Operation: Apalachin - Log 5
Sep. 7th, 2022 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsSarah makes it inside to confront her Aunt.
Back again, although this time it was through a side door as opposed to Amanda's magical teleport. The sounds of confused battle were all around the building, and two men desperately trying to get more ammunition were in no position to stop Sarah.
Sarah watched their shaking hands and wondered just how new these guys were. Maybe they were kids of folks who worked for the Karnelli's for years, who thought they got a sweet job guarding the building no one would ever be dumb enough to break into. One of them started to get mouthy, and Sarah made sure he got a good look at the long, sharp bone she pulled from her shoulder. "Shut up and tell me where Margaret is and maybe I won't leave you to bleed out here."
"Yeah, you can-"
"Shut the fuck up, Paulie. We ain't paid for this shit." The other man shook his head. "She's up in the office. And she's strapped."
"Smart boy. " Sarah smirked, and hurried up the stairs leaving them arguing behind her. As she reached the landing, she stopped and listened carefully for any indication she was walking into an ambush. She had no fancy enhanced senses, but she was observant as hell.
For a moment, she considered whether it was even worth trying to sneak up on the office. She knew how these things worked, there would have been some sort of radio call, or a line of text over an old-fashioned beeper, or someone somewhere would remotely hit the panic button. Margaret would absolutely know she was somewhere in the building, and would be ready for her. Unless.
Sarah took a few tentative steps down the hallway. "Aunt Marge? We both know shooting me won't do any good, so please come out and talk with me. Dad is sick with worry and I think I can make this right if you will just listen to me."
There was a long pause. "Just leave, Sarah. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to." The nervous voice came from the office to her left, through the closed door.
Sarah stood where she was, hoping not to trigger the desperation she knew was simmering behind that door. She spoke slowly and quietly, "What then, Aunt Marge? Did they tell you they shot at Dad? I know you would never have agreed to that, but someone you are working with sent a message to a man in his seventies with a bullet." She let that hang in the air a moment, and continued, "We can fix this before someone else gets hurt."
"Open the door. But slowly." She said, and as Sarah opened the door, Marge leveled an assault rifle at her. It was like the end of Scarface, carrying a weapon she could barely handle, cracks and doubts covered over by cocaine. "How do we fix this?"
It took all Sarah had not to react, but by some miracle her face remained calm and watchful. This wasn't the first time she'd had a gun pointed at her, and it was too late to develop a healthy fear of firearms now. She remained quiet, almost meek in her tone. "Let me talk to Dad. I can get him to change his mind and destroy the paperwork. I caused all this, so I'll fix it. I'll leave and my father can have his sister back. He misses you."
"No... this was-" Margerat Rushman drew herself up. "I should be the head of the Karnelli family now. Now! But all my reinforcements disappeared? Everything went against me? This was you, or your father, and those dirty mutie friends that keep interfering. Stop playing the good daughter, Sarah. You were tainted the second those bones started growing out of you and I don't believe anything has changed." She said, although her voice quivered. Her conviction seemed weak.
Sarah smiled sadly. "Believe what you like about me, but do you really misunderstand your brother so much that you honestly believe he is acting against you? Traditional, family-first, Frank Rushman? Who sent his sister a Christmas card with the deed to a townhouse outside the city because he worried about her? Wanted her to be safe? Wanted her and his nephew to have a place to land? No, Dad was never involved in this and I think you know that."
Margaret's shoulders sagged, and the end of the rifle bobbed slightly. Sarah took the opportunity and lunged at her aunt, bringing a bony knee into her midsection and twisting the rifle out of her trembling hands. This time her smile wasn't sad. "Me though, you might have been right about."
Margaret went down hard, but came up hard with a slim knife, opening up Sarah's knee. "I fucking knew it!" She hissed.
Sarah put the rifle down out of reach and reached a hand down to tentatively check out the cut on her knee. It stung like a bitch, but it would heal. She looked back at Margaret with all the pride of a young mother seeing her baby walk for the first time. She grabbed onto a sharp protrusion on her hip and the sound of tearing fabric and flesh cut through the heavy sound of pained breathing. "You have knives too! What a spectacular fucking surprise."
"You freak! I told my brother he should have put you down like the animal you are the second those- those fucking bones started coming out. Our father would have drowned you in the river that day, but not weak little Frank. Well, fuck you." She spat. She moved surprisingly adeptly with the knife in her hand, a difference from her awkwardness with the rifle.
