[h1][b][i][color=FFCB00][center]Leah Jordan[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h1][center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/a97e8983-b22c-4dfe-b2a2-4825bd67ff76.png[/img][/center][center][/center][hr][center][color=FFCB00][b]Location[/b][/color]: New Orleans
[color=FFCB00][b]Gear[/b][/color]: 
[color=FFCB00][b]Skills[/b][/color]:
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It really shouldn't have been this difficult to navigate a building.

Leah found herself struggling to figure out the right direction to go in. It didn't seem this hard looking for April, how did [i]she[/i] find her way around? It was just a straight walk away, then she'd gone up the stairs... Weren't there supposed to be doors up here? It was just hallway after hallway, sign after sign, in a language she probably should have started learning a while ago given it was one Sabine spoke. It wasn't that far off from Spanish, all things considered, but she just never got around to it. And this annoying building was mocking her for that, it seemed. Did they not have people coming in from all over the country to witness the Contest? Leah doubted every person who checked into a hotel from out of town spoke French. Honestly, how the hell did anyone even navigate this at all? This [i]sucked.[/i]

It took her mind off of the pit forming in her stomach, from the way April seemed to be drawing inwards. The way she'd run off to Dorian and fucking Danni. She didn't have anything meaningful against either of them, but Leah had been feeling like shit for being worse for April than them. Unable to think about it, she just kept walking. All she wanted was to find a damn room and get her fucking room sorted. And then she could sit down and stare at a wall for the next half hour while she worked on packing away the feeling of what amounted to a rusty knife dragging across her skull that she was feeling right now. She felt fucking [i]awful[/i] and nothing was going right. These hallways were giving Leah a bad vibe. She'd been aching everywhere since the Andy situation, she and April weren't okay.

Sabine was probably going to make her choose between one of them. The people she gave a damn about were mourning a guy who couldn't [i]possibly[/i] have died.

Her skin itched, which was weird to process when Leah had stopped thinking of it as skin the other day. More like rocks or a million tiny geodes all up and down the places where her skin [i]should[/i] be, but wasn't. She couldn't scratch it away, there was something weird about it. Like something was following her.

Leah turned a corner, and she almost didn't recognize the man who was there at the other end of the hallway. She almost didn't think twice about his presence, given the way he was dressed. But then, he was always good at that sort of thing. The same dark brown curls that she got from him, that grin, none of it would have even registered with Leah's brain given how casual he'd been about appearing there. He might've been entirely invisible if it wasn't for one simple word. 

[i]Mayra.[/i] No one called her that.

It was him. Her dad. Imperator. The ghost she couldn't get rid of. The egotistical, irredeemable piece of fucking [i]SHIT.[/i] He was just standing there, and it made Leah's veins turn to ice, her feet became blocks of lead in the ocean.

[color=FFCB00][i][b]"...You."[/b][/i][/color]

She became painfully aware of every single breath moving about her lungs. Aware of how each one got a little quicker and that she needed to keep them quiet. Leah's hands jittered until they were fists, she almost brought the place down on his head. It would have been so easy to bury him again, she'd gotten stronger since last time. She was stronger now thanks to whatever had happened with Andy, probably. If Leah could close the gap and grab him by the throat, it'd be over.

And he knew that. He had to.

The expression on Leah's face twisted into something dangerous. Something feral. Something [i]Wild.[/i]

He [i]knew[/i] she could kill him. That was why he'd brought up Sabine just now. This- No. He didn't bluff these things. There was no guarantee she hadn't been shot the second Leah walked away. She knew that, and Imperator, no doubt, knew she knew that. It could have been one of his mind games. The hotel's vents could've been loaded with modified M-Pox or Terrigen mist days in advance, set to only release into the air if he didn't stop it. Or maybe he'd planted a nano-bomb in their room and had the detonator in his pocket. For all Leah knew, Sabine could've been perfectly [i]fine[/i] and this was just Leah getting stuck in her own head. That was why he had the [I]GALL[/I] to stand in front of her. Alone, without his wings, without even a fucking [i]weapon[/i] by the looks of it.

He already knew she would've tried it. So he made himself tactically bulletproof. But she so desperately want to try it. The world would be safer. [i]She[/i] would be safe at last, and it'd be done.

[color=FFCB00][i]You knew this day would come. Don't be weak. Even if he knows you are, don't show it.[/i][/color]

Leah managed to dig her voice up out of the abyss it'd sunk into. And she [i]snarled[/i] at him. [color=FFCB00]"That is [b][i]not[/i][/b] my name, you fucking [i][b]monster."[/b][/i][/color]