Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Thorn
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Fandom Divergent: Faction Before Blood // RP Thread
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Bloom
code by Stardust Galaxy
Nerdy.
Nerdy
Christian "Chris" Parks || 16 || Initiate || Dauntlessborn
Christian was relentless with his punches, something had truly snapped inside of him, something that he had always worried about and had always struggled with. Inside he was in turmoil, but the voice that cried out for him to stop was too small, and the anger drowned it out. Chris hated Ajax, Ajax hurt Blair over a simplicity, over a stupid old-fashioned reason of being Divergent. He HURT her. Christian would never do such a thing, he could never hurt her... Plus, from what he knew, Ajax got aggressive just because he could, whereas Christian had to fight every single day with unwanted aggression within him. Christian had, in fact, hurt those he loved. He'd hurt his siblings, his friends, even Aubrey had suffered because of that. But all of them had been isolated incidents and accidents, and Christian regretted every single one of them, he hurt, he cried, he felt guilt. Ajax was a monster because he felt no remorse for what he was doing to Blair, in fact he kept doing it, and Blair wasn't enticing him to do so. Christian's eyes were going red with pain and anger and so he didn't notice when a large and aggressive boot came slamming into his side. The cracks that he felt were audible as much as they were painful. He went tumbling off of Ajax, who was now unmoving on the ground, and recoiled into a crouched position, coughing abruptly from the impact. The tangy taste of his own blood made him wonder if that was from the impact, or him biting his tongue somehow. He looked up, teeth gritted and eyes aflame, glaring up at the new aggressor. Instead of Ajax, Beck stood panting and was screaming at Chris, although Chris was waiting for the ringing in his ears to die down before he could even hear him, but even when he could hear him, Chris was still so angry, he ignored all of what Beck said. "Get out of my way." He growled wolfishly, taking a step towards Beck. Beck hesitated, before standing his ground, saying that Chris couldn't just kill Ajax in cold blood, even if he was awful and deserved it. He said that he didn't support Ajax in any way but that he wasn't going to let his own brother get beat to death. Christian's blood boiled. "You dare stand between us? Do you not care about Blair? I told you already. GET. OUT. OF. MY. WAY!" Christian charged forward, and Beck artfully dodged at the last minute, again giving a kick to Christian's tailbone and sending him reeling to the ground. Christian rolled, grunting at the pain it caused his ribs, and charged straight back at Beckham, this time taking him slightly by surprise at the quick reflex, and in one swoop the other Avalon boy was on the ground. Christian pulled his arm back, at the same time he felt arms grab his own, and he swung, wondering how Ajax could have gotten up so fast.
But it was not Ajax. Christian's blood froze over, his anger silenced as he watched in horror as his arm came into contact with Blair's body, sending her tumbling to the ground and hearing the awful sound of body on body, and the impact on the floor. In an instant, Christian no longer cared about hurting anyone, seeking revenge or justice, he only watched as his nightmare came true. He had just hurt Blair. She struggled to get up, and Christian still couldn't move, only limply releasing Beck from under him and allowing the boy to run to his sister, alongside Fable who was also at Blair's side. Christian sat there pale and uncaring about the obvious injuries he had now, his eyes unblinking and frozen on her body. "N-No... Blair... N-no I... I'm..." Christian stuttered and shook as he began to struggle to breathe, collapsing to the ground and catching himself with his arms. How could he have hurt Blair? He should have looked before hitting, he should have stopped hitting in the first place, he should have just taken Blair away. It didn't matter that it was an accident to him, hurting someone he loved was no joke, it was serious, and Christian couldn't move an inch. He could see Fable looking at him and Christian couldn't bear to keep eye contact with him, as he let his head fall and covered his face with his hands, giant tears welling up and falling into them. What had he done? He had hurt Blair, the one thing he was scared of above all else. He had broken her. He had broken everything he held true. Why had he gotten so angry with Ajax? Because Ajax hurt her, and now, here, Chris was no different. "I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry... Forgive me..." Christian began to whimper to himself as he sat there, waiting for something, but he wasn't sure what. He could hear lots of feet and steps but he had no idea if they were medics, security, family. He didn't move or speak even as he could hear fighting begin to happen verbally between some of the people. It wasn't until the familiar voice of his brother tickled his ears, and a warm hand found its way to his back, that he looked up. Phillip crouched beside him, big brown eyes sad and hurt. "Phillip? I'm so sorry." Christian cried, his heart tightening as he clenched his fist tightly and pressed them against the cold ground in hopes he would hurt them too badly to ever hurt anyone else. Phillip assured him that he would be okay, that they would get help, and that dad would solve everything.
Eventually Phillip coaxed Christian up, and he was soon alerted to many policemen and medics, most of whom were focusing on Ajax's wounds. The Avalon boy was still unconscious and looked close to dead. No medic had come near Christian yet, though many were looking at him from afar to assess his medical needs. Christian couldn't feel a thing though, as if his body was non-existent and somehow had no ability to feel pain. He stared numbly at everything, and the numbness continued as a security came over and handcuffed his hands, to the anger of Phillip but Christian just mutely obliged. Christian found himself wanting dearly to look over at Blair and Fable, and Beck, to apologize, to see if they were okay, to show he was sorry. But he couldn't. He felt immense shame. This was a problem that he thought he had under control, he thought that this new drug helped him control these problems, but it looked like he relied too much on pills and medication. He needed therapy, or isolation, or ostracization... Or something. He didn't want to hurt anyone ever again. He felt that in this moment, he would rather have his arms cut off, or to be blinded, than to hurt someone again. He needed to fix everything. But as he looked up and managed to glance at Blair, he could see the mark he had left on her face. HIM. Not Ajax. He felt his heart squeeze so tight he thought he might die, and he looked away, the pain too evident in looking at her. He and Phillip began to walk away with security, as they began to talk to Christian saying that this was a terrible crime. Christian didn't know how to respond so he said nothing, and Phillip told him to wait until his lawyer or other family members could help him and get the full story out. But Christian knew what the full story was. The full story was that he was a monster, and he had hurt Ajax, Beck and Blair. Only one of those people had deserved it, and even then, he had gone far too overboard in his effort to protect his girlfriend. All he did, was hurt her. He wondered what she thought of him, did she hate him? Did she wish pain upon him? Did she still love him somehow? He wondered this all the way to the police office, and sat down to answer the questions given to him.
After a number of hours and many questions answered, Christian felt relieved and yet terrified when they allowed him to go home, but stated that until further notice he was not allowed to exit his home for any reason. Christian again only numbly nodded, to show that he understood. This was preferable, now nobody would hurt except him. They also said he needed to be checked over by a medic, and said they had one waiting and would get Christian checked out before he needed to leave. Christian and Phillip politely exited to station and walked back home, all the while in silence, an unusual instance for Phillip. It wasn't till they were nearly home that Phillip stopped him and turned to force him to look him in the eye. "Christian. I know how you feel. I've seen this all before in you. This wasn't good, but it wasn't purposeful. You will be fine, and in no time at all it will all be forgotten. Blair loves you, I'm sure she won't hold this against you. You need to make sure you don't hold it against yourself." He squeezed Christian's shoulder, then pulled him in for a brotherly hug. "We will make it all okay." He murmured to him. Before they entered the house. Christian moved straight up to his bedroom, locking the door behind him and flopping on the bed. His window sat open, a cool breeze entering his room and tickling his hair. His ribs ached from the impact Beck had given them, and felt even worse now that they were bound up and Christian had also run out of adrenaline. His jaw also felt sore and he had many cuts and bruises covering his body, including a possible sprained ankle and fractured knuckles. He coverd his face with the blankets of his bed, taking a strong whiff and tensing in pain as he smelled the smell of Blair's perfume emanating from the blankets. His heart squeezed. Would she forgive him? Like Phillip said? Or would she hate him for the monster he had become? He felt there was no excuse he could ever make for his performance today, and for the abuse he had given out.
Interacting with: Blair
WanderLust.
Beck
spyder
Fable
Sanctuaryforall1
Cassidy "Cassie" Wickham || 16 || Initiate || Erudite Transfer
Cassidy smiled charmingly as everyone took a deep huff of the vape, her eyebrow raising in delight as Shay took a rather deep one and seemed quite comfortable doing so. She knew this girl must have a fun and outgoing part of her that she was keeping under wraps, and Cassidy intended to strip away at the wall that Shay had obviously built around herself. No normal person did the things that Shay did, shutting people out and being colder to friends than she was to strangers. Something bothered Shay, and therefore bothered Cas (until she could figure it out). But this was step 2 in that journey, step 1 had been more just getting to know Shay and flirting with her in hopes that her walls would become less foundational, less sturdy. Whether or not her plan was working, Cas was enjoying herself immensely and had no reason to dislike Shay as of yet. But it still surprised her. Unsurprisingly though, Cas wasn't shocked that Chet struggled a tiny bit with the vape, but Cas wasn't sure if that was due to the actual vape, the flavor, the hit, or the nervousness of being in the presence of three hot girls. Lainey also took it happily and without reaction, passing it back to Cassidy. She herself took another deep breath, before placing it down so she could use it again later. The drugs within began to help her body stop tensing, to help her stress drop and anxieties float away. She felt more relaxed, even reclining into a lazy position that still looked quite sexy, and watching the other three. She jumped when Lev, Shay's cat, began to rub up against her bare skin, sending goosebumps travelling up towards Cassidy's neck. She shivered and made a small face, before smiling slightly at the very friendly cat. She noticed as Shay leaned in to let her know to say no to the cat if need be. "Thanks, but as long as he doesn't use his nails, I'm fine." She assured her, giving the fluffy cat a pet on the head between the ears, before bringing it back.
When Shay suggested spin the bottle, Cassidy's eyebrows both raised, before lowering as a smirking little grin began to work its way back onto her face. Her eyes flicked to Lainey and Chet, who were both happily, and awkwardly, getting to know each other. "That sounds like a great idea Shay. Lainey, why don't you go first?" She suggested, Lainey agreed, before asking what rules they were applying. "Well, there's not many of us, how about whoever it lands on you have to kiss or take a shot." She chuckled softly, knowing that this would make the game much more fun. Lainey's eyes twinkled and she nodded in agreement, awaiting Shay's response which came quickly, and Chet also eventually said that it sounded fun. Lainey placed the empty bottle on the ground and spun it quickly. The bottle spun round a number of times, before landing on Cassidy, Lainey giggled and began to lean in for a kiss, before dodging away to take a shot. "Aww, scared to kiss me Lainey?" Cassidy fake pouted as she watched Lainey's nose scrunch adorably from the alcohol. Cassidy then grabbed the bottle, and spun, landing on Chet. She thought about it for a moment, but one glance at Lainey and she could tell that a kiss towards Chet was not a good idea right now, Lainey had to be the first to kiss him, if anyone. Cassidy shrugged unempathetically, and took one of the shots, wincing slightly as she did so. She was likely going to regret this in the morning. Chet spun the bottle, and it landed on Lainey. The girls all held their breath as Chet seemed to falter, obviously unsure of which he should take. Cassidy rolled her eyes softly, out of his sight, and tapped the ground with her fingers, waiting for the tension to be released. Finally, with enough tension to cut with a knife, Chet leaned forward and gently kissed Lainey's lips. It was every so sweet and ever so short that Cassidy might have missed it if she had blinked. "Is that all? Next time, I expect more from you." Cassidy said, yawning and winking at Lainey at the same time. Lainey laughed adorably as she blushed from the comments and the kiss itself.
As the game went on, there were more silly kisses between the girls, and fun shots taken, causing everyone to become slightly intoxicated and rediculous. The vape was now lying centrally between the four so anyone could take some if they wanted. Everyone had removed their shoes and jackets, feeling warm from the apartment and the alcohol running through their system. It was now Lainey's turn again, and the bottle pointed straight at Cassidy. Cassidy giggled, leaning back on her elbows. Lainey looked at the shots, but her body was already slightly wavy from the alcohol consumed already, not including the drugs and exhaustion. She shrugged and leaned over, climbing onto Cassidy stupidly and planting a kiss on the girls lips. Cassidy's hands playfully tickled Lainey's sides, causing the girl to yelp and roll off of Cassidy and into Chet, causing a giggling sensation around the room. Cassidy licked her lips as she sat up properly, giggled happening still from everyone else, and held the bottle, waiting to spin it. Lainey still sat so close to Chet that Cassidy raised an eyebrow. "If it lands towards you two, do I have to kiss you both?" She teased, watching as they tensed up then started laughing at the thought. Cassidy rolled her eyes, before spinning the bottle aggressively, watching as it spun many times round and round and round. Finally it stopped, pointing at Shay. Cassidy had not gotten Shay yet, or had taken a shot when she had, but now, she wondered desparately how the attractive, tall, Dauntless girl's lips tasted. She had been happily staring at her a few times tonight, wondering if she would be nice to kiss, to know. Cassidy knew she wanted to try something, so she inched closer, and ever so gently she tilted her face and locked lips with the mysterious girl. The kiss was not long, but Cas felt a spark of excitement blossom in her as she let their lips linger, before pulling back and sitting happily in her spot again. "Well, now that everyone's been kissed at least once, should we continue? Or play truth or dare? You should decide Shay, given that it's your turn with the bottle. Instead of kissing someone you could just ask them a truth I guess? That could be fun." Cassidy said, eyes looking at everyone, and then lingering on Shay.
Interacting with: Shay
Sanctuaryforall1
Lainey
WanderLust.
Chet
spyder
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Shayla
code by Stardust Galaxy
PlusUltra
Five Thousand Club
Maeve would walk forward towards her new home with purpose, casting her gaze across the dauntless dormitory complex that was many leagues beyond her former hide holds and crevices she had grown up within. If she felt anything at this point it was satisfaction, though her detachment from such things made it difficult she was fairly certain this would be the case, this was what she had been aiming and working towards so there were few other feelings that would make sense were there?. In any case, she had a residence, a place to grow and carve herself by hook or by crook, and a clear path to the life she believed she was seeking.
Shifting a small satchel to her side she took a moment to place a hand on the front door in contemplation, running across its cold surface as her mind went over the series of events that had brought her to this point. There was the Abnegation woman she had used to even get this opportunity, the wounds she paid in exchange for that had still yet to fully heal but it was a bargain all the same. Then there was the testing, the simulations that attempted to play with her mind until she solved the puzzle to end them, but breaking them down carefully, logically analyzing them and then uncovering the truth had allowed her to proceed onward all the same. She idly thumbed a small piece of metal in her pocket, one of the many items she had kept hidden but was instrumental in separating simulation from reality in her mind, to ensure she knew the difference and so could act accordingly.
Though regardless of all this, she now needed to establish herself within her new home, a home she would need to share with others for the first time in her life, others who she would need to pick apart and understand if she was going to force her place into these walls. So with that final thought, she takes a breath and pushes forward inside, crossing the precipice to another unknown to take in the new environment. She had held this off until now, mainly due to adjusting to people was something that took some time, she had little trust to sleep close to another unguarded and so had made herself content with resting within high holes and secluded tops of the compound where she could be aware of approaching individuals. Now though, with the final test drawing near she would need to take that step and risk it within the barracks, though she at least still kept a familiar dented metal pipe close by, she wasn't that comfortable yet.
When it all started however she had remained off to the side watching, seemingly unseen by many of the minds of those there and just part of the crowd of hopefuls. That's not to say some did not attempt to greet or connect with her, and in any other situation she may have been tempted to reciprocate the gestures, but not during these tests, a decision that had been proven correct, one by one people were picked off and fell, failing from there prospective future to become factionless. Some would think she would hold sympathy to those people, but again she had no connection to them, and she had lived factionless her entire life so far, if they were weak enough to fall so soon, then she doubted to they would be strong enough to live that sort of life.
Stowing away a few of her belongings in the barracks and seeing nobody else there, she moved off once more, intent on finally observing what seemed to be unfounded celebrations. There was still a test remaining and yet she had seen many partying and gorging themselves as if they had finally passed to become a member of the faction. Most of them probably didn't even consider the chance of failure, just like those who had fallen before this point, It was probably the fact they had lived within a home and faction their entire life until this point, the concept of being factionless alien to them and so in ignorance, they continued on. Finally moving out she made her way to move through the crowds, taking her now empty satchel to fill with food items from the carts and bottles from the bars, intent on saving them for later for good or ill.
Shifting a small satchel to her side she took a moment to place a hand on the front door in contemplation, running across its cold surface as her mind went over the series of events that had brought her to this point. There was the Abnegation woman she had used to even get this opportunity, the wounds she paid in exchange for that had still yet to fully heal but it was a bargain all the same. Then there was the testing, the simulations that attempted to play with her mind until she solved the puzzle to end them, but breaking them down carefully, logically analyzing them and then uncovering the truth had allowed her to proceed onward all the same. She idly thumbed a small piece of metal in her pocket, one of the many items she had kept hidden but was instrumental in separating simulation from reality in her mind, to ensure she knew the difference and so could act accordingly.
