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TIMING: current SETTING: An alley in Nightfall Grave PARTIES:, @technowarden WARNINGS: suicidal ideation, gun use mention SUMMARY: Owen might be finished with his hunt, but Eve is not finished with hers. Unfortunately for both of them, that means she needs some information from him.

“Are you regretting not pulling out your weapon?” “No,” Eve smiled, “Why, do you want to compare knife sizes?”

She had given him as much time as she could afford. This was, in part, because Eve’s survival instincts were still functional (debatably). The last time they had met, Eve had aimed a gun at the crumbling mess of his heart, and he had dared her to take the shot. Eve would have, if not for Wyatt, and she still didn’t know how she felt about that.

It wasn’t the last she’d seen or heard from him. Eve had held her word, and had been keeping an eye on his comings and goings. She had watched Rosel’s little GPS come to him, rather than him go to her, and wondered if he’d watched her approach too, through the link she’d sent him on his phone. It has been easy enough to establish a phantom call to his phone. Rosel had never once screamed, or yelled, or even tried to fight back. Like even her death had bored her. The rest of it… the bones cracking, the wet sound of pulverised flesh, the raw, animalistic scream…. Yeah, Eve has no question in her mind that Rosel was dead.

Even if she hadn’t heard it, the police calls about an arson had been plenty. Eve had watched Owen’s dot walk away from his apartment even as it burned, the only indication that anyone had survived that encounter at all. She’d been surprised. Not by the violence, but that he hadn’t stayed in the fire.

The way he had looked at her over her barrel rifle haunted her.

So, yeah, Eve was definitely in her space giving era (even if the fire had been a total pain in the ass to deal with). But there were things she needed to do, leaks that could easily escape this rampage. For all the evidence Eve had missed over the past months, she didn’t believe that Owen had hidden everything perfectly. Hunters knew so much that their deaths could set loose a cascade of information.

Not that Owen was particularly predictable these days. There were no more bars, no obvious convenience store near his home where he grabbed the easiest meal, because he had no home to go back to. What he was, at least, was hunting. She wasn’t quite foolish enough to ambush him at whatever apartment he broke into each night (not like Rosel had), but following him to one of his hunts had been frightfully easy. She’d even picked up some take away from a cheap burger joint on the way. Eve leant her hip against the wall, watching Owen work, idly grazing on a fry as she did. If either of them noticed her, they would have far bigger problems right now. Eventually, it came to an end. Eve waited, dispassionately, for a few seconds, before breaking the silence.

“Hey handsome. What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” she asked with a lazy smile. Like she hadn’t just watched him slaughter someone, like there wasn’t blood all over him. She held out the box she’d been grazing from. “Fry?”

—–

There was still work to do. Owen had promised himself and, when he’d had more fight in him back at the beginning, had also promised Rosel that anyone she had him protecting would wind up dead. Like her. They were spared the absolute brutality she had earned herself, which didn’t mean Owen was necessarily making their deaths quick but… well, just about as long and torturous as he himself could keep up with. The stitches still pulled, his palms and knuckles weren’t being provided with the necessary time to heal properly and his head was irreparably screwed on wrong. There was no fixing that last part and really, there was no rest until this was over.

Owen was panting by the time it was over, one breath too deep drawing a wince from him, hand pushing at the stitched up wound desperately trying to heal. At least no innards were trying to pop out so things were still fine. A strangely cheery voice accompanied his harsh breaths and Owen didn’t flinch, even if discomfort filled up his chest, like the hole was momentarily being stuffed with cotton. It itched and made him long to pull and tear.

“Probably a bad thing I didn’t notice you, huh?” he asked, not turning around, not yet. Everything was still raw and exposed from that night, not just his flesh. Steeling his expression was taking much longer than usual. Owen crouched for his stake, the only one currently in his possession since the rest had made for excellent firewood. Tucking it into the blood spattered jacket, now sporting a few days of dark spots, he finally turned to face Eve. His mouth and nose were filled with ash, stomach turning at the offered fry. “Diet,” he answered, wiping at his face with his sleeve, as if that did any good.

Owen kept the distance between them, searching her eyes for any recognition of their last meeting. Trying to see anything at all behind her smile. They’d always been equally talented at this - now, Eve had surpassed him. Even if he’d managed a dry smile, there was no hiding his haggard looks, the way his facial features made sunken cheekbones painstakingly obvious in just a few days. “Scene’s all yours. Got somewhere I need to be.”

—–

“Probably not a great sign, but hey! All I was doing was enjoying the view. No harm, no foul,” Eve shrugged. It wasn’t a great sign at all - sneaking around wasn’t something in her repertoire these days, her footsteps were no quieter than a human’s. It was one thing to be completely focused on the hunt, to not let a distraction kill you, but it was another to lose sense of the outside world. While Eve did love to watch a well-executed hunt, this was not one of them. She’d rather have turned away. Denying reality wasn’t an option for hunters either. To look away was to flinch, and with Owen she could not afford that either.

