The Second || 𝘩.𝘴.

『18』| 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙴𝙼𝙱𝙴𝚉𝚉𝙻𝙴𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙰𝚃 𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙷𝚁𝙾𝙰𝚃

[[ BELLIE. ]]

Jace knew they'd be coming. His affiliation with Max Moriarti was the very leverage to a reward of ten thousand dollars to have things swing by her very momentum. Sage Castillo was just a small-town girl working at a downtown deli in Blue Velvetina before she earned her rep as one of the first ever protesters against the Velvetina Mafia; what was once a nameless group of fiends was then bolded in the New York Times newspaper by a journalist devoted to the movement. This was the first city that beckoned a crime as a statement of justice on the other side, and though the ocean of people were the winning majority that carried the Velvetina Mafia home, into the very heart of this city, not everyone was with the movement; people with families just looking for peace in the streets. They were the protestors. Only three of them intended to sober this city up with an idealistic hope, that wasn't meddling with the economic crisis draining pockets of fortune, or the lifeline crisis that was the raising numbers by the very dawn's break. Perhaps all the Mafia did was aggravate and intimidate the authorities, the government that wore Blue Velvetina like a glamorous glove and sat high up in skyscraping buildings far away from the civilians in distressed, heartbreaking hurt. Everyone in this city was perhaps damned. Though it was what you did with this purpose that'd cause ripple after ripple into time, and into history and possibly, that was just beautiful.

As for Jace and I, we've been underground for years, and we only recently reunited when I flew in from my hometown in Tokyo. I figured Blue Velvetina was going to be forever lonely without me.

"What are we even doing here, man? You've got a girlfriend waiting on you." I overheard Ace Heller whispering in a shout to Harry across from him in the square corridor that glassed the garden outside. "You save her, and you make sure she's alright." Ace incoherently whined, glancing at Harry with dilated and immense pupils. "You make sure she's alright." He belligerently whined again, his voice cracking, his tone hushing gradually as he lowered his head, looking down at the wooden floor.

"What time is it, Ace?" Harry asked firmly, reprimanding his best friend.

"What do you mean?" Ace asked, with an unreadable hope in his tone, smirking at Harry. He held his breath briefly.

"The time. 'Sun's out, numerologically. You know that number by any chance?"

"I suppose... The time is for me to get a watch." Ace dared to joke around.

Harry gripped his shirt roughly, dragging him forward and lurching him harshly into the wall. The back of Ace's head slammed roughly into the wall as he looked Harry in the eyes, emptied, perhaps gutted. "You're going to straighten up. And lay off the fucking molly."

"Hey wise-asses. Mind taking this outside? Blood's not cute on these walls." I chimed in, as I rose my eyebrows expectantly at Ace who was eyeing me up and down.

"Thanks." He finally said, Harry loosening his grip from his shirt as he rolled his eyes.

"You, apex men are so rage-driven. Feels like the city's shrinking, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but it's only so big, Blue Velvetina." Ace dumbfoundedly replied. "So, could you teach me?"

"What?" I asked.

"You know, some Japanese." He said suggestively.

"No." I flirtily remarked, chuckling. I had strutted away from him, looking over my shoulder at him once more with an endearing fascination.