As the clock strikes midnight, the Atlantic coastline is set ablaze with bursts of red, blue, and white fireworks, their reflections dancing across the water; without warning, every phone screen lights up with the same unexpected message.
@selinagha, you thought a name change and a new city could bury your old life.
Before the heels and the headlines, there was a show. You may not remember it because it was canceled prematurely after its leading actress didn't wake up one morning. The official story: a tragedy, Deniz all alone, no one around to help.
Except someone was around. We'd like to introduce you to the woman who finally landed her first lead role; in a tragedy. The same one that supplied the party favors that inevitably led to Deniz's death.
Selin, you built something new out of the wreckage of that night: a new name, a new city, a new continent. Impressive, really. But reinvention isn't the same as absence, and we know the difference even when you've spent years pretending not to. Was it guilt? You couldn't have been naive enough to think they'd give you the lead role if the actual one was out of the way, were you?
You had one job, Selin. Now everyone gets to have one question: what else would you lie and kill for?
-P
@pantheonsays with Harry Cho ( @dadivosos ), August Bell ( @noxmourners ), Emiliano del Castillo ( @emildelcastillo ), Harvey Knight ( @dxncingonmyown ), Romy McCready ( @romymccready ), Wesley Hope ( @wesleyhope )
From the very beginning of the night The Pantheon showing their hand seemed like something that was to be expected. And she had been, waiting for them, convinced things had been set up carefully enough that they'd be stopped before any damage was done. As the night wore on she'd almost begun to relax, finally finding some company that wasn't all about pleasantries and donations. Perhaps her first mistake - letting her ease at such events take over. Tempting fate in a way that it couldn't resist. Either way, when the text came through there’d been little surprise, brow only arching slightly that the sender wasn’t quite who she’d expected.
The first notion that filled her was irritation, less at the puppeteer but at herself. What was the point of all her polished precision if in the end it made no difference? But there would be time for feelings later ( a consistent lie she told herself, never carving out space for herself to feel much of anything ) the only thing she could do was act.
She did what she did best, the signal traced only to find it had originated from the island. From there steps seemed obvious, enlisting the help of others she thought would be just as invested in locating a member of Pantheon. The Mob's efficiency alongside Augustine ensuring the man she'd identified from the footage and the trace was apprehended with little to no commotion. Perhaps the only advantage of the confusion that no one noticed a man being escorted out of the glasshouse.
But the control she'd tried to establish didn't last long, an announcement from the stage causing panic. Harry was the first she found next, instructions to find her someone who could deal with the supposed explosive if it proved to be true and not just a hoax. Others scattered to try to look for it while New York's Finest attempted to keep the peace. Part of her thought they'd get a sick thrill just from the fear they'd created, the threats no more real than the files they'd fabricated. But risks weren't something she took and she thought there was no better source than the man that had been discretely taken into her custody. "Time to talk."
And he did, eventually, the bomb not only confirmed but the location given. Information relayed to both Capos and Commissioner, police tasked with an orderly evacuation the bomb expert got to work. Time seemed to drag but no explosion came, only the eventual confirmation that the bomb had been rendered useless. What remained of it spirited away to be examined privately at a later date. Other's might have breathed a sigh of relief but it was all far from over. The damage could wait, ignoring the crunch of glass under her heels from smashed windows as she finalised them getting off the island. Comms were re-established, boats summoned once again but they all stayed at the mercy of the weather. Nothing to do but wait out the storm.
it's only a matter of time before the Pantheon lands on her doorstep. But of all the ways they can twist the knife, they pick the one that can best paralyze her. The very one that can turn everything upside down. She hides her phone almost immediately after reading the text. Was there a real threat, or was this just another wild goose chase to hide the truth?
All Amelia knows for certain - this is, at the very least, a credible source.
"Attention! Everyone--" It's madness in the room, as chaos and panic sets in. But it's not her first time trying to cajole a distracted audience, and Amelia reaches for a champagne flute, purposefully smashing it on the edge of the podium. The commotion loud enough to pull eyes her way.
"I am Amelia Dreyer, from Channel 212." She says, her voice projecting to hit the back of the glasshouse. Into her 'broadcaster' voice now as she continues; "My sources have alerted me just now. There are reports that an explosive is in the glasshouse." Amidst the murmurs and movement, she yells even louder. "There is exactly one hour left for us to find it. We must work quickly to get to safety!" Or at the very least, find a palce with minimal impact.
