09-13-2018, 01:22 PM
It wasn't the first time she'd beheld this lonely vista.
Every itch of instinct urged her to run like she had in the past. Lacking sufficient ties she knew she would have. Blind, and in whatever direction evoked the pretence of feeling just that little bit alive until the lie felt real. But there was no home to return to, and no hand beckoning escape, just the snap of Custody responsibilities awaiting Moscow's hungry jaws. Promises to Brandon were the most fragile of bonds, but for the consequences he promised to deliver to her family upon failure. She would go back, but not with any relish.
Escape barred to her, her promise to Cayli was the only beacon here; the focus that formed the anchor preventing her from drifting away to harder distractions. The temptation of permanent stupor still held an allure; she was honest about her vices at least, for it was only self control holding that barrier. Vulnerability plunged to depths even she hadn't calculated as possible, but it would not happen again.
Rain had fallen heavy. Natalie felt as empty as that purged sky. Grey cloud crept cold across a flat horizon outside the window she stared. Behind her the room was neat as was possible given its injuries, her strewn things tidied and repacked with empty intention. She did that without complaint despite the bore behind her eyes. Truth was, she'd had worse hangovers, and the idle order of distraction kept her mind quiet. At least until her fingers curled against that remaining file.
She crept around thoughts of Jay like they were a sleeping beast. The memories hazed but she did not try to unpick them. Instead she considered the way he looked at Nox in the alley. The closeness with which he pressed against Anna Marie. A stolen kiss in another world was a flimsy comparison for betrayal, though knowing it didn't loosen the band around her chest. It wasn't a matter of trust, and she was not given to undue jealousy. It was the burn of something unrequited. A lost figure in an empty ocean.
Even the faint touch of that realisation plunged her dark. She retreated into herself; all the air stolen from her lungs if she indulged the grip. So it was packed away, all of it, into the deepest recesses. Along with her father. Jay hadn't returned his wallet, and it was not among her things; that did not escape the scrutiny of her attention. A conclusion she was unwilling to confront, and yet she was strangely grateful to be released from the burden of its possession.
Which only left one more consideration.
She showered first, forcing herself through the motions of self care. Prends soin de toi. The most ancient of remedies, shrugged into like the comfort of an old blanket. She hadn't rested well, but her desperate body had eaten up the respite greedily; she felt like she'd slept in concrete. But the heat suffused aching limbs, a massage at temples easing the dull throbbing within. Her stomach churned but only if she made the mistake of haste. She'd live.
At the dresser she erased the signs of fatigue from her face. Swept back light gold hair. Ghosts stared back gravely from the pale prison of her eyes, unlikely to find another release soon. She felt worn out, but it was the scoured kind, and it was not like she hadn't rebuilt her life through the devastation of more literal flame. Given the choice between self-pity and rebirth, she clawed herself from the charred ashes each time.
Masks and armour, old friends both. Her lips tipped a grim smirk at her reflection.
The papers lined out under her fingers. Amengual required more thought than the aching insides of her skull would allow right now, but time was a luxury that would not last. Natalie afforded Jay the same courtesy he afforded her. Emotionless about it. It wasn't the depths of a soul she plunged, but the cold facts necessary for understanding the larger picture. Ignorant as he was to the trespass, it would be a less painful experience than it had been for her. And given fleeting glimpses of last night, she imagined he thought she already knew anyway. She might as well live up to the aspersion.
Discharge papers marked the tip of all her father apparently found it necessary for her to know. Newspaper clippings crowded behind. A raid that destroyed dozens of factories in Nicaragua and left a drug lord dead. The workings of rival cartels, so the official line went. Autopsy photos that heaved her stomach, and were probably meant to. Those whisped to flame for fear Jay would ever set eyes on the reminder. Family histories, economic reports, more photos of individuals marked with identities, including Zacarias. The last was a scrap of paper torn in haste. A name that looked to have been scrawled by hand. A number written beneath, and the letters ICOFBG.
Her eyes nearly rolled at her father's sick humour.
But the magnitude of what she absorbed swallowed her whole.
A rational mind understood, then, the reasons Jay burdened this alone, but it did not prevent the twist of anger in her gut that he had found no reason to trust her to share it. Frowning, she packed the papers away -- the torn scrap to her pocket, the rest zipped in her bag -- knowing they were not intended to be kept. If Pavlo's files were offered to find understanding in the trauma, these ones screamed a violent warning against further association.
