On the Lam (Wistful Beast and Vermiciro)

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What an awful time to be maudlin. Memory, like the black shadow of remorse, of regret, had dogged Judith's sleep many nights in prison. So many that she felt her spirit tremble then, threatening to break in absence of hope. Through spite and resolve she maintained, but at the nadir of her weakness the shadow writhed. And inebriated, in that pit she sat with it, susceptible to her every foible. To remember the last time she was drunk, when she was arrested for good, the hours after Camilla... the dots weren't so far as to not connect. Judith couldn't help recalling Camilla's face as she and Callie drove beneath the red neon of the vacancy sign.

Judith gave the place a perfunctory look, never lifting her head from the window. It was a shabby place. Judith knew no other kind. She tired to recall what Camilla's home looked like, the space she shared with that asshole who knocked her up, who stole her from Judith, stole the light from her youth. Or was that Judith? She sniffed loudly, clearing her nose.

"Place looks better 'an a parking lot." Judith admitted. "Could'a parked under a tree for all I care, but I'll take a bed over these-uh bucket seats? That what they're called?" it was a rhetorical question, and she sighed. "Yeah, if it ain't too pricey we'll stay. I don't got the fight in me to take one by force tonight." Between the trials of the day, the alcohol, and the melancholy seeping from her memory, Judith found herself wanting little more than sleep.
 
The car was nestled between two others as if to hide it from prying eyes. With a final rumble the engine was killed and the car became idle. Judith was right. A bed, even a stiff, dirty one, would be more favorable than curling up on the car seats. Callie could only agree with Judith's other comment regarding price. She was in no mood to take a room by force. No mood to kill again.

Knowing that Judith's drunken state rendered her legs as useful as cooked noodles, Callie slowly opened her car door after grabbing the wallet they had stolen from the business man they had robbed days earlier and said, "You stay here for now, alright? I'll get us a room and then come back for you." It was about the only time Callie had decided to take charge. Quite frankly she was too desperate for sleep to wait around for Judith to tell her to do something.

Before the car door was closed she commented, "I'll try to get a room that doesn't require walking upstairs." The last thing she wanted to do was try to haul Judith up a flight or two of stairs. Nothing said conspicuous like dragging someone around like a rag doll, especially an obviously smashed one. The door shut with a small pop and Callie walked off with long strides, trying to bolster some courage here, dispelling worried thoughts as best as she could. She ended up fidgeting with a thread from her jeans anyways.

Passing closed, numbered doors, Callie finally reached the main office and entered. The room was dimly lit and cluttered, file cabinets flanking a battered desk. At the desk sat an older looking woman with evident bags under her eyes and coarse looking blonde hair. Upon seeing Callie she lazily pressed the butt of her cigarette into the ash tray and smother it, long nails gripping the end like painted claws. "Room, please? P..Preferably on..on the first fl..floor,"Callie requested once she reached the desk.

The woman released a long sigh and slowly turned her swivel chair towards the wall behind her where various numbered keys hung on nails, some missing, indicating that they had already been distributed. Those painted claws of hers plucked number 9 off of its nail. The woman turned to face Callie and held out a hand lazily. "That'll be 50 dollars,"she rasped. Callie fumbled with the wallet and forked over the appropriate amount, willing to pay just about anything in order to attain some sort of reprieve. In return the woman handed over the key and Callie took it gingerly, offering a weak thanks before retreating from the office. She returned to the car and walked over to the passenger side and opened the door to let Judith out. Callie dangled the key from one finger and said, "Scored us a room. Can't guarantee it'll be comfortable, but at this point I think comfort is out of the question."
 
Stay here. Those two words, an order phrased as suggestion, one both logical and cogent, still prickled Judith with unintended condescension. Her petulant autonomy nettled. She was tempted to fumble from the car by her own dissenting will but... Callie had already left. Time twisted by tipple moved with a yoyo's oscillation, dropping slow, stagnating before pulling back to speed. In the background of her sluggish thoughts, the world seemed to move so terribly fast. Judith wondered if it was real, if maybe she was still in prison after all.

