2019-09-09 - Heh. Heh-heh. Hehe-heh.

Rebecca and her erstwhile bodyguard, Itzhak, have been laying low in a cabin in the woods due to being hunted by the ghost of William Gohl. However, Vyv's personal assistant got word that there was a delivery for her that was marked from Seattle, and so they have returned in a borrowed vehicle, to pick up the expensive suit that was sent to a tailor.

Rebecca looks tired. Sleeping in a strange place in the middle of the woods with no ambient city noises is spooky when you're in fear of being murdered by a crotchety ex-person for the crimes of your ancestors. She's in black slacks and a red turtleneck sweater with ankle boots. "Mister Luka finished right on time, as always," she murmurs to Itzhak as she moves to near the man on the ladder. "Evening, Lou. I was told I had a package pickup?" she asks.

Sutton (503) came in earlier to pick up some things. She's in the elevator, riding down to the lobby level, a huge first aid kit/EMS bag over one shoulder, a large duffle bag over the other. An old, dented and scarred Louisville slugger in one hand, a bottle of what appears to be a very expensive vintage of red wine in the other. She tips out of her lean, pushing off of the back of it when the doors ding! open.

She yawns, shuffles out in a pair of short shorts and an old Seattle Police Department tee with faded letters. It's a little big on her, clearly several years old, probably stolen. Her shoulder-length blonde hair is a little messy, no makeup to speak of. She wears a pair of sunglasses indoors, yep.

Itzhak is borrowing August's pearly-black Subaru for the moment, since his Vette doesn't do so well on the forest roads. He follows Rebecca up the walkway, his mirrored sunglasses reflecting back all the sunset-lit windows of the Bayside. He didn't sleep well either, which makes him crankier, which makes him wonderful to be around.

The owner of the building, Byron Thorne, has been put through the ringer over the past week or so (probably for longer, but the past week especially). Even today, though he's doing his best to field inquiries on this most recent attack within his buildings, he's easily distracted, a hand running fingers through his perfect dark hair every so often in a mild fidget. Aside from a hint of weariness that can be seen within his eyes, he's dressed in his usual business card, donning a three piece suit as he's standing there in the lobby, addressing a few tenants, some from the other buildings, who are confused and concerned. Rightfully so.

There are moments where he's unsteady on his feet, this need for rest coming over him, but Lilith was never far from where he stood, though she might not be pleased that he's doing actual work rather than taking it easy. "I'll be speaking to the GHPD soon in regards to your question. I'll keep you updated when they do the same with me." He knows that the GHPD can't t do shit in this situation, but not all of his tenants shine or are in the know.

Something is always wrong, yes. Always something. Vyv arrives to keep the newly arriving expensive tailored suit company with his own, a three piece in a deep oxblood shade. With it he's wearing a crisp white shirt and mustard silk tie with subtle white diagonal stripes, simple garnet cufflinks, brown leather brogues, a paisley pocket square that gathers all the colours together, and a decidedly irritated expression. The last is perhaps not the best of his accessories, but nor is it the worst; that would probably be the small group of dry-cleaning bags with other suits and shirts in them he's carrying held over his shoulder like half a depressingly un-stylish cape. He stalks in the door, shooting the recalcitrant light fixture a baleful glance, even if it is in the process of being fixed. Supposedly. This time.

Lilith is still wearing what she came over in the night before, but it's all clean and fine. Her residual of eye makeup is a little smudged, though, and her fine features are a little strained with stress and fatigue from lack of sleep, no doubt. And she's watching Byron stand there like a darling, steel spined hawk, listening for slips in his speech pattern, a bobble in his movement, something to give her an excuse to get him to go lie back down. But he's Byron Thorne, of course, so none of that has yet to happen. As a result, and to keep him from being difficult, she compromises and lets him til something taxing crops up.

She looks a little uneasy while sitting there, though, because the week has set a particular precedent in her personal circles.

"Chef," Rebecca greets as Vyv strides in. "I am so sorry, I should have gotten your dry cleaning before I left. I just had to pick up a package delivered from Mister Luca," the little Italian tailor in Seattle who comes down once a month to fit all of Vyv's stuff for him. This one, however, isn't for the chef. She turns to say something else to Lou when the bulb falls and shatters, making her nearly jump out of her skin. She's more than a little tense today. A hand goes to her chest as she sucks in a breath. "Christ," she mutters and looks to Itzhak. "That nearly gave me a heart attack."

