Stalemate
Sunset and sunrise always struck you in a way that little else could. Aside from the magic of moonlight and stars, the brilliant hues of dusk and dawn hit you in a uniquely special way. They signified ends and beginnings alike - the end of the dark and the start of a new day, or the fading of light as a new night is born.
You shot down the road at a speed that would terrify your mother, the hair left uncovered by your helmet rippling in the wind. Hands on handlebars, wheels screeching over pavement with every turn - maybe it was dangerous, perhaps the adrenaline was some sort of addictive high for you, but you needed it. Needed it to help clear your head.
The bike never failed to help you do that. You learned to ride from a friend in college, but you only got your own motorcycle a few years back. Before that, it had been rentals from time to time, but once your income was stable enough, you decided this was something you didn’t want to live without. Where you lived, it wasn’t always feasible to use the bike to get around, but it was always waiting for you in the parking garage of your building, waiting to whisk you away into the promise of risk for pleasure whenever you needed the escape.
Bright orange shifted to brilliant red and deep purple, pink scattering through the clouds even as dark blue crept in from the edges of the sky. You were pulling up onto a bridge now - the George Washington Bridge, connecting Manhattan to New Jersey - and sped up, your muscles taut, though you seldom felt more at peace.
This peace, however, had its limits.
You had so many questions and so few answers. Ray had all but ghosted you after promising his help - and you were sure he’d get back to you eventually, but still. Dex was being - well, Dex, and that was enough to piss you off, aside from his new level of post-promotional arrogance. Every day now, he’d walk through the office with this obnoxious, all-knowing smile that you wanted desperately to punch every time you saw it.
God, did he ever piss you off.
And this Wilson Fisk, you discovered, is as elusive as they come. No ordinary research was doing much of anything to get you more than what you already knew, other than a link between John Healy and some conglomerate called “Confederated Global Investments,” which you were sure was a front for Wesley and, in turn, Fisk.
Jessica was still helping, but she’d grown more distant - any conversation you had was more about the quality of the photographs than anything else in either of your lives.
A flutter of guilt kicked at your stomach. You knew you were to blame for that distance. Jessica wanted friendship, as much as she would never admit it. And you - you only contacted her again in the hope that she could further your personal interests. A means to an end; that’s how you’d treated her. How you’d been treating her.
You felt bad. But rekindling your friendship now? Just as new leads were popping up, as things were starting to grow a little more for you? What use was there in potentially risking her, for what, someone to get coffee with? It would just be dumb, to say the least.
Still, you couldn’t shake that heavy, numbing, gnawing sensation of guilt.
And, of course, there was the issue of Matt Murdock. Whether Matt or Jack or Devil of Hell’s Kitchen suited him best, you didn’t care. You just knew that the three identities were one and the same - and that, somehow, he’d figured you out, too.
It honestly boggled your mind, for lack of a better phrase. You’re an FBI agent with extensive training and field experience, at least compared to the general population - and even compared to some other agents. For something like two years in your youth, you were confined to a way of life that forced you to interrogate, forced you to learn how to read people in order to keep yourself alive and sane, and finally find your freedom. You’d developed and utilized these skills for over half of your life, did it professionally, and used it for your survival - and somehow, this man, this blind lawyer, was able to figure you out just as fast as you did him.
Is he even really blind? No way. It has to be some sort of ruse.
He’d helped you. He’d soothed your injuries, been in your home, made sure you were safe. And, on those same nights, he’d driven fists and knees and knives into your mutual enemies, targets you somehow shared every damn time.
This man was just as dangerous as you could be - maybe even more so.
The real question is: will he keep helping you, or will you join the ranks of his targets, bloodied and battered on cement in the darkness? Though there was still that ever-present, undeniable layer of tension, soaking the space between you and him with syrupy interest, you knew it wasn’t wise to just trust him. Yes, he could be an ally - but, like in any other situation, you had to be careful.
You could have fun. You could play around, play along with whatever games he might send your way, use whatever help he might offer to your advantage, sure. But you had to be careful.
Your brief shudder melted away as you pulled up onto the main drag of the bridge. Your helmet tinted your vision slightly, but the view was no less gorgeous, the colors no less vibrant, even as they began fading into darker tones of blue. You gradually slowed and let yourself cruise alongside a few other vehicles, people speeding away from New York like their lives depended on it.
You wondered for a moment if, one day, you’d be joining them for good.
