Empire of Deception (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter 20

Gin is probably the last thing I should be drinking but I couldn't stop the steady flow of liquor. The London lights were already turned on for the night and so I sat there on the sofa, completely entranced by the twinkling electricity that pulsed through the city.

A light rap on the door pulls me out of the numbness of my mind and I manage to find my way up onto my two feet.

Her nose was slightly red from the cold and her cheeks were rosy which complimented her otherwise deathly pale face. Her eyes seem slightly bloodshot and I wonder when is the last time she had a full nights' sleep.

We don't exchange any formal sort of greeting, I simply open the door wide enough for her to step inside. I lock it behind her.

The nervous feeling of self-consciousness consumes every fibre of my body as she takes the first look around my flat. It might be clean but I wonder if she can see the phantom cobwebs of misery, anxiety, hopelessness that hang on practically every corner. If she does she doesn't say anything.

When she turns to look at me I find myself staring and suddenly feeling guilty at the reality of a girl who isn't Madison being with me alone at night.

"Do you want something to drink?" I ask her, trying to break the ice. The hunger for alcohol pangs me and I am walking over to the open bottle on the coffee table.

"No thank you," I hear her whisper.

I watch the amber liquid slide it's way into my glass before I bring it up to my lips. It burns it's way down my throat but once it's down I'm ready for the next swig. I'm ready to feel myself fade away into nothingness. "Is this it?" Victoria inquires as her hand gestures towards a printed Reading that lay stapled together on the granite countertop.

"It's all there," I tell her. "It's the original that Collings gave to me."

"Theodore Collings?" she questions, hoping for confirmation.

I nod to her before I finish the rest of my drink. The glass clinks lightly as it hits the tabletop. The hunger within me is asking for more but it takes strength to close the bottle and put it away in my liquor cabinet.

"Interesting," I hear her comment as she quickly thumbs through the reading. "The names," she says after a moment, "Do you remember any of them?"

"A few," I prompt, "But I have no idea what position they were applying for."

"This number," she points out, her finger tracing the long ID displayed across the top of the page. She doesn't have to finish.

"I know. There should be a division name accompanied by a five digit or less number. This one is nearly ten which isn't according to protocol. I've looked through the list of divisions for Project 28 and this isn't one of them."

I finally feel brave enough to ask the question that has been weighing on me. "Why are you fighting the system? I mean, you're a Jarwin and your father runs a big part of this city. If something isn't right you shouldn't care."

"I don't like it when people automatically assume things of me in relation to my biological gender and my surname. I know women are submissive in this business but I've been pushed and shoved around my whole life while the younger sibling gets to do whatever the hell he wants. I'm sick of being treated like I am nothing. Christopher has it easy because he managed to pull more of Alexander's features whereas I take after my mother, making everyone automatically assume I'm only a minority and that their white seniority is something that I should respect. Just because you're white doesn't make you superior. What ever happened to equality," she grumbles, eyes darkening at the memory of her mistreated and hazy past. I can feel the bitterness than radiates from her skeleton that penetrates and dirties the air that surrounds us.