Oh I can't see the whites are missing from my eyes

When her endless playthings around her penthouse began to bore her, Lucy always found her way onto the city streets. Right now her on again off again fling, Ryder, was out of the country with his father on a business trip, which probably meant he was fucking random European girls. Not that Lucy cared, not really, but his absence meant a certain level of boredom.

Yasmin and Julie had been over earlier in the evening, and they had gone to a rooftop bar where she'd put the tab on her mom's credit card, and then Lucy had wandered home by herself. Normally on a night like this she'd be scoping out some party to attend, but for some reason she just wanted to be alone. None of her usual amusements seemed to hold any appeal, until she remembered that she had recently joined the Hunters.

It had been luck really, that had caused her to overhear two Hunters talking in an alleyway. She'd been out on the fire escape of her friend's apartment, lighting up a joint, and they hadn't had the good sense to look up. Their whispered conversations of literal fae and angels had sparked her interest, and she'd dropped down from the fire escape to ask them more. They had nearly clammed up- she had to threaten legal action on some random trespassing charge before they rolled their eyes and explained what they meant. Perhaps they had expected her to laugh them off and dismiss their ideas as crazy, but she accepted what they told her readily and asked to join.

So she'd been training, which was great for her health when she didn't wake up hungover and dehydrated. Lucy had even accompanied another hunter on a mission and succeeding in taking down a loose mutant. That had been a few months ago, and she'd forgotten the hobby when her parents had taken her to the Maldives for a week. But tonight she had remembered, taken a shot for good luck, and grabbed her customized knife, which she had ordered the day after training had begun. Central Park wasn't too far from her apartment, so she went there first, with her Burberry coat and sharpened knife, to patrol the park in search of some new excitement.

"Careful," Lucy said, stumbling back a step with a flash of annoyance. Like all her moods however, the annoyance morphed into amusement before she really had time to dwell on the emotion. Here was an opportunity to spice things up, to interact with someone outside of her ever-shifting circle of comrades and enemies. People fascinated Lucy- they always had something to discover, something new and flashy just under the surface.

The only downside was that some people were truly boring and Lucy quickly lost interest in them as well. But each new encounter represented a potential opportunity for... well, for something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"You're really going for a creep aesthetic tonight, huh?" Lucy asked, eyeing up the stranger with a growing grin. "Dressed in a long coat and walking the paths in the middle of the night alone. You look like you're searching for someone to assault or something." It was a brave statement, considering it might be true, but Lucy had a sense of security with her knife- and even if that fell through, well she'd never feared death much before.

Lucy laughed in response, looking down at her coat. "I'm surprised you know fashion enough to tell this was a Burberry coat, especially in the dark. And you're right about my character except in one regard. I'm mommy's little princess- she's the heiress in my family."

Lucy's frankness had always been a key part of who she was- she confessed (most) things freely, since it amused her to see people's reactions. If Lucy didn't like you, you knew immediately. But this strange man was kind of funny, and she wanted to see what else he would say.

"Don't worry about me. If I get mugged, I can handle it." She tapped a spot on her waist, where her knife presumably sat. "I'm armed and I've been training. Maybe I came out here looking for trouble. So if you want any, I'm ready to stop you. But I don't think you'll attack me."

Lucy seemed not the least bit phased, her dark brown eyes watching him as he approached, maintaining her casual standing posture. She truly was surprised that he knew- not even the rich boys she hung out with gave a shit about fashion. And here was this strange man, at least marginally educated in the fashion trends.

"I'll humor you," she responded cheerfully. "It's the second one. My life is great, to be quite honest with you, but I've always been craving something more. The distractions do for a bit, but even they get boring." A smile spread over her even lips, tilting her head to look at him closely.

She rolled her shoulders back easily, feeling the faint sense of strength that had grown there in the last few weeks. "In terms of training, I've been doing conditioning exercises and stamina building. You could say I like to go looking for trouble- I like to look for the dark things that lurk around the city, co-existing with humanity." For an uneducated listener, it may sound like she was talking about perverted humans- pedophiles, rapists, the like. But Lucy was speaking quite frankly about monster hunting, and she was wondering if he'd pick up on that, or if he'd dismiss her as a lunatic.

"I don't need a dealer," she told him with another bright smile. Lucy was undeniably pretty, with her large brown eyes and carefully straightened raven hair, but there was something that flashed in her eyes from time to time that made her friends and her flings question her sanity. Sometimes it came out when she suggested walking the edge of the rooftop after a few too many shots, or when she drove too fast down the highways outside of the city.

That look was out now, twinkling behind her lashes, speaking of some recklessness, bordering on insanity, that even her other rich friends couldn't match. "And it is a mission," she said in a lower voice, leaning in confidentially. "But I think you and I both know it isn't rapists I'm after."

That smirk that had flashed over his face when she brought up her hunting had cued her in. Lucy considered herself a good reader of people, and she had noticed the way he had subtly perked up. He knew what she was doing out here, and she didn't want to play any more of this conversation game. "And since you know, maybe you can help me find the things I'm truly hunting."

"You are no in way obligated to help me out." Lucy didn't lean away, matching Erik's energy beat for beat. Her own version of an insufferable grin was on her high bred features- this was when she felt most alive, doing something idiotic like conversing with a dangerous stranger in the dark paths of Central Park.

As he asked the question, she hummed thoughtfully. "Well, what do you want? Drugs? Money? Sex? I have a lot of things to offer- and a few that I can't provide. And if you don't want to help me at all, we can part ways and I'll forget I ever saw you here."

She hoped he wouldn't opt for that. This was a fun game they were playing, far more entertaining than walking around and hoping to bump into something, and she wasn't quite ready for it to end.

An interesting question, but Lucy wasn't sure there was an answer. Still, her lips pursed thoughtfully, mulling it over. "I'm flattered that you think I have it all, but that's just it. It's boring. It's all the same, day after day. No risk, no reward, just endless parties and rooms full of people who don't understand my desire for more."

At the suggestion of a motivation, she just shrugged coyly. "No revenge. Excitement and high, sure. Life's so much more exhilarating when you have something to lose." All her previous dares had reflected that- a simple slip of the foot and her body would plummet to the sidewalk, a wrong turn while speeding could mean a flipped car and her crushed body. Even thinking about it made her eyes light up. She'd never met someone who could match her energy- they'd always knocked her down a peg or two. But this man, whose name she still didn't know, was feeding her insanity.

"And how far I go depends on what you're offering." She leaned closer, close enough to feel the heat of his breath, looking directly into his eyes. "I've hunted some of the lower level creatures, but those are starting to lose their appeal- I want to go big. Demons and angels. Imagine how it'd feel to take down the creatures of so many major religions! I guess angels would be less fun, since they're supposed to be the 'good guys'- so what do you know about demon hunting?"