Night's Omen

If she were to be totally and completely honest, Scarlet wasn't really comfortable with 'technically'.  There wasn't much that made her uncomfortable, but this was Justinian and Iloquil they were talking about, and Justinian had made it clear just how much he disliked being irritated the last time she'd done it.  As much as she liked Jeremiah, she'd throw him under the bus if Justinian got pissed about this, because she'd warned him.

In the meantime?  She was going to have a blast NOT harming Rose.

She almost ended up on the floor, she was laughing so hard when Rose turned and tried to hide her face against Scarlet's shoulder and bright hair, but she maintained her feet just so that she could turn the girl back around to watching what Jeremiah was doing.  That was a very 'assistant' thing to do, which was good because she was VERY SERIOUS about doing her job right.  Yep. 

Truly, it was just another game inside of the big game that he was playing and the even bigger game that Niall had started, just another exciting turn of events, and she was digging it.  She made Rose watch as Jeremiah pained Cody in the face and eased Amanda awake only to jam needles into both of their legs, and then when he instructed her to make Rose comfortable?  Yeah, she was totally on the same brainwave right then, because she planted Rose on the couch that was still by the door, leaning over the girl and temporarily blocking her view of everything EXCEPT her own face.

"Listen to me, chickadee," she said in a singsong kind of tone, smiling for Rose.  "If you pick your pretty little butt up off of this couch or try anything funny, I'm going to break your boyfriend into tiny little bite-sized pieces when he shows up here, got it?  Good."

With that said, she jumped over the couch to push it closer to the action and further from the door, and the took a lounging position on it so that she only had to turn her head to the right or left to watch Jeremiah or the door.  Otherwise, she had a straight-on view of Rose and whatever the girl was doing on the other side of the couch, and just to make it less ideal for Rose to try any fast exits, she swung her boots up and laid them crossed on Rose's lap.  Actually, she was pretty comfortable.

"Ready when you are!" she offered up to Jeremiah, obviously excited.  She was liking what was coming out of that bag of his already.

"That's enough for me to go on," she said.

She turned her attention from him to her phone, which she used to dial the one person she knew that Midnight wouldn't be fucking with if they traced the call. Midnight tended not to engage Diamond directly if they could help it.

Back at the castle, Nicolette O'Dell sat in her chair with her feet up on the massive walnut desk in the archives. Across from her, Eithne sat up right and proper, sipping a cup of mint tea and flipping through pages, making notes on her laptop as she found things worth mentioning in the updates she was sending to the Diamond hunters who'd been scattered throughout the world.

Then the phone rang, and they both jumped. Nicolette almost fell out of her chair, and then grabbed the phone on the table and answered it with an excited tone. "Archives!" She'd been hoping for a specific call from someone, and it showed - Eithne rolled her eyes across the table.

"I told ya a thousan' times, you aren't his type," she said matter-of-factly. "He can't ever like a human the way you want to be liked, girl. Get it through your skull!"

Nicolette flipped Eithne off as Samantha began to ramble on. "Scarlet? Wow, okay - uh, yeah. I'll call you right back." She looked up at Eithne. "Okay, I need your help for a second. I need everything we know on a vampire who uses the alias Scarlet - as much as possible, as fast as possible."

Eithne looked interested, but only because her brows were raised.

"Well, first off, her name's not even Scarlet. It's - "

"I don't care about that stuff - I need things like age, ability, temperament. I've got two hunters about to walk in on her and they need to know what they're getting into," Nicolette interrupted.

"Uhhhh, okay," Eithne said. She got up, Nicolette behind her, and they went down the stacks into the archives. "Here it is," she said. "She's - Mother Mary, she's as nutty as a Payday." Eithne looked up at Nicolette, and then handed the documentation over. "She's one-hundred thirty nine, changed at nineteen. So, no real ability aside from the usual."

