[b][center][h2]Paige Kennedy[/h2][/center][/b]

Paige’s smirk broadened a tiny bit at Marlin’s statement. She loved being complimented on her work and though she thought telling the girl about just what transpired that night at the downtown Ritz would possibly provide some greater measure of closure, she kept it to herself. Whatever the public relations people had come up with to console her was usually good enough. Still, tuning up poor Bob had caused more ripples in the City’s underground than she thought as he was her first big capture since arriving in Sol. Bob’s handlers and her old friend, Lupe, were scantly seen again and must’ve known how he spilled the beans on their little soirée down in Mexico. She could care less about the other two, but she did care about Lupe and if he’d cut his ankle tether and skipped town, they’d be after him as well. The implications for them were grave and she reminded herself to look into it again.    

Consoling people was not really a strong point and Paige couldn’t bring herself to muster any sort of encouragement to Marlin. She just wasn’t programmed for much sympathy. A professional mob assassin had tried to kill her in her own apartment and she never gave it more thought as she went back to work than how she was going to get even. People had tried to kill her before and that one just happened to have come the closest. She didn’t find herself “scarred” or “damaged”, just more determined. The next one they sent would go in the ground right behind the last one. However, listening to Marlin seemingly adjust the inflexion in her voice, whether it was voluntary or not, reminded her again that most women were not like her. It was almost like watching some wild animal attempting to cover themselves outside of their natural habitat like a chameleon unable to control its skintone while a hawk circled.

Paige’s expression lightened some at Xia’s comments. It felt good to run into someone that was even just [i]a little bit[/i] associated with where she came from and she allowed herself to reminisce for just a fraction of a second as the other two women spoke. Milo was able to put Delta City behind him, but it was in Paige’s blood: [i]The South[/i], the people, the culture, the roaring sun of the day and the balmy nights, afternoon thunderstorms, neon lights on the Bay, all of it. Xia represented a small part of that. [i]Home[/i]. “Barbados was kind of a wild guess…” She admitted. “I was leaning more towards Jamaica, but I wanted to cover some ground.” Her expression was more genuine as she thought back to some of the people she’d had to leave behind. “I’m from Florida, Delta City…” She said with an appropriate measure of pride. “…I’ve been down your way a few times. One of my best friends back home is from Kingston. We used to call him [i]Rude-boy[/i]. I knew him since I was little, there wasn’t anything that went on in that town that he didn’t know about.”

Giving her cup a light shake to mix up what was left of her smoothie, she glanced back over at Marlin’s to answer Xia’s question. “I think we have the same thing, banana… something or other with mango.” She liked Xia. Much like Sio, she had healthy level of [i]realness[/i] about her and like most women from the Caribbean, she could tell there was some fire in her heart just by the way she spoke. It was their natural way. “It’s not bad,” She said briefly examining the remaining contents. “But I have a bottle of [i]Wray and Nephew[/i] back at the house that would probably wake it up some.” She doubted Marlin would get the reference, but was sure Xia would. 

[@King Tai][@PrinceAlexus]