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Nøkk moved silently through the villa. Boots barely brushing the dusty tiles. Intel said the target had passed through this wing an hour earlier. Which hopefully meant they were far enough away to not be a pain in her ass.
Then she heard it.
A faint scrape of stone.
Too deliberate to be settling debris.
She froze, and so did the sound.
For a moment, the hallway seemed to hold its breath with her.
Then—click.
Nøkk spun just in time to see a flicker of motion behind her. A shadow dropped down from over the banister on the stairs with a less-than-feline grace and absolutely none of the sound discipline she expected.
“Você faz muito barulho pra uma fantasma,” Caveira murmured, smile already visible before she finished straightening up.
Nøkk narrowed her eyes under the shroud. She assumed whatever it was Caveira said couldn’t have been a compliment.
“You nearly broke that loose tile,” she whispered back. “If anyone else were here, they’d have heard you.”
Caveira rolled her eyes in jest. “Please. If I wanted them to hear, they’d hear. If I didn’t, they wouldn’t.”
“You stepped on it.”
“I chose to step on it.”
Nøkk let out the softest exhale of disbelief. “…Right.”
Caveira crossed her arms. “And what about you? All that tiptoeing is cute and all, but you keep brushing against every wall you pass.”
“That was one time.”
“That was three times. I counted.”
Nøkk bristled. Just a little. Enough for Caveira’s grin to widen. Caveira seemed to like getting a reaction out of her teammate.
“…You shouldn’t be behind me.”
Caveira tilted her head. “Should I not?”
“You know what I mean.” Nøkk kept her voice low, steady. “Your quarry is ahead. Mine is ahead. So why are you on my trail and not theirs?”
Caveira’s shoulders lifted in an unapologetic shrug. “Maybe I got bored.”
Nøkk gave her a look. She wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. She adjusted her grip on her gun, forcing her attention back down the hallway.
“Relax,” Caveira murmured. “You’re wound tighter than a tripwire.”
“Hard not to be,” Nøkk muttered, “when someone keeps inserting themself into my flank.”
“That where you want me?” Caveira teased.
Nøkk didn’t dignify that either.
Instead, she moved forward again. Quiet. Controlled. She didn’t hear Caveira follow, but she felt her, like a pressure shift in the air.
Irritating.
Distracting.
Unacceptable.
“Stop following me,” Nøkk whispered without turning.
“Make me.”
Nøkk stopped dead. Her composure finally cracking. She let out a soft grunt of annoyance. “You are going to compromise this op.”
Caveira gave a feigned gasp. “Me? You’re the one stopping in the middle of the killzone to scold me.”
“Because you’re being—”
“What?” Caveira stepped into her space. “What am I being?”
“A liability.”
“A liability?” Caveira echoed, offended in the least believable way possible. “You wound me.”
“You’ll live,” Nøkk hissed.
Caveira’s eyes glinted. “Maybe I won’t.”
Before Nøkk could parse that, Caveira flicked a hand up and tapped her shroud hood. Not hard. More like an audacious poke.
Nøkk slapped her hand away.
It should have ended there.
It did not end there.
Caveira immediately slapped back in a light, taunting manner. Fingertips snapping against Nøkk’s arm.
Nøkk glared and swatted again. This time a little harder. Caveira made a delighted, undignified noise.
Then they were both doing it. Nearly wrestling each other on the ground.
“Stop—” smack.
“You stop.” smack-smack.
“You’re impossible—”
“You like it.”
They were mid–raised-hand, both of them frozen in the process of landing another perfectly useless hit, when a large shadow loomed over them.
“…Mes amis?”
Both turned.
Montagne stood in the hallway, shield held up. He blinked once. Twice.
“Are… are you two…” He paused and made a vague gesture. “…busy?”
Neither answered.
He cleared his throat delicately. “Because the enemy is dead already. All of them.”
Silence.
Caveira slowly dropped her hand.
Montagne looked between them again, baffled but trying to be supportive in the way only he could manage.
“Are we… good?”
Caveira nodded brightly. “Ótimo.”
Nøkk muttered, “Fine.”
Montagne gave them a long, tired look. The look of a man who had, tragically, not been paid enough to parent two extremely lethal children.
“…Très bien,” he sighed. “Let’s extract before you two decide to start hitting me.”
Caveira snorted. Nøkk pretended she didn’t.