The Girl Called Red

Chapter 8.

Joey woke with a start to find me sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Watching him.

I had found the largest mug he had and proceeded to read and order every file I could find in the scattered apartment.

2232

It was well into the night. He had slept for quite a few hours, allowing for me enough time to do what I needed to do.

We watched each other for a long moment, the steam rising up out of my coffee and warming my face.

"I found the coffee." The words left my lips and filled the echoing silence. "Anastasia will be here soon." 

That, it seemed, was what I had needed to say to get a reaction out of the stranger in front of me.

"So she's alive?" A sigh pushed itself through his chapped lips and filled the room, his shoulders dropping. "I thought for sure they would have gotten her." His eyes moved up to look at me, hiding underneath half-closed eyelids. "She is a civilian, after all."

"And were you not one once?" My coffee burned its way down into the cold, heavy recesses of my stomach. When I breathed out, steam left through my nostrils.

"Army brat whole life." 

Makes sense. 

Any corporation up to no good generally loved using those who knew how to take orders with little to no questioning. Civilians were rarely put into positions in which they knew about the seedy undersides of the business they were really dealing.

"I believe I understand what you are planning." The cup clinked against the kitchen table as I changed my focus to the neatly organised sheets. "It is good timing, yes?" An invitation was laid out directly in front of me, a 'charity ball' was supposedly taking place in two nights.

An easy way to hide dirty money coming in.

The room fell silent once again. A sound sucking abyss had formed in the darkest corner of the room and refused to dissipate, or even to remove the truth that stood between us.

He knew everything about what had happened to me, and I did not even know his true name. That thought was far from a comforting one.

"I knew that you'd gotten through this before, back in Russia when they-" His voice cut almost hilariously as soon as my eyes burned red. "So, I knew you'd know how to exact your revenge again now that you've been..."

"Burned." Everything around me glowed in my red gaze, my face twisting and contorting into a hideous mask. "Again." My Russian lilt was back, strong as it used to be.

Three knocks filled the space between us.

The lock on the front door began CLICKing as it unlocked itself cleanly. Joey began searching quickly for his gun as the door pulled itself open...

No one was there.

At least, that was what it would have looked like to Joey, who did not possess the same eyes that I did. "Come in Aife."

In a flash of blue, Anastasia and Aife became visible to the naked eye.

The bark of a gun rang out, bullets screaming towards their targets.

They disappeared with a wave of Aife's hand.

A glance to my side saw Joey standing stock-still, gun in hand, his right arm loose. If I had any doubt about his reflexes and capabilities, they were gone in an instant.