Walking through a crowded bar intending to hire an assassin wasn’t the way Lysander Badeaux had envisioned his Saturday night, but there he was. To be fair, he had been planning and replanning this for the past month with the help of a very patient--and perhaps a touch long-suffering--fence named Skittles. That wasn’t his real name--the Shifted, and anyone who did business with them, typically used an alias of some kind--but it was the only one Lysander knew to call him, which--after a full year of acquaintanceship--was a bit sad. Alas, he had moved far beyond the point where it felt natural to ask such a question and so he had resigned himself to never knowing. Thus, Skittles would remain Skittles, even though his curiosity about the moniker was endless.

The bar--known as the Bay Street Inn--was in a clustered one story building set decently far back from the main thoroughfare of town, the kind of place only locals would frequent. And indeed, it was one of the two bars in town that had survived the dramatic decrease in business that had occurred since the Spread. Restaurants had it slightly easier, given that they could apply for food stipulations with weekly patron reports, but anywhere that tried to serve alcohol almost certainly had to find their own suppliers--places that could still afford the luxury of growing anything not strictly necessary for sustenance were few and far between, so most of the liquor was of the basement moonshine/dandelion wine variety. Not particularly tasty, but it got the job done. This place, in fact, boasted its own brand of something called the Inn’s Own Corn Whiskey, which he had heard was almost intolerably bad from more than one source. Beer and wine were also still largely available, which made them a favorite among the bars in and around the city and suburbs.

Broken up into two rooms, the main entrance deposited Lysander into the bar side--a dark room taken up largely by the bar itself. The dark wooden bar ran down the entirety of one half of the room, the rest of the space taken up by high top tables and chairs. The other half of the place could be seen through an open doorway on the far end--that side visibly better lit and carpeted, dotted with dining tables. His feet carried him through groups of raucous patrons, everyone blowing off steam after a long work week, the space filled with the sounds of glasses clinking and people talking over one another. He had been surprised that a place in his own hometown could be the site of any kind of shady dealings, but Skittles had assured him that this was one of the best places to do so. He became less surprised after he entered without having to scan in, something that was becoming exceedingly infrequent as the city implemented this newest Code Law, making it mandatory to not only scan in at home and at work but also in public spaces. A move designed to further alienate any unregistered person or Shifted, as Lysander knew to call them. But here, about as far as possible from the city proper, the newest reform hadn’t yet taken root, making Lysander’s job just slightly easier.

Even on the restaurant side, people littered most of the tables, talking and laughing. He felt kind of silly taking a seat at an unoccupied table near the back by himself, but he shoved that feeling aside and tried to stay focused on his goal. He felt awkward and out of place, as he knew he would, surrounded by so many people, and he longed to run back to the safety of his apartment and jump into bed with Bingley and the cats. But, he was resolved. He was here for a purpose and he could find the strength inside, if not for himself than for Mirianna. Taking a deep breath for nerves, Lysander grabbed the sticky plastic ring of advertisement placards from the end of the table where it sat next to a dejected nearly empty shaker of salt. Hands shaking, he flipped through the adverts until he found one for an old Happy Hour promotion for half price beers and appetizers before setting it in the middle of the table where it would be visible to other patrons. Nowhere could afford to cut prices at any time of day anymore with less and less people able to find steady employment as more and more businesses closed their doors permanently. However, Skittles had assured him that this would invite someone to his table who might be able to solve his problem, a kind of secret code known only to society’s underbelly. Lysander wondered inappropriately if there was ever any mix ups, if anyone went to the bar for a good time only to end up with someone asking if they needed a hit done. Stifling a laugh--he refused to be the crazy one in the corner--he fiddled restlessly with the picture in his pocket. He was overly prepared, if such a thing was possible in these circumstances. He had not only the name of his target, but also a picture and addresses for places of work and residence. It helped that the man in question was Lysander’s best friend’s father and his own boss. Joseph Campbell had raised Lysander like his own son once his parents had been killed in a traffic accident when he had been only six years old, but Joseph had changed recently. After the incident two weeks prior, Lysander had decided that something had to be done, for both his own peace of mind and to protect his best friend--Joseph’s daughter--Mirianna.

