There were no tears as she swabbed antiseptic over the cut and slapped a bandage on it. There were no tears left inside her. The wall she had depended on had melted and left her in a deluge of grief that she’d drowned in with the help of bourbon and vodka.
From somewhere in the wreckage of the room, she heard the familiar buzz of a phone. It took her a minute or so, nudging broken glass and clothes and furniture out of the way until she found Smith’s phone.
Missed call.
But she knew the number, and she called it back as she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Smith?” Donovan’s voice was a lot more awake now than it had been at three-thirty.
“It’s C.”
“Where’s Smith?”
“Unavailable.”
“Fuck, did he find Eric? Is he dead?” The question felt like someone striking a match inside the darkness.
Eric.
“No. Are the locations you gave me last night still accurate?”
“How the hell should I know? Lacroix tracked him.”
“What did Lacroix tell you? Be specific.” Camille felt her focus returning, surfacing under the haze of the alcohol as the rage dissipated, and she turned to find her backpack to dig out the hastily scribbled addresses. “The bar, the first address, why -”
“Yeah, that was the first one because Lacroix said the asshole had been spotted there several nights in a row.”
She placed a mental star next to that address, further seating the location in her memory as she moved to the overturned table, and located the envelope that had caught her attention the night before. Three surveillance photos of Eric. Hawk-nosed, dark haired, pale. “And what about the third address, the factory?”
“Supposedly he was meeting people there. Why, did you guys find him and fucking lose him?”
“Listen, fucker. I’m handling this so don’t be a dick.”
The bar. She could find him at the bar if Smith hadn’t scared him out of the city completely.
But leaving would take time, planning – there was a chance, because as far as Eric was concerned he’d killed the man hunting him.
“Alright, well, I don’t have anything else. Call Lacroix if you want more info. You finish the job, verify it with me, and we’re good. I’ll pay you, or Smith, or whoever. If you don’t, don’t fucking call me again.” The line cut off, but she didn’t care.
She had a plan.
One more act of vengeance and her slate would be bloody, but clean.
It felt good to have a mission, a job, something to focus on other than the hollow spaces inside her. She packed those with the cold in the air, with the years of training Smith had gifted to her, and the promise that she’d made to him – survive.
She would always survive.
Lacroix verified what Donovan had told her. Eric was frequenting the same bar, meeting with the same assholes over and over, drinking beer and enjoying himself. If she had any chance, it would have to be tonight.
After she cleaned up the room she knew that nothing in her suitcase would work for what she had planned, so she took cash and went shopping. It was irritating, but necessary. Just as early evening started to fill the hotel room with a burnt orange glow, night threatening in the shorter days of winter, Camille found herself applying lipstick in the bathroom. A skin-tight top, short skirt, thick tights and just enough room to tuck a blade into the back of her bra and still breathe.
Somehow, she looked human even though she didn’t feel it. Surely humans had beating hearts, and hers was located under three feet of cold earth and a layer of snow – not that it would matter. Men had never cared if she was empty, as long as she promised to let them fill her.
This taxi was driven by a different guy, dark skinned, and his eyes stayed forward the whole drive, alerting her to the ‘fuck off and die’ vibe she was putting out. It was accurate, but you catch more flies with honey and all that shit.
When she stepped out she ducked her head as if she were avoiding the cold and not the cameras, and plastered on her best dumb blonde smile as she walked into the bar. It was surprisingly busy, full of a younger crowd, heavy music pumping out of speakers that made the bass pulse in her chest. People crowded the bartenders, and she skimmed the crowd casually, seeking Eric’s profile – there.
Near the back of the bar, at a table with two other men.
At least he wasn’t smiling. No, he looked intense, focused as he spoke to the others, his hand resting on a bottle of beer.
Verify. Aim. Wait.
Taking a deep breath she moved to the bar, ripping off the beanie as she approached, smiling flirtatiously at the man who leaned back to let her get to the bartender. “Hello there, sexy. You need a drink?”
“If you’re offering, sure.” It felt awkward at first, but she brushed off her old skills fast, and by the time she’d turned her smile back on at full wattage she felt cold enough inside to maintain it.
“Oh, I’m definitely offering. Hey! The lady would like a -” He paused and glanced at her.
“Vodka, with lime.”
“Vodka and lime!” He shouted and the bartender nodded and started to make it with quick movements. An instant later it was in front of her, and she was opening her coat to let her curves talk for her. She pulled the drink towards her as the tall guy smiled down, his eyes roaming even lower.
“So, what are you doing here alone?”
“I just wanted a drink. My friend bailed on me, my boyfriend is working, so I was bored.” She shrugged, keeping it casual, but he leaned forward.
“Can’t believe your boyfriend wouldn’t make time for you on a Friday night.”
Is it Friday? That explained the crowd.
“He’s a cop. It’s like his shifts always correspond with anything I want to do. Bullshit, right?” Camille rolled her eyes like she was actually irritated with her fictional police officer beau, but the words did the trick. Flirty guy leaned back like she was suddenly toxic waste – which, she was. You don’t want any of this, asshat, trust me.
