But never out of step

Victoria Stanfield walked tall out of the academy that had held her family's name for three generations. Yet the two burlish young men who had been sent to ‘escort’ her off the property… did so sheepishly. As if even at this: her lowest moment, they were convinced she might just turn around and bite their heads from their shoulders. Perhaps there was still some grim satisfaction in that… and a glimpse of hope. Power was the kind of illusion that clung on like expensive perfume, soaking into one's skin and clothes so deeply that those without couldn’t even tell when the bottle was empty.

Halfway across the courtyard, he stood in wait. The one who had orchestrated this fall from grace, flanked by his two identically creepy floozies. None of the board members had had the guts to show up though, those cowards who had ultimately made the choice to betray and abandon her. Derrick Carter wore a perfect face of solemn apology, because of course he would. A sorrowful stance of regret in the face of what was, ultimately, just the way of the world… the natural order of the jungle etc… etc… She caught a glint in his eye though. A greedy little hint of ‘I told you so’ and ‘You could still take my offer’.

Madame no longer, Ms Stanfield still walked right by him without a blink. Stripped of role, riches and rank… she still wasn’t prepared to give that man the consideration she would shit upon her heels. Pride might be all she had left, but she could tell that that was all he really wanted. It was some small pleasure to know that in denying him that prize, the clever, little boy would spend the rest of the afternoon in hollow, cursing frustration… unable to enjoy his victory. She could only hope he didn’t take out too much of that blue-balled resentment upon her precious toys, now that the whole box was his to play with. At the gates, she turned one last time to look up at the educational edifice she had wrought. Remembering so many classes of rosy bottoms she had sent skittering through those doors. At the windows, pale faces pressed up against the glass. Looking so forlorn and lost to see the stern hand that had guided them stepping away. Who now would show them how to walk properly? How to bend and kneel and prostrate themselves before those it was their honour to serve? The idea that they would all just be programmed by some artless machine hurt her very soul. It was a world she had no interest in seeing.

So instead she turned away. Gave her back to them, for now. Safe at least in the knowledge that all her hard work could not be undone overnight. There might be time, yet, for the tides to turn. For vengeance to be brought down upon those who had wronged her. Stanfield was a name with a long and bloody history. She was not the first to be brought low wearing it, and knew all too well never to underestimate a matriarch of this particular bloodline. Her side ached a little… the cosmetically hidden scar where her own mother had rammed in the hidden knife. That pain had always helped to give her clarity and focus, just as it had in the moment she first received it. Perhaps it would be good, to start again from the beginning. Perhaps she had grown too soft, living life at the top.

Victoria Stanfield stepped into the sleek, black car that slid up to collect her… with a fresh smile upon her lips. There was work to be done.