Years behind bars, even a tempered spirit had its days in doubt. Maybe her lawyer couldn't find a loophole in the court system, couldn't win an appeal. Maybe there was nothing behind her cell wall to ameliorate escape. Maybe death wasn't such a bad idea. It could all still end in a shoot-out, perforated by bullets, bleeding beneath the wide, cornflower blue of Dakota sky. Something then, subtle and sour, wafted through the car. The redolent residue of putrefaction's effluvium.

She wasn't in prison. No inebriated imaginings could fake that scent. Death never lingered so close in her cell. Judith smiled, laughing to herself in the empty car. Because it really wasn't prison. She'd made it out, just like she'd told Meredith she would years ago. The thought of her sister's reaction upon hearing such news, Judith wished she could have seen it. Her chuckling gradually faded as she saw Callie returning to the car.

Door opened, Judith sighed contently in greeting. "Not bad bellboy. Don't f'rget the bags." Though their luggage would likely be unnecessary. Too tired for care or further activity, anything beyond a bed was superfluous. Her gravity still swaying, Judith pulled herself from the car languidly, bracing herself where she could. "Wha' room we goin' to again?"
 
As Callie stood she noticed she was nearly swaying on her feet. While she wasn't inebriated like Judith, the day had taken a toll on her as well, both physically and emotionally. To think that earlier they had mutilated corpses was met with a sense of bewilderment, but mostly remorse. The action was unspeakable. Not only had they murdered two people, but they tore apart and set ablaze the remains to ensure that they got away with such actions. Callie still wasn't used to being on the criminal's "side" as opposed to that of the civilian.

In the past when Callie heard of an awful crime, as petty as theft and atrocious as homicide, she'd cast disgust at the perpetrators, labeling them all as wrong-doers meant to be punished. That's what everyone was taught to do anyways, cheer on the "good" guys and wish for the downfall of the "bad" ones. Never had Callie viewed crime as unavoidable. It had been of her belief that crime was always intentional and that the person committing it was at fault. Now her neat morals had been twisted around into a more grotesque system of contradictions. Was murder wrong if the victim was "bad?" Would anyone care if a lowlife was lost? Such musings only placed further strain on Callie's mind.

At least Judith seemed pleased that they had purchased a room successfully, offering slurred praise. Upon the mention of bags Callie opened the car's side door and pulled free the two suitcases. The bottles of alcohol stored in Judith's bag clinked together as the suitcase was pried from the vehicle. When the door was closed and the vehicle locked, Callie stood near the side with the handle of a suitcase in each hand.

Looking sheepishly towards Judith as the woman staggered out from the car, Callie replied, "Room number nine." After watching Judith struggle for a moment Callie asked, "Do you need any help? I..I know you've got this..this lone wolf shtick...b..but, there's no shame in accepting help where it's needed..." Callie's hand was still on the suitcase handle, but she bent her arm at the elbow and moved it away from her body, offering something to hold onto for support. Her tired eyes offered a flicker of kindness. She just hoped that Judith wouldn't feel belittled by the offer since Callie had observed that the woman didn't take help easily. She just had to do everything solo.
 
"Lone wolf?" Judith echoed with a bark of laughter. It was an analogous idiom at best. She was never anything so regal as a wolf, nothing venerable or symbolic. A lone wolf had freedom. Judith, she only lived by liberal means, still thrall to society's design. She wasn't free. She only pretended she was while chasing that elusive ideal. A domestic beast with a feral heart, longing beyond its pastures, but only satisfied with destruction.

