A/N: Cheers to all you wonderful readers for sticking it out as I did battle with a miserable case of writer's block for so long on this chapter. The steady ticking of views reminded me I have an obligation as your storyteller to continue this wonderful, fucked-up little project of mine, so- thank you for motivating me to push through and deliver on my promises! I owe each and every one of you a beer, but you'll have to come to me to claim it (absinthe for Kalika, who I'm sure will never forgive me for pouring her an anise-flavored drink).

[Press Play: Ramin Djawadi - "The Breach" ("Well. This is new."); The Pretty Reckless - "Why'd You Bring a Shotgun to the Party" ("He had given...")]

Well. This is new.

Frank had to concede he didn't expect Amanda to pull off her part in their arrangement half as well as she did. She had put the "discretionary spending money"- seizure of washed bills from a crackhouse, now burned to the ground- to good use in putting together her facade; Amanda Young stood before him in the workshop, clad in a strapless, silvery dress that gripped her slender figure in all the ways it was supposed to, complete with enough exposed leg to keep their targets' attention right where it needed to be. She would be going in unarmed, with the exception of one tiny syrette loaded with John's sedative cocktail- but if the way she winced and wobbled was any indication, the heels strapped to her feet would be more than lethal enough to puncture an eye socket or windpipe.

Now that he had looked, they would definitely work; memories of a similar operation with the Bureau some five years ago bounded through his mind, fixing on the moment when he had used his partner's shoe to do exactly that after they had been made for Feds and led away for questioning. The thought brought a wan grin to the vigilante's face for a moment; seeing his expression shift, Amanda cocked a newly-sculpted eyebrow.

"Don't tell me I fucked up the makeup." Castle shook his head, apparently back to earth again as the expression on his face cooled. "How do I look?"

He began to look her up and down as he paced, circling her like a wolf sizing up prey. Heels- obnoxious, but not only did they give her a last-ditch weapon, they gave her a few inches' worth of leg. Stockings- necessary, but they were a good touch either way. She had already tucked the syrette into the cuff of one of them- and which one, he couldn't tell, which was also good. Whatever the price tag on the dress, it had been the right choice; impartial though he had tried to be, he couldn't deny that she had done a damn good job of balancing sophistication and raw sex appeal. Makeup- again, obnoxious, but the weird, ultrachic/punk-rock combination worked for her somehow.

Especially with that hair. Inwardly, Frank wondered how much of her budget had been spent on hairspray alone to get it up into those angles.

Still, he couldn't find anything to actually complain about, particularly considering his own suit had been nearly a thousand dollars. The irony of it all prompted another half-grin as he worded his response.

"Like five hundred bucks an hour- which is about what we're shooting for." Wherever it had been buried, his sense of humor was slowly trying to crawl from that grave; he held up a pair of handguns for inspection- "Speaking of shooting- black or silver?"

USP's the better choice. S&W 40 isn't threaded for a suppressor. Why did he even ask?

The question was every bit as ludicrous to Amanda's ears; she made a couple of little stammering noises, staring incredulously at him. "Christ, Castle, you're not serious, are you?" Nearly a week of working together- if that was really what they could call it, him being out torching crack dens and cook shops and her pounding away at their test design- and this question, out of the blue. He couldn't be serious, but... she had never heard him make anything even remotely resembling a joke. Now he was... color-coordinating his handgun with his suit? "Silver, I guess," she finally answered, watching as he tucked the piece into a concealed holster inside his suit jacket.

Here he was, the consummate professional. Suddenly, it wasn't so hard to imagine him a few years ago, working for the Bureau, doing this every day right down to the suit. Maybe he really had been a human being once.

Yeah, because working as a G-man really counts. The law didn't consider anyone outside of their own kind to be people; she had learned long ago it was better to do the same right back. What did that make him, though?

Dangerous. That was what Castle was- a well-designed machine, built with all the skills and tools needed to lay waste to anything in front of him. The odds were that he'd prove that again tonight; somehow, he had run faces from the little "bug" he planted through a database somewhere, found out that most of Dmitri's regular clientele- and partners- had rap sheets.

It was going to be a bloodbath. Her imagination started to run rampant, pushing images of bodies riddled with dozens of gunshots that pushed the limits of reality into her consciousness. But was it really all that different from the fate that awaited Dmitri? Just because Castle probably planned to drag him out the door across a pile of dead bodies didn't mean their test didn't stand to do something even worse to him and his banker buddy.

Maybe they did have it coming.

As if he could tell where her mind had run off to, Frank began running through his own thoughts on the matter. "We might not have time to play this out and isolate them. The longer we're in here, the easier it'll be for them to compromise our cover. That happens, all bets are off." He tucked an extra pair of magazines for the Smith & Wesson into his pocket. "Our best bet at this is for you to get one of the targets isolated, take him down. I'll handle the other one. Sweep and clear once we regroup, then we secure an exfil and bring 'em to the test site to lock it down." He knew half of what he had said would blow right past her head- but that was all right. She didn't need to understand everything that happened to play her part and bag Rell or Kovalyov.

If anything, it was probably better that way. The less she understood, the less she'd be able to protest and get in the way.

Sweep and clear? The term left a pit of absolute certainty in Amanda's stomach. She had never heard the term before- hell, the only thing she even really knew about war on any scale came from a handful of movies over the years- but its intent was obvious. Castle wasn't planning on taking his finger off the trigger once he started.

He did have a point, though. This was going to be very, very high-profile, and the odds of them being able to walk out of this place with the bosses slung over their shoulders were nonexistent. As much as she knew John wouldn't approve of this method of "securing" their test subjects... it was better than taking a bullet to the back because some hired gun who got paid in company credit with the girls popped off a lucky shot.

"Got it." She couldn't look him in the eye, wanted to do anything to avoid those cold, killer blue eyes.

"Come on. We're taking my car." He led the way, stopping to catch the door as Amanda nearly tripped over the threshold. "None of this is gonna work if you have a broken ankle, you know." The shot of venom from her eyes set him back into silence, and Frank took the lead once again.