Though regardless of all this, she now needed to establish herself within her new home, a home she would need to share with others for the first time in her life, others who she would need to pick apart and understand if she was going to force her place into these walls. So with that final thought, she takes a breath and pushes forward inside, crossing the precipice to another unknown to take in the new environment. She had held this off until now, mainly due to adjusting to people was something that took some time, she had little trust to sleep close to another unguarded and so had made herself content with resting within high holes and secluded tops of the compound where she could be aware of approaching individuals. Now though, with the final test drawing near she would need to take that step and risk it within the barracks, though she at least still kept a familiar dented metal pipe close by, she wasn't that comfortable yet.
When it all started however she had remained off to the side watching, seemingly unseen by many of the minds of those there and just part of the crowd of hopefuls. That's not to say some did not attempt to greet or connect with her, and in any other situation she may have been tempted to reciprocate the gestures, but not during these tests, a decision that had been proven correct, one by one people were picked off and fell, failing from there prospective future to become factionless. Some would think she would hold sympathy to those people, but again she had no connection to them, and she had lived factionless her entire life so far, if they were weak enough to fall so soon, then she doubted to they would be strong enough to live that sort of life.
Stowing away a few of her belongings in the barracks and seeing nobody else there, she moved off once more, intent on finally observing what seemed to be unfounded celebrations. There was still a test remaining and yet she had seen many partying and gorging themselves as if they had finally passed to become a member of the faction. Most of them probably didn't even consider the chance of failure, just like those who had fallen before this point, It was probably the fact they had lived within a home and faction their entire life until this point, the concept of being factionless alien to them and so in ignorance, they continued on. Finally moving out she made her way to move through the crowds, taking her now empty satchel to fill with food items from the carts and bottles from the bars, intent on saving them for later for good or ill.
Nerdy.
Nerdy
Aubrey Amber Stark || 16 || Initiate || Dauntlessborn
Aubrey tried to act during the dinner and conversations. She tried to act like the "shocked little sister" who had just found out her sister was dating her instructor. From what she could imagine, she should feel awkward, slightly happy for Charlie, weirded out, shy and maybe a little antagonistic. But Aubrey had never been a terribly good actor, she was pissed, she was angry, she was disappointed, she was vengeful. Ghost deserved to die in a hole for what he had been doing to her mother and Charlie. Aubrey had to keep a tight reign on her tongue and body in order to not do anything to spell out exactly that she knew what was going on. That was her one trump card, that Ghost had no idea that she knew. He knew nothing. He was playing right into her hands, she would defeat him, she would save Charlie and she would make sure Ghost spent his days in the darkest, dirtiest cell in Dauntless, or in the deepest grave she could find. She kept her head down as dinner continued on, shoveling food into her mouth so that she couldn't answer anyone's questions or conversations even if she wanted to. Occasionally she would look up if the conversation sparked her interest or if her name was called, but on the whole she tried to stay by herself, and she would play it off as just the awkward teenage sister who didn't know how to act in this situation. She was grateful for Thorn's presence beside her, she wasn't alone, and she knew it must be hard for him to sit here knowing the same information that she did. He was probably just as eager as her to get Ghost out of the picture and away from Charlie. She wondered if it was as much a surprise for Thorn as it had been for Aubrey, finding out that Ghost was this abuser that they'd heard about. He had certainly looked shocked. Aubrey looked up at Ghost, watching as he sucked up to both Sasha and Charlie as if they were his pawns and he was the king. Even if Ghost wasn't abusing Charlie, Aubrey knew she would have hated to find out that he was dating her sister. He was so sleazy, he was so beneath her... He deserved to stay in whatever faction he originated from, because he sure didn't belong here. Nobody in initiation would argue with her over that, she was certain that people would sigh in relief if Ghost was removed, if he disappeared. Maverick and Bloom were awesome, Caspian had been awesome, Maggie had been cool and Harper had been a bad ass. Ghost was always the odd one out in that list. At least, from Aubrey's perspective.
When Ghost alerted Charlie to the fact her phone was going off, Aubrey tried to get a look at her sister's phone when she pulled it out of the bag, but given that Charlie was on the opposite side of the table, she couldn't see the screen. Charlie excused herself, and walked off to her bedroom. Aubrey frowned, who would be calling Charlie this late in the evening? She came to the conclusion that it was probably Bloom or Phillip, the only two people that she could think of (that weren't here) that were closest to Charlie. She wondered what they would want to say to her, and if Charlie would need to leave? That would make things very awkward, because Jeremy was probably on his way with his security. Oh she wish she could watch him slam through the door and put Ghost in chains. But she doubted it would come to that, Jeremy would probably wait till Ghost left the building and would ambush him then, as to not hurt anyone in here. She was sure he would do the right thing. She was caught up in her mind when Ghost's voice penetrated her thoughts like a knife, and she grimaced as she looked up at him, though quickly trying to change her expression to a more gentle form of disdain. What was he asking her about? If she cooked? Admittedly Aubrey had never needed to cook much in the Stark household, Sasha had always cooked for them, and Charlie had done so when Sasha was not home. Plus, Aubrey had spent the majority of her childhood in other people's homes, the Day's, the Park's, Caspian's... She tried to think on what food she did know how to cook. "Admittedly my mum and Charlie have done most of the cooking. Though I've always been the one to man the barbecue whenever we used it. But I do prefer to grab food on the go, easier, faster and usually involves hanging out with friends. Though of course, it's never as tasty as your food mum." Aubrey said, smiling at her mother. She was going to continue when Thorn tapped her, leaning in to whisper, asking whether he should keep an eye on Charlie and keep her away from Ghost. Aubrey frowned, they did have opportunity now to remove Charlie from Ghost and do something, but she was hoping to wait till after the dinner when they were leaving, to ambush and surprise Ghost, and to keep Sasha and hopefully Charlie completely away from any fighting. But she came up with an idea.
"Let's play this by ear... I'll play cards with Ghost and Sasha, why don't you go check on Charlie? She's been on the phone for ages and it might be serious. You should try to convince her to leave if someone has an emergency, so that she is already out of the picture. If she does, go with her. I can handle Ghost." Aubrey spoke softly, knowing it was dangerous to say it out loud, but thankfully Sasha had picked up the conversation and was speaking quite happily to Ghost, so their voices drowned out Aubrey's whisper. For all Ghost knew, Aubrey and Thorn were simply whispering on what their thoughts were of Ghost being Charlie's boyfriend, or "significant other". She nudged Thorn gently, and he stood up, excusing himself to go to the bathroom (though he would actually go find Charlie), while Aubrey waited for her opportunity to speak to her mother and Ghost. "Why don't we play a game of cards now? While our food settles?" Sasha's eyes lit up at Aubrey's suggestion, thanking Aubrey for thinking of it and saying that would be fun. She looked towards the bathroom and Charlie's room, asking whether or not the two should come out first. "We don't know how long they'll take, plus, it will get us all warmed up. I'm not sure if either of them would want to play anyway." Aubrey said with a shrug, hoping that would be enough to convince Sasha and Ghost that they should just do so now. After a couple seconds of thinking about it, Sasha said that made sense, and began to clear a space on the table for the three of them to play a game. Of course, Ghost had a pack of cards on him, and if he didn't, he had nabbed one of their packs of cards that Sasha kept above the refrigerator. Aubrey wasn't sure of which. But he began to deal, artfully and proudly saying what game they would play and briefly explaining the rules. Aubrey admittedly struggled to keep up with the instructions, her mind only on the hard facts that Ghost was hurting Charlie. So it was no surprise that even after a few rounds, Aubrey lost every single game. As it normally would, Aubrey's attitude shifted each game, annoyed at Ghost's proud and arrogant nature, annoyed that she was losing, and worry for Charlie. Thus, when she lost the last game, having won no points, she grumbled in annoyance when Sasha delightfully declared that she would need to go and whip some cream for their dessert.
Aubrey walked into the kitchen, taking half of the dirty dishes, while Sasha brought the other half. Sasha stood beside Aubrey and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Is everything okay Gem?" She asked, concern deep in her voice and gaze. Aubrey sighed, rolling her shoulders and trying to put a smile on her face. "Yeah, sorry mum, it's just... weird to have Ghost here for dinner. I'm used to him in the training room." She said. Sasha didn't seem to buy it, but she squeezed Aubrey's shoulder, saying that she was proud of Aubrey for trying to be here for Charlie to make her happy. Aubrey bit her lip. She wasn't here to make Charlie happy. She was here to make her safe. Sasha turned around, but instead of walking back to the table, Sasha seemed frozen on the spot, her gaze broken and worried. Catching onto this, Aubrey turned in a split second, almost spilling the liquid cream that she had poured into a bowl. She didn't know if anything were wrong yet, but the image of Ghost threatening Charlie was brought into her mind, an image that she had already painted of him. But instead, that was not what she saw. Charlie stood, pale as a sheet of paper, shaking and inaudible. Thorn stood beside her, an intense look of worry on his face as he tried to support Charlie who looked as if she might pass out on the spot. In Charlie's hand was her phone, distinctly turned away from everyone, so that the screen was hidden. Ghost had already gotten out of his chair and moved to Charlie's side, and Charlie's eyes were locked onto him as if... as if she were... terrified. Aubrey felt an intense feeling within her that confirmed her thoughts already, Charlie was scared of Ghost. Thorn spoke up, saying that Charlie wanted Ghost to take the phone call. But did she want him to? Or did she have to give it to him out of threats and fear? Aubrey knew it had to be the latter. Ghost seemed confused, but he took the phone off of Charlie and excused himself to Charlie's room to continue the phone call. Sasha told Thorn to let Charlie sit down, and he led her to a chair at the table, sitting her down and sitting beside her. Sasha knelt beside Charlie, and seemed to be calming her down. Aubrey though, Aubrey was watching, her hands had wrapped around a sharp kitchen knife as she watched the hall way waiting for Ghost to come back. If he even hinted at hurting Charlie while they were here. He would regret it. That's when it hit her. What if the phone call was Finn? He had seemed so angry, and determined to think that Aubrey's plan was flawed. What if he had told Charlie and Charlie had to give it to Ghost because she knew Ghost would hurt her if she kept this a secret from him? Aubrey would have thought this nonsense, but she could see as Charlie's haunted gaze floated towards her, but looked away in fear each time Aubrey looked back. What was going on?
Interacting with: Thorn
Sanctuaryforall1
Ghost
Aviator
Sasha, Charlie, Finn Charlotte "Charlie" Stark || 20 || Medic || Dauntlessborn
Charlotte hurried to her room as she held the phone up to her ear. It was Finn's number, but she could see from the notifications that he had already tried to call her a number of times tonight. She had turned off her phone to be in the moment, with Ghost, with her family, but now she regretted it. She should have kept the sounds on so that if an emergency happened she would hear about it, she wondered what emergency had happened, Finn never called her, plus, she hadn't heard from him in days, so this must really be something bad. She finally entered her room and closed the door behind her. "Hello Finn. Is everything okay?" She answered, trying to calm her breath and moving to the foot of her bed to sit down while she conversed with the Day boy. She was shocked at the speed and intensity of his voice. "Charlie! Is anyone around you? I need to speak with you urgently." Charlie felt her heart skip, she was right, there was an emergency. "No I'm alone right now, everyone else is in the dining room, I'm in my bedroom. What's wrong? Is somebody hurt?" Charlie asked, trying to rack her brain to figure out who would be hurt that would cause Finn to call her. Harper? Himself? Randi? It seemed so odd for him to bail out on coming to the dinner tonight but to call her. Maybe... maybe that had to do with it? She could hear Finn's sigh of relief when she said nobody was there, and she wondered why he would be glad... Why would he not want there to be anyone else around her while he spoke to her? "Does anyone know that I've called you?" His voice was more intense than Charlie had ever heard him speak, in all reality she was starting to fear that something truly terrible had happened, or was about to. "No, I excused myself before looking at my phone." She replied. "Finn what's going on?" She said, tension rising in her voice as she felt her heart beat begin to quicken in suspense. "Charlie, who did you bring with you tonight?" Finn's voice seemed strained, like he didn't want to know what the answer would be. But He was the one asking, so Charlie was confused. "I'm not sure why you.." Charlie tried to dodge the question, her cheeks going red. Why was Finn asking her about Ghost? She knew that Aubrey had told Finn about tonight and he was meant to come... but why would he need to know who it is. "JUST TELL ME... Sorry, Charlie this is really important. You need to tell me." Charlie jumped at Finn's voice as he raised it, only to apologize and reiterate his resolve without raising his voice a second time. Whatever his reasoning, Charlie could tell it was dreadfully important. "It's Ghost." She said, a blush forming on her cheek as she thought about how Ghost truly was here with her, and he was hers, for now. "Ghost? And tell me honestly Charlie, this is deadly important. Is he hurting you? Has he ever hurt you? Is he threatening you?" Charlie felt her heart throb at those words, why was Finn asking about that? That was ridiculous and if someone had started a terrible rumor that Ghost was hurting her, she felt a fire in her that wanted to stamp that out. "Of course not! That's ridiculous! Why would you think such a thing?" Charlie asked, almost angry that someone had suggested such a thing. The only person who hurts me is...
"Jeremy Daniels," Charlie froze. How Finn had finished a sentence that she had been thinking, she didn't know, but the very mention of Jeremy's name caused a cold shiver to run down her spine and she nearly dropped the phone. Why had Finn said his name? What did he know about Jeremy? That's when her mind replayed her last question to Finn... Jeremy was the reason that Finn thought those things? She needed to ask him why, she needed to find out, but as she went to ask, her body refused to say anything except... "J-Jeremy?" Her eyes couldn't blink, her heart beat faster and harder, thundering in her ears whenever Finn wasn't speaking. Like the sound of heavy footsteps, the room seemed to be shaking, her body felt numb and in pain all at the same time. Her head swam in circles as Finn began to speak again. "Jeremy has tasked Aubrey with finding someone, he claimed your lover was someone who had been abusing you, that that's where all your bruises came from. Aubrey is meant to alert him of who that man is, where he is, and to stop him if need be. I went with it, believing it too - Thorn has probably done the same, but now, I'm not so certain, something seemed off about it all and... well.. I thought I should ask you directly." Finn's voice ran through his sentences quickly, but it wouldn't have made a difference if he had been speaking as slowly as possible. Charlie could not comprehend anything more after hearing the first part of Finn's sentence. Jeremy had tasked Aubrey to find Ghost, and so she had. He had tricked her, to find the man who had beaten him and stopped his reign of terror on Charlie and Sasha. No... No... I'm safe! Ghost saved me! But... Now he's coming back! He's coming here! He's going to kill everyone! He's going to hurt me! Charlie's whole world began to shake and morph as her brain began to collapse again into a panic attack. Is he here now? Is he the thundering I can hear? Has he already killed everyone? He's about to come through those doors! He's going to come into my room. I'm not safe. Charlie slid off of the bed, her body hitting the floor, and it was a miracle she heard Finn's voice through the phone, as she had dropped it on the floor. Finn... she had to save someone... she could save Finn... She shakily picked up the phone, bringing it to her ear. In her mind, she knew what she needed to say, she could hear herself saying it. Finn go! Run! Hide! Save yourself! But no words came out of her dry lips, as she sat there, eyes wide, lips open but un-moving. "Charlie? Charlie? CHARLIE!? Please talk to me..." Finn's voice was terribly strained, worry lacing each word and sentence. Charlie could only bring herself to talk in small words and sentences though, as she feared alerting Jeremy to her presence, believing him to be here already. "Here.." She said, unable to say anything else. Finn was quiet for a moment, Charlie didn't know why, but she her imagination wondered if Jeremy had already found Finn and was hurting him right now. "Charlie, can you take the phone to Ghost? Please... Just take it to Ghost." Charlie shook her head, her mind not comprehending that Finn could not see her. She couldn't leave her room, she had to hide, she had to hide quickly. She couldn't... she couldn't be in these clothes! If Jeremy saw her in such clothes he would flip out, he would touch her, he would hurt her, he would scream at her and he would punish her for wearing such things for anyone but him.
