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Skyler glanced from her phone to the small abandoned building in front of her and found the warehouse that Xinder kid was talking about. She parked her car in front and grabbed her things before getting out. She reread the address of the building on her phone—seriously, where was she? Skyler’s been everywhere across the nation and she was very sure this place doesn’t exist.
Well, you learn something new every day, huh?
Skyler rolled up her sleeve and pushed open the front door with her forearm, unease quenching in her stomach wondering what happened in this building and how long had it been abandoned for the place to get so dirty. The clicks of her heels echoed in the open space as she looked around, the midday sun seeping into the large windows on one wall of the warehouse and illuminating the large area.
Her gaze darted around, landing on dusty objects and furniture tossed around and clattered on the ground until she found a teal-haired girl. She must be the girl Xinder requested for her to meet. Skyler approached the girl and her attention withdrew to her.
“You must be who Xinder wanted me to meet?” the girl started.
Skyler lightly shrugged. “I guess.”
“I’m Elsie,” she introduced herself.
“Skyler.”
They remained in a short and awkward silence for a few moments. Skyler knew quite literally nothing at all about Elsie, and she knew nothing at all about her. Why did she agree to this? Doesn’t she have better things to do? Was this worth twenty dollars? And why did they have to meet up here, in some dirty, abandoned warehouse in the middle of virtually nowhere—a nowhere that she’s half-sure doesn’t exist?
Elsie sparked the conversation, dragging Skyler from her thoughts. “You look like an assassin. Are you one?”
Skyler came to a full stop at the question. “That’s… straightforward,” she only said, narrowing her eyes at the girl.
“Are you or are you not?” she insisted.
A different kind of unease from earlier shifted in Skyler. “Do you need to know my occupation?”
“Yes,” Elsie answered quickly. Skyler swallowed down the urge to fidget as she calculated ways to escape this situation. What kind of kid was this? How was she able to just assume that of her? Skyler could pretend and say what she always said when asked of her occupation, but something told her the kid would be able to figure that lie out too.
Which did not sit right with her one bit. The unfamiliar feeling stirring in her stomach twisted and churned in her. How in the Void could a kid see through her? She needed a way out. She didn’t feel right about this at all. When was the last time she scrambled for an escape like this? She could—
“Okay, I just did my research. You have a criminal record—”
…
If Elsie continued speaking, Skyler didn’t process her words.
“Excuse me?” was all she could get out, dumbfounded and mortified and fearful. (No she isn’t. She doesn’t feel fear—let alone fear of a damn kid—she’s so much better than that. Get your shit together, Skyler.)
That’s fine. She still has her line of defense. Elsie doesn’t know everything. Skyler just needs a crack at her—a sliver of a chance to get back at her.
“Need me to dumb it down for you?” Elsie asked, tone sopping with sarcasm, making Skyler’s eye twitch. “Skyler Chroia: four counts of vandalism, two counts of trespassing—oh, convicted of murder?” Intrigue bled into Elsie’s manner. Skyler’s heart pounded hard and fast, her mind spinning even faster.
She was calculating ways to get out, to control the situation again, to maintain her image—and she was still comprehending how someone could tear her walls down and cut her strings so easily just from a single glance—at how a damn kid could see right her—and nobody knew of what happened to her father. Nobody but her and her sister, and Skyler could not let a little girl she just met know as well, because at this rate, Elsie very well could do so soon if Skyler didn’t get her shit together.
How in the Void is she able to get out of this? What does the girl know about the homicide? How is this girl able to know so much? What else could she know? Elsie can’t know more. Skyler can’t lose control. She just can’t get a crack at Elsie—she just can’t get out of this conversation. What the fuck is she doing?! How is she losing control so easily?!
“How—” Skyler struggled. Why the fuck is she struggling, why the fuck can’t she get it together!? She stopped herself before she could stutter, frantically recollecting the words stubbornly stuck in her throat. She kept a hand close and tight at her leg, ready to unsheath the blade concealed within her skirt.
