Faster Kill Pussycat [30% Complete]

[Mina Catalano]

Prompt List

• Lost
• Break Up
• Solitude
• Pregnant
• Roses
• Bite
• Knight
• Spring
• Can You Hear Me
• King

[Mina Catalano]

R O S E S

It was just after midnight when Mina arrived home from the bar. They'd closed early because it had been utterly dead, plus the next day they were doing inventory. She had been bartending enough that she got sucked into coming in to help - it was mostly a job for the managers, but Eden was busy with some appointment outside of work, and Dania had asked if she would be willing to help. Since Mina knew most of the stock, it wasn't a big deal, and Marius said that she should learn how to do inventory anyways.

It was all so terribly mundane compared to what she normally did. At ISIS, she was a valuable operative, and especially adept at existing behind enemy lines. Espionage, subterfuge, spying - whatever you called it, Mina was their girl. And somehow, for all of her expertise with weapons, explosives, hand-to-hand combat, the fact that she could speak a multitude of languages and fake a dozen other skills to get her by, they'd saw fit to stick her at a strip club in the city so that she could be the net that caught information about Midnight, the guilds, and anything else ISIS wanted to know.

Yeah. She wasn't sure if it was because she was in trouble for that last mission (she hadn't wanted to shoot everyone, but they sort of gave her no choice) or because sheactually was the best person for the job (she couldn't imagine Sydney working at a strip club, however prestigious), but she definitely felt it punishment all the same. Especially since she had to play nice with everyone, use her wiles to keep them fond of her, and tolerate a ridiculous amount of bullshit. Such bullshit came in the form of a bouquet of roses left on her kitchen counter, things she noticed as soon as she opened her door and went inside her apartment.

She made a "Hmf" noise to herself as she shed her coat and walked across the room to the offending objects, ignoring them in favour of the card that had been stuck under them. "Mina, hope you don't mind. Thinking of you, Zaine." She held the card between her index fingers, green eyes scanning over it as she turned it over to see if there was anything else.

"Of course I don't mind," she muttered. "Why don't you just friggin' move in, while you're at it." She took the card and the roses and deposited them both into the trash beneath her sink, then turned to the fridge to get some water. A knock at her door raised her suspicions, and she pulled a compact .45 caliber gun from one of the dummy drawers at the kitchen sink, holding it at her side loosely.

"Who is it?" she called.

"It's just me!" Zaine called.

She rolled her eyes, tilting her head back to mouth FUCK to nobody in particular. Aloud, she said, "Come on in!" as she quickly shoved the gun back into the false drawer. It shut with a click, and she gave a tug on it with her fingers, making sure that even if Zaine went snooping, the drawer wouldn't give enough for him to realize it wasn't just a decorative panel.

"Hey, I just ran out to take care of some guild stuff. I didn't think you'd be home so early," he said, ignoring how creepy or over-protective it was that he was checking up on her. "Where are the roses?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

Mina smiled stiffly. "Right here," she said, holding them up (after quickly yanking them from the trash). "I was just getting water for them," she explained. Sure enough, in the sink there sat a large vase that was half-full of water. Zaine watched her for a moment as she slid the flowers into the container, then set it on the small, round dining table.  "What?" she asked, a half-smile and a laugh following her question. Fuck you for being so damn suspicious, she thought to herself.

He shook his head slightly. "Nothing," he said. "Anyways, I just wanted to make sure you got home in one piece. I have to run back out... Lucien and I are working late. Don't let anyone say the guild leader doesn't do anything," he joked. He leaned forward to drop a kiss on her cheek, one she returned (though hers was merely a kissing noise and face made as he kissed her, a very female thing to do), then nodded. "Call me if you need anything."

