She watches his eyes shifts and knows what he’s thinking. He’s looking to see how quickly he can get his crew’s attention. She shifts the gun in her hand just slightly, enough to let him know she can pull that trigger faster than he can call for assistance.
“ ‘Preciate the offer, Boris, but I’m going to have to decline.” She says coyly, unruffled by his idle threats. If he’d felt he had a shot at getting his men’s attention without dying he would have already done so. “If you’re willing to take that risk though, by all means, I’ll just dispatch you the efficient way.” She wanted information, sure, but she was not stupid enough to put her life in too much danger to get it. There were always other methods if it came down to it.
He’s still looking around, shifting…She notices that his attention isn’t fully on her. Red flags go off in Sarah’s head. If someone has a gun pointed at you, they have your attention…Unless they have something else planned. He was either waiting on backup that knew she was here, or he was going to make a run for it.
Sarah doesn’t move her head, not wanting to give him that split second. In the shadows of the rafters, her eyes glance to the side quickly, pinpointing the exits she can take if things go bad. The way she came is still open, and she saw some exit points in that hall. If she jumps down, the hallway isn’t far. She remembers all the doors she saw on her way in (though there weren’t many).
She gives the pirate a skeptical look, her lip twitching up with impatience. “Don’t play games, Boris. You know what I’m after.” It was no secret that her first and foremost goal was to kill Gangplank…again. There was nothing else he could offer her. He was stalling. She needed to end this quickly.
It’s only a few moments before she realizes exactly why he’s stalling. She hears him before she sees him…His voice cutting through the air around her like cannon-fire booming in the distance. It sends a chill through her bones that turns her skin to ice, rendering her motionless for a solid three seconds. She’s hearing things…She has to be. He can’t be here, she would have known if he was here.
Her eyes move first, darting to the side as her head slowly turns in suit. A short distance away, she sees him standing there, that sickening grin peeking out from his beard. Her entire visage changes. Gone is the smooth, calm confidence bordering on arrogance. The look in her eyes has turned to cold murder, her teeth clenched and lips pressed in a silent rage.
It takes every fiber of control in her body not to turn her pistol and fire at his face right there. She can see his hand on his pistol. He’s a quick shot too. Her gun is not aimed anywhere in his direction. But he’s cocky enough to stand there without drawing it on her, to try and goad her into trying. She won’t grant him that victory…Even if he did dare to address her by her first name…To mock her for not killing him the first time.
Sarah inhales, forcing her body into whatever control she can manage. She can’t afford to be reckless now: This was not according to plan. He’d caught her off guard. She had to be careful…Painfully careful in this predicament. Gangplank had the upper hand here, and she wasn’t mentally prepared for it. She blinks, and her expression changes once again. She won’t let him see how much of an effect his presence had on her state of mind…
Though…he’d likely already seen.
“You’ve certainly looked better.” She sneers, voice lined with venom as she dares to slowly straighten her posture. She dares a look to the hall down below. Where is Rafen? A rhetorical questions she mentally asks herself. So long as he hasn’t been caught, things could still go her way. But she had to acknowledge the fact that once he realized Gangplank was there, he might try to call for a retreat if she ends up in a situation she can’t get out of.
She wouldn’t let it come to that. Not when he was right here…In her sights…One shot between the eyes, that’s all it would take…She’s a good shot…she knows where the exit is. It would be unceremonious, but…
How quickly can I move…?
Her trigger finger itches, but she doesn’t move the gun away from Boris yet. Don’t do anything rash…He wouldn’t be standing there if he thought I could kill him… Though Sarah had never doubted her own abilities…He’d survived one of her attempts to murder him before…She couldn’t risk that again… She had to acknowledge the high possibility that she’d walked into his trap this time.
“Did you crawl out of that watery abyss just to see my face when I put a bullet in your skull?”
“You wound me, Sarah!” Gangplank calls, repeating her name with a self-satisfied malice. He hasn’t missed the single crack in her confidence, and the pleasure of getting to her, even for a single moment, is enough to override the rage in his throat.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When Fortune is over there, pistol in hand, empty air dividing them, she still has a chance to escape. She’s high up, far too high for anyone to rush and attack her, even in a warehouse full of her enemies, and it grates at Gangplank. If she escapes -- and she won’t, she won’t -- but if she does, she’ll have a damn good idea of where to start searching for Gangplank. She’ll know what he looks like these days, down one arm and still suffering from the burns endured.
She’ll be able to set all of Bilgewater chasing after him.
He can’t think like that, though. He needs to concentrate on this victory, offer another snide sneer and figure out how to dispose of her. If Gangplank draws his pistol, Fortune will draw hers and put a bullet right through his temple. Both will be dead, but that isn’t good enough.
She needs to die, he needs to live.
Boris is down below, his men visible out of the corner of Gangplank’s eye.
If Gangplank draws enough attention to the confrontation going on up above them, then maybe Boris will do the right thing and shut every exit to the warehouse, find whatever rats snuck in here alongside Fortune, and ensure her death.
...That would mean trusting Boris to do something intelligent, however, and Gangplank has his doubts that will happen. He might send a man up to Fortune, dooming him, or he might find himself with a bullet in his skull the second he tries to move.
It would mean a moment of distraction from Fortune, though, which would give Gangplank the opportunity to shoot her in the chest. Even if it didn’t kill her, the shock might be enough to send her stumbling down through the air and onto the ground, where her bones would shatter with a sickening crack and she would be gone.
Not as satisfying as thrusting a blade between two ribs and into her heart, but there is far too much at risk to let her leave this place alive.
“I crawled out of that watery abyss,” Gangplank begins, louder this time, “to take my city back, and I’ll be damned if some red-headed little girl playing pretend is goin’ to stop me.”
He might be speaking loudly enough, but with the distance between them and the floor below, Fortune is sure to suspect him of being up to something. He needs to latch onto that crack in her facade, beat down upon it until her confidence shatters and she does something stupid, like wasting her time to give Gangplank a reply.
“Besides, I’d rather not suffer the irony of dying from a bullet shot out of a pair of guns originally meant for me.” He’d almost forgotten the day, the memory blurring amongst the hundreds of other people he’d slaughtered in those days, but Gangplank had done his research on the woman who’d taken everything from him, and he did remember the rage in his heart upon being denied those twin pistols.
If anything would be jarring enough to force Fortune back into fear’s waiting hands, it would have to be the memory of her mother.
“Did you think I’d forgotten her?” He had, but Fortune doesn’t need to know that. “That kind, sweet face, a bullet through her forehead and blood drippin’ down her cheekbones?”
He can only hope that Fortune wanted to live enough that his taunts and the sound of Boris inching towards his men below them wouldn’t be enough to convince her to send a bullet piercing through his skull.
She knows that she would die if she did. She must, and she must want to live enough to not want to risk that.
“The guns in your hands killed her, you know. Do you think you’re any better than me? Do you think she’d be proud of the person her daughter has become? Oh, sure, you kill ‘bad’ people, but you’re still a killer like anyone else. You sent this city spiralling into a gang war, probably killed more men than I through that alone, forget about all those you’ve personally shot.”
Gangplank takes a heavy breath, raising the pistol when he hears feet shuffling and gasps from below.
“Suppose you’ll be lucky enough to ask her yourself, eh?”
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