“My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of MidnightUndisclosed Fairgrounds
Somewhere in North Carolina
27.02.2007
4:12pm
It could have been argued that pickpocketing was an artform.
When done poorly it was clumsy and misguided, feeding into a public misconception that it was a gamble for the sly of hand and blunt of mind. Everyone always thought they’d be able to tell, that they’d have this innate awareness and they’d catch them triumphantly quite literally with their hand in the cookie jar.
Done well though- now that's was a whole other story, Amber mused leaning against the paint chipped and flimsy railing. Revellers lined up just behind her murmuring excitedly between themselves, watching the flailing metal arms toss paying customers about wildly like some crazy mechanical jaunt that was three years behind in its service schedule.
If she were so inclined, Amber would have said that Brendan “Sticky Fingers” Griffiths was one of the best she’d ever come across, however she absolutely wasn’t inclined mostly for the fact that he embodied being a massive scumbag. Shaggy, dirty blonde hair fell around his face like the destitute version of a 90’s boy band heartthrob and his thin lanky frame reminded Amber of a sentient coat rack once the personality had been sucked out. Even his faded baseball cap had been turned backwards, dark eyes somehow lighting a fire under anything with a pulse still figuring out their sexuality.
She’d watched him chatting up some girls for the previous 20 minutes… Young, easily impressionable, looking to rebel for the sake of rebellion, crushing hard on this older guy who seemed to just ‘get them’.
Amber wanted to vomit right then and there.
By now he’d gotten two of the three wallets and a watch off a particularly boisterous girl as though she were trying to lay her claim, she fluttered her eyelashes and pouted in such a way that girls barely out of school shouldn’t have known. If Ambere weren’t so disgusted with the show, she might have actually been impressed- the way he kept them all in a line, captivated and giddy, they never noticed when his hand grazed against their leg or the faint scrap of metal on skin as the watch disappeared beneath slippery fingers as his hand touched theirs.
Too busy trying to convince themselves that they can be the one to change him, that they could convince him to remain loyal, that they could be everything he’d ever want. They couldn’t be any of those things though, all they’d become to him was another literal notch in his belt and all he’d become to them was an embarrassing story about bad decision making.
Local sophomores, two blondes and a raven haired girl- not that it mattered to ‘Sticky’, he’d picked them as marks almost an hour earlier- sidling up beside Amber like a sleaze trying to whisper in her ear…
… “A tenner says I can get all their wallets without even having to kiss them”...
Even thinking of it now Amber recoiled violently, his voice reminded her of the sound of metal scraping on metal, metallic and sickly like it triggered every nerve simultaneously.
… “I’ll give you a fiver if you literally never speak to me again”...
He had chuckled at her, like the sound of glass shards breaking under foot.
… “Come on Red, you know you’d be all over me like a rash if you just loosened up a little”...
Swatting him away, she’d become like a conquest. An unattainable goal, a nut that just needed to be approached in just the right angle to crack under his supposed charm.
… “I’d rather chew aluminium foil. Besides you’ve got plenty enough rash without me”...
A sleazy wink and ‘Sticky’ left to go lick his wounds. Probably even practise sucking his own dick cause he’d be the only person that might go near it without a bottle of bleach and a bible.
Amber knew she could have stepped in, hell, she could have done a whole lot of other things too, however she felt it was akin to rubbernecking at a car crash- as macabre and disturbing as it might be, you’re still compelled to stare as you go by and do nothing.
Amber watched on with an unabashed disgust, she caught ‘Sticky’ making a sideways glance finding the stoic redhead amid the garish glow of fairy lights.
It was all a fucking game- like limbo but with human decency, he was trying to get a reaction, he wanted her to step in and kick him to the curb so that he might get within arms distance without being punched for 15 seconds. To be spoken to- even if it were a torrent of profanities and threats of violence.
Grizz, despite Amber’s best efforts, wouldn't get rid of him though…
… “He’s good at what he does Bambi, gets people riled up and knocks them down a few pegs. Keeps them coming back for more- yeah he’s a bit of an asshole but he drags that midway like few others round here.”...
