illirica
Well-Known Member
"Drat." The curse was mild, compared to the one that Mask had just unleashed, but Lucille wasn't prone to swearing - not any more. She'd sworn with the best of the boys, once upon a time, when she'd been a fighter pilot with the British air force - and then one of the Germans had shot her down, and the crash had been... bad. Mask had been the one to find her, after she'd gone down. She was probably alive thanks to them. She wondered, sometimes, whether they regretted that, but she didn't ask. She might have survived, but she'd lost the arm, and that had meant the end of piloting. It had been a relief to a great number of people - women weren't supposed to be pilots, after all. Lucille hadn't agreed, but it was hardly like she could fly without the arm, so she'd gone and done what everyone thought she should have done in the first place and signed on as a nurse. Things were desperate enough that she hadn't needed to be particularly skilled at it so much as just needing not to be squeamish. Mask had followed her around like a mascot, and Lucille tried not to hear what people said about them. Most people seemed to think they were a pet, about as smart as a retriever. Lucille figured that if Mask wanted people to know otherwise, they could say something, but perhaps it was easier to pretend not to be a human than to try to convince everyone that you were one. After a while, people had gotten used to it, and a pair of extra hands was always welcome, especially since Lucille had only half that herself. If Mask could tie knots and carry things, well, it hardly mattered. A fair number of the people that the two of them had ministered to probably though they were a hallucination anyway - the ones that were conscious, anyway. The unlucky ones. The war had been rough. Lucille wondered why it was, then, that now that it was over all she wanted to do was fight. Maybe it was the time spent in ministrations. Maybe all that healing people just made her pent up and frustrated. She knew she was meant to be a killer - she'd just had to put that aside, for a while. But the war was over now, and it was time to be who she was supposed to be once more. That was why they were here, on the streets, watching the cars go by. If Mask said that N was in one of them, then Lucille believed them. They usually had good instincts about that sort of thing. Well, they all did, to a degree, but Mask's were better than most. "Come on. Let's find someone to give us a ride." She didn't like driving. It was hard to manage the gear shift and the steering wheel with only one hand, at least at any good speed. For little things, she managed, but chasing down N wasn't going to be a little thing. Fortunately, Lucille had learned that there were a great number of young men far from home who were happy to help a nurse, even one with one arm and an odd companion. "We can probably catch up. No doubt someone will think the chase is fun." Lucille would too, for that matter. The chase was almost as good as the kill. Almost. |