This is the sequel to God is Gracious. Well, not so much the sequel as it is a similar story told from the point of view of Jasira. I advise reading God is Gracious first because both stories are based on what is important to each individual character. They have different thoughts, different beliefs and experience different things. Anyway, as always read and review. Let me know your thoughts!
When he opened the door, her first thought was that he was feral. Considering his hardships and the betrayal he had faced, she could understand the calculating look in his eye. She hated that she was shorter than he, that he could look down on her. However, none of that mattered in face of her mission.
"Вы говорите по-английски (Do you speak English)." If she were lesser woman she would have winced at her poor attempt at speaking Russian. She really was horrible at the language, having more experience with Spanish and French than Russian. He did not respond, only shrugging, something that both irked and pleased her. She sighed, letting slip a modicum of her frustration. She was almost certain that he understood, that look of complete comprehension still in his eye. She strode into the small home when he stepped aside and took a seat at the table. His father lay on the bed but was asleep.
She knew something of dying fathers.
"I'll speak English because I really am terrible at Russian. I am also," and then she caught his eyes. They were that of a wolf. His gaze did not stray from hers as she took out the first envelope. She could feel the tense atmosphere give way slightly as he saw what the object was. But only just.
She explained the information but she knew he could care less. He hadn't even the decency to take the envelope. Still it was her job and she was nothing if not thorough when it came to her work. She watched as he reclined further in his chair. Never had she wanted to hit a man so much as she wanted to hit him. All he did was watch her, as if she were insignificant, as if moments from now when she left he would not even remember what she looked like. She wanted to affect him, wanted him to notice.
She wasn't too sure why she had cared so much.
"You and your father, both of you have the intelligence but not the means. Howard Stark took that from you both. However, I can get you started, help you get your chance at taking what's yours. Your father is sick. He won't be able to help you but I can."
A glint of anger flashed through his eyes at that. She grinned at this, pleased that she had poked at the wolf. Who was he to ignore her? She saw his eyes fall to her throat once more. It was an interesting scar, people were curious to look but at the same time afraid. They were embarrassed that it was there, embarrassed because they wanted to know why it was there. As her mother had opened her throat with a blade and she could see dark blood dripping before her she did not look for death. She clasped her fingers over the wound, held her breath and moved to attack the same woman who had given her life.
This,"she had said as she touched her throat,"is a reminder to never turn my back on anyone. I learned that there is only trust when you face your enemy and there is only trust if you count everyone as such. Even your own mother." She knew that she sounded bitter, that the smile she now wore was something ugly and very close to evil. There was no God in that smile, she knew that. She needed to leave, she could see that then.
She left him with words, words that cut herself. She did destroy. Her father treasured her, more than her mother. When he had died he'd left her all of the assets had gone to her. One point two million in stock, bond and property had gone to her and not one penny to her mother. She understood that he had loved her but his death had almost doomed her.
"Here's something to start, not much, but we want you to prove your ingenuity,"she finally finished, because she had to finish before his eyes ripped her apart. She reached into her coat and took out the money.
His eyes were beginning to hurt her, he was forcing the truth and forcing her to feel.
...
She wasn't sure what brought her to Vanko's door again. It was night and there was no rhyme or reason. The hotel that she had booked had been comfortable enough, she had eaten, fed Selene, her weapons had been cleaned. She had reported Vanko's acceptance to her superiors, there was no reason at all. However, this did not stop her from reaching for her clothes once more. She wanted to see his eyes again.
When she reached for the door she heard the sound. It was agony. It tore her heart because in that moment she remembered her father. She saw him arms folded one over the other, saw him being put into the ground. She moved her hand away from the door and reached into her pocket. She was going to go to the corner store first.
When she returned she had brought vodka. Lord knew, she had needed it when her father had passed away. He looked up at her as she had entered.
