The Vault Girl and the massive ghoul who was now under her command stared at each other as they stood just outside of the doors to the Ninth Circle. They both appeared to be puzzled in each others company, and many of Underworld's residents stared at them, only because Ava still had her arm looped through Charon's. The ghoul held her close and glared at anyone who was foolish enough to walk to closely to them. Charon's need to protect her was overwhelming his mind, and he leaned against the bannister, shifting weight from one foot to another and looking over his shoulder every chance that he got.
"Are you...all right? I know it might be a shock to have someone else as your owner," Ava asked quietly.
"I am not owned by anyone," Charon growled. "It's just...I have never had a woman hold my contract before...and I feel uncomfortable with everyone staring at you."
Ava smiled warmly and gave his forearm a reassuring pat before she muttered, "No one here is going to hurt me, Charon. So, you'll do whatever your...employer...asks as long as they hold your contract?"
"Yes ma'am," the ghoul replied with a nod.
Ava could not believe she now held the contract of a mindless killing machine. Charon was completely loyal to her; all she had to do was ask and he would find a way to get it done. It amazed her that a single piece of paper could control a person for well over two hundred years. She pitied him because ultimately, he was not the strong creature everyone saw him to be. The pair received many stares as they walked towards Carol's place. Ava opened the door and walked inside, Charon walking so closely behind her that she could hear his heavy breaths. Carol was scooping some noodles into a bowl, mentioning something to Greta about Ava going to see Snowflake.
"Carol, you might wanna make two plates of food," said Ava, interrupting the conversation. It was almost ten in the evening and she wasn't sure if Charon had eaten yet. Either way, she was starving. Whether he wanted to eat or not wasn't on her list of priorities at the moment. She needed to find a way to release him from his own prison so that she could go on her merry way. She had no intentions whatsoever to keep him as a slave.
"Why, are you that hungry?" asked Carol. Greta looked up and shrieked at the sight of Charon standing inside their bar, a grim look etched into his face. Carol turned abruptly and when she saw the larger ghoul as well, she dropped the plate with a horrified gasp and it shattered, sending bits of noodles all over her shoes. "What…what is he doing here?"
"I bought his contract off Ahzrukhal. He's kind of, uh, dead," explained Ava as she rubbed the side of her head. Greta had not stopped staring at Charon since he and Ava walked in. Ava saw Charon roll his eyes at the sight and she smiled.
"Oh goodness, I thought he was here to kill us! Ahzrukhal hated us," said Carol with a shaky hand over her chest. "I'll make enough food for you both; just give me about fifteen minutes dear."
Ava told Carol to take her time and took a seat at one of the tables, motioning for Charon to do the same. He gave her a strange look as he sat down, dumbfounded by Ava's pleasant smile. What would it be like to work for her? Would she force him to do the awful things that Ahzrukhal once did? He wasn't sure what to make of her, this Saint of the Capital Wasteland, because what saintly figure took someone like him on?
"What was that look for?" asked Ava with a smirk. She leaned back into her chair and studied the ghoul. He could have been a very handsome man before he transformed into a ghoul. His eyes were a shade of blue that was uncommon in the Wasteland and she found it difficult to pull away from his gaze. The blank look on his face, however, was almost enough to frighten anyone to death.
"You are strange, ma'am. You treat ghouls as if they are your equals, myself included. You are kind to Carol and that moron who has an unnatural obsession with human hair. You…have no qualms touching my arm," said Charon. "I am not used to such things, so forgive me if my behavior is not what you would like."
"You're a lot more polite when you're not under the control of some tool," Ava pointed out.
"It was how he wanted me to be," Charon replied.
"Well, I don't see ghouls any differently than humans. We're all the same inside, where it fucking matters the most. There's good people like Carol, and assholes like Ahzrukhal. Now, I want to talk to you about this contract," Ava said, deciding it was better to do this quickly. She took out Charon's contract from her breast pocket and laid it on the table before him.
"Here," she said, pushing the contract towards him. "You're free to go."
Charon took the contract and examined it for a moment before handed it back to Ava. Shaking his head, he told her. "I cannot take it. If you don't wish to keep me, you must give my contract to someone else."
"You can be free, Charon. Stop being an idiot. Here, take the damn thing and get out of here. You can do whatever you want to do now." She tried to hand him the contract but he waved her hand away.
"That is not how it works, ma'am. You must keep it or pass it to someone else," he insisted. He was becoming agitated. She signed that god forsaken piece of yellowed paper, she knew what the hell she was getting into.
"I work alone. People get in my way, I kill them. I have things to do, and owning a man's life is not one of them. Let's not soil Carol's with blood and guts okay? Eat the damn noodles, take your fucking contract and get the hell out of here! Run and don't look back! It's worked for me and I've turned out all right," said Ava angrily.
"You may be the Vault Girl, but you are not very sharp, ma'am," said Charon with a scoff. "Maybe you should have read the contract before purchasing it. The rules are clear."
Ava sighed heavily and rubbed her temples, muttering her thanks to Carol who had just brought the noodles to the table. She snatched the contract off the table and read it over for the first time. Her eyes lit up within moments and she grinned. There was a loop-hole here...one hell of a loop-hole, but she was going to use it...she just hoped she wouldn't die in the process. She had seen first hand what Charon could do to a former employer and she shuddered at the thought of him sending a bullet straight into her skull.
"Physical violence on my part forfeits the contract?" asked Ava. She looked up at Charon and he nodded. Ava smiled, folded his contract neatly into a square, and decked the ghoul smack dab across his face. The room suddenly became quiet, shocked by her outburst.
Ava instantly regretted her actions as her knuckles began to swell up and turn a ghastly shade of purple. Ava clutched her hand to her chest and laid her head on the table, gasping in pain. She had to hit him as hard as she could, to show him she was serious and simply not agitated by the fact that he refused to take his leave of her.