Her smile didn’t waver as he turned towards her, but her eyes did scan over his form, over the bloody marks on his clothes, the days old dirt (ash?) accumulating in his nail beds. The stains embedded into the grooves of his skin. He looked like shit. Eve tilted her head. He looked exactly how she’d expected him to. Decaying on the inside, just like his hunts. She closed the box in concealed disappointment, dropping it back into the takeaway bag nonchalantly, letting it squash the two burger buns she’d kept tucked away, and pulled out a water bottle to offer him instead. “If you say so. Your loss, they’re actually pretty great.”

With the food peace offering out of play, she tried to find another one, grasping for any memory of their short times around each other that might help melt him enough for this conversation to happen. Eve wanted it over as much as he did, and didn’t want to sit with the disgust in her stomach. He’d teased her plenty about her own harriedness. “Well, I wouldn’t want to mess up your schedule,” Eve replied, echoing something he’d said to her a dozen times. “Reckon you can spare me five whole minutes of your time?”

——

Their usual dynamic of light joking and barely concealed flirting while surrounded by death had worked. As a way to diffuse the tension, an easy out for both hunters to avoid broaching anything close to vulnerability, not to mention that it had come easy. Probably because Eve had figured out the best way to diffuse him within minutes of their first meeting - Owen had often wondered how many of the loyal patrons of her cleaning service she’d regularly fallen into bed with. Definitely would have messed with her efficiency. Her casual tone now, the attempt at any sort of light, was quickly swallowed up by the swirling darkness surrounding Owen.

If Eve was the kind of person to feel awkward in any sort of situation, maybe this might have done the trick. Owen wished she was, maybe then she would leave.

“Good thing you left the gun in the car, huh?” It hadn’t been long enough to make a joke appropriate. The readiness in which he’d been willing to accept that bullet would probably never be something he could throw into a joke without that sharp, bitter edge to his tone. The fucking vulnerability of it all.

Eyeing the water, Owen weighed his options. Stepping towards her, giving Eve a closer look at the appearance of a man with no shields left, accepting a gesture that only looked like kindness (he was waiting for her to reveal the real reason for her presence). But being able to rinse his mouth out did sound amazing. Way to enjoy the little things in life, huh? Reaching the middle ground, Owen resolved to accept the water without closing the distance between them, offering his hands to catch it. Jagged, pink scars of his palms on display.

Half of the bottle vanished quickly down his throat to slosh around in his empty stomach, rest spilled over his hands in some halfhearted attempt to wash off the grime. Never looking away from Eve, not wanting her to accidentally drop the facade when he couldn’t see. Owen wasn’t sure he could bear any expression of emotion from her other than this fake casualness or complete neutrality. “Think you can make do with two?” he bit back, even if he had nowhere to go, not in any sort of hurry at least. Could she tell? Owen wasn’t under the disillusion that Eve didn’t have all the facts. She must have known Rosel was gone, and was probably aware that he’d dabbled in a bit of arson. Probably knew more about him than any other hunter in town. Because no other hunter posed the possibility of a threat to their kind, still. “Might make it three if you tell me how long you plan on keeping up the fucking creepy stalking.”

—–

If he was trying to make her uncomfortable, he was succeeding. Eve could not let him see her flinch. She just smiled a little wider. If he was making jokes, so could she. “I left the rifle in the car. Didn’t think a gun would be much use against Mr Recently Departed back there. Guess I was lucky you were here to deal with him.” Not that the handgun in her back pocket had the same kind of stopping power as a rifle, but she was hoping not to need to use it. She was dependent on not needing to use it. He hadn’t killed her when she was wiping Nasir’s blood off of him, he wouldn’t kill her now. (Probably)

She flicked the bottle to him easily, crossing her arms in front of her as he rinsed out his mouth and his hands. He kept watching her, too. How different this was from Emilio, who could rarely meet her eyes for long. Emilio didn’t want to see her apathy to death, Owen could not stand to see anything but. When he dropped the crushed up shell of the first one, she offered him another.

“Right to the chase it is. Bestie, I would love nothing more than to take you off my to-do list, you’re really harshing my condiment cryptid vibes. It’ll be soon, I’m sure.” As soon as he wasn’t the textbook definition of Emotionally Compromised Hunter. As soon as he didn’t feel like he was on the knife edge of killing her. And… realistically, the moment that everything else on her plate overwhelmed her. He was the plate she was most willing to drop. Still, after all the murder and lies and cruelty, there was something there. Eve hated that as much as she hated Rosel.