Callie was right though, Judith never could accept help, always saw it as a weakness. And in her inebriation, Judith was granted an awareness of that. Maybe the alcohol had let her guard slide, softened her callus edges in that fugacious moment. But all throughout their sojourn north, Judith realized she had been demanding Callie' explicit trust and support, but in return relied on Callie for nothing. Not even a steadying hand in her drunken stupor. To deny her parity, it wasn't equitable.

Judith considered her partner's offered elbow with fresh eyes. It wasn't meant as a jibe or to be patronizing; she could discern that much. But the thought of holding to another's arm like some trophy wife out for a stroll, Judith wasn't having it. "Crouch down for a sec." she asked with a gesturing motion. "I ain't nobody's arm candy, but you're half way to lookin' like a pack mule so lemme on your back. C'mon." Judith clapped impatiently in a drunkard's cadence. No shame in a piggy-back ride.
 
Tired eyes watched Judith for a sign of acceptance, but all the offer was only returned with laughter. The sound disrupted the general peace in the vicinity and left Callie wondering what would happen next. In a drunken state Judith was bound to be more unpredictable, even if she was much less coordinated than usual. Would she soften enough to accept help? Thinking that the woman's head was bound to be too foggy to care much of pride, there was little worry that the offer would be easily declined.

Alcohol couldn't hinder Judith's firm value of independence. So...she decided of all options to request a piggy back ride. Callie's eyes narrowed at first with a sense of skepticism and she produced a light scoff of bewilderment from her throat. When she discovered that Judith was serious in her demand, her shoulders slumped, facial expression softening into defeat. There was no use poking the bear by refusing to such a childish act. Doing so could infuriate the drunken woman and that was the last thing Callie wished to do. They had spent a few days together and had cooperated decently enough not to kill each other yet, but that didn't mean that Callie trusted Judith enough to accept a refusal in such an incoherent state of mind. So, she complied, but begrudgingly.

Stifling a sigh Callie crouched over slowly and kept both bags in her hand, waiting for Judith to crawl on. "Just...try to be careful here..."she mumbled. The last thing she needed was to throw out her back now.
 
Smiling wide as a canine, Judith chuckled. Callie's acquiescence, no cavil or complaint, was respectable in its own odd way. In a culture where bitching was three forths of conversation, to cut the fat in favor of time, even at one's potential expense, showed a goal-oriented mindset. Get to the damn motel room, come hell or high water, that was what they were doing. That hell just happened to be a whimsical means people often reserved for the young or injured. Judith figured intoxicated could fit among the latter group.


With the ungainly charm only those drunk and new born have, she slumped lazily onto Callie's back, arms jutting over the other's shoulders, knees at her hips. Immediately Judith felt Callie's heat. Like coming home from the cold, her warmth seeped through Judith's layers, overcoming the chill of alcohol. It was comforting, somniferous. She could have slept there beneath the stars without a care. So pleasant it was to feel weightless and warm.

Judith loosely crossed her arms about Callie's neck, securing herself. "Honestly," she confessed, "I could doze of right now; you're probably as good a bed as this place has."
 
With the patience of a saint Callie remained in a crouched position as Judith not so graciously clambered onto her back. Luckily the woman was pretty small and lean, not weighing much, even if intoxication rendered her as more a lump than a cooperative person. Callie freed her hands long enough to offer minimal aid in securing Judith to her back. Noticeably Callie had flinched when the other woman's arms wrapped around her throat. It was clear that the redhead was still plenty of edge when it came to Judith's intentions, especially in this more vulnerable situation.

After her hands had grabbed the bags again and all was well, Callie set off at a steady walk towards the motel itself and began to scan the chipped, white painted doors for the number nine. Atop her back Judith seemed more than comfortable, even going as far as to claim she was comfortable enough to doze off. Callie couldn't say the same since even though Judith's was light she was still a fully grown adult who offered only imbalance. "Thanks, I guess,"she mumbled, focusing only on the task at hand, heavy lidded eyes still seeking refuge.

