Fear and Fate(poly)(bxb)

L's Fate

Damian was always a bully. At seven he was telling me a story of how this guy got his nose broken in a fight, asking how that was possible, asking how to do it himself. I may or may not have told him.

"Stay in your house and don't go anywhere. I'm not fucking playing with you," he calls to Mia who is on the other line.

He ordered Kimori back to us, leaving her alone. Though Mia is smart enough to know that the gang has her location, she's yet to realize we aren't the only ones. So, I had to.

Damian hangs up without anything more to either of the other gang members on the line. It's been tense since we got back from an assignment that required all of us. My metal knee is fucked up and Damian is slowly developing a black eye.

We intercepted the other gang. We got to them before they could get to us, or so we thought. The silence in the room doesn't last long.

"Why exactly did you send her home?" Seven asks from his spot on the couch.

"She can't be here when she gets here." Damian is quick to hop on the defense.

I feel violently ill. I rest my head against the cold steel of my palm. The relief it provides is fleeting.

"Oh so the rest of us are gonna get in trouble for her?" Seven doubles down.

"We've been in trouble. The police have been closing in on us, cooperating with our opps. We never had much time."

"Seriously, Damian? You're the one who hurt the girl when we first met her, every time she stepped out of line or even remotely seemed like a spy. Why aren't you saying I told you so?" I ask him.

I don't recognize him. He's too defeated and it's a side he typically only reserves for me. Rosemary and now Mia, breaking him down and making him inept.

He was so conflicted when he met Mia. His eyes so dark I was scared to leave them alone together. All that just to turn out so weak. It makes me sick.

"He doesn't want to have to be the one to do it," Romero unsheathes the blade at his hip and holds it with both hands.

Mia was just a couple of months in. Damian trusted her enough to sleep with her but not enough to team her up with anyone else during assignments. She was on the kitchen floor this time. Her cheeks were red and tear-stained as she trembled at the man in front of her.

"If you touch me again, I'm telling my dad!"

Damian grabs her new cellphone from the counter island with one hand and a fist full of her hair with the other. He drags her to the living room, brown and blonde curls between his inked knuckles the entire time as Mia kicks around.

She scratches at him until he lets go of her three feet in front of me. He throws her cellphone down on the rug as well and there she is, surrounded by us.

"Call him," Von says simply.

We all wait for Mia to reach for it. We want to test how weak she is. She has one more chance to fail us and buying a second phone that we can't track might just have been her last life.

Damian pulls out his gun when she doesn't move fast enough. The click makes her jump.

"You look so sexy in your white shirt pequeña," Romero speaks from the couch, relaxed posture matching the tone of his voice. "Don't make us stain it."

"Nah, fucking call him up here," Damian takes aim at Mia's temple. "I'll let y'all share the same bullet."

I watch the rise and fall of Mia's chest as she sits on the black rug. She's staring at the cellphone across from her.

Damian taps her skull with the barrel of the gun. "I touched you," he says softly, presses the gun against her head again. "Call him."

Mia's biting her pink lips, and Damian's finger is sliding on the trigger. He pulls down as soon as she reaches for it. Then again, and again, as the cellphone bounces into crumbled burnt metal. The bullets bounce around her and she clutches her shoulder screaming in familiarity.

"Next time you wanna try threatening me using another man's name, you better be ready to die right beside him." Damian stares down at Mia as she cries softly beneath him.

We all stare down at her.

Up until now, that was probably the worst thing we ever did to her. But now we have to kill her.

Mia was innocent when we met her. Bold in a naive way but scared at the same time. The sweet scent of tropical fruits followed her and her natural hair wherever she went. We were stunned by how much spunk she fit in her small body.

We never wanted it to come to this.

"So no hope that Diana will let her live?" Seven shrugs as he pops a gummy in his mouth. "Maybe if you ask your mommy nicely-"

"She's dead," I say. "She's been dead."

Mia was never going to last. I've seen three Mia's run through the gang, temporarily throw us off of our game, and die subsequently. She's no exception she's just cocky. She almost had me fooled.

Mia and I have the same exact cellphone yet hers was heavier, tampered with, and touched by someone sloppier than me. It was chipped.

"I wanna talk to her one last time though... I'm going to miss her." Seven pouts. He fiddles with the gummy bear with his fingers before ripping the head off in the blink of an eye. "Do we have any time before she gets here?"

We're ordered to gather and stay put whenever Diana calls a meeting. Stepping out could put any of us in the same sinking ship as Mia. Each minute on the clock passes by in agony as we wait for her arrival.

We know what she'll say we just don't know what she'll do. If she'll slap us first and ask questions later and if she'll make us kill Mia or if she'll do it herself. If it'll happen privately or if it'll be a public execution.

"I don't think Mia knew," Seven says, done with his snack and crumbling the wrapper into a ball.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Damian says.

He's deflated. He does this to himself, self-inflicted. Mia lasted so long that she gave him hope. She was our most beautiful, our most improved—a sign of evolution in the gang and a sign of change in our world of constant pain.

That beacon of hope dies tonight.

After twenty minutes of waiting, I'm sure Kimori is going to make it back before Diana gets here. She's in no rush. That could be a good thing.

The syndicate gets more time to overthink. Diana gets more time to simmer in her rage. But Mia gets a few last moments with her father.

Her father who's secretly been listening in this entire time.