❝Hm... seems fake.❞ Her tone is matter-of-fact and frank, her expression is neutral while staring at the grainy images of what is supposed to be an ominous silhouette, partially obscured by columns of sycamore trees. Little does he know, he actually managed to capture a few photos of the spirit she’s been assigned to monitor and contain. Supposedly, it’s been classified as a spirit, but something else indicates that it’s an unequivocal beast of its own. The last thing she needs are a bunch of nosey investigators poking around things they clearly cannot handle without some miraculous intervention.
“I think everyone knows by now that there is an actual village. I, of course, have my two sisters and my brother. Then we have @halessinclair, @greerkingstcn, @sydncyfitzpatrick, @lucybethbarton, @jxsoncash, @sfitzpatrick, @weston-taylor and @cary-reynolds when he’s not being an asshole... And @aubreytaylcr because despite everything, I love her little booty like she’s my sister.”
All things considered, it was a wonder that it took him this long to get to this point. For a man who wasn’t him, Cassidy Kay Kingston III, an advocate for his home, a good man in a storm, a beyond competent horse rider with a huge, bleeding heart of gold - for a man who wasn’t all that, this breakdown would’ve probably happened years ago. The giant spiderweb cracks in the foundation of his strength of will that had been chipped at and exacerbated by his fathers words were due give up the ghost and let him finally, finally fall. One by one, they’d been adding up over the years. The emotional abuse of his teen years, strained by the icy silence of his early to mid twenties, the earth rocking fight upon his return, the lectures and backhanded comments that fell on his back even now, had methodically hacked away at the strains of Cass’s sanity and well being. This most recent thing, with Amelia? Had only twisted the dagger his fathers words had been driving into his heart all this time, led him to a tipping point that the man himself could not see. After all, one is blind to the affairs of their own heart and the direction their lives are headed until it’s staring at you right in the face.
In that bar on that Saturday night, one would be hard pressed to find a man in there with an opinion of himself lower than the oldest Kingston’s was that night. No one there knew him, knew that the chaotic mess of his insides was a shaky tower that was precariously close to finally tumbling over. What they knew, what anyone who saw him knew, was that this was not a man to be messed with. To do so would be to court bodily harm. Cass sat in the farther corner he could, the only resident of a dimly lit booth with a couple of empty beer bottles on the table next to him. Black shirt, dark jeans, and a navy baseball cap pushed down to cover angry and lost blue eyes. The brim could not cover the slightly purpling areas under his eyes, the skin that under his natural glorious tan that was wan and closer to pale than it had ever been. You can only abuse your body for so long until the affects start to make themselves known, and as in denial about it as Cass was, everyone who saw him knew it. The story his shaggy hair and shaggier beard told was more telling than the one it didn’t. Running on perhaps five hours of sleep from the past three days, eyes strained from hours staring at a computer screen, knuckles from busted from sleepless nights beating the shit of his punching bag so often he had to purchase a new one. The day before he’d received an email from a prospective investor in the B & B who’d pulled out in deference to another offer they’d received - an offer from a restaurant in town whose owner CK was family friends with. How had later that night Cass received a phone call from a father whose critical words judged him for not making the ranch a good enough prospect? How could his fathers sabotage him, and then judge him for his failures to overcome that sabotage in the same day? Cass didn’t know. Couldn’t know. But it filled his heart with feelings of inadequacy and defeat that he’d recently given into.
A brush of a touch against his shoulder and Cass’s sharp blues shoot up, catching the sight of a woman with waist length black hair and a slim curvy figure, the dips in her body an invitation any man would eagerly accept. This one, however, felt a squeeze in his heart at her inviting smile, a betrayal of emotions when his dark side longed to answer her welcoming grin. That betrayal is what spun into fervor the fury he had at himself and his traitorous emotions, a heart that didn’t give a shit about the emotional turmoil he’d just gone through and was still pretty invested in Amy. Amelia Taylor, that brunette tornado who’d stepped with him into the eye of the storm for a while, a time short, too short, severed by the anniversary of a man she’d loved, lost, and still felt a twisted responsibility to. While on one hand, the bleeding half of his soul that believe in an eye for an eye gloried at the verbal assault he’d given her the last time they’d been together, poisoned darts that spread into each others souls, the other hand held the half of his soul mortified at his actions, at what he’d said. For someone trying to distance himself from his father, you sure are acting a lot like him, came the accusatory whisper from that being within, voicing a fear Cass would rather ignore. You still care about her. Still want her. What are you going to do about that?
