Time passed, seconds flowing into minutes, minutes into hours, daylight sending the shadows like a liquid across her ceiling—memory fed her snippets of sound and movement, emotions splashing across the whole thing like thrown paint. She remembered the Spy, the decision to take the pill he'd offered her. She remembered walking to the living room, the Pyro starting a fire, sitting on the couch with the Sniper and Spy. After that, the evening spooled out beyond her into a fog, clearing for scattered seconds then drifting on.
She shifted on the bed with a creak, putting an arm behind her. Several things were clear: someone had used her body while she was checked out of it, but they'd been incredibly gentle. Does that make it better, she thought, oddly numb. Should I be grateful that they were nice about it? She had woken up in bed with the Soldier, fully clothed, his expression hunted. Someone had showered her and dressed her, probably him. The impressions she had were at odds with her entire experience. Emotionally speaking, the night felt warm. Safe. Soothing. But it wasn't, was it, she thought. Someone or more than one someone had used her body and then sent her to bed. Her memories, the parts that were coherent, spat up the Spy and Sniper. Where did the Soldier fit into this, she thought. Did he? Why would he have stayed?
And her dream—she made a choked sound. It was less the memory of the BLU Soldier and more the way her arms had twined around his neck, as if welcoming him. She wanted to peel her entire body open and wash, of all things, the inside of her head.
"I don't," she protested to the air above her bed. "I don't want him anywhere near me."
She sat up, the bed springs jangling, and put her bare feet on the cold concrete. Sitting on the side of her bed, she looked at the flannel pajamas she was wearing. "Why," she said, "would he have gone to the trouble to shower me, if he had raped me? There's no local police department. There's nowhere to take evidence. There's no one to talk to."
Except the RED office, she realized with a belated flinch, but the only thing she'd get there would be money, a fee from the accounts of the mercenaries involved. If, she thought with a surge of despair, she could figure out who'd been involved. She doubted an accusation would matter much—that sort of thing never did. Maybe that's it, she thought. Maybe Solly showered me to ensure that I couldn't make an accusation.
Her toes curled against the floor, chilled, and she watched them for a time, her tangled hair falling around her like a shroud. I have to, she thought. I have to what? Do something. I have to do something.
She looked over at the chest of drawers that held her clothing. What does anyone do, she thought, but get up and try to go on with life? Not, she added silently, despair sending a shaft through her, that it's going to be that easy. The Cook got up and locked her bedroom door, then dressed herself. Her stomach gurgled and she looked down at it. Eating, she thought, is no more ridiculous than anything else I could do at this point
The door to her room eased open, and she peered down the hall, seeing no one. With a sigh, she walked to the kitchen and froze in the door. The Sniper stood with his back to her, waiting to push the plunger down on a full French press. "I can hear you, Birdie," he said over his shoulder. "I'm going to turn around so we can talk."
Her fingers dug splinters from the door frame as he turned around and leaned back against the counter. He wore a white t shirt, something much finer in texture than his normal shirts, and a pair of pants that she knew couldn't have come from his wardrobe—the charcoal grey linen was entirely too expensive for his normal wardrobe of denim, leather, and hefty cotton. The Spy, she thought. He's wearing the Spy's clothing.
The Sniper looked her over closely. For someone who'd been strangled a few hours earlier, she was fairly spry and surprisingly unflinching, a sight that filled him with uneasiness and guarded hope: she might even survive if she could just keep bouncing back. She was still wearing an overly hot, long sleeved shirt and heavy jeans, but she could hold his gaze and did: eyes forward, fingers digging into the door, potentially poised to spring but not cringing. Not confused anymore are you Birdie, he thought, relief making him sigh audibly. That's okay. Sneak tells me this is a stage, too. Bloody formal military training. Keep the bloody pressure on until you crack. We let you have the morning, Birdie, because Solly is a moron. But the rest, he thought, an edge of heat traveling his spine, is mine.
"Well, Birdie," he said, arms folded across his chest. "You ready?"
