Tunisia
Working her fingers though the long wheat tresses of her hair, she carefully soaked each strand. The illusion of her showering had to look convincing. His gift for detail was intimidating, and certainly not the least of her worries about the task ahead. She couldn't afford an oversight. The open planned shower had no door, simply a tiled corner that afforded privacy from the rest of the sunny, amber and ivory bathroom. Luxury could be found even in the most volatile of destinations.
She was sipping boukha in the hotel's dusky, elegant bar when the news of his arrival came from her young Arab scout, Mehdi. That was 17 minutes ago. By horseback her target would arrive in 20. It would take him 9 minutes to check in with the hotel clerk, be given the key to this room, and climb the stairs. Pulling the shower handle shut, she glanced at the wet wrist watch perched on the tiled soap shelf, its gray numerals diligently clearing the seconds, advising she had only 3 minutes left.
Calm down. She thought to herself. Your flustered heart beat has to slow, or your breath won't be steady, and your voice will break. The outcome of this entire operation will depend on his first inclinations. If you pass the scrutiny of his initial searching seconds, you may succeed. If he recognizes your intentions, if he even has a taste of suspicion...it's over. You won't out maneuver him. If he senses your lie he'll push and pull until he catches you there. And god, the worst of it; he's armed.
Her scout couldn't make out what was in his hand. At 100 yards away he moved too quickly to identify what exactly he'd used to bludgeon the first man. All poor Mehdi could say for sure was what it wasn't. A gun. She trusted the boy's assertion, in all his years, in all his murders; she had never once seen Benjamin Linus handle a gun. He was too smart for the clumsy indiscrimination of firearms. He murdered his victims with cunning and patience. And it was that cunning which kept her heart stumbling and her nerves flustered. She needed a gun and it was waiting for her, in the folds of her modest dress, draped in full view, at the foot of the room's king sized bed.
The sharp trill of the wrist watch warned she had just sixty seconds remaining. Quieting the warning, she stepped around the shower corner, took a plush towel from the towel rack, held it in one dripping hand, and waited for the clank of the door latch.
Long seconds passed. Nothing.
Focusing hard, she fought to quell the tides doubt. Had she miscalculated? Had he become suspicious while checking in? The woman at the desk, perhaps she mistakenly announced her early arrival? He couldn't have already deduced her intentions…could he?
The crunching of a key working in the door latch jolted her back to reality. Draping the towel around her she stepped from the humid bathroom and found him frozen in the doorway, his lips parted, his brow drawn; she reveled in relief at his surprise. Holding the towel beneath her arms she paused. The two regarded one another in silence from across the room. Waiting just long enough to give the impression of surprise, she spoke, careful to not give him time to develop a strategy.
"You're early."
She had forgotten the way a room felt with him in it. His mere presence made even the most familiar surroundings feel fragile and toxic. The sensation of falling from some great invisible height would inevitably take hold. And you would struggle to keep pace until you found yourself wondering if he could hear even your thoughts. Your every move had always belonged to him; free will was yours because he chose to give it. That effortless manipulation was his greatest power, and inevitably, the object of her reluctant attraction.
Slowly, he closed the door behind him as she crossed the room, taking a sheer silk robe from the settee.
"How did you find me?"
She listened closely to every syllable and was pleased to find disbelief in his voice. Capitalizing on his disadvantage, she turned her back and slid the robe on over the bath towel, allowing the towel to drop to her feet. She could almost feel him blush.
"He sent me. Once he got word of your arrival at the Orchid, he knew you'd end up here sooner or later. I admit we both thought it would be later."
She turned to face him, tying the silk ribbon around her waist.
"Then you must be here to kill me."
His voice had hardened. He was assessing. She had to keep him talking.
"Yes, I am. At least...I was supposed to."
"Supposed to? You've changed your mind?"
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them till he stood at the opposite corner of her concealed gun. It would take her two steps to make it to the dress, but he was closer. Close enough to catch her wrist if she moved toward the garment. She was losing him.
"It seems that fate has intervened to save your life. It took 6 hours of driving through the desert in the sorriest Land Rover in Africa to make it to this hotel. He knew you would come here, and he knew I would be willing to kill you for what you've done to my life."
She paused, holding his eyes, welling up all the frustration and torment of the past 3 years hoping he could see it there.
"I was covered in an inch of sand by the time I made it and decided to have a shower. He said you wouldn't arrive until tomorrow at the earliest. I was playing it safe by coming today."
She made note of his stiffening resolve as he searched her eyes.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Why? Because by some sick twist of fate you've beaten me here, which is impossible! It's as though, I'm not meant to kill you. Like that stupid place is protecting you."
She let her voice crack and her pain surface, knowing how convincing it would look.
"And you know what? Now that I see you, I don't want to kill you. Because a quick death at my hands is more that you deserve. You deserve to suffer. You deserve to live with the knowledge that you let that innocent girl die. You let her die because you refused to admit you'd been beaten."
She watched the shock cross his face. Knowing she had touched an open wound, she dug in further letting the anger blind him. He wouldn't see her coming if he couldn't see.
"I can forget what you've done to me. The lies you told me while lying in your bed, how you sent me away the second you lost interest. But you…you will never forget how she looked when she was murdered"
Squaring off her resolve she prepared for the finale.
She looked down to the sapphire garment on the bed, and forced a pained smile.
"You'll never forget that you may as well have pulled that trigger."
