Post by Grace Leary on Mar 1, 2024 3:40:53 GMT
How quaint is all of this, Sunshine?
To think that just one month prior, in a tin can in the middle of the Great Basin Desert, amidst all horrors of this world and the ones beyond, that the most shocking sight I'd see is the goliath with every reason to barrel down on me, to pick my bones clean, instead come to my defense. I have to admit, it's vexing. Perhaps it's the brain rot this industry inflicts on everyone thrown into the meat grinder, but I can't help but intuit that the whole knight-in-shining-armor routine isn't exactly the most magnanimous, no? I could smell it on you from the moment your attention turned from the Heartkillers to me.
In that moment, you held the cards.
In that moment, I was at your mercy.
In that moment, you could've destroyed me.
That's the lesson of it all, right? The thing you needed to drill into my head — that you could have done the exact same thing Haru Niijima did time and time again, and that even with the restraint you showed, you still hold it over me. You still hold the cards, hold my fate in your hands, and now that the clock's striking midnight and we're set to stare one another down, no pesky interlopers to distract us from the other, you're going to make it so.
It's a nice thought. No doubt it's comforting for you to believe that — and I'm sure it'd be even more comforting to believe that I believe it as well. To know that I've let doubt seep in, that I feel as though my back's against the wall and this delirious hostage situation that I've called a world title reign's remaining lifespan is best measured in days and hours.
There's one small problem, however:
I excel when my back's against the wall. I come alive when I'm pushed up against my so-called limits, when I'm stretched just far enough to start coming undone at the seams, when the same would be successors, as cruel as they are stupid, batter me from pillar to post night in and night out.
But there's an even bigger problem brewing under the surface of all these hypotheticals, isn't there? Because for all the reasons I should feel myself alert, coiled, as ready to strike as only a cornered rat can, I reach behind me, and I don't feel any walls. For the bullseye painted on my forehead for any aspiring psycho-for-hire to claim, I don't feel as though I'm the one being hunted at this moment.
Because you had your shot, Sunshine. You could've done to me what Haru and Kaede made a regular production of doing in the months leading up to the former's ultimate disappointment, but you stood tall, puffed out your chest, and didn't pull the trigger. And while I appreciate the gesture — really, I do — and whatever intimation you intended in such an act, it lays bare something fundamental, a refrain that has seemingly followed me for my entire career.
You should've killed me when you had the chance.
My head throbs and pulses, searing agony pumping through my temporal veins as through the blur of my bleary, wet eyes, my sight adjusts to the darkness. The cement beneath my prone body is ice cold to the touch, a godsend for my flushed, hot face as I shakily push myself up to my knees. My eyes narrow as the dark swirls and convulses before me in a hypnotic rhythm. Warm blood drips from my hairline, streaking and smearing across my face. My teeth sink into my tongue as the smell of copper assaults my nostrils and I rise to my feet unsteadily, placing too much weight onto a snapped high heel shoe and almost tumbling back to the floor.
Cursing under my breath, I rip both shoes off and toss the broken one into the abyss with a groan. My ankle throbs almost as intensely as my head, sending a hissing whine of pain at even the meekest of pressure. Still, my eyes were transfixed with the ebbs and flows of the darkness as I groped wildly for a lightswitch.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," echoes a voice from beyond the black, low and commanding. As if it came from everywhere and nowhere, less spoken than imposed upon me. "Where should you be?"
"I," I begin, searching through the fog of inebriation for something, anything, I could say that'd satisfy the voice.
"Where are you?"
"Forty-Four Union Square."
"Auspicious."
Drip. Drip. Drip. Blood leaks from my chin down to the floor, echoing ceaselessly as if pinging off every corner in the room, bouncing back into my ears.
"And why are you here?"
The rhythm of the dark slows as I narrow my eyes into the inky blackness. The pounding in my skull fades for a moment, my memory clearing if ever so slightly.
"Orientation— no, that's not the right word. Initiation," I say, choking back a chuckle as I peer through the veil of dark at my hands, looking for some mark or brand. For a moment, my mind radiates with the hushed whispers of colleagues warning me about this night, offering condescending advice to the poor, naive midwestern girl about what to expect, bless their hearts. I'd expected something, a shoe to drop, but once the charming man in the corduroy jacket smiled at me and offered a glass of punch, the night had gone swimmingly.
"There's still one more barrier to cross."
The swirling, pulsing darkness intensifies, wrapping around my frame as if devouring me whole. Until, for a brief moment, a light bulb flicks on. Light chases the dark away briefly, before being swallowed back up.
It hadn't been quick enough, though.
(Grace.)
For the briefest moment, I saw it.
(Grace?)
The heart at the bottom of 44 Union.
"Grace!" chirped Liv as her fingernails dug into my shoulder, startling me out of the daydream. My chest clenched and seized, heart rattling like a snare drum as I turned to face her. "Don't scare me like that."
My face flushed, a nervous smile forming on my face as her lips curled into a frown born more from anger than concern. "Oh, fuck you. Don't look at me like that, space cadet. We were in the middle of a conversation and you just disappeared behind the eyes."
"Sorry, I'm a little all over the place."
The wind cut through my jacket as I drew a sharp breath, watching it form and disappear into the night on exhale. Of course, I muttered to myself as my eyes fixed themselves on my surroundings: we were back in Yellowknife — or failing that, the cabin we'd rented outside city limits. The bone deep chill was almost welcoming in its embrace. At the very least, it was more amenable than the searing frustration radiating from Olivia.
"Yeah, it sure fuckin' seems like it." She shook her head, exhaling her pent-up emotion. "Now that you're back, though, care to explain what he's doing here?"
