Chapter 9
Rio thought she might die from hyperthermia. She was okay with that.
The biting cold against her uncovered legs and arms hurt like hell but at least it grounded her. With blue trembling fingers she took another drag from her cigarette. She hadn’t smoked in years and only used to do it when she was significantly buzzed on alcohol, but desperate times. The receptionist behind the desk in the lobby had seen Rio crying and offered her one. She hadn’t declined.
Rio Vidal had done many morally questionable things; she had to it was in her job description. And because of this, she tried not to do anything unnecessarily morally grey in her day-to-day life. Sure, she’d killed people, tortured criminals for information, broken a few laws, but partake in an affair? Help another woman cheat on her partner?
Never.
It was something Rio could control and therefore she wouldn’t do it.
Was Agatha truly that fucked up? Evidently. Rio knew she had started it; she should’ve walked away like she had told herself to so many times. But Agatha had touched her, caressed her lip, gunned for the kiss.
It didn’t make any fucking sense. Why was she okay with cheating? Was the woman not capable of love? How could she be so heartless?
Maybe the person who rang wasn’t her partner? Maybe I should just…ask her.
Rio shook away the thought. No. Never.
She took another drag of her cigarette.
If Agatha wanted to tell her about it, then she would’ve and she hadn’t.
Rio took it back, maybe she wasn’t okay with dying from hypothermia. Her teeth chattered violently. She scolded herself for leaving without her fucking shoes, or a coat, or something. The only thing she’d thought to grab was her phone which had her key card and black card (it had the software she needed to download on either of the Archibold’s phones) in the wallet attached to it. A fat load of good either of those things would do right now. She had no intention of going back to her room, and Jack and Amelia were sound asleep the last time she checked.
She shut her mouth to let the cigarette smoke seep from her nose. With her eyes closed, Rio rolled her head back to try and help herself relax. Annoyingly, the feeling between her legs hadn’t quite disappeared. All she felt was this deep hatred for herself because why was it still there? She would never touch a woman in a relationship like that, and Agatha was a witch for trying to get her to.
Rio rested the side of her face against her shoulder. A mistake. Her nose caught a whiff of Agatha’s fragrance that still clung to her clothes. Tears of anger began to prick Rio’s eyes. She had been so stupid.
Pain shot through her middle finger as the cigarette butt burnt her skin. Rio dropped it with a jolt. On a normal day, that would’ve pissed her off. Today, Rio welcomed the pain as a distraction. As punishment…maybe. Maybe she deserved it.
“Did you want another? Or maybe a coat?”
Rio turned to see her mission subject.
“Erm…”
“Actually, I’m not giving you an option about the coat it's minus four degrees.” Jack slung his black North Face puffer over Rio’s shoulders. He held out a cigarette. “They’re golds.”
A slow smile spread across Rio’s lips. “You’ve convinced me.”
Jack returned her smile as he handed it to her.
“Thank you,” Rio said as he brought out his lighter. “For the jacket.”
He nodded his head, and she came closer. She put her hand behind the lighter to block the wind as Jack flicked it. Orange sparks shot out, lighting Rio’s second cigarette in five years. He repeated the ritual for himself, took his first drag before he said:
“It’s nothing. You want to tell me why you’re half dressed in the freezing cold at twelve in the morning?”
Rio inhaled her cigarette, letting the action buy her time to think of an answer. She settled on something simple.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Jack turned to her; his eyebrow raised to let her know he didn’t buy it. Luckily for Rio, he didn’t persist.
“And where’s your wife?”
“Where’s yours?” Rio shot back.
Jack nodded. “Touché.”
The pair stood in silence as they took drags of their cigarettes. Rio thought her toes were going to fall off. She was about to tell Jack to have a good night when he spoke first:
“Wanna do shots?”
Rio’s slow smile returned.
***
Rio had already almost broken one of her rules concerning professionalism tonight, one more wouldn’t hurt. Technically, this could be seen as helping the mission, getting drunk with her mission subject. She was getting Jack to warm up to her, well, that’s what she told herself anyway.
Tequila burned her throat for the sixth time in half an hour. She wiped lazily at the liquid that missed her mouth and dribbled down her chin.
“I don’t know how you do that without salt or a lime,” Jack laughed.
Rio shrugged although she knew why. The harsh taste of the alcohol was burning out any feeling of Agatha against her skin, in her hair, on her lips-
She grabbed another shot and tipped it down her throat.
