CONTAINS CONTENT:
Action type violence, death, and mild gore
The next day, Barbara met Marielle at the door, gray pistol case in hand, and explained that Marielle needed Sasha to qualify her for its use and sign it out. Since Marielle knew how to use a pistol well, she was annoyed to say the least.
Although she wanted to see Vincent, she obeyed protocol and went to Sasha, confirmed that she knew how to use the weapon via both practical and written testing, and managed to return to Cellblock Two within the hour.
Seeing Vincent again confused her. Her immediate reaction to seeing him in the cell, sitting with his back against the wall and his hands hanging over his knees, was that she wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him. Then, as she stood in the doorway, she remembered the long list of people who were dead because of him. There were widows and orphans and destroyed families because of Vincent Fabron.
She paused and looked down for a moment, throwing a glance at Sabine, who was on guard duty again. Sabine did nothing to help Marielle, so she steeled herself, straightened her back, took in a deep breath, and smiled at him. Regardless of how deadly he was, the smile was genuine—as was the knotted feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Vincent brightened a little the moment he saw her and the lunch bag on her back. He stood up straight. Somehow, he looked taller than he had the day before. She even checked his shoes to see if they had thicker soles. Nope, still the same ones. She hated them.
“Hi,” she said. He gave her a half smile and glanced down, then back up. She wasn’t sure if he was noticing her curves, or if it was just a characteristic gesture. “Did you sleep any better?”
His smile spread a bit. “Oui.”
“Over here, handsome,” Sabine spat, twirling the cuffs on her finger. It obviously wasn’t a compliment.
He turned and allowed Sabine to cuff him. The trio walked to the elevator, where Sabine departed and went back to her watchdog duty while Marielle and Vincent rode up together.
Unable to control herself, she turned to him the moment the door closed and buried her face in his chest, openly inviting him to hug her. For a moment, he hesitated, and she heard his breath hitch in his chest. Then he lifted his cuffed wrists over her neck and let them fall to her back, no doubt acutely aware of the camera watching them.
Marielle relished that silent moment with his body pressed to hers. It felt awkward, daring, and unsafe. She could feel how strong he was, and yet how lightly he touched her, as though he knew how imposing he was and didn’t want her to feel threatened. She felt the cool chain between his wrists as it rested on the back of her neck.
He could kill me right now. It wouldn’t take much. Not that I wouldn’t fight him—I would, tooth and nail… but I’d lose. I’m not one to think that way, and I’m well-trained, but something tells me I’d stand no chance against Vincent Fabron. Maybe Austin is right, and I just need to stop fighting against it.
“How are you?” she asked into his chest. She could both feel and hear his heartbeat; it was strong and… pounding?
They pulled away from each other, leaving Marielle unsure of her next move. The hug had only lasted a few seconds, but it had felt like an eternity. Their embrace had been more friendly than sensual, but it was still an intimacy she had not yet experienced with him, and she dared to think it had affected him on a level she didn’t understand yet.
“I feel a little better today. Knowing that you’d come and bring me something wonderful to eat has helped.” He sighed hungrily and pushed his glasses back up a little; they’d slipped during their embrace. “Almost anything is bearable with the right food.”
She smiled at that statement.
The elevator opened, and Erik stood once again ready to escort them to the courtyard. He greeted Vincent with a firm handshake and nodded at Marielle, then allowed them off of the elevator.
Sasha was already waiting in the courtyard at his post. He acknowledged them with a strong nod as all three went back to their positions from the previous day.
Marielle tried to cool the electricity that had built up inside of her. As much as she hated to admit it, she wished that Austin’s cool breath or touch would alleviate the heat that hadn’t dissipated yet. Hopefully, the bright sun overhead would account for the glistening sweat on her forehead.
After she laid the blanket out and sat down with her legs tucked to one side of her, Vincent joined her again, watching her take everything out of her bag and dish it all out. When he saw her serving the potato pie, he smiled. “A little more, please?”
She scooped one more serving out and handed the plate to him. He looked down at it and closed his eyes, taking an intentional breath in and out. Then he leaned all the way back onto the blanket and stretched out. He gazed at the sky above, his long, lean body completely relaxed as he watched the clouds rolling by.
