[lj idol] week four | "look for the girl with the broken smile..."
[it is never about her. but this is...]
*
Her phone jumps to life at a little after one am. She’s not asleep, she’s not even home, but she’s come to learn that text messages in the middle of the night never herald the arrival of something good.
This is sure to be no exception.
The backlit text is sparse and unemotional. A short, sharp ‘Where are you?’ that doesn’t actually mean ‘where are you?’ at all. She foregoes a reply; they are not expecting one after all. Finds herself moving purposefully towards the underground lair they usually meet in without so much as a paused second thought.
This is how it goes.
This is how it always goes.
Her friends, they depend on her. And the swell of relief that comes with the notion is palpable.
(Careful emotional programing means she knows, instinctively, to respond in only one way.
Their motives were never as clinical as that but the effect has been the same regardless…)
When she walks into the room, the rest of the group are already knee-deep in rumbling conversation. Papers and photographs are strewn across the table-top, and the whiteboard she’d insisted on all those countless months ago has been littered with rows of barely decipherable scribble. She frowns and there’s a flash of ‘but I came straight here…’ that fizzles out before it can really take hold as she drags another chair into the mix and takes a seat and a deep breath, like maybe she does belong here after all.
There’s a new bad guy in town they tell her. But it’s okay, they add, all sharp nods and self-satisfied smirks, they have a plan to take him out.
Another thing she has learned: there is always a plan and she is right to trust these people, her friends.
(Also;
There is always a bad guy.)
They’re running details over and over, making sure everyone understands the duties they’ve been allocated, the part they’ve been assigned to play. She nods her head, her eyes wide as she hums her assent and roughly swallows down the acid-like discomfort at the back of her throat she’s dismissively attributing to whatever the hell it was she ate for lunch.
She has been given her role and she is important and these people, her friends, they trust her.
We need you (to do this), they say.
She is one of them.
This is her mantra.
(She is the bait.
Not because of who she is, but because of who she isn’t. Because she is expendable.
Nobody says this out loud.)
She shimmies into a black dress and strappy heels and slicks her lips with sticky, pink gloss. Marvels at the soft fluttering in her gut, little more than the thrill of the chase, and tries not to think too hard about running for her life across loose gravel or soggy grass in six inch stilettos.
They will not let it come to that, she tells herself. And even if it does, well, what’s a scraped knee or a bruised rib? A turned ankle or a fist full of her hair, yanked out at the roots? She knows there is a bigger picture here. Muscles mend and hair grows back, after all.
She already knows she will kiss him, she will let him kiss her. His skin on her skin, if that's what it takes.
She will play her part and she won’t ask questions because there are no questions here to ask.
This is not about her.
(It is never about her.
Nobody says this out loud either…)
*
disclaimer | this entry is based loosely on my interpretation of Caroline Forbes from The Vampire Diaries but no knowledge of TVD is intended to be necessary.
previously on...
introduction
jayus
the missing stair
in another castle
*
Her phone jumps to life at a little after one am. She’s not asleep, she’s not even home, but she’s come to learn that text messages in the middle of the night never herald the arrival of something good.
This is sure to be no exception.
The backlit text is sparse and unemotional. A short, sharp ‘Where are you?’ that doesn’t actually mean ‘where are you?’ at all. She foregoes a reply; they are not expecting one after all. Finds herself moving purposefully towards the underground lair they usually meet in without so much as a paused second thought.
This is how it goes.
This is how it always goes.
Her friends, they depend on her. And the swell of relief that comes with the notion is palpable.
(Careful emotional programing means she knows, instinctively, to respond in only one way.
Their motives were never as clinical as that but the effect has been the same regardless…)
When she walks into the room, the rest of the group are already knee-deep in rumbling conversation. Papers and photographs are strewn across the table-top, and the whiteboard she’d insisted on all those countless months ago has been littered with rows of barely decipherable scribble. She frowns and there’s a flash of ‘but I came straight here…’ that fizzles out before it can really take hold as she drags another chair into the mix and takes a seat and a deep breath, like maybe she does belong here after all.
There’s a new bad guy in town they tell her. But it’s okay, they add, all sharp nods and self-satisfied smirks, they have a plan to take him out.
Another thing she has learned: there is always a plan and she is right to trust these people, her friends.
(Also;
There is always a bad guy.)
They’re running details over and over, making sure everyone understands the duties they’ve been allocated, the part they’ve been assigned to play. She nods her head, her eyes wide as she hums her assent and roughly swallows down the acid-like discomfort at the back of her throat she’s dismissively attributing to whatever the hell it was she ate for lunch.
She has been given her role and she is important and these people, her friends, they trust her.
We need you (to do this), they say.
She is one of them.
This is her mantra.
(She is the bait.
Not because of who she is, but because of who she isn’t. Because she is expendable.
Nobody says this out loud.)
She shimmies into a black dress and strappy heels and slicks her lips with sticky, pink gloss. Marvels at the soft fluttering in her gut, little more than the thrill of the chase, and tries not to think too hard about running for her life across loose gravel or soggy grass in six inch stilettos.
They will not let it come to that, she tells herself. And even if it does, well, what’s a scraped knee or a bruised rib? A turned ankle or a fist full of her hair, yanked out at the roots? She knows there is a bigger picture here. Muscles mend and hair grows back, after all.
She already knows she will kiss him, she will let him kiss her. His skin on her skin, if that's what it takes.
She will play her part and she won’t ask questions because there are no questions here to ask.
This is not about her.
(It is never about her.
Nobody says this out loud either…)
*
disclaimer | this entry is based loosely on my interpretation of Caroline Forbes from The Vampire Diaries but no knowledge of TVD is intended to be necessary.
previously on...
introduction
jayus
the missing stair
in another castle