Even Steven

Dante launched himself from their forced intimacy as soon as their pursuers were gone, repulsed by what he’d just done… and, even more so, at how undeniably good it felt.Hours passed in the bare moments their eyes met, bodies still warm from their impassioned friction, wherein burning lavender melted into his frozen golden orbs. Their mirrored expressions tried to make sense of what the other was thinking, wanting, feeling… and neither of them was willing to let go even a sliver of a clue. But, be it by her desperate tug on his shirt or his heated breath against her neck, one thing was obvious…

…that all things considered, that wasn’t half bad.

Tucked away in the back corner of the club, the pulsating music had dulled itself down into a throbbing hum. “Christ… I really got to get out more if that pouting freak-face of yours is getting me this worked up.” Those yellow eyes caught her expression at the corner of his eyes, the beginnings of a smile brewing on her devious lips. For fuck’s sake, Alice, you almost look… smug. A sneering grin drove the corner of his lips upward. “And before you go mouthing up, it’s not like you can’t say the same. Unless…” Sly fingers reached at her collar, instantly flapping open her dusters to reveal her chest beneath. “…you’re going to try and tell me it’s cold in here?” A tongue licked his teeth, sealing the joke. Together, they made for the exit.

T’click! With a push the door came open, instantly letting in a swelling gale of frozen New York air into tthe sweaty, foggy club. The chill cold scent of asphalt and smoke was a welcome replacement to the stench of sweat and breath, drugs and perfume. Through that simple threshold was her escape, the orange flicker of the alleyway lights lighting her pathway to salvation and sanctuary.

A jet of muscle and sinew shot across the door frame, fingers clenching the metal to form an impenetrable bar, blocking her from escape. Turning downward to face her petite frame, he felt his sable locks fall about his face as he demanded her vision. It wasn’t until they were locked in their gaze that he spoke, his voice an ashen whisper. “You… me… we’re even now.”

Releasing the door frame, he stepped aside and allowed her to brush past him… managing to hold that rigid, arctic face until she turned her back on him to leave. Staring after her, he let his thoughts wander…

Rain on his face, running down the side of her nose to join the rivulets on his cheek. Satiny wings caressing rough, calloused fingers. Lips pressed like praying hands, like crashing waves.

“Wait.”

The word came in his steady, gruff voice, a hand cupping her hip. Whether she spun to face him or simply froze, he cared not… for his hand was spinning her in his grasp, whirling her about to face him dead on. In that same instant he ensnared her in his stare.. and  pulled her in for the kill. Where their first kiss was sudden, incidental, the frantic sum of an explosive equation, this one was smooth, fiery, dominating… his lips showing her that, TITAN or no, he had a power within him that didn’t need technology.. and demanded respect. Those firm, comforting hands didn’t instantly let her go, didn’t pull away… but instead held her there for as long as the kiss needed, rubbing lips as his carnal tongue fought for hers.

Then it was over, and the chill of midnight was thrice as powerful against their newfound heat. He heaved breaths like he’d run a mile, chest rising and falling for every hundred beats of his heart. A wink in his gaze seemed to say…

…now that, pretty thing… THAT is how you kiss.

“There. NOW we’re even.”

Denied.

Death didn’t come.  It was as if she had been chasing it down all this time, its clever guiles evading her each and every time her talons reached out to grasp for it.  And when she finally managed to corner it – to literally reach out and grasp it – it vanished into thin air, nothing more than a fruitless dream.  The instant she saw the change of light in Dante’s eyes, she knew.  And it hurt.  Both mentally and physically she was crying for her own death – for him to allow her one final gift before taking his victory from her flesh.

But he didn’t know.  What they did to her, what they’d do.  How they would open her head, toy with her insides, until she was nothing but a mutilated pile of flesh lying in a pool of her own blood and drool.  Despite that, he was keeping her alive, and protecting her at the same time.  His inability to kill her, and his frustration more so, mirrored the exact same feelings she had.  Mutually, they couldn’t comprehend their own thoughts.  They’d spent the last year fighting each other, trying desperately to kill the other.  Nights went by where all they had on their mind was their rival’s death, that final delicious blow playing on repeat until there wasn’t anything more they wanted in life than for it to come true.  To finally come to the climax and know that it was impossible…mutually, both of them were enraged.

Alice, however, couldn’t think past the wall of pain that had her in its tight grasp.  Sure, he’d smacked her around with a pew, but that was like being hit by a quarter back and crawling to your feet minutes later.  This was extraordinarily different.  Pieces of her were missing.  A shattered collarbone, torn muscle, and the inability to fly away and lick her wounds.  Lovely.

Any complaints she might have had, however, were silenced in the calloused palms of Dante.  Alice’s muffled whimpering was overshadowed by the man’s words; wide, shocked eyes looked up at him through glistening lavender beauties.

Why?  She wanted an answer.  Not, why was he doing this? Or, why was he taking the risk?  No.

Why won’t you kill me?

Despite not wanting to be, she was on her feet.  And then she was putting another coat on top of the one she already had.  Air hissed through bared teeth, his muffled mocking eliciting the smallest smile on her broken expression.

“Not like you couldn’t afford another one.” The angel said weakly, bitterly.  For all his flamboyant charm and stunning charisma, Alice had the fire, the beauty, the ambitiousness, and the realism.  Every muscle in her body was as hard as stone, knowing full well that despite her want to die, instinct was still in place.  She would take anything over being captured again.

