haliotropes

More A/N: here's your menus you hungry hungry whores!!! Handjob (m!receiving), oral (f!receiving), vaginal fingering, we're taking baths, we're asking for consent, and everyone has a great time!!!

P.S. maybe the last chapter? It ends well but you know how I am.

. . . . . ◟੭

Landing in Monaco wasn't permanent, but it was nice. Sometimes it was peaceful, and sometimes it was a little less than easy. Other times, your screams echoed through the two bedroom apartment until Alejandro ran into your room and woke you up. The nightmares were vague and you didn't want to understand them. All you wanted was to sleep.

The easy days were standing on the small balcony with Alejandro behind you, caging you, making you feel protected as he whispered in your ear. You went out to sea together, wandered the city, and lived nice and normal.

Then, one day, Alejandro came home with blood on him. You were cooking in the kitchen and he walked past you, heading straight for the bathroom. Curious, because he usually greeted you, you followed behind him. He stood in the middle of the room, jerking at his tie and looking around like he didn't know where to start.

“Where are you hurt?” You asked and assessed his torso for wounds.

“It's not my blood,” he rasped, and your hands stilled.

“What happened?”

Alejandro started to shrug off his jacket so you helped him out of it. When he started on his shirt, you went to turn on the tub.

“Ah..” he folded his shirt, set it aside, then took off his pants. “I came across someone I knew.”

The hot water that poured over your hand might as well have turned you to ice. You swallowed through a dry mouth.

“A friend?” You asked. Begged.

Slowly, Alejandro shook his head and set down his pants. “No.”

You nodded. “Oh.”

“Don't worry. It won't change anything.”

You just nodded again. “Alright.”

But you were staring at the bathroom tile and thinking of how another life taken couldn't change something.

“Hey.”

You looked up and Alejandro watched you carefully. He took off each sock with his feet and padded towards you. He put himself parallel to the wall, so as not to box you in.

“If they find us, they'll put you in prison for the rest of your life and they'll put a bullet in my head. And believe me when I say that man I saw today would have done the same to me if he could've.”

You needed to stop nodding so much.

“I understand. I just didn't think it'd happen here,” you said, and turned off the water. Alejandro stood behind you, now only in his underwear, waiting on you. Waiting for you to…what?

You had to pass him on the way out, anyway, so you stopped when you moved next to him.

“I don't have to leave… If you didn't want me to.”

You weren't sure how to announce your interest without sounding like too much of a pervert. But Alejandro leaned in and kissed you lightly. You smiled.

“Get in the tub.” His eye wrinkled at your demand. “I wanna do something for you, get in.”

Alejandro kissed you on the cheek with grace and took off his underwear before lowering himself into the tub. His leather toiletries bag sat nearby so you pulled it over for when you'd need it.

“Can I wash your hair?” You asked quietly. Alejandro only nodded, so you scooped some water into your hands and poured it over his scarred shoulders, gathered more and ran it up his hair. He shuddered into a sigh.

You massaged his scalp gently, listening closely to his breathing and watching his heartbeat. Slowly you worked in his shampoo, his conditioner, careful to mind the temperature of the water. Eventually you ran the hot water again for a few seconds.

You two had been all but silent. Alejandro pulled at your arm to bring you around the side of the tub.

“Thank you," he said softly, and kissed your wrist.

“When was the last time you let someone take care of you?” You asked, thinking of when he offered you a light in the hallway of your apartment in Cartagena.

You poured bath oil into your hands and worked at his arm while he considered his response.

“My wife. Paloma.”

You watched him stare at the wall ahead of him.

“Will you tell me about her?” you asked and massaged his fingers. After a moment, he looked at you softly.

“Someday.”

You drew closer to the tub, and his naked form, now in full view, didn’t bother you at all. It felt completely natural, and you held the hand you had been working on.

“There are lives we can't go back to. But we can try to make the best of this one.”

Alejandro sighed and his hand, which had been grasping your in equal measure, loosened. He might as well have punched a hole through your chest.

“I won't make promises I don't know I can keep.”

You nodded at the familiar phrase. But then, the hand that left yours lifted your chin, which had drooped in defeat despite your best effort. “But I can try. And I think we've both been alone for too long.”

And then he kissed you, his lips still gentle in spite of it all. You pressed into him and he pressed back; you braced one arm on the lip of the tub behind him and slipped the other under the water, between his legs. Once your hands wrapped around his cock and gave it an experimental stroke, the moan that escaped his lips made you wetter than you realized you already were. He huffed into your mouth, you tugged faster. You weren’t exactly experienced, not varied in your lovers, but Alejandro crashed his mouth into yours and wrapped a wet arm around your back.

“Ah, fuck-!” he hissed between half-kisses and hurried breaths. He pressed his forehead into your shoulder and came with a series of shuddered groans. It sounded almost painful, and you stroked the back of his head until he was spent.

He craned his neck and kissed the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, as he hoisted himself from the tub. You followed him and grabbed a towel, draping it across his shoulders and rubbing it across his head.

“I want us to take care of each other,” you said. Alejandro kissed you again. He didn’t give you an answer, only dried himself off and wrapped the towel around his waist.

“You want me to take care of you?” His voice was raspy and he craned over you. You crossed your arms behind your back.

“Wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” you whispered. Turning, you walked back into his room of a two bedroom suite. He followed closely behind you.

“Show me.”

His breath was hot at your shoulder. Almost fearfully, you used a shaky hand to brush against the side of your neck. Alejandro planted two, firm hands on your hips and latched his lips onto your neck where you had indicated. His hot tongue on your sensitive flesh mixed with his coarse facial hair made you squirm with delight.

Without much thought, you crossed your arms over your torso and took Alejandro’s hands, guiding them up and across your stomach. His hands were soft from the oil and worked with a featherlight touch to make you shiver as they glided up your abs and over your breasts.

Alejandro quickly, if not carefully, turned you around to face him.

“I want to see you.”

That was good enough; it may as well have been a beg coming from him. You, in no particular hurry, stripped your shirt and your pants, leaving you only in your underwear. Alejandro drew even closer so that your hips touched and you felt him hardening again under his towel. His lips hovered over the exposed skin of your shoulder before kissing it softly.

“Where else?” He spoke against your skin and goosebumps raised against the rumble of his voice. Shakily you took one of his hands and put it on your left breast, over your heart.

Alejandro traced his mouth down the front of your chest and to the sensitive skin of your nipple, taking it between his lips. Your body was ablaze and you tugged at his hair with one hand and steadied yourself on his shoulder with the other.

One of Alejandro's hands came around and pressed into the small of your back, arching your forward. He trailed downward, kissing your stomach, before sinking to his knees before you.

“Will you lie back for me?”

You didn't speak, only did as he asked, as if speaking would break this spell you both were under. When your head hit the comforter, it didn't dispel any of the dizziness that crept upon you like a haze. Not when you felt Alejandro tug you carefully towards the edge of the bed, and especially not when he put your legs over his shoulders.

Alight with pleasure, you welcomed every lick of a breeze as Alejandro pressed open mouth kisses to the inside of your thighs and led towards your clothed core. His fingers dipped into the sides of the waistband of your underwear and you lifted your hips to help him slide them off. Now bare to him, you stared at the ceiling, your fingers tingled, and your breathing slowed. Alejandro said your name and you looked down the soft plains of your own body to meet his half lidded eyes.

“You look, alright? I don't want you to forget who you're with.”

You nodded, even attempted to sit up with your elbows, but as soon as Alejandro gave your slit a single, long, hot stroke of his tongue, you were down again. Not being able to see him meant you had no way to predict when the flat of his tongue ran over your clit. You arched back in shock and Alejandro's hand rested on your abdomen to still you. You laid your hand on his and entwined your fingers.

A gasp that you hardly recognized as your own escaped your lips when Alejandro slid a finger into you with ease. You had little time to recover from the sudden sensation before he curled the digit, and your grip on his hair pulled so tight he hissed.

“Sorry,” you gasped, though you hardly heard the word and wondered how coherent it actually was.

He was stretching you, softening you and pulling you apart like clay and you were more than happy to mold to his liking. Your insides hummed, your pulse made the room shake, and your skin pricked with sweat as something curled inside you that you couldn't chase. He simply had to bring it to you.

A second finger and careful kisses to your center beckoned the feeling closer. Your hips worked on their own, bucking up to meet Alejandro's face and seek further friction, and he obliged. His strong hands set a bruising grip on your hips as he took from you all you could give. Stars burned black on the edges of your vision when you came, and no sound escaped you at first. The pleasure rippled through, made your hair stand on end, and only then did you let out a sort of choked sound.

You watched as the ceiling pulsed with your heartbeat and your vision focused in and out. The bed dipped beside you and you turned your head. Alejandro lay there as you had expected him to, but the late afternoon sunlight cut across his face and your chest constricted. Caught between the soft rays of a setting sun and the lamp light of the bedroom, he looked every bit the man he was, and all those parts of him you were so very fond of seemed to find themselves trapped in one incandescent moment.

You leaned forward and kissed him softly, quietly, simply. He smiled at you and pulled a blanket over you both. You scratched his short beard, he stroked your hair and whispered things to you that you probably couldn't remember if you tried. It wasn't about the words, anyway. It was his eyes.

TW: attempted rape/ non-con. Undressing and non-consensual kissing are as far as it gets.

. . . . . ◟੭

Four hours is a long time to wait for the other shoe to drop. Alejandro stayed with you for as long as both of you could bear, but eventually he had to leave to prepare for your escape. There was a final kiss, as fiery and desperate as the last, before he tore himself away and walked out the door. It was 11:45.

You hated waiting. Realistically, you could leave the room and find something to do, but not without the chance of being harassed by somebody. When you fled the country, you left almost everything behind, so you were surrounded by your things, almost afraid to touch them. It was as if engaging with these enchanted objects would open a door to your old life, and then who knows what could come through?

It was 1:03 when there was a knock at your door.

Your heart leapt into your throat at the idea of Alejandro returning to you early. But when you cracked the door, not too excited because you still had your wits about you, it was Patrick on the other side. As soon as the door opened, he wrapped a hand around the short side of it. He smiled at your fallen expression.

“What's the matter, baby? Don't you wanna see me? Talk to me? Came back after all.”

You opened the door- you hadn't been keeping him out- and Patrick walked in. When you didn't move to close the door back, his hand eclipsed yours over the knob and slowly set it back into place, his eyes locked onto yours. 

The height difference had always been startling. Romantic at first, but now it frightened you, or perhaps it was the knowledge that he knew he intimidated you that was frightening. 

“Have you talked to Alejandro since dinner?” He asked with a smile. Your answer was immediate.

“No.”

“No?”

He walked you further into the room and sat himself on the bed. He looked up at you, standing there, fidgeting with your hands.

“What about Dale?” 

You shook your head like a scolded child. “No.”

“So what have you been up to all this time?”

“Just… thinking.”

“Yeah? I don't doubt that.” He patted the bed next to him and you, reluctantly, sat beside him. The bed was small enough that your thighs had to touch. “What are you thinking about?”

Patrick flicked a curl of hair over your shoulder and you suppressed a shiver. You looked at the cover of your bed and picked at a loose thread.

“My room.”

The hand rested on your shoulder, ghosted across the back of your neck.

“Yeah? You thinking about fuckin him?”

You stiffened immediately and drew away. You faced him.

“What? Who?”

“That man downstairs. The one I let into my home. Are you thinking about fucking him? Or have you already?”

You didn't like the way his hand was spreading, how his thumb and pinky reached the expanse of the back of your neck where he still had his hold. You stuttered.

“Uh- I don't-”

“You have, or you wouldn't be so nervous.”

“I'm nervous because your hand is in a very dangerous spot.”

Patrick looked over his shoulder at the bed with a cold casualness.

“Did you fuck him here?”

“Patrick, I haven't-”

“Doesn't really matter, and I think you know that. That's probably why you're so scared, right? Because you know it doesn't matter?”

Your breath left you in one blow and you shook. Patrick's thumb brushed back and forth in a pattern like a worry stone.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. The hand on the back of your neck traveled down to the top of your dress where the zipper began. The noise of its undoing was the loudest sound you'd ever heard.

“I think you've got something to prove to me, don't you?”

One strap moved down your shoulder. Your eyes stayed on the door.

“You won't believe me. It doesn't matter what I do.”

“Maybe. But you could try. It would be worth it to try.”

The other strap fell. You weren't wearing a bra, stupidly, you thought, because that's what Patrick liked.

You had no idea what came over you, and still you couldn't identify it, but the words came tumbling out in disgust before you could stop them.

“You’re pathetic. Do you think I'm going to let you put your blood soaked hands all over me just on the off chance you'll spare my life?”

“You're letting me do it right now.”

“This is as far as it goes.”

“You ain't running, and you know I don't need to ask. But I'm being nice about it cause I love you, darlin.”

“I ain't running because I got some dignity left.”

Patrick's hand slid up to the crown of your head, grabbed your hair by the roots, and pulled. Your neck snapped taut and he forced your eyes to meet his.

“Oh yeah, you got dignity. And I got you.”

Your back hit the bed and his knees pinned against your hips. You didn't struggle. Patience was your game now, to get him in a vulnerable enough position to make a move.

He went for the top of your dress first and pulled it down, exposing your breasts. He pawed at them, kissed your neck and your chest- as a point of pride he was genuinely trying to seduce you. With hands free, you allowed one to go steady against his shoulder and the other crept down towards your knife.

Patrick noticed.

Immediately, both your hands went above your head in a vice grip.

“Where was that going, huh?”

Patrick ran his free hand up your thigh and you bucked against him uselessly, desperate to not accept defeat already. But he chortled upon discovering the blade and pushed up your skirt.

“Oh-ho! Holy shit, you're cute. Was this your grand plan? Wheedle your way back in here and flay me open with this?”

“Fuck you!” And you spit up at his face. It landed right under his eye. Your own blade was against your throat in a flash.

“Go ahead. Call out to him. Scream his name. Let him know what's gonna happen.”

“You trained me better than that. I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

“Maybe…but I know you still cry.”

The knife made a shallow cut, artificial in depth but still enough to bleed and sting as Patrick slid it across your throat. You clenched your fists and grit your teeth and waited for the blade to finish its path. When it did, and you were free from most injury, you brought your knee up to Patrick's crotch- hard. You watched his face pinch together and he doubled over without releasing your hands, so you bunched up your knees and kicked him in the chest. That did it. You were straddling his chest by the time he turned back over.

You wrestled the knife from Patrick's fist and plunged it down. Patrick caught your forearms just in time, but you still managed to creep closer and closer toward the hollow of his throat.

“You can't do it. You don't hate me enough.”

You let up just a little, just enough for his own grip to slack, only to plunge the knife straight into his throat. He gurgled on his blood, smiled, and the knife sunk deeper.

Patrick fought for a few moments more, occasionally batting at your arm or kicking his legs- his body staving off death more than his mind was. Finally, when he fell slack, and the blood bubbling up between his throat and your knife, you scrambled off the bed.

The shock of it hit you slowly, like limbs regaining feeling after being numb. You shuffle away again, further this time, and let the knife fall from your limp grasp. You suddenly became aware of Patrick's blood on you and panicked, wiping angrily at your skin, then your dress. The blood stained your chest from where Patrick unzipped you.

