Post by Grace Leary on Aug 30, 2023 5:46:38 GMT
…connecting with his jaw and sending him (and his teeth) scattering to the floor. Adrenaline alone forced Orsini to rise up unsteadily as Grace came nearer. He shot his hands out in an attempt at self-preservation as she swung the bar once more. The blood-stained hunk of tungsten collided with the bridge of his nose, crunching cartilage and bone alike. Crimson ichor exploded from the site of impact, staining Grace's cheeks.
"Tell me," she began with a smile that clashed with the fury in her eyes. "Was that your ace in the hole?"
Orsini groaned and gurgled in response, before another swing of the rod caught him in the cheek, sending him sprawling again. Grace's eyes darted down towards the discarded Liberator; her facade slipped, lips twisting into a sneer.
"A science fair gun with one fucking bullet?"
She accompanied the remark with a kick to the ribs; Orsini collapsed prone on the floor with a whooping, choking exhale. In response, she offered him another. And a third.
"We both know your meticulous record-keeping is the only leverage you have with our mutual friends, and we both know that leverage isn't going to mean much here shortly."
His eyes darted up, not towards the metal rod that blurred his vision red, but towards the phone in Grace's other hand.
"Make this easy on yourself."
With another pained groan, his arm stretched outward, pointing towards the desk she'd snatched the bar from in the first place.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Grace asked as she tapped on the screen of the phone, before delivering one last blow to the back of Orsini’s head.
You're getting sick of this, aren't you, Casanova? No, that doesn't feel quite right: you are sick of this. You've been sick of this. Sick of us — my dear compatriot and I — turning the lash back on you. Taking your carefully constructed carnage and robbing you of the satisfaction of watching your Rube Goldberg machine of wanton cruelty perform exactly as intended.
We did just that during the Killdozer Cup, and to rub salt in that wound, Jonathan went and took the whole thing home. In response, you threw me to the fire (metaphorically, no matter how much I'm sure you wish it would've been by your hand that I burned) and you made him nail his beloved to a cross.
When that didn't break him or bring him to heel, when your ringers and lovesick vampires failed to get the job done, you revealed your ace in the hole — and Serenity Holmes sent Jonathan Bacchus into exile, licking his wounds. For a brief, glimmering moment you'd regained the bloody order you've always craved: the thorn in your side ripped out, Father Tippet's crusade going up in smoke.
Until we slipped in again, under your nose, and caught you right between the eyes. And the new fresh Hell you couldn't wait to unleash upon us as righteous vengeance for our misdeeds, is this. A simple tag match, all gold on the line, winner take all. Such a simple, insidious ploy, right?
You've had more zest before, Casanova. More zeal. So forgive me that I see through the mirage, and look right back at you. I see this for what it is.
An admission of defeat. A realization of what should've been clear from the minute you first took stock of us. That there is no wedge you can drive between Jonathan and I, there's no pressure points you can needle, no cracks in our armor that you pry your grubby little fingers into and exacerbate.
So your best bet is to see us outmatched. And beyond the pedigree, the resume, and those shiny belts around their waists, I can perfectly understand why your first pick for the job would be the Heartkillers.
After all, when all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like nails. And when you're a petty, domineering cretin, everyone around you must be one too.
Hello, Haru. Apologies, I can't imagine you'd appreciate being kept waiting very much. Congratulations are in order: I mean, isn't this what you've been clawing towards? What you've dreamt of, what you've plotted to achieve, what you and your diminutive, astoundingly violent friend have been striving towards from the moment fate (and a trail of battered adolescents) inexorably tied you together? To be here, inches from the summit, so close you can almost taste it?
Here, the culmination of all the sacrifices you've made Kaede make in your stead. You deserve it, don't you? You deserve to make my associate pay for depriving Kaede of the chance to win the Killdozer Cup for
Do you feel that chain slipping around your neck? Because I can hardly argue against it: this is your opportunity to do what Casanova English in all his wisdom and cruelty has failed to do — wedge us apart. To destroy Jonathan and I from the inside out and watch us destroy each other in turn.
So I'm sure you can conceive of how humiliating, how heartkilling it would be if at the moment of your ultimate victory, your little puppy Kaede Iruma bit back. If she took that glory from you or worse yet, if her refusal to step in line wound up costing you both everything you've worked towards. Of course, she wouldn't do that, would she? Kaede Iruma knows her place in the pecking order, she knows where her bread is buttered, and she wouldn't dare raise a hand in anger towards little ol' you, would she?
I'm sure Roy Horn thought the very same thing before his trained tiger severed his spine.
Of course, you very well might be correct. Kaede Iruma might just have the exact anemia of the soul to stay in deferential reverence towards the woman who took her under her wing. She might have even internalized the mantras espoused about how you're working to better her. How the pressure you put on her to perform to a high enough level to keep you both afloat is what'll turn her into a diamond. I feel as though I've seen this film before, and I didn't much like the ending.
But in this instance it would be fitting. You, the wouldbe Spider Queen, undone by your inability to imagine, to see the world beyond the scope of your own ambition, done in by your loyal underling. As I said earlier, there's a reason beyond those titles, beyond the trail of destruction you and Kaede have left behind, that made you number one with a bullet for Casanova English's gambit.
And if you're half the schemer you position yourself as, you've already come to this conclusion. Consider my decision to state it for the record anyway as me calling your bluff.
Casanova English sees you, Haru Nijima, the exact same way that you see Kaede. A pawn to be used, a weapon to be pointed in the right direction, and then discarded when they're no longer of use. You reflect the same rigid hierarchy where the tyrant should sit at the top back at him, on a smaller scale. Casanova English cannot conceive of a world of peers. Of equal partners. Of bonds beyond the scope of master and servant. Which is why he can't crack the code, why my associate and I have made it this far, and have disrupted his plans this often.