New York was your home. Sure, there were nice things about your hometown, but it could never be home to you. The cruelty of your father was enough to solidify that.
No, New York was yours, and you belonged to it just as deeply. Though you’d been through tragedy here, for sure, and though some days you rejected the place - it was meaningful to you in a way that other places in your life weren’t. It was where you went to public high school for the first time after your only educational experience had been homeschooling and various tutors. You found and built your own family here, one that loved you deeply, at least for a few blissful years. You made friends here, graduated here, went to university here, built a career here; this was where you were meant to be. It was the first place where you felt like you belonged - like you had a purpose, like there was finally somewhere in the world that had a place just for you.
But, for what you were chasing - if you had to give that all up, you would manage. Homes are built, after all. New ones can always be made.
At least that’s what you keep telling yourself.
It was worth it to save others like you from being drawn into your fate or worse. Sure, the side you got sucked into was dark, dark enough for you to need to escape, but their enemies were something else entirely. Luring children with the promise of a better life was shitty enough - but kidnapping kids, chaining them up, sending them to God knows where in fucking shipping containers? You couldn’t imagine what they did to those kids these days, or whatever else they would do in the name of their cause, whatever it really fucking was.
And to think that, at one point, you were one of those children? That, once you escaped, they would have followed you anywhere in the world until they could sink their claws into your skin once more? As traumatizing as that time had been, your other captors - harmful as they still were - protected you from a deeper evil that you still couldn’t quite comprehend. You wondered, sometimes, if those bastards searched for you still, desperate to fill the void of their one true weapon - desperate to have their “Black Sky.”
You were sure it was just a matter of time until some shipment at the docks would be another child, maybe even a teen girl like you’d been, scared and shaking and waiting in horrific silence for the end of her life - or, at least, life as she’d known it.
Maybe he was right about this being a war.
The Hand was one thing, sure, but Wilson Fisk was another. New York’s criminal underground was more connected than most civilians realized; not just connected within itself, but intertwined with operations of all sorts, around the world and back again.
Further research had tied most of the shipments you’d intercepted - like Barrett’s, among others - to Confederated Global Investments. This was morbidly exciting; it was a vein of proof that you were picking up the right clues, following the right paths.
But the big hint that tied Confed Global back to your short brush with the Hand was something more subtle, easily forgettable.
You tried over the years to block out a lot of your escape from the Hand, but looking into Confed Global brought one thing back - a shimmer of a memory, barely there, so translucent that it might as well have never really existed.
The conglomerate had all sorts of subsidiaries, smaller holding companies, and subsidiaries of subsidiaries that went on and on until it was a miracle that these overwrought extensions could still be considered “companies.” You, diligent as you were and still desperate to never leave your cubicle - lest you run the risk of encountering Level One Agent Poindexter - looked through all of them. Every last one, every last drop of the winding river that was Confed Global.
One of the last ones, though, had a logo you recognized. It took a second for it to click, but once it did, the shift in your energy couldn’t be ignored, couldn’t be stifled. You just stared at your computer screen in shock, your lips growing dry with how long they stayed parted.
It was a crescent moon, black like shadow with a shadow like red blood, pooling ripples over an imaginary ocean. The insignia was one you only saw once before, during the night you escaped. It was pinned on a wall of logos, facts and figures, faces and names that you would have photographed had you had the time or a piece of technology other than a gun. Characters of what you now knew were Russian, Japanese, and Mandarin combined to make a code of sorts, beautiful in its writing over that black moon and nearly impossible to decipher, even if one spoke all three languages. Though many other snippets of information on that board could have proven remarkably useful for your current quest, it was this logo that caught your attention, this logo that remained in your memory even this many years later.
The name itself didn’t matter now, though. The logo you’d seen all those years ago was the same logo you stared at on your computer screen. You knew that, as it was a subsidiary of Confederated Global Investments, it was a subsidiary of the Hand.
That was your connection.
That was another vein of proof, an impossible link made possible by your suffering.
Now, you just had to keep searching, keep fighting, keep moving forwards through the light and into the dark.
You rocketed across the bridge, the churning waters of the Hudson River beneath you reflecting the colors of the sky above, reds and purples refracted into shards of stained glass as scattered as your thoughts, sea spray that could cut like knives if you weren’t careful.
From here, though, it was simply beautiful, picturesque in its color and complex, constant movement as you sped through it all.