Ruiz is lurking somewhere in Sutton's vicinity, like the lurkery LEO he is. Probably he pretends not to hear Byron down the hall prattling about talking to the GHPD; that, or he really is as absorbed as he appears to be in his phone at the moment as he trails the blonde. She's here to pick up stuff; he's here for the wifi her neighbour hasn't password protected. His head comes up at the sound of a lightbulb shattering, though he doesn't reach for the weapon that's most assuredly holstered under his jacket.

Sutton has eyes for that takeaway the delivery boy's carrying. "Chinese sounds good." Sodium-laden Americanized food also sounds delightful when you might be kinda hungover. Again. "The last time I said 'huh' like that..." Sutton thinks about what she's about to say and then thinks better of it. Her brain is apparently still working. Delivery boy can take care of himself. She makes her way farther into the lobby area, past the shaky ladder, that is just about when the light leaps to its death. She skitters out of the way late, probably crunching a few glass fragments. "Why does that keep happening to me..." She made an enemy of a lamp recently, and now the lightbulbs are out to get her.

A moment, Sutton glances up. "Squirrels are the devil." Spoken like someone who grew up in a Craftsman home, all wood, all chewable.

While the sting and most of the pain in his head was relieved that night before, there's some fog in Byron's mind, slightly dulling his senses. This also makes him not take offense to the woman's ire. Not that he would openly and after a brief, yet awkward pause, he's there with an apologetic, "I understand, Mrs. Winthrop., I really do. There's only so much that they can relay to me, but as I've said, I'll look into." For that one moment, he studies the tenant for a longer period of time than he usually needs to in order to gauge if they had the shine in them or not. If this one had any sort of glimmer, it was too minuscule to matter.

Is that Captain de la Vega that he spots over yonder? Another pleasant smile is flashed over at Hauser, "If you will excuse. I have someone else who needs my attention." A cautious look is given to Lilith, one that might say 'behave' is he were thinking more clearly. "This is my life now." He says with raised brows, "Not that I can complain." This was all his anyway. The entire complex.

Itzhak doesn't seem to be looking at Lou, so when he suddenly shoots out a hand to clamp on the ladder, steadying it, that might be a little startling. "Take it easy there Lou," he says, irritated, "you're gonna break ya damn neck." The lightbulb falls and shatters, making him twitch, his scowl deepening. Then...he looks up, where the bulb fell from, and that sound could be a raccoon or something, but every old instinct roars in him and he gets in front of Bex, shoving her behind him. If he looks like an asshole, well, so what.

Lilith stops her looking around just in time to catch that glare from the tenant and every ounce of her body wants to just flip her middle finger up at the lady to see what happens and how she'll start hyperventilating with huff. But Byron has his stupid job to kiss rich asses and things have been difficult for the building, so she's... decently behaved. Mostly the lady gets a bland stare for a couple of beats before she turns it into something like a pleasant, passive kind of bullshit smile for the sake of the landlord she's talking to. Then she's distracted by the blow of the shattering lightbulb and looks naturally up and that way, but...

Instead of looking at any of the people or the lightbulb on the floor, now, she steps briskly over to Byron and reaches a hand for the small of his back with pressured palm against suit jacket. And her eyes stay stuck fast on the fixture. After a sidestep shift, she moves to put her face for talking lean against the man's back in brief, "Byron. I hear something in the ceiling." There's dread in her voice, because look, even if this isn't guaranteed to be Gray Harbor fuckery as the rest of her week would dictate, rodent and bug herds are a thing and it's not something she wants to pop down off of the fixture either.

Vyv has vast reserves of irritation. Vast. There's a fort somewhere in probably Kentucky with a vault dedicated to nothing else. Rebecca's presence gets a blink, then a faintly arched brow about the time the apology and explanation come. "Well, it would have been handy," he says in a tone that probably sounds still annoyed to most listeners, but has a subtler flavour of 'well, all right, don't let it happen again' that being his assistant for long ends up training one to identify. She gets a curious look, which is a slightly better sign. "Were we expecting something?" he asks, and is just glancing over to Lou and giving him a nod in return for the greeting when that bulb shatters. His gaze darts that direction immediately, breath held for a fraction of a second, head shaking when he identifies just what caused the noise. "Is this building built on an old lightbulb burial ground? This is ridiculous."