Putting his cuffed hands behind his head, he stayed silent for a moment before whispering, “Parfait.” Then he drew his left leg up, knee bent, apparently basking in the sunlight.
Marielle ate quietly for a few moments, assuming that he was enjoying experiencing the outdoors. Considering the fact that he had been kept mostly in isolation for twelve days now, she could understand his desperation to drink in the warmth of the sun.
The light played on his tattoos, which gleamed as he tilted his head to watch a small bird fly by. It landed in an arbor to their right that arched over a stone bench and a small bowl fountain. Vincent smiled at the bird as it disappeared among the leaves and purple flowers, then took a generous bite of the fried sole. For those few moments, he looked truly happy, even blissful. If they had been alone, Marielle might have considered it a perfect date.
She took a moment to look around the courtyard, recalling that the Valorant facility had once been a museum. The grounds were wide and open, while the courtyard itself was expansive. Behind them stood a cobblestone building that was used for storage, although it had been a stable in the early twentieth century. A bridge constructed from the same rounded stones created a tunnel that led away from them to another garden where a swimming pool resided. She longed to be there with him now, cooling themselves in the water.
The rest of the open space was dotted with statues. One that always caught her attention was of a beautiful nude maiden reaching to the sky on her tiptoes as though about to take flight. There were bowl fountains, benches, trees, and cement blocks at varying heights where she could imagine children playing hide-and-seek. Behind the main building they had come from was another, more modern building about eight stories high. It had a gorgeous foyer where Valorant held charity events and parties. There were several offices on the upper levels, and the few people who worked there were rarely, if ever, seen.
She looked back at Vincent, whose eyes were closed. He almost looked like he was asleep and dreaming of something pleasurable, his lips curled up in a soft smile that reflected peace and happiness.
“Won’t you talk to me today?” she asked.
He opened his eyes and met her gaze, leaning up and over his bent knee. “I hope to speak to you every day.”
This unnerved her. Every day for a week? A month? Until one of them died?
She lightly cleared her throat and poured them both some wine. “You’ll want to sit up,” she said, handing him a glass. He nodded and did so, taking a drink and then setting the glass on the rim of the fountain behind them. “Tell me something about you I don’t know yet,” she said when he had been quiet for a few more moments.
“I like the band Gunship,” he said.
She laughed. “So do I!”
He smiled as though he already knew this, but she couldn’t tell what was behind it. “How about you?”
She screwed her eyes up for a moment in thought. “I hate… seagulls. Annoying birds that steal your sandwiches on the beach.” She chuckled.
“Oui. I don’t exactly like them either.”
“Tell me something else about you… something more personal.”
He thought for a moment, throwing another piece of fish into his mouth with his fingers. His tattoos flashed. “The first time I killed someone, I was sixteen.”
She swallowed hard. “Really?”
He nodded, and she could tell it was true. “My father was dying, and my family needed money. I knew I could aim a gun and hit a target, and somehow this bit of information about me got out. One day, a well-dressed man came and offered me five thousand dollars to kill someone. Who? To this day, I do not know. But I did it.” He sighed. “It paid the medical bills and fed us for six weeks, but my father still died, my mother and I still starved, and there were still piles of hospital bills to pay when the money ran out.”
“So you did it again,” she whispered, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks.
“Oui.” He looked down. “And again, and again, and again…” He pulled at some grass thoughtlessly. “I still have nightmares about that first kill, even though I never knew the man’s name. And my mother…” His voice trailed off. “Let’s just say that in order to give me the food that helped me grow, she… bent her morals.”
Both fell silent for a long time. Marielle sipped some wine and picked at her fish. She wanted to ask him about the research facility he had supposedly blown up, but she knew it would be easier to keep talking about things that were more personal. He seemed receptive to that.
“Tell me about your tattoos,” she said, studying the ones on his face. “They look tribal. Do they mean something?”
“Not tribal,” he corrected, “technological.” He put a finger to the one shimmering above his left eyebrow. “This is a motherboard.”
Her eyes widened in interest. “It is?”
“Well, the shape is. The tattoos themselves are nanotechnology.”
“And you…” She paused, considering. “This happened when you were exposed to radianite?”
