"Fiona," the man said with some hesitation in his voice.
Ixis stood on the other side of his dream, or at least that is what he called it. On a make shift table in his office stood a tiny model of a grand casino spanning nearly an entire block of the Upper East Side. He eyed her carefully as she reached inside and plucked one of the pedestrians from the stairs leading up to its entrance. Carefully she replaced the person as if it was a real life in her hands. The smallest of things could set the man off, not the least of which was shattered dreams. He assured her that once it was done, nothing could stop him from running the city.
"Boss," the fox replied, doing her best to keep the fear at bay as she locked eyes with him.
"I am afraid this is going to be your last assignment," he replied as he returned to his perch behind his desk.
Naugus almost said the words as if they caused him some tiny amount of pain. To some extents the man had been like a father to her, not one that she wanted, but a father nonetheless. Although if she didn't know better he barely knew she existed beyond her purpose. The vixen was nothing more than a tool that sat biding its time until it was needed.
At first it was the obscure, tracking people, 'returning' 'lost' merchandise, and even the occasional negotiation. Naugus had seen fit to dig himself into every nefarious trade there was, and that meant dealing with the Resistance. The underground group of Mobians had gotten their hands on enough weapons for a small army, which is exactly what her boss wanted. "Empires aren't built on words," he would say to her before sending her off to parley with some Mobian gunrunner.
However, the notorious velvet red fox had slowly become somewhat of an urban legend, one that instilled fear into the hearts of Naugus' 'business' partners. He was not blind to this either. More than once the man had sent her to pay some poor soul a visit. The mere presence of the vulpine was often enough to cause her targets to cough up their payments plus a little interest.
Fiona was a ghost to most, including Ixis, coming and going as she pleased. Years ago she had foregone the denim jacket and kaki shorts she had shown up in and instead opted for something to help hide her amongst the shadows she now lived in. The fox stood in front of her boss, dressed head to toe in black. Those who did manage to catch glimpse of her often found something to look at. The leather pants she worse were so tight they often felt as if they might rip if she flexed a muscle too hard. While her jacket fit more loosely it was only because she left it unzipped, leaving her cotton black tank top visible. Between the deep cut V-neck shirt and her tail there was just enough red fur left noticeable to inform her enemies of who they were dealing with. The only thing that remained of her old life was the yellow ribbon that tied her hair back. Now in tatters, it served as a reminder of the younger fox she used to be.
"Last assignment?" she asked curiously, now concerned that she may have done something wrong.
Those who failed Naugus were not treated well and the rare few that dared to double cross him even worse. Vivid memories of seeing Ixis walk out of meat locker carrying a butcher's knife covered in blood still haunted her. The screams she had heard coming out of the freezer only moments before were so chilling that she had yet to find a way to describe them. The man's gaze had caught her as he left, and the hollowness behind his eyes only confirmed what she had always suspected; her boss had no soul. However, the fox knew that if she had done something wrong they wouldn't be having such peaceful conversation. Fiona had served him as loyally as she could, at his beck and call any hour of the day. It wasn't often that he turned to her, only when others had failed him. While she didn't like getting table scraps, the fox often felt a sense of pride completing the missions others couldn't. Ixis never thanked her, but instead gave her what she was due. The money rarely lasted as long as she would have liked, but it was work all the same.
"It's nothing personal, but it's becoming far too risky to keep a lose canon such as yourself around."
A loose canon, she thought, is that how he thinks of me. That assessment was crass to say the least. The vixen was often anything but. Cold and calculated at heart, everything she did had equal parts forethought and brutality in mind, something she thought her boss would appreciate. However, she didn't do things for him, she did them for her, after all that is what he had taught her to do. The city and its inhabitants made her what she was, merciless and menacing. The fox continued to stare at him waiting for an explanation.
"Perhaps you know what next week is?" he asked.
"My birthday," came her response, unsure if she should be flattered that he knew.
Ixis had never remembered it before, and she had a funny feeling that he wasn't about to start unless it suited him.
"Right you are, eighteen already and by far one of my hardest working employees."
"I don't understand," Fiona hesitated, "what does that have to do with anything?"
But before he could answer she remembered their new president. The fat man she had the fortune of meeting six years ago. Just as Naugus had predicted Mobian's were all but outlawed from the Major cities unless they could get the permits necessary to stay there. Those papers were hard to come by and almost always required an employer willing to vouch for the Mobian in question. At eighteen you either had your papers or you were target practice for the local coppers, that is if they were feeling kind enough to ask for them in the first place.