Byron is about to start over in the police captain's direction, most likely with Lilith in tow, if not for something she says as she tries to get his attention. On any other day, he may have been attentive to all the wrong going on in this building, observing the work being done in silent judgment, but today, his mind felt like it was shattered into little shards and was most recently put back together again in full. The flickering of lights is enough to annoy him, but seeing as there are people working on some of the bulbs, at first he'll expect that it's their fault.

Of course, it doesn't help when Lilith's words lift his gaze up toward the ceiling. He doesn't hear anything, but he'll trust her senses over his until he's fully recovered. "What do you hear?" Being so distracted by tenant upon tenant approaching him, he'll take this moment to see whether he can make out what has Lily so worried right now.

Rebecca suddenly finds herself shoved behind Itzhak and she's blinking at him in surprise. "It's just a lightbulb," she begins to murmur to him. Then it's another lightbulb, and another, and another. Her hand moves to touch Itzhak's back, letting him know she is still there, even as her heart starts racing as the giggling becomes audible. "W-what is that?" She looks up, trying to peer in the dimness.

What the actual fuck. Ruiz shoves his phone away as lightbulbs start popping like it's the 4th of July, and briefly cuts his gaze across the hall to note Byron and Lilith at the other end; the former, presumably, doing his rounds. Itzhak and some blonde he doesn't recognise over there, but it's Sutton's arm he reaches for with one hand - and his gun with the other. "Stay close to me," he murmurs. Unnecessarily, as he's pulling her in against him unless she fights him.

Lilith starts to imitate the noise, then steps around to explain to Byron, but she doesn't get real far in that, mostly talking with roll of her hands, "It's... like when an animal is snuff--" She pauses, the noise starts again, louder, then the bulbs start to drop, "... that." She clarifies for the man nearby needlessly before looking around at the others for quick survey. Then her hands reach to pull him out from nearby a fixture once she sees the continued drop pattern, but she forgets he's off kilter here and there, that or he's just that much bigger than her and isn't expecting it, but it's a bad yank that sends her bouncing back into him.

Wonderful bodyguard work, Lilith.

Sutton glances up at the ceiling. Then she glances across the occupants of the lobby. And then she looks at Ruiz who is probably over there downloading Candy Crush. No one can resist it forever.

The bulbs just keep falling. When Ruiz reaches for her, she moves behind him. That sounded like laughter, and if Gray Harbor has taught her anything this month, it's stand behind the cop.

The blonde puts down her medical bag, and then she puts down a duffle bag of clothing. And then she carefully, carefully puts down the unopened bottle of wine, nesting it between the bags off to the side of the corridor. She straightens, bat in her hand, the barrel of it dragging the ground briefly.

Itzhak gives Rebecca a similar order as Ruiz gave Sutton; he mutters, "Stay right by me," not looking back at her. He begins snapping his fingers in a moderato beat, which...seems more than a little ridiculous, paired with his tense posture, tough-guy looks and the defiant sneer curling his lip. Like he's auditioning for West Side Story. But something happens...all those shattered pieces of glass glow up, forming a glittering carpet that casts light enough to see by.

Unbelievable. That's what's running through Byron Thorne's mind right now. As if the most recent murder, or any of the ones which came before it, wasn't enough to plague the residence of the Bayside Apartments. Then the next bulb goes and he's already watching after Lou as he goes to fetch a broom to clean up this mess. Nevermind that elevator doesn't seem to be working, but this is a pretty big lobby, so he can't pay attention to everything going on! At first, it was an annoyance, then it became something to be alarmed about with each crashing bulb. Those would all need to be replaced...

Unlike Lilith and some of the others, he's not sensing a pattern as of yet and his body is less than cooperative when he feels her try to tug onto his jacket sleeve, just after trying to amusingly mimic that chuffing sound that she'd heard earlier, but which was now more evident as time went on.

Luckily, for the both of them, Byron wasn't standing immediately below the falling light bulb, but it does crash right at his feet, shattering glass all over. This gets his attention along with the darkening of the lobby. If his perception was shot before, things will get worse now. "Everyone," He calls out, "Move closer to the walls if you can." He knows where the light fixtures are. Some are at the walls of course, but by now, those have probably gone out as well. "We'll work to get this sorted out as soon as we can." The confidence in his tone is tinged with nerves. This wasn't your average electrical fuck up, that much he was sure about. "Lilith, you good?" He'll ask scanning the area. He knows the lobby. The layout.

