✓ THE SHIFTER, marvel

three

3

"Torrance open the damn door! I know you're here!"

Torrance tossed off her headphones and quickly ran to the door. She peered out the peephole and found Santiago looking mildly annoyed. She unlocked her door and threw it open with a smile. "Look what the cat dragged in."

He walked sluggishly into her apartment, rolling his eyes. "I barely even saw you when you ran into the bar. It was like you flew." He looked around for a moment before saying in an annoyed tone, "And you stole my damn chips."

She grinned. "And those chips were delicious." She gave him a good look over, he was wearing a hoodie underneath a large, army green jacket. He looked exhausted. "I had to finish some things for work," she said, closing the door behind him and carefully locking up. "And speaking of work, I still need to fill out a report--"

"A report?" Santiago smiled, the ghost of sleep deprivation leaving his eyes. "What type of report?"

She hesitated to answer and he quickly filled the void with his usual questions: "Was it bloody? Did you have to kill someone? Did that big, bad boss of yours kill someone? Please, please, babe! Tell me everything!"

She rolled her eyes. "You know that I can't tell you it's--"

"Against policy. Yeah, yeah, I've heard that bullshit countless of times. But has that ever stopped you from telling me the juicy details?"

Laughing, she nodded. "You have a point there." She walked around him as he threw his bag on the table and she plopped down on the couch and told him everything. 

"Hydra?" he gasped after she had told him what had happened when she found the ship and what had happened to Carly Porter, the Hydra agent she had killed. "How in hell are they back? Didn't they all get killed?"

"Oh, please, don't you know the old saying?" she grinned. "Cut off one head, two more shall takes its place."

He groaned. "So you killed one of their agents, do you really expect two more to just jump out of nowhere?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if they did."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, offering her one that she gratefully took. He lit hers and then his and soon enough, her apartment was filled with a haze of smoke. 

"Tell me one thing," he murmured, pointing to the mess of tapes on her couch. He even grabbed a few of the chips she hadn't finished and dunked them heavily into her nearly empty salsa jar on the couch besides him. "When did you become obsessed with cassette tapes?"

"I'm not," she said, picking up one and tossing it to him as he licked his fingers, greedy for more. "I found these in the Hydra war plane."

"Whoa," he whispered, holding the old tape in his hands and asked her, "Who's Anastasia?"

"That's what I've been trying to figure out."

"Why didn't you just search her? There has to be articles about her somewhere on the web."

With his cigarette playing on his lips, he opened his bag and pulled his laptop out. She scooted closer to him as he pulled up his search engine. He typed out the name Anastasia and Hydra and they watched the articles load. 

The articles came up quickly and they didn't stop. She frowned, pointing to one of the top articles that read 'Agent Killed in Freak Accident.'