"If I keep you around," he continued, "your title on the registration form can't read 'hired gun' now can it?"
She shook her head in agreement.
"However, I am not the type of man to let an asset walk out the door, not when it has other applications."
She didn't like where this was going. As part of his empire Ixis had a dingy underground bar a few blocks over that catered to the cheap drunks and affluent Mobians who had managed to keep their homes in the city. If she worked there it would only be as eye candy and entertainment, and the fox assured herself that she had more pride than that.
"I am skipping everyone else with this one," he said as he pushed a file across the desk, "it is too personal. You are the only employee I have that has yet to disappoint me."
Inside the folder was a ransom note made from cut up newspaper clippings. It read nothing more than, If you want him back alive, pay up.
"No one extorts me!" Ixis said as he slammed a clenched fist into his desk.
"If you don't mind me asking, who is 'he'?"
Naugus gritted his teeth as he muttered, "my son."
Fiona had always known the man had family, but she had never seen them. They were mentioned only in passing whispers by other staff. A subject known to many as off limits, and with good reason. To the best of her knowledge he and the misses were no longer on good terms and she had up and left taking his son with her. Now it looks as if someone was trying to take advantage of that. This was the first time she was almost sure her boss was being sentimental.
"That whiney little brat of mine got himself in a very tight spot, no thanks to his bitch of a mother," he said fuming with rage.
After a few deep breaths he steadied himself as he continued, "this isn't about them, it's about me. When I am done with the clowns that took him, there won't be a person in this city that doesn't think at least three times before they fuck with me or anything or anyone that is mine."
The fox flipped to the next page in the dossier. It was a map with an X over an abandoned building in the warehouse district next to the river.
"Is this where the exchange is supposed to happen?"
"Yes," her boss replied coolly, "They want a rather large sum of money, but I don't intend on giving them a single credit."
"They?"
"Three lowlifes who don't have much common sense. They will rue the day they I entered their lives."
Fiona had little doubt of that.
"Anything else?"
"Expect them have a trick up their sleeve. They may be dumb, but they're not stupid. All I care about is my son. Get him back."
"You got it boss," she replied as she turned to leave.
"Fiona," Ixis said before the fox reached the door.
Turning back the man was dangling key from his wrinkly fingers, "You know how to drive right?"
When the occasion had called for it, she took the liberty of giving herself some lessons. Nothing about it seemed particularly difficult to understand except for why no one else on the road could seem to do it half as well as her.
"Sure," the vixen replied as she caught the keys.
"Not a scratch," the man said sternly. "There isn't a copper in the city that will pull you over in that."
"Why not?"
"Because it's mine. Now stop wasting time and go find my son."
Fiona nodded as she pocketed the keys trying to understand where the generosity was coming from. Ixis had given her exactly two things since she began working for him, money and a gun. It didn't take the man long to get over giving her one either, even despite his initial misgivings. She could still recall the sound of him pushing the synthetic Glock across his desk towards her as if it were yesterday.
"And try not to kill anyone. It's the only way I can continue to keep the coppers off your back. Papers or not they will put you in a hole and make you disappear if you're found within a hundred feet of a corpse."
"If they catch me," she said with a smile.
The fox still had yet to cross that bridge and had no intention of doing so today. Sure, she had gotten her paws dirty, but nothing so far as killing anyone. Of course that meant the vixen had to discount the people she handed over to Naugus, people she never saw again. Even if they are dead, you didn't kill them Fi, she told herself.
The black sedan was parked out back in the garage behind the hotel. Its windows were totally blacked out with chrome trimmings around the side. After that, there wasn't a distinctive mark on the car, not even a plate, which is perhaps what in and of itself made the vehicle so distinctive.
With a twist of her wrist, the car started promptly to life, purring as if it were happy to get the attention. Fiona ran her hand around the smooth leather steering wheel as she adjusted the mirrors. Luxury left her with an odd flutter in her stomach, but not one that she couldn't learn to like. The fox smiled with inordinate amount of content as she slowly pulled away, leaving the slums behind in style befitting of royalty. Thankfully the lazy overcast Sunday kept the traffic to a minimum letting her coast indolently over the bridge as if she wasn't in a hurry at all.