Nicolette nodded, scanning the pages. "Nutty as a Payday? Oh, wow, nevermind, I see it. Some sixty years ago she evidently tweaked Justinian's temper the wrong way and he just dunked her in crazy. Well, that's nice to know." She shut the book with a slam and handed it back to Eithne.

"I gotta go relay this." She ran back up to the phone and called Samantha back. Once she told her what she knew, she paused. "And we're even now," she told her.

"Wait, did it mention anything about anyone she hung out with?" Samantha asked.

Nicolette shook her head despite the fact Samantha couldn't see her. "Nothing. She doesn't hang around people long enough for it to get mentioned in basic archives. I'd have to dig deeper and it'd take longer."

"Right," Samantha said. "Thanks. We're even." She hung up and looked at Alex. "Okay, so, she's under one-hundred and fifty but some vampire named Justinian drove her crazy, so I think we might have our work cut out for us. How would one vampire drive another one batshit?"

He laughed, but it wasn't a nice kind of laugh when she said that Justinian had driven Scarlet crazy, then went on to ask how a vampire could drive another vampire batshit.  He may not have been part of the archives at Diamond (though perhaps he should have considered being a Therrayan), but he knew that one without even trying.

"You know how the old, powerful vampires develop different abilities over time?  That's Justinian's, he can drive someone completely insane.  He did it to Niall when he turned him, and Niall ravaged the countryside for about a century before his insanity calmed enough that he realized who he was and what he was doing.  He was completely out of his gourd all that time, and he's still not quite right in the head.  It's probably why his abilities lean towards nightmares, because that's the kind of crazy that Justinian's power inspired in him," he explained.  Like a lot of the things he knew, he didn't consider how because that would only muddle things up.  The harder he tried to remember, the less he could, but when Dev (or Samantha, since she seemed to have either accidentally or intentionally tried Dev's trick out) asked a casual question, Alexander just answered. 

It was too bad he couldn't remember more, because what he DID remember and hadn't mentioned so far just plain didn't make sense.  He'd almost gone on to say that Niall had been so out of control that he'd almost gotten involved himself, but they were talking about something that happened over 700 years ago, which meant that he hadn't been ABLE to get involved.  So, what the hell?

He didn't know, and perhaps questioning it right before dealing with Scarlet and her friend wasn't a good idea.  Since they were pulling up outside already, he really needed to pretend that his brain was entirely under control and deal with the rest later, when he had the time for the questions.  Right.  This was going to suck.

Samantha hadn't actually attempted to extract information from him the way Dev usually did. She was just confused and questioning the results of her find aloud - that Alex could answer was a little creepy on a normal day, but right now she didn't care. She just wanted to know what the hell they were getting themselves into. Honestly, most of the information could have been gleaned by a thorough look at the Therrayan archives, although Alex would have been more willing to read up than Samantha had. She was thorough, but also lazy when it came to hours of research.

"The crazy ones are the worst," she said to herself, shaking her head.

'Creepy' was a good word for it, and he'd have agreed with her if she'd ever verbalized that.  Fortunately, she didn't, and that helped his denial.  It was SO MUCH EASIER if he just went along like nothing was wrong, and Samantha was good at that.  Parking outside the building and glancing over at her as she shook her head, he nodded, but he was really looking at her.  They'd been in bad situations together, gone into places that he was amazed she'd made it out alive, but she had.  This time, he hoped that she would listen and not go inside, because she was right -- the crazy ones were the worst, and if Scarlet was as crazy as Samantha's contact had said, she was probably hanging with someone who was also crazy as hell.  He didn't want to lose someone tonight, and he was suddenly very worried that he was going to.

"They are," he agreed, pulling his seatbelt off and leaving the keys in the ignition.  He was going to have her drive his beloved, brand new car while its occupants bled all over it.  He could only hope he was wrong about the bleeding, but he didn't think he was.  "I'm going to send the three of them downstairs as soon as I'm able.  If it looks like you might be killed or captured, take off, but don't wait for me.  As soon as they're here, you get them back to the guildhouse, and I'll meet you there."

