On a long drive today, I started imagining some powerful entity giving my characters a proper Breaking Speech. I have no idea what kind of entity would know so much about them, why it would choose to reveal so much, or how they would all get in one room without murdering each other, but it’s kind of fun imagine and makes me realize what a bundle of dysfunction these people are:
“Shaira… The perfect assassin, a killer who’s following orders because her life has no meaning, no purpose beyond thanking the man who saved her empty life when she would rather have stayed in her grave to rot.
Connor… A man arrogant enough to believe he can change the world, but too naïve to understand even the beginnings of how it came to be that way, ready to face any obstacle except the possibility that he may be wrong.
Mercedes… The girl who drowns herself in every forbidden sensation to block out the pain of knowing that she is completely, utterly dependent on another and would drag others down to her level rather than admit that she’s been thrust into a world in which she is hopelessly lost.
Winter… A creature with the face of the wounded child that will always haunt her, yet the mind of a killer who justifies her brutality with the pretense of doing good because she’s too afraid to admit the truth: she loves to watch men die.
Heather… A hard, acidic shell protects a woman who’s lost faith in the family that raised her and the cause that’s filled her life, who pushes herself and everyone around her to exhaustion because if she slows down she’ll have time to remember that she’s trapped here.
Marco… A black hole who pulls in everyone around him and spits out twisted black shadows, a man so determined to self-destruct that he opens himself to a power greater than he can manage, all because he can’t accept that tragedy simply is.
Vincent… He fills endless pages with nightmares, but the true horrors are what fill his head when he stops, a cacophony of voices that remind him that he is truly alone and not even death can save him from the labyrinth of madness.
Juliet… Gifted with a life most could only dream of, she threw it away to plunge into a life she never wanted, outcast for being unwilling to accept that she’s lost everything that ever made her special.
Gabriel… A man whose charm hides poison and his bravado terror because the power that will kill him is the only thing that can make him feel alive and when the illusions break, all that would be lost is the life of a drifter denied the only thing worth living for.
Emilie… A princess, a queen, a rose among the weeds, a shining star who has only to catch the eye of the right astronomer to take her rightful place as ruler of the heavens. Yet it is only a children’s story told to a gutter rat so often that she’s believed it because the alternative would be to admit that her guardian angel is a devil in disguise.
Nikolai… A man who dedicates eternity to serving the family that reduces him to a cog in their machine, grinding down his humanity in the vain hope that they will one day return what they stole from him, clinging to shreds of faith in a desperate attempt to atone for the gore that covers his hands and the screams that still fill his ears in the silence of the night
and Haruko... A woman rejected from the only life she desired, burning with rage against a man who gave her exactly what she asked for but too comfortable in her status quo to act on her impotent hatred.”
