2019-07-18 - What's Past is Prologue

Texts from Alexander Clayton sent to Isabella Reede in the day they were supposed to meet for whatever it is the archaeologist had planned for the afternoon have remained unanswered. They have remained not just unanswered, but unread, for a few hours now.

As their agreement had stipulated that they meet in Dock 47 for the outing, even if he wasn't inclined to investigate the reasons why she didn't respond - after all, she tended to bury herself in her work, by her own admission - it certainly makes some sense to stop by, if not just to confirm whatever burgeoning suspicions he may have about just why the green-eyed woman has been out of pocket since the last time they held a digital conversation, but with a day like this, what could go wrong? The weather is hot, tempered by the cooler breeze blowing in front the Pacific, buffeting various vessels docked on the planks as he heads down upon it. The lower curve of the afternoon sun's blazing corona just barely touches the horizon, leaving the skies awash in the inevitable sunset's vibrant palette - the day's last hurrah before it gives away to the evening. As Summer progresses in the sleepy, yet mysterious town of Gray Harbor, more and more boats dot the coast, an endless cascade of colors against a backdrop of deep blue water and gentle, verdant hills and neighboring islands.

Dock 47, as promised, holds The Surprise, a refurbished and modernized, motorized catamaran with two decks; the upper holds the main controls of the boat, easily glimpsed from the docks. The main deck holds the living area - Captain George Reede of the U.S. Navy has invested many hours and money to create an oasis above the water, a way to pass the time in his relatively quiet retirement. His efforts show, even from the outside - the vessel is a pristine white, with clean lines and up-to-date amenities. What may set it apart from its neighbors almost immediately is the installation of one-way glass in its large windows, to afford those within some privacy.

It also means that it's impossible to peer inside it just by peeking through.

And there have been a few.

Texts, that is. One asking for a confirmation of the time. One, about an hour later, repeating the question. Then one saying that Dr. Faust was recovering. Then one asking about the time, again. Finally, one saying that if she no longer wished to meet, he would understand, but in light of the murders, he would appreciate a response.

And then one saying he would be going to the boat.

And now, here he is. He's dressed a bit differently from normal, not really in fashion but in kind. His t-shirt is new, a Seattle touristy logo on the front, but the shirt itself fits well and is in a nice, dark shade of blue. His cargo shorts are also new, and reveal some of his legs. Even the shoes are deck-safe walking shoes. He still looks desperately underslept, but his hair has been styled so that it stays out of his eyes - although the long walks have steadily started undoing THAT. There's a small bag slung over one shoulder, and he's frowning at his phone as he walks down the docks towards the boat. He looks at it for a long moment. Then climbs aboard and raps sharply on the door to the living area. Three hard bangs. A pause, and three more. All the while his eyes scan the area for signs of Isabella.

As Alexander lifts his hand to bang on the door, his fist wouldn't make contact - perhaps it is the wind, or a trick of something, but as his weight steps on the boat, the wind seems to shift and the door opens for him. It swings in slowly with a drawn out creak, letting the warmth and sun from the outside wash into the darkness encompassing the main living area of the houseboat.

It is just as modern inside as it is on the outside - a galley kitchen with the same clean lines as the rest of the vessel flanks a spacious living area where wooden panels have been painted and then camouflaged to hide wi-fi capabilities and a modestly sized smart TV, a couch and a few other seats, an island - barely used since the start of Isabella's tenancy - for preparing food taken up only by a couple of magazines and a bowl of summer fruit, presently untouched...and slowly getting too ripe for human consumption. There is a narrow hallway leading further into the houseboat, leading to the bathroom, the small laundry area and the pantry, and what he could assume are whatever living spaces The Surprise affords its main occupant and any visitors.

The faint sound he hears upon entering might suggest that someone is there - soft music is playing through the cleverly hidden speakers in the main living area. Modern Blues - after all, it's Jazz with lyrics, the singer crooning huskily through them:

Feel the vibe,
Feel the terror,
Feel the pain,
It's driving me insane...
I can't fake,
For God's sake why am I driving in the wrong lane...

But save for the track presently playing within, and the distant sound of seagulls and the waves, the houseboat seems uncharacteristically still - a stark contrast to whenever Isabella occupies a room; that restless, spirited energy that tends to bleed off her, to coax surprises from any angle, is utterly absent in the vessel. Stepping within, without her, it feels strangely empty, and egregiously devoid of life.

Except the singer's husky voice, the recording giving the impression of crimson lips so close to the microphone:

Trouble is my middle name.
But in the end I'm not too bad
Can someone tell me if it's wrong to be so mad about you...

If he decides to invade further, the words will follow him, softly, softly, until they can barely be heard.

Mad about you....
Mad...

"Miss Reede?" Alexander's voice is, as almost always, barely above conversational volume. It competes with the music and may be entirely drowned out by it. But he waits, anyway. Waits for something other than the music to answer, while his eyes scan the interior with the practiced threat assessment of someone who is accustomed to having things go Very Badly.

And he's getting pretty sure now is one of those times. He takes a deep breath, and steps inside, his free hand coming up to gently rub at his temple. When he scans again, it's not just his eyes he's using. His mind ranges through the ship like a cool wind. He stops to close the door behind himself as that scan turns up nothing like Isabella's presence. It's not reassuring - after all, his abilities don't pick up on the dead. He doesn't bother calling out again - one area where Alexander is fairly confident of himself is in the power of his mind.

Before he goes further, he opens the small bag. Some small objects rattle in there, but what he draws out is a pair of thin leather gloves. Maybe he was planning to go invade a crime scene after an afternoon on the water. (Spoiler: He was.) He pulls on the gloves, and starts doing a careful search of the boat, looking for signs of struggle, distress, or the source of that odd something in the air.

Empty. The houseboat is empty.

No signs of struggle, no signs of life - no blood, no broken things. They've not known each other long, but Isabella has been open enough about her own personality to Alexander that he would know, without a shadow of a doubt, that if there had been an invader, something that would have attempted to do her harm, there would be not just a sign, but multiple. She would have fought, bled and done everything in her power not to make being had easy for anyone.

With his gloves on, as his mental talents sweep the vessel for anything out of the ordinary, he would feel it twigging in the back of his senses. Strange, abnormal and not quite friendly.

It tastes like temptation.

There's nothing in the pantry save for bread, spices, and canned items. There is a load of laundry on top of the dryer, but only half of it is folded. The bathroom carries traces of her - the faint scent of strawberries and the sea lingers in those confines, brushes and cosmetics, shampoo and conditioner and lotion, exfoliants...but no perfume. Otherwise, everything a young, attractive woman needs to accentuate what exercise and genetics have given her.

Unlike the rest of the houseboat, the bedroom shows some signs of life, though it has long since left; the sheets are cool, but tousled and unmade and the workspace Isabella has created for herself, close to the sliding doors leading out to the front deck and prow of The Surprise, is full of books, papers and documents. Her laptop is open and turned on, but locked, and there is an old fashioned tape recorder - something he would probably recognize, a favorite tool of private investigators to take notes with - resting on top of open tomes spanning various subjects. Ancient seafaring battles, deep sea mysteries, conservation efforts around the Great Barrier Reef.

There's a sheet of paper lying face down on the ground, perhaps spilled from the pile, but he wouldn't get that impression; it had been left behind in a hurry, not when it's tucked in at an angle underneath her chair.

There are barely any photographs, but the handful present would have a few familiar faces; one of herself as a teenager, with a much younger Byron Thorne, his arm slung casually around her shoulders and his other draped over another youth, tanned and fair-haired, but with Isabella's green-and-gold eyes, taken on this very boat. They all have open smiles directed outside of the frame. There is another picture of a broad-shouldered man dressed in the full dress uniform of a decorated captain of the U.S. Navy, with a blonde woman by his side. And another, still, taken most recently, with Isabella seated next to an older gentleman with silver hair against the rails of a boat, the signature blue domes of Santorini in the background, donned in wetsuits.

There are pieces of clothing on the hardwood floor, and pieces of jewelry on the dresser. He'd find a familiar object there, also, standing out if not just because he has never seen Isabella without it - a moonstone pendant on a white-gold chain, its swirling colors catching faint streamers of light pulsing from the nearby window.

Alexander's examination of the houseboat is thorough, but clinical. His face is not just impassive, but almost slack - all of his attention is going to his work, and since there is no one to be disturbed by a lack of human feeling on his face, he doesn't bother maintaining it. The strange mental leavings in the air are weighed, analyzed in conjunction with the signs of a hasty but not forced departure. He doesn't hesitate to cross into her bathroom, or her bedroom - an investigation doesn't care about personal boundaries, and at this moment, neither does Alexander.

