#ferdinand oc

The stove clicked, blue flames flicking to life. Ferdinand flinched from where he was tied in the corner of his kitchen, but the girl didn’t pay him any mind. The fire hungrily licked the bottom of the frying pan settled over it, trying to claim it for themselves. He’d fried eggs in it just a couple hours prior.

His breath failed him. It was hard enough already, to inhale in air when his mouth was gagged—a painfully familiar sensation by now—and it was hard enough not to cry himself to oblivion when he couldn’t move his arms nor ankles. He felt ridiculous. The feeling was muffled by the fear.

She wasn’t fully turned away from him, but never even glanced in his direction. Couldn’t bother herself to, as if his presence was as relevant as that of the curtains just beside. Ferdinand ended up finding himself especially scared of this kid. She wasn’t her, no, didn’t have her sadistic streak, her sharp nails that dug into his arm, or her straight hair that she’d tuck behind her ear in public—a faux-innocent gesture—when he had to pretend that they were friends. Lovers. Didn’t have the sharp eyes reminding him to keep up the act, piercing him as knives.

They were different, hers. They were just as dark, but they didn’t have that fire. No. There was nothing behind them. She wasn’t scary like her, but there was still something. Something in her that made him pinned to the ground, a bug immobilized in amber. She was, again, in black. It was the only shade that wore her—most of the time—aside from that spark of blue, the bandana under her hair. There were too many scars on her bare arms, too much strength in that grip. Too little emotion everywhere else.

It was as if she was no kid. It was as if she was, instead—he felt his blood freeze when she finally turned to look at him—something else. A mechanical doll. Unlike her, a monster that could not be reasoned with, this didn’t even invite in any reason. You couldn’t argue with a machine. She acted in a way that was hardly human. More of an extension of something that was.

Espada, he remembered hearing her call her, once. He swallowed, grim. It was way too fitting.

As soon as her touch—cold. So cold—released the cloth from his mouth, he coughed. Wheezed a load of air, shoulders trembling. Ferdinand’s head was dizzy with the terror. There was not enough air in his lungs. He hated it when she was this close. It hurt. It always hurt. His voice was quick to jump out of him as soon as he worked his jaw, fueled by fear.

“Please, don’t.”

She held the gag between her hands. Tilted her head at him, not a sliver of emotion in her face—as if it was made out of mask and not of flesh—and for a moment, he thought that she wouldn’t reply.

“This wouldn’t happen,” she did, anyways, voice as hollow as the darkness staring down at him, “had you simply behaved.”

He pressed himself against the wall.

“Please.” Please. Pleading seemed to work on her even less than it did with the woman, but he couldn’t help it. Tears bit at his eyes. “Please,” his voice cracked. “I’ll comply. You don’t have to do this.”

A sob left him. Ferdinand had the sinking feeling in his gut that it was too late. He knew that he’d fucked up. There was only so much he could endure—and she didn’t make it any easier. Their past little “date” had taken it too far. Sarah had been there. She teased him, like they always did at work, about finally having found a pair, and he had had to gulp down the disgust in his mouth to give her a tight smile and a strained nod. It hadn’t been much earlier that the secretary had pulled him aside, a scared expression on her face that hadn’t ever been there before, telling him in between hushed tones about the note that she’d gotten mailed to her house. Asked him what was up. He felt himself go weak at the knees, tried to conceal it. A reminder. Made so much more terrifying by the fact that they also knew where his friend lived. In that moment, when the monster prodded at him again, getting him to finally lash out, it was that warning that had been quick to light up red in his head. He’d realized it in the same second, already too late.

He’d fucked up. And she wouldn’t let it go past without consequence.

“You were warned,” the kid snapped him out of his thoughts. He winced at the reminder. He was. Painfully, he conceded that it’d been more than once. He hated where this had gone. This was the worst month of his life. He tried to collaborate, he was no masochist, but they never seemed to be satisfied. He had a feeling that that woman enjoyed making things harder for him on purpose. This kid, at least—from the few times he’d had the displeasure of sharing a room with her—didn’t seem to be the same. There was something especially detached about the way she did things. It gave him the bizarre impression that this wasn’t too far from a teenager’s reluctant diligence about house chores.

Though—his eyes welled up—he wished she was reluctant about this some more.

Ferdinand winced, weakly struggled, when his ankles were freed from the makeshift binds  and she pulled him to his feet. She was way stronger than her frame led on. Way rougher, too. He felt his breath hitch as she grabbed his hand, without a word, and pulled him in the direction of the stove.

Oh.

He screamed.

Nothing had happened, not yet, but—no. No. No. Somebody had to be in the neighbourhood at this hour. Afternoon of a Sunday. They had to. Right? Please. No. Please. He couldn’t—a hiccup bubbled up to the surface. Why was this happening? Why? Why—

An aborted scream caught on his throat when the damage happened for real. His palm was pressed against the burning pan, and Ferdinand’s knees went weak. Blinding, sharp pain took over his mind, and when he came back, he only had half the sense to struggle and squirm away with all his might. She didn’t relent.

“Stop!” He cried. He could barely feel his chest rising and falling, and he tried to yank his hand out. Why was hers so strong? The moment’s shock quickly faded away towards mind-baffling heat, and he instinctively knew, deep in his heart, that if his palm didn’t retract, the damage would be too great. “Stop. Stop. Sto-” he choked on his own voice. He inhaled sharply. “Stop. Get off, get off, get off get off! Please!” Another cry left his lips. He couldn’t breathe. The pain was the only thing he could see. It was agony. He needed it off. He needed it off. More pleas. More begging. Deaf ears. Might’ve been as well shouting to a wall. He tried to pry her hand out of his wrist, but nothing gave. In a swift movement, she moved behind him and pinned his body frozen, unmoved. Ferdinand sobbed. Cried, when the smell of burnt skin reached his nostrils.

He fell to the floor, shaking. He was finally freed, but no pain ceased. He could feel his whole body spasm with the hiccups. He cradled his ruined hand—almost threw up when he saw its state. He was definitely hyperventilating now. He felt like he was going to throw up. An unbearable sensation flared up, shooting up his nervous system, and he bent over himself.

Rough fingers grabbed his chin. His body tried to jerk away, but the grip just locked his head tighter. Ferdinand looked up at her with tear-soaked eyes. A hiccup came out of his throat.

“Quiet down,” she whispered, pragmatic. “Or I’ll shut you up.”

He froze. He didn’t want to think of what that even meant.

Before he could process it, the kid had restrained him in her grip again—a pained yelp. His arm was bent behind with too much force—and dragged him towards another room of his house. It took a second too long for him to realize it was the bathroom. His hand throbbed when he was shoved to the ground, a lacerating, ugly kind of pain that left him too afraid to look. With a click, the door was locked. Ferdinand flinched, staring ahead in terror.

Espada’s eyes were fixed back at him. He had, few times in his life, wanted to run more than he wanted now.

In a split second, she was on him again, sparing him of having any choice in the matter. Ferdinand panicked. No matter how much he struggled and scratched at her, fought for her to get off, it didn’t work. He swore she could see his movements before he even did it himself. A sob. His hands were tied behind him with a yelp—was this a belt? Was it his? He couldn’t stop crying—and his head was shoved down. Her weight pinned his legs until they were tied as well, and he was thrown without ceremony inside the shower box.

Ferdinand panted, trying to catch his breath. He tensed, a ragged scream ripped out of him when his hand flared up at being shifted. A string of curses left his mouth. Half of them were for the pain. Half of them were for her. Himself. This whole situation. It died on his throat when he felt fingers burying into his chin again.

He whimpered.

The girl forced him to face her, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to. He then remembered the time the woman did the same thing, stabbed him in the leg when he didn’t obey. His breath hitched, tearing up at how his calf ached with the reminder. He still had a limp because of that. He didn’t want to think about what excuses he’d have to give the hospital this time.

He looked.

Her eyes were nothing like that woman’s. Nothing like his, either, wide in panic and afraid. They were neutral. Placid. Ruthless. In that moment, in a bitter hiccup that got caught inside him, Ferdinand thought that this kid—this thing—must be completely incapable of good. He doubted those hands had ever caused anything other than pain. It was a device of cruelty. Not a child. He was sure, then—that it might just be completely unable to ever cradle something softly.

He was quickly proven right.

Some shirt was quickly shoved over his face, and he panicked—thrashing fruitlessly against his restraints, trying to do something to impede his predictament—but she was quick to pin him down again. The fabric was tied behind his head and his heart jumped to his throat. For a terrible second, Ferdinand was sure that he’d die suffocated in his own bathroom, alone.

Then the hiss of the shower filled his ears. Water.

He frantically started struggling harder. Ferdinand yelped, a gargling sound, trying to move to get the thing out of his face, move away from the torrent—he was gonna drown. He was gonna drown. He had messed up, and now they were going to kill him. Cold, ice terror wrapped itself around his veins at the realization. He gagged. He sobbed. He couldn’t breathe, water invading every cavity on his face, and his gasps brought no air. Only water. Dense, infinite water, filling everywhere and making him choke and—

His head was yanked out from under the shower.

Ferdinand rolled on his belly, violently coughing. His chest heaved, water in his eyes. He didn’t know how much of it was tears. He’d just almost died. He’d almost died. They’d almost killed him. The shroud glued to his face. He wanted it off. Off. Off. His hand seized up when he forgot about the restraints. Fingers grasped onto his hair, brushing over the shaved edges and gripping tight on his scalp. The yelp became something else on the way out. He was crying.

Not a plea stopped her from holding him under a second time. Or a third.

--

Espa sat down on top of the toilet seat. Ferdinand was still restrained, gasping where they’d left him. He was shaking, water dripping down his hair. He’d quit trying to evade them. She hoped that meant he was worn down enough already. He was obviously scared. Just not enough. If he had been, they wouldn’t even be here in the first place. The weapon didn’t sigh. A grimace, remnants of a pained scream, took over its assignment’s features. It could see the way his fingers twitched behind his back, his red, swollen hand. The pain must be travelling up his arm and taking all of his focus. It hadn’t been Espa’s original plan, but that fancy oven had given them the idea. It seemed to have been effective. It had a feeling it would. She knew how much it hurt.

They were watching him with attention, so they caught the blabbering coming out of his mouth before he did it himself. When he caught them, though, Ferdinand made no effort to stifle his pleas. It could tell they’d only grown more intense. He was apologizing. Hoping for it to be over. It quietly freed a tired breath, getting up.

He made a valiant effort of jumping back the most he could while he had his wrists and ankles restrained. Espa crossed the distance between them in slow, deliberate steps. Crouched down beside him. He had frozen himself up. His chest waved up and down, in terror just as it was in pain.

It lightly held his burnt hand in its own. He flinched, but they maneuvered it carefully. The ragged wails coming out of him were derived more from her fingers brushing over a little too closely to the injured palm than from any harmful intent. It quickly analyzed it under the white lights of the bathroom. This illumination was a little bit too bright. Harsh and electrical. They were more used to this kind.

The evaluation didn’t take two minutes. The weapon concluded he’d be fine.

“You should take this as a lesson,” it advised, turning its voice to him. Ferdinand almost choked at the sound. Espa looked down at his hands again. The nails were bitten to the root. He didn’t have such a habit back when they were watching him, at the beginning of this mission. It bit its lip. How long ago had it been? A month? More than that. Spare weeks flew by, and it was already November. This operation took so long.

It breathed out, shaky. This mission was taking so long. They wanted to go home.

Ferdinand screamed again when she applied pressure onto the injury, cried when she sunk deeper and drew blood with a nail. His body was taken over by spasms—just like when Gisele had been shocked, that week, or how she had cried herself to sleep some days prior, or shaken with exhaustion before Espa carefully did the dishes for her so she could be done with the day earlier—and more pleas and apologies left his lips. The weapon pressed. For one, two, three seconds. It knew how this was supposed to be finished.

He was barely inside his own mind when they got up again.

A bit of blood had gotten into its hands. Espa just washed it by the sink.

They might as well.

Before they left, however, something caught their attention. It was already dark when they rose to the living room, moonlight thickly filtered through the minimalist windows in the area. Ferdinand didn’t seem to be much of a fan of natural light. The evening had fallen cool, so unlike the scorching heat of the afternoon. Espa was just shoving down the temptation of stopping to grab a glass of water, blocking out the thirst, when they saw it.

A speck of gold over the counter. For a second, it thought it was that fancy watch he was always wearing, but this was nothing it’d seen before. A bracelet, wide and dainty, placed just beside a little bag. Gift? They traced their hands over it.

It was warm. The sun must’ve hit this spot earlier when it was up.

Warm.

Just like...

Espa turned its head to look at the clock they’d seen on the fridge earlier. 19:38—seven in the night.

I won’t be sleeping early, either.

The weapon made sure to close the window before they climbed down the walls, leaving the brightly-lit house for the night-wrapped streets.

Ms. Ann was waiting at home. She didn’t have a set time to arrive, however, so that was not where she went towards.

The lights on the front yard were still lit up.