"I will," she said, reaching out to give his hand a squeeze. As much as he irritated her with his constant invasion of her privacy, he was useful for information, and she would do well to keep that connection with him as smooth as possible in order to obtain it with little fuss. At least, as far as Onyx was concerned. She'd have to work on her connections with the other guilds, though she felt like she had a good one in Danny, who was just man enough not to suspect the gorgeous bartender who he "convinced" to dance for him a few times. Frost was still a dry well for her; she'd been trying to manipulate a female hunter who was an Avian that was still on the fence about her sexuality, but the girl had found out that she was Zaine's "girlfriend" (she wasn't, but he seemed to act like she was, and Zaine was the sort that people didn't want to cross), and the girl had backed off. Mina actually had liked her, at least a little, anyways, so it only made her more determined to knife Zaine in the back when ISIS finally let her burn all these bridges.

Something must have translated in her eyes as she watched Zaine go to the door, and she swore to herself again. Serpiente were incredibly good at sensing things like moods and emotions; it was her own fault for letting him get to her. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again, this time focusing on her as though he were waiting for her to lie.

She let her smile fade slightly, then went to him, working herself up a little in order to appear distressed. "I am," she said, placing a hand on his side. "I just wish you didn't have to go. Your job is dangerous, and I worry," she said softly, looking up into his dark eyes with her own green ones.

Her confession took Zaine by surprise, and he turned to face her more fully, putting his hand under her chin and tilting her head up. "You have no reason to worry, Mina. I'll be fine. I'll be back before you know it - if you still wanted me to stay here tonight, that is," he added.

Internally, Mina was surprised at what he'd said - he was revealing an insecurity by checking to see if she still wanted him to stay over. She had to file that away for later, and moved back to the present, where she smiled more warmly. "Of course I do," she said, taking his hand in her own. "Just crawl into bed when you're back. I'd love to snuggle." She kissed his hand before letting go, opening the door to let him out. She locked it behind him, then turned, putting her back to it after he'd gone. She couldn't even muster a sigh for how exasperating this stupid cover story was. Why had Zaine become so taken with her? Of all people, Mina was by far not the most beautiful, or the most capable - that he knew, anyways. She could see dozens of other girls in the club that he would be more suited for, so why her?

It didn't matter, though. When she'd made a joke to Sydney, who was her handler for this little fishing expedition, Sydney had told her to use it. So, she used it. She used it so well the guy had a copy of the key to her apartment and came in randomly to leave her roses. She thought it was creepy, but she kept that between she and Sydney, and if anyone else asked, she'd tell them that Zaine had a "gentle, sweet side to him" that they didn't see. Even Eden had commented on how odd it was to see Zaine trying to maintain a normal relationship with someone. Suffice to say, Sydney warned Mina extensively about keeping her cover in tact, and she was the best handler anyone could ask for - she made sure that Mina was air-tight with her background in that regard. Still, if Zaine ever found out that she was playing him like a fiddle to keep ISIS ahead of the guilds as far as jobs (which meant profit) and intel (which meant safety), he'd probably put a bullet in her head himself.

She plucked a petal off of one of the roses, sighing again as she thought about what would happen if Zaine found out who she was. Him shooting her - that would be what she'd wish for, no doubt. No, she had a very good feeling that if her cover was blown, she'd need to have ISIS send her overseas permanently in order to avoid the Mamba's wrath. She glanced over at her phone as it began to buzz; Sydney's name popped up on the ID. It was time to give the petite handler her nightly dose of information, it seemed; she left the rose petal on the counter by the flowers as she gathered her purse and phone and went back to her bedroom. After all, Zaine would be home in a few hours, and she needed to look presentable.

[Mina Catalano]

K N I G H T

The thing with Zaine had gone on for... the better part of a year, actually. Mina's reports were all neat and orderly to Sydney, who in turn had them entered into the system for the higher-ups at ISIS to go over and do with what they pleased. As it stood, they gave orders to her, and she in turn got together with Mina to let her know what to do next. At current, there was no real mission at hand, no objective aside from the standard 'stay with him and see what happens'.