“Oh, uh, that sucks.” He turned back to the bar, giving his friend a look. “Well, enjoy the drink.” Even his tone was disinterested, and she just smiled and took a sip.
“Thanks!” she replied, still chipper, but then she backed off from them. It took a while to casually move towards her target, but finally she knew she was within eyesight, and she tried a few times to catch his gaze, dancing to the music while keeping him in her peripheral – and then he finally saw her.
Mid-sentence he paused and it made it gloriously obvious the second she had Eric’s attention. She bit her lip and smiled at him slowly pretending to stumble on her next sway with the beat of the music, bumping into someone beside her and apologizing loudly. Playing the drunk girl with no difficulty.
Easy. Vulnerable.
Come on, asshole. Take the bait.
Tilting her head she waved him at him, and like she’d tied an invisible string, he rose up from the table and approached her. She carefully kept him between his friends and her when he walked up. “You all alone?” he asked. His voice had an irritating rasp to it.
“I guess I’m not anymore. My friend ditched me.” As much as it disgusted her she tugged at his coat, pulling him a little closer. “No one has even really talked to me.”
“That’s hard to believe. I’m happy to keep you company.” His hand slid to her waist, his fingers digging in.
She smiled slowly, suppressing the disgust with experience so that her gaze could look sincere. “Do you want to keep me company?” Her voice was false, drunken slur, but he didn’t care. He probably wasn’t even listening.
“Oh, hell yeah…” This time his eyes sliding down her body wasn’t even remotely casual, it was an appraisal.
“If you wanted to go somewhere, you know, have some fun… maybe this night won’t be a total loss for me?” Take the bait, take the bait, take the –
“I’ve got a car.”
“Sounds like fun.” She sm
“Watch it, beautiful.”
“Sorry!” She giggled. “Vodka goes straight to my head, makes me all kinds of crazy.”
“Really? I think vodka was a great choice then.” Eric squeezed her ass through the skirt as they wandered down an alley, past other cars, and then he stopped her at one and unlocked it with the push of a button. “Come here,” he growled and pushed her back against it. His hand stroked up her thigh, and she let her legs open so that his fingers could brush her underwear.
Not yet. Not out here.
“Fuck, it’s so cold,” she whined, and he pressed himself against her. Hard cock already, well-distracted as all of his blood went south.
“Why don’t we get in the car then?” he suggested, and with a quick movement he pulled her away from the car and tugged the door open. Eric the soon-to-be-dead sat down first, in the passenger seat, and then he slid it all the way back. “Want to join me?”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this…” A giggle slid past her lips, somehow sounding natural, as she shifted into the car and straddled him. He shut the door, his hands running up her waist to squeeze her breasts. Immediately she started to tug at his belt, and he got with the program, undoing it and shoving his jeans down. She reached between them, slipping her hand under the waistband to stroke his stiff cock inside his boxers. At least being a whore paid off sometimes, because the act felt about as important as washing dishes with this asshole.
“Fuck!” He hissed air between his teeth as she sat back on his legs. “You’re some kind of angel, you have no idea the week I’ve had.”
“Bad week?” She pushed the words through gritted teeth, shutting down so she wouldn’t think of Smith in this moment. Think of his still outline, his vacant eyes – stop. “I bet I can make it better…”
“Oh yesss,” he groaned, his head lolling back against the headrest as his hands kneaded her ass under the skirt. “We need to get you out of this, I might need to tear these tights to get to that sweet pussy.”
“Just a minute.” Running her thumb over the head of his cock, she reached her other hand up the back of her shirt, toying with the blade until she was able to slide it out from under the back of her bra. “You’re so hard…”
“Fuck yeah I am, you’re so hot.”
“Am I?” she asked, leaning forward so his back pressed more firmly against the seat. “I lost a close friend this week, why was your week so bad?”
“Ungh,” he groaned as she stroked him again. “Old boss being an asshole, nothing I can’t handle, sweetheart. I took care of that problem.”
“Did you?” Camille fought the urge to dig her nails into his dick, and instead made sure she had a solid grip on the knife. She forced a little laugh. “You know, I never do this kind of thing.”
“Really? You’re fucking amazing.” His hips rolled against her grip.
“Oh no, not the handjob. I’ve had a lot of practice with those.” She smiled when he looked up at her, chocolate brown eyes lifting to hers with a hint of surprised confusion. “I mean, that it’s only been once before that I’ve straddled a guy like this, and…”
“And?” Eric asked just before she sliced his throat open with the blade, yanking her hand out of his pants as the warm spray painted her chest. His next words were a gurgle, and she grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her.
“This is for Smith, you useless fuck. The man you killed last night. Look me in the fucking eyes and know why you’re dying. You should have let him fucking kill you.” With a sharp thrust she buried the knife deep in his belly and the pain was evident as he widened his eyes. “Because it would have been much faster.”
Camille twisted the knife and waited until every last twitch of his muscles stopped. He was dead, and she was covered in the blood it had taken to clean the last name off the list of people worth vengeance. She adjusted him, left his dick out so they’d look for street girls in the area, and then she wiped the knife on his shirt and tucked it away into the back of her bra again.
