Disclaimer – All characters and dialogue present in the anime and manga Burst Angel and Burst Angel: Infinity are registered trademarks and copyright of Funimation and studio Gonzo. All characters and dialogue not used within Burst Angel belong to me.
A/N: A number of you may have noticed, but there has been a title-change. I felt it was a bit more relevant to the story's contents, my apologies if this has confused anybody. As for Meg and Jo's last names, they have been taken from the school-infiltration episodes (5 and 6). These I am using.
A big thankyou to all who read chapter two of Crimson Burst Angel! For the link to the YouTube video upon which this is based, visit my profile page.
Crimson Burst Angel
By Zerrat
"Live on and you'll find the answer."
Jo, Episode 24, 'Angels, Explode!'
Chapter Three: Checkmate
Meg waited patiently, her arm outstretched in front of her as Amy wrapped new bandages around the wound site, biting back a wince as the younger girl tightened the linen painfully. Amy's brown eyes flickered over to her occasionally, as if waiting for something. A confession of her whereabouts this past night, maybe an apology for causing a stir in the airship, perhaps a promise to be good and play it safe like the dog Bai-Lan seemed to want her to be. Bite only when told to attack… Meg's lips quirked in a bitter smile. She didn't – couldn't – work like that.
Amy thrust a pin through the bandages to tie them off, leaning back and releasing Meg's arm from her vice-like grip. Meg drew her arm back quickly, rubbing the injury with her free hand. Her gloves and red jacket were tossed unceremoniously off to the side, leaving Meg feeling the cold of the night quite vividly through her vest.
"Thanks Aims. How much is a code of silence going to be this time?" As much as Meg loathed forking out money to Amy, a lecture on proper city etiquette from Sei wasn't the way she wanted to spend the rest of the night. After all, she had a couple of sources to check up on, her blood-soaked jacket to wash and a new gun to order…
"Nothing." Amy turned her back on the older woman abruptly, grabbing the assorted medical materials and shoving them in the cupboard. Meg watched her crash about the first-aid room, raising one coppery eyebrow at her antics.
"Nothing meaning it's free this time, or nothing meaning you're telling Sei?" The redhead crossed her arms over her chest as she advanced on Amy's turned back, frowning at the young tech-whiz as she craned over Amy's shoulder. The younger girl froze up suddenly, staring at the bottle of disinfectant in her hands. Her knuckles were going very white, and Meg's frown deepened.
"You can't stop me, Meg," Amy told her quietly as she slowly opened the final cupboard and placed the bottle in it a little more carefully than before. Meg shrugged, moving back to the table and draping her jacket and gloves over her good arm. When she turned to speak to Amy one last time, the younger tech-whiz had vanished – and so was Meg's chance at avoiding confrontation with Sei.
Meg swore beneath her breath.
God damn it, Amy…
She ran her fingers through her long red hair in frustration before storming out of the first aid room, intent on finding Amy before Amy found Sei.
Amy pressed her back to the cool metal of the airship, her eyes fixed on the red-haired warrior in the first aid room. She could hear her swearing, see her running her fingers through her hair –the tech-whiz's breath caught as Meg strode by her, a steely glint in her eye, and she pressed herself further into the shadows.
Her hands were trembling, and a blush still stained her cheeks. She could still smell the scent of gunpowder and perfume, of blood and the unmistakable scent of Meg… Amy let herself sink to the floor as the sound of the warrior's footsteps faded into the distance and finally into an oppressive quiet.
The glowing, digital clock in Meg's room without any further incidents in the Elizabeth. After Amy had trounced off to some unknown part of the Bai-Lan airship, Meg had attempted to search her out in vain; not even threats to reveal to Sei about Amy's secret stash of hacked porn had drawn the irritating girl out from wherever she had retreated to.
Cursing beneath her breath, Meg allowed herself to slide into her room, the steady hum of the airship's engines ignored with practiced ease. The lights of Tokyo were distant but bright, the entire city seeming to glow with an otherworldly light. Meg sighed, wrapping her fingers around her left bicep. She had planned on tracking another of her bounties, but things had gotten out of hand too quickly with the last job. It wasn't her goal to get killed by some random Tokyo thug; she had too much to do, too much to live for just yet. She tossed the blood-stained jacket to the floor, followed by her gloves and boots and pulled her t-shirt over her head.