Glamour and dazzling lights, masks and music and plenty of drinks to keep the mood good and conversations flowing. Stella had made her rounds, chatted to far more people than she usually got a chance to. Perhaps the masks made the chatter easier, the idleness of it all. It all seemed to easy and yet she'd allowed herself to be lulled into that false sense of security that seemed to accompany so many of her days now. Not the security, no. Simply the falseness of it.
If anything could have served as proof to show how fast an evening of fun could turn into disaster, the past few months had been brimming with it. For once she'd thought the evening to be just that; a calm day, a masquerade that allowed people to shed the masks of daily life to exchange them for an altogether more luxurious version. It had seemed so simple and that had been her mistake.
Her phone chirped. One moment in a conversation, the next she'd excused herself. It was easy to pretend like this, yet her facial expressions shifted. Had it not been for the masks the brunette's disdain would have been on full display.
Loyalty is such a performance, isn't it, Stella. [...]
How quickly a mood could sour, how fast a pulse could quicken. On the outside she was all smiles, kept her composure as she moved away with a nod and a promise to return with drinks. There would be no drinks, not this time. A quiet corner was needed, preferably one not looking too suspicious. Such a corner wasn't found as she moved through the crowd, eyes glued to her screen.
"Excuse me." Twice she bumped into someone along the way. The message on her lit up display was clear and it wasn't one she liked at all. There was more at stake than a simple, little secret. Stella could have dealt with a ruined reputation or a campaign against her, but this? It held weight, complications; a plethora of things she'd rather keep out.
[...] lock the side door of the conservatory. Keep it locked.
She was hit with a reality she didn't appreciate. A frustrated sigh slipped past her lips before the brunette took a hold of her features, the smile bright as she moved through the crowd. Fingers were rushing across the keyboard, a few texts sent. Aslan, a note for him to get out with wording that left no doubt about what was happening and yet held no more than two words.
Her eyes moved, scanning the crowd. August was nowhere to be seen. Another text sent in rushed typing, just asking if the other was okay and to stay away from the conservatory. Perhaps that's all it would take to make sure all was well. Then one last, Harvey. A polite note to get out, to meet her down by the dock simply because it didn't seem as though a simple note would do the trick. Did he know about the shadow looming?
Stella felt foolish at the thought, having dared to believe for just a fraction that the night would be simple. Glamorous and over the top but simple. Foolish indeed.
Feet carried her toward the doors, eyes moving behind the mask. Whether it was luck or the skills acquired during her other job, she made it to the door without obstruction. If things hadn't been so damming she'd have given little of a fuck about the result. Alas, in this case her hands were tied. The truth would have been far more chaotic, would have meant a potential end to what she considered freedom.
With a click the door locked, clicking shut entirely. She tossed the key, metaphorically. Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Done. And Stella hated every second of it, having to give in to these masked faces in an ocean of anonymity.
you have five minutes
to lock the main door of the conservatory
keep it locked.
all elijah could do was sigh , he did always hear about rich people having their fun but he didn't think it'd go to these lengths. who had enough time to gather everyone , get their numbers , remember all the secrets and eventually use them against them ? eyes read over the text once more , five minutes being barely any time to gather himself or his thoughts on how he was going to complete the task. he put his phone away into his pocket , eyes scanning for the few members he saw -- sonny seemed to be angry and jake -- well he was too preoccupied with the shrimp to care about anything.
head turned back towards the main door , too many people for him to think of something that would make sense , so he made his way through the crowd back out to the main hallway. eyes flickered back to the door , left eye twitching as his brain drew up a blank. memories of his past seemed to flash right before his eyes , the singular moment that made his life easier and better by a long run but could also singlehandedly ruin him.
no further instruction was given just --- lock the door , he obviously didn't have the key and had no idea who would have the key. was there even a key ? he was getting carried away with a seemingly simple task that seemed almost impossible to him. telling pantheon to fuck off didn't seem like a good plan , not if he wanted to keep his position and keep his members happy.
eyes surveyed the surroundings as waiters continued to come in and out of the various doors of the area. double doors were closed as he approached them , mind racing on the various ways to keep the doors locked. eyes then locked into something shiny , a large pole used to hang the various velvet drapes and foliage that decorated the space. pole was slid through the handles keeping the door locked in place.
quickly he made his way back into the event to avoid suspicion though one door would hardly stop anyone given they were surrounded by glass. he slowly made his way back towards the main entry way bumping purposely into a waiter who just so happened to be walking in front , various champagne glasses and champagne spilled to the floor --- an extra step for people attempting to leave through that door.
back to the veiled charity event going on inside the glass house, sonny had his eyes on the black glistening water. it's moonlit mystery seemed to mirror what he'd been attempting to abandon since his arrival. escape seemed possible, if not a little dramatic, the sounds of the waves lapping at the shoreline were a tease the smoking blond was just about ready to give in to.
