Odd Couple 6

The shiv was in my hand before I even had a chance to think about it. Instinct. Don’t think you have much to worry about though. You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you look, more fight than I would have thought. I didn’t even see your knife. Then again, I wasn’t looking anymore.

There aren’t many times in my life when I wish I wasn’t shined, but this is one of them, I would have loved to see you as you really are.

That musk underneath. Makes it hard to think clearly. You’re not as reserved as you let on, there’s the smell of something wild in you. Your hair’s come loose, when you tossed me. That little flush at your throat. I doubt you even noticed it.

Absolutely no fear. Fear’s something you can smell, especially on a woman. I wonder if anything makes you afraid.

Not used to being pinned by a woman. If I really wanted to, you’d probably be pretty easy to throw off. I don’t want to. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in years.

~~
The meal over, I let you pour me another glass of wine, and get up, and reach under the bed for a sheaf of files.

I carefully spread the files over the table, moving my chair closer.

“What do you know about a Daniel McDermott?”

“Nothing. Should I know him?”

“McDermott had a brother, who just happened to be the warden at a prison you escaped from.You killed him.”

“Ursa Luna. Not that long ago”

“Daniel McDermott sent someone from my agency to kill you, and you killed him as well.”

“It wasn’t hard ,he got sloppy, you’re better.”

“Yes, I am. Unfortunately, for me, the man McDermott had sent was not as careful with some files as he should have been, and McDermott is a very greedy man. The idea of having control over a group of assassins seems to have appealed to him. The agency, most of it anyways, disbanded, rather than accept blackmail. I was not so lucky.”

“So he’s blackmailing you”. Don’t know why I find that a comfort, but I do.

“I’m not a mercenary, Riddick. I have been paid for what I do, but never by those who called for the assassination in the first place. I despise mercenaries. They kill without honour, and don’t care where they leave the bodies or who else they harm in the process. I never would have agreed to have mercenaries used to hunt you. That McDermott used them at all may be his undoing. He either doubts my ability, which is a mistake, or he sought to further control me, perhaps even have the mercenaries kill me, or try to, if things did not go as he intended.”

I pour another glass of wine. Have to be careful, I haven’t drank in a long time.

“I’m not built to survive prison, Riddick. In return for killing you, I was promised that certain information would be destroyed. I don’t honestly believe it will be. I believe that McDermott will continue to blackmail me, using any further assassinations I commit as additional support to the original documents.”

“He has no reason to let you go, as long as he has something to hold over you”.

“McDermott will never let me go, and, when I no longer serve a purpose for him, he will kill me, or see that I never see daylight again.”

That’s a phrase that hits me where I live. Don’t much like the idea of you going to prison either, especially not to a triple max. It might not break you, but you’d never be the same again.

” I have been an assassin since the age of nine. They’d never let me out. I have no desire to ever see the inside of a prison, I’d never survive it, not in any way that mattered.”

Fuck, you’ve been doing this a hell of a lot longer than I have, no wonder you’re not afraid. Still, the idea of sending a kid of nine to kill somebody? What kind of people would do that to a kid?

“So we’re going to kill this guy”, not a question.

“Yes. I fail to see any other way. I will not kill for him, and I have no desire to kill you”

“Why not? I’m a convicted murderer, you aren’t getting cold feet are you?”, I can’t help it. I have to know why you didn’t just kill me.

“We’re both murderers, Riddick. I just haven’t been convicted of any yet. If I continue to allow McDermott to blackmail me, that will change. He is a careless man. He has spoken of killing business rivals, politicians, and the like. I’m not averse to that, I just believe it to be ill thought out, and I don’t believe that he is the sort of man to take advice from a woman. When it goes wrong, which it most certainly will, McDermott will hang me out to dry.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me. I’m not complaining, but it had to be a risk, meeting like this.”

“You are not exactly what you have been painted to be. So many automatically believe that simply because you are a murderer, that that alone is going to convince me that you are in need of killing. As I’ve said, I am also a murderer. I require a reason beyond that. I have seen your files, as incomplete as they are. You killed people in prison. You killed people to escape. You killed mercenaries sent to hunt you and bring you back to prison. In short, you killed when required to.”

“I have been tracking you,personally,for about three weeks now. You haven’t harmed a soul since you’ve been here, and you’ve been in enough rough places that it could easily have come up.”

Hit the brothel when I first got here. You were tracking me even then? Hell, I never even noticed you til a little over a week ago. You must have tracked me the minute I hit New Mecca.

“I am a specialist, even among assassins. I work among the elite. A dishonourable lot if ever there was one. Politicians, bankers, lawyers. If ever anyone needs killing, they’re it. They kill and harm others without thought, without care. And smile while they do it.You kill because you have to to survive. I can understand that. So no, I will not kill you simply because you happen to be a murderer.I may be an assassin, but I have some scruples.”

“Are you with me on this?”

“Of course. I’ve been looking to get a ship off Helion, not having much luck, as you’ve probably noticed already”

“A ship isn’t a problem, but I can’t fly. Truth be told, I hate flying.”

So you have a fear afterall. “I can pilot, that’s not a problem. McDermott’s company is here”, point to a location in the files, “I can get us there in a few days.”

“The files won’t be there, Riddick”

Your voice goes soft, thoughtful. A small crease between your eyebrows as you think out how to kill McDermott. Everything in me wants to touch you.

“McDermott is a greedy man, as I have said. He seeks control, and power. A man like that doesn’t want others to have access to the thing which will give him that control. He’d never risk keeping those files at his company, where someone else could easily get access to them. He’ll have them here”

Your hands move over the files, with purpose and precision, photos of a home, Lupus 4.

“He’ll keep them close to him, at home, like a treasure only he can have. If we kill him at home, whatever he has on the both of us can be taken out.”

Maybe the wine has gone to my head. Maybe it’s just listening to the voice of a beautiful woman calmly and methodically plotting a killing, I don’t know. It’s hard to breathe. I never realised how close we were sitting.

“Let your hair loose for me, Ava”

Your voice, heavy and deep already, has dropped an octave. Your teeth scrape over a full lip at the “v” in my name.

From deep at the heart of me I feel that familiar flush of subtle sexual power, that only a woman would recognize. When you can feel that a man wants you so badly that the need of you makes his voice break.

We’re close enough to touch already, my knee on the outside of yours. Your hand touches my thigh, and I let my hair loose.

next…