2019-07-20 - Her whole life ahead of her.
Rebecca's younger sister Kelly had come to GH for a little summer vacationing. Now she's dead.
IC Date: 2019-07-20
OOC Date: 2019-05-17
Location: Bayside Apt/Apartment 504
Related Scenes: 2019-07-20 - Staying One Step Ahead 2019-07-21 - Psych Hold 2019-07-21 - The Visit 2019-08-03 - Comfort Food 2019-08-22 - Gamer Outing
Plot: None
Scene Number: 739
It's summer-time! Of course Rebecca's little sister wants to take advantage of the time off from school to come and visit her sister. The plans had been made toward the beginning of the summer, but the time really flew by. What with randomly discovered bones and such. But now she's here! And it's been a busy day of lugging her around, showing her the sights, and probably suggesting she maybe would enjoy a few days in Seattle?
Where it might be safe?
The day is drawing to its close now, and Kelly has piled onto the sofa to get some shut-eye, full of vigor to head off on a tour of Addington House tomorrow. Because everyone in town has told her that it's haunted, and she's keen to meet some ghosts! The lights flip off in the living room, and Kelly calls a quick, "Night!"
Leaving Rebecca to her own bedtime routine.
Rebecca sits up at her desk on one side of the apartment, hoping the light from her computer doesn’t keep Kelly up. She taps away at a few documents, preparing them for Chef Vydal to sign in the morning, and emails her boss his agenda for the next day. Beside her on the desk are some photos of floral bouquets for him to choose from for his grandmother’s birthday coming up, and three silk scarves in boxes for him to choose one to add to the gift. All part of her usual day catering to the every whim of the Pâtissier.
She’s in her pajamas, cotton shorts and top in a nod to the warmth of the summer that is, nevertheless, much cooler than she’s used to in SoCal. Her hair is back in a short tail to keep it out of her eyes.
<FS3> Rebecca rolls Alertness (8 8 3 3 2 1 1) vs Did You Hear That? (a NPC)'s 7 (8 7 5 5 4 4 4 3 1)
<FS3> DRAW!
<FS3> Rebecca rolls Alertness (7 5 5 3 3 3 1) vs Did You Hear That? (a NPC)'s 7 (8 8 6 4 4 2 2 2 2)
<FS3> Victory for Did You Hear That?.
<FS3> Rebecca rolls Glimmer+Alertness (8 6 5 3 3 1) vs Did You Feel That? (a NPC)'s 8 (8 7 6 6 5 4 4 3 2 1)
<FS3> Victory for Did You Feel That?.
For a long time, all seems right with the world. Kelly drifts off to sleep after she fusses around on her phone for a few minutes, sending pictures off to social media, then she's out. It was a busy day, after all. Rebecca gets to do her work with no interruptions, just the quiet passage of time.
Until, out of nowhere, Kelly sits up in her bed, grasping at her throat. She makes a noise - a sudden, strange burbling noise. And blood flows out from between her fingers. It's a lot of blood. It pumps out of her neck, sheeting down the front of the t-shirt she was sleeping in, staining the blankets that make the couch into a borrowed bed. Her eyes are large with panic, and more of those burbling, whispering sounds come out of her mouth, which is itself open wide in a suffocating scream.
Her feet thrash, and the blood pours out of her.
Rebecca turns at the sounds from the couch, thinking maybe her sister is having a bad dream, but then she sees the blood. She flips the lights on and rushes over to the couch, screaming as she grabs for Kelly’s phone and dials 911. She presses the phone to her ear as she tries to put pressure on the wound. “Oh God, Oh God what happened!?” she sobs.
<FS3> Rebecca rolls Grit+Composure (8 7 7 6 5 4 4 2 1 1) vs Ouchie (a NPC)'s 9 (7 7 6 5 5 3 2 2 2 1 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Rebecca.
