Akira pouted, sure that Hortence was patronizing her. Frowning, she found no amusement in the woman’s joke—if she<span style="font-style: italic">was</span>joking—about leaving her alone if she didn’t pick up her slack. Her mood improved somewhat, though, when Hortence shoved a weapon into her hands. It looked like a revolver, or a very clunky version of one, almost to the point of looking cartoonish. “Uh—well—okay,” she stammered, holding the weapon gingerly. She had held a gun before, but had never shot one. Well, worst comes to worst, if she couldn’t use the damned thing the way it was intended, she could mentally throw it at someone’s head or something. Already, she missed the simple knife she had carried with her.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Well, it’s something,</span>she thought, following Hortence out of the hole warily. Not that she had much choice, as the woman was holding her by the hand, but to her credit, at least she wasn’t yanking her around. And what was with the cloth and the pin-thing around her ankle?<span style="font-style: italic">Weird.</span>Contrary to the economy of words and movement she observed from Rafaela, Hortence seemed to her a manic ball of energy, not so much restrained as rearing to be unleashed.  Total opposites; she could see how the two of them wouldn’t get along.<br/><br/>“I—have no idea what those places are,” she mused out loud as Hortence went immediately to the nearby building.<span style="font-style: italic">Hang on—is she actually breaking in? Are we breaking in? Okay, we’re breaking in.</span>Holy hell, an escaped criminal, a woman in a hospital gown waving a gun around?  “This doesn’t look suspicious at all, nope,” she muttered, following closely behind her, her unpracticed hands holding the gun awkwardly.<br/><br/>The homeliness of the interior shocked Akira. After the unfamiliar sterility of the hospital, the outlandish way the future met the past in this city, and all the strangeness that had invaded her life these past four years, anything that resembled “normal” to her had become the opposite. It wasn’t hard to imagine walking into homes like these even back on Earth; it looked eccentric in its little details, but not demons-falling-out-of-portals insane. Akira stood frozen for a few moments in the parlor, a moment of weakness seeping into her thoughts:<span style="font-style: italic">I miss Earth.</span>“Yeah, sure,” she replied absent-mindedly when Hortence suggested breaking something.<br/><br/>Sighing, she followed her “host”, snapping back to attentiveness when she told Akira to be quiet. Someone was upstairs. Cold dread washed down onto her, imagining buckshot exploding through her chest any moment now. Listening intently, Akira just barely registered a woman’s voice before it was silenced, followed by a dull thud. Akira dashed upstairs, almost afraid of what she’d find. There was the woman, the maid, most likely, but at least she looked unconscious, not dead. “You’re crazy. Do you know that?” Akira said, shaking her head as she rummaged for clothes. She looked up at Hortence when the latter held up a dress to her, and just as the older woman shook her head at it, Akira made a face. She had nothing against a good dress, but that was the last thing she wanted to wear if she was running from the law.<br/><br/>Seeing as the girl’s clothes in the room wouldn’t be of much use to her, Akira stepped out of the room, peeking down the hall to make sure there wasn’t anybody else yet who might intrude. If they were really going to burgle , she might as well do it right. After a couple of doors she found a room that looked like it belonged to an older boy. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she muttered over and over as she looked through the clothes in the wardrobe until she found a pair of trousers that looked like it could fit her.<br/><br/>A few frantic minutes later, she emerged wearing those trousers, a long-sleeved shirt she didn’t bother to tuck in, and a newsboy’s hat. She also found a pair of shoes that were comfortable enough, at least for now. She had considered removing the cloth and pin Hortence attached to her, already imagining how annoying it would feel poking against her skin while they fled, but she left it in place. “Yeah I have a bunch of questions: first of all, what the hell?” she hissed at Hortence, her annoyance coming back when she saw the unconscious woman on the floor again. “You and Rafaela clearly don’t get along, but I can kinda see why. Are you some kind of criminal or something?”