And when she saw that crowd she almost ran right back into that room.  Flashing, seizure inducing lights, and the sickening, rancid stench of human.  For all the humanity she had found within herself, this was by far the most vehement thing she had ever laid eyes on.  Sure, she’d had her share of parties and clubs, but had gained an affinity to them even as a simple human.  Now it was all laid bare.  Super human sights and smell showed her the diversity of such gruesome creatures.  The air was thick with corruption and filth, and even as she hesitated behind Dante, she knew she would have to go.  There was nothing else she could do. She had to trust him, or else manage to get the strength to tear through a brick wall.

When Dante grabbed her hand it was not talons that she flexed into his palm.  Her fingers curled trustingly around his, surprising even herself as he dragged her into the cocktail of sweat and slime, right towards the men she so knowingly expected to shoot her any second.  To see her flowing cerulean hair, those sharp, predatory eyes, and take her away.  Again, the mercenary surprised her.  All the preparation in the world couldn’t have made her ready for what he did.  A gasp passed through lips already parted in excruciating pain – undetectable droplets of blood trailing behind her amidst the crowd.  Of course, that was no different to the thousands of blood stains from countless needle injecting drug addicts.

It was him who made the first move this time.  As she was sure he felt it, Alice felt it too.  The familiarity of his touch sizzling into her skin.  If only for a brief moment they both weren’t faking at all.  That angelic body moved just as lithely, just as seductively as if they were truly committing the act, eyes lowered as if in a haze of cocaine.

“Dante…” Alice muttered, a question falling just as quickly as it had arisen, leaving just his name to lick from her tongue to the tip of his ear.

However, her muffled sobs and sniffles as her hands clung desperately to Dante’s coat were neither fake nor suppressed.  Of course, many a passerby would attune these to the sounds of two intoxicated partners, dancing their own sexual rhythm to the beat of the music.  That couldn’t be more untrue.  For as those golden orbs glared daggers into her head, penetrating her soul like poisoned arrowheads, there was still something else that she could see.

Dante hated himself, yes.  But that didn’t hide the fact that he wouldn’t, couldn’t, kill her.  What was it that she saw…?

Then they were gone.  And their…her…escape was right there.

Was it really that easy?  Just…like that?

Those were the questions her eyes asked as Dante pulled away from her, hands still weakly grasping his shirt in their midst.

Love On The Dance Floor

The frenzied cocktail of adrenalin and steroids ran havoc through his veins, all of that wanton power furious with his inability to release it. For he knew as soon as the first sobbing plea wailed from her lips that hammering blow would never come. The world’s most treacherous, threatening creature was weeping between his legs, reinforcements armed with tranq darts and restraints were on their way , and he was considering tossing aside the nobility and dignity of his badge for a pair of bubbling lavender eyes…  but none of this was paramount to the eye-bleeding rush of TITAN-II’s advanced chemicals.

If I was using this power to rend you limb from limb like I should be, pretty thing, then everything would be fine… but I’m using it to sit on you, so this is going to take a moment to calm down. Through clenched teeth he growled out his next words, reaching down to snap her chin shut for her and place a calloused hand across her mouth. Forcing down the seething rage was as easy as pushing a mountain over with his bare hands, and the last thing he needed was to see his respected and honorable rival weeping to disorient his thoughts.

“Listen, I may have to save your freakish ass and help you get out of here, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.. and it especially doesn’t mean I have to hear you cry about it.” The sun itself burnished in those citrine-gold eyes, every bit as fiery and heartbreakingly charming as his smile. Here was her knight, her paladin in leather and sable locks to save her from the devils that came to capture this wingless angel. With the loss of his rage came back the drastic, throw-away carelessness that was his roguish charm. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember the time I smiled this wide… but don’t you let it go to your head, pretty thing. Shivering, the last of the cocktail flushed back into his veins, awaiting the next deployment. Dante plucked the earbud from his ear, using the last of his titanic strength to crush the device into electronic rubble in his hand.

“C’mon then… on your feet.”

Knowing there were precious few seconds to pull this off and that timing would be key, he quickly put his plan into motion. Slipping off his long, black duster, he wordlessly flapped it out behind her and rested it on her shoulders, grinning as she winced from the added weight. “Oh, suck it up, will you… I’ve hit you with worse than that. A bullet through the shoulder can’t possibly hurt worse than that pew did. Definitely didn’t hurt as bad as losing my iPod…” Helping her get her arm through the long sleeves, all while doing his best not to smile at how comically small the world’s most dangerous criminal looked in a man’s trench coat, he peered out the door.

“No sign of them just yet… let’s move.”

A wildness edged his smile, burning charisma from those vibrant, expressive eyes. This was Dante in his element, at his finest; daring escapes, breakneck speeds and life-threatening missions were his forte’. The entrance to the front was close enough, but he knew it was lined with cameras and cars, his own reinforcements watching the club like a hawk. Thus, with a hand on Thelma and another to the wall he pressed himself up against, he led her down into the dance floor… and directly towards the men who were after her.

The gap between the hallway to the dance floor was a mere 3 yards… but it was barren, and was a prime opportunity for the men to spot her. A stray thought shot across her mind just then, the sudden fear that this was all a set up to cruelly build her hopes up as he dragged her out into the ambush… but then his hand was on hers, tugging her forth, and then the world was a seething, grinding, rhythmic mass of flesh and fashion. Through the crowd they wove, his eyes staring above the crowd for his target; the back door, marked with the welcoming red glow of the EXIT sign above it.

Closer and closer they drew, their escape all but imminent. Without warning , two men emerged from the tangle of young flesh, dark black suits and sunglasses on, scanning the crowd. In their hands rose what looked like pistols with bulbous barrels; dart guns with a toxin within that would stun even her savage blood. This wa sit, her captors were there, moments away from her, and through those vision-enhancing shades they were going to find her. They pushed aside a couple dancing tot heir side, ignoring the man but scanning the woman over, before turning to face Dante and Alice.

