【 RANDOM-ASKS { URL: ( ‘ACCESS_DENIED’ ) ; 】
> “Perhaps a little doubt in me is called for.”
she, his Turk, who’d unwittingly held his own father at the end of a barrel. the crosshairs of the very same sniper rifle he’d watched her take enemies down with a swiftness one would expect of a SOLDIER. no hesitation. no shots missed. just a deadly precision he’d expect of her. and, now — ?
leather gloves sounding a quiet sound of protestation to the ANGER burning him alive. self immolation in favor of lashing out, of showing a moment’s weakness, or properly processing the gathering stones in his gut as the importance of both his own father and the woman he loved threatened to drag him down to the depths of despair. a punishment he can’t say he doesn’t deserve, but one that was cruelly unfair to those around him. to those he’d be leaving behind to clean up the mess of his absence just as he’d once picked up the pieces of Veld’s.
“no, it’s not.” swallowing thickly as he breathed in deep … as bruised body and broken ribs ached with the very motion. before exhaling slow. gaze once more meeting hers as he straightened from behind his home office’s desk. “you made the right call. just as I have always known you to do.” just as I’ve always trusted you to. the line of his jaw still drawn tight and shoulders tense. a malice long since unseen brimming in the dark of his eyes. “sit down and tell me everything.”
Discipline. It’s what holds her gaze true and how Ashe refrains from looking away, witnessing a raging tempest beneath the surface of obsidian waters threatening to break. She is no stranger to staring down violent men.
Granted; she’s never loved a single one of them, up until now.
Ashe doesn’t know the face of the man in the photo, slid across his desk not moments before. Ashe does know that not twenty minutes prior, she was a mere squeeze away from potentially undoing everything. Tseng’s body tells her as much. Her inhale trembles, eyes darting away, heart missing a few beats. It’s been a while and the reminder pulls her towards his kitchen, to where Ashe knows he keeps the liquor.
It pulls, but she does not go.
She places her bag down; she’s still wearing her tactical gear. And that bag houses her deadliest weapon. Ashe does not sit. She begins to explain how instructions came from an anonymous on-high source. The President, so she was told. How she was ordered to keep the utmost discretion, which included keeping Tseng in the dark. Her first red flag.
How she continued to play the part, gathered intel and how, after months of tracking, she had the man in the photo in her sights. He was utterly ordinary. Nothing sinister, except the entire nature of the assignment. Enough to still her trigger finger.
“I don’t know where it came from. I can’t know, not utilising internal intelligence,” Ashe concludes, arms folded about her waist. “It would give me away.” A beat of laughter, utterly devoid of mirth. “I may be fucked already.”
Because if she was wrong, going to Tseng was a direct breach of orders. If she was right, whoever had ordered this would be gunning for her, now.
She returns her focus. Nods to the photograph.