He lays a hand on the bedsheets, smoothing down the rumpled cloth for any hint of heat or stains that might help him reconstruct her departure. The photos are considered with perhaps something more like feeling. He even reaches out and draws a gloved finger over the one of the younger trio, and he pauses, studying the youthful faces for a long, unreadable moment.

Then he turns away, moving on. He examines each piece of clothing for tears and stains, trying not to move them too much in the doing. Then it's on to the tape recorder, and the paper, and the moonstone pendant. He picks up the pendant first, cradling it in one hand as he moves back to where the papers and the recorder are. The latter is rewound, played as he bends to pick up that one piece that's lying on the ground.

He reads, and listens, and thinks.

The clothes on the floor seem haphazardly discarded, but by the young woman herself - or whoever she had decided at the time to take to bed, but considering how busy she has been from the moment she arrived in Gray Harbor, that is probably unlikely. Articles that have been taken off in a hurry, to faceplant into the pillows and catch some much needed hours of sleep...though this wouldn't have been a recent thing.

Would Isabella Reede leave her work behind?

As he picks up the pendant, the chill of it is surprising - it cuts through the glove like a knife; perhaps left there for several days, soaking up the chill of the seaside evenings. It has nothing of its owner's warmth.

The paper is a print-out of an e-mail with a University of Oxford domain; a Emilia J. Stark, phD, currently a Director of Antiquities for Christie's, one of the world's major international auction houses:

Not only is this item clearly a fake, it is a badly done one at that. I greatly misjudged your attention to detail...

There is no picture of said item in the printed out e-mail chain; it's only a page after all, but he would see the first few lines of the original email sent by Isabella:

Dr. Stark,

I hope this message finds you well. Dr. Robert Langston, with whom I work closely as his senior research assistant, suggested that I reach out to you regarding a curious item that was brought to my attention in the hopes that you would be able to identify it. From the background provided to me by a personal acquaintance, the ring - an image of which I attached at the bottom - was procured by the Michael family of Gray Harbor at least three generations ago and I was tasked to identify what specific era it was from. I can't date the amethyst, but the flanking stones cut like scarabs are unique...

The tape recorder contains her voice:

"July 16, 2019," Isabella's recorded voice begins, from several days days ago. "Just came from a meeting at Harbor Mist Pawn that Ronnie wanted me to attend. Looking at the pictures of the item now since I wasn't allowed to go near it...they seemed to fear that the curse passes through contact in some way, though to what extent, we're not sure of yet. Lilith Winslow didn't seem to object when I described it as exhibiting some kind of parasitic behavior. The symptoms appear to be some kind of ill fortune, maybe possession of a kind - Lilith didn't look well, and Ronnie mentioned something about how the prior two owners of the ring had been found hanging by the neck from the town's stone bridge. Suggested that they have Magnolia Jones look into the will because the prior owner mentioned something in a Facebook post about finally opening the box three years after his father's death...maybe there were instructions about the item there."

There's a thump in the background, and a sigh. "Took pictures with the phone, but even with technology, I can't make out the era of the band, just yet or the stones, not without metallurgical tests. There was an Egyptian revival around the time of the Napoleonic wars, and then after in the 1920's when Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's tomb. But I can't date it...it's unlike anything I've seen before..."

That day's recording ends there. It starts on the next day.

The changes are almost immediate.

"What a load of bullshit," Isabella can be heard muttering. "These eggheads wouldn't know a god damn find if they saw one. If they just actually explained just why they think it's a goddamn fake, I'd be more deferential to their so-called expertise. But I'm close...I think. I can feel it. The two smaller amethyst scaraboei are Ancient Egyptian...18th Dynasty. Maybe the 19th. Maybe the 17th..." She sounds confused, absent, the sound of rustling papers dominate the recording. "No. No. It has to be the 18th. The 18th Dynasty...some of the most famous names in their history came from that time. Tutankhamun. Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh...his equally famous wife, Nefertiti..."

The recording stops there abruptly and starts on the day after that.

"It can't be...it makes no sense..." the archaeologist whispers. She sounds hoarse, but determined. "I know the stones are old. I know it. I know it but the band...it's not..." She takes a breath, her inhale is sharp. "This is stupid. Why am I squinting at my phone when I could just...I mean, does Lilith even know what she has? Why the fuck should she keep it...?"

A sudden noise, a snarl of frustration. "I can't...this place...it's too fucking small, how the hell can I work like this?" Heavy footfalls, books and items clattering, the sound of a door banging open and music pouring in. It sounds like the exact same song that Alexander heard entering the houseboat.

The tape continues on until it ends. The recorder stops with the play button popping up.

"That fucking ring." It's quiet, but intense. And yet, there's also a hint of relief to it - a guilty giddiness that this, at least, is not a disaster that he has brought on to Isabella, but one that has traveled from other quarters. Alexander takes a deep breath. Still. The days, the moments, the intensity of emotion - none of it is good. He steps away from the bed, finds a clear place on the floor to sit down, and puts the paper aside. He cradles the pendant in his hands, looking down into its depths, and his expression goes slack once more. It's not very impressive, if anyone was watching this. Just a dude staring at a piece of jewelry. But his mind is gathering up the energy that hangs around that amulet, sorting and cataloguing it, reading emotion, reading the scene attached to that emotion, and looking for a picture of her as she is right now, somewhere.

It's a beautiful thing, a colorful thing, so delicate that lying against his palm, it looks like it could break and unleash its kaleidoscopic crystal wonder into the world at large...

...but as he breaches the gates of the life surrounding this most private possession, the emotional bomb it packs slams into him, running the risk of draining him of breath, of making his hairs stand on end. The pervasive chill on the setting bites into his hand like an angry dagger and sends his mind reeling back - far back. For this little thing, this pretty bit of jewelry, has traveled with Isabella, experienced things with Isabella.

It is laden with all the things she doesn't say. That she is not capable of saying.

It is a nuclear firestorm of intense emotional impressions - exhilarating joy, the engulfing sensation of churning waters and the taste of the ocean's salt; fear, intense and overwhelming, but excitement, too - the urge to jump, and dive and reach for the undiscoverable. Bliss, the distant sound of thundering applause and the warmth of a fatherly embrace. The echoing, spectral cracks of bullets from a gun, the scent of gunpowder and cordite stinging Alexander's nose, and the equally faint, but approving murmur of a mentor.

Passion, too, body and spirit thrown into the act. Wild, heated, breathless, the sensation of nails clawing down his back and ragged breaths by his ear, a triumphant cry smothered by a brutal, hungry kiss.

Desperation. Pain, so sharp and agonizing and twisting that feels so real, he might not be able to resist the urge to look at his left shoulder to ensure that it's still whole. Screaming.

...not without me, god damn it! You promised...you PROMISED...!

It sounds like her, but faint and faded, interlaced with another unfamiliar voice.

I'll never love anyone the way I love you.

It pulls at him like a maelstrom, digs its claws into him like talons spun from empty air. It tugs and tugs and tugs, dragging his mind through familiar winding pathways as these remembered sensations corkscrew and overlap over his senses; a disjointed, fragmented hurricane doing its best to draw him out, to follow where it leads. Through concrete streets that are so familiar to him, the rocky shore, along the coast and towards seaside bed and breakfasts. Just several blocks. She isn't far.

It belongs to her. It wants to return to her.

There are going to be nightmares from this one. He knows that, even as the emotions rise up and try to snatch him down into the whirling intensity of emotional impressions that the necklace contains. And it's been a while since he's dived so deep, tried to connect on this level with an object or the person behind it. When the maelstrom passes, Alexander is huddled over on the floor, and tears are falling from his eyes to splash hotly on the floor. But he's not screaming. And he's crying, but not sobbing.

That's a win. He takes a few deep breaths as the emotions ebb, wipes away the smears of tears from his eyes, and slowly climbs to his feet. Less grace than when he went down - at this moment, he really /feels/ almost 40. And when he turns around to start to leave he catches a sight of something in the mirror.

A shadow that shouldn't be there.

He whirls around. There's nothing there, but his mouth goes dry and sticky anyway. Oh yes, there will be nightmares from this one.

Alexander takes another breath. Tries not to care. It could be worse. He could have real images of real Isabella in a pool of blood, or scattered over her lovely houseboat like so much after-party garbage. He focuses on that as he walks, the pendant still curled in one hand, the other holding his bag. With the leather gloves, he really does look like an unsuccessful burglar as he exits The Surprise and starts to walk. It's a familiar destination for a townie, and he moves briskly, confidently, pulled along by the need of the pendant to reunite with its own.