It was cooler down by the docks, it always was. Something about the moist air made the place taste like despair. A fog bank was just rolling in off the river when she pulled up, its grey billowy pillows skating across the water until they inevitably ran aground. The fox took a deep breath as she put the car in park. She could already feel the eyes preying at her, even inside the car.
That feeling rubbed the vixen the wrong way. She was the one used to doing the watching; being on the other side of the lens left her feeling exposed. Without a drop of fear in her complexion she reached for the handle and opened the door. The gravel crumbled underneath her feet as she made her way across the clearing. Warehouses such as this one were shady from the outside in. A loose coat of grey paint over the rusted siding was all the attention it had received in the last ten years, a perfect place to stash a kid for a couple of days.
Fiona put a paw on the man door and pushed it open as it creaked in complaint. The football field sized structure was empty save for a chair in the middle and two goons standing behind it. She approached, veins still flowing with ice.
"You got our money?" one of them called out.
The vixen didn't respond, instead she continued to walk, the solid sound of concrete now under her boots. Something didn't smell right, she could see two, but knew there were three.
"You hear me? You got our money?"
The lighting was shitty at best. The florescent bulbs were flickering like a bug zapper in a swamp. Condensation could do that in a place like this. The fox was barely able to make out their faces, which meant they certainly couldn't see hers. While each had a weapon at their side, neither made any attempt to spook her.
"Stop!" one of them yelled in a deep authoritative voice.
The vixen took her last step, finally satisfied with distance between her and the men with guns. Her objective lay between the three of them shivering in fear. The boy's torso was lashed to the back of a chair, his hands taped to his sides, and to top everything off a black shroud covered his heads to dull his senses and keep him trapped in the darkness of fear.
"The money," the thug on the left said curtly, "please."
"Why are there only two of you?" Fiona asked bluntly.
Upon hearing the female voice the pair exchanged looks as they took a step closer to her. Amidst the nervous footsteps the vixen's ear twitched as she found the breath of a third man. She smiled, letting a canine fall from her mouth. No longer did they have the advantage.
Whether it was her glowing eyes or sharp teeth, the men froze when they realized it was not a human approaching them.
"Shit," one of them muttered to the other, "that's the Red Shadow man."
Fiona enjoyed that nickname. Every once in a while she would catch whispers of it behind her back. The red furred fox that materialized from darkness was well known for a lot of things, and weakness was not one of them.
Before either of them could decide what to do with this new information Fiona pulled her gun and fired a shot into the air. A man screaming in pain quickly followed as he dropped his sawed off Remington from the shadowy rafters above. Without batting an eye she caught the clunky weapon in her off hand and proceeded to point it in her remaining enemies' directions.
As she stared them down, their less than acrobatic friend fell from his hiding spot, but not gracefully. When she finally took a peek at the man who was screaming bloody murder it was to find that the leg she hadn't shot was bent quite a few degrees in the wrong direction.
"Do you know who you're dealing with?" the fox asked as she took a step closer to securing the boy.
No one answered.
"Let him go and you get to walk away."
Neither of them looked happy about their predicament.
Doing her best to ignore the groaning man, Fiona advanced towards her target, keeping the two idiots that stood behind him in her sights The one on the right worked up the balls to shoulder his rifle. With two quick shots from her Glock the man fell over squirming in pain, clutching a bleeding shoulder.
"Your move cowboy," the vixen said with her wry little smile as she turned to the last of her enemies.
The thug nodded in agreement as he dropped his pistol to the ground. Fiona knew as soon as she saw him reach inside his pocket she should have shot him, but now it was too late.
"You know what this is?" he asked as he held out a small device.
Now the fox had to nod. She had seen remote detonators enough times to know the drill.
"Not another step or there won't be much left of that kid."
The trick to dealing with pricks like this was convincing them they were in fact the ones that had everything to lose.
"You go ahead and do that," Fiona replied as she walked past the boy, guns still trained on the maniac in question.
"I'll do it," he proclaimed, "I swear."
"I believe you," she replied even though she didn't. "Naugus only told me to come down here and make it plain that you were not getting any of his money. He didn't seem too concerned about the kid one way or the other."
She was now fifteen feet away and the beads of sweat forming on the thug's face began to show rather clearly.
"So I might urge you to take a look around at your friends, all of whom are still breathing for now. What does an intelligent man such as yourself think would happen next if you pressed that button?" the fox asked.
