AAG - Storytelling Part 1

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Adrienne forces Wyngarde to release her assets and offers to tell him a story about tonight's events.


Jason struggled to his feet, pain crashing through his body. He wanted to lash out again, but tamed the urge. He was sure she'd concussed him, and the use of the bottle had been particularly effective. Without a weapon, he didn't have the strength to physically hurt her yet. But he would, soon enough.
 
"Your threats are useless. I'm not giving the order to release your money."

"Aww, why not?" Adrienne taunted, adopting a whiny teenager tone. "I asked so nicely! I'm not really sure what it's going to take to get you to give that order, but I'm willing to try a few things." She used her powers to open a briefcase she'd found under the desk and was now rifling through his things. "Do you really want to find out if my threats are useless?" she asked casually as she skimmed some of his papers.
 
"Get out of my-" He lunged at her again. 

Adrienne had emptied the papers out of the briefcase when Wyngarde lunged. She sidestepped him easily, snapped the briefcase shut and swung it to hit him on the ass. "Make the call, asshole," she snapped, starting to lose her patience. "The one to release my assets." She went back to sifting through the papers, looking for the information in hopes of at least being able to dial the phone for him.
 
He grabbed her by the dress front, and punched her firmly in the stomach. It wasn't his strongest blow, but he wasn't a weak man. 

Absorbed in determining the phone number to get Wyngarde to release her assets, he'd caught her off guard, and Adrienne stumbled back against the desk, managing to avoid hitting her head as she fell, but only barely. Panic blazed through her mind as her breath wooshed out of her, and searing white light from the fear burned her vision, but she choked it back and reminded herself she could fight back against being hurt, that Wyngarde wasn't going to win against her. As she struggled to get her wind back she slapped her hand against the desk, against the wall she was near, trying to get a better layout of the place. Bingo. There was a small revolver in a cigar box on the top shelf of the bookcase near the desk. All she had to do was get it , point it at him, and dial the phone number for the man at Lloyds, which she'd managed to get off his papers. 

But first she had to keep him at bay long enough to get it. She rolled to avoid another lunge when she could breathe once again and kicked out at Wyngarde, landing a blow on a kneecap.
 
"Fuck!" His leg gave out under him, and Jason collapsed to the floor, smashing his head on the desk as he did so. 

Adrienne got a sickening feeling in her stomach as Wyngarde hit the desk, but she didn't think she'd killed him because he groaned. But she only wasted a moment to make sure he was okay before reaching up to grab the cigar box with one hand while pulling out her cell phone with the other, dialing the number of the man at Lloyds. While waiting for the call to connect she took the gun out of the box and was pointed it at Wyngarde. "I do firearms training with a former cop and I've taken out soldiers in the field, so this would be nothing," she warned him in a level tone. "In other words? Don't fucking tempt me, Jason. Release my assets." She held out the phone to him as the call connected.

"Hello? This is Mister Atkins office."

Jason's eyes met her and a snarl curled his lips. He was groggy, hurt, and she seemed to have all the cards. Still, let the bitch have her few dollars, he thought. He had the Black Court, and he'd crush her then. Before, she'd been a convenient pawn. Now, he was going to hurt her slowly. Take things away from her, give her a moment of hope at escape, and then take her. Abuse her mind and body for months until her mind shattered.

"This is Jason Wyngarde." He said thickly, his mouth bloody. "I am authorizing the release of account ND-377. Codeword - Argonaut."

"Very good, Mister Wyngarde. The account is now released to the care of Miss Adrienne Frost."

The call had been on speaker, so Adrienne heard the release be confirmed and took the phone back. She then pressed a few buttons on the device to make sure her bank balance increased with the transfer. "Excellent. Much obliged, Jason."

"You stupid bitch. I hope you enjoy your short return to wealth. It won't last long, I promise you."

"And why's that, Jason? You think you have any power over me anymore?" Adrienne laughed at that. "You're finished. I've ruined you."

"I will be the Black King. And when I am, you'll spend hours sucking my cock hoping I spare you." 

"Uhh, yeah, no," Adrienne chuckled. "Sorry. Neither of those things are going to happen. I want you to hear a little story I have to tell you, Jason. It's a rousing tale about how I completely and utterly fucked you over."