As it becomes clear that yes, apparently something is bound and determined to thoroughly de-light them, Vyv draws his arm up further, using the dry-cleaning as a protective shield from any glass that might decide to rain down from above. He can only hope for no sartorial casualties.

And yes, he catches the laughter now, glancing in its general direction from beneath the suits. "Yes, of course, just what the day needed," he mutters, "It's just been going far too smoothly the last few weeks..." One of his hands dips into his jacket, coming out with a phone; he flips the leather cover open and taps at it one-handed, aiming to convince it to show off its famous imitation of a flashlight. It's rather less effective than Itzhak's solution, which gets another little blink from him. Huh. Okay, that's a new one. "Nice trick, Ice," he remarks to the man, one corner of his lips quirking up very faintly in the rather-less-gloom, but moving toward the walls doesn't sound like the worst idea anyone's had today, so he does. One without windows, let's not beg trouble.

"I'm okay." Lilith assures Byron after getting a sense of balance again and checking his needlessly, the dark pressing her closer to his arm and side before Itzhak casts glow over the area, unwilling to move for a beat for some reason when the pitch black bobble starts. Her lips turn up a little his way before she looks upward to the near dark-haired man, "Which way and wall? I'm on you. Stay behind me some when we get posted up."

Yeah, okay, he's entirely going to listen to that. But for her, it's logical, he is still recovering, damnit. She makes to follow where he leads, a hand curling grip to signify his lead right above the wrist.

Rebecca hangs onto Itzhak's belt, so he can use his hands and know she's still there with him. She looks up towards the sound of the laughter and tries to focus on it, tries to muddle its awareness of the humans below it, but her mental efforts slide off.

With everyone pulling out their phones for light before someone with the ability is able to make the place shine on their own, Byron is leading Lilith slowly across the hall. He's not really going to any of the walls, he's the owner of this building and is trying to get a better grasp on where his tenants are holing themselves up. It's then that they both pass the elevator, only to hear the confused voice within it stop. Rather than taking pause right outside of the contraption, he moves forward until he reaches a place where he attempts to tap into the walls around them. He's searching for any number of things, but with how his senses are still dulled and he feels like he's drugged up after having been made whole again, he's finding it difficult to pinpoint exactly what he's looking for.

With a slow shake of his head, he murmurs, "I can't get a head count or a read on what this is exactly." It's frustrating to him, but there's nothing more that he can do but try to pay further attention to any sound, movement, even just a hint of a change in the air that may alert them all to something.

On the list of things Vyv is in favour of, being touched uninvited is somewhere above socks with sandals but below supermarket crescent rolls, and being touched uninvited by something with sharp, tiny nails on skin that ought to be guarded by several layers of plastic and cotton and wool is finding new territory down around rainbow hologram Crocs with actual working jaws. The first thing he notices is simply that it tickles, with makes him shiver; it's when his phone-hand starts to move to brush the back of his neck that the part about the 'shield' registers, and he takes an abrupt step away from the wall, the phone waved against the back of his neck like someone trying to dissuade wasps from a picnic. "Get off," he hisses furiously at whatever's causing that sensation, "That is my personal neck." Door? We still have a door around here somewhere, right?

With the hallway plunged into near-darkness and strange sounds emanating from the shadows, Ruiz digs for his phone again and switches it to flashlight mode. His gun is held loose in his right hand, business end pointed at the floor, and he does his best to take stock of things and build a mental map of their surroundings: where are the fire doors, the elevator, that janitor closet someone vanished into. Windows? "You have got to move out of this place," he grouses to Sutton.

Lilith trails along with one hand still fast on the arm of Byron, sticking right close to him and the light. Her brows knit downward as she looks around, eyes a bit squinted to shift away from where the light is, out into the pockets of surrounding dark between where others are giving off from their own varied light sources. After a pull of breath, she straightens her posture and swallows down, murmuring to Byron, "... the dark is reminding me of... the dream walk. Don't lose the light."

Obviously, Byron doesn't plan on losing his phone and flashlight, so it's a needless kind of plea, but she says it in a murmur of desperation anyway. Then she shakes off whatever trauma residual that crept up and starts surveying with brisk, forced focus once she's had a good few blinks.

