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Brooklynn had never intended to let it go so far.
She had never intended to kill for the Broker.
And yet, here she found herself, weeks after that first kill, still scrubbing at the blood beneath her fingernails, dotting her palm, trying not to think about the letter she had received earlier that day.
Word had, apparently, gotten out that the Broker had a human watchdog, and the Nublar Six- Five- wanted answers. Brooklynn was only surprised that it had taken them so long. She wondered who it was who had first set pen to paper, resolving to bring their questions to light. Who it was among them that had been fool enough to send them along. Brooklynn was only glad that they had had enough sense to be discrete, to write nothing out in plain words.
Brooklynn scrubbed at her hand harder.
From somewhere behind her, Brooklynn heard the disappointed click of a tongue. Her hand fell limp against the inside of the sink, imagining she could see the still-flowing water turning pink around her fingers. The only thing that was pink was her own skin, rubbed raw.
"You'll crack your skin open," Soyona told her warningly, and Brooklynn heard the smile in it. Soyona had hardly stopped smiling since Brooklynn had driven her dagger into that vampire. What was his name? It began with an S, she was sure. It used to, anyhow, until she turned that blade upon him and bled his bloody life out of him. Now he was nothing. "And I need you in perfect health, Brooklynn."
Soyona's hand, smooth and steady and sure, reached around Brooklynn and turned off the tap. Water still dripped from her skin like blood. Soyona did not move, bracketing Brooklynn against the sink, and Brooklynn decided to close her eyes against their reflections in the mirror above the sink. Soyona had come far too close to her as it was, soft currents of her breath drifting over the skin of Brooklynn's neck. Brooklynn thought of how easy it would be for Soyona, right then, to sink herself into Brooklynn and drink.
We got word of your employment by the Broker, the letter had read. Darius said he didn't believe it, but I do. Ben appeared to have penned the letter, this final draft of it at the very least. Kenji's worried, of course, and so is Sammy, but hey, Yaz and I know what you're made of. Honestly, we're all pretty impressed. The Broker's bodyguard? As a human? How did you even manage that? Anyways, we're all really glad to find out you're alright. We kinda freaked out these past few months with you gone MIA. We'd love it if you'd write back when you can but don't let us keep you from your duties!
"Is your friends' letter worrying you?" Soyona murmured far too close to Brooklynn, her hand still on the tap, circling around her waist but never quite touching.
Brooklynn opened her mouth, then closed it. "They're not my friends," she said, managing to keep any wavers out of her voice. She itched to turn the tap back on. Soyona reached out to the side for the towel and gently, far too gently, began to pat Brooklynn's hand and arms dry.
"No?" Soyona said absently, cold eyes flicking up to her momentarily, glimmers of mirth dancing within them. "Hm. What would you call them, then?"
Brooklynn's mind scrambled for a response, and came up painfully blank, and Soyona's fingers brushed against the back of her hand, long nails scratching lightly. Brooklynn wished, with a fierce intensity, that Soyona would claw right through her, down to her wrist, and yank her skin away from her, feed from what was left of her. Soyona did no such thing. "I don't want to talk about it," she said at last, looking up at the mirror and meeting Soyona's reflected eyes.
"Hm," Soyona said, one shoulder lifting in an elegant shrug. "Suit yourself, Brooklynn. Suit yourself. Will you not be writing back, then?"
Brooklynn held her breath, only barely holding back an acrid mockery of a smile. It would be too much to hope for, for the Broker to not have read the letter before her. Or it may simply have been an innocent question, but Brooklynn had a feeling it was not. Soyona was warm at Brooklynn's back. "Maybe. Maybe not. I should probably let them know I'm alive."
Soyona raised one eyebrow. "I feel, somehow, that they do not require assistance on that front, but if that is the excuse you wish to use…" Soyona set aside the towel and landed her hands on Brooklynn's shoulders. Brooklynn wondered if this was it, this was the moment that Soyona would clasp her close and lean down and bite. Brooklynn wandered along this line of thought far more often than she should. "Who am I to stop you?"