It was an old game plan, him laying cover for her after a completed job, then meeting her either at the guildhouse or another rendezvous point, but he never gave her any indication that he died by the time she'd escaped safely.  He'd only once laid cover for her and then survived the mess to meet up with her afterwards; every other time, he'd woken up and gone to meet her.  The problem with this situation was that there was little room for him to make an escape seem likely, but he'd deal with that after.  As long as he could survive long enough to get Cody, Amanda and Rose out of there, he'd be satisfied. 

He waited until he had her agreement before he opened the door and slipped out of the car, pushing the door shut as quietly as he could.  It meant that Samantha was likely going to try to climb into the driver's seat from where she was, and frankly?  He wished he could linger to watch that, because with those long legs of hers, it'd be like watching a baby giraffe try to climb into the car, but other than smiling just a little at the image, he made his way silently into the building.  Unlike Scarlet, he took the stairs to ensure that they didn't have any additional warning, and he did so very quickly.  He wasn't going to waste any time.

Rose was settled on the couch with Scarlet pinning her down. Her large brown eyes were open wide and terrified, tears frozen on her face. She watched as Amanda and Cody were stuck like baked brownies and hooked up to the wall. How much would it take to kill them? What was she supposed to do? She looked at Scarlet, who was casually examining her own hair for split ends, and then back at Jeremiah.

"I'll start with an easy one," he said. His fingers twitched over the switch. "What's your full name?"

Rose hesitated for a split second, and the switch got flipped. Both Cody and Amanda began screaming, and the lights in the apartment flickered for a few seconds before he stopped.

"I'll ask you again. What. Is. Your. Full. Name?"

"Rose Frederika Quick!" she blurted. She was shaking hardcore and brought her hands up to her face to wipe the tears away, to try and push some sense into herself.

"Frederika?" Jeremiah parroted, his mouth twisted in disgust. "Man, your parents must have hated you." He snorted and then turned to observe his victims. He bent down to scrutinize the Force siblings, trying to get a read off of their vitals. The boy was more worse for wear than the girl, but that was to be expected considering he had bashed his face in for a little while.

"What's her full name?" he inquired, putting his hand on Amanda's shoulder as he turned to look back at Rose.

Rose didn't know - and that was a bad thing. "Please," she sputtered. She tried to get up, but Scarlet just held her pinned down with her legs, shaking a finger no at her. "Please, just let them go, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"

Jeremiah shook his head. "Why do hunters pick the stupidest, weakest women for girlfriends?" he demanded. "How many more times are we going to hear that? I didn't even touch you and you're already freaking out. How do you think your friends feel?" He looked back at Amanda and Cody, and then clenched his jaw.

"New game. You're going to tell me which one of these people you don't want to die."

"WHAT?" Rose screamed. "NO!"

"Wroooong answer," Jeremiah said. He looked at Amanda, and then flipped the switch, sending all of the current to Cody. The screams were terrible.

Cody was in such deep shit right now. All angles, it was going to come at him from - and in fact, it was. Getting beat in the face was bad enough, but the brass knuckles? Fuck his life. He was pretty sure he spit a tooth onto the floor, but he couldn't be 100% about that. His whole face felt warm and wet and was in serious pain.

The fucking vampire jammed needles into his legs, and he screamed bloody murder, but it was nothing compared to what Amanda was feeling. She didn't have all of those pain distractions in her face to take her mind off of the sensation of two giant spikes being stuck into her thighs, and she was still a trainee, so she hadn't endured half of what Cody had. He didn't honestly know if she could handle this or if she'd crack, but he would try and direct everything he could back at himself to give her a fighting chance.

"FUCK YOU!" he yelled at the vampire after he zapped them the first time. He was seriously going to rip his face off when he got out of the fucking chair. Jeremiah blew him off and went back to talking to Rose, so Cody tried to get his sister's attention.

"Amanda, are you okay? Amanda? Stay with me, okay? I'm going to get us out of this," he promised.