Amber understood, money spoke volumes. It's what kept the lights on, the engines running and the wheels turning. Just because he was good at riling a crowd to check out his fucking shitty rigs, didn’t mean Amber had to tolerate him.
With a knowing shake of the head, Amber watched Sticky bid farewell to the girls with overly close embraces, deliberately handsy and downright disgusting as the last wallet lifted out of a less than secure back pocket. With a saunter, Sticky crossed the midway towards where Amber rolled her eyes, his stupid smile wide and triumphant.
“You owe me a tenner, sweetcheeks.”Amber scoffed loudly, scuffing her shoe against the ground distractedly.
“Go fuck yourself Sticky. I told you before I wasn’t taking your fools bet.”“Was that a compliment?”“No, that's me telling you to go and jump.”Sidling up beside Amber, his arm grazing hers before she could move out of the way, he readjusted his baseball cap to face the right way around, as though that changed anything.
“Come on now Red, stop fighting it. Only place I’m looking to jump is into your…”Sticky trailed off, although for a second Amber wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the gods had finally taken a mercy upon her soul and taken his voice before he could say something that would likely get another tooth or two knocked out of his head.
“... Hey there, baby girl”If Amber hadn’t wanted to vomit before, she could taste the bile now. Cassidy Parker, with her curls falling around her face and a spring in her step, gave Sticky a doe eyed look as though he’d suddenly grown a halo and some wings- ascending down a staircase of light.
Local girls were a different story, they weren’t Amber’s responsibility- however Cassidy… God, she was like Amber’s little sister, she was like blood and…
Sticky leaned down to give her what she presumed would be a kiss on the forehead- stale, dry and smelling like cheap menthol cigarettes, she’d seen him do it to maybe hundreds of girls before.
“Oh no, fuck no. This… This right here is absolutely not happening.”Red had never realized she possessed a ‘Mom voice’ before now, but proceeded to wield it like she’d always known she could.
“Don’t you even dare Sticky, I swear to god…”Cassidy seemed shell-shocked at first, then the pout developed. She must have been working on it in the mirror or something, soft eyes and dimples under the harsh glow of badly aged neon. Sticky had to have expected it though, backing off with his hands raised as though he’d been caught trying to break into a car… again.
“Fine. You do you Red, keep on being the buzzkill. I’ll see you lovely ladies around later I’m sure…”With a mock bow, inclusive of sweeping off his cap with an over exaggerated flourish, Sticky gave them both a smirk before blowing a kiss in Cassidy’s direction- one which Amber was sure might have made the younger girl melt just a little more in the late afternoon sun.
“... Bye Brendan”Meek to the point of almost giddy, Amber nearly didn’t catch Cassidy’s farewell over the chatter of the passing crowds and mechanical grinding of the ride behind them- however the moment Sticky had left their sight, Amber turned on Cassidy, grabbing her by the shoulders firmly.
“Brendan? Are you out of your goddamn mind. Him… Of all the people in all the shitholes, Cass… Him?”Clearly annoyed at what sounded like the beginning of yet another lecture, Cassidy straightened up and brushed herself off slightly.
“It's none of your business Amber- I’m nearly 16. I can make my own choices, you know.”Matter of factly, Cassidy shrugged Amber’s hands off. That typical teenage know-it-all stare practically boring a hole through Amber’s skull. Not that it had much of an effect on the redheads stance.
“It really is. I literally just watched him chat up three girls to snatch their wallets, what makes you think he’s gonna treat you any different? Hell, he tries to chat me up every time I have the misfortune of seeing him!”“You don’t know him like I do Amber.”This was all headed downhill fast, a cart of teenage hormones careening out of control. Cassidy was a damn sweet girl, just wanting to see the best in everyone, but she was so very blind to peoples nature… No doubt Josie probably had a hand in this, Amber mused silently as the staredown continued.
“Maybe he’s a bit rough around the edges, but so are you… You’d steal someone's wallet the moment you met them as well, so why is it okay for you and not him…”A heavy sigh escaped Amber’s lips as she ran her fingers through her hair, she never thought she’d have to try and explain such things to a nearly 16 year old however things these days really did cease to surprise her.