Itzhak jerks his head towards the door for Rebecca's benefit. "Back it up. Headin' for the door." He steps backwards to the wall, telegraphing his movements to Bex so she can move along. But he quivers with barely-contained fury when he realizes Lou vanished, and the delivery kid's been silenced. And then the awful voice is taunting him directly and he can't think of anything else, can't focus on a damn thing except what's gonna happen when he gets his hands on the owner of that voice. "You like the way I shine? You ain't seen nothin' yet," he promises the voice in a guttural growl. His left hand dips into his pocket and comes out clenched into a set of brass knuckles.

If Thorne was curious at what happened to the kid in the elevator, he doesn't have the abilities to find out. Not that the doesn't have enough to concern himself with than the boy. With his attempt at getting a mental fix on the darkness in particular having failed, this helps to bolster his other senses as he's moving slowly and more cautiously, creeping forward and keeping his eyes and ears open. Just as with everyone else, fleeing this place sounded like the best possible option, Lilith can feel him grab at her wrist as he starts his way towards the main door, his phone flashlight glowing brilliantly before him.

It would've been a brilliant plan too, for he even calls out, "Everyone, out the lobby do--" Before his words are cut off when he finally spots the silhouette that's guarding it. Sure, it looks like a tiny thing, but just the grotesque way that its arms are too long our its ears too large, that really makes him take pause. "Shit... We've got company." He doesn't see the other shadow things flying around, "We can either try to plow or way through or go through the emergency exits." Because of course there are a few exits in this building!

Rebecca makes a strangled sound in the back of her throat as the shadows move and dance and speak. She lets Itzhak's movement guide her, eyes wide in the glow of phones and glass. "Door, r-right, door."

Sutton is briefly distracted by the glowing shards of glass all over the floor. She glances over toward the elevator, where the griping delivery boy has gone silent all of a sudden. "Hey, do you have noodles in one of those bags?" She bends to dig around in the side-pocket of her medical bag, pulling out a small LED flashlight. It's bright, but only within about five feet. To Ruiz, she agrees, "Yeah, I pretty much —" She pauses when a toothy little goblin jumps over her and scuttles into the shadows. She picks up her bags, slinging them over her shoulders, jams the wine into her duffle, and makes her way to the door with the bat up and in hand. The next thing that comes near her is going to get some. "Fuck this. I hate horror movies."

Ruiz isn't stupid enough to try to discharge his gun on something skittering around his legs, half-seen in the inky dark. He does however try to kick at it with a booted foot, accompanied by a low snarl. Sutton better be careful how she wields that bat. "Come on," he grumbles to her, swooping his phone in an arc to try to find the doors leading out. "Let's get the fuck out of here." Or not. Up comes his weapon, finger brushing the trigger.

Lilith squeaks, but she doesn't scream, practically plowing forward in lunge to briefly pass Byron after something skitters over her feet. She catches herself, though, as does the hold on her wrist and she spins around with paranoia just as he draws up pause with a look at the doorway. The brunette cuts her eyes that way with squint, trying to see through to what he sees, but she can't keep her focus long and she stands well in range of his light pooling cast by the phone.

She wants to be able to see her feet and make sure something isn't going over them again when he decides where they're moving next. Then suddenly, she cracks through and out of her silence to Byron, "... if something's in the way, I can be convincing..." Yes, convincing, Byron.

Lilith definitely isn't talking about a conversation. That's his job, being silver-tongued. She has different ways to convince. She's at least waiting for his input, though, eyes dropping back to paranoia eye her feet and surrounding shadows.

This probably isn't the first time Ruiz has had to one-hand his bulldog of a P220, in the near-dark, with a shitty line of sight on his target. It probably is the first time he's had to put two into the head of a goblin, though. He doesn't spend any time trying to figure out if he's seeing what he thinks he's seeing; he adjusts for the thing's movement, and pops two shots off that ricochet loudly without a silencer attached.

Vyv twists to glare at the wall he's just left, which gives him a lovely view of the decidedly not lovely creature there. He looks very much about to say something when it launches into that leap, and he drops instantly down into a crouch. Unnecessarily, really, but no one wants one of those in his hair. "God, it's like Tony Blair mated with another monkey," he mutters as he straightens again, brushing down his suit with his phone hand. He takes a moment to look around, and then heads toward the door, goblinoid and all. Not in a hurry; he hasn't got an actual plan for dealing with that little wrinkle yet. And when the gun goes off, he stops short, because there are things you can't much argue with, and this is a really nice suit. He tenses at the crash of the ladder, and it ebbs slowly into the first second or two of silence. Another look around, and he takes another somewhat wary step doorward.

