run from me

Rachel paused and considered with her own track-record of getting people to abandon their own thick-headedness: It wasn’t a good one. If Valentina really wanted to stay and help her it would waste valuable to time that neither of them had. This left her with the only viable option in this moment. She followed her friend into the bedroom which looked… different from the rest of the house. It didn’t seem to suit Valentina and her character. Instincts told her that a lot of the things inside hadn’t been bought by the brunette.

Her eyes glanced away from the cluttered room – which had far too many places where a bomb could be hidden – and tried for the first time since her entry to really gauge the other woman’s current state. Part of her mind kept the clock running, the count going down with every second she wasted. Rachel couldn’t help herself. Her gut told her that something was off. Then her eyes wandered past Val when they spotted a familiar red line that peeked out of the closet. It was barely visible at all but her heart started beating fast as she stepped towards the object with careful steps. She knelt in front of the half-opened closet and carefully removed a blanket from on top of a carton.

The brunette had always had a stubborn mind. If she didn’t, she would probably be dead by now. It made her go on for whatever reason she could convince herself of; it made her fight for what was hers, no matter what the consequences. With every thing that happened, with everything she lost, what was left grew more and more important, like all the little things she kept in her bedroom. It felt like she wasn’t as alone as she really was when she tried sleeping at night, and sometimes it even felt like Maya was going to walk through the door soon. These things were sacred to her, and with every move she now made, she tried to block out the fact that she shared all these things with someone from the moment they’d walked in. Rachel was probably reading her, right? She could see that she was beyond breaking point. She could tell—

“I don’t mean to scare you but there’s a bomb in your home.” She kept moving into the kitchen and ruthlessly opened ever cupboard she found, looked under the sink and even in the fridge – nothing. “And I need to find it before it’s too late and disarm it.” It grew apparent to her then that the object of her desire wasn’t to be found in the kitchen either. She counted the time in her head that had passed since she got the tip from Miyako. It was too long.

“Hey Val, Long time no see.” She smiled at the brunette before pushing herself through the opened door. “Lovely place you got here.” It was blatantly rude to enter Valentina Abernathy’s home without asking for proper invitation but her objective was time-sensitive. She couldn’t afford to delay any further than she already had.

Once inside she took in the interior that she’d only ever been able to catch glimpses of before. It was indeed a lovely place and her eyes widened when she took in the art that was present everywhere around her. She hadn’t known that Valentina could paint like this. Their former employer didn’t exactly encourage the arts if they didn’t include torture, sweat or blood. She strode right into the living room and then turned to face her old friend again.

The brunette felt her throat clogging up, her mind dizzy with the information that Division had not buried all of them in their bunker. It was hope, confusion, overwhelmment and surprise all mixed together with the fact that she hated having her in her house, her personal space - the only place she’d called home in a long time. The house practically was made of her paintings and drawings, of which many showed personal thoughts, and Maya’s belongings. In a different setting, the woman would probably have been beyond relieved to see Rachel.

@valentinaabernathy

The blonde had her hair made up into a tight ponytail, her attire was dominated by black and her expression was one usually reserved for those entirely bored with the current situation. An occasional observer wouldn’t have been surprised to see the young woman whip out a magazine and start reading it. Her exterior belied the turmoil boiling inside of her as she stood hidden behind an oak. Her blue hues were concentrated onto a lovely house. She checked her phone again to see if there had been any updates but it didn’t surprise her that there were none. With a beating heart she stashed it away into the pocket of her leather jacket.

Movement inside the house caught her attention. She was familiar with the woman who lived inside but she was certain that the brunette had no idea that Rachel had been watching over her from time to time. She hadn’t expected to give the secret up so soon but the circumstances were dire enough to warrant it. A shiver overcame her when she remembered the last one that she had rushed to save and she had failed. If she failed again tonight then she would not be able to forgive herself. Not with her.

