Sentimental Criminal :: [△K + R⬡yal]

[L△LIA]

o h
you fill my head with pieces
of a song i can't get out

Sloane cackles hysterically for a solid thirty seconds when the La Torre girl hands him this particular mugshot. The ones that preceded it in the stack were mostly cast aside with disinterest, but there’s a knowing dare in his current reaction. Between gasping for breaths, all he can say is — “AK.” — ha ha ha ha ha — “Don’t.” — ha ha ha ha ha — “Just…” — ha ha ha ha ha — “No.” This is akin to shoving her off a cliff while telling her not to jump and he knows it. As if she wasn’t already mid-leap of her own accord.

People who know her too well, such as her present company, often struggle to take her seriously. She’s notorious for distractedly wandering off from one shiny thing to the next and leaving something of a mess in her wake, but this situation is surely an exception to her track record thus far. Nobody jumps a La Torre unless the La Torre jumps them first. Nobody strips a La Torre of her valuables, only her clothing. So absolutely, this nobody is begging to be messed with. Badgering Sloane with a breathless string of curse words until he finally scrawls the name of a local butcher shop on the back of the photo, curiosity flares bright and violent.

More than a dozen mugshots had been slipped into her pocket during a visit to the ever-useless peacekeeping authorities and, putting her own elite investigational skills to work, she had ordered the suspects by attractiveness before asking her friend slash organized crime gang leader slash neighborhood know it all for any leads. The more he insists she should leave this one alone, the more AK is convinced this must be her destiny. To be honest, she’d written this girl off as middle-of-the-pack mousy and too nondescript to bother with. In the photo a fluff of brown hair obscures her left eye, making it impossible to tell exactly what might be under there, and the rest of her face isn’t much to write home about, slightly out of focus from lousy camerawork.

Even now, sneaking glances through a storefront window, she doesn’t get what the fuss was about. This doesn’t particularly look like the kind of girl who could be capable of sweeping a La Torre off her feet in either the dark or the daylight. “Sloane is such a fucking troll." Nothing shiny to see here. Her eyes flick back and forth between the photo and the girl inside, but they are undeniably the same. One is slightly more three-dimensional than the other, looking taller now that she can see more than just her face, and —

Gone.

With a panicked scramble, AK flings herself through the front door to give chase. The tiny bell that announces her arrival doesn't sound nearly as dramatic as the situation seems to warrant, especially not when its echo ends with a gun pressed to her head.

[aya]

i fuck with savages
you're a fuckboy
you can't hang

By night she is a menace, a mercenary, a vandal and, as of late, a thief. Open windows are an invitation, no matter the floor; locks are a challenge, a dare; stuffed pockets demand to be made a little lighter. And should something that catches Royal's eye happen to oh-so-casually wander down a dim alley — well, that temptation is too strong to ignore.

It was the gun that she'd wanted that night, but her sucker punch had rendered her mark unconscious, and Royal Hardt wasn't going to just leave a thick gold chain lying around. She'd pocketed the firearm, the necklace, the wad of cash, and casually strolled from the scene of the crime. It wasn't until she made it home to examine her haul that the second-rate ruffian realized the necklace wasn't set with diamonds — they weren't any gemstone at all. Dawn came with a cold sweat realization that, shit, these crystals were precious to someone, and a good deal more valuable in the luxury items district than the stones her father mined.

It wouldn't be a matter of if someone comes looking for the illicit trinket, but when.

Still, she can't see any sense in waiting around for someone to hunt her down and string her up. By night she is a menace, but by day Royal Hardt has responsibilities. Which, unfortunately, means she can't bunker down in the freezer with one hand clutching her new treasure and the other thumbing the necklace like a set of gangster's rosary beads. Not that she would want to. Boring.

Leaving the house, leaving the shop, there are only so many precautions she can take, but she's got a new a nervous habit of triple-checking that the handgun is tucked away in her front pocket. And with no better hiding place in mind, she'd stashed the necklace under her pillow, waiting for some meth-fairy to turn the gold into her own smashed out teeth in her sleep.

As the days since her grand theft wear on, her paranoia waxes and wanes. Every far-off shadow that follows her trajectory for too many blocks (one and a half) is clearly out for her blood; every time she recoils at a body brushing past, she scowls at the spike of adrenaline that thumps against her chest. Stupid. She's fine. She's got a pistol in one pocket and a filet knife in the other, and even if she's never fired a gun before, any average idiot can do enough damage just waving it around. Besides, ready, aim, fire couldn't be that hard; an above average idiot probably didn't even need the first part.

Behind the counter of the butcher shop, she is worse than a sitting duck — she is plucked and strung up by her feet, hanging in full view in the window display. But she's got a block of cleavers, her back to the wall, and one dark eye glued to the door at all times. Home field advantage counts for something.

