#/also excuse any spelling mistakes and the like because... honestly i can't be bothered x'd

[extrxmegxnius]

//Closed starter for @questionablemalice!

The drop-off site B had chosen sat in the back of a dark, disused alley tucked away in the heart of Los Angeles. This would not have been the first time he had been involved in this sort of thing; indeed he had come to places like these plenty of times into the dozens, and this day like any other he was prepared for a quiet and speedy transaction for an assortment of illegal substances, as well as one specialty item. Awaiting his fence at the back of the alleyway, he stood with his back against a wall, eyes shut, with hands resting nonchalantly in his pockets as he listened to the world live on around him. Cars passed by, sirens blared in the distance, and the hooker he’d passed by screamed as her mugger pulled the trigger after finding her devoid of much-needed cash -- right on time.

All went quiet after the altercation and B wondered who might be brave enough to step out to examine the body and call the police, but as he realized the fence was running ten minutes behind schedule, his focus returned to the task at hand. He wasn’t particularly troubled by this, but an inconvenience was an inconvenience, and he would make a point to bring it up when the man arrived.

B opened his eyes slowly to adjust to a nightly darkness only a tad brighter than when his eyes were closed, and without warning his left ear had suddenly jerked from a resting position. He turned his head toward the noise, a streamlined sound of sorts like a light object cutting through the air, to find exactly what he thought he heard. A moderately sized paper airplane made of a larger than standard sheet of printing paper had hit the wall behind him and fallen to the ground at his left, but before he would move to pick it up, he inspected its trajectory. It had to have come from somewhere higher than ground-level, and it hadn’t traveled in a straight line -- from the top of a building, perhaps the one just across the street? His eyes darted directly to a higher set of windows, and then to the roof where he had caught a glimpse of the culprit -- a thin-looking young woman with blonde hair that just barely stood out in the darkness, looking directly at him through a pair of small binoculars. She had only stayed long enough to find her plane, and had evidently not seen B, who had donned a black outfit that evening. Normally something like this would not have piqued his interest, but there was a faint scent coming from below that struck him as somewhat odd. While she was out of sight for the time being, B picked up her paper plane to give it a once-over, unfolding meticulously crafted wings and tip to release a sweet rose noted perfume.

    “Huh. Now, why would a girl go through the trouble of making this only to release it in a place like this?”

One possibility was that the plane doubled as a love letter intended for someone to find, but the paper was completely blank, and aside from that no young, love-stricken girl would be flying love notes out of some old, miscellaneous building in this area. This development left quite a bit of room for further investigation and had sparked a flicker of interest in B’s mind. Without any further delay he brought his attention back to the world at large, scanning the nearby environment for whomever suited the description of his young lady best. He figured she’d be exiting the building any moment, but just as he made the decision to go after her, the fence had finally arrived, breathless and in a hurry, pointing a gun in B’s direction -- the gun he had asked for, ironically.

     “Whoa there, pal! I didn’t come to the shit end of town for nothin’.  Pay up and come get your shit before you go fuckin’ off somewhere else!”

This had been the night’s most irritating moment, and its biggest delay, but there was a chance B could still make time if he handled the situation correctly by complying. After shoving the paper into a pocket for safe-keeping he raised his hands in surrender, keeping a watchful eye of the man before him, and moved to give him a neat wad of cash from his wallet.

     “It's all there. Count it if you doubt me - it's all in fives and tens, so you'll have to drop your things to do that.”

The fence sneered at him through gold-plated teeth. To please his betters he had no choice but to count out every bill to ensure it was, in fact, the whole amount -- but the thought of putting the gun within B’s reach made him sick.

     “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me, man,” he responded, letting the gun fall to his feet as he went to grab the cash.

     “Ain’t like you’d shoot me anyway… bad for business.”

Knowing he had brought the full amount and with little time to dawdle, B took the chance to collect his things while the fence continued to count. This frustrated the man greatly, but being the duller type needed to keep his focus, lest he lose count from “fucking one-hundred-and-five”. Before taking off as was his first thought, B took a moment to inspect the gun. All seemed in order, ammunition was there; it was locked and loaded. Which only left one thing to the imagination: would it actually fire?

BANG, BANG!

     “GAH- SHIT!”

The bills fluttered to the ground and the fence dropped with them, clutching his knees.

     “And here I thought the safety was on,” B lied, shoving the gun into his back pocket.

     “Ah, well. At least I know it's fully functional. Thanks for your business.”

As he turned to talk away the fence screamed at him any number of obscenities, threatened to call the police, told him someone would find him -- but B only smiled and went along his way, hoping he hadn't wasted too much time on that stunt.