"I am sorry...about your father." She knew the words themselves were cheap, sorry could not hold the weight of a father's death. Sorry could not bring back the spark of life or lift one's spirit. That was why she had brought the booze, it was for all that apologies and sentiment couldn't do. She moved closer and glanced at his father. She wanted to cry. She wanted to tell her father that she was sorry for becoming what she had. She moved the blanket, covering him up to his chin. She smoothed his hair. In her mind, hearing her father's kind words, feeling strong hands wrap around her.
"Let us move him," his voice harsh. She was pulled back from her daydream, pulled back from her father's arms. There were two mugs in Ivan's hand and she realized that he meant for her to stay. His eyes were still that of an animal but there was also something there that she understood.
Who understood sorrow better than orphans?
...
She left, certainly more tipsy then when she had arrived. She pushed her hands into her pockets looking down at her boots as she walked. She had buried a man and had had a drink with a criminal mastermind. She leaned against the wall of a battered house. She pulled down her hoody and looked up.
So many stars. Her breath came out in a soft cloud of white and dispersed until all she could see was the solid ink and tiny pinpricks of flame. She reached for the heavens, probably looking crazy as she did it.
"Papa,"she whispered. Warmth moved down her cheeks and then chilled slowly afterward. How long had it been since she had cried? She had prayed to God. She had asked Him to take away her pain, to remove her guilt, to forgive her for killing the woman who had birthed her. Still, still He had sent her tears, had sent her to Vanko.
She closed her eyes and put down her arms. Her hand reached to her throat and she pressed the cross that was there. God help her she wanted to go back. She wanted Ivan's eyes to break her down and show her what was really underneath.
...
She went to a bakery and asked for two bagels and coffee. She let the man keep the change. he said thank you to her as she briskly headed for the door.
She had no idea what she was doing.
When she arrived at the house she took a breath and barged in. He was too hardened to show surprise but she knew that he was curious about her entrance. She looked at him for a moment before biting the bagel and sipping from the coffee. She was not there to poison him, she was there to feed him. When she was finished demonstrating the food's safety she passed it to him. He watched her for a moment longer as if waiting for her to do something else. But she didn't want anything. She had woken up wanting to feed him, to offer him comfort. So, that's what she did. She left a beat later, determined to go through the rest of the day without him on her mind. However, before she left the house completely she peered through the window. A cockatoo was on his shoulder. He offered the bird a piece of the bagel, a small half-smile of pleasure on his face.
...
"How does his work progress," a voice over the phone asked.
"He should be finished by the time Monaco rolls around."
"Good. Watch him carefully."
"Of course."
A click, and then silence. Jasira knew eight different types of martial arts. She was fluent in four languages, excluding Russian of course. She knew how to survive in absolute wilderness without fear. She knew where every major artery was, all the pressure points, over a hundred ways to disarm a man. Yet, she knew next to nothing of friendship or basic human courtesy. Aside from her targets, the dealers, her informants, she spoke to no one. After she had murdered her mother she had known that solitude was going to play a major part in her life but now she found a desire to see that change.
She wanted to know him.
...
After deliberately giving herself time to change her mind, Jasira decided to bring Selene. The seven foot constrictor had been hers for six years. She had found him in the home of one of her targets. The man she had shot down with her silencer in the living room. His blood and ichor pooled around his head in some sick parody of a halo.
"Father forgive me for I have sinned,"she began. She pressed her hand to her throat. It was not the man that had made her worry but the lack of feeling. She felt nothing as she had gunned him down. She had known that pain should blossom, that some sort of emotion should be there but she felt nothing.
Then she heard her. It was a faint hiss and she stiffened at the sound, listening closely. The sound was made again and she began to move towards it her gun drawn. She walked into the bedroom and pushed open the door slowly. The sound stopped.
She sensed nothing beyond the door and her senses had lent much to her still being alive. She trusted them.
She opened the door and saw a nicely done bedroom. She looked around, observed the bedroom, its stolid emptiness. No one would sleep here again, she would start a fire shortly. She looked over to the solid oak desk, saw the tank there. She moved toward it and saw her beauty.
Selene had been four feet at that time. She reached into the tank after clicking it open. She cooed softly and Selene had hissed in reply. She lifted the reptile out gently and draped the animal over her neck.