In a way, it is like plugging into a live socket, or stabbing it with a metal object, but it does the job.

The path sends him, in the end, to one of the motels in the area, and by the time he gets there, twilight has descended in full, the sun a sliver of lurid crimson in the far horizon. Street lamps are lit, and the boardwalk is populated - it is a Friday night, after all, and normal folks who are largely, blissfully unaware of Gray Harbor's darker mysteries are determined to enjoy the weekend, especially during the summer when the city is its most beautiful. Most beautiful and most lacking of its usual darkness, save for the unlucky few that know that something inevitable is just lurking out of reach, waiting for the right moment to strike.

The concierge is an attentive youth, though clearly not from around here; he is nobody Alexander recognizes, and if he presses his inquiries, he would learn that the college-aged boy is yet one of the city's seasonal employees who take the trip out here during tourist season to make some extra cash. And if asked, he would freely tell him, after consulting the laptop computer in front of him, that yes, there is an Isabella Reede checked into the building - on the top floor, down the hall in the east wing.

Should he follow, pendant in hand, he would sense signs of life, as temporarily connected as he is with an object so ephemerally, so completely bonded to her. She's in there, room 529. She is alive.

But....

Alexander thanks the young concierge gravely, although perhaps making a note to himself that the young man doesn't know well enough not to disclose the names of visitors. That could be useful later. Or dangerous.

He walks to the room, studying it. Then, just as the houseboat, three sharp raps on the door. A pause, and three more. He doesn't call out or announce himself, but he tunes into that connection, seeing if he can pick up her emotions through that link.

There is no answer.

She doesn't come to the door, but with his psychic link with the object and extending further into the room, Alexander would be able to feel it easily enough - normally, bulling into Isabella's thoughts is like battering oneself against the walls of a vault; she may not be as practiced with her enormous Glimmer potential like some, but she is in no way an easy read, jealously hoarding the details of her inner life from the rest of the world - even from those who know her best. Now, there is a disturbing lack of ambivalence in keeping up those defenses, all of her energy concentrated on something.

Deep, dark, determined. Whatever she's doing, she's sunk in it, her desire to know and to have washing up against his senses; eddies of emotion so focused and intense, they were liable to scare a lesser man.

But Isabella doesn't come. She doesn't even acknowledge that there is someone outside.

Alexander's hand falls to the handle. He tries it - it's a hotel, so there's little to no chance that it's open but he tries it anyway. He'd really like this to be--

Nope. It's locked. He sighs. And lays his hand across the keypad, taking a moment to feel the flow of the electric currents. And then, with a push, he overloads them. There's a smell of scorched metal and plastic, and a little wisp of smoke curls out from the key card slot. This is one door that's not going to lock again for a while. He pushes the door open and walks through on the balls of his feet, with an almost predatory grace, his head swinging from one side to the other, trying to take in as much as possible as quickly as possible.

The small suite is so empty that were it not for the concierge confirming to Alexander that she was definitely here, he would think that its occupant had cleared out a long time ago.

One of the lamps flickers as he passes, the wisps of gray smoke from his small demonstration of willful electrocution curling upwards like serpents, following his wake as he enters the room. There's a couch, a TV, the mini-bar and fridge - all untouched. The drapes, barricading the view of the ocean from the fifth floor, are drawn shut.

But when he braves the bedroom, he would find it occupied.

Moving the bed is no easy feat, but somehow Isabella has managed to do it, angled and pushed up against the wall as tightly as possible, flanked by bedside tables. There are papers everywhere, perhaps a proclivity that he would find familiar himself, taped on the walls and colored threads connecting one piece of information to another. The generic pieces of art that usually decorate these places by rote had been carelessly cast aside, a glass pane cracked and its fragments scattered. But there are notes, maps, charts, timelines - over the walls, on the floor. There are piles of books strewn on the bed, littering the carpet, most of them open, others shut. The drapes here are also pulled closed.

And in the middle of this chaotic mess is Isabella Reede.

It is startling how much a handful of days can change a person; long legs folded, shoulders hunched, she has her phone in a viselike grip, so tightly that tendons stand out from her fragile inner wrist. Her dark hair is set in a wild cloud around her face, dressed in a longsleeved shirt that is only half-buttoned, exhibiting hints of her very European tastes in lingerie - a fringe of black lace, whatever little thing keeps her modest underneath. Were he any other man, nobody could ever blame him for assuming that in the end, all of this was simply one elaborate treasure hunt, but the air is thick with tension, and there is something palpable and wrong with this picture.

Those eyes lift to bore into his.

In the darkness, her potential blazes like a thousand swirling galaxies brought up close, but presently it is overshadowed by the look carried within those green-and-gold depths, her sunkissed features drawn and tight. Against the dark circles around her eyes, mirroring, perhaps, his own perpetually sleepless look, they are downright luminescent, some sharp and fixated thing lurking within them. Her cheekbones look more pronounced, matching how her exposed collarbones push up from underneath her skin. Sleepless, yes, but starving too, though she doesn't know it. Whatever drives her now is hunger that nothing can quell except one thing.

"....I'm working," she murmurs. It sounds gentle....and dangerous. "What are you doing here?"

Alexander sweeps his eyes across the room in a study that probably misses a few details, but picks up on the general gist of things. And centers in on Isabella. There's relief there, at first, blooming and bright. No matter how much he trusts his own powers, there's nothing quite like being able to SEE and KNOW that she is there, and she is safe. Mostly safe. As he studies her in more detail, he can see the signs of hunger, of obsession. They're not unfamiliar, and his eyes are softening, mouth turning in a soft grimace of sympathy.

Until she speaks. Alexander Clayton is not, in the end, a stable human being. And the flips side to relief, to the realization that all (or most) of your fears were unfounded and that the person you were worried about is safe? All that adrenaline crashes right back into the system, unloading itself with a shocking intensity. "What am I doing here?" It's flat. "Have you lost your GODDAMNED MIND?" That is not flat. He steps forward and gives the nearest group of papers a vicious, vindictive kick. "I don't fucking care that you changed your mind, but a friend of mine is in the hospital with her THROAT SLIT, and you stopped answering your fucking phone, you left the door to your boat open, and I thought I was going to find you in there, opened up like a fish and spilling your guts everywhere. I've lit myself up like a lantern-bearing sonofabitch to FIND you and make sure that you are ALIVE and you want to know WHAT I'M DOING HERE?" He lets out growl of frustration and just hauls back and hurls the pendant at her face.

Has she lost her goddamned mind?

"I'm close," Isabella tells him, while looking at him as if he is barely there; the kick hardly registers, nevermind that its scattering her papers, her careful research, everywhere. She cares about that, doesn't she? She cares about her work, but what greets his viciousness is a wall of uncomprehending apathy. "I haven't lost anything. I think I found a thread, but I need to know more." The intensity of her own stare gleams all the brightly as she states the words, crashing right into his tirade - as if she didn't hear him. "I need to touch it...I need to hold it in my hand. I have to have it, Alexander."

The pendant chucked towards her, it bounces off her forehead, and she looks at him as if he is the one that's lost his marbles. The precious object, the thing that she has attached so much meaning - a lifetime's worth of turbulent emotion, of pain, desperation, passion, loss and longing - clatters on the carpet next to her. The throw should hurt, she should at least wince, but she stares at him directly, unblinkingly.

Silence descends for a heartbeat - several heartbeats; his agitated state fails to cull from her a typical response. She should be yelling. She should be screaming at him to get out. But she can't think about that now, she's too busy.

"I have to hold it..." she breathes, suddenly decisive. She unfolds her legs, standing up on bare feet - without her boots, their height difference seems a little more significant than other days. "I need to feel it. I have to. I have to. It's the only way. It's..."

She turns away from him and walks briskly towards one of the bedside tables.

"But she'll keep it from me," she whispers. "That selfish bitch...locking it up like that. Not even letting me up close. It can't stay like this, I have to...it needs to be done. I have to..."

Have to. As necessary as water. As necessary as breathing.

Jerking the drawer open, her fingers reach inside...

...and pulls out her 9mm Glock 26.

"That. Fucking. Ring." Alexander spits out each word with fury. He's already moving towards her when she starts to get up and turn away from him. There's a moment where he hesitates - she is following a different script than he is, and that's usually the sort of thing that tells him that he's probably overreacting or being crazy.

And then she starts whispering and pulls out the gun. "Oh hell." Thirty years of facing deadly threats means that Alexander's body doesn't really NEED his brain along for the ride before it acts - he's moving before he's even consciously thought of moving, just flat out tackling her onto the bed, his hands going for the wrist of her gun hand, digging into the pressure point. "Drop it, Isabella. Don't make me hurt you."