You crawled back from the bed until you hit the bathroom door, then raised yourself up by grabbing onto the handle. Further in, your feet slick with blood slid against the white tile, and your hands flew from the door to the knobs of the shower. Cold water pelted you and you didn't bother searching for the heat. All you could do was huddle in the corner of the shower, thinking of how Patrick Mason's body lay dead about six feet from you. And you had killed him. You, after everything.

There's a sound like stumbling, but opening your eyes only revealed a blurry image. You pushed your hands out as a defense but your assailant simply grabbed your wrists, hoisting you up. You slid, he pulled you, you opened your mouth to scream, he clamped it shut with a wide hand. 

You were dragged from the shower and to the toilet. Distantly, your ears rang with the sound of your own name over and over and over. The hand that wasn't silencing you traveled from the back of your head to your face, wiping away the strands still blocking your view. When he did, and you blinked, and the ringing quieted, and there was a last brush of thumbs against your eyelids, Alejandro came into focus.

“There you go. Yeah, you're alright. You're good, baby, you're good.”

You collapsed into his chest and sobbed as Alejandro stroked your back.

“We'll go now, okay? We're not gonna wait. Let's get you changed.”

As he pulled you up and into the bedroom, and you saw Patrick's body, you only wondered…

“What about the guards?” You sputtered.

“I'd rather catch them by surprise than wait for them to find us in here with him. Here, put these on.”

He set a pile of clothes down and gave you a towel, then turned, blocking your view of Patrick. As quickly as you could manage, which wasn't very quick at all given shaking from the cold and terror, you stripped yourself of the dress, dried off, and changed into a long sleeve shirt and sweatpants. Socks, then sneakers. Good enough to get you out of this house.

“Alright, where's your knife?” Alejandro looked around and found where you'd dropped it. He picked it up and cleaned it hastily with the towel. “Here. We'll try to get you a gun. If we need to.”

You strapped the holster to the outside of your pants and sheathed your knife. Alejandro went to the door and pressed his ear to it. He drew his pistol, then attached a silencer.

“We'll have to move quick. Straight to the kitchen. Okay?”

You only nodded and moved into position behind him. To the left out of this room was a bathroom, Patrick's office, Patrick's bedroom, Dale's bedroom, and to the right were the stairs and the west wing of the house. 

Alejandro put his head out first, surveyed the hall, then moved out. You stayed on his heels. No movement from the rooms in the next corridor, and closed rooms to the left.

Closed, but not silent. Because a sound like two people talking was coming from Dale's room. Then footsteps, then the door.

And when one of Mason's guards exited, Alejandro moved his body to block you and put a bullet between the man's eyes. He fell to the floor with a thump that would be suspicious to anyone conscious.

That's when Dale poked her head out, and would've screamed if she hadn't seen Alejandro's gun pointed straight at her.

“What the fuck!” She hissed. “What the fuck are you doing? What about Pat?”

“Don't worry about it,” Alejandro said, and you got a hand on his arm just before he pulled the trigger.

“No,” you said firmly. “She isn't a threat. Let her live.”

“I'm not negotiating this. Go back in the room if you don't wanna see.”

“You can't kill her. Please.”

He must've seen in your eyes that you meant it because he ceded, nudging you back so that he could take point down the stairs. As you followed Alejandro, you willed yourself not to look back at Dale- to erase her from your life. 

The stairs were clear, the front door was closed. To your right, there would be one guard in the library, and one in the kitchen to the left.

You indicated this to Alejandro with a flick of your chin, but he shook his head. You two would take the risk of only dealing with the kitchen.

Alejandro crept around the corner and into the kitchen. He turned back to you.

“There's two,” he breathed.

“Two? There's never been two.”

“There's two tonight. You don't have to come. I can handle them.”

“I'm not inept with a knife.”

“I know you're not.”

You didn't think he meant it as a joke, but the acknowledgment hung heavy between them. He didn't protest when you followed him into the kitchen. The two guards, both masked, sat at the island watching TV. Both turned when Alejandro entered and was at least going for his gun before Alejandro shot him.

The other guard did not attack Alejandro, but rather you, because Alejandro was occupied with the guard you knew had been in the library. 

You pulled your knife and aimed for your guard's shooting arm. You would have gotten him if he hadn't intercepted you with his other arm. His grip was steel and fucking hurt as he pushed you down. You switched hands and cut him at his Achilles. 

The guard released your arm and you stumbled back to standing. He hobbled, clutching at the worst pain he'd ever felt, and his gun had fallen to the wayside. You saw it, he saw it. You both dove for it at the same time, except your knife danced across the lower half of his mask and whipped out a quick spray of blood.

“Fuck!” He cried. He yanked off his mask as you picked up the gun and pulled back the hammer. “Oh, you fucking bitch.”

You almost fell on your ass when you immediately recognized this guy as one of the operatives from the hangar. Or maybe a plane ride or a car ride. Regardless, you'd seen this man working for your side, and that didn't bode well.

He took about two steps towards you before you put a bullet in chest, which was stupid, because you were shooting a revolver. You bet whoever was piloting that bomber over your head could even hear it.

Alejandro looked over your shoulder, finished with his own fight.

“Christ, he looks familiar.”

“We're in trouble. We use that tunnel, someone's waiting for us,” you said. You ducked down and punched in the code for the island to move, revealing a set of steps.

“But?”

“They're coming in through the front door.”

You didn't wait for an answer before you ran down the steps, and Alejandro was close behind you. You pressed a button to replace the kitchen island before treading onward. Alejandro caught up to you quickly but did not insist on taking over. 

The tunnel was long and quiet, and went from damp under the house to sandy once it entered the sparse desert. 

Visibility wasn't difficult due to flickering bulbs that hung along the wall. You came to the first of only a few curves when a silhouette pitted itself against the wall and you stopped.

“Freeze!” You said, your voice echoing ten times louder between the metal walls of the tunnel.

The shadow did stop. 

“Turn around and walk back the other way. Exit the tunnel and get the hell off the property, do you understand?”

A moment, then the shadow moved toward you. You started, Alejandro tried to take over point but you managed to block him, with no real reason as to why.

“Put your gun down,” the shadow spoke, and it was Matt Grave’s voice that reached your ears. You faltered only for a brief moment.

“I can't do that.”

“You put that gun down or I'll come in there and kill you both.”

Alejandro's hand came down gently on your gun, lowering it, shaking his head once. 

“He'll kill us. He's in on it!”

“Do what he says. Trust me.”

And you did. You set your pistol on the metal floor and straightened. Alejandro put himself beside you.

“It's down,” you called. Matt came around the corner, his own gun primed and ready. 

“Alejandro, you too.”

You clenched your fists as Alejandro considered Matt's order.

“That bomb jet at the hangar. That's flying over the house right now, isn't it?” You asked. Matt nodded, his eyes never leaving Alejandro.

“Yeah.”

“And the guard in the house was one of yours.”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you need both?” Alejandro asked. Matt shrugged.

“Once you successfully secured the evidence, which you did, the plan was to have our guys take you out, then we have cause to blow the place to shreds.”

“Then why the hell are you here?” You said.

“Because, I am going to give clearance to drop that bomb, and we'll be in here. You two “die”, I get paid, you fuck off to somewhere across the map and never think about this or talk about this again.”

And yet he still had his gun pointed at Alejandro, and Alejandro wasn't moving either.

“What about the people inside?”

“If they're smart, they ran when you started shooting.”

“Why?” Alejandro asked. He set his gun down and you stiffened. “Why are you doing this?”

Matt kept his rifle trained on Alejandro's.

“Because you're my friend. If this means we'll never see each other again then we'll both be better off for it.”

“Then give the clearance,” Alejandro said. 

Your heart and gut twisted at the thought of Dale and you mindlessly began to retrace your steps. 

“She's smart, she'll have run,” Alejandro said in your ear, but that was as close as he got. You wondered how much of that was influenced by Matt's presence.

“Delta team? Go ahead for the drop,” Matt spoke into his earpiece, then watched as Alejandro consciously stepped away from you. “The entrance is about another quarter mile. We can start heading that way. You two will hang back, wait for us to leave, and then you go. Understand?”

The impact was so startling that it would've sent you to your knees had Alejandro not caught your elbow. The dirt above the tunnel shook, rumbled, there was a deafening sound and then the lights went out.

You scrambled for your gun, your trust in Matt wavering now in the dark. No one made any moves to stop you. The tunnel was pitch black.

“Matt,” Alejandro said.

“Still here. You two ready to go?” 

You continued down the tunnel with a hand against the corrugated wall. An image of Dale's dead body kept melting into your brain.

Then, up ahead, what could have been headlights shone from an angle at the entrance.

“Alright. Good luck,” Matt said casually, like he was leaving you at the front steps of a casino and didn't believe what he was saying.

“Matt.” You caught glimpses in the dark of Alejandro putting out a hand to stop Matt, then to shake his hand. “Thank you.”

Matt didn't say anything, or at least nothing you could hear, and stalked back into the night.

You and Alejandro waited until you heard the last of the vehicles drive away. Still on edge, still a live wire, you trudged ahead with your pistol at the ready, now following the pale light at the mouth of the tunnel. Closer to the exit, Alejandro overtook point, peering out and around the corners, then stepped out. He stood in the blue dark for a moment before you joined him, still armed, but relaxed a little. Looking over your shoulder would have revealed the charred remains, if any, of the Mason compound, so you didn’t turn at all. Alejandro did it for you.

“Looks like a Range Rover survived. Come on.”

You kept your eyes to the dirt as you and Alejandro doubled back towards the house. There were a few survivors immediately recognizable, stumbling around, confused and hurt, but Alejandro swung into the driver’s seat and you followed suit. If they were alive, they’d figure it out. If they weren’t, then they didn’t need to worry.

You rode south west in silence until pink bled into the blue and the world breathed awake. 

“Where are we going?” you asked. 

“I know a guy, owns a boat that’ll get us to a plane, and that plane will get us back to Spain.”

“Do we have money?”

“We don’t need it.”

Seeking distraction, you looked to your left, where trucks drove into a bay containing jets. When the trucks passed, your eyes followed; a warm wind passed and flipped the corner of a canvas tarp draped over the back, and three missiles appeared to you.

There was no immediate reason for this to cause you alarm. You knew your country's propensity for bombs, and so seeing three missiles should not have come as a shock. But they looked short-ranged, and suddenly you got that same creeping feeling in your spine that you had living in Spain.

In the SUV, you sat in the backseat with Alejandro, with a soldier driving and Matt riding shotgun. Forsing followed in another vehicle. The windows were completely blacked-out but it wasn’t totally impossible for you to see, and you could only watch as the hangar disappeared from view.

Your mouth went dry as the reality of your situation settled again.

“How many task forces operate out of this hangar?” You asked, eyeing the bay the trucks had driven into. Alejandro looked at you from the corner of his eye but stayed silent; he knew the question wasn’t directed at him.

Matt adjusted his tactical vest. “What makes you ask a question like that?”

You picked your nails. “I make conversation when I'm nervous.”

“And that's your idea of small talk?”

“Humor me?”

Matt sighed and looked at you in the rearview mirror. Alejandro looked out his window. Stayed out of the conversation.

“Right now?” Matt spoke. “Just us. Why? You hear something you shouldn't have?”

Defiance shot through you, fueled by anxiety. You were essentially being marched to your death. What was one more slap on the wrist?

“If I did, you think I'd tell you?”

Alejandro fully looked at you this time, eyes unreadable under his sunglasses. Matt, however, glared at you disapprovingly from the mirror.

“Watch that mouth or I might be less inclined to save your ass if push comes to shove.”

Your snort escaped before you had the good grace to stop it.

“Oh, please. I'm cannon fodder as soon as we get inside that house.”

Matt’s tone shifted to something dark and sardonic. “That's not entirely true. You need to find us evidence first.”

That had the exact impact it was intended to: it shut you up.

. . . . . ◟੭

The SUVs stopped in Luna, and you and Alejandro switched into an unregistered car. From there, you headed south.

Alejandro did not go a mile over the speed limit, and many times you came very close to asking him to hurry. Why prolong the inevitable? As the miles counting down to the border grew smaller, fight or flight set in, and you had no intention of fighting Alejandro. Instead, instinct forced your hand into the door handle, but of course, it was locked. Alejandro said your name once, as a warning- one you did not heed.

“Stop,” he said. You began to cry, biting into your tongue so hard you tasted blood.

“Just lose me out here, please. I can’t do it. I though I could but I can’t. They’ll do worse than kill me and you won’t be able to stop it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The words tumbled out in teary desperation that you knew was useless, but it was all you could do. You tried the door again. Alejandro said your name again, then,

“You’re going to hurt yourself. Calm down.”

“Calm down,” you laughed to yourself, quietly, snot and tears dripping pathetically onto your shirt. “I’m sure you’ve seen worse than them, but I haven't. These are the scariest people I know.”

Alejandro gripped the steering wheel. “No, they aren't.”

You cackled. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It does or it doesn’t, but it’s the truth. If you panic, you’ll make a mistake. A mistake gets us in trouble. So, I need you to breathe, and I can only ask that you trust me, though I know it is, as you said, dishonest.”

One final tug on the door before you collapsed against the seat. “I guess I’ll take what I can get.” You looked over at him, cool and composed, staring at the road ahead. “For what it’s worth, it’s not personal.”

“I know.”

. . . . . ◟੭

You'd never entered the compound this way before: through the front gate, through security, like a stranger. The gate by the road was for appearances only. When Alejandro buzzed the speaker, a familiar voice cracked through from the other side.

“Yes?”

“I have something that belongs to Patrick Mason.”

Alejandro's tone was even, but it chilled instead of calming you as it could've.

The voice on the other side responded.

“If it belongs to Patrick Mason then why do you have it?”

“He lost it.”

“What is it?”

“I have his fiancee.”

There was a chuckle. “Prove it. Put her on.”

You unbuckled your seatbelt and leaned across Alejandro, one arm braced against the wheel and the other against the lowered window. Your shoulder brushed Alejandro's. His cologne- dark and earthy and rich, pervaded your senses and you blinked away the temporary fog it cast over you.

“It's me,” you said simply. They knew your voice, if it was the same people. And even if it wasn't.

The other end hesitated. Then,

“Is the cat outside?”

You sighed. Part one of a code, which meant this was working.

“Yeah, and it looks like rain,” you replied, providing the second half of the code phrase.

There was an expletive, some sort of confirmation, and the gate swung open. You collapsed back into your seat and looked out the window as the car crept up the drive.

“You remember everything?” Alejandro asked. You nodded, assuming he was referring to the cockamamie story you'd feed Patrick.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The car rolled up to the tall adobe fences and final gate. Two armed guards in tactical gear stood on either side and motioned for Alejandro to stop. He did, and put the car in park.

One of the guards came around to Alejandro's rolled down window. He shone a flashlight into the car, once at Alejandro's face, then at yours, then back to Alejandro.

“Name?”

“Alejandro Gillick.”

And he knew who you were.

“Both of you, step out of the vehicle for search and seizure.”

The doors opened. A gloved hand wrapped around your bicep and wrenched you from your seat. Instinct called on you to fight, which you knew you shouldn't, so you let yourself move to the guard’s whim as he patted you down, not inappropriately. Alejandro had the same done to him. The guard took his sidearm, but no one had noticed the blade that was, once again, strapped precariously to your upper thigh. It's convenient when people are decent.