What was he going to do about that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She’d made it clear her heart held no more room, and Cass deserved more than to be a second class citizen to a ghost. Or did he? Unlike the spectre that haunted Amy, Cass’s was alive and well, a malevolent presence in the shape of his father that spit words that he could call to mind at any moment. Worthless. Pathetic. A shitty excuse for a son. Suddenly, the desperate need to quiet that voice, hell any of the voices inside his head, fills him, and alcohol isn’t enough. He pushes out of the booth, stands. Makes a beeline for the woman who’d propositioned him with words he hadn’t fully heard. “You want me?” Cass demands, low and hard when he finds her just around the corners from the bathroom, surprise and then pleasure flooding her pupils. Her teeth find her lower lip as she nods, hands coming up to rest on his shoulders, and the blonde man has to shove the memories of the last women he’d held who had a tendency to bite her lips to the back of his mind. “Good.” The utterance is followed by a surge forward of his head, a rough meeting of his lips to hers in a move he’d never done before. Cass doesn’t do this. He doesn’t kiss strangers in bars, he doesn’t use them as a desperate attempt to drown his inner demons, and he certainly doesn’t do it before asking their name. Whether or not he doesn’t do it, the fact cannot be denied that he’s doing it right now - feeding hurt and anger into a bracing kiss that the woman he doesn’t now eagerly returns. While the mechanics are sound and the motions are familiar, Cass feels dirty. Downright filthy about the fact that no matter how strong the denial was that he wrapped his heart around, she wasn’t Amy. And he didn’t want this. The tall blonde jerks away in as broken a manner as he’d first surged forward, one big, shaky hand wiping at the back of his mouth. “I’m sorry.” He whispers to her, a regretful, apologetic sound that responds to her hurt eyes and pouting lips even as he slaps a twenty on the table and continues to back away.
The disgust at himself and his actions doesn’t leave his abused body even as he calls a car to get him home, the soul deep exhaustion in his body begging, pleading to get some rest as he places scuffed converse wearing feet back on the ranch grounds. Mind hazy from way too many late nights, overstressed limbs and brain, and a beer bottle too many, Cass follows his feet to where they take him, in this case the stables. Jazz, the black and white mustang filly already asleep, flicks an ear up at his footsteps and gives a quiet whicker that reaches Cass (and always will, if everyone was being honest. He’d raised the horse from birth, after all - she worshiped him and he adored her) even through his fog. “Hi beautiful,” he murmurs as he clumsily unlocks the door to her stall, big body folding down next to her. Jazz shakes her mane and lifts her head so it’s even with his in his seated position, brown eyes gazing at the blonde as he strokes her neck and mane, their foreheads pressed against each other. If all had gone well, this would have been how Cass ended his night. The morning sun and Jazz’s nudging would have awakened him the next day, plagued with a hangover and a heavy soul, and it wouldn’t have been the night he’d finally fallen off that cliff. His phone vibrates, an unnatural sound in the calm and nature of the barn, and he fishes it out of his pocket, slides the answer call button in a motion that goes a little too far off the edge of the screen. Cass presses it against his face, doesn’t look at the name. “H’llo?”
“Are you drunk?” CK, the man, the myth, the devil, accuses from the other end of the line. A flinch, physical and in his soul, manifests itself immediately in his son, a stilling of his palm on his favorite horses neck.
“Dad this - I’m off the clock. It’s a weekend.”
“The job never quits, son. Although I’m not surprised - every time I talk to you you seem to always be able to let me down, somehow. If you’re drunk, then so be it. Alcoholic or not, you need to hear this. If you don’t step up your game, actually start pretending to be a man and running this ranch the way it deserves, I’m taking it away from you.”
Cass didn’t just stop then, he jerked - paled, somehow even more, a wave of distress coming from him so strong that Jazz snorted in alarm. No - no - he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. It was his now. Mine. A building and business he’d poured his heart and soul into, his future. His birthright. “Dad,” the blonde tries, fails, attempts with another name. “Sir, don’t. I can handle this. I have been handling this, look at - look at the profit margins since I’ve been in charge, it’s increasing every year, the profile in the magazine -”
“I don’t give a damn about any of that. This place is in my name. As long as I have breath in my body, it’s my duty to take care of it. And if I have to remove you from it to do that, then I will. Don’t push me, boy. Because I will not hesitate. Do you hear me? No hesitation. None. I’d rather train someone else than allow you to keep tarnishing Kingston’s good name. So pull your shit together. Or you won’t have any.” A noise, an abrupt hanging up, and Cass is left alone in the stall with a worried horse and a very low sense of self preservation. His heart was beating so loud he could suddenly hear it, feel it stretch to the reaches of his body in a frenetic pace he couldn’t keep up with. The foundations shattered; bedrock crumbled; strings severed; and suddenly all he could do was think of getting away. He tacks up Jazz in a fugue state he won’t be able to remember days, weeks, years from now, walks her out of the barn and swings into the saddle with an ease someone of his mindset was only able to do with decades of practice. The filly, while a bit troubled by the frenetic emotions radiating from her so loved human and rider, was always down for a run, and could sense that Cass was too. Her hoofbeats were quick, nearly prancing with eagerness as he leaned down to open the gate to their largest, wildest field, one that only ended in the thick woods bordering their property. It was ideal for pretending there were no limits to the freedom it presented and a favorite of the blonde man and his horse, a location so familiar to Jazz that the moment Cass pulled it shut behind him she started moving. A lurch, a grasp of the reins and a hunkering down to be as close to her neck as possible, he placed his trust in his horse and prayed for the sounds of her gallops to drown out the demons in his head and heart.
