Medical supplies always went missing. It was a fortunate part of the military hospital that saw her mother wandering down the halls with the aura of any seasoned sergeant when word came that a platoon was inbound with injured. Nurses who were forgetful and didn’t list stock correctly, or medics who were in a rush and didn’t abide by the strict standards of the medical staff. No one questioned it when she was just a child, a hand tucked in the pocket of her mother’s scrubs while they made their rounds. As a teenager, she’d held her breath as she’d slipped a jar of antibiotics into her sleeve and ducked out in the middle of the night to slip it through the gap of a fence. Heart hammering the entire time as she helped another teenager, just like her, with a sickly child of her own already. That’s how it’d started - her heart guiding her hand that afternoon as it would do for many days, weeks, months, and years to come. A teenager made mother, with a child of her own, had been the start of Aspen’s slippery slope.
Through the slums, that act of kindness had spread until the Eclipse had fallen into step with her one evening. By sixteen, she was smuggling what she could out to them. Never enough to draw unnecessary attention, and distributed by various means. A stroll through Stronghold, a mugging, dumping of ‘rubbish’, an embrace with a dear friend while tucking contraband beneath their shirt. She didn’t tell a soul. The weight that rested on her shoulders was one of duty, not guilt.
And that duty was to humanity, not the military.
It was 2091, and at age 24, Aspen had done well for herself thus far in the military - granted a spot in the Nest Elimination task force while having one or two medals for her sharp shooting. Despite the success, it did little to curb her relentless need to assist those downtrodden by the very regime she seemed loyal to. By now, several assisted her. Nurses and surgeons, soldiers and patrol officers - each sharing their reasons to assist Aspen O’Hara in her ventures.
Gaze cast to the moonless sky above, Aspen waited for the nurse to slip out and hand her a laundry bag - the checkered cloth seeming insignificant. “Don’t mix the whites with the colours this time, huh?” Aspen’s grin was white in the darkness as the nurse clucked at her, informing her not to jostle the fragile bottles within. Away from the building, Aspen stepped with a confident swagger to her stride. The few who patrolled nodded to her, and on one occasion, Aspen even stopped to chat to a soldier before continuing on into the night. She’d learnt years ago it was better to be out in the open, than skulking in the shadows. To look as you belonged.
Until she was near enough to the perimeter to be out of the main patrol’s radius - where lights were fewer, and Aspen’s steps became quieter as she slipped through the shadows cast by building and the hideous skyscraper now at her back. The chirp of a sparrow brushed over her tongue, answered by the hoot of an owl. To the edge of the perimeter, Aspen stepped. The fence buckled as she rolled the cut edges aside, the bag tucked beneath where it was quickly grasped and drawn further into the darkness on the other side.
“Next new moon, same spot.” Aspen whisper was breathy, hidden beneath the wind that swept through.
The fence was rolled back into place and Aspen stood just as she felt rather than heard the approach of another. Aspen whirled, feet planted, back straight, expression alert but carefully blank as she saluted the man’s approach. “Sir.”
It was an instinctual reaction; her spine held painfully ramrod straight as she looked ahead. A soldier out on patrol, perhaps. One who left her post. The explanation of her position out here rallied into a suitable tale within her mind.
It was only when she recognised the man as North Sigurd that she realised her formal salute was misplaced, and therefore, her undoing. Never, had she saluted him. Her salute was as good as being caught red-handed.
TAGAspen O'Hara NOTES N/A
North was a creature of habit.
Do your job during the day — then use the night, to hunt your prey.
Having moved swiftly through the ranks over the last few years, he finally landed himself in the cushy position of a Secret Service Agent. His keen intelligence and knack for getting things done made him a sure candidate for some of the more secret lines of work, and in turn North often got to choose the hours he worked. It was perfect for an Infected, whose natural inclinations were to be awake during the night. Tonight was no different. The man had just finished a particularly gruesome mission. Dried blood was splattered across the front of his Military-issued bullet proof vest. The smell of human, of prey, was overwhelming — every instinct in his body screamed at him to go find someone to suck dry.
But he didn't. He needed to get back to headquarters, to remove the filth from his uniform before it turned him into the beast he'd spent the last six years learning to control. He'd entered the compound grounds from another entrance, but had to swing around to the front to enter the main building. A hand covers the lower portion of his face — covering the fangs itching to come out and play — the man moves swiftly through the night, with a feline grace unheard of in humans. He blends in to the night, wearing it like a sinister cloak of death, his night vision trained to any movement in the darkness ahead. It's how he spots her.
A lone figure lingers near the Military compound's entrance so awfully late at night, a large duffel bag at her side. His pace slows as he watches her near the gate entrance. A squeal — quiet, for any that did not possess his superhuman hearing — as the gate barely moves aside long enough for the bag to be tossed outside, into the surrounding darkness. Immediately it disappears, and as though expected, the officer is quick to return the gate to its original place. North stops, blinks — his predatory instincts are on fire, and one moment he's watching her from afar, and the next he's suddenly upon her. Leaving the darkness behind and emerging into the artificial light at the entrance to the compound, his eyes focus themselves on the woman as she suddenly turns around.