Fiona had learned long ago to play to people's egos. Always make them feel smart, and let them think they have some control even if they don't. Misdirection could work in so many ways. The man gulped as the fox rested the barrel of her new sawed off on his knee.
"What do you say I let you walk away?" she asked in a semi seductive voice. "All you have to do is drop that," the vixen continued as she motioned to the detonator.
He dropped it just like she thought he would. With a smile she flipped the shotgun around as if to offer it to him. When he reached for it she pulled back and swing it like a club. The low life crumpled to the ground unconscious leaving her alone with his two noisy partners that were still rolling around on the ground in pain.
After tossing the Remington and grabbing the detonator Fiona reached into his jacket pocket somewhat curious about the type of man that would kidnap a little kid, let alone strap him to a bomb. To her surprise her paws did not come up empty. A small badge encased in leather gleamed in the dull light. An iron red fist was affixed against a city's skyline. She had seen one of these before.
"Dominion?" she whispered to herself before pocketing the badge.
The boy was shaking uncontrollably and for that she couldn't blame him.
"Hold on kid," she said as she felt around for the knots that held him to the chair.
As her paws worked at the rope a screeching noise erupted from the far end of the warehouse as the large freight door slowly opened.
"Damn it," the fox swore as she grabbed the back of the seat and dragged it towards the door she had entered through.
Even if he was only twelve the human child weighed every bit as much as she did, which severely hampered her escape. Looking over her back as the chair legs grinded against the pavement floor she hoped for a glimpse of what she presumed were more enemies. Slowly the sliver of light grew as the large doors at the other end opened further, revealing some very troubling silhouettes. Reaching for the handle, the fox wasn't surprised to find it locked. Fiona jiggled it before putting two rounds into the bolt and throwing her weight against the solid metal door. Nothing budged and she was trapped, "like a rat," she muttered to herself.
The man in the middle of the entourage was clapping slowly as if to mock her efforts.
"Impressive," he called out, "but futile. Besides, you're forgetting something."
The mystery man forced a woman to the ground in front of him, putting a pistol to the back of her head. The fox had been confident in her ability to retrieve the boy safely, but she was quickly loosing that feeling. Who ever this guy was he had a lot more company than she could deal with. Six men in full armor stood at his side and if that wasn't enough there were two ten-foot tall robots accompanying them.
"I am sorry," the woman screamed. "Patrick, tell your father I am sorry."
"Mom," the child screamed through the black shroud.
Before Fiona could say a word, the man pulled the trigger on his gun. The shot echoed about the silent warehouse and even for a person who couldn't see, there was little question as to what just happened. This was a setup and both she and Naugus had walked right into it.
"Mom," the kid screamed again, this time through an uncontrollable sob.
Fiona froze for second as she relived a moment from her past; this was a pain the vixen understood. To be there right when some pathetic excuse for a criminal took the life of someone you loved was a terrible feeling. Being helpless and blind only made it worse.
"Give him back," the man commanded with a tone that implied there were zero alternatives.
The fox begged to differ, however. With a stern kick she shattered the chair and freed the boy who was now near lifeless with sorrow. In just second her free hand pried the c4 that was stuck to the bottom of the stool and crammed it into the door's handle. Ducking to the side, she shielded the kid, reached in her pocket, and squeezed the detonator.
The door flew from its hinges in a fiery explosion that shook the building. Once they realized the fox was about to make an escape they opened fire. Bullets filled the air, ripping holes in the cheap siding.
"Stop you idiots!" she heard one of them yell, "The boy needs to be alive."
The kid had gone limp, making it nearly impossible to get him outside. Just as she did, one of the mechs put a hole in the wall next to her big enough for a truck to drive through. What ever the things were they were new and they hit hard.
Fiona was done babying the youngster and promptly full on threw him into the passenger seat of the car. Jumping right over him, she didn't even bother to shut the door. The engine roared to life as she twisted the key with her foot already on the gas pedal. The rear tires kicked up dirt and gravel alike as they spun sending the car forward and snapping the side door shut.
The robots that had tagged along with her new friends were faster than she could have imagined. Slow to start, they quickly worked themselves up into sprint, crashing through the hole they had already created.
Circling back around onto the pavement Fiona headed for the main road, but not before one of the bots took another shot. Inside it had been loud enough, but outside the canon echoed for miles. The round nearly clipped the mirror on Ixis' car as it streaked by, colliding with a stationary forklift in front of her. The mangled vehicle flipped into her path forcing her to swerve onto a side street.