It was not meant for her to act on.
The door knocked and opened quietly with a borrowed keycard as she returned to sit on the end of the bed, pensive. Cayli slipped in, absent her usual effervescence. The hoodie swamping her figure looked like it might once have been Jay's; her hands plunged deep into its pockets, its hem almost to her knees. Emotion bubbled in dismal bursts, like she could not quite find a balance between upset and anger. Something was very wrong.
"Hey, Cayli." The greeting offered quiet, she watched this sudden change with a faint frown. Until a dismal thought occurred. Natalie's own wallet had been on the bed when painful consciousness drained in, Azu's bible clutched in hand, the pages all splayed where it had ended up thrust beneath her pillow. Words had flashed when she brushed the screen, not a message, but painted with a finger into an app Natalie wasn't sure had been on there before.
Mom pulled the parental card. I'll be back!
Looking at her expression now, suspicion simmered. Cayli was clearly used to digging out answers denied her by adults, and she'd had a wealth of information at her fingertips while Natalie slept. If she'd chosen to look.
Though it was too late now to worry over.
Natalie contemplated the stillness around her. Cayli brushed through hell the past few days, her life upturned by the tornado of her brother's homecoming. And he hadn't spared two moments for her since they arrived at the casino. That was a familiar sting, the stirrings of empathy tugging deep in her chest. Her father's denial pulsed with her heartbeat. Had Jay ever come to find her yesterday? Wrapped in his own demons, did he even perceive the careless injury? The girl's shoulders slumped, back pressed against the wall. Crescent shadows hung under her usually bright eyes. Her gaze strayed to the fist-shaped hole in the drywall. "You're not going to tell me what happened."
"I'm not. But not because I don't trust you or I don't think you'd understand." The words were firm, petitioning the favour of understanding. This was not a secret kept simply because Cay was a child, it was a buried hurt Natalie could not talk about. At least not without stripping free some of the strength she fought so hard to surround herself with. She tilted her head, almost conciliatory; gave a self-deprecating laugh, darkness curling at its edges. "And at least in part because I don't remember all that much."
Sometimes Cayli looked at her like she was the strangest thing, prompting the flicker of a dull smile to Natalie's lips. Morbid humour rattled something loose. She would not look back. The shower erased the fugue. Her stomach was cramped and empty but she had no reasonable appetite. A gallon of coffee would not go amiss, but mostly she wanted to get out of the prison of this miserable room. She stood. Nausea rolled a protest.
"You said you're unable to go hardly anywhere in here. So where can you go?"
"I shouldn't-"
"It's not like your parents don't already dislike me. We'll tell them I stole you away to spill Ascendancy's poison in your ear. They can rail at me later." She crossed the room and pulled the handle. Her expression softened as she gestured a hand to the corridor beyond. "I know we're not friends or anything, Cay. But I can do this for you."
The first chink of light sprung Cayli's expression, a wry little half smile loosening the purse of her mouth. She was the first one out the door.
Breakfast first. They sat at a metal table outside the coffee kiosk. Natalie's hands cradled a mug roiling steam, a tall glass of water alongside. The adjacent club was silent, though sounds still spilled from the casino. Some way off, a man in a uniform pushed a damp mop over the floors. Aside from the girl cleaning equipment in the kiosk, there were precious few others about.
Opposite, Cayli attacked a giant stack of pancakes glazed thick with amber. The sugar sweetness turned Natalie's stomach, despite the empty pit of her stomach. Or maybe because of it. She sipped her coffee, not even particularly enamoured of the usually pleasant aroma. Glad it was so quiet. Her head pounded.
Whatever her troubles, Cayli seemed content for now with simple comforts. Her eyes danced at Natalie's scrutiny. "Hospital food," she said, then wrinkled her nose. "I can't believe you drink that stuff. Black."
"And I can't believe you smothered on so much syrup." She leaned in, one finger scooping a globule leaking from the edge of the plate, and swiped it with a smirk against Cayli's nose.
She laughed, scrubbing it off with a serviette. "You're so dumb."
"You got into my room without a key yesterday."
