Shot Account One: of phones and first meetings

Part One

[[A/N: This work is a completed short-ish story. I've sceduled it to upload every week on Friday, at 15.00 GMT. Cross-posted on AO3 and Wattpad.]]

PART ONE

The first time I met Shay, my boss had tied her to a radiator pipe.

I'm not sure if it's the right point to start this account, but it is the moment I met her, and it made for quite a first introduction. Maybe one day, when I have time to do more research, I'll properly describe what happened before, but for now, I'll stick to my own account.

So, there she was, tied to a metal pipe, shouting abuse at all. I was sent in to look through her phone, but I needed her fingerprint to get in. (Hacking is much easier when you don't have to.) I was scared to get close; her reputation preceded her. The men bringing her in had all come back damaged; she'd kicked one of them in the kidney so forcefully his piss turned orange. He went to hospital, together with the man she punched in the liver hard enough he turned into a sack of potatoes.

When I entered the basement, she fell silent. She glowered at me, studied me intensely. It felt like every move was documented, carefully processed and filed away.

"You're not a strongman." Her voice was rough, but every syllable was laced with the stubborn defiance shining in her meadow-green eyes. "What do you want?"

Awkwardly, I waved her phone. The boss had suggested I didn't talk, warned me that she'd find an in any way she could.

Sighing, she flexed the fingers of her right hand and offered it up. It was trembling slightly, I noticed, but she didn't seem to care. Exhaustion, maybe. Adrenaline leaving her system. Maybe she needed a good meal.
"Call Carlyle," she half-joked, "Tell him I'll be home late." She unlocked the screen, frowning at the time before I took the phone back. "He must be worried."

"Boyfriend?" I couldn't help myself. This Carlyle was as good a point to start as any.

She hesitated for a moment. "Landlord." She made a face. "Groundskeeper? It's complicated."

I opened her text app. Her conversation with the mysterious Carlyle was a string of almost home and what's for dinner and pick up some carrots on the way home, Tesco's got a sale. His profile picture was of a man, sixty-odd years old, with messy hair and a three-day stubble. It was artfully edited; the only thing not in black and white were his piecing sky-blue eyes.

(Those eyes are so much worse in person, looking down at you, angry and cold as ice, or compassionate and warm as a summer's day, but always, always brimming with an undeniable intelligence.)

"Is he your dad?" I pretended to study the photo a bit better. "Is he your daddy?"

"No!" She made a gagging sound, "Hell no. He manages my estate. Long story." She rattled her chain. "Please just text him to let him know I'm fine."

"Will do." I found my fingers typing out a message, already. "Should I tell him you're chained to a radiator?"

"Maye leave that part out."

I hit send. "Anyone else interesting?" There was a man named Trevor high up on her list, but I understood about one in ten words of that conversation. There was a picture of a baby, though.

"This yours?"

She was comfortable enough to roll her eyes. "I can't see the screen."

I showed her. "Cute baby."

"Not mine." She tilted her head, and something in my gut shifted as her laser focus homed in on my every movement. There was a moment, a brief breath suspended in time, before she spoke again. Something in her eyes changed, her shoulders relaxed, and her entire being seemed to shift, grow. Her next words came out quietly confident, certain.