Amélie gritted her teeth and growled softly to herself as she wiped dust off Widow’s Kiss. Dirt. Dust. Sand. It was everywhere. Welcome to the American Southwest. Sighing, she finished off polishing the metal of her rifle as well as she could before pushing away from the wall she had been leaned against and making her way back up to the roof.
Keeping her weapon down, she lowered her recon mask, a slight ringing filling her ears as the computer sought out her target. It had been weeks since the young woman had escaped Talon’s base in upstate New York. Widowmaker had been flown in immediately the following day and had been tracking her ever since. Track down rogue elements and eliminate them. That was her job, one she had quickly become weary of doing.
“Failure is not an option, Widowmaker. We put far too much money into this asset for it to be running around loose.”
Amélie rolled her eyes at the memory of the agent’s instruction. “Perhaps, then, you ought to have ensured you had control of said asset before putting all that money down…” Then again, she knew far too well what that entailed, and it hadn’t even stuck with her. Not that they knew that.
She was pulled from her thoughts as she saw movement on the street below on one of her peripheral cameras. The widow scoffed as she refocused her attention on the figure, cutting through the crowd, walking both with a purpose and with an obvious desire not to be seen. It was cute how people actually thought they could run from the widow. They could evade for a time, but eventually she always caught up. “Does she really think the hoodie and cap are fooling anyone…?” she mumbled softly as she clicked in to zoom slightly and confirm that it was indeed her target.
She tapped her visor and programmed the facial recognition to tag Rowan for easy relocation later, then she retracted the visor and followed her using the rooftops for the next several blocks. It was late evening, so it didn’t take long to reach a point where they were the only two. It was then that the widow dropped down into the alley just to the other woman’s left, using her grappling hook to lower herself until her heels clicked quietly against the pavement.
Pulling her hood up farther, Rowan wove through the sidewalk crowd, careful not to catch anyone’s eye. It had been at least a few weeks since her escape, and this was the biggest town she’d been in so far. The bottoms of her feet still ached from the healed burns, and there was still a certain fear around her eyes as she walked along.
Right now, she just wanted to get as far away as possible from the facility, from the white lights and cold concrete and the damned red rock desert that hadn’t been kind enough to let her die. At least now she had real clothes, a stolen wallet in her pocket and stolen boots on her feet. What she didn’t have was a car, or any fast way to get out of the southwest.
Fingers clenching and clenching in her pockets, she tried to reassure herself that she’d be safe- or at least safer- once she got to the woods. Then she could steal some gear, drop off the grid, and survive. Sure, it meant being a homeless survivalist in whatever national forest she found first, but surely, the men of the facility couldn’t follow her there. No- that would be her terrain.
Something moved to her left, only catching her eye since she was so carefully scanning the crowd. Panic still simmered under the surface, having abated little since her escape. But it was the rage below that which actually scared her. Tearing off the baseball cap and casting it aside, she pulled the hood up farther.
Speeding up, she looked for alleys, preferably one with a car. Though she’d wanted to wait until nightfall to steal something so conspicuous, fear lapped at the edge of her mind and her whole body itched to run. Glancing around, she half expected to see the men in the black gear and masks pursuing her.
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