𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍 / ＡＮＧＥＬ.

it had been months. months without any form of contact or communication within which ava had been forced to accept the fact that they would likely never talk to her again and she would never know why. there was nothing she could have done about it so instead she had tried to move on with her life as if she didn’t miss them every second of every day. and now they were back, trying to act as if nothing was wrong, and she was angry. angry but trying very hard to act as if the whole situation was of little importance since that was clearly the way that they felt about it if the way they had managed to cut her out so easily was anything to go by. “it’s fine.” she said cooly, even managing a cold smile. “no, we’re good. why wouldn’t we be?”

“i was going to tell you.” her tone is hollow and the lie is written all over her face. she was usually good at it, lying, but there was something about the look on his face that made her feel...guilty? that was new. perhaps she did have a conscience after all. “okay, no, i wasn’t.” she admits, annoyed by the fact that her apparent inability to feel had escaped her at perhaps the most inopportune moment. “i’m sorry, okay? i just thought it would be easier this way.”

cassidy swallows hard as her gaze - as much as she tried to stop it - landed on the body. she should run but she can’t make her feet move, it’s as though they were glued to the ground. it wasn’t her fight or flight instinct because she had no desire to fight, more so that she was just paralysed out of sheer terror. the woman seemed mostly unphased by both the fact that she had just murdered someone and the fact that cassidy had witnessed it - a huge red flag in itself, no? she was shocked by how fast the woman moved. suddenly she stood uncomfortably close, brushing back cassidy’s hair gently, almost intimately. she blinks, both terrified and confused by the entire situation. “what did he do?” she asks eventually, her voice little more than a horrified whisper. “why did you kill him?”

cassidy, not normally one to blindly follow instruction, allows herself to be manoeuvred outside and towards a car. it doesn’t bother her as much as she would have thought, uprooting her entire life once again. maybe it’s because it isn’t the first time, or perhaps it hasn’t quite hit her yet. maybe it would come later. if nothing else, she’s glad that amalia is half asleep; for a few reasons, not the least of which being that she had thought she had a lot longer to prepare for introducing her daughter to her father and as such she wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. the whole situation would be a lot harder to explain to a four year old than to the young adult that cassidy had always envisioned. 

when ava had been informed that someone was investigating her it had triggered something inside her. not the fear of being caught or irritation that someone had somehow managed to connect the dots. no, once she knew she had eyes looking for her, she wanted to get their attention. wanted them to know that she knew. the game of cat and mouse that had ensued as a result was invigorating, so exciting. ava loved it. what had started off as little more than a moderately interesting pastime had turned into something more like obsession. and now here they both were, face to face for the first time. staring at each other silently. she wonders if they are scared of her, or at least intimidated. she’s waiting for them to speak, waiting and waiting, but the silence stretches out between them until ava feels compelled to break it. “you look tired.” she says conversationally as if they know each other well, which at this point ava feels like they do. “are you not sleeping well?”

“what?” she’s shocked at first - understandably - and then scared as the implications of what he was saying started to sink in. the fact that he was there at all ought to have been enough for her to understand that things were bad - about as bad as they could be, possibly. if it were just her own life at stake then she might have argued. she could look after herself, after all. she wasn’t, however, willing to risk the life of her daughter for the sake of her own pride. the entire reason she was there, isolated from everyone she knew and cared about, was to keep her daughter safe and if they were no longer safe here then they had no reason to stay. she had questions, of course, but perhaps now isn’t the time for an interrogation. “yeah, okay.” surprised by her own agreeability and a little dazed by how quickly her entire life seemed to have been turned upside down, cassidy takes a few unsteady steps back before she pulls herself together and disappears for a minute or two before returning with a sleep four-year old perched on her hip. 

she knows that she should run, get out of there - in that moment it was the only thing she did know - but she can’t bring herself to move, as if her feet are glued to the ground. it was one of those situations, like a car crash, when you wanted to look away but you just couldn’t stop watching. she lowers the hand that was covering her mouth - which is still open in shock - and drags her gaze from the man (she can’t bring herself to think of it as a body, as in a dead one) to meet the eyes of the one responsible for his untimely demise. “what if i did?” she asks, meaning for it to sound a lot braver than she felt but even she can hear the way her voice shakes.

