 seconds already? Why did Christine choose 300? Was 300 important in some way?

She felt so full of energy she could barely contain it and her mind followed suit. "Is it 300 yet?" she asked in a parody of some child with the 'are we there yet' disease. "Hell with it. Dinner time..." she muttered. She got up, trying to walk slowly over to old Bill but she was twitchy with frenetic energy. When she got into the light of the lantern, Bill noticed her. She could also tell he noticed her odd behaviour. She could see it in his eyes; a hint of nervousness.

"Hello, young lady." he said anyways. "Anything I can do for you?" he asked.

Nora crouched down beside him. It wasn't a slow or graceful movement but sudden. She smiled at him; not a calming smile in the slightest. She saw him tense up. "I'm hungry." she replied.

Bill frowned. "Well, I'm sorry. I don't have much food here.. only enough to get me to the end of the line. Not enough to share, unfortunately."

Nora didn't stop smiling at him as she felt her fangs descend within her mouth. "You'll be enough to get me to the end of the line." she said.

The old man would have been more than confused if he hadn't also seen the fangs within her mouth as she spoke. He probably would have thought it some kind of come-on but he had seen her teeth. "What are you?!" he cried. A part of him was hoping this was just a joke; that the fangs were just prosthetics and these girls were just that.. girls, having some fun.

Nora chuckled darkly. "Don't worry, it won't hurt. And all the pain of this world will be over for you."

Bill started to get up, started to yell but Nora stared at him.

Passion - Dementation
difficulty : 6
roll : 2,7,4,1,6,10,3, (5)
successes : 2

The man had been acting in stark terror before but it seemed to dull in an instant to nervous concern. He still struggled but with less strength as before. Nora took the opportunity to leap on him, bearing him to the ground. He was bigger than her but he was old and weak. She went for his throat and found her mark, biting deeply and feeling the blood flowing. It wasn't as strong a flow as younger prey but it was enough, she thought, as she drank. After she was done, she dragged the body over to the door of the train. Sliding open the door just enough, she could see the landscape of woods passing by at high speed. This would do. She pushed and rolled the corpse until it rolled out of the train and was gone into the night. She pulled the door closed again, retrieved the old man's lantern and other goods and then sat down again beside Christine. Time to get comfortable for the long trip.


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Nora was just startled awake by the loud horn of the train. She couldn't even think, didn't want to move. Her body had no energy. It wasn't whatever the heck her condition was, she knew, this was different. This lethargy was because it was still daytime. The train was slowing down, she could hear. They were hidden well behind cargo, in the darkest recesses of the train car with blankets all around them. Just in case... she thought as she forced herself to reach down and pull the blankets up over both her and Christine's heads. Would have to do, she thought, as the sleep of the undead reclaimed her.

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Nora awoke again. She paused, listening. There were no sounds, she peeked out from under the blanket. The train had stopped The doors were still closed. Either nobody had opened the doors yet or else they had and hadn't found them. She shook at Christine. "I think we've stopped." she said.

[rivaan]

"Shhhh..." Christine whispered to Nora with eyes focused on the door. She was as focused as possible and listened for even the slightest noise with her excelent hearing. She was waiting for the perfect moment to go. It was still possible to hear footsteps going around the train every now and then. Probably were inspecting the wagons. They were going to have to unload some of the cargo and Christine was waiting... and waiting." For a now while she didn't hear any noise though. It was time to get going.
"Come on, time to go." She smiled to Nora and went to quietly open the cargo door. Chris already had some plans of where to head, but first thing was first.

[Keira Kelly]

Nora was right behind Christine as the door was pulled back, revealing the early evening; the sun must have only just set not long before as there was still some colour in the sky. The air was crisp but.. much warmer than New York had been. It felt like practically summer here and there was no snow to be seen anywhere. Nora peeked out, seeing a fairly empty train yard. The footsteps they had heard were likely guards roaming around. It was too late for the cargo to be unloaded now; they had lucked out in that. At her friend's urging, Nora jumped down onto the gravel beside the train, trying to be quiet. She bent low, just to make herself less visible should anyone look over from the distance. Again, it helped them well that neither could be seen by security cameras.

There was a fence a fair distance away but it seemed to be the closest perimeter of the train yard. Nora began to head for it. She was relying on Chris to lead them wherever they might need to go in the city but they needed out of the yard here first and this was the nearest point out. She stuck to shadows as much as she could, hiding beside stopped trains, poles, small out-buildings.. whatever she could hide behind. If there was one thing Nora knew, it was stealth.. okay, that wasn't entirely true but she knew how to be stealthy fairly well anyways. Finally she was in sprinting distance of the fence. She made sure Chris was with her before she made a break for the fence line.

A flashlight suddenly lit the ground around her feet from behind her. "Hey, what are you doing there?!" came a yell as a guard tried to run for them. He was slow and too far away to catch them, though, Nora noticed as she looked back. She laughed at his meek attempt to get to them. They'd be over the fence before he could get halfway.

True to her prediction, she reached the fence and scaled it like an expert. The chain-link fence was about ten feet tall but it was an easy enough climb. Nora dropped down on the other side, backing off into some clumps of vegetation and waiting for Christine to join her. The guard's flashlight had lost them but he still followed, trying to find them again. Nora snickered quietly, watching the man.

[rivaan]

Christine's claws grew back the night after she cut them and now she had the means to tear anyone open as she pleased again, but not right now... She quickly climbed up the fence since her strenght allowed her to quickly just pull herself to the top. She quickly droped then next to Nora and waved her to follow her as the lasombra already knew where they were as she checked where the train will stop before they got on it. Now they needed to just head to somewhere and preferably find themselves a place to stay during the day. Her first thought was to head to hollywood for some reason. Well it may just have been the "tourist" in her." Come on, we are going that way." She said and waited Nora to follow her. In the worst case scenario, they were going to have to be creative... though Chris hoped it won't end that way. She just wanted a good ol' normal bed to sleep in right now. She hated it down in that metro station and was extremely annoyed by the staying on the train. She decided that tonight, she was going to sleep in a normal bed and take a bath... one way or another...