The guard by Alejandro pressed into a walkie-talkie on his shoulder.

“They're clean.”

There was no response, but the gate opened.

It was dark at this point, so the floodlights by the porch were bright and blinding, but nothing could mistake that silhouette that they cut. You shouldn't have been surprised that Patrick himself would be there to greet you. If your ruse was working, and it seemed it was, of course he'd want to be the first to see you.

And there he was, arms wide in a mockery of a welcome. You could only see his eyes and teeth for the darkness, and those alone struck fear in you.

“Is that you, my darlin?”

But his voice- oh, his voice. Dark, husky, yet still with a lightness that kept you curious. After nearly a decade, you thought you knew all of him, yet that voice kept you convinced there was something hidden yet- more than crime, and more than evil.

The guards ushered you and Alejandro through the gates and, on your own accord, your feet brought you toe to toe with Patrick.

You looked up at him, and with the close proximity you could finally see him clearly. He was as handsome and devastating as the day you ran away.

“Yeah,” he said, tilting his face down to yours. “That is my darlin.”

The possessiveness was chilling and thrilling and the same sort of rapture crept in as it always had before. But this time, armed with your own steel, and with Alejandro's eyes at your back, you refused to fall victim.

Your fear played well. Here you were, a fiancee previously held captive by a rival cartel, now being hand delivered by a sicario on behalf of another. You didn't need to disguise your shaking, and you don't think you could've anyway.

Patrick's strong hands found your arms and held you, then he hugged you. And you hugged him back, inhaling deep the cologne you'd bought for him the previous Christmas.

When he pulled away, Patrick cupped your face and looked at Alejandro over your shoulder. “Who's our guest?”

Your hand bunched up the back of Patrick's shirt on natural, anxious instinct, but he never minded. Alejandro stepped forward and folded his hands behind his back.

“My name is Alejandro Gillick. I was hired by Renaldo Valdez to return your fiance to safety.”

Patrick still had a hand around your waist and was practically attaching you at his hip. He offered Alejandro a hand.

“You're that Sicario I hear so much about. You're one bad motherfucker. Valdez?” Patrick clicked his tongue. “Well, ain't that something else. Come on, let's get inside. You too, Mr. Gillick.”

You showed admirable restraint by not looking over your shoulder to check on Alejandro when Patrick led you to the front doors. Inside, everything was the same: Texan ranch-style with new-money gawdiness, like faux leather couches and barrel hoop chandeliers. But the house glowed with a warmth immediately familiar and you had to keep yourself from melting into it. It would've been easy to simply stay, to give Foardes what she wanted and cut ties. But you knew better.

You wondered if Alejandro would give you the choice.

“Dale!” Patrick called, and your head whipped around in search of his sister. “She'll be so happy to see you,” he said.

Heels clicked on the stone staircase as Dale descended. She was a rhinestone cowgirl- a consequence of Patrick's success and her ex-husband's own claim to fame through bull-riding, but she had also been your best friend for a long time. Some days, she was the only person keeping you sane.

“Holy shit,” Dale said from the top of the steps. “Holy shit.”

Dale was not squealy or giggly; rather, she was very intense. She ran the rest of the way to you and threw her arms around you. But there was no celebration from her. You don't even remember seeing her smile.

“Dale, you two girls go upstairs and get gussied up for dinner. Mr. Gillick and I are gonna have a drink and talk business.”

You finally allowed yourself a glance at Alejandro, who smiled politely at Patrick. You didn't want to leave him.

“Are you sure?” You said. “Can't we just do it now?”

“In a minute, baby. Give Carlos time to whip something up.”

Carlos was the personal chef. You nodded, forced a shaky smile, and resisted the temptation to look at Alejandro one final time before Dale led you away, arm in arm.

. . . . . ◟੭

Your room was untouched.

Aside from a regular dusting, everything was exactly how you'd left it. Your trinkets, expensive jewelry and perfume, your clothes, and even the bathroom still had all your personal products. Part of you yearned. Part of you felt sick.

You sat on your bed and ran your hand over the comforter as Dale paced with her arms crossed.

“What the hell happened…?” She asked quietly. You didn't answer. She said your name sharply and repeated the question, and this time your head shot up at her. “You said you were leaving.”

“I tried, Dale. It got…complicated.”

She scoffed at your pathetic answer.

“I sat in this house for months, sick with worry, wondering if you were dead or worse, but at least glad you weren't here anymore, but now-” Dale's hands fell to her sides. “And you bring that man with you? What the hell?”

“I said it was complicated, alright?” You pressed, and this time, your voice was firmer.

“Well, all your shit’s still here. So go on. Play dress up.”

That she misunderstood your presence killed you inside, but you knew you couldn't run the risk of clueing her in, so all you could say was:

“Please don't be angry, Dale.”

Dale shook her head and went for the door. “You can't wish away this feeling, kid.”

She left, and you fell back onto your bed and cried. It all felt so wrong, like going back to an empty childhood home, or breaking your mother's heart. Downstairs, your only semblance of comfort was probably drinking tequila with your source of torment, and all you could do was feel sorry for yourself.

Dale's disapproval was bad enough, but at the mere thought of Alejandro's, you found yourself sitting up. You weren't used to having people depend on you, but what was the point of being here if you weren't going to do something about it?

Still, a tear or two wouldn't get anyone killed.

You wiped your cheek and eyed the closet. There was a specific dress you had in mind that you knew Patrick liked, but first, you needed evidence.

Patrick's office was down the hall from your bedroom, and one of Patrick's major character flaws was his cockiness. The Mason compound was impenetrable. Why would he have to lock his office door?

You knew a few of his old passwords because he trusted you to know them, but you had no guarantee they'd work now. The door was open and you shut it behind you. The office was all rich wood and stone, with family photos and momentos, and a desktop set-up for Patrick's long working days. Coming around to the screen, you found the user login prompt blinking, awaiting.

Your first guess worked.

You retrieved your phone from the pocket of your dress and opened folders on the computer you knew had incriminating evidence in them. You went through emails. Took pictures of everything, sent them to a number Matt had saved in your phone, then deleted them immediately after.

You were about to turn away when a small pop-up caught your attention. You clicked to enlarge it, and it displayed an air traffic satellite radar. Patrick had purchased the air space above the property years ago, and whatever was pinging on this radar now was high above that space.

The image of that missile popped into your head and you forcefully reset applications to how they were before. You logged off and returned to your room, running the shower and pulling the yellow sundress from the closet. You had what you needed. Now to get the hell out.

. . . . . ◟੭

You hardly recognized yourself in the mirror. Standing in this space, you fell back into old habits. Your hair, makeup, and dress were once again tailored to Patrick's taste- something you'd broken free of in Spain. You told yourself it was a costume. Armor. That once you escaped here for the final time, you’d never have to see this version of yourself again. It was a small comfort.

A knock at your door brought you out of the bathroom. In the hall stood Dale, changed into a blouse more appropriate for a sit-down dinner. She looked you over with a sadness that made your skin itch.

“Wow. You look…”

“I know.”

“They’re waiting in the dining room, Patrick and the man you brought-”

“I didn’t bring him-”

“He’s a hitman, right? That’s what sicario means?” You nodded. “I asked around. Is it true he used to be special ops?”

“I don’t know, Dale. I don’t know him. Valdez hired him to bring me here. That’s all I got.”

“Why would Renaldo Valdez hire a former military associate?”

The two of you walked down the staircase.

“If he’s what you say he is, then I reckon he works for the highest bidder, right? Right now, that’s Valdez. Could have been the US government. Could have been Mexican or Colombian government before that. Who the hell knows.”

“Seems like you might.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot of time to think here recently.”

The dining room was partially outdoors, with double doors that opened to the balmy night air. Patrick and Alejandro sat perpendicular, no food yet, but Patrick nursing a glass of mescal. Alejandro’s went untouched. The two men watched as you and Dale walked in and took your seats- you next to Patrick and across from Alejandro, and Dale next to you.

It was a bit late for dinner, around eight, but if that’s what Patrick wanted, that’s what the staff would accommodate, and soon the table was served with plates of creamy and spicy chicken and vegetables and rice- your favorite meal.

“Darlin, Mr. Gillick has suggested to me where you’ve been all this time, but I’d like to hear your recountin of events.”

You tried to smile at Patrick, then avoided looking at Alejandro. You knew what that meant. He wanted to compare your stories.

Wiping your mouth with a napkin, you pieced together the story Alejandro had devised for you.

“The Alarcon got to me. They wanted information- kept me in a bunker for weeks- months, I don't remember. Then one day someone's shooting down the door. Valdez's people. They saved me. Took me in, got me better. Took a while to trust em enough to tell em who I was, but once I did, they got Mr. Gillick to bring me home. And that’s about the long and short of it.”

Patrick watched you carefully as you spoke, nodding as though in agreement. When you finished, he took a bite of his food, chewed, swallowed, took a drink.

“Well, that about lines up with what Mr. Gillick said. Lemme ask you this- you’ve been gone quite a while. All that time, the Alarcon were, what torturin you? Because you look alright. Or all that time, Valdez had you? Because that don’t sound right to me, neither.”

You nodded, your jaw clenching. Dale looked between you. You felt Alejandro’s eyes on you.

“Yeah. I left first, Pat. I tried to run.” You looked at him. His face was unchanged, but he was listening. “Tried to escape from here. Got away for a while, too. That accounts for the lost time. Then Alarcon found me. Then the rest followed.”

Patrick nodded and cut into his food. “Now that- that makes more sense.”

Having no good reason not to, you continued to eat.

“Of course, that begs the question. Why did you run away?” Patrick asked.

This time, you did look at Alejandro, only briefly.

You sipped your wine. “I watched you kill a man, Patrick. Didn't find it much to my liking.”

Your frankness startled you- startled Dale by the sound of her choking on her drink.

“Yet, here you are.”

You sucked your teeth. “Here I am.”

“I am forced to wonder, how much of that was your choice?”

You stabbed your plate in frustration. “How much do you care?”

Patrick laughed. “I figure I care quite a bit.”

He pushed himself from the table and tossed his napkin down. You feigned nonchalance but fear was eating you up inside. Now, as Patrick circled behind you, you met Alejandro's eyes. You allowed yourself to be afraid. He didn't know Patrick like you did, and you needed to convey that this wasn't banter. This was danger.

When Patrick put hands on your shoulders, Alejandro knew the danger was settled. Permanent.

“I can believe you tried to run. But I don't buy that Valdez just sent you here with a sicario as a guard dog. Darlin, I just don't buy it.”

He squeezed your shoulders.

There was a moment of insurmountable tension as Alejandro watched Patrick's fingers curl into your flesh.

“Why don't we turn in for the night?” Dale said quickly, making you jump. “It's so late, Pat. I think everyone's tired.”

One final imprint of his nails into your skin and Patrick released you. You know you visibly deflated.

“You're right. I'm sure it's been a long day for everybody. We can work this all out in the morning. Mr. Gillick, will you be staying the night?”

Alejandro looked at Patrick again, this time with a spark in his eyes that simply wasn't there before.

“I think that'd be for the best.”

. . . . . ◟੭

The knock that came at your bedroom door sank your heart to the floor. You sat on your bed, frozen, staring at the carpet. If it was Patrick, he would just let himself in. But then your name came through the cracks of the door in a whisper.

“Let me in,” Alejandro sighed. There was desperation laced in his rough voice but you still felt glued to your spot, as though Patrick was sitting right next to you.

Your name, again.

“Cariño…”

Suddenly, your heart returned, now hammering in your chest, rushing blood through every part of your body. The sparks that flew through you at the term of endearment forced you from the bed and to the door. You cracked it open and peeked out.

“This is a bad idea,” you whispered.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Let me in, por favor.”

You did, because you wanted him. Wanted to be around him, wanted his presence as a shield and his unwavering confidence to simply make you feel safe.

Alejandro closed the door behind him and you didn't step out of his orbit.

“He’s playing a game,” you said anxiously, and twisted your fingers around each other as a distraction.

“Yes,” Alejandro mumbled. “Did you get the evidence?”

You nodded. Alejandro put a hand to your cheek and pulled you to him, wrapping his arms around you. You clutched the back of his jacket like a lifeline and pressed your cheek into his shoulder.

“We're leaving tonight,” he said.

“They'll be waiting for that.”

“Yes, but we can handle them.”

He stroked your hair and you sighed into him. It amazed you how, no matter what, this man, practically a stranger still, could make you feel so at peace.

You pulled away and almost immediately Alejandro planted a kiss on your temple. You stilled in shock- he never made the first move. It was gentle, and his lips stayed, his facial hair tickling your skin and his breath shifting your hair.

Fueled by tenderness and longing, you moved your mouth to his and kissed him deeply, breathing in the scents of him: cologne, the hint of sweat and earth from the desert. He kissed you hungrily, sucking on your upper lip. Both of his hands came up to cradle your head as you devoured each other further. You probed through teeth with tongues and-

Alejandro pulled away, and you had half expected him to. You couldn't very well have sex here and now, even if you felt like you were finally ready, as fucked up as that seemed. Maybe it was the danger of it all. Or maybe it was seeing Patrick and Alejandro in the same room and knowing that there does not exist a reality in which Patrick will ever manage to hurt you again.

“When?” You asked. Alejandro closed his eyes and licked his lips. Almost compulsively, his thumb stroked your cheek. It was as if he was bidding some thought away before he could answer.

“Late. What time did you say the guards change?”

“I didn't. 2 am.”

He hummed. “That's a good time.” He looked at his watch, removing his hand from your face. It took the wind from you. “It's 10:30 now.”

“So…in the meantime?”

Alejandro considered you, considered what you both wanted, then shook his head.

“Try to rest. Don't leave the room. You got your knife?”

“Of course.”

“Por supuesto. Alright,” he repeated, smiling a little. You smiled in turn. When he turned to go, you reached out to him.

“Wait- stay with me. For a little while, at least?”

He turned around again and pulled you close.

A rap at the door proceeded it swinging open carelessly. You turned and found Forsing standing in the doorway.

“Come on. Time to talk to the boss.”

. . . . . ◟੭

Immediately, it struck you as odd how small the operation seemed. A group this size was not storming the castle.

In a different room, a conference room which was entirely new to you, you sat at a glass table with Matt, Alejandro, and Forsing, along with a few other operatives- two of which you vaguely recognized from the plane. You couldn't help but notice the lack of women until the redhead entered the room.

She went to you first, extending a hand for you to shake, which you did, if for no other reason than it would have been awkward not to.

“Good morning. My name is Cynthia Foards, I head Special Operations for drug related crimes.”

You nodded and figured you didn't need to introduce yourself. Foards sighed and sat at the head of the table.

“Alright. Forsing, care to start?”

Forsing nodded and clicked on a laptop until it cast an image onto a television screen. What it showed was a sight all too familiar to you: the Mason family estate, all 76 acres of a sprawling ranch home and flatland. It was an aerial view which then shifted to street views, offering different perspectives that you could envision with your eyes closed.

“This is the Mason family estate in New Mexico, south of Luna, about 100 miles North of the border. 76 acres in total, perimeter of the house is guarded at all times by 12 men with semi-automatic weapons. Change of guard is every three hours.”

When the screen flicked to a video of the perimeter, a memory sparked in your head.

“There's a tunnel,” you said, leaning forward. “From the basement- the kitchen island moves and there's a tunnel leading out of the property. It's about a mile long.”

