Chapter Text
The clock on Kara’s bedroom wall ticked 3am. She glared at it as if the poor object was to blame for her lying awake at this ungodly hour.
There was a knock on her door. Then another. Then another. A beat of silence followed, broken by banging on her door, aggressive, desperate banging. Kara couldn’t ignore it any longer. She sat up in bed and slid on her pink fuzzy slippers, stood up, stretched, and pulled on a morning robe. Sluggish, she made her way to the door. The banging continued as Kara knocked over a mug she’d left on the floor, as she looked through the peephole and concluded only when Kara opened the door, with Lena nearly falling into her arms.
Lena’s eyes were vacant, she looked detached, as if staring into the abyss, entirely unfazed. She had blood running down her face, dripping onto her neck, splatters covered her whole chest and abdomen. She was coated in it.
“Can I have a drink?” she asked, radically calm.
Kara, dumbfounded and eyes wide, couldn’t do anything but nod and step out of the way. Lena walked inside, dropping her bag on the floor and making her way to the dining table.
“It’s dark in here,” she said.
Kara turned on the lights. She carefully approached the dining table, as if there was a landmine hidden somewhere under the floorboards. Opening the cupboard, she finally spoke up, stuttering on her first word.
“I, uh, I don’t have the right glass.”
“Oh, it’s fine. That works,” Lena said as Kara took a mug from the cupboard.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have much, just this,” Kara said sheepishly, getting a bottle from the cabinet next to the fridge and demonstrating the label to Lena.
“Decent taste,” Lena commented. Kara didn’t bother to tell her the bottle had been a gift and had remained unopened up until this point. She poured the whiskey into the mug and handed it to Lena who immediately took a hearty sip.
The room got quiet for a moment as Lena drank and Kara stared at her. Noticing the panic in Kara’s eyes, Lena drew in a heavy breath, her eyebrows lifting ever so slightly.
“Oh, this. I should probably explain. Long or short version?” she asked.
“Are you hurt?” Kara asked under her breath in response.
“No. Well, here and there but most of it’s not mine.”
“Then whose?”
“Long story. Sit down.”
Kara did as she was told.
“I need your help,” Lena continued, “with a delicate matter,” suddenly, her eyes sharpened, as though she’d been underwater and had swum to the top, “This doesn’t mean I trust you,” she lifted her index finger by an inch to point at Kara, her eyes clear but bitter, “but I don’t trust anyone, and you’re my best bet,” her eyes glazed over again after that, her finger dropped down and she looked all-together number than ever.
“Anything,” Kara breathed.
Her mind was racing. If it wasn’t Lena’s blood, whose was it? There had to be a rational explanation for it. It couldn’t be that she’d…. Or could it? Could it be that Lena, her best friend, had killed someone? And if she had, what the hell was she doing in her apartment? Was that a cut she saw on her forehead?
“You are hurt,” she observed, pointing to the cut and noticing the bruises disguised by blood on her neck a moment later, “let me clean you up.”
Before Lena could object, Kara had already disappeared into another room, returning with a first aid kit. She laid everything out on the table, washed her hands, and, spraying antiseptic on a piece of cotton, said, “Tell me everything.”
Lena winced as Kara touched the cotton to the cut.
“Just my quarterly assassination attempt. You know I have a lot of enemies. I’m walking through one of my storage facilities and the next thing I know, there’s a bullet scraping my cheek.”
“What?” Kara yelled. Lena shushed her, careful not to wake anyone at such a late hour, knowing the walls were thin, but didn’t say anything for a while. The events of the evening played back in front of her eyes.
Lena stepped out of the executive office, rolling her head back to ease her sore neck, more than eager to go home and get to sleep. Her heels clicked on the marble flooring as she made her way through the building. As she rounded the corridor, her ankle buckled and she nearly tripped.
She fell back just enough to miss the bullet perfectly aimed for her head. Her eyes flashed open and all thoughts of sleep deserted her mind.
She ducked instinctively, dropped all her belongings and sought cover. Vulnerable and unarmed, she retreated behind the corner of the hallway. There, she was presented with three different dead ends: the office, the conference room, and the warehouse area. Deciding jumping from a fourth-floor window wouldn’t be worth a shot, she chose the warehouse, the door to which was about two feet from her and made of steel. She decided to shoot her shot and made a run for it, swiping the key card hanging from her neck to unlock it and pulling it open with all the force in her body.
She managed to slip behind it, allowing it to close with a thud behind her. Considering herself safe for a second, she pressed her back against the door and slid down to the floor, sighing.
Once she’d caught her breath, she heard footsteps in the hallway. She kicked off her heels, for convenience and to muffle the sound of her steps, and made a run for it. The warehouse was a vast maze of high shelves full of carefully labelled boxes, not at all the worst place to hide, but the only exit was the one she’d come in through.
