this was supposed to be a 1500 word little piece of nothing I don't know what happened.
/
Alice is thirteen the first time she gets arrested.
She spits at the officer and chews a stick of the bubblegum she stole and thinks darkly about how pissed her parents are going to be. How they'll have to cancel business meetings and trips to deal with her. How all her siblings will come home to see how badly she's fucked up this time. How she won't be alone in the house for once.
Five months later, her parents send her away to boarding school.
That's where she meets Anabela.
/
At twenty-six, Alice can honestly say things could be worse.
She's employed, has a flat, and is not in jail, nor does she have any sort of criminal record on the usual channels. Her job at the local nursery might not be ideal, but she likes trees and she likes plants and people buying gardening supplies aren't generally the sort to ask mind-numbingly irritating questions. Barring the occasional lost Neanderthal thinking it's a shop he can buy apology bouquets from, Alice's cliental is usually more than tolerable. It pays as well as it can, the hours are reasonable, and no one cares that her hair is frizzy and terrible and her glasses takes up 4/5ths of her face. s
It's not the glorious life she once imagined for herself. She's not living the high life in the Hamptons, and she still doesn't have that little cottage in the Cotswolds that she's always wanted. But well, she's alive. And not in jail. So there's really no reason for her to complain.
She is definitely, 100 percent, absolutely not bored.
And so when Anabela shows up, looking seven kinds of hot and wearing everything from designer jeans to designer sunglasses, Alice definitely does not decide to toss her hard-earned peace out the window by diving back into a business that almost killed her.
Because Alice is not a teenager anymore. She's not young and reckless and horny and she won't jump through hoops the second Ana smirks with those red-painted lips of hers.
Rather, she waits five minutes to take off her work smock and change into a sensible pair of shoes first.
"I know you want back in, even if you don't think you want back in," says Ana, the two of them sitting on the patio of a nearby Starbucks. "Just look at your hair. No happy person would let their hair become such a mess. Darling, conditioner."
"Oh fuck off," says Alice, but doesn't really mean it, because she's missed Ana something terrible, and also her hair is so frizzy and so long that it probably counts as a sentient being at this point.
"And besides, wanting means fuck all," she continues, fighting the urge to fidget with the square, clunky frames on her face, "We're all out the job aren't we? Rome went down. She's rotting- well, okay. She's probably living reasonably well in white-collar prison. However, she's certainly not planning any heists."
And yet, here's Ana, still looking like she's walked off a runway. Still strutting around like she's only five steps away from killing a man. To field a look like that it's likely that she's still getting money. Lots of money. And that she's still in a profession that requires her to look both drop dead gorgeous and drop dead dangerous.
"So the question is," says Alice after a moment, eyes narrowed, "Just who are you working for now?"
Ana smiles, sipping her latte like it's a glass of chardonnay. God, Alice hates the way she makes everything seem classy. Fucking Iberians. Fucking beautiful Iberians that she hasn't seen in over a year but still wants to pin to the nearest surface and bang into the fifth dimension. Alice doesn't deserve this. She's been so good.
"You want to know?" Ana asks, tilting her head, "I could tell you, but I'm not going to waste time on someone who's already happily employed. But if you wanted a job…"
"Ana," hisses Alice, "You're always such a fucking tease. Come on with it."
Ana's smile is predatory, the red of her lips curling upwards like a slowly opening wound.
"I missed you," she coos, reaching out with one hand to adjust the glasses still crooked on Alice's nose. And then, matter of fact: "Let's go to Germany and steal some diamonds."
Alice is twenty-six, has a steady job, an affordable flat, and is not on any of Europe's most wanted lists, even though she really, really should be.
She is also bored as hell.
She inhales sharply, leaning into Ana's touch. "Fuck yes."
/
Boarding school is terrible.
Everyone is sheltered, and rich, and spoiled, and no one cares for the heavy-handed authority of the teachers and headmistresses who are trying to break them into respectable human beings. Everyone smokes, drinks, hikes up their skirts, pulls down their tops, and beats the shit out of each other in back lots.
Alice loves it.
She cuts her hair short so other bitches don't grab at it in fights, she starts swearing like it's breathing, and smokes in the bathrooms even though she thinks fags taste like shit. She wears thick sunglasses and pretends it's for style and they're not prescription and she wears red lipstick even though she doesn't like the way it feels because it makes her look dangerous. In public school, she'd get made fun of for being posh. She obliterates that accent and syntax and learns to carry herself less like a princess and more like a lioness. She trades out demure smiles and childish pouts for fanged grins and relishes in the way the other girls give her space. Part like the Red Sea in front of her to avoid getting in her way.