Lysander startled from his thoughts by someone sitting opposite him. He glanced up from where he had been examining his fidgeting fingers and saw a blonde woman flipping the advert face down. He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but it sure wasn’t this. Her long golden hair cascaded down the back of the chair and her bangs framed her green eyes. A long finger ticked against her face, drawing his attention to the jarring red of her lipstick. When he had set out to find himself an assassin, he had imagined someone a bit more like the man creeping closer to their table, his overcoat hiding the entirety of his body and his stooped posture bringing to mind an Igor like character. The woman flicked her eyes to the approaching man, and he froze mid lurch only to scuttle back the way he came. Her attention then rested fully back on Lysander, and he shrank in his chair, the nerves overcoming him again.

“Um, hi?” he stuttered out, slapping himself internally for such a weak opener. She wouldn’t want to help someone who so clearly couldn’t help himself. Desperation forced him to continue. “Are you here for the special?” he asked, following the script he had memorized last night.

“Mm, let’s skip all that,” she said, waving her hand between them as if to clear the steam from his frying mind. At her statement, he could practically feel the hamsters that may or may not have powered his brain all collectively die.

“Um, but, I,” he ground out, shifting uncomfortably in his wooden chair. A cheer rose up from the opposite end of the bar, a group clustered together at one side clapping a woman on the back as she blushed and tried to shush her companions. The noise ground into his fraying nerves, making him tighten his fists together to center himself. He had planned out the entire conversation under the assumption that the assassin would follow the steps that Skittles had laid out for him, so her disregard to what he thought to be the rules threw him completely off his game, which he didn’t have much of to begin with to be fair.

“You can call me Red. And you are?” she asked, bringing his attention back to her. Red was an odd name, but he figured that it was her alias. Her calling herself Red tickled at some buried memory--something about the alias poked at him, probably related to where he may have heard it before--but he shoved it to the side for the moment. He had enough to think about without adding to his burden.

He must have hesitated too long because she waved between them again and said, “It’s fine, I just won’t address you directly until you can force out a full sentence. Are you sure you’re in the right place, my guy?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately, the answer leaving him with force, “I need this.” And he did. He had built up too much resolve to give up now, even as his heart hammered away and his instincts begged him to flee.

She quirked a dark eyebrow--making him question the naturalness of her blonde hair--and tapped her cheek once more. “Hm, so I see,” she stated softly, her eyes tracking across his face. Her head tilted to the side, leaning fully into the palm of her raised hand. Her gaze chilled him, and he could practically see the ice behind the bright facade of emerald like tiny cracks piercing the sheer veneer. Lysander admittedly scared quite easily, but something about her unsettled him deep in his gut--the strange assessing way she watched him as though she wanted to yank his secrets to the surface or the almost inhuman movement of her pupils as they darted periodically around the room.

“Welp, let’s get out of here then,” she said suddenly, jumping up from her chair and slapping a five credit down onto the sticky table. Neither of them had ordered anything, but clearly she wanted to keep the wait staff here happy because most people could only really afford to divvy out small fractious amounts--a whole credit for a tip was practically unheard of, let alone five.

He shakily followed, his knees quaking. If he left with her, it felt like the whole thing would be official, like he was consigning himself to this dark deal. Plus, the situation was weird and his mind was still stuck back somewhere when she had asked for his name. Thoughts racing to catch up to the present, he felt obligated to go with her, if only because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to build up the confidence to try again after all this.