A hand to her hip scooped her up tight to his side; Dante was upon her, pushing her back  against the wall with all of the sudden passion of a forbidden make-out against the lockers. One hand planted itself against the wall to the side of her head while the other rested with a surprising sense of familiarity to her hip. Leaning in close, he whispered against the booming music, the brush of his lips against her ear as warm as his breath on her neck. “Act natural… they’ll be gone in a moment.”

With that, he began to grind with her, his tone, athletic body instantly finding the groove of the pulsating rhythm. That hand at her side ran a warm trail as it roamed over the curves of her body, cupping the hollow of her side before dipping down the curve of her rear. Just another couple of drug-laced punk kids, eye-fucking on the dance floor. Lupine eyes held hers captive, though his smile had waned. The dawning of what he was doing, what he had done, and what he was about to do hit him with a painfully sobering effect. Though his body went through the motions, playing it up, he let his golden stare drill into her, echoing with all the hatred and spite of a year’s worth of fighting. Despite what she’d done for him in their last encounter, despite the way her tears had come so openly at the thought of being captured, she’d still murdered his father… and nothing would ever change that. Loathing for her and what she’d done as well as loathing for himself for what he was doing now sizzled and cracked along the ridges of that honey-colored stare.

Only Human

It hurts…It hurts no more.

She didn’t dodge.  She didn’t know why.  All she heard, all she felt, was the feeling of liquid fire in her shoulder.  Alice could have dodged – could have saved herself the unimaginable pain that came.  But she didn’t, because she felt she deserved it.  All the lives taken, butchered in her rage, were taking their penance from her flesh.  The finality of that blow, of the scream that did not come, and the pain that was so violent – she almost laughed.

The solid wall was the only thing that caught her, her body slowly sliding down its blood-slick surface.  A shuddering hand came up to touch the opening of this fresh wound – of this strange anomaly that she hadn’t felt since the night of her escape.  Pain was like a dull throb, a fly at the back of her head not worthy of being swatted at.  For nothing could have overshadowed the feeling of being surgically altered – of muscles being ripped and sewn and new muscles somehow being put in their place.  Of nine foot feathered limbs being forcefully attached to her body.  Of them cutting into her brain, changing it in ways that were probably their biggest mistake.

They underestimated her brains ability to adapt – to draw in the gifts that had been given and changed them, mold them, into something more.  The human’s usage of the brain had abandoned her.  Thus, pyrokinesis, electrical manipulation, super human speed, strength, and healing.

Yet now, as gravity seemed to become a liable force once more, Alice sank to her knees, gasping in wordless horror as her insides spewed from her body, splattering the already desecrated wall.  It was as if she suddenly realized she had a heartbeat, and the blood that flowed from her gapping wound was at last her own.

Alice found herself completely on her back seconds later, hearing the labored, raging breaths of her rival.  Those breaths reminded her so much of the heated gasp that he released as he held onto her, not knowing why his hands constricted around her, into the silken depths of her wings crushing her body against his.  Could it just simply have been the hormones?  She could put it at that, sure.  So overcome by adrenaline and testosterone that instinct had taken over.  Not love – of course not.  This man was obviously not just hunting her for the fun of it.  There was revenge glinting in the depths of those lupine eyes.  She knew it, because her eyes had the exact same fire.  It was almost like looking in a mirror.

And yet, despite all of her thoughts, she felt at peace.  Half-slotted eyes watched the ascending fist as it rose into the air, almost capable of seeing the power coursing through those veins, just beneath their fleshy shield.  Dante’s furious cries fell on deaf ears, but still evoked the gentlest, most infuriating of smiles.  Alice’s honey sweet lips curled upwards, a trickle of blood oozing down to her ear as she waited for the final blow to come upon her.  For her brain to finally shut up, and death to come swiftly.  Lavender eyes watched, waiting, expecting.  But that fist never came.  That smile disintegrated.  He wasn’t going to do it.  He wasn’t going to kill her.

“Hit me, damnit!” Alice roared weakly, her prostrate arms coming up to grasp relentlessly upon his collar, jerking his face towards her own through a sideways cough that sent blood spraying onto the floor.  Crimson lips quivered with anger at his hesitation, the most violent urge to kiss him again boiling up like molten lava in her veins. Lilac beauties met golden pillars of hate and rage, frozen in stunned silence as those words hissed out from Dante’s ear.  In a moment her peace and tranquility turned to humiliating horror, face twisting in so many ways one couldn’t tell if it were the pain of the fear that had taken her mind.  Those hands tightened all the more, and the fiery beast was not fighting, but begging.

“Please.  Please.  Kill me.  Don’t take me back.  Please.  I don’t want to! Not again…Please.  Please…!” Her words broke at the end, a shuddering sob that could have shattered the most steadfast of hearts.  Blood thickened strands of cerulean caked themselves to the sides of her pathetic expression.  Once tan, her jacket now lay tattered and ruined, a gapping hole blown right into her shoulder.  There was no way she could fight.  If he didn’t finish her off now, she was doomed.  She couldn’t let them take her.  Couldn’t let them use her as an experiment again.  All this – this senseless slaughter, would be for naught.  Everything would be in vain.

She was scared.  Flashes of blinding white, of men’s face peering down cynically at their little lab rat.  This is not what she wanted.  This is not the end she had imagined countless times.  This would be an end where she was caged, and her mind was so ravaged that Alice Sinclair, or even Fianna, would be eradicated from existence.

“Please…”

Pleading, glistening globes peered up from the broken, marred face of a fallen angel.

