“You sold me out. For what? Money?” Gwyn was more saddened by the fact she had expected this than the fact her own mother had given her up.
“Money? Ha. I’m getting something better, reputation,” Eve poured herself a glass of whiskey as she gloated, “once they get what they want for you I’ll get what I want.”
“They’ll kill me.” Gwyn whispered sadly, hoping deep within herself that her mother might care just a little tiny bit.
It was for naught as Eve Morven just raised an eyebrow “so? You got yourself into this mess, it’s not my problem.”
Gwyn said nothing as tears streamed down her cheeks, she simply removed something from her pocket and pointed it at her mother. Mrs Morven took in the suppressed pistol pointed at her, Gwyn had stolen it from the connecting room to her apartment before she had left.
Somewhere deep inside she had known.
Known that her mother had laid a trap for her.
“And what are going to do with that?” Mrs Morven stared at Gwyns silent tears with disdain “you’re too weak to kill.”
She raised the glass of whiskey to her lips but she never tasted a drop. The glass cracked as a bullet blew through it and threw her. She glanced down at the reddening spot on her dress.
“Oh.”
Gwyn pulled the trigger three more times, three for the friends her mother had put in jeopardy.
Eve Morven was no more, just a corpse pooling blood on the floor.
The first masked henchman to enter the blood drenched room died as he took two rounds to the chest trying to enter the room, the one after took a single bullet to the face. His brains splattered over the hallway walls. Gwyn was then tackled to the ground after she fired the remaining three into the bodies of the next men, not killing them but deeply wounding.
“Target has been acquired, contact is dead. Over.”
One henchman reported into his radio as he restrained Gwyn by placing a knee to her back. Her face was forced onto the ground that was slick with her mother’s blood, she stared into the dead eyes of a woman who had never loved her.
“Get off me!” Gwyn tried to infuse her voice with her power but the men resisted as they weren’t likely to listen to her anyway.
She was trapped and there was nothing she could do.
“Bringing the package out now.”
Another henchman approached Gwyn as she squirmed on the ground, plastic cuffs and a hood in hand.
Before they could bag her head there were three small cracks of breaking glass and the weight on her lessened. Glancing up she was able to see the window had three bullet holes in it just before it abruptly shattered inwards and Cécilia burst dramatically through feet first.
The remaining henchmen were ripped apart by automatic fire, two machine pistols had erupted in Cécilia’s hands as she flew.
Everything moved in slow motion for Gwyn as she took in the cold features of the assassin, her ginger hair flowed behind her bewitchingly. She was dressed unlike anything Gwen had ever seen, a skintight bodysuit in black with red roses subtly highlighting her form. A harness clad her attire, wrapping around her curves, it was highly likely that she had swung in from the roof above.
In the slowed moment their eyes met, Gwyn realized then in that frozen time that Cécilia loved her and she loved her back.
As their eyes parted the moment unfroze like someone had just pressed play. The black and red clothed assassin hit the floor feet first and tumbled into a roll, ending up on her knees with twin machine pistols pointed towards the door.
Gwyn knew what her Kiss of the Succubus did now, it wasn’t a simple kiss nor was it some strange stunning effect. No, it was more powerful than that. What it did was make anyone that loved her stronger, she could feel it. Not stronger in the physical sense but in willpower and perhaps luck.
The kiss had bonded them together.
Cécilia took in the bloody room and in a moment she knew. She understood how things had played out, she took in the angles and trajectories and simply knew. When her eyes met with Gwyn’s tearful ones there was no judgment, only love.
Gwyn hiccuped as her heart felt so full after almost breaking.
“See, we’ve got your back.” She whispered in the silence.
Gwyn couldn’t help herself, she passionately kissed the now wide eyed assassin.
“I know.”
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The crack of gunshots from outside broke up their moment together, foreheads touching as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Glancing out the window she saw more henchmen taking cover behind one of the bullet riddled cars, they were being gunned down from accurate sniper fire.
Presumably that was either Tatiana or Marion.
Gwyn picked up a discarded machine gun and fired down angrily upon the ones who dared to fire back at her friends. She cut down a few before she was suddenly hauled away from the window by Cécilia as the masked henchmen returned fire, shredding what remained of the office and bodies within.
The bloody pair rolled into the hallway ducking under the screaming bullets and crawled to the stairs. Below them they heard the heavy stomping of boots among the cracking gunfire, their enemies were wavering in the face of the mounting losses but hadn’t retreated yet.
They’d just have to convince them then.
Cécilia stopped Gwyn from descending the stairwell, she put a finger to her cute lips and held out a flashbang. Gwyn took it with a nervous grin and repeated her performance at the Gala, the Alluring Sight infused grenade rolled down the stairwell and into the parlor below.
The pair covered their eyes and ears as they turned away ahead of the blast that erupted below, they then rapidly descended into the hell below during the stunned chaos the explosion of light and sound had left. A lake of Blood pooled on the ground floor, the henchmen hadn’t been careful or caring in their accuracy and the civilians had paid the price.