Espa caught sight of movement past the door just before someone came out. It tensed, bolting towards a corner before they saw it. Voices came from inside—happy, full of food and laced with easy laughter—and Ciça’s was between them. Espa tucked the stolen gift bag against its chest.

She sounded happy, too.

That—good. That was good.

--

Ciça’s cheeks hurt. She wouldn’t be able to handle another stupid joke—that was what she told Denise’s son, a charming young man with white teeth, a bright smile and terrible taste for small talk. The living room was filled with laughter and someone had bought in pastels from the next street for all when the food had run out. Almost run out. Ciça had, prior, stored just a bit of it.

A single plate, vatapá, caruru and a bit of chicken put away safely inside the fridge. And Ciça was feeling just a little bit sad about it. There was nothing she could do, though, so she allowed herself to forget about it and enjoy the remnants of the party. Half of the guests had gone home already, and the other half slowly but surely parted with tender hugs and soft goodbyes. The last people only stayed behind to help her get some order in the house, clean up the mess. Chatter came from the kitchen, more lively than ever, as they helped do her dishes, the day finally coming to an end.

The voices faded, one at a time, the walls emptier and emptier, until Ciça finally said goodbye to the last friend who had come to celebrate.

Silence fell, light, as soon as they turned the street corner in a motorbike, quietness replacing its roar. The chilly air of the night ran free outside, and Ciça hugged herself. The sky above was beautiful tonight. Stars twinkled at her from the distance when she looked at it.

Soft steps approached her from where she was, a foot into the sidewalk. Ciça turned her head down to face their source.

Her eyes widened.

Espa stood in front of her, a trail of blue swirling behind her hair in the breeze. The shock had her stall for a minute.

She’d come.

Ciça blinked, eyes burning a little. She’d come. She’d really, really—

“You’re here.”

Espa looked down for a split second, embarrassed. When she cast her gaze back, there was an earnest attempt at a smile in her face. It was rusty, awkward. It was the most beautiful thing Ciça had ever seen.

“Sorry for the hour,” she said. Her hands remained out of view, resting at the small of her back. “I’m sorry, I had to—”

“It’s okay,” Ciça was quick to say. “You’re here,” she repeated. She blinked again, lips widening. She couldn’t control it. “You’re here.”

Espa’s turn to blink. “I am.”

It took a moment of chattering, teary-laughter and nice warmth before she invited Espa inside. But the kid stopped at the flowers. Ciça turned, confused, before she saw her taking a small gift bag from her pants’ pocket.

“For you.”

It was placed into her hands softly. Ciça took it, eyes gleaming when she set them on its content.

“Oh.” Jewelry. The feeling that their roles had been reversed went through her in the moment, some weird deja-vú, and she laughed. Ciça held the bracelet close to her chest fondly. “Thank you. Thank you, Espa.”

She thought she caught her perking up a bit in pride. Ciça couldn’t help but keep smiling.

“Do you want to eat?” She asked, leading her towards the kitchen. Please, she was asking. I want to do something special with you, too.

“There’s still food?” She sounded surprised. Ciça grinned at her.

“I hoped I could at least share some whenever you came around,” she explained. “It turned out good. I didn’t want you to miss it.”

The kid stilled. Ciça saw as she coyly drew her gaze away. She felt soft.

The bracelet was beautiful, even in the dim light. Almost no lamps were on indoors at this hour. The night’s breeze entered by the backyard door in the kitchen, but Ciça didn’t feel cold at all. The simple treasure shimmered in her hands. It must’ve been expensive. Ciça had no idea how she’d even gotten this. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to not ask. A funny hypothesis created itself in her mind. Ciça dispensed it with a snicker.

“Thank you,” she repeated, as Espa took a spoonful of the microwaved rice and vatapá with wonder in her eyes. She looked up at her, then cast her gaze away again. Ciça was finding it that it was an attempt at concealing her eyes whenever she knew they were too easy to read.

Some of the meal was shared, but Ciça, truthfully, couldn’t stomach another spoonful. She jokingly told Espa she’d explode with all the food she’d gotten over the afternoon. That got her to curl up her lips.

The kitchen was soon filled with easy noise once again. Her cheeks hurt. She didn’t have it in her to stop.

--

“Don’t you need to go back?” Ciça asked it. She sounded a bit apprehensive.

The distance spread out above them in an endless veil. No darkness was as bright. It was breathtaking. Maybe it’d been a while since she’d last been allowed to just gaze and let herself be mesmerized by it. There was an open, free view of above from almost any corner of Ciça’s house, which was a rare sight for the weapon. A rare sight to have when she wasn’t out in the field.

The breeze was chilly then. In the frontyard. But Ciça’s presence was still warm somehow.

“It’s okay,” it dismissed her worries. “I can go later today.” They had no time limit to get back. This would probably earn it some lashes regardless, but— “Just today.”

Something in her gaze told them she didn’t believe them. Espa didn’t mind. They closed their eyes, just for a second, before feeling her standing behind them. Their hairs stood on end, and they turned at her before allowing themself to ever tense up.

Ciça sat down on the front steps by the doorway. The space between her and the porch was mostly empty, just a couple plastic chairs and bar tables piled together onto a corner. There weren’t usually as many. They must’ve been arranged for the birthday party.

Espa hesitated for a second and sat nearby her. They were used to the floor. And this was nice. It liked here. With a glance, it confirmed she seemed to like the bracelet. Espa smiled at itself at the image of Ferdinand trying to find it. Ciça deserved it more than whoever it was that he intended to gift it to.

A ringing sound cut through the night.

They flinched, heart leaping to their throat, before realizing it was just a phone call. Espa’s mind almost blanked from the scare, but they forced their lungs to squeeze out some air. No panicking now. Shit. There was something about this place that made them too at ease. It was way too easy to be caught off guard here. They bit their lip at it. Ciça perked up at the noise—in a calmer way than Espa had—and got up with an apology to grab her phone back inside.

When she came out again, it was glued to her ear as she talked to someone.

The weapon saw as her eyes lit up in surprise for the second time that night when the person on the other side of the line spoke.

“Guy?” It didn’t hear what was said on the other side next. A bright smile slit through her features. Espa tilted its head. “You—oh, no, no. It’s okay, I understand you were busy. Don’t you have to sleep, though? It’s late.” Silence. Her grin turned coy. “You’ve got a terrible memory. I don’t have a bedtime, young man. Besides, I’m with company!”

It felt its cheeks warm up. Something else was said on both ends, and Ciça sat back down, phone still in hand. She pressed on a button on the screen.

“I’m putting it on speaker,” she warned them. “It’s my nephew. I’ve told you about him before, right?”

A stretch of silence over the line. “Grand-nephew,” a voice corrected. It was a touch feminine, hoarse. They saw her roll her eyes. There was some humor to it. The boy’s tone was soft and inquisitive when he spoke next. “Who is it there?”

Ciça handed the phone to them. Espa awkwardly took it. They weren’t used to handling these.

“Hi,” she tried, speaking next to what she remembered a microphone should be. They weren’t sure what they should say, but weren’t going to expose their name. She’d already been reckless enough. Ciça seemed to realize that, leaning forward and speaking again. Espa didn’t tense at the proximity. It’s just Ciça, they tried to remind themself, forcefully breathing out. Their body didn’t seem to get the memo.

“She’s a friend of mine,” she informed, sing-song, saving it from having to come up with something. “You were worried I was alone, right?” Ciça’s expression was fond. Espa could make it out even in the dim light of the moon. “She had some affairs so she came by later. You aren’t the only one with questionable bedtimes, Gus.”

“I’m a grown adult, okay?” His tone was falsely offended. “But I’m glad, then. Sorry again, Ciça.” He sounded upset. “I—really. I wish I had had a moment’s peace earlier to call or... I don’t know. My wi-fi went out again and everything. Out of data this month,” he added, bitterly. “I hope you two have fun. Happy birthday, Ciça. I’ll come by any of these days, I just need to get a break from work. Love you.”

“I love you too,” Ciça answered. “Is your brother okay?”

The silence on the other end of the line, then, was abrupt. Tense. It heard someone gulping down. “I guess. Been avoiding him.” Ciça didn’t look very surprised. “You know how he is.”

A knowing laughter.

“Take care of yourself, okay? Don’t go to bed too late, Guy, I’m serious. I’ll be waiting for you to visit,” she rested her back against the wall. “Maybe you can meet her too?” That was half-directed at the weapon, who tensed a bit. Ciça went back to looking at her palms. The golden ring wrapped around her wrist like a glove. “Not sure if she’ll be free—but I think you might like each other. You need some friends your age, too.”

A snicker. “I don’t intend on stealing yours, Ciça.”

“No, really,” she leaned forward again. “It’d make me happy. We could meet up by Christmas?” Espa bit its lip. Caressed its arm. It wasn’t sure if it liked where this was going. It didn’t tell Ciça that it might not even be around here anymore.

“Christmas is busy, you know it,” he replied. “But I’ll see what I can do. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” Ciça answered. “Good night.”

“Good night.” A sigh. He sounded tired. “Bye to you there too. Meet you someday,” he aimed it at them.

Espa didn’t reply.

“Love you, Ciça,” he repeated. Something in his voice made its chest ache. “And happy birthday.”

Ciça looked a little sad. “Thank you.”

The call went dead.

Ciça sighed, putting her phone down.

“My bad. I apologize,” she said, at some point. Espa frowned.

“Sorry?”

“I don’t mean to pressure you. If you don’t want to meet up with him, you don’t need to. I know you get nervous. I’ll tell him you had other plans.”

Espa looked down.

“It’s okay,” they replied without thinking. It’d worry about it when the time came. For now, she could just enjoy the chilly night.

Ciça smiled from the corner of her eye.

The silence stretched, smooth and comfortable, as they both stared at the sky. Espa liked it.

A memory rose up, and they smiled to themself. Last time they had gotten to just gaze above like this, they were with a sibling. It was just as quiet, because they couldn’t afford to anger Ms. Ann and Mr. Juste in their small break outside as the handlers negotiated with some client indoors. They wondered when they’d get to see him again.

“Do you want to take a picture?” Ciça’s voice brought them back. They lowered their eyes from the blanket of stars and stared at her.

Her face was soft. She wasn’t that sad anymore.

The weapon looked down at their lap. That was good.

Something inside her protested at the idea. Espa ignored it and mumbled a yes. 

Right before they were set to leave—it was a little past midnight, they noticed with some subdued horror—, Ciça took them inside one last time, lamps flicked on to get a nice light. A selfie, she said. Espa wasn’t one for pictures. The last one they’d taken had been almost a year ago, to update the photo on their file. Nobody had records of its face beside the Dove.

The thought of Ciça having one was... interesting. It decided to not think much about it.

A click, and it had happened. She had been smiling, wide and bright, which was a little weird compared to Espa’s carefully neutral expression. It looked weird. Espa couldn’t really remember when they’d ever had a picture taken next to someone else. A picture so casual.

But they thought they didn’t mind it as Ciça saved it with a little heart and tucked it close to her chest.

They still felt warm when they clicked the door closed behind them in a darker room, spitting out words about Ferdinand having been way too defiant earlier or some other meaningless lie. It was believed, because Espada only ever said the truth, and soon the warmth mixed itself up to that of blood trailing down their skin.

<- Part 1 // Next

CWs: Major character death, multiple whumpees, hostage situation, conditioned whumpee, compliant whumpee (or so she calls it), guns, blood and violence, corrupt police, covert whump, PTSD, whumperee, referenced child abuse, fear, living weapon whumpee.

--

The sun was setting.

Twilight took over. It engulfed them like a mother’s embrace. Swooshing bursts of wind, as if it wanted to swallow every last ember of the scorching December heat and take it far, far away. It made her hair weave, fluid and sharp and violent. Like a swarm of crows surrounding the light skin. Its owner remained impassive, amongst it all.

Ciça stood, fists clenched, and faced her head-on.

The abandoned factory around them was an eerie sight. Tall, dark walls of what once might've supported glass-heating machines, vines and cockroaches climbing besides one another in open view. The ceiling above them was open, crumbled. Still allowed in for the last golden rays of the day to seep into the building. It had an aura to it. Eery. If she ever had to choose a place to bury a body, one where nobody would ever be able to remember it, withering away alone—this one would definitely be high on the list. She did not appreciate her brain for coming up with that.

The younger woman had her hands in her pockets. It was almost anti-climatic, she thought. Chills ran up her spine. Ciça tried to keep her eyes on her. The threat. They couldn’t help but stray to the crumpled, familiar figure at her feet.

When she'd first realized Denise wasn't moving, Ciça’s mouth had gone dry. The woman—she hadn't ever said her name—had opened a smile at her fear. Dismissedly told her her friend was alive. Waved a hand. Added, for now.

It was the only thing keeping her in place, in face of all her instincts screaming at her to run away.

Ciça was, truthfully, scared to her core. She didn't want to be here. She wasn't fully sure of why she was here. It was being an average, peaceful afternoon, and then, her phone had started ringing nonstop. It took three missed calls for her to finally reach it, check and see it was from a known number. For her to accept the connection and immediately feel her blood freeze.

