The Parthenon - Top Floor
:: It was like being hit with a freight train. Her anger was unbridled and it wasn't unjustified. What could he do in this situation but let her speak? Let her get off her chest what she needed to. He owed her a lot more than that. As numb as he was in this moment, the night was starting to wear on him. He knew they would seek him out. He knew that they would give him their rage, they always did. He expected it at this point. He hadn't counted on Vivica doing the same, which was part of the problem. He had isolated her for a long time. He had put his focus on The Six and left her in the dust. When they spoke a few months ago at The Parthenon about topics of the same variety, he could tell that she wasn't satisfied. He wanted her in that moment to drill into him, to really give him what he deserved and she didn't...because she was a far better person than he was. When he looked at Vivica now in this moment, as she stampeded him, berated him and beat him with her fists...he was oddly proud of her. She had completely transformed, found her place in this world, a place that didn't necessarily involve him and she was better than ever. All of this had been possible because she had finally put focus in on her own life. ::
Recall said:
"I could have died tonight, Cameron. And what would you have done then? Oh I know..you would take yet another opportunity to prove to the world just how HARD you have it and prove WHY they should continue to love you and forgive your flaws. I would have been some kind of SOAP BOX for you to get EVEN CLOSER to them, and you wouldn't have given me another THOUGHT! Well, unless it was to use the PAIN of my death to GET you something."
:: There were things he could have said to her. How she had taken care of him all of these years because she didn't want to take care of herself. How Cameron had always been her comfort blanket as well. As a young girl, Vivica was painfully shy and Cameron was often her buffer for the world. She wouldn't normally be the first woman to speak, but having somebody like him, somebody social and boisterous, by proxy, it made others accept her more easily. It made her more comfortable. He often pushed her to put herself out there. They had taken care of each other. The opportunities that she had in life were because of him and vice versa. He had helped her through her mother's death and when she begged to help him with his own work, to get her mind off her own life, he let her. And maybe that had been his mistake. She seemed happy to do so. She seemed poised and ready to help him take his business to new heights. The Six HAD changed all of that. He had finally found his biological family and was thrown into a life of chaos and danger. He assumed by that point in their lives, that she didn't need him as much as she used to need him, but it was clear that she did. She had made her entire identity by carving out a place at his side. That was her fault. But he should have noticed these cracks in their relationship a lot earlier than he did..but he didn't, because Vivica was right. He was only concerned with himself. ::
Recall said:
"You had every opportunity to tell me, Cameron. And I was NOWHERE in your mind. And SPARE me the monologue I'm sure you have prepared about how losing Haleigh was so hard and how you just needed to grieve and get your mind together. You never HAD Haleigh. She was engaged to Zach. She's BEEN with ZACH. For ALL of these YEARS! You two only WANT each other because everybody tells you that you shouldn't..that you CANT be with each other."
:: His self concern came from a lot of different places. Self preservation at a good amount of time living on the streets of Los Angeles. Not ever truly being able to feel safe around Vivica's family, because he was worried that he didn't deserve them, or at some point he would, like he always did, do something so stupid that they would turn their backs. Over the years, Cameron realized that he often fucked up on purpose, because he would rather confirm what people assumed they know about him than to really put his heart out there, be who he really was and still be considered just as "ugly". ::
:: Haleigh was the only person he had ever shown his true self to, and she hadn't ran away, or made him feel like disgusting monster he often times believed that he was. So it made sense that of course everybod thought SHE was a monster. It also made sense that she would always otherwise entangled or out of his reach. That was just the painful irony of his life. He got what he wanted until he thought those things might want him back - and then he destroyed them. Vivica was one of those things. Maybe he was a monster. ::
Recall said:
:: Vivica was done. Done with this place and DONE with him. ::
"The rest of them? I don't care that they didn't say anything. I expect it from them. But YOU? I expected better than you, but I don't know why. All of this WORD VOMIT has made something clear to me that I guess I've been ignoring for a long time.."
:: She began to back away from him. ::
"You are no friend to me, Cameron. No family. I don't know when it happened? But somewhere along the way..by your hand. We became strangers."
