Chapter Thirty

The tension in the room was palpable, the electric crackle of battle almost tangible, like salt and grit with an undertone of copper. Despite knowing the outcome, the air was tight with held breaths.

"Left! Left!"

The pretence of calm gone, blood splashed on the stone. A moment; training and thought gone, instinctive need for survival taking over. A breath of smoke. The crack of bone on concrete. That humming sizzle, so low you barely heard it, that sounded so much like the other side peering through the shimmering rend in the air. But there was no tear, no fresh path.

A Spitfire roaring, biting into the walls in a perfect arc like the precise stroke of a paintbrush. The flicker of light that vanished too fast for them to decide whether they'd truly seen it. A barking yelp, cut off. The slump of a body, the out-of-place sob that sounded painful and involuntary. The crash of the door opening, and then the whine of the hinge as it closed, the muted cracking of rounds hitting the bulletproof plexiglass. The high whistles as the bullets only bevelled the surface.

And then the door again, the barreling figure, the reactive thump of a shotgun.

And then, there, the trade. A body bloodied, gasping as she fell, her opponent dead before the ground reached him. Wraith heaved a breath, features daubed in red and pain, fingers long and fast as she applied pressure, fought the visible urge to curl on one side, her eyes still bright with life and darting across the room as Bloodhound turned her way.

And then, as fast as they had, they were turning away to level the barrel at the man who'd appeared right there as though from the air, the irrational thought that he could do what she could. Before it was gone, the shotgun going off, the pistol spinning endlessly across the room.

The movement from another angle, the exchange perfectly captured forever. The rapid shots, still almost indistinguishable from the deafening punch of the Eva. The win.

"That! That right there!" Octane hollered, falling back on the table as he whooped wildly, "That, compadre, was a sweet winning move, eh?"

Mirage shrugged one shoulder in playful modesty as a round of agreement went up, still leaning heavily back on his hands with his legs swinging, though less energetically than Octane's had been.

"I know," he lilted, "I'm a-mazing, it's true."

Octane punched him playfully in the ribs.

"And modest too, when yor team did most of thee work." he leaned down to look at Lifeline, chuckling, "Two kills was it, Ajay?"

The medic snickered, tipping her head back to look at them both.

"Sounds abou' right, yeah."

Mirage made a show of being offended, reeling off a babbling explanation about how it was a team effort and how kills weren't everything, and it was three, when Pathfinder joined in helpfully.

"That is true, friends. It was a team effort. Had Wraith not surrendered her weapon, our chances of winning would have been much lower."

He held out his hands, giving her a double thumbs up, and directing all eyes to where she sat; cross-legged atop the stacked tables at the other end of the room. She found a smile from somewhere, still not thrilled to be there, and winced as adjusting her position bothered the stitches across her abdomen.

"That was some good teamwork," Bangalore murmured, tossing peanuts into her mouth in a sharp, practiced movement, "good coordination."

Wraith couldn't deny it - though she'd liked to have done - for it had been a case of imperatively good timing.

"We were in sync." Mirage chuckled while flicking his hair, "Clearly the best team won today."

When Octane knocked his shoulder again and an amiable round of arguing went up, the Trickster only grinned wider.

"I'm just sayin', I'm just sayin'." he laughed, holding his hands up as several peanuts and pieces of popcorn were playfully tossed his way.

"You were good togetha'." Lifeline said when the noise died down, leaning back against the table leg behind her and pushing Octane's own leg out of her space with a wry glance his way, "A good squad is hard t' come by, but I betcha know tha' already."

For a second, Wraith was almost sure something flickered in Mirage's face before he snorted.

"All true, all true. But it's official now, I'm up on the board. You better watch out from now on."

Pathfinder made a sound similar to laughter as Mirage was knocked from his perch by a collection of bodies, and Wraith watched on with a wry expression, deciding that maybe it had been worth giving in to the request and turning up. Even if only to see Mirage be tackled to the ground by the small mountain that was Gibraltar.

~.~

"It's funny, don'tcha think?" he spoke up thoughtfully, looking at her conversationally as they walked the empty hallway, "The gun, that won us the Game?"

The Voices that had been murmuring so quietly to each other in the back of head fell silent. Wraith felt as though they were turning his way as she did, and she felt the tingle in the air as though she was missing something important.

"What about it?" she asked, feeling like the world had hushed as he met her eyes with his own.

This was a mark in her timeline, something told her, though she didn't know who or what. The Voices stayed silent, waiting. Premonition was a curl at the back of her neck.

"It being the one you killed me with, before."

The pieces clicked together slowly, almost painfully slowly, as it dawned on her what he was saying.

"When?" she asked in a breath, though she knew, she knew.

"When you got me on that ledge by Thunderdome, four Games ago." his lip rose at the edge, a faint smile, "You told me 'Unlucky drop', and killed me."

Wraith stayed quiet, watching something move behind his eyes as he blinked and chuckled. A lazy shrug, his face turning away towards the doors that were drawing near. Wraith felt the air shifting.

"I just think it's funny that you end up giving me the same gun to win our first Game together, that's all."

He didn't say anything more, and the weight of their feet was thick between them in the dwindling hallway. He'd ignored her protests, as she'd slipped from the room while the others headed for the bar, trotting after her like an unwanted dog. All she wanted was to get to bed, to sleep off the Game and… arrange her thoughts.

Things had been out of place for weeks now, this strange new attention from Mirage, the way she found herself doubting her conviction to hiss and kick at keep him at knifepoint. The strange way the Voices whispered when she best tried to ignore them. The days had felt charged. Something was changing, her instincts told her. Something big, that couldn't be ignored. But what? On that front, there had been no help from the Void.

"Lifeline was right, you know." he said suddenly, as she was pushing open the door to her corridor.

His voice startled her back into the moment, expecting him to look chagrinned when she turned her impatient eyes on him.

He stood a few steps behind her, poised to move off instead of tailing her all the way to her room like he'd started making a habit of. Wraith didn't ask, for she knew what he was saying, and instead only looked back at him as he tipped his head one way and smiled at her in a way that had her defences crawling up.

"We make a good team."

She couldn't find the words to lie, but she was reluctant to agree.

"Goodnight, Mirage."

His chuckle was not dissuaded. His confidence was infuriating, smug and unwavering in the most unfortunate moments. The urge to do something rose. To spit something sharp, to shove him, to remind hims he carried her Konai always. Instead, she did nothing. He only seemed to take it as encouragement.

"Sweet dreams, Wraith."

He only grinned at her unimpressed expression. She could feel him watch her walk away. Fucking idiot, poking fire to see if it'd burn him. Words from Bangalore muttered in her head, and made Wraith's mouth lift in one corner. Target practice.

However, when Wraith slipped under her sheets, his words were still whispering through her head like a warning she couldn't shake.

"We did make a good team." she could admit only then, a whisper in the safety of darkness and with no-one but herself to testify that she had.

It was with no small amount of wonder, either. It surprised her how well they'd worked, feeling much like it could have been a fluke, were it not for the knowledge that they'd paid attention too close to each other for it to be solely down to luck. They really had made a good team.

A dangerously good team.