Rochelle's Journey: Breakdown

[Kadael]

"A male deer is a stag, right?" Lily shrugs at Jack. Perhaps she should be more concerned about whatever went on with Rochelle, or 'those bastards,' but right now she's just having a fun conversation in a safe place, and nobody's about to start a fight. "Sounds like this town is full of crazy people, so I guess I fit right in - wait, do you mean asylum-crazy, or weird-crazy, Jack?"

Then she unfolds the clipping and reveals the card to herself, eyeing them both like a hungry, greedy child.

[Seon]

"Nah, the correct term is a buck," he said, pulling out the shotgun from the trenchcoat and aiming it at Charles. "Surprise, and I do but believe that the answer to that question is a mix of both. Mostly the former."

[Laraqua]

Charles takes one look over his shoulder and scrambles over the counter as Jack draws his weapon. "Get down!" he hisses.

Show,[b]Lily[/b] has a moment to react to the sudden drawing of a weapon, followed by [b]Jack[/b] who will have finished drawing his shotgun and may shoot, and then [b]Rochelle[/b] may react.

[Seon]

Spoiler:

Newsclipping details the death of Jack at the hands of a single assailant inside the bar, after the murder which Rochelle is said to have chased the murderer with the shotgun. There are annotations in red ink at the side of the newspaper... The style of writing resembling Jack's own speech pattern. Annotations seems to cast doubt that the murderer was a simple hobo, noting the man's proficiency with the knife. A simple "Ha!" is written after the section in which Rochelle was interviewed after the murder.

The card is the Death Card.

[Kallisto73]

Rochelle, who is standing behind the bar, receiver in her hand, drops the receiver and ducks.

[Kadael]

"No! No, you can't! Why are you doing this?" Lily drops everything and keeps shouting ineffectually, looking back and forth between the shotgun and the counter. All of this just confirms what she's suspected for the past five years - everyone will change their tune within a moment if you don't do what they like.

There are no good people.

"Stop it! You can't hurt him! I - I won't let you!" Despite her words, she remains frozen to the spot, neither placing herself in the shotgun's path nor running away.

[Kallisto73]

Rochelle looks around behind the bar. She's looking for a weapon, rummaging.

Spoiler:

What do I see, Laraqua?

She whispers to Charles "He's gone crazy, we must stop him before he kills Lily."

[Laraqua]

There are bottles of liquor but they're all up against the wall a little higher up. There's cans of beer and soft drink at this level though. A trap door leads into a cellar but there's no way out through there since the new car park was installed. She could head out through the 'Employee Only' door that's behind the bar. The shotgun she normally kept bracketed behind the counter is now in Jack's hands. Charlie pulled a small ankle revolver from an ankle holster. "Let's spread out," he murmurs, moving toward the right and away from the 'Employee' door.

Show,Rochelle may still choose to do an action, followed by the end of Lily's post as it'd take her two rounds to say all that, followed by Jack.

[Seon]

"I won't let you?" Jack said, chuckling. "That's funny, I don't feel stopped. You aren't even trying, are you? Well, I guess your survival instincts are off from years of being coddled by your bloody drug-addict brother- how can you even live with that guy? He stinks. Bah"

He knocked down a nearby-pool table. "Tally ho," he said, grabbing onto Lily with one hand and pulling her behind the pool table with him and keeping her restrained there with a headlock.

"Now Flower-girl, can I call you Flower-girl? It seems appropriate for a Lily. Here, could you..." he handed her the shotgun. "Hold onto that for a second? Thanks, I need to grab something."

He pulled out a knife.

[Kallisto73]

Rochelle picks up some cans of soft drinks. She moves towards the door "Employees only". She keeps to the ground and covered behind the bar.

[Laraqua]

Charles couches behind the counter and takes aim with his snub-nose revolver, ready to fire at whichever head or arm pokes up around the table. His crouch and gun stance gives the impression that he might be a police officer.

Show,not sure how BRP actually works on this but I'm going with readied actions are possible otherwise things get a bit silly. Having said that, it's a wide spread to aim at and plenty of cover so there'll still be heavy penalties on both sides for shooting. It's simply that he'll go first and will shoot any limb he sees, though even on a trigger happy moment he's likely to spot Lily if he sees her whole head come up.

[Kadael]

"No," Lily whispers, trying to lean away from the glint of the blade. "No, no, no... let me go, please, don't hurt me, please!"

She doesn't want to think about what he's going to do with that knife. There is a shotgun in her hand and she can't move to use it, not to mention how heavy it is in her hands. And if she tries anything... he's dangerous, and stronger than she is.

The pounding of blood in her ears drowns out any sound her brother or Rochelle might have made, and her mind races. Did they run off to save themselves? Do they just not care?

[Seon]

"Let you go? But fun's just getting started!" Jack said, pouting. The knife hand went around the neck, replacing his headlock with a deadly point nicking at her throat. "Besides, I'm not gonnaa hurt you. Although he," he grabbed her arm and raised it above the pool table. "Might."

[Laraqua]

Charles hears nothing of their conversation.

Show,If Lily would like to contest his actions, you can make him have to roll Grapple.

[Kallisto73]

Rochelle peers around the bar. As soon as she sees Lily's arm, she throws a can.

Spoiler:

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3530911/

. She hits her squarely. This should startle them and lead to movement.

[Kadael]

"Stop, stop, I - I..." Lily takes a shallow, shaky breath and bursts into tears, not helped by the quivering of her throat against the knife. The can hurts as it bounces off her arm, bad enough to potentially leave a bruise. Her sobbing only gets louder.

"Charles, Charles, please help me, I can't - I can't - I..."

It hurts. The knife. It's scratching and it hurts.

[Seon]

"Oh I've had it with your whining," Jack said, pressing on her neck with the knife hard enough to draw a trickle of blood.

"But don't worry, I can help you get over that. Let's go for a little trip. Come on, get up!" Jack pressed on with the knife again.

[Laraqua]

"Drop your weapon and come out with your hands up," snaps Charles in a commanding and authoritative tone. "There's no way you can get out of here alive and if you hurt my sister, well, I'll just have to go for a gut wound. That can take days to kill."

[Seon]

"Alive?" Jack yelled back. "What an unfortunate choice of words!"

[Laraqua]

"This place fuckin' with your head?" asked Charles, his voice steady and oh so very reasonable. "Making you think you're already dead? All right, fine. Think that way. But I'm sure there's a lot more interesting people you'd like to cut right now rather than my sister. She's just a random stranger to you. So am I. You kill her and you die, twice or whatever you think this is, and that's it. But then you don't get to finish off any of the business that you'd really like to finish off, right? There's always unfinished business, am I right?"