hmm. okay. though the upward curve of her lips doesn’t fade, she acknowledges that she may have to reframe her initial assessment – lightly armed as he is, it’s unlikely ( not impossible, but improbable ) that he’s still on somebody’s payroll. not many people worth their salt would train someone that well, only to leave them so, comparatively speaking, unprotected. not a sound financial investment to spend all those years only to have him swatted like a fly.
she’s not for hire by anyone anymore – she works for herself, if anyone – and she’s better armed. ( six knives of varying lengths, a pistol – stolen, looted – and a few vials and poisoned coins for good measure. there’s no way he’s an amateur, though – which makes him like her. defected, or else cut loose. from whom? )
there are too many questions, and not enough answers – glancing him over, it becomes increasingly clear she’s not going to get them if she doesn’t play nice in return.
instinct tells her to avoid him at all costs, as though he’s encircled in neon yellow warning tape. crime scene, do not enter. she’s surrounded by the same hazard labels, she knows, to anyone able to look and see. dangerous, poisonous to the touch. the liar’s face she wears is that of the sort of girl who’d kiss you just to slit your throat. ( she’s done it before. ) she notes the tingling of risk at the edges of her nerves, and then moves on. takes a gamble, and should it come to that, she doesn’t need a knife to kill him.
( the ease with which he laid down his weapons tells her two things – one, that he doesn’t need them to kill her either, but two, that he plans to play nice, at least for a while, too. )
first to go is the longest, NEEDLE still held at her hip ; then, two from the small of her back, under her shirt, two from places strapped at each forearm, and one from inside each boot, each knife settling on the cobbles with a faint clatter. a holster unsnaps, lastly, and comes to rest at the end of her orderly line on the ground. ( she decides to keep her poisons – they don’t, technically, count. won’t do her much good if he decides to try something ; they require a good deal more premeditation. ) still, when she straightens, there’s a certain flicker of something that’s almost a challenge in her eyes. go on, try me. i am still just as deadly as you.
she was built into this by a cult so secret they don’t exist. the only people they leave traces on are their servants. she never forgets.
( they’re scarred into her insides and her outsides in poison and blood. she can’t forget. )
‘ so. should i run a standard polygraph, what colour is the sky, who’s the current president of america, or shall we just skip ahead to who sent you? it’s all the same to me, i’ll know if you lie. ’
it’s not a bluff, though the casually charming flippancy of her tone holds true with the persona she’s temporarily adopted.
Living as he did for now, his resources had to l a s t. He'd managed to lay claim to whatever left in IMF s a f e h o u s e s on his travels --- those the FBI had't managed to ransack, at least, h i d d e n from even their view --- as if it was hard. It was in these safehouses, of course, he'd been spending so much of his time between globe-trotting, following the SYNDICATE as close as he was able to do so, looking for--- him. Whoever & wherever the B A S T A R D could be.
Perhaps she's reassured by how little Ethan appears to carry on him, or perhaps she's smarter than that --- however irritating it may be that he can't stock up as he would have done, before IMF were d i s s o l v e d , he'd been fairly confident that he didn't really need it --- not today, not when he'd only been scoping the place out. Without a team, after all, he couldn't precisely r u s h into things as he once had done.
Still ------ brows shall rise even further upon the sheer volume, as well as quality; what she has her, particularly the first, couldn't have come cheap, & though he hasn't d i s m i s s e d her as a street URCHIN he's still at a loss as to how she'd gotten hold of them all.
❛ That it? ❜ he remarked, words i n f e s t e d with a bemused sarcasm --- nothing particularly VINDICTIVE to the ear, for that wasn't in his nature. Not without being pushed. Simply... nonplussed.
---Unless she wasn't as A L O N E as she appeared at first glance.
At such a thought, he'll offer a new glance into the surrounding darkness. After all --- had he been unaware of her for as long as he had, it's surely not too much of a stretch to consider he'd missed a second pair of footfalls. Even perhaps a t h i r d .
Left slipping into the pocket of his jacket, thinking better than to i n s u l t her so plainly as to say 'you won't', Ethan pushed back his hair, before letting that hand follow suit of the first. ❛ No one s e n t me. Now you --- who’re you working for? ❜
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