"Yagura..." He could hear her sorrow over the crackling line.
"Do you have the audio?" he managed. Yagura could hear her scrabbling frantically, metal clanking.
"Yes, just downloaded it on a thumb drive. I'm out of here."
"Go," he hissed, "fucking move. Don't trust anyone until you're back in HQ."
"Yagura, I can help-" she started, before he heard her door being broken down and the connection failed.
"Fuck!!" he howled, throwing his burner into a storm grate, the water carrying it away.
***
The almost percussive push from the front door exploding in knocked Maura off her feet. Fassell came through, drunk and disheveled, but no less dangerous.
"Look at you, pretty little cunt. I've been looking forward to seeing you in tight clothes again."
The seconds Maura needed to throw the burner phone and her laptop off the deck and into the harbor were enough for him to slap her across the cabin. "Yes, I've really been waiting for the moment I could fuck you and kill you. And here we are, baby." He spread his bloody hands wide, a maniacal grin on his face. "And I am going to fuck you to death, MacLaren. I have it all planned out."
Maura scrambled backward, trying to find enough space to move against him. "Kind of a bummer," he continued, knocking over the table between them, "it's going to be a little quicker than I planned since Pine's already sent security to drag your treacherous cunt back." Fassell paused to chuckle, licking the blood off his knuckles from hitting her. "It would almost be worth letting you live, just to see that bastard torture you to death. He's not happy, kitten. Not at all."
Maura slid her back against the wall, working out the distance between them. "But," he continued, "I just can't let this opportunity go. You planted those motherfucking bugs on me, didn't you? That was a real bitch to explain. And what exactly is in that golden pussy of yours? It's enough to fool Pine, who is one paranoid fuck. I'm gonna make my way up that trick pelvis of yours and tear it to pieces."
"Maybe not," was all Maura said before she lashed out.
It was brutal.
Even drunk, he was quick and vicious, and he used his longer arms and brute strength to his advantage. Maura nailed him in the ribs with the heel of her boot, but Fassell still managed a fist to her shoulder that spun her into the bedroom. He followed it with another punch that she ducked in time, grabbing his arm, pulling it behind him, and using the momentum to slam him face-first into the doorway, opening a gash on his forehead. Yanking his arm up as he howled, she tucked it under her arm, pulling back his fingers and breaking three.
“Fuck!” he screeched, driving his other fist into her back and knocking himself loose. They feinted back and forth, trying to find an opening, and then Fassell shouted, “Deacon! Get in here-”
Maura risked getting in close to sweep her leg, knocking him back as she drove her elbow into his throat, trying to crush his larynx. If his secrurity detail got inside the houseboat, she was dead. And with Fassell, it wouldn't be soon enough. He moved just enough to avoid the full strike, but he lay choking on his own blood on her bedroom floor. Pulling out the knife she'd bloodied James with a few nights before, Maura held it to his throat.
"Don't feel too honored, bitch," she was heaving in lungfuls of air as she cursed him. "You're not the first man I've killed. Ask my Da when you see him in Hell." The meaty-sounding "thunk!" of a bullet hitting the wall behind her head made her freeze, and Fassell managed to turn her wrist, driving the knife into her thigh.
Using the strength left in her good leg, Maura shoved herself off the floor, rolling across the deck and awkwardly falling into the water, two more bullets following her. Diving deep, she stayed under as long as she could before surfacing to see the lights of her houseboat fading behind her.
Trying not to think about just how polluted the harbor water was that was seeping quickly into her stab wound, she let herself drift with the current for a moment, attempting to regain her strength.
Rolling onto her back, she tried to think. The extraction number meant to pull them from the assignment was programmed into the burner phone - currently on the bottom of the bay, along with her laptop. Kennedy and Yagura were the only two with the name of the official in the CIA who placed them inside the Corporation assignment.
"First things first, girl," she mumbled, "gettin' outta' this curs’d water before you catch cholera." In moments of extreme duress or exhaustion, her Irish childhood accent would creep back in, no matter how hard she'd tried to eradicate it. The piers on this stretch of the water were high, their pilings slimy with seaweed or jagged with barnacles, but she finally found one lower down, closer to the water that she could manage to climb with her bleeding leg. Rolling on her side for a moment on the dock, she heaved and coughed, trying to drag in more oxygen.
It started to rain, but the cold drizzle cascading down her shivering back was a blessing for Maura as she stumbled down a side street, making the fact that she was soaking wet a little less of an oddity. Finding the alleyway she was looking for, she counted windows until finding the pet clinic's back entrance. Blocking the alarm tape with a scavenged paperclip to keep it from going off, she got the glass sider open with some difficulty.
"I doan' know whether to hate tha' bastard more for stabbing me or keeping me knife," she sighed quietly. "Woulda got the window up easier, thaat’s for certain."
Making her way to the medical supplies, she swiftly cleaned her wound, using medical glue to put the gaping skin back together. Wrapping her leg tightly, Maura went through the employee lockers, trying to find something to wear. Two dogs began barking as she entered the room, and she limped over, finding a box of dog bones. "Sorry lads, I know how yer feelin’," she soothed, feeding the frightened pets a treat. They quieted down enough for her to find a set of medical scrubs that would fit her and a jacket. Slipping out the way she came, Maura shut the window and reactivated the alarm system.
Walking was excruciating, but she refused to take any pain meds from the clinic. The throbbing from her leg would at least keep her alert.Head down, nothing to see here,she chanted silently, trying to slip into the crowd of damp New Yorkers looking for a dry landing. Fingering the precious thumb drive in her pocket, Maura nodded. Find the first place with WIFI access and her mission was over. She allowed herself one deep, relieved exhalation. The breath was still leaving her lips when she felt the pinch of a needle in her back, her vision greying in before everything went to black.
Maura woke with an undignified "Oof!" as she was thrown over someone's shoulder and carried into the parking lot elevator of the Corporation offices. Her hands were bound behind her, and she shook her head, trying to rid herself of the lingering confusion and slowness from the drug. The guard carrying her impatiently shifted her, bouncing her into a new position and grabbing the leg with the knife wound. Pressing her lips together against a yelp, she started running through escape options in her fuzzy brain. Nothing useful came from her foggy thoughts by the time she entered the Blood Room upside down.
She scrambled to her feet after being unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Her heart almost stopped when the first thing she saw was the blazing ice blue of Pine's eyes, set in an impassive face. Eyes darting left, Maura saw a grey and terrified Kennedy, looking like she'd been through a meat grinder. Judging by the seeping bandaging, she was missing several fingers. Standing as far away from her as possible was Yagura, leaning on his intact leg.
"Simon, what are you doing here?" Kingston's voice was irritated. "You should be with the doctor."
Maura turned to see a battered Third in Command, making his way slowly to his chair. He coughed, still smiling his manic bloody grin. "Oh, I wouldn't miss this for the world, Morgan. Carry on, please."