Finally her gaze settled on a bronze colored '9' hanging crooked on a single nail upon a door. Callie focused all of her remaining energy on reaching it and when she did, the bags were set up against the wall with a faint exhalation of effort, keys now fished from her pocket. The key slid in and the door clicked open, swinging inwards with a creak. Inside the room was dark, the shadows dispelled only when Callie reached a hand up and flicked a dim overhead light on. The walls of the room were plastered with dull colored wall paper, nothing spectacular, as expected of course. This was only a stop for daring wayward travelers, drug abusers, and s they learned at the last joint, prostitutes and their customers. All that mattered was that there was an old queen sized bed propped up against the right wall in the middle. The only other feature was a door that must have led to a bathroom.

Callie walked inside, leaving the bags for now. She walked straight to the bed without closing the door yet, intending to return. For now she reached the foot for the bed and crouched down, ready for Judith to slide, or fall off.
 
Dead weight atop Callie's back, a bag of bones and gristle loosely held, Judith could feel the edge of her perception slowly returning to clarity. Far from sober, but the pain of all her aches was finally filtering through. The crusted cut on her palm felt tight, her knuckles still stiff from abuse. To think they were only made last night, that time felt so distant from the present. The bruise on her jaw from fumbling at Trevor's window had since darkened, pain only felt with pressure. And her newest battle wound was still blossoming below her cheek, swelling hot and sore. It would look its worst come sunrise, as would Judith. Ugly, inside and out.

Their safety for the night, room 09, was stuffy. The air trapped inside had cooked to stagnant without ventilation. It reminded Judith of solitary in August, a four walled hot-box with only your thoughts for company. Hell's waiting-room. A place that could settle in you, subcutaneous, a tremulous nerve of desperation wriggling slow as days from your nape to your tailbone. Judith forced her eyes open. When closed, even with Callie against her, she could feel that cell again.

As her partner neared the bed, Judith began reluctantly sliding off, managing to settle on the mattress edge. She felt shapeless and broken, heavy with sleep. The day had been both a hurricane and a bore, a mix of incongruous events. Burning bodies, murder, stealing, a fight, all intermittently spliced with prosaic drives. So much done in the handful of hours the light gave them. Judith didn't bother to dwell on it.

"I'm gonna piss." she announced flatly, before lurching off the bed. Callie could get the bags, maybe settle in to sleep. Judith would be with her soon enough. But before a merciful period of unconsciousness, she wanted to see the damage done in the bar fight.
 
Once Judith was deposited onto the bed Callie returned to the doorway, slipping out into the humid Summer night again to fetch the suitcases she left waiting, caring little for Judith's statement regarding the bathroom.

Heavy hands latched onto cloth handholds and they were tugged inside. The door gently thumped back into place to block out the night. The twist of a key locked the door before said keys were tossed in the direction of the bed. Callie fastened the copper colored deadbolt , not that it would hold up against any potential intruder. A mere illusion of security.

The bags were dragged across the thin, ugly beige carpet, in the direction of the bed. Unceremoniously, they were dropped and kicked into place up against the bottom of the crooked metal bed frame. Callie then opened up the one that was hers, the one not laden with alcoholic beverages. She didn't care to change her shirt now, but didn't feel like sleeping in jeans. Jeans were shed for the simple pair of sweatpants she had snagged from the vacation home, the change quick as to avoid Judith walking in on the scene. Not that the two needed any modesty in their predicament. It would be unlike Callie to drop all of her social boundaries, even now.

Now dressed slightly more comfortably, crawling into bed became Callie's goal. Swiping the room keys from where she had landed on the comforter, she tossed them onto the nearby night stand, metal clattering on the wooden surface. Then, finally, she peeled back the covers and slipped under them. Not because of the temperature. It was plenty warm enough, but because it offered some illusion of comfort. Just like the deadbolt.

