Chapter Text
four. (the 7-10 split)
— || —
The question had been directed at her once, too. “Who are you?” Different circ*mstances, different meaning. The scene lived fresh in her mind:
Berlin, in a bedroom darkened by never-opened curtains. White walls browning, candle wax clumped atop every surface, air stale-scented and dank. Niko asked it with both hands held out, pleading with her to explain herself. To give him something. Anything. A gesture of desperation.
He looked rundown, tired. Hair long and greasy; mustache grown out, absorbed into a full beard. His flannel shirt hung loosely from his limbs, and sallow rings lay heavily beneath his eyes.
Eve could relate.
She sighed, exhausted by the conversation. What she wanted to say was, ‘I’m more myself than I’ve ever been,’ but instead she continued wrapping a stack of old, tough jerky in butcher’s paper. She slid the package into the front pouch of a backpack, then set the bag to the side. Her legs dangled off the edge of their bed, boot tips digging into carpet. Restless.
“I hardly recognize you,” he said.
“Look harder,” she replied.
Niko didn’t like that response.
He took out his frustration on his newest obsession—a hand-crank radio she’d procured on a previous scouting trip, much to her regret. Round and round, the plastic lever spun. He paused, hunched in his chair to listen, then spun the lever again, starting the cycle anew. Pointless. They never heard anything. No emergency warnings, no communication or static fuzz. The crank whirred and whirred, a grating sound that had Eve grinding her molars. She forced herself to remain calm, to not snatch the device from his hands and smash it against the drywall. After a few minutes of this, he rested the radio on his lap and flicked out his wrist, sore from the repetitive motion.
Across the hallway, Eve heard crying. Soft murmurs. Bill and Keiko, trying and failing to calm their child. Mari was mid-tantrum, her third that morning already. Eve couldn’t blame the kid, considering. She felt tempted to join in, nerves frayed, one annoyance away from severing.
They inhabited the condo together; one big, miserable family. It had been rented for Elena’s wedding. Then the world collapsed, its previous owner never turned up, and lacking an alternative, they stayed. No one ever found out what happened to him. Murdered, suicide, illness, starvation. Berlin’s population, scant to begin with, shrunk at first monthly, then weekly, then daily. Eve quickly lost track.
At the start, they were grateful to have a relatively secure place to call their own. But now, it felt far too cramped. Niko sat perched on a chair next to the nightstand, his knees almost bumping into hers where she slouched on the bed. Every touch enraged. Every noise overwhelmed. Every flicker of candle light irritated. She itched to escape.
He said, “I’m telling you I don’t want you to go, and just once, I wish you’d listen.”
What would he do, she wondered, if she stood up and launched herself through the window.
“This is my job,” Eve said. “This is the task that was assigned to me. You can’t ask me to help out and then get mad at me when I do.”
His go-to speech. She could recite it easily. All for the communal good. ‘We can’t do this alone, we’re stronger together, the settlement needs us, you have to pull your weight…’
“You can help in other ways,” he argued. “Ways that won’t get you killed.”
“Niko, I’ve been to this trading post half a dozen times now. I go, I barter, I come back. Sometimes with supplies, sometimes without. Nothing ever happens.”
“No? What about this?”
Reaching out, he attempted to cup her chin, but she twisted away from his touch. She instinctively ran her tongue along her lower lip. The split flesh stung, sealing and reopening on a loop. She never could leave well enough alone.
“Completely different scenario,” she said. “I was scoping out another settlement. They mistook me for a threat.”
“Different location maybe, but it was a scouting trip, same as this.” His arm fell limp to his side. “I’m your husband. I’m supposed to protect you, not watch you go out to god knows where, just to see you come back beat to hell.”
Her patience, limited as it was, inched closer to depletion. “I got punched in the face. Hardly the worst thing that’s happened. Anyway, I won’t be alone this time. You’re picking a fight for no reason.”
“Bill has no business going out there either.”
“Why don’t you come along, then,” she prodded, knowing full well that he wouldn’t. Protective, my ass. “Or are you too scared?”
“Of course I’m scared! And the fact that you’re not is disturbing.”
“Refusing to live in fear is disturbing to you?”
“No, Eve. What’s disturbing to me is how you like the fear. These days, I think it’s the only thing you like.”
That did it.
Unable to listen to him for a second longer, she stood and hoisted the backpack onto her shoulders. “I’m going,” she said, stern with finality. “Figure out how to accept it. I won’t have this conversation with you again.” Feeling spiteful, she threw in, “And if you have such a problem with Bill joining me, take it up with him. He’s done it before. He knows what he volunteered for.”
Niko slammed the radio down on the nightstand, cracking the plastic and stunning her into silence. The commotion in their shared apartment instantly ceased.
“Bill has a child,” he seethed. “If you don’t care about me, fine, but he has a thousand reasons not to leave this settlement. He’s willing to risk it because he doesn’t want to see you get hurt. You are putting him in danger, along with yourself, and I can’t understand why.”
“Because we aren’t cowards,” she snipped at him.
“What happened to you? You used to be kind.”
She glared at the ceiling, stifled another sigh. He was incapable of understanding, she realized. That she had only hid herself beneath the shiny wrappings of good and kind. That those things no longer mattered, that those ideals had gotten annihilated along with everything else.
“I wasn’t,” she said. “You just…projected that onto me.”
He leaned forward on his chair. “You were, Eve. You were kind, and fun, and brilliant, and I miss that Eve so much, god, I can’t even tell you. I would give anything to get her back.”
