Sucks to Suck – Chapter 19

            It had been a couple of weeks since his attack, and Mike still felt his shoulder hurting where he had been bit. It was a dull pain with an occasional throb and way less than it had been for the first week after the bite. Yet still, it was fucking annoying. But what pissed him off was that nobody seemed to believe him when he told them what happened. The memories of that night still flashed in his mind whenever his shoulder and neck ached.

            He remembered bleeding in his car as he drove into the Cascade General Hospital’s emergency entrance, almost crashing his car into an ambulance. He remembered stumbling inside and nearly collapsing, his shirt soaked in blood. So much more than he expected from such a minor wound. Even then, he already knew nobody would believe him if he was to tell them what happened. That a small pale girl had sunk his teeth into his neck like a god-damn vampire. She was weirdly strong, and when he tried to get away, he saw her eyes shift colours as she tried to put him into a trance or something. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t call the police back then, but by the time the attending doctor at the ER asked him what caused his wound and he said, ‘Someone bit me’, the reason became clear. They wouldn’t buy it. The doctor lifted an eyebrow, but that was a milder reaction than Mike expected for such an unusual story. He had been admitted quickly, as profusely bleeding wounds got priority in most triage procedures, and as the attending doctor was replaced by a nurse, he relayed her his impression.

            “Oh. Well, bites aren’t common, but they aren’t unheard of,” she said, non-judgmentally.

            “They aren’t?”

            She shook her head. Mike was a little surprised. But then he thought about all the drug fiends and homeless people he saw around town and how often they were either high on drugs or deeply disturbed. Maybe it made sense that from time to time, one of them would bite someone in a fit of rage, madness or drug-induced frenzy. Mike wondered, then, for just a second, if the girl who attacked him was a drug fiend. But no, she was sober and way too ‘normal’ until she sank her teeth into his neck. Until he felt how weirdly strong she was. She pushed him away with the force of a gorilla; not even crack would make her that strong.

            The nurse cleaned his wound with gauze as she explained that human bites were actually filthy and they had to clean it just as well as dog bites, if not better, and in some cases, they would even recommend anti-viral shots for some common infections in case the biter had open sores that could lead to a blood-borne infection. Mike felt sick thinking about it. And as the nurse cleaned his wound, she let out a ‘huh’ sound. He turned to see her placing down the fourth or fifth pad of gauze on a metallic tray. Each one soaked deeply in blood. And when he asked what was wrong, she asked him a strangely specific question:

            “Do you have any chronic condition? Haemophilia, perhaps?”

            He was confused, and as she explained, he shook his head. No, he did not have haemophilia or anything like that. Then she commented on how odd it was that such small puncture wounds were still bleeding with no signs of slowing down an hour later. And as she said it, she looked at his wounds, just after another wipe of gauze, with an intensely confused, curious look.

            “Are you sure it was a person?”

            “Yes… Not a lot of things look like a person…”

            “Huh…”

            “What is it?”

            The nurse didn’t respond, but she snapped a picture with her phone, which he didn’t oppose before she went on to explain that she saw a few human bites, but none seemed that ‘clean’ and deep. Usually, sharp teeth did that.

            “Like fangs?”

            She nodded. At that moment, he made the mistake of letting his guard down. Perhaps she had seen enough weird stuff to believe him. So he told her. He told her about the small girl who had dented his car door. He skipped the part about chasing her down an alley and pulling a knife on her, but he told her everything else. How her eyes shifted as she chased him to his car like she wanted to hypnotise him. He told her how strong she was and how, even though he was maybe twice her weight, he couldn’t push her away. The nurse seemed to be close to believing him. Her eyes were fixed on him, with attention and a hint of horror and confusion, a natural reaction for someone hearing those things.

            But then it shifted to awkward confusion and pity. Mike knew then that he lost her. And when she said that he had lost a lot of blood and was probably seeing things, he just nodded. He knew he had not imagined it, but nobody would believe him. Moments later, she called for help. They stapled his wounds and applied some sort of gel to help his blood coagulate faster. Later that night, he was bandaged and sent home.

            That nurse that night had been the closest thing he ever got to someone believing him. His friends didn’t, when he told them about a week later, in a night of drinking. His father didn’t believe him when he went to visit him on the weekend and saw his wound. The last person he tried to tell was a girl on the dating app he was using. She seemed to be into that witchy and zodiac vibes some women seemed to love, and he thought she’d be open-minded. She didn’t. It seemed that it was one thing to believe in moon spells, bad energies, and a horoscope. But a vampire was a bridge too far.