Alice used to be bad to try and get her absent family's attention. Now she's bad because it's fun.
Ana is a year older than her and already has a gang and patch of territory that she'll defend until her knuckles are bloody. The shitty park behind the school is theirs. All the crooked trees, broken swingsets and field littered with alcohol bottles and cigarette butts. It's there that Ana shows Alice how to throw a proper punch, ripped and dirty stockings wrapped around her fists. In the same shaded, yellow-grassed area, old playground equipment rusted and warped, Ana shows Alice what a real French kiss is. And how two girls can hit a home run with nothing but a firm pair of lips and some dexterous fingers.
Misdemeanors and sexual misconduct none withstanding, Alice does well in school. She's at the top of her class without trying. She understands literature and she enjoys history and she's shit at math until it comes to computers. Than all that crap starts to make sense. She flies through everything so fast that they let her take advanced classes, and then fast-track her graduation a year altogether.
"They just can't wait to be rid of you," Ana says, lipstick and blood smeared all over her teeth, "You are a terror, Alice Kirkland."
And Alice just leans in and bites her mouth again, refusing to show how happy she is that she and Ana will be graduating together. Leaving together.
She doesn't know where they'll go. Doesn't know what they'll do. She's fairly certain her parents are going to officially disown her the second she turns eighteen, and she can't imagine any self-respecting university will let her terrorize the student population into submission as she's done here. And what fun is school, if everyone isn't terrified of crossing you?
And besides, Ana's going backpacking through Europe. She hasn't asked Alice to go with her yet, but…
In any case, Alice doesn't have to make any difficult decisions about what she's doing after she graduates. Because Juliet Vargas approaches her and Ana the day after her seventeenth birthday, and offers them both a job.
/
Alice doesn't keep her suitcase full of fake passports and falsified documents in her flat, because that would be silly.
She keeps them in a safehouse owned by a friend, along with all of her personalized weapons, Kevlar, and other questionable belongings.
Ana doesn't come with her to get ready, nor does she take Alice to meet their new employer. But that's fine. Ana worked solo most of the time when they were working for Rome. Alice had a completely different team of girls that she did operations with. She'd been hesitant to trust and cooperate with them at first, but they'd grown close over the years that they worked together.
She wonders if she should call them up. Not necessarily for this heist, Ana's leading and she probably won't want to bring in extra people if it lessens her cut, but just to…to hang.
After Rome fell, everyone had to duck and run. Become low profile, disappear with as little a splash as possible. She hasn't been in contact with either of her old team, and she finds herself missing Dana's laughter and Luca's quiet contempt.
She should call them. After.
Alice picks up the key to the safehouse from Femke, who gives her a knowing smirk, and then books a hair appointment at a nearby salon. Ana had reamed her out quite a bit for her hair. How unprofessional it was. And how being out of work didn't mean letting go completely. And how there was no way Alice was going on the job looking like that.
Alice was never quite like Ana. She wasn't into honeypotting or slipping into parties as an attractive arm warmer. She preferred beating people up in back alleys, hang-gliding onto rooftops and jumping through windows while dual-wielding handguns.
But for this job, Ana had stressed that she would be looked at, so she needed to look good. Which meant a trim, contacts, and a flat iron turned up to the highest setting. All of which Alice could honestly do without.
One of the hairdressers actually screams when she walks through the door though, so maybe Ana had a point.
After that's done, and her hair is now a reasonable length and volume and isn't trying to eat anyone's face, she goes over the schematics for the plan and chooses her outfits for the evening. A dress that's easy to move in, heels unfortunately, and then a practical black jumpsuit with like a million weapon pockets for when things get fun.
Alice flips through her false identities and chooses one where the picture makes her look significantly dumber and blonder than usual. If their new employer is like Rome, then someone in the airport will be paid off to waive them through security checks and make sure their luggage isn't scanned or searched, but it never hurts to look a little vapid to throw off suspicion.
Alice's heart thunders as she finishes up packing her case, and she finds herself missing Ana, wishing she would call.
She's excited. She missed this. The planning. The fighting. The thrill of the heist. But mostly, she missed them.
She wishes Ana would call.
/
At first, Alice is furious.
They separate them, in training. Saying that staying together will just stunt their growth. They need to be able to adapt. They need to learn skills and become people beyond schoolgirls that grew up together.
Alice is pissed. Ana kisses her on both cheeks, clicks her teeth and tells her to be a big girl, and then turns on her heel to catch a plane to her new location. With her new team. In Greece.