It was a little warmer than the day he had staked out Dmitri's operation- but the damp chill worked its way into his bones all the same. Los Angeles was more humid than New York; at least at home, you could insulate against the cold. Bracing himself against an eddy of wind that swept through a side street, he turned back to check on Amanda's progress.

Still making good time, but she was definitely less prepared for the cold than he was. Every inch of exposed skin was dotted with gooseflesh, and the look she shot his inquiring look seemed equal parts misery, hatred for his dragging her out in the first place, and envy for his jacket.

"Yeah, I know," she hissed, the sharp puffs of breath condensing in vapor that wreathed her head. "And yes, in case you were wondering, they do cut glass- hey! Fuck you!"

Until she said something, Frank hadn't even noticed- it had even taken a moment for her meaning to settle in his mind. He shrugged her ire off, quietly amused by the fact she seemed so self-conscious when the nature of their sting might force her to bare a lot more to someone who might actually be paying attention.

Amateur. He caught her arm as she stormed past. "Hey. You're doing fine. It's not much further." Her indignation momentarily stunted, he slipped his suit jacket from his shoulders; she gripped it almost immediately, wrapping herself in it as best she could.

"It's not gonna be a minute too soon..." she replied, expression shifting from outrage to something closer to dismay. "I'm not sure what's worse- the cold, the fact I'm gonna have all these sick bastards eye-fucking me until we leave, or-"

She let the thought die mid-air; it didn't really have a leg to stand on, now that she thought about it. So Castle had been slow on the draw. She had been the one who called his attention to the lumps of ice that had replaced her bust- she'd seen that dawning moment of realization spread across his face only after she'd said anything. My own fault anyway, she lamented. Stupid strapless dress.

"If it helps, it'll probably be warmer once we're inside. Only person who's gonna see anything is gonna have a lot more to think about soon, anyway." Amanda offered a short, but seemingly genuine smile at the unprompted show of encouragement.

She was all right. Prickly, more than a little fucked in the head- but all right. "Left up here, then into the alley. Shutter on the right." He followed behind her, glancing habitually over his shoulder to ensure no one saw them dip into the alley.

Those heels had been a good idea after all. As he turned back to check forward, he caught a glimpse of the sway of her hips, even beneath the jacket. If he was noticing, Kovalyov wouldn't be able to get enough. He'd probably end up being her problem to deal with in private- which worked. Dmitri was easily distracted.

"Stop." As Amanda came to the steel shutter, Frank keyed a series of numbers into a nearby pad, then produced a set of keys to release the physical locks. "Never be too careful, right?" he asked as he lifted the shutter.

"Oh, fuck..." Amanda's voice trailed high with excitement as the lights in the safehouse flickered on. Front and center sat the true King of Muscle, its sleek lines and wedge-shaped nose cutting an elegantly aggressive shape that promised speed and unfettered power beneath the hood. Its gunmetal-grey finish swallowed the light that hit it and wrapped the racer in instant prestige, demanding respect from anything that shared the road with it.

It was beautiful.

"'Sixty-eight GTO." Frank's tone was almost reverent as he keyed the unlock and swept the door open. "Wrecked her in Tampa. Took the opportunity to make a few... modifications." he keyed the ignition and the leviathan awoke, rumbling as though it had been pulled from millennia of slumber. Amanda's jaw hung open, a mixture of shock and unadulterated glee flashing in her eyes as she stepped gingerly to the passenger's side and slid into the seat.

"And it's even got leather seats." She rubbed the supple material between her fingers appreciatively. "This is a hell of a car, Castle."

"Slide the overhead handle down to the dashboard." He watched with an undercurrent of pride as she explored the only remaining hobby he had kept hold of that didn't involve gunpowder; her gasp as the steel curtain slid down served only to amplify the sensation. "High-tensile steel and carbon-fiber filament, welded into six-in-one links. It's like chainmail for a car. Stops bullets, blades, fire hydrants-" he rapped the glass through the steel- "anything ballistic glass won't." He retracted the front countermeasure, gesturing to each of the doors in turn. "Same story. Strategically reinforced ceramic plates everywhere that matters. Engine's churning nearly seven hundred horsepower to deal with the weight and still maintain intercepting speeds." He chuckled ruefully. "Don't ask what it gets per gallon."

"All I want to know is what her name is." Something distinctly resembling a playful grin flashed across her face as she glanced down at the floorboard. "No carpet? Now I really want to know!"

Despite himself, Frank humored her sudden turn of good humor with an exaggerated eye-roll- which prompted a rather lewd tongue gesture in response- before steering the conversation back on subject as he navigated the alleyway and swung onto the street. "Then you won't mind if I use that as one of your selling points to get you a private audience."

It wasn't a question. It never was, with Castle.

"They ask anything about what you can do, the answer is yes. They ask if I make sure you're clean, the answer is yes. They ask any question that sounds like the answer should be no- still probably yes. You let me do the talking as much as possible. No matter what, don't break cover til you have one of them on their own."

Amanda had long stopped gawking at the car, now suddenly very preoccupied with a minute hole in the toe of her stocking and how the tip of her toe moved beneath it. The look on her face was familiar; if he had to hazard a guess, it was roughly what she had done to him a handful of times in the last few days.

Thousand-yard stare. Been here before. Amanda had remained tight-lipped about her past before John had come along- but the way she reacted was putting pieces of the puzzle together for him.

Might have been her handler that she had to kill. It followed what he understood of the Jigsaw method- or at the very least, how he would have set it up himself.

If she got lost too far down the rabbit hole, though, she'd be worse than useless; even if he tried to play her off as just spacy from drugs, it was entirely possible she'd snap out of it at the wrong time- or not snap out of it at all, not hold up her end of the job. That wasn't a position he envied her.

