Chapter 18: Fun Night

Roman rushed over to Noemie, his eyes scanned her up and down as all Noemie could do was look at the door that the manager had walked out of. There was a sad expression on her face. 

"Are you ok?" The man asked as his hand lingered in the space between them, unsure if he should touch her as to try to comfort her, or not in case it may disturb her more. He had a concerned frown on his face. 

Noemie seemed to push back a thought in her head, she nodded and pulled on a small smile for him, holding his hand with both of hers as a form of reassurance. 

Roman looked at the door that the manager had walked through, "What is with her and touching you?" He asked. 

"She tends to paw at the things she likes. Let's get back to work before she comes back and really finds a reason to claw at us." 

"Claws?" Asked Gavin who came up behind the two, hands in his pockets. 

"She is wearing gloves for a reason tonight, otherwise she would never wear gloves, the manager is a handsy person, much like you Gavin." Noemie said as she began tugging on his arm. 

The tall man wasn't in much of a mood to joke that much at the moment, so he let the woman pull him to their station, with Roman looking at both of their backs with something of a concerned yet relaxed look.

Meat from arms and legs chopped into pieces and cooked on sticks, eyeballs getting cut open so the fluid inside will fall into a large pitcher, before then being mixed and stirred with some blood and other bitter alcoholic drinks, all sorts of outer parts of the human body were cooked into looking like regular meat that any human would consume. The more special parts, the ones that couldn't be disguised, were to be made a little late and served on a silver platter with a lid, personally sent by a chef straight from a kitchen, straight to a certain room. That's what the instructions on the letter taped to the door said, written by the lady in black. 

"Honestly, what did we expect at this point?" Gavin said as he was using the provided knives to cut the limbs. 

"She wouldn't be intimidating if she didn't do unexpected stuff like this, right as we made plans to dig out the motel-" 

"Gavin." Noemie called to him as she cut more slowly, watching her partner as he cut with more evident annoyance and whisper-rambled to her. 

"She said, 'alright! how about a casino instead?' because she just loves to toy with us, what a great improvement, who did she blackmail into reserving this whole floor? Where does she find these-" 

"Gavin!" Noemie whisper yelled at him this time, putting her knife down and putting a firm grip on his arm. 

He flinched and turned to her, noticing how she had been trying to get his attention. 

"Yes?" He replied calmly. 

"Please stop complaining, we take what we get and deal with it, can you do that for me?" 

Gavin looked at her confused, but reluctantly sighed and squared his shoulders for better cutting, going back to chopping with a huff. 

Roman who was helping the others work on making drinks with the eyes and fingers sighed in relief, clearly, he was about to get tired of hearing Gavin complain.  

Noemie did as she always did, but with a more pensive look on her face, she looked down at the cutting board, but it was only so she could make sure she didn't cut herself. The motions of grabbing a limb, making slits, peeling of the skin, and then separating meat from bone into pieces was like a factory employee's movements, done in a routine way, not much thinking required for her mind was traveling. 

Now, this is where it'd be best to point out the setting, just for a reminder. 

A casino building, the seventh floor. A place that is filled with workers who work for the casino, their connections to the lady in black is unknown, but it is likely that she is not their boss. 

Lastly, Noemie did not recognize anyone there, save for the ones in the kitchen, Everett and the others weren't here yet, their shifts didn't start yet.

The woman who had a pale complexion up until this point, began to have a gleam in her eyes. It didn't last long as a growl was suddenly heard, coming from her stomach. She first covered her mouth, and then placed a gloved hand on her stomach. It's funny how people get surprised by this, the body requires food, yet for some reason people can't seem to sense that they need food at certain times, so their body has to audibly tell them, like a bodily alarm. 

Gavin certainly chuckled at it. 

"Are these things finally starting to look appetizing to you?" 

"Ah! Non." 

He still kept a joking grin. 

"Sometimes I feel more like a weird artist, sculpting caveats into something tasty looking, because the people tonight are normal. This is almost like hot dogs, so many people love to eat these, but no one wants to see how they're made. Hah!" 

Noemie looked at him confused. 