“Sir.” She greets him with a quick and halted salute — it makes him grin. A wide and feral grin, with very little mirth echoing the action in his eyes. And who did she think he was? There was no need for such formality between them.
“Ah, O'Hara,” North greets the woman with a smooth purr, his gaze momentarily flicking to the side — to gaze past her, towards the scene of the crime. “It's awfully late for you to be out wandering the compound, isn't it? You usually take the day shift, do you not?” he questions her as his gaze ever so slowly returns back to her face. His own face, ever expression, is accompanied by a cheeky grin and a slight tilt of his head.
“It's awfully unsafe for an officer to be out here alone at night... Wolves hunt in the dark, you know.” He should know — he's one of them.
The thought passed through her mind as she flicked her gaze to him sharply without moving from her stance, throat constricting in a clearing swallow. Her name seemed to curdle the atmosphere and despite the cool night, she felt herself heat - sweat prickling between her shoulder blades. There’d been a few occasions where she’d had close calls and often this was what caused her to change routes and routines until curiosity slackened and she could return to a more favourable alternative. It was precisely how she came to be using this route and it’d quickly become her choice. In the vision of North, she saw her route changing again - if she got the chance to do so after this night.
Aspen forced her shoulders to loosen; spine melting from its rigidness as she forced a small laugh to warm her features and hopefully dissolve any alarm that may have been present, “Oh God, North, you frightened me for a moment.” She compelled herself not to look over her shoulder in the direction that took his attention from her. Instead, she took a step forward - turning in a way that would require him to turn his back to the fenceline if he wanted to keep her in eyesight. “Yeah, normally. Grimm was sick, though, so I offered to cover tonight instead.” It was a half truth. The soldier was sick, but it was not her covering. His coverage was somewhere west of them, patrolling as far as the lights reached and no further. It’s what left this piece of fence line unguarded.
In her chest, her heart beat a rapid tune that betrayed the answers she casually provided to his questions. She knew North like most did; a member of the Secret Service. To what capacity, her kind weren’t privy to. Not yet. She knew more about him from the whispers and giggles that wandered through the barracks; her occasional flirtatious conversation with him. No more than that. He was not in a position nor of any particular importance directly to her to warrant a salute. She wondered whether her answer would be enough to quell any suspicions he may have of her. She wondered what would come of her if he chose to report her for suspicious activities. Aspen’s mind drifted to her parents; safe and oblivious in their bed. Of Diego, unawares to her operations beneath their superiors’ noses.
Aspen stepped towards North, a little too hurried to be considered smooth or alluring. “Wolves?” Thank whatever God existed, she managed to sound stricken. “It’s a good thing I’m not alone, then, isn’t it?” She stared at him, leaning into his space like a woman suddenly concerned for what may lurk in the shadows beyond and happy for the appearance of strength - her hand daring to reach out and brush his arm as if needing assurance. She just needed him to buy her answers. If not her answers, be lured away by her own flesh if that's what it took to keep him from the hole in the fence. To keep him from piecing it together. She'd do just about anything to keep her operation under wraps.
TAGAspen O'Hara NOTES N/A
She's quick to right herself after the initial shock bleeds from her face, but it doesn't relax the Secret Service agent any. If he had been human — if he had been something other than a monster — then maybe he would have passed off her strange position in the Military Compound as nothing more than him catching her at an awkward moment of her patrol. But his enhanced vision in the night kept him knowing he saw what he saw, even if he didn't see the necessity to reveal that just yet. Honestly, why should he care? It's not like his loyalty to the Military have strong roots or anything.
He grins at the comment of him spooking her, saying nothing for the moment. His head instead tips sideways briefly as he observes her telling him that there was nothing out of the ordinary for why she was out so late — supposedly, covering the shift of a sick officer. She's convincing, he'd give her that.
But the rapid pounding of her heart gives her away.
He can heart it thumping inside her chest, an irregular beat that betrays her motives. A sweet, succulent organ that keeps the woman alive, and offers up something that was necessary to keep North alive as well. It was years since he mutated to a Level V, but he still often struggled with the primal hunger that cursed his veins. Wandering eyes take in the exposed neck of the woman, but then she's suddenly on the move. Quick on her feet, she brings them round in the opposite direction, so that in order to keep his gaze trained to her, he's no longer looking in the direction of her crime. Ah, so clever.
No matter. He'll play this little game of hers.
She invades his space and he relaxes his body with a cheap grin, his blue gaze trained to her face as she so easily wraps him up with her sweet, velvet voice. He allows her to cheekily lean closer to him, informing him it was a good thing she was not alone as fingers trace a feather-light touch across his arm. He stays still for but a second before he takes a step back, removing himself from her presence with a toothy grin. Wolfish? Feral.
“Apologies, but I do believe I still have some of my last target on me. Wouldn't want you getting tainted with anything,” is the answer North gives as an explanation to his actions. “Indeed, you aren't alone... But how sure are you that the one you have in your company now, is not one of the wolves I have warned you about?” A quick wink, as he laughs at his own joke. He was, after all, a self-proclaimed wolf in sheep's clothing. “Do allow me to accompany you back to the compound?” he questions her, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he tests for what her reaction might be.
Posted 09-24-2021, 11:03 PM
Moonless Night
