Chapter 37

Rory's fingers dug into her biceps cruelly as Frankie stared up into his blazing eyes. Any answer she might have had fled at the fury. He gave her a hard shake, snapping her head back and making her bite her tongue. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

"Did they get to you?" he ground out. "Are you working for them now?"

"No…, no," she stuttered. "I was always working for you. Nobody else."

"Bullshit!" He yanked the bag off her shoulder and flung it away, then spun her and slammed her against the wall, whacking the back of her head painfully. "Martin told me about the fake data."

"I'm the one that figured it out, you idiot," she told him, her anger replacing the shock and fear.

His response was to pound his fist into the wall beside her head, "the data coming from the device you planted!"

"Oh, come on," she met his glare with one of her own, "that's a little too obvious. Do you think I'm that stupid?"

Rory ran his fingers down her temple to the bruise starting to show on her cheek from her fight with the guard. Leaning close, he breathed into her ear, "no, darling. I know you're not stupid." He ran the pad of his thumb across the tender spot, "did you kill him?"

This calm Rory was exponentially scarier than the raging man that had grabbed her just seconds ago. Frankie held perfectly still in his grasp while she frantically tried to figure out how to escape.

"Did you use this sexy body?" his hand slid lower on her and she fought to keep from flinching at his touch. "Did you distract him then take his gun away and kill him with it?"

"No," she whispered, "I didn't shoot him."

He had taken the bag away from her, so none of the items in it were available for her use. Except for the laser knife, she remembered suddenly. It was in her pocket. If she could just get to it without him noticing.

"What am I going to do with you?" he asked. "I can't get you out of my head, Frankie. You were the first and only love of my life, you know. I hate you with every fiber of my being, but I love you just as much."

"I love you too, Rory," she told him. Just keep him talking, she thought, slowing sliding her hand down to her pocket. "You made me want to be a better person, to do more than just survive, to be someone worthy."

His fingers wrapped around her hand and brought it up above her head on the wall, "that's a lie, Frankie. That's why you left me to die."

With each word he beat his fist encasing her hand against the wall, putting more force behind it with each successive blow.

"We've been over that already. I was told there was no hope of finding anyone left alive," she gasped.

"And when they didn't find my body? What did you do then?"

One of the bones in her hand snapped during an impact and she let out a scream.

"Admit it, Frankie. Admit you were glad to be rid of me!"

More bones cracked and splintered, and her legs collapsed. Only Rory's grip on her arm and her broken handheld her up.

"I stabbed an Avenger for you!" she whimpered.

Rory stopped pounding her fist against the wall and released it. She gasped as the tendons in it tried to move the bones back into the correct positions and cradled it against her body protectively.

"I know," he said in that scary soft voice. "And I love you all the more for it. If only I could trust you."

He wrapped his hand around her throat, "And we know I can't trust you, don't we?" He tightened his grip, "did you use all three of those EMP bombs in there, Frankie? That's a bit over kill, don't you think?"

She jumped in shock and looked up at him.

Rory chuckled, "Do you actually think I haven't been watching you since you left my office? I watched as you strangled that poor boy with the lamp cord. That was quick thinking. I was beginning to worry he was going to shoot you."

His grip was too tight for her to answer, she could only gasp as she struggled to draw a breath. He released his hold on her arm and encircled her neck with both hands.

"I'm going to watch the life go out of your eyes, my darling."


Frankie opened her eyes, frowning at the glowing dial of her clock. It was only 3:35 in the morning, why was she awake? She had only been asleep for a little over an hour. Pulling her worn sheet up to her chin, she rolled over to go back to sleep. That's when she heard the sound. It sounded like an animal whimpering and it was coming from the other side of the one bedroom flat. Shit, he was having another nightmare.

She had only taken the boy in four months ago and he was still little more than a feral animal. She didn't know what his nightmares were about because he wouldn't tell her about them, but he had them several times a week, often waking her up screaming.

Throwing back her sheet, she crawled off the old mattress she had rescued from a dumpster and used as her bed. Walking quietly to the sheet she had strung up to give the boy some privacy, she pulled it back and squinted into the shadows. She had been lucky and had scored an actual bed for him. Granted, one of the legs was missing and that corner was supported by a milk crate and pieces of bricks, but at least he was off the floor.

She could see that he had flung off the comforter and was curled in a ball at the head of the bed whimpering and shaking. Sitting on the bed near him, she reached out and touched his shoulder.

"Easy, Rory," she crooned. "It's okay. Nothing's going to hurt you anymore."