"What," she said, the words dropping into the space between them like stones, "do you want?" His eyes are larger without the yellow shades, she thought, looking at the fine lines around them—something had been stripped away with his glasses and the expression left behind was raw. With a startled jump, she realized this was his natural face, emotions bare and playing across it like the flicker of a candle: desire and anger burning, and behind them the faintest edge of need. Her face softened, thoughtlessly responding to his vulnerability. She reached forward and his expression flickered again, settling into sullen anger and wrenching from her an answering response as if she were a mirror. How could you, she thought, despair and betrayal like a hole from which some vital part of herself had leaked. How could you feel this way and do this to me?
"Don't get shitty, Birdie. It's time to play with sharp things." The girl had reached out, still a civilian, still trying to comfort and appease, still open and vulnerable and easy to hurt, and it had made him wish for a moment that he could afford to reach back. Don't, he thought. Don't give me this, give me your rage, Birdie-girl. Let it out to play.
"Get fucked," she said, then strode into the kitchen, eyes on him the whole time. She reached past him for a cup and he grabbed her arm. "Back the fuck up," she growled. The kitchen is mine, she thought. I've earned it. No matter what else you do to me, this will be my space.
He grinned at her, a hunter now in familiar territory, and dug his fingers into the meat of her arm. "I don't think so, Birdie. Angry? Good." He leaned forward until his face was inches from hers, his breath caressing her face. "Let's go fuck each other up."
She looked at the thin hair on the fingers digging into her arm—an afterimage and surge of warmth, the memory of those fingers stroking her breast—and twisted, pulling back and breaking his grip. How could you, she raged. How could you do this to me?
"Wanna play, Birdie," he asked. "Still feeling like shit? Too bad." That's a girl, he thought. Come on, react to the person invading your space. Defend yourself from me so I can defend myself from you.
The Cook grabbed for one of the knives in the block and he grabbed her arms, pulling her off balance. "Save it for the gym, Birdie."
"I am going to fuck you with the sharp end, Snipes," she snarled.
He laughed, a bark of sound that filled the kitchen, echoing against the white tiles, and let her arms go. "Well come on then, Birdie. Come fuck me." Sneak, my lovely, he thought with a surge of pride, you are an artist.
The Cook looked at him and smiled, teeth bared. He let go of her arms and beckoned, smile vulpine and predatory. She followed, stretching as she walked down the hall and watching his face with the intent expression of someone measuring a foe. Despair warred in her with a strange, boundless rage, as if someone had reached in and removed a part of her. What's the worst that could happen, she thought. This is the worst that could happen. It's still happening and I'm not going to lay here and just let it happen.
The gym itself was a long room with high, slit windows, dim and covered in same leprous paint that filled the base. She supposed that the faded streaks on the walls had once been sporty red stripes—they were now orange with age where they hadn't peeled away, leaving the pitted gray surface of the cinder blocks behind them. The room stunk with the fetid tang of metal and old sweat, rust darkening the feet of the racks and dappling the machines. She felt like she was getting a staph infection simply standing in it. The Sniper led her to an open space away from the machines, and started to sort through a small pile of knives in their leather sheaths on one of the benches.
"Ever played with real knives," he said, the leather slithering between his fingers, "or just your cute little kitchen toys?"
She laughed, a bitter cracking sound. Cute little toys? You fucking asshole. "You can hurt someone just fine with a kitchen toy," she replied.
He picked up a kukuri and looked at it, turning the clawed knife in front of him, then put it down. Too curved, he thought. Too specialized. Pity, it's a beaut. "Ever hurt someone with one?"
The Cook watched him sorting through the pile. Give me a knife, she begged him silently. Just give me a knife and I'll fuck you with every last inch of it. "I've worked with my share of ex-cons. Sometimes things got interesting at work."
The Sniper pulled a six inch tanto out of the pile. Lovely, he thought, turning it to catch the light. Straight, light, rubber grip, perfect for a beginner. He turned around and tossed it to her. "You ever bleed them, Birdie?"
She snatched the knife from the air by its sheath, and when her hand made contact with it, was surprised to realize that it felt good in her hand, an edge of warmth unfurling in the cold rage that rode her. She flicked open the safety strap and pulled it out—all the knives, she thought. All the knives I've held over the years and all the jobs. I've been surrounded by knives and I've appreciated them as tools for making food. This is beautiful. A beautiful tool for killing. The rubber grip was delicately ruffled to allow sweat to be channeled away from her hand, and the blade light. A slight, elegant curve swept up to chisel point. She let the sheath fall to the floor and turned it to catch the light, looking at the edge where it seemed to disappear in the air.
