there are prizes all around you if you're wise enough to see

[praevaricatio]

Comments

[tearhiseyesout]

[Jaqueline crosses her arms in front of her chest.]

This is our room. Why don't you take a walk?

[Rusty just waits to see who's going to win the battle of wills.]

[praevaricatio]

Balcony.

( Max smirks.

He leads the way, opens the doors to the expansive balcony, and closes it behind him once Lucas joins. )

I think we need a moment away from the wolves.

[abad_influence]

[Lucas follows, shifting to lean back against the door once it closes, staying away from the edge of the balcony.

Just in case.]

Do we?

[praevaricatio]

If you bring in anyone from Tamara Monroe's splintered factions to make this look like a hunter hit, you're putting their lives at risk. I think you should, and so do they, but they're going to stick to the bottom line and I needed to tell you to your face, anyone pointed in her direction would be on their own.

( He stops short of, them being pointed to their deaths. )

[abad_influence]

I didn't say that I was going to. Especially considering, as far as they're concerned, I'm dead. And I don't even know who's still alive.

[And may still be, before this is all said and done.]

Personally I don't know if that's a good play anyway. Most of her people were zealots anyway.

[praevaricatio]

Let me hear the play, then. Put them aside. What would you do? Would one witch-killing bullet make it look enough like a hunter hit?

( He just hasn't had enough time. He's sure the zealots can be tracked down and pushed in the right direction even without direct contact. Ezra could go in his place, fake it, but whatever Lucas does - that's what matters. So, he wants to hear what he thinks. )

[abad_influence]

[He sighs, because he doesn't know where to start. His connections are gone, all of the assets he had when he was alive are burned, or would take too much time to course correct.

He also doesn't know why he's doing all the planning when this is their problem, but fine.]

Does the Colony have any hunter plants?

[praevaricatio]

( He doesn't have to plan it, but he wants his input. Any plan will put him at risk, but maybe the best plan - if it comes to staging it as a hunter hit - could come from Lucas, at least partially. )

If they did, most hunters are in the wind. My husband and I aren't deep into the coven we're trying to take down. Higher-ups like it that way. Did you have a protocol if you absolutely had to reach out to someone in the area locally? Monroe has loyalists, but not nearly as many as when she was alive.

[abad_influence]

I'm not thinking about bringing more people in. That's a bloodbath waiting to happen, and there's a risk that if we bring in wildcards, I won't be the one to get the job done.

[It's a bad plan, he's not going to advocate for it.]

But if they have ears in the hunter network, we could spread the word. Make it seem like it was a big hunter plan.

[praevaricatio]

( He's not wrong and that means a 1/3 chance in their bodies not being their own and two being left behind. )

That, we can do. I'm sure the Winchesters or even the Sullivans could get the word out. And for the record, I agreed with not bringing anyone else in, but I needed you to say it. You're going to have to fight for what you believe because as far as they're concerned, they just want everyone dead.

[abad_influence]

[As much as Lucas hates to admit it:]

From their perspective, it is the smarter play. We were already dead. We could just go back to being dead again, and you have a much less complicated plan. So why exactly are you advocating for us when it's your meat suit on the line?

[He doesn't mean to be so crass about it, but he wants to know. He can tell he's trying to play nice with Elena, for whatever reason, but "it's the right thing to do" is not going to cut it.]

[praevaricatio]

You didn't choose this. And, I don't care about the balance. You get a second chance. I don't care if you've been alive for twenty four hours or twenty four years, you deserve the chance. If Elena's parents get a do-over, if you do, Mary Winchester... When you get the chance for a do-over. You take it.

( Because he wouldn't have his husband without it. )

As far as I see it, we have one plan. It's good and it's simple. You on a roof, aimed for Hernandez. Me behind you. Them getting to her. The Inner Circle thinks hunters have targeted the Inner Circle - or witches - and that takes the heat off of all of us so we can finish the rest off. As far as I'm concerned, if you weren't forced into this, or them, I wouldn't have made you, or expected you to. And I believe in you. And, Elena's parents. And second chances. That's why I'm putting my own life on the line.

[abad_influence]

[Lucas isn't entirely sure he buys it (8). But that's more his innate hunter skepticism than it is anything Ezra says. He certainly sounds sincere enough, like he believes his words, but he wonders if things would have gone differently if Elena Gilbert wasn't in the picture.

Still, he's here, he might as well pull his own weight.]

I'll text my brother. See if they can start spreading the word around. You are aware that this is going to put a lot of innocent hunters in their crosshairs, though.

[Collateral damage is still collateral damage. Three bodies versus an unknown quantity.]

[praevaricatio]

( He weighs the pros and cons of letting him in on activating the Gauntlet and what it means. )

Spread it vaguely. Don't throw hunters into witch-crosshairs. We need word out, not a calvacade of unprepared amateurs. ( a beat. ) No offense. Think of it as, information is out there. Rumblings.

[abad_influence]

[Lucas nods, before glancing down and starting a text conversation with his brother. Cooper is happy to help if for no other reason than to have something to do, but that's at least a step in the right direction.]

I'll handle this part. You figure out how to get to her.

[praevaricatio]

Okay.

( He leaves Lucas on the balcony. )

His brother is spreading the word to the hunters. Vaguely. We can pin Hernandez on them. ( and then his checks his phone. ) And David's contact is speeding up the timeline of Kirsanov's discovery. He's asking for a few days. When we get to them, the discovery and the rumblings of a hunter network being drawn back out could work in our favor when we make our move against Wallace and Corsair.

[an_honestword]

Having a scapegoat isn't a bad idea.

[He thought that he might have to play that role eventually, but if it doesn't have to be him, that's even better.]

We just have to make sure none of this information gets to her first. It needs to come through us.

[maxxx]

If we find her, why can't Jaq and I approach her? ( Too many cooks. Here's another idea on top of an idea. Like a hat on a hat. ) As long as we finish the job before she fact checks what we're saying, and how can she. We know how long it takes for Colony business to spread.

[tearhiseyesout]

That's the problem. We can't guarantee she's not going to call home and check in with the parents before she actually sees us.

[She leans back in the seat.]

It's not her getting suspicious that's the problem. It's her flipping a switch that has our parents catching on to what we're up to.

[maxxx]

Just brainstorming, sis.

( Okay, time to be more proactive. )

Maybe we do this the mundane way. What's a better way of finding out where a celebrity is?

[an_honestword]

Are you suggesting we make a plan through TMZ?

[Rusty raises an eyebrow.]

We know where she is - we just need to be able to get in.

[maxxx]

Or her publicist. Representative. I can talk my way into anything, even over the phone. But, by all means, be less cagey and tell us where she is, maybe a full-proof plan will formulate itself from actual information being shared.

( Bitchy. Yes. Sassy. Yes. Warranted? Eh. )

[an_honestword]

[Rusty takes a breath, before gesturing to the map.]

She's been holing up in a high rise here. But I don't know where inside.

[maxxx]

( A sigh as Ezra gestures.

"That's somewhere to start." )

Plenty of surrounding buildings.

[an_honestword]

[He nods.]

It shouldn't be hard to get Lucas somewhere nearby, we just need to be able to tell him where to aim.