give into the night; closed

From where Finn stood at the island in the kitchen, he could hear Zen's bedroom door open and he finished off his mug before rinsing it and putting it in the sink. He looked over at all the breakfast food that Vivian had cooked up and hoped that Zen was starving.

Finn grabbed his keys off of the island before meeting Zen at the end of the stairs."Hope you slept well enough." He said with a hint that he knew she had slept on the floor and not the bed. He looked at her clothes, they would have to do something about that."Vivian's got enough food to feed an army waiting on you so hope you're hungry." He twirled his keys around his finger."I've got a few errands to run and maybe after if you wanna get some other things for you or your room, we could go?" Finn wasn't sure how Zen felt about being seen in public with him, much less as a vampire but it was worth a shot.

Zen felt more comfortable in the current clothes, than in the dress she'd had on yesterday. Because the sweatpants were stretchy, she didn't have to fear about them falling off, though they were big on her, as was the tanktop; both accentuated how small and withered she'd become in prison. Look closely enough, and you might notice you could see her ribs poking out, for example. Turn her around and there was the clear path of her spine.

She snorted at Ink's tone when he spoke about how she had slept. "Considering I didn't know I had even fallen asleep until I woke up, I'm going to go with that I probably did," she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. It was something he would've seen a lot of yesterday had she been able to do so. Unfortunately, the handcuffs had prevented that. Her stomach gave a plaintive little growl at the mention of food that he probably heard due to vampire hearing, but she pretended as if it hadn't happened as he asked about going out, simply shaking her head. Apparently this guy was determined to make her see things his way, but she was determined of just the opposite. Oh well. People usually saw things her way in the end, whether they wanted to or not.

Finn poked his bottom lip out in a pout at her decline, shrugging."Maybe you'll change your mind once Vivian starts working you." He laughed as he turned around and headed for the door, he turned around as he swung the door open."Don't give Vivian a hard time and be sure to eat, every vampire in a ten mile radius can hear your stomach growling." He pointed toward her before giving a slight wave of his hand and shutting the door behind him once he was out of the house and he quickly got into his Jeep and cranked the engine.

During the time Finn was gone, a couple of things happened.

Zen did eat, since she was hungry, and even cleaned up the dishes afterwards, a sort of unspoken thanks to Vivian for the food, though she was half certain that the woman would've tried to tell her to do them anyway. After that, Vivian had several chores lined up. Zen started out attempting to comply. Her plan was in action after all. She couldn't just appear to do a complete turn around in personality, but she could ease up little by little, which is what she started off doing with Vivian.

And then she figured out that the woman was an OCD controlfreak and completely unbearable. What, was she supposed to read her mind and know exactly what to do? Zen eventually stopped working and refused to do anything else if she was going to be yelled at every five seconds. That didn't go over well and soon turned into a shouting match where Vivian stormed off at the end. She eventually came back, and headed straight to Zen, who braced herself for another shouting match or even for things to possibly get physical. Then she was told there was a job for her to do outside, and so she had gone out with Vivian... who handcuffed Zen to some sort of pole that was attached to the house and not going anywhere. Vivian had gone back inside after that, presumably to finish her list of chores without having to worry about Zen.

When Finn pulled up to the house, he could see a part of Zen from around the side of the house and he wondered what that was all about. He parked and cut the engine and got out and went around and pulled out the giant sized cooler that held weeks worth of human blood bags from the blood bank before closing the door and walking around the side of the house and he almost could laugh as Zen was handcuffed to a metal pole, which was an old clothes line that came with the house that he never bothered to tear down."Miss the cuffs that much?"

Even if she was handcuffed to a metal pole, Zen could at least sit down, and after realizing that she was stuck where she was and would probably be there a while, that's exactly what she did. Probably about an hour had gone by when she heard a car pull up to the house. She didn't bother looking up, figuring she was probably out of sight anyhow, and sighed as Ink showed up to poke fun at her.

"Ha. Ha." She glowered up at him. "No, actually, that crazy woman you live with told me she wanted me to do something out here, and then cuffed me to the pole and left." She omitted the difficulties that were the cause of that, though. It wasn't her fault that Vivian didn't seem to think she was doing anything right and was the most nitpicky person Zen had ever met, and after a while, she just hadn't been able to deal with it. She'd tried, at least.

Finn nodded with a smile on his lips as he said nothing and left her there while he headed inside and dropped off the cooler before getting the key from Vivian and going back to Zen and uncuffing her from the pole as they headed inside. Finn toted the cooler into the kitchen where he stocked the fridge the bags of blood.

