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The twins managed to get a full night of sleep. Constantine, on the other hand, had work and left the house extremely loudly after raiding the Freck’s pantry.
Alvin woke up at nine after a half-remembered dream, something that involved a lot of blood and upset words. A cool sheen of sweat clung to his arms. He rotated his wrists, turning his hands in circles and tried to avoid how hard he was shaking.
Nothing was wrong, after all. He could still move. He still had his body.
Alvin kicked off his blankets and dropped to the floor of his bedroom. His calves ached. He shifted his weight to his right foot, bending low enough for his heel to touch the bottom of his calf.

“Knees over toes, you know that. Knees over toes, or else you fall flat,” mumbled Alvin, switching legs. Falling backwards, he landed with a thump and reached for a foot. The pull in his tendon felt good, and Alvin deepened the stretch, pressing his forehead to his knee.
Elizabeth was dead. There was at least one anthropophagus running around Rotterfeldt. But that was unlikely, seeing as they were social animals with tightly-knit social groups.

Alvin’s stomach turned to stone. More than one. A pack. Probably less than ten. But still more than he wished to deal with at any given time.
Alvin stretched out his other leg, wrapping his hand around the bottom of this foot.
He chose to let his thoughts wander. How much medication did he have right now?
Aw, applesauce. He could worry about medication later.

Could he go see Jin today? Well, why not? There was no new information regarding the case, and he probably did need to poke around Scab’s End a bit more to see what he could find but Kaylee could probably do that.
Alvin grabbed his toes and pressed his forehead to his knees.
Kaylee was a strong sort of girl, and she could handle doing a bit more research by herself.
Alvin held the stretch.
But something seemed to have happened last night that left her really shaken.

Lurching to his feet with a grunt, Alvin bent until his palms were braced against the floor, sighing as the knots in his legs worked themselves out. Shifting his weight abruptly to his hands, Alvin raised his feet off the floor, standing on his hands, and his pyjama shirt fell forwards, covering his face. Inhaling the scent of sleep mixed with fear sweat, Alvin shifted his momentum back onto the soles of his feet. He worked on the muscles in his lower back, bending until his spine popped and then straightening.

“Twist, twist, twist, twist, Charleston kick, mambo slide,” he said softly, stretching the narrow muscles in his hips and shoulders. Constantine had shown him most of these stretches, claiming it would help when scaling buildings. Besides, Constantine was an ex-dance marathon champion. Anything said regarding staying limber was gospel.
Alvin snapped his heels together, going for a toe touch.

Scab’s End. Why there? Why not Ropeworth, home to fashionable clubs and throngs of people, where one person could go missing easily?
Alvin grabbed a bottle on to his nightstand and shook out two blue pills, swallowing them dry.
He went over the different neighborhoods of Rotterfeldt. There was St. Blackwater, known for sprawling mansions and old money and old blood. Notoriety and scandal were practically currency. Conservative. Relatively quiet. West end.

Night End sat at the very edge of St. Blackwater, barely a stone’s throw from Ropeworth, which was full of new clubs, new religions, new money and all the lavish parties and banned alcohol such fresh dough could muster. Flashy. Exciting. Crowded. South side.

Alvin grabbed onto his knee and pulled it towards his chest.

Angrai, which was where Jin lived to the east. Full of newly-landed immigrants and those who wished to practice the ways of the maegi without being too harshly judged. It was a tightly-knit, small place. Everybody knew everybody, or at least, everybody knew a somebody who knew an everyone.
It was a miracle Alvin managed to keep Jin a secret at all.

He switched knees.

In between all points of this compass, was the centre of the city. The parliament buildings were there, along with all the hospitals. And Constantine and Winston.
Busy. Guarded. Beginning of the elevated trainway.
Alvin jumped up, grabbing onto the iron bar that had been welded to the oaken plank that held up his bed. With a grunt, he raised himself up, then carefully back down. He crossed his ankles and tried to think over everything.

Scab’s End was the North end of the city. Train line ends. Home to the slightly infamous Bluefinch mental asylum and Cold Mountain Penitentiary.

Alvin pulled himself up. He’d done his own stint in Bluefinch, before he’d gotten diagnosed and started medication. He just wanted the voiced to go away, and if that involved--
Alvin let himself down, then hammered his body back up. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
--drinking the furniture polish on purpose--
Alvin pushed himself, not bothering to pause at the top or bottom. His muscles began to grate and screech.
--then so be it.
Alvin let go of the bar and dropped to the floor, barely managing to break his fall.
“So be it,” he spat, rising shakily to his feet.