What he wanted to happen next was clear. Because the Eve of Before, his Eve, would comfort him. She would assure him that everything was okay, would cave to his pleas and bow to his demands. Apologize, if she managed to swallow the bile fast enough to speak the words. How much easier it would be, to give in to that inclination. To stop banging her head against concrete walls. But Eve was done with performance.
She boiled over, fed up with him, with that place, with being the only person not trapped in amber wax, the only one who knew with certainty that things would never again be how they once were.
“Don’t you get it,” she shouted. “We’ve all been stripped bare. This—” She smacked her sternum. “This is it. Me, you, right now. You want to know me? Here I am.”
Any remaining anger evaporated from Niko. His face crumpled inward, and he slumped, despondent.
“If that’s true,” he said, turning away from her, “then I guess I don’t.”
— || —
Eve wasn’t Niko. She wanted to know. So she asked the question again.
“Who are you?”
As she awaited an answer, she felt as if she’d been dropped into ice water. Chilled and thrilled.
Villanelle stared for a long minute. Then she bent down and wiped her blade off on the sleeve of the tall man’s jacket—each side, meticulously—before pocketing the knife and returning to her full height.
“Huge question,” she said, eyes bugging out like the two of them were sharing a hilarious joke. Eve failed to see the humor.
“What are you?” she tried next.
“Ah.” Villanelle smiled. “Now you are catching on. Trouble is, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Eve looked at the men lying dead at their feet. She recalled the efficiency of Villanelle’s movements, the know-how displayed in each kill, the precision, the artistry. And her mind flew to a folder squirreled away in a desk, one identical to the many that surrounded it—the mundane reality of working as an assistant at MI5.
She had compiled each page in the folder herself, on her own time. Assassinations and murders, some solved, some not, confirmed or suspected to have been committed by women. And that folder was just the start of the madness. Her harddrive held even more—news articles, prison records, case files, killings she had personally observed get swept under the rug. The real horrorshow was at her home office. Piles of books with titles like When Women Kill and Psychopathy in Women. Dozens of articles debating the line between hired killer and serial killer. Stacks of DVDs filled with blood-soaked violence. Real-life crime scene photos tacked between post-it notes and takeaway menus. Obsession, spilling out across multiple locations. Her shrine to female assassins.
None of it had anything to do with her actual job, which was to assist Bill in providing diplomatic protection for high-profile visitors to the UK. Sometimes witness protection. All the time, boring. It was the kind of work that allowed her mind to wander. The kind that might’ve gotten her into trouble, if the After hadn’t so rudely interrupted.
But… Villanelle? Really? It was too far-fetched a notion. Preposterous. Eve refused to embarrass herself by speaking the ‘a’ word aloud. So what she said instead was, “You’re trained.”
Villanelle’s eyebrows lifted a tick. “Yes.”
“Who did you work for? SVR? FSB?”
She shook her head.
“Freelance? Private organization?”
Villanelle put her hands on her hips. “Should I be asking who you are?”
This was becoming a pattern. Ask a question, flip it back, never give or receive an actual answer. Eve dangled a carrot anyway.
“I was a nobody who did busy work for somebodies,” she said. “A cog in the rickey machine that was MI5.” Funny. She hadn’t thought about it, but in all likelihood, MI5 no longer existed. Cheers to that.
For a split second, Villanelle’s mouth parted, a glimpse of genuine surprise. It vanished as fast as it appeared. She put on a cloying tone, asking, “And what’s a lowly MI5 pencil-pusher doing all the way out here?”
“I dunno. What’s a contract killer doing all the way out here?”
“Contract killer.” Her lip curled with distaste. “You make me sound so pedestrian. What do you imagine? Cheating spouses? Squabbling businessmen? Because I assure you, I hunt bigger game than that.”
Absurdly, Eve laughed.
Was she losing it? Had her hinges snapped? What were the odds that the darkest recesses of her brain had randomly manifested in physical form in rural Wisconsin, mid-apocalypse, and oh, hey, said-manifestation also happened to want to be travel buddies? That Villanelle might be a straight-up hallucination seemed more realistic.
Yet a tidal wave of questions began rising in her mind, flooding her synapses, leaving her breathless. She blurted, “Are you active?”
Villanelle exhaled quietly. She turned from Eve, knelt down on the pavement and shifted her focus to the men. “And how would that work,” she said as she patted down the short man’s body. “Not sure if you’ve heard, but the job market isn’t exactly booming.”
“Well I don’t know, do I?”
If the goal of Villanelle’s snide remark was to make Eve feel stupid, mission accomplished. Embarrassed, she busied herself by picking up the fallen shotgun, one of the few objects on the roadway not slathered in gore. It hung heavy in her grasp, cumbersome.
“Break action,” she mumbled to herself. “Old school f*cks.” She aimed the gun at the trees and cracked it open at its hinge. She had some experience, having handled a similar gun in Berlin. Even at the end of the world, Wisconsin loved its hunting culture…or so she’d been told many times, never by request.
She inspected the double barrels. A clipped laugh clawed out from her throat. Unloaded. What had been their plan, to bash her over the skull with it?
“Yours if you want it,” she said. She snapped the action into place and unceremoniously dumped the shotgun on the road in front of Villanelle.
Startled, Villanelle jerked backwards, almost tumbling onto her ass. “Be careful with that thing, are you crazy?!”
Eve nudged the stock with her foot. “It’s empty. I don’t need the hassle of extra metal and weight.”
