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With her grocery bags balanced awkwardly between one arm and one forearm, Tonya had to rub her thumb over her apartment door's greasy old lock five times before it registered her print. Adjusting her grip on the bags, she pushed the door open with one shoulder, clicked on the light with her elbow just a second before the door swung shut, and with a small scream dropped her groceries.
There was a person squatting on her kitchen table.
She was so paralyzed by shock she couldn't even think of how to react. All she could do was gape and ask, "Who—? Who—?"
The person was dressed top to bottom in all black—jeans and hooded windbreaker and gloves, even a ski mask and goggles—and was just crouching there, arms crossed loosely, resting elbows on knees. No, not resting on knees. There was a sword, glowing blue, resting across knees; arms resting on sword. "Your name is Tonya?" It was the deepest voice she'd ever heard, far too deep for this spindly invader. "I'm here about the bounty." He held out a folded scrap of yellow legal pad paper. "The one you posted."
She backed up against the door, too terrified to think of opening it and running. "Oh shit." Her ex.
Three months ago, she'd finally managed to leave him. She'd been penniless and friendless. He'd stalked her halfway around the city, tracked her down to the shelters she'd found (not hard, there were only two in town) and lurked outside, only to disappear before any authorities arrived. In desperation, she'd gone to town square—the real town square, not the unwanted Tediore-sponsored square in front of city hall—and left a note on the job board: her ex's name and address, a promise to cook a hot meal for anyone who "got rid" of him (all she could offer), and her name (she had no permanent address to list). The next day, she'd gotten cold feet—okay, understatement, she'd been terrified beyond belief that someone who knew her ex would find it and tell him—and had gone to the board to remove it. But by the time she'd gotten there, it was already gone, along with half the other jobs.
She'd told herself that some civic-minded passerby had been looking over the board and tore down any jobs that looked illegitimate or flimsy (or immoral, if the passerby happened to be someone who wasn't down with murder). But she'd always feared—always—that maybe he'd been following her that day, and maybe he'd seen her post the bounty, and maybe he'd taken it down himself, and maybe he'd started plotting revenge.
And now here someone was.
Two months ago, Tonya had moved halfway around Janus Alpha. A cousin had helped her get a new job, and a hacker she'd known in high school had helped change her name. But he'd still found her. He always found her. And he'd sent someone to do to her what she'd tried to do to him, or—worse—to drag her back to him.
"You were hard to find." He stood up, half-hunched on the table, taking his sword in one hand. He had a long, huge rifle strapped to his back. "An unexpected challenge. Appreciated." He jumped down. His heavy combat boots crashed on the cheap fake wood floor, and she jumped.
"I'm—! I have a—" She groped in her purse for her Tediore shocktase—a thrifty girl's best friend™—but he kept walking toward her, relentless.
"He wasn't as hard." The invader raised his sword, and she flinched back, pressing harder against the door; but he only sheathed it, and reached into the pocket of his black jeans to pull out a photo. She saw her ex's face, and flinched again; it took her a moment to register that there were several inches between his face and his neck. And then she just gaped. "Photographic proof, for you." He shook the photo. Dumbly, she took it. "I've come to collect."
Collect. Collect. He'd done her job. He'd killed— Her ex was dead. He was dead. He was gone forever. She'd—made it happen. She'd hired a hitman. She was safe.
Tonya gaped at him. And then his words registered. Oh, collect! His pay!
She looked down at her grocery bags. One was soaked in the red gore of a broken bottle of spaghetti sauce. "That was it."
"Ah."
"You can come back tomorrow?" she offered. "Or I can make us sandwiches."
"I'll take the sandwich."
He sat on the kitchen table, observing, while she made the sandwiches. She could feel his hidden eyes on her back. Watching her. Sizing her up. For what, she didn't know. In case he had to kill her? In case he wanted to kill her?
Somehow, the thought didn't scare her. It was amazing how fast a heavily-armed stranger stopped being terrifying once you knew he'd killed your abusive ex for you. Or maybe it was the shock.
He'd decided on a chicken salad sandwich.
She hoped he was okay with plain white bread, the ultra cheap kind made with synthetic flour. It was all she had. "Do you want it cut?"
"Four triangles."
Between her construction of one sandwich and the next, he hopped off the table, walked up behind her, and took a towel at the edge of her periphery vision. For a moment, just a split second, she was sure he was going to try to strangle her from behind. And the only wild, panicked, irrational thought she had, trained into her by her ex, was don't let him know you know what he's about to do or he'll get madder; and so, with heart pounding, she kept making her sandwich. But he returned to the table. When she glanced back, he was wiping off the surface of the table where he'd been crouching when she came in.
