Aspen had recognised it the moment she noticed a stranger glance from her to someone at her back. To most, it was a passive glance over the people who trickled through the streets of the slums towards whatever drove them that particular night. To her, however, the glance lingered for too long on a target that didn’t move with the rest of the crowd. It’d been confirmed when Aspen stepped into an old man’s path, her lean but muscular body enough to send him off balance and allow her to grab him, pull him back to his feet, shift direction, and spy over his hunched shoulder while she swiftly apologised. The words carried with a smile, but there was no empathy in the dart of her gaze.
She’d brushed along the edges of Diamond territory, an alley cat that entwined between the legs of the foundation she hadn’t yet been able to safely breach. An errand that had her on their borders for a stroke longer than necessary, but she’d eventually turned and weaved her way through the other territories on her way home to Devil’s Avenue. She’d stopped only once for a skewer of meat - the pieces peeled off by her teeth, spices saturating her sense of taste as she headed through the labyrinth of the slums. Even then, however, she wasn’t certain if she’d been followed before then.
The sun was on the cusp of setting, brushing the rooftops with a warmth that betrayed the rot of the slums; the dark chill that clung to broken streets that twisted like entangled serpents through the hovel. Aspen’s breath heated the air, a fine fog that signalled winter was just around the corner. Despite the shiver that slid over her exposed flesh, she didn’t stop her mindless wandering - circling closer and closer to Devil’s Avenue without any true intention of leading whomever followed her to her doorstep. Not that they would be the first to paint her door with blood like a sacrifice to long forgotten Gods.
Left and around a corner. Through an archway, and into a courtyard, Aspen’s path was likely one to confuse as she went straight through and out into the alley adjacent to the one she’d just been on. A step to the side, and she waited. Waited until whoever followed her came through the archway and found Aspen at their back.
It wasn’t until they’d find their cheek scraping the opposite wall of the deserted alley, blood threatening to spew forth from beneath the blade angled at their throat, and Aspen’s weight against their back, that she would speak.
“Name. Now.” The order was a calm purr to whisper near the ear of the one pinned beneath her.
As the cool edge of the blade pressed against Killian's throat, delicate fingers interlaced in his dark brown locks to pull his head back and exposed, he wondered exactly just how worth it it was to complete this job.
He had not meant to raise her suspicions. Sure, he trailed her like a curious stray, a look of purpose and perhaps menace in his hooded eyes. And maybe he had matched her step, watched her eat, gave all the notions of a man wanting to find her at her weakest and most private. But it were not for malicious purpose- at least, not in the immediate.
At first, he had thought his trail inconspicuous. Donning a gray overcoat that blended into the drab surroundings of the Slums, he had not made himself stark against the usual dirt-stained Slum crowd. It was only after trailing her for what felt like a while that he had gotten the sense she was suspecting something. Her path was circumventive, random, and sudden, like she were crafting it as she went along. No later that he decided it would be essential to get her alone soon, lest she grow impatient or frightened and shake him off his trail.
It had to be now.
So he rounded her into an alley- rounded being used in the loosest of terms, as Killian was sure it was she who decided to end it all in the shadow of a tipsy Slums apartment. Otherwise, he would not find himself at the mercy of her steel and the kiss of concrete at his cheek.
He tried not to grovel, whimper, fight against his basic human instincts as death caressed his throat. When his voice came out, it was weaker, raspier than he would have liked it.
There’d been a time in Aspen’s life when there was a moment of hesitation to wrap around her heart as she considered what the blood that thrummed in the veins of another was connected to. What heart beat within the chasm of the carcass caught within her rifle’s scope - or who else possessed the blood that dribbled out from beneath the blade angled at a stranger’s throat. If there were children who carried the same traits in their bloodstream, awaiting their parent to come home with obscured tales of the day. If there was a soul, decent and good, to life she was tasked with snuffing out like a damp pinch to a candle. Sometime in the last two years, that hesitation… that consideration had been snuffed out to a cooling drift of smoke through her core - the wick of morality seeming to become more miniscule the longer she remained nestled amidst the gangs.
Aspen was aware of this about herself; aware that she had toppled off the edge of that cliff she had stood upon until she had dragged herself up the ranks of the Clubs. She was as aware of it as she was to the weight - the twitch - of movement that would be required to sever the artery in the man’s throat. She was human, and yet Aspen inhaled - a brush of nose against flesh as if she were a mere predator scenting the prey in her grasp. As if she truly could smell fear when all she smelt was sweat wholly male.
He just wanted to talk? Aspen’s weight stepped backwards, her hand fisted within the cloth of his shoulder in a way that would allow her to spin him if he didn’t react - his back soon against the wall once more. If he remained immobile, if he chose not to engage her, she’d be an intrusion in his space. That wicked blade hidden between them, tip angled between his ribs in such a way where she could skewer a lung if she felt so inclined. Otherwise, they were a couple seeking privacy based on the way Aspen lingered against him. As much cause to hold him at her mercy, as it was to afford them a proximity where their quiet voices couldn’t drift.
She studied the rugged face now exposed to her, sharp brow held aloft with scrutiny. She didn’t know him. There was nothing familiar about the man. “Killian.” She repeated the name, as if committing it to memory. “If you just wanted to talk, why follow me for so long if this meeting was meant to be…” Aspen considered the word, parting from him enough for that blade to be a wink of promise between them, “...harmless?”
Her smile cooled, the amusement ebbing as she bluntly asked, “What do you want?”
A rough fist turned him from back to front and Killian, for the first time, could gaze into the eyes of the rumored high ranking jabberwocky. Cold, lethal ice stared back at him, whatever hint of amusement in them sardonic and austere. Killian knew, with a measured look, that he was facing a killer.
Perfect.
"Well, I wanted to find you in a private place where we could.. chat," Killian said, meeting wintry blues with his own dark gaze. Mischief quirked at the corner of his lip. "If I came up to you on the street, asking for your company, I doubt you'd just willingly follow me into a space of privacy."
Though those doubts garnered their own doubts, as Killian was painstakingly conscious of the blade wedged between them. This woman was capable, smart, and perhaps she'd have agreed to a meeting based on her own combative talents and mere curiosity. She released him then, stepped back, and his hand brushed out the cloth wrinkled from her tight fist. Killian stood straight, then, a good few inches taller than she, though he could still feel the strength and confidence radiate from her like a beacon light splitting through darkness. This was an individual who was used to power and control.
"I've an offer. Not from me, mind you, but from someone who says they know you. They've asked me to keep their name and identity private, and told me to seek out the woman in this photo."
Killian pulled out something folded in the lapel pocket of his gray overcoat. He uncrossed the segments of paper to reveal the photo, a grainy, black-and-white and ultimately poor quality rendition of the woman before him. On the bottom, scrawled in black ink, was a name.
Posted 09-25-2021, 12:17 AM
DEATH WISH