Denise had been awake, then. Her limbs wrapped up by ropes, skin bloody and tears streaming to the floor as if a hostage in a heist movie. It was so surreal she had barely processed the image before the camera was flicked and she heard the voice; hers.

It took a little while to realize. When it landed, it was as if all the air had been expelled from her lungs by a punch.

“You know,” she brought Ciça’s attention back to the present. “Espada isn’t usually this troublesome. But this?” A snort. “Low. I’ll be having a little chat with her, I think, once we’re done here.”

Ciça’s blood went cold. Espa—da? “You’re with her.”

The woman laughed. It was an ugly, free sound. Ciça did not like it. “I’m with her,” she mocked. “What about you, huh?” She was still smiling. There was something threatening, feral, but almost performative about it. Not wild, not quite. Controlled; she was doing it on purpose. “You’ve been having some fun with her, I’ve heard.”

From who? she had the sense not to ask. Ciça clenched her fists, breath catching as she saw her friend stir up at her captor’s foot. This wasn’t good. What was she going to do? She needed to get the both of them alive from this. She found herself wishing she’d been more subtle, with Espa. She understood it now. Why she was so secretive, keen on being careful all the time.

This was the person she had had to live under it all this time?

Ciça made her throat work. “Is it money?” She tried, foolish. “If it is, then I-I don’t have much, but I can—”

“Don’t try to be cute with me now,” she cut her off, voice suddenly going gelid. Ciça flinched. “You know why you’re here.”

Her mouth felt a little scratchy. You know why. She wished she did. She was trying not to think about it. It was too much to comprehend. No; she didn’t want to. Not right now. “I’m sorry,” she tried, soft. “I w-will follow your demands, just please...”

“Nuh, huh.” The woman flicked a little lever on her gun on and off. Ciça didn’t know what it was for, and she was not excited to find out. “I want to hear you say it,” she hissed, a dangerous tune. It was spread by the breeze, making her voice sound like a spirit’s. A Grim Reaper. She couldn’t find it in her to say anything in reply.

There was a breathless laugh at her silence. Disbelieving. Ciça tensed up a bit. “Who exactly do you think you are? To go setting my wea-my protegée astray like that?”

She bit her tongue. Clenched her fists over the strap of the bag she wasn’t wearing—right. No phone. Demands. She hadn’t wanted to risk her friends’ life. “She was hungry,” Ciça found herself saying, against all reason. But there was no use in denying, was it? Some anger simmered into her words, damning: “I wouldn’t say you’re proteging her very well.”

A beat of silence. Her heart thumped in her ears, talking her out of making a mistake. A bead of sweat dropped from her brow.

“Because you know what’s best for her, of course,” she sighed, as if she’d had this conversation millions of times before.

Ciça bristled. “You hit her! You don’t—”

“Oh?” She cut her, some kind of unbothered, mocking edge to her words. “Oh, yeah, you definitely don’t know what you’re talking about.” The woman clicked her tongue, then said, more to herself, “What the fuck was she thinking?”

The way she talked about it, so casual, so matter-of-fact, made something burst inside her heart. Ciça didn’t like this woman. She did not like her one bit.

She wasn’t over yet, with her speech. “Espa has been slacking off, lately. Being careless. I thought it was nothing out of the usual, nothing a good beating wouldn’t fix, but no.” She glared at her. “It was a fucking local.” She spit out the word as if it was an insult. Ciça recoiled, arms raising protectively around her chest. This woman was much smaller than her, and yet— “Good thing it was one with enough sense to come.”

For a moment, she almost thought it was the cold current coming from the crumbled ceiling that was making her legs shake. Denise remained unconscious at her feet. Ciça’s throat burnt. When she finally made herself set her eyes back on Espa’s guardian, it was like the world went mute.

The metal barrel glistening under the last bits of stray, golden light cast from above shone in front of her. She was smirking.

Ciça wouldn’t have been able to run if she wanted, at that point.

--

Ferdinand was drinking coffee at home. It was only Thursday—not technically his break, but he'd been able to cash in a favour and get himself free for the day. His hands trembled the slightest bit as he raised the mug to his lips. He needed the crisp sweetness of the drink. More and more, lately. He had been mostly enjoying the moment of peace, trying to ignore his lately-jittery nerves and also the looming dread of coming in to work the next day and seeing her.

He wasn't sure. But he had a feeling she wouldn't be happy if word got out he'd skipped a day. A day he could potentially use to rat on his company by providing her with—he cut the thought short in a shaky sigh. Thinking of her made him nauseous.

He took another sip.

The following moment made all of his muscles lock up, breath hitching in painfully familiar fashion as he caught a glimpse of a lithe figure in the corner of his eye. The latte dropped from his hands, chair hitting the floor as his body took a step back before he could think about it. Not now. Not now, please, pl-please, he wasn't—

The clouds out the window moved, unraveling the shadow his eyes had been locked in. Ferdinand's chest heaved, far too scared for such a little thing. He felt frustration rising in his mind.

Two months ago, he would not have his heart jumping at his throat because of a trick of the light.

Ferdinand allowed his knees to buckle to the floor, defeated, with a groan. His heartrate was way too accelerated, breath short. And now, his drink and mug were also ruined. The housekeeper had just left. He'd have to clean the floor by himself. He closed his eyes, for a moment.

He hated it. How now, he just got this scared all of the time.

"Hm," she said, from behind, “that was clumsy.”

Ferdinand only did not scream then because her hands gagged him from behind, raising tears to his eyes. The panic was sharper, this time. He felt too much like crying.

No. No. He couldn't—he couldn’t do this. Not today. His heart beat way too fast, like one of a rodent just caught in a trap. He bawled against the hand gag.

"Calm down," she snapped, with way more emotion than he usually heard from that voice. He found he could not. At some point, he heard sobbing, and it took him way too long to realize it was coming from his own chest. He hiccuped into her palm, weakly fought against her body to struggle out of the grasp. Someone. Please. He begged in his mind, but he knew nobody was going to help him. He was gonna have to go through it again, he— "I'm not under orders. I have a question."

He only registered the words once he was finally freed, dropped forward to catch his breath in a desperate wheeze. His whole body was shivering now, haywire with the fear. He glued his blown-wide eyes at her. "W-what? I'm… I'm not—" His throat locked up, at her sight. The kid, painfully familiar figure, was the same as always, face a blank stone instead of a human expression, staring through his soul. It didn't help. He could feel himself getting dizzy. In that moment, he felt the overwhelming urge to run. Her gaze kept him pinned in place. "I-I… please."

A beat passed. "I am not under orders," she repeated, deliberate. Way too calm. He hated it that she was here. Why could she just invade his home like this? Why was he not safe anywhere, anymore? Why could he—not even a mug of coffee— "There is no reason to hurt you. I only need an answer."

"What?" He felt like a broken record. Like a broken something else, too. He couldn't think. Her eyes hardened, annoyance. He flinched with a full-body jerk. "Wait, no, no, no no no no I-I just—” He tried to draw a breath. Did it twice. His vision was blurred by tears. “What do you mean?" She didn’t ever move, just kept staring down at him with that unnatural, perfect posture.

No, not quite. His mind was playing tricks on him again, making him see her hands twitch. She never emoted like that. For a brief moment, it was as if a flash of an actual emotion crossed her features. His own fear mirrored itself before his eyes, inaccurate. It was back to the cold mask of indifference soon enough.

"Hurry,” she ordered, eyes piercing. Ferdinand felt his voice dying in his throat. “You have been living in this town for six-and-a-half years,” she stated, as though saying the sky were blue. Ferdinand was not proud of the little whimper that bubbled out of his chest, then. He did not like how she knew everything about him. She was too great a presence for him to escape. Them both. “Is there any secluded area around here one could murder another and not get caught in?”

He made another noise.

“I’ll not kill you,” she frowned, ever so slightly, which wasn’t all that reassuring. Ferdinand miserably shook his head. He did not want to be a part of whatever this was. He saw her expression harden.

Felt his body fight against her when a tight grip closed around his wrist.

The pleas rose as if they’d been always at the tip of his tongue, as soon as the touch registered on his brain. “No, no, no no nononono—n-no, p-please, I don’t—” he gagged on air. The words were shrill, squeaks to his own ears. “Please.”

It wasn’t a very compelling argument, he thought. He couldn’t get his brain working for long enough to come up with one. He thought he’d choke on the fear. Espada kept him captive, mind and body with a single glare. He weakly squirmed away. It was useless. He knew it was useless.

He just wanted it to stop.

“Allow me to rephrase,” she continued, and, heart skipping a beat, Ferdinand swore he’d heard a tinge of impatience in the words. That unhuman machine—if even it was getting angry, it could mean no good. It was bizarrely odd, though. As if the two notions didn’t quite match. Such personhood was alien on it. He bit his lip to avoid crying out. He had a very vivid image of being hit right now, if he did. “Were you to meet someone in secret, at a place no one would gossip, no one would know, no one would see,” she continued, voice back flat—which was somehow still just as terrifying—, “where would you go?”

He may have been a little more able to give an actual answer were his wrist not being actively pressed on. Ferdinand panted, teary. His whole body was shaking, panicked spasms as he tried to gasp for air. “I—it’s, huh, it-it, I mean...” The industrial block maybe, by East? He thought he’d suffocate. The only thoughts he could word were, “C-can’t you do s-something like tha—t at, I mean, at home?”

He regretted it as soon as he said it.

He flinched, but somehow, no pain came. Ferdinand’s hand dropped to the floor, its owner paralyzed. He thought he’d heard a weary groan. He did not pay it much attention in favour of backing up a little against the corner of the wall. He wished she’d just go away.

This is useless, he heard at some point. Took a while to figure it wasn’t aimed at him. When he risked her a glance, the kid was biting her lip, something akin to distress on her face.

Akin to panic.

She might’ve muttered something else to herself in her daze, but he wasn’t listening over the roaring in his ears. He felt small. It was a new feeling, in his life. One he did not appreciate very much. When he caught up to it, her hands were already clasping on his collar.

He hitched out another whimper.

It said, “You are not helping.”

“I don’t know!” He cried out. Truth be told, maybe he did. He wasn’t fully sure. It was hard to think amongst the fog of panic, and most of his brains were tunnel-visioned into not getting hurt. He might’ve been embarrassed otherwise about the panicked snot running down his nose, how his voice cracked like a scratched CD. “How am I supposed to know?! Please just—let me g-”

He heard it before he even felt it.

He cried harder when he did.

The kid was clearly frustrated, having dropped him to the ground as he cradled his burning, red cheek. He felt like hyperventilating. He couldn’t understand, really, why it hurt that much. Ferdinand had arguably had it worse by her hand. But his head was pounding, and it was disorientating, and his jaw hurt. His jaw hurt? The pain bloomed, the flesh too soft. His brain was vibrating. One single slap—how humiliating was that?—and the world was knocked sideways for him. Or perhaps upside down. He couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t think.

I’m not going to hurt you, her voice rang inside his skull, mocking. He whimpered miserably again. Tried to make himself smaller. It was more instinct than conscious thought, but the kid, ever-watching, shot him a look at that. She didn’t understand, he thought. She didn’t understand how it felt like, to be this helpless and miserable and powerless and hurting at the mercy of another—how much it hurt. If she knew, if she knew, she wouldn’t do this. She would not bestow it upon him. His throat kept making noises. His eyes had fallen shut at some point. Childish, like if she was out of sight, she was out of range. Couldn’t hurt him.

The sound that came from her, then, almost shattered the illusion. It was tired. If he was a little more insane, he might’ve even said it desperate.

But he wouldn’t know. When he got the courage to open his eyes again, ears filling with naught but silence, his living room was empty once again.

Empty, but for him, his slapped cheek, and the fallen latte mug spilling milk and coffee onto the floor.

--

“Isaac!”

He winced, card castle falling when his superior’s shout made him drop them. He sounded a tsk, hurrying to gather the ace of spades that’d almost fallen off the table. “What?” He snapped.

“You fumbled your records again!”

Isaac groaned. Sônia stood at the door, her officer badge shining under the station office’s customary lights. It was halfway through five in the afternoon, the clock in the wall said. She had no need to be so feisty. His shift was nearly ending, and plus, it was a slow Thursday. No petty thefts, nearly no denunciations, and even the landline had remained blissfully silent for the better part of the day. It was almost, he thought to himself, as if Sebastião da Graça had decided to take a break. As if it was waiting for something, in silence. Holding its breath.

It was just a boring day. So much, that when Heitor had come in late to his shift earlier, there had been so little for him to do that he had finished sending his reports from the previous day and gone out to aimlessly patrol the block. The others had made him take an umbrella; someone saw in the weather forecast they’d have rain, later. He wondered if he was going to bring some thugs in or shoot fines at people or what. Whatever, point was, she needed to calm that blonde head of hers about whatever numbering mistake he’d made this time and leave him alone. Jane took the break in his attention to pick a card she’d taken and throw it on the side of his face. His eye twitched. She had a shit-eating grin on her face.

“I’ll fix that later!” He idly shouted at Sônia, already turning his back to build his castle up again. He picked the two of cups his colleague had nearly plunged into his eye and tried to balance it against one of the jokers. “Besides, I did work hard all week! When that Dove lady came in, who was it who gave the info she needed, again?”