And Alice is stuck in Italy with two weird ass girls who look like an idiot and a prep, respectively. Other conscripts, the same age as her. Neither looking like they've spent three years bringing a boarding school full of bloodthirsty primadonnas to heel. Alice couldn't be less impressed, when she first meets them.
But time tempers her disdain, and training forces her to reconsider her opinion. The Romanian ditz, Dana, turns out to be wicked at hand-to-hand combat and is a crack engineer besides. The prim Norwegian, Luca, is pitiless, scary smart, and fond of explosives. The kind of girl who Alice would have had trouble with, at school. The kind of girl who, if you backed her against a bathroom mirror and tried to stare her down, would look back at you as if you were the most insignificant thing in the world.
Alice likes her a lot. And she likes Dana's warped sense of humour and love of antique weapons. And she loves that they both also believe in ghosts and magic and the fair folk, and when Alice turns 18 they all start practicing Wicca together. By that time, they're fast friends, and Alice knows them as well as sisters.
Dana is loud and gets emotional easily and her hair is cut unevenly and she dresses like a 19th century vampire. But she's clever and vibrant and mean with any type of hand-held weapon. She's best with staves and pipes, but she's pretty damn wicked with a pair of nunchucks or tonfa as well. She can hotwire any car in seconds and once made a working engine out of a scooter and an electric toothbrush.
And Luca is aloof and judgmental and barely says two words in a row if she doesn't feel like interacting with people that day. But she's clever in a way that's a bit scary and she ditched a job with logistics to have the chance to blow shit up in real time. She can make a bomb out of anything and she's also a crackshot with basically every firearm known to man and her mixed martial arts skills aren't anything to be scoffed at either.
They go on their first mission together and it's fantastic. Dana doesn't stop laughing and Luca actually cracks a smile and Alice smashes the last guard's face in before whooping with joy and jumping into the getaway boat two stories below.
They're nineteen and more than a little wild. Dana's hair's a mess and Luca's got blood on her shoes and Alice can't stop grinning. She's never been happier. She feels like this is the life she was made for.
She sends Ana an email when they're finally home and, without divulging too many details, tells her that she had a blast and that she loves this job and she can't wait to cash her cheque when it comes in and isn't Ana proud?
Ana sends back, Glad you're finally standing on your own two feet, sweetie. :)
And that.
That gives Alice a weird feeling.
But she dismisses it, because Ana doesn't mean anything by that. It's a compliment. Alice is just being weirdly paranoid and insecure because they haven't seen each other in awhile.
They're still each other's first and best, of course.
/
The job goes off without a hitch.
They glide through the party with all the ease of goddesses. Anabela with loose curls cascading over shoulders and Alice with her hair tamed and in a half-up, half-down style. Ana sidles up to one of the guests and coyly plays with his fingers until the specialized glove on her hand gets all of his finger prints and Alice stares deeply into the eyes of every man with access to the upper floors until her specialized contacts have all the retina scans downloaded.
They get through all the security codes and locked doors with no problem, incapacitating any hapless individuals they come across with ease. There's something continuously satisfying about digging a stiletto into a man's kidneys, and it's always more fun with a partner. Alice is grinning when she does a snap kick that breaks a rib and a hooked punch that knocks out teeth. She's grinning watching Ana bring a man down with her thighs, and break another's nose with her elbow.
This is Alice, in her element. This is Alice and Ana, back in action.
The upper floor is absolutely riddled with cameras and easily-triggered alarms though. So Alice ditches her dress, ducks out of a bathroom window and scales the building to set up on the roof and disable the security system for that floor. It doesn't go quickly, which is annoying but not the end of the world. It just means instead of taking it down and then clearing the floor together, she disables the security room by room, and Ana makes her way to the jewels by herself. Which, oh well, Alice doesn't get to stand guard while Ana hacks the safe. But Ana will be fine, and Alice is honestly pretty useless at safe-cracking. She's more useful with her fingers in the computer system.
Alice disables the security in the last room and then packs up her stuff, certain that by the time she makes it back down to the window, Ana will have already grabbed the jewels.
She's right.
Alice climbs down to that same bathroom window, purse full of hacking material clutched in her jaw and no suspension cords. This building is brick, and Alice has scaled concrete. She's supported only by her gloved fingers.
Anabela is standing in front of the window, the prize- a case full of diamonds, in one hand. A gun in the other.
Alice pauses in the window frame, stares, brows drawn together in confusion.
"Ana?"
