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She hasn’t slept in nearly a full twenty-four hours when at last she stumbles into the innocent-looking building Talon keeps as a hideout in Zurich. The events of the past day careen about her mind with frightful velocity, leaving her reeling. The past morning she awoke with the certainty that something momentous would happen, but she could not have predicted this. Ever since she began her little side project, she has been waiting for the consequences to catch her, and now at last they have.
She can still see the horror twisting Gabriel’s face, more weakness than he has ever shown them. Jesse, always wearing his heart on his sleeve, looking pale as a ghost and lost like a little boy. All of them dead quiet as they heard the report come back from the strike team. All at once the whole headquarters was in mourning. But there they were, the black sheep of the organization, for once sitting safe and comfortable as others fought and died.
As—she—
Lacroix is waiting for her, and she looks different than she has since first being brought to this place. She does not smile, not outright, but her satisfaction is evident in the way she holds her shoulders and her chin higher than usual.
Moira despises her for that. She wants to see Lacroix prostrate and penitent and pleading for forgiveness. She wants her to know what it is she has done, what a monstrous thing she has done.
“I shot her,” Lacroix says, and her tone, too, is marveling, awed at her own success. “I killed her.”
Moira’s stomach twists awfully. How can she say it so calmly? How can she say it like she is proud? Ana Amari is dead and the murderer stands in front of her and gloats.
“She shot you first,” Moira says. Somehow she manages to not let the horrible emotion spill into her words. She cannot let Lacroix or anyone else see what she is feeling. Suddenly it seems to her painfully obvious that a double agent does not work for both sides but for neither. She did this to pursue her own goals and to see what she was capable of. She did this because Talon offered her money and the venues to perform experiments even Blackwatch will not condone.
The Widowmaker pulled the trigger, but Moira O’Deorain killed Ana Amari.
Lacroix blinks, taken aback. Her posture changes minutely. Moira derives a perverse joy. Here is something over which she has power; here is a situation she can control. Here is herself, externalized, so available and exposed for the punishing.
“You taught me to kill,” Lacroix says, and the frustration is just barely evident in her voice. “Forgive me for missing the lessons on survival.”
Moira steps forward, and then the fear does appear on Lacroix’s face. She shrinks back into herself. Her head bows and her eyes look upward. She does not apologize nor ask forgiveness with her tongue, but her body does it for her.
Lacroix does not speak again while Moira examines her. The head wound has already been treated by Talon’s field medics, but Moira removes the bandages to explore it with rough fingers. She relishes every muffled gasp that manages to escape Lacroix’s tight lips.
This is untenable. Punishment alone can be an effective incentive, but she needs to offer more. Lacroix did exactly as she should have, and she does not deserve this. But Moira still digs her fingers in, lets her nails scrape down Lacroix’s arms, pulls her hair.
She thinks of Ana looking down at her with steady eyes that gave nothing away. She thinks of Ana’s hands on her, gentle and brutal. Ana’s fingers in her. Ana kissing her. Ana berating her in that wry tone of hers.
Watch Gabriel’s back for me.
Do you ask him to do the same for me?
No, I tell him to watch his back too. Blackwatch is full of untrustworthy louts.
A week ago, Ana had winked after saying that.
The examination is completed. Lacroix is still subdued, almost sulking. It is time for Moira to go and resume her other life.
“You performed brilliantly,” she says, and in her heart Ana dies all over again.