She sank to the small bed gratefully then, her arm throbbing painfully when she reached out to the bedside table, her fingers closing instinctively around the tattered wool draped there and pulled it close. No longer did it smell like the long-lost gunner. The scent had faded quickly; dispersing as if the woman had merely been a dream Meg had once had… a wonderful dream, but a dream nonetheless. Was it not for the recordings showing that Jo Carpenter – a name she had assumed shortly after Meg had met her – had indeed worked for Bai-Lan for one short year, Meg may have been tempted to merely dismiss her as the most amazing delusion.
Meg clenched the cream scarf in her hand and forced herself to lie down on the mattress, attempting to relax each of her rigid muscles and allow herself the dreamless refuge of sleep. She stared up at the darkened roof of her room, mentally counting black sheep. She rolled over onto her side, staring out the window. She slid off the bed and started to do a couple of sit-ups, she banged her head repeatedly against her bedroom's door, before gazing up at that blackened roof once again. Frustration burned in her stomach, anger prickling in the corners of her eyes.
Sleep, she knew, was not going to come to her tonight. Not with the agony in her arm, the restlessness of her thoughts – tomorrow, she was to assist a businessman being escorted to some meeting she'd never heard of…
Lighting up a cigarette in defeat, Meg tried to draw a steady breath of the calming smoke. Her inhale trembled fitfully, and she ground her teeth shut. Somewhere in the darkness, she heard Elizabeth's communication service whir into action and one of Amy's robotic creations – either Nana or Hachi – took the incoming voice-call. Meg sighed and let the smoke escape her lips, the cigarette held carelessly between thumb and forefinger. The smoke's unobtrusive glint was the only light in the gloomy room, but for the glow cast by her radio-alarm clock.
The airship felt quiet tonight – or as quiet as the Elizabeth ever was. The drone of the engines, the screeching of wheels from the nearby Tokyo highway – Meg brought the smoke up to her lips again, the motion smoother as she began to calm down. Her muscles began to relax finally, but the pain in her arm was another thing entirely. Agony lanced steadily with her heart beat, and she could already feel a dampness through the tightly-wound linen. She covered her eyes with her forearm.
An eternity passed for Meg before the speaker-phone by her bed crackled to life, and impersonal and electronic voice coming from the darkness.
"Ms Mitarai, we have detected an incoming voice call for you. Would you like to receive this call, Ms Mitarai?"
Meg withdrew her arm from her eyes.
Nana, then. She gingerly pushed herself to a sitting position and swung her legs around, resting her feet on the cold floor. Her arm throbbed angrily, preying upon every spare thought she had and challenging all of her self-control to stop a long groan of pain. She drew in a quick breath through gritted teeth, and reached for the switch. Light flooded the room as Nana's visage appeared on the small screen by Meg's bed. The red-head squinted at the sudden glow, shielding them from the brightness.
"Who's asking for me?" she demanded of the robotic cat-woman – mouse-brown hair, a white body-suit and pink cat ears – plastered over the screen. The number '7' was splashed over her right bicep.
"The caller has made herself known as one of Ms Mitarai's many employers."
Meg felt herself relax, feeling a little light-headed. "Thanks Nana, I'll accept the call."
"As you wish, Ms Mitarai." Nana's infuriatingly polite voice came one final time as she began to transfer the call to Meg's personal line – too bad it wasn't a video call. The woman ran her fingers through her bangs distractedly, waiting for the transfer to complete itself. There was a soft click.
"Mitarai," Meg told the unidentified person on the other end of the line confidently. "If this is about –"
"It is hardly about the mimic you dispatched earlier this evening." The voice was thick, Japanese and distorted – no coincidence, Meg knew. Her stomach contracted, and suddenly the pain in her shoulder seemed insignificant as adrenaline burst through her veins. Her blue eyes narrowed as she brought the voice-receiver closer to her mouth.
"You know about that?" She lowered her voice, settling into the less familiar language of Japanese. Her stomach began to hurt as the hated pangs of panic began to set in. "Who is this?" she demanded into the receiver, her voice cracking in its harshness. There was a short silence from the other end.
"If I were you, Megumi Mitarai, I would be more worried about what I know of you…" the voice hissed in her ear menacingly, and Meg felt her whole body still.
"What do you mean?" Meg whispered quietly, wiping her palms on her nightshirt and reaching for the bedside table. The cream scarf lay forgotten on the bed as Meg's fingertips grazed over the butt of one of her Desert Eagles –
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you, little Meg."