She all but jumped out of her skin when his hand came to rest on her shoulder. "We're almost there. Take as long as you need, but not a second longer. Any shots fired are gonna pull a lot of eyes our way."

At least he's thinking about that, Amanda conceded as she strained out a weak smile. "I'll be okay, Castle. It's just a job, right?"

"Not even. Just a part you gotta play." He guided the GTO into a vacant spot between Kovalyov's building and the next over, stepping out of the vehicle and pocketing the keys opposite his spare magazines. Not likely to hassle me over the sidearm, everyone in this business carries. "Just focus on looking-"

His face locked up for a moment, as though the next word wasn't coming to him the way he wanted it to. "Looking what?" Amanda asked, still shaky on her feet.

Castle shrugged, grunting noncommittally. "Hot?"

The look of sheer disbelief she shot him said more than words could, but she deemed it necessary to follow it up anyway. "You've got such a way with words," she quipped, clicking on past him in her heels. "If I didn't think you might actually have meant that, I'd probably tell you to fuck off."

Somehow, though, some small part of her didn't quite want to. He had all the subtlety of a brick through a window, but... in a way, that fact itself had a bit of charm about it. This was probably the first time in two years he'd so much as noticed a woman, let alone had to say anything even in the same ballpark as flattering.

Besides... he was right, wasn't he? Despite feeling like her nerves and stomach had joined forces in revolt, she knew she looked good. Out of anyone who could have checked her out, he was probably the least unwelcome, for the nothing that was worth.

And if I thought it'd make a goddamn bit of difference, I wouldn't have said anything at all. It felt strange to... banter, like this. Not necessarily wrong, but he felt-

Disconnected. That was the right word for it. Frank Castle was talking. And he was dead. Wasn't that person anymore.

"Jacket." As she passed the garment back, he reviewed "the facts" he had worked up.

His name was Mattias Kurzfeld, representing Otto Krieg, who had relocated to Germany in the last year. Krieg dealt in contractor-grade weapons and armor, had dabbled in counterfeiting and heroin- but the bread and butter of his table was his stable of girls, who he- personally!- conditioned into drug-addled nymphomaniacs who could be herded around like livestock. Kurzfeld was one of his trusted lieutenants, establishing new clients for his boss' exchange. A shipment of guns and girls was slated to arrive in four days' time, aboard the Queen's Star, which had recently made a stop in Ireland to pick up its cargo.

All bullshit, except for the Queen's Star- but it was a small Roxxon freighter, heading down from Alaska with a few millions in crude oil. Dmitri would have no way of knowing that, given the size of his operations; even if he was in bed with the Triads or the cartels, there would be no time for him to fact-check.

As they approached the alley leading to Kovalyov's building, Frank- Mattias- slipped an arm loosely around Amanda's waist. He rapped his knuckles on the steel door, staring expectantly into the viewport as it slid open.

"Name?" the voice from behind the door asked.

"Kurzfeld. Mattias." His accent was a little rough, but thick enough to mask any errant New Yorker that slipped through the affected German.

Rustling behind the door. Might be readying up. He crossed his arms, folding them into the jacket and gripping his sidearm under the pretense of bracing against the cold.

"Whatcha lookin' for? You're not on the list."

"I'm here to see Dmitri He worked with my employer before; Herr Krieg would like to reopen the pipeline."

A slow cadence of feet led away from the door, returning- by his count- nearly five minutes later. "Dmitri will see you." Locks chattered open like a typewriter, and the door swung open; opposite it stood three men in a loose V-formation. Their evident leader stepped forward, ushering them in before pulling the door shut.

"We'll need to check you... anything you want to clear?"

Frank nodded. "Pistol, under my shoulder. We can never be too careful, right?" The guard nodded knowingly, patting him down with little more than perfunctory attention. No trouble, just like I thought. As their focus shifted to Amanda, he felt a clenching in his stomach that felt nothing like concern for getting found out; they began to paw her over, "checking" her thoroughly.

"Easy, you'll get your turns," Frank warned as disarmingly as possible. "She has to stay pretty for Kovalyov, ja?"

As the trio dispersed, he caught her waist once again, slowing his own pace to match hers. Whatever the building had been before, only its bones had remained intact; past the initial corridor, a wide room opened up, everything washed in a murky red light that cast more shadows than it cleared. Patrons had spread themselves out across the entirety of the lavishly-furnished room, courting the attentions of the withered working girls who had not yet been hauled off to a room. Hallways opened to either side, lined with still more bored-looking muscle in monkey suits standing at roughly equal intervals between the doors to what he assumed were the private rooms.

The bartender would know which direction to point them. Frank nudged his way between two of the patrons, nose twitching involuntarily at the smoky reek emanating from the hand-rolled cigar dangling between the fingers of the man to his right. Not tobacco. Probably hash, laced with other shit.

Dmitri was greedy. He could hook him with promises of building a drug trade, cornering the market with a direct connection to Euro designer drugs.

Bartender probably used to work these rooms, became one of the bosses' favorites. He gestured for her attention, studying where she placed her hands to get a fix on where they hid their peacemaker.

"You must be the new guy," she observed, her voice a slightly raspy contralto that suited her enhanced figure. "Get you something to drink?

"Not just yet." He angled himself so she could get a solid look at Amanda. "Business before pleasure, you see; I'm looking for Dmitri-" he leaned further across the bar, lowering his voice to little more than a conspiratory whisper- "have to see if he likes the goods."

A positively raptorian grin took hold of the burned-out blonde's face, and she gestured to her left. "He's with his other business partners. Double doors on the right, down near the end." She eyed his apparent arm candy with a little more than professional interest. "Maybe you and me can show her the ropes after?"

"Hmm. Maybe so."

As Amanda felt her body being led away from the bar, one thought- really, just a single word- stood out among all the others in her mind: bastard. She knew, consciously, that she didn't have anything to worry about- at least, from Castle- but it unnerved her how quickly she had slipped back out of her own bones. How... familiar it felt, still, after all this time, to put a different name on herself and say, no. That happened to Rose, to Dani, or whatever the hell her name was going to be.

