The PRA.
The Halloween Festival. The Beach Bar. Cracker Island.
”Oh.” Luca turned to Trevor with an apologetic smile. ”Are your hands alright? Sorry about uh… the rotting. I can’t do anything about it without this guy,” he gestured to Stormy with his thumb, ”to keep it under control. I appreciate it, though, I’m okay cause you healed me… Well it was you guys fault I was like that, heh, but all good now.”
Trevor raised his now-bandage-free hands.
"Naw, it's all good now!" Trevor began with a grin from underneath this mask, "Had to get Maximilian to drive me to the Seattle Office so their healer can heal me."
He laughed.
"Who heals the healer, indeed!"
Though, the "Coven" were currently laying into Meifeng. Not that Trevor could blame 'im! That was none of his business, unfortunately!
”It is not my place to decide whether you should be forgiven. And I have no right to take you up on your offer. But, I’m glad you mention it… I was not present when you overstepped. But my understanding of your command structure is that you have a superior you answer to. Director Alcott, I believe their name is? Do they allow you the freedom to maintain a positive relationship with us? With Greenwood? 8th Street?”
Cindy laughed, almost snorting the margita out of her nostrils.
"Director Alcott is like so above this," Cindy answered, "They are concerned with the organization as a whole, not every little thing each office is doing."
"What she said," Meifeng answered. "Director Alcott wants the city under control by any means necessary. They do not mind if we work with benevolent groups such as Greenwood and you all..."
"8th Street..." Cindy snorted. "Every morning, I tell Meifeng that today should be the day we end Emily G. Reed's reign of terror! Maybe taking out Vashti and Emily will put them on the straight and narrow." She laughed.
"We tolerate 8th St... for now," Meifeng flatly said. Again, she kept quiet about their little deal with 8th Street for obvious reasons. "As a little thank you for their contributions towards eliminating a certain group."
”You were angry, because Kali Mahendra was killed. We were angry because he was killed. Now, my friends can tell you that I be irrational myself. But… Was there not a better way to prove we were innocent? You are a government agency, you likely knew exactly where we were at the time of his death, every last one of us. And more importantly, you had to have known that we were all returning here for a reason, including Kali; An agent who our leader contacted.”
"I was the one tracking you all! Including your weird ass porn habits! I think I'm going to ne-" Trevor tried to butt in and got a sharp elbow from Meifeng.
Meifeng took a sip of her drink... which was halfway empty, and then shook her head as she answered, "You do know the field we are in, correct?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Supernatural crimes... while we did have all of your locations, Agent Mahendra was conveniently in a place where there were..." Meifeng raised a finger with each point. "... No cameras, witnesses, or traces of a killer. By my logic, one of you used magic to kill him and cover your tracks. Would that be too far out of reason?"
Meifeng sighed.
"While Agent Mahendra told me a lot, there was a lot of information he was... withholding. It was clear he wasn't the right person to send," Meifeng glanced at Bianca momentarily.
"Let me point out that I was against the whole plan for him to go undercover to begin with," Cindy laughed as she flicked the feather duster in the air. Meifeng was silent as Cindy continued, "Just look where it got us!"
"Hey, let me just jump in here. Look, Stormy, it wasn't just about Kali. That was a part of it... But you're so mad because people, friends, got hurt. You'd go after anyone who attacked other coven members, right? A big part of it was Everleigh beating me up in the Veni parking lot for absolutely no reason. It was my day off, I was trying to make sure the situation didn't get out of control... And Everleigh slammed me with a shadow fist for sending a text. If the situation was reversed, if I'd punched Everleigh multiple times while the rest of my group was starting a gang war, would you not go after me and my... Uh, friends, in that situation? Not justifying it, but it was more than just Kali... It was also one of her agents getting attacked unprovoked. Just wanted to fill in the missing details, y’know.”
"That was the major contributor," Meifeng began, shaking her head as she said, "Nobody hurts my agents."
Then Meifeng's mind was brought to the other thing, and she spoke to Stormy,
"... One of your members attempted to outright kidnap someone, as well. Then that all-out gang war..." Meifeng shook her head. "... Let me shut up."
“I do appreciate the apology but you’re not forgiven.”
”So, I’m sure you can understand why your apology isn’t easy to believe.”
Meifeng took a sip of the margarita she shared with Cindy and then lifted her head as she answered with a simple...
"... Then don't."
Meifeng knew that from here on in, action would speak louder than words, and honestly, she didn't want anything to do with any of the Coven groups. The only issue is that Director Alcott wanted that Stygian Snake... and it was clear that one of its keys was the Sycamore Tree Coven. Not that she was going to tell them that the PRA's goal in St. Portwell was anything but eliminating the radical factions such as the Wolfpack, Dollhouse, and the leftover Nazis.
Unlike a certain someone in their presence.
"I'm not going to sit here and try to convince you all to forgive me. I apologized, and you all chose not to accept it, as you have the choice to, as you are all adults. Only actions can fix things, yes?" Meifeng began her speech, then sighed. "It won't ever happen again; I can only promise that."