"What the fuck is your head made of?" she shouted into the peeling white table. Ava heard Charon's chair screech against the tile and him cocking his shotgun. She didn't have to look up to know it was only inches from her skull. This could only go two ways right now.
"You know why I hit you. You're not gonna shoot me, so get out. I'll hit you again if I have to," said Ava, her faced pressed into the wooden table. Truth be told, Ava was not sure if Charon would shoot her or not. Minutes passed and still no shot, no blood, no mess.
Charon strapped his shotgun to his back and picked up his contract. Ava slowly lifted her head, deciding that it was finally safe to do so and looked up at him. A look of utter relief came upon his face and he tore his contract in half. He never thought in all his pain-filled years that his contract would be over just like that. All he needed was someone like her to come into his life and today, which was just like any other, he was freed.
"Thank you," he murmured. "I will not forget the kindness you've shown me...Smoothskin," Charon said in a low voice.
"You're welcome. Thanks for not killing me," she replied with a foolish grin.
With a nod, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Carol rushed over to Ava with a stimpak and pressed it into Ava's good hand, completely shaken by the scene that had unfolded.
"Are you out of your mind? He could have killed you and none of us could have done a thing to stop him!" said Carol. Ava shook her head and gave Carol a pained grin.
"Yeah, well, I didn't really think it through. He didn't shoot me though, that's something. Thanks for the grub and the stimpak. I don't think my hand that I fucked up my hand too bad. Small price to free a man in my book," said Ava.
She cringed as the needle went into her skin. Ava pushed down on the plunger, releasing the medicine, and within a few moments her hand was not as bruised as before. Ava ate the noodles as best as she could given the circumstances, proud of what she had done. She wearily walked over to her bed, giving up on what was left of her nourishment, and leaned against the makeshift wall surrounding it with a sigh. This was a lot to take in for one night. One of the ghouls in the room had been watching her intently since her stand-off with Charon. Something about her interested him, and she stared back, determined to force him to back down.
"What the fuck are you looking at? You think you'd never seen a ghoul before," said the ghoul.
"I have no problem with ghouls. You just watched me cheat death so I could free one," she answered with a snarl.
"Is that so? Even if I call you a milk-sucking, mutant-loving, water-stealing whore?" the ghoul goaded.
"All true, except for the part about the mutants, the water, and the whore. I took milk, just like you when you were a child, I don't love mutants; I actually prefer the company of a particular ghoul and his lovely co-worker, and I'm trying to bring clean water to the Wasteland without asking for a damn thing in return. You're Crowley, right?" Ava said after her laughter sub-sided. She had to laugh at his boldness. She was bold herself, and she definitely appreciated that quality in a person.
The ghoul laughed at her answer and said, "Yeah that's me. I like a human that knows her place."
"Right next to you, my friend," she replied, pointing to the empty chair beside him. He encouraged her to take the seat and she did, holding her head up high.
"Too many of your kind think we're all just zombies. They don't know or don't care that we're just as human as they are inside. We bleed! We hurt! We regret! And you know what really pisses me off?"
"What's that?" Ava asked.
"They think the only way to kill a ghoul is to shoot us in the head, like in the old zombie stories, and that will put us out of our misery. Wanna help me even the score?" he asked with a gleam in his eye.
Ava thought for a moment and said, "Possibly. What's in it for me? I don't come cheap. If something is going to take me away from my duties, I need a hell of an offer."
"Vault Girl, not everyone is as sympathetic to ghouls as you are. Some are downright bigots. I want to make them pay…but uh, before I get into the details, you don't have anything against killing do you?" asked Mr. Crowley.
Ava shrugged her shoulders and told him the truth. "The day isn't complete until I've killed something. Mutants, raiders, a yao guai, doesn't matter to me. My baby," she pat the .44 magnum on her hip, "will send it to hell in seconds."
"Well, aren't you the blood thirsty type? I got this list of people, all of 'em ghoul bigots…" he said as he handed her a sheet of paper. Ava scanned through the short list and raised an eyebrow. Two of the names she recognized and her mind sifted through all of her jumbled memories from the past few months, to see if she could remember one person in particular to despise ghouls.
"You gotta shoot 'em in the head. A hundred caps for each person, twenty-five if you kill them some other way," explained Mr. Crowley. He smiled at Ava while she was deciding what to make of his offer.
"I already killed that fucker, Tenpenny, when I helped Roy Phillips take over the tower. Will I still get paid for him?" she asked.
"Yes, I heard you killed him. That's why I'm asking you to finish the job. Here are twenty-five caps for that old bastard," said Crowley, reaching into his pocket and offering her a handful of Nuka-Cola bottlecaps. Standard currency for the Wasteland. Ava scoffed at the offer and pushed the ghoul's hand back.
"No dice. I want a hundred caps up front for supplies, a hundred for Tenpenny and a hundred for everyone else. I'll get it done. You know what I can do with a gun, and this one name here is going to be a problem. I know where he lives, and I really don't feel like being shot at by the others who've grown to trust me. I have enough enemies," said Ava with confidence. Mr. Crowley growled but stuck out his hand in agreement. Ava shook it firmly and received her caps. Now, all she wanted to do was lie in bed and rest her body. It had enough stress on it already.
Her hand was not throbbing as much as it was once and all she really needed was a bit of Med-x, but she decided against it. Ava would much rather be aware of her surroundings while being shot at or even laying in bed. She pushed open the door to her room and fell onto the mattress, careful not to injure her hand further. The bed springs dug into her spine, the sheets were tattered and stained, and she could hear the radio and the chatter of a few ghouls through the paper-thin walls. It still would be the best sleep that Ava had gotten in days.