Soyona stayed there, a moment too long and a breath too close, then leaned forward, mouth closed. Her eyes never left Brooklynn's in the mirror. Her breath ghosted over her as she opened her mouth, and Brooklynn told herself to stop thinking of broken skin and sharp teeth before she could formulate the thought. "Really, Brooklynn," Soyona was saying over the roar in Brooklynn's ears. "I think you should write back to them."
Brooklynn's mouth was dry. "Yeah," she said, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. "Maybe."
Soyona gave her one last lingering stare through the mirror, heavy and dark, before breaking away to Brooklynn's room. Brooklynn bravely pretended not to have sagged against the sink like a puppet with its strings snapped.
"You know," Soyona began, apparently in an unusually talkative mood, "I really do appreciate what you did for me the other day. I… confess to having had my doubts before, but- well." Brooklynn could feel Soyona's eyes on her, and she saw the shadow of her head turn in the mirror. She did not turn to meet her stare. "You're no killer. And yet."
Brooklynn felt a laugh choke its way out of her, a simple coarse breath. Her reflection was a raw thing. "And yet," she agreed, looking down at her hand again. It was dry now, the skin between her fingers nearly cracking, as Soyona had warned it would. Brooklynn wished, suddenly, that it would. That it would crack open, her skin, peeling away to reveal what was beneath, monstrous and true and bloody. That her blood would run down her hands in rivulets and cleanse her of his blood. She couldn't even remember his name. "I don't seem to be handling it very well, do I?"
Soyona sighed, and she stepped into the bathroom again, and Brooklynn jolted when Soyona's fingers closed around her upper arm, tugging at her, tugging her away and out, the mirror melting away into the corner of her vision. "That was your first kill, Brooklynn. They do not tend to be easy. It was impressive, your presence of mind. And-" the Broker hesitated, her other hand half-raised, and then settled it lightly on Brooklynn's cheek, nearly gentle with how she cupped her face, except for the nails a stark reminder right beneath Brooklynn's ear, that tender spot of skin. "Well. You've earned my trust, Brooklynn."
Brooklynn felt a wry smile twisting, ugly, at the corner of her lips, and her heart was thundering, and she wondered how her pulse sounded to Soyona. "Because I dedicated my first kill to you?"
Soyona laughed, hand falling away from Brooklynn's face, and her nails left burning trails in their wake, skimming across her skin. "In a manner of speaking, yes." She hesitated once more, and it was so uncharacteristic of her that Brooklynn felt something akin to fear, but not quite, making itself at home in the flutter of her lungs. "I'd like to show you something."
Brooklynn considered her, momentarily forgetting the crimson stain on her hand. "Show me what?"
Soyona offered her a cool smile, one that touched the corners of her eyes gently, that lifted her lips into a slow curve. "Follow me, and you'll see."
Soyona did not linger another moment longer; she spun on her heel, letting go of Brooklynn with easy carelessness, a flick of a beckoning hand over her shoulder the only indication that she cared for Brooklynn's presence anymore. Brooklynn, somewhat bewildered and very intrigued, followed.
Soyona took her down a corridor she had never been through before, which was saying something, since Brooklynn had made it a point to explore as thoroughly as she could. Not, evidently, thoroughly enough. It was a dark corridor, even in the early shimmer of afternoon, hardly any windows around to let in the sun, and the candles were feeble little things that cast larger shadows than they did patches of light.
"I've never been down here," Brooklynn said after a spell of silence.
"I'd expect not," the Broker said, then threw her a playful look over her shoulder, her lips slanted to a side. "Unless, of course, you've been sneaking around behind my back."
Brooklynn laughed her words off. "And here I thought you trusted me now."
Soyona turned back again, and that playful smile was still on her lips. "I can never be too careful, Brooklynn. You understand."
