Her eyes moved from Jon as soon as she saw his movement out of the corner of her dark brown eyes. When they fully fell upon Max, her mouth uncontrollably lifted into a smile. Even though she couldn't see the smile, it felt different, like something completely natural instead of her practiced forced ones. Looking at his Mayhem t-shirt, she started feeling that maybe she was overdressed and that she should have paid more attention to what she was grabbing from her closet. Or she should have made it a black day. She didn't own any black dresses and her black skirts didn't make her look as pretty as pink did.
With her insecurities about her wardrobe hanging over her, Hel looked closer at the man who called himself Legion. She would be lying if she said he looked exactly how she thought he would. In fact, he looked nothing like she pictured. Hel liked that, but what was unnerving was just how much she did.
"Now is the time you say something back," said a few deep voices to the left of her.
Hel looked down at her shoulder, and through gritted teeth whispered, "I was going to."
She turned her attention back to Max. "Hello."
"Good job," the deeper voices responded sarcastically.
She ignored the voices, focusing instead on the fist her right hand was making. As the nails dug into her palm, the smile faded until all she was doing was staring at Max. In this moment, she felt more herself than she had all day.