Meg withdrew her hand quickly, her eyes searching the darkened room. Cameras? Or was she watching her from outside? Meg's skin crawled.
"Now. Little Meg, what might it be that I want from you?"
She let the cigarette drop to the floor, the ashes smouldering on the metal floor before finally winking out. Meg's heartbeat was racing, pounding in her eyes, her ears, her hands, her whole body prickled –
"My services," she told the voice confidently. This hadn't been the first time she had been propositioned this way, and now that she was back in more familiar territory, she felt a small part of her usual arrogance slip back into her.
The caller laughed harshly.
"Don't flatter yourself. I have men quite ready to take you out in a heartbeat."
Meg's eyes narrowed again. "Then what do you want? I'm getting tired of this conversation."
"You are hardly the vigilante my superiors are so afraid of, then."
She halted in the motion of hanging up the comm. link, and her lips drew back in a snarl.
"RAPT."
"Correct." The voice hardly seemed congratulatory.
Meg's hands trembled violently as she gripped the phone. A bead of sweat slowly rolled down the side of her face, her breathing coming fast and hard. RAPT. The beaten, cowed organisation she now hunted… contacting her. It made no sense. None.
How dare they?!
"Five years ago, two women and a cybot launched an attack on our headquarters. That attack devastated our forces, and allowed the Hanshin-Osaka police force to move in on our territory for… ethical reasons. As you well know, only one of those women survived that assault."
"And so you wanted to call me up and brag about it?" Meg growled savagely. "Let me tell you this. You are five years too late! Five years ago I may have cared!"
"Then I take it you do not wish for the information regarding the bounty you posted all those years ago? Information on a certain RAPT-engineered woman… Jo Carpenter, you called her?"
Meg's heart stopped, her eyes going wide. Her breathing became unsteady, and coldness began to seep through her bones.
J-Jo?
"Y-you what?"
"I have recently come into possession of information pertaining to the fate of the person of interest. However; if you want this information, you must find it yourself." The voice sounded insufferably smug. Meg's breath kept catching in her throat.
Jo…
"You mean for me to follow a bunch of clues," she stated as calmly as she could. Her mind was a riot; image after image, theory after theory crashed one over the other until she could barely think straight… Briefly, the image of the silver-haired woman sharpened until it became painfully clear, before it faded amidst the new thoughts and feelings.
"Precisely. To ensure my own safety, of course."
Meg sneered. "Or for your own sick amusement."
"Perhaps. Either way, you must do as I say. Now, little Meg. Reach over to your bedside table – no, a little further than that, little Meg."
Meg's hand – trembling – grazed over something wide and flat. She took a deep, steadying breath.
"Take it. In this envelope is your first destination; and I suggest you do not take your time in searching out the others."
The line went dead.
Her fingers clammy and tremulous, Meg snapped the lights on in her room and tore open the tan envelope open. The contents spilled to the ground, newspaper clippings of all the adverts that Meg had posted up around Tokyo, all increases in bounty, Jo's description, painful pleas Meg had penned for Jo to come home – everything was there. Except that vital information; the information Meg craved. Her hands shook as her eyes fixed on a slip of paper bearing an address and locker number.
Tokyo City station, locker 107.
"I said that I cannot allow you to leave at this hour of the night to follow some wild goose chase! Not when Bai-Lan has been assigned to escort the president of Ormicon Inc. to the business summit tomorrow! Perhaps afterwards, you may search the city." Sei didn't even look up from the document she was reading, a pen held loosely in her right hand. Meg could see the scars stretched tight over her knuckles – burn scars, cuts, broken bones leaving their mark on her once flawless skin.
Meg slammed the documents onto Sei's desk.
"That's not good enough!" she spat, unable to believe that Sei was going to deny her this one chance. The one thing she had requested these five years! "God damn it Sei, I have to do this!"
Sei's blue eyes flickered up to meet her own finally, the older woman carefully removing her reading glasses. "Meg, the caller couldn't be traced. You've tried to get Nana to locate the caller numerous times, but the location keeps coming up randomly. A professional hoax is the only answer that seems remotely plausible."
Meg's fist trembled, and she struck out at the metal walls of the Elizabeth. Her arm began to ache. "The only answer that fits is that this caller was telling the truth and knows where Jo is!"