Before the last "1" even gets pressed, Rebecca feels a pinch in her wrist. A sharp, slicing pain jolts up from the bend of her wrist, running up the length of her arm all the way to the ball of her shoulder. But it doesn't break the skin. No blood, just the feeling of pressure and pain that jumps through her body. She feels it again, a second slicing-stab that tries to cut into chest, into her heart, and then one more feeling - this time, the pressure is on her throat, dragged across her chin, ear-to-ear.
But it never breaks the skin.
Not like it did for Kelly, who gasps and sputters, dropping her hands away. The gash on her throat is bad, and - except where smears of blood have worked their way around because of the hands - her face is colorless, pale, drained. Her eyes roll-back and, after gripping Rebecca's hands tightly, in panic, she faints. On the other end of the phone, the dispatcher says, "Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"
”I need an ambulance at apartment 504, Building A, of the Bayside Apartments! My name is Rebecca Carr and my sister has been stabbed by an unknown assailant! Please hurry! There is so much blood!” She holds the phone with her shoulder, her hands trying to stem the tide of blood from Kelly’s wound as she tries to repair the damage. She knows she isn’t that strong in healing. She knows. But has to try.
<FS3> Rebecca rolls Spirit: Success (7 6 5 3)
The dispatcher has questions, of course. "Ma'am? Ma'am? Are you and your sister alone in the house? Are you sure..." She just wants to be sure the person that did the stabbing really isn't in the apartment and about to stab Rebecca, making the problem that much worse. She's also trained on keeping people on the phone and staying calm, so she attempts to do that, even while Kelly is just bleeding out everywhere.
All over her cell phone, full of pictures from her trip so far. All over the sheets that Rebecca put on the couch for her. All over her jammies. The blood stops gushing out, at least, moving from a pulse to a slow trickle.
The ribbon of healing from Rebecca is far too little, too late. The very edges of the wound knit themselves... and then even that stops. There's no coming back from death, and death is what Rebecca has on her couch right now. The feeling of assault against her own person is gone, but is that really any better? No one came in. No one went out. But Kelly is still dead from having her throat opened.
“N-No,” Rebecca sobs over the phone. “No one else is here. I can’t...can’t stop the bleeding. Oh God, she’s dead. I think she’s dead. How can this be happening!” Panic tinges her voice. “Someone help, please!”
"Ma'am, stay calm, ma'am." This goes on for as long as Rebecca stays on the line. She tells Rebecca that help is on the way; the police and the paramedics are on the way, so just stay calm. It's a small town, so they get here pretty quickly - but then they have to get out of their vehicles and up to Rebecca's actual apartment, which admittedly slows things down.
By the time the police arrive, banging on the door of Rebecca's apartment, Kelly is well and truly gone. It's only been about ten minutes since she sat up, grabbing her throat, but she's done for. The blood all over the sofa speaks to that.
The paramedics a step behind the cops. It's Officer Chetson at the front door of Rebecca's apartment: "Police! Open the door!"
Rebecca has been sitting dully, in a daze, beside her sister, staying on the line with the 9-1-1 operator and numbly responding to her questions. “They’re here. Too late,” she whispers hollowly. She hangs up, and moves to the door, unlocking and opening it, covered in her sister’s blood and looking like she’s suffering from shock. “I c-couldn’t stop the bleeding,” she whispers, trembling, to Officer Chetson.
Chetson is notorious for eating donuts and ignoring problems, but he seems responsive to the state that Rebecca is in. The officer with him immediately brushes by the two of them, moving through the apartment, on the prowl for anyone else that might be in here. Chetson looks sympathetically at the poor woman covered in blood, then says, "Let's let the paramedics get in here, ma'am."
They wheel by hastily, though it will quickly become apparent that there's nothing that they can do.
"Tell me what happened, Miss...?" There's a pause for Rebecca to insert her name.