______________________

Kaylee had dressed in a rose pink dress that tapered nicely to mid-calf, a nice layered thing with an almost seductively low neckline. Her favorite black shoes and matching pink hat completed the ensemble, but she didn’t resist putting on some nice short white gloves.
At this point, her favorite black shoes were held in one hand and her nice short white gloves were jammed under an arm. In the hand that was not holding the shoes, Kaylee held a half-finished piece of toast.
She took a tentative bite. And chewed. Alvin was probably still stretching and working on keeping his mental space. He wouldn’t be downstairs for a while yet.
Kaylee took a big bite of toast, smearing jam on her face. Nobody would see her, so she could eat as much as she wanted! Kaylee wiped the jam on her face with the back of her hand, then licked the jam off. The toast was then quickly demolished.
Kaylee sighed, and turned, getting ready to clean up her face and make her way out of the house with Alvin nonethewiser.
Kaylee turned and ran into her brother.

______________________________

Alvin gawked at his sister. She had jam smeared all over her face like a clown’s makeup and she looked like she was going somewhere.

“Are...you walkin’ straight, sis?” asked Alvin.
Kaylee flushed.
“I’m fine. Why?” she asked, wiping at the corner of her mouth.
Alvin stared. Opened his mouth, realized he had no idea how to approach the situation, and shut it so abruptly his teeth clicked.
There was a silence. Kaylee paced to the sink and washed her hands, placing her shoes on the counter.
Alvin scuffed a shoe against the floor. He had hoped to sneak out of the house early and go see Jin, but Kaylee actually chose to wake up early and he had gotten busted.
A rain began to pour outside.
“I’m going out,” his sister announced suddenly.
Alvin hummed an agreement. He wasn’t sure how to tell Kaylee that she looked like a lunatic.

________________

Alvin was staring at her. She could feel his eyes on her. Baloney! She’d hoped to get out of the house before Alvin came downstairs! Then he’d have to head to Scab’s End by himself and she could go visit Jim.
To talk about anatomy. Not his, of course, that wouldn’t be proper, but maybe go over his work.
Going out could mean a variety of things. She certainly wasn’t going to go work.

_______________

She is up to something, realized Alvin. There’s no way she could be going out to investigate dressed like that.
She was going to meet someone. But, Alvin mused, if he called her out on it, then she could claim it was important, and then he’d get the bum’s rush scoping out Scab’s End.
He bit down on a corner of his lip. Tread lightly.
“I think...I may just...head out myself. Later, though. After you leave?” Alvin said, leaning against a counter.
Kaylee narrowed her eyes.

____________________

If Alvin thought he could sneak his way out of work, well, there was some serious banana oil on that!
“Doing what?” asked Kaylee, bending down to the tap to clean her face.
“Talking to some people. I still don’t buy the angle that nobody saw anything,” replied Alvin, almost coyly.
He is playing me for a fool, thought Kaylee. But if he was on the level and was actually going to talk to people, and she called him, he would ask where she would be headed. Somehow, he’d know that she had an appointment with Jim.
“Where’re you going, sis? You certainly look the cat’s meow,” said Alvin, examining his fingernails.
The lie flowed smoother than she thought.

“I may have a possible lead into Frankenstein’s personal life.”
Alvin looked, for a heartbeat, completely shocked. He recovered inelegantly.
“Oh. Um. Oh. Okay. Well. Uh. Have fun! Good luck!” he said, hands fluttering.
The rain began to pour harder.

_______________________

Alvin fumbled through his thoughts. How on earth could Kaylee have the jump on him already? It had only been, what, a day, two days? He prayed she would not ask him to come along.
“I don’t think I’ll need your help. At all!” she said quickly, almost as if she read his mind.
It seemed a tad suspicious that she would shoot him down that quickly, but women were complicated and Kaylee was twice that.
“Berries, sister dear. I’m going to get my wiggle on. Meet back for lunch here?” he asked, reaching for a yellow umbrella that was hanging on a nearby peg.
Kaylee sighed in what sounded close to relief.
“That sounds reasonable.”

She grabbed an umbrella with plain black-and-navy stripes from under the table, and pulled on her gloves. Alvin took the hint and hastily made his escape, flicking open the yellow umbrella against the rain.