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Ava’s being stalked. At first it’s just a feeling, the steady pressure of being watched as she conducted her daily life, but she’s sure of it when she catches the same flash of blonde hair in her peripheral vision several times over the span of three days.
At first she could ignore it, pretend that a neon timer hadn’t started ticking down in her head the minute she’d caught a whiff of that weirdly smoky vanilla fragrance she’d grown used to before she was forced to run away.
Ava continues life as normal — in her blacked out room during the day, running her errands by night — except now she’s activating burner phones to make escape plans and flipping through forged IDs for one she’s sure won’t flag.
She keeps her ears sharp and her mind alert, tracing the impatient path that her old friend stalks around the perimeter. As long as she could still sense her, Ava knew she had nothing to be worried about.
Ava’s on borrowed time, but she doesn’t rush. She won’t let whatever shit’s about to hit the fan stop her from tidying everything up in her personal life.
She’s coming in from feeding the stray cats that had taken to yowling in her backyard when she hears the faint sound of her window sliding shut and a curse muttered under the intruder’s breath. Ava doesn’t kick into action. She starts washing the dishes as normal, her body falling into the routine even as every part of her screams at her to run, to press into the walls and hold her breath until she was no longer on her radar, then disappear into the wind like she’d become so good at in the years since she first left.
The pipes creak as Ava rinses her dishes and she hears the soft shuffle of footsteps, and then the creak of her kitchen door as it opens.
It never clicks shut.
“If you missed me, all you had to do was call,” Ava says, stepping aside just as a bullet goes whizzing past her ear.
She winces as it flies through the window, too obvious for her to cover up or lie about to the landlord.
When she turns, Yelena still has the gun aimed at her and her finger twitches on the trigger.
Every cell in her body wants to split right now.
“Get over yourself. I’m here in a professional capacity,” Yelena responds, but her finger never presses down on the trigger.
Ava lets her gaze drift up from Yelena’s hands to her face, and she wishes she hadn’t. She wishes she’d waited that split second longer, given herself time to prepare for what she knew would be the concern etched into her face. Her hair’s longer now, braided and pinned up the way she used to do for Ava when they had a quiet afternoon together.
Just like it does every time Ava dares to remember that quiet, almost happy time in her life, her body sags under the weight of her longing.
Yelena still does her eyeliner the same, and despite herself, Ava smiles at the bright blue that’s haunted her thoughts for the past few years.
“Stop reminiscing, I’m serious, I’m here to kill you,” Yelena reprimands, even as her lips twitch into a reluctant smile and the tension rolls off her shoulders.
“Then do it,” Ava says, holding her arms out.
Ava’s barely finished, when she feels the burn of silver on her skin, and she thanks the stars that her body hasn’t forgotten what she apparently has as she feels herself come undone and her heart becomes intangible just in time for the bullet to whizz through what’s left of Ava and come out the other side.
“You’re still unkillable, good,” Yelena muses, holstering her gun and placing a hand on her hip.
“You could have just asked me,” Ava yells as she comes back together, leaning on the sink. “Don’t just shoot me.”
“Well I don’t think anyone else will be as kind,” Yelena says.
“No one else can get as close, you know that.”
Ava’s still flickering, and Yelena worries she’s done lasting damage when Ava finally exhales.
“And I don’t think anyone else has one of those.”
Ava nods at the mini pulse emitter fixed to Yelena’s utility belt, gritting her teeth reflexively.
Annoyance flickers across Yelena’s face as she covers it with her hand.
“Ava this is serious. Valentina upped the bounty,” she explains. “People are getting smarter, teaming up.”
Any professionalism Yelena had drops away as she strides across the kitchen and captures Ava’s hands in hers.
“She’s wasting her time. Like you said, I’m still unkillable,” Ava reminds her, fighting the urge to pull her into a hug. “She’ll be bringing me dinner. I should send her a basket.”
“You’re not funny, Ava.”
“Not being funny. You need to stop worrying about me. I’ll be fine.”
Ava catches the sounds of people outside. People taking their pets out for walks mostly, nothing to be alarmed about just yet.
“Besides, I don’t think Val is actually trying to kill me. Scare me back into her service? Sure. Kill? Not likely.”
She’d been doing this dance for years. Phone calls, vaguely threatening emails, sometimes even outright pleas from Val or whichever poor soul she’d decided to use as a vessel for her messages instead. Each time Ava would pack up and disappear, clean up her trail and lie in wait before she was uncovered again. It’s hard given the trail of bodies she leaves in her wake, but as much as she might want to, Ava can’t tamp down the urge to feed.