pulling him from reverie was the odd alert sound from his phone. stuffed into the pocket of his dress pants sonny could've sworn he'd put the device on silent. unease crept into his shoulders and the muscles stiffened slightly, shifting back just enough that his spine was resembling perfect posture. something nipped at the air, prickled the skin just enough that someone as incredibly attuned to the space around himself would be casting his eyes about as the sensation of being watched settled onto him like a knowing.
alone, sonny pulled his phone from his pocket and the bright glow of it in the barely lit portion of the patio he'd found solace in burned his eyes. a tap on the message revealed a threat:
sonny,
we've been paying attention...
the things you've had to piece back together, the moments you've had to talk your way out of. would the reapers still trust you if they knew what it means?
the comms cabin on the east grounds. take it over, lock it down, keep it dark for the next hour and your secret is safe.
-p
there was no immediate reaction. sure, a small spike of anger and retaliation, but he'd kept those feelings well under control. high pressure situations were commonplace for him. he'd trained extensively for them and survived every op he'd been tasked with. hell, sonny was a wartime hero and decorated veteran. things like this didn't rattle him. he thought of the optics.
as much as he liked to think otherwise and fall back on familiar instincts, he knew... this was different. his sole purpose for ever becoming a reaper was to be close to and protect his kin. how could he do that if his personal and what he'd thought to be private troubles separated him from the only life he'd known since his attempt at assimilating back into civilian life?
a volatile mix of pride and ego typed the response: go fuck yourself. but... sonny didn't send the message. over and over his mind worked the problem, searching for fixes and estimating damages. without ever pressing send he casually locked his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. he was a man of duty and his chosen mission since honorable discharge was looking out for his brother, and he couldn't continue to do that if he were to be excommunicated from the reapers for being such a liability.
it was a blink and you missed it moment when sonny disappeared from the furthest stretch of the light. he moved like silence on the wind and headed east in pitch darkness. it hadn't taken too long for his eyes to adjust and he was as quiet as a wolf moving through the trees. in his head was a vague idea of what the comms cabin might look like, as there were some general tells.
eventually he found himself on the edge of yet another clearing. this one of course much smaller and with dirt road access still amongst the wooded area. it was a place that didn't want to be obvious nor an eyesore when it came to the grounds as a whole. staying just inside the tree line, sonny circled the rim of the clearing and did a quick assessment of the cabin. reconnaissance informed that there were three men present, though there was always chance for more inside, two of them were rather large and gave off a security presence while the one he could see through the window at the table setup with screens seemed to be the tech guy.
time was ticking away, those pantheon fucks wanted the place to go dark for the next hour and the top of the hour was quickly approaching. swiftly he darted toward the cabin from the trees making minimal sound and pressed his back flat against the west side wall. he could hear them talking and chatting more clearly now and that made pinpointing their exact locations that much easier since he was going in blind. he always carried at least a knife but that would only come out if needed for defense of his life, he wasn't looking to kill anyone for this. there was also the problem of shielding his appearance because when these guys came to later sonny didn't want them to be able to identify their attacker and therefore whomever was behind whatever the fuck was gonna go on. so he'd have to surprise these guys, if lucky from behind, otherwise he'd have to keep his head down.
rounding the back corner sonny moved along the back wall of the cabin. one of the guards was having a smoke by the east wall and was alone. back to him and looking out to the vehicle parked in front but off to the side of the cabin. so he crept closer until he was directly behind the bigger man, and with the speed of a mongoose he covered the man's mouth and nose with a crushing grip while the forearm of his other arm sank against the guy's throat. in needing to minimize the defense and thrashing, sonny cracked the side of the guy's knee with a well-placed kick while not losing the intensity of his chokehold. the moment the man buckled to a knee on the ground sonny used his leverage to force him face down into dirt and smothered him with his body weight until the fight in him diminished, sensing the right moment of weakness he pulled his arm from around the guy's neck and gave him a hard crack of his fist into the temple to effectively knock him out.
the front door was wide open and leaning against the siding of the cabin. with the other guard shaped man standing in the doorway, he heard the tech nerd laughing a bit behind his screens. once more sonny rounded the corner and tried his best to keep aligned against the wall, with lightening fast reflexes he snapped the door shut with a hard kick so that it surprised the guard with a hard smack to the face. stunned and muttering some curses, one hand covering his face while the other pushed the door back away from him, sonny's fist was what came flying into his face next. the breaking sound, that crunch under his knuckles, was the guard's nose and he wailed in pain. but sonny followed up with another punch, that one landing right on the button and knocking the guard out cold.