Giving him one final sweep of her eyes, she whipped around and ran face first into a harried waitress. The waitress wobbled back a step, trying to balance her tray and the two drinks on it. Red reached out and gripped the waitress’s elbow, steadying her, and used her other hand to stop one of the drinks from wobbling. The dark amber alcohol inside sloshed up the sides, the ice cube tinkling against the glass. The whole thing took maybe a minute, probably less.

“Sorry about that, love,” Red said with a smile painting her features. Lysander pressed himself against the wall to stay well out of the way in order to avoid the same fate. Once the waitress assured them that all was well, Red turned and grabbed his wrist, dragging him back through the crowd and out into the night air. Once they hit the concrete of the sidewalk, she took off running, her momentum propelling Lysander behind her. His wrist twinged painfully in her grasp and he considered once more just hauling off and trying again elsewhere. This journey was clearly just a test of his mettle. The whole thing was too bizarre to be real. The universe just wanted to make sure that he was fully resolved.

Red pulled him into an alleyway next to a closed Chinese takeout, the sickly smell of garbage wafting unpleasantly from the dumpsters lining the walls. She shoved him into the wall behind one such dumpster and began digging behind it. She emerged with a rather large bag, slinging it open on the grimy ground next to him. After, she unceremoniously tore the blonde wig from her head and shoved it into her bag. The motion tore out several bobby pins and her presumably natural auburn hair tumbled down to her shoulders, curls forming from the pressure of being stuffed under a wig. Lysander thought to himself that the name Red made much more sense now and started to inch back to the opening of the alley. He figured that she had probably been sent to end him, that ironically the night he decided to hire an assassin, an assassin had been sent to off him.

Ain’t that just the way, he thought.

Red noticed his miniscule movements and reached out to stop him, her long fingers once more gripping his wrist tightly. His palms started to sweat as she stood to her full height and blinked up at him. It hadn’t been until that moment that he noticed how much taller he was than her. She had a willowy build, similar to a runner, but Lysander had always been rather tall and he was a whole head above her. He figured that he could probably at least fight his way away from her with brute strength if he had to.

“Pft, you’re too much,” she laughed into a fist, patting him on the arm patronizingly.

“I’m too much? You just ran us halfway across town to change your hair color!” he shouted. The stress of the night had caught up to him, bursting out as frustration. She stopped her giggling at his expense and looked up at him once more. She seemed genuinely startled by him for the first time all night.

“Huh. So you can say more than ‘um’,” she said, another cheshire cat grin curling her lips. She shook out her hair and slipped her purple sweater off. Underneath, she had on a basic long sleeved gray shirt, which clung to the lean corded muscles of her arms. The night wasn’t too cold, the weather shifting into spring now that the end of March was approaching, but Lysander still pulled his cardigan tighter, feeling a sort of second-hand cold from the thin material of her shirt.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, the aggravation with her still coursing through him.

“Ah, sorry about all this. I just finished a job, and I had to dip pretty lickity-split, so here we are. Didn’t really have too much time for explanations, friend,” she explained. Lysander’s adrenaline skyrocketed at the news of her recent exploits. Had he accidentally been party to the death of a stranger? A lump formed in his throat and his vision started to darken at the edges. He closed his eyes and breathed through it, placing a hand against the cold brick wall at his back. The temperature centered him and brought him back to the conversation.

“I see,” he said, his voice coming out smaller than he anticipated. He cleared his throat and continued, “Do your jobs always end like this?” He honestly wasn’t entirely sure where to go from here, so he just asked the first thing that popped into his head.

“I mean, the fun ones do,” she said with a teasing little laugh, “But, friend, you still owe me a name. I don’t usually get this far with someone without one.” She glanced at him curiously, hiking her bag up her shoulder and motioning him back toward the entrance to the alley. Her chunky worn combat boots sounded thunderous in the tiny space, and he wondered how she snuck anywhere wearing them. He followed obediently, feeling deflated after his near panic attack.