The knock at the door caused Charlie to squeal, loud enough for Thorn to open the door, but not so loud as to alert the whole house. Thorn opened the door slightly, his gentle face and eyes searching the room, until he saw her, and his eyes widened. He opened the door, rushing to her side and kneeling beside her. He wasn't Jeremy... Was he here to tell her that everyone else was dead? That they had to escape? The thundering in her head was still there, so maybe Jeremy was chasing Thorn. Finn must have heard Thorn's voice, because he had fallen silent on the phone, that Charlie clutched tightly to her chest, hiding the screen. If Thorn was working with Aubrey, then he couldn't know that Finn had just told her. She trusted Thorn with her life, but if he believed Ghost was hurting her, he might do something... he might turn the phone off. She needed... she needed to get the phone to Ghost. How would she avoid Jeremy though? What if Ghost was already dead? She stared almost lifelessly into Thorn's eyes, she could tell he was talking, but her ears only caught half sentences and words. Okay? Is he asking me if I'm okay? I'm not okay. I'm not safe. He's not safe. Nobody is safe. We're all going to die. She looked at the phone again, then back up to Thorn. "Ghost... I... Need to give the phone... to Ghost..." Charlie groaned, as if the words pained her to speak, and she whispered them so quietly that Thorn had to lean in close to hear her. Thorn asked if she was certain, and she nodded. If she could save Ghost's life. She would. She tried to stand, but her body wavered and tipped, so Thorn looped an arm around her to help her walk. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, she wanted to hide, but she couldn't move without Thorn's help. Her life... Her life had been a nightmare from when she was 13 till a few weeks ago when Ghost had saved her life. Now, now that was all undone. Jeremy was going to kill Ghost, and then ruin her life again. He would probably kill Aubrey too, and Thorn, and Finn... She was hardly aware that they had entered the dining room until Ghost was right there in front of her, his sepia colored eyes showing real concern as he looked at her. If he was speaking, she couldn't hear. Her body had already begun to go into auto-pilot, believing her life to be in danger, and had transported her in time to when Jeremy was still hurting her. All she could convey to Ghost was through her eyes, as she stared with terror, with deep fear, into those gorgeous warm eyes. When Ghost reached out for the phone, she remembered the one thought. Give the phone to Ghost. And she obeyed, letting Ghost take it and watching as he brushed her fingers slightly, before rushing away. Good, he's going to run away. Be safe. Don't stay with me Ghost, you'll get hurt. She thought. Thorn led her to a chair, and Charlie sat down gratefully, her body struggling to keep itself up. Thorn himself brought his chair closer to her, and no longer touched her, but sat as close as he could. Sasha knelt beside her, holding both of her hands and gently rubbing her wrists with her thumbs, circles. Charlie didn't know how long it would be till everyone in here was dead, but she was grateful to see them all alive right now. Sasha began to gently soothe her with a quiet voice and calming words. Charlie fought the urge to sob, her body shaking like a leaf. "He's coming back..." She said with a soft and quiet voice, though strained and terrified. Sasha shook her head, and continued to affirm that Charlie was safe, telling her softly where she was. "You're at home, we're having dinner, Thorn and I are right beside you." Sasha gently took one of Thorn's hands and placed Charlie's within them, motioning for him to continue soothing her as she had been doing. Charlie's eyes switched to Thorn for a moment, feeling his warm hands caress her own, like Henry used to do. Soon she felt a warm blanket cover her shoulders, it tickled her bare skin in a way that she kind of liked, and she felt herself begin to be grounded back into reality, if only slightly. Her eyes hauntingly looked at Aubrey whenever she wasn't looking at her. Aubrey is tasked with telling Jeremy where Ghost is. Jeremy is coming here. He's probably right outside. Charlie's eyes looked at the door, and it seemed to darken and morph before her very eyes.
But as if by magic, her nose caught the whiff of a familiar scent. Peach and rose tea. The sweet flavor drifted up to Charlie's nose, and she turned her head back to the table where a hot cup of tea had just been poured. Sasha urged her to pick it up, and Charlie gently pulled her hands out of Thorn's, shakily taking the teacup in her own and beginning to sip on it. Each sip seemed to bring her body, mind and soul back into reality. She was home. Jeremy maybe wasn't here yet. Maybe Aubrey hadn't told him yet. Ghost was talking to Finn and would be safe, he had to be. She took a deep breath, finally feeling color come back into her cheeks and soul back into her body. That's when she began to cry, the tears that had been held back by the shock and panic began to fall, streaming down her face. "I'm sorry mum." She said, unable to say more. The crying didn't last long, and the tears soon stopped, but her posture remained as one who was hiding. Curled up on the chair, almost hiding in the blanket, holding and touching nothing but the cup of tea. Although Charlotte Stark seemed to be back in her body, back in real life, back in the present instead of the past, she was still shaken and shocked. She felt guilty for how everyone was looking at her now, how they must think of her, how she might have saved them if she had just been in control. Would she someday let people die because of a panic attack? She shook at the very thought, continuing to sip on the tea. She looked at Thorn, her eyes still haunted and full of fear. "Where's Ghost?" She asked, terror masking her voice.
Interacting with: Thorn, Ghost, Sasha, Aubrey, Finn
Wolfiee
Meow
Ooc: I’m searching for a fancy currently. If anyone has a suggestion let me know!
This was what she had always wanted ever since she was little and that was friends. While within the Erudite faction she had grown close with two others those being Cas and Lainey. In all honesty if it hadn’t been for those two she probably wouldn’t have survived they had been there for her when things were rough at home. She never quite told them of the abuse she suffered within her homes walls but at times it was obvious. There would be days when Aya couldn’t quite walk a straight or she would cover up her hands with gloves then flinch whenever anyone would so much as lightly graze them. When Aya discovered the two were also transferring to Dauntless it had been like a dream come true having them and just escaping the hell she called home. It hadn’t taken long for them all to grow a bit closer with others as weeks had passed since transferring it was only natural to make new friends. That in mind her gaze flicked towards Shay a usually reserved young woman this Aya could respect not everyone instantly opened up. She had a feeling Shay was hiding some deeper emotions within those intelligent eyes of hers. However Aya wasn’t the type to push any issues how could she cast the first stone when she herself never opened up about what had happened back at her old home. The effects still lasted even now with light scars marring her milky skin soft pink lines covered her calves, back, and top of her hands. Then there was the fact anytime she heard screaming she flinched away curling into herself depending on how bad the screaming was. When times like this happened she often would get away from her friends just taking a moment to collect herself until she was more presentable again.
Aya finally shook her head lightly clearing her mind of the past wanting to focus on the fun games being played now. She brushed her raven black locks out of her face as she listened to the others. Cas was asking about the game and how they should proceed as Shay placed her hand on the bottle giving her suggestion about it before looking towards the group of them. “I like that idea Shay plus it seems like it might make it even more fun. We could all use a bit of fun with it being our only day off like this.” she said a small smile curling her lips. It was a rather nice day having the day off was something they didn’t always get to enjoy well not on this scale at least and besides soon enough it would be time for the fear sims again. That was something none of them like not even the dauntless born it seemed many of them acted tough unbothered by it which wasn’t surprising. Though after the simulations you could see they were just as affected by them like everyone else. However right now she’d rather focus once more on the games and having fun with her friends while she could. The usual straight laced female had even changed up her usual attire for today wearing a ribbon and lace black dress while her long ink black hair was cascading down her back. Her hands no longer wearing gloves upon them today they were folded lightly in her lap placed upon her sketch book keeping it upon her lap. She had been drawing earlier not quite ready to join in the games but more to observe them wanting to take in her friends happy faces. While they played she’d taken in every detail she could about them using that to sketch them wanting to remember this moment forever with them. The drawing was now finished hidden within the confines of her sketchbook.
She slowly placed her pencils and sketchbook to the side before fully joining the others where they sat. “I hope it’s alright if I join in now? It’s been rather fun watching you all so far.” she said eyes lighting up with warmth. It had been rather fun watching them all as she drew them so now she’d prefer to be in on the action. She wanted to ask Shay something having learned a little about her from Cass. Cass had mentioned to her about Shay being at the tattoo shop and how she’d given suggestions to help make the art placed upon the body even more beautiful. She wondered if Shay would be able to help her with some suggestions for tattoos though she’d much rather speak with her alone about it. It wasn’t something she wanted broadcasted around so maybe getting to know Shay a bit more would help ease the tension so she could ask to speak with her privately later.
Interacting: Cas
Nerdy.
Shay
Sanctuaryforall1
Lainey
WanderLust.
This was what she had always wanted ever since she was little and that was friends. While within the Erudite faction she had grown close with two others those being Cas and Lainey. In all honesty if it hadn’t been for those two she probably wouldn’t have survived they had been there for her when things were rough at home. She never quite told them of the abuse she suffered within her homes walls but at times it was obvious. There would be days when Aya couldn’t quite walk a straight or she would cover up her hands with gloves then flinch whenever anyone would so much as lightly graze them. When Aya discovered the two were also transferring to Dauntless it had been like a dream come true having them and just escaping the hell she called home. It hadn’t taken long for them all to grow a bit closer with others as weeks had passed since transferring it was only natural to make new friends. That in mind her gaze flicked towards Shay a usually reserved young woman this Aya could respect not everyone instantly opened up. She had a feeling Shay was hiding some deeper emotions within those intelligent eyes of hers. However Aya wasn’t the type to push any issues how could she cast the first stone when she herself never opened up about what had happened back at her old home. The effects still lasted even now with light scars marring her milky skin soft pink lines covered her calves, back, and top of her hands. Then there was the fact anytime she heard screaming she flinched away curling into herself depending on how bad the screaming was. When times like this happened she often would get away from her friends just taking a moment to collect herself until she was more presentable again.
Aya finally shook her head lightly clearing her mind of the past wanting to focus on the fun games being played now. She brushed her raven black locks out of her face as she listened to the others. Cas was asking about the game and how they should proceed as Shay placed her hand on the bottle giving her suggestion about it before looking towards the group of them. “I like that idea Shay plus it seems like it might make it even more fun. We could all use a bit of fun with it being our only day off like this.” she said a small smile curling her lips. It was a rather nice day having the day off was something they didn’t always get to enjoy well not on this scale at least and besides soon enough it would be time for the fear sims again. That was something none of them like not even the dauntless born it seemed many of them acted tough unbothered by it which wasn’t surprising. Though after the simulations you could see they were just as affected by them like everyone else. However right now she’d rather focus once more on the games and having fun with her friends while she could. The usual straight laced female had even changed up her usual attire for today wearing a ribbon and lace black dress while her long ink black hair was cascading down her back. Her hands no longer wearing gloves upon them today they were folded lightly in her lap placed upon her sketch book keeping it upon her lap. She had been drawing earlier not quite ready to join in the games but more to observe them wanting to take in her friends happy faces. While they played she’d taken in every detail she could about them using that to sketch them wanting to remember this moment forever with them. The drawing was now finished hidden within the confines of her sketchbook.
She slowly placed her pencils and sketchbook to the side before fully joining the others where they sat. “I hope it’s alright if I join in now? It’s been rather fun watching you all so far.” she said eyes lighting up with warmth. It had been rather fun watching them all as she drew them so now she’d prefer to be in on the action. She wanted to ask Shay something having learned a little about her from Cass. Cass had mentioned to her about Shay being at the tattoo shop and how she’d given suggestions to help make the art placed upon the body even more beautiful. She wondered if Shay would be able to help her with some suggestions for tattoos though she’d much rather speak with her alone about it. It wasn’t something she wanted broadcasted around so maybe getting to know Shay a bit more would help ease the tension so she could ask to speak with her privately later.
Interacting: Cas
Nerdy.
Shay
Sanctuaryforall1
Lainey
WanderLust.
Wolfiee
Meow
It was turning out to be an amazing day so far with there being absolutely nothing he needed to do. Rhys had spent some time at the tattoo shop getting his Cerberus tattoo touched up while he could. Now his leg was slightly bandaged up to protect the new refreshed tattoo giving a slightly dull ache but one he enjoyed. He wasn’t sure where too head to next other then maybe just walking around some more. The male also wasn’t sure where everyone was at he could text them, but honestly he didn’t feel like bothering them. He figured if he saw anyone while running around he could hang with them then. ‘You could always just message them. It’s not like they hate you.’ a slightly deeper voice of his own spoke in his mind nearly startling him. It wasn’t often that he openly communicated with the other persons within him. It was Rafe speaking to him this time causing Rhys to scowl at the sudden intrusion. ‘I know that.’ He said back to the other then continued walking down the street again. He wasn’t about to let Rafe or Rain ruin his day it was his own time he was gonna take advantage of it.
Rafe headed towards the apartment his aunt had bought for him awhile ago as a gift and just wanting the young male to learn to live on his own. Once inside he grabbed his motorcycle keys planning on taking it out for a bit. Then he grabbed his small backpack tossing his wallet in with a few other things so he’d have them with him. He decided to go and get his motorcycle checked out wanting to make sure it was in perfect condition. He stopped at a shop letting the mechanic know the bike just needed a tune up. Rhys nodded as he was told it would be ready in about an hour or so he could go do a few things near by if he wished. “Perfect thanks I’ll be back in a bit.” he said before heading out. Now he just needed to figure out how to kill time that’s when he saw the icecream shop a bit down the way that would be a good place for now.
Once there he ordered himself a big thing of chocolate icecream with Oreos a favorite of his. He sat down out on sidewalk just wanting to observe the others who were out and about today. His gaze fell upon a certain red head as she seemed to be walking quickly down the street her face showed clear signs of being upset. Though he could see she was trying her best to hide it so he swiftly got up wanting to check on her. He looked around checking he was clear to cross the street before running over to her.”Hey Fable wait up!” he called to her not wanting to suddenly touch her. He himself didn’t like suddenly being touched without an announcement so he wasn’t about to do that to her. “Are you doing alright?” he asked once closer his icecream still held within his left hand currently forgotten as he checked on her. Then he flushed realizing she might not want the attention cast on her. “Sorry if I’m bothering you I just saw you looked a little upset so I didn’t want to just let you head off without checking you were ok first.” he said his free hand scratching at the back of his head showing his slight embarrassment at suddenly ambushing her a bit.
Interactions: Fable
Sanctuaryforall1
Aviator
all colors lead to gray
Ghost // Male // Age 18 // Training Instructor // Erudite to Dauntless
Aubrey appeared to consider Ghost’s question carefully, but when she spoke her voice was as colorless and clear as window glass. She punctuated her compliment to Sasha with a bland smile that skewed the lower half of her face into a collection of tight lines while leaving the upper half untouched. “Yes, I agree,” Ghost said with a sagacious nod. “I’d love to learn how to cook, but it’s a skill that’s too time-consuming for me to ever properly employ because I’m always on the move.” Before his parents’ deaths, they’d had a house staff who saw to their every culinary desire, and other than sheer curiosity there had been no practical reason for Ghost to even know where the kitchen was located. And then after, when it had been just Margot and him, Ghost had nearly started a house fire when he’d once left a piece of toast in the toaster for too long on too high a setting. She’d never given him a worse thrashing, and that had been the end of his abbreviated cooking lessons. “So for that reason I much prefer— Oh.”
He broke off awkwardly as Thorn swooped in close to Aubrey and whispered something in her ear. She subtly angled her body away from Ghost and toward Thorn as she responded, making it clear that she was no longer paying attention to what he had to say. Ghost internally wilted and wondered how apparent it was to Sasha, whose warm gaze he still felt resting on him. Before anyone said anything else, Thorn abruptly but politely stood from the dinner table, excusing himself to the bathroom. He was barely out of his chair before Aubrey visibly brightened and sat straight in her seat, suggesting that they play cards. Sasha clapped her hands together in delight and immediately began to rearrange the assortment of plates and utensils so that there was empty space on the table. “An excellent suggestion,” Ghost chimed in, “but to play spades we need a fourth player. If Thorn’s just going to the bathroom, then we won’t be waiting long, so I’ll explain the rules when he—”
But Aubrey overrode him, asserting that the game they played now would be a warm-up to spades. Ghost deflated a little, intuiting that, despite what Aubrey said, this game would be the main and only event, but seeing no gracious way to decline. “Well, okay,” he acquiesced, perusing his mental repertoire of three-person games, of which there were not many. Just rummy, thirty-one, and poker, but they had no chips for the latter, and rummy with only one deck was a dreadfully formulaic game.
“How about we play a game very similar to blackjack? Otherwise known as twenty-one,” he suggested. In Ghost’s experience among casual card players, some of them were familiar with twenty-one but not blackjack or vice versa, despite them being two names for the same game. “The only difference is that, in thirty-one, you can’t bust. You have three cards at all times and are trying to get as close as possible to the maximum and ideal score of thirty-one, which you get with an ace and two faces. Players take turns picking up from either the deck or the top card of the discard pile, and you have to discard to end your turn. The only catch is, your total in one suit is your score. So if you have a king and queen of diamonds but an ace of clubs, your total is twenty, because the ace won’t stack atop the diamonds. However, the alternative to getting high cards in one suit is getting any three of a kind at all, because they’re all worth thirty points and have no hierarchy. You knock when you feel confident that you can win.” Sasha’s gaze was clear and she nodded along to Ghost’s description of the rules as if she understood perfectly, while he caught Aubrey staring vacantly down the hallway behind him. “Altogether, it creates a game that’s more cerebral than blackjack. Less luck-based. So how about it?”
The Stark women nodded, one significantly more enthusiastic than the other. Halfway through Ghost’s explanation, a deck of playing cards had appeared in his hands, and he shuffled and cut with his usual dexterous panache. The theme of this deck was lucky cats, the backs of which were pomegranate red with a waving maneki-neko cat in gold. The fronts all depicted a different amount and design of waving cartoon cats, depending on the number of the card. The suits were different colors, too: purple, green, red, and blue. Ghost dealt the cards swiftly and with one hand. Sasha, like him, strategically kept the cards facedown on the table when it was not her turn, and when it was, she held them close to her chest as to minimize her chances of bleeding. In comparison, Aubrey held hers loosely, intermittently using them to fan herself, either not considering or caring that she was making them visible to her opponents every time she did. Well, so long as she doesn’t call clubs “clovers,” Ghost thought, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. And God forbid she call spades those little “upside-down heart thingies,” as he was used to hearing from novice players yet still cringed every time.