She shifted her weight slightly, so she wasn’t entirely leaning against the wall. Her smile slipped, because there was no laughing around this. Eve needed to be ready, because she didn’t know how he would react. “I need the names of the dead hunters.”

——–

No such thing as luck, not when it came to Eve. This whole setup was constructed in a way most likely to benefit her mission, factoring in everything except the unpredictable variable that was Owen - he’d been a somewhat predictable sort of chaotic before, enough so that Eve had managed to worm her way in with random appearances and casual offerings of food. This was probably the closest she’d come to being genuinely nervous around him, or so he assumed, since she was about as easy to read as he was to sweet talk right now. “So lucky,” he drawled, pointedly ignoring further gestures of manipulation disguised as kindness. Eve could keep the rest of her damn water bottles.

His arms crossed, a faint sort of relief visible on his face when Eve finally dropped the ruse and got to the point. Even if ‘soon’ was vague and uncomfortable, Owen did believe that she had every intention to forget he existed as soon as it was a viable option. The moment he no longer had to worry about her showing up, whether she had a rifle or a bag of food in tow, would be a weight off his back. Even just this brief encounter was making his skin crawl, making it that much harder to forget the things Eve had seen, the things she knew. Owen had no interest in killing Eve and no interest in hurting her, either. Not really. There was just the faintest longing that she would cease to exist and take all his secrets with her. Or at the very least stop reminding Owen of her continued existence. “Great. Sure that’ll be a relief for both of us.”

Eve was hesitating. Not by a lot, buying herself barely a second of time before she spoke again but Owen’s already tense posture went even more rigid. Her smile vaporized and it was equal parts a relief and a confirmation that he wouldn’t like the next thing to come out of her mouth. That had been a correct assumption on Eve’s part. Owen was struck speechless for a moment, hoping against hope this was one of Eve’s strange, sarcastic jokes, knowing full well it wasn’t. A huff of a breath, the ghost of what might have been a laugh, even as his features were set with the opposite of humor, eyes flashing a bit darker.

“Fuck you.” The words were delivered without much fanfare or bite to them, Owen’s arms uncrossing and fingers flexing and unflexing in tandem with his jaw. There was an exit other than the one behind Eve, a way to leave without walking past the woman who was probably still on the fence about putting a bullet between his eyes. But Owen’s head had filled with white noise at her request, a list of the dead hunters - fuck lists, fuck Eve and whatever clean up around the ruins of Owen’s life she still felt compelled to do, fuck all of this - so he made a beeline for the way out, for the way past Eve. Partly curious if she’d see it as a threat, partly hoping she would because a request like that deserved the threat of physical harm. But all of it was clouded by the overwhelming need to not be here a second longer.

—-

Eve tried to formulate her counterpoint in her head as he glared at her and exhaled sharply. It was the same offer she was making to the supernatural beings she was trying to court into her network. Every clean was a double-sided knife. It hid evidence from humans, but also from everyone else. With the threat of Rosel neutralised (what a gentle word that was for the sounds she’d heard over his phone’s microphone), it wasn’t like she was really getting in any other hunter’s way. That didn’t make the disgust in her chest go away.

She didn’t blink as he cursed, but as his arms lowered to his side, she fought the urge to do the same. Her gaze followed his fists, flexing and unflexing, like he was shifting his grip around a knife. At first, when he started towards her, Eve almost flinched away. It was only his eyes, focused on the exit behind her, that gave his intent away. Every inch of her wanted to dart aside, to reach for the weapons strapped to her that he knew intimately. If it was just about her and him, she would have let him leave happily. If it was just about her and him, a lot of things would be different.

He was stronger, but she was faster, and her hand shot out like a wound spring as he strode past, catching around his upper arm. The blood and ash on his jacket smeared onto her hand, staining her too. She didn’t let go, trying to pull him to a stop and only pulling herself closer. Eve’s eyes lingered on where she was holding him before looking up to his eyes. At this range a gun would not matter anymore.

“Owen,” She asked him to wait with just his name, breathing heavier now. “I’m not the only one who can connect those dots. It’s not like this won’t benefit you.” Even she wasn’t bold enough to lie and say she was doing it for him. He wouldn’t believe her if she did.

—-

The part of him that had recently been blown out of proportion, the one Owen was failing spectacularly at shoving back into a locked vault, it did stupid shit like hope and fear and get disappointed. There had been a moment of genuine belief that he’d be allowed to leave, to end this interaction without further turmoil, even though logic and Eve (two synonymous things) clearly dictated he wouldn’t. The hand catching onto his long since ruined jacket made his stomach sink, a whirlwind of emotions but anger was quick to come out on top. It had always been the easiest one to stomach - that hadn’t changed even if everything else had, even if the rest of whatever Owen was trying not to feel appeared through a moment of hesitation, a shift behind his eyes or a crack in his voice.

