{ ice queen }

She used the heel of her palm to wipe the tears from her eyes, tilting her head down so that her hair would fall and cover her face. Tiger had never liked crying in public, or in front of people in general and yet she’d found herself doing so more often than she’d liked. “I’ve always hated this part. The death. I know our people have killed others, but I’ve never liked it. I don’t know how they can just…” She covered her mouth with her hand to hide the guilt lines in her frown. This never should have happened. She didn’t know who the hell was picking them off, but she was sure now that it had something to do with whoever had decided to shoot her mother. “Just…stay.” Tiger leaned over, resting her head on Lacey’s shoulder and looping an arm around her waist. She couldn’t handle ever losing her too.

“How did we get into this mess?” Lacey wondered aloud, yet knowing the answer all too well. Wanting to stop the war, only making it worse and betraying their family       because of course it was Lacey’s family as well. The two were best friends, sisters, and Marcus had been like a father to her. And then it all just ended. “I don’t know how people just... how do they have the will to do it? I almost killed my brother, but I didn’t. There was a line and I didn’t cross it, but I could have. The pan was just there... I could have done it. But I didn’t. One choice and it could have all been over... how do people just cross that line?” Her arm came around Tiger’s waist so they were both leaning on each other for support, Tiger’s head on Lacey’s shoulder, her own head resting atop of Tiger’s, both arms looped around each others waists, grief draped onto them like a blanket. “It’s all too late now.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Cate snapped, slamming her own glass down on the bar top. She’d tried to ignore the little traitor, she really had, but listening to her sit there and whine was enough to get Cate on her last nerve. “You really think you can betray him and then sit there and mope like people are going to feel sorry for you? Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh fuck off Cate, you don’t know shit.” Lacey growled, ordering another shot, and ignored the burn down her throat as she drank it. “Seriously, you don’t know anything. So why don’t you shut the fuck up, and keep your nose out of my damn business. I’m allowed to grieve for Marcus, just as much as I’m allowed to grieve for Violet.”

“I could say that this kind of shit does not happen to people who do not have blood on their hands, but then I’d be a liar,” different kind of messed up, although in her case, he was neither going to pity her or feel sad for her for a split second. He was not going to help her either. This kind of people they would rather die killed by their own pride than except help. “So what’s the matter? You found out that thugs don’t live old and now you’re worried about your own ass?”

Lacey was all sorts of screwed up, and it showed sometimes. This was one of those times. She squinted up to look at him, face etched with irritation, before looking down and scoffing. “I couldn’t give a shit about my own ass, it’s Tiger I’m worried about. She’s my best friend, my sister and our dad died, so I’m worried about her.” Our dad. Of course Marcus wasn’t her dad, but she had been a part of their family since she was seventeen, and he was more of a dad than her own had ever been, just like Rebecca had been a mother-figure to her. Which was why Lacey joining the Jokers, joining Tiger, had hurt herself so much. “This kind of shit happens to people whether or not they’re good people. Shitty people die. Good people die. Innocent people, guilty people. It’s how the world works, right?”

Bourbon, whiskey, vodka…. she had drank it all and none of it helped. She was oblvious but she wasn’t numb truly. Just filled with rage and anger. She wanted to kill them all. She wanted them all to go to hell and burn. SHe had been drunk at the funeral, much to her mothers disgust. She had been drunk ever since, fighting anyone who pissed her off or mentioned Violet in some way. Her sister, her best friend, was gone. And no one was fixing that. “Another in the grave. Soon to be accompanied by more.” She murmured as she stepped over the lifeless body of the man she had just punched and beat to death, heading in the direction of her home, even though it was dark and empty of life. Empty of hope. Empty of everything.

She couldn’t remember a time where there wasn’t a drink in her hand. In fact, Lacey didn’t really want to think about a time where there wasn’t a drink in her hand, because surely that was when Marcus was alive. Surely that was when her makeshift family were still whole. The funeral had been unbearable, going from one funeral to the other, because Lacey had to pay her respects, to both Marcus and Violet. Former family, new family. It was so hard, though. Keeping a straight face, refusing to crack under pressure. But god, did she want to. Lacey hadn’t cried yet. That wasn’t her style, not once in her life had she cried over something so petty over death, she hadn’t even cried when her family was taken and imprisoned. She had the Hearts for that. She owed the Heart’s for that. 