“I’m not chatting them up before hand inviting them to give me a handy behind the ring toss. We all do what we feel like we have to do, but he has to take everything further Cass. He deliberately pushes the boundaries and wonders why there's blowback…
God, the only reason your Dad keeps him around is cause he knows how to lure marks and swindle them while they think they’re getting a good deal. If he couldn’t talk out of his ass he wouldn’t have a shred of talent to speak of.”A wave of immediate regret crashed over Amber as she watched Cassidy’s expression sour, what she’d hoped might be conducive to a wake-up call had apparently had the opposite effect. She’d made her more determined, more obsessive. More…
“You don’t know anything Amber- you think you do, but you’re just as shit as the rest of them.”With a huff, Cassidy went to storm off presumably to find Sticky somewhere along the midway- however before the growing swell of crowds swallowed her whole, Cassidy- with a couple of tears smearing mascara down her cheek- turned and gave the redhead a chilling dead eye stare.
“He loves me Amber… and I love him.”Before sound could escape Amber’s mouth, the syllables dying half way in her throat, Cassidy was already gone. Leaving the 18 year old redhead perplexed and a little nauseous… Yeah, maybe she did need to be sick after all.
******
“You know, it goes without saying that too much of anything is toxic.
Good, bad and otherwise- it's just as unsafe to drink yourself into an oblivion or pump yourself full of heroin as it is to over hydrate with water or consume too many vitamins. Granted some of these things work much faster than others- the result is always the same.
Imminent, painful and probably lonely death.
So what about sugar. What about sugar and spice, and all things nice… Sweet, saccharine, cloying goodness- the kind that leaves you feeling like you might have just contracted diabetes through proximity.
It's no secret that it rots you from the inside out, blackens and decays everything to the point it starts to just fall away in chunks and you start to slowly implode- by the time you realize what's happening on the outside, you’re already halfway collapsed in and the rest is just an inevitability.
I like to think that the same goes for attitude- nothing is tenable long term, nothing can be maintained to the same level forever, eventually things have to change or they start to become stale, they start to fester and they become septic.
Thing is Candy, we don’t know each other all that well… You probably think I’m kind of an asshole cause you’re one of Team Hero’s many loyal, ardent lemmings straying towards a cliffs edge, and I think you’re a tremendous wrestler who also happens to be completely dense and I wonder why you haven’t switched from laces to velcro.
What I do know about you though, and what you tend to be most well known for, is your bubbly effervescent attitude. Your sweet as candy, pardon the pun, perspective on a word that just like to piss all over anything resembling goodness. A flickering candle being dragged into a black hole if you will…
I also think it's a terrible detriment to your career. I think your inability to perceive anything outside of ‘good’ and ‘really mean’ leaves you at a deficit and hampers your ability to climb the proverbial ladder of success. Essentially you’ve hit the glass ceiling just above head height, but you’re too fucking nice to bust through cause that might mean doing something untoward. You’d rather hover at the same level for risk of offending anyone around you.
I’m not sitting here saying that you need to become a piece of trash to succeed, far from it. However, like everything in this word, too much of a good thing becomes toxic and Candy… sweetheart… hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re far more rotten on the inside than any of us.
Worst part is, you don’t even realize your career has gone terminal around you.
Roulette title? Long gone, hell you haven’t even had a sniff at anything close to accomplishment since… That match, if you can even call it that, with Sin? Luck. Pure fucking luck, Candy. She should have tore you limb from limb but she underestimated you- that's the only reason you survived.
I won’t take accomplishments from you, but you’re stagnant. You’ve put your career in park and are comfortable watching the traffic move by without you- not realizing you’re choking to death on your own niceties in the meantime.
You’re good, and that's literally it. That's everything you are as a person, as a wrestler, as a member of this bombshells division- arguably the most competitive in the company… Feel free to @ me if you don’t agree kiddies.
Everything that makes you special can be summed up in a word. In a syllable.
Thing is, you won’t even mind.