“Offering a trained killer a gun. Bold.”
She scoffed. “Good luck finding ammo out here.”
“True. Not really my style anyway.”
Villanelle lifted the shotgun and promptly tossed it into the woods. She collected the tall man’s hunting knife and sheath, made quick work of strapping it to her thigh. When she stood, she stepped closer, invading Eve’s space.
“You know, most people become quite frightened of me, when they see.” She nodded her chin at the men. Her gaze lanced through Eve, pupils sharp as pin-pricks. “Are you frightened, Eve?”
If Eve could scour the dark clutter of her mind, inventory each nook and cranny, she’d uncover a strange swarm of thoughts and emotions for sure—fear amongst them. No doubt Villanelle was already lurking somewhere in there too, skittering around on spider legs, waiting for the exact worst moment to spring out and attack.
But was Eve frightened of her?
“No,” she answered, standing taller, and watched as a smile bloomed across Villanelle’s face.
— || —
They fell back into their growing routine—walking the highway, walking the woods, the occasional smartass remark thrown out by her or by Villanelle or by both—murder a mere blip on their journey.
Except, not really. Eve’s questions grew exponentially, more by the second, her thoughts so loud it was a wonder she heard anything else.
Villanelle hadn’t lied… probably. If she were actively working, who was hiring her? If she had employers, what would be their endgame, in a world already nearing its end? It sounded beyond improbable, but at the same time, Eve figured she’d been given a version of truth. Honesty by omission. Because, active or not, something was up.
People don’t get chained to radiators and interrogated for answers unless there are answers to be given. A location isn’t referred to as a ‘drop point’ unless it has a purpose, an intentionality to its existence.
She heard Bill say, “Why does it matter? She’s a murderer.”
Oh, but it mattered. It mattered to Eve.
She’d been handed a maddening puzzle, center pieces only, no edges.
Lost in thought, the day slipped away from her. She looked to the sky, to a sun hidden high up behind clouds. Then she blinked, and time skipped. The same sun skirted the treetops, blood orange, creating an illusion, the world on fire.
“You’re being quiet,” Villanelle said.
“Just tired,” Eve replied, and god was that the truth. “How much farther?”
“If we set up camp soon, we’ll reach the drop point by mid-morning.” Villanelle glanced around, getting her bearings. “There should be a lake up ahead, and a shelter. Might be an okay place to sleep.”
“Alright.”
Sleep sounded good. Anything to quiet her brain.
They continued walking. She felt Villanelle’s eyes on her—searching for what, she wasn’t sure. She maintained a neutral expression, tried to play it cool, grateful her jacket hid the goosebumps popping up on her arms.
The highway turned curvy, winding a pothole-strewn path through the trees. To their right, the woods gradually thinned and revealed a small lake with a nearby visitor’s center, exactly as Villanelle had predicted. Stagnant brown water. Ugly. The surface sat eerily still, frozen as a picture, like a thrown stone might bounce harmlessly instead of disrupting its rest.
Without explanation, Villanelle swerved off of the pavement, onto squishy marsh land. She trudged up to the shoreline and crouched alongside its edge.
Eve hung back near the shelter. The thief’s boots had held up well so far, but she wasn’t in an experimental mood. Ridiculous, perhaps, to fear wet socks becoming the thing to finally break her. And yet.
“I saw a fish once,” Villanelle announced. Big news. She picked up a twig and poked it into the muck. “In a river north of here. Green and yellow scales. So slimy.”
“Yeah right. Like five years ago.”
“Nuh-uh. Recently.”
“You hallucinated it,” Eve said. “Desert mirage.” Fish had been one of the earliest things to go. Everybody knew that.
Villanelle looked back at Eve, face creased with a frown. “I know what I saw.”
“You think you know. Here’s what happened: The river’s current shifted a certain way, and refractions made the movement look like a fish. That excited you, so your brain convinced itself that it saw a fish, when in reality it only saw a trick of the light.”
Eve shrugged. She danced with delusions, sure, but not of this variety.
The twig fell from Villanelle’s hand and sunk into the shallows. She walked to the shelter, notably sulkier than before. “Have you considered, Eve, that sometimes a fish is just a fish?”
Wouldn’t that be nice.
She patted Villanelle’s shoulder.
“I hope you’re right.”
— || —
She ended up enjoying her best sleep in weeks. Go figure.
In the morning, they boiled lake water and took turns freshening up in the visitor’s center. They debated which route to follow next, ate a paltry breakfast. Neither discussed the prior day’s events.
The full night’s rest changed little for Eve. She remained unafraid of Villanelle, and she was equally, if not more, intrigued. She was interested in the drop point too. Anxious to see what new revelations it might trigger.
They hiked for an hour or two, a shortcut through the woods. Villanelle possessed a level of familiarity with the region, so much so that Eve suspected she’d traveled here more often than she was letting on.
When the trees ended in an abrupt line, they huddled together and examined their surroundings. Open land stretched out before them. Muddy fields, empty roads. Eve took out her binoculars. She scanned a dairy processing complex, a truck depot, and farther out, the community water tower. Blemishes of industry on a rural expanse.
“There.” Villanelle pointed out their destination. An unusual structure, single story, long, with a slanted roof and wood-log exterior. Eve was reminded of a cabin, but this was larger, commercialized and bulky. Deserted vehicles dotted the parking lot. There were no signs of life; human, plant, or otherwise.
She asked, “Is it safe?”
Villanelle scratched her chin. “Define safe.”
