Author's note, thought I'd try something new. This is from the girl's point of view. I haven't fully decided who she is yet, beyond an absolute certainty she has a painful, terrible past. I gave her name as Hester St Clair in a previous chapter, but that could have been a pseudonym, I'm still figuring that out.
I still don't know where this is going. The last chapter, and this one too, I feel have enough of an ending I could stop right there, but I'll keep writing as long have ideas. I promise to never end in the middle of a story idea.
I think my next chapter will be from Tim's POV, anyone have any input on that?
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She remembers the night she ran into Slade Wilson pretty well. Few things that interesting ever happen to her. It was quite exciting. She knew Tim was surprised that man didn't turn up again, but she wasn't. She was pretty sure though that globe trotting rich mercenaries tried to avoid the common riff raff.
That's how she thought of herself, maybe not Tim, but definitely herself. She was riff raff. She'd found ways to travel the world with little more then a handful of American cash and a smile, but it was far from glamorous.
It had been hard when she first found Tim. He'd stopped to talk to her after an art show in Kansas City (she hated Kansas City, as far as she was aware, Tim was the best thing that ever happened to her in Kansas City) He had talked to her, shown her his scars. She slept that night in his hotel room, and has spent every subsequent night at his side. Or afternoon, or morning. They were both night people. It was hard adapting to being part of something, of having someone else to rely on, but she made it.
Now she sat on the beach, catching some rays outside a makeshift shack smoking a cigarette. She hadn't taken up smoking until recently; it had always seemed like such a slow means of self destruction. Her previous attempts kept failing though, so she figured smoking would eventually pay off, a surefire bet.
She couldn't even remember what country they were in any more. Brazil, most likely. They lived in a shanty town on the beach. Soon the bulldozers of the rich white men will come and evict them, and they'll move on. Tim comes home later with some fish he had caught. Enough to eat tonight, tomorrow she'll figure something else out.
It's three weeks before the bulldozers come. They hit the road; they take very little with them. Tim taught her so much about just living off the land, they don't hardly even need money out here. After almost a month, they arrive in Rio. Cities are good, she knows cities. Sometimes she wishes they were back in the states, it was easier in the states. She gets a job cleaning houses for rich Americans. He gets a job driving tourists in bicycle taxis. Tourists love him, he's pretty, and American (he'd had her clip the last of the green hair off months ago). She's pretty sure he's not hooking up for cash, but he makes such good tips that she sometimes wonders. Life is ok, she buys another camera. They don't make much between them, but they make enough. She spends her free time taking snapshots. Mailing rolls of film to her sister's house in Chicago, to be developed later. She knows her sister likes that. Likes to receive some proof of her continued existence.
All the smoking gives her a cough. She smiles, it's starting to pay off.
It only takes Rio a few months to get old, she wonders if it's time to bail. That's what she's thinking when she shows up to her house cleaning job, the owners are….
The owners are quite dead. Precisely dead. She takes a few of their most portable valuables and leaves without contacting the authorities. She regrets that she couldn't photograph them first, but she didn't have her camera. Anyway, its better not to have evidence.
When she tells Tim about it later, he looks at her seriously, makes her describe the details again. She has an excellent memory.
She knows Tim's mind is working. He's silent for a long time. "It's Slade" he finally says.
They eat, they screw, they split the remnants of a bottle of American whiskey he nicked off a tourist. Or at least he pretends to, she knows he's barely touching it. She starts to doze when she feels the mattress shift. Tim leaves their rented room. He doesn't return for hours.
He gets up and goes to work the next day. She has no where to go due to the untimely demise of her employers. So instead she takes the valuables she nicked from the house, trades them for less then their worth, but she wasn't in the right mind to haggle today. It's enough.
She takes her money to a cantina. Not one by their room, she doesn't want to be recognized.
She orders food and a beer. Hadn't had a beer in ages, and damn was it good. Today was good, she got paid, she got a beer. Later that night it was almost a sure bet she'd get laid.
And then Slade shows up.
She ought to be scared, but she's not. That's actually the first thing he says to her. "you know who I am, but you're not scared"
She smirks, she knows she's good at smirking; she's practiced the gesture a thousand times in front of a mirror. "The worst you can do is torture and kill me" she replies.
He's silent for a long time, when the waiter returns he orders a beer, and another for her, he pays the waiter before she can react.
"why are you kids in Rio? " He asks after a long pause. Not an awkward pause, she stopped having those years ago. She's always supremely comfortable, and her silences never seem awkward. To her anyways.
"We're just south for the winter" she replies. "Why'd you kill my boss that was a sweet gig I had there"
He looked at her coolly through one grey eye. "You know the gentleman in question had certain hobbies pertaining to girls of your description that I doubt you'd approve of"
She'd suspected as much, but the thought never disturbed her "I could have taken him" she said. And she knew it was true, sometimes she thought she'd taken the job there in the hopes that he'd try something with her. She wasn't the detective Tim was, but she had seen it, the times that he had cleaned the house himself, the clothes that never made it to the cleaner, and the frightened way his wife deferred to him. He never met her eyes, but he always loaded his smile with sugar for her. Everything about him had screamed murder to her. She was glad he had died.
"You can't expect me to believe you offed him on my account" she said. She met his cool grey eye without fear.
"no" was all he replied.
They sipped their beer in strange silence.
"why are you here" she finally asks. That had been the main question all afternoon.
"I had hoped to scare you away from Tim"
"why"
"I want him"
"You can't scare me away; I'm only scared of him leaving"
"I see that now"
They sit, again in silence, her beer is gone. When the waiter returns, Slade orders her a refill.
"Getting me drunk won't help, you know"
"I know"
He finally pays the bill, and leaves. She doesn't stop him; it's time to go home.
She spends the rest the afternoon cleaning their rented room. Straightening things, assessing the value of items. She knows that one way or she won't be living here long. She wonders if Tim is leaving her, and she tells herself about all the ways she doesn't' need him. She almost has herself convinced he wouldn't return when he shows up. And when he does she falls in love with her Boy Wonder all over again.
She loves him for the way he smiles, for the way he moves. She loves him for the way he never laughs, even when he wants too, but only she knows the secret to the amused sparkle in his eye that tells her as much as his absent chuckles every would.
She laughs as she makes his dinner, beans and rice, simple fare, but she spices it up and adds a sweet potato that hadn't gone bad yet. She listens to him recount his day, she smirks as he recounts a story of an American man who hired Tim to take him to the Red Light district, he tipped poorly so Tim recommended he see Lola Lola, who infamously had several embarrassing STDs.
And when her laughter stopped, she sobered up. "I saw Slade today" and it was a simple statement, but it made Tim grow deathly still.
"What did Slade say?" he asked.
She recounted their conversations. She thought about leaving out the part where Slade briefly mention Tim, but she knew Tim would detect if she was lying.
Tim's hardened expression softens as he reads the thoughts crossing her face throughout her recount of the days events. A tenderness he seldom reveals crosses his visage as he raises a hand to her face. "Aw baby, you know I'd never leave, I'm lost without you"
She's pretty sure he isn't lying. "You're all the laughter I have left" he adds, and she knows that's true.
Later they count up their life savings, and make plans to sell what they can from their meager belongings in the morning. She mails her last roll of film the next day while he sells her camera. She'll miss it, but she'll buy another.
They catch a bus out of Rio, she never looks back.