You’ll take it as a compliment and tell everyone I said something nice about you like I’m only capable of being a complete asshole. I can’t possibly be a complete asshole though, cause there happen to be several important pieces missing.
If anything, I’m actually a damn good person.
Stop laughing.
At every possible turn, I have taken the higher road. I’ve been upfront and honest about my intentions from the start- yet I’m the one who people seem to think is a piece of shit? I’ve done ALMOST everything by the book- I walked into this company and I challenged Roxi.
I didn’t lay a goddamn finger on her until the time came when I realized she wasn’t going to give me the respect that I was due as a competitor and a rival- I have played nice until it was no longer time to play nice anymore…
Even then it was strictly professional.
See, that's what people like me do Candy… What people like Alicia Lukas and Evie Jordan do. What successful competitors in a business designed to bring out the worst in people do night in and night out. We go out and we do what is necessary- it doesn’t matter if we like it or even if we like ourselves afterwards, it doesn’t matter what other people think. It's what has to be done- otherwise you have people like Jessie Salco, like Bea Barnhart, like Violet Holt and like yourself leading a division set to collapse under the weight of its own expectation.
You play nice until nice doesn’t get you any further Candy. Not until you’ve got nowhere left to go but down.
So yeah, I am a good person Candy.
It’s just that I happen to be a far better wrestler.”
******
Amber’s Apartment
Atlantic City, NJ
27.10.2020
7:31am
Amber had never expected to be concerned about smelling like she’d just crawled out of a bayou.
That being said, two days after Climax Control and she swore up and down she could still smell stagnant water and swamp grime in her pores. Normally she’d have opted to head straight back to Baltimore or stay in Vegas with Mac however things felt a little… well… different.
Maybe it was the fact they’d taken their first loss as an ‘official’ SCW team or maybe it's the fact that Mac had gotten down on a knee, poured his heart out and proposed… and Amber didn’t know what to say.
She hadn’t said no, well not really… but she hadn’t jumped for joy and said yes either.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t want to, but at the same time… ugh. Amber paused, a cigarette halfway pulled from an errant packet, she hadn’t even realized she’d gone for them- just an instinctive, reflexive gesture when her nerves were beyond shot.
“You quit remember? Not like the hundred other times before either- come on we’re supposed to be doing better…”
There was nothing like being berated by one's own self-conscience while contemplating what works best to get swamp stench out of ring gear. Leaning back in her plastic chair with one foot on the wrought iron balcony railing, SAmber balanced herself precariously on those back two legs, complete with the knowledge that surely one day those legs would buckle and she’d be on her ass.
Like she had been alot recently it seemed.
Almost ironic really, she’d been so content in the knowledge that she’d become a fully fledged asshole for so long that the moment she tried to improve, the moment her perspective began to shift- the world around her seemed to fall entirely out of alignment.
Of course the loss to The Black Sheep sucked, she’d have been a liar if she wasn’t even the smallest bit disappointed. Maybe it was to be expected to a certain degree, they’d been teaming longer- and besides Texans weren’t exactly at home in swamps.
Still excuses were frivolous and so she avoided them like the plague- give a simple nod to the victors, leaving them with the thought that next time their number might well and truly be up, and be on our merry way.
It wasn’t as though it even left them in any worse of a position- Mac still had an upcoming title match at High Stakes, first supercard and he’d already earned his shot as she’d always expected he would and Amber…
“Yeah, Roxi. Isn’t that a situation and a half- between heroes and demons you’d think we’d just entered the fucking twilight zone.”
To say a curveball might have been thrown into the equation would likely have been an insult to baseball, Sin and all her shenanigans had thrown off the balance that Amber had so carefully curated- Roxi’s focus was split, her priorities skewed and while that made her potentially an easier target it also left her with an excuse. A way out, a reason to question an inevitable result.
Amber twirled the unlit cigarette between her fingers distractedly, the weather in Atlantic City was turning- clouds heavier with rain loomed on a usually neon wasteland horizon, the Boardwalk usually full of tourists clad in loud shirts and skimpy shorts were replaced with the bundled and the cautious, no one wanting to be anywhere outside longer than they needed to be.