"Birdie," the Sniper said, his voice firming and calling her out of her contemplation of the blade. "You ever bleed anyone before?" Touch of the drug still in her system, maybe, he thought, eyes narrowing. S'all right, Birdie, we'll work it out of you.
"I have," she said, tearing her eyes away from the knife.
She remembered her first job, the man's face: his smug satisfaction turning to surprise, which soured to acrid fear as the cut opened like a mouth on his arm. Months of threats, months of taking her prep, or humping her when she bent to open the cabinets beneath the line, and finally, her temper splintered like an overloaded beam. She closed the step between them, opening his forearm with a single quick slice. To her surprise, it had been no more difficult than any of the shift's work and just as bloody.
They had backed off. They had all backed off. And then, when she was sent to the cooler for tomatoes, they locked her in so she could cool off.
Behind the three inch thick door, she had heard the line going on without her, the ever-present bubbling of steamer and soups and sauces, the crackle of flames and the sizzle of flesh muted and gone. She had pulled up a milk crate and sat down in the chill quiet, listening to the fan churning, and waited for them to let her out. When they did, she smiled and thanked them for the break with the satisfaction of knowing they would fear her and the despair of knowing it was the only way to earn respect. The only thing they could offer her was their fear.
Wonder what they'd think of me now, she thought.
"I gave you a pig sticker to start," he said, voice taking on an anticipatory purr that reminded her of the Spy. She shivered. "I'll use a smaller blade, myself. I'd tell you to leave the eyes, but instead I'll just ask if you know how to end it quickly. Do you, little Birdie? Can you end it quickly if you take me down?" If she gets that close this time, I'll eat my fucking rifle for her entertainment, he thought, amused. But she might as well know.
"I can guess." She flicked the knife back and forth, scattering light across the wall behind him. He squinted immediately, too many fights teaching him the value of making it hard to be blinded by the scatter.
"Don't guess. I don't want to lie there for hours while you play Ripper. If you take me down, cut any of these places." The Sniper turned a leg to the side and showed her how to find the femoral artery, then gestured to his neck, showing her the jumping cords of his pulse. "And for the love of fuck, don't just draw your blade across my neck. Turn my head and get one of those directly, in and out."
He touched his chest, outlining three rough ovals. "The heart is here and lungs are here, but that's a slow goddamn death and you'll have to punch through a bunch of tough connective tissue. So put your back into it."
He turned, looking at her over his shoulder. "From the back, Birdie, there are a few lethal strikes but they're hard to land." He reached behind himself and gestured. "The kidneys are here, but you'll probably clip a rib getting at them. When you go in, give it a second to see if you hit bone and angle up."
He turned again, to face her. "But I'd rather bleed out than have you hacking at me, trying to find my damn kidneys."
Her heart hammered in her chest and her mouth went dry. The tanto shivered in her hand, vibrating with her pulse, hand on the knife suddenly sweaty. He swung an arm, the blade in it making idle arcs in front of him.
"Don't go yellow on me now, Birdie," he said, the vulpine grin back on his face. "Does it help to be afraid? Should I tell you what the BLU soldier told me, the last time I killed him close? Should I tell you what he wants to do?"
"Maybe," he said, his voice deepening, "I should show you how to cut your own throat." His eyes glittered over the blade of his nose. "Should I tell you what I thought about, Birdie, when he told me?" The Sniper's eyes slid closed for a moment and he shivered for her, his tongue darting out to caress his lower lip. The blade kept moving, making arcs, and he opened his eyes, the pupils blown huge. The Sniper let his eyes slowly work their way down her body, obscene and insulting. "You still gonna fuck me with the sharp end, Honey? He likes to call people honey, doesn't he?"
Without thought, without intention, without anything but blinding rage, she lunged. The Sniper neatly side-stepped and laid a shallow cut across the back of her knife hand.
"Getting there," he said, laughter shivering in his voice. "You can use the adrenaline, but you can't let it rule you." He circled her slowly. "You'll always get cranked by the fear, Birdie, but it gets to be an old friend." Slowly, Sneak says, he thought. Always slowly. Slower than I can fight because you're wet behind the ears, Birdie-girl. We'll get you wet all right.