Adrienne begins to tell Wyngarde about what's really going on tonight and how she set it up, beginning with their meeting in his office and then how she risked a friendship to finally ask for help.



"You stupid cunt. You have got nothing, you hear me? You expect me to believe that someone as fucking stupid as you could counteract my plans?"

"Can, and did," Adrienne answered Wyngarde with a smirk. "Right from day one when you summoned me to make that ridiculous deal sending me to London to seduce Emma. I Read your ring with my powers. Your desk, your computer. I used Kick to boost my own abilities with the precognition. I figured out what you were planning to do with the encryption key, with Templeton, with Shaw. So I came up with a plan of my own."

"Bullshit. You don't have the resources to stop me."

Adrienne was still smirking. "Friends are resources, idiot. And I have some of the best friends a girl could ask for. And one of them in particular is pretty well connected. And smart."
***
Adrienne had been looking for Garrison for some time, the gym being the last place she checked. When she spotted him there, she was glad she'd changed into workout clothes herself. At least if this went badly she could beat the crap out of the heavy bag to make herself feel better.

"Hey," she greeted, with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Can I talk to you for a minute? Well, probably more than a minute. Can I talk to you for more than a minute? Like maybe a half-hour or so, or until you get annoyed and walk away? Jason Wyngarde's coming after me again. And instead of running away this time I came to talk to you. I know we're not... like we were, so talking about it this time is probably just a waste of your time for you, but I needed to talk to you about it. Well, more like, I need your help. Not with Wyngarde coming after me, I mean. I sort of have a plan to deal with him. But I need you to help me with the plan so I came to ask for help with the plan. Would you help me with the plan?" The nervous ramble was in rare form tonight.

Kane paused, the dumbbell growing heavier as she spoken. His face suddenly twisted as he stepped away and dropped the weight with a crash to the mats. "Fuck, that's heavy! Are those things always that heavy?" The Canadian was dripping with sweat, trying to adjust to his lack of powers. "Okay, sit down, pass me a towel and let's start at the beginning, eh? What plan, what's Wyngarde doing?"

"Christ!" Adrienne extolled in surprise as the dumbbell crashed to the mats. "Umm, yeah they are!" She handed him a towel as ordered and sat. "Are you alright?" she asked, plan and Wyngarde forgotten momentarily. "You look a little green. Here." She passed him a bottle of water.

"It's been more than a few years since I broke a sweat working out. I think I've actually gained five pounds over the last few weeks." The Canadian's powers made him immune to weight gain, and it took time to adjust without them. He took a long pull from the bottle. "So, let's try this again. What do you need?"

Adrienne looked him up and down, squinting as if in serious contemplation. "Nope. No weight gain. You still look like Michelangelo chiseled you out of marble." She kicked her feet out and leaned back against the bench where they were sitting. "I need your father to vouch for me with Emma Steed. Do you know her? Blue Queen of the London Hellfire Club?" She huffed out a tired breath. "Wyngarde's threatening me with stories about me selling sex for drugs, sexually abusing the kids here, dangling releasing my assets and my company, all in exchange for me going to London and using my powers on an electronic data key Steed's got all her personal espionage databases or whatever on. I figured out what he's planning to do with it," she told him, wiggling her fingers as she did when she wanted to indicate she'd been using her powers. "He's going to plant info on it showing that Steed's making wonky deals with Shaw. Try to bring them both down.

"But what I'm gonna do, because I'm crafty like that," she added, tapping a finger to her temple and smirking a little, "is ask Doug and Sarah Vale to work their voodoo computer magic on this quantum encryption key and make it so that we can track the crap Wyngarde's adding to the databases and give it to the Lords Cardinal as proof Wyngarde's dirty even by Hellfire standards. Put him in deep shit. But for that to happen, I need Steed to play along so I can keep Wyngarde on the hook until Doug can flip the switch and catch him right when he thinks he's winning. And for that to happen, I need your father to tell Steed I can be trusted. Do you think you could talk to him for me?"