by that point the techie at the computer and screens had stood from behind them and began shouting, mostly in surprise and asking what the fuck was going on. of course sonny didn't answer. he just moved swiftly into the cabin with his head down and following the sound of the tech's voice to pinpoint exactly where he was in the room. he went down easy. a single punch and he'd hit night night mode on the floor.
it was then he finally turned to the screens and glanced around at the computer. sonny checked the time and his pulse wasn't raging like a normal person's would. it's steady rhythm hadn't really even registered stress. there was some though because he was cutting it close on time and he still had to sort where exactly he cut the lights. they'd said for an hour so he couldn't cut wires or break everything down. instead he sat and began moving through the computer system and after a couple of minutes he eventually found the controls.
there was a moment of hesitation. giving in to terrorism was the complete opposite of his training. what was going to happen when the lights went off and the entire grounds went completely dark? what about all the people carelessly partying away inside the glasshouse? sonny pulled his phone from his pocket and read the message again. for one last time he weighed the right and wrong and debated the choice he had. it didn't feel like much of one.
in his history there was a ledger of just how much everything he'd ever done or seen had cost him. he'd always been able to reason the price and justify the cause and means, but he was lost with this one.
still, sonny cut the lights to the island when the time came. then, he grabbed the bodies and moved them all to the side of the cabin and found things to effectively tie them up with in the chance they came to within the next hour he had to hold post there at the comms cabin.
Who: @charliewindsor
Where: what did nolan say? phantom of the opera? bet
Cause a scene. Make it convincing.
Almost instinctively, her eyes snapped up to the bustling room of attendees. As if she could x-ray vision her way past the extravagant masks to pinpoint who sent the text message now burning into the palm of her hand. Half the crowd were on their phones or checking them in some fashion, which made singling anyone out impossible... and surely this Pantheon intended on that shroud. Maybe the directive was even scheduled ahead of time; maybe they weren't actually here and no amount of scanning would reveal the entity behind the proverbial curtain.
Five minutes became the equivalent of ten seconds and Esra treated it as such, making the snap decision that she had no time to wander the crowd seeking help— Aslan, Troy, hell she'd take Nolan at this point. Instead she focused on what sort of diversion could be made this publicly without further risking her reputation and what sort of person she could rope into making it happen.
And then she spotted him. Like a goddamn sign from above. Oh, Charlie.
The idea snapped into place almost instantly. Without further consideration, she began sliding through the crowd in haste towards the edge of the dance floor where a microphone sat nestled in some overpaid announcer's hand.
SUMMARY: Hazal plays Pantheon Says and potentially breaks up a marriage ig
MENTIONS: @softstcps (Rüya) + @giannarossi (only a short text).
TEXT:
You know how this goes…
You have 5 minutes to cause a scene loud enough to pull the room. We don’t care how. Make it convincing.
Give us the distraction and we won’t tell your team what you are capable of…
Hazal read the text once before she took it upon herself to send a short message to her cousin, as well as Gianna Rossi, one that simply read: I'd think about leaving now, if I were you, before slipping her phone back into her purse. As the message she had personally received had stated, she knew how this went. The last time? ADA Grayson was found dead. Her eyes soon lifted into the crowd of people, she didn’t panic, panic was a luxury she had never been able to afford and had long since stopped reaching for. Instead something quieter happened - an internal shift, like a dial turning, and the room she had been moving through socially for the better part of the last hour had became a room she was reading professionally. The candlelight, the masks, the champagne, the music. All of it rearranged itself into data.
She needed someone volatile enough to react. Publicly. A man, was a thought she settled on - men at events like this carried their pride closer to the surface, where it was easier to reach. She needed someone with enough at stake to shatter convincingly and someone standing close enough to a fault line that a single word would do the work. She needed someone who had already done half the work for her and she found him in under sixty seconds. Standing at the bar, well dressed, masked, a glass in hand that wasn't his first of the evening - she could tell by the particular looseness in his shoulders, the way he laughed a half second too late at something the man beside him said. His wife was across the room. Hazal had already noted them together earlier, the careful distance they maintained that wasn't quite natural. The wife had been in conversation with another man for the better part of twenty minutes. Standing close. The kind of close that meant something, or could be made to.
Hazal moved, not toward her target directly - never directly, but in the slow, social drift of a woman crossing a room at a party. She came alongside him at the bar in the natural way of two guests reaching the same point at the same moment. The bartender was occupied at the far end. She reached across the bar with the ease of someone entirely comfortable in rooms like this and retrieved the open bottle of whisky sitting within reach, turning to him with the quiet offer of a refill. He accepted without hesitation. Of course he did. She poured, and in the same breath, without looking at him directly, she spoke - low enough that it belonged only to him, "The man your wife has been talking to all evening - she's been to his apartment. Twice this week. I thought you should know."