Tearing his arm out of her grip, an easy feat since it was still so slick with blood, Owen rounded on his fellow hunter, staring her down. The strange inflection in her voice as she spoke his name one Owen immediately wanted to forget. The rest of Eve’s words registered slowly, the logic, delayed by the realization that she genuinely thought he might harm her. Whether she thought it would be in the way a scared animal lashes out or because killing hunters came easy to him now, that much was unclear. Some faction of her brain was expecting lethal consequences, which almost made Owen want to deliver them. Eve was willing to risk everything for the sake of her mission.

Maybe she actually was the only real hunter left in town.

“Maybe I don’t want it to benefit me,” Owen seethed, stepping closer still, giving neither of them room to breathe. If she was going to force this discomfort, she damn better join him in it. “Why do you need to clean it up, huh? There’s nothing for any poor civilians to discover that isn’t already part of their reality. Just a good, old fashioned human serial killer.”

It couldn’t be that Eve wanted to give the families (some of them had to have had families, Owen hadn’t allowed himself to realize that but now the thought dug its claws in deep) peace, that was much too sentimental for her.

“Are you regretting not pulling out your weapon?” Are you scared of me?

—–

Eve dropped his arm as soon as he yanked away, not looking away from his face. She needed to see every flicker in his eyes, every twitch in the corner of his mouth. She wanted to see everything, every single moment, so she wouldn’t miss a clue that this was spiralling out of her control. It so barely was to begin with. She had spotted it last time, but had missed it every time before. Looking at him now, there was no way to tell whether it would be easier to read him now that he was crumbling, or harder, now that his every tell had been thrown off axis. There was something in him more than rage, but she could not rely on it.

“Sure, makes sense,” Eve admitted, a little more knowing in her voice than she’d liked, her hands tilted upwards in easy surrender, one red and black, one still clean. He stepped in, so close that his form blocked out the street light, casting her face into shadow. Eve shifted her weight in her legs, but refused the impulse to step back. Eve had learned early on in this work that the best way to talk through a situation was not to show weakness, and that had been even more true with Owen. The only way to win a fight before it began was to convince the other person that you would win it. It was the reason Eve wore full length trousers while on her hunts, even thought the moment she had to do anything other than walk in a straight line that particular weakness exposed itself. There was, of course, no hiding that weakness from Owen, but she didn’t need to. She knew his, spelled out for her on a list in someone else’s handwriting.

He asked why anyone would need to do anything, but his tone also asked why it had to be her. Eve tilted her head in acknowledgement of the question, but the answer was clear as daylight. There was no one else to do it. No one else who knew what he had done, no one else who wasn’t so busy with hunting the town that they could spare time to check. If he hadn’t, she had to, and she also had to check he had. Owen had never in his life hung around for one of her regular cleans, how could he possibly know what went into it?

(Enough, a small voice in her head answered, to keep anyone off his tail for months.)

“I wish it were that simple. Because eventually, some landlord is going to realise their payments aren’t coming through. They might let themselves into an apartment to clear it out for their next tenant, and then what might they find? A trunk full of medieval weapons, books on demonic possession, hell, some hunters even collect trophies. Not so much slayers,” Eve admitted, looking down at his dustied jacket in something reassembling playful bemusement, “actually — what are you going to do, collect little jars of ash? — but some rangers are really into having collections of chimera tails or whatever.” Eve doubted the logic would break through to Owen, but it was the reason he was most likely to believe her for. It was true, after all, and it was a serious concern with every hunter death. But then his gaze shifted a little, and he asked the question on both their minds.

“No,” Eve smiled, “Why, do you want to compare knife sizes?”

——

How many times had Owen loomed over her in this exact way, although never quite like this. It had meant to be threatening the first time, when Eve had started bothering him in person about the importance of a clean kill. She hadn’t been very threatened and Owen had respected that, even if he’d done little to change his hunting in a way that might benefit Eve (that hadn’t come along until the problem of some very human bodies to hide). Every time after that had been a challenge, one Eve always readily took him up on until their game of chicken finally found a more physical outlet. This was the first time any actual threat of hurt was tangible between them, and it went both ways despite Owen’s clear physical advantage. It was the first time he’d caught her weight shifting, an urge to escape from his presence.

