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"Don't worry," said Villanelle. "I can get us out of this, no problem."
Eve was still a little shaken from one, killing Raymond, and two, being arrested by the Polizia even though she'd demanded they call the British embassy. She was MI6, damn it. She didn't exactly have a license to kill but she'd pretty sure Carolyn could get her a waiver. "You can? Because we're locked in the back of a police car for a crime we definitely committed."
"You definitely committed," said Villanelle. "Besides, you were saving my life. That makes you a hero."
"They didn't seem too impressed by that when you told them." At least Eve hoped that was what Villanelle had been saying to them in Italian. She could have been insulting their mustaches. It was entirely possible she'd called them Mario and Luigi. Eve didn't know. She didn't speak that much Italian.
Villanelle shrugged. "At least they only had one pair of handcuffs."
"Is being cuffed to you supposed to make me feel better about this whole situation?"
"It makes me feel better," said Villanelle, and gave her a smile. Something about that smile sent a shiver up Eve's spine. She could feel her skin breaking out in goosebumps. She could not look away from Villanelle's eyes.
Villanelle lunged at her and got her free hand around Eve's neck.
Eve tried to scream but Villanelle’s grip was too tight. She didn't have any air. Her hands were useless, one trapped under her, one squeezed in Villanelle’s grasp. She tried to squirm, to kick, but Villanelle had thrust into her goddamn lap and was pinning her there with her weight.
"Help," Eve tried to say. "Help!"
"You know," said Villanelle, right against her ear, "this is kind of hot. Are you getting turned on? I'm getting turned on."
"Fuck. You." A wheeze. A hiss.
The police finally noticed the fight and started shouting, pulling over to the side of the road. Eve wondered if they were actually going to make it before Villanelle cut off all the oxygen to her brain, or if she was going to die in this ancient Fiat. Or maybe she'd just end up in a coma and Carolyn would visit and sigh and say that she did warn Eve--
The shouting was closer now. The pressure on Eve's throat eased--disappeared completely--and then she heard a gunshot. And then another gunshot.
"Told you," said Villanelle. She tugged the handcuffs that held them together. "Come on, we should leave before anyone shows up."
The police officers were on the ground outside the car in a spreading pool of blood. And in Villanelle's left hand--
"Is that a gun?"
"No, it's a magic wand." Villanelle tugged on the cuffs again.
"How long," said Eve, as Villanelle dragged her out of the car and she stumbled past the corpses, her brain scrambling over the hurdles of oxygen deprivation, of being attacked, of having killed a man, "have you had a gun? Did you have it when you were fighting Raymond?"
"Yes," said Villanelle. "Oh, don't look like that, it had fallen down into my pants, I couldn't pull it out without him noticing."
"Bullshit it fell down the back of your pants," said Eve. "I'd have seen that."
Villanelle laughed, mock-shocked. "Were you staring at my butt, Eve? How very... cheeky."
Eve would have thrown her into the ditch on the side of the road if it weren’t for the handcuffs. "You could have killed him any time--"
"Please," said Villanelle. "Give me the benefit of the doubt. And we really do need to leave before someone else decides to arrest us."
"I'm not going anywhere with you!"
"Yeah," said Villanelle, "you are. You are either walking with me now, away from here, or you are going to jail with me for murdering Raymond and two policemen. It's your ch--"
Eve slammed her up against the side of the car. She hadn't killed the police. She'd only killed Raymond to save Villanelle's life--and it turned out that Villanelle's life hadn't needed saving. Even as she pressed her hand against Villanelle's throat, she was staring into her eyes and wondering why. Why would she kill to save Villanelle? Villanelle was a psychopath. Villanelle was a monster. She'd been warned.
And yet as Villanelle's eyes went wide and her breath stuttered against Eve's face, she remembered the pure terror of thinking Villanelle was in danger, of grabbing a letter opener and storming into a very dangerous situation with a very dangerous man--and an even more dangerous woman.
She felt her hand slip from Villanelle's neck before she knew what she was doing. Stupid, stupid, she chided herself: Villanelle still had the gun. And yet she hadn't fired it.
Well, not at Eve. There were still two corpses cooling in a puddle of blood a few feet away.
Villanelle took in a deep breath, tucked the gun away. "Okay, but that definitely turned you on."
