The door slammed hard behind them as they entered the apartment, the bustling noise of Covent Garden filtering through the living room window, ignoring the sounds of modern day life outside as they both made a rapid bee-line for their separate destinations. Hope towards the kitchen and Mercy towards the bathroom.
For the past number of years that they had become active in their crimes, each night had always been the same for Hope and Mercy Sinclair. Hope frowned as she sent a backwards glance from the open plan kitchen towards the bathroom door before looking back to the substance she had placed upon the counter, pulling out tattered credit card that she didn't use anymore, carefully using it to model the white powder into a perfect line.
She wished that she didn't need it, didn't crave it so deeply but she did. After so long, it was the only thing that silenced the voices in her head, drowned out the sound of her clones as they each questioned her actions, each quarrelled over who would be used for the next drug operation or major deal.
When she'd first learned of her gift, she'd thought it nothing more than being able to create a temporary second self. It was only as she'd used it more, created more and more copies of herself that she had understood the truth. They were more than mere projections. Once she cancelled them, they returned to her head but remained active with their own thoughts and opinions. She had become a vessel for her own creations, nothing more than a living Russian doll.
Pinching one side of her nose, she leaned towards the counter inhaling hard and wincing as the substance shot through her nostril and began the process of mixing into her blood stream. She hated it, but knew that there was some irony to be found in her situation. To regain her own self, she had to lose herself completely to the drug.
As the familiar buzz began to shoot through her veins, she stumbled towards the sofa, waiting for the promised silence to begin as she awaited her sister's return, knowing that her own form escape was underway.
She gritted her teeth against the familiar pain that bit into her flesh, eyes fixed upon the little strip of metal clasped in her hand as she dragged it through her arm. Whilst Hope had cocaine to keep herself grounded and a little further away from truly becoming insane, Mercy used her own pain to remind her that she still had a touch of humanity left within her soul.
She bit back her laughter as she inspected the wound, watching as her flesh began to knit back together until nothing but blood remained and she began the process once more. How could either she or her sister truly call themselves human anymore? Their separate abilities had stripped it away from them from the moment they had realised them.
There had been a time where Mercy had wanted to use her gift for good, had wanted to become a midwife to help bring life into the world and save lives with her ability. But those dreams had been when she was much more naive to the cruelty of the world; before they had taken the name Jack the Ripper and before they had turned completely to crime. Victorian England had made sure that neither girl would ever see good in the world again.
She groaned as the final slice within her flesh began to heal. As she took the time to clean each drying rivet of blood, she thought on her own talent. With the ability to alter not only another's anatomical state but also her own, the fear of death had long since become a thing of the past. When they were twenty, a year after going into hiding and putting an end to their Jack the ripper phase, Hope had fallen gravely ill. She'd managed to remove the tumour that she'd seen growing within her sister's left lung and Hope had healed well but the experience had frightened her into taking action. They were all each other had left, with no family left to speak of and no true friends that they could turn too. It had taken a long while placing each organ, each cell and molecule into a state of suspended animation, but she had succeeded. But what did that leave them as in the end? Nothing more than animated corpses that refused to rot.
And maybe that was why she needed the pain each night, needed to see her own blood flow by her own hand? To prove that, somewhere deep down, she and her sister were still human. That notion was all she really had left to keep herself from losing her own mind.
She stood slowly from her position on the bathroom floor, sighing gently as she exited the small room and moved to rejoin her sister on the sofa, not even surprised to find the other staring blankly at the ceiling as she slouched back, high as a kite and seemly at peace with the voices in her head. As much as Mercy knew Hope needed the drug to find some peace, she wished that there was another way to go about it. The cocaine took something away from Hope each time she consumed it, leaving nothing more than a hollow husk of her true self in its wake as it coursed through her system.
"How much this time?"
Hope didn't even attempt to turn her head as she closed her eyes and tried to form her own words against the drugs will.
"A lot... But I can still move. Why?"
"We're going out. After the Shit Thomas pulled with the police today, I need a stiff drink and I'm not leaving you here when you're high. Last time that happened, you created them"
Mercy shuddered at the thought of those clones. Once in a while, Hope would create clones with certain useful attributes of their own, such as the ability to shift into the visage of another person or a talent for seduction that helped to lore out a target without putting themselves in any danger. These particular clones, however, were beyond terrifying and proved almost perfectly just how dark her sister's imagination could become.
Hope sniggered slightly to herself, her drug addled brain finding humour in the thought of her two least active creations, before lifting herself from the sofa and grabbing her purse. Maybe a few drinks would be good after the day they had had.
"That's not the only stiff thing you need"
With a overly relaxed smile upon her lips, Hope moved to the kitchen and Mercy tightened her fists slightly as the fair haired woman slipped the remaining packet of cocaine into her purse, both knowing that the bouncers wouldn't dare to search either of them, their names too infamous in the area for anyone to want to cause any trouble. That didn't mean they didn't carry a gun in their purses anyway. Just to be certain of course.
"Because getting laid is really a high priority on my agenda when I have my side of the business to manage. Either way, get a move on, I need a drink"
The front door shut gently behind them, both girls talking amongst themselves as Mercy helped Hope stagger down the corridor and towards the nearest bar. Neither sister would have ever imagined that that night would be the last time they saw their apartment, or England, again.