“If we get murdered, I’m going to be very cross with you.”
They approached the building cautiously. Beyond the protection of the trees, they were greeted with clear skies but harsh winds, whipping Eve’s hood from her head, twirling her hair in multiple directions. Annoyed, she pushed the strands away and tied them back in a loose bun. She was trying to read a sign that hung crookedly above the front entrance. Cheap plastic, sans-serif font. It said:
Spare Time
Bar & Grill
Beneath the text was stock artwork of a bowling ball, pins flying.
She huffed out a surprised laugh. “I thought you said this place was a bar.”
“It is.”
“It’s a bowling alley.”
“Okay?” Villanelle squinted at Eve, requiring translation.
“A bowling alley is its own beast.”
“Bar and Grill,” Villanelle recited slowly, eyes narrowed. “It says so right there.”
“Right, but like…a bowling alley might have a bar, but you wouldn’t really refer to it as such.”
Villanelle petulantly jabbed a finger at the sign. Eve said nothing, curious to see if she’d stomp a foot too.
“You make no sense. If a place has a bar, it can be called a bar.”
“Well, no. If a hotel has a bar, you might say ‘let’s meet at the hotel bar,’ but you wouldn’t-”
“Ugh!” Villanelle threw her hands in the air. “The English language is stupid and full of made-up rules!” She tugged on the door handle, its shrill metallic squeal effectively ending the conversation.
Walking inside was like taking a portal to the 1970s. Laminated wood everything—ceilings, walls, floors, and tables. The circular bar stools had fake black leather peeling from the cushions. Beer logos decorated the walls, the usual Wisconsin standbys: Old Style, Miller High Life, Leinenkugel’s, New Glarus. Bowling balls and overturned pins mixed with trash across the lanes, creating a sprawling, chaotic mess.
They set their bags down on a table.
“Wait here,” Villanelle instructed. “I want to make sure we don’t have any unexpected guests.” She unsheathed the hunting knife and threw Eve a wink.
Eve watched her vanish down a dark hallway, body taken into shadow first, then the bright gleam of the knife. The bowling alley fell silent. Creepy in stillness. Too nervous to stand around and wait, Eve made a beeline for the bar.
An offensive smell swamped her—sour water rot, the skunk of stale beer. She lifted the flap to access the back of the bar. The shelves were tragically bare. Discarded bottles and cans littered the floor. She kicked a path through the refuse and knelt before a set of cabinets embedded beneath the backbar. Boxes of paperwork. More empty bottles. A dead iphone, screen black, webbed with cracks.
“C’mon, give me something,” she begged the bowling gods. Was that a thing? Bar saints? Booze demons? She’d accept blessings from whichever.
She chucked the iphone over her shoulder, shoved the boxes aside, and struck gold. A single bottle, one third full of clear liquid. Vodka.
“We’re alone,” she heard Villanelle call out. Footsteps shuffled, then paused. “Uh. Eve? Where are you?”
“Back here.”
A pair of hands smacked wood. Villanelle’s head appeared above the bar top. She peered down at Eve, and her eyes lit up. “Oi, barmaid!” She snapped her fingers. “One bottle of champagne. And give me the good stuff, don’t you dare hold out on me.”
Eve stood and placed her modest trophy on the bar.
“You’ll take what you get and like it, asshole.”
Villanelle pulled the bottle forward. “Vodka for the Russian.” She rolled her eyes. “Good one, Eve.”
“I am not exaggerating when I say this is quite literally our only option.”
She stuck out her tongue in disgust. “We are not drinking this. It’s sh*t.”
“Yes we are.”
“No we’re not.
“We definitely are.”
“No really, we should save it. Could turn out to be usefu-”
With a flourish, Eve spun off the cap and flicked it aimlessly. It flew across the bar and disappeared with a light clatter.
“Oops.”
Villanelle laughed. “You think you are so smart. I can see a dozen bottles on the floor with the same type of twist cap.”
“Give it up, killer.” She brought the bottle to her mouth and took a large swig. The burn hit her throat and traveled quickly to her gut. Cheap swill, the worst. It was perfect.
“You’re being awfully casual about that,” Villanelle noted.
“Yeah, well. It’s a new world, isn’t it? Killers aren’t a rare breed anymore.”
She felt Bill knocking on the walls of her consciousness, attempting to barge in with his witticisms and dead man’s judgment. Her stomach turned acidic. She grimaced. Took another swig.
Villanelle slumped onto a bar stool, looking miffed. “That may be true,” she said, “but some are more talented than others—and then, now, on any timeline, I was and continue to be the greatest.” She stared at Eve, expectant for, what? Agreement? Flattery? A flash of awe and fear?
Eve couldn’t tell.
Mostly, she wanted to get drunk.
“Okay. You’re hot sh*t, and I’m very impressed. Will you drink now?” She slid the bottle to Villanelle, who made no move to take it. Without missing a beat, she grabbed Villanelle’s closest hand and placed it around the glass. “What was it you said the other day? Live a little.”
Villanelle threw her head back and sighed, but after the brief show of dramatics, she obeyed. Her sip was much smaller than Eve’s, and her face twisted and turned in displeasure. “Rotgut,” she complained. She passed it back to Eve.
“So where are those supplies you promised me?” Eve raised her eyebrows, indulging in her third far-too-long gulp.
“Over there.” Villanelle jerked her thumb back in the direction of the lanes.
“Don’t tell me we came out here so you could get yourself a bowling ball.”
“Yes, obviously. I am the queen of the pins.”