Then the pain came back, and he was screaming.

Rose had tried to pick herself up off the couch, just like Scarlet had told her not to do, which meant that Scarlet was going to pain Alex whenever he showed up.  She had to keep her word, after all, though she'd admit that Rose hadn't actually gotten up, just tried, and so she wouldn't tear Alex to pieces like she said she would.  She'd just hurt him, a lot.

Kind of like how Jeremiah was hurting Rose's little friends.  It was definitely a fun game, cooking the two of them like Christmas Roast Beast while Rose failed to answer his questions.  This was the kind of game show she liked, why hadn't cable television picked it up, yet?  With the human obsession with things like Hostel, she wouldn't have put it past the mass populace to really get into a show like this.  She was into it, right down to shaking her finger at Rose when she tried to get up and making a pained wince when the girl failed to answer Jeremiah's questions.  Yep, wrong answer.

The real fun (as if listening to Cody try to reassure his sister that he was going to get them out of this, which he wasn't) appeared as Cody was screaming, and if the screams hadn't quieted just a little at just the right moment, Scarlet wouldn't have heard the sudden approach of footsteps right before a man shot through the door.  She was up in a second, flinging a knife that she'd yanked out of somewhere on her person at the figure and then snatching Rose up in front of her.  She made it clear with her hold that Rose's thin neck was going to be snapped if she so much as twitched.

"WOW, you're fast, mister Alex!" she laughed, pretty damn amazed that he'd ducked and avoided that knife embedding itself in his chest.  She was glad that he had, really, because that meant they could hurt him more without him dying, but it had been instinct.  She had no doubt that this was the Alex they'd been talking about, given his rushed entrance and the gun he had trained on them, not to mention the panicked thoughts in Rose's pretty little head. 

Then, she really took him in.  Keen eyes, precise movements, hair and clothing perfect, and she laughed even harder.  "Alexander," she purred, her grin turning much more predatory.  What was this?  He was putting off human vibes, she had no idea why, but her attempts at reading his mind failed utterly.  She didn't know that it was because that wasn't actually him standing there, but assumed it was because he was a bajillion years old.  This either meant they were in serious trouble, or that they were about to have a LOT of fun.  "How much do you like these humans, Alexander?  Enough to play a game with us?"

We need firestone for this one, but he's worth it.  He's just old as dirt.  Still wanna play? she asked Jeremiah, not taking her eyes off of Alexander, but the challenge was there.  This was where her insanity was most plain, when it was a situation that they both should have backed out of, when she knew for a fact that Justinian would freak the fuck out if anything happened to Alexander, but how could she RESIST?  Justinian had scrambled her, he'd tortured her, and she never would have attempted an attack on HIM, that was just suicide, but if she had his treasured friend at her disposal?  She was going to take Alexander apart, and if Jeremiah wanted to help, it would just be all the sweeter. 

She could see the hesitation on his face when she asked, and that unhinged grin only spread wider on her red lips.  He hadn't lowered the firearm, but he didn't look prepared to risk Rose to shoot Scarlet, and probably was facing the same situation where Jeremiah was concerned.  Why he didn't try a more direct attack, she didn't know.  Perhaps he thought if he zapped her, she'd break Rose's neck?  She would, so he was smart not to try. 

"How much, Alexander?  I don't care if I snap her pretty little neck or let her walk downstairs, I'm sure you know that.  None of them matter to us, but they matter to you, don't they?" she taunted, watching his jaw clench.  Otherwise, his expression and body language gave nothing away except that he was on guard, which was to be expected.  Still, he didn't have to.

"What game?  I'll play if you let them go first," he insisted, and she downright cackled, peeking from behind Rose's form.  This was going so wonderfully well.

Amanda was definitely coherent, although she wished entirely that she wasn't. If there were any way for her to black out right then, she would relish it, but alas, she could not. She was too programmed to watch the situation - more importantly, Cody - and couldn't pull away no matter how hard she tried. That she was being blasted with electricity did not help.