He also figured he could at least share his first name with her. “Ah, yeah. I’m Lysander,” he said, sticking his hand out to her. It felt like the polite thing to do. She looked down at the proffered hand and hesitantly laid her own into his. She hadn’t had any problem pulling him through downtown by his wrist, so he couldn’t imagine why she was being weird about touching him now. Her grip was limp and weak, but he shook once, twice, before releasing her. She let her hand drop back to her side and he saw her knuckles convulse slightly. He self consciously wiped his hands on his pant legs, thinking that his hands really must have gotten unbearably sweaty.

“Well, Lysander then. I’m probably gonna end up calling you Xander or something, just as a fair warning. Lysander is a bit too many syllables, y’know?”

He nodded awkwardly.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. My best friend always calls me Lys.”

“Lys? That’s a horrible nickname! It sounds like lice! I don’t want to feel itchy every time I think about you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s not your fault your friend has shitty taste in nicknames.”

He felt momentarily defensive on behalf of Miria, but he let it go in the end. Miria would never know--god willing--that a Shifted assassin thought she sucked at naming conventions.

They continued to wander down the sidewalk, moving farther away from the bar they had initially met in. He heard the distant sounds of sirens and instinctually started walking faster.

“Um, where are we going?” he finally asked. He had been under the assumption that they had been heading somewhere private to discuss what he wanted to hire her for, but she hadn’t seemed to have any real destination in mind.

She shrugged, “I’ve been following you, actually. I thought we were going to your place.”

He balked, “My place? I don’t know if I feel comfortable having an...uh...you in my apartment.” He had come close to shouting ‘assassin’ down the quiet sleeping streets of his hometown and patted himself on the back for his quick diversion.

“Honey, I would have killed you back in that trash alley if I was gonna do it,” she revealed. The nonchalant discussion of his own death caused a small chill to shoot through his arms, but he supposed she did have a point.

“I guess that’s true.” He hesitated for several more steps, the silence between them not uncomfortable. Red just happily followed along next to him, taking in the night sky. He couldn’t imagine how she was able to walk while looking up, having been clumsy since childhood.

Firming his resolve once more, he nodded, mostly to himself. “Alright, I’m this way,” he said, gesturing to the right at the next intersection. Tilting her head back in his direction, she smiled at his capitulance and trotted next to him as he wove his way back to his apartment building. The blacked out windows of the businesses of the old main street quickly gave way to the warm glows of homes. His complex was set back from the road on a side street near the local cemetery, the drive partially hidden from view by some overgrown trees and two dilapidated clapboard houses that somehow seemed to huddle closer to the gravel everyday. Given the late hour, the hush and silence of the neighborhood felt comforting rather than eerie as they crunched their way toward the cluster of squat buildings set back against the railroad. They passed the rows of metal mailboxes and the landlord’s residence--a neat two story house that presided over the three rows of apartments--before Lysander finally had the realization that he had no idea how he was going to sneak her into his residence.

“So, question, how exactly are you supposed to get into my apartment without identification?” he asked, rubbing his fingers over his inner forearm where his citizenship tattoo lay hidden underneath the wool of his red cardigan.

“No worries! I’m covered,” she replied, pulling up the fabric of her shirt and flashing him the barcode neatly emblazoned on her arm. Their tattoos were nearly identical, though he would have a hard time differentiating anyone’s considering the similarity of them.

“But won’t you get rejected by the system?” Her citizenship number should be rejected by the system since she was Shifted and the process to become such forced an erasure of all personhood data from the databases.

“That, friend, is for me to worry about,” she said, and he wanted to take her at face value, but his nerves jangled at the thought of the potential alarms her presence would set off in the district, all pointing directly to his single bedroom abode.

He stopped in his tracks, forcing her to a halt as well.

“Are you fucking with me? Setting me up somehow? Nothing tonight has made any kind of sense, and I realize that I’m not in any real position to talk given why I went to that bar, but you are seriously freaking me out,” he confessed. She stood half turned to look at him, her feet still pointed relentlessly forward.

