Chapter Text
Kash groaned and sat up, resting back on his elbows. His long braid just brushed the middle of his back. “ Seriously , Zee, it’s like-” He coughed, hoarse for lack of sleep and looked at the bedside table, where the clock’s light glowed an angry red. “Three in the morning, fuck . You might have second shift, but I’ve got first and at this rate I’ll probably murder the first person who tries to talk to me.” When she didn’t respond immediately by bopping him with the pillow, Kash’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong? Something bothering you, babe?”
Zahra rolled, tucking her arm beneath her head. “Do you think de Rolo did it?”
Kash blinked. “Well, it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? He confessed, he’s rotting away in a cell somewhere. The system says he’s guilty. That’s that. One more ‘Rich Boy Murderer’ behind bars.” Abortedly, he shrugged. “Unless something really big turns up, I doubt there’ll be any more bullshit about it.”
“Well, yeah, but you know , don’t you?” She shifted, sitting up beside him.
“Know what?”
“What’s in the sealed files, Mister State Marshall .” One pointed nail prodded his chest. It left a pin-prick indent on his peck. Blearily, he blinked at it. How was it that everything she did, no matter how mundane, ended up being so sexy? “You worked her case.”
Kash blinked. “Yeah. I do. Know.” Not that he wanted to remember . Kids…kids were always the worst. “I wouldn’t blame the guy if he did it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Humming, Zahra bit her lip. “I wasn’t.” White noise filled her pause. “But I don’t think he did it.”
“No, really? You don’t think so? The guy pretty obviously hated Ripley’s guts.” Not to mention the things he couldn’t tell her, which said so, so much more.
“Just yesterday, Vex told me she was pregnant.” The revelation sat for a moment, before Kash raised a brow.
“What the hells does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, it’s de Rolo’s kid. Obviously!” There was no hesitation in Zahra’s voice. “She didn’t say so, but I know it’s true. She was seeing him on the sly.”
“So,” he hedged, fully awake now, “because you think de Rolo is Vex's baby-daddy that she knew what I knew and decided to off the witch?”
Zahra eyed him curiously at the turn of phrase. “If it were me in his position, would you do it?”
Barely more than a second was needed for Kash to consider it. “I mean…I probably would have wanted to. Sure.”
“So, that’s a yes, then.”
“If I could have gotten away with it, sure .”
Zahra punched him, playfully, in the arm. “So that’s a yes .”
“I’d want to be there for you,” he murmured in a moment of emotional openness. “And in this scenario, one of us goes to prison, so, that’s an if-I-could-have-gotten-away-with-it . I’m not about to leave you alone and pregnant, babe.”
“Ah, the rare showing of the soft underbelly of the wild Kashaw Vesh! I knew there was a reason I married you.”
Kash faux gagged; Zahra rolled her eyes.
“But no, really,” he continued after a moment. “You think your partner really killed her?”
“She was there with him that night. He’s probably drunk, right? This woman who did these terrible things is on the tv taunting him…”
His face is splotchy and red. She’s never seen him like this before, his composure in shambles, his hair mussed, his shirt unbuttoned haphazardly. He startles as he notices her, finally, staggers. There’s a glass in his hand, full of that sickly sweet honey-gold succor, the ambrosia of mindlessness that blots out all.
“Percy? Percy! What’s wrong, darling? What’s happened?”
In fits and starts, he tells her, seated on the floor. It’s only half complete, half intelligible, but it’s enough for her to understand, to fill her own glass, to tip it back, once, twice, three times. When his story crescendos she chucks the glass against the floor and falls to her knees beside him, pulling him into her arms.
Time ceases to exist. The story comes to a close.
There’s barely a fourth of the bottle left. When he’s collapsed on the sofa, quietly sobbing into her shoulder, she whispers softly to him, words of empathy, of love until his breaths regulate and he sleeps.
Then, the bottle is the only one left to keep her company, and she descends to worse places, places called nightmare and memory, and longs with all the protective force of her nature, to take away his pain. Pain caused by another.
Another who is within her reach.
Then, the rage hits. Blind and furious, the spirit of vengeance inhabits her, foreign and unfamiliar. In past times, her brother had always been there for her, and when the spirit came, it rested with him. But her brother is not there to shield her. And Percy is not her brother’s loved one. No, he’s hers to protect. Hers to love. Hers to avenge.
Too long, they’ve served a broken system, seeking justice where there is so frequently none to be found.
“And then?”
“Well, she goes to the car then…”
She takes the bottle with her and locks the door behind her. Another drink as she fumbles for the key. Another. Another. It burns down her throat. The world turns on its head, spinning, spinning, everything rapid, everything slow, too dark, too bright, not enough. And the anger. The righteous fury. It’s bold and loud. It’s pounding, pounding like the throb of a pulse, ratcheting higher and higher.
And the desire … insidious as it whispers. She pulls out her cellphone. It’s easy enough to find out where she lives. White Pages…so convenient…
Stumbling, and then, suddenly, the door.
When? How?
The world is dark and black around her and the lights spike brilliant spires, impressionist paintings of insubstantial vibrance, floating disjointed and unsupported in the night.
