Runaway

Lissa woke up with an aching head and a bruise on her wrist. She tried to shift her arms to her sides to help her get up and look around, but realized that she couldn’t move them.

Where am I? she wondered. I’m bound at the wrists with ropes and gagged with a really disgusting old sock. Yuck!

She looked around; she was in a musty room filled with steam, heat, and rusty pipes. She glanced down, noticing that she was nicely tucked in with a baby blue wool blanket.

Well, whoever took me has at least been keeping me nice and toasty! she thought sarcastically. She sat up too quickly, banging her head on a cold overhead pipe. Muttering curses through the sock in her mouth, she gingerly shook her head, hoping to remove the pain from it.

Why do I still have this sock in my mouth? she suddenly reflected. She spat it out, and spat repeatedly, hoping to get the horridly stale taste out of her mouth, but to no avail. She finally gave up, and got to work on the ropes binding her wrists. To her surprise, they were tied with a slipknot, and, tugging once with her teeth, she was freed. She brushed against a heated pipe as she moved to a squatting position, and hissed in pain as it burned her. She difficultly tore a length of the blanket off and wrapped it around the already shining burn. She snarled involuntarily when some of the wool snagged her burned skin and pulled most of it off of her. She caught her breath with difficulty, and began to walk towards the door. She slowly eased up and placed her ear to the door, praying that no one was passing by.

I get a summons for a mission brief, Lissa thought, and I end up bound and gagged in a steamy room with a thick wool blanket covering me. I wonder how whoever did this got me out of HQ without anyone noticing.

She jumped back as she heard a door swish open, then hiss shut. She prayed that no one would come in and find her standing with the ropes on the ground.

“Okay, boss,” she heard an oddly muffled – yet familiar – voice say. “The girl has been taken care of. We can proceed to Phase 2.”

“The girl”? “The girl” must be…me! And Phase 2, she thought, panicking. What in the name of adamantium is Phase 2? Oh man, AJ will have my head if I can’t get out of this in one piece! She took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down. It’s okay, Lissa, you can get out of this. You’re not one of the best spies at the Agency for nothing.

“Good,” a masculine voice replied. “Make certain that our – guest – is still comfortable in the Steam Room.” Lissa could practically hear the smirk in the rat’s voice.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Bossman, sir!” was the snappy reply from the muffled minion. She heard the same door reopen, and she scrambled to find the blanket and cover herself with it, so that it would appear that she was still tied up. She hoped that whoever it was checking up on her was stupid enough to not look beneath the blanket, and blind enough to not see the obvious rip she’d made trying to tend to her wound.

“Hey! Lissa! Lissy! Come out, come out wherever you are!” she heard the person calling in a mocking, breathy voice. She unconsciously held her breath, desperately hoping that she would appear to be asleep.

As soon as the person got close enough, she swung her hand behind his ankle, easily sweeping him down. She rapidly noted that the person had a ski mask on, hiding his features from recognition, though a panel was cut out over the eyes so as to permit vision. She sat on her assailant’s legs and kept his arms pinned down with hers. She chanced a release of the attacker’s arms to quickly lift the lower edge of the mask and stuff the sock into her assailant’s mouth before tucking the edge of the mask back into the turtleneck she had taken it from. She tied him to the same pipe she had been trapped on, but with stronger knots than the little slipknot she’d had.

“Say bye-bye to the jailbird!” she mocked the still figure before she paused in surprise. The green-brown eyes glaring at her angrily… she knew those eyes.

She bounded forward and looked into them just as angrily. “I don’t believe this,” she breathed. She really couldn’t believe that those unusually colored eyes belonged to her ex-boyfriend, Kairi. She had to ascertain this man’s identity for herself.

She reached for the mask again, yanking both it and the gag off and away from his mouth; she then demanded, “Kairi, what are you doing? I thought you’d moved back to… wherever you’d come from. Why are you back?” Those distinctive green-brown eyes glaring at her made no sign of recognition. “If that’s the way you want it,” Lissa hissed.

She stood and spun on her heel, intent on striding out of the room. But that plan was shot to Kandor when Kairi’s voice sounded out behind her: “I could help you, you know.”