“Oh, no.” He chuckled. “My teleportation happened when I was exposed to radianite. This”—he rolled up his sleeve to reveal more of the same golden lines dancing up his arms—“I did to myself.”
She marveled; they were beautiful. “If they’re nanotech… do they contain something?” she asked, trying to put two and two together but winding up with six in her mind.
“They contain a lot of things.” He smirked mischievously.
“Like… what?”
Vincent went silent and flicked a glance at Sasha. He wasn’t looking at them. “Pistolets, machines, autre technologie…”
Marielle glanced at their guard dogs as well. Both Sasha and Erik were scanning the area, not watching them directly. “Vous avez des fusils dans les bras?”
He cocked his head at her and nodded once. “Oui.” Then he smiled and glanced down at his chest. “I have guns in my entire body,” he whispered, then leaned in a touch more. For a moment, she thought he might kiss her. “The little one like a pistol, I call Headhunter. The giant rifle—I call her Tour De Force.”
She had no idea how that could be possible, but he was telling the truth. It frightened her, and she knew he could see that.
“Marielle,” he whispered, reaching over and gently taking her wrist. “Marielle… fais-moi confiance.”
She swallowed hard, looking down and eyeing her own pistol, which she’d forgotten about until now.
Vincent noted this, his eyes narrowing and his jaw tightening. “If I wanted to kill you,” he whispered through gritted teeth, “I would have done it already.”
“Two guards, a building full of altered people… You wouldn’t get more than a few feet.”
He tilted his head back and smirked. “I could kill everyone in this building from over a mile away.”
Marielle clenched her teeth. “What is your game?” she asked, giving him a sidelong glance to see if he had noticed that she was trembling. She thought he had.
“No game, just the truth. I—” He froze suddenly, eyes wide and locked.
She heard something too and paused. They glanced at Erik and Sasha, both of whom were looking around, perplexed.
Vincent had been cut off by a slight darkening of the sky and a loud cracking sound in the atmosphere, followed by a boom that seemed to split the very air around them. Marielle couldn’t identify the sound, and she felt her heart speed up as everyone went silent.
Vincent stood slowly. “Marielle, get behind me,” he whispered, staring toward the cobblestone building. She remained paralyzed for a moment as another loud voomp seemed to split the earth.
“Marielle, get behind me!” Vincent barked, and although she wasn’t in the habit of taking orders from someone she didn’t know well, his words carried such conviction that she obeyed him without thinking.
Everything was still for a few moments. Abruptly, the wind picked up, tossing tree branches, grass, and plants in the strong gusts. Sasha and Erik spoke into their earpieces, both throwing curious glances at one another. Marielle pulled her pistol out of its holster and held it at the ready.
Glancing at Marielle, Vincent swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment, then swore in French. “They’re not supposed to be here.”
He ran forward, then stopped several feet just beyond the arbor, where he made an odd motion with both of his hands that seemed to produce a gleaming card, not unlike the one Liam and the others had shown her. He held it up and flicked it with the fingers on his other hand. Then, flicking it once more, he sent it sailing toward the building. It landed where the ground met the wall, and a glowing triangular device appeared on the cobblestones, twinkling in blues, golds, and purples.
He turned back to Marielle and mouthed, “I’m sorry.” Then he lifted both of his cuffed hands and snapped his right fingers.
To her astonishment, he vanished in a flurry of color and reappeared over the device he’d just placed, except… he was no longer handcuffed, and he held a small, golden pistol in his right hand that shone like his tattoos. He lifted his wrist and started a timer on his watch—the cooldown for his teleporter.
Her eyes bugged. “I knew it,” she breathed. He could have gotten free at any time.
Another voomp drew her attention as he ran a few more feet and produced another card, which he also threw to the ground. A small device with a bulbous top that looked like a camera appeared and spun in circles.
“That’s a good spot,” Vincent said dismissively, taking in the plants, walls, and statues that surrounded him. He seemed to be doing some quick math.
Sasha and Erik were rushing toward Vincent, guns out, when the fourth and final boom occurred. At this, everyone in the courtyard froze again.
Erik glared across the twenty-foot space between him and Vincent. “What have you done?”