            After that, he told no one. He tried to convince himself a couple of times that he had imagined all of it. But he would wake up a few nights with the sight of the girl’s fang-like teeth covered in blood opening towards him. He would wake up with his wound pulsing in pain, his heart racing in fear and, strangely, a vague arousal too. It was hard to deny that someone was real when the repercussions of it were so real. When he removed the bandages, he could see the bite marks on his skin. The two large roles didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the bruises and cuts from other teeth. Mike knew then that he wasn’t crazy.

            His confidence in his sanity started to slip, though, as the days passed. The week following the bandage removal, he could swear he saw a guy walk into a brick wall, not hitting it but sinking inside it like a fucking ghost. Another time, he saw a man run into an alley, and a second later, a dog emerged from it. His path was taking him to pass in front of said alley anyway, and when he looked inside, he saw clothes on the floor but no man and no exit from where he could’ve left.

            Just a few nights before, when he was driving past Pike and Pine, he could swear there was one additional intersection on the road. Mike had been driving the same streets for ten years, and while he could not say for sure that it had never been there, as everything about it, including the car driving by it and the pedestrian moving about, seemed normal, his memory screamed that it was one too many stoplights on that route. One too many intersections.

            Mike wondered if that was what going crazy felt like. He imagined there would be more dancing gnomes and colourful dragons, but instead, all he had was a sense of surrealism. An idea that everything was at the same time reality and a very vivid dream. He couldn’t tell his friends about it, and Mike didn’t believe in therapy. So, he started doing something that he wasn’t used to doing before; he started drinking alone. He would pick small dive bars not too far from his usual spots but deliberately avoid them, just so he wouldn’t risk running into his friends. Then he would do the cliché thing and sit in the darkest corner of the bar, order beer after beer and nurse them, looking at the table and wondering where his life had gone. He still had his job at the hardware store, he still had rent to pay and groceries to buy, and when he was caught in those mundane tasks, he would do fine. But life was full of quiet walks through dark streets, silent moments trying to fall asleep. Those moments of isolation in the shower. In those moments, all those thoughts came back. The memories of that weird thing he had seen but yet could not possibly be true. His neck and shoulder injury would then throb, and the memory of the girl’s teeth would haunt him.

            That didn’t happen as often when he sat alone and drank beer. Or it did happen, but being surrounded by other patrons, even if he wasn’t interacting with them, being outside of his house and in a loud, public place, made the night more bearable. And that was why he was there on a Thursday night, even though he had work in the morning. He was on his sixth beer and the clock marked one in the morning when Mike finally decided that he should go home and try to get at least four or five hours of sleep if he was lucky. He had buzzed himself enough that he should pass out relatively quickly after lying in bed. Last time, he fell asleep over the mattress, fully clothed.

            He left the shady, dimly lit dive bar after paying, and as he stepped into the streets, he shambled and almost fell. Mike rested his weight on a lamp post and took a deep breath. He was drunker than he thought he was. Good. The only concern was driving home, but he was forced to park his red pickup a couple of blocks from the bar. Maybe the walk through the chilly, wet Seattle night would help him sober up a bit. Then, the drive home would be short. He pushed himself from the lamp post and resumed his walk down the street, enjoying the pleasant buzz of numbness. His senses weren’t sharp enough to see anything weird. He was dull enough not to feel the bite on his shoulder. He watched the silhouettes, the blurred shapes of people walk by him, avoid him, as his drunkness was likely visible.

            Better that way. He didn’t feel like interacting with people. He stopped at a pedestrian red light, feeling the light rain starting to fall, and he looked to one side, then the other. No cars were coming, and now that he was a block away from the bar, there were no people around either. He grunted, feeling a shuddering shiver of cold that had nothing to do with the weather across his spine. He did not like the lonely darkness of late nights. Not anymore.

