when winter sings | {talon}

"I heard your, um, Mother was getting sick again."

She sat across from Monroe in a very public restaurant for lunch. It was of the few nice ones District Nine had, the kind that only people with jobs a few steps higher than Factory workers could afford. White walls, white table cloths. You had to be rich to use something that could so easily be destroyed.

"Do you need time off?"

She was trying to sound sympathetic. The truth was she held a great respect for the woman who raised Talon's son when she couldn't, but there was also a tinge of jealousy. Especially now that Talon had gone and done something as stupid as hiring him to work for her.

"No," he said simply. He was like her in that way, unwilling to take off his armor, even when amongst supposed friends. He looked vulnerable, if only for the briefest of moments, before his typical charming smile returned. He would be a damn good successor. One day.

Not this day, but some day.

"Are you ready to order, then?"

She smiled back at him, then sipped her lemon water.

"PK. Helmsby is on the work detail list."

April's voice was a whisper, despite the door being closed and no one who mattered being close enough to hear anything. Talon had trained her well, it seemed. She didn't know the full story, but she'd learned she didn't need to. When Nightlocke showed up, something always seemed different about Talon. And something always changed. Her poll numbers shot up overnight, a gang leader went missing, Talon missed work.

"Thank you," Talon whispered back without looking away from the papers in her hand, "I need a lemon water, please."

As soon as April closed the door behind her, Talon felt the weight of something in her chest. Secrets burned like fire, slowly eating away at a person until there was nothing left except ash and bone and that secret, somewhere deep deep within.

The small locket around her neck grew heavy enough that she pulled it off, wanting more than anything to forget it was there, and she stood, stomping out of her office in six-inch heels.

"I'm leaving for the day," she said to April as she passed her in the hall.

Winter had come in full force, the mountains in the distance and the ground outside snow-capped alike. Each step brought a crunch that was simultaneously satisfying and devastating. There were trails of footprints, chinks in the snow's armor up and down the street sides. Something beautiful and delicate was so easy to destroy- she'd always appreciated the idea of each snowflake being a little different from all the others.

She'd traded in her lemon water with lemon tea, piping hot and the only thing keeping her fingers warm as she marched further and further away from her office, from her home.

A yellow piece of paper just barely poked out of her pants pocket, the end of an address April had gotten for her months ago plainly visible. She hated that it had come to this, at least partially, but she found it necessary. She stopped short of a wrought iron fence that wrapped around a beautiful home much larger than her own. She steeled her nerves and stepped inside, knocking on the front door before she could stop herself.

"Mr. Morrigan," she said when a man answered the door, "I have a business proposition for you."

Abraxas's face wasn't the one she'd been expecting to see when she opened her back door in the middle of the night.

She pulled her robe closer to her, covering herself as she stared at him with confusion.

"Why are you—"

"It's done. I need the money."

She stood quietly for a moment, evaluating him. He looked shaken, but it was the middle of the night. Perhaps he was just tired.

"How?"

"Knife. Made it look like a burglary. I need the money."

"Wait here."

She closed the door and returned a few minutes later, handing him a small bag. She prayed no one was still up; the cover story that Abraxas was supposed to be rennovating her bathroom wouldn't seem quite as believable if someone were to see him standing outside her door in the middle of the night.

"It's all there."

He walked away without saying another word.