Slow down, you crazy child.
You're so ambitious for a juvenile.
But then if you're so smart, tell me why are you still so afraid?
Where's the fire? What's the hurry about?
You better cool it off before you burn it out.
"Business or Pleasure?"
The mocha skinned woman glanced up from the paper sitting in front of her to look at the dark haired boy, her youngest cousin by a couple of years, his clear blue eyes stared up at her as she quirked an eyebrow at him.
Placing the paper down on the table in front of them in the living room she glanced at him and turned so her body was facing him on the loveseat.
"What do you mean?"
He pursed his tiny lips and placed his hands on her knees. "That's what dad always says to me when I read papers and stuff, so I wanted to try it out." She would have laughed if he didn't look so serious about it. So she opted to humor him rather than laugh in his face.
She pretended to think, rubbing her index finger against her chin and looking down at him.
"Business, Gabe, business. I need to finish this paper and turn it into one of my teachers." She looked around the room before she leaned forward and cupped a hand over his ear and began to whisper in his ear.
"If you ask me, I'd say she gave me all this work on purpose, shes an old hag."
She pulled away and winked at him, making him crack a small smile in return. She reached for the paper again and stood up from the seat, looking back at her cousin and ruffling his hair before she picked up and shrugged her backpack onto her shoulder,
"Tell Aunt Karen I'll try an stop by for dinner, if not then she knows whats up."
Cynthia honestly felt bad most of the time when she asked her family to pass on messages to the battle ax of a woman for her, but she wasn't willing to face her and get a firm talking to about how her drinking problems would kill her one day.
Cyn didn't think her drinking was all that bad, considering she wasn't overly reliant on the alcohol to make her days better, she drank in moderation and when she needed to have a good time.
She exhaled, watching the breath, visible in the middle of December as she tracked for her car, the white BMW stood out against the muddy ground of the front yard, the dogs continuously barked at whomever walked by their fences.
It was one of the things she actually enjoyed about visiting New Jersey in the middle of winter, it was seeing her younger cousins and aunts. but she hated the way they all looked at her and whispered behind her back.
Not that she minded, she could pretty much ignore anything when she actually had to and this was one of those things that she just seemed to brush off and ignore while she had a good time, but she couldn't just forget about it completely.
She yelp when she almost slipped and fell on the icy ground near her car, but managed to catch herself, she shouldn't be thinking so deeply and trying to walk on icy ground in the first place, it would have served her right if she would have fell and broken something important.
Like her ass.
She sighed and pressed her forehead against the steering wheel once she was safely inside her car, she lazily reached into her pocket for her keys and shoved them into the ignition and turned it, starting the car and pulling away from the large house and continuing onto her Grandparents house to get changed for the night that her friend had planned for them, something about it being for her fist time back in a while. Maybe if she'd been paying attention to her surroundings she'd have seen the looming shape in the distance.
"Rusty Locks? No way!"
"So you've heard of it?"
"No."
She stated simply, rolling her eyes as her friends face dropped. Honestly, she didn't understand getting so worked up over a bar. It was one place to get drunk and forget all your problems, anyone was as good as the next to her.
She shrugged her shoulders as she climbed out of the car when her friend had pulled up and parked on the side of the brick building. A small laugh slipped from her mouth as she all but skipped up to the front flashed an ID an flounced in. then she did what she always did, sat her pretty biracial ass down at the bar and ordered shots of whiskey until she couldn't feel her tongue anymore.
Someone cleared their throat next to her ear, something she wasn't all to fond of. She glanced at them, raising an eyebrow and placing the shot glass down firmly on the bar.
"What can I do you for, Stranger?"
He smiled, and she made a note to admire it. He was pretty cute when she thought about it, but he was overly cocky, she could tell by the way he made himself comfortable next to her, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the bar, and getting way too into her personal space.
"Devlin, my names Devlin, Dev for short. You can help me by maybe letting me buy you a drink."
She raised an eyebrow at this, he moved pretty fast. He must do this all the time to women he thought were drunk. Too bad for him, it took her more then a couple shots of whiskey to have her forgetting her common sense.
"And what do you expect in return for this drink?"
He smiled and leaned in closer to her, placing a hand on her jean clad thigh.
"Well, maybe just a friend."
She rolled her eyes and smiled lightly at him, leaning in until their lips barely touched.
"My mama didn't raise me to accept drinks from men I barely know, and my daddy taught me how to break a hand in seven different places, so remove it or I'll do it for you, Dev."
She punctuated her sentence by grasping his middle finger in her fist and slowly bending it back, until she heard the pop that meant she dislocated it. "Next time I'll break it." She turned away from him and went back to her drink, taking it down in one gulp and signaling for a refill.
She downed that shoot in record time, glancing around the bar when she felt eyes staring at her. Landing on a rather large male, black over coat and a small sinister smile on the lips that parted and flashed a hint of fang.
Mutant.
She made a mental note that no once else seemed to be paying much mind to him, she shrugged her shoulders and ordered another shoot.
It wasn't until she felt another warm body near hers that she finally looked up at raised an eyebrow at the mutant who was across the bar a few moments ago.
"Something I can help you with?"
Cynthia was uneasy around other mutants, her own mutation was something she kept to herself, only select people in her family knew about it even.
He grinned, flashing those fangs once again.
"Actually something you can help me with, frail."
Everything else was a blur, and before Cynthia knew it she was on her back on the bar, with his claws pressed against her throat. She yelp lightly when her feet left the floor, kicking out blindly, but her five four frame wasn't really doing anything to stop the guy who was nearly a foot taller than she was.
"Holy shit."