"They are made with leftover pieces of pork or meat, what do you mean no one wants to know how they're made?" 

Gavin returned a surprised and confused look back to her, a grin still on his face as he now begins to cheer up after his confusion earlier. 

"Have you, never been explained about that thing before, the joke about the gross hot dog backstory?" Gavin asked her with a perked eyebrow.

Noemie responded with a face of a foreigner not born in America and genuinely confused at why she should be giving a big reaction to another one of their many,,, weird tales.

"I never, really questioned it when learning English, you know what- never mind- have you been finding locations of more places, places for hiding?"  

"Yes." He whispered a bit lowlier to her. 

"But why do you really need those?" 

"I need options, and it helps my research." She glanced to the side.

"Research on what exactly?" 

"What are you two whispering about that you have to cut so loudly?" A voice interrupted, low and huskier than Gavin's. Roman. 

Hand on his hip as the other reached to pull on Gavin's shoulder, causing the tall man in glasses to suddenly become amused and pull a smirk as Roman pulled his arm that held the knife, stopping the loud noise. Never even realized the sound of the cleaver against the board was so loud, that or he just didn't like how much the tall man was leaning towards Noemie.

Noemie turned to look at the red head. "Are there any cameras in this kitchen?" She softly asked him. 

"No, thankfully not. I don't feel as creeped out here." Roman shrugged. 

The woman hummed, setting down her knife and going to look out the small window of the door. Roman had already shifted his attention to Gavin, reminding him that there were other people in the kitchen, and they can't all work with noise. The tall man just kept smiling as Roman talked, he probably liked hearing something new, that being Roman's voice. 

The woman did not recognize any of the staff outside the door, it was evident in her eyes with pupils darting around and focusing, not landing on anyone familiar, none of the servers under the lady had arrived yet, Everett wasn't there still. She turned back around to see all the currently completed platters of meat, carefully cooked into small snacks for people who didn't want to eat messily. some were obvious, others, hidden. 

The obvious ones were separated from the disguised snacks.

Chunks of meat from the smaller parts like the neck and rolled up skin, seared and fried to stick and stay on place on their sticks, for the normal people. 

Eyes on toothpicks, hands cut into pieces but arranged to stay in the shape of a hand on the plate, meant to be eaten like chicken feet I suppose, there's really not much on a hand to chew on. 

Either way, it was all a nightmare for the chefs in charge of presentation to set up, poor Alonzo almost had another incident of puking again he was so uncomfortable if one of the other chefs didn't take over for him. He's the only left who hasn't numbed up to the corpses yet. The woman clenched her fist, knowing that urging him to sit would end up getting both of them in trouble, but that's only if the lady found out.

So, she ushered him to the side, taking his place to do his job for him, nodding her head over to a table where disguised food was. 

"Go take care of those, I'll handle these." 

"But, you don't have to. I'm fine." 

The woman stared at him, point blank, a glint in her eyes that reflected in his as she told him; "I, am used to this gore, you are not, you'll mess them up. I will take care of it, do something easier for you."

He swallowed whatever he was going to say next and silently nodded, he turned away to the table, working on plating those instead.

It was subtle, no one would really notice it as her eyes faded back to their usual dullness.

Noemie picked up one of the teacups from the table on the metal kitchen island filled with blood mixed with honey and other sweet-smelling things, the finger rolled a bit inside, not bending as it stuck out. Rigor had made it into a fine stir stick, that or something was skewered inside the finger to keep it stiff, there's no way the hands were somehow kept straight as the person died. 

She could hear the coming of guests as she observed the drink, wafting some of the scent with her hand, guiding the smell to her nose, a shiver seemed to run up her spine and she scrunched her nose upon regret. Footsteps and excited chatters were heard outside the door, she placed the teacup back on its platter with other cups and a pot filled with honey sweetened blood. As if she could feel the upcoming sound shivering up her spine, the sound of heels could be heard clacking against the floor to the double doors to the kitchen. The lady in the black, with her usual smile outlined by a darkly colored lipstick, popped back in again. 

The real party was starting.