“It’s not me,” Vincent began. “There’s no way to explain what’s about to happen—”
At that, the entire courtyard lit up with a blue pulse that flashed once, twice…
Sasha looked around, instinctively understanding what was happening. This was what one of his own arrows did: it tracked people’s locations via sonar. “Everyone back!” he cried, waving them to the wall. “Get out of the radius!”
They all darted to the door where they’d entered the courtyard. Vincent kept an arm across Marielle’s chest protectively as they pressed themselves against the wall.
“Marielle, go inside,” he whispered firmly, staring across the courtyard. The flickering pulse had stopped.
Marielle scowled at him. “No. I’m trained to fight.”
“Mon Dieu,” Vincent cursed under his breath. “Okay, just listen to everything I tell you to do…”
Erik and Sasha had forgotten Vincent and were readying themselves. Sasha set up his bow and arrow, while Erik prepared to blast his fault line ability through the wall where the sonar had come from. Instead of waiting for the attackers to show themselves, he lifted both of his big metal arms and sent a shockwave straight down the middle of the courtyard and through the wall where they were hiding.
No one was more startled than Sasha when he—or rather, his mirror image—staggered out from behind the wall, grabbing at his head. Sasha stood motionless for a moment, clearly trying to process what he was seeing. Was the man friend or foe? It was hard to tell when the other was… you…
Moments later, a young blonde woman with four dark marks on her right cheek and icy blue eyes stumbled out after him, also holding her head. The moment the blonde’s head seemed to clear, her hateful gaze went straight to Marielle.
The woman turned her attention to Vincent as she took a few confident steps in his direction. “Hey, Chamber,” she said slyly.
Vincent shook his head, his eyes focused on her form. “Not happening.”
“What isn’t? This?” The blonde woman pressed her fingertips together, pointing downward. Vincent was glaring at the Sasha double, who was just beginning to push himself up. “This is happening. And we’re taking her.”
She grinned in a hostile way and pulled a pistol from her side, tilting her head back as if looking down her slender nose at Vincent. “This is my territory, these are my rules!”
The blonde gestured furiously at the ground with what appeared to be a metal arm, then threw a glowing blue object in their direction. It smacked the ground near Erik, and he instantly fell to his knees, unable to move much faster than a snail despite his frantic efforts.
“Marielle, stay back!” Vincent shouted, pressing her back behind him with one arm.
She forced him off her. “Focus now,” Marielle growled at him. “Eyes off me.”
Vincent shook his head and lifted his golden pistol, scanning the cobblestone wall and trying to peek behind it for other attackers. “There,” he said, nodding at the wall’s edge.
Marielle followed his gaze. The Sasha double was on his feet, a pistol in his hand.
“If you haven’t worked it out, these guys are not your friends!” Vincent barked at Sasha and Erik. “Iselin is insane!” Marielle assumed that Iselin was the blonde woman with the metal arm.
Ever since seeing his doppelganger, Sasha had been too stunned to act, but when Erik hit the ground, he seemed to snap out of it. Before the double could get his bearings again, Sasha lifted his bow and fired an arrow right between the other man’s eyes. He fell, dead, and the blonde woman—Iselin—backed away slightly.
“They’re here to kill you,” Vincent explained in a voice loud enough to be heard without yelling.
“Right,” Erik growled. Whatever Iselin had done to him seemed to be wearing off. He lifted his pistol and trained it on her, but before he could fire, she ducked behind one of the cement blocks.
Another person came out from behind the wall. Marielle had been watching for this and aimed her weapon at his forehead, then paused. It was Jamie.
“Watch your eyes!” Jamie said proudly with a snap of his fingers and a smirk. Everyone—including the attackers—was blinded for a moment by bright orange and red light.
“Marielle, watch your flank.” Vincent gestured with his head toward the other side of the courtyard where it opened into the pool area. His watch beeped, and he checked it and pressed the side. Then he gestured back to his teleporter. “I’ll have a better view from there.”
Vincent snapped his fingers, and Marielle whirled, noting that he’d teleported back to his device. “Don’t hesitate, Marielle!” he shouted.
It was already too late. Jamie’s double threw a fireball at Marielle, which spread into a pool of flame at her feet. She tried to back out of it, the heat licking her skin and searing her. Reflexively, she fell back and wriggled her way out of the pool. Retreating behind the fountain, she bent over her knees and rocked, holding her raw, sizzling palms.