It wasn't long until Soyona led her down a lengthy flight of steps, the light so dim it was nearly black, and, at some point, Soyona's hand had reached out behind her and clasped Brooklynn's. Her palm was cold against Brooklynn, but Brooklynn felt it like a scorchmark, tingling at her fingertips, an icy burn.
"Careful here," Soyona said, her voice echoing slightly. "Watch your step and stay near to the wall."
"This where you bring people to kill them?" Brooklynn muttered, intending it jokingly, but Soyona's considering hum made her take a mental pause.
"That has happened on occasion," Soyona confessed airily, "but it was unplanned."
Brooklynn pretended away the shiver down her spine.
At last, Brooklynn's shoe hit the last step, and light, though still sparse, was visible, casting flames of clarity and obscurity across the basement- dungeon?- floors.
"Oh," Brooklynn murmured to herself. "Well, this is certainly a surprise," she said, though really, it shouldn't have been. This was the Broker, after all.
Soyona huffed a laugh, throwing her what could have been a slightly pitying look. "Is it?"
"No," Brooklynn said truthfully. "Why are we down here? Unless you've changed your mind and do want to kill me, after a- oh."
"I would have had to tell you eventually," the Broker was saying, conversationally, casually, but Brooklynn heard nothing, nothing at all, nothing beyond the blank roar in her head, white and blinding and mind-stopping. "See," she continued, underwater, with a voice of warbling jelly, "she'll be at an event I'd like for you to attend with me, and I thought I'd… familiarise you beforehand."
"Oh," was all Brooklynn managed in reply, her arm burning a searing bright phantom pain, her chest heavy and thick and clogged. Breathing was difficult, a laboured task, one that took all the presence of mind that she could summon, in and out, in and out, up and down, up and down, up-
A pair of weights landed themselves heavily on Brooklynn's shoulders and turned her sharply so the Broker swam into her field of vision, bearing down on her with the weight of her sharp gaze.
"Brooklynn," she said, slowly, enunciating each syllable of her name. "Brooklynn, look at me."
Brooklynn did.
Soyona looked down at her, eyes cold and dark and calm, her face set into an expression of complete serenity, and, as Brooklynn watched, she breathed in a deep and large breath, her shoulders lifting with it, and then she let it fall from her parted lips. Again, she repeated this, and it took Brooklynn a couple of seconds staring, trance-like, at her before she copied, her heart and mind slowing in tandem.
"That was quite adverse reaction," Soyona noted once Brooklynn had calmed.
Brooklynn winced. "Sorry. I- it's. It caught me off-guard. I've not-" She risked a glance to her side, a quick one, but Soyona stopped her with a steady light touch of her fingertips to Brooklynn's jaw- "encountered one since. Since. Well." She looked down at her arm.
Soyona nodded, slow, her gaze unwavering. "All the more reason to expose you to her, then. She will not be the only one at the banquet."
"Popular pet?" Brooklynn asked weakly, straightening already, Soyona's fingers falling away from her skin like a sigh.
Soyona made a vague noise, neither agreement nor disagreement, swaying as she did so, and said, "Popular show of power."
Brooklynn could believe it, as she turned slowly, slowly, steeling herself and her lungs and her heart against the sight before her.
It was laughable, really, how quick her body was to scream danger at her, blaring, for a creature that was hardly as tall as she was, one behind iron bars at that, but this was a response Brooklynn found she had little control over. It was hard not to, what with the glistening crimson scales, covering its body like a coat of blood-soaked armour, the curled claws, sharp and cruel and wicked, curved like scimitars, the thrashing tail, barbed and heavy and possessed of bone-shattering strength, the webbed wings, stretched and awful and leathery, the jaws, the teeth within, large as Brooklynn's palm and sharper even, she imagined, than Soyona's fangs, daggers of ivory within its maws. And then, of course, there were the eyes. The eyes. A striking deep yellow, or gold, peering at her with unsettling intelligence and worse insatiable bloodthirst, darting over her, consuming her with sight alone, and Brooklynn watched the dragon flick its eyes to Soyona briefly, almost pleadingly.