Her mind spins for a way to explain this that doesn’t make her look like the guilty party. “Rebecca Carr, that is my sister, Kelly. She was here to visit me since I finally got settled in.” She slumps against a wall, and it may be the only thing keeping her upright at the moment as she looks down at the blood all over her. “I was getting ready for bed,” that explains the pajamas, “and Kelly had already bunked down on the couch. I came back out to say goodnight and turn off my computer and,” she looks over at her sister’s body, obscured by the paramedics. “She was struggling and there was blood everywhere. I called 9-1-1 and I tried to put pressure on the wound. Her t-throat. It was cut.”
Rebecca shivers. “I didn’t see anyone or hear anyone in the apartment.” Well that’s the damn truth, even if she could feel them. “This can’t be real. This can’t be. She just finished her first year of Grad school at Berkley. She’s going to be a lawyer. This can’t be happening.”
No matter what, Rebecca is in for an investigation. If nothing else, the police have to clear her as a suspect in order to move on. But that will come later. Right now, the other cop with Chetson is in the bedroom, shining a flashlight in the closet, checking for any signs of a break-in through windows or access to the attic or whatever else. He calls from back there that everything looks good, no one's in the apartment.
While the EMTs do whatever it is that EMTs do to confirm that they're not dealing with a patient they can help. This is definitely a dead person.
"I'm so sorry for your loss, Miss Carr. Why don't we step over here?" Toward the kitchen, where maybe they won't be looking right at Kelly's corpse. He's already taking notes because - contrary to popular belief in this town! - Chetson knows police procedure. His partner is presumably back there calling for homicide to come investigate. "You're not hurt? And you said you came out here and she was already cut?"
Rebecca nods numbly, and the edges of actual shock begin to set in. Her pulse gets rapid, her skin goes clammy, and she begins to look ashen. She slumps onto one of the stools at the kitchen island because her legs feel like jello. “I...I don’t think I’m hurt?” she asks, but she remembers the feeling of that pressure on her own throat, her wrist, her chest. She looks down at her chest as if to see if there is a wound there, blinking. “Am I?”
Over the next few minutes, more police show up. They begin trickling into the apartment in pairs and singly. It's still just Chetson right now, who beckons to one of the paramedics already on the scene. Since they don't really have anything useful they can do for Kelly over there, they can at least give Rebecca a once-over? "You tell me, Miss Carr? Are you hurt anywhere?"
Chetson doesn't see any wounds, but he wouldn't be doing his due diligence if he didn't confirm. What if she has wounds he can't see? Like, say, ones from getting attacked by someone trying to fend off a knife to the throat?!
The paramedic is the one that makes the suggestion that Rebecca might want to sit down. She probably has a long night ahead of her.
Rebecca does as she’s directed. She just stares into the distance, as the paramedic treats her for shock. They put a blanket around her to keep her warm, which at least covers some of the blood from her sight. “I...my parents need to be called. My boss. My brother.” It’s that part of her brain that is a personal assistant and adheres to stringent procedure.
"All of that will happen in due time, Miss Carr." Chetson is doing remarkably well right now, all things considered. His partner is over there, briefing whatever detective just walked through the door, and he's here, keeping tabs on Rebecca while the EMT gives her a once-over, confirming she doesn't have a single visible wound. Still, "My partner and I are gonna take you to the hospital, okay? They'll check you over better, and - " He sighs, because there's just no way around this. "And some of my colleagues will have some questions to ask you."
Rebecca blinks a few times at being told she’s going to the hospital. “I don’t want to leave her,” she whispers, eyes turning slowly back to the empty shell that was her baby sister. “I don’t want her to be alone.” But she will obey the police. She’s in no shape to struggle.
"I know," says Chetson sympathetically. "Right now, though, the best thing for you is to go to the hospital and let us," the cops, "do what we need to do here. And you can call your parents and your brother from the hospital, sound like a deal?"
Rebecca's head nods slowly as she gets up at the urging of a paramedic, and lets herself be led out of her apartment to be taken to the hospital.
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