You breathed what felt like the first intake of real oxygen you’d had in weeks. Things were falling into place, and this was exciting in a way that terrified you like nothing else. You gripped onto your handlebars, revving your engine and zooming past every car, weaving through the minimal traffic at such a high speed you were shocked there were no cops on your tail.
Though the sunset moved quickly through its colors, it didn’t truly fade, every new shade just as bright as the last, even as a new black sky and its many stars encroached upon the horizon. You only moved faster, outrunning the day’s end and beating the night at its own dark game of resurrection, smooth and steady, new and yet all too stale.
“Ray Nadeem, there is no fucking way you are leaving me alone with him.”
“Selena-“
“No! This is fucking treasonous.”
Ray made a point of coughing exaggeratedly, and it crackled through your phone, doing little to temper your annoyance.
“I can’t come in like this, Selena.”
Ray’s voice was so matter-of-fact that you almost rolled your eyes at its dry tone, however nasally and congested it may have sounded. “I’m sicker than you’d believe. No mission team would appreciate having me.”
Your blood boiled. At least you knew why you hadn’t heard from him about his clearance, but still. Not cool to ghost and incredibly uncool to let you fall into a team led by Dex.
“No mission team would appreciate having Dex lead us. Better a good, sick team lead than a bitch.”
“Selena,” Ray laughed. “You can’t call your colleague a bitch.”
“I just did. Cry about it, why don't you.”
“I will report you, you know.”
“Do it. I’m waiting.”
Ray chuckled, and you groaned.
“Ray, this is not going to work. He has no idea how to run a mission, no idea how to coordinate action and communication-“
“He’s a Level One. I couldn’t go, and he was put in my place. That’s how it works.”
A cold wind snapped at your ponytail, whipping hair into your eyes. You turned to fix it and caught a glimpse of dusk between the buildings on this street corner, the final few sparks of day fading fast into night at long last. You had the warrant, and the mission was in and out, but still. Dex leading the way wasn’t something you’d expected just yet.
Moreover, it was something you hoped you could avoid for as long as possible.
You sighed. “I do hope you feel better.”
Ray laughed, sarcasm coating his words. “Well, thank you. How very caring of you.”
A vision of Dex passed over your mind, and you scrunched up your nose. “I don’t forgive you, though.” Ray scoffed through the phone.
“I’ll bring you a coffee when I’m back. Call it even?”
“Fine. Even though it is definitely not even.”
“Two coffees,” he offered. You pursed your lips.
“Whatever. Okay. We’ll be even once I see them on my desk.”
“You got it.”
You asked about Seema and Sami and chatted briefly before reluctantly leaving Ray’s voice behind for the night. Though bulky and relatively good for movement, your jumpsuit scratched at your neck where it was just a shade too tight, and you pulled at it with each step. Dex and three other agents waited by an undercover truck, one of many you used for various operations like this one. They began piling in, and by the time you ran over, only one seat was left.
Backseat right, next to Craig Murphy - more commonly known as “Murph.”
Shit.
The guy had a stellar reputation in the Bureau. He’d been offered a promotion to Level One multiple times but always turned it down, claiming he liked the work of a Two too much to leave it behind.
You thought he stayed because he liked the number of female Twos and Threes he could harass.
It wasn’t a well-known thing, really. But you knew he did it to you.
And if Murph harassed you, you were sure he was doing it to others.
Some men and their need for power over women. Disgusting.
You pushed down a shudder and stepped around the door to the backseat. Murph looked up at you as you shoved yourself carefully inside, his glassy blue eyes like pools of shallow, turquoise-tinged mercury that would turn you to stone should you look too closely. For all you knew, his scruffy, unkempt facial hair could be hiding all kinds of crumbs and oils from the run of the day, and the pungently unpleasant spice of his body spray made you want to gag.
The grizzly bear of a man didn’t move to give you any room, and you had no choice but to let your thigh press up against his, his warmth ruining the relaxed cool that the wind outside had gifted you. Placing your bag on your lap, you shut the door, sealing your fate as Dex pulled away from the curb. You could feel Murph dip his head towards you, and goosebumps prickled across your neck.
“Phone call go okay?”
His voice was a coarse whisper, croaky and full of venomous slime - though, to anyone else, it could seem perfectly innocent. The sweaty heat of his breath made you want to shed this skin in favor of something made of cold, unfeeling metal. Something like armor, sharp and incorruptible, particularly against the offenses of sweaty, misogynistic men. You kept your head and eyes straight ahead, your tone as monotonous as you could make it.
