The rain has stopped and for a while Eva is so happy. She's spinning, blissful. They are traveling light for once and she is light on her feet, almost floating across the wasteland. Her excitement is nearly infectious and mixed with the sunlight and a flood of endorphins from the renewed exercise, Charon is open to being infected. Their trajectory seems to be mindless, focused more on wandering and escaping the indoors then an actual destination. It's hard to admit it but it's nice.
This is nice.
Eva is laughing when they stumble across the slavers.
It's a small group, just three guards escorting four prisoners, two men and two women. Three of them seem to be adults but one is too small, thin and gangly, not grown into his body yet. He stumbles along and to Charon he looks like a starving pup, a creature that should be brimming with energy, with youth but has already been beaten down by the world, weak and empty inside. It's difficult to look at and judging by Eva's drawn expression, she is struggling with it as well.
The slavers are heading away from them, at first hidden by a low hill. Eva and Charon drop back, crouching behind a large rock as the group passes by. They are pressed close and he can feel the tense energy in Eva's limps, muscles tight in the arm against his. She glances his way. Her expression has gone cold.
"I want to kill them." Her voice is low but he can hear the anger in her words. "There's only three, it shouldn't be hard."
She's readying her gun, one of her lighter weapons and, he knows, not her favorite in a fight. They hadn't expected much confrontation on this trip as they had little plans for scavenging so Eva has nothing but her gun and the serrated knife she keeps strapped to her hip for quieter outings. Charon has his shotgun and a few grenades, useless additions to their arsenal for now. Unless they manage to pull the slavers incredibly far away from their prisoners, the explosions would guarantee casualties. He feels ill prepared but he has won fights with less.
He nods at Eva but she has already turned away, lining up the only surprise shot they'll be able to get in before the standoff. It hits the second slaver, a thick towering man missing a large chunk of his jaw, in the chest. He staggers, clutching the wound, but doesn't fall. Her shot has hit just low enough that while he'll most likely bleed out before the fight is over, it's not enough to drop him immediately. He hears Eva curse furiously under her breath.
The slavers are thrown off by the sudden attack, for a moment startled into chaos and it gives Eva another chance. This time she hits her mark, nearly exploding the large man's head as the bullet collides with the left side of his skull. It's almost perfect but she had to move up to aim and as their partner's body crumbles to the ground, the other slavers spot her and begin to rush towards them.
A shotgun is nearly useless for long distance attacks so Charon ducks out behind the rock and sprints forward, targeting the closer of the two slavers. While he hits his target, she's the most armored of the group and she's on him before he can fire again, slamming her elbow into his gut. Charon staggers but manages to stay standing. Before she can withdraw he grabs her still extended arm and pulls, twisting to throw her to the ground with her own momentum. The slaver shouts and he hears the familiar crunch of snapping bone when she lands. He can see her fumbling for the stimpaks strapped to her belt but her good hand is missing several fingers and it's slowing the action. One good shot could erase all the damage he's done so Charon doesn't bother to aim his gun, just twists it and slams the butt into her throat.
What should have been a scream gurgles out of her throat, wet and broken. It's clear he's crushed something. He doesn't know where Eva is and the contract's fear for her is making him manic, rushed. He slams the gun against the slaver again, battering until the sounds turn from human to wounded animal. It's pain, primal fear, something later he will wish he didn't recognize but for now it's what he wants. The need to go find his employer, protect, protect, protect, leaves him seeing nothing but red. He only knows to stop when the noises fade into nothing but the wet squelching of battered meat under his gun.
Charon doesn't bother surveying the damage, it's clear the slaver is dead from a glance. It's more important that he finds Eva. The sound of gunshots turns him north and he sees her, crouched behind another slab of rock, too small for decent protection, darting out to fire off a shot as the last raider runs towards her hiding place. The bullet misses be a wide margin and it's only then that he notices she's bleeding from a long gash along her upper arm. It's only a skid mark but it's enough to make her aim weaker.
The sight of her blood pushes needles into his nerves, makes his head throb and he's racing towards her with less caution then he knows he should use, too desperate to obey. It's an instinct he hates but something he can never deny at the time, only later will it claw at him, bitter and humiliating. He is a good fighter but any physical damage to his employer takes tactical thinking and pushes it from his mind, replaces it with nothing but an instinctive drive to defend.
He's halfway to the slaver when the man needs to reload and Eva takes her chance. She bolts from behind her rock, firing three shots into his chest as she runs. He crumbles under the attack, two of her bullets have made it past his armor and by the look on his face, it's clear he's realized he's going to die.
Charon is close enough to hear the air wheezing from his throat, see the sheen of sweat on the man's brow, smell his life's blood staining the ground. He's close enough to see him reach down, tug a small device from his coat pocket and activate it. He hears three short beeps, all in the same succession but distorted, echoing from four separate locations.