All eyes land on you and Matt smiles.

“Could you approximate the location on a map?” Forsing asked. You shook your head.

“No, but go back to the aerial view.”

The video switched back and paused. Your eyes scanned the roof of the house. You stood and rounded the table, hovering a finger over the screen.

“The kitchen is here, the island about here. The tunnel goes this way,” you traced the length. “And out this direction. If you put out a radius of about two miles, you'd probably find the exit. Probably.”

You turned back to the table. Foards put her hands on her hips. “This is why we wanted you.”

Managing a shrug, you returned to your seat. “If you blow that exit open, you'll be swarmed within minutes. Backup, helicopters- whole shebang.”

“We'll manage,” Matt nodded. “It'll help having a man on the inside, so to speak.”

At first, you didn't even realize what he meant because it was too absurd to think of. Then, cold understanding washed over you and your response was a gut instinct.

“No.”

Foards spoke. “Full pardon.”

You turned to her. “No.”

“It's this or prison,” Matt said.

“I'd rather go to prison.”

“A life sentence?” He asked- goaded.

They were toying with you, you were certain. They held all this power apparently, of course they wouldn't just give it to you for free.

“Why are you doing this to me?” you whispered. Your throat choked around the words.

Matt leaned forward. His eyes shone with a surprising hint of earnestness. “You're the best chance we've got at catching these guys.”

“I won't go back in there. They'll kill me.”

“No, they won't.” You looked at Alejandro when he spoke. He looked at the table, his fingers dancing nimbly on the surface. “I'll be with you.”

“How?”

“Alejandro comes from another cartel with you as an olive branch, gets us inside.”

You nearly scoffed. “And this other cartel isn't gonna care?”

Matt shook his head. “No, they won't.”

It was loaded, knowing (of course), and all you were going to get. Which was fine, because it told you all you needed to know. You narrowed your eyes.

“And how do you know that the Masons don't know that this cartel is in the pocket of the United States Military? You're hedging your bets on a lot of uncertainties. Our lives. Or maybe just mine.”

There was a moment of silence surrounding your final comment. Not because of its weight, or any guilt, but simply because of its truth.

Foards tapped on the table.

“This is how it is.”

You had a tendency to segment your life. To compartmentalize. It made it easier to cope, to abstract, break apart and put back together again.

The first segment of your life was nothing but a blur. Nothing you felt was worth telling about. The second, meeting Patrick, and everything that followed.

The third…the third you were in now. You just had to decide what that looked like.

Your fingers drummed against the glass and your other hand carved into your arm.

“Can I go outside? To think?”

“Sure.” Matt pushed himself from his seat.

You watched in silence as he propped the door to the room open and looked at you expectantly. When you did nothing, you shrugged.

“You wanna go outside or not?”

. . . . . ◟੭

The last place you wanted to be was standing outside of a hangar with Matt Graver. But at least here, you could smoke. You pulled the pack of Indian Creek that Alejandro gave you from your pocket. Of course, you still didn't have a lighter. Matt's eyebrows practically shot up.

“Where the hell did you get those?”

You didn't answer, just looked at him. Matt sighed and fished a lighter from his pants pocket.

“Figures. Gimme one.”

For a peaceful moment, you took turns lighting up. You watched the tips of your Converse and the bottom of your straight-leg jeans. You'd been given spare clothes- pants and a shirt and a zip up hoodie. You felt like your shoes were the only normal things about you.

You exhaled smoke and it whipped in the wind with your hair.

“Do you actually think this will work?” You asked. Matt groaned next to you.

“Doesn't matter what I think.”

“Then whose idea was it?” You snapped back quickly.

“Someone who gets paid to have good ideas. Look, whatever consolation it may be, we wouldn't be trying this if it didn't have a chance of working. As long as you don't do anything stupid, don't get in Alejandro's way, you should be fine.”

You looked at Matt. Standing still next to him, sharing a smoking break, he seemed different. Not frantic or twitchy like he was ready and willing to kill something, but resigned. Like now that he was back at the home office, the years of dedication were setting in.

“Except for the unpredictable," you countered.

“Yeah, well, that's the only thing we can count on.” Matt looked at you. “Why'd you run?”

You didn't love eye contact, much less so with men you knew to be dangerous, so you found interest in the airfield across from you. However, there was something strange about mixing honesty with an enemy- if Matt could be called that. You weren't worried about disappointing him like you were Alejandro, so the truth came out easier. Not easy, by any means, but that you managed to say it at all was progress.

“Didn't wanna face him again. Any of them. Like you said, I was a coward. Didn't think I'd be able to do it. Still loved them, I guess. And that scared me.”

Matt hummed, but said nothing else. There was another spot of silence as a jet pulled from a hangar and sped onto the runway.

“You married?”

The question must've caught Matt off guard judging by the way he looked at you.

“You're skipping a few steps.”

“I'm trying to ask you something.”

“No, I ain't married. Why?”

You threw your cigarette down and dragged the toe of your shoe through it.

“What kinda life do you have outside of this?”

Matt, determined to finish his cigarette, smoked it down to the bit, watching the jet as it rounded the runway and took off into the sky.

“I spend my money on good food and a nice bed. Sometimes that's all you can ask for.”

That struck you so curiously, but you didn't get the chance to inquire further. Once he said his piece, Matt threw out his cigarette and turned on his heels to head back inside, and you knew better now than to keep him waiting.

. . . . . ◟੭

Alejandro's knuckles rapped lightly at your door. It opened softly and your face peeked through, not dissimilar to how you looked in your apartment only days ago. He tried a smile, but whether or not it conveyed any warmth of comfort was beyond him.

“I'm here to brief you on tomorrow,” he said. You nodded and let him in, leaving him to close the door as you paced around. There was a small table and chairs that Alejandro pulled a seat from, and watched as you wrapped your arms around yourself and leaned against a counter. Both of you were quiet, and despite your physical arrangement, you did not seem meek or afraid. You conveyed a sense of defensiveness- one that Alejandro had experienced enough to appreciate. Not to mention your sunken eyes and drooping shoulders.

“Go ahead,” you said, then cleared your throat when you heard your own voice. Alejandro leaned back in the chair and threaded his fingers together.

“The plan is that I take you into the Mason compound as an escort. Another cartel, the Valdez cartel, will have found you and delivered you back to Patrick. I enter with you, we recover undeniable evidence of the Mason cartel, then we pull out.”

He knew that you knew that it sounded too simple, and your teeth went to the corner of your lip. His eyes followed the action but you were too nervous to notice.

“And how long do you think all that will take?”

“If we play it smart? Less than 24 hours.”

You pushed yourself away from the counter and approached the table.

“Seems optimistic.”

“It's a good number.”

Alejandro watched you carefully as you lowered yourself into the seat next to his and put your head in your hands. You began to shake.

“I can't do this.”

“You can.”

“You don't understand.”

“I'll be with you.”

“That won't be enough.”

Before he could stop himself, Alejandro had a hand gently resting on yours, using his thumb to brush over your hair. Your shaking stilled, and that reaction alone, he knew, would make it difficult for him to ever be objective about you again. If such a possibility existed since Spain.

After all this, you still found comfort in him?

“I'm not going to let anything happen to you. We will likely get separated, yes, but you will leave that house and never return.”

You lifted your head enough to see him through half lidded eyes.

“But you can't promise I won't get hurt.”

His thumb stroked your wrist. “No, I can't.”

“But if you could?”

“I don't make promises I'm not absolutely certain I can keep.”

“Not sure there is such a thing.”

“No, you will make it out of there alive.”

He realized then that you two were sitting dangerously close- dangerous only because of the nature of your relationship. Where any sensible person, sensible and criminal, would be afraid of the proximity for a threat to their safety, there seemed to be a electricity buzzing between you of a different kind. A fear founded on nothing but the possibility of something good, and that was a hope neither of you had seen in a long time.

Your face leaned in towards his. Breaths mingled, and he was enveloped only by you, and it was a nice place to be. You were still largely a mystery to him, the intricacies of you, a source of chaos and warmth. Honest. Reliable in your unpredictability, and how much of that could be blamed on you?

But when your mouth moved towards his, he knew he still could not cross that line. Not yet. So he withdrew, only a breath away, and set his forehead to yours- a way to touch you without touching you. Letting your noses nudge against each other. It sent a jolt across his neck and down his spine he hadn't felt since-

He fell to temptation once in a flash, moving his face quickly and kissing you on the cheek, though it was sudden and he misjudged the distance, landing on the space between your jaw and ear, making the gesture a hundred times more intimate than he had intended.

There was no coming back from that.

He didn't withdraw then, simply rested his cheek against yours. He nearly jumped when your hand slid over the back of his neck, then to the base of his skull, where you gently scratched through his short hair.

And now, you comforted him?

You sighed into each other's touches. Alejandro never, never, felt this vulnerable. Not since his wife and daughter. Not even with Isabel. And despite his better judgment, he welcomed it gladly.

When he pulled away, god he wanted to kiss you. You licked your lips, and they parted with an indelible breath that he committed to memory.

The man that brought you in sat at the table with you, on the short end, scrolling through a tablet. You ran a thumb under your eye, pulling away with a black smudge of mascara and dried tears. You sniffled.

“What's your name?” You asked. He didn't look up.

“Forsing.”

You nodded. “Alright.”

There was only a brief moment of silence- and it could've been awkward if you weren't so tired- before the only door to the room opened. Matt Graver walked in, followed by Alejandro, and the look he wore did nothing but sink your gut further. You didn't know him well, but the Alejandro that stood behind Matt now, who held hands clasped in front of him and watched you, you didn't recognize at all.

Matt pulled a chair and sat at the table, once again opening your file. Alejandro opted for a backwards facing chair off to the side.

“So, why don't you give us a recap?” Matt asked as he slipped on his glasses. Your eyes moved from that folder, to Matt's unwavering stare, and it really made you squirm, to Alejandro, who watched the wall across him. You wondered if that made it easier to listen.

You moved your hands only slightly against the table, but the handcuffs that bound you with a chain and loop caused a racket.

“You've got my file.”

Matt gestured broadly like he was doing you a favor. Letting you in on a secret. "In your own words.”

You stared at that folder. Your eyes flitted just once back to Alejandro. He was staring at you.

“Stop looking at him. He's not gonna help you now.”

Matt said it too plainly and it hurt, but it was also honest. Though you'd like to hear it from Alejandro, what could Matt's most nefarious motives be? Beating your spirit? Worse than him have tried.

You took a deep, shaky breath and splayed your hands on the table to use the cool metal to counter the fever in your blood.

“I met Patrick when I was…19? And we dated for a few years before we got engaged. He wasn't supposed to get me involved until after he was married but he got antsy.”

Patrick. The first thought of him never changed, no matter what he did to you. It was always of the first time you met, at a summer carnival. You had one older friend from college, and she had older friends, and Patrick was among them. And he smiled at you like he knew everything, and he was cocky but in a way that made you feel safe, like he knew everything and he would use that knowledge to protect you. To love you.

You thought the love was there. Love was messy and complicated. Love could still be there, and you would happily never know.

“So you didn't know anything.” Matt said it like he knew it was a lie.

“I knew enough to be curious and to stay that way.”

“That move you pulled in the market. He taught you that?”

Alejandro's voice startled you. You had expected him to be silent the whole time.

You smiled in a cruel way- cruel to yourself. “That part…that part is complicated.”

Patrick had proposed to you five years later, really reeled you in. Waited for you to finish your degree and everything. After all, he was in it for the long game. Got you a ring as big as your eye.

“After we got engaged, and Pat dangled everything I never had right in front of me- family, money, security, safety…it was hard to tell him no. And things start small, you know? Drive this to the mechanic’s, sell this to a business man- see how far you're willing to go.”

Alejandro spoke again, unmoving. “And how far were you willing to go?”

You went silent. The only memory in focus, like a blot of ink in water, was when Patrick first handed you a duffle bag with a smile, tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, and how that ring shone and how happy you were.

Matt spoke for you in your silence, crossing thick arms over his chest.

“I have it if you forget.”

Like an instinct, your hands jerked against the cuffs.

“I never hurt anybody,” you said, and you didn't even believe yourself.

“Cocaine and heroin are famously non-harmful substances.”

At that point, you snapped more out of frustration and exhaustion as opposed to guilt.

“Fuck off, alright? Like any one of us in this room are so innocent. I'm not playing that game with you, so move on.”

Matt watched you, that glint in his eye which you had come to be wary of gleaming as he, seemingly, acquiesced. “What else did you learn?”

Fine, you thought. Rip off the band-aid.

“The Masons were insistent that if I was going to join their family, I needed to…train. I needed to be resilient in case something like this happened.”

“Like what?”

“Is this relevant?” Silence. “They fuckin waterboarded me for hours and made me paranoid with psychological warfare. You need the full list? Is it not in your folder?” You punctuated the final question with a particular venom.

“Alright, so they groomed you to become a part of their crime family, tortured you, taught you to fight- why'd you leave?”

You swallowed. Through it all, Patrick never had hatred in his eyes, not even when he hurt you. And that deep in, you thought the hurt was for your own good.

The next words fell like sand from your mouth.

“I watched Patrick shoot a man and I was lucky enough to have a conscience that made me run. I was awake for 36 hours at least out of sheer paranoia alone until I finally went to the cops.”

Matt rattled the rest off like a list.

“Testifying in court, witness protection…”

You smiled again, or winced; the muscles work the same and ultimately it didn't matter. “Except it's not like guarding a high profile murder witness, is it? Resources get limited, I saw a gap. Pulled a favor to get on a boat and uh…that favor probably got someone else killed. Who knows.”

You sniffled. You were crying again and hated yourself for it, so you tried to curb it with anger.

Matt shook his head. “The fact that you're alive is…”

“A convenience to you?” You quipped. You weren't stupid. There was a reason you were here, at a private air base, as opposed to, say, an FBI office. They needed you.

“Thats up to you,” Matt said. “You're looking at 25 to life, depending on the judge, and trust me, we can ask nicely for a real sonofabitch-”

“-didn't think you'd take it all so personally,” you mumbled.

“-Or, you can make yourself useful, as originally planned.”

Your fingers itched at the idea of making a decision right now.

“Can I get a cigarette?”

“No,” Matt answered without a beat. “What do you wanna do?”

“Make myself useful, how?”

It was a shot in the dark and you knew it. Still, you cursed to yourself when Matt simply shook his head.

“You're not affiliated with us. If you get caught, you go to prison. If you get killed, it's not on us. Nobody knows you. We do this right, maybe you get to live quietly like you want.”

You looked over at Forsing, who was watching intently. Then, your eyes moved to Alejandro, who was staring at the wall again and rubbing his palms together.

Finally, you settled back to Matt.

“I don't really have a choice, do I?”

. . . . . ◟੭

Against his better judgment, Alejandro read your file.

He read it multiple times.

There are only so many ways he could justify it if someone asked, and if he decided he owed anyone an explanation. But they didn't, and he didn't.

19 to 24, you were folded into the Masons. 24 to 28, you endured a grueling trial period. It would have lasted longer if you hadn't run.

He didn't stop when he got to your initial report to the FBI, where you outlined, in detail, how the Masons “prepared” you for their version of a cartel life. It was worse than what you said aloud to Matt, but Alejandro read on. Thought of you, thought of his wife and daughter, thought of how he'd committed most of these acts himself to some poor bastard put in front of him.