Eve snorted out an ugly laugh. Her head tingled, the start of a pleasant buzz. “You’ve never gone bowling before, have you?”
“Nope. I associate…bad people with it. Or, bad person singular, I should say. Dasha was her name. A bossy old hag who thought she was so much better than me.” Villanelle rapped her knuckles on the bar and smiled. “I hope she died horrifically. Skatert'yu dorozhka.”
Before Eve could tear into the meat of that odd confession, Villanelle spun off of her stool and walked away.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting our supplies.”
She took the Leatherman multitool from her jacket pocket and maneuvered through the mess on lane three—the only lane with a bowling pin standing upright in its proper position, Eve noticed. When Villanelle reached the end of the lane, she kicked the pin aside and slid herself beneath the spot where the pinsetter device would normally live. She set to work, flat on her back like a mechanic, poking and prying with tools at something Eve couldn’t see.
A wooden board gave way. Villanelle pushed it to the side. She reached up and grunted with strain.
Her arms came down holding a duffle bag. From afar, Eve thought it looked identical to the duffle they had taken from the thief. More curiosities to file away for later perusal.
“I thought there’d be more,” Villanelle said sheepishly as she returned to the bar, duffle swinging back and forth in the grip of her right hand.
Eve walked around the counter and pulled up a stool. “Luckily for you, I’m halfway to drunk. I’ll save getting mad at you for later.”
Villanelle dropped the duffle on the bar top. She unzipped it and began narrating her findings. “Bottled water. Iodine tablets. MREs…yuck. Bag of dried crickets. Ooh, chamomile tea!”
Why that was the most remarkable item, Eve had no idea. She was stuck on dried crickets.
Villanelle said, “Tampons,” and Eve turned to her, mildly surprised.
“You still have your period?”
“Getting kinda personal with these questions, Eve, don’t you think?”
She flapped her hand dismissively. “It’s menstruation, not your life story.”
Villanelle snorted. “Most months, yeah. It has become inconsistent, though. Just spotting lately.”
Eve struggled to remember the last time she’d gotten her period. Easy to chalk it up to perimenopause, a likely-enough cause and she’d had the hot flashes to prove it, but for the fact that many women at the settlement had begun having issues with theirs too.
Perimenopause. Jesus. On second thought, Villanelle had a point. This conversation was skirting dangerously close to personal, and halfway drunk was halfway too close to sober.
She sipped from the vodka bottle and pointed at the duffle. “What else is in there?”
“Let’s see.” Villanelle’s arm dug around in the bag. It came out holding a tall white tin.
“No f*cking way. Pringles?”
Eve snatched it from Villanelle’s hand.
Good: A full tin.
Better: The seal was intact.
Highly questionable: Pizza flavored.
“Gross,” she breathed out, voice shaky with excitement. She popped off the top, ripped open the seal, and stuffed a stack of five potato chips into her already-salivating mouth. The ‘pizza’ powder resembled what pizza might taste like if scientists developed the flavor in a lab based on anecdotal description alone. Tomato sauce, starch, and chemical confusion. She shoved four more into her mouth and licked her fingers clean, resolved not to miss a single speck.
“Ever heard of rationing,” Villanelle said.
“Ever heard of mind your own business?”
“If you’re not going to share…”
Faster than Eve could blink, Villanelle yanked the tin away. She replaced the lid and returned the Pringles to the duffle bag. As though Eve wouldn’t steal it back at the earliest opportunity.
But that was a new game for another day. Their current game was nowhere near complete.
“You want me to share?” Eve asked, smiling through her growing buzz. “I can be good at sharing,” she lied. She placed the vodka bottle in front of Villanelle and said, “Drink up.”
— || —
It was around the time she found herself on her knees, arranging ten bowling pins into a vaguely triangular formation, that Eve figured she might’ve had a tad too much to drink.
“Why are you making me do this,” Villanelle whined. She stood at the lane’s approach, squirming with her arms crossed.
“It’ll be fun,” Eve said. “Don’t worry, I haven’t bowled since I was a kid. I’m sure you’ll embarrass me horribly.”
Once the pins were in place, she teetered upright, hoping her tipsy wobble wouldn’t be overly noticeable—though the smirk on Villanelle’s face wasn’t cause for much optimism on that front. She hoisted up the nearest bowling bowl and cradled it against her stomach. It was too heavy for her, but bending over a second time would be courting disaster. She pictured herself face-planting into the smooth wood floor, busting her nose. Villanelle would never let her live it down.
She walked to the foul line and jostled Villanelle out of the way with her hip. She eyed the pins, strategizing technique.
Which was ridiculous, she decided. Because, honestly, who gives a sh*t?
She flung the ball down the lane, not even bothering to make use of the finger holes. It swerved to the right, flirting with the gutter, before miraculously curving back to center at the last possible moment. The ball crashed into the pins and created the most satisfying racket.
Somehow, she had rolled a strike.
Villanelle gawked at her, dumbfounded. “What the hell?”
“You’re up.”
Eve walked down the lane to reset the pins. As she gathered them into place, she snuck a glance over her shoulder. Villanelle was removing her pullover jacket. She rolled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. Minnesota Gophers, it read. The same sweatshirt she’d worn the day they met. And Eve began to doubt herself.
Maybe Villanelle had never been an assassin…or contract killer or mercenary or whatever. Maybe she had been nothing more than a simple student. One with a flair for lying and otherworldly instincts for violence, but still. Just a student. That idea didn’t fit right, though. To Eve, calling Villanelle ‘simple’ was equivalent to jamming a large square into a small circle. Incompatible.