Fear was the world's great motivator and perhaps the only reason anything ever really changed.
Fight or flight created a domino effect, it forced action where it might otherwise have been ignored. To create fear was to create a ripple that one day might become a tsunami- it projected through society, capturing those not prepared in it's uptake and spitting them out on the other side harried but otherwise enlightened.
Sin considered herself the embodiment of fear, this dastardly evil determined to see… the end of the world? Amber shrugged to herself, as if anyone might see it, the thought almost comical that a supposed demon could be considered frightening in 2020.
No, Amber had built her career on that concept- the idea that her name could provoke such a fearsome reaction from anyone, that her reputation might precede something far more debilitating was to be considered a success.
To be fearless, was to be foolish.
Admittedly Amber, in her slightly more reckless youth, would have proclaimed to anyone daring to listen that she was fearless, that she couldn’t be scared by anything or anyone cause there was nothing that could be done that she hadn’t already been a part of.
Of course with time and experience- and having been apart of things that absolutely would be considered worse- she’d come to learn that being absent from fear wasn’t to be admired- that the declaration simply proved you had little understanding of how to harness emotion… how to use and abuse it.
To fear something is to have the ability to change it, to learn from it and to adapt around it- and Team Hero, for all their good were misguided paragons of this wayward thinking. Change is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be someone out there fighting against it.
Drumming her fingers against her thigh, the redhead sighed, it wasn’t hard to see why she might be considered the toxic one, after all, it wasn’t as though she’d gone out of her way to bake cookies and make friends with the locker room.
“Hell, being picked as a literal poison says just as much.”
It’d been a long time since she’d been a weapon wielded in someone else's fight, although it also correlated with creating some collateral damage in her own- so she found herself only mildly opposed to the idea. Seemed obvious really who Candy might have picked for Mercedes, almost as unsurprising that Amber and Candy had found themselves several matches higher on the card than their oppositions- of course, that was a matter of taste and quality but Amber knew better than to say such things allowed.
Some statements just needed to be left to breathe in order to be further appreciated after all.
Amber and Mercedes had already fought to a draw once, so maybe she should have expected it… An expression of respect? Perhaps. An almost guaranteed opportunity to leave her High Stakes opponent far worse off than she’d be cause she was aware of the differences in moral codes between prospective opponents? Yeah. That seemed far more likely in this case.
Amber knew her name carried weight backstage, she’d been there only a few months and already people couldn’t keep her name out of their mouths- it would only be a matter of time before they wished that they’d never spoken her name.
Not that Candy would care, too busy brushing glitter off the ass of a unicorn probably…
*bzzzrt*A phone vibration in her pocket had never been a more welcome distraction to the mental image forming in her head- too much pink, too much glitter, too much baby talk and far too much enthusiasm for life from someone very obviously not snorting cocaine in an out-of-order bathroom stall. Digging around in her jeans, the smell of incoming rain and salt laden humidity carried on a welcome breeze across her balcony while her phones cracked screen trying to catch on presumably every denim fibre on the way out.
She’d eventually get that replaced. Sometime.
*One new message from Mac Bane*Of course it was. Although she couldn’t quite understand why she hesitated for a moment to open it, part of her expected the worst if only because the worst always seemed like the most logical solution- like a pessimist's Occam's Razor. A more realistic part of her knew the truth- that he was most likely checking in, probably complaining that the wretched stench of the bayou really got stuck in everything and they’d likely both ignore the proverbial elephant in the room and everything would be…
… “Hey Red, call me when you see this.” …“… Fine.”
******
“Have you ever considered what the role of the sidekick is?
An integral trope in the superhero genre, a lynchpin in storytelling because friendship with those perceived as lesser and/or weaker makes a protagonist seem more relatable instead of elitist scum undermining everyone around them for a potential reputational benefit.
A good guy can’t possibly be all that good unless they have someone beside them going ‘Gee golly, that's some mighty fine hero-ing you’re doing Hero’ and everyone smiles cause it's quirky and adorable. They need someone to save, someone to have grow and explore other such indeterminable cliches like ‘validity of violence and causing harm to people who happen to disagree with your outlook’ and ‘when is it romance vs when is it blatant sexual harassment’.