-
They went to a small, run-down office building a few blocks off the Via Collatina. Villanelle punched in a security code, led Eve up about five flights of stairs, punched in another security code on an office door, and led her in.
"What is this place?" Eve asked. She'd been stubbornly mute the entire journey over. Villanelle had insisted on holding hands so it didn't look suspicious, and had been very smug when Eve didn't resist. The adrenaline from the fights had drained away somewhere near the Tor and all Eve wanted to do was go to sleep on the office's beat-up leather couch. Well, get the handcuffs off and then go to sleep. "It's not the Twelve's, is it?"
"Relax," said Villanelle. She jiggled open a desk drawer. "I don't trust your boss, so I had a contact create a cache here." She looked at Eve critically. "I only got the one passport, but my guy can do one for you in maybe a week." She aimed a phone at Eve, took her picture. "You know, you should really smile more."
"I," said Eve, "am going to kill you."
Villanelle flashed her her dimples, then dropped her head to one side, tongue hanging out, eyes half-shut and lifeless. Eve felt a stab of panic, damn her, and tried not to let it show. "Have fun trying to drag my corpse around by the hand," she said, and went back to secreting her cache, one-handed, in her clothes.
"You don't happen to have a lock-picking kit in there, by any chance," said Eve. And then, "You couldn't have gotten the keys from the cops we killed or anything."
"I was going to," said Villanelle, pouting. "But then you tried to choke me and I forgot."
Eve wasn't entirely sure she believed her: maybe Villanelle had gotten the key and was hiding it down the back of her pants like she had the gun. "Do you know how to pick locks?"
"Only on doors, and I need both hands. Sorry. Hey, are you hungry?"
"What?"
"I'm getting a real place for us to stay until it's safe to leave Italy, and we're going to need food. I didn't even get to finish breakfast and it's too late for lunch. What's MI6's extraction time?"
"What?" Eve searched her thoughts. "It's never come up. But I disobeyed Carolyn's order--"
"Oh, please."
Eve got the impression that Villanelle was used to a very different workplace culture than she was. But then again, the Twelve had sent Raymond to kill her. Of course, Villanelle had killed him, if by proxy. "You know, normal people don't have the option of killing their bosses because they don't like their orders. Normal people have to live with the consequences of their actions."
Villanelle shrugged. "How sad for them. I know it's totally a cliche, but how do you feel about pasta?"
"Are you still on the dinner thing?"
"Well," said Villanelle, "yeah."
Eve threw up her arm, which jerked Villlanelle's arm up. "We're not going to get extracted."
"Of course you are," said Villanelle. "Now: dinner."
"I," said Eve, and flopped onto the couch, dragging Villanelle with her. She shut her eyes. Her head hurt. "Fine. Pasta. Whatever."
-
After that, she must have dozed, however briefly, because when she woke up Villanelle was half-crouched next to her, changing clothes.
Eve stared. It was--. She'd had some weird kind of phone sex with Villanelle, she'd plunged a knife into Villanelle, she'd been stripped by Villanelle, but she'd never actually seen Villanelle even partially naked. Her legs were long and tan, and Eve wanted to call them coltish, even though they weren't. There was something very vulnerable about her toes.
Villanelle was slowly sliding a pair of burgundy pants on, left-handed. She'd somehow managed to remove her top--the fabric, Eve remembered, had been thin, maybe thin enough to bundle through the handcuff--and was wearing a pale pink bra underneath. It had no lace, no bows, no frills. The bra of a killer, Eve thought to herself, dopey from sleep, but she owned the same sort of style, just in white, ecru, those boring eggshell shades.
The gun was on the desk, just out of Eve's reach.
"Hi," said Villanelle. "So you like to watch too? Pervert." She inched the pants further up.
"And you like to put on a show," said Eve. "Pervert."
Villanelle flashed her a smile. "So, are you ready for a little walk?"
"Through Rome," said Eve. "Handcuffed to you. You really think no one's going to notice the handcuffs?"
"They didn't the last time. We pull down our sleeves again and hope for the best." Villanelle threaded a blouse through her cuff, and contorted herself into it. Eve probably should have looked away, but Villanelle was just so fascinating to watch. Which was her problem in a nutshell. "And we hold hands again. No one will say anything. Well, Italian men will harass us, but they would do that cuffs or no cuffs, and you seem to have a problem with me killing people."