Her hand spasmed around the rubber grip of the tanto, burning, the salt of her sweat mixing with her blood. Rage and despair and a white-hot flame that ate both—something behind her eyes was burning. She could almost smell it. In their ashes, a chill: all that was left was calculation. His leg, there. His arm, there, circling. The knife was there. Long arms, long legs, she thought. He can get me before I get him. But I know how to get close.
"Come get me Birdie," he said, and stood still for a moment with a sneer. "At least make me break a sweat."
She feinted, and when he turned aside, cut across his leading thigh, parting the linen and making a thin red line.
The Sniper grunted, fire running up his body. Fast hands. Good girl, Birdie, he thought with a surprised twinge of pride, you're too small to run at them on the field, but you can fuck them real hard with surprise. He glanced down quickly at the slacks. Sneak is going to kill me.
"It's a start," he said looking up at her, smile warming. "You have to think about it a little. Don't just run in there, study me. Most people, Birdie, they think too much or they think too little. They hesitate, or they rush in like a bull in a china shop. If you want to die less than you kill, you have to think just right."
They circled each other, the Sniper's eyes flicking from her face to her shoulders. She mimicked him, watching his shoulders swing.
"You can lie with those, Birdie, but you don't know how to lie yet. You can lie with your whole body—the eyes, the face, the hips and shoulders. You can make a man think you're going for one thing and go for the other." His arm whipped out, slicing her free hand across the palm as she tried to jump back. "But you have to be quick."
He feinted, and when she swung away, swept his foot across her front leg. She fell on her side, crashing down hard on the concrete floor. She caught herself and rolled, then stabbed out with the blade and missed his foot as he jumped backward. The blade skittered across the floor and rang like a chime, vibrating in her hands.
"Not the best of positions, but good instincts, Birdie. Your whole back is right there, open, though. If you don't move quickly, this will all be over."
The Cook threw herself backward, rolling to her feet.
"Fancy. But anything you don't die from is still good." He shuffled his feet slightly, the soles of his shoes whispering. "Come again, Birdie. Come again. I've got reach on you, but you can still try."
She watched him move, circling again, his legs and arms alight with a humming tension. There was a moment, just a moment, when his legs crossed to circle, where the cut leg slowed—not quite a limp, but a dip nevertheless.
"Very good," he said, fighting the urge to shout with glee. "I see what you're thinking. But can you get close enough to cut me?"
She fell back, and after a second, he came forward a step to pursue her. When she slashed, she grabbed at his knife hand with her free hand, and caught his wrist. He pulled back, easily slipping through the unclotted blood on it, but not before she laid another cut across his weakened thigh with the backhand from her first strike.
The Sniper hissed, then laughed, his face alight with a savage joy. "Scientific. A thinking Birdie might be a live one." His body tensed, and she had a second's warning before he made a lightning fast series of slashes, one of which caught her across the stomach, parting the first layer of skin in a shallow cut. He grabbed her knife hand and swept her feet when she stopped to put a hand to her stomach, knocking her down. With a grin, he fell on her, dropping his knife and pinning her at the wrists with both hands.
"I caught you, Birdie. What will you do?"
They looked at each other, panting and slick with sweat. She lunged up, biting, and he leaned back. "Wanna play that way, Birdie? Does it make you feel alive like it does me?" Alive, alive, his nerves arcing inside him, sparks flying—the hunt is calling me, he thought, and I answer.
She spat at him. When she tried to bite him again, he leaned back and warbled a high bird call. "Think, Birdie, what can you do?" Don't go too deep, Birdie, he scolded her silently. You have to think as well as react.
"Closer," she growled.
"It's a good thought, Birdie. How could you distract someone by getting closer?" He was hard, achingly hard. The sting from the cuts, the squirming body beneath him, the knives and the blood and the knowledge that he had hurt her—the Sniper touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Will you, Birdie, he asked silently, head turning slightly to the side and a small smile curving his lips. It's the oldest weapon and the best, my sweet. Will you use it instead of giving up?