He heard her groaning from the doorway, but he wasn’t listening. Jane scrolled down her phone across the table as he concentrated on the little tower, trying to fit another card over his base. With a shriek, the whole structure fell over, again, and he was left grunting in frustration when the spades and cups fell all to the floor. Fucking rigged game. “You’re jinxing it!”

Jay was laughing at his face now, but Sônia seemed to want to burn through him with that mug. He shot another look at her over his shoulder, debated actually following her orders. “Look,” he continued, leaning back on his chair, “You gotta unwind sometimes, Sô. Nobody’s gonna get your ass if a report or two are filed late. Also, the higher-ups will understand.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Her requests took up like half our week. It’s hard finding all those files, y'know?" He went back to his increasingly-frustrating pile of cards. “Her weird demands got fulfilled already. I vote we get chill for a while. We deserve it! Don’t we?”

“Ditto,” Jane nodded, solemn, “I had to sleep at three because of that lady. No shade, but they’re a busy birdie to have in town, huh?”

He could almost feel the exasperated expression on her face when Sônia groaned again. The younger officers giggled at each other at that. She’d been the one trying hardest to welcome the Dove’s team since they arrived in town, preparing their paperwork and accepting any and all requests with a swift efficiency that edged on bootlicking. That time in November, last month, when they’d had to cash in a favour to dispatch an undesirable by their hand, he’d thought she’d have an aneurysm. It made him wonder, really, how long it'd be until they flew back to their base. It was useful getting in their good graces, sure, he wasn’t gonna disagree with that—but it was a little bit of a weight on the back.

He rolled back his shoulders, cracking his neck. He’d gotten all sore hunched over his desk while trying to sort out all that intel over the week. He really did deserve a break.

“I do wonder, though,” Jane commented, once out of their senior’s earshot, building a card tower of her own. He merely glared at the near-perfect structure, willing it to fall. The universe really wasn’t fair. “What girl’s gonna do with the stuff we got her? That was pretty random.” She settled an ace and a queen on top of the layer, silently whistling at her own feat.

He merely shrugged. Very pointedly did not watch her stack more and more cards on the castle. “Who knows. Kill someone? That’s what they do, right?”

Jane huffed a soft laugh. “You’re so vulgar.”

He would’ve made a remark about that one, but, in that moment, the phone on the desk rang. It was loud and shrill, a sound he’d long grown used to, but no less obnoxious. Jane groaned and allowed herself to faceplant on the table, his own audible frustration not late to follow. Across the doorway, he heard Sônia yelling at them to answer. Okay, he guessed he’d fucking jinxed it. With a weary sigh, Isaac picked up the line.

“We’ve got visits,” Euristo’s old, tired voice came from the device, talking from the reception. He sounded like he’d just been clipping his toenails or halfway through watching a football game. And been interrupted. “No authorization, but she’s in that notice we got in September. I forwarded her to Sônia. Unsure what she wants.”

It took him a while to realize what that notice was and why did it warrant just coming in to their—fairly secluded—department, but when he did, he only groaned louder. Speak of the devil, huh. His mind flashed to one of the debriefs the station had been sent from a certain organization. A document with two faces—one white, adult, hair black and loose, the other young, Black and a short head of fluffy curls crowning her face; a slightly threatening reminder to collaborate. It’d been shown to all of them months ago, as an early warning. He remembered it now. Yep. Definitely jinxed alright.

When Sônia dragged him to her own office, all the way to the back of the building, he just made himself tag along. He’d just been thinking about the importance of listening to their chirps. Jane, the lucky bastard, got to stay behind and poked his tongue at him. He would’ve flipped the bird at her if his senior didn’t pull him over the corner in the same breath. Isaac sighed. The lights were on when she opened the door with a glare that spelled you better behave, am I clear? which he pointedly ignored, in favor of scanning the office. There, back just beside the door, she was waiting.

He found himself noticing it that she was different, this time.

He quickly tried to blink out the impression. Mistake, maybe? There was the same empty expression on her face, just like what he recalled from last time. And yet—something was undoubtedly odd. Then, casual, calm. It seemed thoughtful, if anything.

Right now?

He couldn’t help but take a subtle step behind Sônia as she talked to the so-called weapon.

“—and what may we help you with...?” She was trying to ask, visibly half-torn between the ‘this is one of their assets, not an actual member’ end of the rudeness spectrum and the ‘she’s with the Dove’ end of the reverence spectrum. The kid barely reacted to the words. Unbothered. There was something dark about it.

When he caught her eye, he nearly flinched.

“My miss,” she started, an echo of what a real person might say. It was unlike what he remembered, too. This wasn’t soft, sweet. Polite. It was uncomfortable to listen to. “I believe she’s requested assistance from you. Should you have the information,” she continued, eyes boring into her interlocutor. He swore he’d heard Sônia repress a little frightened wince. “I need to know where she is.”

He could almost hear her frown, though he was arguably still a little hidden behind her. It was a little silly, given. He just couldn’t shake off the feeling. “W-what?” Isaac saw her blonde bun waving a little as she tilted her head. “Were you not informed of—”

“Her location,” the weapon cut her off, sharp.  For a second, he thought he saw it, now. A chill ran down his spine. Why they used them, to kill people. “Kindly.”

Sônia shrunk on herself a little. Which sucked, because he was still using her as cover. “Sorry, sorry,” she waved her hands, placating. The kid didn’t move, still watching. Waiting. He had the impression she was a little impatient. It also occurred to him he didn’t actually know her name, even though they were meeting for the second time. In their briefing files, the only one named had been the handler; something something Ana Santos... Burgundi? Or some other fancy last name like that. Not her. He’d found himself wondering if she even had a name, one of these days. The file only referred to her by a number. Isaac figured it might be a confidentiality issue, or something in that vein. He was still curious. If only a little disencouraged to ask it right now.

Sônia continued, definitely more keen on going full reverence now. He couldn’t help but internally agree. “There is, um, a glass factory on the outskirts of the town?” Her lips curled up, in that awkward smile she gave when she was deliberately trying not to be rude. It very rarely succeeded, but he’d give her the props that time. It was a lot of nerve. “I recall giving your handler the place. Abandoned been a good amount of years, secretive enough for her business?” Then she added, “Not that I know what it is. Of course. We value your confidentiality.”

“How far?”

A subtly concealed flinch. A polite, “Excuse me?”

He thought he saw the weapon drawing a very frustrated breath. Or not. “I need the address. It is urgent.”

Sônia hesitated, but gave her the information she wanted. The kid never took her eyes off her, which was a little relieving (for him, not her, probably), and Isaac just stood there, trying not to cross her stare. It was eerie.

More and more, he got sure. It definitely wasn’t like that the last time she’d come.

The kid was in a hurry. As soon as Sônia finished, she gave her a hollow thank you and moved to go out. Isaac was faster than Sônia’s hushed reprimands, that time. He found himself catching up to her and grabbing the weapon by the arm at the reception.

She went deadly still.

“Sorry,” he said, more to be polite than anything else. “I’m just curious. My, uh, friend and I were sort of making a bet—” he confided, wanting to get back on Jane. If there was any good time, it was now. He didn’t see her kind much often. It was intriguing, really. “—what’re you and your handler going to do there? Is it a trafficking operation?” He asked, half-joking. “Or some kind of assassination?”

She twitched.

“No,” she replied, just as unimpressed. Isaac found himself wanting to know what was it that went through her mind. Were all of them like this? He felt another chill when she turned her eyes back at him, black holes swallowing him whole. “Nothing of the sort.”

He dropped her arm. “Um. Cool. Sorry.”

There was no recognition to his apology as the kid left the police station, dark clothes merging into the dusk when she left. He stayed there for a second maybe, trying to blink away the feeling of unease. Then it clicked.

Oh. That was it. She was wearing this yellow cape, last time. Today, it wasn’t there.

That was what was sticking out to him.

--

They hadn’t bothered to put on shoes.

They hadn’t bothered to do anything but go straight to shoving the door open, much to Gisele’s surprise, giving her a half-assed apology for the hurry before storming off to Ferdinand’s—useless—then to the slightly more helpful police station. Espa’s light feet took them far, far away, away from the cozy streets they’d come to know so well, as the sky grew dimmer by the second. The factory was nowhere close to the residential, commercial areas—but they made it there mere minutes anyway. Even though they were, probably, nearly in Summer, a bite of muted cold met her skin. It might rain, later. The weapon absentmindedly filed away the information, biting its lip.

Please. Please don’t be late.

When they finally, finally found the right corner to turn in the endless building, catching sounds that were sign of life, it felt like every breath of air in the world had just been frozen.

They very nearly didn’t run themself to the floor, but it was close. Its eyes shot straight to a figure standing up in the corner. Already expecting to find it didn’t change the fact that it felt nauseating to see it. Something tightened in its chest. It was so painful it had to repress the urge to scream.

She was there.

Its handler seemed to notice its presence only a little bit after. Emotions flashed. Espa recoiled, instinctively held themself from taking a step back. First, disbelief. Second, an incandescent kind of rage. It could almost hear the tsk coming from there. She noticed it, then. Espa wasn’t the only one who saw Ms. Ann’s face change. Following the handler’s gaze, her body turned.

Ciça stared at them.

And for a moment, Espada found itself pinned by her eyes.

Feelings started sprouting on their chest, each being pushed away as soon as they popped up. It panted, taking her in. It felt like it had been forever. And yet—the lines on her face were familiar. Crow’s feet, laugh marks, soft wrinkles drawing her eyes. Soothing. The weapon, for all the panic was threatening to knock them over—stupid, stupid, stupid, why the fuck was she here? What had it missed? Why—felt a surge of relief at seeing her, after all. It registered the lack of blood, of bruises, releasing a breath it hadn’t realized it’d been holding. Unscathed.

That didn’t last long.

The hairs on the back of their neck stood on end, a familiar feeling, giving them a millisecond headstart before it happened. It was only intuition that made them sprint forward. Ciça didn’t even have the time to draw a breath in confusion or scream as the weapon tackled her to the ground, sending them both crashing under the loud bang that fired. It didn’t have time to be careful. She yelped, half in pain and half in fear when she saw it, but what its throat produced was only a hiss.

Blood, warm, trickled down their arm. They were going to need bandaging later. They distantly wondered if Gisele knew how to do that or if it was gonna be up to them, single-handed.

Her voice called. It flinched, head jerking up to look at its handler on instinct. Espa stood silently still, frozen, as Ms. Ann glared down at them.

They were suddenly very aware of the fact they weren’t supposed to be here.

“Espada.” It didn’t move a muscle. Ciça stood just as immobile below her. Mute. “Move,” she growled, gesturing with the gun. Her eyes were furious, but her voice was a soft, almost emotionless murmur. Their internal alarms fired off. “Out of the way. Now.”

The weapon felt their chest burning. The tightness that was piercing them before grew hotter at the order, as if trying to punish them for not obeying. It swallowed. Espa felt her arms wiggling under them, but it didn’t let her go. It was dangerous.

“Espa.”

It flinched against itself, tasting cotton. Espa’s eyes scanned the landscape, taking in the fallen hostage—Oh. Fuck—at her feet, the escape routes buried into the old, worn walls. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. They needed to fix this. Ciça’s body irradiated warmth under them, scared and in a position they should not have gotten her in. They needed to figure this out fast. “Ms. Ann, I—”

“Quiet.”

The weapon’s breath caught, eyes on her revolver. They were doing this wrong. “E-Espa?” Ciça gasped, squirming from under its weight. Her chest’s rising and falling had picked up, laboured from the belly-down position and maybe from the sight its blood dripping down on her. It bit its lip. “Is it—how are you—I-I, are you okay? It—”

“Oh, you shut it too,” Ms. Ann snapped, caressing the spot between her eyes. Ciça recoiled at the tone, and it felt a drop of sweat falling down its neck. This wasn’t good. “I would tell you to explain yourself, Espa, but I don’t have the damn time for you to pull more of that. I said move.” She glared down at them. “Don’t make me use the fucking collar.”

It very, very slowly made itself breath out. Okay.

Okay.

This was more than not good. Espa shifted slightly in their place, carefully getting out from over Ciça in a half kneel in front of her. Its eyes never left its handler. A glance behind it. They needed to sort this out. Get her safe, maybe. If they could just de-escalate— “I’m sorry. I—” They weren’t sure of what they meant to say, but it definitely wasn’t, “Please, don’t hurt her.”

A beat went in silence.

It tensed up, shielding her, almost expecting to hear another shot. Ms. Ann sure as hell seemed to want to fire it. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Miss, I—she, she didn’t mean to,” they scrambled to explain, trying to get her in the clear. They would take the punishment after this without a fuss, they thought, unwillingly sinking into crisis mode. Its breath evened out, muscles poised to move. Shut it, she told her body. It wouldn’t come to that. (It wasn’t supposed to come to this.) “She’s harmless.”