“Listen, we don’t know each other all that well yet, so I get where you’re coming from, but you’re just gonna have to trust me here. We’ve gotten this far, haven’t we?” Her point was both fair and nonsensical. His feet remained rooted to the spot. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ve got some friends in high places, let’s just say that,” she finished, implying that she still legally existed in the system, which broke several many laws to say the least, but he wasn’t entirely sure how it all worked, so he figured such a thing might have been possible if she had some kind of guardian angel watching over her from high in the government.

Expelling the rest of the air in his lungs in a rather gusty sigh, he started the progress back toward his apartment once more.

“Please relax, I’m a professional,” she whispered to him, which only served to heighten his anxiety because then his mind was running through the improbable situation where he had accidentally propositioned a prostitute instead of an assassin, which would honestly just be his luck, but no, he reminded himself, that was extremely unlikely, he had followed the initial protocols to the letter. But, then again, she had refused to play along, and--

No, no, he stopped his thoughts before they spiraled further out of his control. He comforted himself with the familiar sight of his red front door. His building was the very last in the row of three, just a spitting distance from the train tracks. The entire row of residences was designed for single living, each unit having a modest living room with an attached kitchen and a separate bedroom with an en suite bathroom. However, with the most recent waves of living laws prohibiting families of three or more from renting or owning single bedroom homes--the idea for which had been sparked by a desire to ensure comfortable living for all people, but had in reality only cause yet more homelessness--he shared the row of five apartments with only one other person. The cost of living alone was otherwise too demanding. The Campbells had always provided for him, thankfully, though the thought of them caused his stomach to roil nauseously, the picture of Joseph Campbell burning a hole in the pocket of his jeans.

Swallowing back the taste of bile on the back of his tongue, he approached the front door and flipped open the security panel next to the door. The touchscreen welcomed him home and requested his barcode. He rolled his sleeve back and presented it. The system dinged pleasantly and asked if he had any visitors to report. He glanced back at Red and she nodded to him. It would be pointless to pretend that she wasn’t there, anyways. The illusion of privacy was broken by the whirring of the camera in the corner between his entryway and front window. The chances that anyone would check on him were miniscule, but he hated taking risks, regardless, so he pressed an affirmative. The scanner prompted for the second barcode and Red stepped forward obligingly. He silently prayed to whatever deity might be listening as she showed the computer her inner forearm. Crossing his fingers and waiting for the sharp trill of an alarm going off, it took him a moment to realize that the computer had accepted her without so much as a fuss. The door clicked, the lock sliding open in greeting. Red pushed it open, and he had no time to warn her before she was bowled over by fifty pounds of black, brown and white fur. She stumbled back in surprise, her arms instinctively pushing the assailant away from her, and Lysander slipped in around her, closing and locking the door behind them.

“C’mon, Bingley, let up, she’s not going anywhere,” he coaxed to his five year old Australian Shepherd. Bingley whined and continued jumping against her front, licking her exposed arms and hands with every pass.

“Uuuh,” she said eloquently, her fingers now buried in the dog’s coat along his back.

“Yeah, sorry, I know he’s a lot, but he loves people. He won’t hurt you.” The absurdity of reassuring his new assassin friend that his dog wouldn’t bite her hit him along with a wave of exhaustion and a laugh bubbled up before he could stop it.

Awkwardly patting Bingley on the head, she praised him with a quick ‘good boy’ before attempting to maneuver around him. Bingley wouldn’t have any of that though, and followed on her heels as she moved to sit on Lysander’s gray and blue striped sofa. The dog hopped up next to her and placed both paws into her lap, panting happily in her face. Shaking his head at the scene, Lysander motioned toward the kitchen.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asked, his manners outweighing his desire to get on with business.

“Uuuh, water would be fine, if you don’t mind,” she said absently as she haltingly ran her hands down Bingley’s neck and back.