To anyone that wasn't Amanda Young.

Fuck. Here they were. Reality had jumped forward a few frames, rooting her back in the moment as the arm draped around her... tensed. For a ludicrous, fleeting moment, it almost seemed like he had done it on purpose- some small show of encouragement before she had to face the other side of that door.

Looks like the charter meeting of Rat Bastards Anonymous in here. Only a small section of the table that dominated much of the room was actually occupied; Dmitri sat at its head, a look of cool impartiality permanently affixed to his hard-lined face as he surveyed the newcomers. Immediately to his right sat Felix Rell- a misshapen lump of a man with a straggly combover that didn't quite reach across his sweat-shined scalp- and, just past him, a young Latina woman- fuck, she's just a kid; Frank's finger twitched with the urge to find a trigger for it to squeeze- who looked like she would rather be anywhere but on the arm of the wheezing sack of blotchy skin that only remotely passed for a person.

Across the table from Dmitri's financier sat a pair of Chinese men, identical in nearly every regard but the cut of their goatees; it took Frank less than a cursory look to put a name to their faces. Lin Brothers. Guns for hire, only slightly less subtle than the cartel. One of them reached abruptly for the Glock tucked under his shoulder, but relaxed on seeing that no one else batted an eye at the addition of two more faces to their meeting.

Missing pinky. That had to be Danny. The only reason he was still in 14K's good graces was because he killed everyone who had been sent to kill him after he had been caught skimming from one of their opium runs. Twitchy, liked to shoot first- and last- and ask questions never. Scratch him off first.

For now, Frank knew he needed to lull them back into a sense of security. He spread his arms warmly, clapping his hands together as he approached a seat a few spaces before the Triad twins. "Dmitri! You don't call, you don't write- Herr Krieg gets worried!" He gestured Amanda toward the seat next to his own.

"An occupational hazard, I'm afraid," the Russian replied, only the barest trace of an accent shaping his words. "Please, sit. I won't do business with anyone who has not sat at my table- you are Mattias, yes?"

Amanda found her attention drawn rapturously toward the slave tycoon; as she slid into her seat adjacent Frank, it felt as though someone had switched off the rest of the world. Maybe someone had; she could hardly recall anything since they had left the workshop, and what little pieces she could dredge up were strung together with mental static. Out in the real world, places like this didn't exist outside of giant corporations. What kind of money was Dmitri playing with? How connected was he?

This was a mistake. Hoffman had dug up the dirt on Felix Rell, it would have been easier to stake them both out, figure out their routines- do this the way John had taught her when she had become his apprentice.

Then a cold and callused hand found its way to her thigh, dragging her back to the present. She was here to give this death-dealing fancy fuck the show of a lifetime to convince him that she was the kind of girl he could break and sell like the others... because the man that belonged to that hand had turned an entire city's guts inside out and earned the nickname "Punisher" for doing it. Because he expected her to-

-because he was working with Jigsaw, who was the only reason she wasn't shooting herself full of heroin or working in a place like this already, and after what she had done, she had to-

It was too much to think about.

So she didn't think. She just was. "...very good at what she does, which is everything. Anything your heart desires, she's your girl." He was making the sales pitch, so she smiled, biting her lip and turning to Dmitri, lowering her gaze just enough to seem a little ashamed. Not broken yet. Not broken yet. He'll want to do it himself.

The rest of the table shared a knowing look; she could feel their many pairs of eyes settling on her, picking her apart, planning what they would do to her if they had five minutes alone. That hand on her leg gave an affirming squeeze; Frank gestured beneath the table toward Dmitri

The intent was obvious. She stood, strutting slowly along the length of the table before coming to a halt behind the outlaw baron and snaking her arms down his shoulders, drawing her fingertips along his tie. "What can I say to make you like me more?" she asked, voice just barely a husky whisper against his ear. Sitting, he was nearly as tall as she was standing; the heels really had been her saving grace.

"Oh, I like you just fine already..." Dmitri murmured, before turning his attention back toward the other newcomer and raising his voice back to conversational levels. "But how do I know you aren't the exception, rather than the rule?"

Frank's grin widened as he unearthed a slim folder from inside his jacket- eliciting another almost-reaction from Lin before his brother waved him down- and slid it across the table, scattering a group of photos from within across the span between Dmitri and his business partners. Micro had cropped, spliced, and merged a battery of photos together to create Krieg's available stable of working girls, mailed them via sealed envelope and had them dead-dropped a few blocks from the safehouse- and they seemed to be doing their job quite well. Dmitri rifled through the photos, setting a few aside and offering them for consideration to his partners in turn. The Triads seemed little better than nonplussed, but Frank could all-but smell the pheromones greasing the folds of Rell's body.

"She is the exception-" he chuckled, wanting nothing more than to blow the four of them away and be done with it- "because she's mine. She helps to keep the other girls in line, teaches them what she learns- and she gets nice things, like a trip across the country."

They were hooked. Triads liked the business angle; any traffic Dmitri would gain would just fatten up their cut. This meeting had just been a courtesy on their part, he was sure- that, or the vig was due. Either way, more birds with the same number of bullets.

"I see... and you don't mind if I borrow her for the night, find out just how well you've trained her?" Dmitri's tone was smooth as quicksilver, but a cold and haughty smirk had played across his face. He thought he was playing his own hand, wanted to establish the pecking order- probably as much bravado in front of the Chinese as self-interest- and never realized he had put the noose around his own neck.

"Of course, of course. Why do you think I brought her? Just don't hurt her face- I'll need it in the morning." He turned out his palms invitingly, watching as Dmitri leaned in close to his financier and whispered what he could only assume were instructions in setting up a deal before leading Amanda out of the room by the waist.

Less collateral damage now.