“Went fine, yeah.”
“Good, good.”
He turned his head forwards and placed a hand on his thigh. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see it inch slowly along the fabric of his pants until the edge of his fingers grazed against you, and you sucked in a silent breath. You tried to move your leg, to shift away from his subtle touch, but there was no room - only now, there was more space for him to shove his fingers down farther.
Perfect. Fucking perfect.
The slide of his hand between his thigh and yours was subtle but far from innocent. No layer of clothing could shield you from the rough press of the back of his hand against your leg, like rusted metal on your skin. You grit your teeth.
“Murph, any chance you could move your hand?”
“Oh!” He exclaimed, pulling his hand back into his lap. “My bad. No space in here.”
“Thanks,” you muttered. But, a mere few minutes later, Murph’s hand trailed back to where it started, his fingertips once again driving nails through your leg though their touch on you was barely there. You gripped the door handle so hard you thought you might break your wrist and nudged his hand off you once more. He said nothing and pulled it into his lap, but that didn’t stop your heart from beating overtime, so anxious you thought you might burst a blood vessel.
“So, I think we all know the plan,” Dex announced from the front, cutting through side streets to avoid any backups. He wasn’t quite as good a driver as Ray, but at least he knew the basic tricks. “We head in with the warrant, Selena and Murph on background detail, and then Indira, Blake, and myself on the nitty gritty.”
Your stomach churned, fear and loathing bubbling up inside you like boiling water on an abandoned stove. Ray would never, ever have put you alone with Murph. He knew the guy was a creep - or, at least, he could see it, unlike Dex.
Well, maybe Dex could see it, but he’d never been the type of guy who was inclined to care.
“Yes, sir!” Indira affirmed from the passenger seat. Eager to impress, eager to please, and just - weirdly eager. She was like that.
Blake cleared his throat from the other side of Murph. “Estimate’s around two to four people inside. Shouldn’t be anything too crazy.”
“We’ll manage, for sure,” Dex continued. “It’s a real in-and-out.”
This was a quick sweep of Marcus Velluchi’s home; it wasn’t anything like a full investigation, just a simple cordoning off of things so they could be explored by other teams tomorrow. Something about a hold-up, time conflicts with other missions, but the Bureau still wanted the property seized as soon as possible. Indira, Blake, and Dex would be handling any people inside, going into various rooms, taping off suspicious sections and items to be investigated further - that sort of thing. You and Murph would be at the door, on guard for any suspicious passersby or kicked-out Velluchi trying to worm their way back inside. It was a dry job, and doing it with Murph would be nothing short of unbearable.
Dread crept up through you, like a slow pooling of liquid lead from your toes, rising into your gut and encasing your insides in cold and melty metal. You moved your hands to the top of your bag, gripping tightly around its zippered top in search of a small bloom of security. Your suit was tucked away into the base of the bag, waiting in all its deep-blue glory for this mission to be over. Another new shipment would be made on the docks tonight, and you were all too ready to stop it in its tracks. Although linked to Confederated Global Investments, this shipment wasn’t under the black moon insignia that also connected to the Hand - but it was still worthwhile to check it out.
The truck pulled up to the end of a driveway, not so fancy that it particularly stood out, but nice enough that you could tell the owner had cash to spare. Dex almost hit the curb as he swerved the truck around, and you had to grip onto the door again to avoid being swung against Murph.
With the sharp turn of the truck, Murph was pushed further against you, his body and the door clamping you in place for a few excruciating seconds. You swore he pressed himself against you on purpose, and a shiver of disgust whizzed up your spine.
Gross-gross-gross.
“Should be just under an hour, guys,” Dex stated, cracking open his door. “Remember, this is about security and efficiency. The overnight team will be down in forty-five, and then we’re out.”
“Perfect,” Indira hummed, her voice too peppy for the time of day.
You sighed to yourself silently as you finally escaped the car - and escaped Murph, though you could still feel his sick warmth down the entire left side of your body.
Only an hour.
It’s only an hour.
This will be fine.
Well…
It actually was fine, surprisingly. Dex’s team entered and took the space with no problems; as it turned out, there’d been no one inside.
Weird, but not unwelcome.
