Chapter 5: Your place or mine?

Nothing was more attractive to Snake than an angry woman. Meryl was probably the most attractive when she was fuming. She introduced a passion into the air that drove Snake insane. He grabbed her shoulder prying her back alongside him. It was like being mauled by a lion, she could feel all his weight concentrated on her left shoulder almost as if he were trying to detach it.

"I'm not going!" Meryl announced rigidly moving from her position.

"You'll go." Snake alleged with a murderous calm dragging Meryl near him. His grasp loosened slightly; after all he wasn't trying to hurt her, even though the situation merited it.

"Really?" Was the thin-lipped response from Meryl whose eyes became misty with repugnance as Snake drew nearer, "All I have to do call for help …"

"You won't." Snake interrupted the tired term of phase, his face remaining deceivingly stoic as his voice softened "You'd rather die than play the damsel."

Meryl bit down on her lip, her teeth clutching the tender pink flesh firmly. "I won't tell you who she is." Her voice faded in abandonment.

"Then I won't ask." Snake's voice churning into softly as he spoke to Meryl; Merylresponded with an incredulous look.

"I don't believe one word." She said unconvinced, herdark eyes narrowed and hardened in place as she offered him a probing look. Meryl realized that if she hadn't gone with him she was probably going to be trapped in this lobby for a good long while."fine." She strained.

Once Snake had managed to break the thin barrier of resistance that always barricaded her he found it a very simple task to actually get her to cooperate. He knew that his spell over her was only temporary because all it took was the slightest provocation for Meryl to once again begin to construct another outer shell to completely shut him out and he didn't want that. Despite the distance he felt as she walked alongside him it was pleasant to actually be able to look back at her again. He had forgotten what it was like to look at a woman. Something about Meryl was definitely a lot more womanly. Her lengthy auburn hair caressed her shoulders like thick waves, radiating a scarlet aura around her. She stood taller, and the jaunt in her step was gone; now she walked like she was an extension of the ground beneath her. There was an attachment between her and her environment. Snake had forgotten how young Meryl was. "How old are you now?" he couldn't help himself. Meryl's face went blank with annoyance.

"Just don't ask me questions." Meryl's fists balled at her hips and after a few seconds "where are we going?"

"We're going to my place."

Meryl glared at him with murderous intent. She held him in her gaze for a few seconds hoping that something would strike him down. Hopefully, by some small miracle someone would throw a television out of a twenty-story window and it would find its way towards Snake's head. Meryl would never get that lucky and she knew it. "Your place?" She scoffed "Nice try."

"I'm the one placing the conditions." Snake asserted. "I don't like having witnesses around."

"You're right. I'd be embarrassed for anyone to bear witness to your stupidity." Meryl savored her verbal victory but no line, especially a weak one could faze Snake. Coolly he glanced down and pulled out a cigarette.

"Put that out." Meryl spat, the cigarette Snake lit caught her eye. It really didn't bother her in the least. She had been raised around heavy smokers her entire existence but the manner Snake would smoke would provoke the greatest of annoyance within Meryl. He would actually savor each one, as if he were indulging in them for one final time. Meryl reviled it. She remembered her father standing on the porch when she was a kid, a warm dewy haze coated the morning air as he leaned against the railing, his blue eyes unfocused; lost in the smoke. It was the lastcigarette he would have on that porch.

"I wished you had cared for my health this much before." a grey plume of smoke escaped Snake's mouth.

"Fine…smoke it. I honestly don't give a shit." Even though she did but she attempted to conceil her concern. "Just tell me how we're getting to your place."

"Heh"

"Don't start."

"Well first thing we're going to do is let me finish my cig. Then we'll walk."

"Walk, simple as that, huh? We just walk."

"I'm not paying for a cab. Your "Boss" may have big pockets but I'm working for myself."

"You know that I could just leave you here. I don't have to follow you anywhere."

"You will." Snake assured her "even if it is just out of morbid curiosity you'd like to know how it is that I'm still alive."

"I know how you manage to stay alive." Meryl retorted.

" And that's why you've tried so hard to find out? Why else would you get involved? If you had true resolve you would have stayed away."

"Poor guy, you really do think that somehow I'm interested in you. Forget it. This is a mission. I went to see Olga not you."

"Poor kid, you wanted to see Olga, not because you were told to but because you wanted to see exactly how much she was like you and let me tell you one thing; you and her are nothing alike. So don't waste all of your three brain cells trying to figure out why I'm helping her."

"So you're aiding those terrorists?"

"I don't think the U.S. government would necessarily catalog you as a legitimate operation either."

"Well not legitimate but at least we don't believe in causing environmental catastrophes."

"I understand…you're not above murder and extortion but you won't endanger the environment."

"They killed the marines on that vessel."

"No…they didn't kill them."

"Then tell me Snake…who did? You? It certainly seems like something you'd do."

"You're being a real bitch you know that, kid. Chill. Have a smoke."

"Get the fuck away from me. Don't touch me. Don't look at me and above all don't pretend like Olga Gurlokovich is your ally."

"Don't pretend like your "Boss" isn't up to something. Tell me who she is?"

"Huh…you definitely need to be schooled in interrogation techniques, Snake. You think I'm just going to divulge information because you asked."

"No, you're going to divulge information to me because I know where Edward lives."

"…"

"I knew it would come in handy someday. Have you got it all planned out?"

"What?" Meryl's voice was reduced to a whisper.

"That little family barbeque you two planned"

"How would you know about that?"

"So as you can see, Meryl. I don't need to be schooled at all. You however might want to bone up on how to protect your records."

"You wouldn't do anything to him."

"You're right. I wouldn't kill him. Although he'll wish he was dead after I get through with him. After I tell him who exactly you're working for and how you've been betraying the very government he took that bullet for. Yeah I know about that too."

"I'm not going to give in, Snake. You think I'm an idiot but I'm not. That somehow I'm the same woman you met in Shadow Moses. I don't fall for traps and I'm sure as hell not convinced that you would do anything to hurt me or an innocent person."

"And why are you so unconvinced? I'm a dangerous man."

"You aren't brave enough to hurt someone you love. Even if that person did betray you."

" Wrong. I'd gladly kill you to save you from looking back at your life and regretting it. I should have shot you in Shadow Moses if I had known what you were going to become."

"I'm haven't changed, you certainly haven't changed; nobody changes! We don't become anything other than what we were. The only factors that change are the time and the place."

"You're missing the point."

"Well it doesn't matter what the point was in the first place. Just tell me why I should go with you. Give me one good reason to flag down a cab, get in and go to your place."

"You've got to pick up your stuff."