"I don't--" Eve said, and stopped herself. She didn't what? Didn't want to hold hands with Villanelle? Didn't have a problem with Villanelle killing people? "Shit. We might as well go." They were like sharks. If they didn't keep swimming, they died. If Eve didn't keep moving, she might sink into reflection and regret. If Eve didn’t keep moving, Villanelle might move on without her. If Eve didn’t keep moving, Villanelle might strike.
Eve shivered. It would be a challenge. And, for the first time since she'd sunk the axe into Raymond's back, she felt alive.
-
"We're being followed," Villanelle muttered.
Eve checked their reflection in storefront windows, car mirrors. "We're not being followed," she said. "You're being paranoid."
"I'm being paranoid," mocked Villanelle, as they rounded the corner. Eve had done a surveillance course that hadn't actually done her much good when it came to Villanelle, but still, half the streets were empty. There were people on their phones going past every so often, a smoker hanging out in an alleyway, a kid chewing on a candy bar. For a second Eve was pretty sure Villanelle was going to reach out and grab the candy, but she kept walking, gripping Eve's hand tightly. "Don't come crying to me when we are murdered in our bed."
"Beds," corrected Eve.
"Bed." Villanelle glanced down at their joined hands. "What, did you think I was looking for a two bedroom? How would that work?"
"I don't know," said Eve, "I thought maybe you could have asked for a bolt cutter along with whatever you ordered for dinner."
Villanelle stopped in her tracks. Her fingernails dug into Eve's skin and the cuff dug into Eve's wrist as she stumbled forward, unbalanced.
Ha, Eve thought, at the look on Villanelle's face. I'm one step ahead of you. You don't like not having thought of that, do you?
"Bolt cutters wouldn't work on handcuffs," said Villanelle finally. "But nice idea. You would make a very good criminal."
She smiled when Eve glared at her.
"And we still aren't being followed," Eve said, as they entered the apartment lobby.
There was a concierge. Eve swallowed down her surprise as they headed straight for him. "How do you think we're supposed to get the key to the place?" Villanelle asked, tipping the guy twenty euros. She motioned for Eve to take the key and grabbed a few heavy grocery bags. "It's okay," she said in an exaggerated American accent, when Eve glanced at her, "I lift."
"Speaking of," said Eve. The elevator was one of those ancient early twentieth-century contraptions, with a golden grill and everything. It opened, spilling out a young couple, who spotted the handcuffs and froze.
Eve froze too. Villanelle, on the other hand, said, "Its okay, we have a safeword. You really shouldn't be kinkshaming--"
The young couple hurried off. Villanelle snickered.
"A safeword?" said Eve.
"Works every time. Nobody wants to hear about anyone else's weird sex shit. Except sometimes old men with pervert mustaches. Like your husband's."
"Niko isn't interested in safewords," Eve said. She wasn't about to defend his mustache.
"Oh-ho." Villanelle pushed the button for the fourth floor and the grill slid shut with a few creaks and groans. "Kinky."
"Shut up."
"Or not kinky. Is he boring in bed? Do you lie back and think of England?"
Eve shoved Villanelle against the wall of the elevator with a strength that surprised her. Maybe Niko was boring in bed, but she didn't remember sharing that with Villanelle, and Villanelle didn't get to play that card, that "oh maybe I murder people but don't lie, you love it" card, because--
The elevator dinged. Villanelle was smiling at her. "If you want, we can stay here. The doors will close and we can go," her voice sank to a suggestive whisper, "down."
Eve pulled as far away from her as she could with the handcuffs. She nearly wrenched her shoulder, and now that was a thought, having an actual injury while handcuffed to Villanelle. She couldn't even imagine going to a clinic or emergency room or whatever. Maybe they'd have to go to a veterinarian to be patched up, like they did on TV.
The apartment was nice. Spacious. There was a big kitchen separated from the living room by a bar. Presumably a bedroom was off the living room, and the bathroom behind that. Eve wanted a bath but she didn't know if she could deal with being naked in a small space with Villanelle. Eve would either screw her or kill her and she wasn't sure which she'd regret more in the morning.
She was brought up short by Villanelle, who'd stopped by the rustic wooden table to unload groceries. "You bruised the tomatoes," she told Eve, with a tsk, like it was somehow worse than the fact that between the two of them they'd murdered four people today.
Kill her. Definitely.
"Why did you get tomatoes?"