A background check confirmed what you'd alluded to: you grew up passed around from family member to family member, went to Texas A&M on merit scholarships for biology, graduated four years later with a degree.

Nearly a decade you spent with that man, with his family, and yet you ran.

Alejandro felt the tug in his gut that was getting harder to ignore- he wanted to talk to you. Needed to. Even to simply sit in the room and listen to you was enough. Anything to make sense of it.

What a horrible coincidence. He wondered if you both deserved it.

They kept a room for you: a cot, footlocker, small bathroom, and that's where you sat while the spiders on the web of the world determined your fate. But not all of them.

He had asked you not to compare him to them, but the rational argued that Alejandro needed to prove that there was a difference. Were you owed? Did you have to be owed?

He wasn't a kind man. It was a camouflage.

Still, he knocked on your door as if he needed to. When you didn't respond, he opened the door, and there you sat on your cot, staring at the door, waiting for whoever to come in.

Alejandro entered silently and closed the door behind him. There was nowhere to go in the cramped space, so he leaned against the wall adjacent to your cot.

“How are you feeling?” He asked. Your eyes narrowed.

“There's a whole lot more questions need answering before that one.”

He nearly shrugged. “Not to me.”

You scoffed, ran hands through your hair and shook your head. “I'm doing poorly, Alejandro. Pretty shitty. How about you?”

You pierced him with a look that felt like an attempt at hatred but didn't quite reach it, like you were lashing out and he could get hurt if he let himself.

“About the same,” he responded.

God help him, that actually made you smile.

“So, you read the rest?”

He tilted his head at you. “How'd you know?”

“You got that look in your eye.” Your hand went to a pocket in habit and came back empty when you remembered you had no cigarettes. Alejandro pushed himself from the wall and reached into his own pocket, hand closing around the familiar shape. He fished out a carton, slightly crumpled and weather-beaten, colors fading a bit. It was a pack of Indian Creek that he tossed to you and you caught fairly easily. He watched as you opened it with curiosity, eyeing the only three cigarettes left inside.

“Special occasions?” You quipped, pulling on out and tapping it against the carton. Alejandro sat next to you on the cot, and as little room as there was he still attempted to give you space. But he noticed the way you watched him from the corner of your eye, and how you made sure your thighs didn't touch, and he understood.

“A keepsake.”

He retrieved his lighter and lit the cigarette for you. You made no attempt to look at him this time, though. Only breathed in deeply and then out slowly, pressing the back of your head against the wall. Alejandro's eyes flitted to your throat.

“You don't smoke,” you said. He hummed.

“Not for a very long time.”

You took a moment to smoke in silence and he waited.

“So, this job you were on before. With Graver…”

“Multiple. But the last was different. I went against protocol. Got a lot of people hurt.”

He rolled his hands together. You kept smoking but crossed an arm over your chest.

“What are you doing?”

Your accusatory tone made his head turn. You were slowly sinking further into yourself, physically and otherwise.

“What?” He asked.

“If you're trying to get me to trust you, then you're being dishonest, because you and I both know I shouldn't.”

He looked away from you, squinting. “I don't need your trust.”

“So what?”

He sighed through unspoken phrases before landing on one he hated the least.

“Do you want me to leave?”

You rubbed a sensitive spot under your eyebrow like the question itself caused you pain. “Depends on what you came in here to do, I guess.”

Alejandro pivoted himself, his back now fully to the security camera above the door. He granted you more room by widening the way he sat, also obscuring you partially from the camera's view. Whether you realized this or not was unknown.

“I wanted to give us time away from Matt or Steve.”

“I doubt anything said in here can be ‘off the record’.”

You were right of course, but what you didn't realize was that he was the only one who truly decided what information would leave this room.

“Why did you leave?” He asked, his brow already creasing in anticipation of the undesired, yet likely, response. You looked at him, wide-eyed.

“I already told you.”

“You told us, yes. However, I'm not convinced-”

“Is it my job to convince you-?”

“-That after everything they did to you, everything Patrick did, it only took one murder to get you to run?”

You winced, but Alejandro repeated in his head that he was doing his job, and going easy on you.

“Maybe I'm that much of a bleeding heart. It's true out there for somebody. Why not me?”

Alejandro took a single breath before snatching the cigarette from your lips and tossing it to the floor, extinguishing it with the heel of his shoe.

“What about the second time?”

“If you're pissed that you're back in this again, don't take it out on me-”

“You were in the exact position, the exact position to take these people down. Why did you leave?”

He watched you gather yourself, or gather an answer.

“What is it exactly you want me to say?”

Alejandro was signing and stood up before you were even done asking the question. He straightened his jacket before going to the door. As he laid a hand on the handle, he spoke without turning his head.

A knock at your door shook you and sent you cold. A bowie knife you favored froze in your hand. You were being paranoid. It was just you two, and you got in your own head the other night. That's all it was.

Still, you kept the knife to your back when you looked through the peephole, and still when you opened the door a crack. Alejandro stood on the other side. He took off his sunglasses and said your name, almost looking surprised that you answered the door.

“Hey,” you said. It was all you could force out for now.

“We should get coffee together.”

You closed the door further on yourself. “Don't drink coffee.”

“Tea, then. Unless the coffee isn't the problem.”

You tapped the flat end of the knife against the back pocket of your jeans and bit that corner of your lips. 

“What time is it?”

He checked his watch. “Eleven forty-three.”

“I'll meet you at two.”

Alejandro nodded like it was a business deal and put his sunglasses back on.

“You don't have to come if you don't want to. I know you know that, but it bears saying out loud.”

The door was almost closed, so his words drifted in through the final crack. You rested your head against the frame.

“I know.”

“Alright. Two o'clock.”

You shut the door and locked it. Comically, the first thought in your head was what to wear, and you groaned at yourself. All you could think about was a sundress you brought with you and haven't touched, and how you wanted so badly to feel beautiful. Alejandro had made you feel desirable for the first time in a long time. What was so wrong about that?

You know what it is.

But as long as you were here, you existed in a limbo, didn't you? As long as you waited and procrastinated a greater plan, your day to day was only in your hands. So, you stored away your weaponry- except the knife- and slipped into that dress, and as you pinned up your hair and debated light makeup, you practiced conversation. You would ask him about Colombia, how he came to be here. Did he have family? Where did he learn to dance like that? If you got far enough, maybe you'd ask about the scars. Maybe.

And something about this forethought excited you. Someone to be curious about. Someone who was curious about you. So rarely did anything feel like an equal exchange anymore that this was like a gift. You had every intention of taking advantage of it.

. . . . . ◟੭

You left your apartment at one o'clock. You'd meet Alejandro at two, but first you needed a bit of courage, and that required acclimation to the outside, to the people and the sounds. Starting at some of the market stalls was always a safe idea when you needed to follow this routine because you knew some of the merchants, and a little retail therapy never killed. And you bought a carton of hand-rolled cigarettes right before turning around and bumping into someone- or they bumped into you. Either way, your new purchase spilled onto the ground, and both you and this new person bent down to pick them up.

“Oh, pardon me-” you began, trying to sweep the cigarettes back into their case. The stranger's fingers attempted to help.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

The accent was unmistakably American and you froze, only for half a second, but it had to have been noticeable. Still, you attempted to cover it.

“Lo siento. Gracias,” you said, ducking your head and trying to slip by. You hardly got a look at him and heard his footsteps behind you. White, late fifties to early sixties. 

“Weren't you just speaking English?”

You kept walking, quickening your pace in the crowded market stream. Still, he caught up to you and kept pace with you.

“What's your name?”

You didn't answer. Kept burning eyes on the ground.

“¿Cómo te llamas?”

He popped a piece of gum in his mouth and offered one to you. Still, you ignored him. Once you exited the market street, your eyes scanned for the café and spotted Alejandro sitting alone, but you didn't want to lead whatever this potential mess was over to him.

“Wie heißt du?”

The stranger kept asking for your name.

“Comment tu t'appelles? Am I getting close?”

Finally, you whipped around to him, speaking low.

“What do you want?”

He smiled, the lines on his face stretching. He looked like a man who smiled a lot, but he did not seem kind.

“American,” he nodded.

“And clearly wanting to be left alone.”

“Somewhere you gotta be?”

You looked around for anywhere else to go.

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Someone you gotta meet?”

You laughed to yourself.

“Yeah, and he's big and scary and American and violent to boot. And has big guns. Is that good enough?”

You knew almost for certain why this man was here, even if you didn't know him. But if you could get him off your back for even a second, you stood a chance at escape.

He looked you over, then squinted at the environment.

“Sounds like the kinda person we should call the police about.”

You grew closer, hand itching towards the bowie knife you had strapped to your upper thigh.

“Tell ya what. You go find one and see what they think. Now get the fuck away from me.”

He smiled at you, chewing that fucking gum, but you didn't move. And when he realized you weren't going anywhere until he left, he nodded, gave a final ‘alright’, and turned around. He moved back into the market street and disappeared into the throngs.

Once confidently out of ear and eye shot, though you were almost certain he wasn't alone, you found yourself stuck to the spot. One part of you wanted to seek comfort in Alejandro and ask for his help. The other begged you to retreat into your hovel like the wounded animal you were and run off again. And you didn't think you could have both.

But when you looked back at the café, Alejandro was gone. You cursed under your breath.

You knew from a very young age that life was not fair. But no one really needed you for the reasons they claimed to, and that should give you your freedom. 

You couldn't even have this one thing? Not even a date? If not a date? A human connection?

What happened next couldn't be blamed on you. You felt a hand on your elbow and you deftly pulled your knife on the assailant- if you could even call it that. Which they hardly were, because it was Alejandro, and the tip of the blade hardly threatened his vital organs before he disarmed you and took the knife for himself.

“And what if I'd been someone else, hm?”

He handed the blade back to you, handle first. You took it with a shaking hand and replaced it. He worked to steady his breathing, but you could still feel the embers of smoldering eyes on you. If he was angry, he tempered it well.

“Sorry. I'm sorry,” you said. Again, gently, he took you by the elbow and guided you away.

“What happened?” He asked, his voice evening out. You looked up and saw his sunglasses had found their way back on as he scanned behind you.

“There's another American here. A man. Mid fifties, early sixties. White. Graying brown hair. Sturdy.”

“Really?” You nodded. “That worries you?”

You turned around and leveled yourself next to him.

“Maybe.” 

“Could be a tourist.”

“No. Not him. Too intense.”

“Is he here?”

You watched the crowded square. Immediately in your line of sight was the end of the market street, the café, a row of storefronts, and the waterfront. But not the American.

“No.”

Alejandro turned himself towards you, just slightly, almost protectively.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don't know.”

You didn't realize Alejandro was staring down at you until you looked up at him in the strange silence.

“Do you want to leave?”

He said it with the appreciation of someone who not only knew your situation, but understood it,though you didn't know either to be true. Your mouth went dry. For your own sanity, you decided he was just perceptive.

“No, I don't. But if he's what I think he is…”

“What do you think he is? I can't help if you don't talk to me.”

God, you were torn. With every passing moment, you became increasingly convinced Alejandro was more than you imagined, in ways both exciting and horrifying, and comforting if you allowed him to be. No one had ever expressed an interest in protecting you quite like he had, and yet the practical part of your mind, the one you have a dangerous tendency to ignore, was telling you to be wary.

Because why? Why did he care so much?

You decided to meet in the middle.

“Let me get a go bag and I'll meet you at your apartment,” you said, figuring it was the safest choice. After all, the middle is the safest place to be.

Alejandro stepped to go.

“I'm coming with you.”

You laughed like it was no big deal, trying to shake him.

“It's fine-”

“You don't trust me.”

He wasn't asking, which was the worst part. Despite the fear creeping up your neck and that you really started to think about those scars, you looked into his sunglasses.

“I really want to.”

“Smart girl.”

You were almost certain he noticed your posture change with the chill that sent up your spine.

“I won't help if you don't want me to.”

He looked away. You didn't think he was hurt, that his pride was wounded, but you honestly couldn't tell for the damn sunglasses.

“Some things need to be done alone.”

You nodded, slightly disappointed in both him and yourself. Not everything could be an act of desperate passion, but again, just this once?

“Let me know if you need anything. You have a phone?” You shook your head. “Good. I'll keep an eye out down here and be back to the apartments in thirty.”

Deep breath in, deep breath out. Gathering your courage, you turned to leave. He said your name.

“You're sure?”

No, you were not. But any amount of uncertainty needed to be met with absolute caution, and right now, caution was all you had. 

. . . . . ◟੭

After thirty minutes, and Alejandro returned to the apartments, he knocked on your door. No response. A small part of him, a part he wasn't proud of, wasn't surprised. Less surprised when the door was unlocked and he let himself in.

And, given your description of the American, the least of surprises came with Matt Graver sitting on your couch.

Maybe that's why Alejandro let you leave the town square so easily. He had a feeling it would be futile anyway.

Alejandro closed the door behind him and glanced through the kitchen doorway, looking for Forsing.

“Relax, there's no one else here. Just you and me. Take a seat.”

Relaxing was impossible, but sitting he could manage.

“No Forsing?”

“Figured we didn't need two guys here for you.”

Alejandro rubbed something invisible between his fingers. Matt shrugged.

“If we wanted you dead, you'd be dead.”

He knew what he'd meant, but didn't mention it.

“So what's the alternative?”

Matt smiled. Chewed his gum. There were things about Matt that Alejandro missed, that he'd never admit to. The gum was not one of them.

“We have work for you. Come back with us.”

“Why should I?”

They watched each other. Alejandro fought the urge to look around, to check for any indication that you got away. Matt's smile only widened.

“I can tell you wanna ask.”

Call it professional curiosity. He didn't need to know any differently.

“Who is she?”

Matt shrugged like you were of no huge importance, like he wasn't half a world from home looking for you.

“Escaped witness protection. We came here to bring her back.”

A lot of pieces clicked into place at this revelation. Your Latin American Spanish: you probably were involved in the drug trade in some capacity and that's why you had Matt Graver of all people on your trail. Why you were ready to run. Why another American made you so nervous.

“Light work for you,” Alejandro remarked. 

“Well, work is work. Didn't get into it for the glamor.”

Alejandro nodded imperceptibly at Matt.

“Yes you did.”

“Maybe. Come back with us. I'll see if I can't get you on this task force. You can keep an eye on her since you're so worried. Couldn't hurt, anyway.”

Finally, Alejandro looked around. From where he was sitting, he could see your room, and there were clothes strewn on the floor. A weapons case lay open with only the knife missing.

“Matt,” Alejandro stood and buttoned his jacket. “Don't lie to me.”

Matt stood as well, headed for the door.

“If I lie to you, you'll know.”

. . . . . ◟੭

They hadn't incapacitated you. They had enough sense to know that dragging an unconscious woman from her apartment wasn't a good look for any government operatives. You went relatively quietly, fully aware that these were not your run-of-the-mill FBI agents and they would absolutely use excessive force if they thought it would subdue you. And you didn't feel like getting hurt today.

That's one thing no one told you about pain: people wanting to hurt you is a very scary thing.

They let you pack the little amount you'd planned on anyway, just no weapons. They didn't know about your knife, though. You also weren't given time to change into something more practical. You could imagine why, and it just made you feel sicker about the whole thing. You often found that the population of those willing to volunteer for hyper violent and covert operations, and the populations willing to leer at a woman's legs for a two hour flight, has a bit of overlap.