Sei sighed. "Meg, please be reasonable. What possible reason would a RAPT employee have to contact you?" She shook her head slowly. "There is no solid reason, other than this woman's word, for us to believe that she may be telling the truth."
The red-head clenched her teeth, surveying the dent she had made in the wall. "There is no reason she wasn't!"
"Then let me ask you this. Even if this person was a RAPT employee, and even if they did have Jo, why would she tell us?" Sei's look was kind, benign. Sisterly, calm… "Please look at this logically, Meg. I know you miss Jo very much, but you need to accept it. She's gone."
Meg's insides seemed to turn to lead. "Sei, please… let me do this. I need to be certain." Meg's vision blurred and she wiped her eyes savagely. "What have we got to lose, Sei?"
The Bai-Lan leader stared at her for a long, long moment.
"Go then, Meg. Be back before sunrise – we need your presence in the escort." Sei leaned back, rubbing her temples. "Get going before I change my mind."
Even at that late hour of the night, Tokyo station was still packed with travellers, party-addicts and late-night shoppers. Beggars were holed up in nearly every nook of the vast building, clustered together to ward of the night's chill. Meg shivered herself, pulling the only clean jacket she had closer to her. The buckle hanging off the jacket's armoured shoulder thumped rhythmically against her ribs and arm, the orange fur tickling her neck.
It was strangely fitting that it was Jo's coat that she wore this night.
Trains passed quickly and efficiently though the station, vanishing into the night with their human cargo. Meg watched a train screech past silently, mindful of the creature that had forced an Osakan train to derail almost six years back. Should another RAPT creation be set upon the train network, then history would repeat itself… she shook her head to clear it of thoughts of the cycle. Monsters of RAPT origin were getting fewer and farther between as the years went on. Perhaps the Hanshin taskforce really was cutting RAPT down to size…
Perhaps it would only have been a matter of time before Jo had been located…
Meg excused herself countless times as she wove her way through the crowds still packing the train station, occasionally looking up to stare at the nearest clock.
4:15 am. She said to hurry though… Meg squeezed between two large men, hastily apologising to them when they called out in anger, but unable to allow herself to look back. The storage lockers were located on the far side of the station from where she had entered, and she hadn't been expecting crowds like these.
As a Hanshin police officer eyed her up and down warily when she passed him, Meg was suddenly glad that she had worn Jo's large, concealing coat. The officer might have been a little alarmed had he seen the twin Desert Eagles holstered at her hips. Being arrested would have been a delay she was unable to afford. She could just hear Sei's 'I told you so'…
"The next train will leave in… 3 minutes from platform… 10. If you are travelling to… Kyoto, please be ready to board."
Meg hurried past the boarding platform, ignoring the electronic informer and the curses of the travellers she pushed past. She didn't have time for this, she needed to get the information and go before somebody else got to it. Before RAPT removed all traces…!
The door to the storage room, she learned quickly, was guarded by the 'menacing' employees of the train company. Ormicon ran the trains in Japan these days, ever since RAPT had relinquished the stranglehold it had on the city's transport system. While she commended the company for running its trains on time, she hardly thought they employed the highest quality guards. As she quickly approached the locker area's door, an acne-splattered young man moved to block her entrance, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Ma'am, do you have your reclaiming ticket with you?" he asked in a voice nearly about to break. His face looked red raw from a shave he obviously didn't need and his acne…
Somehow, this boy made her feel like she was dealing with Kyohei Tachibana once more.
Must have been the voice.
She paused, pretending to search her pockets quickly for her 'ticket'. She looked up again, plastering an apologetic look on her face and the most winning smile she had ever tried. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid I've managed to lose my ticket!" She added an airy giggle – just for effect.
It worked like a charm, Meg noted while hiding a smirk. The boy uncrossed his arms, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Ma'am, I'm under orders –"
Meg pressed forwards, smiling sweetly.
"Please, couldn't you, you know, bend the rules for me? Just once?" She considered grabbing his hand, but decided against it. No need to go over the top, it would become too obvious…
He smiled down at her, his braces reflecting the light from the station's many neon signs. "Well, I suppose I could, just this once…"
She beamed at him. "Thankyou sir! You won't be regretting this any time soon!"
I'm so sweet I'm giving myself cavities… she thought through clenched teeth as the 'guard' stood aside and opened the locker room's door with a quick swipe of his card. She swept past him, finally allowing her smile to fall from her face and a look of seriousness to replace it as she scanned the lockers around her.