"I told you," said Villanelle. Out of the bag came onions, garlic, noodles, some thyme and rosemary. "I was craving pasta for dinner. You were okay with it. Hey, do you want to use the bathroom before we start cooking?" We, Eve mouthed to herself. When had she agreed to cook? When had she ever agreed to any of this?. "I should piss. A proper sauce takes a long time."
"You're making it from scratch," Eve said, following Villanelle. "I was thinking you'd get delivery. Or a jarred sauce."
Villanelle whirled around so Eve could see the horrified expression on her face. "Jarred sauce? I am not a monster."
"Really. You'll kill people for money, but you won't use spaghetti sauce from a jar."
"Yep," said Villanelle, yanking down her pants and sitting on the apartment's toilet. Eve didn't look: she'd already seen Villanelle's legs, and she didn't want to look. "I mean, I have tastebuds, and this is Italy. The fresh tomatoes are great. It would be a crime not to use them."
"Sure," said Eve.
Villanelle pulled her a little closer when she wiped. "They really splurged on the toilet paper here. It's, like, ridiculously soft. You want to feel it?"
"Maybe when it's my turn to go to the bathroom," Eve said.
"You can go now."
"I don't need to." She hadn't eaten since last night, had only had one cup of shitty coffee. And it was as if realizing that made her stomach rumble: she was ravenous. Why not jarred sauce? "But I would like to wash my hands."
They crowded together around the bathroom sink. The soap was a light purple and smelled of nothing. Eve wondered if she'd be able to slip her hand out of the handcuffs if she applied enough soap, but it didn't work, and she returned to the kitchen with Villanelle, snagging one of the straight-backed chairs as she went.
"I thought you would want to help me cook." She actually looked disappointed about it. She hadn't looked upset when Eve had nearly choked her, or when she’d yelled at her over the gun and all those killings.
"I'd just be in the way." Eve settled down to watch Villanelle at work, not wanting to say that she was afraid it would feel too much like cooking with Niko. Also, let Villanelle be disappointed. Eve's life was unravelling and Villanelle wanted her to help cook? "And I'm still tired."
"Here," said Villanelle. She ripped off a chunk of bread, poured a glass of wine. "You probably have low blood sugar. You were very horngry back in the elevator."
"Hangry," corrected Eve.
"Of course."
The bread was fresh, the wine was good. A little lighter than Eve liked, but she was drinking on an almost empty stomach. "Thank you," she said, because she felt so much better. Her left wrist was going to end up chafed and she still could use a bath, but just having something in her stomach, and something to wash it down with, was like coming home at the end of the day and kicking her shoes off. Eve felt like she'd just sent some torturous heels flying into a corner.
"Not a problem." Villanelle chopped an onion, moved on to the garlic, the cuff chafing against Eve as she peeled the cloves. She jerked Eve towards the sink to wash herbs, then started in on the tomatoes. Eve focused on eating and drinking and tried not to think about Villanelle's skill with a knife. Tried not to think about Bill. God, Bill. She could imagine all too well what he'd say about this.
After another piece of bread and another glass of wine, she got up to look at the sauce Villanelle had simmering on the stove. (Villanelle had sworn at the owner of the flat for not having wooden spoons. She was way too upset about all the wrong things.) It was red, and chunky. The image of Raymond's mutilated body flashed before Eve's eyes, and she struggled to keep the wine and bread down.
Villanelle turned to look at her. "Hey, my guy has a list of names for you to choose from, for your passport." She rested the spoon on the side of the pot and dug through her pocket for her phone, unlocked it, passed it over.
Eve read the list. "Your guy does know that not all East Asians are interchangeable, right?"
"I don't think he ever leaves his basement." She stirred the sauce again. "Help me get a pot for the noodles."
Eve let herself be dragged back to the cupboards, where Villanelle knelt down and examined the cookware. From what Eve remembered of her apartments, first in Paris and then in London, she didn't have much of a collection herself, but she was intent upon judging everything the AirBnB host did wrong.
Eve tuned out Villanelle's muttering as she read through the list again. He'd put Yoko Ono on there. Eve didn't know if that was a bad joke or if she just wanted it to be: it’d be so much worseif it weren’t.
"Well," said Villanelle, grudgingly, as she got up, pot in hand, "I don't hate it." Eve straightened up with her, crab-walking to the sink. "So, what do you think about the names?"
"They all suck." Yoko Ono hadn't even been the worst one. "I've already replied with something I can actually use."