Well. She appreciated the gesture, but she wished he'd grabbed a wet paper towel to wipe it down properly. Or, better yet, not stood on her table in the first place. It was a rickety metal folding table, she was lucky the legs hadn't snapped. She turned back to the sandwiches. "Why were you waiting on my table, anyway?"
He made an impossibly deep I-don't-know noise. His voice wasn't real, she thought. He was using some kind of voice disguising thing. Could be a Maliwan body mod—but by the looks of him, he couldn't afford such luxuries. He was trading murders for hot meals, for goodness's sake.
Speaking of— "D'you want your sandwich nuked?"
"Eugh. Chicken salad?"
She huffed. "Well, I promised you 'hot.' I can throw in a can of tomato soup?"
"Fine."
"Great." She pulled a can out of a cabinet, popped the lid, and dumped it in a bowl. It was cheap, watery stuff, but she'd never promised a good hot meal.
As it heated up, she leaned back against the kitchen counter, and surveyed her visitor. God, he was skinny. No wonder he'd gone for the hot meal, and tracked her halfway around the planet to collect on it. His thinness hadn't really registered for what it was when she'd first seen him, except one more thing that made him look a little more uncanny and a little more dangerous—but now that she was looking at him as a person, not as a dangerous bloodthirsty burglar who was about to slit her throat with a sword designed to cauterize the wound even as it was being made… Nobody got that skinny naturally.
Tonya had been that skinny a couple of months ago—sunken eyes and bony wrists and ribs that could cast shadows. A slight breeze was enough to chill her to the bone. (She didn't look that much better now, to be honest, but at least she was starting to move in the right direction.) And she was a good foot shorter than this guy. What kind of life had he lived? "… What's your name?"
He stared at her (she assumed he was staring at her, anyway), and shrugged.
"Seriously? Then I'm gonna call you Chicken Salad."
He shrugged again.
"All right. If that's what you want."
The microwave beeped. She balanced the soup bowl on the edge of Chicken Salad's sandwich plate, and carried both plates over to the kitchen table. "Here you go. One hot meal. Not sure it's worth a human life, but…"
She looked down at the cheap synthetic bread and watery soup.
"… No, I guess this is about what his life is worth."
"Heh."
No regrets from him, she supposed. But he was a professional. Supposedly. He didn't look very professional, but he sure had a professional's sword and a professional's rifle.
Tonya wondered when her regrets would kick in. You're supposed to feel regrets, right? If you kill someone—or get someone killed—aren't you supposed to regret it? Nightmares and guilt and stuff? When did that kick in? Maybe tonight, when she tried to sleep. It hadn't kicked in yet, at any rate.
She sat down in front of her plate, he slung his rifle off his shoulders and hung it on the back of his chair to sit in front of his, and she looked up at Chicken Salad. "So, are you gonna…" She pointed at his face and gestured up, implying lifting his mask. "Are you gonna eat, or…?"
To her surprise, instead of lifting his mask, he reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a black bandana. For a second, she thought he was going to tuck it into his windbreaker like a bib—but instead he tied it around his face, just over his nose, and then reaches under it to push up his ski mask. Tonya could only stare in complete and utter amazement as, disguise thus altered, he very carefully stuck one triangular quarter of the sandwich under his bandana and, presumably, into his mouth.
He devoured the quarter in three bites—she wasn't even sure he stopped between them to swallow—and looked up at her. "What?" She quickly looked at her own sandwich. And in her peripheral vision, he picked up and devoured another quarter of the sandwich, just as quickly.
What was he hiding, she wondered, for him to cover up like that, even when eating, even when in front of the person who had hired him to kill somebody?
Her first thought was that maybe Chicken Salad did this for her because she'd hired him to kill someone. Maybe to stop his clients from being able to identify him later to people who wanted to kill him. But, no, she didn't think he'd done this just for her. Chicken Salad had come prepared with the bandana, he'd made the adjustments too fast, and he'd devoured half his sandwich too adeptly for this to be his first time eating like this. And surely he didn't usually have dinner with his clients.
Or, then again, maybe he did. Images flashed through her mind of cinema-worthy scenes of expensive restaurants, the interior decor black and red and rich, patronized by CEOs and stockholders who wanted to discreetly hire assassins, saboteurs, and mercenaries. But, no. If this guy was snatching up job board postings with only a very loose definition of pay, he wasn't getting classy jobs from executives.
Either way—either way, Chicken Salad had come prepared to hide his identity even while he was eating. So, how afraid was he of being identified?
And she was sure that was what it was: fear. She understood fear like that. Until he'd handed her the picture of her ex, she'd lived with fear like that. The fear of being followed, of being found. Nothing was more terrifying than being recognized.
Who did a six and a half foot tall hitman with a sword and a sniper rifle who killed men in exchange for sandwiches and soup have to fear being recognized by?