“Alrighty, be right back!” he called, making his way to the cabinet above the sink and pulling down a pair of glasses. He filled them from the tap on the fridge, considered adding ice, and decided against it, purely for the sake of getting back to his...guest?...quicker. With his back to the doorway, he had a moment of nerves, imagining Red sneaking up behind him and sliding a knife into his back. He whipped around to an empty kitchen and shook his head at his own ridiculousness.

When he rounded the corner, he was surprised into stillness by the sight of Red covered in animal fur. Bingley had laid his head against her lap while she pet behind his ears and Lysander’s three cats had also decided to make an appearance: Portobello lounged on the other half of Red’s lap, Button was curled on top of Bingley and into Red’s right shoulder, and Porcini had made himself at home on the back of the sofa above Red’s left shoulder, his tail swinging as he debated whether to bat at her long hair.

“Are you running an animal shelter on the side, friend?” she asked as he moved into her limited line of sight. He surprised himself as a second chuckle escaped his lips.

“No, no, nothing like that. They’re my family.” Red eyed the animals covering her curiously as though debating whether they might be his actual blood relations cursed to animal form. “They seem to like you, though.”

“I think that might be an understatement,” she harrumphed, but he could tell that her irritation was a front. Her fingers moved with more confidence over the soft fur of Bingley’s ear, and she had started to stroke Portobello’s back, the cat arching into her touch. “What are their names?”

“Bingley is the dog melting into your lap. Portobello is the one in your lap. He’s a big ham. His brother, Porcini, is above your shoulder, trying to decide if your hair is a toy, and the girl, their sister, Button, seems pretty content to use Bingley as a bed,” he explained, pointing to each of his pets in turn.

“You named your cats after mushrooms?” she asked incredulously.

“You got that? I thought it was cute,” he defended.

“Well, whatever, just set those water’s down and let’s get down to business.” Chafing slightly at being bossed about in his own home, he nonetheless set the glasses down on the table in front of the sofa and took his seat next to her. Button took this opportunity to abandon her perch on Bingley and take her normal place on Lysander’s lap. Scratching her behind the ear, he shifted slightly and dug the crumpled photo from his pocket.

“This is the target,” he said, holding the picture almost protectively to his chest. Red reached over to take it, and he pressed it more firmly into himself.

“Come on, Xander, this is the whole reason we’re doing this whole shindig,” she said, swirling her finger in the air.

“I know, I know. I just...it feels more real now, I guess.” He still had some reservations about this course of action, but he had several pages of pros/cons lists lining a drawer in the desk in his bedroom, and he had agonized over something--anything--else to be done, but Miria’s situation--and indeed the situation of the entire Campbell Corporation and their city’s extended suburbs--balanced precariously and without some kind of direct interference, something was bound to break. He knew logically that it wasn’t his job to play the hero, but he couldn’t just do nothing. He loved the Campbells too much for such a thing to continue.

“Okay, okay, I know this is going to sound weird, but just hear me out. I want to hire you to almost kill this man, Joseph Campbell,” he said, laying the picture down purposefully on the table between them. Her eyebrows immediately pinched into a ‘v’ shape, scrunching the skin at the bridge of her nose.

“I’m sorry, what? You want me to put him in the hospital on life support or something? That might be a bit difficult even for me,” she said flatly.

“No, no, I mean, like, um...I guess what I want is to give him a scare, y’know?”

“Sooo, you want me to help him find god, is that it?”

“No! I mean, maybe? Ugh, I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t think of anything else to try anymore! Something has to change!” he shouted.

“Sheesh, chill friend, I can tell you feel pretty strongly about this, but I’m just having trouble wrapping my mind around it.”

“I get that, I do, but if you can’t do this for me, then I’ll find someone else who can,” he vowed. He meant it too. He would trawl this whole city if he had to to find someone who could help him.

“You know what else would solve your problem? Actually killing the guy. I’d even charge you the same rate!” she said.

