"Preston!" An accented voice shouts after a small, speeding figure ā a little boy with messy blond hair weaving through a crowd up until he slams right into poor Maria. Denser than he looks, the contact is sure to leave an ache, but he gets the slightly worse end: tumbling to the floor and getting caught by his sister who promptly yanks him up by the arm.
"What I tell ya about runnin' from me?! There's bad people out there! You could get hurt! Or worse!"
Despite his whining protests, Evangeline scoops him into her arms before offering the girl he'd launched himself into an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry about him- he's havin' a phase," She pauses to take the other girl in a little more and her cheeks flush. She's quite pretty and some part of her feels the strangest tug, like something's pulling on her very soul. "Is there, uh, somethin' I can do t'make up fer the mess...?"
Maria stumbles from the hit but keeps her footing. Her pretzel isn't so lucky, the sweet and salty treat hitting the ground. Cinnamon sugar dust sparkles in a small cloud at her feet like a particularly pathetic party trick, but she's hardly paying attention to that now.
She looks like one of those bad people. She has the markings of them in her makeup, her still swollen brow piercing, in the too big leather jacket that is almost certainly stolen.
But it lacks finesse. A teenager cosplaying a ganger. Under the facade is just a young girl who has finally started to grow into her angular features that might have marked her for a life of acting or modeling - a life in the spotlight - had she been born someone else. Anyone else.
As it is, Maria finds herself dumbstruck. The instinct to react in aggression, to bite first, is choked out by the way her chest contracts for a moment - just a moment - upon looking at her.
Shit. Fuck. Come on, get it together.
"Nah, it's fine." Said with a cool look, a casual toss of her hair. Nailed it. "But you could buy me another pretzel if you want to make up for it."
It wasn't actually that big of a deal. Or, it shouldn't be. But she'd just gotten her first real kick back from working with the Sons and she did kind of want her little celebratory treat that was now just bird food.