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My thoughts are disturbed by her pushing her way back to me, seeking my safety and protection. “Nik…?” My hand rests on her, letting her know I am listening. “… hold me?”

I will never deny her. So I turn my body into a suit of armour for her, covering her like a backpack, bracing myself between her and the outside. The story she hasn’t yet written, a fate handed to her by the universe. A course I will correct. If it means standing face to face with God himself and telling him to fuck himself. I’ll laugh my way to the depths of hell for her to step foot through the pearly gates.

I chuckle at the thought as she falls from consciousness into her sleepy sanctuary. The smell of her hair, knowing she’s mine, it’s intoxicating.

I know they’re coming. Not from the depths of my depravation and arguable insanity. This isn’t psychosis, and I should know. No, this is an accurate understanding. Some day soon, the Firm are coming.

I will be ready. Calm. Prepare for everything. No plan survives first contact. But I will win. By Strength and Guile. When I close my eyes, I still see them. I see their laughs, their knowing smiles. We knew what we signed up for. It doesn’t make the loss easier. If anything you survive so much brutality, so many unwinnable situations that eventually you become convinced you’re immortal. Until someone goes down. And in every story, eventually, someone goes down. The best you can hope for is that it’s decisive, not drawn out. That your brother can be retrieved, brought home, laid to rest.

It takes me seconds to imagine their voices. Their cunning. If we were briefing this campaign, what’s important. What don’t we know? What do we know that we don’t know? What’s the plan of action and every backup plan?

The cogs in my mind turn, targets are categorised. Logistics are considered. And something that begins to look like a plan starts to take shape. I do the mental arithmetic, how many bodies can realistically be justified in the protection of a Goddess? How many can I dispose of? How many can the media shrug off as “shit on shit”?

Everything must be coldly planned. Flawlessly carried out. No distractions, no detours. Getting shit done the way I have since I was twenty-one.

I would be very surprised if we didn’t see them tomorrow. Third Tuesday of the month. Harry will be doing the rounds and collecting his packets. He’ll be close enough that dropping by will be convenient, and in a busy man’s schedule, convenience is currency. I am enjoying myself, so I haven’t acted on the barefaced audacity of dumping me in a hideout.

It would seem that Harry’s incompetence and lack of contingency planning was a tool that the universe weaponised to bring us together. I have some questions for that particular sick, slick, skid stain. I will enjoy him squirming and straining. Perhaps I’ll let him beg for his life with futile enthusiasm.

Sixteen

Sawyer

The single stream of sunlight disturbs my sleep with a warmness that feels almost foreign. Of course Nik, fully dressed - including boots today, is sitting on the chair at the end of the bed. The sunlight becoming a flood light preventing me from seeing him. It excites and soothes me to see him there. I’m not sure I’ve ever slept as soundly as I did with him with me, knowing nothing in the world could hurt me.

The world’s biggest, most dramatic stretch sells the idea that I don’t know he’s watching. Even if he isn’t hiding. I kick the duvet off the bed and grip the headboard. I raise my legs up to the headboard, toes perfectly pointed to the ceiling, legs perfectly straight. Like a dancer, still putting on the show. Parting them slowly, I look between them at Nik.

Like a terrible porno cliché in my best actress voice, pretending to strain hard as I remember my lines, “Oh no, I did not see you there! Oh I am so very embarrassed - what are you going to do to me” with a pantomime wink at the end. The arrogant bugger doesn’t even react. So I go even harder, he will react, I know he will.

1950s pin-up gasp, “and I didn’t even wear any panties… whatever will I do with this…” dropping the act and maybe getting slightly carried away “… smooth… warm…” sliding my hand and mimicking what he did to me yesterday “… delicious,” I add, sliding my finger between my breasts up to my mouth.

The once stoic soldier pounces, stealing my breath completely at the speed he is on top of me. My wrists pinned to the bed, my legs willingly entangling him, gripping him close to me. His eyes threatening the kind of violent sex you should never admit to craving.

“Oh no, whatever will I do…” I carry on, I can’t get my next line out as his mouth meets mine. His tongue dancing across my lips before it meets my tongue. He pulls away before threatening

“Sometimes… the chase is half the fun…”

I get it immediately, so I decide to offer the fantasy, committing to the helpless damsel routine. “Baby please… don’t ruin me… don’t destroy me with that… it’s so big… it’s too big for me… I can’t take all of it, and your whole load in me…” I offer a wry smile, though secretly I’m actually enjoying the play. I wonder if he’ll play along.

He pins me down harder, biting his lower lip, controlling himself, even though I don’t want him to. “Pspspsps” I bait him, come on, let me be prey.

“Later, little darling” he licks my neck and it sets me alight once again, it’s like a drug to him, his eyes almost roll in his head before he forcefully kisses my forehead, pushing his whole head into mine. As if determined by fate to be a twat-block, the doorbell app goes.

Quick as the wind, he’s gone.

* * *

I can’t hear much of what’s going on, but I throw on some joggers and a hoodie and hightail down the stairs. As I turn towards the living room I decide against intruding. I know it’s my house, but that conversation looks kind of tense.

There’s two men stood with Nik, the suit and the muscle shirt. Their body language tells very different stories. Nik is almost statue-still, his hands at waist height, the suit looks like a politician, all hand movements, and the muscle shirt is stood with his arms crossed. I lean on the doorframe with the front of my shoulder, my cheek resting on the wood.

Muscle nudges Suit, who looks at me.

“Just business, love. Boring stuff, why don’t you go stick the kettle on” his disdain leaks through his faux-charm, but I know this world and he’s right. So I sigh, drop my head, and go to the kitchen. Quickly followed by Muscle. His presence making me feel instantly uneasy. He’s doing that thing where he stands way too close to scare me, and honestly it’s working. I do my best to ignore him.

“Dunno how you do it, y’know?” he starts, and I don’t know what he’s talking about “spend all those years with a man, and then just let another man stay with you like that…”

I don’t know what he’s insinuating, or what he knows, but shame washes all over my body bringing me out in hot flushes and probably hives.