The bullet hits Alice square in the chest and she goes plummeting down.
She doesn't remember hitting the ground.
/
The initial expectation had been that she'd train with Dana and Luca, and then be partnered up with Ana.
That was what Alice had thought when she'd first signed up. That she'd be stuck with the weirdoes for a little while, but ultimately, she and Ana would end up together in the end.
After two years of training, Alice is more pragmatic and less self-absorbed, and knows that that's ridiculous. Dana and Luca and her know each other intimately now. They work together like clockwork. They know each other's strengths, weaknesses, and how to maximize everyone's individual talents on a mission. Being trained together meant being stuck with each other for the rest of their careers. At twenty, Alice knows this, and she's a little disappointed but understands it.
It's a surprise then when, a few years later, she does get paired with Ana on a mission. Just the two of them.
Alice is confused but ecstatic. She's seen a decent amount of Ana, they screw around in their off time and email somewhat regularly, but-
Well, Ana usually fucks her and leaves, saying she's got plans and missions and reports and things to do. And she can take anywhere from a week to a month to respond to Alice's emails and messages. Which Alice understands completely! They're both busy people, after all.
But Alice is really excited to be going on a mission together. It'll be just them. Planning, surveillance, and pulling off the heist. One on one. Just the two of them. Like it used to be.
Alice is twenty-two, and feels a bit silly to still be so schoolgirl smitten, but she's honestly never gotten over Ana. She and Luca have fooled around more than a little, and she's flirted some with other ladies working for Rome, but nothing's ever come close to the way Ana made her feel, when they were girls together.
Alice meets Ana at the airport, and beams at her as she approaches with her bags. Ana's smile is thin, and Alice imagines she's probably exhausted. She hugs her, promising to massage some of the stiffness out of her shoulders at a later time.
They move into an apartment together, though Ana spends most of her time out of it, gathering info. Conversation is a little stilted, and Alice imagines that Ana's a bit overworked. She's heard talk around the base, around Rome's network. Alice, Luca, and Dana might be one of the best teams, but Anabela is one of the best solo artists. Her teammates didn't make it through the training, but Ana's more than made up for it. And sure, working alone might mean extra loot, but it's also extra work beforehand.
Alice resolves to be more diligent then usual, to do more than her fair share to give Ana a bit of a break. Maybe, if she works extra hard, Ana will have more time to spend in the apartment.
It doesn't quite work out that way, but Alice's meticulous planning does result in a mission that goes off flawlessly. And she has fun with it. It reminds her of when they were girls, back to back, fighting another gang in some backlot. She and Ana, partners in crime, as it should be.
She wants to celebrate together, crack open some bottles and party when they get back to Italy, but Ana already has a flight to Austria booked.
"I'm a busy bee, darling," she says airily, pinching Alice's cheek, "Don't wait up."
Alice is disappointed. There's no mistaking that. But, well, Ana. Ana is Ana.
And she just becomes more elusive, more busy, over the next couple of years. Their chemistry together is unmistakable, so they do have another few jobs in which they're paired together, but the time is always rushed and short. Alice tells herself it's just efficiency, but there's a dark part of her that wonders if Ana just…doesn't want to spend time with her?
But Ana isn't really the type to play games. If she was tired of Alice, she'd just tell her and be done with it. Alice is just being paranoid and silly.
And Ana has a reputation as being flighty anyways. Being almost exclusively solo in Rome's organization is unusual. Everyone works in teams. It's safer that way, and generally yields more successful jobs. But Ana seems adamant about working primarily alone, and her success rate is high enough that no one bothers her about it. Some of the other girls are catty though, acting like the girls at school used to, accusing Ana of thinking she's too good for them. And Alice defends her every time, ignoring the twisting of unease in her own stomach.
She wonders if she should try and ask Ana about it. If it's worth confronting her about. But Ana really isn't the type to stick around if she doesn't like something. If she really didn't like Alice as she used to, then why bother with her at all? If she was disdainful of working with others, than why do the occasional job with Alice at all?
She never makes a decision as to whether or not to confront Ana, because Rome gets arrested and they all have to scatter. Francoise's team makes sure that all record of the girls that worked for her disappear and Heidi's team liquidate, explosively, any buildings and safehouses with incriminating evidence.
Alice, Luca, and Dana are among the ones whose only job is to disappear, quietly and without fanfare. Withdrawing money from foreign accounts and scattering with grim goodbyes and chaste kisses on cheeks. Dana is going back home to Romania and Luca is going to try and track down a sister living in Iceland. None of them seem to know if keeping in touch is a smart thing to do, given the circumstances, and their parting has a degree of finality to it. Alice would never admit it, but she's teary eyed, watching them fade into the distance.
