The Ragdoll

The Bar

Dedicated to Eryn Davis & Julia Todd~

Breaking out of prison wasn't hard at all for Emily. While all the guards were focused on the riot, Emily easily hopped the fence and made a beeline for the city. She knew she couldn't go back to her theater, so she changed out of her jumpsuit and into her normal attire behind a dumpster in an alleyway.

Emily viewed her freedom as a second chance. A second chance to do things right. A second chance to do whatever it would take to find the man who killed her father and put those twelve hideous stitches in her face. She didn't know his name, and she didn't very well remember his face, but she knew that she wouldn't be satisfied until he was completely wiped off the face of the Earth. She knew that she hated him. She hated him with everything that was in her. She hated him harder than the bloodlust tugged at her. She would find him. She knew she would find him. She absolutely had to.

The difficult thing about being an escaped convict was that Emily didn't know where to go. Her theater was certainly being watched, and she made a promise to herself to never go back home. Then she remembered the Rusty Fork, the bar she had gone to when she had first gotten to the city to find information on her father. It probably wasn't smart going somewhere that was so close to her theater, but she needed a drink in her. She needed somewhere to go so she could think.

The Fork was a lot more crowded than the last time she had been there. The bar were almost filled with men talking and laughing and doing knife tricks to impress their drunk friends. The pool table was completely full too, full of bikers and men that looked like they would tear your head off if you looked at them the wrong way. Emily felt completely out of place. A tall, thin, pale eighteen-year-old girl wearing her father's sunglasses amidst some of the toughest and most hardened men in Heart City.

She was out of place, but she wasn't scared. She knew that she could take all of them if she absolutely had to. She played with her switchblade in her pocket and smirked to herself. With her head down, she approached the bar and sat on a stool in between two men that seemed to be stories taller than her. She recognize the voice that spoke to her from behind the bar. It was the bearded woman.

"Can I see some identification?" she asked.

Emily tilted her face up so that she could see her stitches.

"Straight vodka," she replied.

"Right away."

She was served and sipping on her drink within a matter of seconds. She was content with herself, but she still had no idea what she was going to do about her father's killer.

"That's disgusting," a voice from behind her said. The voice almost frightened her. There was something awfully familiar about the soft but stern tone that spoke to her. It sent a shiver down her spine.

Emily slowly turned around in her seat to face the voice. What she saw when she turned around shocked her. It was a complete stranger that stood before her, she had never seen the man before in her life.

He was slightly shorter than her, but still tall. He was thin, pale, and had stringy black hair that drooped down his forehead. He was hooded, he wore a black and white horizontal striped sweater that was extremely old and extremely worn. He didn't seem to be wearing anything underneath. He was wearing a pair of black sweatpants, and was barefoot.

But the thing that caught Emily's attention most about the man was the white scar he had running down his face from his temple all the way down his neck.

"What's disgusting?" Emily replied, completely bewildered by the man.

"Straight vodka. That stuff makes me vomit."