#fatalcrown

it wasn’t shield.  hadn’t been the hydra safehouse he’d been looking for.  guards dropping with the same ease it’d taken to slip inside.  past a camera avoided for its prowling eye and into shadows that hugged him with a security tired bones were grateful for.  needed.  further.  where the buzz of parting gates rumbled down the hall and the march of half - a - dozen heavily equipped soldiers hustled back towards an entrance newly neglected.  unaware and ill - prepared.  in his way.  saved for the uncertainty that’d dragged him inside to begin with.  no word from the wreckage of a battle that’d nearly bested him.  no signal to return where he’d be expected.  to explain his failure or be repurposed to redeem himself.  an asset with no orders, snuffing out lights before slinking down from an overhang that hadn’t offered the wanted vantages.  to the third alcove and the first cage with occupancy.  just far enough to have no certainty —— the figure at its core stretched out and languid.  worthy the wide berth he maintained.  silent.  circling.  a predator that waited for the prey to take notice.

mssg / sent:     i’m gonna do you a solid and assume you’re still in another timezone and not totally fucking me here max. mssg / sent:     move your ass.  this place is hella dank and creepy.

not the way she’d been wanting to spent her saturday night.  half - buzzed, huddled into herself, pacing a circle into old, cinder - stricken planks.  the reminder of a fire she’d let rage.  the reminder why she was there in the first place.  picking apart the remains of an old barn, lost and forgotten.  where rachel’d taught her to dance with no restraints.  where the training wheels had come off and chloe could still feel the push and shove of sweaty, hyped bodies around her.  like the fist in the face her tongue’d moved, subconsciously, to trace the corner of her lips for.  no longer split and mottled.  just chapped and cold as everything else, now.

thumb hovering over the screen and, again, her cell flared to life.  the only light under a starless sky, baring her and the time she’d been looking for —— 1:37 am.

mssg / sent:     you’d better be off solving all of this or cleaning up a murder i committed tomorrow or i’m calling bullshit maxine.

a reason  ( if ever she needed one )  for the cigarette knocked loose from its pack, caught between lips and her blazing emotions.  an inferno to match the smolder of a cherry sprung to life.  until lungs ached and smoke poured from flared nostrils.  an image of frustration and impatience and that primal sort of fear that still found monsters in shadows that’d once held fond memories.  now, beneath boots, everything was shuffled and stomped down to the nothing that made early hours eerily quiet.  rose hairs and gooseflesh . . .  turned tired eyes towards a sky folded over with clouds barely able to be made out.  signs of a storm encroaching.  the cue to go in or leave or ——  something.  forget why they’d agreed to come there in the first place.  forget about ra ————— !!

“  god fucking dammit !!  ”     loud enough that, had anyone been lurking out of sight, she’d exposed herself, chloe’s thumbs raged on in a flurry of haphazard smashes against the screen, only satisfied when the text was littered with accusations and curses enough to fill the growing emptiness crawled up inside her.  and . . .  send ?  joyce always said that hesitation was the world’s way of making you reconsider.  why the message turned draft and the phone in the upper right corner was hammered instead.     “  ————— pick up . . .  PICK UP !!  ”

I signed up for this hot mess :////

I don’t think you understand how hard I’m laughing at work right now