“Woah,” Jack waved his hand sluggishly. “Maybe I should cut you off? Wouldn’t want you dying from alcohol poisoning.”
Rio smiled as the alcohol finally had the effect, she’d wanted it to. She shut her eyes and let that feeling of numbness wash over her entire body. For the first time since the bathroom in the Thai restaurant after their first mission, Rio detached.
All of the confusing, torturous feelings she had about her fake wife faded away into a pit of nothing. Rio sighed into the familiarity of it. If she wasn’t so drunk she would’ve been annoyed at herself for needing alcohol to get her to this place. She’d never needed any help with detaching before.
When her father abandoned her, Rio had built up defences soon after. She never wanted to feel that sort of emptiness again. This meant letting few people get to know her and getting to know few people. The fewer people in her life, the fewer people who could affect her by leaving it. This meant pouring herself into her job, into her hobbies and interests, into her plants.
Like Rio said, she didn’t think one person should affect another so deeply in such a short amount of time. She didn’t understand what made Agatha so different from anyone else she’d ever met.
Rio hated her for it.
“Are you okay?” Jack asked.
She reopened her eyes, a breathless giggle floating out her mouth. “Never felt better.”
He swivelled in his bar chair to face her. Rio could see there was a question on his tongue. She blinked at him slowly for several seconds waiting for the reveal.
“Yes…” Rio said when the reveal didn’t come.
“You’re avoiding your wife.” It was a statement, not a question.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a wife.” And technically, she didn’t.
Jack laughed at that. “Me neither.”
Rio giggled as Jack called the bartender behind the bar over to get them another round.
***
Their conversation flowed easily. Jack told her about his love for skiing and snowboarding, about the time he crashed into a tree and broke his nose, about the time he and his friends had gotten stuck on a ski lift in the middle of a snowstorm for five hours. Rio laughed sluggishly at his tales and at his terrible dad jokes. She told him very little about herself (obviously), sticking to general topics like basketball and how unlike Jack she hated snowboarding.
“I’ll be back, I’m just going to use the restroom.”
Rio nodded her response as she played with the straw in her rum and coke. She needed a new one, the paper had gone soggy, and it was making her drink taste like cardboard. She was about to wave the bartender over when her eyes landed on Jack’s phone. He’d left it? Oh, perfect! This just made Rio’s life that much easier.
She fumbled in the pockets of her phone wallet, pulling at the black card with more effort than she would usually need considering her drunken state, and pressed it against the front of Jack’s phone. She watched as the screen whirled to life, flashed white before a circle appeared. The number zero sat in the middle, and Rio watched as the numbers climbed. To hide what she was doing, she rested her arm on the phone and called over the bartender to ask for a new straw.
Why was it moving so slowly? The bartender had come and gone, she had discarded her new straw next to her and yet still the number on the phone read fifty-two percent complete. Rio looked around anxiously for Jack’s return, her right hand fidgeting with the tip of her straw.
It didn’t make sense to her that the alcohol coursing through her veins made her even more alert than usual. She didn’t question it. There weren’t many people in the hotel bar, but she watched them all like hawks as she completed her mission.
Jack’s phone read eighty-four per cent when she caught the first sight of him.
He smiled at her as he made his way across the bar. Luckily, he had to cross the entire room to get there, and he bought her more time when he stumbled into a woman on the way out. As he apologised profusely, Rio folded over his phone and reached for one of the bottles behind the bar, her body shielding Jack’s phone from his view as long as he stayed behind her.
She pretended to fish around the bar for a bottle. She couldn’t remove the card mid-process otherwise the software wouldn’t download. Several moments later, Jack appeared next to her.
Shit.
“What are you doing?” His voice accusatory.
Rio had been caught for the second time tonight.
“What do you mean?” She played off her question cooly, her hand pressing harder into his phone.
“I mean, what are you doing?” Jack paused. “Were you drinking without me?”
Rio almost collapsed with the relief. “Was it obvious?” She snatched at a random bottle and threw it in the air before catching it again.
When she resettled in her seat, she swiped the card from Jack’s phone in a drunken manner so it couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a drunken impulse. Rio was grateful to see 100% on Jack’s phone before it disappeared. Jack hadn’t seemed to notice.
“Orange vodka?” Jack said eyeing her. “Okay, interesting choice but let’s do it.”
Rio concealed her shock at her random choice with a pleased expression. “Okay then.”