"Picky." Villanelle started running the water, looked at her phone. "Mary Lee?"
"Life is but a dream," said Eve. She tried for a smile, but couldn’t quite get there. There was a kind of nightmarish quality to the day. Hugo bleeding on the hotel floor. Aaron Peel looking at her over his designer glasses. Villanelle’s smile as he ordered her to kill Eve. The thwack of the axe in Raymond's back. The Polizia in a puddle of blood.
And now, spaghetti.
They ate side by side at the dining room table. Eve hated to admit it, but the spaghetti was really good, and she was hungry enough that she could eat it without once thinking of dead bodies. She had another glass of wine. They left the dishes piled in the sink, washed their hands and faces cramped together at the bathroom sink.
Eve yawned. "I want to shower, but maybe in the morning."
"Of course," said Villanelle, magnanimously, like Eve was her guest and not freaking handcuffed to her. "The toilet paper is really soft, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Eve.
The bed was also soft, and big, and it smelled like sandalwood and citrus. Eve took off her shoes and socks and, after a second of hesitation, her trousers. Everything else seemed like too much work.
She stretched out, her aching back against the mattress, and fell asleep the moment her eyes closed.
-
When they went to sleep, they were each on their own half of the big bed, head on their own pillows, tucked under a luxurious down comforter. When Eve woke up, she was on her side, her left arm was twisted against her chest, and there was a warm weight against her back. One of Villanelle's legs was slung over her hips. She was snoring into Eve's hair. Eve thought it was cute. Eve thought it would be really easy to break Villanelle's nose with a well-timed jerk backwards. Eve thought that it had been a giant mistake to go to sleep while still wearing a bra.
Villanelle awoke with a snort. "Morning, sunshine," she said into Eve's hair. "Sleep well?"
"I ache all over," said Eve. No one told you about the axe murder workout. "You up for a shower?"
"Always." Villanelle rolled off of Eve and sat up, her eyes bright. Eve had not meant was Villanelle up for a shower that exact instant. Eve wasn’t up for a shower that exact instant. She wasn’t even up for Villanelle’s description of the shower stall and its artisan soaps that exact instant. As Eve lurched behind Villanelle into the bathrom, she tried to remember whether there'd been coffee in the shopping bags yesterday or not. Dear God, she hoped there was coffee.
In the bathroom, Villanelle helped cut Eve out of her turtleneck, said, "Nice," when Eve finally managed to wrangle her bra through the handcuff, and suggested they wash each other's backs.
Eve jangled the handcuff. "This might make that a little hard."
"Maybe I like it hard," said Villanelle, her voice low.
"You are unbelievable," said Eve, shampooing her hair one-handed. She closed her eyes so the shampoo didn’t get in them, but also so she didn’t have to watch Villanelle watching her. The last time she’d seen Villanelle smiling like that, Raymond’s blood had been falling on her face. The last time she’d felt Villanelle’s breath so close to her skin had been in the elevator, her body pressing Villanelle’s into the wall, and Villanelle giving every sign of enjoying it. The shower was huge, and the handcuffs were around their wrists, not their shoulders. She didn't have to stand so close. Or, well, she did because the spray was concentrated, but they could have taken turns, or switched the settings.
Eve didn't suggest it. Carolyn and Konstantin had kept talking about how Villanelle would get bored of her, discard her like the women leaving Villanelle's flat that morning. But clearly Villanelle wasn't bored of her yet. And Eve definitely wasn't bored of Villanelle. She didn't think she ever would be.
"Incroyable," said Villanelle, scratching a loofah across her lower back. And, yes, she was incredible. Eve had once hoped for a female serial killer, and she'd found two. The Ghost had been so calm and smooth and professional and, frankly, boring. She’d had a certain set of skills, and living in London was expensive. It was that simple.
Of course, Villanelle claimed to treat assassination like a job too, but Eve knew--knew from the way she'd killed her targets--that that wasn't all of it. The Ghost was a professional but Villanelle was an artist. And Eve couldn't stop watching her work. She hadn't wanted to kill Raymond, but she had to admit the set-up had been clever. She didn't like it, but--
"Hey," said Villanelle, as they were getting dressed, "you want to go clothes shopping? I was thinking, we really need some strapless bras."
