Chapter Text
Trees and lamp posts blinked past her window. The driver taking Yor away from the Shopkeeper, towards home where she could act on what he'd told her. She tried to sit still, to tamp down on the urgency, to stop her hand from crushing the handles of her bag again —
We're not going fast enough —!
Yor's hand was already on the door handle as the car drew to stop at another red light —
Stop, Yor!
Running home wouldn't be faster! It would only feel faster, which wasn't the same thing! Traffic was probably moving steadily. It was probably faster than she could run. Probably. Probably?
Shaking her head vigorously, Stop, Yor! She needed to keep her head!
The car pulled forward again.
Bouncing her legs, trying to dispel the energy, Use this time to plan, she urged herself. How can I protect Anya?
Going directly to Eden would have been best, but there was no way she could shadow Anya dressed in her city hall work clothes. She needed something she could better move in — and something that would help her blend in. She also only had her stilettos with her — and three small daggers, four throwing knives and a blade in each boot; it would probably be good to have a few weapons that were more defensive. And subtle. Neurotoxins were far from her preferred method but the ones she had would incapacitate rather than kill, and since she didn’t have a defined list of clients and was going to a school…
They wouldn't try to kidnap her from school, would they?
She was subject to some form of experimentation when she was younger, the Shopkeeper had said in disgust, to answer Yor's question of Why?! after he'd said, We’ve received notice of a contract out for the kidnap of Anya Forger.
Horror swallowed her whole. People who would kidnap children, experiment on children, on a toddler — a school wouldn't be off limits to such people.
“We’re approaching, Thorn Princess,” the driver said and Yor was already diving out of the car before it drew to a stop. Called a distracted Thank you! as she slammed the door behind her. Lucky, that she didn’t meet any neighbours as she flew into the building and up the stairs — the front door to home in front of her, Yor sprinted. Loid would be at work, Anya at school so she could dispense with caution —
She was quick with her keys. Threw the door open and —
And something was wrong.
Her heart pounded. The rush of her blood demanded urgency. Could the wrong feeling be her imagination?
Yor stilled, concentrating, her hand on the handle.
Imagined? No. But wrong ? Not… Not exactly…
Scanning the entryway, the kitchen, the living room, nothing seemed strange. Nothing was out of order. Her forgotten mug from the previous night. Anya’s crayons on the coffee table. Loid’s sweater neatly folded over the couch arm.
The sunlight filtered through the windows. The apartment was quiet. The air was still.
And. Something… something wasn't right.
What could it be? It wasn’t anything obvious. It was a… It was just that the apartment had a… had a strange aura.
Could someone who accepted the contract be here…?
But… No. It didn't feel threatening. Or… Yor frowned. Not… exactly threatening?
If abductors were here, that would make them extraordinarily foolish — and very easy to deal with.
Silently closing the door, Yor listened carefully. Nothing. Check the obvious, Yor… She crept towards Anya's room.
But it wasn't from Anya's room that she heard a noise.
A strange sound: like a low clunk.
From Loid's room.
With perfect silence and equally silent apology to Loid for invading his privacy, Yor opened the door to his room.
There was Loid, his back to her. Yor nearly sighed with relief, except — except. Something was still strange. Loid was hurriedly doing something. Yor frowned, tilting her head. It was only with a familiar grinding snick —
I know that sound… A silencer?!
“L-Loid?”
Before she even finished saying his name, Loid had the gun aimed with perfect accuracy at her heart — she disarmed him immediately, reflexively — just as reflexively she had the point of one of her stilettos under his jaw, forcing his head up — and felt a second gun muzzle pressing into her rib cage.
“What —” She began but Loid was looking at her with an expression she’d never seen. Devoid of any emotion whatsoever, his eyes cold, assessing. The expression alone marked him as dangerous, even if his gun hand hadn’t been as steady as it was. Will I have to kill him —
No, Yor! This is Loid —
This… This is Loid.
Right…?
“Someone has taken Anya,” Loid said. Yor’s stomach dropped, her hands turned to ice.
I’m too late — ! Where is Anya? Where is Anya? Where is Anya? She must be so scared. No, Yor. Yes, Yor. She’ll be scared, but she is brave. I’ll get her back, there must be a way to find her, it couldn’t have been too long if the Shopkeeper didn’t know and —
“I don’t know where they've taken her,” Loid went on, and Yor refocused. His voice wasn’t like she’d ever heard it. On the surface, it was as emotionless as his expression. But she could sense something beneath. Something — something dangerous. Not that she had anything to fear for herself; she’d never, ever, thought of Loid as dangerous. She hadn’t thought he could be —
The Shopkeeper had said, It so far does not appear your husband was involved in what was done to Anya Forger, and Yor had had thought, Of course not! How was that a question —
The man in front of her now begged the question. Yor's hand tightened on her stiletto.
