2019-10-03 - Boom! (Goes the Dynamite)

I can't sleep, 'cause my bed's on fire. Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire.

Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?

When Lilith comes down onto the shop floor, her phone starts to buzz in her lounge pants pockets. She's still looking flushed and touched with fever, but a lesser version, the kind that leaves her in a state of miserably operating instead of wallowing, like the illness is finally tapering toward a break. However, she can't lie and wait and rest it out, she's been out of commission for days and her shop girl, Katy, isn't capable of doing the job she was hired to do, even after all this time.

The girl is infuriating. The call is from Unknown. That too, is infuriating. But all the same, while emerging from the stairs toward the glass counter where Katy is seated playing with her phone instead of working, she takes the call.

Turner: Don't hang up.

Lilith: Why? Why are you doing this?

Turner: I know you don't understand yet. Let me show you why.

Lilith: No, I don't, I think you explicitly like fucking with me because you're rich and bored.

Turner: Lily, if you--

Lilith: You don't get to call me Lily! Stop calling, stop texting, stop stalking Byron, just stop it!

Turner: I'm sorry. I won't. But listen to me...

Lilith stops at the glass counter and blows out a short hissing noise through her teeth to get composure under thumbs while walking. Then the brunette comes to stand behind where Katy has two antique knives out that require polishing before display in the case. The shop girl's not doing it, though, she's on her phone, ignoring most everything quite pointedly. She might want to be giving the impression of not listening to the boss' phone conversation, even though it's impossible not to overhear. You'd think she'd pretend to be working, at least, since Lilith seems to be in a mood, but no. Just the phone and eavesdropping.

Lilith: If I what? I don't want you. Don't you get it? You're fucking crazy.

Turner: You don't know what you want. What we had, it was different, and it needs another chance.

Lilith: ... what we had? Are you seriously that delusional?

There's a tone change from the man on the phone that goes dark with trigger.

Turner: You know exactly what I'm talking about. You broke all the rules for me, quit playing fucking stupid. Is he there? Is that why you're being a fucking cunt?

Lilith: Grant. This isn't about him. This is about you. Get help. Sweet hell, it's not like you can't afford it. I'm trying to talk to you and make you hear me but you won't.

Lilith recognizes that tone and doesn't like the switch of attention and fixation onto Byron, even though the man isn't even here. Fatigued and frustrated to the point of lashing out, she somehow keeps it together enough to try and swap that focus instead of leaving the call. And she's staring daggers at the back of Katy's head while standing at lean on the phone. The girl is literally still browsing the internet with no fucks given. Honestly, it's a wonder all the glass in the case doesn't break with the lady of the place just becoming some semblance of operating again and tested in such ways.

Grant: No, this is all about him. He's got you blinded. Who the hell is he to you, really? He has a girlfriend, you know. A live-in. But there's pictures of him staying at your place overnight and leaving in the morning. Is that what you think you're worth?

Lilith: Pictures? Are you fucking kidding me?! Normal people internet stalk! You hire fucking stealth operative spy investigators!

Katy does turn around now to look at Lilith and just openly stares and listens to the conversation at this point since the woman is behind the case with her. She's still playing a game on her phone with flicks of eyes downward here and there, though, while doing so. Lilith has become so bewildered and infuriated by the call, she's pacing around behind the shop girl's chair in small, tense prowl while holding the phone to her ear, flushed not just with fever now, but fury.

Turner: You wouldn't talk to me. You're being ridiculous. And stupid. You didn't used to be a stupid girl. It's him.

Lilith: Leave him the fuck out of all of this or I'll...!

There's a sudden fully amused, dark chuckle from the man on the other end of the line.

Turner: You'll kill me? Yes, you've said that before, but you never quite did. I could come see you and we could test it.

It's all terrible all of a sudden. Lilith ticked down like a powder keg and suddenly she can't contain what she is and she doesn't care what happens to anyone or anything else. It seems deep down, on some Ghoul haunted level she's unbeknownst to, this is the appropriate response. Bitch has it coming. And if she could reach Grant Turner right now, so would he. After hissing into the phone, a customer walks in across from where Lilith and Katy are. Immediately one of the shelves blows apart at the supports to send items and the shelving coming down with hard and heavy tumble onto the random local shopper-or-pawner-to-be, the middle-aged woman going down with a squawk.

Lilith: Try me.

When the incensed brunette throws the phone, Katy, who already has so much of her damned ire and has had it coming for so very long in Lilith's current state of mind... the inside of her forearms are suddenly flayed open and she screams terribly. The blood splashes in spill on the knives and glass counter where she's taken up lean while watching the boss pace and yell into the phone. Lilith's reaction was to go straight for the wrists while seeing her leaned there by those blades with her stupid dyed black hair and hipster glasses. She's a little off, though, and splits the forearms instead, not quite as deadly, but the shop girl's bleeding horribly and... still screaming with shock and confusion and pain.

The customer isn't really hurt so much as tumbled and buried and freaked out by Katy's screaming. Luckily she can't see the blood yet, but that's going to be an issue soon. Lilith starts to reflex heal the damage she notices she did when more natural mindset comes back to her, jarred by all the screaming and blood but... she's also strangely calm about it. It's almost like she seriously believes she's just watched something happen to Katy that was utterly Katy's fault. But she's not thinking on that right now.

Lilith just needs to cover her ass and maybe make sure Katy doesn't die. Immediately, she gets towels from under the counter to tie off the arms best she can while making empty shushing noises at the pained and screaming shop girl. Then she gets the phone to call 911 and pauses... and calls the Captain first instead. Then she calls an ambulance.

Maybe Lilith shouldn't have answered the phone for an Unknown number. Things might have been different in the shop right then.