Quinn folded the phone shut and threw it on a nearby worktable. He reached down and held his uncut hand out to Carrie. Looking up, she reached for him and grabbed on with both hands. Quinn hoisted her to a stand, and she stood there for a moment, looking stunned and trying to take it all in.

"I don't believe it," she said again in a small, cracked voice. She was trembling, and the small distance between them seemed charged.

He couldn't take the proximity. He was about to do something irrational. He let go of her and turned to walk back to a sink which was positioned against an interior wall, under another buzzing compact fluorescent light fixture. He turned the water on, and started to wash his hands methodically, gritting his teeth, biting down for control. He didn't look back or make eye contact with her at all.

"You need to get ready, get out of here," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "You need to drop off the map." He concentrated on his mission – not to kill but to protect, fake her death, and get her to move on fast, while the cover held. He sounded calmer now, at least to himself, and he felt more at ease too. At least he did for a minute: the calm held until he looked up and saw his image in the mirror.

Blood. Mine, thank God, he thought madly. His hair was standing on end in places, and his eyes looked wild. Blood was smeared here and there, on his cheek, neck, the side of his shirt, where he'd bled while he took the picture. Some of it had been smeared by the touch of her face, even though her hands had been bound. He reached over to a nearby towel rack and grabbed the gray washcloth that hung there. Rinsing it and wringing it out, he began scrubbing the blood off of himself, careful to lean in and only see his own image up close. If he made any kind of contact with Carrie, even eye contact through the mirror, he felt like he was going to turn and lose his restraint, and continue the... seduction... whether she wanted to or not. She was kissing me back. His hands trembled as he wiped his neck and around his forehead.

Having turned to face him, she stayed back in the shadows. He couldn't see her face, didn't want to. Didn't want to take in the hurt look they held. He was studiously avoiding eye contact, but he couldn't help but hear her voice.

"It can't be like you say. Saul would never hurt me. You would never hurt me," she declared.

He looked sharply back, agitated, then turned and faced the mirror again.

"Wouldn't I?" he asked, as if it were truly in question. At that moment he was angry at her, angry for making him feel anything. He wanted to carry her to the bed over his shoulder like a caveman, here in his lair where he could show her exactly what his feelings were. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. Didn't she know what his job was? What he was capable of doing to people?

People, maybe, his mind whispered. But not her.

She stepped back once, holding on to caution, but then took another few steps forward. He shuddered as both of her warm, soft hands landed on his shoulders from behind. He stood up and looked in the mirror at the blood-smeared figure standing beside him.

"No, you wouldn't," she said softly, confidently. Her hands began stroking up and down the skin of his arms, setting off goosebumps on his entire body. He narrowed his eyes, looking at Carrie's reflection in the smudgy mirror.

He shook his arms free, and stepping quickly behind her, put his hands on her shoulders in turn. He shoved Carrie up to edge of the sink, and thrust the wet washcloth into her hands. "Maybe I'm not who you remember," he said, trying to sound aloof. "Clean yourself up."

She jerked her head up, giving a startled glance. Long fair hair still stuck to the blood on her cheek, and glowed in the dim, artificial light. What would that gorgeous hair look like clean, he wondered?

Like silk, silk the color of honey, his mind whispered. He clamped down on that thought like a vise grip, insisting that his brain shut the fuck up. He spun on his heel and walked off, started to dig through a duffel bag.

Carrie gave a shuddering sigh, and started to run the water. She rinsed the washcloth, and when it was warm, used it to address the bloody mess on her face and neck. Quinn had been cleaning up using ice-cold water. Better to suit his icy personality, she thought.

Behind her, Quinn found what he was looking for – a can of first-aid spray. He shook the can and applied it to the cut, all the while sneaking peeks at Carrie out of the corner of his eye. She wasn't crying, but she looked traumatized, dark circles standing out under her eyes. Well, that was no surprise. She hadn't slept for days, there was a hit out on her life, and if anyone else had gotten the message, she'd probably be dead by now – or, the assailant would, with a rifle round in the middle of his back. He knew better than to underestimate her; that's why he had worn the vest.

"Maybe you aren't," she conceded to the mirror. He looked up at her, catching her gaze. He put his hands on the high workbench on either side of his hips, and pushed down to lift himself to a seat. He perched there, watching her from across the room.

"I'm not sure of anything anymore," Carrie continued. "Maybe Saul wants me dead. Maybe you're not my… friend anymore. Jonas probably hates me, now. I wouldn't blame him." Sniffling, she rinsed the washcloth again and continued with her bloody work.

From across the room, Quinn heard the tragedy in her voice, the despair. Her pain was the only thing that could have brought him outside his droning internal dialog of self-loathing.

"Yeah?" Quinn said. He couldn't tackle the "not my friend" part of that statement now, not now. He thought about Jonas instead. He'd been watching that hot mess through the cottage windows for a day and a night now, so he knew what the story was.

"We had a terrible fight. I… went off my meds, I wanted to see if I could perceive things more clearly. I'm sharper when I'm not on them."

From what he remembered, that wasn't true at all. But Quinn grunted noncommittally.