Needless to say, none of those are what the sidekick role is really for.
You know though, don’t you Roxi?
You know, and you’re still gonna let Candy prance on into this match against me like she isn’t just another paper doll in a fucking hurricane. You’re letting her step in against me, and you’re not gonna do a thing about it cause you understand how this is supposed to work…
Sidekicks are collateral damage.
Simply enough, if you create enough emotional investment in them and then you kill them off, all of a sudden the hero has lost something, they have something to fight for cause a sidekick… Give them two issues to grieve and they’ll have a brand new one on their doorstep, begging for a cape before you’ve even had a chance to wash the blood out of the last one.
A dime a dozen and worth half as much- quirky, adorable and entirely replaceable.
Of course you’re okay with it Roxi, cause you know it's just a part of the cycle- we’ve both done this for long enough to see where this is going… Candy, well you think she;d have already learned after the whole Sin thing however we both know that some of us learn a little slower than others.
It's okay though, I’ll make it quick. Maybe if you’re lucky and have the right mortician available- you might even be able to have an open casket… Cause you gotta milk all those fucking sympathy points while you have the chance.
I’d beg you Candy, I’d urge you to reconsider… Not for Roxi’s sake cause fuck her, she had her chance to do better, but for you and all you try to stand for.
Step away from the Heroes.
You think they really care?
You think them checking up on you at shows is love and protection? No, it's guilt. It's remorse cause they all should know better- you’re continually put in these situations of harm and they do nothing until you’re a bloody, crying mess cause prevention doesn’t rack up those twitter likes as quickly as false remorse.
If they cared half as much as you think they do, Sin would never have gotten close to you. Mercedes would never have locked you in a closet and you wouldn’t be preparing to step into the ring with someone who really just wants to go out there and prove she’s not fucking around…
You’re an asset to Team Hero, a disposable pawn on their chessboard. I guarantee you walk away and they’ve got someone just like you practically pissing themselves for the chance to be exactly where you are now.
Tell me Candy, do you think Marcus wants you in this match? You think Fluffy wants to see you go out there and get absolutely wrecked… What about Keira, huh, or is she too worried about cleaning up her mess to worry that her precious little Candy is a lamb led to slaughter. What about Roxi… Too busy worrying about her own skin and how much of it she's prepared to lose stepping up against me again.
Let me be blunt, like the force trauma instead of another adjective for your IQ, you love and respect Team Hero far more than they respect you.
You’re bait. You’re roadkill. You’re collateral damage in fights that you should never have been dragged into. You’re a number on a tally and a strike in a column- most importantly though..
You deserve better, but you absolutely won’t get it from them.
All this goodness, this saccharine facade. You’re attracted to shiny but utterly worthless things which explains why the Roulette title is the best that you could get- oops, that was a bit low… I’d apologize, but anyone who hates ice-cream that much kinda deserves everything they get... but all that glitters sure ain’t gold, you just like the way it looks in your hands.
So sure, glitter might be all shiny and pretty, an allusion to innocent and fragile nature you might try to fool everyone with- but it's entirely useless, just like you’ve been made to seem recently. Glitter, like blood, means almost nothing until it's in your eyes…
Maybe you’re more than I give you credit for, maybe you’ll fail to live up to my expectation- you might very well be the darling of Sin City Wrestling, but your song and dance doesn’t captivate like it used to and everyones learned all the steps by now.
You’re a victim of expectation, following a predetermined cycle cause anything else just doesn’t fulfil those same primal urges to be undermined- your reputation is faltering and the rotting stench of Team Hero is starting to linger on you like glitter.
Unlike them though, I’m willing to offer you something more… Eternal, glorious infamy.
Come Climax Control, you could very well be my Black Dahlia cause lets face it… it's far better to be remembered as a victim than nothing at all.”******
Federal Correctional Institution
Phoenix, AZ
30.10.2020
3:19pm
Finding ‘Sticky’ hadn’t been all that difficult in consideration.
