"It's distracted," he says.  "I don't think it knows we're here.  I'm going to kill it."

Also seems reasonable! Nod nod smile!

"My power will stop it from noticing me," he continues, "so in a minute I'll be talking and moving at a normal volume.  You should still be this quiet.  Mkay?"

Nod nod smile. Thumbs up. Go get 'em!

He leans back and smiles and thumbs-ups back.  He was gonna ask her if she was doing okay at this point but she really seems to be taking this in stride.  Kind of a badass.

Okay, she can Stand Here And Be Quiet while he takes care of the monster. This is a job Kimberly is equipped to perform. Unless she sneezes. Thankfully she does not currently have to sneeze.

He takes a couple of steps back, looking at her kind of fondly - 

 - and shuts his eyes, and takes a series of deep, steadying breaths.

One of those, huh?

Well. In a sense aren't they all ones of those?

He opens his eyes.

He seems to be more - deliberate, now, somehow.

"It can't hear me," he says at normal volume, "you can.  Under two minutes, I think."

He turns and makes swift way round the corner.

She listens. Part of her wants to peek around the corner but she thinks she will not be doing that actually. Maybe instead she will glance behind her just in case another spooky dude sneaks up while Bryce is busy.

His footsteps patter down the hall.  They're quiet, but only from the muffling of the carpet.  They're rapid, as well; he's in a hurry.  Soon they're too muffled to hear, at least if you're not an esper.

Nothing is in evidence behind her right now, just the tangle of hallways and not-quite-sensical rooms through which they've already come.

She's a little worried for him, but not, like, that worried. She can chill.

It's quiet, now.  Only esper hearing is good enough to pick up whatever tipped him off, and whatever's happening now.  She'll hear her own breathing.

Should she...?

Nah. She believes in him.

There's a gunshot, and a kind of loud, gurgling, croaking rattle, and two more gunshots; and, after a moment, the swift patter of footsteps.

Dang, okay! Sounds like a success to her!

"'Sme," he says, "it's dead."

Coming into view, he's definitely tenser.  He's holding onto the corner of the wall, though not for balance.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Are you? You, uh... kinda looked like you were about to have a time." And now kind of looks like he's having one. Not very much, but a little bit.

"Backlash."  He opens his mouth, hesitates, closes it again and shakes his head.  "Backlash.  I didn't know it was going to scream, it wasn't that loud but we should maybe move."

"...yeah 'kay." She can hustle a bit more and chat a bit less, how about.

Round the corner.  It's actually a bit of a walk to where the monster was.  It's dissolving into black ichor, slowly, outward from the wounds in its throat and its chest, but its not so far gone that she can't see the shape of the thing: skinny, with gray-black skin that clings to its ribs and its pelvis, but sinewy scrappy-looking limbs.  Its four hands are disproportionate, with six- or seven-inch claws.  There's not much left of its head.

The corpse is lying at another intersection of corridors.  Intersections so far have been marked with arrows and numbers.  The arrows and numbers at this intersection have been scribbled out and replaced with different ones.

" - gotta call this in," he mutters.

"Wow, it was messin' with your graffiti."

 - half-laugh.  "Yeah."

He takes his mic off the shoulder-mount and speaks into it.  "Encounter.  Shot it down.  Can we get a count on those spray cans, because this thing was using one to cross out our arrows."  (He does in fact now have two red spray cans hooked to his belt, rather than the one he had when he found her.)