Eve was right about one thing - this would get back to him eventually. A part of him wanted it to, Owen deserved as much, didn’t he? As long as he managed to get rid of Rosel’s friends or playthings, whichever they were, first. Since Emilio, Eve and Wyatt had all failed to kill him, it felt fitting that another hunter found him out and ended the cycle. But of course, Owen was an afterthought in Eve’s plan, an unhappy coincidence to what she had to do. He’d seen a few trophy collections of his own, marvelled at weapons that were definitely not legal in this state or any other (sold a few of those himself, too). Eve’s mask was slipping back, she was comforted by the knowledge that what she had to do was right and therefore, whoever she’d pretended to be around him before was back. How much of Eve was actually just the woman that hadn’t let her aim waver for a single breath?

The smile made something crack, brought back the last time someone had smiled at him just like that, without any actual joy while he loomed like the threat of death. It hadn’t even been a conscious decision, just a motion his hands were too familiar with, the left finding her throat, the right her wrist. Owen didn’t doubt her ability to cause harm with her nondominant hand but at least it would make her slightly slower. He was surprisingly gentle compared to her, with a grip firm enough to feel the pulse both at her throat and wrist but not enough to disrupt it - a decent reminder that Eve was alive as opposed to the things he’d been dismantling for the last few days, starting with the one that had last smiled at him in that condescending way. Eve was probably more dangerous than the array of undead cockroaches but also much easier to break. “I want you to stop being full of shit, pretending like you’re not regretting letting me leave that barn. So, detached as you can be, tell me why I should give you that list.”

——

The shift in his eyes was the only warning Eve got, like suddenly he wasn’t looking at her but through her, his jaw slackening. She saw his hands begin to move, and started to jerk away, but she moved a second too late. Or maybe he had done this to so many hunters that he knew just how she’d try to escape his grip. Her gun was in her back left pocket, which she could hardly reach now her dominant hand was trapped. The blood on his hands had cooled, sending chills down her spine at it smeared around her neck. He’d feel her heart rate starting to jackrabbit, feel her swallow against the palm of his hand. Feel her breath sharpen as it anticipated being cut off.

“Owen,” she began, the smile long gone from her face, but she wasn’t even looking at him anymore, or not at his face. Her eyes were fixed on the blood spatters up his sleeves, from where he’d been sprayed after each terrible stab. It was what had given away what he had done to Nasir. Emilio’s words echoed in her ears. The dead don’t bleed like this. She couldn’t figure out how much blood that was, now, whether it was human or undead on his sleeves, couldn’t see past wondering whether hers was about to be next. It wouldn’t be. Perhaps it was her childish instinct, still, after all the blood she’d seen him spill, that Eve trusted that he wouldn’t kill her. That that name on the list meant something. That the photo she’d found on Rosel’s camera had been something real. Emilio’s name had been on it too. And yet.

Eve dragged her eyes up his arm, back up to his face, to look at him again. Instead of yanking away, she turned her hand so her fingers could touch his wrist, the closest she could come to holding him back in this position. “If I was regretting it, couldn’t I have done something about that before you had noticed me just now?” She asked, proud at least of how little her voice wavered, considering how her voice box was pressing against his hand with every word. For once, for a moment, the mask lowered just a little. It came with the same weight of realisation that had happened while Emilio told her what he was seeing at Owen’s. To bury a feeling perfectly, one had to first acknowledge it. “I don’t regret it. It was the one thing Wyatt and I were on the same page on, as a matter of fact. I’d like to keep not regretting it.”

She shrugged, incapable of not being at least a little irreverent in the face of death, even if her heartbeat under his fingertips gave her away. Even if this was starting to feel like jaws clamping around her knee, a fate Eve had also walked herself right into. “I’m sure there’s something I can offer you that’s worth your time and effort, Owen. I’m happy to negotiate all you like.”

A tiny blade brushed against his thigh (not far from where she’d aimed her sights before), gentle enough just to let him know it was there, the representation of her fear made whole. Eve inhaled. She spoke, and her voice cracked on the final word. “But not while you’re threatening to kill me. Let go, Owen, please.”

—–

His name again, this time with a very different tone, also a delivery Owen instantly wanted to forget ever hearing. (She hardly ever used his name). But he did hear it, it cracked through the dense fog that had settled over his mind, the same suffocating kind that had only realized its grip and vanished once it had the smoke of Owen’s apartment to guide it away. Eve’s pulse had sped up, still strong against the pads of his fingers but other than that, she was still. His own throat had gone dry with the thought of how easy it would be to crush hers (he knew from experience) only when he finally looked up from the messy vice grip of his hand back to Eve’s face, her eyes were still just a muted shade of blue. Normal, to go along with her pulse and the absolute lack of amusement on her features.

The grip around her throat grew a bit looser, even as the one around her wrist tightened at the movement of her hand, slow and gentle as it was. That part felt like a trap, something gentle to divert his attention. Eve spoke again before the thought could fully form, could saturate his mind with that specific sort of touch, the one meant to disarm - his brain was fuzzy with how little it would take to tip it back over the edge, back into an apartment that no longer existed. Wyatt and I… Another name Owen recognized, one that came with the reminder of something genuinely gentle, along with… some truth. At least he thought it was truth, and hoped it was. His eyes searched hers wildly for anything to the contrary, more of the fog clearing.