She fucking hated orange-flavoured things.
“Excuse me,” the bartender had reappeared from god knows where. “Unfortunately, you can’t help yourself.”
Jack and Rio turned to each other with knowing glances before turning their attention back to the woman.
“What if we pour you one?”
And that’s how Rio spent the rest of the early hours of the morning, behind a bar serving the rest of the people in the room alcohol. The bartender had given Jack access to the bar's speakers, and he blasted 2016’s Hot One Hundred through them.
She danced the night away with alcohol getting poured down her throat, a hot bartender holding her hips and laughter filling her ears.
Every thought about her fake wife forgotten.
***
Rio stumbled back into her hotel room at a quarter past six with a croissant she’d stolen from the breakfast buffet they had started to prepare at the restaurant next to the bar stuffed in her mouth. She was still extremely drunk, the room blurring as she felt along the walls to keep herself upright.
Her soul almost left her body when Agatha appeared in front of her. Even in Rio’s drunk haze, she noticed the dark bags underneath Agatha’s eyes, the way her hair sat an unruly nest on her head, the anxiousness written all over her face.
She hasn’t slept?
Had she been waiting for Rio to return?
A pang of guilt spread across Rio’s body before she shoved it away, replacing it with the pit void of feelings for the woman before her.
Agatha regarded her for a moment, taking her in, analysing her as if she were a lab experiment. Rio wanted to shrink into herself but resisted the urge, standing taller instead.
“You smell like a distillery.”
Rio laughed as if Agatha had told her the world’s funniest joke. She laughed so hard and for so long she folded over herself as she tried to suck in air to breathe. She regretted it immediately, the momentum of the action made her head spin and Rio pushed past Agatha and made a B-line for the toilet.
Without thought, she threw her half-eaten pastry on the floor and knelt in front of the toilet. Her body heaved and vomit spewed from her mouth. Rio tried to swipe her hair out of her face to stop her sick getting in it but failed miserably.
She found her hair being pulled back anyway. Agatha knelt behind her, held her hair, and started rubbing circles on her back. If Rio had the energy, she would’ve pushed her away.
She stayed hunched over the toilet bowl for what felt like hours, Agatha by her side whispering soothing words as her body contracted.
Finally, her body gave out and she slumped against the cool porcelain. Rio surprised herself when she realised, she regretted nothing. She’d do the whole night all over again even if it meant heaving her guts out.
Agatha’s hand withdrew and Rio tried to ignore the way her body twitched because of it.
“Have a shower, Rio,” Agatha told her as if she were a teacher telling off a delinquent student.
***
Two hours later Rio was sat opposite her fake wife at breakfast. Although the vomiting and showering had sobered her up a bit, she still felt tipsy. She was glad for it; the hangover wouldn’t be hitting her anytime soon.
With extra effort, her eyes focused on Amelia and her son across the restaurant. Jack wasn’t with them which came as no shock to Rio.
“You should eat something,” Agatha said, her tone flat.
Rio glanced at her before returning her gaze to their mission subjects. “I’m alright.”
Her stomach twisted at the thought of food.
In the corner of her eye, she saw Agatha shaking her head.
“I’m not asking, here,” she put a baguette on Rio’s plate.
She scoffed. “I’m not eating that.”
Agatha’s eyes narrowed and Rio knew she’d awoken some sort of beast. It fascinated her immediately, she was up for a challenge, anything would help to make it easier to hate the woman.
“So, you’re going to go out of your way to jeopardise our mission because you can’t be asked to be at the top of your game?” Agatha smiled sweetly. “You're such a…brat.”
Rio fought the urge to smack her. The way she’d said it, it was so layered, so meant to agitate, to catch her off guard, to taunt.
She wouldn’t let Agatha have this one. She steeled herself before she said, “Well, I am a princess. What did you expect?”
The thought of Rio calling herself a princess again made her want to cringe and vomit.
“You-”
Agatha cut herself off, her eyes falling across the room. Amelia and Jack’s son was leaving the table, Amelia didn’t look like she was moving. Perhaps he was going back to his father asleep in his room. The pair needed eyes on the boy, he didn’t have a tracker and he’d been with one of his parents up until now.
Rio went to move before Agatha gripped her wrist across the table.
“Stay here and eat something, and you better. I have absolutely no problem coming back here and cramming food down your throat. I’d do it happily. Put your com in and turn it on or so help me, Rio,” Agatha’s words shot through Rio’s skin like venom.