Lissa’s green-silver eyes flashed as she turned around, and smiled slightly at Kairi. She walked back over to him and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “And what,” she inquired, “would be in it for you?”

“Undo the knots first.”

She shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like you’ve got guts enough to attack me.” She swiftly undid the ties that bound him. “You were saying?”

With a familiar flash of white teeth, Kairi stretched before answering, “Being allowed the pleasure of your company, and working with you again, of course.”

Her eyes flashed again. “Uh-huh. Spare me the honey and give me the grain. What’s in it for you?”

Kairi’s gaze slipped downward and to the right as he replied, “There is nothing but that for me to gain.”

She lightly caressed a scar on his left cheekbone. “Do you remember how you got that scar?”

Kairi’s irises darkened slightly with pain as he answered, “I can never forget. You gave that scar to me the day you found out that I was with you for your connection to the Agency. You gave it to me because you were my job, my mission.” He winced, expecting a blow.

A smirk crossed Lissa’s face. “Oh, that’s not why. The fact that you were using me wasn’t why you got that scar. It was the fact that you lied to me when I confronted you. And you’re lying now. Would you like a new scar to join that one?” She swiftly drew her hand back as a silent threat before swinging it forward rapidly.

He cringed in answer.

“No! No, Lissa, wait.” She stopped the forward motion of her hand and waited. “Just… Okay. So there might be something else for me to gain. But I’m not authorized to reveal that to you. Only my superiors are. I don’t even know what it is, really. They won’t tell me.” He pouted a little. “They don’t trust me.”

Lissa snorted. “And you wonder why. If you knew, you’d blab to me sooner than you can say, ‘Painful scar.’” She smirked slightly. “Just how fast can you say, ‘Painful scar’?” Her fingers twitched slightly at her side.

“Painfulscar,” he replied quickly, twitching. “Just don’t hit me!”

“Nice to see she can still instill fear in you, Agent 4769,” a voice snaked through the steam-laden darkness. A figure wearing black boots with three-inch heels, tight black pants, and a bright crimson silk t-shirt strode towards the pair. Platinum blonde hair tipped at the ends with black and red swung just behind the person’s shoulders. Lipstick that was both black and purple highlighted her mouth. The female stopped just in front of Lissa and Kairi and offered a slightly sarcastic smile to the woefully cringing Kairi.

“I want my agents to be able to instill fear into anyone, even one of their own. That’s something that not even you, Agent 4769, found a way to cheat at. You’re really not very intimidating. I, on the other hand…” she trailed off and sat in a samurai position next to Lissa, not at all fearful of Lissa attacking her.

Lissa looked at the newcomer dubiously; never before had she seen anyone voluntarily this close to her without fear of physical attack. She arched a brow sardonically and ominously smirked at the chick.

“So who are you?” Lissa asked casually, though she knew exactly who she was talking to. She was buying time so that she could slip her hand down to where she usually kept her knife in an ankle sheath. She swore when her hand found only air and glared at the girl sitting next to her.

Agent 2956, the highest agent in her entire network of spies, higher even than the man affectionately nicknamed “Bossman,” dangled the missing knife and sheath before Lissa’s face.

“Looking for something?” she mocked.

Lissa reached out and snatched only the knife from the agent’s hands before 2956 had a chance to react. Within an eyeblink, Lissa had the knife at 2956’s throat, lightly pressed against the jugular vein in her throat.

“We’ve discussed this, Audrey,” Lissa hissed at 2956. The agent looked shocked that Lissa knew her name; Lissa noticed the advantage and pressed forward with it.

“I’ve told you before – I won’t be one of your minions, Audrey. I work alone. Always have, always will.” Lissa stood, sheathing her beloved blade into a hip scabbard and snapped, “I’ll be leaving now, if you don’t mind.” She moved to leave the stifling room for a second time, and again another’s words halted her exit.

“But you’re already working for me, aren’t you, Lycysca?” Audrey called after Lissa, using the name that no one knew, the birth name that Lissa had always kept secret from all who came into contact with her.

Lissa – Lycysca – spun around and narrowed her eyes in anger. “Where did you learn of such a name?” the frightened spy hissed, struggling to control her fear.