She slid behind a set of shelves and patted herself down, as if hoping to find a gun holster that’d magically appeared on her thigh as she was running. Of course, she found no such thing. She had to arm herself somehow. There had to be something in one of those boxes that’d have to do, she just didn’t know where to start looking.
The door hadn’t creaked open yet, if nothing else, that much was good. Lena thought herself quite well-hidden by the shelves but she couldn’t hide forever, the warehouse remained a dead end. She turned to the boxes and looked for labels, determining most useless immediately.
“Shit,” she breathed.
Spare machine parts upon spare machine parts but nothing even slightly resembling a weapon anywhere in sight. Just as she was about to admit defeat, she spotted something on a shelf a few feet away. Not a box but a bottle of water, in all likelihood, left there by a forgetful employee that would be looking at a promotion if Lena made it out of there alive. A glass bottle.
She leapt to it, grabbed it from the shelf and struck it against the metal of the shelf without any forethought. It shattered upon impact, the shards falling to the ground with a clatter, the biggest piece remaining in her hand, now sharp as a knife. At the exact same time as the glass clattered to the ground, the door swung open and thudded shut.
Lena heard steps, determined, angry steps, coming her way. What was she thinking, going against a gunman with a broken bottle? It was the best chance she’d got. She backed up from the glass shards on the floor, afraid she’d step on one and doom herself that way, careful not to make any noise.
The steps sped up but changed direction, now moving away from Lena. She made herself as flat as possible against the nearest shelf, minimizing her visibility. She tried to peer out but saw nothing quite yet. It was agonizing, the waiting. She was shaking, so hard she feared the assassin might find her by the sound of it alone. Then, she saw him- not him, his shadow- and the shivering stopped. Her hand gripped the bottle tighter.
He was coming her way again. She didn’t have much of a battle plan, her best shot was to catch him by surprise. When out-powered, outsmart. Any second now.
He passed Lena’s shelf. She ducked. He missed her, just for a second, but a second was enough. She delivered a strategic kick to the shins, so he buckled, and leapt, gripping him by the shoulders, then establishing a firm chokehold and wrapping her legs around his torso so his arms stayed down. The kick didn’t take him down. He was a big, bulky man, and strong. First, he tried to lift his gun-wielding arm, then, he twisted his hand upward but lacked the aim to shoot.
Lena dragged the sharp edges of the bottle across his chest, with enough pressure to hurt but not enough to kill. He screamed, then broke free of her grip with a fierce grunt, his arms detaching hers with force, striking her legs so hard they faltered. Lena flew to the ground but not before firmly gripping what appeared to be a knife in his holster. As she fell to the floor and got the air knocked out of her, the knife came with her.
Before he could even aim his weapon at her, she sliced his calf from the ground. He fell to his knees as she crawled towards him, getting back on her feet, swift as a viper. She grabbed the pistol from his hand; he refused to surrender it. She tugged harder, grunting, her eyes aflame. His free hand went for Lena’s throat and she gasped for air in desperation. Her lips turned blue and her grip loosened but she managed to deliver a blow to his throat with her elbow before the lights went out. He fell back, but only for a moment, enough for Lena to catch a breath and claim the gun.
He struck her in the face, and her grip faltered again. The pistol dropped to the floor. He went to take it but Lena kicked it away before he could. It slid across the smooth flooring far out of reach. He struck her again, a hook strong enough to grind Lena’s teeth together, her lip stuck between them.
She tasted blood. As though just remembering she had it, she raised the knife in her hand. It was a threat, nothing more. But he, as though seeing through her intentions, pushed her to the ground. He stepped his heavy foot on one of her arms and pinned her to the ground, his other leg remaining on its knee. He had chosen the wrong arm, leaving the knife-wielding one free for a second too long.
As he descended upon her, his breath abrasive against her skin, his arm reaching to pin down her free arm, she pulled it away in a swift motion and plunged it.
It slid smoothly into his ribcage, and came out just the same. Blood trickled over her lips as a river winds across hills and valleys. She didn’t part them, still, she tasted iron. He didn’t go limp all at once. Afraid he’d fall on her, Lena rolled them over so she was straddling the man, still breathing, anger still burning in his eyes. She felt his muscles tense under her and struck him again, with more force this time, unthinking. Again, she tore the knife out, and again she stabbed it into his chest. She repeated the motion until the life faded from his eyes, until she could no longer hear his ragged breathing, until there was blood flowing from his throat with a terrible, gurgling noise. Even then, she didn’t stop.
The knife came in and out of his chest and his throat, slicing through flesh with disgusting ease. He was bulky and rugged and rough but his flesh was as soft to pierce as any. She stopped only when she finally felt some resemblance of safety, or when she was too exhausted to continue, whichever came first. She let the knife slide away from her and collapsed on top of him, out of breath, her eyes clouded over, her lip still bloodied.
She didn’t know how long she lay there. All she knew, when she got up, was where she must go. So, she went.