In a blink, the handler swirled the revolver in her fingers and aimed it down, shooting in the same breath. Espa didn’t react, but Ciça gasped behind her. It half sounded like a sob. She dutifully ignored the way it pierced her ears, sending a shock through her heart like shattered glass. The fallen captive remained unresponsive, body jerking a flinch as the bullet sank deep inside her skin. Still alive; she was playing. Giving warnings. Espa swallowed again. “Is that so?” Ms. Ann raised an eyebrow. “I won’t repeat myself, Espada. Come here. We will talk about this later.”

They didn’t manage to hide a wince, holding position with their good arm outstretched to bar Ciça from reaching out into the danger. The woman’s throat had started to make unpleasant sounds, salty drops falling over its skin.

She was crying.

“I’m sorry,” they pushed, knowing very well that they were breaking about seven different rules right now. “We can leave her. I won’t sneak out anymore,” she promised, shrinking, because there was no use in pretending. Ann knew everything. She always did. Why had they ever expected otherwise, again? They felt the ground withering down from under their feet, a sense of cold washing over them. The last two months seemed like a fool’s errand the longer the sun set into the horizon, leaving the promise of stars and pain in its tow. “It was a mistake. I will take the punishment.” Its voice didn’t shake. “I apologize.”

A teary set of eyes locked onto theirs, from the corner of their eye. Espa very vehemently did not look at them.

“Esp-pa?” Her voice sounded small, winded. It did not like the sound. It wasn’t the easy, gentle cadence they were used to. It held back a wince, eyes still glued onto the angry handler. She was going to go off. It knew this with absolute certainty, from the minuscule twitches in her body language, that she was running out of patience with it. The bullet wound pulsed in waves under its skin. Ciça’s words didn’t matter. It just needed to get her out. Out, and then they would fucking fix it and never see her again. Espa did not take note of how its throat started to lock up. Behind her, there was another poorly-constricted sob. Ciça cried, “I—I’m sorry.”

The weapon’s mind went blank. Uh?

“I’m-I’m so sorry, she—she-” she sounded like she was hyperventilating. Espa couldn’t help it. She looked behind. The tears washed down her face, red and messy. She was shaking. “I shouldn’t—I should’ve listened to you, shouldn’t I?” She huffed, a desperate laugh. “I didn’t k-know, I’m so sorry. You... she just... she just s-shot you, I should’ve helped more, earlier, I wish I could’ve—”

“It’s okay,” they found themself reassuring, mesmerized. There it was, again, the feeling in their chest they didn’t want to take note of, growing warmer—hotter—throbbing just beside their heart. Its voice was steady. Soft. It sounded as if from kilos away. “It’ll be okay.”

I’ll fix this.

Ciça barely had a moment to stare back, trying to blink away to see better through the water blurrying her vision, before a shadow loomed over them. Espa’s body reacted way too fast for them to stop it, hand shooting to grab the knife sheathed inside their pants.

Ms. Ann’s gun clashed against the metal. There was murderous intent behind the act. It almost slipped, nausea coming as it unfolded upon it. They shoved Ciça behind before she could even gasp, taking the blunt of the next hit.

It tasted bile.

She wasn’t supposed to fight a handler.

“I-I, miss, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m-I didn’t—please, she didn’t know I was breaking the rules—”

She didn’t pay them attention, pining them down and angling the revolver in Ciça’s direction. Espa’s veins filled with ice. No. No. Not yet. They grabbed her arm, a compulsion driving the move.

It took a furious, burning turning of her head for them to come back to their senses.

Ms. Ann dealt them a sharp hit to the back of the skull, making them gag, and hurried her hand out of their grip. Espa panted, fallen, watched as she made her way towards her. Ciça was trying to recover from being just shoved to a corner of the wall. She was still in visible shock. It reminded them of Gisele, a little. Too gentle. Not cut out for this. Unlike they were.

The burning behind their sternum throbbed stronger, in time with the agonizing bullet wound, spreading out through their every vein. It threatened to swallow their heart whole.

They felt dizzy.

Espa found itself throwing the knife just in time to make her take a step back. Their skull threatened to squeeze out their brains. You’re going to be in trouble for this. You’re going to be in so much trouble for this, its conscience nagged. The weapon flung just after its dagger, standing in front of Ciça again and facing the handler’s disbelief.

They weren’t a sharpshooter like some certain siblings—but they could still avoid drawing her blood. Ann’s instincts were way too honed to not recoil from such a threat, however. It’d thrown her off balance. Her flip-flops landed back to the floor in shock. She drew a breath through her nose. It made every single last muscle of its body tense in sequence when she sighed it out with just as much distaste.

It faintly noticed she hadn’t actually shocked it, even now—oh, okay probably a bluff—but that didn’t offer up as much relief as it could have.

“You should be refurbished for this, you know.”

It flinched. It couldn’t help it, again—its nerves were going haywire. Espa’s good fist clenched and loosened, eyes on the handler. It blocked away the pain, the panic. For later. She just needed to get her safe. Out of here? No, she’d go after her, she’d need to get out of the town—how would Ciça even evacuate? Could she? They couldn’t help. Could they? What about the mission? Its blood started clotting over its skin, itchy. More dripped down to turn scarlet the brown of their arm. Ciça was still whimpering. They couldn’t quite think.

“I will say this one last time.” It took a full step back, afraid. “You. Get. Back. Here. Now.”

A clammy, shaky hand settled over its shoulder. Espa’s head snapped to the left, catching sight of her. The grip was weak, but determined. It blinked. She held them closer. As if not wanting to let them go.

It was. Weird.

“We need to run,” Ciça whispered, eyes shifting way too fast between the handler and the hostage for comfort, bringing their body down. She sounded worried. Strangled. “I—I don’t, you can’t get close again,” she begged. “She’s going to hurt you.”

It almost felt the urge to laugh. Oh. Okay. That wasn’t good. Some faint feeling of hysteria started washing over them. They didn’t feel it very often.

The weapon gently untangled itself from Ciça’s hold and got up to its feet.

Ms. Ann followed it with her eyes. This was her last chance. Refurbishment, the words rung heavy on their ears. A fate worse than death—good weapons didn’t get refurbished. It felt a pang on its chest. Ciça’s breath hitched, still collapsed on the floor, as the weapon approached its handler.

It wondered, very very faintly, if it’d work if it got her unconscious, for a bit.

She didn’t have a chance to entertain the thought. Its handler was smart. She flung down on them with an elbow as soon as they got close, muscle memory telling them to stay still and take it, but they ducked it with an ease born from years of fighting. Ms. Ann couldn’t catch up. She was just that, after all.

A handler. Not a weapon.

She made a tsk, frustrated, but she was done talking. Espa felt their throat locking up again, sorrowful. They didn’t want to do this. Still, when she tried again for Ciça’s frozen up, terrified neck, it jumped in the way. Her fingers twitched over the trigger, grunting and trying to evade it for a better shot. It didn’t let her.

They were really going to regret this, later. There was a sinking feeling that it might be, really, the last time it got to even use its legs. Nearly all of their instincts screamed at them to move the fuck out of the way. Espa knew, logically, that it was the best course of action. A little indulgement wasn’t worth just flat-out ignoring its handler’s orders—defying, it cringed at realizing—, causing her trouble like this. The weapon avoided the fallen dagger, (it shouldn’t be wielded against her) trying to put its vital organs in the way to block her aim. Ms. Ann punched them in the chin with a free hand. Espa swayed, but was quick to recover balance. They didn’t dare attack back, anything more than a half-threat.

Nearly all of their instincts; they told them that this was just the price they had to pay for being such a shitty asset. If it included Ciça, then patience. It might finally teach it a fucking lesson.

Nearly all of their instincts. Nearly.

The last one, the one burning hotter and hotter inside their chest as they dodged and parried, bruising their arms in the meanwhile, it was loud. Espa ducked again, forced her to back up and called at her to move closer to the way out. This last one was urging them forward, to deflect and redirect and block every hit. It told them: Protect her.

You can’t let her go.

It was way too easy to listen to it.

A failed armlock that’d get it incapacitated missed by a hair as they fell on their hands, the brunt the motion taking away its bandana. Espa distantly felt for it, anticipating the coils of hair getting in the way of its face. The weapon rose up behind her, danger moving Ann’s body to take out the threat. They knew she would. It would happen before she could think hard about it, as with any seasoned handler. They knew her. She bawled its name, trying for a knee. Espa sprung out of the way. They felt sick. This was way, way too close to an actual fight. Who the fuck did they think they were?

Its feet landed from the air, assuming a stance more natural than breathing, once again blocking her aim. Ms. Ann wasn’t playing around. She fired twice beyond them, getting a missed hit to the concrete floor and another to graze on their shoulder. Blood, hot with the impact, gushed out to splatter their clothes. Ciça yelped behind her. She’d been calling its name, screaming at the handler (which was very unadvisable) and trying to convince her to back off, pleas and begging, but it’d been ignoring all of it. At least she hadn’t panicked and moved away from where it could protect her. Yet. It bit its lip.

It wished it could apologize. Try to talk her out of it—when had it ever worked?—but if it wasted a second drawing breath to do so, they were done. Espa couldn’t afford that.

It took them several minutes, that warped affair. Minutes, the twinkling stars disapproving witnesses of their defiance. Espa tore the skin of their lip so hard they could taste blood. Later, it told them. It would sulk later, it would regret this later. Just please. They just needed to get her out alive.

Ms. Ann grabbed its fallen knife from the floor at some point, throwing it in a clean, true lunge. Espa didn’t even think. It caught it between its fingers, barely restraining itself from using the opening to slice at her with it. This was way too much like a real spar, like actually fighting for their life.

For someone else’s.

But this was its handler. She had fallen into a misunderstanding, and it just needed to hold her out ‘till it could clear it. Espada didn’t want to hurt her. This wasn’t a fight, it told itself. It was just deflecting her attacks. Six bullets, they could tell from the type of the gun. She couldn’t waste them all. It would work. They avoided her best side—her left eye was sharper than the right—looming in the shadows and trying to control the dance. It felt weird. It felt as wrong as it sounded. They drew in a breath, taking in the taste of blood. They were good at pushing through it.

Ms. Ann kneed them again, too close to the grazed wound. It hissed, taken off balance for a moment. She didn’t waver, hitting them hard with the metal. Espa rose its head above the nausea, painfully dragged itself away and ducked. They ducked, and ducked, and ducked. Felt the sole of their feet stepping over their fallen bandana at some point. Forced themself to ignore it. The clouds moved above, grey. Heavy. Its stomach felt just as much.

They wanted to forget all of this and just go home.

It swiped under her legs, calculated lunges taking away the handler’s balance just enough to push her to the floor. She was quick to recover, rolling up without missing a beat. Espa didn’t hesitate at the gun just pointed at their head, either, going straight to pin her belly down to the floor. It didn’t have it in it to restrain her arms.

Which was a mistake.

Ms. Ann huffed a laugh, victorious, and the weapon’s nerves flared up before even noticing the reason. It scanned the factory hall again, looking for her. Fuck. She had to run, now, or else—

Its brain whirled. The spot she’d been in was empty.

Where was Ciça?

A soft groan, all it took to draw its attention, sounded somewhere to the right. Somebody waking up in pain. Then a hurried gait. Espa jumped to look, in horror, as Ciça approached her hostage friend, bleeding on the floor, instead of going for the way out.

Ms. Ann’s shaky aim was outstretched in her direction.

Oh.

Shit.

Espa was off before the gun, but they weren’t faster. Ciça wasn’t trained, she was even slower, and they tried to shove her out of the way—who cared if her friend was the one hit instead—but it was already too late. She screamed, a pain-filled wail that rattled them to the bone. They winced as they rose from having thrown themself from the floor, eyes wide locked onto her. It wasn’t long to spot the place of injury, the bleeding wound blooming pain over her as she writhed. The weapon cussed itself inside and out, for forgetting that this wasn’t a fucking game. It should’ve better watched its surroundings. This might not be a fight, per se, but—

It ripped out a stripe of fabric from its shirt and pressed it against her abdomen. It didn’t have time for proper first-aid. Ciça wheezed, blinking away tears and muttering some kind of stuttered apology, a confused plea—yes, yes, they would get Denise, whatever—but its eyes were already back on the handler. Ciça drew air to say something else, but another scream was torn off her throat instead.

It was the worst sound they’d ever heard.

Another shot fired off in warning, very nearly not catching them. It drew closer to her, a useless shield. Ms. Ann wiped at her forehead, crossing the distance in a steady stride. The weapon backed another step. Ciça whimpered. Weakly, after locking eyes with it, tried to follow.

She stopped a meter away from them. Espa didn’t like this. They wanted to apologize, to assure her they weren’t acting on treason, they just needed to fix this. Ms. Ann said nothing. Her weapon waited, protectively shielding its charge, cornered against the back. They’d made a mistake. Several. It should’ve fought better. It shouldn’t have fought at all. It should have left Ciça earlier, it should have never met her, it should’ve noticed this sooner, it should’ve been more careful—

Something hugged them from behind. Their breath hitched. “It will be okay,” she whispered, some kind of valiant effort at comforting... them? Its brain wasn’t working for Ciça’s oddities today. It could only stay still in her hold, arm outstretched and mind swirling. They needed a plan. They were always bad at plans. They felt their eyes burn. “We-We’ll be fine, it’s going to be fine,” she sobbed. “Thank you, Espa, I’m sorry, now I’ll try to—I’ll—” her voice catched. It couldn’t listen any more. Ms. Ann just stood there. Its nerves were outstretched with anticipation, mind registering the underlying message in Ciça’s words.

