Psycho Bitch

Who: Chris and Lina
When: Late morning
Where: Wandering around town

This place? Was kind of fucked up. And creepy, in the Pleasantville sort of way. Actually, it was very Pleasantville. Any minute now Lina expected to see little blonde girls in poodle skirts skipping out of a malt shop hand in hand.

God, she hoped that wouldn't really happen. She'd seen a lot of shit in the past nine months, even played hockey with an internal organ or two - in the quite literal sense - and had developed quite the strong stomach, but that would truly make her ralph, right on the street.

She'd left the house - her house, she reminded herself - just to see what the fuck was out there. She needed a car. Though really, after an entire summer and half of spring trekking through the woods, she was more than used to walking. It was the principal of the thing. She missed having a car. One of the first things she'd done, before they'd even put her in this place, was access her bank account and go wild with ordering parts. She was looking forward to that. And there was little else to look forward to.

Aimless walking through the town had eventually taken her to an abandoned school, which she looked at from the sidewalk. So. Fucked. Up.

Chris was also walking. So, they'd provided them with a town map - whoopsiedo. Wow, it was a piece of paper with lines on it. Lines that meant fuck all if you didn't really know where you were going. Or have any idea of the reality of your situation. So, he was walking, map in one hand, loosely, putting reality to paper, committing it to memory, wanting to really know the town. And, also, keeping an eye out for people he knew. His fellow interns, the experiment 'people'. And intrigued about those he didn't know - so there had been more than his labrats. That was interesting, very interesting. And only peaked his curiosity of the scientists, who obviously had wider remits than he'd imagined. He liked that. Vision, ambition. He liked that a lot.

He stopped as he saw a woman entering the grounds of the place marked as an abandoned school across the street. Oh yes, there was a labrat, he knew her. He waited for her to go inside, then crossed the quiet main street and followed her, keeping back a little, out of sight for now.

Any building marked abandoned really kind of guaranteed that Lina would have to go inside and check it out. Not that she was expecting much - as far as she knew, this place had been built for reasons unknown and never used. Not that she actually believed anyone was telling them the truth. Kind of hard to believe anyone was telling the truth anymore. She headed up to the doors, and finding them locked, stepped back to take her time walking around the buildings, looking in windows instead.

She was taller than he'd expected, which was strange - usually people were shorter than you thought. Then again, the only times he'd been up close and personal with this one, she was lying down. He preferred her that way. Just like the blind chick, they were prettier when they couldn't snark back. That mouth of hers was ugly as sin, but her body was nice enough. He decided not to follow her round, instead taking a seat on the steps out the front of the building, studying his map and waiting for her to come back in view.

From view in the windows, the place looked pretty boring. Maybe she'd come back some night and break in, just for shits. Seemed maybe like something Jason would be down with. Lina kept walking around, though once she'd come near full-circle she stopped in her tracks to stare at the guy sitting out front. Where the fuck had he come from and what was he doing there? Paranoid much? Why yes, thank you.

Chris looked up as he heard the footsteps, doing a very good feign of surprise and hastening to get to his feet, folding the map away. "Hi, sorry - thought I was alone. Shit, you surprised me there," he blustered, running a hand through his dark, shaggy hair and looking a little unnerved. He wondered if he should just pretend not to know her, but then.. If it came out, as it probably would, that he was an intern then she'd put it together. No, he'd not do that. There were other games to play here. He just didn't want to end up dead, like that other one.

Lina was trying to figure out if she was above and beyond paranoia, or if he really did look like a creepy fuck. Judgmental? Me? Never. "Jumpy?" she replied, raising an eyebrow. Not that anyone here didn't have more than enough reason to be. There were more experiments than just hers - which was still beyond fucked up to Lina. She noticed he had had a map - she wondered if she had one of those back at the house and just hadn't paid any attention. Not that she would have used it anyway. She sighed and tried to relax her stance a bit. She could attempt to play nice like a normal human being, really. "Sorry."