She can't get into contact with Ana at all.
But there's no faulting the woman for that. It would be wise for Alice to change all of her emails and phone numbers as well. To cut herself off from the past completely.
She goes back to England for the first time in eight years.
You're not a girl anymore. Go see what you can do with yourself on your own, without beating people up. Alice reasons with herself, staring out the plane window. If Ana wants to find me, she will.
A year and a half later, her old lover, her first and best, does just that.
And puts a bullet in her lung.
/
Alice is not a stupid woman.
She is, in fact, brilliant. She was top of her class for years, top among Rome's agents, and beat the online chess computer 8/10 times.
She is not a stupid woman, and it takes about four minutes of careful thought to realize she should have seen Ana's betrayal coming.
She wakes up with tubes down her throat and plaster superglued to every part of her body and doesn't even have the range of motion required for tears to leak from her tear ducts. But she can deconstruct and comb through every memory from the past twelve years and realize that she should have seen this coming.
What you were, she thinks, chest throbbing despite the morphine humming in her blood, was an expendable fucktoy.
The next time she opens her eyes one of Rome's elusive granddaughters, known to her only as Romano, is sitting in the chair beside her, looking pitiless and impatient.
"You better hurry up and heal, Kirkland," she snipes, tapping a shoe against the floor, "The bitch that did this to you is probably the reason the old lady got put away, and you're our best bet to catch her. If you waste all the money I spent getting you out of Germany, I'll be pissed. Don't fucking die."
Alice narrows her eyes at her. Romano just looks at her watch.
When the tubes come out, days and days later, she cusses her out six ways to Sunday, before demanding every file they have on Anabela. Every piece of proof they have that she's always been a traitor.
"What, you don't believe me?" Romano growls, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh I believe you," Alice snarls back, "But if we're taking her down then I need all the information available. This plan will be flawless. She will not get away."
Romano bears her teeth in what might be the closest thing to a smile she's capable of. And the next day, Alice has a laptop full of files, photos, and sour memories.
It turns out, Anabela had been a double agent for quite some time. She sabotaged her own teammates to be able to work alone, and her solo missions always went through without a hitch because they were staged. The people she was stealing from were either paid off, or she had outside help, not from Rome.
"Germania," hisses Romano, perfectly manicured nails digging into the arms of the hospital chair, "That potato-fucking heinous piece of turd. Was trying to get the drop on Nonna for years. Your evil girlfriend gave her the in she needed. Bitch was doublecrossing for years."
Romano's eyes flash dangerously, and she leans forward, nostrils flaring.
"She kept us off her tail by doing missions with you," she growls, "Someone who thought the moon shined out of her ass- You had to notice she was suspicious as fuck, right? But you brushed it off, 'cause she was your childhood sweetheart, or your favourite piece of tail. Whichever. And she knew you'd believe her. Cover for her. She'd be off doing god knows what and you'd say – 'Oh, she's just gathering info for our mission' –because you honestly trusted that she was. She played you like a damn fool. Fucking disgraceful."
Alice's eyes burn. She doesn't say a damn thing. Just lifts her chin and refuses to be stared down.
"I will make sure she pays," she says quietly, her voice just a little shaky, "She'll rot for this, I swear."
"What, you're not going to kill her?" asks Romano, incredulous, "She fucking assassinated you, Kirkland. Wanted a clean fucking break so she could work for Germania without worry. Sources say she's aiming for a high position in their organization, and to do that she needed to not have any remaining ties that could compromise her. All her old teammates from training are dead. You're the only one left who's ever worked with her. The only one who'd know how she operates. The only one who'd pose a threat, either tactical or emotional. And she stone cold set you up. Theatrically too. Didn't even have the decency to just arrange for someone to snipe you. What a goddawful bitch."
The Italian leans back in her chair, resting her cheek on her fist. "I mean, obviously it's better if we can catch her, torture her, and then maybe get her framed so that some of Nonna's crimes get pinned on her instead. But, shit, I'm not holding out for it. 'Cause if I were you I wouldn't be able to stop myself from just killing her. Click-pow. Right in the forehead." Romano snorts, a short, humourless laugh. "I mean, damn Kirkland, she got you good."
"Romano," Alice says carefully, and it's a fight to keep her voice even now, "She. Will. Rot for this."
The heart monitor beeps frantically, and something in her chest rattles. Romano looks pleased.