Hands of thirty-one were short and fast, so they agreed to play to three wins. Sasha surprised Ghost when she knocked on her third turn of the first hand and threw down a nine, jack, and ace of spades, giving her thirty points. She won the hand. During the showdown, he noted that Aubrey’s three cards were all different suits, accumulating in a total of eight. On the next hand Ghost tied the score with a seven, ten, and queen of hearts. The game flip-flopped between Sasha and him, while Aubrey remained stubbornly at zero, as if she were deliberately losing so that one of the other two players could reach three wins more quickly and thus end her suffering. Ghost was a little peeved that Sasha went after Aubrey in the turn order, enabling her to pick up her daughter’s careless discards. Finally, in a feat of extreme luck on the final hand, Ghost dealt himself two kings and drew into a third one on his first turn. He knocked, Aubrey and Sasha each took their final turns, and on the reveal Sasha only had twenty-five to his thirty.
“Play to win, or not at all,” Ghost chirruped. He wore a dagger smile as he cleaned up the maneki-neko cards. “Albeit, I only won that final hand because I had the lucky cats on my side.” Amazingly, Thorn had not returned from his bathroom break for the duration of the game. Sasha promised Ghost an eventual rematch that would even the score. Then she and Aubrey vanished into the kitchen each with an armload of plates, Sasha waving off Ghost’s offer to wash his own dishes. He settled back in his seat, noticing for the first time that his palms were slippery with a sheen of sweat that the low-stakes game of thirty-one had not been thrilling enough to warrant.
Ghost took out his phone and replaced the empty space in his pocket with the deck of cards. He was in the process of entering his pin when the chatter in the kitchen sharply broke off. Silence flooded the room, thick and bitter as a lungful of smoke. Ghost looked up to find both Stark women staring through the kitchen’s open window at something past his shoulder. He twisted in his seat. Charlie and Thorn stood together in the mouth of the hallway, utterly speechless the both of them. Charlie was holding her phone so that the screen pressed against the front of her dress, unreadable to everyone. She wore an expression that dilated all of her features to twice their size. Her lower lip wobbled dangerously. Whereas other people generally use words to communicate, it never ceased to amaze Ghost how much one of Charlie’s silences could say.
He was the one to break it. “Did something happen?”
Charlie turned halfway in his direction. She blinked once, twice, and tears glittered in her eyes like tiny chips of diamond. Thorn answered in her stead, saying that the phone was for Ghost to take. A jolt passed through Ghost, as if he had missed a stair. His eyes thinned to slits when he looked at Thorn, but he obediently stood, crossed to Charlie, and briefly clasped her to his chest in a hug, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear. Not because he wanted to, but because he felt that’s what a good boyfriend should have done. And so they held each other for a wordless moment. Then Ghost accepted the phone that Charlie was thrusting at him while their bodies were pressed close together, so that no one would be able to see its screen as it changed hands. “It’s funny,” he drawled to Thorn in an undertone as he pulled away, “how you disappear to the bathroom for fifteen minutes and then come back with my girlfriend almost in tears. So, did you go to the bathroom with Charlotte, or was that just a fib for you to wander elsewhere?”
Something about the evening’s events was just… off. Ghost sensed it the same way that he could sense the unnatural stillness of a dark alley, and knew there was a likely chance that he would get jumped if he ventured down it. First there was Aubrey’s insistence that they play a card game right at that moment, then Thorn being in the bathroom for a quarter of an hour, and now Charlie returning from her mysterious phone call with an expression like she had just walked over her own grave. And before any of that Aubrey had run upstairs almost as soon as she’d come home, never mind that she had a guest of her own to entertain. Ghost was no stranger to taking his sweet time getting ready, but wouldn’t she have done that earlier when she’d known of the dinner well in advance?
Ghost didn’t know anything about Thorn besides his name, but he did know that if Thorn had laid a hand on Charlie in any way, hell would look like a sauna by the time Ghost was done with him.
With a last baleful look at Thorn, Ghost put Charlie’s phone to his ear and turned away, wondering which of his countless enemies would be waiting on the other end to threaten him. The sweat on his palms had spread to his forehead and spine. “Hello?”
“Ghost?” the voice of a teenage boy rasped, as if he were about to disclose secret information and wanted to ensure no others overheard. “Are you alone?”
Ghost’s immediate thought was to ask the speaker’s identity, but Charlie wouldn’t have taken such pains to hide her phone if that were something she wanted the room’s other occupants to know. “Ah, just a second,” he replied, striding down the hallway from which Charlie and Thorn had emerged. Halfway down he encountered a partly open door with a dark interior. Ghost reached inside, groped for a light switch, and stumbled inside the honey-colored bathroom that appeared before him. He moved a little too suddenly, lost his balance, and caught himself on the edge of the porcelain sink with his free hand, fumbling the phone, swearing, and very nearly dropping it. A tremor raced up his forearm. Before answering he banged the door shut and flipped the lock. “Yes, I’m alone. Who is this?” He kept his voice low to thwart potential eavesdroppers.
“It’s Finn, now you have to listen closely, because—”
“Finn Day, Harper’s little brother?”
The phone crackled with a breathy sigh. “Yes, that Finn.”
“Finn, I always thought your sister was the lesser of the two evils you guys present. Now, why are you calling me on Charlotte’s phone? And furthermore, how the hell did you know she’d be with me?” By necessity, he and Charlie had kept their relationship a secret, lest her father figure out the identity of the man who had personally broken into his home and threatened him at knifepoint to stay away from Charlie and Sasha. In public, Ghost and Charlie kept their contact minimal and strictly professional so that no one would get any ideas otherwise. For all intents and purposes, work was their only common thread.
“Look, Ghost, there’s no time to go through it all—”
“Well then, you make the fucking time, because this conversation isn’t going anywhere until you do. Why the hell are Aubrey and all her little friends up in my g—Charlotte’s—business and meanwhile I’m playing cards with my thumb up my ass because I have no idea what’s going on?”
“Would you shut up for two damn seconds, you ungrateful twat? I’m trying to help you here.” Ghost ground his teeth but obeyed, if only for the sake of advancing the conversation. Finn went on, “All you have to know is that you have to get out of Sasha’s house right now, because you’re in, like, serious frigging danger.”
Ghost dearly wanted to rail against anything Finn said because he was, well, Finn, and Ghost didn’t like how even someone physically removed from the house had more insight to its events than he did. But he couldn’t deny that Aubrey, Thorn, and now Charlie were behaving strangely, and perhaps Finn knew the reason. Which made him valuable to Ghost at this moment. “What makes you say that?” he asked calmly. A bead of sweat slid down the back of Ghost’s neck and between his shoulder blades. When he closed his eyes, dizzying patterns swirled behind his eyelids.
Finn paused, as if unsure how to begin. “So… Jeremy Daniels told Aubrey that Charlie’s new boyfriend is abusing her, and apparently Aubrey’s supposed to turn you in to him. She and Thorn are planning to attack you, Ghost.”
The knowledge sank into Ghost like a stone in the center of a still pool. His knuckles tightened on the edge of the sink behind him while his stomach took turns soaring and plummeting. It made sense now, the frigid looks and curt conversation he’d been receiving all night, the way Aubrey and Thorn had been sneaking around and lying. Slowly, a wry cackle of laughter rolled through Ghost.
“Ghost? Ghost, are you okay?”
Ghost shook his head, still grinning, and wrangled his emotions under control. It was a highly strategic plan. Ghost had taken every precaution to hide from Daniels, yet by manipulating Aubrey, Daniels had sprung a trap that would not only ascertain his anonymous assailant’s identity, but would also arrange for Ghost to be delivered to him on a silver platter. Even though he was on the receiving end of such a gambit, Ghost had to pause and admire its brilliance. Daniels couldn’t have known for certain that his assailant was the new lover of one of the Stark women, but using the information he had—Ghost’s insistence that he stay far away from Charlie and Sasha, and the fact that none of their past acquaintances had ever seen fit to meddle with Daniels—it had been a deductive leap. “And here I thought he was a dumb bastard all this time,” Ghost said, his breath coming in short and rapid pants. “Well, fuck me.”
“Uh, Ghost? I’m sure that Daniels would love to oblige you, but from the sound of things, that’s Charlie’s job now, so let’s not give him that chance.”
Ghost tried to continue the conversation with a straight face, failed miserably, and burst out laughing a second time. His throat was closing up and the pain of laughing seared all thought from his mind for a white-hot second. “Real clever of you, Finley. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were jealous. Now, tell me how and why you know all of this.”
Uncomfortable silence. “Well, you know how I used to be really close friends with Aubrey… right?”
It was common knowledge among the initiates that wherever Aubrey went, Finn went, and vice versa. So Ghost was more taken aback by Finn’s usage of the past tense than he was by the implication that Aubrey had tried to recruit him to her insane scheme before Thorn, but Ghost figured it wasn’t his place to ask about the details of Finn’s falling-out with Aubrey. As a general rule, he didn’t particularly care about relationships or gossip that didn't concern him, anyway. “I see,” he said, cutting short the other boy’s explanation. “In that case, unlike Thorn, I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt in regards to the rumors Daniels spread about me. Thank you for informing me about this whole mess.”
There was a cold edge when Finn next spoke, reminding Ghost that they were not friends. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for Charlie, and because I don’t like the person Aubrey is turning into. I never liked the person you are.”
A wall of pressure was building in the back of Ghost’s skull. His head felt like it weighed a million pounds. “That’s okay, Finley. You’re not the first,” he was practically groaning, “and you sure as hell won’t be the last. My gratitude still stands.”
“Hey man, you okay? You don’t sound too g—”
Ghost hung up the phone as a firework whistled through him and exploded in a fiery ball of agony. His body resisted even small movements, protesting loudly when he pivoted and grabbed the sink by its sides, letting the phone tumble from his grasp. He blinked the black spots away from his vision and stared into the mirror mounted above the sink. It showed a feral creature whose skin gleamed with perspiration, his skin the color of chalk around eyes dark and round with hunger. Ghost’s fingertips tingled numbly as he reached into one pocket and then the other for the plastic baggie he knew he must be carrying. Without his customary trench coat on, he was unsure of where exactly he’d placed it, and just as panic that maybe he didn’t have it was setting in, he felt the plasticky sleekness he was looking for. Ghost cupped one hand around the mouth of the baggie and upended it. A small cloud of silver powder rained into his open palm. He lifted it to his face and inhaled as deeply as his lungs would allow, coughing and sputtering and choking as the lull coated the insides of his nose and throat.
A minute passed. The burning had been reduced to an itch, but one that was underneath Ghost’s skin and to satiate it he would have to flay himself alive. The black circles in his vision receded, replaced with dully glowing halos around the outline of anything solid. His ears rang, and the world sharpened into a study of contrasting colors. This is how it should always be, the universe whispered to him. This is the source of your strength. Without it, you’re weak. Outsmarted by Charlotte’s sadistic father and villainized by her overzealous sister. Without it, you will know only pain.
Ghost had taken a full dose and then some. He should have been good for the next twelve hours, at least. But he still wanted more, and it scared him. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Seized by animal instinct, Ghost peeled back the corner of the reflective panel hanging above the sink, revealing a medicine cabinet overflowing with boxes, bottles, and vials of all shapes and sizes. He grabbed at random as many as he could fit into his two hands and piled them onto the lip of the sink. Several fell into the bowl or toppled onto the floor. He didn’t care. Ghost wrenched open a pill bottle without even checking the label. They tickled as they pattered into his palm.
It wasn’t until they were halfway to his lips that he realized what he was about to do.
His hand trembled as he watched it. The mystery pills were a warm shade of gingerbread brown that reminded him of Charlie’s eyes. Charlie wants me to be happy, he thought deliriously, and taking these pills right now would make me soooo over-the-moon happy, haha! The words roared inside of Ghost’s head, and though he remembered making no conscious command to say them aloud, he was certain of nothing. Except for the fact that he was a guest in a stranger’s house, and glutting himself on her medications felt like a violation of… something. Ghost remembered the nervous squeeze of Charlie’s hand that moment when Sasha had first laid eyes on him, the immense pressure she felt for her mother to approve of him because her sister already didn’t, and Sasha and Aubrey were the only people Charlie had left. This was a gross breach of the codes of behavior that Ghost had striven hard to learn and adapt to since setting foot in this house, and as he negotiated with himself, battled with himself, begged and pleaded with himself, his mind felt ready to tear itself in two between what he wanted to do and what he should do.
It was the loss of his dangerous momentum more so than one argument winning out over the other that made Ghost slowly open his fist over the gaping pill bottle. They clattered and clacked together as they fell inside. He wanted to scream in frustration. He wanted to knock the uncapped bottle onto the floor. He wanted to lick the sticky colorful residue from his palm. He did none of those things. Instead, he washed his hands at the sink while mentally counting backwards from one hundred in French to distract his racing mind. Then he picked up all the fallen pill bottles and began the tedious task of rearranging them back inside the medicine cabinet, with no hope of replicating their original order but using a pattern that made sense to him. Ghost hated himself. Ghost hated everything right then. From Finn’s words, it sounded like whatever deal Aubrey had made with Daniels hinged on her turning Ghost over to him, but if she had already informed the Dauntless leader as to Ghost’s identity, then he was as good as dead, anyway. Overdosing on sleeping pills in a cushy bathroom would be a mercy, better than anything a criminal like him deserved.
The thought reverberated in his head, but this time threaded with hope. If Aubrey hadn’t already disclosed his identity to Daniels, then there was still a chance that he could try to reason with her. Make her see sense, the fact that the both of them were working toward a common goal: Charlie’s happiness. That was the first shovelful of dirt out of the grave that he had dug for himself. The Holy Ghost had come to see the hard work done.
But he knew it wouldn’t be that simple. Calling Aubrey out on her plan very well might make her defensive and incite a preemptive attack. And he didn’t want to have this conversation with Charlie or Sasha in proximity to become collateral damage. So he needed to speak with Aubrey somewhere very public, where she couldn’t attack him without dozens of witnesses, and preferably far away from Charlie. This was Ghost’s battle, and he needed to fight it alone. Just as he waged war against addiction every day. He whirled around, taking a sweeping inventory of the bathroom to ensure that there were no bottles or boxes he had missed. Then, satisfied that he had restored order to Sasha’s plush bathroom as best he could, Ghost snatched up Charlie’s phone from the sink and marched to the door. He flung it open just as Sasha was poised to knock, nearly earning her a sizable welt on her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m fine,” Ghost said automatically, anticipating everything Sasha would say and replying ahead of time to speed up the conversation. He continued, talking fast, “May I speak with Charlotte, please? It’s important. Alone, if you don’t mind. My apologies for the rudeness and secrecy.”
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Fable
code by Stardust Galaxy
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Randi
code by Stardust Galaxy
Nerdy.
Nerdy
Sasha Stark || 38 || Tattooist || Amity - Dauntless
Charlie's demeanor was not a new phenomenon to Sasha, she had lived through many of Charlotte's panic attacks, Charlie had begun to have them soon after Jeremy's frequent visits. Night terror, nightmares, paralysis, panic attacks and many other symptoms of PTSD had soon plagued Charlie's life, and Sasha had lived right here with her, through each and every one. Charlie was strong, she was resilient and she was so beautiful and kind, even after everything that had happened to her... Sasha would always respect that, and love her daughter more than her own life; She just wished that Charlie would have the same aptitude that Sasha had, maybe... maybe then she wouldn't suffer through this pain.
Sasha watched as Ghost rushed to Charlie, and enveloped her in a hug, her eyebrow raised in a questioning though, curious that Ghost would hug her without understanding her state, but even more curious was Charlie's reaction, she actually hugged him back, she leaned into it, she curled into it. Even Sasha's physical contact with Charlie was limited, Sasha could only ever remember Henry being able to hug Charlie in a manner like Ghost had just shown; Another remarkable similarity between the two. She walked over slowly and calmly as Ghost took the phone off of Charlie, speaking directly to Thorn and retreating away to speak to whomever it might be. Sasha pulled out a chair, pointing at it for Thorn to help Charlie sit; Thorn wasn't the reason for this panic attack, Sasha could see the reason as clear as day on Charlie's features. Whatever the phone call was about, whoever it might be, someone had just triggered a memory of Jeremy for Charlie, and she needed to be reminded of the reality of where she was, and who she was with. Right now, she had to trust that the phone call Ghost was on would be enough for him, and he might come and relay the information to them, because Sasha was more concerned with bringing her daughter back into real life, and to take her out of the past. She began to speak calmly, softly, in a low voice, reminding Charlie of where she was. "You're at home, we are having dinner, I'm here, Thorn's here, Aubrey's here. You're in the dining room, you're at the table, you're safe..." Her words repeated and she took Charlie's hands, as cold as they were, and began to rub the wrists, where Charlie had her tattoos, and watched as Charlie began to come back into the present time, the tears always the first to fall when that happened. Her heart broke when she heard the words she was hoping not to hear. She didn't reply, but hearing He's coming back. Was as painful as being shot in the heart. If Jeremy was coming back, then Sasha knew it would be worse than it ever had been. Jeremy hated being beaten, and if he was coming back, she could only assume it was with a vengeance. She bit her lip, fear starting to crawl its way into her own heart as she felt a smidgen of Charlie's panic slide into her. But instead of worsening the situation, Sasha gently took Thorn's hands and put Charlie's in them, motioning for him to continue speaking calmly to her, and massaging her gently.