            He crossed the street, and in the distance, he saw the chain link fence that marked the parking lot between two buildings where he had left his truck. But he tripped on the curb as he was crossing, and he almost fell. No. He did fall. But he fell slower and less seriously than he could have. He ended up on his fours, hands on the sidewalk. Mike laughed to himself and raised his head. And then, the wound on his neck throbbed, and he looked around to see a person standing on the sidewalk. They were not walking towards him or away, and it was too hard to see which direction they were even facing, as they were just a shape cut against the contours of rain falling through the beam of a lamp post. Yet something was very unsettling about then. The person’s posture was not relaxed. He could see the arms slightly arched away from the body, like they were tense and held up. The shape seemed to be hunched forward, though with their long coat and draping hair, it was hard to see.

            Then they began to walk. An unsettling fast stride moving towards him. Mike pushed himself up and began to run, feeling the skin of his hands wet and raw from grazing on the sidewalk during his fall. His heart was racing. He looked back only to see that person taking a corner. And then he could’ve screamed in horror. A woman, naked if not for the worn and old trench coat draped over her back. She was indeed lunging forward, her black hair bedraggled and clinging to her face. And the eyes, as she came under the lamp post, flashed red for a moment, like a dog’s eyes caught in a headlight. Mike screamed even before he realised he was screaming. Even without looking back, the gaunt, pale, nude form of that woman was engraved in his eyes. He could hear the slap of soggy feet on the sidewalk, coming close in a stompy run, and as they came closer and closer, Mike’s dread rose. His legs faltered. He tumbled.

            That time, he didn’t protect himself. His face hit the sidewalk, and he felt his teeth cutting his lip. The taste of blood in his mouth, the sharp pain. The slapping feet continued to approach, not halting, not slowly down. He only had time to turn before the woman was upon him. Her skin was pale, her eyes were sunk into her skull, and her skin seemed almost loose, sagging over bones like someone who recently lost too much weight. He tried to push her off him, but her hands sank onto his shoulders, shoving them down so hard he was afraid she was going to break them.

            “Argh! Let… Go of me…”

            Mike remembered the knife. He had always carried it since he was fifteen. But after the night he encountered the girl with fangs, he was even more convinced of its need. He pulled it out and stabbed into the woman’s - no, the thing’s - side. She didn’t grunt or cry in pain. She didn’t relent. She just shoved his shoulders down again and brought her mouth closer to his. He stabbed her. Again and again. She seemed to not even feel it. Her tongue pushed inside his mouth as if she wanted to kiss him. As he tried to pull away, one of her freakishly strong, bony hands grabbed his chin. She wasn’t kissing him, though. Her tongue lapped on the space between his teeth and his lower lip. She gulped, drinking his blood. He froze. His knife was stuck inside her when he let go of the handle, terrified.

            He felt a fang brush through his lip before that invasive mouth was pulled off, and that tongue, colder than a human tongue should be, barely lukewarm, licked his neck. Right where he had been bitten.

            “The fuck you want from m-me…!” he asked, trying for a two-handed shove against the thing’s chest.

            It didn’t even budge. It nuzzled, growled and hissed against the scars and scabs left by the wounds on his neck. Its blood poured down over his clothes from the knifing. It was disturbingly warm, contrasting with the cold wetness of the rain and the tepid temperature of its tongue.

            ‘Why me,’ Mike thought. Why was he seeing those things? Why were those things happening to him?

            The beast seemed to be growing into a licking, sniffing frenzy. It nibbled him once, then twice. He winced in pain. Finally, it pulled back, and Mike felt himself breathe out in relief. Maybe it was… Sated? It raised its head high and tossed its bedraggled hair back to produce a loud, gargling sound. Disturbing, throaty. It took Mike a second before he realised, in horror, it was some twisted form of laughter. The thing looked down, mouth open wide, too wide. Long fangs protruding out, angling awkwardly away from the row of teeth like the maw of an abyssal fish, both on the upper and lower jaw.

            It sunk down. Teeth seared flesh. The sound of pain that came from Mike’s mouth was inhuman. A blood-curdling scream of absolute and utter hopeless terror. It was short, though, because soon he couldn’t cry anymore. He couldn’t move. He thought himself dead before realising that the dead didn’t think. But he was paralysed, and the creature gulped the blood coming from his wound with a frenzied fury, its hips thrusting in the air as if desperately seeking to mate with nothing. A pure involuntary reaction of animal pleasure. Base, ugly and undignified. Mike wasn’t dead, but he knew that was it. He felt the cold sidewalk against the back of his head as his senses began to leave him. And the smell of unwashed, rancid skin and old sweat filled his nose. He tried to scream again, but his lips barely moved, and no sound came out.