She looked away and fumbled with the pins.
The process of selecting a bowling ball was more arduous for Villanelle. She became obsessive, marching lane to lane, determined to inspect them all. Eventually she found one to her taste. Marbled pink and black, medium in size.
Eve met her by the foul line.
“The main rule is, don’t cross this line,” she explained. “You get two tries per turn to knock over the pins. Other than that, let her rip.” She stood back, giving Villanelle space.
But Villanelle wouldn’t move. She held her bowling ball between both hands and stared at it blankly. For several beats too long.
Eve sighed impatiently.
“Stick your finger in the hole, for Chrissake, it’s not a Rubik’s Cube.”
She realized her unfortunate phrasing the same moment Villanelle’s face split into an expression of pure delight.
“Don’t,” she warned, to no avail.
Villanelle locked eyes with Eve. She curved her middle and ring fingers and slid them—obscenely and unnecessarily slow—into the smaller holes at the top of the bowling ball. Last she pressed her thumb into the bottom hole and coyly bit her lip.
“Was that good for you?” she asked, eyelashes fluttering.
“I’ve had better,” Eve deadpanned.
Villanelle grinned. “I like you when you’re drunk.”
“Would you bowl already? God.”
She set herself up a short ways back from the foul line. Gave her tush a little wiggle. And she strode ahead, graceful with each step. Her arm swung forward, and the ball spun from her hand in a smooth, fluid motion.
It immediately rolled into the gutter.
Eve belted out a laugh.
“Knock it off,” Villanelle pouted. She walked to a neighboring lane and grabbed the closest ball, evidently no longer caring about style or weight.
She repeated the process, with even worse results. The ball bounced out of the gutter and careened onto another lane, smashing into trash and debris. Eve clutched at her sides, howling.
“You’re being an arsehole!”
“Not my fault you’re so bad at this.”
The nice thing about Villanelle absolutely sucking? Eve didn’t have to reset the pins. She picked up a random ball and chucked it down the lane, then turned to face Villanelle as it happily rolled along. And as it turned out, there was no need to watch. The cacophony of pins falling and a deepening scowl on Villanelle’s face painted the picture for her.
Villanelle stomped away.
“Oh come on,” Eve called after her, but Villanelle was very clearly done. She sat at the bar with an audible huff.
Eve walked over and plopped onto a stool beside her.
“You’re a sore loser, huh.”
“I did not lose,” Villanelle sniffed. “I quit. There’s a distinction.”
“Sorry, of course. My mistake.”
They sat together in silence, Eve letting Villanelle stew.
Streaks of daylight snuck in through smudged windows, lighting the bar in tangerine stripes. Eve scooted her stool into the shade. She gathered the vodka bottle between her palms. The last of the alcohol sloshed around the bottom.
After an extended quiet, Villanelle tapped the edge of the counter.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, weirdly shy, her gaze averted. “And I want to ask you a question.”
“Go on…”
Her eyes flicked up.
“Be honest—Why are you so dead set on going back to that settlement? What’s the point?”
Eve blinked, brain fuzzy. Were they talking about Berlin? Why? Had she gotten too drunk? Had she gotten Villanelle too drunk? Whose stupid idea had that been?
Suddenly sick to her stomach, she pushed the vodka away.
“Made a promise,” she mumbled.
Villanelle groaned. “Not this again. ‘I owe someone, I made a promise,’ blahdy blah.” She nudged Eve’s shoulder. “Promises are made to be broken.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“You can’t live by what others want, Eve. You’ll go mad.”
“Bit late for that.” The outer rim of Eve’s vision blurred, smeared as if by vaseline. She folded her arms together on the bar top and rested her head there, turned to the side to keep her eyes on Villanelle. “I’m not entirely convinced you’re real,” she admitted. “That I haven’t made you up.”
“Your subconscious is deeply disturbed if I’m the person it conjured to comfort you.”
“Oh trust me, I know.” Eve smiled. “Besides, that spot has already been taken.”
“What?”
She shook her head against the crook of her arms. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“Secrets, secrets.” Villanelle kicked and swayed her feet, toes bumping rhythmically into the wooden base of the bar. “That’s okay. You can keep them. I have secrets too.”
“You’re kidding,” Eve teased. The vodka had loosened her up. Maybe Villanelle too. She wanted to sneak a crowbar into that sliver of a gap, pry it wide open. And why not? She sat upright and jabbed a finger into Villanelle’s chest. “Tell me one,” she demanded. “One secret.”
“Do not ask for something you will not return in kind,” Villanelle said. But her expression was light. Playful. She didn’t appear all that opposed. She thought about it for a minute, then began to say, “But if I told you, I’d have to-”
“I’ll kill you first if you finish that sentence.”
Villanelle laughed. Her hand reached for the vodka bottle. She brought it to her lips, took a quick sip, and lifted her pinky finger to the sky. “You’ve seen them, right? The metal birds?”
“You mean…those planes? Or jets? Whatever they are.”
“Uh-huh.”
Eve had, a few times. Sudden streaks splitting clouds, knifing through the quiet and gone in a flash. She’d tried to observe one once through her binoculars, but it moved too fast. The lack of concrete visual confirmation did nothing to dissuade her from thinking it was no standard passenger aircraft.
“Military?” she guessed. “Rumor is they’re active. Or some small remnant of them, anyway.”