Everyone in the room stiffened, either starting to work harder, move faster, or simply avoid eye contact with her as she stepped around the room, looking at all the dishes being made, hands held behind her back. Unlike everyone who had a sickening or darkly numb look as they cut up bodies and turned them into more humane looking food, the lady always looked like she was right at home, sniffing the air like it was filled with blissful scents of petrichor and not something incredibly bitter and metallic, her red lips when seeing the meat that was cooking on the stoves, in pots or ovens, and stopped in front of Noemie, the only one in the room that dared to look her in the eye as she lifted up the platter of teacups. 

"Here to pick these up for your special meeting?" She raised an unamused eyebrow at the lady, finally showing expressions to her.

The lady's eyes widened, she still smiled, but was clearly surprised that the woman she toyed with, was finally toying back with her for the first time in a long time. 

"Why are working at the station for meal presentation?" The lady asked, holding her head in her hand and elbow in her other hand. 

Elias flinched in the background like he was awoken from a spell, becoming still and not daring to move, his back turned to the conversation. Noemie breathed in and out easily, humming softly as she tilted her head.

The woman leaned a bit closer to her, in a mocking way of how the lady did before, the tray of honeyed blood tea being the only thing between them. "Does that bother you? You tell us to prepare cooking for a party yet there are barely enough chefs professional for a dinner rush, much less cooking up Hor d'oeuvres. Of course I have to step in."

The lady examined Noemie, up and down, the way the woman wouldn't shake under her gaze, her tired eyes, and the tea set between them. Her eyes looked past the corners, looking for someone who was just behind her, it seemed like Noemie was hiding his presence as the woman kept the lady's eyes on her.

"Alonzo was in charge of presentation, shouldn't he be here?" She asked, squinting her eyes at her. 

Roman began to look nervous from his position, he was working a few tables now, if the lady decided to grab Noemie right there, he would not have been able to reach her. Gavin still had his back turned; the cutting station was a little closer to the center table, he gripped tightly onto his knife, subtly testing the sharpness as he sliced thin meat from an arm that was already cut in half to pull the two twisting arm bones out. I can't remember what they called those two bones in the arm, I just remember that it's difficult to slice the arm with them inside.

"He's here, only now you can't see him." Noemie honestly told her. 

Some workers looked back for a minute at the woman's response. The lady reacted with a darkened look, and asked back, "You certainly love to watch over him." 

"I know you liked that about me." 

The lady sneered at her, still smiling.

"All those years traveling, how reminiscent, remembering those trips."

The woman suddenly said, giving the same blank expression as she always did to the lady who blinked, like the woman told a wake-up phrase, her face changed back into a lighthearted smile full of teeth, eyes smiling as well as both her hands clasping together and being held against her face as she tilted her head with a surprised sound. 

"Ah that's right! It's been a while since I took you on a trip with me, hasn't it? I'm so sorry Noe!" The British lady said, suddenly changing her attitude from a sneering one to a happy one. 

Noemie didn't say anything, just slowly nodding, her eyes half closed, like she was almost saddened. She held the tea set platter with both hands, gesturing for the lady to guide her out and to the meeting that she had guessed of. The lady in black obliged, her black-leather-gloved hand swiftly took her shoulder, and they walked out the double doors together. Noemie gave a quick head tilt to Roman who frowned in concern, almost like he wanted to say something but clearly couldn't, and Noemie gestured with her head shake for him not to, Gavin needed no signal and simply decided to trust her. 

That didn't stop the hand that held the cleaver from shaking as they briskly passed him, a worried look behind his glasses as the lady and woman shut the double doors behind them.

There were ranges of people in regular clothes, jeans and shirts, typical party dresses and men in leather jackets or suits. Some dressed in pride and ego, others hiding their desperation and lies. All laughing like they have luck, some just had money to spend, others went to the bar first, smart at knowing they will have regrets if they witness their actions sober. Sometimes it's better to forget whatever foolishness you're about to make whilst having fun, ignorance is bliss as they say.

The woman in white and lady in black didn't humor these people however, they walked into a hallway guarded by two large men in suits, where the more private rooms are.