"Yes," said Eve. She'd managed to get hers back on but the underwire seemed bent out of shape and poked her in the ribs with every movement. "But--"
"We won't really try anything on. And we'll do the same sex nerd deflection. It's great. It works even better if you have a lot of cash to spend."
"Okay," said Eve. Villanelle had bought coffee, and she was making it in one of those sleek, smooth machines that Eve occasionally saw in stores and marveled at the price tag. She was pretty sure this AirBnB was not cheap, but the coffee was really good. And there was fresh cream in the fridge. No breakfast food, though, because Villanelle thought life was too short to eat day-old pastries.
Well, thought Eve. If anyone would know how short a life could be, it'd be a contract killer.
Breakfast was at a little cafe, with more coffee and something that looked suspiciously like croissants stuffed with marscapone. Villanelle ordered a pot of strawberry jam and applied it to hers liberally. Eve tried not to think of blood. Guts. Gore.
"Hey," said Villanelle, and turned her phone around to face Eve. It was showing a bra. Strapless. Very lacy. Push-up and plunge-down. "Dusky rose or hot cherry?"
Eve raised her eyebrows. "What, it's not available in seafoam or midnight blush?" She could play sex chicken too. It kept her mind off the strawberry jam.
Villanelle showed her her dimples. The phone screen was big enough that the woman at the next table probably got a good look--definitely got a good look. She'd been staring judgmentally at the handcuffs for five minutes now. "No. But I think the crotchless panties are." She winked.
The woman who'd been glaring at them turned so bright a scarlet Eve could see it in her peripheral vision.
Eve tried not to laugh and mostly succeeded.
She wasn't a huge fan of clothes shopping but Villanelle was, and her enthusiasm was infectious. She had good taste--at least when it came to clothes for Eve--and endless funds. Eve found herself watching as Villanelle flipped through the clothes racks, and she remembered that time their marriage counselor had suggested she and Niko spend more time on shared hobbies. They’d signed up for cooking classes she’d gone to his chess tournaments and it had worked, until it hadn't.
(Eve didn't want to think of Niko right now. She'd nearly died twice, she'd been arrested, and he was probably back at home, fucking Ms Frizzle.
No, that was unfair. The actual Ms Frizzle wouldn't like the missionary position that much. The actual Ms Frizzle would enjoy new discoveries and try everything on every page of the Kama Sutra.)
Maybe this was Villanelle's way of sharing hobbies. The food, the clothes shopping. And maybe even the murder. After all, Eve had gotten her into the investigation of Aaron Peel. And Villanelle had had fun doing it, even before she killed him, so she'd thought setting Eve up to kill Raymond was, well, the same thing. Sharing was caring.
How was she going to go about that conversation? "I'll stop this one annoying little habit if you won't make me kill again"? What did Eve really have to bargain with?
She could always promise to not stab Villanelle a second time. Eve had seen the scar when they were showering. She didn't like it. She wished she hadn't done it.
Villanelle looked up from a purple jacket with gold epaulettes and smiled, as though the simple act of seeing Eve was enough to make her smile. Oh, thought Eve. Oh, shit.
Villanelle was actually going to buy that jacket.
-
On their way from lunch back to the hotel, Villanelle said, "We're being watched."
"Of course we're being watched," said Eve. She glanced in a glass front of a store but didn't see anyone in the reflection staring too overtly at them. "You're wearing a scarf that's covered in tiny winged penises." She couldn't be sure if Villanelle had bought it to distract from the handcuffs or if that was just Villanelle's taste in clothing and bad jokes. Probably both.
"And I'm carrying the bag from the store where we bought it--"
"Don't bring me into this," Eve muttered.
"--so if they want one for themselves they can just go there." Villanelle shook her head. "No, I think we're being followed."
This again. "Maybe they think you shouldn't be wearing it out in public."
"Maybe they can go fuck themselves," said Villanelle. "No, we are being followed."
"I really don't think we are. I mean, not as us-us. As the two women handcuffed together, one of whom accessorizes with tiny dicks, maybe. But not any, you know." The Twelve. Hired killers. Italian police. If MI6 were trailing them, Carolyn would want to know where Villanelle bought that scarf. She'd probably buy three.
Villanelle came to a halt. Eve changed her own forward momentum just in time, turning so that she was looking into Villanelle's dark eyes.