Callie remembered one more thing and yanked her headscarf off, freeing cherry locks. It was a relief to have the thing off and it felt much nicer when her head hit the pillow. Now she longed for oblivion. Sleep was a temporary release for their woes, a few mindless hours not occupied by evading the police or committing crime. The weight of her sins bore down just as heavily as her exhaustion, but sleep could temporarily cure both. She allowed her eyes to shut and attempted to relax.
 
The bathroom was stuffier still. No window and a broken ventilation system that maden't a single noise as Judith impatiently tested the switch. Where the walls sweat during a shower, the paint was peeling there like drab colored layers of skin. Housekeeping had left splinters of it along the baseboard. And the drains, once glittering metal, were now dull, scratch-chapped by caustic chemicals and bristled tool. Judith did her business indifferent of it all, flushing and filling the sink once done.

Discomfort, the gentlest kind of suffering, was reminder that she was still breathing. Judith stroked her cold, wet hands along her arms, her neck, her face. .... Her face, peering over the tips of her fingers, Judith could see the incipient forming of a bruise, like a watercolor stain just starting to surface. The damaged tissue was swelling, warm and tender to the touch. It was nothing she hadn't experience before. But still thrall to alcohol's maudlin sway, what looked back at Judith was more than reality. It was memory.

It was a memory she'd played over so many times it became exaggerated, an artist's interpretation, a film based on true events. And it seemed to cut all the deeper because of it. Camilla's face battered and bruise, streaked red with the blood of her wounds and Judith's split knuckles. Judith could remember Camilla's swollen lip as it split open like a hotdog, fleshy and wet. She could remember the smell of their heat, of Camilla's hair, of Adam's house. She could almost feel the anger, now dormant, that had pushed her over the edge. It coiled as it slumbered heavy in her chest.

Judith drained the sink and roughly darkened the bathroom before turning in. She flopped atop the bed, dead weight, not bothering with covers. "Is it just me," she asked, voice muffled in the sheets, "or is it that when a relationship ends, it always ends fucking terribly?"
 
Sleep wouldn't come. Wouldn't give Callie the luxury of unconsciousness, stubborn as ever. In frustration Callie screwed her eyes shut tight against the dim light of the lamp, decided to flick it off roughly. Light was snuffed out of the warm motel room. Shadows swam across the walls and crept along the floor. Callie's heart felt like dead weight and despite Judith's presence she became overcome with the numbness of loneliness. A burning desire in Callie wished to embrace her mother, share laughter with a close friend over coffee, and sickeningly, even cuddle with Emma.

Emma was dead to her now, the memory only bringing up a dull ache, making her feel hollow and fragile. Pressing her face harder into her pillow she wished she could suffocate the mere idea of being with that woman. The same one who tore her heart out and just to watch it bleed through her fingers. Lied and cheated. It pained Callie in the worst way to imagine Emma had been saying, 'I love you,' to a different woman throughout the entire duration of their marriage. Every date had probably been repeated with a stranger. No inside joke was original, no place or song sacred only to them. Callie felt used.

Callie became distracted when Judith returned, unceremoniously hurling her drunk self onto the bed. It seemed they were thinking of a similar topic, as Judith brought up the topic of poor relationship results. Maybe they had at least a scrap in common. Slowly, Callie rolled onto her back and rested her hands on her stomach. With a light snort she bitterly answered, "It's not just you. It would be much too easy for any relationship to have a clean break. Always has to be messy..."
 
"Messy's a euphemistic way of puttin' it." Judith chuckled darkly, dark as unoxidized blood, black as murder's shadow, the same dog's laughter she greeted Callie with days ago. Murder was messy in all its aftermath. It didn't stop at the crime scene, didn't end down the drain of a squalid bar where the malefactor washed free the macula of their deed. It didn't even stop at the court room, the funeral, or the jail cell. The mess just seeped, a malignant cancer that spread through Judith's life. It was more than messy. It was progressively deleterious.

And even as she fled, it followed at her heels. The peccable, forever barred from absolution, were cursed to live with the consequence of their sin. Messy was almost an understatement for what Judith had done. But...

