Honey Springfield was called the Handlers 'favourite' - a nickname she despised right down to the bones of her very existence - almost as much as she despised the woman herself. No one ever looked closer enough to realise that it was given to her fo...
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Everything around her was loud as they returned to the siblings who lingered in a sort of semi circle around a box television in the window of the store.
Honey settled herself on one of the bottom stairs, leaning most of her body weight against the metal rail out of pure exhaustion.
A few heads turned their way as they rejoined the group.
Five sent a deadly warning look at them all that Honey missed, too focussed on fiddling with her frayed cardigan sleeve in her lap.
Diego seemed to not get the message quick enough.
"Who the hell did you get into a fight with?"
"A piece of furniture," she said back blankly, too tired to even bother getting annoyed. Her fingers picked a thread off that she dropped onto the floor absently.
As the others went back to their conversation from before, Diego eyed her but wisely chose not to comment on anything else.
The girl remained silenlty grateful as she stared down at her lap, all conversation and words overlapping a bit too quickly for her to keep up. She caught bits and pieces through the pounding in her skull, something about being on a watch list and needing a place to lie low and Diego about being headhunted by the Commission, which set alight to her nerves as she rubbed her eyes tiredly, hoping she could block it all out.
"-and whats the deal with this Handler?" His eyebrows drew in as he addressed Five who had his arms crossed. "She talks about you two like you're her little pets. Especially-"
Honey scrunched her hands into fists and pressed them against her temples, eyes fluttering closed. The sharp points of her knuckles helped her drown out everything else.
Five's voice was a hiss at the edge of her senses as he snapped back at Diego to shut up.
And then Vanya was jogging past her down the stairs in a hurry, looking about ready to leave despite the others preaching how bad of an idea that was. She asked them to come with her, to help the kid she had left behind at the farm who was struggling with some sort of adverse effect of her own powers.
"-we need to stick together, okay? Now more than-"
"-i need your help too. I'm scared. And for the first time in my life I don't want to do it alone-"
Honey reopened her eyes, trying to zone back in, but it seemed no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't focus properly.
As she gazed around the room, she was surprised to see Vanya already gone and the others exchanging hesitant looks.
Five's eyes flickered to meet her own. Just from it, she could see his reluctance. The squaring of his jaw and guilty sheen across his green eyes.
Hers softened as she looked at him. Judging the silence of the others, no one else was going to make a move until someone else did, and it was a vicious cycle that meant nothing was going to get done. She shifted, suddenly itching to get away. Struggling with the loud silence and the unknown of what was going to happen next, the idea of staying and doing nothing left Honey feeling like a mouse caught in a trap. A sensation she had been fighting to escape her entire life.