There was a part of Byron that would've just said to bumrush the little creep, but there was another than had second thoughts about it. Who knows that those elongated fingers could do to a person. Before he even has the chance to make that call, a shot rings out through the dark. Followed by another. Thorne wasn't packing today, he rarely carries, but he wished that he did today. Out of everyone he remembers seeing in the lobby before darkness fell across the land, he can only guess that it was one person.

The shadow creature at the door gone and the sound of scraping heard through the vents, he calls out to the crowd once more, "The door! Get out now!" They probably don't want to know what's making its way through that air vent. The loud crash of the ladder only punctuates this decision with a series of exclamation marks. Like many, even he's wary about what's on the other side, but that's not going to stop him from hurrying to what should be freedom, "Lil, come on! Everyone, Go! Go!"

Rebecca screams when gunshots go off in the dark, and she crouches down low as things fall and crash and more giggles happen. Why the HELL does she live here, again? "What the hell are these things!?" she hisses at Itzhak, as if he might have the answers. "THORNE! You have my key! Put my goddamned packages in my apartment for me!" She is not staying. Nope. "Itzhak, please, let's get out of here," she pleads, tugging him towards the door.

That's definitely disconcerting, but Sutton's still making for the door. She shows no sign of stopping, no matter falling vents from above. She spent 26 years not believing in any of this crap, and she's hungover. She's hungover with a bat in hand, which is definitely an improvement. For her part, she shows no sign of slowing. "Byron, I'm moving out."

Itzhak wants to hit one of the shadowy little creeps so bad, his teeth hurt. Ruiz's gun goes off and Itzhak drops to one knee, hunching over Rebecca like a mantling hawk. His knee leaves a dented crack in the flooring, as if he weighs ten times what he does. Realizing that the thing blocking the door has had its melon popped, he grabs Rebecca and shoves her towards the door. "Go! Go with the rest of 'em, get out." Then he's on his feet and heading out after her, backwards.

Ruiz racks the slide and waits for a beat to see if another shot's going to be necessary. When the thing stumbles off into the shadows, broken but possibly not dead, he considers for a tense fraction of a second pursuing it. Every fibre in him is bent toward hunting and subduing and killing, but good sense seems to win out eventually. "Move," he barks, like this ragtag group of residents is a military unit. He'll try to cover from behind, his cell phone used to provide some illumination.

"Coming, coming, coming, oh god, if you make a that's-what-she-said joke right now, I'm tripping you..." Lilith tells Byron with a lot of haste when she takes off with his yanking directive and bidding for the door, hoping desperately what's on the other side is fresh air and a reset switch for what they're taking in as reality for the moment. Her footing is really still kind of reactively nervous and careful, so she's not quite hauling as much ass as she typically would be, but she's apparently not letting paranoia take over from skittering creatures and sudden silence after a bunch of cacaphony. She's still got accidental jokes and threats and all while running with latch on the man.

"Let them move out," Vyv says, though he continues right toward the door at the same time, the wary steps shifting into something much more like the irritated stalk he arrived with. Just. Maybe a little bit faster. "I just got everything properly arranged. And somewhere this town has to have competent exterminators." Can you exterminate goblins? Is there any good reason not to try?

Rebecca doesn't hesitate when Itzhak tells her to vamoose. She is out that door and back into the fresh, muggy air of Gray Harbor.

Looks like everyone is booking from out of the lobby, but how much safer is the outside world in Gray Harbor? As much as Byron would love to be the perfect landlord, the Captain of his Ship, he wasn't waiting for everyone else to get the hell out of dodge. Though once outside, his steps eventually falter. It wasn't smart to run out into a situation where the dream or the veil or whatever the hell this was, continued on into the horizon. And who knows what would be waiting for them outside.

In the panic, he may or may not have heard the ire and complaints from many, MANY of his tenants. A woman was stabbed just earlier this week. Is that something that he's going to dwell on? Not at the moment. Right now, he's stops, making sure that everyone else was as far the fuck away from the building as possible. If anything, he catches what Vydals most of all, maybe because the man is hurrying past him once he's already come to a halt. "In our world or in their world?" he'll come out to ask the chef. Lilith probably doesn't want him to stop, but he knows he has to survey the situation. This was his place.