She thought she’d felt worse.  The first few weeks after she left Wonderland for Daniella, she’d cried and thrashed and felt so guilt ridden she could barely breathe. She’d been proven wrong on that thought when her mom got shot and Tiger thought she was going to die. That had hurt more than she could possibly describe, and she still spent the off night here and there at the mansion visiting. But this…this was killing her. Bree, Violet, Marcus. Her cousin, her friend, her father. All of them had been important to her and she had felt the loss of each of them strongly. Tiger had raged when she found out. Her room was in shatters, almost everything broken and her hands were covered in cuts and blood from all the things she had broken. She doesn’t even remember how she ended up here, sat beside Lacey with her head in her hands and a bottle of scotch only half full in front of her. “They’re just…gone.” Her voice cracked from lack of use and Tiger didn’t really feel like talking.

There is a moment when Lacey realised that Tiger was sitting next to her, but instead of reaching out to perhaps comfort her sister and best friend, she reached for the bottle and took a long, hard sip of it. “What are we going to do?” Lacey murmured quietly, giving the bottle back with a drawn out sigh. No tears came because she refused to cry, Violet was a friend, Marcus was a father figure... And they were just gone. “One of each, how symbolic.” Who did this? She was confused, and she knew if she wanted to find out answers, all Lacey would have to do is find a computer. But Lacey didn’t want to know, part of her relished in the fact that there was something she didn’t know. “God, Caroline, what are we going to do?”

So I’m on candy duty at the house this year since Allison bailed, please let literally everyone know we have full sized candy bars so I can get rid of these things as fast as I can.

I like full sized candy bars, but do I have to dress up in order to get them?

“                         I don’t hate you, lacey. I’m just… disappointed.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be me if people weren’t disappointed, so it’s not an entirely new feeling.”

“I’ve seen the chaos caused by them. That in itself is enough to know they aren’t going to last unless the police department sucks that much in investigating.” Charlie’s voice didn’t rise, but it was evident that he was bothered. It seemed to be a trend. How could Lacey protect Tiger from Daniella when Daniella is protected by her mafia? It seemed unrealistic to him despite how much he knew she believed it. With a sigh, he then shook his head lightly. “The truth?…No, I can’t. Not anymore…Trust is built, not granted.”

“Right, fine. You don’t trust me, it’s fine, it’s not like we’re family any more or anything.” Lacey gritted her teeth, ignoring the punch in her stomach from her words. “I just don’t know what you want me to do about it, about any of this.”

“If that didn’t work when you lived with me, what makes you think it’s going to work now?”

“Damn. Fine I just       it was something stupid. For a minute I just forgot that you hated me, and I called... Don’t worry about that. But I just said something stupid, so you can forget it.”

“Right, okay – do you wanna repeat that because now I’m confused.” 

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

help me heal | tiger & lacey

Her eyes were trained on the small spark that came to life with each stroke of the lighter, a spark that blossomed into a flame with the potential to burn everything to the ground. That was what she felt like, sometimes. A spark that ignited her body into an inferno, this was her anger. It was the anger that Lacey felt throughout her childhood, with her father and her useless brothers, it was the anger that coursed through her veins while holding the pan handle with a grip so tight her knuckles white while her brother lay on the floor, cowering before her. It was rare for Lacey to get angry, but when she did, it was like an explosion. People were hurt by the shrapnel all around her, even if they hadn’t come into direct contact with the bomb. There was no reasoning with a girl like Lacey when she was ticked off. 

Charlie joined the Clubs after giving himself a month to think about it, and yet, a month wasn’t enough time to put things into perspective. Part of him started hoping that was the case with Lacey, but he thought a year would’ve been enough. “Not with them. —-They cause petty crime, and because of that, there has been more of a public outcry for the police department to be more involved in cracking down that group. Their tactic is to start ‘trouble’ to seem more like a threat, and in the long run, that’s going to be their downfall.  The police are eventually going to catch up with them…And, lets say by some miracle they end it. Mom and dad aren’t going to give up power until their dead, and…whose to say they won’t want to kill Daniel, Jacob, or me? We would technically be next in line thus seen as a potential threat….In that case, Tiger wouldn’t be any exception. Is that how you want to end it?” It was a genuine question.

“You don’t know anything about them      about us,” Lacey amended quickly, brushing off her minor slip up. She was a Joker now, they were not a them to her, but an us. “Of course not, but no one is going to harm a hair on Tiger’s head. Not if I had anything to do with it - don’t you see? I’m protecting her. If Daniella even thinks about laying a finger on Tiger or putting her in harms way, I’ll break her fucking spine.” A light threat, but her eyes flashed dangerously, only seen a few times beforehand, mostly in her teenage years, days before moving in with Charlie and his family. “Can you please just trust me?”

