[center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/b3RmLjEwNi43NjY3NjcuVTJ4dllXNWxJRVpoY21sei4w/bachelorette.regular.webp[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/r7scdkh.png[/img][/center]
 [right][b]Interactions:[/b]  The Dairy Queen's Royal Subjects [@Blizz][@Fernstone][@Punished GN][@NoriWasHere]
[code]Dairy Queen/Hell[/code][/right][hr]

Sloane looked up from her watch as Drake screamed at her and swung, his fist arcing with electricity after he pushed Luca to the ground. It was a sloppy and telegraphed punch, the kind that could be easily dodged with a bit of footwork and a slight twist. However, Sloane refused to flinch. She knew that Drake would never actually lay hands on her. He wasn’t as stupid or barbaric as other people made him out to be. She knew him. He’d pull his punch, cool his head, and eventually realize that answering her question was more valuable than protecting his feelings. Then she heard herself gasp and felt her face confront into a wild and painful expression as an electrical shock caused her muscles to spasm. At the same time, her nose erupted in an explosion of pain and her body smacked the ground as her senses spiraled and swirled, the sky above whirling like a dervish as she tasted iron on her tongue.

She laid there on the ground for a moment, her eyes blinking rapidly in a half-daze as images snapped before her like an old shutter camera:  gum stuck to the bottom of the table, Drake staring at his shaking fist, a DQ cup rolling away leaving a trail of melting ice cream,  Luca cradling his wrist, a burst of stars as she reached up and touched her broken nose, the blood staining her fingers.  She stared in awe as the blood dripped back down onto her face, Luca’s words of concern sounding like fuzzy static. The tears she’d kept hidden behind lock and key saw their opportunity for a jailbreak and took it, escaping from the corner of her eyes and fleeing down her bloodied cheeks. She let out a singular, echoing, choking cry as her brain unscrambled and realized what had just happened. Drake had hit her. 

Drake had betrayed her trust.

She muffled the follow-up sobs with her hand and closed her eyes hard enough that it hurt in a poor effort to push the tears back. She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up to a sitting position, her shoulders heaving lightly with each silenced sob. She felt a fire burning in her chest and recalled flashes of how her ancestors handled betrayers, horrific visions of disproportionate retribution and violence playing in her head like a graphic exploitation film from the Seventies. Sloane visibly shook, covering her face with her other hand as she silently swore that she wouldn’t stoop to their levels. She slowed her breathing and felt the fire burn down. She lowered her hands and wrapped them around her chest. These clothes were going to have to be properly dry cleaned after this anyway, assuming the stains wouldn’t ruin them immediately, so why should she give it shit if she got more blood on them?

There was something weirdly calming about thinking about something so mundane. 

It almost drowned out the intrusive thought that had to remind her how Drake was really her only friend.

All her other friends were dead.

Sloane deflated and heard a new voice chime in, urging for the group to further calm down as Sloane attempted to breathe in air. She glanced up from the ground and then shook her head in frustration as she recognized Evelynn, catching the meaning behind the woman’s stare. Sloane looked away sharply, tears still stinging her eyes and the pain making her unable to mask her obvious annoyance. It had always bothered Sloane how Evelynn seemed to use her supposed curse to win brownie points while always leaning on vagueness as if to leave herself an out to avoid having to take any kind of responsibility. How convenient that Evelynn just happened to arrive moments [i]after[/i] Sloane had been so savagely assaulted.

Evelynn’s arrival did have the unintended consequence of turning Sloane’s attention from her own busted nose over towards Luca who had also been injured by Drake’s idiocy. She looked at his wrist and the fresh blood dripping from the scrapes on his arm and leg when he’d been knocked down. Perhaps she could’ve someday forgiven Drake for attacking her, but there didn’t exist a single part of her that could forgive him for hurting Luca. The final spark of the fire burning in her chest was dangerously close to being reignited by a can of gasoline when it was suddenly doused by a wave of fresh tears. Sloane wasn’t an idiot—no, stop lying, she knew she was an idiot, but even an idiot could see that Luca had only been hurt because Sloane had started shit with Drake. That guilt was on her as much as it was on him. 

A look of true misery crossed her face as she averted her gaze, covered her eyes, and began crying again. Heavier, harder to mask sobs, too, accompanied with the tiny pounding of her fist on her thigh. God, she must’ve looked like an asshole. She certainly felt like a fucking loser. She could’ve at least tried to get up and lock herself in the bathroom so she could cry in privacy like an actual adult would instead of drawing eyes to her as she blubbered in public like a stupid child, but her feet had failed her. She wished she’d kept Sully’s Chalice, not so she could use it to heal her nose or repair Luca’s wrist, but so she could choke down a fine shot of hemlock and save herself the lifelong humiliation she’d have to put up with knowing that she had been seen crying at a Dairy Queen. 

She should’ve just gone to the strip club, even if it meant putting up with Britney. Nothing could have been worse than this. Sloane made a desperate attempt to dismiss the other people’s concern-slash-rubbernecking with a limp wave of her hand and a ragged sniffle.