Chris shook his head and decided to go with 'jumpy'. He could play jumpy. He stepped forward and tentatively held out a hand. "You're... Katalina, right?" he asked, as if he expected to be hit for it. The name sounded odd in his mouth. He'd referred to her by name only once, and then it'd been Ramona Rae instead, calculated to piss her the hell off. He wondered if she'd remember his voice after all this time. Doubtful, but possible.

Something about his voice did seem vaguely familiar, but hell if Lina could place it. It served to weird her out a little - which was made a million times worse when he seemed to know who she was. That was so outside of Lina's happy place, if she had one anymore. Raising an eyebrow again she reached on and grasped his hand - half contemplating how easily she could rip his arm out of his socket if she decided that was the good choice here. "How do you know that?"

Chris kinda wished she'd let go of his arm before asking that. He wasn't stupid. She may just be a labrat, but he'd seen what she could do - she had a mindless brute side to her that was fascinating from a distance, but he didn't particularly want to be up close and personal with it. "They didn't tell you?" he asked her, looking at her askance. "They didn't just put participates in here. All the interns are here as well. We - none of us knew, you see," he explained, as though he wanted to get it out quickly. "What we were getting into. They - we were just students. They promised to pay off our loans, get us to the next level. We didn't know what was happening, until we were in the middle of it - then if people complained, they got disappeared. We were all scared and... We just watched the cameras," he explained, making the excuse sound properly lame.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Lina let go of his hand with half a wince, feeling thoroughly uncomfortable now. They'd warned her about the interns, and that had been the part Lina liked about this town deal the least. These people knew way too fucking much. Too much about her. They'd seen everything she wasn't even completely okay with the scientists seeing, and hell, shit she probably didn't even remember. All those nights she drank until she just passed out... shit. Shit, fuck. She didn't want to be shaking hands with an intern. She didn't want him to think she was going to rip his arm out because she was a crazy bitch, either, though yeah, she kind of was and she was sure that they both knew that. "They told me." she gave. "Guess you got more of a learning experience than you bargained for."

Chris gave her a quick smile and nodded. "Yeah - yes. It's... Sorry. For, I mean - I know... That is..." he stammered, faking it entirely, thinking he was doing a pretty damn excellent job of it, actually. He should have been an actor. But - boring. This was much more interesting. He got to write his own scripts this way. "...What I - I'm sorry. Just generally. They screwed with you all. I'm sorry." Like hell he was - these fuckers had volunteered for this shit. It had all been there in black and white. If they didn't want to live it - or die it - they should have been so fucking greedy for the money, should they?

This guy could give 'Nam vets a run for their money. And Lina had no luck in digging up any sympathy for him. She knew that she should feel bad for these people, something, anything but what she did feel. Which was basically 'cry me a damn river and shut the fuck up'. And she wanted them all to stay far away from her. And to keep their mouths shut. No, I'm not crazy, not at all. "Don't." she said, shaking her head. "Just... don't. I'm not big enough to hear that shit yet."

"Right, sorry - I just... Look. For what it's worth - glad you're okay? Okay. After they tossed you out the house. We - we didn't get to see what happened to you, most of the time," he said, quickly, knowing one of that group was still missing. "And..." he broke off, wondering if she'd ask. He knew something she didn't, after all. Would she ask? And if she did, would he tell her?

Lina tried to figure out whether or not she believed that. Fully possible, though she didn't think for a second that the scientists didn't watch every move - middle of the woods or not. She frowned and crossed her arms, trying to ignore the desire to just walk away and fucking end this. She couldn't help but feel like she was being lead. Paranoid., she reminded herself. "And?"

