D A Y 0 2

[founds]

CHAPTER 1

NOV 1ST | 58℉☂

▸ In a sad turn of events during last night's activities, local teenager Bela Gage was found dead at Gainsbourg Resort as festivities were wrapping up. Local authorities have opened up an investigation regarding the circumstances around her death.

▸ Several houses were egged in height of last night's events. Locals are offering a small reward to anyone with information that may lead to identification of the culprits.

▸ Now for the weather, expect light showers from late morning to mid afternoon. Blackwell is expecting the storm to keep rolling through overnight, so drive safe!

▸ That's the News In today. Now back to your regularly scheduled tunes. This one goes out to the Gages, may you find peace in these difficult times.

THE RISING IS NOT IN EFFECT

Comments

Some shitty chinese buffet in blackwell : 6ish

[bluecode]

[it's been almost a full 24 hours since his daughter died. he doesn't think of it in terms like that, though, hasn't rightfully kept track of time since he couldn't feel a pulse, everything that has happened since the party might as well have been a shitty dream he's bound to wake up from sooner or later. at least that's what it feels like, slogging through a trauma-induced haze - at least he doesn't have to go back to work. in fact, they expressly forbade him until he was able to meet with the department psychologist, and he didn't have the stomach for such business at the moment.]

[that is how he's come to be sat in a corner booth at the hole in the walliest chinese buffet, the kind that serves overcooked squid in bins and smells like toothpaste for some reason. none of the locals come here, which makes it an ideal place to conduct unsightly business, and it has been his and chloe's "usual place" for some odd years now.]

[he has a messy pile of documents and files at his elbow. the servers usually know not to bother him when he's here with drink refills or whatever, but they must have had a new girl today, because she came by with her pitcher and looked appropriately appalled at the gory police photos he didn't bother hiding at the top of the stack. he apologized because she was sixteen and dressed in white and he wasn't talking to her at all.]

[prizewinner]

[ chloe had been reluctant to text adam, let alone meet him. she was convinced he shouldn't be anywhere near information regarding his daughter's death, at least not for a few more weeks. but it had been her fault, she made first contact. it was almost out of habit. something happened, talk to adam. it was a routine she developed over the past few years and even though this directly involved him-- it felt wrong to keep things from him.

she slides into the booth with him, setting her plate of overcooked food down on the table. there's a frown when she notices what else is on the table, pushing some of the photos aside to make more room for her plate. ]

Should you really be looking at this stuff?

[ holds out a cheese stick for him. ]

[bluecode]

[if he were going to waste his allotted grievance food it wouldn't be on this place, although the cheese sticks are the least offensive of their menu. he shakes a hand no and sets out to restack the files in light of her plate]

In regards to my head or lawfully? Because no to both. [they can just get that out of the way now so she can stop nagging at him to not pursue it. he may recognize it's not the healthiest way to go about your grieving, but it's his. he looks at her with an arm over the stack, like the task of rearranging was just too much. gave up halfway through. regards her with all the tiredness of someone who's had their world inverted and is attempting to endure, poorly]

You didn't come for the cheese sticks. [spit it out chloe.]

[prizewinner]

I could have. I heard about this all-carb diet the kids are going for these days. [ she drops the stick onto her plate, brushing her fingers together in a lazy attempt to get the crumbs off her skin. chloe pulls her purse into her lap from beside her and starts to dig into it as she talks. ]

You're being targeted. [ besides the fact that it was bela is what she is trying to say. chloe sets her purse aside and sets an orange daylily on the table. it's a common flower in west virginia, but the gage residence has plenty of them in their front lawn. ] Her heart was missing. This was in its place.

[bluecode]

[she earns an unimpressed silence for her attempt at humor, although he doesn't blame her he's just not in any kind of mood to kid around. he sits up though when she presents the flower, of course recognizing it: he sees it every time he pulls into the driveway. he takes it up, crumpled and cleaned up it still retains flecks of gore that lend itself toward her claim. it makes him feel cold all over again.]

Targeted by who. [he doesn't have to ask but he does need to hear it out loud, to know years of involvement in this have caught up to him and his family]

[prizewinner]

Who do you think.

[ she gives him a look when he expects her to say it out loud. if it wasn't cult related, she wouldn't be here. and bela had a big cult symbol carved into her chest. gee, i wonder who could have done that. ]

Look, this is kind of tasteless to say so soon but you really need to convince Darla to get her cremated. I had to lie and tweak way too much for me to be at ease.

[ there's a pause and she drums her fingers uneasily on the table. it's easy for her to keep information from the others, to lie and be secretive. but with adam, with him knowing, she couldn't do it. it wasn't right. ]

[bluecode]

Yeah it is. Sorry if my kid's death has inconvenienced you.

[tosses the heartflower down and pulls his hands up to wipe over his face, looking at her across the table and through fingers looking pretty much immediately like he'd like to revoke that statement. that's not who he is, snapping like an asshole and obsessing]

Did you find anything else. Anything. [desperate here you cannot leave him with a flower and a sympathy card. he cannot find his daughter's killer with a flower and a sympathy card. drops hand to point at the table emphatically when he talks] They're here. They're in our town and we don't know who they are. One of them just got up and walked out and any idea I had about who could have done this walked out with him. I need you with me on this.

