The Ties That Bind Chapter 15

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Of Heroes And Villains:
The Ties That Bind

By Minikisa


An assassin.

A fallen hero.

An unlikely meeting.

The road to redemption is long and hard and filled with explosives.
The Ties That Bind


Shade slowly sat on the edge of the bed, watching Diane’s face as her chest rose and fell with deep, even breaths. Kara reached out to lightly run her fingertips along the curve of her spine. Diane’s lips curled into a small smile in her sleep, and she arched into the touch.

That sight was usually all Shade needed for utter contentment after a night spent purging this city of crime a little more.

But not today.

The black leather of her uniform was ripped open, dried blood caking her already healed skin. Shade had fought viciously and recklessly, surpassing the brutality she was renowned for by far. It hadn’t helped.

The wound that it had taken her ten years to start mending had been torn open; a dull, aching pain that even Diane’s healing powers could not touch.

Kara had spent the day watching PsyKick walk around the house, sometimes teleporting several feet at random, before he’d settled on fiddling with that car he was obsessed with. Caroline’s body had looked so small and childlike in the overgrown men’s clothes he had stuffed it into. Hard to believe that she was supposed to be a ruthless assassin.

But then, the thought of her fun-loving, independent sister being a pawn of the Order was hard to believe in general. Kara had a very clear picture of her being one of the most loving people she knew, even if she’d had a bit of a temper.

A subtle red glow illuminated their dark bedroom and Kara slightly turned her head. Diane had woken up and was gazing at her from beneath long eyelashes.

“Hey,” she murmured. “Any luck?”

Shade shook her head. Collecting information on an assassin whose codename she didn’t even know proved difficult.

“I’ve been thinking,” Diane said as she shifted her weight and crawled closer, wrapping her arms around Shade’s stiff form. “She cares for you. We can lure her out that way.”

“How so?” Kara asked in a dull voice.

“A public appearance by Ian Reynolds. She might show up to take a closer look.”

Normally the thought of wearing that goddamn pendant more than strictly necessary was enough for Kara to lose her composure, but she barely felt that sting now, examining the idea dispassionately.

“…there’s this charity thing a couple of days from now.”

Reynolds Industries hosted several charity events a year. Some were her parent’s legacies, others had been instituted by Kara herself. It was one of the few things she did not have to fight her board of directors over; charity was good PR after all.

Kara used to appear in person for each and every one, but had increasingly withdrawn over the years and then stopped attending entirely in recent months for obvious reasons.

Diane beamed up at her.

Shade sighed.

“Let’s say that draws her out…” She paused, weighing her words. “Then what? What do I have to say to an assassin?”

“Not an assassin, Kara,” Diane said, pressing a gentle kiss to Shade’s unmoving lips. “Your sister.”

Shade did not answer.


***


“So what keeps you from leaving?”

Caroline balanced precariously on the edge of the small platform, staring down. She wondered what would happen if she fell. Gravity did not seem to be a significant factor here.

“Nobody escapes the order. In the end, they will always catch you. If the first operative fails, two more take his place, until they wear you out.”

“I suppose you would know,” he said softly and Caroline replied with silence. “But you’re a teleporter. You should be able to keep evading them forever.”

To her consternation, a ghostly reenactment of the brand being burned into her skin started playing in the darkness before her, like a silent movie. She swept it away with an impatient wave of her hand, and it dissolved into glowing mist.

“It’s a risk I’m not willing to take. All it takes is one moment of carelessness for them to catch up.”

“Ah.” Pause. “So you’re just scared of dying.” And for the first time she heard derisiveness in his voice. She whirled around to scowl at him, and he met her gaze. Some emotion was burning in that stare – was burning in the colors, too, flickering and devouring his everpresent desire.

“You say that as if it’s irrational. Of course I want to live.”

“There are fates worse than death.” His eyes darkened, and she shuddered at the emotions spilling from him.

“No. There aren’t. That’s an empty phrase said by those who have not seen death up close. Death is the end of everything.” Including the hope for something… better.

“For someone who thinks death is so terrible, you are certainly quite willing to inflict it on others.”

“Almost everyone I have killed was dead anyway. If not by my hand, then by someone else’s. The Order does not stop sending assassins, not ever, not until their target is six feet under.”

His lips curled back in something akin to a sneer, and she snapped, “What would you have me die for? It wouldn’t save anyone. One more body to add to the pile.”