:: He felt like a passenger in his own body. As if he were watching this interaction between him and Vivica from the corner of the room. His body was not allowing him to process this as he should be processing this. He should have thrown himself at her knees, begged for her forgiveness. Made some kind of effort, some kind of show that he cared, but he couldn't. After Haleigh, after Ava...after Alycia...and then Sharon, he just couldn't. Cameron stepped forward, wanting to connect, because that is what a human being is supposed to do. ::
Recall said:
"No. DON'T touch me. Don't MOVE. Don't say ANYTHING. Don't make this anything OTHER than what it is.and what it is..."
"Is me saying goodbye to you. Whatever part of me you might have had is no longer there. For all intents and purposes, we're divorced. And if the people in this building continue to be as much as a MISERABLE fuck up as you have been? They'll be strangers too and I will see to it that The SIX will be out of OPTIONS...and allies."
:: It had needed to be said. Vivica spun on her heels, turned around making eye contact with Cass as she strutted down the hall as if it were a runway, as if she were Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale. Just before she left, she turned to face him one last time. ::
"Get some sleep and stop drinking. You look TERRIBLE."
:: She was gone. In the course of a week..he had lost Haleigh, Ava, Alycia, Sharon and now Vivica. And by proxy that would most likely mean Morgan, Blaze, Dominique, Karen and Nicolas. This carnal act of trying to hold on to someone, to keep her anchored, to keep her near him had cost him everything and he was sure that he was severely mentally broken, but there just wasn't time to deal with that..and he didn't want to. In a few precious moments, every fear he ever had about himself, every bad thing he ever thought about the way he lived his life was confirmed. He was a souless monster and he didn't deserve any of these people, and he would never figure out a way to get ANYBODY to stay by him because he was that broken of a man. Everybody from his mother, to his sisters, to his friends and extended family...they had all left. Perhaps it would only be a matter of time until the few people he had left would come to their senses. ::
Ruby said:
:: Vivi then whirled around to make eye contact with Cass before strutting back down the hallway like a freaking supermodel. Cass stared at the retreating back of her friend before turning her dazed blue eyes on Cameron. ::
“AVA…is gone now TOO?”
:: And then it hit her again: the Six family has been BROKEN. It was bad enough that HALEIGH betrayed them…but AVA? As the realization of what that meant dawned on her, her heart began to break for her friends. ALISON was Ava’s best friend. If she knew, and she probably did, why didn’t she try to stop her? And CAMERON… Cass knew how close they both were. Cass let out a strangled cry. She crawled over to Cameron and gave him a big hug. ::
*whispers*: ”Cameron…I’m so sorry! I’M SO SORRY!”
:: She hugged him tighter. ::
:: He hugged her, because that is what a normal human being was supposed to do in this situation, but he could feel his claws digging through his nails, could feel the scales on his skin start to show. He pulled away from Cassandra. ::
"I need to be alone. I will be in contact with you soon. Goodnight."
:: Cameron walked away from her and returned to his empty penthouse. The lonely king on the throne of The Parthenon. He went into his study, promptly poured himself another glass of whiskey and sat down at his desk, where his phone alerted him that he had a text message. ::
Scion said:
She wasn't going to wait until midnight. She tapped into the server that housed the Hellfire footage, and easily located the different cameras that were planted in the Red Knight's suite. It was going to take some mild editing. She wanted to withhold certain information, like Ashley's involvement, for example. She had plans for Valkyrie and could wait for an opportune moment.
She cut it together with strategy, starting from the moment the Red Knight backhanded her, to the completion of the first round. She removed the sound from the footage, and made sure that there were no shots in which their lips could be read. Then she texted the finished product to Cameron, with a follow-up message. 'I hope you're having as much fun as I am.' And a big, grinning emoji. She could hear her mother's laughter in her mind again. Next up was Zach. He got the same video, the same message.
"I hope you're having as much fun as I am."