[he doesn't have time for your wishy washy one foot in one foot out bullshit you need to get your shit together and help a brother out]

[prizewinner]

[ it's fine, it's cool. he can say whatever he wants to her at this moment and she'll deal with it. he has an excuse for such behavior, she's not going to think twice about it.

but his desperation draws it out of her. the last bit of information she was keeping, the thing she fudged. a lot. ]

She knew them. Whoever did this to her. Bela didn't struggle until she was bound.

[ she sets her hands in her lap, fingers fumbling with the fringe on the sleeves on her kimono. ]

It's all I have, Adam. But it's a start.

[bluecode]

[you are a strange woman and i'm so sure they have had a discussion about it many a time. but he's the more tolerant of the hillbilly folk around here so it's no wonder she gets on with him well enough]

She knew-? [this is the worst possible lead she could have given him, considering he knew shit all about his daughter when it really came down to it. especially who she was friends/associated with. he could maybe name two of her friends off the top of his head, and they are sophie and hailey. the realization is just another sucker punch to add to the pile of injustices he's suffered in the last 24 hours, although the most self-inflicted of the bunch]

[he closes his eyes against the taste of bile rising in his throat and struggles to continue, to see this through] How long before she. [you know what he fucking means he's not going to say "was splattered all over the man baby's car" or any variation thereof.] How long before that was she tortured? [he does stumble over that word, says it with resentment] --Would it have had to have been someone in the resort at the time of the party? [is what he's trying to say]

[prizewinner]

[ usually when they discuss this, chloe is at ease. she can handle it without a problem, she accepted what they were doing long ago. it was only natural that bela's death would unsettle her, considering her relationship with adam. but discussing it with him so soon is what made it worse. was he ready to hear all of the things she had been telling him? he may think he could handle it, but what would it do to him? adam was the only person she felt like she could trust within the city and she wasn't sure if she was okay with pushing him into a possibly worse state than he already was.

she's drawing patterns with her marinara sauce on her plate, cheese stick in hand as he attempts to convey his thought to her. ]

It was someone at the party. [ she can confirm that at least for him. that would narrow it down to a huge chunk of the city, unfortunately. and it wasn't like bela was unknown. but they both knew it wasn't going to be easy to find these people. ] Why did they target you?

[ let's stop talking about what happened to your daughter for a second. ]

[bluecode]

[that's not any safer a conversation if the look on his face is any indication, souring immediately]

Why don't you ask the sheriff? [his words come out resentful, moreso even than when he is talking about his own daughters killers. these families will never not hate each other]

[prizewinner]

Hey, I'm not the one you're mad at. [ chloe takes a bite of her cheese stick and narrows her eyes as she chews. she'll drop the subject. with adam, anyway. ]

I just want to make sure you and your wife are going to be safe.

[bluecode]

If wishes were horses beggars would ride. [what part of anything that's happened makes her think that's possible. they were never safe, he just never acknowledged how much danger he was putting his family in by his part in this until now] The only way I can make sure Darla comes out the other side of this is making sure it gets ended.

[drops the hand he's been gesticulating with to the table and knocks twice. it's not even real wood but can't hurt. the way his week has gone he could get a call right now saying otherwise.]

Starting with the one who hurt my family. [but not ending there]

[prizewinner]

We'll get them, we just have to work at this with a cool head.

[ as if that wasn't obvious. she picks up her chopsticks and starts to eat, because this buffet ain't cheap despite the low quality food. in between bites, she talks. ]

We get a list of people who were there. We start knocking off names of unfamiliars. We get alibis. [ adam knows very well how to do his job, but she's trying to make a point. ] They gave us something to work with this time around, it'll take time but we're going to find them.

[ a pause. ]

You can't get too wrapped up in this. You need to stay healthy. Both body and mind.

[bluecode]

[he's going to get wrapped up. there's literally no force great enough to stop him from getting wrapped up. he devoted his life to keeping this under wraps and a dead daughter is all he has to show for it.]

[he's never been the argumentative or stubborn sort and so he's disinclined to pick a fight (he wore himself out on that much already this morning) and so lets her draw her own conclusions from his silence]

[prizewinner]

Do you want to be alone? [ with your gory pictures and your free water. it's not like they have much more to discuss, not now. anything else can wait. she enjoys his company, but if she's just going to grate on his nerves (with her incessant worrying about his wellbeing) then they're not doing each other much of a service at the moment. ]

[bluecode]

[that was a smart conclusion to draw]

Thank you for coming to me with this. [it's not a no. but he is grateful either way. he can't afford to burn bridges acting like an asshole no matter how much license he has to]

[prizewinner]

[ she nods, scooting out of the booth. chloe drops a twenty onto the table to cover her bill and then some. ]

Keep me informed. [ you know i'll always do the same. it's implied. with one final look over of adam, she turns to leave. darla will be getting a lasagna or something from her. a my condolences lasagna. ]