lalisa hark . district eight | fin

Every Wednesday at nine o'clock, her mother, her aunt, and her uncle meet in her mother's office. Sometimes, her older siblings will join them, but most of the time, Eiza Hark will close the double doors to her office, shooting a stern look at her curious children as they march, single-filed, up the stairs to their rooms.

Lalisa doesn't wonder what the meetings are about — most of the Hark children don't. She has a general idea of what is discussed, since she is now old enough to be let in on the family secrets, and that is enough for her. Only the younger Harks, the little fifteen, fourteen, and thirteen year olds, ask questions.

They are never answered; and they won't be, not until they blow out the candle on their sixteenth birthday cake.

Eiza Hark, Clara Hallow, and Rhys Hark are the golden trinity of crime in District Eight. Their main business is bootlegging, selling drugs, and sometimes firearms, too. Eiza and her two siblings, Clara and Rhys, were given their positions in the gang by their parents, who led it together. They call the gang Kingsblood; Lalisa doesn't know where the name comes from, just that it has been passed down to the next heir for generations.

Eiza and Clara both married and had children of their own; Clara, however, took her husband's surname — Hallow. The oldest of the Harks and the Hallows have been groomed to lead their whole lives, growing up to have tongues of fire, fists of steel, and most importantly, wits as sharp as knives.

Some of the younger children, like Lalisa, have grown to be soft and spoiled. She was almost as skilled as her two older siblings — she can fire a gun, throw a punch — but she does not have the discipline that they do. Lalisa has always been more soft, more gentle, than her siblings or her cousins, and as a result, her parents took pity on her. They taught her how to fight, but they never hardened her into steel the way they did to the others. She has never been taught cold hard discipline, and perhaps that is part of the reason why she exists within a bubble of bliss.

She is likely the happiest of the Hallows and the Harks. Due to their wealth, most of them are very content with their lives, but Lalisa is more than content. She is the optimist, the one who shines the light when everything else is dark. When she is not contributing to Kingsblood, accounting for her parents or helping them with sales, she spends her time tending to her garden in the backyard and weaving flower crowns. She also bakes pastries for her siblings and cousins when they make a big sale or on special occasions.

She is soft and sweet, until you piss her off. On the rare occasion that Lalisa gets angry, she flies off the handle. It is something that only a few people have seen in their lives, like her sister, for one, when she got into an argument with her and then tore up her garden.

Lalisa was taught to be watchful of others, but never wary, never afraid. She is not one to trust a person so easily; it is something that must be earned from her. But once she does, she trusts them fully, deeply — and if that trust is broken, so is their bond. She was taught to seek vengeance on those who betrayed her, and it is a lesson that she has never forgotten.

("If you ever find a knife in your back, pull it out and stab them with it.")

Despite being a gang, the Kingsbloods don't like to get their hands dirty. They keep themselves clean of blood; never spilling a drop if they don't have to. Their process is peaceful, despite it being completely illegal. But it isn't exactly out of kindness that they try to refrain from taking out their enemies — they do it to keep their tracks clean. It can be difficult not to get caught if you've got blood on your hands.

It's the reason they have survived for so long with so few bumps in the road, why they will continue to thrive.