"Well, you made a hell of an argument for your... wares..." Felix Rell was the first to speak after the boss had left, the subject of his voracious attentions now being swept to some unknown part of the building. "But for some reason, this almost seems too good to be true. And I've noticed, in this sort of work- if it seems that way, it usually is that way."

Made by the fat man. Hell of a way to go. Frank felt his trigger finger twitching again, slipped his hand beneath the table to conceal the nerve that could betray him.

"I understand the concern- Herr Krieg is in the habit of looking gift horses in the mouth as well, and not just his own." Frank gestured to the doors. "But he made it very clear, I am not to leave this place without making a deal."

"And what is it this Krieg can supply us we don't already have?"

Maybe not.

"Why, anything you want. You want girls for this house, Krieg macht frei. You want heroin to keep them in line? Krieg. You want Automatisches for your men? G36? AK-47?" He mimed shooting from the hip, carefully gauging the Triads' reaction. Guns and tar were their primary imports; if they looked pissed, it meant 14K were trying to corner the same market. "Any partners of yours would be welcome as well, of course. Why build a new house to add garage? We would like to keep existing agreements, infrastructure... just the way they are."

The Triads were seething. Intel checked out. Felix, however, looked delighted; his off-color teeth flashed in the light as he smiled a piggy, beady-eyed smile. "Quite the offer you've made..."

/\\

As the doors swung shut behind them, Amanda felt herself drifting away again. She knew she needed to keep her mind focused- but every time she tried to, the brothel seemed to invade her thoughts and become her reality. After she had fought so hard to get away, everything she had gone through to get away from this life- and all for what? To end up back where she started, after they had run away from that fucking one-horse town?

Here she was again, all dressed up to get undressed. She couldn't stay here, like this, even knowing that it wasn't true anymore; she could already feel her bloodstream itching again, could feel her thumb idly caressing her favorite vein. Once she was back out, the tar had been the only way to keep herself from wandering into traffic instead of mounting the day's meal ticket.

No. She had to shake it off. She hadn't touched that shit in months, not since waking up to the taste of blood and rust- hadn't even wanted to, the very thought threatened to drag her back to that room she had been reborn in. All she had to do was get Dmitri away from everyone else, then jab him while his hands were busy.

Right. All she had to do.

It took her a moment to realize they were no longer in the hallway; the abrupt change in lighting set her blinking dazedly as she stepped uncertainly forward. She could feel Dmitri's hand lightly encircling her neck, his index finger and thumb rolling her head loosely from side to side as he paced around her, a wolfish grin lighting across his face.

"I can see why he's fond of you... I would be, too." He lifted her chin further, forcing Amanda to swallow hard unconsciously. It was getting hard to breathe; she fought to keep her rhythm steady, didn't want to give him any sign of the tumult in her stomach or the shutter-strobe blinking as her awareness faded in and out. All she had to do was distract him. Make him think she wanted him.

It wasn't that hard. Maybe some small part of her did. He was kind of handsome in that cold, brutal way, carried himself with the confidence of someone who always got- or knew how to get- what he wanted. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just...

She could feel her pulse under her thumb quicken as his hands began to roam, caressing down her shoulders, her arms- firmly prying her arms back as his fingers sought out her waist.

Maybe once more wouldn't be so bad. Maybe he'd fall asleep when he was done with her, leave his neck exposed. The rest of the world didn't have to exist for a few minutes. Why should it?

"You haven't seen anything yet." Amanda could feel her lips moving, felt the low purr escape them- but it wasn't her voice. Wasn't her hands that pulled him closer by his belt, or her teeth that sunk softly into the blood-red arch of her lower lip.

No, those were his. That was okay.

She wasn't Amanda right now.

/\\

He had given her plenty of time. It had been hell trying to play twenty questions with the gelatinous crapsack sitting across the table from him; even the Triads were starting to look bored, and it seemed like they were intent on staying as long as he did.

One batch.

It was time to go to work.

Two batch.

Under the premise of straightening his tie- good, no jump from Danny Nine Fingers- Frank slid his hand beneath his jacket, unholstering the chromed Smith & Wesson from its berth and swinging it to bear without shifting his position in the seat.

Penny and dime...

One shot, and David Lin crumpled in his seat, a dripping entry wound punching through where his eye socket had once been, spraying Danny and a section of the table with brain, blood, and bone-

A second shot, and Danny Lin's jaw exploded altogether, shearing apart at the mandible as the bullet ripped through his cheek only to exit behind his opposite ear. The third round bored clean between his eyes, blasting a second cone of gore through the back of his skull.

Before either body had stopped convulsing, Frank lunged backward, planting his legs against the edge of the massive table and propelling it with all the force he could exert. It went barreling toward Felix Rell, whose slack-jawed disbelief at the carnage he had witnessed unfold in the span of a single heartbeat drove him only to fling his arms into the air in a futile effort to protect himself as the table bowled him over.

Now he knew where he had seen that face before. Mattias Kurzfeld was no one. He and Dmitri had just invited the Punisher into their base of operations-

-who had just taken out two of the 14K's most infamous hitmen and was now stuffing a hot-barreled handgun into his mouth, eyes hellbent for murder.

"Good news for you, shitbird, I'm not gonna blow your brains out like you deserve- unless you do something really fuckin' stupid." Frank's natural voice fell atonal and flat as he dug the pistol further into the roof of Felix's mouth for good measure, turning his gaze to the teenage girl who had been buffeted by the table. "Good news for you, too. I'm shutting this place down. Stay in cover til the shooting stops, then make your way out the front door. There's a hospital eight blocks east of here."

Wordlessly, she nodded, slowly backing into the far corner of the room, drawing her bony knees to an equally-bony chest, not once averting her eyes from the vigilante.

Need to put him under. Frank produced his own dose of the sedative from the pocket of his jacket, debating the best angle of injection as he knelt across his prey's arm, knee threatening to separate the limb at the elbow. John had said the serum would work best if it directly found a vein, but he clearly hadn't accounted for this colossal fuck's neck wattles.