Glancing in her mirror for a second was all it took for her enemies to get the jump on her. One of the bots had managed to make its way around the buildings and walk out into the end of the road, blocking her way. The fox slammed on the breaks, bringing the car to a tire screeching halt. Fiona rammed the shifter into reverse and gunned it again, but just as she looked over her shoulder the bot that had been chasing her rounded the corner.
"Shit," she swore out loud as she spun the wheel in desperation.
The vehicle careened right through a paper-thin garage door and into another warehouse. The vixen didn't remove her foot from the gas pedal as she continued to smash through empty crate and support beams alike with the car's rear bumper.
Two more loud cracks erupted while all the windows in the building exploded simultaneously as two auto cannon rounds shredded what was left of the warehouse, sending debris in all directions. They were trying to bring the building down on top of her.
"I can't see anything," the kid screamed.
"Trust me when I say you don't want to," the fox barked back at him over the redlined V8.
When the car finally plowed through the wall on the other side of the warehouse, Fiona couldn't have been happier to put a dent in Naugus' car. Reaching up to the steering column she shifted back into drive and pointed the car towards the road. Just as she got it up to speed the bots struck again. This time, one of their rounds found an old crane stationed by the docks. Its supports popped under the explosive tension, sending everything above crashing down right in front of her and the only clean path out.
"You have got to be kidding me," the vixen shrieked at the top of her lungs as she swerved the car down another alley.
The only thing she was thankful for at this point was the fact that they wanted the kid alive. If not for that she would have had a front row seat to her first barbeque. Their only option was to try and trap the fox, but unfortunately for her they seemed to be succeeding.
One of the bots was closing fast, and the second it grabbed her car everything was over. As the sedan raced down the tiny street she was forced to weave amongst the big equipment the dock crews had left out over the weekend. The fox instinctively went for her Glock as she ripped the handbrake, forcing a one eighty. With her paw out the window, the vixen fired not at the ten foot tall mech, but at the run down truck all too conveniently filled with acetylene tanks she had just driven by. One shot, two shot, three shot, but still nothing.
"Damn it!" Fiona screamed as she fired a fourth.
The explosion was beyond spectacular, sending a fireball a hundred feet in the air. A shockwave rippled through the air shredding small objects adding to the shrapnel that pelted the bulletproof windshield. The heat nearly singed the fur on her arm as she pulled it back inside. Above all, the bot, or what was left of it, would no longer be a problem, leaving only its brother to torment her and the kid.
Now all she needed was a way out of this god-forsaken maze. Warehouse after warehouse streaked by as she looked for another street that would let her return to the rat infested city she called home.
"There," she said out loud as if it mattered. The boy sitting next to her still couldn't see a damn thing.
Turning hard onto another main road she could make out a chain link gate with a guardhouse up ahead. It wasn't ideal, but it would put up a lot less fight than what was chasing her in the rear view mirror. The remaining bot fired again, but the shot did nothing more than destroy the tiny shack next to the gate and remove part of the fence for her. The weight of her vehicle traveling in excess of a hundred miles per hour easily sailed through the aluminum wire gate and continued on it's way as if nothing were there to begin with.
All she had to do now was make it to the tunnel and she was home free. There was no chance in hell a bot like that would be able to maneuver in such a small space. With just two more turns the Estarax Tunnel willingly swallowed them up along with all the other vehicles on the road.
The noise of her car's engine running at full tilt hummed provocatively off the tiled ceiling as she careened past cars at such a speed they appeared only to be blurs. The mech on the other hand had already managed to step on a car, kicking it to the side only to run into another. Fiona breathed a large sigh of relief when she saw it disappear in the city's traffic.
"Are – are we there yet?" the brat had the nerve to ask after a few moments of silence.
The vixen couldn't think of anything polite to say, so instead hit the accelerator harder and let the car do the talking for her.
When she arrived back in the garage and turned the key, the engine promptly fell asleep with a hiss as if it had been pleading for a reprieve. Fiona finally reached over and removed the black satin shroud from Naugus' son's head. Tears were still rolling down rosy red cheeks and she almost couldn't help but feel bad for him.
"C'mon," she said as she tore the tape away from his hands, "let's go see your dad."
"No," came his response through a sniffle.
