nightmares still lurked in the corners of her mind, doubts caused by the dream dimension. the more esme let herself dwell on it, the more she speculated that the ordeal didnât cause them at all, only amplifying the fears she was never meant to have. she was a clone, designed as a weapon â weapon XIV to be exact. weapons werenât made to have doubts.
there is no i, esme,             thereâs only we.                       youâre nothing.
it wasnât her sisters fault. they were stuck in that place too, and perhaps they were just better weapons than she was. esme still loved them. they were her sisters, they were all she really had in this world. and they didnât abandon her in that forsaken jungle when sheâd been poisoned, that had to count for something.
she needed distance from them to separate her thoughts from theirs. it didnât come as a surprise to her that it hadnât taken long for someone to establish a bar on genosha, as she slid into a seat, esme ordered herself a martini and leaned away from the bar, careful not to touch the surface. itâs sticky.
âi guess bars are the same no matter what part of the planet youâre stuck on.â
Using alcohol as a coping mechanism was something Marcos tried to stay away. As a kid, he hated seeing his father in his drunken state. But in desperate times to numb the pain, it was something he turned to. When his father still rejected him even with his dying breath. When he missed Dawnâs birth. When Lorna took his daughter away then disappeared with half of the world. Alcohol had become his best friend during the disappearance.Â
And now? His nightmare still lingered in the back of his head, the uneasy feeling that in a quick instance, he would lose Dawn and it would be all his fault. Watching and being unable to do anything about it.Â
It surprised him to see one of the Frosts alone slide into the seat next to him to order a martini, his lips taking a drag of the whiskey in his glass. His thoughts battled, trying to figure out if he should just pay for his drinks and walk away or stay, drink, and engage in a conversation with her.Â
He took another swig of his drink before letting out a soft sigh in response to her comment. âI never actually pictured you to even step into a place like this. I would have thought you had your own liquor cabinet with a personal bartender at home.â
























