Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
***
Marcus Lopez could not sleep.
Not only because of the house -that horrid place he would never forget-, but also because of her.
How wrong he had been.
Like many did to him, he did not listen when she needed him to. Marcus despised himself deeply for that.
There was a bitterness growing inside him that he didn't notice before. Perhaps years of suffering had made him insensitive to pain, his and others'. And King's Dominion was the perfect ecosystem to let selfishness thrive.
Everyone that lived in that place was there to avenge something. Cleanse when impure. But the kids themselves built a system of corruption. What were the Legacies if not people with too much power that did not deserve it? People with too much, not willing to share?
It was an ecosystem that depended on violence to function.
And Jun fell into that place expecting King's to be different from what she was used to, which it was not. The school was just as much of a dictatorship as her old home.
Marcus had not seen it before, but he had become part of it. Perhaps, he was the hypocrite.
He couldn't stand being still any longer, so he got up. Quiet as to not wake up Billy who had struggled to find sleep too, Marcus shoved his cigarettes and lighter inside his pocket and went outside.
It wasn't his intention, but the boy always seemed to find her when he wasn't looking.
Marcus froze by the entrance of the pool, hearing the water ripple around her moving legs. The last time they were alone together flashed in his memory. The scene was too similar not to compare.
It was a breezy night. Her hair moved with the wind, her legs swinging back and forth. Though, instead of the edge of a building, Jun sat by a pool at ground level.
She didn't hear him stepping closer, like she hadn't when he joined her on the roof.
Marcus considered turning back and returning to his room many times. But, despite it being similar to before, he felt so incredibly different about her.
Maybe it was his body wanting to talk to someone, to express the chaotic state his mind was in. Or he felt like it was a chance the universe had granted him to do it again, better this time.
He stopped a few feet from her, his eyes observing her skin. The blood had been washed away, but the remembrance of it had not. He could tell by her hands, still shaking on her lap.
Jun took out a knife from her coat sleeve and was prepared to kill Marcus, before she saw his face.
"Hey, hey." He put his hands up, taking a few steps back. "It's me."
