THE COLLECTIVE
A DARK STAR STORY
INTERLUDE 1 -- RESTITUTION
The offices of Willoughby Fairclough had long fallen quiet for the day, indeed for the working week.
Sat behind her desk in a red button up blouse, coupled with the straight knee length skirt of a black suit set Hannah Walker had begun to hate the end of the working week. Largely because at present where once the weekend offered the pleasure of down time and mutual shared pleasures at present the lack of focus brought about by not working stripped her of her ability to be able to immerse herself in distraction and to avoid her escalating mental instability.
Another Friday evening crept around her, an evening faced alone with only her thoughts for erratic thoughts for company, thoughts which spiralled and held her life in a grip invisible to all around her but so painfully real for herself.
She let go a heavy sigh as she slid open the bottom drawer of the mini filing cabinet slid beneath her desk. Reaching inside the draw she glanced up to double check there was no one insight through the glass wall of her private office that afforded a view across the large open plan office beyond.
Two cleaners on the far side of the room would hardly notice let alone be bothered she figured as she took the one of the two 50cl bottles of Smirnoff Vodka purchased earlier that afternoon. Unscrewing the already broken cap, she poured the clear liquid into red mug sat on her desk. The bottle empty of it's contents before even reaching halfway up the inside of the mug.
Setting the empty bottle on her desk Hannah took a deep swig as she cast her eye around her office. She did not want to be here, but she could think of nowhere else she wanted to be. Events of the last two months haunted her. Her house no longer felt like her house. She could not confide in her friends, Colleagues had offered a sympathetic ear but given the nature of their relationships had little genuine grasp on the reality beyond her breakup from her long-term partner. Even the sanctuary of her parents had been lost given the mercy and subsequent they had offered to their daughter, her toxic little stepsister.
It was incomprehensible that her Father had offered Ari refuge considering the destruction the poisonous little bitch had wrought. The ignominy of her younger stepsister sleeping with her partner for nearly a year cut deep and was bad enough, the brutal reality was only agonisingly compounded by the fact that Ari had passed HIV to Logan which he had in turn infected her with.
The remorse and sorrow she initially felt for Ari as her younger sibling had spilled her heart out to her across a kitchen table three months previous had shifted to hatred within little more than forty-eight hours. The memory of that hideously painfully admission of betrayal from the man she had loved with all her heart and the Sister she thought so much of delivered so matter of factly across her dining room table had been as crushing a blow as she could handle let alone comprehend.
The mental anguish of the wider situation doubled down on her already scarred conscience following her own permitted indiscretion, that she had kept solemnly to herself. The fact that she had even committed her own impropriety still haunted her as much as the way she had been manipulated into allowing the repulsive Hector Salazar to lure and coerce her into a such a disgusting encounter in which he had brutally used her and taken advantage of her agreed surrender. A surrender made at the time to protect Logan, to protect the man who across almost the entire timeline of their relationship had been fucking her twenty-year-old stepsister.
Over the course of their relationship Hannah had turned a blind eye to many of Logan's flaws, his nuances, she knew the reputation the venue he ran by word of mouth alone even prior to even meeting him, but she reserved judgement. She had trusted Logan Hughes, forgiven the middle of the night arrivals, the no shows, his mood swings and the occasional toxic outbursts, only now did she even begin to question why and at what harm. Warning signs and obvious red flag she had consciously chosen to ignore.
She had ignored every sign she saw because she genuinely loved him, she saw through the edge of darkness that surrounded his persona to see the caring, warm, genuinely understanding man. The man she had first met, the man she had become smitten with, the man she had fallen deeply in love with.
Hannah's mind lurched. The words of Doctor Shakora, her GP, spoken only hours earlier, doing little to console her now as they had then. Talk of viral load counts and drugs to manage the disease barely registering. The overriding message was for a positive future but that seemed far removed from the in uncertainty of her reality, no words or leaflets could reassure or calm her raging mind. Hannah fixated on how she lived now with a disease that would live in her as a constant reminder of what had transpired a poison washing through her body, her veins pumping tainted blood from the sordid sexual impropriety of her stepsisters past through her body.
A disease passed to her by the traitors in her life.
Looking to a downturned photo on the bookcase to her left Hannah stifled a sob with another heavy swig of neat Vodka.
She drank to forget.
Life had never been so good, now life would never be the same again.
"Don't worry I'll turn a blind eye,"
Hannah recognised the male voice from the open doorway over her shoulder immediately. Her eyes darting to the empty bottle sat to the side of her keyboard, but she kept her hands wrapped around the mug.
"It's... it's not what..." Hannah offered turning to look back at him.
"Not what it looks like?" Jason Palmer offered by speaking across her. "I'd say it's exactly what it looks like by the empty bottle alone...don't worry I'm only interested to see if you've another bottle to substitute in for that empty."
"Afraid not..." Hannah offered on a lie as she turned her swivel chair to face him, noting his eyes cast across her nylon clad legs.
Jason Palmer stepped into her office uninvited. Dressed in a navy colour suit over a light blue shirt, his burgundy necktie sat pulled open a little scruffily around his neck, the top button of his slightly creased shirt sitting undone.
"I'm not one to judge." Jason offered as he stepped further into her office, looking down at her as she remained sat behind her desk, turning her chair to follow him. Whatever he was about to say Hannah felt would be loaded with judgement, intentional or otherwise.
He maintained a silence though as he looked back into her eyes.
Hannah could not stand him he made her skin crawl at the best of times. Visually not unattractive to look at the minute he opened his mouth on the brash cockney accent he let himself down his personality as reprehensible and vile as he was attractive to the eye. Cut his tongue out and the menace of his stare would still give him away. Dark brooding looks can only get a man so far when he has the bloated personality of an egotistical sociopath.
"I heard you've been having a tough time lately..." Jason offered coldly while stepping further into the office, headed towards her bookshelf, "...you do know if you ever need to talk... well after the... well you know...even if its awkward we are Colleagues if nothing else."