it was an odd day. she wasn’t sure if she was just overthinking or if paranoia had gotten the best of her, but cassidy had a strong feeling that she was being watched. she couldn’t put her finger on why she felt that way, but she just couldn’t seem to shake it - so much so that she had almost forgotten that she had a date that night. she shook her head at herself in the mirror as she applied the finishing touches to her makeup; she knew that this persistent paranoia was rooted in the fact that she was afraid every day that somebody powerful and dangerous would find them - cassidy and her daughter, amalia - and would try to use them in some kind of awful plot to get at amalia’s father. the whole point of cutting contact and moving cross country was to avoid that at all costs, and they had done it well she thought, but she still worried. not as much now as she had done when amalia was a baby but there were still the odd days, like today. a knock on the door distracted her from her worried thoughts. cassidy glanced at her watch, must be the babysitter. she put the tube of lipstick she was holding down on the dresser and made her way quietly down the stairs so that she wouldn’t wake amalia. she pulled open the door, ready to greet the teenager from down the street who was always happy to babysit with a smile, but that was not who she found stood on her doorstep. silence. deafening silence. and then, “you shouldn’t be here.”

of all the things that cassidy would ever have expected to find on her doorstep at 2am, the father of her child wasn’t one of them. pissed at being woken up so late (early?), she had opened her mouth to tell him to go home and come back during daylight like any normal person, but then she looked at him. he was bruised, bloodied and broken and whatever had happened between them in the past, cassidy couldn’t find it in herself to turn him away. “you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”she murmurs and she ushers him inside and turns on the lamp which casts a dim light over the scene so that she can inspect his injuries a little better. “gonna tell me what happened or do i have to guess?”

shock - so much shock. she almost can’t believe it. then comes nausea. and finally, fear. she’s standing there with her hand over her open mouth, trying to hold in her scream but…fuck. what the fuck. she wanted to tear her gaze away but it was stuck, stuck to the man lying face down on the ground in a pool of his own blood. she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, had clearly come across something she shouldn’t; and fuck how she wished she hadn’t. why hadn’t she just stayed inside, blissfully unaware of what was happening mere feet away from her.

the dress was as beautiful as it was expensive and yet nova can’t bring herself to look at it with anything other than distaste. or maybe disgust was more accurate, knowing that he had bought it for her. when she had offered to help in any way that she could, she hadn’t imagined this as an option. hadn’t imagined in a million years that she would be stood in a penthouse suite overlooking the city ready and (somewhat) willing to sleep with her boyfriend’s rival just so that he could win what was turning out to be quite the twisted game. but desperate times called for desperate measures and if this was what it took to win then so be it. clearing her throat to announce her presence, nova attempts to wipe some of the contempt from her face but she can’t quite manage a smile. “just so we’re clear on something,” she walks further into the room and meets his gaze with a hard expression, “he can never know.” sure, she was doing this to help him but she had a feeling that her boyfriend may not see that the ends justified the means in this particular case.

the dress was as beautiful as it was expensive and yet nova can’t bring herself to look at it with anything other than distaste. or maybe disgust was more accurate, knowing that he had bought it for her. when she had offered to help in any way that she could, she hadn’t imagined this as an option. hadn’t imagined in a million years that she would be stood in a penthouse suite overlooking the city ready and (somewhat) willing to sleep with her boyfriend’s rival just so that he could win what was turning out to be quite the twisted game. but desperate times called for desperate measures and if this was what it took to win then so be it. clearing her throat to announce her presence, nova attempts to wipe some of the contempt from her face but she can’t quite manage a smile. “just so we’re clear on something,” she walks further into the room and meets his gaze with a hard expression, “he can never know.” sure, she was doing this to help him but she had a feeling that her boyfriend may not see that the ends justified the means in this particular case. 

phone and coffee in one hand (with the name sienna scrawled across the side), keys in the other, nova lets herself into the apartment. she drops her keys onto the little table by the door and then ventures into her bedroom. she drops her phone on the bed  and then heads back out. the kitchen is her destination, but she never makes it that far. one step into the living room and her coffee falls from her hands, completely forgotten. her face is a mask of shock. shock and complete and utter terror. because sat in her living room, on her sofa, almost like he belongs there, is the one she ran so far to get away from. “what the fuck are you doing here?” she means it to sound confident, even threatening, but the reality is more a terrified whisper.

oh, she had fucked up. she had fucked up bad. didn’t realise how much until now. it was her own fault for leaving him to bleed out without checking that he was dead - but how was she to know that the bullet had missed his heart? she can hardly believe it, but the proof was there right in front of her eyes; she stares up at him fearfully because she knows that what she did will not go unpunished. and why would it? she had fully intended to kill him. “i thought you were dead.”