To Mina, the job had become her life. She was like some sort of undercover agent who'd essentially been forgotten about - she hadn't, but she was just told to keep doing what she'd been doing. That meant that for almost a year, she'd allowed herself to be courted by Zaine Martin, esteemed Onyx hunter and one of the most vicious trainers Onyx had to date. He was also Lucien Cobriana's right hand man, and now that Cobriana had been somehow re-booted thanks to the work of the good doctor Frankenstein (Grayson Cole's working title at ISIS), she just had to include that information in her monitoring. After the initial, and very gradual, dating period they'd had, Mina had been told to stop resisting Zaine's advances - or as Sydney put it, "They want you to stop being so coy." She was right about one thing - if Mina sat on the fence too long with Zaine and kept him at arm's length, he'd move on to greener pastures; either that, or he'd start to wonder why the girl he'd been dating seemed so withdrawn and reluctant to spend time with him.

So, against Mina's desires, she'd had to take on the title of his girlfriend. She'd never been a girlfriend before, at least, not in the way that most people thought. Mina was very calculated with her decisions, and her life was her job, so anything she'd ever done was generally motivated by her work. She had to accept that Zaine was part of her work, now, and she had to start acting the part. That meant appearances at the guild, familiarity with his friends on a personal level, and intimacy. She had to hand it to Zaine, he knew his way around a bedroom, so at least that didn't sour the work for her any.

Unfortunately, ISIS had a lot of employees, and though some of them worked in totally different departments, their paths were bound to cross eventually. When Mina came into work that night, Zaine accompanying her just to make sure she got there okay and to drop in and speak with Eden about his brother (strangely, Lucien's new personality included a better relationship with Eden, which was good for all parties involved), Jason Murphy, the resident technological genius and someone who had proved himself an asset during the Midnight attack, found her outside Eden's office only moments before she was going to get checked in.

"Hey, Mina," he greeted.

She blinked rapidly, having been taken for the moment with something Zaine was saying. "Oh, hey Jason!" she exclaimed. She smiled at him, but she found that his own smile was somewhat tight-lipped, and it made her wonder what exactly he wanted. "What's up?"

"Can I steal you for a second?" he asked. He nodded to Zaine in greeting. "Work stuff," he explained, knowing that the hunter wouldn't ask too many questions.

"Sure, is something wrong?" she asked, her expression showing confusion. She and Jason's jobs didn't often overlap that she was aware of - of course, she didn't really think that he was going to approach her about ISIS right there in the club. He shook his head, then said he'd wait for her in the back, so she turned and told Zaine she was going to go. She gave him a kiss, which he returned, and let her hand slide off of his face gently as she departed from Eden's doorway.

When she got into the back room, she found that Jason was waiting for her inside. She shut the door behind her, as he indicated, and she couldn't help but feel like she was walking into an ambush of some sort. She brushed it aside immediately; the hyena was definitely valuable, and he could fight, but she didn't peg him as an aggressor, and so she told herself there was nothing to worry about. She was wrong, apparently, when he started speaking.

"What's your angle, Catalano?" he asked. He wasted no time, and she could tell from his expression that he had given some thought behind whatever was about to be said.

She narrowed her eyes a little in confusion, giving a tilt of her head to him. "I'm sorry?"

The hyena rolled his eyes. He stood his ground, to his credit, and actually took a step forward, which surprised Mina a little. "Drop the act. I know you work for ISIS, because I work for ISIS. I was helping with our systems after they went down the other day and had to repair a bunch of corrupted files before they were archived. Imagine my surprise when I saw your name at the top of our active field agent roster."

Mina didn't say anything, but she swallowed, hard. Shit, she thought to herself. She was going to have to do some fast talking to get out of this. How much had he seen? "Okay..." she said slowly, trying to stay calm. "What's your point? I work for ISIS, big deal. Can't a girl have a career?" she joked.

He held his hand up abruptly, cutting her off. "Just don't, Mina. I like you - at least, I thought I did. But I also thought I knew you. I did a little digging, wondering why it is that we've never crossed paths, and then it occurred to me that you don't report into the office. You have a handler, because you're considered under cover. Now, I had to stop and ask myself at that point, what would Mina be doing that's so undercover that I don't even know about it, especially since we see eachother every day."