Bright side: look! They're touching and he's not screaming. Yay?

He moves quickly when he wants to.

Her usual instincts - honed as they are by being a professional adventurer, in a dangerous type of archaeology - aren't as sharp as they normally are, and when Isabella turns with her grip on her gun, Alexander is on her in an instant. Slender and probably much lighter than the man himself, it's almost disgustingly easy with how his charge fells her, the two of them tumbling into the crosswise bed. There's a cry of surprise; her fingers stubbornly grip onto her gun.

But she's forced to let go of her phone - where these damning images of the ring are housed; it flies away from her at the sudden show of violent force from the private investigator and it skids across the floor, disappearing in the darkness underneath the dresser on the other side of the room.

Oh hell, indeed.

She fights, some of her usual spirit finally unleashed when the threat to her person manages to pierce through the obsessive fog clotting her senses. Lips peel back to bare her teeth, her other arm and its free hand suddenly crossing over her face in an effort to function as a barricade against Alexander's onslaught. He's trying to take her gun and every instinct in her screams - it isn't just because the investigator is trying to get in the way, but it extends past the heat of the moment, deeper into her more formative years in the time when Captain Reede had done his best to ensure that his baby girl was capable of facing abuse from anyone.

Alexander is bigger, though. Stronger. God knows how many insurmountable threats he's faced.

A foot digs into the mattress, and another, and she twists her body upwards, locking against him tight in to use leverage in her favor, to roll them both over so she isn't the one pinned down. But he is insistent - so is she and the gun rattles under their struggling grips. Underneath him, her eyes are wide, so lit with determination and the willingness to fight and die for a cause she wholeheartedly believes in that it threatens to consume him with emerald fire. Even when she cries out, it sounds furious and utterly unwilling to yield.

"GET...OUT....OF MY...WAY!!"

It echoes and for a moment, the space around them thunders in acquiescence to her command. The bed rattles, the bedside tables spill their contents. Cracks spread out across the walls surrounding them, like veins cut open and left to bleed, black filaments rioting over pale plaster. Lightbulbs pop, and the mirror above the dresser shatters, their staggered reflections left in pieces across the floor. She doesn't manage to shake him off, no, but her rage - fueled by supernatural, diamond-focused obsession - fills the room and threatens to swallow the both of them. Because now she is desperate.

She has to have it. She has to hold it in her hand.

She has to. She can't move on without it.

She can't live without it.

See. This? This is something Alexander understands. It's easy just to let his body react to and counter the violence, keeping a grip on her as the room tries to shake itself apart. The only trick is not losing control to the point that he forgets that she is REAL and she is a PERSON, and she's not really trying to kill him. Not in a personal sort of way. Probably. If he'd ever seen the damn ring, he'd have another option here. As it is, he's forced to use the brute option and hold her down with his body, and to get that damned gun away from her. "DROP IT, ISABELLA!" He's shouting now, trying to get through with volume as his thumb jams into the tendons and twists, trying to force the hand open. He sucks in a breath and his voice breaks, turns ragged as he looks down at her, "Please. Please don't make me hurt you. Goddamned it, Isabella. PLEASE."

In the end, there is only so much directionless rage can do.

She isn't Isidore, so naturally gifted in the Glimmer that he could do the impossible even when he was young; she had resisted its siren's song because of those danger-honed instincts she had acquired in a relatively adventurous youth. The girl who was always the first to jump from a cliff, always the first to dive as deep as she can go, braving the darkest and most haunted parts of the city. And after the loss of him, it only encouraged her to buttress herself against its use except for the direst emergency - but the potential is there, shaped by what she remembers of her twin's guidance, and thankfully, thankfully, she doesn't know enough to hurt Alexander with it.

But he knows how to exploit those pressure points - having to deal with adversity for a lifetime would educate a man how to deal with threats, and Isabella cries out when those fingers dig into tender spaces, pain jolting through her open nerves and forcing her hand open, the gun slipping from its untangled hold to fall on the floor in a heavy thud. She doesn't give up, though, attempting to twist underneath, to loosen his grip on her to get away, frantic thoughts cascading through her addled mind. She doesn't need a gun, she thinks. She can find something else. She was clever. She was smart. She always found a way...

Please don't make me hurt you.

The words themselves wouldn't have an effect, but he only grows heavier on top of her, threatening to wring more breath from her already beleaguered lungs. She hasn't eaten in days, and despite her determination, her strength flags the more she struggles. Her capitulation, however, is all the more quickened by the desperate look in his eyes and the hitch and break within his insistent baritone.

Goddamned it, Isabella.

She watches threads of a different kind of pain stitching over his expression, the look in his dark irises as he calls her by name.

PLEASE.

It's like cold water hitting her in the face. The sapphirine waters of some far away surf submerging her into their comforting, sobering depths. Slowly, she finally stops fighting him, panting breaths spilling against his open collar. In the deafening rush of sudden realization and blood pulsing in her ears, her heart thundering against her ribcage, the last few minutes sink in, driving its javelins deep within her conscience.

Oh, god.

For a long moment, she does nothing but stare at him. For a while, she does nothing but breathe. And right at the point when the silence becomes unbearable, her lips part to speak.

"...maybe you should," she whispers, the first signs of horror dawning on that expressive face. What had she done? What was she thinking of doing? "Oh, god. Oh, god...you have to stop me. You have to."

Relief breaks, like the sun unexpectedly through a storm, on his features, when the gun falls out of her hands. He hisses under his breath as she goes still underneath him. His breath is coming in ragged gasps, the muscles of his body rigid against her, not relaxing even as she stops fighting. Always wary for the trick, the trap. But when her eyes meet his, he tries for a reassuring smile. "No." A pause. "I mean, yes. I'll stop you. I won't hurt you. But you won't hurt anyone else. I promise." He starts to shift, carefully, waiting for her to lapse back into the violent obsession. She's intelligent and determined, after all - he doesn't assume that it's actually broken. But he speaks as if it is. "I'm going to turn you on your stomach and tie your hands behind your back. Just to keep everything calm. And then we're gonna get you some help. Okay?"

The question is perfunctory - he's already moving to do it and if she fights him, they're back to wrestling.

"If you have to hurt me to stop me, then do it," Isabella replies in the face of that relieved smile, doing what it does in banishing the darknesses of his own temper. Her face lifts, jaw tilted in a defiant angle, her stare spearing through his. "The way I am, I will not give you a choice."

After a pause, her hard, determined expression softens. "I can take it," she reassures quietly. "I won't break."

When he finally lifts his weight off her, she slowly moves - even helps him roll her over until her cheek presses against the mattress. She tucks her arms behind her back, crossed at the wrists. With the turned-down angle of her line of sight, she catches the glint of her moonstone pendant on the floor. The expression she wears is one of surprise, as if seeing it for the first time....as if wondering how it got there. "Could you return that to me before you call anyone?" she asks, her contralto hoarse and low, in an effort to hide the things she has no capacity to articulate within its speakeasy smoke.

Alexander stares down at her defiant, hardened expression with a blank one of his own. "If it comes to it," he says, curtly. And there's no hesitation in that, or in the firmness of his hands as he moves her - he doesn't WANT to hurt her, but the steel in his grip says that he will, if it's required. And as her cheek presses into the bed, and he anchors her wrists with one hand, pushing up just enough to ruin attempts to get leverage with a spike of pain, and reaching for the pillow with his other hand to tear the pillowcase free and twist it into a makeshift rope, well...it becomes very clear that this isn't the first time he's done something like this. He winds it around her wrists and ties it tight before letting himself be distracted by her request. "Yes, you can have it back. If you kick me, Isabella, I'll hogtie you." With that warning, he eases slowly away, keeping as much weight on her body as he can while he moves towards the pendant to scoop it up.

This moment is rife for the kind of crap Alexander has learned to expect from her. Had this been any other situation, Isabella would be eyeing the way he's twisted the pillow case into a rope, and ties her wrists together while she lies on the bed. But at the moment, her internal landscape was reeling violently, keeping her eyes averted as Alexander obliges her - obliges her, after threatening to kill someone he knows! - and retrieves her pendant.

She feels sick enough to her stomach that it momentarily cuts through the haze of dark, desirous obsession, knowing just how much Lilith has already gone through in the last week, knowing how much Byron still cared about her - they didn't exactly bother to hide it the last time she saw them together. And the investigator's words, still ringing in her ears - that frantic plea not to push him into doing something violent, and potentially final.

People succumb to desire in different ways; fiery determination, or cold, ruthless calculation. It's probably not surprising that Isabella subscribes to the former.