            The last sensation Mike experienced was the warmth of piss spreading down his trousers before he drifted into oblivion...

            “Uh… I wonder if that’s too dark…” Logan said out loud, tapping the pencil against her lip as she sat by the dining table, laptop open in front of her, a couple of notebooks spread around the table, and two of her vampire books piled next to her.

            “What is too dark?” Marion asked from the kitchen as she finished running the inside of her thermos through a very thorough rinsing.

            She needed to ensure no lingering scent of blood would remain now that she had depleted the last of her stock. She still felt like she could use just a little more, but if she wanted, she would need to buy from Dave or somehow secure another successful hunt. Mel at the Triskelion had been a lucky find, but Marion doubted she could land another one so soon. In her experience, there were months of gruelling failures between each of her successes. That was, of course, just her usual woes of not being able to keep herself properly fed. On top of those very familiar concerns, she couldn’t stop thinking of the previous night. The visit to the Fridge with Skye and Isabella. The corpses, and the strange discoveries that she couldn’t add to up anything meaningful. But she wouldn’t say that it was a pointless visit. She had learned a little bit about Skye, a little bit more about Isabella, and she sensed that if Skye was first ambivalent about her innocence in all that, now she was sure. Marion and Isabella still had to help her figure out who the actual killer - or poacher - was if she wanted to honour her end of the deal with Skye. Marion fully expected, from the little she had known of the woman, that she would honour her own end of the bargain and introduce her to the Prince but not the rest of the Court.

            With any luck, that would mean avoiding anyone with even the faintest connection to Mother. Who knew? Perhaps she could even extract some sort of reward from this Prince Skye seemed to be so fond of. What if they had some sort of easy access to blood they could lend her? Having a steady supply for a few years would be such a pleasurable change of pace.

            “Oh well…” Logan said in response, pulling Marion from the depths of her thoughts, “I’m just trying to come up with some beats for the next adventure.”

            “Beats’”

            “Yes… Uh… Little story points, things I want to see happen if the conditions arise…”

            “I thought the point of your little theatre was to make things dark…?”

            “Well, yes, but…” Logan lifted both her hands, palms up, and moved them up and down like scales. “There’s a balance to be struck… Dark enough that it’s cathartic, not too dark that it’s depressing.”

            “Cathartic?”

            “It’s, I think, why people like playing these games… Feeling a bit of strong emotions that break from the same things they feel every day. Even bad emotions can feel good in a controlled setting…”

            Marion lifted an eyebrow in mild scepticism as she moved to take a seat on the table across from Logan.

            “They can? I thought the point of fantasy was to… Escape bad emotions.”

            “No, no… I mean, I get why you say that, but it’s not about escaping bad emotions… It’s about escaping a bad place.”

            “To go to another bad place?”

            “A different place. And yes, it can be bad at times. But unlike the real ‘bad place’ you are trying to escape, it ends. It ends when you want it to end or when the Storyteller says so… And then all those bad emotions can stay there. In a way, you air them out, but also can shut them off.”

            Marion's scepticism was not fully dispelled by the girl’s explanation, and yet still, it made some sense. There was something deeper there, something other than simply wanting to get a taste of despair and darkness and closing the door if it got too bitter. Marion had to admit that she was vaguely curious to know what it was. But something in her mind made her very nervous about the idea of spending more time with Logan. If she had to give it a name and shape, she would say that the reason she felt that way was a fear that the longer Logan spent with her, the closer she could be to seeing the truth. Isabella had already. But Isabella had her own secrets to hide. Unless Logan was secretly a werewolf or leprechaun, Marion doubted she could bear her condition's truth. She concluded that she would need to resign herself to just watch their game from afar.

            “That’s… Fascinating,” Marion said, not entirely dishonest.

            “I still think you’d have a fun time playing with us… I see how long you spend looking at the books.”

            Marion was about to tell Logan that it was a ridiculous notion, but she realised that she was instinctively reaching out for one of them. Glad that she had not spoken yet, she retreated before grabbing it. But Logan took the book on top of the pile and slid it across the table to Marion.

            “Dude, it’s chill… I won’t make you play with us if you don’t want to. You can read those,” Logan said.

