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“Do y’all have any chipped ham?”
The woman once known as Asha Greyjoy looks towards the deli counter, ceasing the endless motion of the slicer, a pile of turkey beside it. She isn’t supposed to do customer service per the deli manager’s instructions after the last “incident,” but once again her idiot coworker – a guy named Zach with questionable hygiene and a bad case of meth mouth – has disappeared.
“Sure. How much do you want?”
“A pound and a half.”
Asha grits her teeth and tries to smile. “Coming right up, ma’am.”
As she grasps a hand of ham and puts it on the scale, the woman squints to look at her nametag. “Yara? What kind of name is that?”
“My name.”
“You a foreigner?”
“Only in so much as Kentucky is a foreign country.” At the woman’s confused expression, Asha sighs and says, “I’m from Oregon.”
The customer frowns as Asha passes her the ham, and Asha wonders if this is going to lead to another complaint against her. If she gets fired from another job here, she’s going to tell Agent Yoren to move them. Of course, she already suspects that their placement in Podunk, Kentucky, is punishment for what happened in New Mexico. Apparently in civilian life when your boss sexually harasses you, you’re supposed to report him to HR, not break his arm, shatter his nose, and render him infertile.
It was for the best anyway. Theon didn’t do well in the desert, and Jeyne refused to go outside. At least Kentucky has bodies of water and trees. It isn’t Boston by a long shot and it still makes her want to commit mass homicide every time she can’t find an open store on a Sunday, but at least Theon and Jeyne seem to have found some sort of peace here.
Ripping off her plastic gloves and depositing them into the large, rank smelling trashcan, Asha hopes she doesn’t end up working at the chicken processing plant Yoren threatened her with when she tried to say no to the grocery store.
It’s been two years since she accepted the offer of WITSEC and every minute of it has been torture for her. She’d been offered it a half-dozen times in her life; the first time had been after her older brothers were killed and Balon sent away for a three-year stretch. The government came to Alannys then and offered to relocate her, Asha, and Theon if she’d agree to provide information about what happened to Victarion’s third wife. Even starting her descent into crippling depression, Alannys had enough strength to refuse. Of course, she’s spent the past twenty years drifting in and out of psychiatric wards ever since so maybe it wasn’t the right choice after all.
Theon went with Ned Stark not long after their dad went up, part of an agreement Balon made to keep control of Pyke and its fleet. By the time Balon made parole, it had already fallen to Asha to keep everything in line. Euron had disappeared to Asia for a while to do something he refused to discuss with anyone, and Victarion went to South America until the investigation into his wife’s murder cooled down. Only she and Aeron were left then, but after surviving an entire clip being emptied into his body, Aeron decided to join the seminary. Now her fun uncle Aeron was Father Aeron, so the only logical person to take over Pyke was Asha.
It isn’t as if she ever thought of doing anything but working for her father. Despite her mother’s very best efforts to turn her into the sort of society girl she always wanted, Asha always felt more comfortable with her brothers and the sons of Balon’s men. While her classmates were taking riding lessons and picking out Homecoming dresses, she was tagging along to the shooting range and learning how to pack a ship’s hold so drug dogs wouldn’t pick up the scent. But more importantly, she liked what she did and she was good at it. No one knew the docks the way she did; god knew her father didn’t know the name of every man who worked for him like she did. She was the only woman in Balon Greyjoy’s empire, and she was damn proud of it.
If it hadn’t been for Joffrey Baratheon ordering Ned Stark killed, she’d be in Boston right now, likely having a drink with Qarl the Maid before fucking him and heading down to the docks to meet the nightly shipment. Balon wouldn’t have gotten it in his head to challenge the Lannisters for control of East Coast shipping, Theon wouldn’t have decided to try to prove himself to Balon by double crossing Robb Stark to wrest control of Winterfell, and Ramsay Bolton would still be a stranger to both of them.