Cay paused at that, a fork-full halfway to her mouth. And grinned.
Every itch of instinct urged her to run like she had in the past. Lacking sufficient ties she knew she would have. Blind, and in whatever direction evoked the pretence of feeling just that little bit alive until the lie felt real. But there was no home to return to, and no hand beckoning escape, just the snap of Custody responsibilities awaiting Moscow's hungry jaws. Promises to Brandon were the most fragile of bonds, but for the consequences he promised to deliver to her family upon failure. She would go back, but not with any relish.
Escape barred to her, her promise to Cayli was the only beacon here; the focus that formed the anchor preventing her from drifting away to harder distractions. The temptation of permanent stupor still held an allure; she was honest about her vices at least, for it was only self control holding that barrier. Vulnerability plunged to depths even she hadn't calculated as possible, but it would not happen again.
Rain had fallen heavy. Natalie felt as empty as that purged sky. Grey cloud crept cold across a flat horizon outside the window she stared. Behind her the room was neat as was possible given its injuries, her strewn things tidied and repacked with empty intention. She did that without complaint despite the bore behind her eyes. Truth was, she'd had worse hangovers, and the idle order of distraction kept her mind quiet. At least until her fingers curled against that remaining file.
She crept around thoughts of Jay like they were a sleeping beast. The memories hazed but she did not try to unpick them. Instead she considered the way he looked at Nox in the alley. The closeness with which he pressed against Anna Marie. A stolen kiss in another world was a flimsy comparison for betrayal, though knowing it didn't loosen the band around her chest. It wasn't a matter of trust, and she was not given to undue jealousy. It was the burn of something unrequited. A lost figure in an empty ocean.
Even the faint touch of that realisation plunged her dark. She retreated into herself; all the air stolen from her lungs if she indulged the grip. So it was packed away, all of it, into the deepest recesses. Along with her father. Jay hadn't returned his wallet, and it was not among her things; that did not escape the scrutiny of her attention. A conclusion she was unwilling to confront, and yet she was strangely grateful to be released from the burden of its possession.
Which only left one more consideration.
She showered first, forcing herself through the motions of self care. Prends soin de toi. The most ancient of remedies, shrugged into like the comfort of an old blanket. She hadn't rested well, but her desperate body had eaten up the respite greedily; she felt like she'd slept in concrete. But the heat suffused aching limbs, a massage at temples easing the dull throbbing within. Her stomach churned but only if she made the mistake of haste. She'd live.
At the dresser she erased the signs of fatigue from her face. Swept back light gold hair. Ghosts stared back gravely from the pale prison of her eyes, unlikely to find another release soon. She felt worn out, but it was the scoured kind, and it was not like she hadn't rebuilt her life through the devastation of more literal flame. Given the choice between self-pity and rebirth, she clawed herself from the charred ashes each time.
Masks and armour, old friends both. Her lips tipped a grim smirk at her reflection.
The papers lined out under her fingers. Amengual required more thought than the aching insides of her skull would allow right now, but time was a luxury that would not last. Natalie afforded Jay the same courtesy he afforded her. Emotionless about it. It wasn't the depths of a soul she plunged, but the cold facts necessary for understanding the larger picture. Ignorant as he was to the trespass, it would be a less painful experience than it had been for her. And given fleeting glimpses of last night, she imagined he thought she already knew anyway. She might as well live up to the aspersion.
Discharge papers marked the tip of all her father apparently found it necessary for her to know. Newspaper clippings crowded behind. A raid that destroyed dozens of factories in Nicaragua and left a drug lord dead. The workings of rival cartels, so the official line went. Autopsy photos that heaved her stomach, and were probably meant to. Those whisped to flame for fear Jay would ever set eyes on the reminder. Family histories, economic reports, more photos of individuals marked with identities, including Zacarias. The last was a scrap of paper torn in haste. A name that looked to have been scrawled by hand. A number written beneath, and the letters ICOFBG.
Her eyes nearly rolled at her father's sick humour.
But the magnitude of what she absorbed swallowed her whole.
A rational mind understood, then, the reasons Jay burdened this alone, but it did not prevent the twist of anger in her gut that he had found no reason to trust her to share it. Frowning, she packed the papers away -- the torn scrap to her pocket, the rest zipped in her bag -- knowing they were not intended to be kept. If Pavlo's files were offered to find understanding in the trauma, these ones screamed a violent warning against further association.