            Marion felt herself blushing, and she was fed enough to do that at least, as she nodded to Logan and opened the strangely shaped gaming manual that contained rules, small stories and a lot of deliberate angst. It seemed at times sincere, and at times self-aware and ironic. But more often than not, it was amusing to read at least.

            “I know… I just…” Marion said as she opened the book, but she couldn’t find the words to finish it.

            “I get it, it’s cool…” Logan told her, going back to her notes.

            “So… What was it? That you were wondering if it was too dark?”

            “Oh, I won’t tell you.”

            “Why? Because you still think I might play?”

            “Not necessarily… Even if you just watch, I'd rather see your reaction when it happens.”

            “Hm.”

            Marion hummed and then opened the book in front of her. For a moment, she flicked the pages idly, as she often did, until she found an illustration that seemed interesting, and then she would scan the pages around it and see what the text mentioned. As she spent time with the books, she was always surprised how some elements about her curse were so very on the nose, while others not so much. Yet, as she read more, she ended up finding a lot of things that fell into a third category: things which she had no idea if they were true or not. Some of the vampires in Logan’s books had powers that she didn’t, at least not that she knew about or had ever experienced. A lot of the descriptions of vampire Courts and rituals seemed to make sense, given the little that she knew, but she had stayed away from the Courts since she freed herself from Mother, and she had no idea how accurate those descriptions were.

            Then she thought about Skye and the way she seemed to be able to move unseen and unheard. She thought about her own ability to command people and how she often didn’t fully comprehend its scope and potency. How it had failed to work on Houston, for example. How it worked on Felicia for a few seconds and then didn’t anymore.

            The page she was reading described a set of powers involving mental manipulation that one of the Clans had. And it had a neat little scale explaining what each level of the power could achieve. However, the next page described another set of powers, very different from the one before, more related to physical strength and speed. And Marion mused for a second.

            “Logan…Can I ask you something about vampires?”

            The pink-haired girl lifted her head from her notes, perhaps just a notch too eager, before looking towards Marion with a curious tilt of her head.

            “Yes?”

            Marion immediately regretted it. But she guessed that would just be the theme of her relationship with Logan.

            “Well… Uh… How do powers work?”

            “Ah! That’s easy, you see how many points you have, and that’s how many di-“ Logan began, but Marion was quick to interrupt her, shaking her head.

            “No, no, sorry…” Marion began, quickly clarifying. “I don’t mean like… The game part. I mean the… Story part.”

            “The Watsonian explanation?”

            “The what?”

            Logan chuckled.

            “Never mind, I think I get it. Do you want to know how they work for the characters? Inside the game?”

            Logan asked, resting the eraser of the pencil against her cheek and causing a little indentation there. For some reason, for Marion, that was just very cute. She wanted to poke Logan’s other cheek with her finger to even them out. Then, she blushed deeper and nodded, trying to focus on the question.

            “Well… They are essentially… Vampire magic. But the vampire uses blood to activate them.”

            “Uses blood? Like fuel?”

            “Like fuel, yes. You need to feed more if you are using powers often.”

            That tracked a little, Marion considered. She avoided abusing her commanding voice because she knew how drained she felt after using it three or four times the same night. It was like it took a whole night, maybe two, over her usual… Metabolism, in the lack of a better word.

            “Okay, but… Some powers are mind control, and some are, like, moving shadows…” Marion mused. “Do all vampires do that?”

            “Oh, no… You are looking at the power list… Those include all bloodlines. But actually, each bloodline has its own set of powers.”

            “Oh?”

            “Some of them are really strong… Like, all vampires are stronger than humans, right? But these ones are stronger than other vampires. Others can turn into animals and…”

            “Turn into animals?” Marion said, lifting an eyebrow.

            “Yes… Basically, everything you see vampires do in movies, someone does in this case. But instead of every vampire doing everything, they kinda spread things out. Between bloodlines.”

            Marion considered that as she nodded. It was a crazy thought, and she was pretty convinced it made no sense to even wonder about it, but she couldn’t help herself.

            “So… Let’s say a vampire can manipulate someone’s mind… They won’t turn into a dog?”

            “Well, it’s usually not a dog, more often a wolf…” Logan chuckled. “But yes. Those are two different powers from two different bloodlines.”