Right at this moment, Owen couldn’t really remember what they were supposed to be negotiating on, the catalyst to all of it. His gaze didn’t waver when Eve revealed her countermeasure, making it very unlikely that Owen would be leaving her if she wasn’t. The grip on her wrist wavered and then tightened again, long past the point of leaving a bruise. Owen swallowed thickly, making a final attempt to find the lie in her face, her voice, her plea. Any hint at all that she would do what needed to be done the second he backed down. It was the most earnest he’d ever seen Eve.

His own heart had started to race to match hers, breath coming out in harsh huffs by the time both hands relinquished their grip and Owen took two steps back. Body still coiled and ready for a threat even as he looked about ready to crumble to his knees, remaining on his feet taking most of his current energy, the rest going towards dragging his mind back to here, kicking and screaming. To Eve, to what she wanted other than to not get strangled by a fellow hunter and… whatever else they’d been. The list. I’m sure there’s something I can offer you. “You said you had proof. Things from… her. That. That’s what I’ll negotiate on. If I get all of it and you get rid of it. I get the only copies.” His voice was strained, like he’d been the one subjected to a grip even tighter than the one Eve had just been released from.

—–

What Eve wanted to do when he let her go was to gasp for air, like he had strangled her instead of just holding her. She wanted to cup her own hand to her neck, to feel for herself that nothing had been crushed beyond repair. She wanted to leave, to hurry down the street and back to the bright, warm comforts of her car. She wanted to stab him anyway, to leave a hole in him that he couldn’t quite stitch up. She wanted to collapse into the dirt and blood on the ground in the hopes he’d meet her there. Eve did none of those things. Her body barely even wavered as he let her go, only unclenching and clenching her left hand where he had eventually squeezed so hard that the blood cut off. He looked at her like he’d run a hundred miles, like she’d already driven a knife between his lungs, like he was a fox in her headlights. Eve didn’t react, other than to will her own breathing to slow down.

But she didn’t put back on her original nonchalant mask. In time, she’d forge herself a new mask for Owen. Perhaps one that looked a little more like this and less like the flirtatious annoyances she’d leant on so far. They clearly weren’t the play anymore. Emulating Wyatt’s gentle comforts, his pleading while holding Owen’s hand, though? That damn well seemed to pay off. Eve thought a silent gratitude in his direction. He wasn’t the reason for what she’d said, but he was the inspiration to try and bring it into play, to disarm Owen completely with honesty instead of lies.

His feelings towards Rosel, as intense as they were negative, had been his downfall. If someone showed you their achilles heel, why wouldn’t you use it? Eve did not put away her blade, but shifted her grip so she could idly rub at the bruises forming on her wrist. He made his demand, and Eve tilted her head, still looking at him gently. This was going to be Emilio all over again, wasn’t it? What the hell. It wasn’t like she needed the hunters in town to like her.

“I do. I have the contents of Ro- of her phone. Emails with a private investigator. Bank statements. I haven’t read all of it, I don’t know everything that’s on there, so I can’t tell you what you’re getting, but sure. If you want it, you can have it.” Eve said, shrugging. She took a couple steps back, leaning on the wall behind her in a totally chill, and not at all shaken, kind of way. And then, because the other part of the request irked her, and because she wanted desperately to pretend he hadn’t just had his hands on her, she added. “Why do you want me to delete my copy of the evidence? It’s not like I’ll be sharing it with anyone.”

—–

Owen watched without seeing as Eve attempted to restore blood flow to her hand, the imprint of his hand already visible and about to get even more so. It wouldn’t last for long, wasn’t permanent but he could already envision the dark blues and faint yellow blooming in the shape of his grip. Eve was brave - not cocky in the face of danger but brave in spite of it. Because Owen was dangerous, more so than he himself had fully realized. He did not feel at all brave. Just wound up, tired and a bit terrified. Eve’s expression now, the one devoid of the previous humor she’d used on him before, didn’t inspire this livid rage but instead made everything heavy. Even if some gleam in her eyes might have been read as pity, Owen was fully aware that he was indeed pitiful so it didn’t matter much, did it?

Seemed Wyatt had opened the fucking floodgates as Owen found himself fighting back an apology, which he promptly drowned. They could both just move on now and pretend this hadn’t happened (right?).