Vincent’s dark eyes filled with rage. “They are so dead!” he cried. He lifted his hands and pulled a massive, gleaming gold rifle out of thin air, his tattoos vanishing entirely from his pale skin.
Fear flashed across Iselin’s expression as she peered around the cement block. “Watch it, Chamber has his gun!” she shrieked, ducking behind cover again.
Marielle, who was shaking the shock off, spotted the fourth double. It was Klara, accompanied by one of her bots, an automated turret on legs that vaguely resembled a metal chicken. She knew the turret would fire on her if it spotted her, so she shot it, wincing through the pain. It burst and crumbled to pieces.
Jamie’s double evaded Erik’s fire by diving behind a cement block, then peeked around it and got another hail of bullets soaring at him. He fired his own pistol twice before pulling back again, forcing Erik to take cover by a recess in the wall.
Sasha was staring in shock at his own dead body, sprawled out bleeding on the ground, the arrow protruding from his contorted, once-handsome face.
“Sasha, snap out of it!” Erik darted forward and grabbed Sasha by the collar, jerking him back just in time to avoid a spray of bullets coming from Iselin and the Jamie double.
A sound like someone slow-hammering a tuba with a large pipe rang out over the entire area, and Marielle saw that Vincent had fired his enormous gun. He dropped it from eye level and glared out at the scene before him. Marielle watched the bullet travel toward its destination, a trail of purple mist swirling in its wake.
That single shot alone struck and killed Jamie’s double. Vincent hadn’t even hit him in the head, but he collapsed on the ground, eyes fixated on the sky and blood trickling from his slack mouth.
Marielle put the back of her wrist to her mouth in shock and horror, bile threatening to rise again. Where was everyone in the building? Then she realized all of this had occurred in only ten or fifteen seconds, so the others hadn’t had time to arrive yet.
Marielle’s attention was drawn to the sky as a large dome covered the entire area, roughly fifty feet in diameter.
Vincent’s gaze also darted upward. “Get out of range!” he shouted. He started for Marielle, but jerked back.
Unable to push herself up on her wounded hands, Marielle found herself frozen in place, fighting to get going but moving like a slug. She had guessed this would happen; it was Klara’s ultimate ability, and likely the double’s, too.
What she didn’t know was what the blonde woman could do. Something wrapped around her ankle like a whip, and she looked down in horror as it rapidly swirled up her leg, surrounding her in some sort of cocoon.
She knew she was screaming, but heard nothing except the surrounding pandemonium as the blue glow wound around her body and closed over her head, encasing her completely. Her lungs grew tight as the substance squeezed the life out of her.
She heard gunfire and shouting, but couldn’t see through the cocoon to find out what was happening. Marielle felt her body being dragged and knew she was moving away from safety, her friends… and Vincent. She also knew that this thing, whatever it was, was killing her.
Just as her vision began to go black, she managed to make out voices.
“Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it!”
A moment later, she registered the hollow gong again, followed by another series of gunshots. She felt a hard thunk, and pain jolted up her left side as her body hit the ground. The cocoon melted away, and she sat up, her eyes unable to focus for a few moments. Whatever it had been, it was done now.
The blonde woman, Iselin, lay face down near the cement blocks, blood spurting from her head and pooling around her. Klara’s double was also down.
Vincent knelt at Marielle’s side, brushing her matted hair back from her confused face. “Masin? Masin, look at me.” His hands caressed her cheeks as he frantically scanned her for any blood or bruises. “Are you okay?”
Marielle tried to respond, but the words didn’t come out. Shock had taken over; there was a dull ringing in her ears. She was barely alert enough to look up and spot seven or eight people, Erik and Sasha included, surrounding them with their weapons trained on Vincent. She heard each gun cock.
Vincent quickly stood and dropped everything, raising his hands in surrender. All of his weapons and equipment seemed to withdraw into his body as he clamped his right fist tightly, bringing his teleporter and camera back to him. The tattoos also returned, tracing themselves up his arms, neck, and face.
There was a pause as he eyed the circle of people around him, his chest heaving. Then someone smacked him in the side of the head with the butt of their rifle, and Vincent Fabron went down.