It was not meant for her to act on.
The door knocked and opened quietly with a borrowed keycard as she returned to sit on the end of the bed, pensive. Cayli slipped in, absent her usual effervescence. The hoodie swamping her figure looked like it might once have been Jay's; her hands plunged deep into its pockets, its hem almost to her knees. Emotion bubbled in dismal bursts, like she could not quite find a balance between upset and anger. Something was very wrong.
"Hey, Cayli." The greeting offered quiet, she watched this sudden change with a faint frown. Until a dismal thought occurred. Natalie's own wallet had been on the bed when painful consciousness drained in, Azu's bible clutched in hand, the pages all splayed where it had ended up thrust beneath her pillow. Words had flashed when she brushed the screen, not a message, but painted with a finger into an app Natalie wasn't sure had been on there before.
Mom pulled the parental card. I'll be back!
Looking at her expression now, suspicion simmered. Cayli was clearly used to digging out answers denied her by adults, and she'd had a wealth of information at her fingertips while Natalie slept. If she'd chosen to look.
Though it was too late now to worry over.
Natalie contemplated the stillness around her. Cayli brushed through hell the past few days, her life upturned by the tornado of her brother's homecoming. And he hadn't spared two moments for her since they arrived at the casino. That was a familiar sting, the stirrings of empathy tugging deep in her chest. Her father's denial pulsed with her heartbeat. Had Jay ever come to find her yesterday? Wrapped in his own demons, did he even perceive the careless injury? The girl's shoulders slumped, back pressed against the wall. Crescent shadows hung under her usually bright eyes. Her gaze strayed to the fist-shaped hole in the drywall. "You're not going to tell me what happened."
"I'm not. But not because I don't trust you or I don't think you'd understand." The words were firm, petitioning the favour of understanding. This was not a secret kept simply because Cay was a child, it was a buried hurt Natalie could not talk about. At least not without stripping free some of the strength she fought so hard to surround herself with. She tilted her head, almost conciliatory; gave a self-deprecating laugh, darkness curling at its edges. "And at least in part because I don't remember all that much."
Sometimes Cayli looked at her like she was the strangest thing, prompting the flicker of a dull smile to Natalie's lips. Morbid humour rattled something loose. She would not look back. The shower erased the fugue. Her stomach was cramped and empty but she had no reasonable appetite. A gallon of coffee would not go amiss, but mostly she wanted to get out of the prison of this miserable room. She stood. Nausea rolled a protest.
"You said you're unable to go hardly anywhere in here. So where can you go?"
"I shouldn't-"
"It's not like your parents don't already dislike me. We'll tell them I stole you away to spill Ascendancy's poison in your ear. They can rail at me later." She crossed the room and pulled the handle. Her expression softened as she gestured a hand to the corridor beyond. "I know we're not friends or anything, Cay. But I can do this for you."
The first chink of light sprung Cayli's expression, a wry little half smile loosening the purse of her mouth. She was the first one out the door.
Breakfast first. They sat at a metal table outside the coffee kiosk. Natalie's hands cradled a mug roiling steam, a tall glass of water alongside. The adjacent club was silent, though sounds still spilled from the casino. Some way off, a man in a uniform pushed a damp mop over the floors. Aside from the girl cleaning equipment in the kiosk, there were precious few others about.
Opposite, Cayli attacked a giant stack of pancakes glazed thick with amber. The sugar sweetness turned Natalie's stomach, despite the empty pit of her stomach. Or maybe because of it. She sipped her coffee, not even particularly enamoured of the usually pleasant aroma. Glad it was so quiet. Her head pounded.
Whatever her troubles, Cayli seemed content for now with simple comforts. Her eyes danced at Natalie's scrutiny. "Hospital food," she said, then wrinkled her nose. "I can't believe you drink that stuff. Black."
"And I can't believe you smothered on so much syrup." She leaned in, one finger scooping a globule leaking from the edge of the plate, and swiped it with a smirk against Cayli's nose.
She laughed, scrubbing it off with a serviette. "You're so dumb."
"You got into my room without a key yesterday."
Cay paused at that, a fork-full halfway to her mouth. And grinned.