Sasha herself went back into the kitchen. "Aubrey, get your sister a blanket, her blanket, Henry's blanket, you know which one. Please don't argue, just go. I know something is up with you, you've been acting weird all evening, but right now I don't care. We will talk later. Just help your sister now." Sasha's voice cut into Aubrey harshly, as if she were disciplining her, and she could see the effect that it had on her, as Aubrey shrank under Sasha's words and tone. Sasha felt guilty for the harshness, but she knew Aubrey could take that at the moment, and Sasha could explain, or somewhat explain, later. Aubrey complied with Sasha's request, running off to find Henry's blanket, that had become a family favourite in their household. Sasha herself quickly pulled together a cup of tea, making sure it wasn't too hot as to burn Charlie if she spilled it, and putting into it some familiar flavours and calming herbs. She glanced back at Charlie frequently as she waited for the water to get hot enough, and she could see the way her daughter was staring into Thorn's eyes as if he weren't even there. Her heart broke within her as she knew Charlie must feel like everything had fallen apart, and she wondered how much of the soothing was working in this moment. She hadn't seen a panic attack like this in a long time, even before Jeremy's attacks had stopped, and she simply prayed and hoped that all these techniques would bring Charlie back into the real world. If they all needed to run away, if they needed to escape, if they needed to fight... Then Charlie needed to have her mind back in her body. Sasha quickly poured the cup of tea, her eyes scanning out the window but regretting that the street lights didn't light up the road well enough. If Jeremy were nearby, and indeed coming back, then Sasha wanted to know exactly where he was. She had weapons in her house, ones that she never planned to use except in dire circumstances, and she knew how to run. But there were more people than just herself here, and people who wouldn't understand. Aubrey knew nothing of Jeremy except his role as the Dauntless leader, someone she respected. And Thorn was likely the same. Sasha sighed, nausea flipping her stomach in knots as she walked back to the table, just as Aubrey had placed a blanket around Charlie's shoulders and backed away to sit on the stairs awkwardly, while Sasha placed the tea in front of her and enticed her to hold it. "Come Charlie, this will help you feel better. Have some tea." She soothingly encouraged, her voice soft and sweet. Charlie slowly obliged, taking the tea and slowly taking some to drink, colour and reality coming back into her features as she did so.
It took a little while to coax anything out of Charlie, but once she was back, she asked where Ghost was. "He's on the phone sweetheart, he's probably just down the hall. Do you want me to ask Aubrey to get him?" Sasha asked. She was shocked when Charlie's voice came back sharply and without hesitation. "NO! Just... Leave him." Sasha nodded. "Okay... Do you want to talk about it?" Sasha asked, aware that it was unlikely that Charlie would talk in front of Thorn and Aubrey, but she would likely talk to Sasha. She watched as Charlie churned with the idea in her brain, but shook her head, biting her quivering lip and grasping the tea cup like it was her anchor. Sasha nodded. "That's okay, we can talk about it when you feel a bit more comfortable. Would you feel more comfortable if I locked the door? Do you want to move?" Sasha watched as Charlie nodded to the first question, then shook her head to the second one. Sasha stood up, moving to the front door and locking it. She turned around to go back to Charlie, when she caught eyes with Aubrey. So she moved to her younger daughter instead, sitting beside her on the stairs. She knew that she couldn't explain what was happening to Charlie to Aubrey, that it had been a necessity to lie to Aubrey about Jeremy for so long, but she wished that she didn't have to keep secrets in her family. There were too many already. Yet, she could tell that Aubrey was keeping her own. "If you know anything about what is happening to Charlie, you should talk to me." Sasha said softly, her sharp blue eyes staring daggers at Aubrey. She watched as Aubrey squirmed, finally saying that she had no idea why Charlie was acting so strange. Although Sasha didn't believe the entirety of Aubrey's ignorance, she could tell that she truly had no information to why the panic attack had appeared. "Don't judge her too harshly. She's not designed for Dauntless life, and it has broken her a little bit. She would have been much more suited for a more peaceful life." She reminded Aubrey, not wanting her to think lesser of Charlie. If you only knew how much Charlie has protected you, how she's protecting you even now.
As Sasha sat with Aubrey, she saw Thorn beckon her back, and she gave Aubrey a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek before returning to Thorn and Charlie's side. "What is it? Has she said anything else?" Sasha enquired Thorn, hoping that Charlie had said something that would give them more information. Thorn didn't nod or shake his head, but said that Charlie kept asking where Ghost was. Sasha nodded. She's concerned that Jeremy will kill him. Or that he has already. "I'll go get him. You two just stay here." Sasha said, standing up and gently giving Charlie's shoulder a soft squeeze, before entering the hall that Ghost had escaped into. She wasn't sure where he had gone, there was no phone conversation that she could hear, nor were any of the doors open. She checked Charlie's room, but it was empty, so she supposed that Ghost must be in the bathroom. She stood at the door, ready to knock, when Ghost flung the door open, frightening her and causing her to jump. She hadn't even been sure that Ghost was still in the house at all, so she had been a bit shocked when he had opened the door so quickly. Before she could say that Charlie was asking after him, Ghost started by asking Sasha if he could speak with Charlie alone. Sasha frowned, unsure if she liked the idea, given all the suspicious activity that was now going on. She sighed though, hoping that Ghost was as trustworthy and good as Charlie seemed to think and believe. "I'll bring her to her room. It's the door just over there. I'll try to keep Aubrey and Thorn in the dining room, but they are both concerned for Charlie right now, and may not comply with what I say. I don't know what is going on, but I know that Aubrey doesn't trust you. Please be quick." She whispered quickly to Ghost, before pointing out Charlie's door to her room, and then turning tail and making her way back to the dining room. By this point, it looked like Charlie had regained much of herself, but was still noticeably terrified. She was glancing at the door so often that Sasha was sure she was going to have a sore neck. "Charlie? Ghost would like to talk to you in your room. Alone." She sent a look to Thorn, and then Aubrey, that was her motherly way of telling them to keep their noses out of Charlie's business for the time being. Charlie jumped at Ghost's name, and got up almost too fast for her metabolism, as she wavered on the spot and had to be steadied by Thorn. Sasha watched as Charlie took a deep breath and tried to smile, her face pale, before thanking Thorn, Aubrey and Sasha, and bravely walking to her room, still holding her father's blanket around her shoulders, though leaving an empty tea cup behind. Once Charlie had left, Sasha looked at Thorn and Aubrey with a very serious nature. "Respect your sister and don't follow her Aubrey." She warned.
Interacting with: Thorn
Sanctuaryforall1
Ghost
Aviator
Aubrey, Charlie
Aviator
all colors lead to gray
Ghost // Male // Age 18 // Training Instructor // Erudite to Dauntless
Sasha’s eyes resembled windows into dark and turbulent waters as she stood there in the family portrait-decorated hallway, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, debating whether Ghost could be trusted. The air in the hall was cool against his still-sweaty palms, and he casually placed them behind his back so that Sasha couldn’t see the way his fingers were still trembling. Just a minute ago he had been on the verge of ransacking this woman’s medicine cabinet, swept up in a frenzy. Sasha would be a bloody fool to trust him, and though he realized how counter it ran to his interests, he had to fight against the urge to tell her what a mistake she was on the precipice of making.
Ghost saw the moment when her resistance depleted. Sasha’s shoulders curled inward like an old yellowing piece of paper, and the sigh she elicited was an admission of defeat. Acknowledgment that the situation—whatever it was—was beyond her power to resolve. Despite his previous sentiment for Sasha to awaken to how suspicious a guest he was, gratitude flooded through Ghost when she said that she would permit him to consult with Charlie alone. Sasha pointed to a door behind Ghost, at the very far end of the hall, and had begun slumping in the direction of the living room when he stopped her. “Wait.” Expectant silence filled the space between rooms. A beat passed before Sasha swung around, eyeing Ghost warily. Unbeknownst to her, Ghost was just as curious as she was at what he was about to say. Calling out to Sasha had been an impulsive move, but he somehow felt like he owed the woman who had suffered for years at the hands of an abusive ex-boyfriend, and who now was ostracized from the finer points of her children’s lives after enduring hell to raise them.
Ghost shuffled to one side, peering around and past Sasha to ensure that no eavesdroppers were standing in the mouth of the hallway. Assured that their conversation was private, words came slowly to Ghost, but once he started they quickly accelerated before he could pause and second-guess their wisdom. “I realize it’s… my word against Aubrey’s and you have no reason to trust me, Ms. Stark, but you should know that your younger daughter is about to do something well-meaning but incredibly stupid. For the time being, it may be in everyone’s best interests if you keep her on a short leash.” Fury flared up bright as morning light in Sasha’s eyes, warning Ghost that just because she had been pushed around by a man once didn’t mean that she would allow him to do the same. It wasn’t until after he’d spoken that Ghost realized how imperious he must have sounded.
Before Sasha could give him a piece of her mind, he amended, “Forgive me; those were a poor choice of words. Please understand that I’m trying to inform you as to what’s going on with your daughters without spilling the tea on secrets that aren’t mine to spill, because these are your children and this is your house and I feel you are entitled to at least a bare minimum of information. Plus, if I may be frank, I lack the patience to continue dancing around the issue.” Sasha tilted her head as if to ask Ghost what issue that was. He cleared his throat, stalling for time to think about what to tell Sasha and how much. “It seems as though Aubrey has recently been in contact with your ex-boyfriend without understanding his, ah, relevance to Charlotte and you.” Ghost wasn’t in the habit of mincing his words, but in this instance he was very mindful of what he said, not wanting to incense Sasha with another insensitive slip of the tongue. More importantly, he was aware of the deeply personal nature of the matters to which he alluded, and it was almost more than he could bear to continue holding Sasha’s gaze. Ghost’s stomach roiled with shame for his knowledge of a secret that had been kept from even Aubrey all her life.
Alarm lit up Sasha’s face like a candle. Ghost flung his hands outward, palms down, and shook them rapidly, discouraging a tumultuous reaction. “Calm down, Ms. Stark. Charlotte and I are aware of the dangers of the situation, and we’re working to defuse it in a way that minimizes the damage. I can’t stop you from taking action if that’s what you choose, but you have to realize that there’s a lot more you still don’t know.” Ghost wondered how much he still didn’t know, and how much he wouldn’t have known at all if Finn had never called. “All I ask is that Charlotte and I have the privacy we need to talk. Take whatever measures you must to ensure that, please.” Sasha’s lips were parted and she looked like she wanted to talk further, but Ghost knew that Aubrey and Thorn’s attention would be otherwise occupied for only so long. He started to turn in the direction of Charlie’s room. “Oh, and Ms. Stark? Thank you for the dinner. It was truly delightful. Next week will be on me, all right?” It was a trick to disarm her, and it worked, as evidenced by Ghost’s ability to successfully escape into the room at the end of the hall before Sasha had made up her mind about which avenue of conversation to pursue.
Charlie’s frightened face floated above her blankets like a pale moon. She was propped up on an army of fluffy pillows the soft oranges and pinks of a sunset. The room was cozy, almost small, and between the bed and a formidable bookcase, there was little space to walk. The old wooden door creaked as Ghost eased it shut. “Are you well?” he asked, before deciding that was a stupid question to ask. Charlie wouldn’t be laying in bed if she were well. “I mean, will you be well?” He moved toward the edge of the bed and sank down, a current of relief running through his body. He hadn’t been on his feet for overly long or doing any strenuous activity, but after holding his life in his hands and having been within an inch of overdosing on indiscriminate pills, the pillows were crooning a siren’s song. Ghost wanted nothing more than to curl up next to Charlie and let the oblivion of sleep claim him. But sleep was a luxury he frequently couldn’t afford, least of all now.
“Listen, I understand why you panicked. And I don’t blame you for it.” He licked his lips, unsure why this line of conversation unnerved him so. There was a reason that Ghost used to break into homes for a living and told point-blank lies with the straightest of faces. He had caved in Bastian Hunter’s skull in an alley with a crowbar and injected Obadiah Parks with serum to make him cough up unsavory government truths. Ghost was a fighter and a criminal and a drug addict, not a caregiver or a boyfriend. Huh. At least next to Charlie, maybe he really did fit into Dauntless more than he’d given himself credit for. He used the same violent means as some of their soldiers and undercover operatives, just to a different, arguably more or less noble, end. “Right now, the most useful thing you can do is rest. Finn filled me in on everything that’s happening and I’m capable of handling it from here. Aubrey and I are just at a misunderstanding. We’re just going to talk it out somewhere far away from here and very public, calmly and without bloodshed. You’ll be safe and so will we. Do you trust me to do that?”
Charlie bobbed her head in a nod, pressing her lips together in a way that warned tears were near. Her face was scrunched so tight that she looked little like herself. Ghost could tell that she didn’t want to let him meet with Aubrey and Thorn alone, not because she didn’t trust him, but because she didn’t want to abandon him to his fate. “You’re not abandoning me to anything. Really, Charlotte. I’ve dealt with drug lords and gangsters, corrupt politicians and con artists.” He tried on a small but snarky smile. “With all due respect, do you truly think I’m afraid of your little sister?” Ghost smoothed a fraying curlicue of hair behind her ear, and the gesture almost didn’t feel forced and phony. Almost. “Aubrey’s deal with your father seems to hinge on her handing me over to him. If that’s the case, then we’re in luck, because that means she has no reason to tell him my identity alone. So long as I can make Aubrey realize that Daniels is the snake in this situation, then none of us will be in any more danger than we currently are. And you know me, Lottie. I’ve got this under control. We’ll be laughing about this nonsense next week over dinner.”
Ghost skimmed the pad of his thumb over Charlie’s jawline. There was barely enough space to comfortably accommodate two people in the small bedroom, and he understood Sasha’s reluctance to leave him alone with Charlie in a new way. His face felt hotter—everything felt hotter—but surprisingly, not with embarrassment. His thumb skittered across the ridge of her eyebrow, careful not to smudge the makeup on the lids. Charlie’s blanket was drawn snugly up to her chin, and while it was frustrating in the moment, Ghost realized that having it any other way would have posed a significant distraction to the plan of action he’d just laid out. But he was beginning to rethink his earlier conclusion that Charlie’s dress wasn’t flattering on her, and he would have liked a larger data sample to analyze. Or hell, maybe he’d been onto something when he’d been wasted, because would any article of clothing look flattering on Charlie when she could be wearing nothing?
Some new expression must have crossed his face, because Charlie asked what he was thinking. Ghost saw no reason to lie. “What was the word I used earlier? Ah, yes, how much I’d love to experiment with you right now. But that’ll have to wait till later.” Throwing Charlie a shameless wink, Ghost found a surge of energy and bounced to his feet before she could reply to his bold admission one way or the other. “I’ll be leaving now, and if you don’t mind, I’m going to tell Aubrey that you asked to speak with her. Just distract her for ten minutes. I don’t care what you talk about, but keep it light-hearted; I don’t want you having another breakdown because you got triggered. Then you can tell her that I’ll be waiting for her in Erudite’s financial district.”
Charlie nodded in understanding of the plan. Ghost bid her goodnight and feel better, and left her room, closing the door behind himself. He was relieved and a little bit surprised to find that Aubrey was not standing on the other side with her ear pressed to the wood. Sasha seemed to have found a way to occupy her and Thorn, after all. Trying to smooth the tension from his shoulders, Ghost started back down the hallway and toward the living room, relatively certain that Aubrey would not attack him while they were still in her mother’s house. Or rather, he was relatively certain a sane person wouldn’t attack him in her mother’s house. When he arrived at the entrance to the living room, three heads snapped toward him in unison. Ghost arranged his features into a mask of careful neutrality. “Charlotte will be fine. She has a penchant of overworking herself in the infirmary and crashing as a result. But so long as she rests, she’ll recover.” Ghost swung his gaze deliberately toward Aubrey. “She did, however, want to speak with you, Aubrey. Right away. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of whipping the cream for dessert while you’re with her.” Ghost slipped this last part in as an assurance that he wouldn’t cut and run while Aubrey was in the other room with Charlie, which was exactly his plan.