"There you go," Soyona said to her, softly, and she was right behind Brooklynn now, her entire body pressed tight to Brooklynn's back, and Brooklynn could feel every spot of emanating warmth from her, feel the air she breathed, feel the rise and fall of Soyona's chest as she breathed. "You're doing so much better already."
"How…" Brooklynn lost her voice, cleared her throat, and then tried again. "How do you keep control of… it?"
"Her name is Red," Soyona told her, and Brooklynn could swear that her hair brushed against Brooklynn's cheek, that her face was close enough that she could turn ever-so-slightly and feel it against her own. "And that's easy. With this."
It was with fluid ease that Soyona slid a tiny golden slab, flat and rectangular, out of the band around her wrist, a mere flick of her wrist and extension of her fingers, right in front of Brooklynn.
"Watch," Soyona said as though Brooklynn could possibly do anything else. Their shoulders pressed into each other as Soyona reached her arm out and, with one subtle press of her thumb, a red dot appeared behind the dragon in its spacious cell, and the dragon, unerringly, snapped its head back to fixate its stare upon that point with such singular focus that Brooklynn felt her palms begin to sweat again. But all it did was stare.
And then Soyona pressed down once more.
The red light turned green and the tame beast turned feral.
It was as though it could heardly recognise the spot to merely be a wall, the way it thrashed its tail and gnashed its teeth and clawed viciously at the stone, pupils drawn so narrow its eyes might as well have been yellow.
"Oh," Brooklynn breathed out, her heart oddly light in her chest. "Oh."
Soyona's laugh shivered through her, puffs of air against Brooklynn's throat. "Yes," she agreed, and her chin came to rest on Brooklynn's shoulder, head leaned against Brooklynn's. Brooklynn felt herself seize up, her only saving grace the fact that Soyona was taller than her, meaning she was no longer pressed up against her. The thudding of her heart could only partially be attributed to the dragon now, the ravaging dragon that Soyona seemed content to simply watch.
"There's another button," Brooklynn said after a transfixed eternity of watching the mad dragon.
Brooklynn couldn't see it, terrified- yes, terrified- as she was to turn her head, but she knew a smile had broken out upon Soyona's face. "So there is. Well spotted."
"What does it do?"
Soyona gave her a considering hum, before switching off the laser. The dragon- Red, was it?- backed down nearly immediately, taking careful steps back, something confused and lost in the tilt of its head. Soyona then, instead, pointed the red dot down, below, to the side of Red's claws, and Red watched it with tight rapture. "Here," Soyona murmured, as she pressed down.
The light turned blue.
Red, unhesitatingly, curled itself around the area of the dot, wings spreading out like a shield, tail thudding ominously to the side, a steady rhythmic beat. Red's eyes were clear as it looked up at them, braced around the tiny dot of blue.
"That one protects," Soyona said. "I've not had much use for it, really, but you never know. It's been a useful enough asset, when the time calls for it."
Soyona lifted herself from Brooklynn now, her languid body unfurling into her elegant height, and she spun Brooklynn briefly to make her look at her, the chill of her eyes, the bow of her lips, the easy assurance in her smile.
"See?" Soyona said, and her smile widened, her lips a rosy sort of hue. "You'll be perfect at the banquet. Nothing will go wrong. I'll make sure of it, this time."
Brooklynn allowed herself a moment to breathe Soyona in, the faintly floral scent of her perfume and the neatly piled hair and the immaculately fine clothes and the hauty tilt of arrogance in her every move. Brooklynn's eyes darted to Soyona's hand, the remote, and back. She echoed Soyona's smile.
"Thank you," she said, soft, "Soyona."