His eyes flicked to her earrings, her hair pins. His expression sharpened. “You’re with Garden… If you’ve been sent to kill me, can I request you wait to try until Anya is safe?”
Yor was never the quickest thinker, she knew. There were few situations she felt truly in her element. One had been here, in this house, finally, after months and months and months, though that seemed to be slipping away from her with each moment she looked into Loid’s eyes and didn’t know the man looking back. The other was in her work as a contract killer, but that, too, was beyond her now, for all her hand around her stiletto was steady.
Nothing is more important to Loid than Anya, she had told the Shopkeeper. Was it true? Who of her targets would react in the way he was? He'd asked her to wait to kill him until after Anya was safe… Kill him. Kill Loid?
She knew her next question wasn’t the most important. But it was the one pressing against her teeth. Faintly, she asked, “Why would I have been sent to kill you?”
Finally, finally Loid’s expression wavered. Just a flicker, but it was long enough for Yor to feel as though he weren’t completely unknown to her.
If she had been sent to kill him, it also would have been opening enough for her to take him out before he could pull the trigger.
It seemed he realised the same thing, though Yor didn’t know how she could tell that when his expression hadn’t changed. He lowered his gun, switched on the safety, tossed the gun unerringly onto the bed behind him and held both hands up: an obvious bid for peace. After another breath’s hesitation, Yor secreted her stilettos, and was disconcerted that Loid watched each movement closely, in blatant continued assessment.
Her brain itched. WHERE IS ANYA was so loud, it drowned out so much. Pushed her other questions to the edges. Nothing made sense. How did Loid, a lovely father, widower and psychiatric doctor know how to wield multiple guns? With silencers? She couldn’t know for certain but she was fairly sure that wasn’t normal. He'd never said that was something he knew. And he hadn’t seemed disturbed by her stiletto under his chin. That didn’t make sense, did it? There were experienced assassins who had wept when she’d had them in a similar position. Why would he think she’d been sent to kill him? And how did he know about Garden? And where, god, WHERE IS ANYA?
“I received a call from Eden forty-eight minutes ago,” Loid began as though he’d read her thoughts. “Anya wasn’t in class, they said. Was there reason for concern.” It was Loid’s voice. He just wasn’t saying the words like she would have expected him to. “I’m waiting on a report from—the organisation I work for. Is it possible Garden has any information?”
“They-they do,” Yor said, swallowing, trying to gather herself. “That’s why I’m home. They told me." Yor stopped, swallowed down bile. "They said Anya had been experimented on when she was younger. That the organisation that did it had gone to ground but they’re back now. It may be connected to a, a warmonger. They’ve put out a contract for Anya’s capture. Because they…" The Shopkeeper’s phrase had kept playing in her mind, chilling Yor over and over and over — "They want back what they deem to be their property.”
Property. What, not Who. A little girl, property — where is she where is she where —
Loid’s expression didn’t change — but the feeling in the house, the strange aura she’d sensed when she arrived, had become far more dangerous. Is — is this feeling from Loid?
“I have to reach out to my contacts,” he said. “I apologise, Yor, I know a lot has changed and we’ll need to discuss it. But I can’t show you how I contact them and I can’t have you witnessing the communication. Please can you go to the living room and turn on the television?” Then he added, finally some inflection to his voice though she did not like it, “I’ll know if you try to listen in. So please. Go to the living room. And watch whatever program is on.”
“How did you not know?” Yor blurted. As though her own question sent a spike of clarity through her, dizzy shock flipped into a flare of white hot anger. The Shopkeeper voiced doubts about Loid, but Yor had wondered, maybe it had happened in the grief after his wife died—? Yor herself couldn’t remember certain things in the year or so after her parents died after all; grief did things to the mind and to memory. She’d been lucky nothing happened to Yuri in her moments of lapse and still felt spikes of guilt for imagined could-have-beens. She had thought to herself that if some evil bastard had taken advantage of Loid and Anya in the vulnerability of their grief…!
But that couldn't explain, could it? For Loid not to know, he'd have had to be another person entirely. Surely? If he had known of Anya's past, then he could have guessed who had taken her. If he’d known, they’d have taken precautions — or how could he ever have let Anya out of his sight? Trusted her to school buses? How could he have invited a stranger into his home as his wife? She demanded, “How did you not know what had been done to Anya?”
If Yor didn’t know better, she’d think Loid’s face blanched as though he were going to be sick. But if it did, it was gone as quickly as it appeared, and all he said was, “Please go watch TV, Yor.”
Yor glared, for all the good it did, Loid looking back at her with that same blank, uncompromising expression. She couldn’t remember the last time someone hadn’t flinched when she glared at them this way. Her hands hurt with the effort to keep from — What? She didn’t want to hurt Loid. Eyes burning, she just wanted to do, say something, anything, which might crack that mask — what if Anya sees this man? Won’t she be scared? — but — the more time she waited, the longer Anya was in danger, with the evil people who’d taken her. Who were going to experiment on —
Yor turned, and left. She went to the living room as Loid asked, and turned the television on.