Fuck! "Jason, I don't think it's any of your business what my assignments are," she said firmly. She'd go for the safety approach - he could appreciate that, right? "And I didn't say anything because I'm not authorized to. It's a matter of security - and safety."

"For who, you? Certainly not me, since I'm not the one who's basically been spying on the super-aggro Onyx trainer for like a year now. Jesus Christ, what do you think he's going to do when he finds out this is all some game, Mina? Because I sincerely doubt he'll be as open to the idea that you're just doing your job. Do you even know who you're dealing with?" he demanded. "Let me clue you in. He will kill you if he finds out you're playing him, Mina. Kill. As in, as dead as a doornail."

She opened her mouth to try and talk some sense into him, but he took another step towards her, lowering his voice.

"I'm not trying to go all White Knight for Zaine, but I have to wonder, what sort of person could do what you're doing? Insert yourself into his life as firmly as you have. He loves you, Mina. He has no idea that you're just using him to get information on the guilds, which I think is bizarre anyways, because ISIS contracts with them from time to time. What is it you need to know that you can't just ask about?"

"It's not that easy," she said, her voice quiet. "My orders come from our higher-ups. They just tell me what to do, and I do it. I didn't mean for it to get this... I didn't think he'd really..." she trailed off. She was at a total loss.

"You didn't think what, Mina?" the hyena pressed. "You didn't think that he'd actually have feelings for you? Look, I know Zaine's very, very rough around the edges, but he does have the capacity to care within him. When he came here that night Midnight did their raids and he didn't find you immediately, he was on the verge of losing it. If something happened to you, he would probably fall apart. I don't know what the hell your feelings are on the matter, but he's made his pretty clear. You should hear how he talks about you," he snapped.

She took a shaky breath, realizing that Jason just knew entirely too much. "Okay," she said softly. "What do you want?" In her head, she was already trying to think of the quickest way to take him out, and what excuse she could make for it. How much would he truly be missed?

He looked confused for a moment, and then threw his arms up. "I don't want anything! I'm not trying to blackmail you or jeopardize your job, or your life!" he exclaimed.

She shifted. Well, that was a relief. She hadn't wanted to kill Jason, but she would have certainly tried if he'd threatened her with this new information he'd found. "Then what?" she demanded.

Jason reached out, grabbing her by the arm - it was a bold move, but he seemed exceptionally angry at the moment. "What I want is for you not to play kick the can with this guy's heart, Mina. Break it off with him. Or don't. How much of this is real? How much of this relationship you guys have is just your job, and how much of it is actually you?" he asked angrily.

She looked down at his hand, which was wrapped firmly around her upper arm, and then back at him. "Well, since I'm not two different people, I think it's safe to say that it's all me," she snapped. She reached down and grabbed his wrist, prying his hand off of her arm in a way that was painful for him, gritting her own teeth when he clamped down harder before letting go, just to give as good as he got. She was willing to bet it was the first time he'd ever grabbed a woman like that before.

"Fine. If that's the way you want to play it, I'll tell him myself that you're just a lying, conniving bitch. I don't care what ISIS has you ordered to do. This isn't acceptable, and I'll take my punishment for it," he said. He made to leave the room, slamming into her shoulder as he pushed by her. When he put his hand on the door, she yelled, "Wait!" behind him, and he stopped. He had a feeling that was coming. He turned to look at her, waiting for whatever it was she had to say.

She rushed over to him, grabbing him by the arm - this time not forcefully, but instead... desperately. "Jason, please," she said. "Please don't say anything to him."

"Why shouldn't I?" he demanded.

She let go of him, closing her own eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they were watery. "You wanted to know if this was just a job to me or if I actually cared about him." She paused, taking a shaky breath - she looked like she was on the verge of tears. "It's not just a job. It was at first, but it isn't anymore. I - I love him, I really do. But if I tried to tell him all of this, how do you think he'd react?" she asked. "Please, Jason, don't. Please. I'm begging you."

He studied her for a second, and then nodded slightly. "Okay, Mina. I won't say anything to him. But you need to get reassigned or do whatever it is you need to do, because this is fucked up, and you're right, if he finds out, not only would he be crushed, but he'd crush you." He left the room then, slamming the door behind him and leaving Mina alone.