As Eve started listing the things she’d found, his heart pounded faster, wanted out, away from here. Owen couldn’t imagine a glimpse into Rosel’s mind, a place just barely more wretched than his own, but he also couldn’t not look with the opportunity right there. Not to mention, he had to know what Eve knew. What maybe even Emilio or Wyatt knew. About her and what that information said about him. “Good,” he managed, watching her carefully put some distance between them. Smart. Owen forced a deep breath, it did very little to drain the tension from his shoulders, to rid him off the phantom pulse against his palm. If she’d picked different words, if she’d struggled or fought back…

“What do you mean why?” Owen bit back, mind clear for a moment because it made perfect sense to him and he hadn’t even seen the contents Eve was describing. “I want to see it and then I want it erased from existence.” Like her. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did want to share it. And you’re not the only person capable of getting information without it being shared.” All of that to speak around the fact that it filled him with discomfort, this evidence existing. That he’d been human enough to fall in love and stupid enough to let it ruin him. Twice.

“It’s…” He paused, almost laughing at the word but unable to find a better one, so he continued, “personal.” Before she could reply, Owen decided to back off, just so. An inadvertent apology for the threat and the bruise. “You can… keep some of it. Just not…” Fuck, how to explain ‘just not the stuff that makes me look like a lovesick fool or a gullible idiot or a fucking fool’. Owen let out an exasperated growl of a sigh, brain unhelpful except for reminding him how close he’d come to killing the person he was now pathetically bargaining with.

—-

Eve wasn’t sure if when he said good, he meant good that she hadn’t read all of it, or good that she was stepping away, that her survival instincts were something to be praised. Like he was proud of how he’d made her breath hitch and her heart jump. Like maybe all he wanted was to reverse what had happened in the barn, point the barrel at her rather than him. Owen just didn’t need a weapon. He could point himself at her and she’d still suddenly find herself clinging to the edge of the cliff of control. Eve had dealt with vampires — who had far more desire to kill her — more calmly than this. Something about the way he looked at her wildly, or with distant, cracked eyes that she had also once worn, cut right through her. She did not know what it meant to be wielded as a weapon by someone else’s design, but she knew what it meant to crumple once your blade was dulled. God, how Eve wished she didn’t. She wished she could look at him impartially, to shrug off his feelings as easily as she could her own.

Eve raised her chin as he snarled at her, her jaw tightening. Her grip around the knife tightened too. Once someone’s hand had been around the most breakable part of yourself, it was hard not to tense at every raised tone. The blood he’d spilled was cooling around her neck. The more he touched her, the more she was stained with blood. Before she could respond, he tamed himself, his voice surrendering the way her hands had before. Eve exhaled, and nodded. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. She could hear it in her own voice.

“I would only need to share it if it wasn’t over,” She said quietly. In some ways, it wasn’t. It never would be. But the pragmatic part of the hunt was done. No more dead hunters. No more Rosel. “And, please, I have far better security than her.” She paused, waited a moment, holding his eyes. “You are asking me to drop my weapons. That is what you want from me.” She said. They both knew it to be true, no point in talking around it. Equally, it meant there was no denying what she meant when she spoke next. "I’m not in the business of hiding things from myself. But I’ll cut you one more break; I’ll destroy the parts that reveal you instead of her. Not because you were considering strangling me, to be clear. For old time’s sake.”

She reached into her bag and held out a USB stick, and an empty notepad. She held out hope.

——

In all the ways it was jarring - almost terrifying, really - how well Eve seemed to know him, this time it came in handy. Owen was finding it hard, bordering on impossible, to dig up the correct words. Usually that didn’t matter. Usually, he could resort to insults or apathy or violence (the last of which he seemed to have a very short leash on, shorter than he’d expected, even). Now, words were the key to getting something he actually wanted, while also not wanting it to exist in the first place. So in a twisted form of luck, it was a relief to have Eve voice the explanation his shattered brain was trying to piece together.

The parts that revealed him. That was what he wanted destroyed, wasn’t it? Rosel’s existence would never be fully wiped out, even if her physical form had been as thoroughly annihilated as possible, it would be a dark spot on Owen’s mind until he too was nothing but ashes - so why did it matter that proof of her existence existed on a hard drive somewhere? But Owen’s connection to her, his utter failure in the face of her sadistic boredom, both then and now… Fuck, how much of it had Eve seen? Had his past been laid out like a bad joke with a sick punchline? Did she know this wasn’t the first time he’d killed hunters, or humans?

“I wouldn’t have strangled you,” Owen heard himself saying, voice detached but holding a grain of truth. It was true, he wouldn’t have strangled her. Easier to break her neck, slit her throat. Quicker, less of a struggle. He shook his head, visibly shaking off the image. And the knowledge that she was cutting him a break. Owen had threatened her life, whether he’d properly meant to or not, and it still felt like Eve had the upper hand. His skin crawled, still itched with the phantom discomfort of something undead and wrong around. “And I don’t expect you to drop your weapons.” His eyes flickered to the knife. “Sure you could get rid of me easy even without the stuff you’re promising to delete.”