Put a name through enough databases and something eventually has to trigger- sometimes it's a hit in a medium security prison in Arizona and sometimes it's half of the FBI showing up on your doorstep and seizing your computer cause grammar and punctuation are key.
Either way, Amber hadn’t exactly been surprised as the Arizona humidity fogged up the edges of her visor as she rolled her 2012 Suzuki Hayabusa across the parking lot. Perhaps it would have been far easier to fly, however the 4 hour ride from Vegas had given a bit of a chance to clear her head a little knowing she was probably about to hate every second of this.
Killing the engine, Amber shed her heavy riding jacket and helmet as though something in the faint breeze might have done anything to make her feel less… well…
“Sticky.”
With a shake of the head and the realization of word play gone badly, Amber crossed the near empty parking lot trying to maintain her composure and some form of professionalism, She didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want to speak to him- but she made a dead man's promise and somehow that notion of loyalty had tipped the scales ever so slightly.
Inside the blast of cooled, faintly sterile air was a welcome change despite a metallic twang in the back of her throat. It’d been years since she’d gone through the motions, and only a couple more on top of that since she was briefly on the other side- perhaps the system had gotten at least one thing right… Juvenile records being sealed when they became of age.
A process to be followed, an almost bored looking guard running through a spiel that must have been burned into his subconscious like an automatic reflex the moment someone said ‘hello’. No one else had a visitor on this day, a small relief if nothing else cause the walls had enough ears as it were and the idea that a nosy wife or girlfriend might somehow become interested in her business was enough to make her cringe openly.
A little too openly perhaps as the guard sized her up, entering the visitors room.
“You alright, Miss Ryan?”Amber hoped a feigned sweet smile would be enough of a deterrent, or at the very least seem disconcerting enough that he might no longer want to ask questions.
“Fine... it's just been a long time, you know?”Whether he did or didn’t was apparently irrelevant, a simple nod of the head and Amber was left to face a perspex wall, knowing what would soon emerge on the other side.
“Fine… It's always just fine, isn't it?”
Scraping the chair across the concrete floor, Amber leaned back to wait for the emergence of…
“Well, ain’t this a sweet surprise...”Two seconds in and the wave of regret hit her like a god damn train, ‘Sticky’ in a khaki jumpsuit about a size and a half two big shuffled down to her window with a gleeful sneer. Amber never thought he could look more emaciated, but his face had become a little more sunken and the dark rings around his eyes seemed almost hypnotic- tunnelling down into a deep nothing.
If he’d made the effort for Amber’s visit, it hadn’t shown as some messy, dirty blonde hair fell into his face like it hadn’t been washed or combed in days, shaking it out of his eyes, he leaned towards the perspex slightly with a wink.
“Or it would be if it were a surprise…”Sticky watched her as she tried to avoid shifting uncomfortably, looking to the guard on his own side before leaning in a little further so that his breath might fog the perspex and that his voice could drop to a harsh whisper.
“Didn’t know it was possible for you to get more beautiful, and no ring on your finger means you’re still fair game… Maybe when I get out of here we can rent a cheap hotel room and you can whisper all those dirty things I love hearing in my ear.”Amber cleared her throat, returning his sneer with one of her own.
“While I’d love to tell you all the ways you could politely, and not so politely, go fuck yourself… I’m taken, you know, by someone who has standards- all of them… especially hygiene.”A toothy grin revealed a couple more missing teeth, while the remaining ones seemed to rot further into his head as they spoke. Leaning back cockily, Sticky chuckled to himself.
“No ring means still fair game. Could be just like old times…”“There are no old times between us.”“Wasn’t referring to you, sweetcheeks… although if you wanna rectify that absolute travesty I’d be more than willing to forgive your transgressions, you can get on your knees and pray to me in whatever manner you see fit.”Had Mac been there, Amber had no doubt he’d have torn the perspex down and preemptively used it to bisect Sticky before he’d gotten the first crude sentence out of his mouth. Part of her wished he was, if only cause she could have really used a hand to squeeze…
“Charming as ever, I’d ask if you kiss your mother with that mouth- but that poor woman knew from day one what you were and even she wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole.”Sticky scoffed, trying to get the guard to laugh along with him to no avail. Resting his arms on the bench, he cocked his head to the side with a more serious smile… the sneer fading into something more sinister perhaps.
