ice

who: corey
where: chinatown
when: late afternoon

Corey was looking for ice. Which was harder to come by than one would think sometimes, but for someone like her, it wasn't the most readily available substance in the world. But the hit she'd taken from Roach was a bad one. Which really, wasn't surprising. The guy was big--big enough that when she talked to him when they were standing up, she had to cran her neck. And hey, he'd had metal things on his fingers. What they were, she didn't know, she just knew they'd hurt bad. Brass knuckles, even improvised ones were a bitch to flesh and bone. That was the whole point.

So, she was hurt. Badly enough that even after she'd gone back to her nest to lie down, she'd been woken up later just by the pain radiating from her side. Badly enough that she was going out during the day to find something she knew she was going to have a little trouble finding in the first place. She was in chinatown because the markets there were set up much more Corey-friendly than elsewhere in the city. the streets were more choked with carts and most of them were covered. So it was like a little sea of umbrellas, a false ceiling. That she could deal with better than the open air of the streets downtown.

It would have been nicer if it was raining. She could clean up a little better that way, but it wasn't. It never rained when you wanted it to be raining, not that Corey ever minded the rain. It meant the clouds were covering up the sky, and that always made her feel better. Still, it wasn't. So she stuck in close to the buildings, under the awnings, and she looked for ice. She already had a little cloth to put it in, even if she knew it was going to be awkward at best to hold the ice to her injury. It was in highly inconvenient place, after all. High up on her ribs but too far down and too close to her side to get it with her opposite hand, and physically impossible to twist her wrist and arm that far comfortably to get it with the one closest. Generally it was just a shit place to have taken a hit. She still hadn't actually looked at it, either, since she didn't have a mirror. Plus she'd have to try and look over her shoulder and twist around. So she didn't know how bad it looked, just that it hurt enough to have her looking for something to soothe it.

Finding a stall that had ice poured into a bin with fresh fish in it, Corey darted by, grabbing a handfull of the ice and she kept walking, so no one noticed. Dumping the ice into the bag, she ducked into an alley nearby, and tried to figure out the best way to get it held to her injury, finally trying to pin it between herself and the wall, something that was better in theory than practice.