I’m scared.

It breathed out. They might be a little, too. They shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t have allowed for the situation to come to this in the first place.

There was one bullet left. If she hadn’t brought extras. Espa kept its eyes on the threat—it felt something icky on its tongue as thinking of her as the threat, however temporary—the pressure in the air indicating heavy weather, later into the night. The sky grew darker. Not even the stars were looking anymore. They wouldn’t know.

“Ciça,” they started. I’ll take care of it. “Don’t try to take her. I’ll make sure she’s safe,” it lied. Whispered, “I need you to run at my signal.”

I’m going to keep you safe.

She winced, squeezed them tighter for a moment. Espa had a brief flash of panic at recalling it hadn’t checked if she could run—this wasn’t a fellow weapon with the capacity to push through any wound—but she didn’t protest. She just seemed worried. Which, fair. The weapon breathed in, leaned a little closer.

It would be a close call.

They wished they were better when they leaped in her direction, yelling at Ciça to go. Didn’t look back to check if she had, ignoring the dread. Ms. Ann didn’t have infinite stamina. It threw its palms at her, trying to take her off balance. It ignored its own strain. Espa had had to fight for hours longer than this with worse injuries before. This was nothing.

This was supposed to be nothing.

It ignored the fire inside its ribcage, too, keeping her once more from taking a shot. They had a better strategy now. Espa turned off the regret, pushed it deep down to be felt later. They had a job to do. The weapon kicked, restraint slipping out of its movements, and aimed for her gun.

Ms. Ann didn’t expect it. Truth be told, they didn’t fully, either. From the corner of its eye, it could see that Ciça was halted midway through. It grit its teeth, tasting panic at the realization she was too weak to make it. They had the urge to throw themself at the handler’s foot and beg. It wouldn’t ever work. Then, she saw it; she had stopped on purpose.

It felt its eyes burn again, despair creeping in. They really, really hoped she wasn’t waiting for them.

The surprise element didn’t hold out for too long. Espa scrambled to get ahold of the weapon, out of its handlers’ grasp just long enough to take her out of the factory. It hated every second of this. Its body already ached in anticipation for the retaliation it was gonna get—and well fucking deserved, it thought. It wouldn’t be able to live with itself otherwise. Ms. Ann figured out its goal, infuriated. They were, for a second, very glad that she didn’t have the control of their collar with her right now.

Ciça started running.

Espa would’ve breathed out in relief if not for the fact that it was in the wrong direction. It grunted, trying to redirect its handler’s aim from her again. They couldn’t just keep doing this all night. What she was doing, actually, could barely be called running, just a pained, loud limping as she made her way to—Denise?—all over again. She lowered (gracelessly collapsed) herself to the floor and choked a pained whine. Espa winced at it. Jumped back to avoid a steel-hard blow to the shin. Ms. Ann had started cussing them out, but they weren’t listening. Ciça panted as she brought herself back up, with visible effort even from the corner of an eye before the image was blocked by a flash of fists, and took her friend with her. There were soothing words being spilled out of her lips. Its chest ached.

Why was she like that?

The weapon was thrown on their back, Ms. Ann managing to catch them with a hook. The barrel was pressed against their abdomen. She made sure to sink it so deep it hurt. It didn’t cry out. Braced itself for the red-hot pain that was sure to blow from the spot, sure that she was going to snap.

The handler met her eyes for a single second. Espa blinked.

They didn’t get to see it, really, when it happened. Their face had just been slapped to the side. That didn’t happen in fights; maybe it had been enough to draw them back to the reality of the situation. Its brain vibrated in its skull, ears ringing. Ms. Ann’s nails had scraped familiarly against its cheek. Its body forgot it wasn’t supposed to go limp after that one. Not this time.

The sixth shot fired.

Its blood ran cold, the fire in her veins fading out into mist.

The scream was from another voice, that time.

“Ciça!”

Ms. Ann winced, injuries and exertion taking a toll as she very nearly didn’t land on one knee. Espa shot itself upwards, ignoring the nausea. They couldn’t make sense out of their environment. There was a jerk. It was shooting in her direction before it could even realize it was doing it.

Denise half-collapsed over herself, panicking and only half-awake, as the one that’d been carrying her slumped from her own weight to the floor.

--

Oh.

It hurt.

Ciça was choking on it before she knew it. It was unbearable. For one moment, she forgot to run, she forgot to take her friend with her, she forgot her loathing for the woman who had put them all on this situation in the first place, she forgot about Espa—and for one moment, it was as if her world was reduced to a single, excruciating point of pain.

Someone—Nise?—held her from falling. She gasped, legs giving out. It had been loud. It had been so loud—and her chest was burning, blood hot and slick coming out from where it shouldn’t, indescribable agony where the bullet had carved way. She could almost feel it. Inside, hard, wrong. The only thing bigger than the pain, then, was the fear.

She couldn’t breathe.

It took a little while to hear her name being called, the way her ears rang. It was so loud. The floor rushed to meet her before she could do anything about it, Denise’s weak body being dragged down with hers. Someone rushed to their side.

The skin of whoever it was was warm. A little damp, maybe. So, so warm. Oh. Wait. Was she getting colder?

Ciça’s breath hitched, a small, painful thing. She cried out when it got worse, and hands held her. Small. Secure. Shaking.

“...Ciça?”

She coughed up blood.

It was alarming. The most alarming thing was that her brain didn’t seem to register the danger. Ciça felt the sticky, sickly taste between her teeth, clogging her tongue. Her airway. She couldn’t breathe. Tears spilled from her face. The floor was moving under her.

“...What?” Weak, slurred speech. Confused. “Is—she, hey, hey, I... no, no, wait... Ciça, she...”

“Shut up,” she snapped, winded. “I can’t carry the both of you.”

Denise shut up at that, and Ciça squirmed. The motion lit up her whole being on fire. Her throat bobbed, metallic plasma spilling from her mouth. It hurt. Breathing hurt. Being hurt.

She needed it to stop.

Espa stopped at something, something she couldn’t quite make out. She was too out of it to care. Ciça wheezed. The corners of her mind were going dark. Was it—was she passing out?

No.

It was her voice. There was more emotion in that single note than she’d ever heard coming from her mouth before. Wetness spilled down her face. It wasn’t blood.

When Ciça coughed again, her body was being maneuvered up. Fingers fussed over her chest. It hurt.

Something snapped. The realization dawned on her, terrifying.

Oh.

No.

It hurt. The hands held onto her, so tight they might’ve hurt. There were more shouts. Cries. Or was it silence? Ciça tried to grunt, get up with the support. It was way, way more tiring than it should. Her bones wouldn’t get up. She felt her energy reserves going out. Leaking. That shouldn't happen. She had enough awareness to know that this shouldn’t happen.

Her body gave out. Espa’s voice rang panicked, uncharacteristic, but she couldn’t answer.

It was scary.

Ciça didn’t want to go. She couldn’t move—she wanted to go back home. She wanted to get out of here and see her family again, and talk more with Denise, and cook together with Espa—

“Ciça! C-Ciça, no, no no no no no nono—”

She felt a chill. Freezing. Her grip didn’t let her loose. As Ciça’s mind started to go, she found herself wishing that she could’ve gotten to see them one last time. She wanted to cry. It hurt. It all hurt. She tried to gasp. She wasn’t sure if it worked, but her brain needed the oxygen. Her feelings started to ache. She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to go, alone. She hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye. She had plans. Guy was supposed to come over by Christmas, she remembered. She couldn’t leave him. She didn’t want to leave. If her body was still hers, she might’ve felt the urge to gag. She wanted to give him a gift. When had the last time been? With everybody. Her sister had sneered, but the little ones had said they’d show her something nice, next time. Ciça wanted to see it. Ciça didn’t want to go.

She might’ve sobbed again. She wouldn’t ever know.

Her family, Denise, she—where was she? She couldn’t spot her, couldn’t feel her near. It was lonely. She felt small. The arms held her closer, with a kind of gentleness that almost overridden the pain. It was overwhelming. Ciça couldn’t even curse her. The awful woman. Why? It wasn’t fair. She thought of the scars, the fear in her eyes, how she was like that. It wasn’t fair. She tried to reach out. Felt a hand, odd, closing around hers. She didn’t want to leave. It was darker. Everything was loud, but she couldn’t make it out. The kid held her, tight, even as everything faded away.

Something in her had the loose, light hope that she might wake up again. It was small.

Her heart tried to draw it out. Pumping with the same driven determination that’d followed her for the past sixty years, from before the moment she’d even taken her first breath. When it came her last, it was still fighting. A desperate cry roaring in her ears. Blood pooled over her butterfly shirt.

Then, it all went quiet.

Dark.

Espa cried her name once more.

A drop, salty and wet, fell over her face. Ciça never closed her eyes back.

Never saw the weapon’s face crumple. When the rain started dripping down from the sky to wash away the blood and take everything with it, she wasn’t there to feel it anymore, either.

———

"chapter 22 — a plea named goodbye".

Previous // Next arc

The sky’s hue rapidly turned dark. In not long, the stars would start to flicker into its realm. The very last rays of sun blessed Sebastião da Graça, shining through the remnants of day in all its small town glory. It was still not late enough for the glowing street lights to be turned on, making it so that shadows ever so bigger reached out over the entire town like a blanket. And floors above one of the busiest districts—bustling with life as its workers closed gates and doors to get ready to go home after another day’s work—a man started his car.

The white BMW looked almost silver in the faint light, but it was, noticeably, still the same. Though it wasn’t really... doing its job. The man was the only one in the parking lot—the upfloors one was private, and the few other employees who used it were either still working or home by now—, all alone, except for the secret company of the one watching him from the shadows. Hidden in a corner, shielded from the gaze of any security cameras.

The man’s name was Ferdinand. Espada remembered it this time.

It was the reason his car wasn’t starting, obviously. Over the day, she didn’t have to watch him—they had gathered enough intel over this past week already—and had had way more than enough time to dodge security and sabotage its system. It wasn’t Espa’s strong point, but it wasn’t really that hard to meddle with a little part of the vehicle and render it useless. For such strong machines, cars were hilariously reliant on tiny details.

The target seemed to get ever the more annoyed with it, growing in impatience, and took his phone out. Probably calling someone to come fix it as he tapped his foot, checking over the shiny golden watch on his wrist. Not long after, a few people, indeed, came in, and he yelled at them to take care of the car. Irritated, Ferdinand pulled out his phone again and came out of the parking lot.

Just as they’d expected him to.

Espa didn’t take long to reach him at the bottom floor, and was not surprised to find him in the entrance, past the automatic doors of the building, before the busy road and staring at his phone. Awfully vulnerable.

They approached him from behind. He did not even notice.

“Good evening.”

The target jumped at her voice, turning and dropping his device. It caught it with a foot before it could reach the ground.

“Here,” they offered it back to him. “You should be more careful.”

That seemed... to anger him. He grabbed it from its hands, running his eyes through Espa from top to bottom. There was distaste written on his gaze.

“And who the hell are you? I’m not buying anything, and don’t come at me with flyer bullshit, either. Get off.”

It didn’t have a chance to answer as the target pointedly turned his back at it in a clear signal to leave, looking back ahead to wait for his driver to arrive. Oh, well. That was to be expected.

In the following second, Espa heard his breath hitch. They adjusted their grip on the knife, tip pressed onto his back.

“Wha—”

“Follow,” it cut him off. The man didn’t move, and it pressed the blade harder, ripping the shallowest layer of skin. He did not seem to need any more convincing.

“W-who are yo—” They drove a finger to their lips, demanding silence. His voice went mute. She tilted her head in the direction of the little alley behind Shia Co’s building. His pupils shrunk to the size of dust specks, and he very much looked like he did not want to comply. Espa gave him the smallest push, hearing him whimper at the blade sunken deeper. Slowly, he finally moved.

Espa walked beside him, not releasing his back from the pressure of the dagger. A passerby might find the scene suspicious, so it was a thin thread to walk on, but they didn’t have much trouble with it. The target tried turning around and delaying their course a few times, but a cold glare and the sharp tip of the small blade piercing his skin was enough to get him back on track.

When they reached the alley, thankfully empty, she let him go. He scrambled on his feet, putting the widest distance he could between them.

“Who—what do you want? I-is it money? I don’t—this isn’t—”

“Please be calm,” it said. “We don’t want to draw too much attention.”

Ferdinand, again, did not seem very eager to comply, and his chest weaved. Espa slowly walked in his direction, and he tried to turn to escape. With a sigh, it drew a small gun from under its cape. He froze, taking a step back. They walked forward, backing him up against the wall.