If it’s not the painful, persistent aching in her throat it’s the way her disequilibrium worsens. She’s moving through everything, trying to fight against the pain as her teeth sharpened and elongated at random.
Meals were non negotiable, and it’s the one point of irritation for Ava. She’d only turned because she’d been promised that the venom would be a cure.
“I haven’t seen a malady my venom hasn’t cured yet,” Val had promised with her fangs at Ava’s neck and a hand cupping her face that Ava had mistaken for comforting.
Three pain-filled days later and Val had herself the perfect weapon. Supernatural senses and Ava’s intangibility. Valentina’s perfect tool as she gathered acolytes and cemented her place in the world.
She still tore herself apart on a regular basis, the only difference was that immortality turned her death sentence into an eternity of torture instead.
This strength had its costs, and for Ava it was the feeding. Heavy feeds. Frequent feeds. Running the risk of enduring the pain that she’d risked everything to run from before falling into this hellish trap if she didn’t feed fast enough.
That’s how Yelena had got her.
The day they met Ava had already been deemed a traitor by Val for her desertion. She’d been on the run for less than a year, laying low in small rural town in the north of England. The population was small, and Ava fit in just enough that no one was too interested in digging too far into her history. She made sure to appear friendly, contribute, force herself out on the most overcast days of the year so no one questioned her lifestyle.
Yelena had starved her out. She’d made hunting so impossible for Ava, first by scaring off the sheep, then the cattle, and — when Ava’s hunger had begun to demand something more to make up for the lack — she’d found a way to keep stragglers off the streets at night.
Ava had been delirious, constantly glitching between this world and another less tangible one when Yelena had practically presented herself on a platter for her. She’d knocked on Ava’s door during a storm, begged for refuge because no one else would let her him. Hunger and pain and something about Yelena’s eyes — soft and pleading — had made Ava stupid.
She saw the easiest dinner of life. Yelena saw the easiest bounty she’d ever complete.
Neither of them were quite right.
Ava laughs at the memory, at the way she’d waited so patiently for Yelena to fall asleep. How she’d watched the slow rise and fall of her chest. She remembers regretting doing it this way. She’d wanted to at least see her eyes before she drained her, but she was weak, and couldn’t risk the first real feeding opportunity she’d had in weeks get away.
Yelena had had the barrel of her gun pressed against Ava’s chest before Ava could break skin.
Ava laughs before she can stop herself as she thinks of that night.
“I told you this isn’t funny,” Yelena snaps.
“I’m not laughing at this. Remember the night we met?” Ava asks, her thumbs on the back of Yelena’s hands.
“You got lucky your body wants to remain alive even when your brain is goo,” Yelena laughs. “Seriously Ava. No food for a couple of days and you go loopy at the first woman to at her eyelashes at you?”
Yelena’s tone turns slightly more serious.
“I hope you’ve kicked that habit.”
“It happened once, and it hasn’t happened since,” Ava reminds her. “And you were messing up my hunting patterns for weeks not days. I was practically hollow.”
Ava takes Yelena’s face in her hands, letting her thumb press into her cheek. She misses the warmth of being with Yelena. The consistent cuddles she swore she’d get sick of. The way Yelena had pushed her out of her comfort zone. The lazy moments between Yelena’s jobs where she’d sit in the darkest room they had with Ava while she braided Ava’s hair by feel alone. She misses her laugh, and the way she’d try to stay awake even when she was running on fumes just so she could get another minute with Ava.
“Come back, Ava. We can protect you. I can protect you. You don’t have to keep running alone,” Yelena sighs, closing her eyes as she leans in to Ava’s touch.
It’s tempting. Ava’s tired of her life alone. She wants to be back in that warmth, wrapped up in Yelena even when things got to be a little too much, but she knows the risks.
“Yelena…”
“I know, but I thought I’d try,” she smiles sadly, turning to press a kiss into Ava’s palm.
Ava wants to stay like this, just a little bit longer, but if Yelena had found her, it meant others would be on their way soon and it was best if she wasn’t around when they got here.
“Yelena,” she starts, but Yelena is already peeling away from her and Ava frowns at the loss of warmth.
“I know already” she snaps, turning her back to Ava. “Go Ava Starr. Make sure you stay alive.”
“Stay safe Yelena,” she says as she glides past her so she can at least get her bag. “Tell Bob and Walker I said hi.”
She wants to say she’ll see them soon, but Ava doesn’t know if that’s a promise she can make her and she won’t get their hopes up.