But for now, you weren't interested in making any waves until you had a plan formulated. You'd been in enough similar situations to know that much.

On the plane, they had you in sections. There were two other operatives. They were in the section by the pilots with the guy with the mustache and glasses. You were stuck with the man from the market and Alejandro, who did nothing but watched the empty seat next to you. He and the man sat next to each other, facing you, you across from the stranger. It was a small plane, too, so you wouldn't have called it a comfortable experience.

You were jerked back and forth by a bit of turbulence. The man flipped through a folder with glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“What's your name?” You asked. He looked looked up at you through his glasses.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Whatever ends up happening to me, I wanna know the name of the person doing it.”

He looked at you for a moment before returning his focus on what you knew was your case file. “Fair enough. Matt Graver. I'd introduce Alejandro, but…I'm guessing you two already know each other.”

You watched Alejandro and wondered just how much he'd told.

“How do you know these men?” You asked. Alejandro granted you the courtesy of looking at you before going back to the chair. 

“I used to work with them.”

You smiled mirthlessly and shook your head. “Ain't that the shittiest of coincidences.”

“Aggravated assault, burglary-”

You closed your eyes as you recognized your rap sheet being read off by Matt.

“-Arson, possession, trafficking-”

“I never trafficked,” you practically growled. “I don't care what anyone says. I didn't do that shit. I was never a buyer or a seller.”

Matt's smile thinned like something mean. “My apologies.”

“Why did you violate your witness protection?” Alejandro asked. You turned to him, your blood started to pump quicker, louder in your veins and your ears. One of them may have been enough, but two men talking to you like this was too much to handle. 

“So that's it? They ask you to jump and now you expect me to do the same? You're one of them, and I'm not telling you anything. I can't.” 

Your words were uncharacteristically venomous for you. Alejandro leaned towards you, elbows on his knees and hands clasped.

“I am many things, plenty of them ugly, but never compare me to them.”

“Ouch, I'm right here,” Matt mumbled, monotone. You ignored him and straightened your spine.

“And I'm so sorry that you don't realize how much you've trapped yourself. I'm not playing.”

“I don't presume to know you. Grant me the same respect.”

Something about that stunned you and for a moment you had no sharp words. You settled for the obvious.

“I want to go home.”

“Do that and you'll be dead in a week,” Matt said, his words louder this time. He was joining the conversation. You looked at him, studying your folder.

“Maybe it's for the best, then.”

“This is bigger than you,” he said, rather blasé. “This is nailing Mason and his contacts. Preventing a lot of harm.”

When he said your former fiancé's name, it was like getting hit, and you showed it. You immediately broke eye contact and looked at the carpet beneath your feet. You noticed the sharp contrasts between your shoes. Alejandro’s dress shoes, your sneakers because it's all you owned, and Matt's…were those Croc’s?

“Yeah, imagine how the people who haven't fucked him feel.”

You were launching out of your seat as soon as the final syllable left his tongue. Of course, you didn't make it, because Alejandro had been a step ahead of you and restrained you, wrenching you up by your wrists and placing you in his seat. He stood, then kneeled and pushed up your skirt. Quickly undid the knife sheath from your leg, never lingering, and tossed it behind him.

Whether he was in on it from the start or not didn't matter. Any anger you'd felt toward Matt was now entirely targeted on Alejandro. Personal insults are one thing; betrayal is another.

“You son of a bitch!” You tried to rise, but Alejandro seized you by your arms and sat you back down. Gathered your wrists in his hands again and Matt handed him a zip tie, casual, your attempted strike meaning absolutely nothing to him.

Alejandro bound your hands together. You felt the tears come and made no attempt to stop them. “You wanted to help me. You said you wanted to help me. Were you lying?”

You were practically spitting and you tried to grab at Alejandro. You got close enough that he easily grabbed your jaw.

“Stop it. Stop it.” He didn't raise his voice at you, but you knew he didn't like having to repeat himself. “Calm down or they'll sedate you.”

“Was it the whole time? Did you know the whole time?”

Matt looked between you and Alejandro.

“He knew about fifteen minutes after you did darling.”

You tried one more pathetic tug but it was like pulling against a truck. Alejandro wasn't moving.

“Stop fighting me. Stop.”

Finally, you exhausted yourself. Alejandro pushed you back into the seat you now occupied, which was originally his. He sat in yours and smoothed out his jacket. Your knife and its harness lay uselessly at his feet. He picked it up and carefully secured it.

“I'll see that it gets returned to you.”

“So long as you don't pull that shit again,” Matt added, and finally closed your file. You settled into the seat in acceptance. Matt removed his glasses and folded them into the breast pocket of his button up.

“So which is it? You were too scared of him to stay, or you were too chicken shit to testify?”

“You wanna goad me into an excuse to beat the shit outta me, wait till we're on the ground,” you bit back.

“Answer the question.”

He had that amused, smug look on your face, which at the very least told you he was only trying to entertain himself now.

“I got scared. I realized I had an out and I took it.”

Matt nodded and closed his eyes, settling in the corner of his seat for a nap.

“Lotta good it did ya, huh?”

He had the final word and there was no disputing it. You figured him just petty enough to pretend to sleep but also knew he was the kind of guy to reserve all energy when possible. Either way, you stared at the seat across from you, occasionally sniffing and wiping your face with your bound hands. Alejandro made no attempt to talk to you again and you were grateful. Anything you wanted to ask him or needed to say, you'd sooner kill Matt Graver than say it in front of him.

. . . . . ◟੭

When you all walked off the plane at the private air base in Texas, Alejandro walked just off your shoulder so he could keep a careful hand on your back. Better him than a task force member with a carbine. Each time his hand pressed too closely into the back of your dress and made even a suggestion to your skin, you hurried your pace. Anything other than actually touching him.

He understood why you asked. You wanted to know if the deception came before or after nearly having sex with each other, and it did make a difference. But even with Matt's help, and he hesitated even to call it that, you were far from trusting him again.

From the tarmac, you were taken into a building attached to the hangar, then led through a series of halls that Alejandro knew well, but were foreign to you, and if you managed to get out, it would be a long time before you worked your way to an exit.

“Alright. We're gonna split up. Forsing, you take her to a holding room. Alejandro, you're with me.”

Matt's fluidity on the field was admirable, but here it was too fast, because despite your fervor and vitriol, you still looked for Alejandro in slight panic once you realized you were being separated. 

Alejandro only nodded before following. If he kept it calm, kept it detached, it would make it easier on you. He could tell already that Matt was scheming to potentially use you against him, or vice versa. Regardless of whether or not it would work, the possibility was a distraction.

“Is this where I walk into an ambush?” Alejandro asked. Matt spoke over his shoulder. 

“All you gotta do is take the new offer. After that, we're square.”

They approached a door and Matt's hand landed on the knob.

“Also, an apology wouldn't hurt.”

If Matt was trying to make a joke, Alejandro turned his head in that way which suggested the joke did not land. Not that it mattered to Matt.

He opened the door and they walked into a control room, or the beginnings of one. It was mostly faces unfamiliar to Alejandro.

“Matt, I really didn't think you'd pull it off.”

Alejandro watched carefully as Cynthia Foardes descended the stairs from a small office. He tilted his chin at her.

“We'll, we're all grown ups here,” Matt answered and sat himself in a chair that rotated lazily upon his impact.

“What do you need me for?” Alejandro asked. 

Foardes pulled her usual movement routine- a floor-facing smile, an inaudible chuckle, creasing something in her hands or moving hair out of her face. She broke herself down and built herself back up again in three seconds and it worked on most people.

“We're re-distributing a task force to track down Patrick Mason and Matt made a case for you.”

Alejandro looked to Matt to confirm. He nodded.

“Guess you didn't know, huh?”

Alejandro was smart enough to know that something else was going on, and what's worse is that they had to have known he knew that. And if he asked what they were holding out, they wouldn't tell him anyway.

So, he straightened the cuffs of his sleeves that had been disturbed during your scuffle on the plane.

“And you trust me?”

Foardes shrugs. “Enough.”

“Because Matt told you to.” 

“Because you and Mr. Graver defied direct orders and worked, albeit separately, to deliver Ms. Reyes across the border.” She stepped closer to him. “Now, I don't care if you met this girl yesterday or if you're engaged and looking for houses in El Paso- this is a unique situation and history shows  you operate to the same efficiency whether you have a personal interest or not.”

Alejandro turned back to Matt. “Who'd you find first?”

“Her, then you.”

“What's your answer, Mr. Gillick?”

He looked back at Foardes- the spitting image of one cold and in power and objective. If push comes to shove, Alejandro could and would be that way. He performed his job on the plane. He could keep it up.

“And then you cut ties with me.”

“You will not be contacted again.”

Alejandro knew he didn't have a choice, but he also knew that life was a series of things that happen to a person, and all they can do is react.

Alejandro called it a sabbatical. He called it a sabbatical for a very long time.

It was a mission in Kabul. Then, it was a "job" in Instanbul. Soon, it was a vacation in a small village south of Cartagena, Spain, which inevitably became that notorious sabbatical.

It was hard for Alejandro to leave the border behind. Not the life- god knows the smell of gun powder and blood was simply clogged into his pores and the lines of his face. But the in between, the line he'd danced on for almost half his life was now half a world away. Every day he had to act like it didn't kill him inside.

But his apartment was small, sweet. Tucked away on a thin side road piled onto other houses and apartments and shops, all curving with a retaining wall warding off the deeper ends of crystal blue waters. Every morning he woke with the fishermen. Every night...well, every night, it took him hours to even arrive home. The longer he stayed out, the more he could pretend that things were normal. He could visit cafés and dance with beautiful men and women at the restaurants. But eventually, he did need to sleep, and every time he went home, he tensed, reverting to his training, preparing for any potential threat. Anyone could have wormed their way inside his last refuge.

But he followed his routine still, moving from day to day, waiting for the inevitable change. That change came when you moved into the unit down the hall.

You two never spoke and hardly every encountered each other. The few times you had were sneaked glances when you arrived at your doors at the same times, or maybe one was coming and one was going. Maybe you were at the café at the same time. He noticed that you, same as him, didn't talk to anyone. You would sit with a book or a notebook and drink- always tea and never coffee.

But soon, he would encounter you in earnest, in a way neither of you could ever want or ever expect.

. . . . . ◟੭

It was twice in one day, which, if a meeting should be serendipitous, there's no point in questioning frequency.

The first was in the hall. You were attempting to light a cigarette, but for whatever reason, be it low fluid or fate, your lighter did nothing but flick uselessly. Alejandro came out of his apartment a unit down from yours in a cream-colored suit and locked his door as he watched you curse around the cigarette.

He wasn't sure why he did it, but it felt natural for him to reach into his pocket and fish out his own lighter, a gold Zippo piece with engravings you couldn't decipher, and flick the top open and closed at a steady rhythm, approaching you. His polished shoes clicked against the floor and you looked up, abandoning hope and forfeighting your lighter to your pocket.

"May I?" Alejandro asked.

It was not lost on you that he wasn't offering you the lighter, but offering to light the cigarette for you. You took a quick survey of his face and felt your chest tighten. He was handsome, and there was no denying that, but it was more than some magazine model. Salt and pepper hair and goatee, scruffy facial hair otherwise. Attempting to give a name to the color of his eyes would be like limiting the sky, so you settled on somewhere between green and hazel.

Holy shit. When did you become such a romantic?

You remembered yourself, though, and simply nodded, words arrested in your throat. The cigarette found its home once again between your bitten lips and you leaned forward as this stranger- your neighbor- set the paper aflame. You used the time it took to inhale and exhale to think of something witty to say.

"Do you do that often?" You asked and blew smoke to the side.

Alejandro clipped the lighter shut, replaced it, and folded his hands in front of him. A smile quirked up on one side of his lips.

"Do what?"

"Drift coolly to help strange ladies light their cigarettes?"

The quirk turned to a smile, and a chuckle followed.

"Only when they look like they'd accept. And we're neighbors, are we not?"

You pointed to the unit that separated your apartments. "Mrs. Garcia is our neighbor. We're..."

You were being pedantic, not charming. Typically, it was a tactic used to ward off potential threats or petty annoyances, neither of which you suspected him to be. Not to mention the fact that he still looked amused.

"Two people who live in proximity to each other?"

You fought it off for as long as you could, but inevitably rolled your eyes.

"...Neighbors."

You gave him your name and extended a hand. He took it, not to shake, but simply hold. His palms and fingers were calloused in a way that shocked you. Yes, he was older, so you wouldn't be surprised to know that the years had their wear on him, but these were hands which saw frequent, and hard use.

"Alejandro," he said, and you liked the way he said his own name. You said it back, considerably clumsier and nearly as romantic sounding.

Not that you were thinking romantically.

Because, as you constantly had to remind yourself, if things seemed too good to be true, they were. You began making excuses in your head.

He's too old. You're too...yourself. You're living in a foreign country with no clear plans for your future. You can't plan. You're waiting.

But you certainly did like his smile.

Regardless, you flicked out the ash of your cigarette and found something interesting to look at down the stairwell.

"Well, it was good to meet you, Alejandro."

And he was enough of a gentleman to both understand you wanted to be left alone and to grant that wish. But not without a parting word.

"You have keen eyes."

Then he left you, lightly jogging down the steps and onto the cobblestone street. Your cigarette sat forgotten between your fingers as you reasoned with yourself.

It's a shame, and that's all it can be.

. . . . . ◟੭

The second was that night at the only restaurant in the village. You were getting pleasantly drunk, really for the first time here. You were used to getting drunk at home, that was no great feat. Usually it involved an open window, the breeze of a midnight sea, a bottle of the first liquor within arms reach, and not knowing when you fell asleep. But now, you were three glasses deep into sangria and the music seeped into your bones.

The patio of the restaurant was lit from above with strings of multicolor bulbs, casting kaleidescopic arrays on the dancers, including your neighbor. That he's light on his feet came as no surprise to you, but that he danced the samba so freely with the women, young and old, and smiled wider than you'd seen him- the few times you'd seen him at all- warmed your blood with the alcohol.

You, on the other hand, were content to sit and people-watch. Alejandro attempted to pull you onto the floor at one point but you waved him away with a smile. No one was ever going to see you dance if you could help it.

You couldn't quite say what kept you out tonight of all nights. Perhaps it was the trajectory of the day- a late start, errands, a walk, and ending up hungry, and never leaving. At any rate, you were surprisingly uncompelled to go home.

Later, when the music lulled and dances shifted from salsas to swayings, and you watched acquaintances lean into each other, and Alejandro laugh with someone at the outdoor bar, you also noticed a young woman, hardly younger than you, heading home through a wide alley. Not uncommon- many of the apartments lined that street, but it wasn't particularly well lit.

However, what truly turned your attention was the two men who followed her not long after.

Maybe you were just drunk enough, maybe it had been too long and your knuckles itched. Either way, you tipped back the rest of your sherry, left cash on the table, and pursued the pursuers.

You didn't realize you were being watched.

. . . . . ◟੭

Alejandro timed his glances- once per minute at least, more when he did a full visual sweep of the patio. He was enjoying himself, truly, sipping slowly on cool drinks and knowing almost to an exact percentile how much to drink and how to pace and still keep his faculties above 95%. Accuracy was important.

