#marcus 003

Ever since that day at Santa on the Sands, Kira had been carefully trying to piece her life back together. It was nine years too late, but after realising just how much she had been holding onto her feeling for her ex and their former relationship, she knew she had to make a change. Gone was the Kira who had been the life of a party, the girl who had been kind, funny and sassy and instead she had become a shell. Her friends had rallied around her, but she knew she had to make significant steps. Therapy had proved a saving grace and slowly, her life was finding some balance.

No longer was she in the shop seven days a week, any hours she could. She took one day to work from home and one day off and she had truly never felt so relaxed and focused. As she pressed the palms of her hands together in front of her chest, Kira took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly just as their was a knock on her front door. Hopping to her feet, she quickly smoothed out her workout clothes as she walked over to the door, pulling it open with a smile.

The smile faltered as she saw who was standing on her porch and she could immediately feel some tension settle in her body. She hadn't seen him since that day at the beach, she'd actively avoided him whenever she saw him in the street and hadn told her staff not to tell her when he was in the shop. But there he was. "What are you doing here?"

Everyone was looking at her. Jessica could feel the weight of their gazes, hot and sticky on the back of her neck, as she stood near the front of one of the Hippodrome’s VIP meeting rooms, wanting to crawl out of her skin. She didn’t know what was eating at her most: the sharp sense of betrayal, the embarrassment, or the shame. Because that was not the way it was supposed to happen. It should have been her.

She had always been the cousin who didn’t fit into Famine. She was the only one who had started as an Angel instead of a Power, wanting to prove herself while knowing that there was an exit if this world ended up not being to her liking. But she had made her choice, been promoted to Power, and done her work, never saying no. And she had thought that she was doing so well. Turning bad press over a bombing into a love story. Assisting Kitty with her new project. Finally stepping out from under her brother’s protection, because it would be better, wouldn’t it? To be his sister and love him without letting him have control over her, no matter how much of it came from love?

So why did it feel like she had fucked it all up? 

The words of dismissal were barely out of her uncle’s mouth when Jessica exited the room, the click-clack of her heels cushioned by the crimson and gold carpets of the casino, lush and gleaming. On this floor, cordoned off from the rest of the public, there were multiple bathrooms set aside for Famine, and she searched blindly for the furthest one, locking the door behind her and turning on the faucets as she leaned over the sink. One shuddering inhale, a slow exhale, repeat—she wasn’t going to cry, but fuck it if she let someone see it happen—and as she forced calmness into limbs tense with nerves, the doorknob turned, followed by a knock on the door. 

No. Jessica ignored it; they would find another bathroom, whoever they were. But then came another knock, two—and her temper flared up as she strode across the bathroom, flinging the door open, and snapped, “What part of ‘occupied’ don’t you understand?”