“Aliens,” Villanelle countered, far too serious to be for real. “They are to blame. Everyone says so.”
“Well, if everyone says so…”
“Or! We are living in a simulation, and the simulation glitched.”
“Someone should try rebooting.”
Villanelle guffawed. “See? I knew you were clever. What’s your theory, then? What caused the end of the world?”
Eve let loose an exasperated sigh.
Most of the time, she craved knowledge. Had an insatiable appetite for it, some might say. With this, though? Not so much. She’d figured out early on that this particular line of questioning was an aimless pursuit. There were no answers to be found. No knowledge to be gained. Because knowing was an impossibility.
Not wanting to suffer through another rendition of this most overplayed debate, she gave the answer that typically killed it on arrival: “I don’t care.”
“Climate change,” Villanelle posited. “An asteroid. Nukes?”
Eve grabbed the vodka and slammed it back, saying nothing.
“Gamma-ray burst?”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
Villanelle curled her fingers around the edge of the bar top and bellowed out in a theatrical voice, reminiscent of an old-timey radio announcer, “An electromagnetic pulse of unknown origin and unprecedented strength!”
Eve held back a smile.
“It was that or the gamma-ray thing,” Villanelle decided, nodding to herself. “Makes sense, right? The changes to the atmosphere. The storms. How our tech went…” She shrunk her hands into fists, then threw her arms out wide, mimicking the sound of an explosion.
“It’s not the worst suggestion I’ve heard,” Eve granted, albeit reluctantly. “Could explain the military stuff too. They would’ve had some protections against EMPs.”
“Yeah?” Villanelle glanced around the room. She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “And how would you know that?”
Eve thought of Elena’s husband, Reggie. The theories he had shared over many a fire—her and Niko, Bill and Keiko, Elena, listening in rapt attention. Leftover intel from his time working in U.S. intelligence. He and Elena had met through work. Two lower level assistants from opposite sides of the pond. Both superb eavesdroppers. Both excellent storytellers. Both notorious gossips. The perfect match.
An ache grew in Eve’s chest. She pushed down the memories, tried to bury them with the rest. Hadn’t dug a deep enough hole, apparently.
“Aliens, climate chaos, astronomical misfortune.” She shrugged. “In the end, what’s the difference? Knowing won’t un-f*ck us.”
Villanelle frowned. She looked to the windows and said quietly, almost to herself, “Information is everything. Even if you don’t know how right away.”
Through a swirly blend of liquor and depression, Eve forced her brain back to the reason this conversation came up in the first place. “What about the planes? Why’d you mention them?”
“Oh yeah. Those.” Villanelle considered the vodka but left the bottle on the bar untouched. “I may have discovered a launch point. Or a base of operations. I’m not entirely sure.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Not yet. That’s where I’m going.”
Huh.
“... okay. Why?”
“Now, Eve.” Villanelle waved a scolding finger. “Don’t be greedy. You asked me for one secret, so that’s all you get.”
Eve wasn’t sure what to do with this supposed secret. It required sober thinking, several levels above her current capabilities. Her mind was never one to settle and accept, though, so she thought of the thief. Of the condition Villanelle had been in when Eve stumbled upon her. And she wondered if it wasn’t somehow interconnected.
“Is this why that prick thief hurt you?”
Villanelle tilted her head. She flexed her fingers against the bar, kicked her feet again. “Amongst other things,” was her eventual reply, cagey as ever.
Eve spoke bluntly, “I’m glad you killed her.”
“Mm, me too.”
She turned on her barstool, lured by a compulsion to dissect.
The bruising along Villanelle’s jaw hadn’t left but was fading. The cut on her lip had almost healed. Pink stains warmed her cheeks, flushed from the alcohol. A few freckles speckled the skin near her eye. Villanelle’s mouth turned up in a small smile. She seemed pleased by Eve’s attention.
Smiling, lit by rays of orange sunlight. She really looked quite beautiful, Eve thought.
They were leaning towards each other, she realized.
“Your, uh… bruises are healing nicely,” she said, and then startled at the feeling of soft fingers gentle against her jawline.
Villanelle traced her fingertips from cheekbone to chin, careful not to apply much pressure. She brought Eve’s face into the light. “Yours too,” she murmured, inspecting Eve’s black eye.
Eve sat frozen, incapable of reaction. Pliable under Villanelle’s hand. When had she last been touched like this? Touched in any way that wasn’t transactionary or violent?
Villanelle’s fingers lingered. Her thumb stroked Eve’s jaw and held there.
The bowling alley felt quieter to Eve then. The sounds of their breaths.
Her skin hummed.
No more vodka today.
She swiveled away on her stool and pressed her back to the bar, elbows up on the wood. “I think I drank too much,” she said with an awkward chuckle. She stared straight ahead at the lanes, making a conscious effort to sober up.
Villanelle matched Eve’s posture. She gestured at the windows with a flick of her hand. “We should leave soon, before the sun fully sets. Are you okay to walk?”
Eve nodded. “I’ll be alright. Let’s go.”
— || —
Back outside, the wind had settled. Eve put on her sunglasses, trying to stave off the early rumblings of a headache. She shifted her rucksack into a more comfortable position on her shoulders and pointed ahead to the trees.
“Should we return the way we came? We could probably make it to the lake before nightfall.”
“Works for me,” Villanelle agreed.
They headed toward the woods. The pavement felt unstable beneath Eve, the clouds in the sky a strange blur. She stuck close to Villanelle, using her presence as a guide. That vodka buzz wasn’t so pleasant anymore.