It had been a long time since words like that from her Aunt could hurt Sarah. It had been the reason Margaret was pushed out of the Family, and Sarah was a long way away from the angry tween who just wanted to be normal. She dodged out of the way, and used the bone in her hand to swipe at the knife in Margaret's. Her boxing skills didn't quite translate over to a knife fight. She took a step back. "Aunt Marge, how do you think this is going to end? You kill me and everything goes back to normal? The Karnelli's pass over all their own Family to make you the boss?"
"Anthony Karnelli thinks he has everything well in hand and a long future. But there's a storm coming, and if Tony falls during it, I'll be the only one with the consolidated base and connections to head the family." She kept moving, circling, Obviously trained but also obviously not experienced, letting her mouth soothe her fear. "Your death, my monstrous little niece? Doesn't matter one way or another to the Karnellis. This is about me making the Rushman name pure again."
Sarah's laugh had no humor behind it, just a harsh sound that began somewhere near the back of her throat. "You're talking "purity" while you work with the assholes who are burning our whole world to the ground. I almost wish I was able to see you get your way. They would eat you alive."
"I'm tired. Tired of talking to a freak hiding behind my niece's voice." She said quietly.
"I could fix that." Sarah feinted to the left, and with a movement as natural as walking thanks to hours and hours of boxing drills, pivoted on her back foot and scooped the bone knife back toward Margaret's stomach. "Now you can stop thinking about me and worry about yourself."
The blade narrowly missed flesh, tearing out the stomach of her shirt as she tried to get the knife up in a defensive position. With a shriek, she hacked back almost blindly, just trying to hit anything.
Sarah laughed, but this time it was involuntary, a giggle that she would die before admitting. She wasn't sure what she had expected from this confrontation but it definitely hadn't been flailing. "It looks like you should have taken Marco up on some self-defense lessons." She was shorter than her aunt, but stood with a confidence that made her seem taller. Sarah lunged forward, pushing a bony forearm towards Margaret's chest to back her up towards the wall. "It would help you with what's coming."
The knife tumbled from her hands as her back hit the wall. The woman stared back at Sarah, but fear had crept in behind the defiance. "You- you don't need to do this."
"No?" Sarah leaned in closer, so that she barely had to talk above a whisper. "Isn't this what you wanted, Aunt Marge? You wanted to walk bravely into a room with a monster and only one of us would walk out. And obviously, it would be you and not the monster, right? But what if we're right and you've been wrong all along?" Sarah held her gaze so intensely, that Margaret barely registered that the bone knife in Sarah's left hand was no longer at her side. "Or what if you've been right," Margaret choked out a startled gasp as the bone in Sarah's hand tore forcefully through her abdomen, "and there's absolutely nothing you could do to stop us?"
Sarah took one step away, bringing the bone back out with a sickening sound. She looked at it, and at the blood slowly soaking into Margaret's shirt. "Aunt Marge, you're bleeding," she cooed, "why don't you have a seat. You'll feel better after you catch your breath." She stepped to the side and hooked a foot behind her aunt's legs, tapping them away from the wall. Margaret could choose to go down gracefully, or fight back and break her tailbone when she landed. She sat. Sarah ran a finger through the blood on her bone knife and ran the finger across her lips like she would with a lip gloss. "I've come to appreciate a red lip as I get older, " she mused. The action had the intended effect: Margaret stared in horror from the floor before gagging weakly.
"You know the best part, Marge? It runs in families. So if I'm a mutant, there will be more. Maybe Nico is already one and you don't even know it. Maybe your son is one of those secret mutants who can fuck with your mind."
Margaret began gathering what strength she had left to protest, it wasn't true, couldn't be true, but Sarah was tired of listening to the broken record that was Margaret Rushman. "No ma'am. We're done here." She reached down to a rip in her jeans and tugged on a protrusion there. A bone, red and slick pulled from her thigh. The end was thick and curved, almost like a baseball bat. She swung at Margaret's head, and while the older woman was able to dip down to the floor to escape the first hit, she wasn't able to avoid the second blow. It hit her squarely in the temple and she slumped to the ground. If the knife wound hadn't been severe enough to cause her to bleed out, the bleeding on the brain from head trauma ensured she wasn't walking out of the compound today.
Sarah slid the bone knife in the waistband of her jeans, and spit in her hand to wipe the dried blood from her lips. "By the way," she said to the body on the floor, "if someone hands you a machine gun in the next life, maybe ask them how to turn the safety off."