Then she went to her room, closed the door behind her. Quickly changed. Began to gather what she’d need. To think that this morning she had been planning to ask the Shopkeeper's advice on growing chamomile — She didn’t care about what Loid was up to — if it brought information they could use about Anya, fine. But beyond that, well. It was beyond her. Loid Forger was not someone she knew — and that… that made her lightheaded, just for a breath.
Yor shook herself. No time for that, Yor. She had only done two retrievals. This situation was drastically different from either of them. She didn’t know what to expect here. She should have asked the Shopkeeper more questions; he may have at least been able to offer guidance on how to treat people who worked for the organisation —
But he had clearly thought she would know in time to prevent the kidnapping.
It had already been too late.
And what — what was she thinking? This organisation did some sort of, some sort of experimentation on children. Anya had just turned seven; in a handful of months, Yor would have been with the family for a year. Whatever experimentation must have been when Anya was younger. Five… four?
Her bedroom door opened — almost silently, the TV switched off, but whoever he was, whatever training he had, Loid Forger wasn’t quite as good as she was.
Yor stilled, her hand tightened on the dart she’d been considering. It had a mild neurotoxin, not enough to kill but more than enough to incapacitate.
Given Loid Forger’s interest in the National Unity Party, and that Party’s involvement in experimentation when they were in government, the Shopkeeper had said when Yor insisted she trusted Loid, Please do me the favour of being extra vigilant in his company nonetheless.
How does a loving father lose track of his toddler daughter long enough for her to be experimented on without his knowing about it? Could… Loid be involved…?
“I didn’t know. And I wasn’t involved.”
She turned her head to look at him.
“They’re the obvious questions,” he said. Perhaps it was foolish, wishful, but she accepted his answers, and moved on.
He was standing in the narrow shadow where light didn’t fall in the short entryway of her room. Somewhere in her mind, she acknowledged the effect. Somehow his eyes still glinted, the rest of him in threatening silhouette. Perhaps he thought she wouldn’t be able to make out his features, but she could. Her eyes were one of the primary tools in her work. That expressionless… mask…? Was still mostly in place. Except for a faint shadow of the nearly ever-present wrinkle in his brow.
She would have previously said that meant he was worried for Anya, angry at the people who had taken her. But now she didn’t know.
Her hand tightened on the dart.
No, Yor! If he has information, you need to get that first!
He seemed to have a similar thought, because he said, “I have information. If you put the dart down, we can discuss it.”
Put it down…? She could do that; she had a blade in each wrist guard and two others within split-second reach. If putting the dart down would get her what she needed…
“I won’t ask you to trust me,” Loid said once she’d put the dart back. “But I could have left with this information without coming to you. I think I’ll have a higher chance of retrieving Anya unharmed if I have your help.”
“How can you think that?” It didn’t make sense — whatever else was going on, she had just disarmed him and had him at the end of her blade, a breath from death. He knew about Garden, and that she worked for them. If he knew what Garden was, it should make her as much a question to him as he was to her. How he could trust someone like that to be around Anya —
“I know you love Anya.” Yor felt that like a physical blow, such that her breath left her. The man before her, Loid Forger whoever he was, made no indication he noticed this, only went on in the same inflectionless voice, “Garden’s reputation is a neat piece of propaganda, most believe it to be urban legend — including myself until thirteen minutes ago. If even a tenth of that reputation is earned, your skills must exceed even what I observed earlier. And the people who took Anya are…” Was that hesitation because of worry? Fear? Fury? Something else that would make no sense to Yor, generally and from what she’d thought she knew about this man? “The people who took Anya are ruthless. My organisation is sending transport but has no one available to assist on infiltration. I would appreciate your help.”
“They know where Anya is?”
Loid inclined his head. “With the information you provided, we were able to narrow it down. One seems the most likely. We’ll start there.”
“All right.” Again, she would have thought that small motion of his shoulders was relief — Nothing is more important to Loid than Anya, she had told the Shopkeeper — but that was before. When she’d known- When she had thought she'd known Loid.
She didn’t know this man.
Before he told her of the kidnapping contract, the Shopkeeper had asked Yor if she'd ever noticed anything peculiar — that had been his word, peculiar — about Anya. Something different, perhaps, from Yuri at that age. Her memories after she and Yuri had been orphaned were clouded by grief and fear, and so Yor had used Loid's word to describe Anya: perceptive. Often astonishingly so.
And in contrast to Yor, who had never had any sense that Loid might be… like this.
She asked quietly, “How long do we have?”
“One minute, thirty-five seconds.”
Yor didn’t say anything. What was there to say? She went back to picking through her weapons. Loid left.
An organisation who experimented on people, on children, who had taken Anya to experiment on her again. Naming her their property. Seeing her as what, not who.
There was no question. She would kill everyone she saw.