"So...you seem pretty worked up about that case" for once, Alice didn't want to pry. At least, not as much as she usually did. The occasions when Gwendoline Bouchard looked actually affected by one of their cases were few and far between, much rarer when they did not only prone a reaction in her, but made her lips tremble, the omen of tears to come clear as water.
Of course, the answer she got was just what she had expected.
"None of your business; get a life outside of worrying about your missing ex-boyfriend and mourning our crazy I.T. technician".
Then, Alice had to pry.
"Fuck..." there was an address attached to the file, and, though Alice knew she should absolutely let it be, she just wanted to stop thinking about how her life had gone from being surrounded by inexplicable shitshows to become one of its own.
And, for some reason, she was compelled to try to understand Gwen and what on fucking Earth her headspace was supposed to be.
She rang the bell twice before someone finally opened. He was a decently good looking man, reeking of American essence, around Gwen's age.
For the looks of the place, Alice deduced they had been richy-buddie-international-besties growing up (or even more, she wasn't even sure whether Bouchard was into men or not).
Then, he began turning, a clot of blood extending from the middle of the body he occupied with tendrils whose colour seemed more and more sickening as they went further and further away from that point in between, where his meat felt as if had been cut into dices and poorly rearranged by a drunken surgeon, and, in the other half of him, a gorgeous woman stood.
At least, she was wonderful once the part of her that wasn't horribly malformed began.
Shocked beyond believe, Alice could only mutter:
"I'm friends with Gwendoline Bouchard" the half that the case identified as Mallick Scott smirked, sadly.
"I guess she got our file, come in".
The story was harrowing, much more than on the case file: a cult tried to teach them a lesson and they were the only two that survived The Experience.
"The worst fucking part is that it actually worked" the woman half, Brit, smiles, resentful, as the noise of two hands holding through guts inside the one-bodied couple almost made Alice barf.
She stood up, uncomfortable.
Because of the monster in front of her, but also because of the tale and also because...
...because there was something about Brit that reminded her of Gwen, and something about Mallick that felt close to home.
"Uh...alrightio. Thanks for the unforgettable traumatising tale, be seeing you" in my nightmares.
"Alice" Mallick said, as she was already almost through the door, "Gwen and I....we were friends because we were bastards together, but there is something good in her, as there was in me. Help her find it before..."
Alice nodded; she understood.