She manages to tuck her knees under her, to ease herself in a sitting position and let them curl over the edge of the bed, watching the man pick up her pendant so carefully off the floor. Seeing it and recognizing it seems to inject even more of that much needed sobriety. Long lashes half-lid over her eyes and when Alexander finally turns back to her, her face angled and staring somewhere off the side, quiet and unreadable...but right now, thankfully calm.

Alexander keeps an eye on her as best he can, but there's a moment when he HAS to turn away, and his body is rigid with alert and alarm as he does so, scooping the necklace in his hand and turning back to her. He studies her for a long moment, then slides back close. Without a word, he shakes the chain out into something useful, and loops it over her neck, delicately fastening it in place. His breath is suddenly close, warm over her ear as he says, "If this turns out to be a secret weapon, just know that I will be deeply impressed. Angry. But impressed."

Then, more seriously, "We'll figure this out." His own anger seems to have drained away in the burst of violence, for the most part, but he still swears under his breath as he pulls out his phone from a pocket on his cargo shorts, and fumbles through the contacts. "Pick up, Thorne. Pick the fucking phone up," he mutters at it as it rings.

She doesn't look up until his shadow falls across her own, his fingers moving over her, and bringing with them the cold, white gold bite of that familiar, well-loved chain. The effect of it being returned to her is so profound, a blind man can sense it. Tension bleeds from its steel-cable coils on the line of her slender shoulders, sagging faintly, as if he had returned a welcome weight that she must carry. Isabella's green eyes slip over his face - the line of his unshaven jaw, the unhesitating way his larger body curls over her own and eclipses her in the shadows he casts. His breath culls goosebumps over soft skin, unable to help it - the gentle curve of her ear and the side of her throat, sensitive, intimate parts on a woman, take the brunt of his exhalation.

The moonstone nestles close against her clavicle, dangling against the fringe of black lace and the white cotton of her half-done shirt.

If this turns out to be a secret weapon, just know that I will be deeply impressed.

She manages to smile - faint, almost imperceptible. "You're an investigator," she murmurs as he hovers. "Didn't I already warn you not to rule anything out?"

It fades quickly once he finds his own phone. "He touched it..." she says in realization, the usual bladed edge of her steel-trap mind finally reasserting itself - but also reminding her of something she needs. Like a coveted parasite, like a drug. "...the box with the ring..." She looks around, suddenly gripped by the beginnings of another fever. "My phone...I have to...I need..." Familiar words. Dangerous words.

Alexander has a wary, terse conversation with Byron on the other end. "Thorne. You, Dr. Glass, and Dr. Glass' sedatives are needed at...where the fuck is this place?" He leans over her and grabs the stationary from the bedside table and rattles off the name of the hotel. A pause, and the anger seeps back into Alexander's voice like poison. "I'm going to go out on a limb, and assume Miss Reede was allowed contact with Miss Winslow's /fucking ring/ in the recent past?" Another pause. "No. It apparently creates obsession. And Miss Reede has a gun. If she gets through me, she's probably going to head for Miss Winslow. Bring Gatorade and something easy to eat, as well. Malnutrition. Dr. Glass will have suggestions." And then Isabella starts to...well. He begins cursing again. He practically snarls the room number into the phone, then hangs up.

Isabella gets a dark-eyed look. "No. You don't need it. You need to sit there and think about something more useful. Jazz. What was that song that was playing? At the house boat. Who was that?"

Suddenly, he's furious again.

She doesn't know why, and her quiet, exhausted observance of him is riddled with the ghosts of her usual intense, inquisitive look - much of the strength she did have, Alexander had managed to burn away by grappling her. Isabella shakes her head once, in an effort to dislodge her hair away from her eyes and face, lips pursing to move dark chocolate tresses - to get a better look at him. But save for very faint light, it's dark in the room, and all she can perceive of him are his movements, his warmth, the rigidity of the wiry forearm that reaches past her to grab the hotel stationary close to her. There are many reasons why he could be angry at this situation - she threatened someone he knows. She threatened him.

She caused this. The fault was hers.

But if anyone else would shrink back and turtle, retreat into herself, she doesn't. She meets his eyes when Alexander finishes his call, intent on facing her much-deserved punishment dead on, her defiant nature writ in every tired, feminine line of her.

You don't need it.

She is about to protest. He can see it, how her expressive mouth begins to form the words. And then he talks about Jazz. "...who...?" she says, momentarily confused, derailed by the complete and utter divergence from everything she expects him to say. "...Hooverphonic. They're Belgian. They don't really...they're not really a Jazz group, but..." Teeth worry over the cushion of her lower lip. "That version was a recording done by a live big band concert in Koningin Elisabethzaal in 2012." She closes her eyes, her body sagging forward, her forehead hovering, but not touching his shoulder.

"I think I remember you're more of a classic rock guy, though..." she says quietly, fatigue clotting her contralto.

"That's not a real place," Alexander says, imitating an ignorant rube, complete with the disdainful hmph at the end. It's tired, but playful. And when she sags, he moves, taking a breath before gently settling his shoulder under her. "Here. Lean. Just don't stab me. And I like rock. And metal. Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeath. Unholy trinity." He settles in next to her, warm and supportive, his voice urging her, "tell me about this Belgian band. I want to know all about them." And he'll continue to try to get her to talk about music until the cavalry arrives.

That's not a real place.

"It is," Isabella says, her voice absent and almost dreamy. "I'll show you where it is if you want, someday."

The weight of it, the guilt, the nauseating idea that she had succumbed to her darkest impulses - that perhaps she carries not just the blood of her mysterious family, but its distressing proclivity to take lives, smothers the sparks of her earlier, desperate fight. She doesn't have it in her to resist, shifting over, almost woodenly, when Alexander makes a space for himself next to her on the bed. But she still has room in her for surprise, opening her eyes and looking over at him when he offers to be, quite literally, a shoulder to lean on. Alexander Clayton who, from what she knows of him, couldn't abide being touched.

But she feels so heavy. She doesn't know why. She hasn't eaten in days, and in the last several minutes, she had spent fighting a man who was bigger than her.

Her head settles on the crook of his shoulder, dark hair falling in tangled ribbons over hard muscle and bone, half-lid eyes fixed elsewhere. Her hands are bound behind her back, bare legs tangled into the sheets, but she lets his voice lull her into further calm. Rock. Metallica. Megadeath. "...I should have guessed," she mumbles; somehow her humor returns, and at his urging, she continues, answering in her attempts to push past her exhaustion: "They didn't used to be that eclectic. They actually started in hip hop until..."

....and when Vivian arrives, she would find a mess.

If she's seen Russell Crowe's A Beautiful Mind, that is what the bedroom of the hotel room looks like. Charts, maps, timelines, notes in a haphazard scrawl are tacked into the walls, connected to one another in a furious, obsessive haze of multicolored threads. There are books everywhere, documents, strewn across the ground - but if that weren't enough, there are clear signs of not just struggle, but Use....to devastating effect. Lightbulbs, mirrors are shattered, furniture has been jostled and yanked away from where they should. The walls got the worst of it, pale paint and plaster webbed with black cracks.

And on top of the ruined bed is the investigator and a haggard looking Isabella, dressed in just a button-down shirt and hints of Parisian lingerie, though she doesn't exactly give the impression that she's out to seduce anyone. Her dark hair is wild, clouded around her face, her hands trussed behind her back, bare legs curled by the knees. And she is fast asleep.

Dead asleep, really. She has not eaten, or slept, in four days. She is immobile against Alexander's shoulder, long lashes dark and heavy against her cheeks, her breathing sunken and deep.

Malnutrition. Sedatives. Chaos. Emergencies! Vivian got the call from Byron, and the address, and some details about things, mostly bring sedatives and something to eat to this location. No, not mostly. That was basically all the information that Vivian had to go on, so not knowing exactly how bad the situation could be that she's walking into she's skipped professional dress and instead donned jeans, Converse, and a t-shirt beneath a leather jacket that might just be the most expensive thing that she's wearing today. Slung over her shoulder is a messenger bag in soft leather, one hand hovering against it protectively as she heads to the room, the hand not hovering protectively over the bag lifts up, knuckles rapping on the door.

She's not likely to walk in without invitation, and there is likely a hope there is an invitation and that the worst possible case hasn't happened. Either way, she waits for admittance into the chaos of the room.

Once Isabella is well on her way to exhausted sleep, Alexander stops trying to cajole her into talking about non-jewelry related items. He lets the silence stretch and just sits, staring at the cracked wall, the evidence of obsessive study, with a blank expression. His hands are shaking and he ignores that until there's the rap on the door. He looks at the sleeping woman on his shoulder, and carefully, gently, turns to lower her to the bed so that he can rise. As he moves towards the door, he catches sight of the gun on the floor. Nope. Not gonna leave that in the same room as Isabella, even if she's sleepy. She's sneaky and tough. He scoops it up into one hand with a grimace of distaste.

