Maybe Charley was right.
Maybe it was all just a shell outside, and inside he was a gooey sappy disgustingly happy whatever-it-was, like her Mouse friends. Maybe he abducted Harley not because he wanted a bedwarmer, and a pleasure-object, but because he wanted to love something- anything, even an accursed Mouse.
Or maybe she was wrong, and he'd stop being such a ninny and shoot her already, god-fucking-DAMMIT. Why was he hesitating? The stupid white Mouse was there, right there, screaming curses but paralyzed because of the threat of his little hairless human friend's imminent death.
Mace stared down at the human, watching her, her plaintive look and her rising and falling chest and back. She was terrified. Why wouldn't she be? She was faced with her end, staring at the abyss and feeling its gaze looking back at her.
"Please."
The Rat narrowed his eyes.
"Please."
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. How could he let himself fall for her? She was inferior. A hairless, fragile, sappy human woman, who certainly couldn't survive half of what Mace had been put through, and yet here he was unable to shoot her because of some weakling feeling.
"Mace!"
Vinnie again. Damn him! Why wouldn't he just shut up?
"Mace, please.. You're not going gain anything if you shoot me." In other words- he was a dead Rat already, why condemn himself further?
He wanted her.
He wanted her.
Her and her hairless skin and her weak, almost non-existant power.
Mace loved her like he'd never loved before, and that was why he finally dropped the gun, reached down and snapped the rope holding her wrists together. Vinnie knew better than to talk as Mace grabbed Charley's shoulders and dragged her to her feet, staring her down before shoving her back and turning his back to her.
She was nothing like Harley, and at the same time they were so alike it made him wonder why he had felt nothing when he'd snapped the Martian's neck, so long ago when she had disobeyed him.
"Your precious bike jockey is yours now," the Rat said. Vinnie curled his arms around her, watching the Rat, his eyes narrowed.
"And if you don't treat her right-" Mace turned around. "I may be a 'filthy half-breed son-of-a-whore' Rat, Vinnie, but I can track anyone and everyone down. And I wil kill you. Do you understand?"
Too flabbergasted to speak, the Mouse nodded dumbly. Mace let out a grunt and headed for the door, his heart feeling like it had been speared and diced into pieces.
Maybe he was a heartless psychopath.
And maybe pigs could fly somewhere.