Like a Woman Scorned
Ilya was back.
And she was out for blood.
Her stormy trek through the Prydwen's bowels drew unblinking stares from soldiers and scribes alike, some mumbling in open choler that she had abandoned her post with them, others wearing sympathy for her downtime of recovery; both contrasts a glimpse of that civil war Danse had warned her against sparking.
Such potential power at their fingertips. Such power she wanted to spark; Danse wanted to keep at bay; the elder gripped by the skin of his teeth. The three of them and their dirty little secret. One wrong move and all of it would collapse around them.
Ilya avoided meeting the eyes following her. She had been so fuelled to reach the end of her warpath that she had almost forgotten her guise as Danse's killer.
She couldn't give a fuck to maintain it.
Let them think she was a cold-hearted assassin with no remorse for her former mentor and friend. There were plenty others aboard that spared no sympathy for the loss of the paladin. Monsters.
Let them think she was one of them.
She squared her jaw and sharpened her step. Her arrival was the magnet for all eyes wherever she went, but her eyes were fixed ahead, sparing no diversion to meet the gazes of those she once considered brothers and sisters in arms.
Her gaze was meant for one man alone.
"Maxson."
After she bashed her fist against the hatchway to the elder's quarters, the sentry gave a cautionary glare. "I'm going to have to search you, ma'am."
"Touch me, and you're gonna have a problem firing that gun of yours for the rest of your life." She kept her gaze centred on the steel hatchway.
The Knight stood gawking in disbelief for a moment, maybe trying to pin down any innuendos to her words, but he never got the chance to respond as his elder's voice broke the moment.
"Let her in." Flat and monotone.
Ilya wasted no time. She pushed open the hatch and marched right in, making sure to slam the hatch in her wake.
And there he was. Elder Maxson stood from his terminal to receive her, his features rigidly set to endure her invasion, but his eyes betrayed his anger. He was just as she remembered him. Cold, dark, carrying his air of authority, grizzled from war, premature beyond his youth, burly and proud within his precious battlecoat, all in a package labelled as big hairy fuckface.
"There you are," Fuckface patronised sternly, letting his disappointment be clear. "You took your sweet time wasting it with that thing, Knight."
He dared. Ilya bristled and coiled like a rattlesnake. She was already striding right at him without preamble.
He deemed her no threat, talking at her as she closed in. Big mistake. "When I had said to take some time for your goodbyes, I wasn't granting you an extended lea—"
The slap that branded his cheek split his words, and the air.
Silence followed.
The force of her strike had thrust Maxson's face offside, and she preyed on him, panting through her nostrils, as the brand to his cheek turned an angry red above the line of his beard. It gave her a sadistic pleasure to watch it blaze to life.
He held himself still with an eerie composure, head still angled where her slap had forced it, but the eyes he then turned back on her were predatory, gleaming in cold blue.
Once, she would have been afraid of what she had awakened, but not now. She was immune to his effect, her fumes too thick to cut through. "He. Is not. A thing."
Maxson crackled like ice, but his silence still grated on in apathy. Nothing. No flaring nostrils, no throbbing jaw, no taut mouth. Nothing. It wasn't enough. He needed to taste her fury. He needed to taste Danse's pain.
"You destroyed him," she snarled venomously through razor fangs. "You. Not me. You. After you threatened me for corrupting his integrity by putting him between us, you were the one to destroy him. He's out there like a ghost, dying inside, torturing himself because of what you did to him!" Her mounted outburst simply fell flat against a wall. His steeled disregard pushed her too far.
Ilya employed her fist this time and launched it right for that richly adorned jaw where he loved to flaunt his fertile masculinity.
But Maxson reacted. He moved like lightning and caught her blow before it landed, a single hand shrouding her smaller fist. Their eyes lanced at each other.
"Stop it," he scolded firmly.
No. Ilya jabbed upward with her knee, snaking through the open gap of his battlecoat to dodge the ballistic filament, striking him in the gut. He gave a small grunt of surprise though he barely flinched, but it was enough to weaken his grip on her fist and relaunch it at his jaw. She wanted that face to bruise.
There was a dull echo as her knuckles made impact, the force jolting up her arm with a delicious pain. Maxson staggered off-centre, and Ilya took advantage by going for the three-hit combo, the taste of violence too little.
But Maxson moved fast. His recovery was instant and he caught her fist again, this time twisting her wrist in on itself to subdue her. As she gave a small gasp of shock, he spun her and locked her arm to the small of her back, forcing her hard against the wall of his chest.
"Stop. It."
The growl in her ear provoked a growl of her own and she shook for freedom, so he pulled her taut in his bone-snapping grasp, wedging her arm further up her back between them to blare in agony. She cried out as her body arched and locked up.
So this had backfired... She hated that she was a whelp against Maxson, hated how steeled he continued to be against her fury, and she especially hated how her back was flush to his brawny chest, her muscles crawling to be free of his very being.