At her touch, he went stiff and his eyes popped open. She could see them shining even in the dim light from the alley coming through the single window.

"Shhh," she went on, not moving her hand. She didn't want to spook him. "It was just a bad dream. You're okay."

"Frankie?" he asked in a small, trembling voice.

"What, Sweetie?"

"Can I sleep with you?"

"Of course, you can," she said without hesitation. "Come on."

Together they made their way back to her mattress on the floor. She crawled to the far side and held the sheet up for him then tucked it around him.

"There you go. Now let's get some sleep," she told him.

When she woke up later that morning, Rory was curled up against her with his head tucked against her neck and his arms wrapped around her. She smoothed his hair back from his face, smiling. He was going to be alright, she told herself.


She couldn't draw a breath and she clawed at his hands with her good hand. With her broken hand she fumbled for the laser knife in her pocket, her panic deadening some of the pain. But two of her fingers didn't work and she struggled to grasp it with her ring finger and thumb as the world began to darken around the edges of her vision.

"At least you'll die at the hands of someone that loves you and not as collateral damage," he murmured as he pressed a kiss to her blue lips.


The soft click of the door was the only indication that Rory was home. Strange, Frankie thought, he normally slams the door and yells 'Lucy, I'm home!'. She thought it was funny that a twelve-year-old boy was quoting lines from a black and white TV show, so she never scolded him for slamming the door. She put down the towel that she was using to dry dishes and intercepted him in the hall.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked.

"Nothing," Rory mumbled, keeping his head down so that his hoodie hid his face.

"Not so fast," she said as she pulled the hood back to reveal the black eye that was just beginning to swell and a cut on his upper lip. "What happened?"

"A couple of guys were tormenting a stray dog and I made them stop," he met her eyes defiantly.

"Made them?"

He nodded, "the dog couldn't defend itself. It wasn't fair."

She smoothed his hair back out of his face, "where's the dog now?"

"Old Jules has her. Said she just needed some feeding and she would be just fine. I wanted to bring her here, but we don't have a place for her."

"No, and that wouldn't be fair either. At least Old Jules has a yard and some other dogs to keep her company."

"So, you're not mad?" his lip quivered.

"No, sweetie, I'm not mad," she smiled. "Go drop your stuff off in your room and then meet me in the bathroom. We'll get you cleaned up."

The smile he gave her lit up the small, dingy room and he hugged her before hurrying to his room.


The knife pulled free of her pocket and she fumbled and almost dropped it as her lungs screamed for air making her gasp like a fish out of water. Then she got her fist around it, the numbness spreading in her limbs dulling the pain. She flipped it on and swung it as the world narrowed to a dot in her vision.

Rory's let go of her neck and stumbled backwards, letting Frankie slide down the wall and collapse on the floor.


"Have you decided what you want to major in?" Frankie asked the teenager sitting across from her shoving chow Mein into his mouth like someone was going to take it away if he didn't eat it fast enough.

"Uh huh," he said through the mouthful.

Frankie waited patiently until he chewed and swallowed.

"Architecture," he announced proudly.

"Architecture?"

"Yep," he nodded and shoveled in another large forkful.

"Why that?"

Another pause while he chewed and swallowed.

"I want to design low cost housing for the poor that doesn't look like a dump."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he took a drink from his Coke. "Just because someone's poor doesn't mean they shouldn't have a nice place to live."

Then he proceeded to tell her about all the things the housing he was going to design would have. Her heart swelled with pride.


She must have lost consciousness for a few seconds because, when the world swam back into focus as she gasped to fill her lungs, the only thing in her field of vision was Rory laying just two feet from her. His eyes stared at her lifelessly and the laser knife sticking out of his temple. Strangely, no blood trickled from the wound, having been cauterized by the laser knife.

"I'm so sorry, Rory," she whispered, every word painful physically and mentally.

Pushing herself up, being careful with her broken hand, she staggered to the bag that Rory had flung away. If he had been watching her, then someone else could be also. The alarms hadn't gone off yet, but that didn't mean anything. If she was going to do something, it was now or never. Pulling the detonator from the bag, she triggered the bombs.

She didn't feel or hear anything, but the lights went off, plunging the corridor into total darkness. Maybe three bombs had been over kill. She had no idea of the radius of effect of even one of them, much less three. If the bombs affected the entire facility, she had just trapped over 100 people deep underground in the dark.

As if to emphasis that thought, a scream echoed down the corridor.

"Fuck," she muttered, "what have I done?"