So, when he answers the door, it's with a gun in one hand, hair that's even more disheveled than usual, and an expression that can only be adequately described as 'over this shit'. "Dr. Glass. Please come in. She's sleeping." He looks beyond her, clearly expecting someone with her. "Thorne?"

No Byron in sight. Not yet. "Mister Clayton." Vivian greets when the door is open, eyes dropping to the gun in his hand, "It's like that, is it?"

It's almost a casual question, at odds with the entire situation, really. But it's armor that Vivian wears well as she makes her way through the door and into the chaos of the room, which is evidently enough to crack even her armor momentarily. "Byron'll be here when he can be...he was busy with something." Either a) Vivian has no idea what Byron does when he's not within her line of sight or b) knows what he's up to, but is going to keep the secret for him. Whichever it is, she doesn't say anything further on the matter after spotting Isabella on the bed. "Explain, please."

It's patient, she's not judging their kinky games gone wrong. Instead Vivian moves towards the bed, setting her bag on the table next to it before she reaches out to check Isabella's pulse, her other hand lifting up to count out the seconds on her watch while she waits for Alexander to explain the situation.

Alexander stares blankly at her. Then he looks down at the gun in his hand. "What? No. I don't...it's not /mine/. I don't like guns. I just didn't want her to be able to get her hands, or her mind, on it." He waves her in and goes to stash the gun in the bathroom. He's probably going to forget it in there. He emerges to follow her into the bedroom, but keeps his distance, going to stand at the door frame, crossing his arms over his chest. "Miss Reede appears to have come into contact with an item. Or perhaps not physical contact - the first victim had a severe bout of ill fortune from touching it. THIS victim has evidenced a fixation that reaches into obsession." He gestures at the walls, and floor. "I found her staring at her phone in the middle of all this. I'd wager she hasn't eaten in a few days. I don't know about water." He sighs. "When I interrupted her, it provoked her into retrieving her firearm. We fought. I won." And now she's tied up with pillowcases.

The brunette's pulse, by the side of her neck as both her wrists are trussed up behind her, is strong and steady - typical for a young woman who leads an active lifestyle. But she clearly hasn't eaten in several days, and there are dark circles under her eyes. The moonstone pendant she is never without rests against the folds of her white, button-down shirt. If she and Alexander were up to something private, however, there's no sign - no marks on her skin, save for the bruises on one wrist, where the man had forced her to relinquish her grip on her gun. Nothing about the state of the room is indicative of a date of that kind.

What is etched on the walls, however, are signs of a driven, intensely focused mind bent on the hunt for something - a fact that Alexander's explanation corroborates.

"Intense bad luck you say?" Vivian glances over at Alexander, a brow lifting upwards just a fraction, "I see." She shakes her head faintly, moving to the bag to start digging around in it, "You're going to need to get her up and sitting, and awake, if you want her to actually eat food...." She only assumes that he wants her to eat food, because accessing something like a feeding tube and the nutrients that would go through it would be a lot more problematic.

Instead, she pulls out soft foods. Little cups of applesauce, and then packets of meal replacement powder and milk, everything gets set on the side table, and carefully organized. But it's really the fun stuff that comes out next, and it's first a bottle that gets set on the table, then a few disposable syringes still in their packs before she drags out a few tiny glass vials, checking the labels before adding them to the table as well.

"Me?" Alexander's expression is all dismay for a moment. Then he stares at Isabella for a long moment, and sighs. He slinks over to the bed, and settles down on it. He has to visibly steel himself, but he slides his hands around her and pulls her gently upright. "Miss Reede," he says, softly, and squeezes her arms. "Isabella. You need to wake up for just a bit." Trying to support and provoke her back into wakefulness all the same time.

The drugs are given a look. Alexander asked for them. For her to bring them. But he tenses anyway once they're out, and he rubs Isabella's arms in a gesture of reassurance. For himself, or her, it's hard to say.

She doesn't stir, not at first - it's only when Alexander elects to take her limp body up against himself that she does, nearly boneless when he manages to arrange her in a sitting position. Too groggy, at the moment, to realize just what is happening in those first few moments of wakefulness, when heavy lashes lift and darkened eyes attempt to fix into more definite shapes that attempt to permeate the cloud in her vision. Her head lolls forward, then back, her upper arms squeezed, her shoulder braced against the side of the investigator's chest. She doesn't lift her head until it finds the space under his chin.

"Mrgh..." Isabella murmurs, eyes opening slowly - give her a moment, her surprise will settle in easily enough.

And quickly; not just at the fact that Alexander's caught her in a steadying half-embrace, but Vivian's presence by a table with small packets of food and vials labeled with names she can't pronounce without practice. The glamorous blonde's presence rouses her into full, albeit tired, wakefulness. "....Vivian? What are you doing here?" She had caught snippets of Alexander's earlier, angry conversation. She thought he was talking to Byron, not Vivian.

...then again she's tired, and at the moment, not fully in her right mind.

The me just gets a look from Vivian, but she's very patient, waiting until Alexander has Isabella up, and the woman is awake before she starts into motion once more, "Isabella." She reaches out, her fingers moving towards the other woman's face, checking how dry her skin is, her eyes. All very casual like as she goes on to explain why she's here, "Mister Clayton called and said that you might need a bit of help with something."

Once done with her check she reaches for the milk and small packets, "You're not lactose intolerent are you? These taste much better when added to milk, but I can add them to water if you need." No drugs are reached for, and it seems that as long as things remain nice and calm she's not going to reach for them.

Alexander is still shaking. It's less visible, because his hands are curled and braced against her arms, but Isabella can surely feel it from where she's rested against him, a persistent shiver that he's trying not to let get out of control. But he remains gentle, watching Vivian prepare the food. "You can yell at me later," he tells Isabella, trying for humor, "but it's important that you get some energy back. You need to eat. And then," this for Vivian as much as her, "she'll need somewhere safe. And there's no way I can get her out of here on my own without getting arrested." Alexander Clayton carrying an unconscious, restrained, or possibly struggling woman out of a hotel room? Yeah, there's no way he even makes it to the parking lot.

Vivian's cool touch draws over Isabella's face, and her lightly-tanned features that betray signs of unmistakable dehydration. Her eyes can focus, but thin crimson filaments make themselves known in the whites of them upon close inspection. She hasn't been sleeping. But the quiet, calm words has her shaking her head. "I'll be fine," she tells the psychiatrist simply. "I feel awful...you didn't have to go out of your way like this."

It sounds contrite, but each syllable feels burdened by the weight of more volatile things under the surface. How she actively hides her more vulnerable states, how she hates it when people see her in a state of weakness. It was always her way; it can't always be helped, but she's willful and ridiculous and that sometimes detrimental bravado getting in the way of everything. There's especially something embarrassing when it's Vivian taking care of her, in all of her golden, classic sophistication.

But whatever else she has to say about that dies on the vine when she turns her head to regard Alexander quietly; not at what he says, not at first, but at the tremor on his fingers while he grips her upper arms, just underneath the curve of her shoulders. "Didn't I already yell at you?" she wonders, finding it in her to return his quiet volley with her own exhausted one. Though when he encourages her to eat...

...she looks skeptical. "I'm not..." Is she hungry? She can't bring herself to care about food. Tabled, in the end, when his very real concerns about transporting her out of here has her shaking her head once more. "I don't need it....I'm fine back in my place. I just need to make a phone call. I can call my father." Her head turns, to hunt for the elusive object - she may seem absent, but a resurgence of her old sharpness fills her stare as she focuses on the dresser. "I need my phone."

She shifts, as if forgetting she's tied up, in an attempt to move away from Alexander and towards where the device would be.

"I'm sure you are." Vivian isn't up for arguing, arguing would serve no purpose. But since Isabella didn't answer about the milk she just goes with it, pouring the packet into the bottle before she twists the cap back on, starting to give it a shake. "Once you've drank this entire thing, we'll discuss what we can do about getting you your phone, and you somewhere safe."

There is a quick glance towards Alexander, but whatever Vivian might have to say about most of this she keeps quiet on. For now. Instead she turns her attention towards the bound woman, giving it all a final shake before she twists the cap back off, "Open up, please."

Not only did Thorne not arrive with Vivian, he arrives a good 20 minutes or more after she does. When he shows up, he's dressed in business attire again, this little hiatus from 'work' seems to be over and done with. Rather than a full suit, he has on a navy colored blazer and black slacks to go with those dress shoes. He's been out all day. Rather than having his hair slicked back and styled the way he often does, he wears it naturally today with bangs brushing over his dark brow. Hey look, he has a few plastic bottles of Gatorade in hand. Maybe that's what took him so long.

