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Siobhan watches silent at the door as the woman, barely more than a child emotionally as far as she can tell, struggles against her bonds. Siobhan can’t help but love her, this deadly girl who is so much like Sarah, yet completely opposite.
Helena. This woman blazes like a fever, where Sarah glows warm like a sunrise. All that fire and strength, but still so vulnerable; like some wild, mad feline. A lunatic lioness, caught in a snare. She would destroy everything Siobhan has been fighting to protect.
Siobhan moves forward, swallowing hard as tortured eyes stare out at her from their deeply bruised sockets; she knows those eyes so well. Not because they are Sarah’s eyes, but because they are her own. They are the eyes of someone who has had to do terrible things to stay alive; they are the eyes of a survivor. They are fragile but dangerous, like thick, pointed shards of blood stained glass.
There was a time when she was full of as much violent potential as the drop of poison on the tip of a viper's fang. Soon, she will have to be that again. She will have to hide in the tall grass and strike at her enemy when least expected. The thought makes her tired to the marrow of her bones.
“What a difference a day makes…” Siobhan murmurs. She comes to stand just out of kicking distance.
“What?” Helena asks, cocking her head. Her accent thickens the word, making it heavy, imparting so much more meaning.
“Something my mother used to say.”
“I would not know,” Helena sneers, baring teeth smeared with blood. Siobhan sees that Helena has savaged the inside of her mouth, and her chest aches with pity for the desperate creature.
The girl is shameless, continuing to yank at her bonds. The wood wobbles but holds; the concrete doesn’t budge. Siobhan can hear the squelching of raw flesh against hard plastic ties, and she winces.
“Please child… Helena. Please stop. You'll only cause yourself injury.”
Helena grins the grin of a predator caught in a trap and willing to chew through its own leg to get out.
“I must go to her,” she insists, voice low but firm, deeper than Sarah’s. It is full of righteous purpose.
“Who? Sarah?”
“The one who calls herself mother.” The assassin says the last word as if it should be pronounced whore.
Something dark clicks into place in Siobhan’s chest. Their eyes meet, gazes locked for long moments, and Siobhan knows without asking what this wounded child will do. She can feel the grass tickling at her; she has already begun to slither. Her mouth goes dry, like she has swallowed sand.
“Sarah will never forgive you if you do it,” she cautions, unsure if she is talking to the girl or to herself. Reaching into her back pocket for the folding knife she always carries there, her fingers tremble slightly. Helena smiles, sly like a cat who has her choice of canaries, and goes still.
“Of course she will. She is my sister.”
Helena’s is the kind of confidence that comes only from childish belief or hard knowledge of what one is capable of.
When the deadly girl is gone, Siobhan covers her mouth to hold back what could be a scream, or a sob.
“God, forgive me,” she whispers, feeling both vindicated and horrified.
She glances at the window Helena smashed to make her escape. “Keep Sarah safe,” she says to the shadows lingering on the wall.
A fine shaking grips her body, driving her to her knees. She is silent now, the only sounds escaping her gasps as she struggles to breathe. Time ceases to have meaning.
Little footsteps above snap Siobhan back to reality, and she wipes harshly at her eyes. She knows what she must do now. With a deep breath, she steels herself to the task.