"Shut up, Cody," she urged, trying to stop him from drawing attention to himself. When Jeremiah blasted him again, she screamed with him, and began jerking furiously around in the chair, trying to break the wood loose to free herself. Even handcuffed, she could still fight. Or, she'd try. "Just shut the fuck up - AUGH!"

Jeremiah flipped her switch quickly, enough to jolt her, and then shut it off.

She resisted calling out to Alexander when he arrived, better off not speaking at all given Jeremiah's penchant for hitting that button. It hadn't even gotten bad yet - she didn't know it, but it hadn't. It was nowhere near close.

Jeremiah glanced to Alex and then Scarlet, and reached into his bag once more. He produced the firestone-laced handcuffs that she suggested and tossed them to her. "Here," he said. "You do the honors. Should I hook him up to the grid or did you have something else in mind?" he asked curiously. He didn't recognize Alexander. He knew who Justinian was, but he didn't know any more than that, so Alex was just some stupid hunter to him. Why they needed firestone, he didn't know, but he didn't care.

"Letting these two go isn't an option," Jeremiah said smoothly. "I'll let her go," he offered, gesturing to Rose, "but not these two - and if you piss me off, I'm not letting any of them go," he added, a warning tone to his voice. His lip curled back a little as he issued that last warning, and he was serious. He'd wipe their senses all out and leave them in the middle of the highway to get mowed down by traffic - or he'd drop them in the ocean, or whatever. He'd make them crawl on their hands and knees through broken glass and into a furnace if he fucking felt like it, and the look on his face pretty much said that.

Rushing up the stairs and through the hall to the sounds of his friends screaming had definitely done something for Alexander's sense of urgency, but entering the room to a knife being flung at him managed the exact opposite.  He had to be careful, or he was going to die and not do anyone any good.  Scarlet's reaction was unexpected, though.  She definitely seemed to know him, which confirmed his own feeling that she was familiar, but she remembered him better than he remembered her.  Considering how cracked she obviously was, there had to be something wrong with that.  He couldn't rise to her taunts, and wouldn't, because she had Rose in a precarious position, but he wanted to know what she knew.  Not that he thought she'd tell him, but it was like a temptation hanging in front of him, that knowing glint in the crazy bitch's eyes, here was someone who could tell him what he was missing.

Too bad she really was insane, and violently so.

From the looks of things, her partner wasn't any better, and he watched the man toss a pair of handcuffs to Scarlet, which she caught expertly and dangled in front of Rose's face.  The problem (besides the obvious) was that the man was refusing Alexander's terms.

"Don't you think that's a little unfair, trading a high-level hunter for an untrained civilian?  I'm worth at least the two girls, Amanda's only a trainee," he offered, trying to make his tone just a little lighter than he felt, trying to play along with their 'game' and not piss the unstable male vampire off after his threat to keep them all.  The man asked if Scarlet wanted to 'hook him up to the grid' or if she was thinking of something else, and it didn't escape him exactly what they were talking about.  Cody and Amanda both had metal spikes sticking out of their thighs, and he understood exactly what was happening.  He felt bad trying to bargain for Amanda over Cody, but perhaps that was the old Roman in his subconscious, that feeling that the men should bleed before the women, and it didn't hurt that Cody was an official hunter and Amanda only a trainee.  She wasn't as prepared for this kind of trouble as Cody was, and even if he would suffer, he wouldn't be satisfied surviving if his sister died.  Alexander would have to try to get him out after the girls were safe.

"Oh, let's just see what's most fun once we've got him.  I could go for some fried food," she offered, and wasn't THAT an idea?  With as powerful as he was, a taste of that would be sure to have a kick to it. 