But, somewhere deep inside her, through the tiers of cardinal defiance and utter hatred, lurked a tiny thrill.
It enraged her.
Ilya stomped her heel on Maxson's instep, risking the breakage of her wrist. A wince of sharp pain escaped him and he was distracted enough for her to fling her skull back into what she hoped was either his chin or nose.
There was a crack and a grunt. Her wrist tasted freedom, allowing her to spin on him and finally deliver that combo punch.
It ploughed through the scruff of his jaw and he lurched, blood weeping from his nostrils. That sample of success spurred Ilya on to kick out at his groin—cheap and totally dishonourable, but oh-so-deserved.
Luckily for Maxson, he foresaw her dirty tactic and caught at her straight-kick. Not appreciating being at his mercy with her leg in his hands, Ilya tried to wrench free by spinning outward.
He wasn't letting her go, securing her further by increasing his grasp up to her thigh and drawing her nearer for leverage. Glares were held in a daring byplay.
Oh hell no.
Ignoring the warning glare he shot her, she planted her boot flat to his torso, used his support to her advantage and pushed off him with her captured leg, fully throwing her weight into it.
Instead of being thrown back, Maxson just seemed to absorb her weight and moved with her, like a parachute dragging in her wind. She was hoisted airborne by the leg and swept around in a precarious flight, both of them growling like beasts in the pirouette of exerted g-forces. Ilya's flight crash-landed with her back slammed up against the nearest steel wall, the air pushed from her lungs in a winded grunt.
Maxson, instead of pinning her, withdrew and let her collect herself. Judging by the pits of lava that were his eyes, he was using all of his restraint not to exert his full force and smack her around his quarters like a ragdoll. Ilya almost wanted him to, just for an excuse to kill him in self-defence. Provoking him into an incriminating bout of abuse hadn't been her intention, but it was a tempting alternative...
She wheezed for air while she observed the privileged blood staining his beard from his nose. He didn't even bother to wipe it from his lips as he stood observing her in equal contempt, shock slipping through each blink.
Ultimately, she had got what she came for—blood. A dark smile possessed her lips.
Maxson sharpened his glare with incredulity. "You're feral," he declared. "Just what in the hell is wrong with you?"
"I'm feral," she recited with irony, shrugging her shoulders against the wall. He tilted his head in odium, but said nothing. She delighted in his speechlessness, still smiling at him.
It was a good time for one of his lackeys to barge in through the hatch. It was Star Paladin Groves, of all people, braced in her power armour, the sentry at the door peeking into the room past her bulk—obviously he had been too much of a coward to barge in himself once he heard the scuffle inside.
"Elder Maxson, sir?" Groves prompted, gaping in horror at her elder, battered and bloody, before slicing accusatory eyes into Ilya, winded and wheezing. It didn't take long for her to draw her conclusion. "Shall I have her executed, Elder?"
Maxson eyed Ilya to draw out his bluff of that risk, then addressed Groves with full composure. "Don't be ridiculous, Groves. Harper and I were just... laying the groundwork for our co-operative campaign." Ilya met his challenging undertone with an arched brow. "You can, however, escort the knight to the infirmary for a full medical check, assure she is well fed and cleaned, then show her to her assigned bunk before lights out."
Groves was readying a vile glare in Ilya's direction, but Ilya spoke out before it hit her. "No. I'm not staying here. I came to talk war, but that's it. I need to check in on my men at the Castle."
"Then you should have checked in at the Castle before reporting back to the Prydwen," Maxson parried tersely. "While you're aboard, you are under Brotherhood jurisdiction, and my command. You will uphold your responsibilities of rank, and you will do so without question. Do I make myself clear?"
Ilya stewed. It would take Danse and the crew a few days to reach the Castle, so there was no hurry to meet them, but she was still eager to get off the airship out of simple discomfort and defiance. She could just toss Maxson the big fuck-you and scrap her service, but that would only leave her at a disadvantage by cutting off her access to Brotherhood insight. Being both under his command and his equal ally was going to be complicated as fuck going ahead. She just had to suck it up.
A savage retort strained on the tip of Ilya's tongue, but she bit on it and jutted her chin in mock pride. "Crystal, Elder."
"Good," Maxson basked. Ilya could just imagine his hard-on kicking up with the petty win over her. "You will report straight to me first thing in the morning. Once you have been given your assignments and have squared away your duties, we will make a stop at the airport to brief you on the state of the Minutemen auxiliary force, then we will travel to the Castle and make the final arrangements for the Minutemen to take up the mantle of the Commonwealth in our absence." He paused to straighten his stance, though he still didn't bother to remedy the blood streaking his beard. "By nightfall, we will have deployed for war."
Ilya only had time to blink before Maxson gestured for Groves to snatch her up by the arm and guide her out of his quarters. He wanted to deploy to the Blood Lands tomorrow?
Shit.
How was she going to stall him long enough for Danse and the others to reach the Castle?
Shit, shit, shit.