            Marion looked down at the illustration of a vampire lifting a manhole cover to use as a shield against gunfire. The word ‘Powers’ was written in bold letters on the top left of the page, and below, a mix of tables, numbers and vivid descriptions of abilities. Marion's eyes went to the description of levels for one of the mind control powers.

            “And how… Would a vampire become stronger?” Marion asked. “Like, to grow in power? Because that’s part of it, right?”

            “Right! Yes!” Logan said, visibly excited, putting the pencil down. “So, there’s several ways… In terms of the game, you play, you get XP, you spend it on things,” Logan explained.

            “Okay…”

            “In terms of in-universe… The vampire has to practice their abilities and be well fed. Older vampires are often stronger, but age is not everything. Sometimes they learn by using, and sometimes their Sire can teach them to make better use of bloodline powers.”

            “Their Sire… The one that made them?” Marion asked, feigning ignorance.

            “Yes, exactly… It’s kind of their duty to guide a newborn into the whole vampire scene. Show them how to hunt, teach them the powers of their blood…”

            ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’ Marion thought bitterly.

            “You know, Marion… If you are so interested in the books and talking about this… Why don’t you give playing a shot?”

            “I thought you said you wouldn’t pressure me…” Marion said without much conviction.

            “Right… And I won’t. I’m just reminding you of the option… Imagine learning about all this you are asking me… And more. While also maybe bringing a bit of common sense to the table. Alex and Sam are going to be the death of me, and Isabella can’t control them by herself. Poor thing tries.”

            “Uh…”

            Would there be any lesson of value for her in playing such a game? Her conversation with Logan about powers had not offered her any useful insight, but it had piqued her interest in learning more. And then Marion thought about the Triskelion. And Mel. And how Logan helped her hunt. Maybe there was some stuff she could stand to learn. In the worst-case scenario, she wasted a few nights of her not-life before giving up.

            ‘No, worst-case scenario, you get turned on thinking about blood and show your fangs to Logan and her friends,’ Marion reminded herself. But by then, the impulse was forming inside her core. One that she was having trouble controlling. Those eyes, Logan's eyes, looked at her with eagerness. And the idea of disappointing her caused Marion’s shrivelled stomach to turn.

            “I think… I can give it a try…” Marion decided.

            “Wait, really?” Logan said, jumping up from the chair and almost knocking it back.

            “I mean…” The other girl’s energy almost made Marion back out of the idea, but before she could, Logan was walking around the table to give her a hug.

            “Oh yes! I always wanted to have a roommate that plays with me. Oh, this is going to be fun!”

            Marion was sitting down, and she felt so very awkward being hugged by Logan in that position, with the girl leaning against her, chest pressed on her shoulder. Her cheeks turned a more vivid shade of pink, and Marion passed an arm around Logan, in a ungraceful gesture, to try and reciprocate. It was ungraceful enough for Logan to release what she was doing and end the hug herself, clearing her throat.

            “Oh! We're gonna need to make you a character! Do you need help?”

            “I… I might have one in mind.”

            “You do? Oh, that was quick… Okay, okay… Tell me about them… I can help you make the sheet!” Logan said, pulling the chair next to Marion and reaching for a sheet of paper and her pencil to take notes.

            “Uh… I never did this…” Marion said, stating the obvious. “How do I… Tell you? What do I say?”

            “Well, the character in your head… Do they have a name? Are they a boy or a girl? What’s their story? That sort of thing…”

            “They are… A girl,” Marion begins, “she’s… Short, I guess? Small… Not threatening for humans.”

            “Uh-huh…” Logan said, nodding. “Okay, yes, that’s fun… Wolf in sheep’s clothing and all that.”

            “Y-yes? I mean, I guess… She’s not meek looking…” Marion thought and then added, “No. I think she’s confident. Like, firm and knows what she wants?”

            “Oh… Interesting… Do you have a name in mind?”

            “Maybe… But it’s kinda… I don’t know…”

            “Oh, now you have to tell me! Come on!”

            “You won’t laugh?”

            “I absolutely will laugh… But you're gonna tell me anyway!”

            “Ugh… Fine…” Marion took a deep breath, theatrically, since her lungs had no need for it. “Her name is Raven.”

            Logan chuckled, amused, writing ‘Raven’ on the piece of paper in front of her.

            “Raven, huh? She sounds like trouble.”

            ‘You have no idea,’ Marion thought.