Her heart was racing, as if it wanted to remind her it still beat. The unwelcome bastard.
With a growl she stepped out of the car, keeping her head down so that her hair formed a curtain, and she walked the long way out of the alley, onto the next block. Using the dark arm of her coat she wiped away the blood on her chest, spitting into her palm to help clear it free of her neck, then she wrapped the warm wool tightly around her. On the street there was a loud group of girls, laughing and talking, and she stood near enough to them that she would blend in.
After a few minutes, when passing glances would effectively attribute her to them, she stepped out into the road and flagged down a taxi. The dark helped her out as she shoved a wad of bills through the plastic and turned up the wasted girl routine, “Oh fuck, uh. I’m staying at this one hotel? Umm…”
“Do you remember the name?” Bored tone, already irritated with his latest fare, but she stumbled and slurred through the address until he understood it. Then she slumped down in the backseat and let him drive.
Back to the hotel. So she could pack up. Call Donovan, Lacroix – and leave this fucking city where her world had come crashing down.
And then? Then would come the hardest part.
Surviving.
Without Smith.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Of course, Smith would be the kind of guy with contingencies set up. He had never been someone who had ignored the worst parts of this life – and within a week of her verifying to Lacroix that he was dead Camille had started to receive calls.
Smith’s finances? Now in her name. Well, technically her alias – Caroline Smith. The same name he’d given her the night of the gala, the night when their relationship had changed for good. It was like a love letter from beyond the grave, cementing his choice even though he was gone. He had chosen her, above all else, to the death.
Smith’s storage locker? Full of weapons, and gear, and personal mementos from his life in boxes she might never have the courage to open – also in her name. The company sent a new auto-draft contract to Smith’s lawyer, who was now her lawyer as well. A man that asked no questions, didn’t seem interested in who she was, just as long as he got his hourly rate when he managed little things like storage units and requests for identity documents. The fact that he called her Ms. Smith was… oddly comforting in the week following his death.
Jean called from France, at four am, to tell her that he had heard, and confirm that he and all of his contacts were always available if she was in Europe. An open door. After that, it seemed the word spread through a hidden web of connections, because Jean’s was not the only call she received. Whether on Smith’s phone, or hers. All of them verifying the rumor first, and many of them acknowledging her as some kind of successor.
Some just ended the call when she confirmed it, disappearing like ghosts into the smoke that seemed to cloud the world post-Smith. It didn’t bother her. The holes that were left would be filled by new contacts. She’d find what she needed, when she needed it – it was the name of the game.
Lacroix continued to call, almost daily, and it seemed like he was doing it out of guilt or some other level of concern. Camille never managed to ask how much he knew, or how much he’d figured out from the list of names he’d been given – but it became clear he was going to keep calling to check in on her. Which was why she cursed him out one night and told him not to call her again unless it was for a job.
She was sick of being the victim, exhausted from years of feeling like one. That was over. Smith’s last gift to her was confirmation that she was who she had always wanted to be. Self-sufficient, dangerous, unbreakable – free.
Yet, there were strings from her time with him that she needed to cut, so she could stretch and be someone new. Build a reputation free of Smith’s long reaching shadow.
That was how she found herself in Bill’s bar, sitting under the Albatross Brewing sign on Christmas Eve. Of course the old guy was there, handling the place with just one waitress who Camille didn’t even recognize, with a room full of lonely people who had nowhere else to be.
“Alright.” Bill set a bottle of top-shelf vodka on the table and took the seat across from her, handing her a glass filled with ice, and sliding across another with limes. “Talk.”
“Hi, Bill.” She couldn’t suppress the small smile that lifted the edge of her mouth.
“Yes, hi. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, all that shit. What’s going on? I haven’t seen you guys for weeks.” He nudged the glass of ice closer to her and unscrewed the cap on the vodka, pouring heavy-handedly before he put it back upright. “Time to talk, C.”
With a sigh she reached for a lime, squeezed it, and then dropped it into the vodka, watching the bubbles crawl up the inside of the glass. Get it over with. “He’s gone, Bill,” she whispered.
The words seemed to freeze him in place, his words false starting a few times, and then he slammed his fist onto the table making the ice clink and the bottle jump. “That’s…” He wiped a hand down his face. “I can’t believe it.”
Camille shrugged one shoulder. “I know it’s shitty of me to bring you this – especially tonight. Fucking Christmas Eve of all nights.”
“You know, it’s actually not that strange, your arrival is more like an answered prayer.”
She laughed, because there had never been a time in her life when her arrival would have been related to any kind of holy intervention – more of the unholy, time to sell your soul side of things.
“I’m serious, C. I went to mass earlier tonight and I prayed for you two.” He lifted a hand when she started to speak. “Don’t comment. I’ve been worried about you both, and I’ve told Smith more than once that I wanted more for him than the life he had. I prayed for it, and I think he did too – don’t give me that look. Whatever issues you have with religion, Smith and I saw eye-to-eye on most of it.” He sighed. “Dammit, I wanted so much for that boy. Seeing you two together… it made my old heart happy, for you and for him. Smith loved you, and -”
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