She stared into his eyes and gave a slow, rolling writhe, rubbing herself against him, lips still peeled back from her teeth in a rictus that had nothing in common with a smile. The Sniper stared at her, skin burning, his spine one long line of current. The Cook let her knees come apart and wrapped them around him, grinding herself against him, eyes still locked on his.
"Oh Birdie," he said, his voice thick with satisfaction. "They did find the right girl, didn't they?"
She let her arms relax under his, a sick warmth roaring through her veins, the desire to bite and to gouge, to hurt and to hear him cry like fireworks between her ears. Some place beyond anger swallowed her up: lust and rage blurring into each other like spilled paint, the color of blood on a moonless night.
The Sniper squeezed, doubling the pulse in her bleeding hands, and had to hold his breath for a moment not to moan at the pain which tightened her eyes. "So," he said, watching the pinprick of her pupils—adrenaline, he thought, is the best of all the aphrodisiacs—"should I back off tender and trying for a fuck? Then you'll pick up the knife and do me sharp. Smart Birdie."
He could feel it too, the mirror of her eyes reflecting, amplifying the live wire between them. Seconds, he thought. I am seconds from staining these pants, Birdie-girl, and I won't be staining them alone.
She pulled her head off the floor slowly, eyes still on his, and he let their lips meet without caring if she intended to bite them off. The kiss was a snarl that they passed like breath between them, crushing and sharp. He pushed her head to the side with his. In her ear, he said, softly, "If I tell you that my thigh stings and my cock hurts, what does it do to you?"
Her answering moan was low and clear, and he could not stop himself from closing his lips over the big vein in the side of her neck to hear her scream as he bit down. Sweat and blood made her wrists slick, her body sliding under his. His cock throbbed and had to draw back, chest heaving. Her fat lidded eyes looked back, glittering, waiting.
The Sniper let go of a hand and quickly swept the knives away. She reached her bloody palm up and jerked at the collar of his shirt, yanking it sideways until it choked him, and smeared her blood across his chest. His nipples were hard under her hand, and the salt of his sweat burned her hand anew. When he let go of the other hand, she shimmied out of her shirt and stared at him. He sat back on his heels, shrugging out of his shirt, eyes dark and wet, growl vibrating in his chest.
She laughed, and he was reminded of the desert hawks that hunted the evening skies, the sound spiraling up in the space between them. His hand snapped out, grabbing the tangled mass of hair behind her to hear her hiss, and towed her in, back into the kiss, back to his bitten lips and hers. He reached down to dip his fingers in the cut on his thigh and smeared it across her chest and up, forcing his fingers between them to add blood to the kiss. The hunter, the hunter, the hunter, his thoughts chimed. There is no prey here, lady-love. Destroy me, I will destroy you, and we will die together.
He moaned into her mouth, pulling his fingers away to gather two hands full of her hair, teeth pulling at her lip. She reached behind herself for support as he bore down on her, palming one of the knives which had been scattered. He swayed back, pulling her into his lap, and she slid the knife into the back pocket of her jeans before wrapping her arms around him.
"I need," he hissed and stood, pulling her to her feet. She was panting, bloody. Perfect, he thought. "Outside. Walk or I'll drag you."
Her smile was jagged and full of edges, and he unsnapped her bra, throwing it over his shoulder. Dipping his fingers in his leg again, he painted them across her chest, snagging and savagely pulling her nipples in the process to hear her groan. He laced his fingers through hers and led her from the room.
The Spy emerged from the kitchen as they walked past. He looked at them—half naked, bloody, and slick with sweat—and leaned on the doorway. The Spy tipped his coffee mug to them, one predator to another, and said nothing in that perfect state of stillness mastered by soldiers and criminals.
The Sniper led her out of the base, away into the desert, silent under the midday sun.
A few hundred yards from the base, an outcrop of rocks hid a shallow basin in the rock, shaded by the rocks above it. He led her to the basin, pulling gently until they stood next to a long, waist high rock. Wordlessly, he knelt and pulled her jeans from her. She helped him to angle the knife in her pocket away from him and keep it hidden. He pulled the slacks, sticky with sweat and blood, from his own lean thighs, and pushed her down on the cold rock. He looked at her for a moment that way—naked, bloody, red hair pooling on the rock, chest heaving, eyes wide—and shivered. The wind was painfully chilled in the shadows, the pain adding another layer of sparks to the roaring fire in his head. Keeping her eyes with his, he guided himself into her. She was wet, clutching at him, legs squeezing him painfully as she goaded him, fingernails raking his back.