"All right," said Eve. Villanelle had stalked her through Berlin and maybe London without Eve ever being aware of it, so maybe she knew what she was talking about, but mostly Eve was sick of arguing. "We׳re being followed. We'd better throw them off our trail."
And then, before Villanelle could say anything, Eve had her pinned. The bags crashed against the wall, and before Villanelle could let go of them and free her hands Eve was kissing her.
It was--surreal. Villanelle got with the program soon enough and she was, Eve had to admit, an amazing kisser. Eve crowded into her space like she had in the elevator and Villanelle tucked a leg over Eve's hip like she had that morning, but there was intent behind it. She let out a genuine-sounding, "yes," and a groan as Eve nipped at her neck. Eve knew that groan, she'd heard that groan over the earpiece as Villanelle had gotten herself off and Eve had straddled Hugo. Eve had a brief and completely mad thought of getting Villanelle off, in the streets of Rome, her body shielding Villanelle's as she undid Villanelle's fly and showed Villanelle what it was like to be at her mercy--
Steps passed behind her and a man whistled and said something undoubtedly sexist in Italian. Eve rocked her hips into Villanelle's like she didn't care about what he said, or what he thought, or anyone or anything else. Villanelle gasped. The steps hurried away.
"So?" said Eve, stepping back. "Did you get a good look at our tail?"
Villanelle blinked at her, then staggered away from the wall, picking up her shopping bags.
"You," she told Eve, her face blotchy and pink, "are the worst."
-
She continued to glare at Eve over the dining room table when they got back. She'd been less angry about being stabbed, for god's sake.
"You know," Villanelle said, as the paper clip Eve was using to try to pick the lock slipped from her grasp and skittered across the table again, "if you want to get away from me that badly, you could always chop off your hand."
"Or I could chop off yours," said Eve, exasperated. Another paper clip. They were going to have to order more at this rate. At least the concierge wouldn’t leer at them like he did when he’d handed over the lingerie.
Villanelle was quiet for a moment, then said, "It would be hard to do what I do with only one hand."
She was looking at her like she had when they were in bed together, like she had after Eve had dropped the axe and staggered away from Raymond's corpse. "I know. I would have thought you'd want the cuffs off, instead of--"
"I like being handcuffed to you," said Villanelle. Eve waited a beat, in case she was going to break out laughing and gloat about Eve actually believing her. "I told you. I like touching you. I like it when you touch me."
"Oh." Oh. "Is this about earlier--?"
"Is this about earlier," Villanelle mocked. She crossed her arms sullenly. "Did you really not know?"
Eve laid the paper clip on the table with a plink. And then more plinks, as it somehow fell off the table and bounced on the floor.
Villanelle didn't make any move to pick it up.
"Is that what you want?" Eve asked.
"No," said Villanelle, "what I want is for you to chop off my hand--"
Eve kissed her.
-
Eve awoke in the sticky hours of the early morning. She felt good. Tired, but good. A little guilty, but good. Raw and aching and not just where the handcuff had tugged at her wrist, but still good.
She rolled over in the giant bed to ask if Villanelle wanted to go for another round of sex and shower and snack. Eve almost knew from the second she began to move, when there was no by-now familiar pull on her arm. An empty cuff dangled next to the one still attached to her left wrist. And Villanelle was gone.
Eve searched the apartment as methodically as she could, but there wasn't any sign of Villanelle, any sign of a struggle, of anyone taking Villanelle. And since Eve would have heard something, she could only conclude that Villanelle was actually able to pick the handcuff locks. That she'd done so, and she'd left Eve after she'd gotten what she wanted from her.
It was not a great feeling.
Eve was in the kitchen when she heard footsteps in the hall. She grabbed a knife off the countertop and hightailed it back to the bedroom. She'd hide by the door and when the Twelve came in--because they would, she knew that now, knew that the "police" who'd arrested them weren't really police, or they'd have had a more secure car, more than one pair of handcuffs, and whatever the Italian equivalent of an APB was out for two foreign women--she'd rush them, she'd stab them, and she'd escape.
But then Eve heard the apartment door open and she knew it was Villanelle, because if the Twelve sent an assassin for them, she wouldn't come in humming a pop song. Eve stifled a groan and crawled into bed, knife handle still clutched in her right hand. Well, there went her resolve to not stab Villanelle again.
She shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep.
Villanelle tiptoed into the bedroom. She eased herself slowly down next to Eve, and, very gingerly, tried to sneak her hand back through the empty cuff.