:: He watched the video in it's entirety a few times on a loop. After a night of defending his own feelings for her, she had sent him this. Cameron knew how Diana operated, and he knew that this was something Haleigh had sent as some sort of gesture of good faith for Malice. Cameron was Diana's ultimate prey. She delighted in hunting him and in sniffing him out. In the grand scheme of things, this seemed like child's play, or some kind of high school prank. He also realized that he had the power here. After everything he had endured tonight...and throughout his life. He could handle this. He knew how to draw Malice out, how to keep her interested in him. Haleigh had made a mistake in sending this, because Cameron wasn't going to give her the reaction she was looking for, and that's where his power was. If Haleigh wanted to truly be a vessel for Diana, he wasn't going to make it easy on her. He could separate his love for her with the necessity of what needed to be done. If they were going to play war games, he would too. He would remain strong, and he would FORCE Haleigh to have to up the ante in order to impress Diana. He was just as sadistic of the two of them. He thought that Haleigh's decision to leave, no matter her intention, was stupid and foolish. You never BEAT Diana..you SURVIVED Her. And she would ALWAYS exist. He could sense her power, she didn't need a body. She would endure and to think that you could KILL her? Or somehow trap her? It was stupid. ::
:: Walking upstairs and out to his open balcony, he sat cross legged on the ground and closed his eyes. This was a private sanctuary, bound and protected in magick and wards from his own SISTER, FREE from prying eyes, even of the psionic or mystical variety. His hands were in front of them, one over the other, with a bit of distance in between. He began to channel his empathic power into tangible form...SPECIFICALLY, the LOVE that he had for Haleigh, and all the memories tied to those feelings. He poured ALL of it into the Earth, as a swirling orb of bright red electric energy appeared into his hands, getting bigger and bigger, the energy illuminating his face in a hue of red. The one thing that Haleigh had to threaten him with was his feelings for her. So in order to do what needed to be done, in order to get out of this alive, in order to be the person he needed to be...he was quite literally EXTRACTING them from his body. ::
:: There was an old saying that if you loved something, you were supposed to set it free. In this case...he was setting himself free. The energy CRACKLED and swirled as memories of his feelings for her played against the silohuette of his energies. The first time they met, the first time he realized that he loved her, the similarity that they shared. ALL OF IT...being removed from his body. He stood to his feet as the wind blew in the BREEZE and he lifted the ORB over his head, gritting his teeth against the sheer raw power of emotion that he was channeling. He looked up at the stars as the last bit of his true feelings for Haleigh Davidoff left his body. ::
"Goodbye for now."
:: With a WHOOSH! Cameron HURLED the orb into the sky with GREAT speed as it took off like a rocket. It would find its definition on Aerie, in possession of the only person that could protect it...his sister Alison. While she might be tempted to destroy it, and END it..he decided in this moment that if he did want to change, that if he did want somebody to love him for who he was with no question, then he should be able to trust his sister to GUARD and protect this part of him, because she would know the act of strength it took for him to separate it from himself. ::
:: He fell to the ground, feeling a mixture of chaos. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry...and then his face settled into stone cold. If Haleigh wanted to get to him, if Diana wanted to get to him, he was not going to make it easier, and he could sense...that far across town, in the walls of the Hellfire Mansion, even as Haleigh was reveling in excess, she would feel even more emptiness, she would feel the SEVERING snap, and she wouldn't know exactly why, but she would have an idea. Her feelings remained just as they were, but Cameron's were no longer there. If he was going to help his family survive through all of this, he couldn't be bothered with his love for Haleigh. He couldn't let Black--Scion cloud his judgment. Diana had enough on him, he wasn't going to allow her to have more. He was done being prey. For his team and for his family, he was going to become a predator of the highest order. It was the only way he could ever possibly earn salvation, cure his demonic lycanthropy. They had said so much to him, but one thing was clear...they were in a war, and this time Cameron wasn't going to be a casualty of it..he was going to be a goddamn GENERAL. He picked up his phone and stared at the message, before crafting his response. ::
"I wish I could hate you."
:: There was no sense in letting Haleigh or Malice know this. Not yet anyway. ::