At The Finish Line

Icy pellets of rain that pelted down on his face, melting into the rivers that ran down their foreheads, their cheeks, to gather and pool where their lips met.  A memory of fingers gripping tightly the drenched material of her blouse, of bodies crushed together in- No. Like lightning cracking out against a rain-lit sky that thought stopped his foggy-eyed memory, a storm of bolts clearing his mind of the distracting thoughts her tear-laden eyes dredged from the mire of his emotions. Steel, molten  bullets tearing into her flesh. Father’s loose head, rolling round in the slime and filth of his bloody arms. A year has culminated into this final moment, Dante… don’t you lose it now.

Sera’s lifeless heart slid down the wall where it had splattered a crimson Rorschach test, all while Alice’s empty taunt echoed through his mind. By all means, he had every right, every last ounce of power necessary to oblige her. Every scar she’d ever given him, every tormented memory, every night spent waking in a furious terror at the image of his dead father, all of it echoed across the frantic highway of his thoughts. Without her wings she was still fast, but not fast enough to cancel out his dead-eye aim. At this proximity, a flick of his finger was all it would take to send three hollow-point .50 caliber rounds to pepper her pretty face.

Why, then, can’t I pull this trigger? Why am I standing here, staring at you, seeing for once not the misshapen creature I was told you would be, but instead the tortured woman I’ve come to learn you actually are? I was consumed with an encumbering burden to learn you like a soldier does the enemy, but where I expected to find claws and menace all I’ve found was the closest thing to a friend I could claim on this Earth… and the most stunning pair of eyes I’d ever seen.

Father.

Those cold, milky eyes drilled into him, and with a wordless howl of rage he fired another volley, bringing Louise forth to trail her inevitable escape… a dodge that never occurred. Two bullets for the plaster and the third for her shoulder, boring through flesh and bone alike to rip out of her back in a slow-motion explosion of sinew and steel. Bone shrapnel and slag alike melted into the wall behind her, a scene soaked now in the crimson mist of her blood. Those honey-gold eyes flashed silver with surprise… before altering a raging scarlet tone.Two tiny words scrawled along the bottom of his vision.

TITAN-II engaged.

With a reckless, suicidal abandon he leapt full force at her, the bulked out build of his form reaching for her with those powerful hands. Rage and confusion alike drove his attack, as futile as he knew it was. As much as she could, she wouldn’t touch him with her flames, nor sink a single inch of those talons into his body. For whatever reason, she’d already given up on this battle… and it drove him insane with rage. From the dark recesses of his minds, repressed thoughts shook and rattled their tenuous shackles, daring to burst free… and he was dead-set to beat her to death before they got a chance to come to fruition.

She wa s a ragdoll in his arms as those powerful arms grabbed her by the shoulders, pinning her back down against the carpet. Sprawling, he mounted her outright, crushing her down to keep her from any chance of escape. With all of the ominous power of a hammer swinging back, he raised his closed fist, ready to drive it down, full force, into her face.

Lips like velvet against the frost of midnight. Velvetine wings sifting through his fingers. The fire ignited in his body as he crushed her surprisingly fragile and small body against his chest. The numbing, heart stopping stare of those lavender eyes at such startling proximity… memorizing each fletched ridge of her iris. The taste of her tongue…

That fist was raised, his face tormented and twisted in the utter anguish of his inability to end her… and to want nothing more than to relive that moment with what was perhaps the only person on this planet who understood him.

“FIGHT ME, YOU BITCH! COME OUT, YOU MURDERER! YOU DON’T LET IT GO LIKE THIS, YOU DON’T WALK AWAY!” And, echoing louder than any of the words he’d just roared…

…”Don’t you leave me behind like this…”

Krsht! The chirp of static in his ear was loud enough for both of them to hear, a tinny voice sounding out over the earpiece.

“Confirming: aggravated noises from a’Brea’s room. Agent Ebony, please confirm; is everything alright in there? I’m sending Duttons and Weiss up there to check; men, switch to tranquilizing ammunition. This is not going to be a firefight; we’re taking her in clean.”

Golden hazel met majestic purple in their simultaneous stares.

Apathy

It wouldn’t stop beating.  She couldn’t make it stop.

Over and over, even as it was rent from its useless owner.  When she finally saw it she was stunned.  She had really begun to believe that when she finally did it – finally tore this women’s wretched heart from her chest – that it would be as black as her soul.  Yet, like all the others she had mangled and maimed, this heart remained a healthy crimson, if tainted only by the thick scent that permeated the air from her careless drug usage.

That steady beat of her heart continued, even as it sat in the palm of her hand.  Alice huddled over the body of her former best friend, silent tears weeping from her eyes to slide through the misted blood coating her face.  I loved you, her mind sobbed, screaming.  How could this have happened, she asked herself.  Like all other broken objects, that question repeated itself relentlessly, one that would never receive an answer.  How could this have happened to me?

And Alice knew.  She knew Dante was coming.  He always did, without fail.  It seemed, recently, that her ability to hide herself had been lost.  Along with her care to do so.  There was always a nice scene she’d thought out in her head…how in the end, as her memories returned, that she would finally allow him to kill her.  A bullet in the head, maybe, or the heart.  She’d come to adore the fights they had, but could no longer see herself hurting him.  No longer did she want to see his blood caked all over the floor beneath her, her feet bathing in a pool of his life.  The memory of their lips – of instinct and heat searing through her mind and numbing the pain she thought would be the only drive left for her.  Looking across the distance, the short, short distance, at his eyes, she realized…

She couldn’t kill Dante.

With a click of the door, she acknowledged the end was near.  She felt the barrel of those guns, felt their cold aim at the center of her back, raising the hairs upon her neck as she straightened.  Still in her grasp was the ever beating heart, sputtering as its remaining energy began to fade.  Sera lay rather unharmed – no bruises or rendering of her limbs.  Almost angelic…devoid for the corrupt hole gaping above her breast.