She dropped down onto a couch, running her hands through her shoulder-length red waves. Jesus fuck, that was close, she thought to herself. Had she been convincing enough? She'd had to turn on the water-works on pretty short notice, but she was pretty sure that Jason had bought it. Nevertheless, he'd be watching her like a hawk now, especially where Zaine was concerned. She'd have to step up her game, or else she didn't doubt that Jason would go to the man with the information he had, as well as the proof to back it up. She didn't know why Jason was sticking up for him - maybe it was because Jason knew him before they'd met, and he knew that Zaine was a very guarded person, but still...  She'd have to play her hand closer to her chest then she'd previously been doing. Great.

She debated on calling Sydney to let her know what had happened, but she decided against it, in the end. What would it accomplish? Maybe she did feel something for Zaine after all this time, but she couldn't rightly say then and there if her feelings were real or just a by-product of her assignment. A knock at the door roused her from her thoughts, and she stood up, composing herself, then walked to it and opened it. And who should be on the other side but the man of the hour?

"Hey, I'm headed to the guild house. Do you want me to come and grab you after work?" he asked.

She was about to say no, but she saw Jason lingering in the background, just at the edge of the crowd. He was staring at her. "Yeah," she said, smiling brightly. "We can go back to your place, watch a movie in bed?" she suggested.

He smiled, a rare occurrence. "Okay, it's a date." And with that, he leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek, only to be surprised when she turned her head and caught his lips with her own. He actually had to take a hand off of the door to steady himself, placing it at the side of her face as she made his body temperature raise slightly. "What was that for?" he asked, surprised.

She shook her head a little, then leaned in again drop one more kiss on his lips, this one just a quick brush. "I'm just... happy, that's all," she said. She smiled as he laughed and departed, remaining where she was in the doorway. She looked back down the hall at Jason, then, and he just shook his head and walked off. Fuck. This was going to be harder then she thought.

[Mina Catalano]

P R E G N A N T

Mina stood outside of Zaine's house, car keys twisting in her hand. She was on the phone with Sydney, trying to hash out her latest dilemma, yet another byproduct of this stupid cover-story with the hunter. Except, this time, it had gotten out of hand.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Sydney asked, rolling back in her office chair as she gestured to someone outside the door that she wanted more coffee.

Mina practically growled. "I don't know," she said. "I thought you'd have a better idea than I would."

Sydney snorted. "You're kidding, right? There's nothing in the protocol about how to handle an unwanted baby. Well, I mean, there is, but generally speaking most of our field agents are smarter than you apparently are when it comes to being responsible. I don't know, get rid of it?" she suggested helpfully.

"What?" Mina choked. "Lincei are ultra-rare, Sydney!" she said, her voice shrill. She actually had to rush back down the steps of Zaine's house and hurry out into the driveway so she wouldn't risk him overhearing her phonecall.

"Well, that's all the more reason. Think of all the shit you had to go through, constantly watching your back in case a snatcher came and bagged you for some freakazoid's collection. Besides, just because you didn't get that weird ancestral recall power, that doesn't mean this kid won't. It's just going to cause problems," she reasoned. Truthfully, Sydney didn't care one way or the other, but she didn't want to lose a field operative. "Or, you could keep it. Let Zaine be a man and propose or whatever he'll do. Then you'll really have an in," she said, scheming written all over her face - and in her tone of voice.

"No, no, no," Mina hissed. "You're not helping any!"

"Because I'm not supposed to help, sweetie. I'm your handler, not your friend. You got yourself into this mess, you figure it out. Just let me know what you decide so I can make an appointment for you at medical," she chirped. "Bye now, have fun!" and hung up before Mina could say anything else.

Mina just stared at her phone, then up at Zaine's house. Fuck. FUCK. She was thinking that a lot lately. Sydney had a point though - Mina had options, and she'd just gone against her better judgment. This was as much Zaine's fault as hers, though. They'd been drunk on Mojo Juice and it had just happened. FUCK. She'd have to just tell him, then see where he wanted to go. She couldn't really see herself raising a child, but at the same time, could she really consider getting rid of it? She didn't know.

