He was on that bed now, his hands over his chest, Sandy next to him with her head on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry about Obsidian,” Sandy told him again, for what felt like the twentieth time. “What a terrible, painful way to go.”
“I just hope she didn’t suffer in the end…” he said solemnly.
Kevin closed his eyes, reliving the moment he’d seen the masked woman stab Obsidian in the chest. His teeth started to grind, the feeling of rage rolling over him.
“Relax,” Sandy told him as she lightly ran her fingers over his belly. “There’s nothing we can do now—not yet, anyway.”
The violence they had witnessed had brought them closer together, Kevin feeling comfortable enough to slip his arm down and place it squarely on her ass. It was odd, to go from at each other’s throats less than twenty-four hours ago to this.
Sandy looked up at him and smiled. “I guess with Obsidian gone, there are other things that can now be explored…”
“I just want to get fucked up,” Kevin said almost as an afterthought. “I want to forget tonight; I want to deal with tonight tomorrow.”
A mental message came in from Turquoise, letting Kevin know she would be returning in about ten minutes.
“Good. She has the serums and she’s coming here,” Kevin said.
“How long do we have?”
“Ten minutes, maybe less?”
Sandy brought her hand to Kevin’s cock. “Is that enough time?”
“I believe it is—not that she would care anyway. But…”
Kevin looked at the leather duffel bag across the room, the one with the serums in it. They were supposed to be used at the party; he was lucky Sandy’d had the wherewithal to retrieve the bag before they left.
“Let’s take just a little bit more,” he said.
Kevin rolled out of the bed and made his way over to their stash. He glanced back at Sandy to see her with her head rolled back, slowly starting to slip her hand up her skirt.
A quick smile spreading across his face, Kevin zipped the bag open and stuck his hand in.
He shrieked as something sharp pressed through his palm.
Kevin brought his hand out, the same one with the Zero Ring on it, to find a tiny action-figure-sized woman attached to it.
He started instinctively shaking his hand. He tried to activate his ring, but couldn’t because of where she had stabbed him.
And perhaps if he weren’t inebriated, Kevin would have thought to activate it with his other hand.
Instead, the former administrator swung his arm wide, launching the tiny woman into the wall. She hit the surface and dropped to the ground, then recovered and charged at him again.
“What the fuck!?” Kevin yelled as he tried to kick at her, the woman dodging his foot.
The minuscule woman jumped in the air and stabbed at his leg, quickly climbing up his body using her bladed arms.
A shocked look on her face, Sandy ran over to Kevin and tried to hit the tiny woman off his body. She missed and ended up slapping Kevin instead. The little woman made it up to his belly, where she stabbed her blade in multiple times.
“Fuck you both!” she shouted. Kevin dropped to a knee, the pain in his stomach shooting through his body.
The small woman was just about to reach his throat when Sandy finally ripped her off Kevin, tossing her across the room.
The telepath then went for a lamp and hurtled it at the miniature woman, who had already started running toward Kevin again.
“I’ll deal with you next, bitch!” the tiny woman shouted as she scaled the duvet and used the bed as a springboard.
She flew in the air toward Kevin and landed on his shoulder. Kevin tried to fight her off and failed again as she reached his neck.
The woman sank both of her bladed arms into Kevin’s throat.
He let out a garbled gasp as she did so, Sandy now backing away. The telepath wasn’t sure of how to respond or what to do.
Kevin started to fall forward.
His little assailant got out of the way just in time, riding the crown of his head to the ground. She moved down to the back of his neck and drove both blades in again, a pool of blood starting to form around Kevin’s jowls.
He managed to turn his cheek to the side, blowing bubbles in the blood as she moved to the side of his face. With a satisfied grin, she dropped to both knees and drove her blade into his temple.
“That should do it,” she said, keeping her sword arms deep in Kevin’s temple.
Sandy turned to the door, and she was just about to leave when she remembered the duffel bag full of narcotics on the table.
She looked at the small woman and back to the bag.
The pint-sized killer stood on Kevin’s head now, blood dripping from her blades.
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” she asked the telepath.
Sandy made a running leap toward the bag, and she may have made it had she not tripped over her own feet, falling to the ground right beside Kevin.
“You’re making this too easy,” the tiny doll said as she jumped from Kevin’s body to Sandy’s.
Sandy rolled over and tried to throw her off, but the small woman managed to sink a blade right above her clavicle.
Sandy gasped, pain igniting inside her as she wrapped her hand around the tiny woman’s body. The woman swiveled and stabbed her through the palm of her hand.
Sandy threw her hand out, slapping it against Kevin’s back.
Her heels instinctively clicked against the ground as the doll ran up her arm and stabbed both blades into her basilic vein.
“Hold still!” her assailant shouted.
The telepath let out an uncomfortable noise, her sphincter releasing. She tried to get back to her feet, only for the woman to transfer to her stomach and start jabbing her blades in.