Scarlet really didn't give a damn if they kept any of the humans at this point, not with Alexander bargaining to give himself over to them in return for the stupid humans, but she could understand Jeremiah's point of view.  He didn't know the gold they'd just come upon, and he didn't want to give up his playthings.  Still, Scarlet was afraid that the ancient bastard would change his mind and decide that he really didn't give a damn about a pile of humans that were going to rot in a blink of his eye.

I want him.  If he's willing to give himself up in exchange for the two girls, then let's take it before he changes his mind.  He'll be more fun than both of them combined, and I bet he won't beg and cry like them, she told him, but she knew a thing or two about dominance battles, and there was a fine line there.  She'd offered the game initially, but Jeremiah had refused the terms.  Now, Alexander had offered new terms, and she didn't really disagree with them.  He was worth more than all three of the humans combined, but if he would be willing to drop the price just to that of a high-level hunter (which made little sense in itself, what was he even talking about?), then she wasn't going to jack it back up to ancient vampire powerhouse.  They were getting a bargain.

"As soon as I tell you, sweetie, you're going to take these handcuffs over to your boyfriend and you're going to cuff his hands behind his back for us," she informed Rose, handcuffs dangling in front of her face, the glint of firestone visible in the metal.  "We just have to let the boys finish their negotiations, and don't think you can try anything funny like leaving the cuffs really loose.  We're going to check them, and if you leave them loose, I'll just cut off his hands."

She giggled, like it was a great joke, and as far as she was concerned, it was.  This was going to be the prime event for their evening.

Jeremiah was becoming irrationally pissed off very quickly, though he didn't betray it at all externally. Internally, it was a lot of fuck this, fuck that, motherfucker, who the fuck, so on and so forth. When Scarlet tried to get Jeremiah to give Rose and Amanda away, his lips curled back and he exposed his teeth in a very vicious sneer.

"No." That was all he said, and he said it out loud and with great force. He raised his hand and put his palm out, facing Alexander. He was just a human, and if Scarlet wanted him that badly than instead of trading his toys for her amusement, he'd just cripple him and let her have whatever fun she wanted. He ripped Alexander's sense of sight from him first, if only because that was always the most terrifying for people. Next went his ability to speak.

"There," was all he snapped. He turned back to Amanda and smiled broadly.

"We can stop anytime you want, sweetheart," he assured her, a dark look in his eyes. "You just need to make it worth my while."

"Don't you fucking touch her!" Cody roared. He tried to lunge at Jeremiah again and caught another jab to the face, complete with Jeremiah reeling his hand back and looking down to examine his knuckles.

"You know, if I keep hitting you in the face, I'm going to bruise," he complained. "Can't you just shut up like a good boy? Oh, wait! You can! I totally forgot I can do that!" And he made a closing motion with his hands as he stole Cody's voice from him. Now there were two men in the apartment without the ability to speak, and that left Jeremiah as the alpha dog once again.

"I'm working up a little bit of an appetite, I'm afraid to say. Hm... who to choose, who to choose," he mused to himself, finger running across his chin in thought.

Meanwhile, Rose held the handcuffs, frozen in fear - mainly because I have no idea what Alexander is or will be doing when he's rendered mute and blind, though I assume Scarlet might have already stapled him to the chair, we'll say Rose does whatever with those cuffs when Scarlet tells her to, and probably makes a great deal of tearful and terrified faces while she does it.

For all the buckets of crazy that Scarlet was, she wasn't stupid, and right at the moment that Jeremiah made to take Alexander's senses from him, she thought that her 'friend' was.  He had to be, trying to yoink an ancient badass' senses away, and she was honestly expecting Alexander to take that as just cause for retaliation and break Jeremiah's brain.  If she were Alexander's age and power level, she'd have probably done it.