Alice turned her head, slowly, the bead of a single tear dangling from the edge of her jaw as those fiery lavender eyes turned to look at the face she had come to recognize.  His biting words were met by the familiar urge to bite back, a snarling come-back ready in the depths of what remained of Fianna.  Yet the same fact that she could not kill him came back to the forefront of her mind, and she knew that it was a fruitless idea – that maybe, just maybe, he might have mercy on her, as she had for him.

Without a word, she tiredly leapt out of the way of those searing bullets, her speed not reduced by the lack of her wings, although her footwork was sluggish.  Downward she dived, begging herself for some kind of a resolve.  Some kind of reason to fight back.  Emotions had over taken her – that killer instinct dissolved.  However, there was some kind of pleasure she got out of diving across the room, hurling that bloody organ at Dante with one last, deteriorated chuckle, barely audible through her stifled weeping.

“Finally come to kill me Dante?” Alice said softly, hidden but not advancing, not attacking.

She couldn’t…not anymore.

No Time For The Old In And Out, Love

Dante stood apart from the crowds, a black dahlia wallflower rooted firmly against the wall. From his vantage point he could see the entirety of the sunken dance floor below him, a grinding, seething tangle of arms, lips, powder and pills, and beyond it, more importantly, the walkway leading to the private rooms. Just then a hand was reaching for his chest, nails a glitter with hot pinks hallucinogen-inspired designs, and it was all he could do to restrain his natural instinct of grabbing the wrist and breaking it in three places. The nails scrawled and scratched over the long leather duster and the shirt beneath it as he stared grim death into the barely-lucid eyes of their owner. What he was sure would get any of the other men in the bar hot and ready sounded like an unintelligible slur to him, and it only took a few moments of his totemic stare before she realized he wasn’t going to bite. She trailed off and his eyes followed her, but only for a moment. Another time in another place, these heavy-handed attempts would have probably worked for him… but that was a different life now, one he long since abandoned.

Trading in sweaty clubs made humid from the smoke machines, tangled up in a sea of women who wouldn’t know my name nor me theirs, for a life of chasing deranged genetic experiments escaped to wreak murder and mayhem. Gold eyes peered out over the crowd, and he smirked to himself. I think I lucked out.

A glance back towards Sera’s room brought a touch of tightening to his expression. It’d been a full hour now, and usually by now the drugs were fully expressing themselves out on the dance floor. With a click of his teeth he pushed from the wall, ever-wary eyes staring out across the crowd. “Checking on a’Brea, any sightings?” A dozen replies in the negative buzzed in his ear as he crossed the club, wading through the crowds to make it to Sera’s door.

“Room service,” he said with a knock, wondering if these clubs even had room service. Even with his ear to the wood, he didn’t hear anything in reply and, with one hand reaching unconsciously for the hilt of his gun, he turned the knob and opened the door.

There goes my Christmas bonus.

Sera Batista-a’Brea, brunette bombshell that she was, lay in a sprawled crucifide position on the floor, white, listless eyes staring lifelessly up into the ceiling. A gaping hole in her chestw as the only mar to her otherwise peaceful appearance, though the savage wreckeage of flesh and bone was enough to set off every alarm in his mind. Kneeling over her, doubled over in what looked like… pain?… was Fi-Alice Sinclair herself. It took his eyes a moment to readjust to the darkness to realize what it was she’d hunched over; clutched in her hands was the pulpy mess that was once Sera’s heart, crimson ichor dripping in thick rivers onto the carpeted floor beneath.

Every reflex in hid mind demanded that he call for backup, that he count on the steel and wit of his men instead of foolishly taking her head-on like he had every other time. Every other time, however, she’d been a manic force of rage and destruction… neer, not once had he seen his foe weep so openly. Despite himself, despite everything he’d been taught and all of his better judgment, he clung to his instinct… and closed the door softly behind him. If this moment were to be the one wher ehe finally ended her murdering, if this was the room where she’d make her last stand… they’d do it one on one.

Chik-chak! Twin pistols cried out in unison aginst her empty sobs befor ebe brought them to barem a slow, solemn aiming of the sights dead-set for a point blank shot between her wings. “Alice, Alice, Alice… we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

The opening shots resonated terribly around the small, enclosed room, the club outside oblivious to the mayhem that was about to ensue.

Down the Rabbit Hole.

…It was raining that night, too.

The phone hadn’t wrung in hours, even as her ears strained and her fingers itched to lurch out to a phone that would never ring. She wanted to hear his voice.  Hear him tell her it wasn’t true.  Yet she didn’t, for fear that it could be true.  Alice couldn’t comprehend the vicious words that had been scrawled upon the letter that now sat upturned on the oaken table beside her.  All she could see through the blur of her watery eyes was the elegant signature so arrogantly curling and looping at the bottom of the page.

Sera a’ Brea.

The sight of that last name, signed with that handwriting, was enough to make her chest cringe.  That, however, was just salt on the wound that had been caused by the bulk of the script.  It was a new feeling, a raw feeling, of the deepest, most cutting sadness imaginable.

Dear Alice,

Sweetheart, I have a confession for you.  In all the years since we were children, that we’ve been friends, there wasn’t a single moment our eyes weren’t on Gabriel.  His eyes, his hair.  We admired it all.  Even as we grew into teenagers and he was fawned after by the entire school, still we thought that maybe, just maybe, we would have a chance.