Old-school it was. He tossed the syrette aside absently, flipping his handgun to grip it by the barrel and pummeled Felix's temple with it until he stopped wheezing and thrashing.

It might have been overkill, but it felt so damn good. Rising to his feet, Frank vaulted back across the table, scooping up the now-dead hitmen's pistols and holstering his forty-cal. Always better to conserve your own ammunition by using someone else's. Slipping one of the Glocks into his waistband- thankful that the Triads had favored the extended magazines- he made for the double doors once again.

The assumption had been that Amanda would find him, but there was no time for that. Even through the blaring music in the bar- which he could barely hear for the room's soundproofing- it was only a matter of time before someone came looking and happened on the bodies. Once that happened, if they hadn't implemented an exit strategy, all bets were off. He needed information.

The hallway that led away from the bar was fairly empty, with only a pair of guards hanging idly at its end, facing down opposite ends of the intersection- and neither toward him.

Time to ask nicely. Glock tucked clandestinely behind his leg, Frank closed the gap to the pair of guards at a jog, bringing his gun hand up with a brutal chopping motion that clipped one of them under the jaw before wheeling to the other and perforating his chest with a volley of shots at point-blank range. The second man, staggered but standing, let out a sharp bellow as he brought his shotgun to bear-

-but found the barrel of his weapon twisted downward as Frank seized it with his open hand, using the goon's natural grip on it to lock his arm and splay his fingers away from the trigger as he pivoted behind him. A bullet to the back of the knee crumpled him into a wailing sack of dead weight; Frank wrenched the shotgun from his grasp, bringing the wounded guard's own arm up into an improvised choke hold that placed the barrel of his Glock level with the man's ear.

It didn't completely stop his screaming; the guard had a few inches on Frank, and the grip was better for training the gun on his head than restricting his airway- but he wasn't going anywhere. "Keep screamin', I'll shut you up," he hissed, leveraging the barrel into his captive's head. "Dmitri Where'd he go?"

"Fuck you! I'm not telling you shit!" Even with a bum leg and a gun to his head, this one was resilient, trying to throw his weight to gain any momentary advantage. Stones, too. He'd die quickly and well.

But he didn't need to know that. "Yeah? What do you think happens when your buddies come down here? They shoot, you're dead. They don't shoot, they're dead- then you're dead. You shut up and talk, doesn't go down that w-"

One of the doors flung open, and another of the hired muscle came bumbling out, shirt draped across his shoulders and belt unslung as he brought a machine pistol to bear-

-before Frank unloaded the round chambered in his newly-acquired shotgun, blasting the gunman's entire digestive system out his back and across the length of the hallway. That was going to draw attention.

Shit.

"You know someone heard that," he warned, scraping the barrel of his Glock against his meatshield's ear. "Out of time. Talk or die. Dmitri"

A low whimper escaped the hired gun's lips, and he ceased trying to struggle. "Hallway on the right- last door on the left- just let me go and I can-"

Gunfire erupted from the far end of the corridor, burrowing into the carpet, the walls around them-

-so Frank returned fire as he moved, dragging the goon with him to the corner of the intersection. "How many of you are there?"

His captive groaned in pain, attempting to form an answer- and then knew no more as another bullet tore through the plaster and onward into his skull. Frank discarded the corpse, racking his shotgun before pulling its sling over his shoulder.

Don't return fire, and they'll move up, expose themselves. And they did. Frank tugged the second Glock from its berth, unleashing a withering volley of fire into the knot of bodies that surged toward him.

Then hell broke loose. Hearing the gunfire, the brothel's patrons- and product- made a break for it, spilling out into the hallway from their respective rooms in total abandon, tripping and shoving one another to eke out a few inches of lead between themselves and the next poor sap in the line of fire.

Good time to move. Shoulder-checking his way past a man wearing nothing but his shoes, Frank pushed forward to the second guard he had blown away, wresting the Uzi from his lifeless fingers and shoving his way back toward his destination. He'd have a few moments, at least- but he needed to move fast.

/\\

She feels her dress bunching up around her hips as his hands work their way beneath its hem, his breath hot against her ear and tinged with the antiseptic tang of vodka. Who he is- who she is, right now- doesn't matter; all that matters is that he get it over with quickly. If the pulsing she can feel digging insistently at her now-bare ass is any indicator, quick won't be a problem. She knows there's something she's supposed to do, but whatever it is, she can't remember. Amanda knows... but that's not her name right now, she's whatever he calls her, until he's done.

Those hands catch at the bottom of her garter belt, dig into her hips insistently; he guides her toward a deep sofa, all wrapped in soft black leather, and slides past her to sit. "You, on top. I want to see how you take charge," he says, voice husky with lust that draws his native accent out. Russian.

Foreigners pay well. That's what he had told her, before she came here. It wasn't the first time, it wouldn't be the last; all that mattered was getting it over with quickly. That meant being whatever it was they wanted, whatever they were willing to pay for.

So she straddles him, her stockings catching friction on the leather upholstery as she pushes his hands back to cup her ass, rolling her hips in a show of just how well she can take charge. How much she wants to dig her nails into his chest and ride him, screaming. All he has to do is reach down, pull one tiny strand of lace aside and-

The sound of gunshots like thunder cut through the haze that had swallowed Amanda's mind; she felt her gorge rise, a scorching tension that rippled through her esophagus as she realized the exact position she was in. How close she had been to letting him-

She had to make it right. This was her only chance. Her fingers moved with perfect clarity of purpose, drawing the tiny needle from its hiding place in the cuff of her stocking- only to find her wrist locked painfully at her thigh.

"I know what you are, bitch." The color had left Dimitri's wild-eyed face, and he lunged forward, slamming her prone against the coffee table and bringing his hand down to crush her throat-

-just as the door burst open, splintering at the hinges as Castle followed through with his kick.