"To be honest," she began in confession, "I don't even know if what I had was a relationship." After all, Camilla only strayed from Adam. Never truly had she left, only indulged in the fantasy of it. That was all their affair ever was, a dalliance. It was only in Camilla's death that Judith finally claimed her for herself. That callow dream of freedom, innocent in its intention, had made such a mess. "How can a person even tell if they actually love another or if it's just us loving the illusion of what we want them to be, or what they represent?" Judith asked in a rare moment of philosophical depth. She rolled onto her side. "Ain't nothin' clear between people anymore."
 
In the suffocating darkness of the stuffy hotel room Judith released low laughter, as thick as the air around them and just as dim as the atmosphere. Callie kept her eyes pinned up on the ceiling and couldn't help but feel unnerved by the presence of someone so foreign and dangerous laying right next to her. They had spent only a few days together, but as things progressed they were revealing more and more about each other, revealing snippets of information. As it stood now Callie wasn't sure if it were better or worse to hear more about Judith's history. All she gleaned now was a relationship that ended with figurative, or real, blood on Judith's hands.

Even though Callie felt as if her failed relationship likely ended less violently than Judith's, Judith did make a good point. How could one judge how genuine a relationship was? People were keen to hide things, for better or worse. Usually for the worst. To think that Callie believed she knew Emma and thought they had always been on the same page, everything neatly laid on the table for inspection. She never knew that there was so much Emma was holding back. Another affair had been concealed with expertise only gained from years of experience. Emma was a thief of truth, a mere illusion of a wife. Did she ever even love Callie?

Bitterly Callie recalled the discovery of Emma's affair. She had come home early from an outing with her friends only to find Emma half naked and tangled up in the arms of another woman. In Callie's own bed. With sickening detail Callie remembered hearing Emma moan a name that wasn't hers. Stella. Poor bitch didn't know any better either, didn't even know Callie was part of the equation.

In the darkness Callie winced as if struck, clenching her teeth painfully and screwing her eyes shut. It was all she could do to prevent herself from cursing Emma right here and now. There was no reason to unearth those memories now. There was enough trouble in Callie's life as it stood now.

Reluctantly Callie released the tension in her body. Nagging pain and emotional strife couldn't be shaken off that easily. When another attempt at sleep failed she deiced to keep conversing with Judith. "It's certainly not easy to decide what is genuine and what is not. There's lots of skilled liars."
 
A good liar was one that wasn't known, one everyone thought either incapable of pretext or above such ignoble behavior. Or so Judith learned. You only had to meet one in life to be suspicious of every character you crossed. It made her grateful for the unctuous and openly iniquitous, they left no room for doubt. The kind, magnanimous, and scrupulous, they however, raised question. What was their goal, their reason, their intent? Why, why, why? Nothing in life was without expense. No one was selfless.

"Sometimes it's not even the skilled liars that get'cha." Judith murmured, maudlin and somnolent. "It's the ones who tell half-truths that really bite." Camilla, in all her callow ignorance, never really lied. She was too ingenuous, could read her face and tone like a book. It was her ambivalence that salted the wound. Camilla never knew what she wanted, so capricious, had to have a foot on either side of the divide. And when the ultimatum finally fell she chose the guarantee over the dream. Camilla had rejected more than Judith that day, she rejected Judith's very reason to live after daring to burden its weight together.

Half-truths, hope, ambivalence, and ignorance. A powder keg of well-wishes that took a life upon confrontation, took Camilla's life. Judith had violently burst. Strung along by such a subtly deleterious mix, were her actions really so unwarranted? In the obscuring dark, Judith smiled bitterly, catching her wayward thoughts as they twisted to justify murder. Those hours before sleep, half-conscious, near dreaming, they had a way of dredging the depths of memory and emotion.

"How much cash do we have left?" she segued. One never knew what expenses the morrow would bring.
 