It was fun, sweetie, but honestly.  I don’t think you ever had a chance.  These last few months it is me that he has confided in, leaving you to brew in bitter loneliness and doubt because let’s face it Alice…he just felt sorry for you.  You’re pathetic.  Alone, in that estate, doing god knows what with yourself, never advancing in the world.  Trying fruitlessly to be something you’re not.  An agent?  You?

But our Gabriel…my Gabriel…kept climbing, and climbing.  He left you behind.  For me.  And truth be told, I think I deserve it far more than you.  This friendship…it was all, truthfully, a lie.  You once took the one thing that meant anything away from me.  Now I’m taking it back.  Have fun in your little surgery tomorrow.  It won’t make a difference – you’ll always be a little child.

See you at the wedding.  If you can…make it.

Yours Truly.

Sadness turned inwards was like a parasite.  Alice was too hurt for tears – too raw for anything but a bittersweet numb as she looked back on all the memories of that sweet, sweet girl who had been her best friend.  All of the pictures on the wall – all of the smiles that had once kept her company, showing her compassion, were now all lies.  Fake smiles were everywhere, and she could see them.  Everything had been a delusion.  In truth, she was pathetic.  A coward.  Yet who could blame a girl so hurt, so lost, in the loss of the only friend she’d ever truly had?  Knowing now that that had been a lie left her cradling herself, staring wistfully at the flickering flames inside her fireplace.

And Gabriel.  Those saccharine sweet lips and the words that she now heard as venomous poison in her mind.  She felt like a used whore – a rag tossed to the side.  For these long months between seeing one another had begun to develop, and she’d been so blind, so in love with the idea of someone loving her back that she would never suspect, and shower him with affection.  Little did she know the thoughts that went through his head as he came to visit her, knowing that her heart would be torn from her chest the moment she found out the truth.

Heartless bastard.

And so she had gone, an emotional wreck, to what she thought might be her only salvation.  They would make her stronger, make her into something better.  Her dreams of being an agent, of rising up from the lousy station in her company, would be the one dream that hadn’t been a lie.

Yet it had.

They used her.  Both of them.  For in an instant, the anesthesia washing over her, she turned from dreamer to guinea pig.  No longer was she a volunteer for limitless power, but a tossed aside tool for her lover and best friend, a living experiment for the organization OMNI.  She remembered that night, of awaking to a frightening nightmare of memories that collided with the visual memory of her human self.  The blinding white clouds had in fact only been the searing hot light of the surgical table, blaring through the thin veil of her eyelids.  And the scurrying, traitorous fingers, scraping like knives…actual knives, tearing into her head, into her back, into her body.  Cold metal at her back.  Her mind was no longer her own.  For that little pill of thought that they placed, believing it harmless, exploded around the network of her mind.

She became Fianna – a fallen angel out for the blood of those who would have cast her from heaven, traitorous swine jealous of her beauty, of her compassion.  In truth, as she slaughtered those men and women in a fit of madness, Alice Sinclair was still there.  Watching, laughing, and weeping.  There was no fight to be had – because even if she did, there would be nothing waiting for her in the end.  So they paid.  Dante’s father fell like meat, the clatter of his knives falling around him as she tore his face and relished in the sweetness of his shredded organs plopping onto the floor.

—————————

And now, Fianna was Alice.  Alice was Fianna.  A balance had yet to be found, but now she knew.  The truth.  No longer was she that boisterous character, searching for salvation amidst man, and his tainted, undeserving power.  She was herself – a woman betrayed and the pinnacle of human evolution.  For what little they had done to her body, her body had adapted.  Her mind was healing – she knew that now.  Yet she could not simply throw away an entire year of herself.  She was becoming one with the creature she now was.  And revenge was but a breath away.

“A-Alice…?” Came the shuddering voice behind her as she drew the door shut with a click.  For a moment she stood still, shoulders squared, preparing herself for the sight she was about to see.  Slowly, slowly, Fianna turned to face the woman standing pressed against the wall, having fled her seat where needles lay scattered.  It took everything she had not to snap.  Both Alice and Fianna wanted her head, wanted to crush it beneath their claws, feel her scream for mercy.

Yet she wanted to relish this.  Taste the sweetness of it.

“Hello, Sera.” Saccharine sweet tones swirled from her lips like an intoxicating perfume, her hands coming up to adjust the collar of her coat.  It was a tan duster, sweeping lengths of jean-like wool falling to the tops of her boots.  It was the perfect cover for her wings, which lay wrapped to her body with the tightest of cloths, pulling them against her and hiding the one thing that kept her from being human.  This, however, kept her completely immobile, and took from her one of her greatest defenses.  And she knew she was being hunted.  But she didn’t care.  Not anymore.  Proof further that she would risk coming into such a populated club…she couldn’t wait anymore.  Didn’t want to.  No longer was Alice a pathetic coward, a creature below the thoughts of this one – this sickening whore who looked at Fianna, expecting mercy.

She wouldn’t get any.

“You…you should be dead.” Sera stuttered, drawing further away, as if that could save her.

And then Alice took a step forward.

“You once took the one thing that meant anything away from me.  Now…I’m taking it back.”

Sera’s desolate screams wrung out, unheard by the pounding beat of the club.

A Year’s A Long Time To Wait

With the merest flicker of thought he could have the world’s largest orbital defense satellite rain molten plasma right wherever he told it to. With a whisper, he could activate the world’s most advanced form of genetic engineering and be able to tear a car in two. With a raising of his arms he could rain slag down upon his target, the finest shot in all of OMNI’s expansive history. Yet nothing, not his training, not his hair-trigger reflexes could have prepared him for that kiss. The beating of her wings, the bracing step backward he had to take to catch her full on, the bone-chilling knowledge that he was about to be rent and his gamble hadn’t worked…. only to be replaced by fire and honey on his lips, breasts crushed against his steadfast chest, and the feel of silken feathers through his fingers as he enclosed her fiercely in his arms.

