Deathstroke let out a wet, bloody laugh. "Five hundred missions, a bloody war, seven years of covert operations, and I'm dying at the hands of some wet-behind-the-ears kid. Ain't life fucking grand."
"You're mighty chatty for someone bleeding out," I said. "You're literal seconds away from death."
"Minutes," he corrected. "I've been wounded more times than I can count. I know the limits of my body. I'm happy to take my secrets to the grave, unless…" He trailed off with a smirk.
"No," I said flatly. "You're not getting a deal."
"Can you afford not to?" he asked. "She's too valuable to your little bootleg resistance team. So you're going to deal. Or she'll die, and you'll never see it coming."
I tried not to react. Knowing Deathstroke, this wasn't an empty threat, and the clock was probably ticking. But I didn't care. I wasn't going to play his game—I was going to make him play mine.
"Alright," I said through gritted teeth. "I'll make you a deal."
I put my newly acquired Acting skill to work.
Acting has reached level 2
Placing a hand on his chest, I flooded RCT through his body, mending most of his shredded organs, muscles, and split ribcage. I even healed the flesh on top, but left his spine very much broken.
He grinned. "The healing will obviously need to be completed. You also have to agree to let me go, never attempt to hurt or betray me, and in return, I'll keep our little rendezvous a secret. I'll swear to do the same, along with telling you how I intended to kill her."
I knitted my brow and made a show of thinking of his offer, then fixing my expression. "Fine. No backhanded deals or ratting me out. And we'll agree on the exact story you tell Shelim and the other sorcerers."
"Down to the last word," he smiled.
I channeled a considerable amount of Cursed Energy into him. I had a hunch he had no real idea how magic actually worked, and I used planned on using that ignorance to my advantage. Halfway through the 'binding', I flipped energies and mended his spine completely.
Acting has reached level 5
Deathstroke shuddered. "Wow. Just when you think you've seen everything."
"The information?" I demanded.
He laughed. "A deal is a deal. The leader of her little team? He's in my pocket."
"Thank you," I hissed with venom on my tongue, and stabbed him in the liver with my bone dagger. He grunted, then I used my Pain Tolerance subskill, and he started hollering.
The subskill tripled pain perception. That was never getting old.
Deathstroke screamed, thrashing wildly. He struck at my throat, but Inverse neutralized the damage. I dug my fingers into his face and scooped out his single working eye.
His voice broke, and I drank in his pain.
Torture has reached level 5
"You were right the first time," I whispered into his ear. "You are going to die today."
I twisted his neck and ripped his head off, taking a chunk of spine with it. It bathed the grass and my armor in gore, and I stumbled to my feet, trying to swish it off with very limited results.
Finally, I gave up and transported the mess to my inventory.
For a long second, I stared at my hands. They didn't shake. I found that strangely…concerning.
The barrier came down, and I took off in a burst of speed.
I found Alex near the edge of the neighborhood, crouching behind an SUV while a mercenary guarded her—and another pointed a gun at him. His name was Rex, a balding man in his late forties with a powerful physique and tattoos up one arm.
"Come on, Jim," Rex said. "Is she worth dying for?"
"God damn it, we took a job, Rex!" the defender growled. Jim was younger, mid-twenties, red-haired, freckled. "We're only as good as our word."
"You think I survived this long with that kind of thinking?" Rex snapped. "There are some people you don't cross—not for all the money in the world. Deathstroke is one of them."
"Was one of them," I said, stepping out of the shadows.
Rex dropped to one knee, spinning to shoot—but too slow. A bone dagger was already in his eye socket. He convulsed, fingers slackening. I recalled the dagger, ripping it out and dropping him lifeless to the ground before storing it away.
"That takes care of that."
Jim slowly lowered his gun, awe and fear flickering across his face. Alex peeked out from behind the SUV.
"It's over?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "So, can I get my passport now?"
Alex relocated us to another safehouse far from the chaos. Within minutes of our departure, the entire neighborhood was swarming with uniformed officers and detectives. Crime was common in the city's ghettos—not in carefully manicured suburbs filled with middle-class families.
She slid the promised package across the kitchen table. We'd both showered, changed clothes, and were now nearly an hour out from the incident. She was still visibly shaken.
We were alone in a loft apartment. Her bodyguards waited outside. It felt like the right time to resume our conversation.
"Now that the danger has passed," I said, "we should finish our talk."
She held up a finger. "Hold that thought."
She opened a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, and set them between us.
"I have a feeling we'll both need this."
I chuckled. It sounded alien to me. It wasn't tinged in sarcasm or anger or cruelty.
"Who keeps alcohol in a cabinet?" I asked.
She smiled. "Uh… regular people? Not everyone is rich enough for a standing bar, and it's not exactly classy to put liquor on display."
"What about the fridge?"
"That's for wine, beer, and soda," she said. "Definitely not vodka."
"What's wrong with vodka?" I asked as she poured two shots. "Why don't you tell me?"
I swallowed mine without flinching. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. I have no taste for the stuff."
She blinked. "Huh. You seemed like the boozy type."
"No. I guess I get my kicks some other way."
She raised a brow. "If that was a come-on, I don't—"
"Mix business with pleasure?" I finished. "I agree. Life is complicated enough."
She gave me an amused look. "I was going to say I don't usually go for one-liners."
"Oh."
"Do you ever just… turn it off?" she asked, leaning on the table. "This brooding, stabby, murderous sorcerer thing you've got going on."
"No," I said simply. "Letting your guard down is how you get taken out by your own men."
It was how you get captured by your cult… and watch your foster parent and sister-figure die. I poured another shot and tossed it back. Still nothing—just a sharp taste. I wondered how many bottles it would take to get me buzzed.
"In my defense," Alex muttered, "I have history with these people. I didn't think—" She cut herself off, swallowed another shot. "Trust is hard to come by. When you find it, it's usually worth it."
"That's assuming you have time for that," I said. "People behave when they have a metaphysical bomb jacket strapped to their souls."
"If this were any other deal, I would've rejected your offer," she said. "It's not smart to enter a contract you can't control."
"That's fair," I conceded. "But I'd be a fool not to use my advantage."
She gave a slight shrug.
"Speaking of which—we never figured out what to do about Shelim," she said. "He'll keep coming after me until he gets what he lost. And he'll know I had help—from you."
I hadn't left enough evidence to prove it was me, but that hardly mattered.
"You'll need to go underground until I can deal with our Shelim problem," I said. "And the easiest way is to use what you got off his system—draw him in."
She massaged the bridge of her nose, then threw back another shot. "Why did I have to push it?" Her eyes flicked to me. "Do you think you can take him?"
"Definitely," I said honestly. "But that's not the issue. Shelim has friends—just as dangerous as I am, some worse. Once he realizes I was involved, he'll tell them, if he knows what's good for him. Getting out from under this won't be easy."
"You knew this would happen when you made that deal, didn't you?" Alex asked, eyes narrowing. "We're in it for the long haul."
"Yes, we are," I said, pouring another drink. She mirrored me. I raised my glass. "To running together."
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