She bent slowly so as not to startle him, and lifted the silk until she felt the weight of the 9 mm leave the bed. Snapping the fabric up, she slipped her hand into the open pocket and gripped the butt. Despite the expert fluidity in her effort, she didn't see him cross the distance between them. She only heard the metallic crack of his weapon hitting the silencer attached to the barrel of the gun. She pulled the trigger in vein as the gun clattered to the floor. His hands closed on her wrists, spinning her back to him. Gasping she opened her eyes, not realizing they had been closed, when she felt a cool, long rod pressed to her throat. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized the baton must have been used to kill the first guard in the desert. The weapon Mehdi had seen.
"What a clever choice of an assassin, one of the few emotional attachments of my life. I'm surprised Charles let you come considering what happened when you left. What a grave miscalculation."
His warm breath at the skin behind her ear kept her attention from the crushing grip on her wrists. After all this time, he felt familiar. Somewhere amidst the cold insistence of the baton at her throat, some buried and long forgotten fragment of her had missed him and was thrilling at the closeness of his voice.
"You're hurting me."
Pulling her wrists down, he drew her closer until her head rested at his shoulder.
"If I let you go, how can I be sure you won't make another attempt at fulfilling your mission?"
Holding her lip between her teeth she struggled to banish the creeping desire to submit. She labored to deny the longing to experience the peace of relinquishing control, to revel in his conviction.
"I suppose we're going to have to trust each other."
She felt him smile against her temple as his grip tightened on her wrist.
"Yes. I suppose we will. But if you reach for that gun again, I'll do more than restrain you. Do we understand each other?"
Ignoring the aching of her pride she gave in to the burning of her wrists and the crushing of the baton.
"Yes. Now let me go, Ben."
Just as quickly as he had gathered her up, he released her wrists and withdrew the baton from her agitated skin. Stepping away she coughed, her fingers vainly messaging her throat. Knowing she had to face him, she commanded her bare feet to turn on the polished marble floor. He regarded her with a calculated indifference. His cool gaze pinning her, she immediately began searching for an escape from the humiliating silence.
"You're bleeding."
His easy smile felt like a mockery, an off-handed jest at her attempt to kill him and a reminder of his ease in overwhelming her.
"You're not the first welcoming party I've had today."
Pulling the rag loose from his arm, he examined the torn flesh a stray nail had left; a parting gift from a place a world away. Sinking to the bed she watched as he dropped the army style bag at his shoulder to the floor and stripped his dusty green jacket heading to the bathroom. Soaking a cloth in the granite adorned sink he pressed it to the wound. Her voice brought him from the intricacies of his mind and the plans ahead.
"What did you mean when you said you were surprised that he let me come, after what happened?"
Dragging the cloth over the crusted blood the wound began to soften and clear. It wouldn't need stitches.
"I meant I was surprised he would trust you knowing the…history we had."
"You're lying."
He sighed, leaving the soiled cloth in the sink and returning to the army bag to retrieve a set of bandages. Settling on the foot of the bed near her, he began arranging a bandage.
"You look older."
He smiled bitterly at the soft white gauze.
"Yes, well, single handedly leading an isolated community of over 50 people will do that to a person."
She watched as he awkwardly attempted to hold the gauze while tearing and placing tape at its corners.
"Here..."
She muttered, closing the distance between them, hoping to shake his resolve with her proximity. Reaching out she pressed down the gauze and took the tape from his hand. She felt him tense as her thumb smoothed over his skin, securing the tape.
"Healing was never your strong suit."
She heard the venom in her tone, but did nothing to damper it.
"This from the woman who lied about her unwillingness to execute me in the hopes that it would buy her time to reach the gun hidden in plain sight to do just that."
It wasn't the honesty of his retort that left her sinking inside, it was the agility of the mind she was attempting to stumble. But perhaps she wouldn't have feared herself so beat had she seen the look in his eyes as he watched her finish the dressing. A possession was blooming in the crystal blues there. A yearning that had crept up slowly from the second she emerged with a towel wrapped around that familiar frame. He wanted her, and the desire was rising.
Tearing a last strip of tape from the small roll she finished the task that had brought them too close. She struggled with how to proceeded, feeling his heavy gaze on her.
She urged herself to meet his eyes. All his control was there, his deceit, his misery, and his single minded desires. Mustering her resolve, she lifted her gaze to his and fought the urge to retreated once arriving there. In those fathomless pools she recognized the subject of her naive infatuation from a life-time ago; the infatuation that was born of curiosity and matured into a reckless desire. Despite the atrocities he had dealt, the lives he dismantled and the suffering he had injected into her own existence, she still craved the predator that lounged there.
She hardly registered his finger tips tilting her face as he found her lips. He kissed the way he did everything, with intent. In the gesture was a deceptive encouragement, as though the choice to proceeded was hers, although it never was. Lost in his enticing confidence she gave in, relishing the insistence of his mouth on hers and the ascent of his broad palm on her thigh. Indulging in the dangerous obsession, her fingers twisted in his shirt as her breath came short. Sighing against his lips her rationality fell to pieces while his hand closed firmly at the curve of her hips beneath the sheer robe. She parted their heated kiss, knowing his desire was rising she slid to the head of the bed. His darkened eyes watched her settle before him, her robe riding high, exposing her lithe body; his for the taking. Following, he pinned her beneath him, claiming her lips again he held himself aloft with one arm while the other explored the expanse of skin at the opened collar of her robe. She could feel his restraint slipping as his hands found the contour of her breast. A luxurious moan fell from his lips as his mouth found the nape of her neck, but it took only a shattering instant for his roiling blood to run cold as the cocking of a hammer met his besieged senses. Breath caught, he stilled above her becoming aware of the pressing of a gun barrel at his temple. Cautiously he lifted his head enough to meet her eyes, and there he found himself in a rare place; on the receiving end of ruthless determination and single minded purpose.