Blanketed with rain, slick from the dire mix of sweat and water, they stared at each other from across their entangled lips, his lupine stare begging questions he knew she didn’t have. Not even his rapier wit, ever on the verge of another cutting remark, could find anything to say, any way to react… for doing anything else would mean this moment would end. So he stood, a mountain transfixed by a lavender flame, and distantly heard the rattling clatter of guns falling to the rocky shore before he sunk his hands into the hollows beneath her wings, pure, savage instinct drawing her closer against him.

As soon as it had begun so did it end, and every bit as forceful. A primal shove of her hands sent him staggering, falling back against the pebbles below. Amidst the din of his mind, fogged with the taste of ruby lips, a distant voice screamed at him to grab his pistols, that this was all a distraction, that any second now her claws would be shoved through his chest and out the back of his suit… but all he could do was sit and watch her with an unreadable wolf-like gaze. With one final look backward she was gone, a beat of her powerful wings launching her into the rain-addled sky of midnight.

Crazy broad….

Not seconds later did he hear the familiar voice of his old partner, gritty and gruff through the rain as he skidded to a halt beside him. “Get up, D, are you hurt? I have the shot and I am taking it in 3… 2…” Dante looked up to see the older man swivel his PSG-1 rifle up at the retreating figure… even with the rain as a veil and the distance she’d put between them, he was positive Seymour could put a bullet right between her wings. His reaction was immediate; a hand like a vice reached up for Seymour’s elbow, pulling downward just as the shot disappeared into the night sky, trailing past her to become just another star in the sky.

Dante used the brace to pull himself up, immediately doubling over in forced pain. “I-internal… get me something to stop it from feeling like my insides are lined with broken glass.” Seymour looked angry, infuriated that his perfect shot was lost. “Don’t give me that, she got me, man.” Those hollow golden eyes pounded the lie into Seymour’s disbelieving stare before the older man turned, cursing at the rain.

Dante stared up at the distant silhouette of wings flapping against a star-lit sky.

She got me good.

—————————————————————————————

For every dozen questions he had, he found the answer to one, though they were never the questions he wanted answered first.

As the charred and broken remains of her lakeside estate thawed out in the sun of the next day, Dante walked through the house alone. Kicking over pieces of fallen rubble and sifting through the soggy char for something, anything. You came here for a reason, Alice, and I’m going to find out why. “And you kiss like a schoolgirl,” he added to no one, his voice angry through grit teeth. Kneeling by the remnants of her bedside table, he saw the corner of a photo which had escaped the maelstrom peeking out from amidst the rubble. He pulled it forth and shook off the dirt, thumbing the rest off impatiently. Eyes widened.

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Staring back at him was a happy couple caught in each other’s arms, smiling at the camera. On the left was a woman whose face he instantly recognized… for he’d been obsessing over putting bullets in it for almost a year now. Even without the bizarre cerulean hair or piercing, lavender eyes she still looked the same. As for the man she was so greedily latched onto, well… he’d know that shit-eating grin anywhere. How couldn’t he? His portrait was all over OMNI-HQ, the fastest-rising  agent to have ever left the streetwork for climbing the corporate ladder. Like a puzzle piece sliding into place, this simple clue had answered a world of questions… only to ask a universe more. But first things first.

“HQ, this is Ebony. Yeah, get me Director of OMNI-Po, Gabriel a’Brea.” The man was quick to assume the role his father, or closest thing to it, left behind him in the wake of Alice’s massacre. Chatter on the other end of the line rattled in his head. “Out of contact? In a dead zone? No, that’s fine, that’s fine. Get me his wife, then. Yes, Sera Batista-a’Brea.”

Dante rolled his thumb over Alice’s face, clearing off the dust as he waited. So, pretty thing. That’s what you look like when you smile.

———————————————————————————————–

In the mirror stood a man looking displeased with himself. The heavy black leather duster hung to just past his waist, covering the like-colored shirt beneath that clung just a little too snugly to his muscled chest. The brown leather belt held up his faded blue jeans neatly, scuff and wear having eaten at the knees of the denim. The style wasn’t quite his, but it’d been so long since he wore anything besides the OMNI suit that he wasn’t quite sure what style was anymore.

Running fingers back through the long sable locks, he ruefully shook his head. Look at you, Dante… you’re about to march into a crowded warehouse full of sweat looking for probably the only person on this planet who could kill you… and you’re worried about how you look. Besides, the only thing you need to worry about regarding what you’re wearing is the fact that no one would recognize you in it… that, and the fact that Thelma and Louise are right there, waiting to finish the job. Squaring his shoulder,s he pushed away from the bathroom counter of his hotel room and set off for his destination; The Blue Room, a warehouse that had been renovated to become one of the grittiest, grimiest and fleshiest clubs you’d never hear about.

The month since her last attack had been spent laying in waiting, watching the map for any signs of her unique signature near one of two beacons: Gabriel, who had been holed up in an off-shore facility in the pacific islands, and Sera, who was posted dead-set in the fashion mecca of trendy downtown New York. Mr.a’Brea  had been mysteriously remaining just out of contact, bouncing from place to place where he could never seem to find the time to return one of his urgent messages. Mrs., on the other hand, did nothing to keep herself off the radar, instead using the full brung of her seemingly endless wealth and power to burn a sizzling, sinful hole right into it. Hopping from club to club, from man to man and from drug to drug, she’d seemed to be taking full advantage to being the retired trophy wife of a husband who was never there.