She snatched her hand away from Rio’s wrist and stormed out of the restaurant.
Rio kept watch of Amelia for the next hour, and no, she didn’t eat anything.
***
Once Amelia was done with breakfast she didn’t head back to her room, instead, she got on a ski lift. Rio followed suit.
“You’re following Amelia up the mountain without telling me?” Agatha’s voice broke through the silence as she climbed up the slope.
“What? How did you – you put a tracker on me?” Rio scoffed. “Of course, you fucking did.” She patted her body.
“Give up now, you won’t find it,” Agatha said matter of factly.
She didn’t. Rio pulled out every pocket of her coat and ski trousers, slid her arms down the material of her clothes, shook them out, no sign of a tracker.
“For fucksake,” she mumbled.
“Are you going to engage? You should, Jack hasn’t moved since I’ve been back, so I don’t think we’ll be getting the software on his phone anytime soon.”
Rio furrowed her eyebrows until she realised Agatha didn’t know she had completed half the mission.
“I’ve already put the software on Jack’s phone.”
There was a pause before Agatha asked a sceptical, “How?”
“Well, you see, we got given this card and all I had to do was-”
It was clear Agatha wasn’t in the mood for Rio’s sarcasm. “I got that much. When did you do it?”
“When I did,” was Rio’s short response as she hopped off the ski lift.
Agatha said nothing after that.
When Rio walked into the restaurant at the top of the slope, she found Amelia already sitting on one of the stools in front of the bar. The thought of sitting at another bar made Rio feel queasy but she did it anyway.
Amelia nodded at her when she sat down, and Rio returned it. An obnoxious growl escaped her stomach, and her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.
The other woman turned to her with an amused smile. “The truffle fries here are really good by the way.”
Rio nodded, turning away shyly. “I’ll have to give them a go.”
Fifteen minutes later, Rio had a bowl of fries and a glass of water in front of her and Amelia had a whisky, neat, as she typed furiously on her phone.
Rio wasn’t chewing properly, and her food had gotten lodged in her throat. It brought back memories of the day before, of Agatha almost choking on her own fries. Rio caught herself smiling and a wave of nausea that had been plaguing her all day made another appearance.
“Are you okay?” Amelia said. “You look like you’re going to throw up.”
Rio waved her off. “Yeah, I’m good, just hungover.”
“Ah. Well, you know the trick is to just keep drinking and then you won’t feel it.”
Rio laughed before gulping down her water.
“What are you getting so angry about? On your phone I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”
Amelia chuckled. “No, it’s fine. I’m trying to download this game that my son plays, you know, so I can bond with him, but I can’t find it.”
“Let me see,” Rio gestured for Amelia to pass her phone.
She saw the woman hesitate, why wouldn’t she? She was the owner of a multi-million dollar tech company after all, before she appeared to deem Rio as unthreatening and handed her phone over.
With the black card hidden beneath her hand, she pressed it to the back of Amelia’s phone, watched it flash white and the zero appear. Luckily for Rio, Amelia’s phone took to the software in seconds. The download was complete before she could blink.
The screen cleared and Rio discovered the error in Amelia’s ways. In the search bar in the app store, she’d been searching for, ‘Candy Crush,’ instead of ‘Candy Cars.’ That’s what she assumed she was looking for anyway. A mission a couple of months ago where she’d had to go undercover as a high school science teacher to protect a senator's kid had gotten Rio very well-versed in all the games twelve-year-olds were into.
“Is this it?” She showed the phone to Amelia.
“Yes! Oh, it's Candy Cars, I can’t keep up,” she laughed.
Rio found it odd that she wasn’t aware of trending apps considering she was the owner of a tech company, but she refrained from bringing it up, technically she wasn’t supposed to know who Amelia was.
“You are an angel. Hopefully, this means my son will actually talk to me,” she played it off as a joke, but Rio could hear the sadness in her voice. Amelia swiped at a tear before she cleared her throat.
“Excuse me a moment.” She smiled weakly before she got off her chair and headed toward the bathroom.
Rio got why Agatha felt bad for her now.
She took another drink of water relieved that this mission was finally fucking over, and she could go home. She pushed more fries in her mouth, any excuse to prolong going back to her hotel room where Agatha would be until she heard it.
Muffled, but undeniable to ears that have been trained to pick out those exact noises.
Screams.
Amelia’s.