Coping

[Sophia Renault]

"Don't worry, mom." She quipped back with a smile. It was nice though. To have that feeling that somebody cared. Sophie picked up her coffee again and walked back over to the monitors and sat down. She watched and watched but nothing happened. Deep down she was wishing that she'd see Murphy or Hannibal appear on those screens. That they came back.

Sophia had downed all of her coffee within the hour and began rubbing her eyes. Usually they would take turns watching the monitors but since it was just the two of them they were going to have to pick up extra slack. It was now well past midnight and she struggled to keep her eyelids open. In a matter of minutes her head fell down on the desk, fast asleep.

An hour or so had flown by. Sophie began mumbling in her sleep due to a bad dream. Her eyes opened slowly, sitting erect in her chair, wiping her face. She frowned at her empty coffee cup. Her gaze then traveled to the security cameras once again just for good measure. One one of the screens that had been stationed at the entrance of the warehouse clearly had words written on the wall. It took her a while to realize what the words had spelled out. They read: Come out and play, Whistler.

She blinked looking at it again. In a panic she grabbed her shot gun and ran up the steps to Abby's room. Once she had gotten to her room she was out of breath and felt half awake. "Abby! Wake up! You need to see this." Sophia glanced down the stairwell again, cocking her gun. If there was someone still out there they were going to be sorry.

[Abigail Whistler]

Abigail slowly opened her eyes, forgetting for a moment where she was. She heard loud footsteps running down the hall and her door clicked as it opened. Light spilled into the room as she heard Sophia's voice.

Abigail sat up, clearing her head of any grogginess. "What's up? What's going on?" The serious look on Sophia's face made Abigail climb out of bed. "What is it?"

[Sophia Renault]

Sophie walked into the hallway and made her way down the stairs, motioning for Abby to follow her. Once the two arrived to the monitors she pointed her finger to the middle screen that was position at the entrance of the warehouse. "I fell asleep for, like, two seconds and when I woke up that was there." The blonde bit her lip still gripping her gun in hand. Could this be the anonymous attacker that shot Abigail at the pizza shop?

[Abigail Whistler]

Abigail pulled on pants and a shirt and followed Sophia.

She bent over slightly and stared at the monitor. "Come out and play, Whistler.", she read out loud. "What the...?" She looked at Sophia. "Is that written in blood?" All of the possibilities of who could have written that began running through Abigail's mind.

[Sophia Renault]

She squinted at the small screen and then nodded. "I think so..." Sophia looked toward the entrance doorway and then back to Abby. "Who do you think did it?" It was a tough call, really. There were virtually hundreds of different people that could have planned this. People against Abigail, or maybe even her father. This was obviously a personal attack.

[Abigail Whistler]

Abigial followed Sophia's gaze toward the entrance door. "Were the motion sensors tripped? Have you heard anything?" She looked at the wall in the makeshift security monitor room where they had a small supply of weapons. She grabbed her smart bow and arrows and slung them over her back. "Anyone who had a grudge against my Dad could have done this. But something tells me this was the same person who shot me."

[Sophia Renault]

She shook her head. "I didn't hear anything." Sophia walked toward the entrance hesitantly with shotgun in hand. "On the count of three. One... two... THREE!" She opened latch and opened the door. She peeked her head around the corner, trying to spot anything but saw nothing.

[Abigail Whistler]

Abigail almost smiled at Sophia's boldness. She was becoming quite the fighter and gutsy Nighstalker.

"Do you see anything out there?", she asked staring at the monitors.

[Sophia Renault]

She rounded the corner, pointing the shotgun outward. Sophie shook her head looking at the painted words on the door. "I don't see anything. I don't think anyone's out here." She journeyed further outside still searching for anything.

[Abigail Whistler]

Abigail exhaled deeply, thankful for that the time being, they were not in any imminent danger. Now she just had to figure out what she was going to do about this obvious taunt made at either her or her father. She stepped out of the security monitor area and headed for the weapons area. She raised her voice so that Sophia could hear her. "Come inside and grab your stuff. We're tracking this bastard." She regarded the array of weapons carefully. They didn't know if this bastard was human or not, so that meant they would have to carry a little bit of everything.

She grabbed 3 of what she called "daylight in a ball", which was basically liquid ultra-violet light and on impact it explodes into bright light, incinerating vampires within 20 feet. She placed these into their specially made holders on her belt. She then grabbed an electronic pistol, loaded with bullets dipped in silver and placed it into it's holster located on the side of her belt.