107, 107, 107… she heard the door swing shut behind her, but otherwise paid no attention. 107. Her heart seemed to pound the number out, again and again, her brain repeating it over and over.
97, 98, 99… Her eyes grazed over the numbers, adrenaline soaking every fibre of her body. Her breath came quickly, her heart pounded, sweat seemed to make her hands clammy through her tan gloves.
107. Meg's vision fixed on the locker bearing the number, a tremor running through her violently. Pressing her hands up against the cool blue plastic of the storage locker, Meg surveyed the electronic lock that barred her from accessing the information she needed so badly… She stared at the lock in consternation. All she had to do was enter the correct code into the device and the door would open on its own. It seemed simple enough… only that she had no idea of what this number actually was. God only knew how much time she had before some random guy took her next piece of evidence and thought it was another bounty…!
"Screw this," she growled, drawing her right Desert Eagle from its holster and levelling it at the electronic lock. Closing her eyes, she muttered a short and quick prayer to God that she wouldn't fuck everything up, she squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out in the tiny, confined space, and there was a muffled curse from outside. Panicking, Meg aimed for the keypad by the door, firing a flurry of shots into the electronics. It sparked and exploded, a foul, stinging smoke beginning to fill the air. Meg swore, holstering her gun before wrenching the door of the locker open, covering her mouth with her sleeve to protect her from the acrid smoke.
Meg groaned. Inside, there had to be hundreds of paper cuttings – all of different sizes and shapes.
"You have got to be joking!" she gasped as she began to sort quickly through the cuttings. The guard was banging on the door, demanding to know what was going on – Meg froze as the door seemed to scream, watching in horror as it began to slowly lift up. She could see feet – a lot of them – clustered around the door, the voices confused and distorted. Clenching her teeth, Meg eyed the clippings. Finally, she saw something – something different, but obscured by the many paper cuttings.
A photo? Meg snatched it from the bottom of the locker. It was of the manikin suspended over the entrance to the anarchy district… The door squealed again, and Meg whirled around, looking desperately for a way out. Above her, an air duct… it beckoned to her welcomingly.
So cliché… Meg groaned again, took one last look into the busted locker, and vacated the storage facilities.
The key-coded door screeched in his ears as finally it was lifted high enough for sergeant Kirk Wilder to roll underneath the steel plates and into the gas-filled room. Something clicked shut, and Wilder swore profusely.
"Hands up, bitch!" he roared into the bitter smoke, his eyes beginning to water. There was no reply, no sound from within the locker room. Wilder looked around desperately, noting that only one locker was open – 107 – and that there was no sign of the thief. Apparently it had been that suspicious-looking red-head he had so nearly stopped… Paper clipping seemed to be all over the floor.
Wilder cursed again, holstering his gun and reaching for his radio. As he switched it onto a new, less-used frequency, he scooped up a handful of the paper-cuttings. Death notices. Births. Funerals.
What the hell?
"Get me Maria," Wilder spat into the radio, to the unknown man at the other side. "We missed the bitch."
Meg breathed a sigh of relief as she slumped into the back of the taxi, tiredly telling the driver,
"Shibuya. As close to it as you can get me."
The driver peered at her from his rear-vision mirror. "You sure about that, lass? The anarchy district is no place for a pretty thing like yourself."
The red-head smiled wearily. "I'm looking for a friend, and somebody told me I should search there first."
He chortled as he pulled away from Tokyo station. "I don't know who you've been talking to, lass, but if she's anything like yourself, then perhaps you'd be better off searching the nightclubs before heading into a dangerous place like that." He glanced at her again from his mirror. "That's where I used to look for my daughters, back in the day."
She allowed herself to give him a smile. "Well, my friend was never really the safe type."
The taxi driver nodded understandingly before turning his attention back to the road. Meg watched him for a moment, and then dug the crumpled photo from her jacket's pocket. She smoothed it out with shaking hands, confirming once more that it was indeed the anarchy district's infamous manikin. Yes… it was. Meg's gut clenched as she flipped the photo over, reading the message once more.
Shibuya is where mercenaries get ahead.
Meg pursed her lips in thought, watching vacantly as the neon lights streamed by the window, slowly fading, fading, until there was only the occasional street lamp. Finally, the taxi began to slow as the driver encountered the first of the many blockades. She saw him smile apologetically from the mirror.