Which he had. The only sign of the girl he could find was a familiar head of hair and binoculars around her neck as she disappeared around the block, headed west. This was no real trouble, however -- in fact, he could say with all honesty that he preferred a chase. Thus he went west, intent on tracking her every move until she was completely out of sight and had a better idea. Why not instead learn her habits? Find the places she visited most? After having stashed the grocery bag of drugs somewhere safe, B came up with a plan. There was a chance, of a higher probability, that he would find this girl again, most likely to end up at the building her paper plane had landed near. She was clearly hoping to scope something out from her vantage point, and he was at least eighty percent certain he would see her revisit that location in the near future.

B decided to return that night, and the night after that, and the night after that until she finally showed up. She had presumably not thought about scouting the premises for other people, or else she may have actually found B this time -- or maybe she just didn't care. Either way B was close enough, this time, to catch her name: Sybil Cohen, no older than 23, blonde, and evidently on a mission. She held a gallon canister of gasoline in one hand and a cigarette in the other; a sight more than familiar to him than he thought it might have been. Rather than rehashing the past, though, B’s brain went straight into numbers -- possibilities of different outcomes, their effects, her date of death, and why she would be back here in the first place. Was she looking to end her own life in this building? A building chosen at random by her paper plane? People didn't usually choose a suicide spot by chance alone. Most preferred places significant to them, but he supposed along with any other ideas that anything was possible. It wasn’t even near time for her to die, anyway. Alternatively she could have chosen the building this way as a means to randomize her choice of storehouses, but the perfume threw this theory and many others off by being too significant -- it had been sprayed directly onto the paper. What more, the purpose with which she carried herself and the absolute definity of her stride brought an entirely different thought to mind -- the most likely of all his options.

     “She's going to burn the building down. Interesting choice.”

All things considered, she made good time. No sooner than when B decided not to enter for the danger it presented - and because he could just as easily confront her as she left - Sybil had made her way to the third floor via stairway. He could hear a faint splashing through broken windows overhead as she let the gasoline flow behind her, around the floor, down the stairs… and when all noise ceased, he chuckled.

     “Didn't think she'd get stuck, did she?”

Maybe not, but she seemed to have a plan. From above he heard glass shatter and the clanking of soles on metal, a faint creak, and the sound of commission before she jumped down to the second floor fire escape. It was then she spotted B below her, her eyes hurried and wild knowing she was both trapped without the first floor fire escape and that she had been seen committing arson. B simply looked on with no intention of either helping nor running.

     “Looks like you've gotten yourself into quite the predicament. What will you do?”

. . . She leapt. B had underestimated, or rather overestimated her desperation, and had no time to move.

The force with which Sybil landed on him left him unconscious, out of breath, and sore all over but with no great injury aside from major bruising. When he finally came to he noted that she was nowhere to be seen, as was his wallet. With a groan B stood, clutching his stomach, and looked to the burning building for an estimation of the time. Based upon its current state her figured it could not have been more than half an hour after their encounter -- people were only just beginning to gather around the building and fire trucks could be heard at a distance. Taking his chance to remain undetected, B fled the scene.

     “Fine, Sybil, I'll play your game,” he thought, eyes set ablaze with newfound purpose.

     “I'll enjoy catching you. We have a score to settle.”

In only a few hours most places would be open for business, and as luck would have it there was a mall about a two hours walk from his current position. He would have to do something about his appearance first, of course, but he made a point to show up right at opening time alongside a growing crowd.

B spent the bulk of his time, unsurprisingly, in the mall’s perfume section, where he was one of the few people all too happy to be bombarded with perfumes for his “fiancée”. He had brought the plane along with him to search for a matching scent, insisting to an employee that he find the exact same brand of the same year -- nothing “almost exactly like” or “similar”. But it seemed the employee was only showing B what he looked like he could afford -- nothing beyond the range of fifty dollars.

     “I know you aren't showing me everything because I don't look the part, but I suggest you open up your expensive cabinet there before I find whoever is in charge. I'm quite good at making a scene.”

The exasperated employee let out a sigh, rolled her eyes, and took the key from around her neck to open the clear cabinet door behind her.

     “This wouldn't be so hard if you actually knew what you were looking for,” she stated, taking out a few sample bottles.  

     “Oh, but I do. It smells like roses and vanilla, a little on the strong side. If it helps, I know who may have bought it last. She's a short blonde, quite thin, but pretty enough,” he explained, and right then something seemed to connect in her mind.

     “Wait,” she interrupted, “I think I know what you're looking for.”

The young woman dug around the cabinet a bit to bring out a very small test bottle of crystalline glass.

     “We had a very insistent customer come in by that description last week. She wanted the most distinctive, expensive bottle she could get her hands on… didn't think to ask where someone like her got the money for it, but you didn't hear that from me. She tends to skulk around the food court during the week, so you might actually find her here tod-”

     “Thank you for your time.”

With that B had taken off in speed, course set directly for the food court on the floor above. With any luck he would find Sybil there, and the game would be on.