In a shocking turn of events, Murph pretty much left you alone. He made minimal efforts at small talk, bringing up the weather, Dex’s promotion, Janelle’s smoking habit - the works. With so little to do, the two of you just stood guard on either side of the main door for the better part of an hour, watching the shadows cast by sunlight spread their hands until the night had taken its rightful post-sunset place over New York.
You waited for him to say something about the way your uniform hugged your body, waited for him to tell you he wished he could see the way you looked without work clothes - but he didn’t. Other than those little stints of small talk, he hardly said anything.
Also very much not unwelcome, but weird.
This quiet, eventless work took you aback. Usually, when you were forced into working with Murph, there’d be a comment about your body here, a brush up against you there, and all kinds of weird looks and weirder conversations in between. You hated thinking about it, hated thinking about the few times you’d been left alone with him when you didn’t know whether you’d leave untouched or - from the depths of your darker fears - whether you’d leave at all.
It went in waves with him, really. There would be weeks and weeks on end where nothing creepy would happen, and then suddenly, he’d be on you again like a predator on prey. You always had to be alert, always on the lookout, never failing to keep your guard up and your walls indestructible around the guy.
The Devil was dangerous, sure, but Murph was truly menacing - perfect by print and reputation and evil in shadowy practice.
And yet, tonight, he was somehow the least of your worries.
“Coast is clear, team!” Dex bellowed from the doorway, stepping outside into the brisk night with a puffed chest and a cool smile. You held back a scoff.
Wow, first leadership moment, good for you. You must be cool.
“Night team is pulling up as we speak, so I’ll give them a quick debrief, and we’re good to roll on out!” He continued. You looked to the end of the driveway and saw two other FBI trucks, headlights illuminating the road.
“Sounds good to me,” Murph chuckled. You despised the thought of agreeing with him, but it did sound like the best plan for you, too. The sooner you got out of here, out of your work clothes, and into your other clothes, the sooner you could get down to the docks.
You only had so much time, anyway. Luckily, you’d worn a basic, casual outfit under your jumpsuit so you wouldn’t have to be driven all the way back to the office to get changed.
Indira and Blake stepped outside as the night-team trucks pulled up to the house. They began piling into the truck, and Indira turned back to you.
“You coming?”
“No, I’m good,” you smiled, gesturing to the backpack slung over your shoulders. “Got a change of clothes already.”
She twisted her lips. “How are you getting home?”
“I’ve got a drive, don’t worry.”
After a beat - where you desperately hoped she wouldn’t try to convince you to get in the truck - Indira nodded and wished you a safe journey home. You swung your bag around to the front of your body and set it on the ground as you started unzipping your jumpsuit.
Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Murph step towards you. The tameness of this night had set your guard off its usual edge, so you didn’t expect any sort of contact from him, thinking you’d passed the risk of him making any unsavory advances during this mission.
You were all too wrong.
As Murph slinked alongside you in his stroll to the truck, a hand slid between your hip and the curve of your waist, pressing flush and warped against your side. Your hands on your zipper cut to a frigid stop, and sawtoothed whispers of words carved through you from the top down:
“Next time, save the stripping just for me, Sel.”
You were frozen as he walked onwards to the truck with a smirk you couldn’t see but could sense, frozen as your stomach roiled with all the insults you wanted to hurl at him, all the fists you wanted to drive into his body until he could feel the extent of your horrified anguish. And yet, you couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, ice working its way through your bloodstream and into your hands, legs, and vocal cords until you were an immovable, lifeless shell. Frozen.
Not only did he touch you, not only did he make such a sick, perverted comment, but he called you Sel.
Only Ray really called you Sel. Jessica, sometimes, as a joke. You could see it with Foggy, maybe Karen - people you were comfortable with.
Not Murph. Not in a million years.
It wasn’t even your real name, but it held a sort of sensitive familiarity that was too meaningful for just anyone to partake in. It wasn’t you, but it was you - all personal and nothing like the business side of your alias. Murph using that name was like a knife to your very personhood, bleeding out the core of your sensitive, private soul until it lay ragged and dripping on the ground.
The truck pulled down the driveway, and something in you finally released as you watched it turn a corner and disappear. Shoving down the vomit that nagged at the base of your throat was difficult, but you managed, walking with a tight jaw and a tighter stomach, your resolve like cold concrete under layers of hardening snow.
You’re okay. He’s gone. He can’t hurt you.
The guy’s too much of a pussy to even dare, anyway.
Gotta let go for now.
Focus.