… How hungry did a six and a half foot tall hitman who was skinner than some toddlers have to be to kill a man in exchange for a mere sandwich?
He probably wouldn't appreciate if she asked.
In the time she'd spent contemplating Chicken Salad's fears and hunger, he'd finished his sandwich. She'd only taken a couple of bites out of hers. "...Do you want another?"
"Yeah." Without waiting for any further permission, he walked into her kitchen, pulled out her bread and remaining chicken salad, and started making his own sandwich.
"Oh, oh okay, that's—yeah. That's fine." She turned back to her own sandwich.
"Do you have straws?"
"Uh—yeah, the cabinet over the sink." With a jolt, Tonya realized, "Sorry, I didn't get you a drink, did I?" She turned toward the kitchen, as if she could see through the fridge door to see what was available besides water. Had she even refilled the ice tray lately? "Do you want me to get you something to—"
"No." He sat back down, with a sandwich and a straw, and stuck it into the soup.
Oh. God. He was gonna—well, of course. He'd just make a mess if he stuck a spoon under his— But, a straw— in the soup—
She looked up at the ceiling, staring at the flakes in the paint, to prevent herself from laughing at a man a foot taller than her who killed people for a living.
When she looked back down, he had his sword out, and was delicately using the tip of it to slice his sandwich into quarters. The edges he sliced sizzled as they made contact with the blade.
Tonya bit her lip.
Chicken Salad made an absurdly deep frustrated sigh, and muttered disparagingly, "Hot chicken salad."
Tonya burst out laughing.
When her fear of being stabbed in anger finally reasserted itself strongly enough to force her to restrain her hysterical laughter, he was staring at her, silently. She waited, breath held in dread, to find out how insulted he was.
All he did was say, "Heh."
They continued dinner in silence. Once Tonya caught sight of Chicken Salad drinking his soup with a straw, almost choked on her sandwich, and made him splutter into the straw and splash some soup on the table.
At the end of dinner, as they were cleaning up—he still wasn't using a wet paper towel as he cleaned the table—she asked him whether he had somewhere to stay. She certainly wasn't about to let a hitman who'd broken into her apartment stay the night; but she'd convinced herself now that he was afraid, hungry, and hunted, and she knew those feelings too well to feel comfortable turning him out without knowing he had somewhere to go.
But he said, unconcerned, "Hotel or bus stop, alley or homeless shelter; I will find a place."
"You don't have a home?" The question was only confirmation of what she'd suspected for quite a bit now. Black clothes hid old uncleaned bloodstains and frayed cuffs, but not completely.
"Don't need one," he said confidently, either like he actually believed or like he desperately wanted to.
Well, if Chicken Salad was used to making his own arrangements, Tonya didn't think it would be wise to stick her neck out any further for him. This was it, then.
He clearly had reached the same conclusion, because glanced at the door.
"Thank you," Tonya blurted out, and he paused. "I don't think I ever actually said—thank you. For... doing the job. It means more to me than I can say. It definitely means a lot more than a couple of sandwiches and some runny soup. I'm sorry that's all I had to offer."
He stared at her while she spoke, but glanced away when she finished, with a shrug. "Job's its own reward," he said gruffly; and if he'd left it there, she could have thought he meant the emotional satisfaction of helping a poor scared girl get out from under the shadow of a monstrous ex. "Although killing him was dull, tracking you was fun."
A chill settled on her neck and shoulders like a thin dusting of snow; and Tonya had to remind herself that, while it was true that somebody who'd kill a man for a hot meal was at least an 8 out of 10 on the desperation scale, it was also true that he probably scored pretty low on things like empathy, or value for other people's lives. Even though she knew she shouldn't ask, she did: "So, is—is that why you're a hitman, then? Because it's fun for you?"
She wasn't sure she'd quite kept all her trepidation out of her voice; but if she hadn't, Chicken Salad didn't acknowledge it. "You know what they say," he said, and then paused, as if trying to work out exactly what it was they said. "If you do what you love you'll—never work a day." There was a strange hitch between his words, a pause in the sentence that didn't belong there.
And without anything else to say, he turned toward the door again. This time, she let him leave.
Tonya stepped half into the hallway behind him, and watched as he headed down the hallway. She wasn't sure why—to make sure he didn't vanish the moment he left her apartment, maybe. To make sure he was real. To make sure the job was really done and she was really free. He paused at the end of the hall, turned to look back at her a moment, then took the stairs up. She wondered what he planned to do upstairs. Maybe jump from rooftop to rooftop instead of walking around like a normal person, that'd fit his whole... vibe.
She never saw Chicken Salad again.
No matter how long she waited for the regret to kick in, she never felt guilty for putting out a hit on her ex.