Vivian was currently upstairs, probably cleaning a bathroom by now as Finn looked to Zen."Aren't you gonna tell me what happened?" He was more than a bit curious to hear Zen's side as Vivian had already recountered what happened and he was sure trying to readjust from being imprisoned was hard but this was her life now and she had to abide by the rules.

"What happened?" Zen shook her head. "I started to do the chores she asked me to do, and after a bit, she came to check on me, but apparently I wasn't doing everything the way she liked for it to be done. She has specific procedures that have to be followed, with specific tools to be used, and it's just crazy. If she had told me ahead of time what exactly to do, it might've been different, but she just expected me to know what exactly she was thinking and to do everything correctly. Rather than deal with her yelling at me every five seconds, I just refused to work anymore. And then we yelled at each other, then she left. After a while she came back, asked me to do something outside, and cuffed me to the pole when I wasn't looking. That's what happened. She's crazy!"

Zen was almost certain Vivian had told Ink what happened, and that her retelling of what happened would more than likely be different. But Zen was just simply telling the truth as she saw it, and she wouldn't have changed what she said even if the woman was breathing down her neck, waiting to stab her with a knife if she said something wrong. And from this one experience, she was entirely sure that she couldn't work with Vivian. The woman didn't seem to have a bad personality or anything; she was just crazy about her job. If she wanted help, she had better go look for someone who could stand her obsessiveness.

"Vivian's just very passionate about what she does, likes it done the way she's used too." Finn shrugged as he was sure the two would clash at first, it had been the reason he stopped picking up after himself because Vivian had come around which was more than fine with him."Give her another chance tomorrow."

He shut the fridge door before looking at Zen."Change your mind about going shopping with me? I'll buy you something pretty?" He flashed her a smile which probably did nothing more than annoy her but she had a hard day and going out might relax her a bit, maybe take her out to dinner.

Zen's snort described exactly how she felt about the subject. He hadn't seen what she had to deal with and couldn't possibly know what he was talking about. He'd probably never tried to do any of Vivian's chores, because she was almost certain that if he had at some point or another, this conversation wouldn't be happening. But fine. She'd try again tomorrow, and then he'd see the problem.

At his question, Zen snorted, feeling that adequately answered his question all on its own. She wasn't really sure why, but it seemed like he had been trying hard ever since yesterday to get her to like him. As if letting herself actually get close to a vampire and trust them was a mistake she was going to make a second time. Sure, he didn't know about that, but he knew she had been a Hunter, knew enough to warn her against trying to attack him in his sleep, as misguided as that advice was.

Before Finn could say anything to her, his phone began to buzz in his jeans and he pulled it out and opened the text, read over it before flashing her the screen."Rather attend a party with me? It's in your honor, after all." He hadn't agreed to the invite yet, not knowing if it would be something Zen would even wanna do but he was almost certain that no one would let the subject go until the other vampires had met the slave that had taken up residence in his house, until Finn showed her off like a shiny new toy just like all the other slaves that would be in attendance had all previously done.

As her eyes scanned over the message, Zen's nose wrinkled. No, she didn't want to attend a party, and at the same time, she was almost certain that this wasn't the first -or the last- message that Ink had gotten about such a thing. And if his patience was any indication, no one was going to give up easy. "You should tell them something about me being volatile and some crap about their safety." She paused and gave a slow smile that was more a baring of teeth. "Actually, let them come, and the first move that I don't like, I can show them exactly how volatile I am." Oh, wouldn't that be fun? Just the thought of their expressions was enough to lighten her dark mood somewhat.

Finn put away his phone, shaking his head."And that's exactly why I won't do this because it's just a suicide mission for you. If you make one wrong move, show disrespect to another vampire, they wouldn't hesitate because this is to show you off to them not to show you that you can stake three of them without breaking a nail.

And he knew he shouldn't have expected anything less from her but this would involve other vampires, other vampires who owned slaves who would never treat their own they way Finn had done so far with Zen, it was just an all around bad idea.

Despite herself, Zen's lips quirked up in a half smile, the first real smile -not something meant to be vicious or intimidating or sardonic- that she'd given in a long time. It was definitely the first real smile that Ink had seen. "As touching as it is that you actually think I'm capable of staking three vampires without so much as breaking a sweat, not to mention before I was killed, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get within five feet of any sort of weapon without someone knowing it." And that wasn't even mentioning that there was no way she would've been able to do that before, much less now.