Without a word, Espa shoved his head on the ground and got her weight over him, weapons secured to her vest. They muffled his sparkle of a scream in a second, moving their hands to his throat next. He squirmed, hoarse gasps coming out of his mouth as his airway was constricted, but to a person his size, he wasn’t actually very strong. It didn’t move, legs on each side of him pinning the assignment’s body to the ground, and, in a few minutes, he finally ceased to struggle. The weapon looked around, making sure nobody had seen it. The busy people hurrying home passed by the other side of the street without a bother. With a muffled grunt, Espa got its target over its shoulders.

The sun was almost gone now. They’d do well to hurry.

--

When Ferdinand awoke—a bit dazed and still groggy—opening his eyes, he was immediately aggressed with a harsh light to his face.

He whined and tried covering his face against it, only to find that he could not. He closed his eyes shut to shield them from the light instead, letting out a groan.

Oddly, the sound that came out was muffled.

He took a moment to process it before he tried, again, making a sound. Was this...? Was there something inside his mouth?

Through his eyelids, he saw it when the flashlight was turned off, and he opened and closed them again, unable to recover his vision.

“Took you long enough,” an annoyed voice said nearby him. Ferdinand tried narrowing his eyes open to catch sight of what was even happening. Spots danced in his vision and he tried blinking them away.

A brunette woman stood in front of him.

Who are you? He tried to ask, only growing in distress when remembered that he could not. Ferdinand screamed through the gag—because that was it, they had gagged him—but barely any sound came out. Someone stepped on his thighs. His breath got caught up on his throat.

“A noisy one, huh? She did tell me you were loud. Didn’t expect this much. But go ahead,” she said, leaning over his chair—a chair. He was sitting down. No he—he was... he was tied to it? Every detail that made it through Ferdinand’s dazed mind only added up to his newfound and slowly-growing terror. “You can even scream if you want. Nobody that cares is gonna hear you, anyway.”

The woman—her light skin was a sharp contrast to her coal-dark black hair, barely falling over her shoulders. Her expression was harsh, accentuated by the myriad of thin, light scars across her face, and it made a chill run down his spine—she had to be younger than him, in her thirties at most. Ferdinand’s eyes darted around, trying to access his situation as it dawned on him.

He had been kidnapped.

This was—no, this was unreal. This couldn’t be. These things didn’t actually happen to people. But yet here he was, tied to a chair by rough rope—so terrifyingly tight that he truly, actually couldn’t even move—in some basement, and his captor was a young woman with a glare so evil that in other circumstances he would have thought her a villain of some film.

No, but this—this was a dream. It could only be it. The stress of the week was catching up to him, and when he’d gotten home today the worries flooded into his brain and followed him to slumber. It could only be it.

Although the longest he stayed awake, growing more and more alert with adrenaline at every second, the harder it was to cling onto that.

Then all of a sudden, his world went red with pain. He screamed. The cloth between his teeth didn’t let it be heard.

“Eyes on me. I’m talking to you.”

Through tears, Ferdinand set his eyes back on the woman’s face. She didn’t shift her expression in the slightest, but from her arm, in her hands it was...

She had just stabbed him in the leg.

He cried out again, trying to get her off him. She didn’t budge. It was like he wasn’t struggling at all.

She twisted the knife, and for a second Ferdinand thought he’d black out from the pain.

When he came back to himself, he was panting, head hanging low and eyes opened wide. His thigh—where a kn-knife, an actual knife, and it was a big knife, was buried inside—was soaked in blood and pure agony radiated from it, making the world waver in front of him. The feeling of the viscous liquid travelling down his skin was as if something was crawling over his flesh. He thought he’d go sick.

This couldn’t be real.

This couldn’t be. W-where was he? Who was this woman? What had even happened? The memories of the few moments before he blacked out came back to him then, and he remembered—the lanky black kid who had approached him while he was waiting for an Uber and pressed a knife to his back, who had dragged him to an alley before pinning him to the ground. He moved his head around again.

“I said,” a hard slap was dealt across his face. Ferdinand’s mind stopped, the impact reverberating on his skull. His brain vibrated as if it had been shaken inside his head. “Eyes. On. Me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and looked away.

His ears picked up a sigh.

“Espada.”

Then, a terrible, searing pain shot from his back, burning hot, and it took another scream out of him. There was someone behind him. As soon as Ferdinand could move again, he tried moving his head behind to see who—

“Ah-ah,” the woman grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her face. He closed his eyes again. Oh, no. Oh, God, oh God, this was really happening and he was locked in some shady room, and he was gagged and tied up, and there was a knife on his leg and a goon behind him and—

The hard, flaming metal pressed against his spine again, and Ferdinand screamed for the fifth time that night. His eyes opened against his will, and he tried—god, he tried—frantically squirming away from the pain, but between the sharp nails digging into his face and the harsh ropes digging into his limbs there was no escape. He sobbed, waiting for whoever it was to retract the tool from his skin.

They didn’t.

Ferdinand’s shut eyes were overflowing with water, and the pain wouldn’t stop. He whined, he begged and pleaded through the cloth between his teeth, but it wouldn’t go away and it kept making his mind flash red. His skin was being torn apart.

He might have screamed again.

“Eyes on me,” she commanded again, her angry voice making it through his clouded conscience. He couldn’t think. He just opened his eyes, trying to plead without words, and was met with a smile forming on her face.

The burning finally stopped.

Ferdinand panted, blinking the tears away. From a distant corner of his mind, he registered the clang of metal hitting the floor. Her hand, still, did not leave his face, and he couldn’t turn it away from her.

A devilish grin spread through her lips. He flinched in terror. “See? Was not that hard.”

She dropped his face, and Ferdinand could swear his heart was going to rip right through his ribcage. Blood pulsed on his ears and he could—he was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to taste your own fear. He was gonna go sick.

When the woman reached out her hand at his face again, he flinched away—without success—and she lightly cupped his cheeks. With such lightness that it was almost like that same hand didn’t have a blade inserted on his leg moments prior. Fuck. Fuck! It hurt, he needed to get away from her, away from this place and—

“Now,” she cut off his thoughts with a calm voice. She spoke slowly. Pragmatically. As a teacher berating a boy for being too lousy in class. “I will remove your gag. And you will do your best not to scream, hm? It won’t make a difference, of course, but you can afford to be the slightest bit polite to your hosts,” there it was again, that terribly wide smile. “Can’t you?”

I will remove your gag.

Ferdinand did not want her nails anywhere near his face a second longer, but he did not want to be gagged, either. He braced himself for the touch of smooth and slender fingers on his face again, but they didn’t come—instead, a set of cold hands approached his head from behind, making him freeze up, and within a few seconds, there was nothing muffling his mouth anymore.

He was trembling. Oh, God, he was truly, actually trembling from fear. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what this woman wanted from him. His breath started coming short—he could breathe a bit better now, without the thing constricting his mouth, but it still didn’t feel enough—and he sucked in his lips inside to avoid making a sound. The woman seemed pleased. Against himself, his body had the audacity to slightly relax.

The woman, then, stayed quiet for an awfully long amount of time, idly watching him from her own chair like a spider watching the food try and squirm in its web. Ferdinand subtly sent glances around the room, trying to access his surroundings. His eyes every now and then darted back to her, who seemed lazily still, as if waiting for him to do something. Her seat had its back turned to him and her legs were spread on its sides, face resting against the wood. The room he was in was not dark—not like the shady basements from cop movies he’d seen—but brightly lit by an electrical lamp. He couldn’t see what was behind him, for every time he dared move his head too much, a painful grip would put it back in place—he couldn’t see whose it was, but he got the message well enough. He glanced up and down the farthest he dared, heart beating faster when he saw the brown stains on the floor, which looked a suspicious and terrifying lot like dried blood, and then he catched a glimpse of tools in the wall. Whips. And blades. And devices he’d never before seen.

He genuinely thought he would faint from the sight.

Another painful pulse of agony seared through his mind and brought his attention back to his bleeding leg—the woman had just left the weapon in there, not making any move to acknowledge it, and it hurt like hell. Ferdinand breathed sharply through his nose, teary, and weakly tried to wiggle his hands behind the chair he was tied to—only for the same firm grip to grab them with so much strength he thought it might crush his fingers.

“Ouch—sorry! I won’t do it again, please, let me go!”

The woman lifted an eyebrow in front of him. He half expected her to say something, but she stayed as quiet as she had been for the past ten minutes—or perhaps it had been hours—and all of a sudden Ferdinand couldn’t take it anymore.

“You—I beg you, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but if it’s money I swear you don’t have to do this, I’ll give it to you, please—” he choked on his own breath. After having found his words, he discovered he could not stop them from spilling out anymore. “We don’t need to do this, please don’t h-hurt me, I’ll—”

A pair of hands closed around his neck. Ferdinand’s voice died in his throat.

“Espada,” the woman berated. Whoever was behind him loosened the grip, and he could have sobbed in relief again—weren’t he paralyzed by fear.

“Well,” she sighed, stretching her arms over her head. “Since you have already gotten comfortable and put behind that awfully loud panicking of yours,” she got up. He did not dare move his eyes from her. “We should get started, shouldn’t we? Espa,” she called. Suddenly, the presence behind Ferdinand seemed to disappear, and when he tried looking behind—nothing restrained his head this time—there was nobody.

He snapped his eyes back to the woman, breath hitching when he saw her—now standing stiffly by her side—, the kid who had pulled him to that alley.

If the woman looked all too calm for having just kidnapped someone and locked them in her basement, the kid looked almost bored. She didn’t look satisfied, nor glared at him cruely—like a predator enjoying the view of its prey squirming into a trap, unlike her—but didn’t look upset either, nor distressed or sympathizing in the slightest. He didn’t know what terrified him the most. The fact that his captor didn’t seem at all fazed or bothered at the sight of him trembling in fear, or that she held no sign in her eyes of willingness to let him go.

The woman nodded to her, and the girl—because it was it, she was an actual, little girl, probably not many years older than his own nephews—started to speak.

“Ferdinand Garcia Porto,” she recited, in a monotone but clear voice. He froze up at his full name. “Forty-six years old. Chief Information Security Officer at Shia Cosmetics. Single. One older brother, living in the capital. Parents still alive. In this field for almost twenty years. Lives on street Augusto Campães, number ninety-eight. Preferred coffee order is the classic latte from the store a floor below your office, preferably with butter biscuits. Takes average of twelve minutes on the course from work to your house. Blood type is B positive. You always lock and turn off the air-conditioner in your office before going home, even though staff would do that for you. Owns a white BMW that you drive to most places, usually parked in the top floors of Shia Co. Prefers warm showers. Always picks a different watch to wear for work,” Ferdinand only got more horrified with every sentence she uttered. The details got ever more specific and—what scared him the most—precise. They even knew what hospital he had been born in and how he’d stay in his office instead of going down to the cafeteria for lunch. The man could feel the thin composure he’d managed to gather over the past few minutes in which his torturer let him be to slowly evaporate. “You root for the football team São Paulo, first and foremost. You have an air-fryer at home, despite always forgetting to use it instead of the microwaver. Your car,” she added, voice as even as when she had started. Ferdinand wasn’t gagged anymore, but he didn’t think he could find it in him to speak if he tried, “malfunctioned this afternoon. You do not have anyone at home waiting for you to arrive.”

“Thank you, Espa,” the woman finally spoke, petting the kid’s head. She still didn’t move. Ferdinand’s stomach turned. “Now,” she resumed, turning to him and seeming to relish in his terror, “you can see we’ve taken a bit of effort into knowing you better. I’m sure you are a little confused why that is, Ferd,” he flinched at the nickname and another smile sliced through her features. He didn’t like this. Oh, he didn’t like this by one bit. “So let me lay it out on the table, plain and straight: You have access to something that we want, and we need you to get it for us. Simple, right?”

From the way she said it, Ferdinand started to fear that we she was talking about wasn’t just her and the kid.

“W...” he tried, not finding his voice. More tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. Ferdinand swallowed down, throat feeling dry—and so did his lips. He felt as if he had not been given water for days—, and opened his mouth again. “I-I—I don’t understand.”

“Espada,” she called again, and he flinched. The kid—her name couldn’t actually be Espada—approached him again, and he froze up—still, ever so still—and within a second, pulled the knife out of his leg. He screamed, then squirmed, the pain ignited in full force at the harsh move, and was left panting again. He felt his voice going raw. The girl stared at him—her black eyes seemed to stare into his soul, reading his every thought, every fear—and Ferdinand shook in his spot.

He tearily looked up at the woman, then back down at the kid feeling a bit of bile rise up. His blood had splattered on her.

He did not want to find out what the woman would get her to do with that knife. No—he, he could comply. He-he could—

“Y—yes, I’ll—anything. I’ll do it! J-just please,,” his lips trembled, and he didn’t know what it was—if the fear, the pain or the utter helplessness of this whole situation—but he started to sob. “Please don’t hurt me.”

--

Ms. Ann kept interrogating the target, and Espa barely had to keep him on the right track from then on. She asked, he answered. He seemed terrified.

The weapon just kept still in its place beside its handler and kept an eye on the assignment.

“Espada,” its ears caught in a sudden. They looked up at Ms. Ann. There was a displeased expression on her face and the weapon held itself from tensing up. “The poker.”