"Good," she says smugly, "Now tell me that again when you're not pissing through a tube."
/
For her sixteenth birthday, Ana took Alice to the roof of the school. They smoked cigars and had sex and Ana had grinned her red-painted grin and said that Alice was the favourite of all her girls. Had kissed the words into her neck.
On her twenty-seventh birthday, Alice is forcing her legs to walk. Forcing strength back into her broken body so she can stop wasting time and avenge her youth, her pride, and her heart.
A plaything, she repeats internally, teeth grit with pain, nothing more.
/
Dana's working as a mechanic in Romania, and her face does something complicated when she lifts her head from under the hood of a truck and sees Alice standing there. Her red-brown hair is pinned back in an assortment of hair ties and clips, and there's oil streaked across her face. She looks like a hippy college student, and nothing like an international criminal.
"Before I explain, I want you to know you can say no, it's fine," says Alice fervently, "I know we're all supposed to be out of this business. And besides, it's a personal matter."
Dana stares at her for a moment, eyes unreadable, before a grin breaks out across her face. Her incisors are still strangely sharp, giving her smile a devious look, and there's nothing but devilish delight dancing across her face as she straightens up and wipes her hands on her shorts.
"Well that means I definitely can't say no," she says, sounding unapologetic and looking wickedly pleased, "We're sisters, after all. If it's personal for you, it's personal for me." The mischievous glee dancing in her eyes is all too familiar, as is her sharp-toothed grin.
"What's the job?"
Luca's not in Iceland anymore, but in Denmark. Living with another woman and working as a violin teacher in a small seaside town. She answers the door with her standard unflappable expression, and when she tucks her hair behind her ear, Alice sees the glint of a ring on her left hand.
"There's no reason for you to put yourself back in this," says Alice, eyes glued to the wedding ring and feeling insanely guilty, "So please, don't think you have to."
Luca's expression doesn't waver for a few seconds, gaze heavy and silent. But then she sighs and steps forward, closing the door behind her.
" 'Ren won't mind," she says simply, "She knows who I am and what I used to do. And she'll respect that you're important to me."
A faint smile emerges on her lips then, and she looks up at Alice from under her eyelashes.
"So," she asks, something impish lighting in her eyes, "What's the job?"
/
The job is simple.
Smash Anabela's fucking face in and look damn good while doing it.
/
"I know shorts aren't practical, but I've gotten used to them," complains Dana, tucking collapsible rods and an assortment of tools and wiring into the lining of her jacket, "Sure I can't wear 'em?"
"If you want your knees shot out, sure," says Luca dryly, carefully and tenderly arranging the blades on her knife belt. She tucks a few of the smaller ones into the assortment of braids on the top of her head, and slides a gun into the holster on the side of her thigh. "Or maybe, wear that pair of really tall bullet-proof boots."
Dana beams at the idea, and races across the room of the storehouse to retrieve the high-density footwear. The assortment of clips in her hair has been replaced with various miniature mechanical and engineering tools, and her leather jacket is filled with even more, in addition to an arsenal of weapons. She hums happily as she ties up the Kevlar boots, the laces made of a flexible steel material that's perfect for lock picking, conducting electricity, and serving as a thin, deadly projectile in a pinch.
Luca is slowly wrapping bandages around her hands and arms. A special cloth that doubles as a flame starter and an accelerant. There's lighter fluid in her heels, and the corset she's wearing has a metal frame that can be reconfigured into a bomb. The belt around her waist is both a grappling hook and a whip, and the square pattern on her stockings are actually tiny computer chips that can be used to destabilize and hack any system. Her light, loose, dark blue skirt doubles as a parachute. And a strangulation tool.
Alice sits on a nearby chair and paints her nails. Bright red. She's already chosen her guns. Already has her crossbow locked and loaded. Her hacking materials packed condensely into a pouch hidden beneath her skirt. She's cut her hair again, to the length it was in boarding school. Frizzy and wild, like she was when she first met Anabela.
Romano's planned everything for them. The location and date is set up. It's a small operation, just Alice, her girls, and her anger. All that's left to do now is prepare, and wait.
The nail polish isn't dark enough for Alice to pretend it's Anabela's blood on her fingers, and something dark and ugly churns within her.
"Click, pow," she murmurs, slowly closing her hand into a fist. The red smears along her palm, and her blood simmers.
"You sure you can handle this by yourselves?" asks Romano a week or so later, arms folded across her chest as she hovers in the doorway of the training room beneath Alice's safehouse. "All of you have been out of the job for quite awhile. Anabela won't be rusty."