Itzhak finds Ruiz real close, doing a much more professional job of covering the retreat. "Hell of a shot, Gunny." Then he's out and finding Bex to hug the bejesus out of her.

Rebecca buries her head against Itzhak's shoulder. That just took ten years off her life, and it wasn't even Gohl. "We'll get the suit another time," she murmurs quietly. "Let's get the hell out of here. We can pick up pizza on the way." He guarded her, he doesn't have to cook her dinner too.

Lilith keeps going until Byron's hand on her wrist with security grasp stops her to pedal back a few halting steps toward him, looking around for a long moment. Then she looks at the other people around, then at the doorway they just came out of before eyeing her shoes again. After a huge exhale, she shakes her hands out suddenly and moves her head into a tiny shake, murmuring, "Okay. That was creepy."

Her tone of voice is a bit drab and touched with resignation as to the way those things just happen sometimes, "Should find somewhere to store that so it's not nightmare fuel." Then to Byron, she looks up and wonders, "We have to go back in there, don't we?"

Sutton may be tempted to go back for that delivery boy and some noodles, but she doesn't. Sorry, kid. It's a tough little town.

Once shoved outside of the Bayside Apartment building, which still has all of her stuff, which she just finally unpacked, up on floor 5, Sutton heads for the gate. It's not a terribly long trip, though she's strapped with two huge bags like a pack mule, it is a little slow. She rests her wooden bat across her shoulders, her wrists draped over either end of it. She doesn't stop till she reaches the boundary of the property, till she puts her back against that gate.

Around her neck is a St. Michael medallion that doesn't belong to her. Unbeknownst to Sutton, this means her ghost is going with her too. That's gonna be an awkward situation later.

"Either," Vyv replies, closing the cover of the phone with a quick flick of the wrist, "Both!" The phone disappears into a pocket again and the arm holding the clothing finally relaxes to rest fully against his shoulder once more. A small shift of it and the arm attached subtly suggests they're beginning to register their objections to his earlier plan now that the adrenaline of things is fading. "Can you hire exterminators in their world? Definitely both. Can't be too sure." A glance around now that they're outside -- two, actually. One to confirm the world looks properly normal, and another that skims over the others present until it finds and rests on Rebecca. An assessing look, and then a faint nod, probably meant for no one but himself. Pleased to see her unharmed, perhaps. It might not even be entirely to do with the annoyance of finding decent PAs. Or, you know, it might.

Ruiz meets Itzhak's gaze for a beat when the mechanic pulls in to tell him something quietly. He doesn't quite smile in return, 1) because he's trying to make sure everyone gets the fuck out and 2) because smiling is for chumps. But he does deliver a curt nod, and watches after him a moment before doing a final sweep of the lobby and prowling out after the others. "You okay?" he murmurs to Sutton once he finds her, gun stowed under his jacket, arm slid around her waist.

When Lilith comes to a stop beside him, Byron continues to stare at the titans that are the ominous looking trio of buildings that make up the Bayside Apartments. There's hesitation on his part to re-enter. He's not clear whether the things happening inside had stopped, vanished, like they tend to do. But this was different. There was the remains of the goblin still splattered on the ground. "Dream or the Veil? Or something else?" He then asks, taking in a deep breath as he moves forward. Whether Vyv tags along or not, he'll make some response, "Who knows. Maybe /we're/ the exterminators." He continues, "But dreams usually stayed in the dream world right? Has anything ever seeped out... Gohl was another story altogether."

Sutton watches Ruiz approach, and for once neither of them is smiling. Usually the more dour he is, the more laughing she does. The entirety of her response to Ruiz's question comes only after he's slid an arm around her. She turns her face to him, her bat sliding down into her left hand. The handle thunks the ground and she holds it by the barrel. "Dude."

The blonde reaches up, her arm across Ruiz's body, and curls her fingers around his neck. "You're lucky you're so pretty."

Lilith doesn't really have an answer for Byron, and though she looks pretty not keen about stepping back in with him, needs are as needs must and he's not going in there to check alone. She stays close and merely gives an uneasy shrug, "I don't know, but now might not be a bad time to get a cleanup crew and lie down for a spell." She sounds a little non-brokerage about that, despite the quiet suggestion tone of her voice.