Even so, when someone finally does come for her, it takes the butcher far too long to recognize that this is the thug who's come to collect on her ill-advised mugging.

Nothing about the girl who's leering at Hardt through the window is subtle.

If she weren't still sporting the shiner from their last run-in and staring Royal down with enough focus to suggest she might be quizzed on the subject later, the butcher would've written this girl off as one of the local hooligans here to pilfer the iron t from the store front. (As it was, the sign above her mother's shop seemed to spend more time reading Hard Meats than Hardt)

But the swollen eye is positive identification for vengeance or retribution or whatever other synonym for Royal's blood she might think to use, and the butcher isn't looking to add her own to the collection of scarlet stains splattered across her apron. She disappears from the window's view, edges up to the door —

only to be greeted by the bell as her stalker barrels through the front of the shop —

only to be greeted in turn by the barrel of the very gun that Royal had swiped from her not two weeks prior.

And only then does Royal's heart start thrilling in her chest, the adrenaline finally setting in. With the gun to the other girl's head, she feels half a deity. Destruction is pressed in her palm, and never before has she given such equal weight to making life and taking it away.

Intoxicated with the power she's never come close to having, Royal Hardt brandishes a newfound bravado.

"The fuck are you," she doesn't ask. Despite the ease that the threat-not-question spills from between her teeth, every muscle in her body is rigid. She changes her mind. She doesn't care. Dead, maybe. "The fuck do you want." Her eyes leave her hostage's for a second, tracing the girl's nose up to the metal of the pilfered pistol.

A wry grin breaks over her face, her tongue clicking against the back of her teeth, her head shaking negatory. "Uh-uh. Winner takes all. This is mine now." She taps one finger against the trigger guard, taps the barrel of the gun against her captive's third eye. "Bang."

tags - L△LIA

[L△LIA]

[attr="class","AKContainer"]

[attr="class","AKTitle"]

when you get that itch, adrenaline
heart beating outta your chest

[attr="class","AKContent"]

What concerns AK isn't the gun held to her head or the very real threat that it's about to be fired. A thought exactly as ridiculous as the rest of her flits through her mind that a bullet in the brain would be an honor — if it's good enough for Gunner, then isn't that everything she could ever hope to live up to? Except that's not how that works. Not here, not now.

Licking her lips, she grins. Every bright tooth is haloed in a moment of madness. "Bang!" She hollers back, popping the word so it's brutal to both their ears. "Bang! Bang!" Fear is channeled into adrenaline instead of caution and her head knocks into the steel mouth of the pistol as she yells, hair whipping and an eyebrow raised in skepticism. "The fuck I am? Nah, nah. The fuck you are." With that, she holds her hand out in the shape of a mock-gun and presses her fingertips to the other girl's forehead, as if the two threats are on par. As if AK's body is a weapon. As if her touch is just as dangerous as the threat of a bullet.

Ha. Not this La Torre.

If the shop wasn't vacant before, it certainly is now. Warped afternoon light filters in through the windows and everything is surreal with radiance. The face from the mugshot is lit up like there is fire roiling beneath her pale skin, her lashes a flutter of smoke as she blinks into the strangeness tying them both up. Down. Together. Apart. But not in the fun way. "What? You gonna shoot me with my own gun? Or maybe you're just trying to get me all fired up. Maybe it's working." For a split second AK's leer hangs in the air, her heavy-handed voice echoing too deep, too smooth... she flinches with a childish giggle, realizing that was actually pretty good. At least a five-outta-ten. Until she fucked it up, of course. "Seriously. All the knives up in here and you can't kill me better than this?"

Letting loose a dramatic pshhh of sarcastic disbelief, she rolls her eyes. Her half-rate pick up lines surely rank higher than this girl's face and if it weren't for the innate need to get back what belongs to her, she wouldn't be here. "Some rando girl like you can't handle me or my gun." With that, she makes a reckless grab for the firearm. "Don't fuck with my things!" That's what concerns her.

[newclass=".AKContainer"]width:450px; height:450px; background-position:center; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding:20px;[/newclass]
[newclass=".AKTitle"]font-size:10px; text-transform:uppercase; margin-right:65px; margin-bottom:1px; [/newclass]
[newclass=".AKContent"]width:300px; height:0px; overflow:hidden; opacity:0.8; font-size:10px; text-align:justify; padding:1px 10px 0px 10px; -webkit-transition-duration:1s; transition-duration:1s; -moz-transition-duration:1s; [/newclass]
[newclass=".AKContainer:hover .AKContent"]height:250px; overflow:auto; padding:10px; text-align:justify; -webkit-transition-duration:1s;transition-duration:1s; -moz-transition-duration:1s; [/newclass]