Back again, although this time it was through a side door as opposed to Amanda's magical teleport. The sounds of confused battle were all around the building, and two men desperately trying to get more ammunition were in no position to stop Sarah.
Sarah watched their shaking hands and wondered just how new these guys were. Maybe they were kids of folks who worked for the Karnelli's for years, who thought they got a sweet job guarding the building no one would ever be dumb enough to break into. One of them started to get mouthy, and Sarah made sure he got a good look at the long, sharp bone she pulled from her shoulder. "Shut up and tell me where Margaret is and maybe I won't leave you to bleed out here."
"Yeah, you can-"
"Shut the fuck up, Paulie. We ain't paid for this shit." The other man shook his head. "She's up in the office. And she's strapped."
"Smart boy. " Sarah smirked, and hurried up the stairs leaving them arguing behind her. As she reached the landing, she stopped and listened carefully for any indication she was walking into an ambush. She had no fancy enhanced senses, but she was observant as hell.
For a moment, she considered whether it was even worth trying to sneak up on the office. She knew how these things worked, there would have been some sort of radio call, or a line of text over an old-fashioned beeper, or someone somewhere would remotely hit the panic button. Margaret would absolutely know she was somewhere in the building, and would be ready for her. Unless.
Sarah took a few tentative steps down the hallway. "Aunt Marge? We both know shooting me won't do any good, so please come out and talk with me. Dad is sick with worry and I think I can make this right if you will just listen to me."
There was a long pause. "Just leave, Sarah. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to." The nervous voice came from the office to her left, through the closed door.
Sarah stood where she was, hoping not to trigger the desperation she knew was simmering behind that door. She spoke slowly and quietly, "What then, Aunt Marge? Did they tell you they shot at Dad? I know you would never have agreed to that, but someone you are working with sent a message to a man in his seventies with a bullet." She let that hang in the air a moment, and continued, "We can fix this before someone else gets hurt."
"Open the door. But slowly." She said, and as Sarah opened the door, Marge leveled an assault rifle at her. It was like the end of Scarface, carrying a weapon she could barely handle, cracks and doubts covered over by cocaine. "How do we fix this?"
It took all Sarah had not to react, but by some miracle her face remained calm and watchful. This wasn't the first time she'd had a gun pointed at her, and it was too late to develop a healthy fear of firearms now. She remained quiet, almost meek in her tone. "Let me talk to Dad. I can get him to change his mind and destroy the paperwork. I caused all this, so I'll fix it. I'll leave and my father can have his sister back. He misses you."
"No... this was-" Margerat Rushman drew herself up. "I should be the head of the Karnelli family now. Now! But all my reinforcements disappeared? Everything went against me? This was you, or your father, and those dirty mutie friends that keep interfering. Stop playing the good daughter, Sarah. You were tainted the second those bones started growing out of you and I don't believe anything has changed." She said, although her voice quivered. Her conviction seemed weak.
Sarah smiled sadly. "Believe what you like about me, but do you really misunderstand your brother so much that you honestly believe he is acting against you? Traditional, family-first, Frank Rushman? Who sent his sister a Christmas card with the deed to a townhouse outside the city because he worried about her? Wanted her to be safe? Wanted her and his nephew to have a place to land? No, Dad was never involved in this and I think you know that."
Margaret's shoulders sagged, and the end of the rifle bobbed slightly. Sarah took the opportunity and lunged at her aunt, bringing a bony knee into her midsection and twisting the rifle out of her trembling hands. This time her smile wasn't sad. "Me though, you might have been right about."
Margaret went down hard, but came up hard with a slim knife, opening up Sarah's knee. "I fucking knew it!" She hissed.
Sarah put the rifle down out of reach and reached a hand down to tentatively check out the cut on her knee. It stung like a bitch, but it would heal. She looked back at Margaret with all the pride of a young mother seeing her baby walk for the first time. She grabbed onto a sharp protrusion on her hip and the sound of tearing fabric and flesh cut through the heavy sound of pained breathing. "You have knives too! What a spectacular fucking surprise."
"You freak! I told my brother he should have put you down like the animal you are the second those- those fucking bones started coming out. Our father would have drowned you in the river that day, but not weak little Frank. Well, fuck you." She spat. She moved surprisingly adeptly with the knife in her hand, a difference from her awkwardness with the rifle.