If Caroline left and they hunted her down within days, as she was sure they would, what would she have lived for? Twenty years of being a spoiled rich girl who managed to get herself kidnapped twice, and then spent the years after that doing unspeakable things.

The only good thing she had ever achieved in her lifetime was raising her baby brother while their parents were too damn busy to pay attention.

Of course, once she had made her way back to Paragon, she realized she had failed at that, too. Ian was not a well-adjusted adult, she could see that even from a distance.

And she was not the kind of person who could fix that.

“It would save you from being a murderer.”

She laughed bitterly. “I have been a murderer for a very long time. Nothing I do will ever make that go away, least of all dying when I have achieved nothing to make up for it.”

And the storm that had been building around him suddenly calmed, smoothing back into the ruby hues from before. “Do you want to make up for it?”

The ground shook with the force of her anger. More than anything she hated that look of pity on his face.

“I am not some helpless victim for you to save,” she seethed. “I have made my choices, and if I said I hadn’t enjoyed some of them, I would be lying. Some people just need a fucking sword to the gut.”

The landscape shimmered as a wall rose between them.

The mercenary who had dragged her into the Order had tried very hard to convince her that he had saved her life. That the things he did to her, and made her do, were done out of love. And Caroline had grown to understand why he could not intervene until his contract had been fulfilled, and could have forgiven him his part in her kidnapping. But she had never forgotten one thing.

He had let her parents die.

Had she been free, she could have disarmed the old man without effort before a single shot had been fired. Assault, skilled as he was, could have done the same, but chose not to. To better isolate her for things to come.

She had contemplated death rather than allowing herself to be shaped into that monster he wanted her to be.

Of course, he had made sure that path was closed to her as well.

As she lay starving, he had watched her serenely. And his voice had been so very casual as he made a pointed observation.

It’s your prerogative to refuse to serve in our Order. I will recruit someone else in your place. Say, mutant powers run in families, do they not?

After four years of hellish training, she had long since stopped trying to resist and accepted her first independent contract along with her place in life. He had smiled at her, and been so happy, lovingly kissing her while her skin crawled. She had smiled back and that night had nailed him to the wall.

Radiance had laughed in delight.

Killing him had earned her a promotion to his rank in the Order.


***



PsyKick stared wide-eyed at the mirage she had put between them. A mutilated man was impaled on the wall, every detail of the gruesome scene lovingly committed to memory.

It took him a moment to recognize the eviscerated costume beneath the blood spatters. He’d seen this man in one of her memories, and understood instantly what had driven Caroline to such viciousness.

Still, he should not be this attracted to brazen displays of sadism.

But he really, really was.

Although the dagger she had shoved into the assassin’s crotch was somewhat disquieting.

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Comments

'Although the dagger she had

'Although the dagger she had shoved into the assassin's crotch was somewhat disquieting'...

Well Psykick, if you get your body back and start dating Caroline... may I suggest not pissing her off? I may cause problems in your love life... permanently...

Looking forward to tomorrow's chapter Mini, very much so...

Let the flames of inspiration blaze within, and the sky be less of a limit, and more of a challenge

less than permanent.

If psykick and caroline do get together, the result of pissing her off may not be permanent, especially if they hang out with kara and diane. As long as carolines irritation isn't lethal, anything can heal over time in the presence of a powerful healer.

Wonderful chapter, left me wanting more as usual. Thanks for sharing, i'll be back tomorrow for my daily fix (you wouldn't leave a junkie in the lurch would ya).


Vita est brevis. Occupo quis tripudium vos reperio.
-Life is short. Seize what joy you find.

"brazen displays of sadism. "

well, some people are turned on by the strangest things.

Like boys in skirts, hose and heels ...

*blushes*

DogSig.png

when you sharpen

a weapon to a razors edge, it can cut you. good for her.
nice job, thanks

Oh yes.

PsyKick and Caroline are already far more intimate than many lovers manage. That intimacy is showing each of them things the other normally wouldn't show others. Will Caroline be able to help put him together again. He's broken but not irredeemable. Can he show her that she isn't broken, just bent by what has happened?

Have to wait and see here, but those two are getting really close to each other by this point whether they wish to admit it or not.

Maggie

Siblings

Tas's picture

Caroline and Ian (as this is about Caroline's view and she doesn't know about Kara yet) really do love each other. It wasn't the that of her own death that got Caroline to accept the Order's training, it was the threat to her brother.

-Tas