Gwyn had to step over the shredded remains that had once been the pompous manager, now they were barely recognizable. Moving through the room Cécilia cleanly finished off the blinded henchmen with quick efficiency.
Cécilia didn’t seem to feel anything as she did so, she went about it like she was putting down pests. Gwyn saw it in her cold emerald eyes and found that she didn’t care as she had decided to accept them fully.
She wasn’t stupid, maybe a little dense sometimes but not stupid. She’d seen Tatiana’s desire for control, Marion’s want for meaning and Cécilia’s need for acceptance. Every day for the past year she’d seen it.
She’d give them what they wanted as they had given her what she always wanted, love.
Gwyn moved over to the supporting concrete pillar that Cécilia was shooting from. Outside looked like a warzone, bodies littered the road. The counter trap had gone well, the sniper team had whittled down the henchmen to a bare few that were trying to flee.
As she raised her stolen rifle to brutally cut them down Cécilia put her hand on its top and lowered it, at Gwyn’s questioning look she explained her actions “let them run, Marion put trackers on the cars. We’ll follow the rats back to their holes.”
The blood soaked pair watched with grim satisfaction as the survivors peeled away in a bullet riddled car.
Sirens finally blared in the distance and they fled towards where Tatiana and Marion were waiting, soon it’d be them on the hunt.
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Gwyn’s uniform was ruined as it had been utterly soaked in blood, her mother’s blood. Was it bad that she cared more for it than her? She was down to a single one left, the uniform that is.
When the group reconvened with Tatiana and Marion they were understandably upset due to her appearance, it took quite a bit of time to reassure them that she wasn’t injured.
“Was your mother in there?” Tatiana asked as they finally moved further away from the crime scene, the police had arrived by the time they had met up and were swarming over the bullet riddled building like flies on a corpse.
“She was,” Gwyn grimly answered, “She sold me out to them.”
Tatiana and Marion shared a look of surprise and furious anger, Cécilia herself just had a look of cold satisfaction as she knew what had become of the traitorous woman. When they returned their sight to Gwyn there was a swirling mixture of emotions in their eyes; outrage, sympathy and concern.
“Did the bitch say anything about who these guys were?” Tatiana swore as she ground her teeth in hatred.
“Language Tatiana.” Gwyn mumbled absentmindedly.
The world felt like it was falling out from under the lost girl, she was barely holding back her tears. Her eyes were red under her glasses, she fumbled with them as she tried to remove the wetness but her hands shook too much. Focusing deeply she counted her breaths like she had done before with Tatiana; In and Out.
“Sorry,” Tatiana softly apologized, “Did those men kill her?”
“No, I killed her.” Gwyn’s words tumbled from her mouth on their own, she felt like she had no control anymore like a runaway train about to crash.
“Oh.”
The three girls were silent as they shared in Gwyn’s pain and protected her fragile soul from the city’s violence around them. The city never slept and the night was ruled by criminals, Tatiana’s mainly but there were always outliers. However most sane criminals would rather avoid the blood coated gang that were still toting heavy weaponry.
“What do we do now?” Gwyn’s voice was so small, they had barely heard it at all.
“Now? We’ll follow the scent,” Marion held up a tracking device which showed a red dot speeding through a map of the city, “well, first we get you a shower and some new clothes.”
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As they awaited the arrival of Tatiana’s people, she had called for one of her luxury cars to deliver them to Spectacle, the group found a hose in order to spray down both Gwyn and Cécilia. The assassin’s clothes were specifically designed to wash off easily, it was slick to the touch but had a mat texture that seemed to reduce the reflection it gave off.
Cécilia did inform her that it was also specially insulated to allow her to bypass heat and motion detectors. She didn’t understand the science behind it but appreciated the distraction.
Her own clothes were unsalvageable, so when the car arrived she had to strip and change into some spare clothes that were provided. The bloody garment was bagged and presumably going to be incinerated along with any incriminating evidence, that included her stolen guns.
Without the need to sneak about undetected right now they were driven calmly through the bustling night streets and ended up at Spectacle without incident, it had been nearby so the drive was swift. She suspected that the seats would definitely need to be reupholstered despite the group's best efforts.
In a strange dichotomy the girls took their time showering and shopping while their enemies sped frantically fled, it wasn’t like it mattered in the end. With the trackers attached it was laughably easy for Tatiana’s people to track them and they’d have to stop sometime.
When they did the girls would have them dead to rights.
In order to cheer up the adrift Gwyn or at least distract her for a time the brilliant Tatiana organized a small fashion show as they awaited word from her contacts, this time they excitedly joined in the embarrassment. Gwyn would admit it was noticeably more fun to watch as her friends blushed when they showed off scandalously revealing outfits on the catwalk but she herself wasn’t spared the scandal.