A dull hunger pestered Callie. A craving for affection brought up by the opening of a foul wound, one inflicted by Emma. That bitch. In an attempt to negate the discomfort Callie turned over onto her side so that she faced away from Judith, legs drawn up, one arm tucked neatly underneath her pillow. She tried to busy herself by remaining in the present, making the observation that the pillowcase was roughly textured from years of use and wash, material nibbling at Callie's skin. Sensory distractions failed to drive away the past and it crept back into place. For some sick reason Callie wanted to imagine she was back at her apartment with Emma, curled up as one under layers of blankets, content to shut the world away. She chastised herself and pretended to like being holed up in a dirty motel room with a violent stranger. But was 'stranger' a fitting term for Judith anymore?

Before Callie could think much more on the matter, Judith spoke up, voice softer and full of emotion. It was clear Judith was wounded. Maybe that's why she turned to murder. Perhaps someone had harmed Judith so much with their deceptions that violence had appeared to be the only option. Callie stopped herself here. She was not keen to sympathize with Judith yet, having seen the sheer extent of this woman's aggression. The man laying on the side of the road unconscious, beaten senseless with a branch. The convenience store clerk writhing in a pool of alcohol and shattered glass, fighting for air. The pox faced pizza delivery boy, a pocket knife jammed into his jugular. The pimp's guard, begging for mercy on the floor, eyes swimming with fear, tendon snapped. It would take a lot to convince Callie that Judith was worthy of sympathy.

In response to Judith's question, Callie said without rolling over, "Hell if I know. I'll count tomorrow morning." She sounded tired. Yet still, sleep wouldn't grace her with its mercy.
 
Too drunk for cavil or to count it herself, Judith grunted in response. The day had been long, enervating, and the night offered them little solace. Her will to keep memory at bay had all but withered beneath alcohol and exhaustion. As sleep hung heavy, and heavier still, Judith could only hope her straying thoughts not imbue her dreams with Camilla's face, her voice, her scent. As lingering within the black morass of caged emotions, despite the ending she and Camilla had, Judith still found all that Camilla had been to be symbolic of what Judith desired. A freedom without loneliness.

"I dunno about you." Judith began with an unrestrained yawn. "But I'm fucking tired." she couldn't maintain conversation any more. Her tongue was torpid, he voice but an empty breeze, and her thoughts tapped. Despite all that dared to pulled itself from the shadow of memory, Judith couldn't resist sleep anymore. They could rattle the cage, but she'd not put them to words are dare push them back. Her energy was spent. And almost as an after thought, a foggy remembrance of formality she'd easily eschew, Judith wished Callie a pleasant sleep.

"Night."
 
Alcohol and exhaustion had de-clawed Judith for the night. Any other time Callie was sure Judith wouldn't be satisfied with Callie's lack of a definite answer and would most likely force her to count the money now. Callie was glad for this since by each passing moment her limbs began to grow heavier. Even flipping through money would be cumbersome, especially in the darkness. All Callie had the energy to do was lay motionless on the mattress. She felt like a corpse.

Judith shared this condition and verbally expressed her fatigue. Callie yawned in response, law feeling stiff with the motion. Finally Callie curled onto her side and closed her heavy eyelids. In response to Judith's comment she mumbled, "Goodnight, Judith." Even though her situation was shitty it was comforting to know that she wasn't alone.

Callie drifted off to sleep. Dreams came in short spurts interrupted by small periods of wakefulness. Disorientated, she'd lose consciousness after spending a few moments scanning the darkness for unseen threats. All of her dreams were about Emma. At the park. Having dinner. Idle work banter. If Callie wasn't so tired she would have opted to stay awake if it meant not having dreams that left her this hollow. Life offered some leeway and allowed her to have a few dreamless hours. Nothingness was a privilege.
 
(Bump. Just because I don't feel like fishing this out from the graveyard.)
 
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