She burned the building, burned the man, but kept the snake dubbing the creature Selene. It meant goddess of the moon . It was a good a name as any, she had thought then. God knew why the snake had to have a name, God knew her heart, that she could not be alone forever.
She placed the snake in a box that had one of the hotel towels in it.
"We're going to see Vanko today,"she whispered.
When she arrived at Ivan's house she steadied the box in one hand and knocked with the other. She grumbled as he took his sweet time getting to the door. He opened it and she looked at him. His hair was pulled back and he was wearing a long sleeve shirt. He was wearing glasses.
"Well, you gonna let me in or what?"
She imagined her rudeness had startled him, but she could never be sure with him. She gently settled the box on the bed. She heard him approach and she couldn't wait to surprise him, to actually see it on his face. When he was at her side he finally asked.
"What's in box?" His voice was gravelly, rough, something that he didn't often use. She knew that he chose his words carefully, that he had long since learned the insignificance of words. She had learned too, not speaking for weeks after what her mother had done. Maybe he'd learned in prison. Words were useless sometimes, bits of air, combined with human sin, combined with confusion of the truth, words were sometimes as good as nothing.
But only sometimes.
She opened the box and quickly looked up to catch his expression. She'd be damned if he wasn't smiling. He looked younger when he smiled. Her heart skipped and her mind blanked at the sudden emotion she had felt. She carefully picked up Selene, shoving away the feeling to examine later. Once settled on her shoulders she introduced him to Selene.
The cockatoo sqwuaked nervously on the workbench. Ivan went to get him, letting the bird settle on his shoulder as he calmed it.
"She won't try to hurt..."
"Irina."
"Irina. She just ate. But...would you like to touch her," she offered. She had never offered before, had never let anyone close enough to do so. The wolf eyed the snake. His hand reached out and traced over Selene's scales. The movement startled Irina and without thinking Jasira hummed 'Hey Jude' just under her breath. Her dad had hummed that song to her once upon a time. Irina quieted and Selene tightened her grip.
Ivan looked at her steadily before speaking once more.
"What is your name?"
She should have lied but she didn't. It would have been against the rules that they were slowly creating.
Speak truth or nothing at all.
"Jasira. Jasira Hunter."
"Hunter?"
Her mother had been an immigrant from Kenya, arriving in America to find a new life. Her father was a young doctor. They had met and of course, fallen in love. Then she ws born. Her father gentle as a lamb though steadfast and courageous as a bull had been Thomas Hunter. Her mother, Ajali, had named her Jasira.
"My name it means 'courageous hunter'. Yours means 'God is gracious'."
He chuckled at this but it didn't matter because she truly believed that God had sent him to her. Even if the two of them were deaf and in the dark when it came to any sort of compassion.
"You think God is gracious?"
"Full of grace, yes, to make me, to make you, to make Selene...to give me the strength to conquer my enemies. He is full of grace and though I stray he walks with me." She showed him the cross at her neck. He looked at the tattoo carefully and then back up at her. Those eyes were bleeding all the apathy she had so carefully collected.
She loved it and at the same time was terrified.
...
"We have a job for you."
"Where?"
"The data has been sent to your computer. Do not fail."
"I never will."
The line went dead. Closing her cell, Jasira sat on the bed crosslegged. Her laptop was on the bed as well and she went to her email inbox. She opened the email and saw her target. She read detailed files on the man and where he would be for the next forty-eight hours. She would go after him tomorrow night.
...
She was hurt and had nowhere to go. She had not anticipated the sniper. Who honestly anticipated a sniper at a strip club, anyway? She had killed the man, certainly but was going to be without aid for hours if she traveled back to the hotel. The scenario of explaining her gunshot wound to the hotel staff did not appeal to her either.
And then she thought, Ivan. A physicist surely had to have some basic knowledge of human anatomy, right? Or maybe she wanted to see him so badly, that blood became the perfect excuse.
She arrived at his home an hour later.
"It's me!"
Nothing and then, "Is open, get inside!"