Eve spun around and stabbed the bed a few inches from Villanelle's fingers.
Villanelle flailed back. "What the fuck?"
"No," said Eve, yanking the knife out. She backed up to the bedroom door and flipped on the light switch. "What the fuck is what I get to say. You just slip out in the middle of the night and oh my god, is that blood?"
"No," said Villanelle sulkily, folding her arms across her blood-splattered shirt. "It's ketchup. I had a craving for a Big Mac and fries."
It was blood. It was so much blood. "And what happened to your hand?" Eve asked. It was-- Wrong. Weird. Distressing. It looked like it hurt like hell and Eve wanted to reach out and hold it make Villanelle hurt less and she could not look at it right now.
"I dislocated my thumb so I could get it out of the cuffs."
"And you were going to, what, stick it back it and then pop it back into the socket? Can you please put that away, I really can't--why would you do that?"
Villanelle tucked her right hand under her armpit. "I told you. We were being followed. I had to take care of it without you because you don't like killing." And now she sounded really sulky. It was like the Prime week when Niko bought the Allman Brothers Band complete discography and took Eve's total lack of enthusiasm personally.
"Do you seriously have a problem with me not wanting to kill people?"
"No," said Villanelle, drawing out the vowel. Yes. "You said you wanted to know what it felt like but then you took out Raymond, who frankly deserved to be killed, and didn't like it, so I figured, fine, whatever, we can have fun doing other stuff."
Oh, so the murder thing was about sharing hobbies. Eve was somehow both pleased and depressed that she'd been right. "Okay," she said. "It's not like I don't appreciate you not dragging me into another murder spree, but why the fuck were you going to put your hand back into the cuff?"
"That's what you wanted," Villanelle said. And then, "Duh."
Eve was completely lost, and it must have shown.
"You think about me all the time, remember? You wonder what I'm doing? What I'm thinking? What it feels like when I kill someone? You said all of that!"
"Oh," said Eve. "Oh. I did." And Villanelle had listened. "I didn't make the connection." It wasn't just a "let me share my hobbies with you," it was a "let me give you this thing you told me you wanted right before you stabbed me in the stomach" situation. Eve felt touched. "Normally Niko just gives me ugly scarves."
"They are not ugly," said Villanelle. "But he is a garbage husband. You should dump him and run away with me to Alaska."
"Why Alaska?" Eve had really meant to challenge the rest of that statement, but the strange specificity of Alaska had derailed her. "Also, I don't need to be handcuffed to you to spend time with you. We spent time together in London."
"We were working and you were riding my ass," said Villanelle. "And not in the fun way. This, this was fun."
Eve hated to admit that it had been. Some of it had been. The food, the apartment, the sex definitely had been. Was she really about to upend her life because Villanelle was amazing in bed?
But no. She'd upended her life long before she'd known what Villanelle was like in bed. Eve remembered the cracked glass at the bus stop, the urge to shatter it completely. How necessary it had felt in the moment, how shaken she'd felt afterwards, as if waking up from a dream.
"We're not running off together," she told Villanelle. "Especially not to Alaska, and you still haven't told me why Alaska."
"Because it's cold and remote and full of bears, and I know cold and remote and full of bears," said Villanelle. "Maybe we could move to Canada instead. Maybe Quebec! Live in a tiny outbuilding with no heat. Have to huddle together for warmth every night. It definitely has its good points."
"It does not." If she and Villanelle were stuck in a tiny outbuilding they would probably murder each other for lack of anything more interesting to do. "Where would you get your clothes and your coffee and your fresh tomatoes? Where would I get my showers?"
Villanelle clapped her hands. "So you will run away with me!"
Eve wanted to say she could feel a headache building, but it didn't honestly sound all that bad. "I will go on vacation with you," she said. "Somewhere that's not Rome so the Twelve can't find us, but I am not moving to the tundra or anywhere else with bears. Pick a city."
"Stockholm," said Villanelle, way too fast.
When they settled into their seats on the train, Eve wasn't all that surprised to see Villanelle pull out one of those glossy Scandi noir novels, her eyes devouring the words on the page. Eve knew the actual murder statistics in Sweden and she smiled to herself, thinking that Villanelle was doomed to disappointment, and she preemptively reached out and entwined her fingers with those of Villanelle's free hand, and Villanelle looked up, and smiled back.