He's close enough to see Eva's face when the slave collars detonate.
She screams and he's never heard that sound from her before, the rage ripping her voice into ribbons, cracking apart before the shout even ends. Her gun forgotten, she leaps, knocking the man from his knees to his back. She tears her knife from her belt and rips it across the man's throat, serrated edge catching enough of his flesh that her arm is straining to pull it all the way across.
Charon reaches her just as the man's last bubbling gasp fades away.
Still straddling the slavers chest, Eva is slumped over, nearly limp. Her hair hides her face but he can see she's panting, see her shoulders rise and fall from the effort.
After the fight, the world feels unnervingly quiet, nothing but a faint breeze rattling through dead grass and Eva's shuddering breath.
A moment passes and Charon starts to approach her, careful, uncertain. He can see her tense but just as he reaches out for her, she screams, rears back and slams her knife into the man's chest. He can hear the bone crack, the slosh of blood and meat losing structural integrity as her knife penetrates the flesh again and again. Finally, after far too long Eva tugs the knife upwards, filling the air with the sharp pop of his ribcage snapping and falls still.
"Damn it." Her voice is raw and quiet as she curls over the dead man beneath her. Charon takes one more cautious step towards her and she turns when she hears him, staring up at him with blood shot eyes. The way she looks at him, the guilt, it feels like she's not seeing him and he doesn't know what it means, doesn't know what else she thinks she's looking at.
"Eva…" his voice trails off, uncertain.
She shakes her head and a thick strand of her hair clings to her neck, sticky with blood.
"Let's go home." She staggers to her feet and turns away, picking up her gun like it's an afterthought, knife still clenched tight in her other hand.
Neither of them turn to look at the mess behind them but they both know what they'll see. Four broken bodies, necks just bloodied stumps, one corpse horribly smaller than the others.
They walk home silently. Halfway back Eva's knife slips from her hand and it hits the ground with a quiet thump. Charon says nothing and they leave it there, steel stained red, forgotten in the dirt.
…
Eva fumbles her way into the house and makes a beeline for the wash room. Charon almost continues to follow her, mind elsewhere. He only stops when the door clicks shut, pushing him back into reality.
The walk gave him time to think but he still hasn't placed Eva's expression. They have failed, that much is obvious. The proof of it is most likely still bleeding out into the dusty ground behind them. Yet she didn't look angry with him, it wasn't the expression of withheld violence or fury. If anything, she watched him like she'd already hurt him, not weary of retaliation but remorseful. He's not certain he's ever seen that particular emotion directed his way before.
Charon turns away, dropping his pack next to Eva's, abandoned by the door. Behind him, he hears the water start, hears it muffle as the steam moves from porcelain to skin. He can almost see the water pouring from her pale fingertips, staining rust red as it goes.
He's only just begun kicking off his boots when the water stops.
"Charon?" The door has been pushed open and there is Eva, hair wet and skin pink from the shower, wearing nothing but a dingy white towel, little swirls of steam coiling out the doorway behind her. Even with the extra color from the water, she looks sick, her face drawn.
Charon recoils, one shoe still on, the other forgotten on the floor beside him. He's never seen this much of her but it doesn't feel like a seduction. He's long abandoned the idea that her intentions with him were ever sexual and, with the look on her face more one of nausea then arousal, it still feels unlikely. If anything, she looks…unhinged, though her eyes are far from glassy. In fact, it feels like she's never looked at him so undividedly and he has the urge to flinch away from her gaze. She takes one step towards him, water pooling at her feet.
"I can ask you to do anything, can't I?" There's loathing in her voice, though it isn't clear who it's for,
"You can't stop me and you can't hurt me."
Her fist is clenched around her towel, knotted tight in the middle of her chest. She takes another step towards him. Charon feels inescapably trapped.
"I could make you kill anyone, even someone you loved, couldn't I?" Her face starts to crumble, lips twisting and nose going pink.
"I could make you go to my room and fuck me, right now. I…" her semi-dead voice cracks and she balls her other fist in her hair, tugging viciously, one dry sob shaking her shoulders.
"I don't want to own you anymore."
Charon hits the wall before he even realizes he's backed away. Her words are threatening yet delivered without any actual force. He wants to feel anger at them but they don't seem like a prediction, only a miserable acknowledgment of the facts. He's so confused.
Eva's stare drags off him, like it hurts to look away and then she makes a sharp turn towards the kitchen, snatching up a knife resting on the counter. When she looks back to him, her brows are knotted, creased in determination.
"Cut me." She holds out the knife, handle first. She doesn't look away.