You, wherever you drifted from, either made the choice not to notice or did not have the skill. But he had been watching you from the moment you moved in two doors down. A tourist, a student, perhaps? No one was quite sure. You didn't have a job, Mrs. Garcia knew that much. Whatever your baggage, Alejandro had been around long enough to glean your defensiveness. You put a size 12 men's boots outside your door, but you lived alone. You didn't smile much, but you weren't opposed to friendly conversation. Something had dropped a heavy wall into your life, and you were both fighting behind it and against it. There was a part of you begging to be let out.

Of course, that was only a hypothesis based on five months of observation.

And he saw it again tonight in the way you watched people- watched him- and inevitably followed Marcella from the bar and into the alley. He permitted you distance before excusing himself and following after.

At the edge of the alleyway Alejandro leaned against a brick corner with his arms folded. At the end, Marcella was keeping herself all but cornered by the men. You walked steadily towards them.

The conversation was muffled, especially with the restaurant behind him, so Alejandro drew further in. By then, you were pulling the shoulder of one of the men.

"¡Oye! Atrás, imbécil."

Hey! Back off, asshole!

"Cuidado con tus asuntos."

Mind your own business.

One of the men shoved you and you stumbled.

Stumbled, but didn't fall.

Instead, from the back of your pants you pulled a pocket knife which you managed open with one hand.

The man closest to you received a jab under his ribs with your thin, curved fingers. At his surprise, you held the knife to his throat.

"Deja que se vaya a casa en paz."

Let her go home in peace.

The man not currently held hostage by you stepped away from Marcella begrudgingly. As soon as she had the birdth, she scrambled away. Looked between the exit, you, and then the mouth of the alley, where she locked eyes with Alejandro.

Alejandro did not know the young woman personally, but he was not ignorant to the rumors that surrounded him in the village. So when he tilted his chin upwards, she obeyed and escaped.

This left you with the two men.

"Ahora eso nos deja."

Now that just leaves us.

"Eso no es bueno para ti."

Too bad for you.

You said with a slight and quick head tilt.

Quickly, one punched you across the face.

The one you had incapacitated stood and grabbed you by your shoulders. You did some impressive damage in the meantime with your hands and nails, and all the while Alejandro was thinking about the way you were moving.

It was more than furious. It was practiced.

Alejandro's arms tightened around each other and he felt himself torn. Between the self important idea that this kept happening to him, and the undeniable fact that it did, which bode very badly for you.

He thought for a moment that you would overtake them both, but eventually one got a hold on you, whether because of your drunkenness or inexperience or any other possibility. That's when he stepped in.

. . . . . ◟੭

You didn't even see him enter the alley- only that the man on your right went down through multiple swift maneuvers, and in that moment you gained the other man's distraction, kneed him in the groin, and pushed him down by his shoulders, kneeing him again but this time in the face. His nose broke.

Once he was on the ground you hit him once. Twice. Enough times that when he begged for forgiveness, you pulled out your knife again. Only then did you feel a firm grasp on your wrist, stopping it's swift arc in the air.

Your head whipped around and your shock bled through your violence at seeing Alejandro holding you back.

"The police will only care if you murder them. Come on."

He spoke to you in a voice you hadn't heard before. It was quiet but low, dragging the warning that you felt right in the bottom of your belly. You let him guide you to stand and his hold on your wrist traveled to your hand.

"Do you have medical supplies at your apartment?"

You nodded, still breathless from the fight, and a feeling you couldn't quite place.

"We'll go to mine," he said.

. . . . . ◟੭

If you thought your apartment was bare, Alejandro's was barer, but in a completely different way. It looked how the showrooms in cheap furniture stores look. Plasterboard and navy pleather and a fake plant. No photos, nothing out of place.

At a very small kitchen table, Alejandro went about cleaning your fist, which had been damaged in the fight. The worse fates of the two.

You two had maneuvered his apartment in near total silence until he spoke now, as he dabbed the cuts on your knuckles with alcohol.

"You're speaking Latin American Spanish, you know that? Did you forget, or is that the only version you know?"

Your eyes jumped to his face. He was relaxed, if not focused. "You noticed?"

His eyes flitted up to yours. "I know my own language."

You brought a frequently bitten corner of your lip between your teeth.

"Where are you from?"

"Colombia."

You looked around the room, your other hand restless.

"And you are American," he stated. You only nodded.

"Can I smoke?"

"No."

His reply was swift. It caught you off guard.

"Alright."

"How long were you watching?"

Seemingly satisfied, Alejandro moves on to wrapping your hand.

"The fight? Since you entered the alley."

"And in general?"

He paused, only a hairline crack, and continued.

"Since you moved in."

You attempted to maintain your composure, but you were almost certain Alejandro heard the shiver in your voice. "And?"

He made you wait until he was done wrapping, then he sat back and sighed.

"Why here?"

"You want the honest answer?" He nodded. "I closed my eyes and pointed on a map." You watched as he face didn't change. "Is that what you really wanted to ask me?"

"No."

He stood, went to the kitchen. You heard the clattering of glass.

"Then what?"

Alejandro returned with a bottle of mezcal and two glasses. He sat down and poured carefully.

"What did you do?"

Two fingers nudged a glass your way. You took is and let the liquor slide down your tongue and straight into your stomach.

"What do you mean?"

"To end up here. What are you running from?"

He downed his glass.

"Is it enough to say that I left behind a bad past?"

You watched the liquid move over itself. Alejandro, after thinking, nodded.

You drank together.

"And you?"

He licked his lips and looked away like the answer was in the kitchen. You followed the motion with your eyes.

"Too much to bother with."

Then he gathered his first aid supplies and walked past you towards the bathroom where he'd gotten them from.

You turned the glass, thought hard but quickly about what your body was screaming at you.

That is not an opposite. There isn't a word for who this man is.

Whether that was a blessing or an omen didn't matter. You pushed yourself from the table and followed Alejandro's footsteps down the hall. You met him right as he turned out of the bathroom.

You looked him in the eyes, as best as you could do in the darkness. He looked back and ticked his head. He said your name in a way that was a warning if you'd ever heard one.

The hallway must have been small for how close you two were, exchanging hot breaths and body heat. And both of those told you he was fighting his own internal struggle.

You looped nimble fingers into his belt loops and jerked him forward. A finger knocked your chin upwards towards his mouth, open, lingering against yours for longer than a moment before crashing into it.

. . . . . ◟੭

It's not why he brought you home.

It's not why he brought you home.

And yet you were stumbling together farther into the apartment towards the bedroom. You had taken to unbuttoning his shirt and kissing him across his neck. He let you, pulled his shirt from where it was tucked into his pants before attempting the same with your shirt. But you were already on it, pulling it over your head, leaving you in only your pants. because you often forewent bras, and tonight was no exception. Alejandro instead pulled you by your waist and wrapped his hot mouth around one of your breasts. You practically fell back onto the bed, and better for it, because he was crawling over you, his facial hair scratching lightly whenever he stopped to kiss you.

You ran your hand through Alejandro's hair and it made him shiver. Looking into your eyes revealed that perhaps the intimacy of that action surprised even you. He moved his mouth up to yours, to your jaw, and you craned your neck one of his hands moved downward to undo your jeans.

But when he looked at you again, your face turned, you were looking into the mirror of a vanity, and your face had changed completely.

He said your name quietly, unmoving. Your body moved different when you looked away and sat up.

"I'm sorry," you said, clearly frustrated with yourself and even a bit confused in the way you looked anywhere but at him.

He wanted to put a comforting hand on you but abstained.

"Don't apologize. What happened?"

You pressed your mouth against your hand.

"It's not you," you muttered.

Alejandro only watched you.

"What do you need?" He asked.

Your free hand crept across the bed until it found one of his. He watched you try to smile.

"Too much to bother with."

"Do you want to go home?"

You shook your head. Alejandro pulled the sheet down and up.

"Come on," he beckoned. "We'll see what sleep cannot fix."

. . . . . ◟੭

"...every glove that laid him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame "I am leaving, I am leaving" But the fighter still remains..."

///

When V's phone rings, she certainly does not expect it to be Misty on the other end. It's a welcomed surprise, and V accepts the call as she refills Nibbles’ food bowl.

“Hey, Misty.”

“V, hey. How are you feeling?”

Nibbles meows in loud approval and digs into the food. Satisfied, V flings herself onto the couch.

“Had an episode the other night, but nothing I couldn't handle.”

“And Johnny?”

“He ain't around as much. Call me crazy, but…I almost miss the bastard.”

Misty chuckles. “Listen, I called because there's a package here for you. Doesn't say who it's from.”

V's gut plummets for all the terrifying possibilities. “Did you scan it?”

“Vik looked at it. No explosives or anything. Still, I've got it sitting across the room. Clearing the air with some incense. You should probably come by soon.”

There are lots of things that should happen.

“Yeah.”

“We'd really love to see you.”

//

They cleared Gary Barlow's body from the room before they let V go, and there was no gentleness for him after death. She watched with an exhausted, likely misplaced fury as he was pulled from his seat, flung over a shoulder, and hauled out of the room. Chester had been there, and he leaned down to meet her eyes.

“I don't think you got any place to be so indignant, do you, Miss Vox?”

Maybe she was too tired to think, maybe she just didn't care, but V wasn't going to stand for having to hear her name over and over again- let alone from these fuckers.

Which is why she headbutted Chester.

He drew back, cradling his gushing nose, cursing and crying. V did the same, wincing where her forehead split from Chester's chrome. 

She wasn't surprised when he swung the same massive fist on her that had brutalized Gary and it knocked her to the floor. Her hands were still bound behind the chair- she couldn't move. Couldn't fight back. 

He hit her again. Split her temple. Busted her lip. Probably broke her nose. V tried once to kick him, made hard contact with the center of his chest.

Then Chester drew his gun and bloody spit bubbled out of V's lips with a laugh.

“You fucking coward. Go ahead and shoot me.”

Chester, for all of his mettle, did pull back the slide, but the bullet didn't leave the gun before a voice broke the tension.

“Bennett.”

The gun shook. V shook, a stray tear mixing with her blood. He wasn't going to kill her, but goddamn he very well could have.

Kurt stepped through the door and Chester finally straightened, never abandoning that feral look in his eyes. Hansen grabbed V's chair by the side and pulled her up again, then cut through her ties.

“Bennett, take a walk.”

The man obeyed immediately, never sparing V another glance. V stood, or tried to. Her ears rang and the room tilted. She would've ended up on the ground again if a bruising grip didn't wrap around her bicep. On instinct, V tried to shake him off, but he wouldn't let her.

“Abandon your pride for a few minutes and realize you're in a bad way. Come on.”

Begrudgingly, V allowed Hansen to pull her through the door and down the steps, even if she stumbled and had to catch herself on his arm a couple times. If she did, she made a very passive attempt to dig her nails in.

On the main floor, Hansen turned them down the hall V hadn't explored the night of the party. It seemed largely comfort- office or residential. At the pressing of a button, one of the doors slid open. V's heart could've melted at the sight of Song, sitting at a makeshift workstation, bed and belongings behind her. This is where she lived. This is where they kept her.

Song’s head turned at the sound of the door, and when she saw V's face she was up in an instant.

“V! Christ, what the hell happened? Kurt?”

The pressure released from V's arm and she fell into Song’s shoulder. She tried not to get blood on her but there was only so much she could manage.

“She and Bennett had a disagreement. All clear now. Why don't you get her fixed up. I'll check in later.”

V missed the venomous look Song cast Hansen as he left the room. When the door closed, Song finally took V's face in her hands.

“Oh, my Vox…” Nimble fingers brushed hair, still slick with blood, from V's bruised eye. “Come on. Bathroom's this way.”

A slim arm around V's waist and So Mi was carefully guiding her across the room, past the small kitchenette and into a bathroom unit. V sat on the edge of the tub while Song prepared what she needed.

“Song…” 

“Yeah?”

V was so afraid to touch her face but did it anyway, feeling the gashes in her forehead, her temple, her lip. Felt where bruises were coming in and where they'd already formed. Didn't even bother with the nose.

“Don’t do that! Jesus.”

Song sat herself on the toilet lid, slim legs tucked between V's sturdy ones in the cramped space. She leaned in with the antiseptic first.

“Who started it?” She asked quietly, focusing on her work. If they hadn't already been intimate with each other, V would be flustered. Instead, she watched Song with adoration as they shared breaths, as her words tilted off of her tongue and her lips in the quiet.

“They beat a man to death in front of me,” V mumbled, then winced when the wet towel found her open wounds.

“Hold that there.”

V did as she was tasked, holding the rag to one gash while Song prepared a butterfly bandage. “What the hell did they do that for?”

“It's a-” Wince. “Long story. Point is, he's dead and I'm not. Yet.”

Song's eyes screamed doubt as she set another bandage.

“If something happens, you need to tell me. I need to know how much leeway I have around here. If they're watching you, they're watching me.”

“Well, prepare to have them up your ass. I fucked up, Song. I was supposed to clean house and I didn't. Told the guy to keep his head down but he got spooked and tried to delta. Didn't work so good for either of us.”

“V,” Song's hands found V's shoulders. “You can't do that, do you understand me? When we work for a man like Hansen, just like the FIA, we leave principles at the door. We take only what we need to survive, and right now, that's you and me. Got it?”

Song's fingers tightened and shook around V's shoulders, and V watched Song's eyes change from that doubt into a resolute demand. It was only the two of them. Everything else was just noise.

“I got it.”

V leaned forward, taking hold of Song's hand and leaning in to kiss her. Their lips met, Song's soft, V's bruised and chapped. It started simple enough, but V leaned into it, teased Song's mouth with her tongue. But, inevitably, Song pulled away.

“Let's get you patched up first, okay?”

V found it in herself to smile.

“Yes, Doctor.”

They left V alone for a few days to cool off. She took gigs from Bleeker and Ibarra, small things she could manage with a few harsh words and sneaking around corners. Of course, Dogtown never sleeps, and its master doesn't wait for long.

V and Song were on one of the balconies of the club floor, looking out over the admittedly breathtaking view of Dogtown at night. The spotlights painted long shadows across the half ruined city from the broken buildings, but stars were almost visible here. Light pollution was horrible in Night City. Once Barghest overtook this part of Pacifica and the first stretch of power went, some people saw stars for the first time. 

That was one of the few things V had to be grateful for with the Bakkers. The Badlands skies were peppered with twinkling lights.

V held Song around her waist, chin propped on her shoulder, breathing in the sweet scent of her shampoo and all the things that made her her. Lilac, fresh rain, divine machinery. She was divine. The only divinity V was inclined to rely on.

“V.”

V's eyes closed, a sigh of desperation and disappointment left her nose. Song's hair touched her cheek in a gesture of small comfort. Hansen, behind them, calling to her, drew closer.

“Come on. We need to catch up.”

But he didn't enter the balcony, she could tell by the proximity. For whatever reason, he didn't breach their reverie.

Song turned her head and kissed V on the corner of her mouth. V pulled away, every movement against Song reeking of tragedy. She turned to Hansen and walked to him, forcing herself to meet his eyes. Together they headed for the office stairs.

“What's the movement with the FIA?”

Like a trigger, Song's construct manifested beside V.

“Intercepting the Cassell twins in transit to get their physical profiles.”

Hansen nodded. “For my meeting with them.”

“Yep.”