She opened the door with her good arm. She did not realize how tired she was until she entered Ivan's home. She didn't realize how safe she felt until she settled onto his bed. She blinked her eyes trying desperately to fight unconsciousness. She tried to focus on him working and clapped her hand over her bleeding shoulder.
"I'll just watch...till I feel better, alright."
"Suit yourself," he stated simply. He began to pour liquid metal into the mold on the table. His hands shook slightly as he did so and some spilled onto the table. He closed his eyes and said something angrily in Russian. Setting down the hot metal he removed his work gloves. He disappeared into the makeshift kitchen and Jasira heard the sound of water. She heard the sounds of cupboards opening and closing but it was fuzzy in her head.
When he returned he had a hooked needle, thread and a bottle of vodka. He uncapped the vodka and gave it to her.
"Drink."
She sipped and almost spit it out, it was so strong. He chuckled but repeated the instruction. She drank, this time accounting for the strong hit of alchohol. He took the bottle away when he deemed that she had drunk enough. Her limbs felt heavy and the pain was far off as Ivan began removing her shirt.
Я схожу по тебе с ума(You drive me crazy)," he muttered as he saw her wound.
"Whass tha' mean," she whispered.
"It means that you are lucky to be alive."
"Not luck...blessed."
He shrugged. He went back to the work table and picked up a blowtorch. He heated the needle and then picked up the thread. Going back to her he said almost gently, "Now think of something else."
"There is nothing else, Ivan," and she meant it.
...
She was home again, the day after getting nearly killed. She decided to think about what it was that she was getting into with Ivan. It could not be possible that she cared for the man, could it? She thought of the days when she simply watched him work, how much she enjoyed the simple act of taking care of him. She thought of his eyes and how they could hold her.
But that couldn't be happening.
Assassins did not fall in love, it wasn't exactly conducive to their career choice. She laid on the bed and thought about the night before.
There is nothing else, Ivan.
He had looked at her then and she had looked back steadily. He really was the one person in the world that she trusted. When he plunged in the needle, he said something she expected never to hear.
"There is this, for now."
The second day she deliberated on what she should do next. Seeing him would be a bad idea, of that she was sure. There wasa more to trusting him than she had first thought.
She looked up at the ceiling of her hotel room.
"You tell me. What next?"
...
On the third day she was at his door. She was nervous, never having really done anything like it before. What if he turned her away? What if she ruined the relationship that they'd begun? She entered without knocking. He was looking at the newspaper clippings over his bedside. He turned when he saw her enter.
'Now or never' she had thought as she moved toward him. His eyes looked at her and she could see the same feral look from when they had first met. However, he said nothing because he knew as well as she that there was something between them. She stopped, inches away, so close she could feel the heat on his skin. She stood on tiptoe and she brushed her lips against his.
"Please,"she said. 'Please feel the same'.
When she pulled away his eyes were fixed on hers. That's what had gotten her in trouble in the first place. Then finally he nodded. Her heart lifted and she wasn't afraid. His fingers reached for the zipper of her hoody and tugged it down. Sure hands traveled down the length of her shirt and she could feel herself getting wet. She wasn't sure how he managed to instill such feelings in her. His fingers settled at the bottom of her shirt and she put her arms up to help him along. There was stab of pain as her stitches contested the movement but neither of them cared.
He was already moving lower. Soon she was naked before him, completely vulnerable. She hadn't been this vulnerable since she was a girl. No one could touch her. No one except him, she realized. And that was fine with her. She wanted to be with him, needed it. He moved her so that she was against the wall, claiming her lips.
Hunger, he was famished. How long had he felt the same, but she could not ask. His mouth controlled the kiss and as his tongue entered her mouth she realized that she had wanted to yield. She wanted to give in. Her fingers threaded through his hair pressing him closer to her, offering more and he took it.
He broke away and began removing his clothing. She watched, eying the prison tattoos. She understood that they told a story and she so badly wanted to ask what they meant. She wanted to trace them beneath her fingertips as she lay over him in bed. She wanted to press her lips to the ones that meant he had suffered.