Charon blinks in surprise. "What?" Is this some self-flagellation for controlling him, owning him? Already the order is pushing, twisting in his gut with the contradiction. He thinks he may be sick. He stumbles forward.
"Is this your idea of repenting?" He spits his words at her even as he continues forward. Eva bites her lip but stands her ground, shaking her head at his accusation.
"No, but you can't hurt me, shouldn't be able to but if I ask you…maybe…" She trails off and Charon would scoff if his head wasn't splitting.
"What? It'll break the spell? Don't be an idiot." His words are slurred, a struggle to form. He's almost right by her, each step both relieving and painful.
Eva stands a little taller, holding out the knife a little further. He can practically smell her fear.
"Charon, I order you to cut me with this knife." She swallows and her hand wobbles, just for a moment. "Deep."
His mouth is suddenly so dry, head throbbing, skin on fire. His ears are ringing but it sounds like her voice, repeating the order over and over again. Charon's contract rebels and pushes, an agonizing tide but then something breaks, spills over. He still thinks he might vomit or black out but he snatches the knife from her hand, grabs her arm and pushes the blade against her skin until it breaks.
Eva might have screamed and jumped but he can't tell though his own tremors. Something rumbles in his chest that could have been a snarl, growling like he's gone feral. He certainly doesn't feel human; his whole being focusing in on the blood dripping down her arm. Even though this is all he's ever wanted, the chance for revenge, the ability to commit harm to a current employer, it stills sickens him to see his hand clutching the knife, to watch the blade split Eva's flesh. Yet there is the order, pushing him, taking control. He can do nothing to fight it, he never could.
Finally, Eva pulls away, clapping her hand over the wound but her demand hasn't been withdrawn and he follows, slashing at the air in front of her. She stumbles back and this order, some wires have crossed and he's never felt the compulsion so strong. He lunges, knocking her to the floor and digs the knife into her shoulder, deep, deeper. He holds her down. This time he's certain she screams.
In the fall, she has lost her towel and there's so much skin to cut, he could go on forever. The knife traces along a rib, over a collar bone, down her stomach. Charon wants to stop, has never wanted something more. Eva isn't pale anymore. She's nothing but red and he knows he can't cut too deeply, he can't kill her, so he has to spread it out and make her redder…
Eva is breaking apart beneath him and Charon is certain he'll follow.
Finally, finally real words push through her scream, rips out of her.
"Charon, stop!" and it's over.
He jerks away from her, flings the knife across the room.
It imbeds its self in the wood wall, just to the left of the front door.
Eva sits up slower, dripping, not bothering to grab for her abandoned towel and Charon's certain he's never seen anything more horrible. At one point, he cut her face and blood drips from her chin to her carved-up stomach. Her wrist is bruised from where he
held her down. He's even traced three long red cuts down her right breast.
No one has ever made him do something this heinous.
He struggles to his feet, rushing for the drawer where they store the emergency stimpaks. When he returns, he finds Eva laughing quietly, staring down at her blood-stained towel, twisting it in her hands.
"I was so certain that was going to work." She looks up when the first stimpak pierces her skin, expression distant. Charon's hands are shaking but he manages three more successful shots before she stops him with a light touch. Her wounds are healing up before his eyes, skin knitting together into bright pink scars.
Raised scars.
He hadn't even thought to look for newer stimpaks and now, as he watches the cut on her jaw heal into something knotted and ugly, the knife in his stomach twists. Now she will be marked by this forever.
He lets his head drop but he can't escape the damage he's done. Even healed she is hard to look at. The wounds may be gone but the blood is still there, still fresh and tacky on her skin. Almost mindlessly, he tugs the towel from her hands and wraps it around her. Her nakedness brings a whole new twisted horror to the image and he can't stand it any longer. Eva takes the action in stride, pulling it tighter more from instinct then any actual need from privacy. The aftereffects of her injuries finally set in and she starts to shiver.
Charon has never hated himself for following an order, he can't help it so why should he, but as Eva curls in on herself, pushing through the shock of pain and wounds her body needs to heal but can no longer find, he does.
He hates himself, he hates his contract, but he doesn't hate her.
When her trembling fades, he carefully pulls Eva to her feet and leads her back towards the shower. He starts the water and she steps under it mindlessly, still wearing her ruined towel draped around her shoulders like a trauma blanket. Just as he's leaving, he hears her voice, still distant, lost.
"I'm sorry." Eva is watching him cautiously, like she's failed him, like he might be angry.
"I don't want to own you. I'm so sorry."
He tries to answer, opens his mouth, closes it again. He can't find a single word so he just shakes his head, a worthless response to the woman he just mutilated, and stumbles out the door. The contradicting orders seem to have left him weak, drained and it's difficult to get up the stairs.
He almost makes it to his room before his legs give out.