The vixen didn't feel like arguing, but she was willing to spare a few more moments for him to justify his case.
"No?" she replied as mother might to a two year old.
"No," he repeated with some hesitation, "He is a bad man, and a worse dad. He hasn't been there once for me."
"He was there today," Fiona reminded him.
"Only because it would hurt his pride. He didn't even try to save my mom…" the boy added before his words turned into sobs again.
The fox scooted him out of the car and marched him up to the building. For being only twelve he had oddly twisted view on the world, even if it was completely right. Luckily for her, the kid didn't fight. Maybe he knew there was no arguing with his father, or perhaps he had been paying attention enough to know that there would also be no arguing with her.
What Fiona would give for a reunion with her parents was indeterminable, but that didn't stop her from picturing it every day, and that went nothing like presenting Naugus with his son.
When Fiona walked into his office she tossed him the keys to his car back, "you might need to get it detailed."
The man's expression indicated he did not appreciate the humor in the matter.
"I did manage to find this though," Fiona said as she pulled the kid into the room.
"Good then I see everything went according to plan," Ixis replied.
The fox didn't quite know how to tell him that wasn't the case and perhaps the look on her muzzle said as much. However, the kid seemed rather content to tell him in detail for her.
"According to plan!" he yelled. "What kind of plans do you make up here? Ones that involve getting mom killed? Ones that involve having some stupid fox play chicken with guy holding the detonator to the bomb I am sitting on? Ones that involve me getting shot at?"
Naugus twirled the keys in his hand as he listened to his son's tirade, clearly unsure of how much of the story to believe. Turning back to Fiona he only said one word, "Explain."
"Explain what?" she nearly spat. "You're welcome by the way," the fox said curtly to the boy now sitting on his father's couch.
"Start with why he says my wife is dead."
"Because she is. It was a setup. Whoever it was didn't seem to care too much about her. They walked her in and executed her."
"Are you going to sit there and believe her dad?" the little brat had the nerve to suggest.
Ixis raised his hand to silence the boy with a look so stern it could have stopped a charging bull cold in its tracks. Fiona could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth. The kid had the audacity to question her after she risked her life to save him. And people wondered why she only cared about herself.
"What about the bomb?"
"You said they would have a trick up their sleeve didn't you? They were never going to kill him."
"Don't ever play games with my son's life!" Naugus screamed as he prepared to backhand her. However, he froze for a moment before turning to clear his desk of its entire contents with an enraged swing instead. The light sparked as it hit the floor amidst the papers and the other dozen trinkets that followed. At least he had thought twice about hitting her. Fiona still intended to kill the last person who had.
"Not a copper in the city," Fiona said mimicking his accent from earlier. "Well what about one of these?" she asked holding out the dominion badge she had taken off one of the goons.
Naugus stared at the brass in her hand in disbelief before starting his manic laugh, "Too far this time Julian, too far."
"Who are these guys?" she asked
"Your gun, Fiona,"
She hesitated as she reached for her holster. It was not something she wanted to part with.
"Your gun," he repeated himself.
Rather than risk making him any angrier, she slid the weapon across his desk. It made the same satisfying sound she remembered from when he pushed it in her direction six years ago.
"For your services," he said through heavily gritted teeth while thrusting an envelope into her chest. "Now get out!"
"Boss?"
"Now!" he shouted so loud she thought the vein throbbing in his neck might burst.
Fiona had seen him mad plenty of times before, but this was a new level. Maybe it was because of his family, but something told her this went beyond that. On her ride down to the first floor, the vixen opened the plain white envelope revealing not only her standard pay, but something easily worth ten times more. It was an ID card that would let her live in the city. A false name of course, but it made little difference to her. She would be able to remain in the only place she had ever known as home. While the fox knew that Ixis wasn't generous without good reason, she still couldn't help but feel he must have cared for her. The fox sighed as she stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby.
"Rough day," Ingrid asked as she flipped a page in her book.
"Last day," the vixen replied sullenly.
"That's not what he told me. House keeping is expecting you first thing in the morning."
"Ohh," she replied before walking out the door and back out into her city.
Fiona giggled to herself for a moment trying to find the irony. All she had ever wanted in the first place was an honest job. Six years, a new outlook on life, and now the man who had molded her into a weapon was now going to confine her to cleaning duty. Why not, she thought, you might live a little longer Fi.
Please R&R. Comments are appreciated!