“To what end?”

V side-glanced the wavering vision of Song, who shook her head. 

“Extracting the neural matrix, then zeroeing you.”

Hansen hummed. “And we're not gonna let that happen.”

“No, we're not.”

He looked down at V, clearly going over something in his head.

“Go with their plan. Come inside. We'll go from there. What is it, you and another?”

“Either Reed or Alex.”

“Then I'm not worried.”

“That makes one of us,” Song’s voice warbled, and then she disappeared.

“V,” Hansen stopped, so V stopped. “You try anything, or fuck this up, I'll kill her, I'll make you watch. It'll be slow, it'll be painful. Everyone will get a turn. Do you understand?”

Every part of V's body went cold- her spine first, then her fingertips down to her toes and every neural pathway lit with fear. She could see Song's suffering so clearly. And Hansen could see this icy blue reaction wash over her like a bucket of cold water. 

“Say that you understand.”

But something came over her and tumbled out of her mouth. “Haven’t we already done this? Don't you remember, when your dog almost killed me?”

Hansen went eerily still. V continued.

“I didn't kill Barlow and you finished the job. It won't happen again. I'm good at what I do. Otherwise you would keep asking me to do it. So, you tell me what you need, and I'll get it done.” One more comment itched at V's teeth. “You don't need the endless threats. We're both better than that.”

She waited. Didn't want to leave before she was dismissed. Hansen's eyes settled on her, on her neck, it seemed, (a dangerous place for them to be), before he broke the contact and looked out at Song on the balcony. She still faced away, but V and Hansen both knew she'd heard every word one way or another. 

“Go home. Don't come back until it's time.”

V nodded. Relief didn't come yet. It wouldn't until it was all said and done. And that seemed to be slipping through her fingers more and more each day, like the wind in Night City, wishing for something more and not realizing so much of it was already behind her.

Rain comes and goes in Night City, and of course on the night V was tasked with recon, it was coming down in sheets.

Reed was in her ear as she tracked the Cassell twins. This was the end of the road. She tried not to let her heart twist at the thought of her impending escape with Song. But V was hopeful, and she hadn't been able to feel hope in a long time. She'd finally be free like a true Nomad should.

“V? Did you hear me?”

Reed's voice crackled through. V shook her head and rain pattered from her jacket.

“Sorry. Thinking.”

“What's going on in your head?”

V grimaced. It was getting easier to talk to Reed and she knew that would make it even harder to betray him tonight.

“Nothing. Just thinking about…cycles. and breaking them?”

“You thinking that now?”

V chewed her lip and scanned the road.

“I don't know much about the Parisian scene, but…the Cassell twins. Something had to make them think they had it figured out, right? That they were bulletproof? Good enough to stroll into the Black Sapphire and get roaring drunk at the Roulette wheel. Anyway, look at where they're about to be. Just makes you wonder.”

“Well, there's always a bigger fish.”

“I don't feel like a bigger fish right now. I feel like a…”

She heard his smile. “Fisherman?”

“Goddamn poacher.”

“Metaphors evolve over time.”

There was a peaceful pause of nothing but the rain. 

“So what cycle are you breakin, hm?”

“The cycle of not making it?”

“Hm. What does making it look like for you?”

Korea with Song. Anywhere in the world with her. “Getting out of Night City. Even Nomads gotta have… something to belong to.”

A convoy passed down the road, but none of them the Cassells.

“Reed… what's your dream car?”

V wasn't sure why she asked. Reed even sounded surprised.

“My dream car?”

“Sure.”

“Hm… probably…heh, damn. A Thornton Merrimac. One with a nice paint job.” 

“A truck? Didn't peg ya.”

“Well, I'm full of surprises. What about you?”

“Already got mine. Arch Nazaré. Belonged to a friend. Always did like bikes better, even when I was still in the Badlands. Better movement, I don't know.”

“More freedom?”

V smiled. “You seem to have me all figured out.”

When V and Alex entered the antechamber, V was still thinking about the bodies of the Cassells on the ground of that garage, bloody, twin flames snuffed out so easily. 

V could sense herself getting weaker with every bullet.

The room was dark, with only small motes of light here and there to brighten necessary corners. Would be a shame for someone to trip and fall and break a window in Kurt Hansen's prized sport's center. 

Speaking of, the man himself stood facing a window that V couldn't quite see the view to yet. A man with a ridiculous haircut whispered something into Hansen's ear, Hansen nodded, and the man walked away, passing by V and not sparing her a glance as she quickscanned him. Jago Szabó. V had heard of him, maybe even seen him, but hadn't had the (mis)fortune of meeting him yet. And seeing as how she was disguised as Aurore Cassell, he didn't feel the need to stop and chat.

They had decided to keep everyone oblivious to the plan, even Murphy, and not even Hansen knew if V would be Aurore or Aymeric. Alex didn't know of the double cross, and no one but Song knew the truth.

Murphy walked V and Alex to the window. Finally, he turned around, looked at them, gave a polite smile.

“A pleasure to see you both.” 

He looked back through the window, and V could finally see what he saw: Song, toiling away at the Neural Matrix.

“Songbird needs a moment to disarm the device,” he turned again, hands behind his back, and headed for a round couch. “Which gives us a chance to chat.”

Alex gave V a near imperceptible nod, as if to say ‘here comes the test’. V felt her mouth run dry. She was being tested all over.

She and Alex sat on the couch, one on either side of Hansen, who withdrew a pistol from the back of his pants and placed it on the table. She wondered how much effort she needed to put in to indicating she was herself, and not Alex, and decided to speak first. She was the talkative twin, after all.

“Please, we are in no hurry. We have the most dreadful hangover.”

Kurt chuckled- a sound V didn't know he was capable of making. Maybe she had never seen him at ease before and that's all it took.

“Both of you?”

Shit. Aymeric didn't drink.

V waved her hand. “A bit of rhetoric. Aymeric doesn't drink, but when I do, both of us suffer.”

Hansen motioned with his hand, and a Barghest guard brought over a tray of drinks. As V noticed his gloves, she noticed the rest of the room. She must have grown too comfortable within the Black Sapphire- a terrifying thought- and didn't realize at first. The room was only guards. Dread dripped into V's stomach as she imagined a scenario where Alex tried to take them on her own while V was busy escaping with Song. 

“Well, we'll fix that right quick. Tell me, do you often conduct business hungover?”

“Pfft, always! When your body believes it is dying, it does everything to survive.” Then, as an afterthought, “It takes one with the familiarity of a close brush of death to know that, eh Colonel?”

Alex clasped her hands under her chin and stared at V, likely wondering why the hell she was straying from script. Hansen's eyes crinkled as he smiled at her, but there was something else there. Recognition? She could only hope so.

“You don't survive a war without rubbing shoulders with the reaper. Not if you're doing it right.”

“As you can see, Colonel Hansen, sometimes we lack a sort of discipline,” Alex gave a very pointed look at V that could not be misinterpreted. “But with unique flaws come unique strengths.”

“Like knowing how to play the field,” V added.

“I have no doubt.” Hansen reached for the square shot glass, his large fingers still handling it delicately. “I'd like to raise a toast. To a successful day of business.”

V grabbed a glass. Alex remained still. 

“To business, and every day, jumping higher and higher.”

At V's reference, Hansen's eyes alighted with recognition. She was locked in.

“I'm afraid I must abstain,” Alex said as they drank. 

V shrugged. “Your loss, little brother,” she said, and took Alex's shot. For a moment, she doubted drinking so much, especially clear liquor, which was typically not her friend.

“Changing the subject,” Hansen said. “Did you two enjoy yourselves at the Sapphire?”

“Ah, yes! We did, how you say, hit the jackpot!” V considered mentioning herself, then thought better of it, considering she had no idea how Hansen would respond in front of Alex.

“That's good to hear. Ah, the Black Sapphire. My pride n’ joy. I worked hard to make it the go-to destination for all of Night City's royalty.”

The shots buzzed in V’s head and she hummed.

“Oui, and provide plenty of shade for all those underneath.”

The room stilled. Hansen kept his smile but his eyes, those milky white eyes, hardened. He brought up an arm to sling across the back of the couch, dangerously close to V’s head. 

“Culling the herd is a military tactic.”

Still, again. Silent. Alex broke the tension.

“You should be proud. I understand it took you many years to build this place from rubble.”

Hansen took a moment to reminisce on the foundation of Dogtown, on his hatred for any establishment that wasn't his own, while Alex sent looks of warning at V. 

These went considered, but ignored.

“And, President Meyers?”

“She called just six months ago, in fact. Asked me to help with a mess she couldn't clean up herself. Bureaucracy, red tape and all that.”

“And, ah, she calls still?”

Hansen tilted his head in humor. “Not lately.”

Suddenly, particles and hexagonal pieces came together over Hansen's shoulder, and Song's construct materialized.

“Vox, stall. I need just a bit more time. And thank you.”

She disappeared. Something in her tone, in the thank you tightened V's heart, but she didn't dwell on it. Instead, she quickly, yet casually, picked up Hansen's pistol from the table. As soon as she did, every guard in the room readied themselves, even Alex leaned forward, and Hansen grabbed the elbow of V's arm that was propped on the back of the couch. 

“Hey-!”

“Arms trades can be such…tricky business,” V clicked her tongue. “But you don't mind the, how you said, red tape. You have no care for bureaucracy, do you?”

And, for whatever reason, with the arm that connected them, V took her chromed fingertips and brushed them lightly against Hansen's forearm. His nostrils widened, his grip tightened, enough to hurt, but V only smiled wider. 

She flattened her palm against his skin, which grew searing hot, and he finally released her. When he did, she returned his gun to the table.

“Of course,” she looked at Alex, who was almost, almost hiding a look of disgust. “Red is our signature color.”

There was a gap, a pause, and V's finger lingered maybe a breath too long, running down one of Hansen's veins. She was in over her head, but she caught him off guard, if not managed to make him the tiniest bit nervous, and that rebel streak that ran wild as a kid pumped through her now.

That, and there was something about the way he was looking at her…

A door hissed open and Hansen turned his head a bit too quickly. V followed his eyes to see Song walk in, and even she jerked her hand away from Kurt's arm. Again, a hair too fast. Too fast for subtlety, anyway.

“Ah, So Mi.”

Song's eyes flitted between them, and she nodded.

“We can begin. The mainframe is ready.”

“You remember the terms. One of you feeds in the access codes, the other stays with me.”

“I will stay,” offered Alex. But Kurt set his eyes on V.

“Why don't Ms. Cassell and I have a bit more time to chat? You seemed very interested earlier, after all.”

He smiled, and V understood. He wanted to separate her and Song.

“There is a problem with that, Colonel. Only I know the access codes. Better security if it's only one of us. I'm sure you understand.” Kurt eyed her warily, silently. “Unless there's something you're concerned with, Colonel?”

After a beat, he smiled again. “Of course not. So Mi, show Ms. Cassell to the mainframe.”

V, Alex, and Kurt all stood, with V following Song and Alex and Kurt going to the window. V spared Alex one last glance, likely the last she'd ever give her, before following Song into the mainframe chamber.

“While you were waiting, I ran some initial diagnostics. The mainframe is prepped and linked with our systems. She's ready to go.”

V opted for silence. Now that she wasn't acting as much, she was happy to simply exist in the same room as Song again. “You know, he created this lab especially for this occasion. Tens of millions of eddies invested for your visit alone. That's Kurt for you.”

Kurt…

Once they neared the mainframe, construct Song appeared again.

“I have a plan in place for once we secure the neural matrix. I'll hack the local net, override its defense systems, turn the whole stadium hostile. We'll slip out in the chaos.”

V thought back to the many times she'd scanned the stadium, even from the outside, and the sheer number of turrets was enough to turn her stomach.

“How many people will die?”

“They'll die so we can survive. Live. Together.”

The physical song kept pretense. “I managed to simulate the bunker's native environment- the bunker. It'll be ready for the access codes in a moment.

Sparks flew from the mainframe as Song worked to crack it open. V's eyes lifted to the viewing window. Kurt stood with his hands folded behind his back, and Alex looked down as casually as she could.

“Listen, V- all hell breaks loose in two minutes. When Hansen flatlines, we haul ass. I'll block access to this room. Alex and Reed are minimizing risk and exfilling early via the route.”

Finally, the mainframe opened, emitting a blue glow that V felt drawn to. 

“Here she is, in all her glory.”

“Oh, and don't worry about us. Got that sorted already. Checked stadium blueprints, know which way to run.”

“So, shall we?”

“Ready.”

V jacked in and the scanner lit across her optics. 

“Linked, is the connection clear?”

“Thousandth of the decimal. It'll have to do. Alright, activating the mainframe.”

V looked up again. No one's positions had changed.

“Song… what do you think will happen to Alex?”

“The same thing that'll happen to us if we don't get outta here. You've got this. We're almost done.”

The device tilted, and Song sighed. “Alright. It's ready for the access codes. On your input.”

V looked at Song, who shifted expectantly. There was no choice here. It was only ever them.

“I'm with you, So Mi.”

V connected her link. Put in the access codes. Once they activated, V checked the window again. Normal. When she looked back down, Song was bent over the mainframe.

“Song, you okay?”

“Running three things at once. Just keep your eyes on Kurt.” The construct glitches. “It's…a lot. Having to get past the Blackwall.”

V tried to hide her panic at the final word. “Shit, Song, you mean the whole stadium?”

“Cuttin off the lab now, clearing out a path for us.”

Song removed the tube from the mainframe and slipped it into her pocket. 

“Alright, give the signal to Alex-”

Another glitch, but this one seemed to go through Song herself. Suddenly, her construct evaporated, and any lights in the lab flashed red. There was a shaking, a loud crash, and ensuing sparks.

“Song? What the hell was that?”

“Nothing. It's fine-”

V was knocked to the floor. It must have been an explosion- that's what it felt and sounded like. Her optics rebooted, her facade as Aurore fell away. 

“Song, you okay? What happened?”

Song limped around the mainframe, clutching at her side. 

“Just the defenses and the Blackwall…a lot at once…”

There was a banging. Both turned to face the window where Kurt had Alex pressed against the glass, her disguise as Aymeric glitching in and out. Kurt held a gun to her head and made eye contact with V before pulling the trigger.

V stumbled back, a sound in her throat caught between a sorrow of losing another person and the guilt of having caused it. Regardless, Song managed to drag her towards the exit.

“Come on, V. We gotta delta.”

V felt absent for most of the escape, first picking up a stray Unity model from a Barghest corpse and using that for the firefight. Alex's death played over in her mind, the spray of her blood like a flash of a grenade she couldn't shake. How the hell was she supposed to explain that to Reed?

Christ, Reed.

It wasn't until they hit the garage that they felt they could catch their breath.

Song ran to a panel- or rather limped with haste and began accessing the rolling door. V took point.

“Song…”

“I'm going as fast as possible. Once we get through this door, we get to the tunnels, and-”

The door rumbled, began to roll, and suddenly V was on the ground, electricity lighting up her veins and boiling her blood. Sparks emitted from her chrome and she twitched on the ground, every minute movements causing more excruciating pain than any relic malfunction ever had.

Through half-lidded, glitching optics, V saw the door halt and Song hesitate.

“V!”

“Song, go!” 

Even talking felt like nails raking their way up her throat. Still, Song hesitated. V whimpered “I'll find you. Just go…”