Except, Alexander didn't melt Jeremiah's brain into a gray puddle of goo.  Actually, it probably would have been a dull red puddle of goo, since cerebral bleeding would have colored the gray matter (she'd seen it, and though it was a neat effect, it was not a pretty color), but that was beside the point.  The actual point was that Alexander didn't put Jeremiah on par with Forrest Gump.  As she watched, holding her breath both literally and figuratively while clutching Rose to her just a little tighter in preparation for some kind of attack from the stupid little human girl's massively overpowered sweetheart, Alexander's eyes went unfocused with the loss of his sight and he looked as though he made the attempt to speak before silently clenching his jaw.  Unable to read his mind, Scarlet wasn't sure what he'd been trying to say or if he might be faking, but she had this hunch that he wasn't.

Fan-fucking-tastic!

"Slight change of plans, sweetie," she giggled into Rose's ear, the excitement bubbling up inside of her as she saw Alexander tip his head ever so slightly in their direction at the sound, obviously trying to make up for the fact that he wasn't seeing them.  That meant the gun his hand had tightened around was utterly useless because he couldn't risk shooting his pretty little miss or his friends.  It also meant that if Scarlet shut her damn mouth and moved somewhere else, he wouldn't know where she was, and that was a factor she fully intended to take advantage of if it became necessary. 

Nudging Rose toward her boyfriend, she yanked up one of the chairs that had been toppled during their entrance and leaned on the back of it as she watched the two lovebirds.  "Take the gun away from him and throw it into the corner over there.  It's okay, he won't need it anymore, I promise, just make sure you put the safety on.  We wouldn't want any accidents, now would we?" she practically purred, the grin obvious in her voice for Alexander's benefit. 

She tapped the back of the chair, gesturing Rose in that direction.  "Lead him here, cuff his hands through the chair behind him, and make him comfortable, would you?"

For obvious reasons, Scarlet was going to be supervising the entire cuffing process, but part of her game was the contrast between pain and pleasure.  Rose was going to be present during the entire ordeal, because someone like Alexander was sure to be able to tune out the pain after awhile.  It wouldn't work so well if he was constantly being pulled back by Rose's attentions.  Just the idea made the vampiress want to cackle again, so she did.

 Rose watched in horror as Alexander's eyes went all bleary and he just shut his mouth. She made a small noise of fear as Scarlet squeezed her arms, terrified for a moment that he was still going to shoot at them. Then he didn't, and Scarlet shoved her at him. She did as she was told, slowly taking the gun from him.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered to him. She felt like this was her fault. She felt his hand clamp down on top of hers for a moment as she took the gun, and she choked back a sob as she flicked the safety up and slid it on the floor as hard as she could. It wedged itself under the far corner of the entertainment center (she heard it hit the baseboard). She hesitated for a moment then, and she heard Scarlet make an impatient noise, so she lead him to the aforementioned chair and handcuffed him to the back of it as she was told.

"Listen, I don't know what you want, but if you want money or jewelry or a way out of the country, I can get it for you. I work for a really powerful law firm and I - " and with that, Alexander kicked Rose's foot lightly, causing her to stop. She was going to give away too much information and she could potentially endanger more people (or alternately give these morons an actual list of demands) and he didn't want that. She looked at the ground.

"I just don't know what you want," she protested feebly.

So, Alexander's little girl could take orders, just not with any kind of speed and not without running her mouth while she did it.  If she didn't have an automatic bye from Justinian and Iloquil, Scarlet would be curing her of those flaws very quickly.  Since she couldn't, she'd just take it out on Alexander, which was more than fair, but Jeremiah had made a good point when he said that they weren't going to touch her, but could still traumatize the hell out of her. 

New game!

Obviously pleased with her idea, she produced another knife from somewhere and had the sleeves of the jacket and dress shirt over Alexander's right forearm cut open to his elbow so that she could carve a few dashes in a line down his arm.  She looked to Rose, grinned, and proceeded to undo the man's belt so that she could pull it free and drape it loosely around his neck.

"Alright, sweetcheeks, we're going to play a game.  The word is five letters long, and the only clue I'll give you is that your boyfriend is one of them.  Now, guess a letter!" she instructed, already excited by this game.  It guaranteed blood, pain for her victim, and tears from the human.  What more could she ask for?