At the suggestion, he vehemently shook his head, “No, I owe him too much to even consider that. He’s family and so is his daughter.”

“But not family enough to put him in a coma?” she asked incredulously.

“There has to be something you can do that would scare him but not put him in any kind of real danger!”

“I’m not a magician, friend.” Her voice turned solemn, here, and he slumped back into the sofa, feeling defeated. The cushions molded around him, and the energy that had so far sustained him drained out of him in waves.

“I know,” he whispered, “I just don’t know what else to do.” Button butted her head into his arm, comforting and familiar, and he ran his hand down her back.

“Have you tried just, like, talking to him?” Red deadpanned.

He glared at her. “I can’t. I’ve tried, Miria’s tried, nothing gets through to him. He just won’t listen. He’s hurting her, Red. Miria would never ask me to help her, it’s just not in her nature, but I can’t stand seeing her like this anymore. Her mom would be devastated. I’m at the end of my rope here,” he pleaded, desperation laced through his tone. He kept back the more serious reason why he wanted this done--he didn’t trust anyone with that information, not with the danger the knowledge would put them in. Red sighed and leaned forward, causing Portobello to leap away from her lap, offended. Bingley happily allowed his head to get squished between her leg and her stomach, panting dopily. Keeping one hand curled into Bingley’s scruff, Red reached out and grabbed her water, swirling the liquid around in the glass rather than drinking it outright. She watched the vortex form in the center, water coming precariously close to sloshing over the rim. Lysander thought back to the whiskey from the bar and the poor waitress who Red had crashed into. Incongruously, he then remembered Red walking down the street looking at the stars, her head tilted back, long auburn hair drifting farther down her back from the angle and how graceful she had appeared in that moment.

“You ran into that woman on purpose, didn’t you?” The question erupted from his mouth before he could even stop it. Red immediately stopped the lackadaisical movement of her wrist and looked over at him, appraising him in a new way.

“Took you long enough, friend. Was it too obvious?” she asked with an affectation of concern.

“No, I mean, obviously not. But you knew that,” he sputtered out.

“Hm,” she contemplated, “I suppose. She served her purpose. I doubt she’ll even get fired, honestly. But back to your request, Xander, are you sure that this is what you want?”

His mind reworked onto the new conversational track and he picked up Button and pulled her to his chest, hugging her tightly. Chuffing slightly in protest, the cat then settled further into him, pawing into his shirt to nest closer.

“I’m sure.”

“Well, alright then,” she said before taking a long drag from her water and slamming it back onto the coffee table. He jolted in surprise at the noise, Button startling as well and pricking his chest as she launched onto the floor to follow Portobello back to the bedroom.

“Y-yeah? So you’ll do it? That-that’s great!” he exclaimed, reaching excitedly for her hands. He pulled them between their bodies and held them tightly. It was her turn to startle, her fingers immediately going lax in his. Her skin felt like ice, and he momentarily wondered if he should turn the heat on for her, but then she was extracating herself from his grasp, pushing his hands back to his side of the couch. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I get touchy sometimes when I’m happy.”

“It’s fine,” she said, though she then proceeded to bodily lift Bingley and lay the dog between them like a barrier. Bingley wriggled happily on his back like the whole thing was a fun game. “Anyways, here’s what happens now. You continue on with your life as normal, and I’ll contact you periodically. We’ll meet up and discuss how my investigation is going into the target’s movements every other day. It makes my job easier if I can see how they go about their life for a couple weeks, then I can more easily make the death--or in your case, near death--seem natural. Then, after those two weeks, we’ll make the plan and carry it out.”

The finality of the last statement rang through the air of his small apartment, and he felt as though it should echo back to him in solemn refrains of betrayal, but he nodded his assent.

“Okay, let’s do it. I trust you.” An odd expression passed over her features at his admittance of confidence, but she quickly reworked her face into the usual professional mask, a small quirk of her lips giving away her amusement. “Soo, uh, how much do I owe you?”