Aubrey returned his stare inch for inch, gazing at him as if he were a fortress, and she was trying to devise a plan of attack. She stood and wordlessly prowled toward him yet kept her distance, radiating quiet menace. The tension in the room was thick enough to touch as she stood across the room from him for the better part of a minute, simply continuing to watch him, neither complying with nor denying his request. Finally, Aubrey walked forward. Ghost forced himself not to flinch, break eye contact, change expressions, or otherwise reveal his thoughts as he passively tracked her movement. They stood a hand’s breadth apart, until Aubrey aggressively shouldered past him, Ghost caught himself against a wall, and she vanished down the length of the hallway. I’m way too polite to that girl, he fumed inwardly, straightening up and forcing himself not to fuss over his clothes. If you want to play hardball, bitch, then be my fucking guest.
Acting as if the whole incident had never happened, Ghost said graciously, “Thank you again for inviting me, Ms. Stark. I sincerely hope you don’t regret it.” He dipped his head in respect, then let his gaze switch to Thorn, who sat on the couch. Ghost wondered whether the initiate would make a move to intercept him when he tried to leave and really hoped he’d have better manners than Aubrey. “Evening, Thorn,” he said curtly, and wasting time on no further pleasantries, he started for the door.
And half to his surprise, he made it there and out onto the street unimpeded. It was only nine-thirty and the height of summer, but the sky was already a star-stained sheet of infinite black. Ghost gave the briefest of pauses on the Starks’ doorstep, orienting himself. It had been several years since his last trip to Erudite’s financial district; with the exception of visiting his parents’ graves on the very outskirts of the faction every anniversary of their deaths, he hadn’t been back to the snake pit since transferring. Ghost firmly believed that the past should stay in the past. He used an app on his phone to determine compass directions, then started west with only the stars and the orange glow of street lamps to light his path. Aside from being a tad humid, it was a lovely evening, and he encountered several strolling couples and dog walkers.
Ghost didn’t get far before he recognized the thunder of running footsteps, coming from behind him. His ears pricked at the sound, and he leapt for the nearest shadow, flattening himself against a boxy car that crouched at the edge of the pavement. Aubrey had come for him sooner than he’d anticipated. Still, so long as Charlie had told her that his destination was the financial district, Ghost could always remain hidden and let Aubrey beat him there. Either way, a dark suburban neighborhood was not the setting in which Ghost wanted to have their conversation; something told him that one or two middle-aged pedestrians minding their own business would not be enough to stop Aubrey from attacking him.
But the person charging down the sidewalk was too short to be Aubrey Stark. And it wasn’t Thorn, either, unless he had changed into a dress since Ghost had last seen him. The girl darted into a pool of amber light, and Ghost glimpsed the same soft jawline and dark eyebrow that he’d run his thumb over minutes ago. He swore softly. Something had happened to blow the plan to hell already. Hoping that she wasn’t being pursued by her crazy sister, Ghost regained his feet. He brushed up against the car in doing so, and the alarm wailed into the still night air, nearly deafening him and giving him a heart attack at the same time. “Charlotte?” he called out, but he could barely hear his own voice over the caterwauling. Her lips moved in reply, and dearly unable to hear her, Ghost motioned her farther down the street, moving at a brisk jog before a homeowner exited the nearby houses and saw him standing beside a car that wasn’t his. “What are you doing here?”
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Thorn
Nerdy.
Nerdy
Griffon Mordo ||
The walk with Bloom was lovelier than Griffon could have imagined. The young trainer was so charming, charismatic, kind, gentle, funloving, thoughtful and gentle that it made Griffon want to be the same. He knew that she was his trainer and he was meant to respect her as such, and he definitely did, but he also liked her as a human, as a peer. She showed signs of good in everything she did, something that Griffon wanted people to say about him. He hoped that was how people saw him, he hoped that those around him would respect his goodwill, his love and his desire to keep those around him safe and secure. When Bloom talked about how the simulation heightened much about the environments they had seen, but that they were still likely accurate, he nodded his head and tried desparately to remember what they looked like from his own, genuine, memories. But all Griffon could remember was partial pictures from the simulations he had just encountered himself. In all honesty he wouldn't have been able to describe the places he'd just seen, or even the training centre itself. Things just became fuzzy in his mind, like dreams... He could remember certain things, mostly feelings and encounters, but people's names? Faces? Griffon wouldn't be able to remember someone until having encountered them a number of times. It's not that he wouldn't be able to remember them when he bumped into them, but things just slipped out of his mind and he couldn't put his hands on it when he needed it. Like throwing things into a storage van, and never cleaning up, everything was in there but he could never find it. But he had lived through this for many years now, and he had found that life was livable when there were people to love, people to care for, and good to be done. He didn't need to worry for himself, nor did he need to think on his own downfalls and hurt, but instead he was able to look at others and help them. He looked at Bloom as she spoke, as she walked, as she existed beside him. Her face was so specifically her, it angled and sloped in gentle lines, her brown hair - streaked with red - made gentle waves down her shoulders. He opened his mouth to say something, not quite sure what it would be yet, but was interrupted as a voice called out from in front of him.
"Griffon? Oh dear it is you!" Griffon turned to the sound of a gentle but almost frightened voice. Confusion ricocheted around him as he twisted to look at who it could be, not recognizing it immediately. His eyes quickly reminded him though, that his adopted parents were here. "Mum, dad, hi!" Griffon said, his voice coming out more confident as each word exited his mouth. He took a deep breath and smiled widely, walking up to them and stopping just in front of them to politely bow his head. His parents beamed, doing the same, and they stood there for a second in greeting before all straightening up. Griffon's brown eyes washed over his adoptive parents. "Mum, dad, this is Bloom, she's one of my trainer's. Bloom, this is Diana, my mum, and Fred, my father." Griffon knew that Bloom had the knowledge to understand they were his adoptive parents, and not his biological parents. Diana bowed her head to Bloom, though her manner dictated a firm disliking to Bloom's colourful hair and clothing. Diana herself was clad in all grey, a baggy dress and an even baggier grey cardigan over top, her brown hair was pinned up tidily and her eyes were a dull brown colour. Fred also bowed quickly, though he wasn't even looking in Bloom's direction at all, Fred stood tall and proud, so he looked strange in the grey clad suit that he wore, that wasn't tailored or practical, but simply dull and lifeless. Griffon loved his parents, they had made his life enjoyable, comfortable. They had taught him how to be a wonderful Abnegation and he would have been their perfect child and they could have been his perfect parents. But he knew that there was more, nothing in this world, no condition or injury, could stop him from remembering the time he had walked in on Fred hurting Fable. For what? Her very existence. She didn't comply with physical attributes that they wanted. Her very body screamed in rebellion. In fact they had desired such normalcy that they had gotten the most Abnegation looking child at the orphanage, Griffon, in order to have their perfect child. Griffon loved his parents, but he hated that aspect of them, and he regretted hurting Fred as he had that day, but he had accepted punishment for it, whilst never allowing them to touch Fable again in such a manner, not under his watch.
"What are you doing here?" Griffon asked gently, his brown eyes washing over each parent and briefly at Bloom. "We had business in the area, and thought we would pop in to see how you and Fable were doing. How are you? I am glad to see that you're still wearing some grey, it suits you." Diana spoke, pointing out the clothing Griffon wore. Griffon nodded as she spoke, agreeing with that sentiment, he also missed the grey, baggy clothes they'd had in Abnegation; Yet he couldn't deny that he liked much of the clothes they had gotten here. "I'm good, so is Fable. Life is treating us good here." Especially Fable. He thought, knowing that Fable was exponentially happier here than she ever was in Abnegation. "Can you take us to her? We would like to see her." Griffon hesitated, he knew that Fable wouldn't like it, that it would be for Fable's benefit for him to say he couldn't... But he could see that Diana and Fred truly, genuinely desired to see their daughter. He couldn't deny that to them when he could help. He looked at Bloom who was listening and watching with an interested and unique look on her face. "I suppose I could try help you to find her, though I still get fairly lost here. Bloom will have to guide you, as she's doing to me." Griffon said, and looked to Bloom, who immediately piped in to say she would love to help them find Fable. Griffon nodded curtly, as he began to walk with his parents and instructor, to look for his sister. He knew where Cas was, she had told him, though he wouldn't have been able to find her, but Fable hadn't really told him where she was recently. He pulled out his phone to check if there were any messages, but it was still empty. He placed it back in his pocket as he heard Diana chirping to Bloom. 'So how are our children doing? Do they at all fit into the Dauntless way? Or would they be better suited for Abnegation? I know they would absolutely take them back!" Griffon's ears went bright red as he heard those words, turning quickly and wishing to say something, he opened his mouth, only for Bloom to beat him to the chase.
Griffon watched in respectful awe as Bloom gently relayed her opinion on how she thought Fable and Griffon were both doing in the initiation, and how it was likely that they would both be wonderful members of Dauntless. Diana seemed to be displeased with the response, but Fred looked almost uninterested. Griffon sighed softly, thankful that Bloom had been able to ward off that conversation with such ease. "It's really quite nice here, Bloom is a wonderful instructor, as our other instructors are also. They are very good at teaching us the ropes and showing us what we need to do. It's hard, but it's very helpful." Griffon could see that his parents felt uncomfortable in Dauntless compound with a Dauntless member near them, but he couldn't very well ask Bloom to go away, also, he didn't want to ask her to leave. He liked her. Griffon stepped up close to Bloom as they walked, leaning down and closer to her. "Thank you, my parents still haven't come to terms with our choice yet." He said, hoping that Bloom would understand his predicament. He hoped she could tell he deeply loved them, while disagreeing at many of their choices. He hoped dearly that Fable wouldn't be too upset at him for bringing them to her, he knew he would defend her, should they berate her, but he also knew he would need to seek her forgiveness for not warning her. He took a deep breath as he wondered how she would feel towards him, he wouldn't blame her if she hated him for this. That's when he accidentally bumped into his dad's back, and recoiled as he tried to figure out what had gotten in the way. That's when he saw the very person they had been looking for. "Fable!" Griffon said, taking initiative to run over to her, briefly giving a nod to Rhys who was with her. "I'm sorry." He whispered softly to her, squeezing her hand ever so gently before letting go. "Mum and dad turned up! We were looking for you. They wanted to... catch up with us." He said. Watching her for her response.
Interacting with: Bloom, Fable
Sanctuaryforall1
Rhys
Wolfiee
Nerdy.
Nerdy
Cassidy "Cassie" Wickham || 16 || Initiate || Erudite Transfer
"Brilliant idea Shayla darling." Cas murmured through pouty lips as she watched the raven haired beauty speak with such excitement. Shay was such an interesting and mysterious creature, Cas had found her enticing from day 1, and yet this was the first time she had truly gotten past that iron wall that she put up. Cas knew much about walls, she had many of her own, and they were - she hoped - impenetrable. She didn't dislike Shay for the walls, nor did she want to break them forever, but she wanted to dip behind them, have a taste of who Shay was without her boundaries. From what she could tell, she liked her very much. That kiss, Cas could still feel the warmth and glossy feel that came from it, the taste of sweet vape and alcohol, and the intoxicating feel of something that felt forbidden, even if there was no reason for it to be forbidden. Cas lounged on her side, watching everyone in the room to gauge their thoughts and feelings about Shay's idea. Lainey and Chet were barely even a part of the group at this point, although they were still in the circle and clearly playing, they were cuddled up, occasional giggles and whatnot coming from them as they whispered to each other. Cas had known Lainey liked Chet, but she was surprised at how forward she was - She must have had a bit to drink before coming here, not to mention the shots and vape. Cas herself could feel the heavy effects of the alcohol running through her system, she liked it only a little, though she was a bit wary to drink any more. She did, however, much enjoy the feeling of the drugs that she had laced in her vape, as they gave her a light feeling, rather than the heavy effects of alcohol, and made her feel warm, fuzzy and almost like she was flying. She turned her head, listening as Aya said that she wanted to join in also. "Wonderful! I was worried you were going to sit there not participating for the rest of the day, you deserve to have some fun." She said, though quickly pouted dramatically. "Though it seems a shame that you didn't get a kiss, perhaps we shall have to sneak one in later." Cas purred, clearly joking but with that inch of truth that could cause suspense for the entire night. "Before we start, I'm going to go get some food. What does everyone want? I'm feeling Chinese for myself." Cas stood up, bringing out her phone to jot down everyone's orders. Soon enough she had them all on her phone, and she blew a little kiss before sauntering to the door and exiting the tidy apartment building.
Cas breathed a sigh of relief when she was outside the apartment. She was not one to hate parties, in fact she loved them, but she often started to feel overwhelmed by people, buildings and anything of the sort. She took a deep breath and began to walk towards where she knew there was a Chinese store that would still be open. Thankfully everyone else had either wanted Chinese also, or something else nearby. She nibbled at her bottom lip carefully as she walked, thinking through the things that were top most in her mind. One: She wondered where Griffon was, she had been glad to have the day with her girlfriends all day, and to not worry about him, but without his presence near her, she felt much less protected, she felt vulnerable and she knew that if something happened to her, physically, she was a goner without him. But she was glad he was being capable and competent without her, hopefully he was out with friends, or helping someone out as he always did. She just hoped he wouldn't be in trouble anywhere. Two: Shayla was so infuriatingly mysterious, Cas just had to dive deeper into that girl, her past, her present, her secrets... Cas knew that she herself would die if someone found out every secret within her walls, but she was also addicted to finding out other people's secrets. Such as - she also needed to know what Lainey's secret was, the one that had to do with her boyfriend. Cas knew something was up, Lainey had been gushing about her boyfriend from even before they started dating, and now she never mentioned him. Something had happened... Cas just needed to know what it was. That was how she felt about Shay. She just wanted to know what was inside her. Three: Cas wanted to know more about Aya, and she wanted the girl to become more confident and badass as time went on. Aya was awesome, but Cas worried that whatever she had been through - Cas only knew bits and pieces - had harmed her potential and personality. Aya deserved much more, and Cas hoped that she could drive out that potentialk. Cas pushed aside her thoughts as she entered the Chinese food store and ordered the food, she looked at her phone while she waited, and flicked through her messages out of boredom and curiosity. That's when her finger hovered over Randi. She recalled where she had seen the girl last, after having spent an enjoyable time with her at the party, Randi had run off after seeing Maverick with another girl, and then Maverick had run after her, leaving Vex to Cas (who promptly ignored her). She knew that there was something going on there, the doe eyed looks from Maverick, the undeniable desire in Randi's eyes... But she just couldn't comprehend Randi being with a hunk of meat like Maverick. Randi was like a fireball, and Maverick seemed like an iron casing, sure he could handle the hot, but it felt like it would be a waste of Randi's potential. Cas knew she was judging a lot from some simple thoughts and observations. But from her mind, Randi would do so much better with Cas, even as just companions, friends. Cas felt like she was like oil, and Randi's fire could ignite that, and they could do so much together.
Spurred on by this train of thought, Cas flicked open the messages and began to type one out. "Randi, some of us girls are just having a fun game of spin the bottle, truth or dare, booze and more... If you're free, you should join us." She flicked through, closing her phone as the food came out and she gratefully took the bag off of the man and paid the money. She left the store, feeling her phone vibrate and opening it. Randi had replied, and said that she would love the idea. Cas flicked through the address, saying that she would meet her outside the apartment complex. She grinned inwardly as she walked, a little fire in her heart now, knowing that Randi was back in her grasps. Maybe she was being selfish, and felt superior to Maverick for some reason... But if so, then she would need evidence to prove the opposite, and Maverick could damn well fight his own battles with her if he wanted to. She didn't want to be Randi's girlfriend, she just wanted to have fun. Plus, having someone like Brandish Rose in your list of allies was something Cassidy desperately wanted to have. She had a list of potential allies, should anything happen, and Randi seemed so important, she must have her in there. Cas walked up to the apartment complex, and her smile only widened as she saw Randi already there. "You're fast." Cas said smoothly, her eyes washing over Randi's body. Randi said that she had been pretty close anyway. "Well I'm grateful, I got food if you're hungry." She said, as she led Randi into the apartment and up towards Shay and Lainey's room. "Hey guys, I brought home a stray." She laughed, winking at Randi so that she wouldn't take it the wrong way. She sat down, laying out the Chinese on the coffee table. "Let's just start now, while we're eating, should be fun." Cas said, watching as Shay nodded and spun the bottle. 'If it lands on you, then you must say a truth, or do a dare. " Cas's eyes glittered with enthusiasm as she began to eat her Chinese while the bottle spun lazily round and round.
Interacting with: Aya
Wolfiee
Shay, Randi
Sanctuaryforall1
Lainey, Chet.
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Bloom
code by Stardust Galaxy
Wolfiee
Meow
Rhysand(Rhys)
TEMPLATE © BOKEH
Last edited:
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Shayla
code by Stardust Galaxy
Nerdy.