“This is interesting… convicted of domestic violence, stalking, and kidnap—”
“Shut up.” The muscles in Skyler’s body tensed up, her eyes wide like those of a deer caught in headlights. How in the Void did she allow herself to be so vulnerable? She must look pathetic, fearful, panicking over a kid who doesn’t even look older than fifteen. A kid who doesn’t even look older than fifteen who can tear down the walls she’s built up high for years.
Elsie’s gaze flicked up and down Skyler’s form, reading her—fuck, how is she letting herself be read like an open book—pausing and lingering longer at the hand fisted tight at her side. There, a crack. Something she can use to jab at.
“Aw, are you stressed? Stressed I’m digging up all that you’re hiding, you psychopath?”
Skyler narrowed her eyes. “Don’t call me that,” she quickly shut down. That’s not what she is. She’s not a psychopath, she is not a control freak and she is not what her father made her to be. She is not what he says she is. She isn’t. She killed off any and every tie connecting her to him.
Skyler’s heart pounded furiously against her ribcage. She curled her fingers tighter against her side.
“I can’t call you something that you are?” Elsie wondered. Her gaze remained on Skyler’s face but flickered down to the hand still curled into a tight fist, her sarcastic demeanor dropping as quickly as it was replaced—fuck, too quickly for Skyler to read the expression between. Shit, she’s slipping—she’s losing control.
“I’m not a psychopath." She willed herself to say, and willed herself to step closer to Elsie despite the bone-deep instinct screaming at her to run and get away and to escape, despite the fear crawling over her—no, she doesn’t experience fear. She’s better than that. She’s better than fearing a little thirteen-year-old. She’s better than losing control to a nosy, prying kid.
Elsie scoffed. “Yeah, ‘cause psychopaths definitely wouldn’t have multiple counts of kidnapping or stalking. Say, what else could you be hid—”
The fight instinct ingrained into Skyler’s humanity won over the flight instinct in the heat of the moment, as she unsheathed the dagger against her body and stepped towards Elsie once more, grabbing her by her bright teal hair and pressing the pointed edge of the blade to the column of her throat—all within a blink of an eye. She instantly felt better from the practiced movement, something satisfying that she had far gotten used to by now.
Elsie’s breath hitched and her form froze, all in the same way Skyler had moments before. Her shaky gaze darted around. “Nice joke, put that away…” Elsie laughed nervously. Her body stiffened as if she braced for something more.
Skyler bore into Elsie’s eyes—locked onto hers yet instead looking through her. “L-Let me go!” Elsie yelled. Skyler pressed the blade harder into Elsie’s throat, not enough to break skin, but enough to test another reaction—of which she got, as Elsie frantically escaped her grasp, tumbling onto the solid, cool floor with panted, heaving breaths.
Skyler took a full breath, smoothing out her top to retain her composure as she glared down at Elsie. The girl’s eyes darted around and her breath was stuttered and strained. She stepped closer, curious at the way Elsie had flipped so quickly—from a nosy and sarcastic threat to Skyler’s persona to a trembling, pathetic mess.
Skyler loomed over her, hands clasped behind her back, staring with a darkened and heavy gaze. When Elsie locked eye contact with her momentarily, she shook harder and her breath came even more unsteadily. Skyler just remained for a few moments, watching her reaction with intrigue until her attention faded, boredom taking its place. She enjoys to torture for the blood and the cries of pain, not… whatever Elsie was.
Skyler swiped the longer side of her skirt aside to resheath her blade before stepping around Elsie and walking away, pulling out her phone from her purse. “This was not worth twenty dollars,” she mumbled to herself as she opened her messages to text Olivia. She glanced up to push the door open and put her phone away, finding her car and getting back in. Just as she pulls out from her parking spot, she notices that Xinder kid enter the building.
They'll be disappointed when they see Elsie in a panic attack. They'll probably want to get back at Skyler. If they wants to track her down, they can try.