The mention of payment made her smirk transform into a full blown laugh, and she replied, “I don’t charge until the job’s done, friend. No worries.”

“That just sounds like bad business, honestly,” he said. The ease with which he teased her surprised him and he slapped a chastised hand over his mouth.

“Pft,” she coughed out before breaking into startled laughter. “So you do have a sense of humor, huh?”

He blushed, his entire face heating with embarrassment. His skin got unpleasantly blotchy when he was discomfited, so he tried to conceal it with his cold fingers.

She shook her head at him, “You’re bizarre.” It didn’t sound insulting coming from her--more like a term of endearment--but he still buried his face deeper into his hands. Haltingly, she patted his shoulder, and he was reminded of her hesitance to touch Bingley and the cats.

After another moment of uneasy silence, she stretched and stood. He sprung up beside her and moved to show her to the door. They locked gazes on opposite ends of the table, his blue to her green, before they both blinked away and walked to the entrance. He sped up in order to pull the door open for her, and she eyed him strangely once more.

“I’ll meet you back here on Tuesday, same time as tonight. Does that work for you?”

“Absolutely,” he nodded. He didn’t have much of a social life at the best of times, so he knew he wouldn’t have any pressing obligations at ten at night.

“Lysander, this will be difficult. Don’t think I didn’t recognize who that man was. Also, if you would be so kind as to hand me the data you’ve already gathered on him, including that picture, that would be helpful,” she stated softly. They were still inside the apartment and standing rather close together to prevent outside ears from hearing. He nodded quickly and gathered up the photo from the table and pulled out the creased notebook paper on which he had written Joseph Campbell’s details before all but shoving them into her hands. She smoothed her fingers over them and slid them into her own jean’s pocket. Obviously, he had known that she would recognize Joseph from the picture: the Campbell Corporation led this district, making him the most important person in one hundred miles, at least.

“I know, but if you think it’s possible, then I have hope,” he reaffirmed. She examined his face once more, sweeping her eyes over the slope of his nose and brow down the contours of his cheeks and lips and chin.

“Mm, we’ll take a crack at it anyways,” she said finally. “Well, bye for now, friend.”

Her hair trailed in an arc as she flipped around and began to walk back into the night. A streetlamp caught on the fiery tint to her auburn locks, and the memory he had buried earlier jumped up and knocked on his consciousness.

“You’re the Red Morn,” he whispered into the darkness. It was a name gossiped about in shady back alleys and dark corners, a name associated with one of the most successful assassins in the business. Skittles had even warned him away from making a connection with her, if possible, calling her “a chip off an iceberg”. She halted not ten feet from him. It took several breaths before she turned to face him, another smirk exposing the barest hint of a canine.

“Not to sound too samey, but it took you long enough, friend.” And then she was melting into the night with a pithy wave over her shoulder.

Lysander collapsed against his door frame before shakily closing it and turning to face his empty apartment. Bingley trotted over and pawed at his leg, and Lysander knelt to bury his head into Bingley’s neck. The dog excitedly wagged and began to lick Lysander’s own neck. He laughed at the tickle and swatted Bingley away before sighing and standing and walking heavily into his bedroom. Exhausted from the day, Lysander heaved himself into his bed, not even bothering to change out of his clothes, and fell into a fitful sleep.

Red slipped into the stand of trees bordering Lysander’s apartment complex and took a moment to examine the notes that he had provided for her in the last vestiges of light coming from the emergency lights tacked to the side of Lysander’s building. She traced the curl and curve of his handwriting, noticing the way he looped his ‘g’s and ‘y’s differently and broke into random cursive when a word ended in an ‘e’. Closing her eyes and pushing the paper back into her pocket, she curled her fingers into the bark of the tree next to her. The rough texture brought her back to herself and she continued purposefully, dead grass crunching balefully under her footsteps.