"Ty che, blyad?" That one split-second of hesitation was all Amanda needed; she twisted her wrist free and plunged the drug cocktail into her assailant's neck, watching in horror as he continued to thrash for a moment, intent on squeezing the life from her windpipe, before succumbing to the darkness. She rolled him unceremoniously onto the ground, nearly toppling with him.

She couldn't think. The gunshots didn't matter, the drugged Russian trafficker didn't matter- hell, it didn't even matter that the single most terrifying person she had ever met was standing in the room while she lay sprawled across a table showing off her taste in intimates-

She could breathe!

"Gotta move. No idea how many hostiles we've got here, but the longer they have to arm up, the worse off we are." Frank leaned around the doorway, squeezing off another pair of shots that elicited a scream of pain cut abruptly short by a gurgling noise. "Lose the shoes. Drag him."

Her mind was numb again; Amanda blinked hard against the lingering spots that swam across the edges of her vision, absently loosening her shoes and sliding them beneath the table before taking Dmitri by the wrists and dragging him slowly toward the door. Castle was already moving to the opposite side of the hallway, sidearm discarded in favor of his shotgun.

As Frank shouldered through the door for cover, a pair of surprised yelps cut through the din as their owners- a man and a woman- looked up from their work. Between them, splayed freshly lifeless on the bed, lay what had to have been one of the working girls- skin flayed, body punctured and bruised, her face turned toward the door, one eye scooped from its socket- and a dizzying array of tools to suit their purpose.

The first shotgun blast caught the nearest of the torturers across her face, shearing most of her features from her skull and snapping her neck with an audible crack! before the second shell tore through the other man's shoulder, leaving his arm dangling by a fine strand of gristle. As he collapsed shrieking, Frank swept back out of the room, checking his forward sector before proceeding to the next room down the line.

As the second gun blast rang out, Amanda came hurtling out of Dmitri's private room, their quarry forgotten as she watched him discharge the shotgun one-handed through a doorway, to yet another scream.

"What the fuck are you doing, Castle?" She outpaced him quickly, placing herself between him and his next target, thoughts of what he might do to her circling in the back of her mind, but buried beneath outrage.

"Cleaning house. Get out of the line of fire." A target presented itself at the opposite end of the corridor; Frank let his grip on the shotgun go slack, unholstering his Smith & Wesson and plugging the man with a trio of rounds that sent him slumping against the wall. He brushed past her, fired off a round into the lock on the door-

"This isn't a fucking shooting gallery! This isn't why we're here!" she shouted, seizing hold of the lapels of his jacket as he reached smoothly past her to open fire once again.

"Look in that last room if you need a reason for me to do this. Look in the other one if you need another one- but don't get in my way." She was becoming a liability. This was not going to work. He broke her grip with a simple arm sweep, maneuvering toward the next room- but found his path blocked once again by Amanda.

"Maybe they are fucked in the head, or whatever, but-" her voice seemed poised to crack, her entire body was shaking- "this doesn't fix them!"

"Fixes 'em just fine. Can't rape and torture these girls if they're dead."

Her red-stained mouth hung gaping at the casual finality of his statement- no, not even that so much as that this was his world, the ordinary life he lived. The only way he could be this calm, this collected- her stomach did a violent somersault as a little waif of a girl, maybe twelve, stumbled wide-eyed and white-faced out of the room Frank had cleared moments ago- was if this was every day for him.

Was he really wrong? He'd seen this world so much that the horrors it had to offer were just window dressing for the only thing that mattered to him: stopping it from happening again. John wouldn't stand for it, but-

"Get down!" Amanda felt herself floating for a split-second before skidding across the plush carpeting of the hallway, looked up-

They say you never hear the shot that gets you. Frank had seen the movement in his periphery, knew he didn't have the angle-

Doesn't even know how to hold a gun right. She was in the line of fire just as easily as he was. There was no drawing a bead on this guy before he took his shot, no way to know who he was gunning for-

Nine millimeter. The round bored into his shoulder, clean through flesh and muscle, blowing a fat hole through the back of his jacket. The round had been meant for Amanda, would have left her brains on his face if he hadn't shoved her to the floor.

Bellowing like a gored bull, Frank emptied the magazine in his pistol, the recoil sending jolting waves of searing cold through his body as he grappled with his left hand to bring his shotgun to bear, advancing toward the corner as he fired. The guard who had shot him fell back behind the corner of the hallway, leaning out to take another shot-

Goddamn it. His vision was swimming, washed-out reds and grotesque, pulsing darkness. The second round winged him, digging a long but shallow furrow that creased just below his ribcage. Two paces left-

As the guard leaned from cover again, Frank seized his wrist, torquing it as he forced the gun above their heads and twisting it from his grasp before knocking him back a pace with a ruthless headbutt to the nose- before driving the barrel of his shotgun into his opponent's chest and pulling the trigger.

"Holy shit, Castle, you're- you're bleeding, I-" Amanda grasped desperately for any words to sum up the welling terror she felt. With him wounded and who knew how many guards between them and their escape, she was as good as alone- just waiting for them to make another push. They'd take their time with him, and then-

"I'll live." He cast the now-empty shotgun aside, reloading his sidearm clumsily. Early symptoms of shock were setting in, they needed to get out before it set in any worse. "Place is getting quiet. Guards are probably all dead, everyone else is scattering."

The bullet had punched through and through- and managed to avoid hitting anything vital, as far as he could tell. Moving his arm was just about out of the question now that the adrenaline was fading, but they could still manage. He'd done more with less before.

It took nearly a full twenty minutes to load the two slavers into the trunk of the GTO; by the time they had, Frank had begun shaking in spite of himself, his face pinched and pale with blood loss. As they slammed the trunk shut, Amanda began digging through his pockets, stopping only when his bloodied hand caught her wrist.

"There's no way you're gonna be able to drive. I'll do it," she explained, keys clenched between her fingers. Wordlessly, Castle acceded, stepping around to the passenger's door and climbing in clumsily. As Amanda lowered herself carefully into the driver's seat and keyed the ignition, she let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding since what felt like when Dmitri had first led her away.