While he doesn't look dehydrated or suffering malnutrition, what he does look is tired. Just a touch. There's also this look of annoyance that may be evident when he first walks once he's let in after a brief bit of knocking. Then again, they may have just pulled him away from a business call. "Sorry, I'm late." He murmurs, those dark eyes scanning the room and seeing what a terrible state it's in. That's when he sees Vivian tending to Isabella. The latter didn't look like she was doing very well. "Bella.." The name is practically whispered off from his lips. Setting the bottles of Gatorade on a nearby counter, he makes his way to Alexander, speaking in quieter tones "You mentioned the ring. What happened?"

"Drink the milk," Alexander tells Isabella, his voice mild. Then she turns to him with that question, and it brings a brief smile to his face. "You did. It was suitably magnificent, Miss Reede. You should try it again sometime." He gives the cracked walls a thoughtful look. "Not here." And then she's talking about going home, and needing her phone.

His expression shifts from gentle to hard in a heartbeat, and when she shifts as if to get up, his hands tighten, intending to sit her firmly down. "You don't need your phone right now." If Vivian is Good Doctor, Alexander is Bad Cop, because there's no suggestion that she WILL need her phone, in his estimation, anytime soon.

And then Byron arrives, and Alexander has a visible flicker of relief as he studies the other man. It's easy to get in - the lock on the door is nonfunctioning. "Thorne." He's keeping a hold on the woman even as he tilts his head up to look up at Byron. "It has a hold on her. Obsession, fixation. She was working her way up towards violence towards Miss Winslow when I interrupted. When did she get exposed to it?"

Open up.

There's no answer about the milk because her thoughts upon waking are scattered, Isabella grasping, still, at threads that continue to elude her. Alexander's grip helps, and Vivian's presence - there are too many things to focus on, distracting her from her hunt. The attempted mollification by the psychiatrist has her wary glance falling on the milk bottle in her hand. And yet, she doesn't resist - at least, doesn't completely resist. Her nose scrunches up faintly, a look of absolute consternation on her features.

But she wants her phone. She needs her phone. Needs it almost as bad as she needs the thing that is sinking its talons deep into her desires and imagination. Wordlessly, she opens her mouth. She lets the good Dr. Glass feed her, like a good girl.

And then, Byron walks in.

He has always been a comforting presence, associated with memories draw in black and white with the occasional, vibrant pops of color - of simpler times and complicated regrets. The final swallow from the bottle has her eyes widening when he makes his presence known, carrying bottles of Gatorade - ostensibly for her benefit, but it's as if she doesn't see them. When he ventures close, she attempts to do the same, though she's held fast by Alexander, her foggy expression suddenly clearing, irises regaining not just their usual brilliance but something intense, something hungry - passion runs as red as her blood and she reacts to his presence in an almost volatile fashion.

"Ronnie," she says, the intonation of his nickname a breathless thing. "You need to call Lilith. I'm close...I'm so close. The gems, the band...I was wondering why I was being rebuffed by my colleagues, they were saying it's a fake. But I think I figured out why and the answers would be even clearer if I just held it. If I just had it." Her expression opens up, honest and achingly innocent in her trust. She would reach out to grasp the front of his jacket if she could; this is the closest he has ever seen her to pleading "If I could just hold it for a while...not even a while, just a few minutes...please, Ronnie. I have to. I have to."

When she lets her, the milk is fed to her. But when she gets interupted by Byron's arrival there is a sigh before she reaches out to tap Isabella's shoulder, "You're not going to get anything until you finish this, so if we could focus on this, then we can address the rest."

There is a rather pointed look shot towards the two men, like Vivian is trying to convey her thoughts to them that she really wants them to support her in this, to get the milk into her before worrying about the rest. One problem at a time. "If you two need to step aside to talk, I'm sure that Isabella and I can finish this up on our own."

Isabella looked so weak seated there, being practically forced fed right before his eyes. When he last saw her, she was as vibrant as always. When he last saw her... Byron has lost track of time, but he mentally calculates the days since they all met at the Pawn Shop. "Four days, I believe. But she was nowhere near the box." When he speaks, he turns to look at Alexander, who looks worse for wear as well. "We had pictures of it taken on her phone, but she wasn't allowed to touch it or-- Do you think that she was exposed to the rings affects by just being in the room?" He then reaches for his phone and looks as if he's about to dial a number, "Magnolia was there too. I wonder if she's going through this same thing." Eyes lift once more, "This was their first exposure to it... maybe that's why they are affected now. Though I had no idea at the time."

And then he hears her pleas, begging him to let her see the ring. There's this look of alarm now, his voice raising when he quickly says to the others, "Absolutely not." He continues on, "I have.. a guest room that she can stay in, but I don't want to hold Vivian back from her work," And Thorne, himself, seems to busy to babysit.. "I could get some of the security I'd hired to watch her until this passes over." It's to Alexander that he now asks, "Is she experiencing the bad luck as well?"

Alexander squeezes Isabella's arms, his expression twisting when she pleads. "Finish what the doctor has asked." It's gruff, and he slides away from her, standing up and scrubbing at his face with his hands. A full-body shudders ripples through him, but he turns his attention to Byron and listens. "The phone. Pictures of it. And she's obsessed with unraveling its mysteries and origins - the inciting event to tip her over into true obsession might have been a rejection from her peers that she received. But that suggests, if you're correct, that even indirect exposure is enough to trigger some effects. I didn't see any evidence of bad luck at her boat, and this room was fine until we fought in it. And her luck wasn't that bad," he adds, voice dry.

Even as there's that flash of humor, he's staring at Byron. "It's their first exposure to it, yes. How many times have you been exposed, Thorne?" It's casual, just gathering information, but his eyes are as sharp as they are frustrated.

At least, to her credit, she follows Vivian's directive; like an addict looking for her next fix, her promises are easily believed for one so tired and depleted, aching still from her physical endeavors from earlier. Isabella reluctantly turns back to the psychiatrist, and drinks from the bottle until she's finished. In fact she seems to reclaim some of her old spirit in fits and starts when she swallows all of the bottle's contents in a determined fashion, if not just to get it over with - to give Vivian and Alexander what they want so they can give her what she wants.

Whatever hope she has of Byron acquiescing to her request is one that he crushes with that familiar stubbornness, and his suggestion that she stay in a guest room in Bayside Apartments watched by his security has her....

"No. Fuck that," she says lowly, contralto undertaking a more bladed edge, tension returning over her face, her body. "I'm not a child, I can take care of myself." Wasn't it enough that they already had to feed her milk from a bottle?! "Get me out of this thing." The last demanded of Alexander as she struggles to get to her feet. "It's fine, I said. I'm fine. I just need my phone so I can go home and get back to work!"

"If she needs to stay, then she can stay. It won't interfere with my work any." Vivian points out as she sets the empty bottle down on the table, then she moves to place a hand on Isabella's shoulder when she struggles to get to her feet, "Please, sit down so that you don't hurt yourself."

Is she going to try and restrain her any other way? Not right now. Nor is she going to undo the bindings on her wrists, either. That just seems like a bad idea, and what else seems like a bad idea is actually giving her the phone. What seems like a good idea is watching Byron when Alexander questions him, and how many times he's been exposed to this ring. Her hand remains on Isabella's shoulder, trying to keep her in place, but she's looking towards the other two, her own attention very sharp and focused.

"Aren't we all wanting to unravel the mystery of this gem?" Byron asks with a quirk of his brow, his gaze zeroed in on Alexander. After those sharp words are spoken, there's an almost apologetic sound heard in his voice, "I didn't mean to snap, it's just.. If I wasn't so driven to try and break Lilith out from her curse, then I wouldn't have put Isabella in any danger. Or anyone else. for that matter." He's quickly typing out a text to send to someone, most likely Magnolia. This he confirms, "Now I'm worried that we'll find Magnolia in a similar state." But... if it's the image that's causing this distress. "Whatever anyone does, do not let her look at her phone."

All that he can do now is stand there as Isabella goes ballistic once told that he had plans to have security watch over her. He can't help but narrow his eyes at the question which Alexander poses, "Twice. The first time where Lilith was cursed and then this second time. Unlike Lilith, Carver and I were repelled by this sense of dread which is why I slammed the box shut that day. A little too late, unfortunately." If that weren't enough, he continues on, "For all I know my car breaking down, the murder at the Apartments, maybe that's similar to the bad luck Lilith was experiencing. But it's gone now... as it's gone for her too."

