hawkgirl:

It kept happening.  The darkness would split and bits of light would creep through.  The silence would turn into a fuzzy, dim noise, and everything would be fire in her nerves.  Nic would open her eyes and gasp painfully for air.  Life. In an instant she went from the depths of death to living again.  It filled her with rage, with hope, with love, and with fear. 

The fear was what always stuck on repeat as it kept happening.  Him.  That face and that sadistic grin.  There would be some banter and usually she'd run her mouth--it was all she could do, really, make threats and tell him that she was going to kick his ass. He was always unmoved, would tell her how she fights like her mother but even she eventually fell.  And he'd give her bits of insight, these tiny little hints of what he was doing, why, and just how long he'd been waiting for this.

Then he'd snap her neck again and the blackness would return.

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

This time, though, when the light came back, Nic didn't even move to sit up.  There was no smartmouthing, no threats, no trying to escape.

She was too emotionally worn out to give a damn anymore.

littleladylord:

There was something bright and brittle and not quite sane in Lenore Cynthia Montgomery Lord's eyes right now.

"How can we not have found who did this, yet?" She asks quietly as she stands outside the room with the.. with...as she stands outside That Room, not targeting any of the people around her in particular with the question. "How can he still be walking around somewhere when she's not getting up again?"

hawkgirl:

Rex was never around.  It was nice, generally, in the 'I get to do whatever I want' sense of things, but Nic had to admit it was weird and sad, too.  She never saw her brother anymore and for a little while she was considering some sort of epic bad behavior to get his attention.  Underage drinking was always a good option, after all, but something came up first.  The theft at the museum opened up a great opportunity, both to get some Hawk action with her brother and also to be badass.  So, after Wendi left and Nic was able to sort out her leads, Nic sent her brother a quick text.

Shadow Thief stole the Dimensionimeter.  Heading to Westfield Park to hunt him down.  Bring the Claw.

And then she was off, taking to the sky to go track down and kick some bad guy ass.

hawkgirl:

Nicolette couldn't sleep.  She'd gone to bed a little early having physically worn herself out flying the skies of some more rural areas of Louisiana to get used to the heft of a new mace, but physical tired wasn't drawing her into sleep.  She tossed and turned.  She tried to sleep with her wings out and with her wings in, upside down in the bed and right side up.  She'd even tried warm milk (and warm milk was something that she hated.)  Nothing was doing the trick so, finally, after hours of trying to doze off Nicolette simply gave up.  She just couldn't sleep and lying in bed wasn't going to do anything but make her grouchy.  Her only option was to sneak out and for once Nic was glad Rex was often distracted these days.  It made it so much easier to crack open a window, swing outside and then with a swoop, lift off into the air.

St. Roch was beautiful from high above with all the streets dotted with somewhat charming street lights.  They looked like tiny strings of diamonds or pearls in some of the older parts of the city.  They all lead somewhere, but Nic knew where she wanted to go.  The Museum was the closest thing she had to home outside of Egypt.  Since lots of the items in the Museum had come from Egypt it wasn't much of a stretch and even from her youngest years, the time before Rex's father had disappeared, Nicolette could remember sitting cross-legged in some of the galleries of the museum with her father and just feeling the ancientness of the artifacts.  They didn't exactly call to her in the literal sense, but she'd always felt drawn.  Just like tonight.

She entered the code on the security panel, slipped inside the building, and made her way through the darkened halls.  First it was the public galleries and after she finished those she rounded the corner, went through the big double oak doors to the private gallery and...stopped.  Directly in front of her was an empty case.  An empty case that wasn't supposed to be empty.  Nothing had been visibly broken, but the contents of the case hadn't been taken out properly.  The Diminsiometer was missing, it's holder knocked to the bottom of the case.

This wasn't right.  After a quick search of the facility, Nic grabbed her phone and made a surprising phone call: she called Wendi.

"How fast can you get to St. Roch's?"

She didn't even attempt pleasantries.