Abigail took a step back and looked over everything, wondering what she forgot. That's when she remembered her boots. Her special brown boots that have knives that come out of the tips. She shoved her feet into them and stood, still feeling as if she was forgetting a few things. Aha!, she thought to herself as she saw it. The gadget that attaches to her wrist flips out a knife which can be used to throw or stab with. Attaching it to her arm and wrist, she then last but not least, grabbed her extra special arrows. These arrows have a timer that explode a capsule U.V. light 5 seconds after impact. Placing these into her quiver(arrow holder), she looked herself over. She was ready.

[Sophia Renault]

She nodded in agreement, walking back inside of the warehouse and to her own little corner of an arsenal. Murphy had installed it into the wall and made it revolve so that one side would appear to be like any other wall in the place until it turned around where one would find assorted hand guns, shotguns, rifles, axes, swords, daggers, and your common Ultra Violet ammo.

Sophia sighed looking at her babies. She always took her ax which she fondly named, Old Faithful. It was silver-tipped and contained a pointed silver handle so it could be used in numerous ways. Her ax was the equivalent to Abby's bows and arrows. She placed her two semi-automatics in their holsters and her spare located on her leg as usual. She usually favored wearing the spring-loaded wrist contraptions but she'd decided to go a little lighter on this hunt.

Sophie turned seeing Abby fully dressed and done. "Dang." She whispered to herself. Abigail was packing compared to Sophia. Everywhere you looked there was some sort of weapon. She turned back to her weapons and filled her belt with extra ammunition and UV balls. Ammunition ranging from UV bullets, silver nitrate ammo, to just regular silver. The UV and silver nitrate were specially designed to go straight into the bloodstream, essentially killing them quicker. She walked over to Abby, nodding her head. "I'm ready." She said, gripping her ax.

[Abigail Whistler]

OOC: I love that she has that ax. Badass!

Abigail turned to Sophia, who had just finished getting ready. With her back leaning against the table, she tilted her head, thinking. "Sophia, did you check the security tapes? Did you rewind them to see if you could get a look at who wrote that out there?"

[Sophia Renault]

ooc: woot, Sophie likes her ax too. I kinda sorta stole it from BTVS... but that's ok.

She scrunched her nose and made a face. Tally to the duh moments. Sophia shook her head. "I didn't think-- I was just too excited about the whole... you know, actual hunt." She set down her Old Faithful and sat at the computers and going through the tapes. Sophie estimated the time in her head of before she fell asleep and went to the time in the security tapes rewinding it.

After a few minutes of a whole lot of nothingness a dark figure appeared on the monitors walking and painting the words in reverse. She paused the tape and then played it before the figure appeared. The man walked onto the screens, looking directly at the camera. Sophia froze the image and starred at it for a minute, enlarging the photo to get a closer look at his face and then removed the pixels. She tilted her head momentarily and then looked back at Abigail.

"You see that? Anyone smart enough would've at least made an attempt to hide their identity or people oblivious to the cameras would've never looked. This guy obviously knew the cameras were there... he deliberately looked at them." It didn't really make sense unless... unless the guy wanted to make sure they got a good look.

"What do ya make of it?"

[Abigail Whistler]

OOC: I wonder who this mystery man will end up being...


Abigail had followed Sophia back to the security monitors and watched as she rewinded, paused, zoomed, and enhanced video. "This guy has got balls to just stare up into the camera like that." She leaned forward, studying the man's face. "Whoever he is, I don't think I've ever seen him before. Although...he does look familiar."

"If he's not afraid to show his face to the cameras, than why hasn't he just come right up to me? Why shoot me with an arrow, then show his face a couple of months later? Why the delay?" There were so many questions. She sat down for a moment. "It's obvious that he's initiating a game. Cat and mouse; a hunt. But if he's so bold about the cameras than why not be bold about fighting me? Who and what the hell is this guy?" She growled in frustration.

[Sophia Renault]

ooc: only time will tell

Sophie's eyes locked onto the screen, studying the man's face almost as if she was totally tuning out everything else, if only for a moment. "Are you sure you've never seen him cuz he seems like he knows you."She said before turning away from the monitors and looking up at Abigail.

"Y'know, Vampires? I get. People are just plain confusing." She commented randomly shaking her head and swiveled her chair back around looking back at the security cameras. "It's what he wants. He wants you to get frustrated, I'm sure. Seems like a whack job if you ask me though..."