She walked back up the steps to Zaine's house and let herself in with her key. She didn't hear anything immediately, so she assumed that he was either in the back of the house or outside. His car was certainly in the driveway, so he had to be here somewhere. She walked into the living room, set her purse down on the couch, and twisted her head to try and see if she could hear anything. Finally, she gave in.

"Zaine?" she called. She waited a beat, and then tried again. "Zaine?" After she yelled a second time, she heard a shuffling noise in the back, probably from his bedroom. "Ah-hah," she muttered to herself. She headed down the hall after kicking off her high heels, unable to deny the feeling of carpet between her toes felt nice.

"Zaine, honey, I have something I need to discuss with you," she said as she approached. "It's going to be good news or bad news depending on how you look at it, but I think it's best if I tell you now." She pushed open the door, still talking. "I'm two months pr... " and stalled out.

All over the bed lay Manila folders, opened. In them, photos of her with her handler, other ISIS field agents, and several members of the supernatural community that didn't necessarily work well with the guilds. Some of them Zaine had even told her were targets. The photos weren't all of it, though - not even close. There were dozens, dozens of papers - reports she'd submitted, bits of information she'd obtained from photos she'd taken while she'd been left alone in his offices (both home and guild) - but worst of all, transcripts of conversations he'd had that she'd managed to record and get back to ISIS.

"What the hell is all this?" she asked, not even finishing what she'd been about to say - which meant he hadn't heard her.

Zaine was standing on the other side of the bed, and even if she didn't see a weapon in his hand, he didn't have to have one. One bite from him would fuck her whole world up, shifter or not. She might be able to hold him off physically, but Zaine was a trainer and a hunter, and in the end, he would take her down. He knew it, she knew it. She swallowed, hard, feeling her heart pick up - something Zaine didn't miss, as his brows raised.

"I think you know what this is," he said. His voice was dark, thick with anger. It was actually trembling with rage, something Mina had never heard first-hand - and it was directed at her.

She looked at him, realizing that she was blown, and let her face fall. "I can explain," she said, trying to keep her voice calm, but unable to avoid the thin, breathy sound it took from her fear that had built up in her chest.

"I'm sure you can," he said. "But I have to say, I'm not interested in hearing it. All of this speaks for itself, don't you think?" he asked.

She had her back at the door, trying to keep as much distance between them as she could. "Zaine, please, believe me when I say that it's not what it looks like."

"It isn't?" he interrupted. "Because, to me it looks like the last two years or so, you've spent pretty much spying on me - and the guilds."

"Okay, it is what it looks like," she said dumbly.

"So, what I want to know, is how much of this was a lie?" he asked, implying their relationship. "And Mina? I would really, really choose your words carefully right now," he warned her. The anger was coming off of him in waves; it made the room hard to even be in, but to her credit, she didn't try to run. It was better she didn't, anyways - because he'd go after her, and he would hurt her.

"About a year," she said, lowering her eyes. "Then it... changed."

"Really? Because I've got a report from about three weeks ago," he said, pointing to a piece of paper. "So I feel like when I said 'choose your words carefully', you just kind of ignored that," he snapped.

"No!" she cried, holding her hands up. "It changed. We changed - I changed. I - I fell in love with you," she said softly. "It may have started out as a job, but that's not what it is now - I mean, not between us," she explained. She was doing really poorly at this, and she knew it.

He stared at her for a while, then just laughed. "You're a fucking piece of work, you know that?" he said smoothly. "I've been sitting here for the better part of today, debating whether to let you explain, or just to kill you on sight. Obviously, I chose to let you explain, but now I think maybe I made the wrong choice. Now I'm just trying to work out if I should bring you before Lucien or kill you myself," he said - and there was no humour in his voice.