You sighed, the breath shakier than you wanted it to be. It wasn’t wise to push things down, to let this sort of thing go, but there were more pressing matters tonight.
You crossed streets and flew through back alleys as swiftly and safely as possible. Every step was smartly placed, directions particular and efficient on your quest to reach the docks. Every streetlight was a warning, every odd person in the street an obstacle, but they did little to hinder you. Months of rehearsal and years of a different sort of practice had made you immune to the usual challenges that prevented people from staying hidden.
You weren’t perfect at this, but perfection was well within sight.
Tall residential buildings and office spaces slowly shrunk and thinned out as you went, fading from bright and clean to dark and decrepit. Gray into black, blue into brown, light dirt and grime became mud and tar in a grand coating of sludge over the area. Between buildings and through alleys, you soon could catch glimpses of the loading docks, containers galore, and the murky waters of the Hudson laying just beyond them all.
You found a building of medium height with a sturdy enough fire escape and chose it as your landing pad for the night. As you grabbed onto the low rungs of the initial ladder, you quickly realized that this was that same building you’d used all too recently, reminiscent of Barrett and the Devil and that violent dance the three of you had shared.
“Figures,” you laughed to yourself.
No matter how quietly you spoke, your voice felt like a booming shot of pure volume. The area was deafeningly quiet at this time of night. It wasn’t even that late, and already it seemed that everyone was sound asleep - though whether they were really sleeping or just hiding from the dangers beyond their apartments, lurking sullenly in the dark, you couldn’t be sure.
Odds are, it was the latter.
With an ease that had grown over the last few weeks - and desperation not to be caught half-clothed on a rooftop after dark - you quickly slipped on your evening getup. Midnight blue like the depths of the ocean and the dark glow of a moonlit sky, your athletic pants and shirt felt snug and sure around you, not so much physically protective as they were a mental safeguard.
It was something like manifesting your safety. The suit ensured you with visual and sensational cues that your capability was real and strong enough to warrant preserving your identity. You were powerful enough, too, to wear something that could instill fear - something simple and dark, just unique enough to build memory.
The leather sheath holding your knives fit snugly around your waist like the fanny pack of a warrior, and you pulled your shirt down just a bit to cover the top edge of it. You tugged on those blue leather gloves and, after tightening your ponytail, pulled your mask down over your face just until your eyes peeked out overtop.
You were ready, sure, good to go, and you sucked in a slow breath in your new form. As you overlooked the city and its nearby waters from this vantage point, your eyes traced from darkening neighborhoods to the ever-present, effervescent glow of midnight city lights, never fading, always absolute. Like the stars in the sky, there were lights through the streets, quick to glow and slow to fade. You caught a glimpse of that George Washington Bridge and closed your eyes, trying to string back the feeling of road beneath your wheels and wind in your hair - sure control in the face of undeniable risk.
You took another breath and settled yourself, the chaotic run of your blood flowing into a controlled state of vigor, your skipping pulse falling into a rhythm ruled less by adrenaline than by composure. That adrenaline, though, grew into a powerful buzz in your bones, like deep bass cutting through you from the heart of a stadium concert - except here, the thrum of it was all yours, compact and concentrated beneath your skin.
It was time. You were ready.
You stashed your bag behind a pile of leftover construction materials and hoisted yourself over the edge of the building, stuffing down a few lingering bits of your childhood fear of heights. Descending the fire escape in short order, you swung yourself down and around metal beams until you let yourself drop to the ground with a subtle thump, your combat boots grating against the imperfections in the pavement.
As you straightened, a thick swirl of determination and low-hanging smoke expanded through your core. You were a sharp line of blue steel, reaching up to hit the moon on your way into the depths of humanity, no dimmer than the night, no brighter than its stars.
Wait.
Stiffening, you sensed a change in the air, a shift in the cosmos of your environment that was subtle enough to ignore and obvious enough to hit your senses hard.
A laugh escaped you, breathy with anticipation and teasing predation.
Of fucking course.
His voice soared out from behind you, crackling like a forest fire whose smoke was all-consuming, cinnamon and blazing, hellish warmth offset by a godly chill in the air.
Really, at this point, what did I expect?
“Going somewhere, Nightingale?”
Your pulse remained under your steady control as you turned to face the Devil himself, two roads converging once more into one.
He tilted his head, that grin all too glowing for this time of night, burning through you in ways you probably shouldn’t think about.
Maybe later.
You smiled.
“Hi, Jack.”