Across the floor, Dana takes off a mannequin's head with her knunchuks and lets out a whoop of glee before backflipping off a wall, and Luca nails every pressure point on the human body diagram pinned to the wall, flinging her knives with expert precision.
Alice just looks at Romano, who bares her teeth in a savage smile.
"Glad to hear it," she says, eyes sharp, "Now let's go get that bitch."
/
Alice's fifteenth birthday was the first time she'd received no recognition from her family on her birthday, whatsoever. No calls. No emails. No acknowledgement that she even existed. She spent the day in a foul mood, punching, kicking, and clawing anyone who looked at her crossways. Backtalking in class and smoking brashly in the hallway, her eyes burning.
And that night, she cried.
And Anabela had come up to her, wiped off her tears with the heel of her palm and clucked her teeth.
"Family isn't about blood, darling," she had said, holding Alice's face between her hands, "Forget them. It's you and me now, we'll be each other's first and best, and everyone else can go fuck themselves."
Then she'd kissed her, and they'd spent the night terrorizing the school's population. Holding up the other girls for everything from cash to chapstick. Burying their pain and the rawness of their emotion beneath busted knuckles and bruised lips. As the sun rose, they'd sat in Ana's dorm room while Alice iced the other girl's bruised cheek and Ana put bandaids on the bloody cuts showing through Alice's torn stockings.
But bandaids don't fix bullet holes, Alice thinks, staring down at the villa that Anabela's currently in the process of robbing. Her and a ten-man team- way more than Rome would ever send on a single operation. Maybe Germania is more paranoid. Or maybe, they're just not as good as Rome's girls.
"What, only five each?" murmurs Luca, eyes hooded, "Now I feel overdressed."
Dani just grins, predatory and excited, lurking like a cat on the edge of the building, and leaning forward with anticipation. Neither of them states the obvious. Which is that Ana is Alice's mark, and Alice's alone. Even if either of them has a clear shot on her, they won't take it.
They break into the Villa easily, since it's already been broken into, and Alice hacks the system and reroutes the disarming bug that the other team put through, so that the alarm will turn back on ten minutes earlier than anticipated. Luca rigs all the escape routes (except their own) with explosives, and down below, Dani sabotages the getaway vehicle and takes out the driver with a crowbar to the windpipe, cackling into their comm-link the entire time.
They all make their way through the top floor, and Luca and Alice take out two of Ana's team on the way. Silent and deadly. Knives in all the right places, so that they drop without a sound. Dana rejoins them as they turn a corner, eyes manic with delight and brandishing her staff.
"That's three for me," she says, grinning, "Was it always this easy?"
A few steps later, someone attempts to drop down from the ceiling on top of them, and Luca nails him over her shoulder without batting an eye. Alice finishes him off casually, elbow-knee-fist in quick succession until he's collapsed, spitting blood.
The next room over, they're rushed by the last four of Ana's team, and Alice runs up the wall, parkouring over their heads and trusting Dana and Luca to make short work of them. For the four of them to rush out like that, it can only mean that they're trying to cover Ana's escape, trying to make sure that the stolen goods are secure.
And Alice won't let that happen.
She jumps out the window closest to the getaway car, her specialized jacket allowing her to glide down at a less than breakneck speed, handguns in each hands as she sees Anabela desperately trying to hotwire the vehicle.
Alice's shots crack the glass but don't shatter it, and she lands on the roof of the car and shoots downwards before rolling off.
The driver's door flies open and a hail of bullets streams out. Alice twists to the side, then kicks out with her foot to knock the gun away from her, and then reaches in and grabs Ana, twisting her arm to disarm her and flipping her on to the pavement.
Anabela's face is a mask of rage as she twists in Alice's hold. Until her eyes finally center on Alice's face- then her entire body ripples in shock.
"Surprise, lover," snarls Alice, twisting Ana's arm harder until something snaps and the other woman screams, "Afraid sorry's not going to cut it."
Ana's face is purple with rage, shock, and pain, but she still manages to kick out with a leg, a blade shooting out of her boot and stabbing into Alice's ribcage.
Alice hisses in pain and jumps to her feet, pulling Ana along by her broken arm and ignoring her howls. She's wearing heavy duty body armour today. Nothing so flimsy will cut through it.
"You won't get a single drop of my blood today, Anabela," she spits, "You'll be a splatter on the concrete today, not me."
She grabs Ana by the neck and smashes her face into the side of the car. Once, twice, until her screams have faded into gasps and sobs. Alice pulls her by the hair and drops her on the pavement, her heeled boot planted on her chest.