For a moment, all was well. For a moment, it was two animals joined in one in the elegant motion, nearly flying over the ground as Jazz tried as hard as she could to almost fly. For a moment, the joy of the activity almost put him, if only momentarily, back together; before it all fell apart.
A fox, unexpected and caught mid flight home, appears in the horses view as a sudden red coated enemy, a thing of surprise that causes her to stop in her tracks so suddenly Cass can’t keep up. Loss of sleep, slight inebriation, and general exhaustion all work against the big man in teaming up of bad luck and he goes flying through the air, the last moment of consciousness he held before his head collided with a rock and it all went black.
The next occurrences Cassidy Kay Kingston III was not mentally present for as he lay there, blood dripping down his face from the rock he’d collided with, Jazz pressing worried muzzles into his form and whickering. A forgotten text, sent to his friend Mason before it had all gone to hell and he’d arrived at the bar hours before, is the only reason someone knows to look for him - he isn’t discovered until a few hours too many after the incident occurs, his friend having seen the filly in distress and following her to where he lay. Consciousness only comes to him in bits and spurts, a flash of Mason’s worry stricken face, of someone leading a rearing Jazz away, of an ambulance. Of the murmurs of the hospital, Mason calling his sister, seeing Holden’s worried face.
Severe concussion, bruised and cracked ribs, head injury, sprained arm, extreme exhaustion, and sleep deprivation. Cassidy Kay Kingston III had finally, finally, fallen over his tipping point - for better, or for worse.
Voicemail: This is the voicemail for Martin Porter, please leave your message after the tone.
Beth: You suck, you know that? Like you really, really, really, really, really suck. I just wanna be happy, hic, and you come waltzin' back in like you bone the place, no, own the place, that's the one.
Greer: Beth! Get over here we've got more shots.
Beth: In a minute! Anyway just wanna say that you sorta suck and I think I still miss you cause the bed is always cold and I definitely have not really got much since you left because I got fat with a baby which was also your fault by the way.
Sydney: You phoned Martin didn't you? I'll fucking kill you if you phoned him.
Beth: S'not him! But yeah, you're still really hot but don't tell anyone I said that because Syd will kill me and then probably Greer will as well but you are and I am very drunk and I don't really know where I am and I might just got for a stroll, but my feet really hurt--
Sydney: Give me your damn ph--
*Message left today at 1.29am. End of message*
Text from Beth: Don't know where I am
Text from Beth: I ran away. FREEDOM. OHHHH FREEDOM.
as a child alethea had been particularly good at the hall of mirrors. not enough to brag about it, but enough that she could escape ahead of her family, her brother, her friends. navigating with quick measured steps the turns to take, hands brushing against angled walls. some might call it intuition, or something about ability to recognize patterns. still, there was something like pride that swelled through her chest when she finished the maze, standing outside of it waiting for the others. only to realize that they had all exited laughing, recalling about one of them running into a wall, or their mother mentioning just how quick and eager jacob was.
so tonight, as alethea entered the maze, they took their time. fingers trailing along the wall, ignoring their instincts at times to take wrong turns, to come face to face with their reflection instead of the next step in the way out, having to backtrack and turn themselves around.
it was around a corner that alethea had chosen to go left instead of their intended right that something caught their eye.
maybe it was just a trick of the light, the maze playing mind games on them. but as alethea made their way through the maze, out of the corner of their eye, there was a swish of blonde hair, disappearing into the never-ending reflections. it didn’t matter, if they tried to follow whoever it was, because the only thing they’d find was a chilling laugh echoing at their efforts. chilling…because it was familiar.
she was frozen in place, eyes glued to where she'd seen the blonde, where she'd heard the laugh. it took the loud clang of someone running into a wall behind her to pull her out of the trance. and then their feet were on the move, pulling back to that instinct of where to turn, what way to go. and maybe they were just seeing things but she kept thinking around this corner i'll see her again, i'll hear her again. her pace picked up along with her heart rate, because that was fucking greer, but it couldn't be greer. why would she be here? why was she baiting alethea again? getting her to chase her, to follow her, to always be behind. and alethea continued, thinking that this was it, she couldn't out run her this time.
but just as they made a left, thinking that she'll see her, they came to the abrupt end, stepping back into the sunlight to find themselves alone once again.
Maybe it was just a trick of the light, the maze playing mind games on them. But as Alethea made their way through the maze, out of the corner of their eye, there was a swish of blonde hair, disappearing into the never-ending reflections. It didn’t matter, if they tried to follow whoever it was, because the only thing they’d find was a chilling laugh echoing at their efforts. Chilling…because it was familiar.