That breath became the only sound to pass between them for the whole ride back to the Gideon building, with the exception of the occasional sharp gasp from Frank as Amanda found yet another bump in the increasingly-cracked road. When they finally arrived, she moved to prop him up, all but carrying him up the stairs and into the workshop in a grim parody of a three-legged race.

"What the fuck happened to him?" Hoffman asked, tone landing somewhere between utter disbelief and what might have been amusement.

"Got shot. Didn't know you were blind." Frank glared at the detective, trigger finger twitching independently of the rest of his hand. Part of him wanted to antagonize him, for some reason he couldn't quite fathom- but he had lost too much blood. It wasn't worth it at this point.

"Easy, Castle. Come on." Amanda urged him toward his quarters, lowering him carefully onto the cot and glancing around the room for anything that would be of use.

"Wild Turkey. Left it out in the workshop," Frank mumbled, wincing as the exit wound scraped the plastic of the mattress. "Painkiller and a disinfectant. Go."

Amanda took off at a dead run, swinging around the corner of the workshop, heedless of the dozens of tiny cuts already forming on the bottoms of her feet as she scrambled around the room in search of the bottle of bourbon. Finally finding it, she rounded back to return before catching Hoffman's sidelong stare.

"Are you gonna check me out some more, or make yourself useful?" she asked pointedly, tossing the keys to Frank's car toward him. "We got them both. You remember that tunnel we checked out for that guy- Mike? Everything's set up down there. Tape's already in, just dump them in the room."

"Sure." Hoffman smirked as the two apprentices stepped past one another. "Go check on your mass-murderer boyfriend."

Under other circumstances, Amanda might have chucked a sawblade at his head; as it was, all she could manage was a hastily-shouted "Fuck you!" over her shoulder from the corridor beyond the workshop, tripping over her own now-bloody feet as she caught herself on the corner of Castle's door. He had peeled his ruined jacket and shirt off, sitting rigidly on the edge of the cot in just his slacks and shoes, evidently focusing very hard on his breathing.

"It's not low enough to create suction. Lung isn't gonna collapse." He gripped the bottle of bourbon tightly, downing a third of its volume in one long draught before passing it back. "You know what you need to do."

"Y-yeah... yeah, I do." She rested the mouth of the bottle just above the entry wound, hands trembling- then seemed to think better of it, taking a sizable swig of the harsh liquor herself before applying it to Castle's wound. As the amber liquid streamed along the edges of the wound, he roared again, clenching down on the frame of the cot so hard it almost seemed to bend beneath his fingers.

"Look, Castle, I'm-" she pulled a tense breath through her teeth- "I'm sorry, all right? I didn't want this to happen, I just-"

He gestured toward a drawer in the workbench opposite his bed. "Trauma kit. Just get it over with."

When she returned with the needle and thread, his expression had grown slightly less taut, eyes locked firmly on the floor between his feet. "I'm sure you already know this, but... this is gonna hurt." Amanda passed the bottle of whiskey back to him before threading the needle and gauging where to start stitching.

"You've done this before." He winced as the needle dug through his skin quickly, pulling tight loops that were anchored far enough back to allow actual closure of the wound. An expression that was half grimace and half smirk flitted across the corner of his mouth for a moment as Amanda repositioned herself, sitting adjacent to him as she worked.

"Couple of times," she admitted, trying not to remember the last time she had. He'd deserved the straight razor to the thigh, but of course she hadn't seen that at the time.

Don't go back there.

"Then that's it. That's your apology- that, and not gettin' shot, yourself." His head was swimming again- but this time, he knew why. The bourbon was working, especially with a reduced blood supply. He'd need to eat a lot the next few days to replenish it. Protein, iron, vitamins. Fish.

Good thing he was in Los Angeles.

Amanda let out a solitary huh that wanted, but couldn't quite manage, to be a laugh. "That's not exactly what I'm talking about. I mean..." she trailed off a moment, eying the bottle of Wild Turkey and wishing she had kept- or drank- a little more of it herself. "I mean... shit. You were right."

Frank blinked hard, unsure he'd heard her correctly. "Those guys were running something... really fucked up, I know that. It's just that-" she shifted again, working to close the last quarter of the gunshot.

Frank took another pull from the bottle, licking his own lips as a faintly waxy taste followed the familiar burn of the bourbon before checking its neck.

Red. Field medic named Redding. Blood, muscle tissue. A ring of lipstick on a bottle of whiskey. It would stick.

"What, Red? It's what?"

As she finished the last suture, Amanda swung around to catch Castle's eye directly. Red, huh? That was okay. Somehow, the nickname let some small part of her guard down.

You don't name something you're gonna kill, right? It was actually a comforting thought. That, coupled with the fact he had literally taken a bullet so she wouldn't...

But still. He needed to learn. "The thing is... that's not how we do this. We're supposed to- to make these people realize they want to be alive, that they don't want to die. If you're gonna be a part of this, you can't..." she sighed, her already soft tone growing plaintive. "You can't take their chance away before they even get there." She fumbled around the medical supplies for a minute, fishing for an actual bandage to dress the face of the wound before taping it down carefully.

Frank downed another hearty measure of bourbon, nodding slowly. "I get it, Red. Kept the two alive you wanted to learn something. But the rest of them- they weren't part of this test. That's my call, not yours."

The test. Was it really going to work? Amanda couldn't help herself from wondering. The design was solid, the principle was there, but... how much did it teach? Only one of them could walk out alive, but- maybe he was right. Maybe there were some people who would just blow their second chance as easily as their first.

Maybe. And maybe he was good at recognizing it, he'd been around it so much. This world had become his life. Maybe he'd know.

"All right, Frank." Amanda lifted the bottle of bourbon from his hands, taking another draught and wincing as it scorched her throat and spread warmth through her leaden limbs. It was easy to see why he drank it, given the cold. "This one- we did it your way."