"And I drank, and I snorted… whatever I could get. Things got out of control. Jonas and I, we got in an awful fight." She must have been reviewing the situation for herself, because she didn't seem to be talking to him. As for himself. Quinn couldn't care less if Jonas took a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

"Jonas is not your problem right now," Quinn said. "The guy they're going to send after me, the one who doesn't… know you. That guy is your problem. You need to disappear."

"No," Carrie said stubbornly.

Quinn sighed. Here they went again. Carrie, being bullheaded, and he, continuing to argue his side. It had taken them exactly 15 minutes to resume their old working relationship. For fuck's sake. He gritted his teeth harder.

"I can't," she continued. "Go on the run, give up my daughter? No, I need to find out who really ordered this. Where did you get my name? How does this work?"

Quinn described the dead drop in a dead voice. "I go to a mailbox, pick up an envelope. I use the newspaper, decode a name. I do the hit, get photo proof, put the phone in the box and pick up my money."

Carrie turned, mostly clean of blood. Quinn hopped down from the bench, and walked over to her. He stood facing her, about five feet away.

"That's awfully grim work for someone as skilled as you," she said. "A waste of your talent."

Quinn snorted and shrugged. Like she really cares. But then, maybe she does…

"So, you didn't see Saul put my name in the box," she queried. Quinn came two steps closer, and took the warm washcloth from her hands.

"No," he said, his voice going rough and low. He reached out, and using her upper arm, softly turned Carrie to face away. She stood quietly while he used the washcloth to wipe the back of her tricep, on the right, where there was a bit of blood she couldn't see.

"Quinn?" she asked.

"You missed some," he said, almost whispering. Quinn felt like they were two core rods in a reactor, about to go critical. He knew he was stupid to touch her again – his fuse was too short for this kind of ordeal. Even so, he though. It was an opportunity to put his hands on her skin. He tenderly cleaned her arm while she stood still for him. He almost held his breath while he waited for her to speak.

When he was done wiping her, he still held her facing away. He tossed the washcloth across the 6-foot distance, into the sink, then settled his cut, bandaged hand on her other bare upper arm, standing behind her, breathing warmly onto the back of her neck. He felt paralyzed.

Carrie waited for him to say something else. When he didn't, she twitched her shoulders, shaking him off, and took a few steps away, turning so she could see him.

"Well. I have bigger problems, like you say."

Quinn turned away, and stepping over to the bench, grabbed his black jacket.

"We need to go," he said. "You ready?"

"No fucking way," Carrie said. He could see her eyes blazing in the gloom. "I'm not going anywhere until I see Saul put my name in the drop. Nothing in my life makes any fucking sense, that least of all. I'm not just going to fall off the face of the earth without a fight," she said.

Quinn sighed. It figured, and he should have predicted it.

"Fine," Quinn said. "First we hit up your fallback. You have one, don't you?"

Carrie said nothing, but he saw assent in her expression.

"We need to wait until around noon. There's a better chance we can see the person who collects the proof. Saul has never come in the early morning."

"It isn't Saul," Carrie insisted. She walked over towards the bed, turned and stood in front of it. Her knees seemed to buckle, and she sat down on it, hard. Her folded hands fell loosely between her knees. She watched her hands, held them out, and looked at them, front and back. She reached up and touched her cheek, looking back at Quinn.

"You're acting like you don't care. I get that," she said. "What I don't get is why you kissed me," she said.

He paused, uncertain.

"I don't know," Quinn said, his voice gravel and smoke.

"Right," she said, in that tone of voice she used when she didn't believe someone at all. Her brow furrowed, she looked him right in the eye. Suddenly, he noticed a neurotic glaze to her look that he didn't care for at all.

"You know one of the things that I threw at Jonas, one of the things that pissed him off so bad? That he's a boring fuck. And you know what? I didn't just say it to hurt him. It's true."

Quinn felt secretly gratified, but he could also feel his possessive instincts rearing back at thought of her fucking someone else. Maybe she just needs a better baseline for comparison. His urges were reaching a boiling point. Carrie talking about fucking, Carrie being unmedicated, and acting unhinged. It was like dropping a water balloon full of jet fuel on top of a blazing campfire. He began to walk slowly towards her, his tether pulled as tight as it would go. He wondered if he'd tear her clothes off, or just undress her quickly.

"Yeah?" Quinn said through gritted teeth.

She didn't take her eyes off him as he approached. She stood as he got a step away.

"Yeah," she said. "When you had my hands tied, and you were kissing me, the only thing I could think was, 'finally.'"

His hands, held slightly out and cupped, opened, closed into fists, opened. Again. He couldn't speak, for fear of uttering filth, depravity, lust, confessions of love. He coughed with the intensity of the repression. His chest ached.

Carrie cocked an eye at him, beyond caution, not thinking about her well being, her life, Franny, or anything else. With manic hyperfocus, she fixed his gaze, and reaching up, touched his cheek with one hand.

"Think you can do better?" she challenged.

I don't care if she's off her meds. I want this. She needs this.

With a harsh moan of release, Quinn pushed her backwards, onto the bed. Falling on top of her, he overpowered her with his weight. Her arms came up and twined about him as they kissed aggressively, tongues fighting for dominance.

His mind a red haze, Quinn feverishly addressed their mutual hunger.