Nerdy
Charlotte "Charlie" Stark || 20 || Medic || Dauntlessborn
"Where's Ghost?" Charlotte repeated again to Thorn, her dark eyes wide and with a sickening terror beneath them. Thorn told her he didn't know, and she felt her breath catch in her throat as the reality of that statement rolled through her brain. If Thorn didn't know where Ghost was, then Ghost wasn't in the house, he must be gone, had Jeremy taken him? Was he dead and Thorn was trying to protect her? Had she failed completely at keeping this secret? Everything in Charlie's body was trying to shut down, she could feel her vision darken and blur, her body moved so slow it felt like she was moving through tar. Her heart might have jumped straight out of her body if it had started beating any faster. Thus, when Sasha asked her if she wanted the door locked, she nodded profusely, she needed to know that Jeremy couldn't just run in right now. She shivered and shook as she watched her mum near the door, a vision of her mother being slammed back by brute force playing over and over in her mind. However, Sasha locked the door with nothing happening, and then left to presumably go and find Ghost. Charlotte wasn't sure how long Sasha was gone, but it was long enough that she started to wonder if Jeremy WAS really already in the house, and if he had just killed Sasha and Ghost, and now was coming to kill Thorn and Aubrey. Would he grant Charlie a death too? A way to be with her loved ones? Or would he keep her for himself, in a nightmare of reality? Charlie whimpered slightly at the thought, and sunk lower in her chair, pulling Henry's blanket tightly over her shoulders and trying to breathe in that wonderful, familiar scent. Sasha returned and told Charlie that Ghost wanted to talk to her, offering to take her to her room. Charlie shook her head. "I... I can do it myself." She said, getting up from the chair, wavering on her feet for a moment, before dipping her head and making her way to her room. She expected Ghost to be in her room already, but he was not. She bit her lip, and felt her legs buckle underneath her, so she quickly made her way to the bed and hopped into it, though keeping Henry's blanket close to her body, the soft, smooth, safe feeling of her own bed caused her to relax slightly.
When Ghost entered the room, she could see him more clearly than she had been able to see before, and she was grateful to see him still alive. "Ghost!" She gasped, relief easy to hear within her voice. She would have run up to him, wrapped him in her arms and held him tight, but her body refused to move even a muscle, seeming to tie her to the bed as it tried to keep her trapped. So instead she just tried to smile, to show she was grateful to see him, and hoping that he would explain what was going on. He sat beside her, and the minute he touched her skin, something clicked within her. In her panic attack, she had felt as thought she was still in the past, still reliving the torturous existence she had had when Jeremy was here. But Ghost's touch, it zapped her back into reality, and as she focused on that feeling, her mind, her heart, her body, they all began to calm and ground themselves. She took deep breaths, hoping that Ghost wouldn't take his hands off of her. He spoke softly towards her, and although he said he didn't blame her for her panic attack, she felt the guilt within her. She knew that she wasn't being helpful when she was panicking - she knew that it wasn't something she could control, but yet it still made her feel guilty. As Ghost continued to talk to her, she didn't answer much, just listening intently to the smooth sound of his voice, and enjoying the touch of his skin on hers. But as he continued speaking she felt dread fill her body. He asked her to trust him, and she nodded to show that she did, but her eyes betrayed her fear. Aubrey was not one to be handled lightly, she was a silly young girl, but she had been trained since she was old enough to walk, she was determined, she was focused, and she wasn't going to hold back in a fight. Ghost, sensing this, spoke to her concerns, and she begrudging listened, hoping that he was right. But what if she has already talked to him? What if he already knows? What if she doesn't care that people are in public? What if she tries to kill Ghost? She nibbled at her bottom lip as every ending that could possibly happen started to run by in her brain. Either way, if they got into a fight, Charlie would either lose her sister, her lover, or both. She stayed silent for the rest of their conversation, nodding only when needed, as she didn't trust herself to speak sensibly in this situation. Everything was too high stakes, and tonight was simply meant to be a fun dinner.
Ghost leaving felt like a bullet shot in her heart, and Charlie had to breathe slowly, counting ten in, ten out, ten in, ten out. She wasn't going to break down again, that had been terrifying, sad, embarrassing and debilitating. She shook herself, sitting up straighter and trying not to get too comfortable in bed. She wanted sleep, it sounded so good, but she was much too terrified to sleep right now. She watched the door like a hawk, ready to talk to Aubrey, her eyes scanning the clock that was hanging on the wall. Ten minutes, she just had to distract Aubrey for ten minutes, and then it would all be fine, Ghost and Aubrey would talk, and everything would get sorted out. Ghost was smart, he'd be able to tell Aubrey she was being manipulated without giving away everything... He was so smart. Charlie felt guilt stab her in the heart as she realized that Ghost was going out of his way to do so much, for her. It was for his own safety too, but even then, the only reason he was in danger was because he had been trying to protect her. Now he might die, or get hurt, or be imprisoned and tortured, because of her. Charlie wished she had gone with him, or that she hadn't let him leave. She watched as Aubrey came in the door, her vision a mix of concern and anger. This wasn't going to be easy... or fun. "Aubrey! Thanks for coming in. I really wanted to talk to you." She said, patting the bed to encourage Aubrey to sit down. She watched as Aubrey thought about it, deliberating silently, before finally sighing and sitting beside Charlie. "Aubrey, I know tonight has been weird. Ghost coming over as my boyfriend was a little strange, and I should have given you some warning! But I was so nervous for you to meet him and for you to not be thinking about it all day... He is your trainer after all..." Charlie knew that this probably wasn't the best conversation starter, but honestly she just wanted to talk as much as she could. She didn't want Aubrey to ask her any questions that she wouldn't be able to answer. "I was thinking that maybe if you wanted you could try and get to know him outside of training hours? You could challenge him to some activities, I'm sure you would both enjoy that, and it would be fun to see you two hanging out. In fact I know that..." Charlie winced as Aubrey's voice cut through the sentence like a knife, asking Charlie who called her. Charlie tried to think about what could have happened, but her brain was foggy and she couldn't think straight. "It was Finn." She said, wincing again as she met Aubrey's gaze. Aubrey had beautiful blue eyes, but right now they seemed on fire. "He was just wanting to know what was happening. I don't know what he spoke about with Ghost." She said honestly, finding it hard to lie in this moment, after everything she'd been through. She listened as Aubrey asked why the panic attack had happened. "I'm just tired, and Finn happened to mention Caspian and well... I guess I just got overwhelmed." Charlie said, her lip quivering dangerously. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. It has all been sorted. Why don't you tell me about your day? I haven't really heard at all what you did and I am terribly jealous, I was stuck in the VIP section the whole time and it was terribly boring." Charlie said, trying to lighten the mood. Aubrey answered as shortly as she could, only briefly telling her of the things she had done. Charlie's eyes were glued to the clock, aware that she was not taking enough time, and Aubrey was getting suspicious and twitchy. Thus, when Aubrey had finished, and rose up to leave, stating that if Charlie didn't have anything else to say that she would leave, Charlie knew she just had to tell Aubrey now. Ghost would just have to have gotten far enough ahead. "Aubrey wait. I need to tell you something. Ghost... wanted me to tell you something. He wants to have a talk with you." Aubrey rose her eyebrows as she came back to sit on the bed. "Somewhere public, in clear sight of people, not to have a fight. He just wants to talk to you because it's all a misunderstanding and you are in over your head." Charlie could see how Aubrey zoned out at the last part, anger flaring in her body. "He's in the Erudite financial district. He will be waiting for you. Please... please don't take weapons Aubrey." Charlie begged. But from the look in Aubrey's eyes, Charlie had little hope.
Aubrey didn't reply to Charlie but instead just left. Charlie got out of bed as soon as she did so. She slipped out of her heels, instead slipping on some soft, slip on sandals that she had in her room. She had made up her mind while talking with Aubrey. She had to go be with Ghost. It wasn't fair to him to do this alone. She needed to see this through as much as he did. She couldn't go out the front door, that would be too obvious and would give Aubrey someone to follow. Thankfully Charlie's room had a window, and Charlie was not a big person, so she was able to shimmy out of the window with little difficulty, gently landing in the grass, and taking off in the direction that Ghost must have gone. Praying that she would catch up to him in time. She hoped that if she were with Ghost then Aubrey wouldn't dare attack him. As she ran, her body feeling healthier now that it was moving, she regretted not changing into something a bit more comfortable, as the silky soft dress whipped on her like the wind, and she felt curiously underdressed and vulnerable. But she wasn't so concerned about that as she was making sure she got to Ghost as fast as possible. Thus, when she saw a shape that looked like him, she ran faster, only for him to disappear. When he called her name, she felt a burden in her get released and she ran over to him. Taking his hand as he asked her what was going on. "I made a mistake in letting you come out alone. This is my fight, and I won't let you fight it alone. Aubrey is my sister, and this is my problem, and I need to see it through. I can't just lie in bed and let everyone fight my monsters. I want to fight them too." She claimed, the tremors in her voice giving away the fact that she was terrified. Ghost sighed, but Charlie hoped that he felt a little better with her being there. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to delay Aubrey so long, I..." Charlie wasn't able to finish the sentence as she heard her phone buzzing again. She instantly knew it had to be Aubrey, and she was confirmed that thought as she looked at the phone screen. She flicked it on, motioning for Ghost to be quiet, and putting the phone onto speaker so that Ghost could hear Aubrey. "Aubrey? What is it?" She asked.
Interacting with: Ghost
Aviator
Thorn
Sanctuaryforall1
Sasha, Aubrey
Aubrey Amber Stark || 16 || Initiate || Dauntlessborn
Aubrey wasn't having it. Everyone was acting dodgy tonight and it was only confirming her theories more and more. Charlie's panic attack and seeming terror when she wasn't sure where Ghost was seemed to confirm that she was terrified of Ghost. The fact that she felt she had to give the phone to Ghost was evident of the power he had over her. The fact that everything had to be secretive with them, why couldn't they talk freely at the table if there was nothing dodgy to hide? Aubrey knew that she had to step in and put a stop to this behaviour. As Sasha told her, Charlie was not designed for Dauntless, and was only barely surviving. Now that her best friend was dead, Ghost would be able to do what he wanted from her, and eventually leave her dying in a ditch one day when she became less useful to him. It disgusted Aubrey that anyone would treat another person like that. Hence, when Thorn came to her, gently asking whether they should talk to Charlie and get to the root of the problem, Aubrey scoffed. "Ghost is the root of the problem, and I will fix that. Just be by my side and support Charlie. Isn't that what you wanted to do?" She asked, her gaze ripping into Thorn. He hesitated, and eventually agreed that yes he wanted to help Charlie. "She won't say anything Ghost wouldn't want her to, if he is hurting her. So we can't trust what she says, we need to be careful." She said, watching as Ghost reappeared from Charlie's room. Sasha had allowed him to go in there with her, so Sasha must be terrified of Ghost too... How strange, Sasha never seemed terrified of anyone, so that was not a good sign. He came in, telling Aubrey how Charlie wanted to see her, and that he would whip the cream for her. She glared at him. He was lying... he had to be lying. He was going to run while she did that, while she spoke to Charlie. She couldn't let him. But... surely Thorn would stop him if he did, Thorn did seem to be on Aubrey's side after all. She finally moved past him, her shoulder indelicately shoving Ghost to the side while she barged past him in order to get to Charlie's room.
Charlie was playing the fool. Did she think Aubrey was stupid? Aubrey could tell this was a distraction. Ghost would stoop so far. Charlie is clearly terrified. Aubrey hardly spoke, her mouth a hard line. Charlie began to go on about how she felt bad for not telling Aubrey, and how Aubrey must feel so awkward about Ghost being her trainer and Charlie's boyfriend, but Aubrey wasn't listening, it was all mindless chatter to her. "Who rang you?" She asked, interrupting Charlie during one of her unimportant sentences. Charlie seemed shocked, and stuttered for ages, before finally sighing and admitting that it was Finn. Aubrey's nostril's flared as she remembered how Finn had ran up to her and Thorn on their way here, and had said all those things. So he had narked on her, had told Charlie and Ghost her plan. Now Ghost was blackmailing Charlie and hurting her in order to do his will. Despicable. Finn must have been working with Ghost... There was no other reason why he would have gone along with her plan and then cut her out of his life. "What did he say?" Aubrey said through gritted teeth, and her eyes squinted as Charlie started explaining, although it didn't really make sense to Aubrey. Finn wouldn't have brought up Caspian for any reason, he knew how painful it was to Charlie... Aubrey would have asked more, but Charlie diverted the conversation to talking about the day, and Aubrey sighed. If Ghost was making Charlie distract Aubrey, or do something... Then Charlie might be in real danger if she doesn't actually do it... Aubrey rolled her eyes. "Fine... I ate heaps of street food, hung out with Thorn, went to his shop, played laser tag, went to the tattoo show, and the strong man show, did some competitions... That was about it." She droned without emotion. "Now look, if you don't have anything more to say, I need to go." Aubrey got up. She didn't expect Ghost to still be here at this point, but she was faster than him, so she knew she could catch up to him if she ran now. But Charlie asked her to come back, declaring to have more information. Aubrey was surprised. So... it hadn't just been a distraction? Had Charlie been trying to talk to Aubrey and tell her what was going on? Aubrey hurried back to the bed, sitting down next to her sister.
Ghost had told Charlie to tell Aubrey where to meet him? The dog. Aubrey didn't even say goodbye when she left Charlie's bed. Not because she was mad at Charlie, but just because she was mad. She was so bloody angry at what Ghost had made of her sister. Charlie was sniveling and useless in there... Even though Charlie didn't fit into the normal Dauntless mold, she was still a normal human being. Aubrey didn't even say anything to Thorn and Sasha, she saw that Ghost was gone, shot a look to Thorn to show that she wasn't happy, then rushed up stairs. It didn't take her long to do what she needed to do. She ripped off her short red dress, and quickly pulled on some shorts and a tank top, then a hoodie over top. She slipped some boots on, hiding a dagger in each, one her special one, the other a plain one. Then when she had finished she tied her hair up into a tight bun and ran down the stairs again. "We need to go, Thorn.... I'm going to check on Charlie again." She said, and jogged to Charlie's door, popping her head in to say goodbye and to tell Charlie to stay there. But when she popped her head in, all she could see was an empty room and an open window. "Shit." She swore. "She's gone! She must have followed him...." Aubrey growled slightly as she came back into the kitchen and thought about it. Ghost had set up the place, he had scared Charlie to bits, and then Charlie had to follow him afterwards... probably so she would be leeway and so Ghost could use her to be his defense should Aubrey try to hurt him. The dirt bag. So... Aubrey needed to change the location. That was the only thing she could do. She could have the advantage then, if she knew the lay out, and it wasn't in Ghost's old neighbourhood. "Charlie's gone with Ghost. They wanted us to follow them. Sorry mum, I'd love to help tidy up, but I need to go." Aubrey said even as Sasha asked her to stay. She shook her head. "Sorry. I need to do this. I can't explain it at the moment, but it's important and I want you to trust me. I need this mum." She said, and watched as Sasha relented, wishing them good luck and telling them to stay warm. Aubrey tried not to geel guilty and ashamed as she left Sasha's house. She closed the door with some finality, and took a deep breath. "Ghost wants to talk. He left Charlie here to distract me while he ran off, then when I left Charlie's room she followed him. She was terrified when I was talking to her. He gave us a location, but I want to change it... I don't want him to have all the advantages. When we do meet up with him though, I need you to get Charlie out the way should anything violent happen. She's not built for that, and Ghost may try to put her in harms way... So that will be your job, I"ll handle Ghost, should anything go sideways." Aubrey relayed to Thorn as they walked a little ways from Sasha's house. She called Charlie's phone. "Charlie, I know you're with Ghost, or going to him. I know that he's the one running this game for the moment, but I refuse to meet up at his location. Instead, meet me near the old firehouse." She could hear a long pause; Maybe they wouldn't adhere to what she said and Ghost would just hurt Charlie. She thought for a moment. "If you don't meet me there. Then I will give Ghost's identification to Jeremy. I'm willing to hear Ghost out for now, but if you can't adhere to me, I'll tell him right now." She said coldly.
Interacting with: Ghost, Thorn, Sasha, Charlie.
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Vex
code by Stardust Galaxy
Fable
code by Stardust Galaxy
Last edited:
Aviator
all colors lead to gray
Ghost // Male // Age 18 // Training Instructor // Erudite to Dauntless
A cool breeze buffeted Charlie’s long hair, lifting it from her shoulders and wafting her sweet perfume toward Ghost. The air was a surreal wash against his neck and chest where his shirt hung open, and although the thought that he had no idea how the night would end made him a little restless, he felt powerful standing there, in the middle of the street with no weapon scarier than a pocket knife on him, done with hiding and ready to face whatever fate dared to throw at him. Aubrey Stark, Jeremy Daniels, so be it. Despite all the lies that Ghost had told and all the blood he’d spilled, he knew he had done at least a shred of good in the world by liberating Charlie from the monster that was her father. And while redemption for his sins was still a long way off, and maybe Charlie’s liberation wouldn’t extend any further than tonight, he wouldn’t regret any future consequences that arose from the decision to help her. He had acted out of his belief that those with power and money were wicked to prey on those without, and perhaps that belief was enough.
