The alleyway behind the building wasn't as dingy as she had expected, but there were multiple dumpster trash bins lining the stone block walls that were grey and colorless. The air was damp, but she didn't remember it raining at all. It must have been a light mist that went on and off earlier when they were all quite preoccupied.
Charlotte released her grip on Vincent and put a hand to her beating heart that still needed some time to calm down due to the little trick of adrenaline that Vincent played on her earlier that made the hundred-foot drop seem like a little game.
To him, it might have been since he would have somehow figured out a way to survive the fall. Her on the other hand? She can still feel the sensation of the ground giving way when he just walked off the edge of the building as if it were only a normal walk through the neighborhood with no fear in sight.
In all honesty, she would also like to live that, but at the moment, she wasn't going to be playing any games if it involved her life. Charlotte knew that she didn't have many goals or anything really to look forward to, however, if she got a say, she would like to spend more time with her family and enjoy her daily life as it once was one more time.
Maybe it would include Vincent. And maybe it won't. Only time will tell really if they were truly meant for each other in the sense that they were both alive by the end of the war that had just begun.
She spun around when Lucia and Stone had made their way down, and Charlotte stretched her hands above her head while shaking out her jelly legs to get more feeling back into her limbs that were practically shocked and silent.
Charlotte strode over to the main road, careful to fully expose herself as she poked her head out to see the surrounding area. It was nothing noteworthy with the blue-collar life style of the office buildings, mechanics down the street, and the factories that took up a large chunk of land.
Despite that, it was still a nice place to leave with small little shops in between & food areas around that were still dark since they wouldn't open until a few hours more when more people would begin to wake up.
The cars down the street were all headed in the same direction, and Charlotte watched as the vehicles turned the corner to likely head to their early start of a morning at work at the factories making energy and whatnot.
Lucia walked over to her side after adjusting her dress that was on the verge of flashing everyone since it kept on slipping to the side, and Charlotte turned back to look at Vincent.
"Sorry, but we, girls, need to get changed first before we go anywhere else," she said.
Lucia cocked her head. "What do you mean? I think that we look fine."
Charlotte raised her eyebrows to see if she got the hint, but Lucia only shrugged. Stone ran a hand down his face. "There's no need. We'll get a stock of items when we go to the safe house anyways."
"But we can't travel like this," Charlotte pointed out. "Our outfits did help us blend in, but now, they'll only help us stand out."
"What happened to your clothes?" Vincent asked.
Charlotte turned to the side to show him her black drawstring bag. "It's in here. It was a little bit crusty with dirt and stank of blood."
Vincent nodded. "Why didn't you get rid of it?"
"Well, it was from you, so I thought you might have wanted it back."
"Just keep it."
She flicked two fingers from her forehead in a sign of agreement. "Got it."
Stone ran a hand through his hair. "There has to be somewhere we know that's nearby."
"My hotels are in the opposite direction," Vincent said slowly. "We can ask Sera if she can lend us a hand."
Stone nodded when he got onto Vincent's drift. "She might have some connections that we don't."
Vincent slipped his phone from his pocket and brought it up to his ear. Charlotte backed up to the brick wall of the building to hear them out, and Lucia did the same after crossing her ankles to make sure that the wind wouldn't lift the material of her dress up.
There was a tense silent moment as they all waited for Sera to pick up, and Charlotte remembered that the two doctors, Sera and Darion, were stuck in their lab for a while as a sentence.
It made her realize that there were a lot of fishy moments to the underside of the vampire life since no one wanted to speak about how they came to be which was understandable since the history may be a heavier topic than one would expect.
The darkness that all the vampires tried so hard to hide more often than not did come into the limelight of curiosity instead which may be more detrimental and dangerous than anything.