One thing he could count on was that Eve would stick to her word. Because she had no good reason not to, because she had the common sense to fear Owen for the unhinged thing he’d become.

Even though she was the one gripping the weapon, his hands bare except for blood and grime, Owen still felt he might as well have had a knife pointed at Eve’s throat as he approached. Just close enough to grab the offered things, putting distance between them again. The USB key found a safe home in his breast pocket before his eyes turned to the notepad, the lines blurring as he stared at them. Did he even fucking remember all of them? Before he could regret this deal, could revert to instinct and pain and murder again, Owen started writing instead. A few names started to find their way onto the lines, scribbled unsteady handwriting that matched the way Owen looked. Some of them full names, others a single name with a place or description, a hint for Eve to follow.

Nineteen names had found their way onto paper when the pen in Owen’s hand hovered without writing, eyes squeezing shut for a moment. He’d left dirty smudges of blood and muck over the notepad. “That’s all I got for now.” Eyes opening, he whipped the pad through the space between them, sparing them both the discomfort of proximity. “There’s… a few more. Don’t remember names, I’ll try to get you enough to find them.”

—–

“How reassuring,” Eve replied, but carefully without sour smiles. She caught the double entendre. Strangulation was an inefficient way to kill, after all. Owen wouldn’t want a reputation for slacking. His gaze flicked to her knife, but her eyes never left his. Every hunter was a weapon, but he was a landmine. She itched to know how much pressure might set him off. He snatched the USB and notebook out of her hand, and it took every part of her not to flinch.

As he began writing, Eve watched. She could not tear her eyes away. Could not risk that this was the moment he snapped again. When were you most cornered other than when faced with your accountability? He held the pen like a knife, smearing blood over her pristine pages. She reached for a tissue, and quickly wiped the worst of the blood from her hand, barely looking at what he was doing. It would take a shower to reveal just how bruised her arm was, to see her neck without the bloodied handprint on it, but Eve did not like to mess up her tools. It prevented the cross contamination of her crime scenes. It meant that once she was done, there was no evidence of her on any of it.

He was still writing. She adjusted her grip on her knife, taking a moment to catalogue all the stains on his clothes. Emilio-chic, for sure. The blood was so deep set in the fabric of his jeans that they’d never come out, and with the dried ash caked in, it had to be uncomfortable. Eve found she didn’t mind the idea of dried flakes of blood irritating his skin. At the hem of his trousers a bit of grizzle dangled, brushing against his boot. That wasn’t from the vampire she’d watched him slaughter just now.

He was still writing. He flipped a page, and Eve wished she’d thought to bring a larger notepad. Four had been a horrifically high number. Eve hadn’t let herself picture a number in her mind, but even her basest assumptions couldn’t match this. She imagined a music box in her mind, music dwindling down until it closed with part of herself inside it. This was no different than picking up a body from Metzli. She caught the notebook without blinking, the pages fluttering around her fingers in the winds. She slowly tore her gaze from his bloodshot, looking down at the pages as he told her there was still more to come.

Her face was indecipherable as she read the list of names. Nineteen dead hunters. How had he done it? Not emotionally, but practically. What did Owen have that none of them did? What advantage had let him kill so many with so few severe injuries of his own. He said there were more, but Eve didn’t believe him when he said a few. What was the total number? What was the cost of letting a hunter run unchecked for a year? It made the three names that stained her own heart pale in comparison. His was a magnitude larger. She looked back up at him, bloodstained and crumbling. She wondered what his face would look like, with her knife speared through it. But the threat was over. Hunting wasn’t justice, wasn’t vengeance. There was no one left to protect, not even him. Her face didn’t change as she snapped the notebook shut, dropping it into her bag. "Please do.”

Eve glanced down the alley where she’d first found him. Heavy rain was forecast tonight. Uncharacteristically warm, the forecast presenter had said, enough to melt a layer of snow. Enough to wash away the blood and dust on the sidewalk. Perhaps not perfectly, not to her usual standard, but certainly enough. Eve pushed herself off the wall.

"That’s all I came for,” Eve said simply, starting to turn back the way she came, more than ready to leave. Of all the people she didn’t want to be near right now, Owen was top of the list, and she had work to do. Best to keep herself buried while she began through this list. She was already desperate to have this off her to-do list. She looked back at him one last time, and for a sinking moment knew that the next time she saw him, it would be with his eyes glassy, pulling his corpse out of a dumpster or morgue. It would be better if she didn’t see him at all. “Ask for help next time. It would save us all the heartbreak.”

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