"But you're right. It's a bad idea." What would she do if Gregor showed up? Sure, she could probably show restraint... that's what she'd been doing since yesterday, really, but that was with the other vampires. She couldn't give a rat's ass about them. The thought of what happened alone made her think bloody thoughts. What would seeing him do? And, as predicted, her half smile had vanished entirely at the thoughts, a dark expression replacing it.

Finn didn't say anything because he wasn't sure if she would try anything stupid to get herself killed, to not be a slave anymore as she would have probably done anything as of yesterday to fulfill that."You wear a smile well."

Finn raised his eyebrows."Are you actually agreeing with me?" He asked in mock-shock that she agreed with him on anything but even as something as important as this and he hoped maybe it was turning point but then, he saw the look on her face fade and Finn tilted his hand, reached his hand across to her forearm."What's wrong? You know I wouldn't put you like any danger, right?"

Zen didn't hear most of what he said, but was pulled from her thoughts when he reached out towards her. She backed up, moving out of he way, and it was probably only his questions that kept her from biting his head off. Instead, she forced herself to calm, however small a degree that was. "You're mistaken if you think I'm worried about being in danger," she told him in a surly tone. "And you might as well leave the subject alone, because I'm not talking about it."

Then she took pause, forcing herself to calm more. "If a vampire named Gregor asks to see me, in any form or fashion, it's probably in everyone's best interest if that doesn't happen," she said, which was about as close to an answer as he was likely to get.

When Zen jerked away from him, Finn pulled him hand back and he wasn't sure if she wasn't worried about any danger more because she could handle herself or because she didn't care if anything did happen to her.

Her statement just sparked even more questions for Finn, who was this Gregor and what had happened between them? But he knew he would never get it out of her until she was ready but he could always ask around though that probably wasn't the safest of the ideas.

Zen took Ink's silence to mean that he wasn't going to argue with her or pry for information, though she didn't doubt that he wanted to. Either that, or he already knew everything... one glance at his confused expression was all it took to dissuade herself of that notion, though she was mildly surprised that he hadn't already tried to find out what he wanted to know on his own or force the information from her.

With a sigh, she ran her hands through her hair, and then suddenly let out a string of curses as her fingers immediately became stuck in the tangled snarls that she hadn't had time to brush out yet. Really, there was no reason for the explosion except for her frayed nerves. She went from being in prison, to thinking she was about to be executed, to becoming a slave for a vampire, and that last.. this entire situation was what was actually getting to her, she was sure.

But, without saying another word, she began to untangle her fingers from her hair and then went in search of something sharp to cut the tangles off with.

Finn didn't stop her as she left the kitchen, he was sure he lost that round with her, as he had probably lost all the rest, but he wasn't even sure if he was making any progress with her and he couldn't push her at all because Finn was sure that would make everything much more worse and Zen would surely pull away from him all together.

Vivian came into the kitchen, giving him a knowing look as she had probably eavesdropped on more than her share of the conversation he just had with Zen and he rolled his eyes, ignoring her as he pulled a bag from the fridge, throwing it into the microwave, he could feel the burn at the back of his throat.

It didn't take Zen long to find the scissors she was looking for, and even less time to find the bathroom she had been taken to the day before for her shower. She didn't bother with a hairbrush this time around, or even to really look at her hair which was at least a couple of inches below her shoulder blades. She simply started to cut out the offending snarls of hair. Before long, her hair was about shoulder length, still with tangles, but she managed to refrain from chopping those few off. Instead, she got a hairbrush, brushed out the last of the offending tangles, and that done tried to make her hair semi-even in length, though it remained sort of choppy.

Only after that was done did she finally stop moving and look at herself in the mirror. Something she hadn't done in over a year. She was a lot thinner, almost skeletal really, and the observation made her wince. She could still think of how she used to look. She never would've cut her hair short before, hence the tangles. And... there. Near where her hair now fell, in the hollow between her neck and collarbone. She was so pale she might've been imagining the crescent shaped scar. She knew where to find the others too, remembered how it had felt. Sometimes vampire bites hurt worse than any other agony she had ever experience. The first vampire she met had bitten her, and that's how it had felt. And then she let herself get too close, and she learned that the bites didn't need to hurt. That they could cause other feeling inste-

Zen hissed loudly, swallowing back a curse. Fuck, that hurt! And when she turned to see what it was that hurt, she found the scissors buried into her hand. With a hand that was trembling slightly, she pulled the scissors out and dropped them with a clatter into the sink. Then, holding her hand so as not to make a mess with the blood seeping from the wound, she started to search for bandages. Damn, she hadn't even realized what she was doing.

(This is going to be about what Zen's hair would look like after she cut it)