But there wasn't time.
She looked at him, letting him know that she still wanted him. She was still his. He pressed her against the wall, lifting her legs around his waist. She could feel him, touching all parts of her and it was a heady feeling that coiled through her.
"Please,"she whispered. Because having him hold her was not enough. Because they were running out of time. Because she loved him. God, she loved him so much.
He entered her in one thrust and she cried out from the pain. She buried her head in his shoulder, unused to the pain. He whispered softly in her ear as she tried to adjust. She liked his voice, though she hardly understood a word. It didn't matter if it hurt because he was a part of her. She would take him anyway that she could get him.
There was nothing else.
She pressed her legs around him to let him know that she was ready and he began to move. At first it hurt, him moving within, as large as he was but then it didn't. Or at least pleasure overrode the pain. Then she thrust at a particular angle and she moaned. Her eyes closed as that crest of pleasure washed over her. She wanted more of that feeling. She squeezed her legs again.
He moved faster and she let his name roll of her tongue shamelessly. Higher, higher, until she could feel stars on her back, until her heart was lifted so much it was right there with the stars. That's what he was doing for her and then she felt it. Her heart must have stopped, her breath caught and she could only clutch his back certain she was cutting into his skin.
She trembled as he carried her. She was bare but not, empty but so full. He laid her on the bed and she wanted to cry because she knew then he felt the same. They had a compromise, truth or silence. She caught his eyes and saw the feral give way to something far more gentle. he could not say the words, just as she couldn't but it was fine. She kissed him once more, to tell him she knew. They moved together again,skin on skin, her heartbeat was in her ears. This was perfect and there would never be anything better. Pleasure traveled through every part of her once more and she could feel herself moving higher once more.
It was a beautiful agony as she came for the second time. He came soon after, his lips by her ear and then at her neck pressing gentle kisses. He stopped suddenly and rolled away. But they both knew, it was far too late to lie.
...
I'll lie next to you because it's the only place I'm safe.
...
I want to stay here, just another night.
...
I'm scared, please make me forget. Convince me that there's time.
...
Stay with me, please stay with me. We can forget together and never have to worry again.
...
Days blurred into one and every day brought them closer to the end. She wanted to ask him to give up his vengeance but it would not have been fair to him. She decided to leave, to take another mission, somewhere in Italy. She called up her employers, requesting leave. On their last night they made love again. Though she didn't tell him she had a feeling she knew.
She left a note just outside the door they day he was leaving to meet the other informant, her replacement. On several nights when she was drifting away, he leaned over her. He muttered something softly to her in Russian, pressed a kiss to her head.
She was horrible at the language but she understood. She understood why he never said her name when they made love, understood that he was only trying to protect her. The note was a way to set him free.
...
She was not surprised to learn of his death. She had known that it would come to death in the end. But what she didn't understand was the pure unadulterated rage that moved through her. Another hotel room, Florence this time. She picked up a vase and threw it at a wall, screaming. She was beyond words, beyond thought. She grabbed at her throat, she couldn't breathe.
She crumbled to the ground, sobbing for the first time in years. She had cried when they had made love sometimes too. he had broken through every defense, laid her bare. Her heart hurt, her body ached.
"Ivan,"she whispered brokenly.
...
Brown curls, bobbed lightly in the breeze. His arms waved as he tried to steady himself. He looked back at her, intense hazel eyes catching hers. His skin was the color of caramel, his smile had a few missing teeth. He walked along the water's edge, pudgy toes sinking into the sand. His mother stood a few steps away her arms outstretched. He moved slowly, almost falling a few times and finally made it to her arms. She held him close, pressing her lips to his head.
"Good job, Jonny."
John Thomas Vanko.
"God is gracious,"she whispered. She would never kill again and maybe the rest of her life she could never be Jasira. But she had a piece of Ivan to keep, a part of him to love. He hed reshaped her and given her a way to stay the same.
A/N Alright on that final note, the reason for the name is because John is the English version of Ivan. Thomas is her father's name. And yes this last tidbit is sometime later.