"Right where you shot me," she hisses, voice shaking, "Right there, you treacherous bitch."
Ana's face, so often perfect, flawless, lipstick immaculate and eyes gorgeous, is streaked with blood and gore. A tooth is missing, her nose is broken, and her mouth is open and gasping, eyes blown wide.
Alice's stomach twists, images of Ana in the morning, Ana at night in her bed, rising unbidden to her mind. A howl of rage, of loss and betrayal, tears itself from her throat, and she punches the other woman in the face.
"You were my first and best," she snarls, shaking, "God fucking help me, I honestly loved you. And you tried to kill me. Like I was nothing."
Anabela's face is a mask of pain, and her breath is wheezing from the weight Alice is putting on her chest. But she's- there's not pleading in her gaze. There's fear, and outrage, but not an inch of regret. She's unapologetic, unrepentant. And Alice wants to scream again.
She doesn't. She composes herself. Lifts her gun and presses the muzzle against Ana's forehead. Relishes the way the woman's eyes go glassy with terror.
"Click," whispers Alice furiously, finger on the trigger, "Pow."
/
"I could live like this forever, you know," says sixteen-year-old Alice, orgasm blissful and comfortable under the canopy of stars, the smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol a familiar scent wrapping around her.
Ana sits beside her, naked from the waist up and ciggy held loosely between her fingers. Her eyes are unreadable as she blows smoke out into the cool autumn air.
"Nothing lasts forever, Alice," she says after a beat of silence, "Things and people always change. If you cling to the past you'll get left behind."
"As long as we're together, I don't care whether it's past or future we're stuck to," replies Alice sleepily, yawning into the jacket pillowed beneath her head.
Ana sighs and takes another drag of her cigarette, a familiar silence blanketing them in the cool night air.
"Oh Alice," she mutters under her breath, "One of these days, I'm going to break your heart."
/
Alice is twenty-eight years old, and somehow, she's managed to get her old job at the nursery back.
She still has her flat, has some extra money courtesy of Romano, and has been delightedly watching Anabela Carriedo be publically and viciously prosecuted for several counts of theft, corporate espionage, and murder on every major European news station.
She's going down to Denmark for Luca's birthday party next month, and then the three of them, Alice and Luca and Dana, are going to roadtrip across Europe. To spend time together, and to see if they're capable of maintaining a friendship when explosions and violence aren't involved.
Her hair's grown long again, and is back in to two puffy ponytails on either side of her head. She's replaced her clunky, square frames, and the only real difference between her of now and her of two years ago is the pink scar on her chest, painfully close to her heart.
But Alice is alive. And she's not in jail. And she still, somehow, doesn't have any kind of criminal record on the usual channels. She's nearly thirty, and she still doesn't have the little house in the Cotswolds that she wants, but she's insanely lucky to still be alive and free, and really, there's no reason for her to-
The bell on the shop door rings, and a woman walks in.
She's impeccably dressed in a sharp, dark blue suit. Her shoes are an ostentatious shade of red that matches the clips in her short blonde hair. The way she walks immediately sets Alice on edge, because it's familiar. It's the way all the girls, all of Rome's girls, walk. Predatory. Dangerously.
"Can I help you with anything?" she asks politely, as the woman approaches, every nerve in her body on edge.
"I sure hope so," says the customer, her accent painfully American and her voice startlingly loud, "I'm looking for Alice Kirkland. She around?"
Alice stiffens, lowering the spraybottle she was using to water a sapling. Shit. Maybe her luck's run out after all.
"Who's asking?" she asks warily, well aware that this woman probably already knows that she's Alice Kirkland, and mentally gauging whether or not she could take her in a fight.
The American just beams though, open and non-aggressive for all she walks like a mountain lion.
"Amelia Jones," she introduces, sticking out a hand, "I'd like to offer y- I'd like to offer Miss Kirkland a job. Been looking to beef up my organization with some seasoned hands. I'm pretty green myself, so I've been trying to employ veterans to make up for it. Yo- Miss Kirkland comes recommended by a Francoise Bonnefoy. Name familiar?"
Alice's breath catches in her chest. One of Rome's girls. Goddamn.
The last time someone stepped into her little nursery and dragged her back into the crime world, she nearly died. She's finally clawed herself back into her hard-earned peace, she's not really a young woman anymore, and she's not foolish enough to- to-
Well.
She's not thirty yet.
Alice sighs, untying her smock.
"I'm Alice Kirkland, as you well know," she says, folding her arms across her chest, "Tell me about this job."