Benny's goal was simple: he wanted control of New Vegas.
When he was playing high-stakes where the odds were stacked against him, it didn't behoove him to play fair. He was more than willing to dirty his hands if it meant rigging the game in his favor; it was why he hadn't hesitated to kill the kid back in Goodsprings. It was just her bad luck that she happened to be the courier carrying the real deal. Her cards had come up and left her with two bullets in the head.
He thought she was dead. He didn't lose a night's sleep over it.
He only had the vaguest idea that he was wrong when reports started coming in from the Wasteland. They were small things at first, and they began on the fringe of the desert, far away from his cozy place on the Strip. But the stories gradually grew crazier and closer to home; reports of a broad fitting her description had gutted the Deathclaws in Sloan, massacred the criminal residents of the NCR correctional facility, removed the mutants from Black Mountain, and—more recently—slaughtered the Van Graffs in Freeside. That was practically in his backyard.
Now he was nervous. But it was only when one of his snitches approached to whisper into his ear that someone had been seen entering the Lucky 38 that he finally started feeling the first flutters of panic in his chest. It was nearly six months since he'd put the bitch in her grave, and he was starting to think that perhaps he really hadn't done the job right.
The next day, she walked into the Tops.
He saw her before she saw him, but he didn't realize it was her at first. He was on the other side of the casino hall when he saw a bedraggled, filthy, and half-starved woman walk in. It wasn't exactly unusual for a Wastelander to high-roll it in Freeside and then come in to the Strip just to lose it all, but what caught his attention was the fact that she had a dog at her side. From a distance, it was hard to tell, but it looked as though its brain was floating in a case strapped to its head.
He leaned against the railing and took a drag, letting his eyes close. He'd seen stranger things walk through his door.
When he opened his eyes, one of his bodyguards had come to intercept her. He frowned and removed his cigarette as the woman leaned over to grab the dog's tail; the part-machine oddity was snarling at the bodyguard, and though he couldn't make out what she was saying, he got the impression she was attempting to excuse her companion. The bodyguard removed his glasses and gave her a dubious look, as though he didn't believe her story. And then he reached up and removed his hat.
The dog immediately sat, and looked incredibly hopeful, as though he thought the hat might be tossed to him for a proper mauling.
The bodyguard put the hat back on. The dog was up again, teeth bared.
Hat off. Dog sat.
The man chuckled, and swept his hat back on.
"He'll have to deal with it, doll," he heard the bodyguard say. "Just don't let him get too close to Mr. Benny."
Benny looked away, lifted the cigarette to his mouth, and inhaled.
When he turned around again, it was because someone was tapping his shoulder. For a moment, he didn't understand what she thought she was doing—and then he saw the scar on her forehead, and the cigarette fell from his lips.
It was no surprise that he hadn't recognized her. Last he saw her, she had been wearing mercenary gear and had, at the very least, seemed ordinary. Now she looked wild, wearing bloody fiend armor and animal skins that she had probably carved up herself. She was streaked in filth, and bore only a passing resemblance to the girl he'd shot half a year ago.
At that moment, he felt fear.
And then, when she looked him up and down, with a wild gleam in her eye, he felt a thrill ripple through him.
Three hours later, he was lying in bed with her, still smoking, and planning his next move. When he arrived at his suite after sending her up, he discovered that his bathroom had been turned into a disaster area and ought to be cordoned off as a biohazard, but the blood and mud caking her from head to toe had at least been scrubbed free. It gave him a good look at her: she was a pretty thing, but had a glint in her eyes that hadn't been there before. The wasteland had changed her and from what he'd heard, it was not for the better.
She was a freak in the sack. She bucked, she threw him off, clawed at his back, and bit at his neck and anything else she could get her teeth in. His shoulders still stung, and he knew there were going to be welts. They had wrestled for dominance, and she was like a wildcat underneath him—not in an attempt to get away, but to to flip him and wrest for control. He'd had to pin her down in order to fuck her properly. It was messy and rough, and it was the best turn he'd ever had. She'd shaken her charlies for him, and eventually rolled them over, dug her heels into his sides, and rode him until they were both insensate.
The entire time, she hadn't said a single intelligible word.
When they were done, she bent over him, panting from exertion. Then she reached for his arms, and pinned them over his head.
She had stared at him silently, and he had the impression she was waiting for him to speak.
"Something wrong, pussycat?" he breathed.
She glared at him, and then leaned over the bed—
He snaked out an arm to stop her, but she was too quick, and a moment later, felt the tip of his own pistol pressing against his forehead. He had never felt such abject terror in his life, but here he had a naked woman pinning him down, and she looked like she was about to blow his brains out. He felt his heart thumping in his chest, and wondered if this was how he was about to go.
And then she said, "Answers."
He talked. She listened.
He spun out his scheme to take over New Vegas. She put the gun away.
She was a nutso bitch. Benny had realized this from the start, but it was only then that he realized that she wasn't just shy a few bullets: she was missing a full magazine. She had to be, to proposition the guy who shot her, but he hadn't realized the depth of her madness. He couldn't say he'd known her former self with any degree of certainty, but she had seemed normal. Like anyone else facing certain death, she cried and begged for mercy. Now there wasn't the scarcest trace of a person even slightly capable of that sort of human weakness. Whoever she had been before Benny shot her, that person was gone.
The sex had definitely been worth it, for sure.
Now she was asleep, and Benny wasn't planning on sticking around when she woke up. He carefully began extracting himself from her grip. It wasn't easy, with both arms wrapped tightly around his ribs, but he managed to wriggle out. She mumbled something, and he froze; she then rolled over, grabbing the pillow and pulling it into a death grip, and burying her face in it. He waited until he was certain she was still asleep, and then slid off the bed.
Her arrival changed everything. The crazy chick had exchanged words with House, and House knew he had the Platinum Chip. Benny knew that sending in the Courier to retrieve it was House playing nice; now that she had clearly failed to get it back for him, the kid gloves would be coming off, and House would come down on him with an iron fist. Hard. Benny wasn't going to wait around for him to do that.
He dressed, scrounged around for some paper and a pen, grabbed every Stealth Boy he owned, and fled the Tops.