“Maybe you’re right… Although Cass would tend to disagree.”He was baiting her, and she knew it… but it didn’t stop her biting.
“You’re a liar.”She knew he wasn’t, however in disagreeing she had hoped that he might spill something he might not have chosen to say otherwise- goading him right back with her own sarcastic chuckle.
“What the fuck would she want to do with a cockroach like you.”A raised eyebrow was enough of an indicator that he didn’t buy the bluff.
“You say that, but here you are… I doubt you came all the way here just to tell me I’m a piece of shit, and rebuff me despite the fact you very honestly just want to know what all that hype was always about. You ain’t dumb Red, you never were, but you forget that things changed when you left… people changed.”Sticky paused contemplatively for a moment.
“Well, some people changed. Cassidy didn’t, did you know that? Same sweet girl, same hopeful smile especially when she…”“Cut the crap. All I wanna know is where I can find her- after that, you can rot here for all I care…”“Is that how you convince someone to cooperate? My, my Red... your negotiation skills have most certainly deteriorated… Or is it perhaps desperation, my guess is that time isn’t on your side whereas right now? I have all the time in the world.”Amber narrowed her eyes, trying to force the rising bile back down her throat.
“She told me you’d come looking, you know? Although I doubt she realized it would be this soon… You were always very good at this, just a shame it's not useful for anything aside from assailing your own guilt.”She felt downright sick now, and Sticky was only picking up more momentum.
“You hurt her so badly when you left. You promised her you’d never leave and you did… The moment you got a chance, you walked straight out of her life without even a second thought. Not that you ever worried but it was my arms she ran into, I stayed when you decided you were far too good for the rest of us.
Now you wanna come here and act like you have her best interests at heart…”Shaking her head, it was Amber’s turn to lean forward, her voice like the hiss of a snake absolutely fed up with being trodden on.
“You haven’t the faintest clue, do you?
Everyone thinks I walked out when she was the one who told me to go, she encouraged it and then I get all this crap from you of all people that I was the fucking bad guy… You took advantage of a situation and of a girl who just didn’t know better, who thought she was head over heels with a guy who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.
Maybe I fucked up by leaving, but you did worse by staying. Even now, you’re like this goddamn splinter, burying yourself so deep it’d take more effort to dig you out than you’re worth… and I guarantee you now if you dropped dead tomorrow sweetheart, she’d be far better off.”By now it had become a lost cause, everything she’d forced herself to hold down had spewed in a spray of venom and guilt. People had told her that Cassidy had changed when she left, that she’d lost a part of herself- however she was the one who told Amber it was okay to leave… that a life outside of their shitty carny existence was worth chasing.
God, it was all such a fucking mess.Sticky, in spite of the torrent, smiled almost sweetly.
“There’s the Red I know… Still hating the world and everything in it, doesn't seem to matter how good things get, there's always gonna be that part of you…
Tell you what, come back this time next week and maybe, just maybe I might have something to offer…”“Or you can tell me now and stop wasting my time…”Sticky tutted at her before the last syllable could trail off.
“If I tell you now, sweetcheeks, you’ll never come and see me again. Of course, once I get out I could stop by and introduce myself to all your new friends- but for now… Well, I’m a guy who likes to get the most bang for his proverbial buck.”Putting his hand against the perspex, Sticky gave her a sickening half smile.
“See you next week”Violently, Amber rose out of her chair, sending it tumbling backwards with a loud crash that caused both guards to startle and immediately go for their weapons- however both of them slowed when they realized which side of the perspex the noise came from and instead glared as the redhead stared down the still seated prisoner.
“... Pinky swear.”Maybe it was the playful mirth in his voice or simply the last straw that broke the camels back- either way, it didn’t matter as Amber stormed from the room trying to not to choke on her own virulent disgust.