It had been a long time since words like that from her Aunt could hurt Sarah. It had been the reason Margaret was pushed out of the Family, and Sarah was a long way away from the angry tween who just wanted to be normal. She dodged out of the way, and used the bone in her hand to swipe at the knife in Margaret's. Her boxing skills didn't quite translate over to a knife fight. She took a step back. "Aunt Marge, how do you think this is going to end? You kill me and everything goes back to normal? The Karnelli's pass over all their own Family to make you the boss?"
"Anthony Karnelli thinks he has everything well in hand and a long future. But there's a storm coming, and if Tony falls during it, I'll be the only one with the consolidated base and connections to head the family." She kept moving, circling, Obviously trained but also obviously not experienced, letting her mouth soothe her fear. "Your death, my monstrous little niece? Doesn't matter one way or another to the Karnellis. This is about me making the Rushman name pure again."
Sarah's laugh had no humor behind it, just a harsh sound that began somewhere near the back of her throat. "You're talking "purity" while you work with the assholes who are burning our whole world to the ground. I almost wish I was able to see you get your way. They would eat you alive."
"I'm tired. Tired of talking to a freak hiding behind my niece's voice." She said quietly.
"I could fix that." Sarah feinted to the left, and with a movement as natural as walking thanks to hours and hours of boxing drills, pivoted on her back foot and scooped the bone knife back toward Margaret's stomach. "Now you can stop thinking about me and worry about yourself."
The blade narrowly missed flesh, tearing out the stomach of her shirt as she tried to get the knife up in a defensive position. With a shriek, she hacked back almost blindly, just trying to hit anything.
Sarah laughed, but this time it was involuntary, a giggle that she would die before admitting. She wasn't sure what she had expected from this confrontation but it definitely hadn't been flailing. "It looks like you should have taken Marco up on some self-defense lessons." She was shorter than her aunt, but stood with a confidence that made her seem taller. Sarah lunged forward, pushing a bony forearm towards Margaret's chest to back her up towards the wall. "It would help you with what's coming."
The knife tumbled from her hands as her back hit the wall. The woman stared back at Sarah, but fear had crept in behind the defiance. "You- you don't need to do this."
"No?" Sarah leaned in closer, so that she barely had to talk above a whisper. "Isn't this what you wanted, Aunt Marge? You wanted to walk bravely into a room with a monster and only one of us would walk out. And obviously, it would be you and not the monster, right? But what if we're right and you've been wrong all along?" Sarah held her gaze so intensely, that Margaret barely registered that the bone knife in Sarah's left hand was no longer at her side. "Or what if you've been right," Margaret choked out a startled gasp as the bone in Sarah's hand tore forcefully through her abdomen, "and there's absolutely nothing you could do to stop us?"
Sarah took one step away, bringing the bone back out with a sickening sound. She looked at it, and at the blood slowly soaking into Margaret's shirt. "Aunt Marge, you're bleeding," she cooed, "why don't you have a seat. You'll feel better after you catch your breath." She stepped to the side and hooked a foot behind her aunt's legs, tapping them away from the wall. Margaret could choose to go down gracefully, or fight back and break her tailbone when she landed. She sat. Sarah ran a finger through the blood on her bone knife and ran the finger across her lips like she would with a lip gloss. "I've come to appreciate a red lip as I get older, " she mused. The action had the intended effect: Margaret stared in horror from the floor before gagging weakly.
"You know the best part, Marge? It runs in families. So if I'm a mutant, there will be more. Maybe Nico is already one and you don't even know it. Maybe your son is one of those secret mutants who can fuck with your mind."
Margaret began gathering what strength she had left to protest, it wasn't true, couldn't be true, but Sarah was tired of listening to the broken record that was Margaret Rushman. "No ma'am. We're done here." She reached down to a rip in her jeans and tugged on a protrusion there. A bone, red and slick pulled from her thigh. The end was thick and curved, almost like a baseball bat. She swung at Margaret's head, and while the older woman was able to dip down to the floor to escape the first hit, she wasn't able to avoid the second blow. It hit her squarely in the temple and she slumped to the ground. If the knife wound hadn't been severe enough to cause her to bleed out, the bleeding on the brain from head trauma ensured she wasn't walking out of the compound today.
Sarah slid the bone knife in the waistband of her jeans, and spit in her hand to wipe the dried blood from her lips. "By the way," she said to the body on the floor, "if someone hands you a machine gun in the next life, maybe ask them how to turn the safety off."