By this point, the little doll was completely covered in crimson, which made her slippery as Sandy tried to swipe her away again.
The telepath could feel herself growing weak, and as a tingling sensation spread through her, she fell back to the ground and looked over at Kevin, his throat mangled, no more bubbles in the halo of blood around his face.
It was the last thing Sandy would ever see.
Epilogue: Now or Never
Coma was on top of Roman, her breasts shifting up and down as she slowly moved her hips. She didn’t have her mask on, so her red eyes were on full display every time she glanced down at him.
Celia was lifeless by his side, Casper on the dresser.
In the end, it had been the tiny doll that had killed Kevin Blackbook, which was something Roman was rather thankful for. While he could kill indiscriminately with his power, he was glad he hadn’t seen his former coworker breathe his last breath. Roman felt removed from the violence yet again.
It looked like it had been a pretty painful killing as well. Kevin and the telepath with him had been covered in puncture wounds, with a ton of blood in the room—so much, in fact, that Roman could smell it as soon as their teleporter had brought them there.
Everything that had happened after that was somewhat of a blur, culminating with Roman in the bathroom helping Casper wash herself in the sink, mostly at her request because she clearly could have done it on her own.
Even as Coma fucked him, Roman had to smile at how brazen Casper had been, how she had really proven herself useful in the end.
She had been saying it all along, and she had been right.
Coma dropped her hand to Roman’s chin and tilted it up to her face.
“Come on,” she said, instantly igniting a passion inside him.
He canceled out the other thoughts he had floating around, the iffy feelings about what they had done in Ravja, how coldhearted Ava had seemed in the end, how he felt he had been lied to about their true mission.
It didn’t matter at this point.
The morning sun peeking through the blinds and the city of Ravja coming awake only meant one thing now: Roman�
�s next moment of reckoning was upon him.
So he fucked like it was.
Reinvigorated, he slapped both hands onto Coma’s hips and started thrusting harder, going in as deep as he could.
She bared her teeth, her predatory nature suddenly on display.
His combat doll started pushing her weight down on the Roman, driving her knees into his side, the bed squeaking and the headboard beating against the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Celia’s lifeless form flopping.
And in that brief moment, Roman didn’t care.
He wanted to get in touch with his savage side, as if that would somehow deliver an answer to him that he had yet to realize on his own. He wanted to do something primal, something different.
Coma stopped for a moment and started to turn around. She crouched over Roman’s penis and spread her ass cheeks, and Roman slipped his member inside her ass.
There was no lubrication necessary, not with his dolls, and it didn’t really feel much different than it had just moments ago, but there was something different about it, something forbidden.
Roman went with it.
It was that kind of morning, and it was going to be that kind of day.
For all he knew, he would be arrested by the afternoon, locked in Centralia South, likely sedated.
So he kept on like it didn’t matter anymore.
“Do you like that?” Coma asked.
Roman didn’t say anything; he merely watched his member move in and out of her ass.
A voice at the back of his head told him that sodomy didn’t matter, that she wasn’t real, that this wasn’t taboo. But his eyes didn’t necessarily vibe with his intellect, and it wasn’t long before he felt the urge to finish.
“I’m about to…”
“Do it inside me,” she said, and Roman obeyed her command.
His orgasm made his arms and legs tingle for a second; then it was over as quickly as it had started.
Coma slowly got off Roman, cupping her hand over her ass as she made her way to the restroom.
Roman stared up at the ceiling, remembering the crack on the ceiling of his bedroom in his garden apartment, back when he worked at the bodega. His situation had changed so much since then; now there was a possibility things were about to get a lot worse.
Figuring he should wash up, Roman also made his way to the restroom, where he found Coma making sure all his semen was out of her.
“It was a lot,” she said with a smile on her face.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he told her.
“But you enjoyed it, right?”
He turned the shower on, placing his hand under the water.
“Do you mind?” she asked as he waited for the water to get warm.
“No, please.”
They showered together, Coma slowly cleaning Roman’s back, their forms barely visible in the steam from the hot water.
“I’m serious about later,” she said once Roman had turned to her, the water drumming against his back and shoulders.
“I don’t know…”
She began to rub her hands on his stomach and then down to his member, tugging on it and cleaning it as well.
“Just you and I should go in there. We can leave Celia in the hallway, Casper too.”
“How do you know there will be a hallway?”
Coma tilted her head as she looked up at him. “If they wanted to kill you or take you prisoner, they would have done it while you were sleeping. They would do something like drop poison in the room, or send in a high-level telepath, the one that was stronger than Miranda. But they didn’t. I was up all night standing by the door, ready. I know they didn’t do anything. This leads me to believe they’re just going to scold you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Or make you another offer.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And if they do try to do something, and I’m there…”
“Do you really think that’s what we should do?” he asked, moving closer to her.
“If we can get away from them, they can’t stop us. We can get in touch with Nadine, who can get us to the East. There must be other options. That’s just one I can think of off the top of my head.”