She set the bottle down close to the other and stepped back from the bar. For a moment nothing happened. She counted the seconds the way she always did - not with anxiety, but with the clean detachment of someone waiting for a mechanism to engage. His glass came down first - not dropped, but set, with the controlled force of a man attempting restraint and only half achieving it. Then he straightened before he turned, his eyes found his wife across the room with the terrible precision of someone who had perhaps already suspected the information Hazal had given and had simply needed outside confirmation. He took three steps and then the restraint left him entirely. The bottle went with it - knocked from the bar's edge in the turn of his body, hitting the floor in an explosion of glass and amber that cut clean through the music. Heads snapped toward the sound. The dancefloor momentarily stilled as his voice rose across the room directed entirely at the man his wife was in talks with, seemingly past the point of any return.
The scene had arrived and Hazal was already at the far side of the room. She didn't hurry, nor did she look back, her focus remained on her exit, moving in the current of obliviousness and toward the glass door. Once the door opened and then closed, the noise soon fell away behind her as she stood on the path outside and breathed. Not relief. She didn't allow herself relief. Just air and the small deliberate act of placing one foot in front of the other as she walked away from the glasshouse. The pantheon had given her five minutes, and Hazal had done it in four.
After Stella excused herself, August made a stop at one of the bars set up throughout the venue for a quick glass of gin before she headed outside to join a gaggle of security personnel where they stood in a loose circle, smoking and talking. Despite their vastly different upbringings, a lot of these sorts of men had a military background, and given she spent most of her life enlisted, that sort of camaraderie felt more like home than anything else ever would. With her date absent, she allowed herself the comfort of familiarity among them without the pressure of leadership or a mask to wear–literally and figuratively. That wouldn’t last, however. The insistent buzz of her phone in her pocket drew her attention and she waved vaguely as a sort of goodbye and excused herself, withdrawing it from her pocket.
You did such a clean job, Augustine. Four years and not a single loose thread.
Send every boat at the dock back to the city. All of them. Now.
Do it quietly and this stays between us. Make a scene or we’ll remind you that we know exactly who cares about your mistake.
-p
Hot indignation spread from her chest and into her head in a flash, and all at once she was sixteen and in a screaming match with her mother about how her behavior affected her father’s re-election bid. Seventeen and holding a knitted yellow Woodstock hat soaked with blood while the adults in charge schooled her on the correct story for the news and parents. Thirty two and thanked for her service from a wheelchair at her friend’s funeral. Thirty five and sent back there again for a different man with the same agenda despite promises otherwise. Thirty eight and angry as she stared down another mafia talking head through her scope, determined to break the cycle of power abused in a way that made others playthings. Now she stared at a text telling her to do as she was told or suffer the consequences, and she would suffer. All that strife, all that fighting for some sort of ideological high ground just to be exactly where she started.
Her first order of business was Christos. After the Pantheon’s text, his was the first in her messages and currently displayed a back and forth of blurry images detailing their vastly different evenings, August’s all masks and glittering lights while his showed a comfortable night in with his girlfriend. One quick text–Shit’s about to go sideways–and she dropped the phone back into her pocket. Her plan unfolded only a few steps before each action required for it. A nondescript black jacket lifted from an unmanned coat-check, an ear piece caught by nimble fingers after an incident involving a spilled drink and a too-young inexperienced member of security, and her hair secured into a bun. Sure, the lipstick might have put her at a disadvantage, but everything else combined with the posture and movements of a Marine as she approached the docks meant that detail was enough to ignore. Squared shoulders, an even tone, and the sort of confidence that came from fighting for it tooth and nail meant when she said it was a matter of security for all the boats to return to the city for the time being, no one batted an eye. It all happened with ease, as if every part of her life led to exactly this point, to destroy the evening the Kline family created with perfect, invisible precision.
August watched, jaw clenched, as the boats retreated towards the glow of the city, their silent forms slowly becoming little more than dancing fairy lights that glittered across the abyss-dark dark water. Once gone, she pulled her phone out again, this time opening her thread with Imani.
They’re here. I had to get rid of the boats, will explain later–I promise the alternative would have been worse for us. Going to try to find them before they do whatever they came here to do.
With one quick glance at the boats–now nearly invisible against the city–she turned and headed towards the masquerade at a dead sprint, hoping she wasn’t too late to stop whatever was coming.