Looking at her like this, he felt guilty. He knew exactly how it felt to be the outsider, to have people not trust you because they thought of you as some sort of traitor. When the ex-underboss of the Spades had thought he was relaying information to the police, things had been bad and he had the scar from when they had slit his throat to prove it. But he hadn’t one anything wrong, he was the one who had been betrayed by them. This was not the same circumstances as what he had been under. “I’m sorry, Keating. This is just the way it has to be.” An maybe he’s just being petty because she had hurt his girlfriend, but it wasn’t something he could so easily forgive. “I suppose not really. Even most songs are redone now.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this, it just is like this. I’m a kid, we make stupid mistakes.” Lacey muttered out bitterly, looking at him with a hint of anger in her eyes, though not at him. Never at Ben. He was her       holmie, pun intended, but she supposed all good things must come to an end. Lacey just wished that it didn’t. Her betrayal hadn’t gone unnoticed and part of her had wished that it did, because then she’d be able to live with herself. The guilt of betraying the very people who had loved her like their own kept her up some nights, and part of her was beginning to unravel. The partying, the drinking, the sarcasm       everything to keep her from remembering an empty apartment or the look of hurt in their eyes. “Exactly, they’re covers of songs from eons ago, you know? I suppose it’s too hard to come up with an original idea these days.”

“Oh, so, if my best friend thought of a way to endanger his family that I care about, I should go with it because I’d do anything for them? Do you realize how fucking stupid that sounds? At least tell me you thought about it and didn’t follow her blindly because-” Charlie stopped himself before he would say something he’d regret. “Forget it.” He didn’t want the same intervention he first had with Tiger, but it was harder than he had thought. Even if he didn’t show it, he just wanted to understand. Taking in a deep breath to calm the tension, he kept his voice at ease. “No. You can’t make her. It’s called a suggestion or…a way to help her question the decision thoroughly despite the grief. Why people confuse a suggestion as an attack to make someone do something is beyond me.” He breathed out a sigh and took a moment to think about his next  words carefully. “—-I’m not trying to, Lacey. I just don’t get it. How was bringing another mafia supposed to make things right?…Or, why are you still working with them?” He knew Tiger’s side, and although he didn’t like answers, he accepted them now. That’s all he wanted. Answers to put his questions to rest.

“Of course I didn’t follow her blindly       it isn’t like I joined the Jokers in a heart beat. It took me a whole year to make the decision to join them.” She explained half-heartedly, like the fight had gone out of her. This was Charlie. He was her brother, even if she wasn’t his sister anymore - in her eyes, that didn’t change. “It isn’t like I could come back to the Heart’s; Mom - Rebecca, I doubt she’d let me. Besides, who says I even want to come back? You never know, the Jokers could end the war. It’s a small sliver of hope, isn’t it?” She was hopeful in trying to make him understand, even if Lacey didn’t believe it herself.

“What a simple solution for you, isn’t? For me to merely…accept it without a need for an explanation that you are so obviously vibrant to give.” He sarcastically stated before he pressed his lips tightly together to give a forced smile that was quite fragile before his eyes rested down at the floor. “…I don’t. I don’t understand.—-When have we ever wronged you?” He inhaled sharply as he lifted his head to force himself to look at her, trying his best to calm his temper. “We might be a broken family, but we are trying-” Charlie paused. They were trying to get better. Now, it just seemed like a downward spiral no matter what he did. “If you two wanted to leave, you should’ve just left. Why support the idea of bringing in some new threat who clearly is out for bloodshed? Someone who wants to ruin the people you still consider family?…You didn’t even make an attempt to prevent Caroline from making that decision, did you?”

“Anything is simple if you don’t think about it hard enough to kill brain cells.” Lacey quipped, meant as a joke yet had fallen short, the humour leaving her eyes. Part of her wasn't ready for this confrontation and the oncoming questions seemed enough to make her turn away and walk off, to never look back. But she knew it wasn’t possible. At least, not now. “You haven’t wronged me! None of you have, like ever! I just I couldn’t       The Heart’s are the best family, the only family that has loved me.” She wasn’t making sense, but Lacey couldn’t stop rambling. “I followed Tiger because I’d follow her anywhere, she’s my best friend. But I can’t tell her what she can and can’t do, and even attempting it would... She had her heart set on trying to make things right. I thought I was doing the right thing, Charlie. So don’t try and burn me at the stake for things not working out.”