"Sorry lass – end of the line. Perhaps if you'd taken the train lines, it may have taken you closer…"
She smiled back, handing him a wad of yen. "Thankyou; it was further than I expected." Had it been up to her, she would have caught the train. She just had the Hanshin police force gathering en masse outside the locker room, she couldn't have just strolled out of the room as if nothing had happened!
She stepped out of the taxi, listening to the sirens screaming in the distance. It wasn't infeasible it was for the chaos she herself had caused… Her breath misted out before her, the night seeming quiet and still for the bustling city of Tokyo.
Shibuya is where mercenaries get ahead.
Meg began to walk, ignoring the steady throb of her arm, ignoring the rattle in her lungs from the toxic smoke, ignoring the blisters on her feet. She just walked, her mind fixed on one location. A number teenagers walked through the slums, the neon signs to nightclubs flashing fitfully in the darkness ahead of her. The music was loud and blaring, and for once, Meg didn't feel like going in an partying with them. Minutes passed – for all Meg cared, hours had.
Shibuya…
She crossed the train tracks where the Shibuya track ended. The area seemed to be made of rubble, of building that had been knocked down, debris spread out like a carpet, like living land masses.
Where mercenaries get…
Get what? Get paid? Get their first bounty? Get hired out?
Ahead… Meg stared up at the manikin suspended high over the ground. That's what mercenaries get. She trudged on, the wind gusting through the dead appendage of Tokyo. Shibuya couldn't even be cut away – it was like a tumour of the city…
Shibuya is where mercenaries get ahead.
She halted, staring up at the doll. Something was… different. The wind picked up again, tangling Meg's red hair. Light was beginning to streak the night sky…
Ahead. A… head.
Meg stared at the manikin's mangled head. A knife protruded from between the two dead eyes. Meg's eyes followed the throw's path, searching hungrily for the slightest chance that she might be right. Her sight rested on an old, abandoned building across from the anarchy district, and her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Bingo. She felt herself smirk slightly, and jogged across the road to the building. First floor, if she was right. First floor. The door to the building had long since been nailed shut, so she climbed quickly through the shattered window to the right. Perhaps her informant had climbed through here not so long ago, clearing the path for her… the building was freezing and quiet.
Meg fished around in her pocket for her lighter, striking it up and allowing the weak flame to shed some light on the mangled interior. An old bar, shattered glass all over the floor, dust coating the tables and chairs in thick rubble – this place, she thought to herself, had not been inhabited in at least five years…
Her roving eyes located the stairwell, and she carefully picked her way over to them and set a foot on the first step. It creaked dangerously, but Meg only shrugged. It would support her weight easily, despite its protest otherwise. The steps were steep, though, as they always were in those older types of buildings, and Meg had to grip the side rail to keep herself balanced properly as she made her way as fast as possible up the stairs.
Adrenaline pumped through her again, for one final time that night. She was so close – every moment felt like agony, like a thousand knives were stabbing her through the heart, the stomach…
There was only one door on the next floor, and confidently, Meg pushed it open. On a newly dusted table, easily visible in the moonlight, was another tan envelope, the same as the very first. For Meg, the world seemed to slow. Her heart pounded in her ears powerfully as she took a step towards the goal. The prize. Everything she had hoped for, everything she had wanted. She hesitated in reaching out a hand, suddenly uncertain of herself.
Five whole years of waiting. Of vain hope. Of agony.
Meg was as ready as she was ever going to get, damn it. With a hunger that bewildered her mind, she tore open the package, documents and photos spilling to the table. Meg's eyes drank in the contents – photocopied documents bearing the RAPT insignia… her eyes locked onto the photos, blurring slightly with tears.
It was the visage of a drugged and beaten woman, blood dripping down her face, matting her silver hair. Shoulders hunched and hands bound above her, the woman's eyes were dulled and seemed to beg her for something – perhaps salvation. Meg's heart contracted painfully. Perhaps the woman wished for death, after all this time, all these years. Her eyes took in every detail – the fact it was a still shot from a video, the date in the corner telling her it was only a week ago, the bone in her leg snapped and jutting through her skin…
The injuries were not what tore Meg up, however.
What tore Meg up was that in the photo, Maria was running her tongue over Jo's cheek, her hand buried inside Jo's shirt.
Oh god, Jo…
Outside the wrecked building, dawn was breaking.