In her hand the keys jangle, the car door beeps.
The shattering of glass is distant and far away now, and the thump of the whiskey bottle, its meagre contents sloshing, is muted, dull as it falls into the passenger seat and rolls with a clink to the floormat.
There! There, in the glove compartment! Silver sleek and wicked gleaming, the gift. His gift to her. Bright, beautiful vengeance! The work of his own hands. It’s almost poetic, really, using a weapon he created to remove her from existence. Cruel, terrible retribution that fits slim beneath the hand, fitted to fingers in perfect grip. He made it with love. Love for her. It’s heavily weighted. Heavy in hand, heavy in the gut. The love and the weapon both.
But the desire remains.
She sets it down. Starts the car. Looks at it every once in a while. It rests on the passenger seat, waiting like a lover. Excitement builds, grows, wells, overflows. The car is running, the streets flying past.
How? When?
Metal winks in the streetlights, stares back at her, temptuously.
Soon. Soon.
Thrumming, the car is still and the world flies by outside, streets and alleys winking past. Time means nothing to space when the drive pulses frenetic under the skin. The drive, the itch, the desire .
Hold me, it whispers to her. Use me.
It is sultry, seductive, urgent.
Stairs now. She almost trips up them, they catch her so by surprise.
When? How? She doesn’t recall having parked, doesn’t recall lifting the smooth metal in hand, sliding it into her pocket.
Up, up, up the smooth decent, but the weight remains, thumping with each step reassuringly, comfortingly.
“And we both know Vex; she’s a cop. Trustworthy, one woman to another, and charming…”
There’s a person at the door. She hopes it is her. It should be her. She lives alone, after all. Perhaps the bell rang, perhaps not. The memory is vague, half lucid in its formulation. Everything is a haze. Everything black and shadow-nothing unreality. Perhaps the bell is still ringing, even after the door opens. It’s her, her with the streak of white, just as Percy had described. Her lips move and the sounds are bells, high pitched, tinny ringing, ringing.
She doesn’t care what the bitch says. It doesn’t matter. Only the weight in her pocket matters, and Percy.
A slam.
The door. Closed. Carpet beneath feet. The woman is still talking. Vex hates the sound of it.
“A prowler, you say, officer? Well, I assure you that I am well protected here.”
Respond. Respond.
“I’m just in the area making sure. That’s all. My prerogative, you know.”
“Well, if that’s all then, I think I’ll let you go inform the neighbours. Thank you, officer.”
There, still and waiting against the thigh. Heavy, pensive.
Hold me, use me, do it now.
“No. No, I don’t think I will. Anna. ” Hatred. Warm and dark, burbles warm at her core. Hatred and wrath, vivid and writhing within.
“Excuse me?!”
Hold me, it keenly whispers.
The metal is ice, is wicked and cruel.
The metal is a trusted friend, subtle whispers grown urgent.
Use me.
The weight is good. The weight is right.
Do it.
No tremor shudders to life.
Do it now.
The recoil hits against her hand; it is strong but not unexpected. She knows the weapon as intimately as she knows Percy, now. Knows Anna just as intimately. Watches the fear in her eyes, the anger as she dies.
Shoots a second time.
It’s in the air now, too. The scent. The taste. The hatred.
No one speaks now.
The carpet soaks up all.
Sound.
Ichor.
Soul.
The metal is warm.
It beckons from hell.
“So she goes home. No one the wiser. Justice finally served…”
The shower runs hot. Steaming hot. The gun is still in her coat pocket. She stuffed it in the washer. Powder marks… can’t leave a trace. Not a trace…nothing. Nothing.
Kiss Velora goodnight, take Trinket for a walk, hide the gun in the lockbox under the floorboards, set the alarm, go to bed, get up, go to work, text Vax, talk to Zahra, work, work, take Trinket for a walk, work, call Velora, work, go home, shower, kiss Velora goodnight, take Trinket for a walk, go to bed, set the alarm, go to bed, get up, go to breakfast with Vax, go to work…
“And then, it all blows up in her face. Maybe she thinks he’ll get away with it. There’s no evidence after all, and she doesn’t know about the letter, or anything like that. Maybe he wasn’t cognizant enough to tell her, who knows. And then, she’s pregnant, but the writing’s on the wall and she’s running out of options. So she goes to turn herself in because she loves him, baby or no baby. But he beats her to the punch. Because he loves her, and in the end, he can’t bear to see her go to jail, even though she’s guilty.”
It took Kash a long, uncomfortable moment before turning to his scathing wit for comfort. “Leaving justice in the lurch again. So much for revenge.” He laughed, darkly. “You’ve really concocted one hell of a soap opera there. Maybe you should stop reading thrillers before bed. They’re giving you some wild as hells ideas.”
“Maybe.” Zahra lay back down beside him. “Maybe not.”
Only their breathing filled the tentative silence.
“Vax told me he’s quitting the force,” whispered Zahra after a moment. “He said he just couldn’t handle the heartbreak anymore.” Then, she rolled over and said no more.
Hours passed.
Even after Zahra settled, Kash never did manage to fall asleep.