Dante had decided not to tell her of the danger that so ominously loomed over her shoulder; back at Alice’s home, he’d found pictures of Alice and Sera together and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned… and it seemed like Heaven didn’t, either. Knowing Fianna, she wasn’t the type to be very good at sharing her toys, and he knew it was just a matter of time until she showed up near one of them. And that’s how I found myself in the gloss and glamor of downtown NY, tailing a coked out bird down into her flavor of the night: punk and grunge. Great.

No matter what club you get into, once you get past the facade of the design and renovation, they were all just sweaty masses of flesh that gyrated in unison. The Blue Room was no different, and as he made his way past the graffiti laden walls and buzzing halogen lights he entered into the main floor, where scintillating lights of  flashed to every somber color imaginable. Bodies, supple and nubile, hard and testosterone-run, ground and bumped on the expansive dance floor while eyes heavy with whatever cocktail or drug was hot that evening stared from the booths that lined the walls. Flashbacks of a rowdy youth, seemingly ages ago despite his few years of 25, called him towards the seething mobs of sex and vice, but it was nothing more than a passing fancy. He was a different man now, and he wasn’t looking for just any girl; he was looking for a specific one.

“Ebony here. Sera is loose and in the crowds; keep an eye on her.  Otherwise, the water’s fine, fellas, jump on in… but don’t splash around too much. We’ve got a job to do here.” A chorus rang out in the affirmative, undercover agents that were spread throughout the club in search of Ivory. Dante, however, wasn’t looking for Ivory, nor even for Fianna. As he stood atop a nearby crate and surveyed the crowd, he only looked for one woman…

Alice Sinclair.

Suicide and Redemption.

This was her playground.  She had him now, and he knew it.  Against all instincts, knowing full well that Fianna was very capable of tearing him limb from limb, Dante came.  It was as honorable as it was stupid.  She probably had minutes – seconds – only to get it over with.  To flap her way to freedom – to revenge.  With Dante gone, no one would be left to stand in her way.  They had their technology – their nanomachines, satellites, and guns – but they didn’t have anyone else like Dante.  None of them would ever know her they way he did.  Not a soul on this planet would ever know her like him again.  With him gone, OMNI would be destroyed invariably.  It was just a matter of when.

And it was sad.

Around the lake she ran, gliding like a phantom.  One shove of her wings and she was soaring at break neck speeds, her feet hardly touching the ground.  Lavender eyes watched his solemn figure stand lakeside, alert.  His biting words were as calm and elegant as always.  Beneath that she could sense his thoughts.  She felt his readiness to defend, as futile as that may be, and what little fear he was capable of.  He could active his pretty little system, but not nearly fast enough to save himself.  Large muscles did not mean harder skin.

In seconds, she would fulfill that aching need burning within her.  His blood would be hers.  Freedom; ecstasy just beyond the tip of her tongue – its scent wafting up her nostrils like the most intoxicating perfume.

What freedom?

Her mind jerked within her skull, smooth thoughts becoming rocky, decisions being reversed.  If she killed him, there would be no point afterwards.  In fact, this whole time, she had unconsciously been begging for him to kill her.  To end this tirade.  There was revenge, exacting it on the lives who had so heinously betrayed her.  But when all of them were dead, she had no desire to continue on a rampage.  She wasn’t a monster.  Compassionate, determined, a true mistress of beauty, who cherished the lives of…

No!  That was Alice!  Not Fianna.  She was a killing machine.  Blood and crimson made her weep with joy – and this time would be no different.  Dante would fall.

There she appeared.  Like a streak of lightning she came, hurtling across the river, wings ablaze, giving this man no time to react.  He would be rent from existence with one simple swipe of her claws – that would be the end of it.  No more confusion.  No more frustration.  No one calling her name, calling her back to reality…

His eyes.  They were tenacious, brilliant.  His face, so sharp and canine – commanding the respect of all those around, despite his young age.  She saw everything about him laid bare.  His life was laid out for her, still burning brightly within his chest, just begging for her to wrench it from him for her own pleasure.  Yet she could not, if at all, explain what she did instead.  That bullet-like angel seared the surface of the water, leaving a violent torrent in her wake.  With a snap of her wings Fianna was skidding through the mud, toes leaving slick pools behind her.  Forwards she lurched, talons extended, ready to finally end this circus of a manhunt.

She saw his guts spilling from his frame; saw his shattered bones and spilled blood misting the air.  His body would fall to the ground, a sack of useless meat, decimated, shredded like she’d so desperately imagined for almost a year of her life.  Yet what she saw was a delusion.  Those extended talons did not rend, but grasped.  That vest, soaked through to the sand-colored flesh beneath, became her anchor.  The force of her momentum had her body slam into his, nearly knocking them off of their feet – but not quite.  For Dante was not without his balance – or Fianna without her act of surprise.  In one second she had been hurling his death at him and the next, her voluptuous body had melted against his for the briefest of moments – and their lips touched.  Widened lavender eyes met stunned gold, both bodies frozen to complete petrifaction.

A gasp of air escaped her then – her own surprise a perfect mirror of his.

Soaked tendrils of cerulean lashed at the corners of his face as she pushed him as violently away from her as she could – disgusted with the emotion that had surged to the forefront of her catastrophically broken mind.  To the ground he fell, but not painfully; however shocked he was gave her the leverage she needed.  Cheeks flushed with what seemed like embarrassment, the slender angel vaulted herself into the air with one powerful sweep of her feathered limbs, unaffected by the rain that weighed down so heavily upon them.

Not but a minute had passed – and Fianna was fleeing frantically into the torrential rain and oncoming darkness of night.  She didn’t kill Dante, like she knew she could have.

No.  She couldn’t.