My eyes narrowed as I followed her gaze to the front stoop of the cabin, where Theodore Goodson sat, a manilla folder in his lap.
How's the old Oscar Wilde quote go, again? "Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth." Don't worry, I haven't forgotten what I said to you back in December, and it still holds true: I have little interest in anything but you, Sunshine. The man under the giant dragon head doesn't concern me, because how could he? When the colossus of felt and flesh before me is such a transfixing sight. When everything I need to glean from you is right there in those big, empty eyes.
I said it then, and I'll say it now: enlighten me, Sunshine. Teach me the goddamned lesson this industry has been trying to drill into my head from the day I infiltrated it. Because I'm more exposed now than I have been in a long time. Our fearless leader has gotten his wish: my associate's blood on his hands. A thorn is removed from his side until he goes rolling about in the bramble once more. And like all petty tyrants, he won't be satisfied until we all fall in line, right under the heel of his boot. Surely, he'd love to see you complete the set. Oh, the love he'd bomb you with, granted the biggest platform this company can afford to make sure you can teach all the children in the world the lessons only you can teach.
That's what you want, right? To be the great teacher? To mold and shape the minds of our youth like clay in your hands?
So, take it. Grab me by the throat and don't stop squeezing until I stop twitching. Show me you can take this from me, so that I can start to believe it. Because I've seen this one before, I see it over and over again in the faces of the men and women who think they have what it takes to figure me out and I see the aftermath of them slamming their heads against the same brick wall.
The only nickname I ever gave myself, the only honor I was so vain as to bestow, was that of The Usurper. The first real defining moment of my career in this industry, the first glimpse beneath the old mask that used to fit me like a glove, my erstwhile associates and I spoiled what should've been a King's grand coronation. We took the blood, sweat, and tears he spilled on the canvas, and made his moment about us.
Then, only a few months later came the second defining moment: finishing the job. Taking the King's grand achievement from him. I'm hardly one for self-mythologizing, but it was too perfect of a moment to not commemorate.
And the punchline is, that King is the same man who made his presence felt by dropping our fearless leader in Nevada. Punching his ticket into the same tournament that I debuted in this company in just a year prior. Small world.
But the point remains. This is what I do, Sunshine. Champion and contender alike, veteran or upstart, all alike in their ability to look only at the prize at the end of the rainbow, unravel in my grasp. They falter and stumble because they're so used to approaching these moments in their own way. Winning with honor, with brutality, with skill, what have you, that they fail to grasp that only the first word of it is the thing that matters at the end of the day.
So, tell me, and be honest: are you going to teach me a lesson this time? Will my eyes be forced open, will I have no choice but accept your truth?
Because if you don't, I'm going to have to teach you a lesson of my own, and I've already made it very clear:
You should've killed me when you had the chance.
But you hesitated. Whatever the reason, it doesn't change things.
I won't.
"Hey, Teddy." I forced the words from my mouth with all the awkward faux-cheer I could muster, as if I'd planned to find him sitting by the front door. I offered a little wave in addition, though only his eyes lit up in recognition — and nothing else. His lips were curled in a frown as he rose to his feet, clutching the folder close to his chest. Liv shot me a dirty look before turning her eyes back to him.
"So he's not here to murder us?" she hissed into my good ear, leaning against me. I could feel her tension as she gripped my hand; she was coiled, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. I'd neglected to mention my meeting with Teddy a couple months prior — given the nature of the conversation, I figured what she didn't know wouldn't give her cause to fret. Of course, all that went out the window with this little house-call.
In spite of her best effort to keep the comment between us, Teddy must have heard it as his already sour expression soured further. "If that were the case, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Liv screwed her face into a sneer, flashing teeth at him. He pinched the bridge of his nose, adjusting his glasses.
"I'd have preferred this be a phone call as well, but given the context a face-to-face seemed more appropriate."
I nodded in acknowledgment as the three of us made our way inside. The chill followed us in, clinging to me with its needly tendrils piercing skin and bone alike. Even as the heat grumbled to life, it wouldn't let go. I led Teddy to the living room, gesturing for him to place the folder on the coffee table.
"Our friend keeps some interesting company," Teddy murmured as he flipped the folder open, a mess of photographs and printed documents. Liv's eyes scanned the tableau before she focused her gaze on me once more.
"That better not be who I think it is."
"Such as?" I asked, looking back at him. From the corner of my eyes I could sense Liv rolling her eyes, her grip on my hand loosening for a moment before re-tightening.
"Seems to have struck up quite the friendship with some detective from Newark; the same detective assigned the case of one Joseph Orsini. Real slimeball, if you believe the rumors."
Of course it was Orsini. I scowled, mentally retracing our steps that night. Due to the pressing matter of getting Jonathan treated, we hadn't had time to clean up.
"Oh, God," I muttered under my breath. As I stared down at the tableau before me, the pictures blended and blurred. My head throbbed and pulsed with pain. I clenched my eyes shut for a moment and gritted my teeth as the faint sound of Teddy's voice distorted itself in my functioning ear amidst a wave of tinnitus.
"But that's not the real interesting one," I could finally hear clearly as my eyes snapped open and my gaze focused on one picture in particular: Elliott Dalton, as gregarious as ever, mid laugh seated in an intimate corner of a bar with a dark-haired woman. I'd seen her before, where had I seen her before.
"I thought I had a lead with the affair you'd told me about," Teddy continued, though my focus remained consumed by the picture.
And then it clicked.
She was the woman he'd met in OKC.
"And this is why I had to talk to you somewhere I knew our phones weren't being tapped: this woman is a federal agent."
Oh.
Of course.