"Mine," he whispered, digging his fingers into her hips and leaving bloody arcs in her skin.
He pulled himself almost all of the way out of her, looking at the violence on her face, waiting for her surprise when he thrust himself back in with a slap. She threw her head back and screamed, gouging her fingers into the cords on either side of his spine. He laughed and did it again, then reached behind himself to pin her wrists to the rock.
"Mine," he said again, and this time she laughed, her thighs tightening to fuck herself on him.
He yelled, head back, the sound echoing on the rocks behind them. When he looked down with a savage grin, he accompanied it with another thrust that made a flat smack in the desert silence. One flat smack became another, a continuous wet pounding that filled the bowl of rock around them. Her eyes rolled back in her head, head curving back and lifting her breasts up like an offering. He let go of her wrists to dig his fingers into them and she laced her fingers around the back of his skull, grabbing a handful of hair to keep his head there, teeth set in the pale curve of her breast.
The pain ran through them both, an exquisite barbed thing that stole all thought. She released his hair and he ran his hands under her ass to lift her up, fingernails buried in her skin. The wet heat around him clamped down, blood pooling on the rock beneath them from the gaping cut in her stomach, his thigh, and her hands.
The orgasm went through her like a knife and she screamed, the high sound of it spilling him into her, their pulses joined where they were. He stayed that way, looking down at the blood, the bruises, her swollen lips and the smile still on them, loathe to pull away. She looked up at him, satisfaction curling her lips, eyelids swollen, body warm but not spent.
"Mine," he said again, voice husky, and she let her hips move in a wave to watch him flinch slightly, oversensitive. He grinned like a boy at her satisfaction, lowering her back to the rock and letting himself slide out of her. When he reached down for his pants, she reached down for hers, pulling the knife from it and clicking it open. He looked at it.
They paused. She laid a long cut across his stomach where he'd left one on hers. He hissed and let her do it.
"Mine," she said.
His cock stirred again. "And what, Birdie, will you do with me?"
Knife in hand, she reached up for him and he sank down. She kissed him, the cold steel kissing his neck, and he was hard again. He opened his eyes and drew back. She had a funny little smile on her face. The knife was still at his neck. He reached for her slowly and slid two fingers into her, waiting. She squeezed him and he smiled. "Always," he said, making it a question. "Always hungry?" Do you recognize it, he asked her silently. Do you remember?
She turned her head to the side, pressing the knife until it stung him, but he did not draw back. They considered each other. No, he thought, she doesn't remember or she'd cut my throat now. He wasn't sure if he didn't want her to.
The Sniper raised his chin, daring her, fingers curling and flexing inside her. "How close," he whispered, "will you let me get you before you cut my throat?" He could feel her tighten and licked his lower lip.
She let the knife fall and he put a square thumb on her clit, the fingers that held a rifle all day flexing on that spot, pushing until the tremors started in her knees. The Sniper put his free hand on her chest and pushed her down, leaning forward and taking the knife from her limp hand.
When it broke over her, he put a carefully thin line across her throat as it strained, then closed the knife. He slid his fingers out of her, arms hanging limply by his sides, sweat matting his hair and falling in fat drops from his fingertips. After a moment of silence, he handed her jeans to her and reached down to pull the slacks on. With a wry smile, he gave the knife back. "Say what you want, Birdie," he said, his voice hoarse, "about what the Spy did last night, but in his own way he is an artist."
Her eyes darted over at him, contempt flashing across her face, cold rage still echoing between her ears. "It was already there. I was just…."
The Sniper finished the sentence for her. "You were trying to be civilized. That's what happens when you live in the city. Don't bother for us, Birdie-girl." He paused, lips quirking up. "We're not really civilized." He pulled up the zipper on the slacks. "We're also contagious."
He let her pull her jeans back on and reached for her hand. After a moment, she let him lace his fingers through hers. He squeezed gently, and laid a kiss on the back of the hand he held. Mine, he thought. A little more, Birdie-girl, every day.