"Geez, this sounds like a spectacularly dangerous plan, Adrienne. If they get wind you're trying to run an end game around them, either court might decide to take you out. Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Of course. I mean... yeah. Yeah, of course I do." Then the smirk faded and Adrienne put her head back against the wall, closed her eyes and sighed. "Ugh. I hope so. I mean, yeah, I'm sure I know what I'm doing, in that yeah, I know exactly what's going to happen if I screw this up." Adrienne knew that for this plan to work she had to have a lot of conversations with people about the plan in the future, and this was one of only two times she could have the conversation and actually voice how incredibly fucking worried she was about the whole damn thing. Still with her eyes closed, she muttered: "I know how dangerous it is. I do. And I know I don't want to do this. I especially don't want to ask people that I care about, people that I've come to... love, to get involved in something where either court could take them out for helping me. But I can't let them keep doing this." She opened her eyes and focused them on him, voice strained. "I Read his ring. Wyngarde's. It's all up here now," she muttered, tapping her temple again, "and I can't get it out. I've seen how many times he's done shit like this to other people. Manipulated people. Hurt, destroyed people, just to take more power for himself. I have to stop him, Gar. Or at least try, or I won't be able to sleep at night."

"I don't want to see you get hurt, Adrienne." Kane said, but he couldn't fault what she said. Wyngarde wasn't going to just go away, and if she had a chance to take him out, shouldn't she? "Is there any other way to get the same results?"

Adrienne felt a weight leave her shoulders when Garrison said he didn't want to see her get hurt. "I... I don't think so," she murmured, wringing her hands together, "I-I mean, I can't think of any other way. If you can think of anything I missed, though, I'd love your input." She outlined the rest of the plan for him as concisely as possible.

"Fuck." Kane let out a long breath, looking at his hands. "This needs to fall exactly right to work, Adrienne. I just- alright, I'll talk to my dad. On one condition. I'm not letting you do this on your own. I may not be able to throw a car through a wall, but I'm still a cop. Maybe I can see an angle on the scene that other people might miss."

"Condition accepted," Adrienne answered, giving him a real smile this time, grateful and less troubled, "gladly. Thank you. I mean, really. It's... I'm... it makes me feel a hell of a lot better about having to do all of this knowing you're with me on it." She took a moment to indulge in that warm and fuzzy feeling before getting back to business. "So for the part of the plan about needing the help of the Red Court, you know Jane Hampshire, right? Do you think you could get her on board?"

"Um, possibly." Kane said hesitantly. He had an idea what she might ask for in return.

Adrienne raised an eyebrow, caught off guard by the lack of his usual calm certainty. "Do you want me to ask someone else?" Like he'd said, this needed to fall exactly right to work, so she didn't want to take chances that she might not get the result she needed.

"Who else knows her? I just-" Kane rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Hampshire has a bit of a thing for me. Like, a creepy, oiled up and strapped into the torture rack kind of a thing. I can trust her, but the cost might be- uh, you know."

Well, this was news to Adrienne. She didn't go so far as to make SurprisedFace, because, well, Garrison was pretty damned attractive so it wasn't as much a surprise to learn Hampshire had a thing for him as it was just... not cool. "Shit, really? Okay, well... yeah, does anyone else we trust know her? Anyone we can bring in on this?" She really, really didn't want this to happen now. It wasn't that she was jealous or feeling possessive of him; after all, they hadn't been in a romantic relationship for some time now. But it was... okay, damnit, maybe she was feeling possessive. "I really don't want you to pay that cost," she admitted, which was as close to admitting she still had feelings for him as she was going to get. She cringed and gave another sigh. "But I'm worried I might have to ask you to."
"Farouk knew her and her father, but he's still missing. Amanda met her once... look, this is silly. You need her to make this thing work and she owes me. I'll talk to her and get her on board." If this was the cost of getting Adrienne free of the Hellfire Club, it was worth it.

Adrienne's uneasiness was back. She put her feet up on the bench, knees drawn up to her chest with her arms around them so she could fiddle with her shoelaces, unable to look at him. "Okay. Thanks. Really. You're right. We need her to bring the asshole down with this plan and this seems to be the only way to do it. The plan's gonna work," she said as if needing to reassure herself. But the metaphorical wind had gone out of her metaphorical sails as the first consequence of what she knew had to be done had been presented to her. Still, this whole thing wasn't really about her, it was about needing to stop Wyngarde, and she had to set her personal feelings aside and keep focused on finishing the plan.