What happened was such a massive fuck-up, she still can’t believe it happened. Theon, humiliated after Balon rejected Robb Stark’s offer to partner with him to fight the Lannisters and declared he was no son of his, decided to attack a Stark safe house, killing Robb’s head advisor Rodrik Cassel, taking a majority of their liquid cash and weapons, and, in a truly insane plan, kidnapped the Stark boy in the wheelchair. It was that choice which lead Robb Stark to approve deploying Roose Bolton’s insane son.
The Starks were honorable people. That was what everyone said, and Asha had believed it. There was always one complete psycho in every organization, and they were always kept on a leash until they were needed. Of course, in the Greyjoy organization, there were dozens of them; Balon liked unpredictable men who had no reservations about spilling blood. But what Ramsay had done to her little brother, what he had done to Jeyne…
For a year, she thought he was dead. Balon refused to utilize any resources to find him, not that it mattered; three months after Theon disappeared in a freak accident, Balon fell down the stairs and broke his neck. Suddenly her idiot uncles were fighting her for control of Pyke, everything was going to hell, and what few resources available to her got all tied up in a pissing match with Stannis Baratheon. Desperate to hold on to what she had and also keep it out of her uncles’ hands, she didn’t spend the time and effort she should have looking for Theon.
If it hadn’t been for Jeyne Poole, Theon would be dead right now. Asha still remembers with painful clarity the sight of a filthy, battered Jeyne on her doorstep wearing a thin nightgown and no shoes despite the near foot of snow outside. She still isn’t clear on the details, but somehow Jeyne, Ramsay’s constantly abused wife, and Theon managed to escape his house of horrors. Asha barely recognized the shell of a man spread out across the backseat of Jeyne’s stolen car, most of his teeth gone, his hair white, fingers missing from his hands. He weighed less than a child, his breathing so slow Asha thought he was dead, and it still amazed her that she hadn’t crashed Jeyne’s car in the mad dash to the nearest hospital.
The doctors were the ones who called the police. Theon was near death, Jeyne frostbit and obviously injured, and Asha had no idea how to explain it. She wasn’t allowed in the operating room with Theon, forced to sit in one of the uncomfortable chairs and wondering how she’d ever explain to Alannys what happened to her youngest son. The moment she saw Alysane Mormont striding towards her, the badge on her hip glinting on her hip, Asha knew what she’d have to do. Everyone knew the Mormonts were in deep with the Starks, and even Alysane seemed horrified by what had been done to Theon and Jeyne. It was Alysane who looked Asha in the eye and asked point blank, “Do you want me to call the marshals?”
They wanted Theon to testify against Ramsay and the Starks; at the time Robb Stark had just been busted on the RICO charge and they needed all the evidence they could get. Theon simply stared out the window as they spoke, his broken body covered in bandages and stitches. Asha wasn’t even sure he still had the capacity to speak, and Yoren kept shouting there’d be no protection for any of them if Theon didn’t give him something.
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Asha blurted out, making sure Theon and Jeyne would never see Ramsay again but also damning herself to her worst nightmare of a life.
Here in Kentucky, she’s Yara Swanson from Portland, Oregon. She lives with her brother, a disabled veteran, and his wife who spent her days tending the dozens of flowers she’d planted around their small house. The marshals paid for the medical care both of them needed, but some injuries were permanent. Theon’s teeth were dentures now, several of his fingers and most of his toes gone; though she and Jeyne took turns dyeing his white hair back to its original black, the color never lasted. Whatever happened to her brother, some things a person just couldn’t come back from.
As Asha pulls into their long dirt driveway, she sees Jeyne digging in the flowerbeds near the front porch steps, a floppy hat covering her head, wearing long sleeves despite the heat. Jeyne always make sure to keep herself covered, and at first Asha thought it was a holdover from Ramsay’s control until the night she accidentally walked in on Jeyne in the bathroom. The thick ropes of scar tissue covering Jeyne’s body were enough to churn Asha’s stomach, and never again did she make a comment about Jeyne’s strange wardrobe.