"Sometimes they told us, we got reports," Chris said, watching her closely, but for different reasons than she'd think. His body language he knew said 'afraid, cowed, don't hurt me', but really, he wanted to see her face. Up close and personal, away from the cameras. To see that expresion - the look in her eyes. he'd always wanted to see the look in people's eyes - but they never looed at the cameras, did they - so inconsiderate. Now he had that chance. "I... I know what happened, you see. I saw a report. About - Freddie."

At first, Lina had thought that maybe that meant he knew something about where Emma was. And, cynical bitch that she was, she was absolutely sure it was something bad. She felt her heart stop, already thinking about how the fuck Jason would deal - spectacularly badly - and how she and Dave would help - also possibly spectacularly badly - when he said the damn F word, that she'd tried very hard not to think about for a long time. She looked up at him and blinked, standing straight as she took a step closer to him. "What about Freddie?" I know this voice. I know this guy. Where the fuck do I know him from?

"After... everything. They - we - they - he was airlifted to hospital. After Dave refused to treat him. But..." Chris tailed off, dragging it out, still watching her face. "But - there was internal bleeding. They tried their best. But the distance, you see. We're fucking miels from fucking anywhere. He - he died on the table," Chris said, wincing. And watching.

It took a while to actually process what he was telling her. Lina felt like both sides of her brain were working full speed at once, both on different subjects. Even while feeling like the world had just been pulled out from underneath her, her mind was spinning on other shit. I killed Freddie. I need a car. I know that voice. I killed Freddie. I can't deal with this. I need a drink. I- Then she realized she did know that voice. And she knew that tone, that fake sympathetic oh how very unfortunate bullshit patronizing tone. Once she remembered to breathe, she hauled off full force to punch him in the face. "YOU SICK FUCK DON'T GIVE ME THIS SHIT YOU GOT OFF ON EVERY SECOND OF IT!"

Chris had to admit that being punched in the face wasn't part of his plan and he hunched down, trying to avoid the blows. "Stop, please, god - I, stop!" he pleaded, trying to keep his feet whilst making himself as small a target as possible.

Lina didn't want to stop, she wanted to rip his tongue out and shove it up his own asshole. She couldn't really imagine that Dave would want to do any less. But she forced herself to pull back, shouting in frustration as she put her hands to her head and tried to make sense of her brain. That can't be true but oh yes it can I always knew I went too far and I fucking killed him I killed him oh shit oh fuck oh FUCK... She looked up at the sky and tried to remember how to breathe. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't fucking breathe. That's okay, neither can Freddie. Shit, shit, fuck.

"You," she forced out, pointing to - shit, she didn't even know his name. Fuck it. "I know who you are, I know what you've done, and I know you liked it." Which wasn't all true, but it wouldn't be the first time Lina lied and went with it. "Stay away from me. Stay away from my friends. And keep your fucking mouth shut." I gotta get out of here, I need a car, fuck, fuck, I killed him... Part of her wanted to cling to doubt, wanted to be sure he was fucking with her. But she believed it. "Is he really dead?"

Chris had his hands up around his head now, protecting himself. "Yes, yes - he's dead, he's dead, please don't kill me, I'm sorry, really I am," he squealed - only half faking this time. Maybe less than that. He'd watched her beat a guy to death for a prank, after all. She was fucking psycho and that doctor wasn't much better.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck... "You're not sorry." Lina growled. She turned to leave, run, get the fuck away, before thinking the better of it and turning around to kick him as hard as she could in the shin. "That's for Dave. I'm sure he'll get you better when he meets you. Remember what I said." Then she left, turned to run, though where the fuck she was going, she had no idea.

Chris stayed down as she left, waiting until she'd gone before he sat,m hard, on the ground, breathing heavily. He tentatively touched the side of his face, feeling the tender flesh. That'd bruise. Badly. It fucking hurt like hell as well. She'd fucking pay for that. He wasn't sure how yet - he wasn't going to go toe to toe with her. But, she'd fucking hit him. She'd beatne him. She'd pay. He'd find a way. Eventually.

Bitch.