And so he looks at you. The world he knows. The orderly pair, where one party sits above the other, where the latter exists to serve the former's ambitions. You're the platonic ideal of what a team should be in his world.
Jonathan and I are the platonic ideal of what a team should be in reality.
Welcome Haru, Kaede, to the most gilded cage you could ever hope to be trapped in. This was to be the panopticon built to watch Jonathan and I unravel. Here, we were supposed to go at each other's throats, pick at old scabs, and give Casanova English the glorious implosion he felt was owed the right to witness.
Which I guess is still a possibility. Though I don't think he'd much care to see who'd be undertaking that spin cycle.
This is the stage you two wanted; you made as such clear the second you saw fit to drop me on my head back in Oklahoma City. This is the opportunity you've craved, Haru, the validation you must feel has been due from the moment you plucked your guard dog out of obscurity. These are the lights you need to perform under.
So don't balk now at their temperature. You know what needs to be done, and you know how it has to be accomplished. You have to be the star of the show, the center of attention, the one who takes home everything for you and yours. If not, if Kaede has to do it for you, the whole foundation of this house of cards crumbles. If not, if you and her can't coexist with the big one on the line, it explodes.
All we have to do is win.
The drive from Port Newark to the airport hotel Jonathan had rented for his stay in Jersey was thankfully brief. Given my compatriot's condition, it seemed almost prescient that we'd opted to drive in the first place. Slumped over in the passenger's seat, he said little other than muttered profanity as he clutched at his bleeding side. With a trembling hand, I tried to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze — which only served to put the pair of us even more on edge.
I pulled around to the hotel's side entrance and helped my associate out of the car. The blood leaking from his wound was warm and treacly as it seeped into my sweater, but all the security cameras saw was a woman leading her presumably inebriated friend back to his room. I exhaled a sigh as we crossed the deserted halls to the door leading into his room; I hadn't even realized I'd been holding my breath.
We barely made it across the threshold before the screaming began. In a split second, Ruby Goldhirsch's eyes lit up at the sight of her paramour and then widened in shock and horror as they fixed themselves to the gaping wound at his side. She erupted in a barrage of shrieking French vulgarity as she rushed towards Jonathan and he stumbled into her.
"What happened?!" She finally exclaimed in English as tears spilled down her cheeks and she clung to Jonathan for dear life. He winced and exhaled gingerly at the tightness of the embrace. "Olive told me you guys got mugged but she didn't say anything about—"
"I've been right here the whole goddamn time, Ruby," 'Liv interjected, looking up from the improvised doctor's bag she called a purse. Her eyes darted towards me, brow furrowed in frustration. "How was I supposed to know shit I wasn't fucking told?"
Ruby took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. It cracked almost immediately as the next words left her mouth, half-garbled as she sobbed. "Why'd you bring him here? Why are we not having this conversation at the hospital?"
'Liv grabbed her bag and approached us. "Because hospitals bring attention and CU:LT isn't exactly known for its robust benefits package. Besides, I mostly know what I'm doing."
"Why is that first part important?" Then, as if she'd finally stopped to truly inspect us, she added: "and why are you two wearing turtlenecks? It's eighty degrees outside!"
"Word spreads. Do you want the Heartkillers preparing with full knowledge that Johnny here has a gut full of buckshot?" 'Liv responded with a chortle, before realizing that her attempt at levity was neither needed nor wanted.
"HE HAS A GUT FULL OF BUCKSHOT?" Ruby screamed in response, eyes on the verge of popping out of her skull.
Ruby's lips twitched and her gaze fell upon me. For a moment we locked eyes, before her attention darted back to my associate. In that moment, her gaze was incendiary, accusatory. Clenching my fists behind my back, I imagined wringing her neck like a dishrag just to get a moment's respite from her incessant blubbering. The sight of Joseph Orsini's brutalized face every time I blinked reminded me just how capable I'd be of performing such a task.
My heart throbbed in my throat as I consciously processed the thought. My stomach turned over. My breathing shallowed. As the tense silence that followed Ruby's questions hung over us, with each passing second I felt as if I were going to vomit.
"And you think he's going to wrestle—"
"Can I get some goddamn rubbing alcohol?" Johnny finally snapped, tearing us from the line of questioning. 'Liv sprung back into action, fishing around in her bag.
"We're gonna lay you down on the couch," 'Liv began, before sliding over towards me.
"Go to the bathroom and bring me a towel," she continued, before kissing me on the cheek and lowering her voice to a whisper. "And take a fucking breath."
I reciprocated her kiss and pulled her in for a momentary embrace. She patted me on the backside as I turned towards the bathroom, which prompted an involuntary giggle that I struggled to stifle. For a moment, the weight on my chest lifted.
As I entered the bathroom, however, it came crashing back down with the sight of my reflection in the mirror. I'd long since shed both the balaclava and the pair of gloves I began the night with and wiped the blood from my face, but my eyes remained fixed on the red stains that should've been on my hands. On the self-disgust that should've been evident on my face. On the remorse I should've felt.
This was the universe testing me. My bravado, my bluster, my eager willingness to commit such deeds tapered by convenient excuses and self-justifications for why I shouldn't. The second Orsini reached for his gun, the second Johnny threw himself in front of me, the second I reached for that gaudy metal rod, my bluff had been called.
And to my dismay, I found out that I was exactly the person I thought I was.
I cracked a smile as the realization set in — how goddamned quaint — and I looked at my unmasked reflection in the mirror. It was long past the point of wearing it.