"No. At this point I want to throw the damned thing off a cliff." Still, Alexander counts on Byron to be calm, cool, and collected. Even he probably doesn't realize just how much he's assuming that as a part of the social landscape, even though he intellectually recognizes that there's more to the other man than the surface. But when Byron's able to answer in a way that matches that narrative, Alexander's shoulders relax a little. All is right with the world. "No. No one looks at the phone," he agrees. "Or any other photos of the item if they happen to be floating around."

He turns as Isabella struggles to rise, and studies her for a long moment. "I suspect Dr. Glass' attention will be necessary for Miss Winslow and whoever else is affected. Security guards aren't going to be able to keep her secure. They won't even recognize that she NEEDS to be, unless you've been hiring very unusual ones. She'll talk her way out, or break down the door." A gesture at the walls. He scrubs at his face again, his expression drawn and wary. But, he says, with some finality, "I'll stay with her. I've already surveyed the living space in the boathouse, and she can't escape from me. Not for long, anyway. I'll find something to distract her until we can figure out how to stop this."

He frowns at Isabella. "I hope that's an acceptable compromise. Your home. My oversight." It's not really a question.

Blazing green eyes focus on Byron when he takes the blame into himself; it does nothing to assuage the growing conflagration she presents. "I can handle it!" Isabella's always had a temper, and the strain of it all - of being defeated, bound, fed by the hand, and then talks about keeping her under some kind of protective custody; one by one, they hammer like ballistae fired into the walls of her internal fortress. Somewhere behind her, the cracks slowly start to spread over the wall again, flakes of paint and plaster falling in a pale trickle and dusting the ruined sheets. "You didn't put a gun to my head to help out, that was on me! I don't want to hear you blame yourself, I want you to help me finish the job--!"

She's cut off from saying any more, the rest of her tirade aborted when Vivian plants a secure hand on her shoulder and sits her back down again. It staves off any further physical disasters at least - as if the blonde knows precisely how to handle personalities like her own.

Her stare can cut like knife, crumble the subject to dust and set someone on fire all at once, and even after falling silent, the heat of her ire threatens to consume the room - trussed and weakened she may be, but when riled, she retains the same ferocity, somehow, that Byron might remember in their youth. She's so angry, so frustrated that she's visibly shaking.

That is when Alexander pins her down with his dark eyes and offers his compromise. She remembers his grip, the bruises on her wrist, his pleading, desperate entreaty...

...the fact that just a few minutes ago, she was seriously considering shooting Lilith Winslow to get her out of the way of what she wants; this beautiful, insurmountable slip of a thing standing between herself and the mysterious prize in her vault.

In the end, it's all of it - that black wave of bone-crushing, sickening guilt, that earns this second capitulation. After returning Alexander's stare for a long, breathless moment, she turns her face away. Towards her phone, still. She might not even mean to look in that direction, but she can't help it.

"...fine," she whispers, though her shoulders remain straight, her spine stiff, but upright. Her pride can only withstand so much today. They don't need to see her sink further.

Alexander might be buying what Byron is selling, but Vivian isn't nearly as convinced by it. In fact, she narrows her eyes at him, but she doesn't broach the subject. Yet. Instead she nods to Alexander, "I can agree with that. In fact..." She glances at Isabella, at her shaking before she gives her shoulder a very faint squeeze before she steps away from her. It's potentially a bad idea to move away, but she's obviously putting a lot of faith in her agreement with Alexander to keep her from leaping up.

Once Vivian has stepped away she moves towards Isabella's phone, reaching for it, "If Miss Winslow needs my assistance, like Isabella, then I'd be happy to offer it. Same as with Magnolia if she has found herself in the same position." She does not look at Byron when she says the next part, though, but the weight of the words might easily be felt, "In fact, anyone who finds themselves in that position are welcome to my help." Which, speaking of, "I'll send the alprazolam with you, Mister Clayton, in case there is a need."

Byron felt restless here as if he were wasting his time. He needed to get out of here. Any excuse would do. And right now, he's going through several of them in his mind, trying to decide which one to use. Yet he didn't look inattentive. And once he hears Isabella asking for his help in finishing this job, he'll come out with the truth of the matter. "Lilith isn't going to let you or anyone else get anywhere near that thing again. Once was enough. She had reservations about doing so as well and," he gives a slow couple of nods of his head, "She was right all along." A pause, "I'm sorry, Isabella."

This distrust that Alexander puts in his hired guns makes the edges of his lips quirk down a tiny fraction. "Some of them are Gray Harbor born." Though in truth, many of the security team were from out of town. "You would think that by now they'd be used to this madness. But if you think that the boathouse will be safe, I am not going to question your judgment. Sounds a little risky to me, but with you volunteering to make sure that she's secure and safe," Is he really entrusting someone's life in Alexander's hands, "I guess I should put my trust in you." That's when he gives the other man this hard look, "Don't fail me. Don't let anything happen to her."

There's this casual look at his watch now, needing to convey this idea that he has somewhere to be. Crossing the room, he stands beside Vivian, leaning in close to give the edge of her mouth a soft kiss. "Thank you for that. I'll get into contact with Lilith and Magnolia to see whether they want to come and see you or not." Then there's this pause, his expression thoughtful, "There's something that I want to speak to you about as well. But it can wait." Then looking at the room as a whole, he asks, "Is there anything that /I/ can do right at this moment?"

Alexander flinches back at Isabella's rising temper. His own has been tested too many times this afternoon and evening, and he's quick to snap back at her, "For God's sake, just be quiet." There's a beat where he's glaring at her. Then he adds, "And where the HELL are your pants?" Because he apparently genuinely didn't notice that until now. Guns have a way of drawing his attention over a nice set of gams. But he starts looking for the missing pants now, as much to be able to move (and kick her books in a display of frustration that is either petulant or all that's keeping him from striking out at the others in the room).

Byron's hard look and backhanded trust gets a glare back. "If I hadn't found her, Thorne, would you have even noticed she was missing?" He runs his hands through his hair. "Never mind. This is fine. This will be fine." The only one who doesn't catch the edge of his sudden temper tantrum is Vivian, although even she only gets a curt acknowledgement.

Unlike Vivian who notices immediately, and Alexander who tries, but fails, Isabella, more than anyone in this room, should be twigging to the signs before her - that between she and her childhood friend, she isn't the only one who is struggling. But Byron wears his smooth facade well - so well that even her infamous temper can't dent it at the moment at the sheer investment he is pouring into keeping everything in his world together. Normally, she would notice it. Normally, she would be awkward, but vibrant and supportive - quick with her quips, but forever at his corner when things become serious or dire.

Today, desire clouds her judgment, an inescapable trap in which she has no choice but to stay in and ride out to the best of her ability, and those of her comrades. It pulses in the back of her mind, ensnares what remains of her broken heart, and spreads through every vein and cell of her; a spreading infection that may never stop. Byron's apology has her turning away from him, which of course puts Alexander in the unfortunate position of being right in her line of sight when he tells her to shut up and has the gall to be irritated at the fact that she's in nothing but sleepwear. It's probably telling that she is absolutely unashamed about the state she's in.

And even defends it when a book goes flying at him, though it misses him by a wide arc and collapses in the rest of the pile. "You're the one who barged in on me!" she exclaims, incredulous. "I can be pantsless in my own goddamn hotel room!!" Look, the moment women return home from work, the pants come off. It's a rule!

But yes. This is fine. Everything will be fine.

For the city's sake, hopefully that's true.

The kiss is accepted, and it's enough to break through Vivian's very calm, sort of professional, demeanor, a hand lifting upwards to briefly touch his cheek. Of course, then there are those words, and she raises a brow at him, "Of course, we can talk about it as soon as we leave. I think we'll be done here soon."

Maybe. But since no one appears to be stopping her, and are in fact fairly distracted with short tempers and yelling about pants, she finishes the grab for Isabella's phone, and begins to slide it into her pocket of her jacket. "We'll help you get Isabella to where you want her, and I'll leave the pills. I can come back by in a few hours with more food and stuff if there isn't anything there already."

But pants. "Isabella, where are your pants?"

Despite this strong urge to get back into his car, Byron will pretend to be helpful. When everyone is looking for Isabella's pants, he is there lifting up cushions and looking beneath tables as well. It's difficult to keep his mind on this task when he has places to be. It's almost maddening being away from the Pawn Shop. Away from the r--

There does come a point where, after helping to gather up all their things, that Byron 'gets a call' that he needs to attend. He apologizes, of course, and tells them that he'll catch up. If he does, it's most likely some time later and far too late for any consultation from Vivian. Alas, it seems that even that will have to wait.