Audrey shrugged and stood, a smug smile curving her mouth. “What haven’t I learned of you, Lycysca? Let’s see, now… You were abandoned at birth; adopted at five by my Alliance; you ran away from us at age fifteen to join a rival faction; and yet, four years later, you once again work for me.”

Lycysca growled harshly, “The day I work for you willingly is the day that the Four Horsemen will come for the earth and Kandor takes control of all things in the multiverse.”

The smile grew wider. “I never said that you knew you were working for me, did I?”

Lycysca snapped, “That’s it. I’m gone. Screw you and your damn Alliance. I’ll go where not even you can touch me.” With that, Lycysca was gone from the room within a breath.

A slow smile curved over the stationary Kairi’s features. He had played the part of frightened ex-boyfriend to a T. He said into his comm. link, “Renegade is on the move. Repeat, Renegade is on the move. Intercept at hallways A7 and Q9. Lock-down all exits. Do not let Renegade escape!” As he spoke, he got up from his position on the floor and flew out the door after Lycysca. Behind him, he could hear the heavy footsteps that marked his back-up coming.

We’ve got her, he thought gleefully. But then he halted disbelievingly where all the hallways converged into just two, A7 and Q9, and punched the wall angrily.

“We let her get away!” he yelled into the air. He turned on Audrey and growled, “How did this happen? Lycysca is gone! And no one bloody knows where she went!” He took a couple deep breaths and said in a calmer tone without the British enunciations, “All back to their barracks. Audrey, scout hallway A7; I’ll take Q9.” He started down his designated search area and hardly registered Audrey doing the same, the leader following the subordinate’s orders.

He heard a light thump just behind him and felt a sharp blow to his neck; then all was black.

----

As he came to, he heard derisive laughter. He opened bleary eyes and groggily looked into the fierce eyes of his ex-girlfriend. He belatedly realized that he was bound securely to a chair with very firm knots that would be Kandor to undo.

“Why is it,” she asked casually, as though on a brunch date, “that you morons never bother looking up when it appears that a renegade spy has disappeared from sight?”

When Kairi didn’t answer, she slapped him with enough force to snap his head to the side. “Answer the question, Kairi,” she told him in a dangerously quiet voice.

“Lycysca,” he started, but that only earned him another slap.

“Don’t call me by that name, Kairi. You have no idea what that name means,” she snarled in a warning tone.

“Don’t I, Girl of Wolves?” he snapped back. “I know who you are, Lycysca. And, more importantly, I know what you are. Give it up; the Alliance has been tracking you for years, and it’s only a matter of time before you work with us.”

“Over my dead body,” she hissed. She jerked for a moment before her eyes rolled up into her head, and she fell to the floor. Kairi blinked in surprise at Audrey standing just behind her; evidently Audrey had administered the blow that had knocked Lycysca out.

“With pleasure,” Audrey taunted with a cruel smile. “Death becomes you, runaway. You never should have left us all those years ago; now you will pay for your defection.” She leaned forward, ready to deal a fatal blow. But she was caught unexpectedly in a tackle by Kairi. A swift chop to the neck, and Audrey was down.

Lycysca opened her eyes, which were now more silver than green, and she urged Kairi, “Go. Take her with you. The change… it comes upon me.”

As she spoke, he could see her teeth elongated and sharpening, her eyes narrowing into the cunning almond shape of a predator. Even so, he resolutely shook his head and answered, “I abandoned you once, Lissa. I won’t do it again.” He growled sharply in pain, and he fell to the floor clutching his abdomen.

“Besides,” he panted. “I was bitten, many years ago, unbeknownst to you. You never smelled the Change on me. I am one like you.” He began the transformation.

“The Alliance,” Lissa growled through the pain of Changing, “is dead.” She bared her teeth in a smile that became a snarl.

Twin howls rose from the compound, striking fear into the hearts of all who heard, belying the inscription on the front door:

No fear. No failure. No forgiveness.

At least the last part was right.

El Fin

Author Notes:

Wow, I'm really just churning out the stories, aren't I? Hope you guys like this... I actually hated the original premise of it (I wrote it as an inexperienced 9th grader... most of my 9th grade stories suck worse than mainstream clothing stores do), so I changed it to this. You do NOT want to read the original, it's so terrible... Anyway, I like it now, so if you don't, tough monkeys. Cheers, Lily