Espa did not think twice and turned back to grab a metal poker stick from the drawer near the whipstand. It could feel Ferdinand’s eyes on her as she did so, picking out a different one than the tool she’d discarded to the floor earlier, sharpening this one once, just in case. They turned the little heater on—there was always one on these basements—and warmed up the metal until it shone red.

“Miss,” they held it out to her. The assignment’s breathing turned more frantic behind their back. Espa ignored it.

“N-no, you don’t need to, you don’t need to! I just—like, I can’t do that, they’ll catch me and—”

With a hand gesture, Ms. Ann dismissed the poker Espa offered and pointed her to the man. The weapon looked at him and swiftly moved behind the chair, moving the collar of his shirt away—the man flinched so hard he might have moved out of the way weren’t if for the fact of being restrained—and traced the hot side of the stick to his shoulder.

The wail he let out carried so much agony Espa had to strain to hold back. God—it narrowed its eyes—couldn’t he be a little less whiny?

“Let’s try this again,” the handler said, still sitting by a chair turned backwards in front of him, as soon as the weapon removed the hot weight from the man’s body. He was full-on sobbing now. Espada just tuned it out. “I ask, you answer, remember? Unless you really like the knife and the stick?”

Ferdinand sucked in a breath.

“No! No, no, no, no—no n-no I don’t—please!”

Ms. Ann raised an eyebrow. She was mildly bored—she was used to difficult ones—but put on her face an expression of dangerous annoyance. It put the man at edge. The weapon could almost smell his fear.

Not long after, he was back to spilling out whatever Ms. Ann asked of him—passwords and codes and details on Shia Cosmetics’ cybersecurity structure, the handler noting all of them down—but he took a bit to cave on some questions. They had cut through his skin in more than one place by now, but Ferdinand would not stop going on and on about how his boss would kill him and how that would get him fired and so and so. Ms. Ann simply kept pressing. There were various tools by the floor now. The handler didn’t mind that it didn’t pick them up.

She wasn’t the slightest bit angry—unfazed, really, Espa noticed from behind the man—when she furrowed her brow and stared at him at another question gone unanswered.

“Hm,” she hummed. Ms. Ann snapped her head at Espa. The weapon didn’t move. “How was his family, again?”

Espa accessed the information it had memorized over the past week. They had gone over these way more times than they needed to in order to remember. “Two alive parents, living in town. Matias Machado Porto and Ana Rosa da Silva Garcia. Both descended from Argentinians. One older brother, professor of gymnastics at the Federal University of Ipabara in Anaconda. He has two young sons. Marco Garcia Porto. Gabriel. Ian,” it recited. Ferdinand seemed to grow ever more horrified with each of the names of his brother and nephews. He went still for the first time that night “Marco’s spouse is—”

“Don’t!” He yelled. There were more tears in his eyes. Espa allowed itself to be interrupted. “Don’t, please, please, you wouldn’t—you wouldn’t touch them.” He pleaded to Ms. Ann.

You wouldn’t touch them.

Well—Espa had done all the work of memorizing their addresses and their jobs’—even the boys’ school’s—so that wasn’t really that unlikely.

Ms. Ann shrugged. “That will depend solely on you. Your neck,” she said, mimicking the motion of a blade cutting through hers, “isn’t the only one in line, Ferd.”

The man went pale.

“No—you, you wouldn’t—” He interrupted himself, staring at his lap. Oh. So he hadn’t realized that yet. It silently looked up at Ms. Ann for permission to speak up.

“You have seen Miss,” it explained. “If you are not going to be useful, there’s no need in keeping you alive.”

Ferdinand slowly—almost comically so, if it weren’t for the utmost horror dawning at his eyes—, slowly turned his head back to look at Espada. They carefully kept any expression off their face. That was just facts. It hadn’t lied, and Ms. Ann hadn’t corrected it, so it was true. Leaving off a target that had seen their faces just walking free was risky, especially if he wouldn’t be worth the effort by providing them with anything useful. That was pretty obvious, actually. For someone working in technology and “information security”, he was really dense.

The man’s lips trembled as he looked back forward, defeated, before starting to shake with yet more sobs. Espa’s hand didn’t waver behind him. The poker stick had started to cool off, so they had heated it again, holding it near the man, far enough that it wouldn’t burn him on accident with all his wiggling around.

He didn’t put up much of a resistance after that.

With the ordeal done—Ms. Ann seemed satisfied enough with the information of one session—Espa was ordered to go upstairs to fetch her briefcase. The weapon had just come up from the stairs and opened the door to the laundry room—with a slight sigh of relief at leaving the basement—when they bumped up with her.

--

Gi was a little bit on the edge today.

A bit after seven, Espada had come in through the backdoor carrying an unconscious man, and not sparing a look at her, reported to the handler. The girl did nothing but watch in horror as they both, without a glimpse of ceremony, dragged his limp body through the laundry room and went downstairs.

Downstairs.

To the basement.

She had sucked in a breath, dread sinking into her stomach. She didn’t like this. But she didn’t have a say in anything, so she just got out of the way and waited until they were both out of sight. Nobody had even laid a hand on her, but Gi still trembled. She didn’t—this wasn’t—

She had tried to forget about it and just focus on her chores. Chores. That. You just have to do your chores. That’s how you survive here. 

Washing the floor cloths by hand—and the clothes so particular that couldn’t be put on the washing machine lest get themselves completely ruined and earn her a beating—Gi tried her damn best not to think about the man being kept downstairs. He looked well-groomed, a bit rich. A terrifying, dangerous thought crossed over her mind but she repressed it with all her might. She had no idea what they wanted him for. He didn’t seem injured from a glance, but definitely unconscious. Had Espa drugged him to bring him here? Knocked him out with force? She couldn’t help but tense up at the image of the girl doing such things. But she knew she could. If Ann ordered, Espada would cease to be just a bored young kid and become a ruthless executioner in a blink.

Oh, god. Gisele covered her mouth with a hand.

She really, really hoped that they wouldn’t kill him. She didn’t know this man, she had never seen him at all—but she didn’t think she could stomach it if they did.

After a few hours—Gi had started shooting nervous glances at the locked door. What were they doing in there? The basement was apparently soundproof, so anything (anything) could be happening and she wouldn’t know—, she had successfully done most of the laundry, when she heard a lock click open and a very, very light set of steps come up from behind her.

Gi turned, eyes meeting Espada’s.

Her breath got caught up in her throat.

The kid was wearing a vest—a thing with a high neck that was suspiciously just the right height to cover the collar hugging her throat—and gloomy-looking pants, her hair loose with the blue bandana over her forehead like always. Her face, nothing in particular. Never anything in particular. Which only served to make Gi more horrified, because in her hands—and splattered on her clothes—was a gruesome amount of foul, red blood.

Espa caught her staring in the same second, and Gisele flinched. They just stood there, holding each other’s gaze for what felt like a very long amount of time, before the weapon broke the silence.

“Hello,” she said. It was so... tone-deaf it could have baffled Gisele if she wasn’t already trying not to collapse over her own legs.

“Is that his blood?” She spurted out, before thinking her words through.

For a second, she thought that Espada would tell her off for asking, but—

“Yes.”

She didn’t hesitate for a single moment in responding. There was no shift in her expression whatsoever.

Gisele just stood there, and Espa went straight through her towards the hall—she didn’t even try to process why—barely hearing the kid mutter a low thank you for your work before storming off out of her vision.

Gi leaned her hand against a wall, covering her mouth.

A bit of the blood had dripped on the floor.

--

Ms. Ann took the briefcase—Espa had become a bit worried about the servant, whom she bumped over while fetching it, but quickly shoved it out of her mind. There was a task at hand—and clicked it open with the key she carried in a string around her neck as Espa wiped out some of the fresh blood that had smeared from Ferdinand’s leg on them. There were a few jars in it, empty concoctions, needles, small pots. She took out one and analyzed it under the hard, white light of the basement. It had a blue tape around it and contained a transparent liquid. Satisfied with her pick, she opened it. The cap had a dropper attached.

“So, Ferd,” she spoke up all of a sudden, making the middle-aged man in the middle of the room flinch. Espa stayed in their spot, hands behind their back, silently watching him close. Ms. Ann looked at it and gestured for the weapon to get near. Espa wasn’t sure why, but they did. “We’ve had a nice little chat, haven't we? But now I think it’s time to get you home.” She picked a few drops of the substance, counting them. “How about we ride you back?”

“...W-what are you going to do?” His voice was hoarse and shaky from the time he’d spent screaming or weeping. The assignment looked absolutely drained.

“Do you know what is gamma-hydroxybutyric acid? Although, you might also know it as GHB,” she asked, not bothering with his question. Whatever color he still had in his cheeks drained from his face.

“N-no, y—you—please,” he started to plead, energy that wasn’t there before coming through his words. Ferdinand weakly strained against his restraints. Espa didn’t waste a second in sprinting towards him and immobilizing whatever movement he had by bending his neck a bit too much and making him halt from pain.

“Espada.”

It held back a flinch.

“Yes, Miss.”

A glare. Espa’s heart skipped a beat. It hurried back to its designated spot as Ms. Ann kept counting the drops into the picker. Its blood pumped a bit too fast and they almost, almost tensed up. Breathe in, it told itself. Just breathe. You didn’t mess up. It was just a warning. Just be good and don’t disobey again.

“Give him this,” she idly handed them the picker. “All of it. Make him swallow,” she glared at him from the corner of her eye. It was enough to pin Ferdinand frozen in his chair.

Espa merely took it into her hands and slowly walked towards the assignment. Whatever was this drug, it didn’t have any smell. Espa faintly recalled hearing some other handlers use this GHB before, but it wasn’t any knowledge they needed to have. Within a minute, it had the assignment locked in place as it shoved all of the oily liquid down his throat, grabbing his skin a bit too tight whenever he struggled.

Ms. Ann smiled at both of them. Ferdinand shook with a violent chill, already seeming dizzy.  Espada didn’t allow the one that went through her to make it to the surface.

In less than half an hour, Ferdinand Garcia Porto was off to dreamyland.

In less than two, he was back home, dropped by his living room’s floor, bloody pants long disposed of.

--

Francisca watered her plants. It hadn’t rained in the last few days, so she, unfortunately, couldn’t count on God to do it for her today. It was a rather warm Friday afternoon. She couldn’t leave her hydrangea to die in this heat.

She was just emptying the plastic bowl she used to pour water and taking a moment to relish in the lovely scent of the flower, when the woman catched sight of a visitor through the metal porch.

Ciça smiled and waved at her, mildly surprised.

“Oh, hello, Espa!” The kid looked a bit stiff at being noticed—though she usually did, to be fair—but coily raised her hand back at Ciça in a way of greeting. It was a bit unusual for her to come by this hour. It was usually much later, the woman had come to learn over the past week, when her parents were sleeping or by late afternoon. “How are you doing?”

“Good afternoon, Ciça,” she said, in that soft voice. She wasn’t wearing her cape today. Ciça supposed it was too hot to. (Although she did remember the kid just wearing it in any darn weather.) Instead, Espa had a green shirt and some trousers. It was a bit weird of a color in her, the woman having grown used to only seeing her in yellow and black. Always black.

Ciça went up to the only other flower in the frontyard—a blooming daisy. It was a new addition to her garden that she was quite happy with—and took the spare key from under its pot.

“So,” she smiled, unlocking the gate. Espa entered, quiet as always. “What do you want to do today? I’m a bit busy and had planned to watch the new episode of Love Cataracts today, but obviously, you’re welcome to hang around,” she said. “Oh! And I’ve also bought a cake! Do you like chocolate?”

They stared at her. “...Chocolate?”

Ciça offered her a smile and Espa seemed to light up a bit. Now that she thought about it... She was looking the slightest bit tense—uh, that is, more than normal—, but the kid always seemed to get excited about food. Well, excited might be a bit of a hyperbole, in her case. “Yes. There’s a bakery across the town that I didn’t really visit before but a friend convinced me to try it and their cakes are delicious. Would you like some, honey?”

The kid stayed still at that, seeming to process her words. Ciça waited. She never knew what was going on in Espa’s mind. Though she could catch the slightest glimpse—a slight switch in her face that seemed to be the closest she ever got to tears—before it was gone, replaced by the same soft mask of indifference. Although this time, she seemed to be trying to give her a smile. Oh. It made Ciça a little proud of herself.

“...Yes. If it is okay,” the kid said, avoiding her gaze. “Thank you, Ciça.”

The woman sighed, a bit content. She found it sorta comforting when she managed to get a nice thing for her.

“Of course,” a grin spread through her face. “Kids gotta have sweets, after all,” she recited, pulling Espa inside. There was a bit of a weird smell in her—faint and carrying a hint of copper—but Ciça didn’t linger on it much.

She had more important things to focus on.

Like the new episode in the opera—Anastasia was to finally defeat the Executioner and get rid of her family’s cursed heirloom sword and she was quite excited—or the two new additions to her home:

The blooming daisy in the frontward; and this closed, timid and oddly kid.

Previous // Next