Ghost didn’t realize that his fingers were cold and clammy until the soft warmth of Charlie’s palms was encompassing them. As she spoke, she was the picture of headstrong determination and youthful confidence, unable and unwilling to take no for an answer and unshakably convinced of her own ability to overcome adversity. Seeing her like that gave Ghost some small sense of what others might see when they looked at him. He and Charlie were climbing a rock face without rope, and they were a single missed handhold from a fatal fall. But they weren’t letting that deter them from trying. “I’m glad you see it that way,” he said with a solemn nod. By accompanying him, Charlie was taking action and doing something to personally solve her problems. She was choosing not to wallow in misery but to confront its source. Confrontation was something Charlie had struggled with all of her life, so if Ghost robbed her of the chance to face her demons here and now, then he was just reinforcing her problematic patterns, and she would never learn to fend for herself. Who was he to tell her no? Self-righteous ideas of goodness and justice would only get one so far; sometimes, to make a change, you had to take the bull by the horns and not care about the possibility of getting hurt.
“You can come so long as you don’t slow me down,” Ghost said, keenly aware that every minute they stood talking in the street was another minute for Aubrey to close the distance between them. “I really hope you can climb in that dress and those shoes, because—” Charlie twisted in one fluid motion, and before Ghost could finish his sentence her phone was pressed to her ear. Then she tapped a button and held the phone out, screen up, between them, and Aubrey’s strident voice pierced the night, making the fireflies carry their amber glow away from where Charlie and Ghost stood. Ghost’s eyes darted around to see if there was anyone within earshot. Just a jogger in a sports bra and shorts, running in spite of the darkness.
Feeling weirdly open and vulnerable about having this conversation into the open air, Ghost neatly plucked the phone out of Charlie’s hand. It was nice that she wanted to fight her battles herself, but someone other than Aubrey had to step up to the plate and take control of the situation. “I admire your gambler’s spirit, Aubrey, but please note that, for the time being, I am deadly serious when I talk to you,” Ghost said evenly into the phone, pressing it to his ear despite it being on speaker. He didn’t trust technology. “I’m not ‘running’ anything other than that which I deem the right thing to do. Uh, no, I’m not meeting you at some abandoned fire station in the middle of nowhere. That’s the first rule in Street Smarts 101. What were you thinking, that I’d just walk into an ambush?” Ghost pressed the toe of one loafer into the sidewalk, scuffing it. Feeling like he was on a roll and wanting to stick it to his opponent, he taunted, “To get your adversary to do what you want, you need a little something called leverage, Aubrey. Otherwise you’ll meet us in the financial district, or you won’t meet us at— Wha’? Oh.”
He locked eyes with Charlie as Aubrey issued her demand, fully audible to them both: If they didn’t meet at her choice location, she would phone Daniels with Ghost’s identity. Not his real one, obviously, because she didn’t know that, but enough details to be incriminating regardless. “Oh. I see.” His throat suddenly felt as dry as a dead man’s eyes. “That is some leverage indeed. Huh.” Ghost felt like an ass for his gloating to be so swiftly overturned and would have facepalmed himself if not for Charlie’s watchful presence. Mouthing a curse, Ghost sighed, letting the resistance fade from his shoulders. “Fine then. The fire station it is,” he relented. “But none of this ‘you’ll hear me out until’ shit. You’ll listen to me and you won’t attack me at all, goddammit, because there will be no need to attack anyone except Daniels for setting you up.” Aubrey started to fire back a retort, but Ghost wouldn’t have it. “Swear it.” There was iron in his voice. “Swear you and Thorn won’t attack me or Charlie or anyone else—at any time tonight—or we’re not meeting you. Swear it on your love for your mother.”
Ghost felt a little cheesy insisting that anyone swear on a concept as nebulous and soft-hearted as love, but he didn’t know Aubrey well enough to think of something else she valued pricelessly. Aubrey started to reply, but as the thought came to him Ghost blurted, “And swear that Daniels won’t be there to attack us in your stead.” His thoughts were ricocheting like stray bullets as he tried to anticipate more loopholes that Aubrey might exploit, of more avenues to disaster that tonight could take. Nerves crowded his throat, and he started pacing in a circle to disperse them.
Aubrey objected at the ridiculousness of what Ghost was asking, and while he partly agreed with her, he held firm. “Do it.” His teeth pressed together into a wall. The phone crackled as Aubrey sighed into it, and finally she swore. “Excellent,” Ghost said, with an unprecedented lightness that bordered on cheery. “In that case, we’ll see you promptly. And because I’m a sucker for sarcasm, it was a pleasure doing business with you.” He hung up the phone, taking a small, petty pleasure in the fact that he’d at least been in control of the call’s ending, and extended it to Charlie. “We’d better be on our way. Wouldn’t want to keep your sister waiting,” he said with a dramatic eye roll. “Now, then. Since I’m not overly familiar with this part of town, you’ll have to lead the way to the fire station Aubrey is talking about. But might I suggest that we go by rooftop?”
Charlie looked at Ghost quizzically, as if he’d just asked for ketchup on his waffles. “Because if Aubrey knows our destination, she can also probably figure out the route we’ll take to get there. We might never actually reach the fire station if she plans to attack us.” Charlie objected that Aubrey had just sworn she wouldn’t attack. Ghost’s mouth curled into a wicked slant. “I realize that. Not to insult your sister, but I’d rather not give her that chance than leave our fate in the hands of her sense of honor. Wouldn’t you agree?” Charlie’s trepidation at the idea was visible even without her saying anything. “Come on, it’ll be just like when we played capture the flag with the initiates at the end of Phase One,” he coaxed. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and darted in for a quick kiss against the side of her neck. “It’ll be fun.”
To the rooftops it was, and fun it was not. Ghost wasn’t used to eating so much in one meal as he had tonight at Sasha’s, and his belt felt three sizes too small. A stitch formed in his side as he and Charlie scaled garden terraces, ran across low walls, and leapt from houses to trees to the next one on the block. Ghost was in midair at the time that the first firework unfurled in a riot of color, and the burst of sound startled him so much that he botched the landing and tumbled halfway down the side of a gabled roof before finding a handhold, leaving his fingertips shredded and a hole torn into one knee of his pants. When he stood, something popped audibly in his left ankle, and the blinding white that cracked through his vision was bright enough to rival the fireworks. For all the effort that traversing the rooftops cost him, he almost hoped that Aubrey and Thorn had been indeed planning an ambush, just so that it wouldn’t be in vain.
Finally, when Charlie said that the next street on their right would take them to the fire station, the rooftops became too distant to leap across. She and Ghost were forced to dismount and travel the home stretch on foot. He slid onto an awning and, from there, steeled himself for the short impact to the ground. His injured leg buckled, but he caught himself on the other before he fell, and concealed the twist of anguish on his face before Charlie could see it. With so much going through his head at once, Ghost doddered out into the street and nearly got nailed by a car, having forgotten that typical suburban roads had two-way traffic.
`He had circled the building and was all good and ready to enter through a poorly boarded-up window when Charlie asked if she could talk with him, her voice a conspicuous quiver like a misplayed note in a familiar song. When Ghost turned, her gaze flickered to each side, careful not to even graze him, as if she knew that he wouldn’t like what she had to say in advance of saying it. She would have been right on that account; she asked him to refrain from telling Aubrey both that Jeremy had been hurting her and Sasha and that he shared a biological relation with Charlie, making her Aubrey’s half sister. Ghost tilted his head and frowned, letting a beat of silence pass before he spoke, as if Charlie were a child insisting on sleeping outside and he wanted her to hear her own ridiculousness before he spelled it out for her. “...So do you want me to lie through my teeth to your sister, or do you want me to stand there staring at her? With respect, Charlotte, it sounds like I’m forbidden from saying anything truthful.”
He hadn’t meant for his opinion to sound like a refusal to do what she asked; just an accurate assessment of her proposal. Still, Charlie took it that way, and her next words came out a blubbery mess as she begged him not to tell. “Whoa, hey!” Ghost interrupted, flinging his hands up with the palms out. “Just because I personally disagree with your method doesn’t mean I won’t respect it. I won’t tell Aubrey anything you don’t want me to, and she’ll believe what she will. I do, however, think you’re making a mistake. To get anything out of a deal you have to be willing to part with something of equal value.” While admitting to suffering secret abuse for years was a justifiably daunting task, Ghost didn’t understand why Charlie was being so secretive about her biological father’s identity. It was a truth rooted far in the past and didn’t alter the person who Charlie was today. Her reluctance to do what was necessary ebbed at some of the pride Ghost had felt at her resolve to accompany him. She was making them fight with one arm tied behind their backs, and victims of disability never lasted long in Baneberry.
“Well, if that’s your decision, then let’s get heading inside. No point in standing around.” Ghost formed a stirrup with his hands and gave Charlie a boost up to the window, a black hole like a yawning mouth visible beneath a slat of wood. “Careful,” he grunted. “There might be shards of glass… or protruding nails… ngh.” With a final heave from Ghost, Charlie was able to grab the lip of the windowsill and pull herself up and through. There was a dull thump from inside as Charlie rolled and hit the floor. But she shook it off and a moment later she reappeared at the window with her hands extended to Ghost, who gratefully accepted them. With this leverage, he was able to plant his feet flat against the side of the building and kick his way up to the window. At the top, Ghost gave the briefest of pauses to catch his breath, and then he nodded at Charlie, indicating his readiness to continue. Shadows crept across the room’s floor like skulking demons, obfuscating any potential obstacles. The miniscule lamp- and starlight from the window illuminated an even darker rectangle of black directly opposite Charlie and Ghost, implying a doorway leading deeper inside. Ghost started for it, going cautiously and probing the air with his feet before committing to a step. Charlie was a breath behind him.
The doorway deposited them on a gallery that ringed the circumference of the first floor. Above a formidable metal door that Ghost assumed was the main entrance hung a yellow electric lamp, creating a dancing tapestry of light and shadow across the floor as two silhouetted figures punctuated their conversation with gestures. They stood directly in front of the large metal door, as if avidly awaiting the arrival of a guest over its threshold. Or a pair of guests. Dust motes were suspended in the air, and the wood of the balcony was rotted in intermittent dark splotches. Charming, Ghost thought to himself as he felt for the top step of a narrow staircase without breaking his neck. Aubrey truly has an eye for luxury.
The top step shrieked when Ghost placed his weight on it. The agitated chatter downstairs broke off immediately. The long-haired shadow spun around to face the source of the noise. Knowing that their cover had been blown, Ghost adjusted his twin bracelets and decided to announce his and Charlie’s presence. Own it, like an exotic bird displaying its plumage. “Good evening, Aubrey. Thorn. Nice night for a walk, eh? The fireworks really took my breath away.” Oh, when Ghost had almost plunged head first off the roof of a house, they most certainly had. A wry smile stole over his lips in the obvious second it took the two initiates to collect their thoughts, surprise plain on their faces. “What? You honestly didn’t expect us to stroll through the front door, did you?”
DaChaoticWriter
Maybe one day I'll stop traumatizing my characters
DaChaoticWriter
filler
MOOD || Scatter-brained, excited
filler
LOCATION || Shayla's Apartment
filler
INTERACTIONS || Shayla/Randi
Sanctuaryforall1
, Aya
Wolfiee
, Cas
Nerdy.
filler
MENTIONS || N/A
filler
LOCATION || Shayla's Apartment
filler
INTERACTIONS || Shayla/Randi
Sanctuaryforall1
, Aya
Wolfiee
, Cas
Nerdy.
filler
MENTIONS || N/A
Yuri had found out about the small get-together in Shayla’s apartment quite by accident, but he had been invited all the same. He didn’t really have anything else to do, what harm could there be in a bit of partying? Weren’t they meant to be celebrating and making merry before the spooky fear landscape sucked the joy from them? Well, metaphorically that is. Either way, it beat sitting alone and lingering in the anxieties of what comes next. Had he always been this on edge? No, but in a way he felt better for it. More prepared. All those simulations had finally paid off, he supposed. The thought was enough to make him laugh. Who knew so much could change in so little time? He’d barely paid his old faction a few thoughts in that time and, if he were being honest, he didn’t really miss it. Sure, not everyone would be pleasant, but that had never bothered him.
No one had explicitly mentioned what they would be eating, but he’d taken it upon himself to whip up some muffins in the compound’s community kitchen while everyone else went ahead. Next time, hopefully with a bit more notice, he’d make something even better. If he knew one way to make friends, it was through their stomachs… Or impromptu meetups that pushed some participants to their social limits. Either way, all things could be made better with sweets.
The quick shower following his baking had turned into a moderately longer than planned shower, and suddenly the young initiate found himself all but running through the halls of the Dauntless compound looking like a chicken without his head. He’d almost forgotten to grab the tray of muffins. He’d barely managed to secure the black beanie that had become his out of training best friend on top of his head before he left. In typical Yuri fashion, his mind had been all over the place. Did he remember where the apartment actually was? Had he even asked? He rolled his eyes at himself. Of course he had, how else did he intend to get there?
Yuri came to a stop outside Shayla’s door, taking a few deep breaths to steady himself. He considered knocking or calling through the door for assistance, but that would have been too easy. Instead, he managed to turn the knob just enough while balancing the food and nudged the door open. “The dessert king has arrived!” He called into the living space, pleasantly surprised by the aroma of Chinese. He followed the sound of voices into the living room, setting the tray down beside the takeout containers. He plucked one of his creations off the top of the pile and took a seat, watching the game with an amused grin. “Spin the bottle of truth or dare? I guess that’s one way to play,” he said between bites.
code by ditto (head empty go bonk)
Sanctuaryforall1
Pyrrha Nikos Lives On
Randi
code by Stardust Galaxy
DaChaoticWriter
Maybe one day I'll stop traumatizing my characters
DaChaoticWriter
filler
MOOD || Angry
filler
LOCATION || The Street
filler
INTERACTIONS || Fable/Bloom
Sanctuaryforall1
, Griffon
Nerdy.
, Rhys
Wolfiee
filler
MENTIONS || N/A
Val was, as she had been in years prior, busiest during the days of Dauntless celebrations. She spent her time catching up with those she hadn’t seen in a while, friends from childhood or even transfer initiates from her year she’d come to call friends. She’d had some touch ups done on the hanged man tattoo positioned squarely in the middle of her back, an offer made by a somewhat intoxicated Ricky when she mentioned how the white had faded. He’d done beautifully on her tattoos and she knew how tricky such light colors could be on her skin tone. Yet, he still insisted on fixing it for a pretty solid discount. She had no complaints, Bloom mentioned doing some work with the fear landscape with an initiate named Griffon so her desire to spend time with her fellow instructor would have had to wait anyways.
She hardly flinched at the work being done on her, she never really did. Her pain tolerance had always been something she prided herself on. It made conversing with the cohorts who’d followed them into the tattoo parlor a bit easier to manage. No one seemed to pay her exposed back any mind as they continued to chatter and drink to the good days. It reminded her of better days and the reason she’d opted to be an instructor in the first place, though that obligation had been put on hold this year due to prior engagements. Most of her friends couldn't quite understand why she'd opted to help out when their training was so close to being done. What was the point? Rather than explain what had inspired her the year prior, she simply shrugged. They gave her careful punches on the arm and commended her for doing what they certainly didn't want to. She just rolled her eyes and waved them off. She did pity the action she seemed to miss, at least if the stories they told were half as exciting as they described them.
She thought for sure by the time she finished up her session with Ricky that Bloom’s schedule would have freed up. Maybe she’d catch her at the tail end of her session with the unfamiliar initiate. To her surprise, she found the fear landscape had been empty for quite some time. It took a bit of asking around to figure out where her best friend had wandered off to, and the strangeness of what she’d heard didn’t sit so well with her.
She almost didn’t believe that parents from Abnegation of all factions had ventured into their compound for a visit. A rather unannounced one, it seemed. Talk about fish out of water, right into a den of sharks. It took quite a bit of zigging and zagging through crowds of people to find the one she sought after. Unsurprisingly she found them separated from the rest of their festive little society. At first all seemed pretty normal from her distance, but once the tones of their voices finally caught up to her ears she picked up her pace. So much so she all but jogged to step into what proved to be a brewing altercation.
“The hell is going on here?” She shouted, squeezing her way between what appeared to be father and daughter. Her once chipper mood had soured and she no longer felt the need to tolerate an outsider who thought they could start shit on a day of celebration. Especially with Bloom of all people standing not even a foot away. Who was he to undermine her authority? In their home, no less. She shoved Fred back, further into Bloom’s grasp. Her eye twitched with rage. “You forget your place, tough guy. Leave before I remind you of it,” she warned, feet planted firmly. She just hoped the young man behind her would take the hint and get his friend out of there while the adults worked things out.
code by ditto (head empty go bonk)
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