Theon sits on the porch step, leaning his head against the railing as he talks to Jeyne. She is the only one he really speaks to anymore, and Asha often wonders if he blames her for not coming for him. Often when she comes into the room, Theon and Jeyne immediately shut up, but she does know that the few times Theon smiles, it is in Jeyne’s presence. Before Ramsay, she would’ve thought Theon was just trying to get in Jeyne’s pants, but unfortunately she knows Ramsay made sure Theon wouldn’t have sex with anyone ever again. Whatever exists between her brother and Ramsay’s runaway wife is something Asha doesn’t understand at all.
The guilt rises sharply in her chest when she sees Theon gesture to something with only two fingers on his hand. As much as she despises working at a fucking deli counter, it isn’t like Theon chose to be tortured to incapacitation by a fucking madman. Since they went into hiding, at least Theon has started to act like a real person again instead of some brainwashed zombie. No matter how much she hates everything about this life, at least her brother is safe.
“How was work?” Theon asks as she climbs out of the twenty-year-old shitheap Yoren set her up with.
“Long. I’m going to shower.”
Theon nods before returning his gaze back to Jeyne. As Asha climbs the rotting steps of the porch, she reminds herself that at least they’re alive and that’s all that matters.
He wonders sometimes if Asha could do it all over again if she’d still turn state’s evidence.
There isn’t a lot he remembers from those first few weeks after they escaped Ramsay, but Jeyne has told him how the agreement for witness protection was only if they agreed to testify. She didn’t have anything worth telling; Ramsay kept her chained in their bedroom most of the time, and Yoren wasn’t going to agree to the cost of relocation based off of spousal abuse. Not the term even begins to cover what Ramsay did to Jeyne. She may have left the marriage with her extremities intact, but Theon knows she’s just as destroyed as he is. And even now the idea of testifying against Ramsay, of potentially angering him, makes his heart race and sweat break out on his forehead. He didn’t have the strength then.
Asha was always the strong one. He hadn’t appreciated that when he went to his father for Robb. All he saw then was a rival, someone who was taking what should’ve been his. If he had just worked with her, just listened, maybe he wouldn’t be half of a person slowly dying in some strange Kentucky town.
He hates it here just as much as Asha does. The only person who doesn’t hate it is Jeyne, but Theon suspects that’s because there are far less people here than there was in New Mexico. All Jeyne needs is her flowers and silence, and she can pretend everything is normal. She makes their meals and hangs sheets on the line in the backyard, and sometimes Theon thinks she’s living the life she imagined when they were kids. He remembers Jeyne when they were younger, when she ran around with Sansa and blushed when he smiled at her; that girl is as dead as the boy who would wink at her, but Jeyne can fake things much easier than he can.
She makes a salad tonight with vegetables from her garden, humming to herself as she does it. Theon sets the table, only fumbling the cutlery a handful of times. The physical and occupational therapy has helped him learn to “adapt to his limitations” – and what a bullshit phrase that is – but the frustration never goes away. At least he doesn’t need Jeyne or Asha to help him button his pants anymore. Back when he still needed that level of help, he thought of Uncle Aeron in his robes and collar and wondered if this was how God was punishing him for betraying Robb.
The sound of shattering glass and an explosion reaches Theon’s ears only a second before Jeyne’s scream. Theon throws himself at her, driving her to the ground as bullets begin raining through the windows, fast and loud. Jeyne tries to cover her ears, already hysterical, but Theon forces himself to breathe. He’s been in a firefight before; he can handle this.
The water cuts off in the bathroom and a moment later he hears Asha in the back of the house shouting their names. Theon opens the door to the pantry and shoves Jeyne inside, ordering her to stay curled up beneath the lowest shelf. She nods, eyes wide and terrified in her face, and Theon wishes he could tell her it would be fine but they both know the truth: no one comes to rescue people like them.
“Theon!” Asha screams from the back of the house.
“Here!” he yells back, beginning to army crawl towards the hallway. His arm immediately protests; the bones never stitched themselves back together as well as they should have and his shoulder always aches.
The slide of metal across wood is audible over the hail of gunfire, and Theon manages to stop the handgun Asha has sent his way. His sister is crouched in a doorway in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear, her short hair wet and plastered to her head; she has a pistol beside her and a rifle with scope beside her. Theon would smile if the situation wasn’t so dire; part of their protection agreement was they could not own firearms. He wonders what sort of arsenal she has built since Yoren dropped them here.