She slid her hand along the door behind her, looking for the handle, and he watched her intently. "Don't do it, Mina. Don't run," he warned her. "If you run, I swear to fucking god -" and that was all he got out before she shot out the door like a rocket. She wasn't trying to get out of the house, though, just to her purse. It was desperate, she knew, but maybe if she could show him what she'd gotten from the doctor, he'd at least reconsider stabbing her in the throat. Maybe not, but a girl had to try, right?

He caught her just as she got to the couch, jumping on her back. He took her down, hard, and she went with a scream face-first into the carpet. "I said not to run!" he exclaimed, his voice betraying his shock every bit as much as his anger at her sudden burst of speed. She struggled underneath him, trying to stand with him on top of her. She finally did get up, only to fall backwards into the glass coffee table, hurting him just as much as herself.

They both rolled away from eachother, though Zaine was up much faster than she was. She just lay on the floor on a heap, tucking her knees up to her chest, her outstretched arms bloody from the fall through the table. She'd cracked her head on the wood on the way down, and she was so dizzy she was nauseous - had she been a human, it would have easily been a death blow, but as it was, she was terribly stunned.

"You think just because I loved you, I won't kill you?" Zaine asked, crouching down by her form. It bothered him to see her in pain, especially pain he caused, but he tried to harden himself to it as much as possible. This wasn't the any person he knew or loved - she'd been lying from the beginning.

She said something he didn't understand, and he reached down, grabbing her by her hair. Jesus Christ, the back of her head was bleeding so much a little pool had spread around her in the carpet. "My purse.." she said.

He narrowed his eyes, not fully grasping why, when she knew she was about to die, she wanted her purse. "What about it?" he snapped.

"Front pocket. Read it," she managed. Her body was already trying to heal, but that didn't mean she wasn't in pain, especially when he dropped her head back down onto the carpet with no amount of gentle effort. He went to her purse, not taking his eyes off of her (though she seemed content to lay on her back in her blood), and yanked out the piece of paper she'd taken from the doctor's office.

She watched him from the floor, watched his eyes scan it, once, twice, three times, and then he turned back to her. "Is this a fucking joke?" he demanded.

She swallowed, the taste of copper invading her mouth, then sat up, ignoring the shards of glass sticking out of her arms for the moment. "Surprise," she said weakly. "That's why I told you I had something important to tell you when I called." She closed her eyes as a wave of nausea overtook her. That hit on her head had really knocked something loose.

It was obvious that Zaine hadn't anticipated this; he sat down on the couch almost immediately, pulling his attention from her to the paper. He read it over and over again, as though it would change somehow if he just looked at it long enough. "Is this a trick?" he finally whispered. He was, at the moment, ignoring the mess he was making - he'd been wearing long sleeves, but his back had still crashed through the table, and at the moment, there were shards of glass embedded in it just as there were in his arms. Zaine didn't seem to feel pain like normal people did, though - probably part of the reason for his fearsome reputation.

He glanced over as Mina started to move; she'd pulled herself up, and dropped down onto the couch next to him, finding that she suddenly didn't feel the urge to flee. It wasn't that she didn't think he'd kill her; she did. It was just that she didn't care - probably from the knock on the head.

"No trick," she said stiffly.

He looked at her for a long time, then spoke. "Get out," he said. He didn't yell or scream at her, and his voice may have been low, laden with emotion, but it certainly wasn't loud. He only had to say it once, and Mina took it to mean she had a free pass for the moment. She stood, grabbed her purse, and walked as straight as she could manage out of his house and to her car parked in the street. Once she got in, she turned it on and drove away, hands shaking on the wheel as she forced herself not to cry. She busied herself at red lights by picking glass out of her arm, swearing a little with each bit of shrapnel she extracted and threw out the window.

She didn't know where to go. Home? She had no friends - no real friends. Her cover had friends, but she couldn't explain why she was showing up all beat to hell (even if she'd gotten off pretty easy, considering). No, she had nobody, and so she drove home. She made it up the steps to her apartment before she started to feel the emotion wash over her. As soon as she got inside her door, she slid down the back of it, pinning her knees to her chest, and just started to cry. She was totally alone, and for the first time, she felt it.