She sobbed and it shook her whole body. Tears slid down her cheeks and hovered upon on her chin before plummeting away from her.
"Sometimes I feel so...so..."
"Shh," the other girl said, reaching up and wiping the tears away with slender fingers. "It's all right."
"No, no... It's not all right... in my head, everything, wrong, so very..."
They embraced, and more tears came.
"Calm down..."
"I can't! Look at me! Look at my hands! There's...there's blood on them! Their blood, it's there, doesn't ever come off, just drips and drips and drips and it's always there and it makes messes everywhere and I can smell it 'Lissa, I can smell it, and it makes me so crazy..."
"There's no blood there, look." She stroked Medli's hands gently with her own. "No blood, you're okay..."
"Not--not--okay," she sobbed. "Sometimes I feel so...violent."
"It's okay, you haven't done anything..."
"But I will," she shouted, "But I will!"
---
"Your last name, please?" He was dressed in an immaculate suit. She didn't think a mote of dust had ever even thought about clinging to it.
"Ah--you'll find it under Alexa, actually..."
The man raised his eyebrows slightly but looked down to the digipad in front of him and slid his finger along the touchbar. Text scrolled past. For a moment the screen on it flickered and staticked, but it returned, bright as before.
"Here you are," the man said, and drew a checkmark with a stylus onto the screen. "Welcome to the party, Miss Medli." He smiled warmly. "Enjoy your evening."
"Thank you," she replied sweetly, walking past his podium and towards the long hall. "I'll make sure I do."
Another suited man held one of the large wooden doors open for her, and she gave him a slight bow before she stepped through into the giant ballroom.
In the center, couples danced an intricate pattern to the music that played from a small group of musicians in one corner. Pockets of people stood around and chatted at a pleasant volume, smiles on their faces. Some people carried glasses of the finest alcohol available in the whole of the city, while others nibbled at hors d’oeuvres that had likely cost a fortune.
All in all, it was rich. A rich party.
Too rich for her, though. That was all that mattered.
She shifted the purse she had on her arm around a little bit, its presence an oddity. Its black leather glintered faintly in the ballroom lights. It was heavy. Its weight was taxing upon the whole of her; it pressed down upon her mind like the world upon the shoulders of Atlas. Its presence momentarily consumed her and she stood, frozen, thinking only about the weight and the weight of what it contained. The whole world glassed over.
She blinked and the glass shattered, and she remembered where she was, who she was, what she was doing, and why. And why...
She undid the zipper on her purse and crossed the room, cutting through the dancers rudely. She strode deftly up behind a man standing by a table with his back to her, and threw her arm around his neck, jerking him backwards.
With her free hand she pulled a gun out of her purse and held it roughly to his head. He yelled, struggling against her, and she pressed the gun harder into his temple.
It was a Valcon XR220. Federation issue. Twenty rounds of the highest quality, accuracy, and stopping power. One of the military's finest. Laser sight if you really wanted. Semiautomatic with a hair trigger. A beautiful piece of work. Excellent craftsmanship. A worthy tool, a fun toy.
All of this ran through her mind in the few seconds it took the party to dissolve into panic.
She pulled the gun away from the man's head, aimed it upwards, and fired. The sound was deafening and everyone in the room froze, eyes wide with fear.
Slowly she put the gun back to the man's head, smiling at everyone.
"Listen to me," she spoke sweetly. "No one leaves this room. If I see a single person heading for that door, you die." She scanned her eyes across the room. "Understood?" she chirped happily.
Silence.
"Good. Now." Her voice darkened and the smile melted away from her lips as she looked the room. "Is there a Commander Parkins in this room?"
More silence.
"COWARD!" she screamed. The man she held hostage winced.
"I--I'm Commander Parkins," said a man in a military-style suit as he stepped out of the crowd. His voice wavered. She blinked at him. He was tall, lanky. Nothing like she had imagined.
"Are you, really?" she asked, her eyes wide and curious now, like those of a child.
"Yes--I am."
"Oh," she said. She looked at him. "Oh," she said again. She pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.
Blood and brains spattered the guests behind him, and they all screamed. Someone vomited.
"Cowards are worthless," she explained, "and cowards who hurt my friends die. Is there a Lieutenant--"
The main door, the one she had entered through, opened. The doorman stood there, wide-eyed. She shot him too, in the chest. Right through the heart. Thump, thump is the sound a beating heart makes, and she could hear her own pulsing in her ears. His didn't beat anymore after that.
She sighed and pouted.
"Now there's a draft. Someone shut the door."
After a pregnant pause one of the guests slowly moved to the door. He regarded the body of the doorman warily and pushed the door shut.
It clicked into place and the gun rang out again. He slumped against the wood.
"I told you not to go near the door," she said softly, shaking her head. The barrel found its way back to the hostage's head again. He was trembling.
"Lieutenant Selick," she finished. "Is who I was going to ask for. Are you here, Lieutenant? I'm not going to shoot you," she added, as an afterthought.