“Can you shoot?”
“Not with accuracy.”
“I don’t need you to hit a fucking target, just cause a distraction!”
He has to hold the gun in his left hand, unable to grasp it with his right. Creeping towards the broken living room window, he lines the barrel up with the ledge to steady it and pulls the trigger with one of the remaining fingers on his right hand. The recoil sends him back some but Theon ignores the pain, shooting again.
Before Ramsay, he was the best sharpshooter among Robb’s men. Even Ned Stark used to compliment him on his accuracy, and wrenching a compliment from that man was practically impossible. Knowing that Asha is doing his job with that rifle fills him with a familiar frustrated rage.
One of Asha’s bullets finds its target, dropping a stocky man where he stands. Theon fires again, peaking out to survey the scene, and sees there are two other men. Another of Asha’s bullets hits the windshield of their car, and the men make for the car, leaving their fallen companion on the ground. Dust flies up as they take off down the driveway, Asha still firing as they do. When their taillights disappear onto the main road, Theon exhales, dropping back to the floor. Only then does he realize he’s shaking.
Forcing himself to his feet, Theon walks to the kitchen, opening the pantry and extracting a hyperventilating Jeyne. She coils herself tightly around him, clinging to him with a desperation he hasn’t sensed in her since they left New Mexico, and he knows then she’d be safer if she wasn’t with them. Jeyne deserves her gardens and clotheslines and average, safe life; she doesn’t deserve to be afraid ever again.
Asha emerges from the hallway, now wearing a pair of jeans, several bags in her hands. Theon recognizes them instantly; they’re the emergency bags Asha insisted they always keep packed in case they had to flee. The rifle is slung over her shoulder, a pistol tucked into her waistband, and even though their lives are in danger, Theon swears he can see excitement in her eyes. Asha always did love a good fight.
“Get her in the car, we’re going!” Asha barks, grabbing the car keys from the bowl near the door.
Theon practically carries Jeyne to the car, carefully setting her in the passenger seat. Asha is already setting her gun collection on the floor of the backseat, and Theon knows he will be driving while Asha prepares to shoot in case they are followed. He notices the dead body lying near Jeyne’s vegetable garden and Theon finds himself walking towards it, needing to know who found them.
It isn’t a member of the Ironborn; he knows that immediately. If one of his uncles had sent assassins, they wouldn’t have used guns. They’d have snuck into the house in the dead of night to slit their throats. Ironborn did things up close, the bloodier, the better.
He bends down, forcing the man over to extract his wallet from his back pocket. Theon flips it open when Asha comes up behind him, helping him to stand.
“Who is he?”
“A Redwyne.”
“Redwyne?” Asha echoes. “Who do the Redwynes work for?”
“Mace Tyrell.”
“Why the fuck do the Tyrells want to kill us?”
“I don’t know,” he answers, genuinely at a loss. Of all the people he thought would come for them, the Tyrells were at the bottom of the list. “We need to call Yoren.”
“No,” she immediately vetoes, stalking towards the car. “I’m calling people who can actually help us.”
“Like who?”
“Like Qarl and Tris and anyone else who hates our uncles!” Asha spins, pushing a finger into his chest. “We are done running, Theon. Pyke is ours, yours and mine; Dad left it to us, not Euron or Victarion. So we are going back and we are finding allies, and then we are going to do to our uncles, to Ramsay Bolton, to Stannis Baratheon, and to the fucking Tyrells what we were raised to do.”
“What’s that?”
Asha has never looked more like Balon as she declares, “We’re going to kill them all.”
Theon walks around the car, climbing behind the wheel. As he shifts the car into drive, leaving their Kentucky life in the dust, he is certain this is a fool’s errand. They are going to die. But he once told Robb if he was going to die, he wanted it to be in a blaze of glory.
Theon knows there is no glory left for him, but hopefully there can be some sort of dignity before someone finishes what Ramsay started.