Roman watched some of the water splash under her chest, the droplets dripping down into the valley created by her breasts.
“Maybe.”
Coma brought her hand to Roman’s chin, settling his gaze on her. “There is no maybe. I need to know now: either we make a stand when the time comes, or you take the fall.”
Roman felt drenched in shame, even though no one at the Centralian Intelligence Agency knew what he had done. He couldn’t help but hang his head, the shame weighing down upon him.
And for what?
While everything was still fuzzy, he was well aware of the fact that what he did in the Eastern Province had been to help a friend, to aid Nadine. And like his other misdemeanor, the one in which he’d disobeyed a direct order and gone after Margo, Roman knew himself well enough to know he would probably do it again.
Coma was by his side, Ava a few steps in front of him.
Casper and Celia, much to Roman’s dismay, were with Jess and Miranda in the Western Province. Jess was healed now, but they wanted to wrap up a few more things, and Roman had been told to leave his dolls behind.
He had been instructed to leave Coma as well, but he had adamantly refused, and Ava hadn’t pressed the issue.
His former teacher hadn’t said much to him this morning, nor had Roman really spoken to her.
He figured she was still a little pissed that he had disobeyed a direct order last night in coming to the restaurant. What she likely hadn’t picked up was how disappointed Roman was with the part of herself she had displayed the previous night.
He was aware now that going after the serums was important, but the way she had responded to Jess’s injury was unsettling—careless even. If Miranda had noticed, she hadn’t said anything, and Roman couldn’t shake the feeling that he no longer recognized Ava.
The affection he had felt for his teacher for so long wasn’t gone. It had morphed into something else, a terrible thing of sheer nostalgia based on a few nights they’d spent together.
He barely noticed the famous Centralian Intelligence Agency statue in the middle of the courtyard, the arrow pointing downward. Roman didn’t give two shits about the way information was disseminated in his country.
He glanced at Coma. She nodded, her nostrils flaring open for a moment as a breeze picked up, making the ends of her dress dance.
As usual, she was in all black with her matching mask, his combat doll catching the eyes of a few passing agents.
They came to a male receptionist, who nodded to his left.
Rather than go up, they took a stairwell down this time, past an exemplar with purple dots over his eyes and static energy radiating off his shoulders.
Ava, Coma, and Roman came to a new hallway, the walls bare, everything spick-and-span, marble floor recently polished.
Roman followed his former teacher across the carved symbol representing the Centralian Intelligence Agency.
They passed a set of restrooms, turned down another hallway, and finally came to a room with double doors.
Ava opened one of the doors, allowing Roman and Coma to step in.
There was a single table in the room, Rafner seated on the other side.
He motioned toward a gray chair in front of him. Ava took a seat next to Rafner, and Coma stood off to Roman’s left. As usual, the man was dressed in dark clothing, his features even more pronounced this time now that he was clean-shaven, his nose and eye sockets casting shadows over his face.
“Roman Martin,” he said as a thin smile took shape on his face.
“I did what was asked of me.” Roman cut himself off just in time, not wanting to start the meeting off with a rambling soliloquy.
“It has come to my attention that there is now more information ab
out your trip to the East,” Rafner began, offering Coma a tight grin before returning his smile to Roman. “Ava relayed your—or should I say your doll’s?—confession to me. Should we go over what your doll told her? Are there parts of it you would like to object to?”
“No.”
“So in exchange for the freedom of an Eastern spy known as Nadine Under, as well as a boy healer named Eli and an exemplar from the Northern Alliance named Lisa Painstake, you provided access to your ability. Is this correct?”
“Yes.”
“And just for my own knowledge here, or should I say, to better understand your knowledge, you are aware that the Eastern Province is known for its ability to reverse engineer superpowers, correct?”
“I am aware.”
Roman could see Coma out of the corner of his eye, his combat doll standing with her fists at her sides, ready to engage.
“Well, Roman?” Rafner asked.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Roman realized he had zoned out for a moment, and in that time he’d also thought about what it would be like to break out of here, the speed at which he would have to move.
“I asked if you understood what this meant for national security, and if you can possibly comprehend what it would be like if the East is actually able to reverse engineer your ability. Well?”
“It would be bad.”
Rafner scoffed. “Bad? Is that all you can say?”
“I did what I did,” Roman started to say, “and while everything that happened in the East isn’t exactly clear to me now, I can tell you I had a reason for it, and that I believed in that reason. I’m aware that this is not enough, but it’s my honest answer.”
“Are you aware of what would happen to you if the knowledge of your actions left this room?” Rafner asked. “From what I’ve seen in the past when it came to this type of treason, you would be eligible for streamlined removal. Since you’re already at our headquarters…”
“I get it,” Roman told him.
“Good, just so you’re aware. And I am assuming that you have some plan as to how you would get out of here, correct? Perhaps you would use your doll here with her blade arms. You would probably be able to kill me, but would you be able to kill her?” he asked, nodding at Ava.
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