At the end of the parking lot, just as her foot hit the gravel, she heard a whistle. Low-pitched at the start, higher at the end. Twice in a row in the same pattern. It sounded familiar. She’d heard it once before.
No.
Her blood ran cold. The actual feeling of it, ice beneath her skin.
She must be imagining things. Or Bill was screwing with her head. Or she was having a delayed reaction to the vodka, poor tolerance on an empty stomach.
It couldn’t be real.
But then it happened again.
Slowly, she spun around on her heels. Standing in front of the entrance to the bowling alley, she saw the silhouette of a man. Short, stocky, hands jammed casually into his jacket pockets. He was looking out in their direction. Surely staring straight at them. But in the waning sunlight, shadow obscured his face.
He repeated the whistle a third time. She slapped a hand over her mouth, holding back a flood of sick.
Villanelle walked ahead at a faster clip.
Eve scrambled to keep pace. She whispered, “I know that man.”
Villanelle glanced over without slowing. Her face looked stricken. “That’s impossible.”
“I know him,” Eve insisted.
“There is no way. Out here? How? You couldn’t even see him.”
In her mind, she heard the echo of his whistle. The taunt of his voice. Watch, he had said. Watch. And she had watched. The knife. Its relentless rhythm. Blood, rivulets of it, flowing out from Bill’s chest.
She stumbled over her boots. Villanelle grabbed her by the arm.
“We need to leave.”
“We are leaving.”
Villanelle’s hand stayed wrapped around her forearm. Warm palm. A steady pressure. She was beginning to suspect that Villanelle liked to touch, liked to stake a claim for herself within Eve’s space. This time, Eve allowed it. Because if Villanelle was touching her, that meant they were together. Which meant that Eve was here, now, and not there, in the past. She hoped the touch would ground her, but the earth whorled beneath her feet.
“Wait,” she said, short of breath. “Do you know him?”
“No,” Villanelle answered. She was quiet for a few seconds, then added, “He’s nobody.”
“Which is it? You don’t know him or he’s nobody?”
“… both.”
The treeline was nearing. Villanelle peered over her shoulder.
“He’s not following us. It’s okay.”
She tugged Eve onward.
They ducked beneath elm branches, hid inside forest shade. Eve sucked in deep breaths. Everything around her appeared canted, the world on the wrong axis, her body slipping off center. In that moment, she thought Villanelle could not have been more wrong. Nothing was okay.
— || —
She sat on a blanket near the lake’s shoreline, arms wrapped around her knees, trembling. Gusts of wind sent ripples across the surface. Groups of mayflies pinged off the water. The lakefront was more alive that night, jittery with activity. A mirror of her nerves.
“Drink this. It will help you calm down.”
Villanelle hovered above her, holding out a cup of tea. Eve took it, but the smell made her nauseous. She placed the cup on the ground.
“I changed my mind,” she said. “We shouldn’t stay here. It’s too exposed, too easy to find.”
Villanelle lowered herself next to Eve and stretched out her legs. She opened her mouth to speak, but Eve had a hunch and stopped her before she could get started.
“If you’re about to accuse me of being paranoid, save it. I got ambushed the last time you said that.”
“I’m not sure what’s got you so scared, but I am certain that man wasn’t following us. Trust me on this.”
“Trust you?” Eve barked out a laugh. “You’re a lot of things, but trustworthy doesn’t rank high on the list—if it makes the list at all.”
Villanelle sighed. “Okay, but I really don’t think anything is going to happen. If it would make you feel better, though, we can sleep in shifts.”
“Fine,” she conceded. “I’ll take first shift.” She’d prefer to sleep off the vodka, but she had too much adrenaline pumping through her body. Too much anxiety. Too much confusion. And stupidly, against every instinct, she wanted to trust Villanelle. Or, she was willing to roll with things for the time being, regardless.
It had been a good day…until it wasn’t. But there was a feeling of possibility in that. Maybe tomorrow could be an almost-good day too.
A sudden fluttering noise made her jerk with surprise. Her tea spilled and seeped into the soil. Over the treetops, a pair of birds flew into view. They circled twice, then landed together, gliding onto the lake.
“Oh my god.”
Eve and Villanelle both crawled closer to the water’s edge, quiet in their movements.
The birds were duck-shaped, with black and white speckled feathers, a stripe of emerald green around their necks. While they floated, the water curved gently away from them, as if in respect of their grace.
Eve whispered, “You see them too, right?”
“Yes,” Villanelle whispered back.
“What are they?”
“Loons, I think?”
Loons. The word rattled around inside of Eve, shook up parts of her that had long fallen dormant. She’d never seen one in person, she was fairly sure. Not even Before. It felt as though entire lifetimes had passed since she’d come across any species of bird.
They were something new. Something to lift her from this hell for a few minutes, to let her pretend that this was a late summer day and life was vibrant and the air wasn’t poison and bright things could thrive despite all the decay. The mere fact of their existence was a minor miracle. Her mind emptied of everything but them.
Glints of sunset sparkled on the surface of the lake. The loons settled inside of a bright spot to warm themselves. They allowed the water to carry them, rotating around in lazy circles.
She caught a glimpse of their faces. Their eyes shone a startling blood red.
“Is something wrong with them?”
“Not at all,” Villanelle said.
Eve turned to look at her. She was watching the birds with childlike wonder, eyes big and glossy, mouth slightly slack. She met Eve’s stare and smiled.
“They’re exactly how they’re meant to be.”
— || —