Determination replaced the boredom on her featured as she pulled out her phone again and pressed a button that made the device emit a signal. No one would be able to make a phone call or use other means of communication within a hundred metres of her location now. It was just one of the few useful upgrades that her phone had received lately. Then the ex-agent stepped out of the cover of her tree.

When Division went to shit and buried all of the people left that she cared about, the brunette had had to lay out a plan for herself. A final one, one that she would have to stick with in the end. When she quit raging and crying, she’d started to think about what she would do with herself, come to the painful realization that Divison had been her anchor. After all that happened, Valentina decided that she needed to go back to New York. She packed up all of Maya’s belongings, grabbed the cat and with her new identity, she bought a house in the suburbs of the big apple - her home, after all. It was near enough to the city, but also far enough away from it so she could trust herself not to do anything stupid.

The house was messy, but cozy. Valentina never invited anybody - after all, she didn’t really know anyone here - and stayed on her own, which made her feel better, but lonely. Of course, everything was monitored and safety-locked with gadgets she knew from Division. The ex-agent knew about whatever was going on in her house and the area around it, at any time, she hadn’t forgotten one thing. And that was exactly what scared her about the ring on her door.

He pulled a  worn, dark brown wallet from his pocket and fished out a bill, twisting it between his fingers as he looked properly at the barkeep. She was quite familiar, although he didn’t visit often, she was usually there and although they’d exchanged a few words he doubted she remembered him. “If it’s as hard as you say, how do you survive the night?” The rules of being the barkeep here weren’t too clear, but they always seemed to have a clear head. “Are you allowed to drink?” 

The smallest of laughs escaped the brunette as she thought about how in the world he could see past her obviously being high and low on some kind of drug. Maybe she really was good at hiding it as much as she tried. “I’m guessing I could do meth back here and it’d go unnoticed. But to answer your question...” She leaned over to him a little, not particularly because she needed to be closer to him but because it was easier to keep herself up straight this way. “Girl’s got to make money some way, right? I’m not exactly here by choice.” She raised her eyebrows. “Like you.”

“You’re serious?”, she crossed her arms in front of her chest as the weight of it hit her. Riots. She’d seen enough about those in the recent political struggles of the country. In a place like Division it would’ve been contained to the facility but that wasn’t exactly reassuring her. People she knew might have died in those riots. Ashley took in a sharp breath of air when she felt the edge of panic getting close. She wouldn’t fall off that edge, she never has and she wouldn’t now. Instead she relaxed her composure, calmed her breath. It wasn’t her fault. It had all been completely out of her control. I can’t be blamed for the actions of other people.

“You weren’t the only one that disappeared, I mean we all thought you had been murdered by one of ours. Then the shrink was gone and ...” Valentina’s eyes widened. A laugh escaped her, the kind that sounded like disbelief, like she wanted to crash down in disappointment with a wave of realization. “Aidan was in on this.” She shook her head. “Right?! He helped open the doors and all that, I mean—” The brunette ran a hands through her hair and took a breath. She hadn’t seen a single one of all those people in the bunker. Not a single one of them ever since the bunker was taken down. “What does it matter now. It’s over.”

A large crowd filled the place with the dim roar of conversations, laughter and glasses clinking. Nathan maneuvered through the crowd, mentally reciting what everyone at the table had wanted. He recognised most of the people there and although the bar wasn’t strictly a Blood Kings’ spot, they still frequented it. However, it wasn’t territory, so problems sometimes did arise. Tonight, however, the simple black crown tattoo was worn by most and it seemed like it would be a quiet evening at Nathan arrived at the bar. 

When she spotted the semi-familiar guy leaning on the bar, she steadied herself and walked a few steps to stand right in front of him. "Hi. What are you drinking?" Her voice was shaky, quiet - but audible enough. Waving her hand in front of his face to get his attention. A little smirk crept up to the corners of her mouth. "Anything? Pretty hard to spend your night here without booze."