"Me." Another man stepped out from the crowd. Now, this, this man, he looked like a military man. He was dressed in a suit similar to the one Parkins had been wearing, except he had several medals pinned to his. He was taller. Built. She smiled at him.
"You know things I want to know."
He said nothing.
"You have a gun in your coat pocket," she giggled. "It stays there, okay?"
"Stand down." His voice was firm and unafraid.
"No," she shrugged. "You worked with Parkins. You know what you did with her. I want to know where she is."
"Where who is?"
"My friend. Where you took her. What you did with Lissa."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Anti-government dissident. Anti-federation. Supported independent systemtic governments. Part of the leadership of a coalition. You arrested her."
"I arrest a lot of people. You're going to be the next one. Stand down."
"Tell me," she said through clenched teeth, her eyes filling with anger. "Or I will kill this man, and everyone else in this room, until you tell me. And then, when I leave, and you're left alone in a room full of dead bodies, useless corpses, little more than a number, your superiors will ask you what you did to prevent this. And you will say, 'Nothing. I did nothing.'"
He stood, silent.
"Melissa Taylor. I know you know the name. Tell me where she is, or I shoot this man, and then I shoot everyone else. I have plenty of bullets."
"I'm going to say this one more time--"
She pulled the gun away from her hostage and shot the lieutenant in his left shoulder. He yelled and staggered backwards, grabbing at it.
"Don't move," she told the man she'd been holding, and gave him a kiss on his cheek.
With a few quick strides she was in front of the man she had just shot. She kicked his feet out from underneath him, sending him tumbling to the floor with another cry. Delicately, Medli set one of her stiletto heels onto his throat. She pressed only slightly, and pointed the gun down at him, her face emotionless.
"Guess I lied when I said I wasn't gonna shoot you."
"She--she's been taken offworld," the man stammered.
"Progress." She spat down into his face, angry. "You've made this very difficult, so I think you need to tell me more. What world?" She pressed harder.
"Revemsis." He groaned from the pain in his shoulder. "To--to a holding facility. She--she isn't dead," he added.
She looked down at him silently. She turned this information over in her head. Revemsis. A capital planet--lots of people there. Lots of crime and sex and government. The government was what caused the crime and the sex, of course. You had to get away from it somehow, of course. It was supposed to be a pristine planet, a model for everyone else. It wasn't. It never had been.
She suddenly noticed the lieutenant was writhing underneath her, like a fish that had suddenly found itself in the desert; she had applied considerably more pressure on his throat absentmindedly and now he was choking. She stepped back.
"Thank you," she said softly, and then someone rushed at her.
He hit her in the back, sent her flying forward onto the ground. Her gun fell from her hand and went off with a bang. She felt her assailant try to pin her there on the floor; they struggled, and a blow connected with the back of her head. She clenched her teeth together.
She would have none of it.
She kicked back and up as hard as she could and hit him. He faltered in his movements and she threw him off, and in one fluid motion she got to her feet, her dress dirty. She looked at the man as he got to his feet as well - her hostage.
He was edging towards her gun.
"I wouldn't, honestly," she said softly, staring him down. "I really wouldn't, sweetie." She pointed behind herself to where everyone else stood, and raised her voice. "And the rest of you put the thought of pulling that same stunt out of your head." Her hand dropped back down to her side. He was still moving.
"You've killed--innocent people, for no reason," he said. He was shaking.
"You hit a lady," she said. Her eyes had not left him for a moment, had not stopped staring, had not blinked.
"You--you're a murderer, you're no lady!"
"They're not mutually exclusive. But--but, you know what you are?" Her lips, colored an exotic red, formed a grim smile.
"What?" he asked, confused.
"You're hot," she whispered. Her eyes narrowed. "I like that."
"I'm what?" he asked, before he burst into flames and fell, screaming like a madman.
She watched the clothes on his body burn as he writhed on the floor, frantically trying to put it out. The nauseating smell of burning hair was beginning to permeate the room.
She retrieved her gun and looked at the crowd. Someone was yelling, others were crying.
The lieutenant was moving for the door, trying to hide in the crowd.
She raised the gun halfheartedly, as if it wasn't even fun anymore, and shot him cleanly in the back of the neck. He crumpled like a ragdoll.
She left the man burning there and snatched up her purse from where it'd landed when he'd tackled her.
She curtsied to the crowd, and moved through them.
She paused at the doors and looked back. Someone was rushing to try and smother the flames. She fired at their feet.
“He’s getting what he deserves,” she hissed. “Don’t touch him.” She waved the gun in the direction she wanted the person to move. Cautiously, they obliged.
She threw the doors open and strode down the hall, walked past the man who had checked her name off of the guest list.
“Miss--”
She just kept walking, gun at her side. She pushed another set of doors open as he set an alarm off. What good would that do?
The air outside was warm. The night sky was alight with sundry craft flitting to and fro. In about ten minutes, she was sure, there would be a small armada of police craft zooming towards this place.
Click went the safety on her gun, and she put it back in her purse. She crossed the street as if nothing had happened at all.