A resounding blow hits Colby’s nose with a loud slap. She winces at the sting, unable to reach over and nurse the wound with her hand. Her head leans back against the wall and she offers her captor a smile as if it’ll change her mind about taking her hostage. 

The woman that paces back and forth across the room drags her pointed nails against the brick wall. She almost growls through her teeth, which also seem to have been filed to a point. There’s a glint in her eye every once in a while that perks up in the dim light of the room.

“Can’t believe I’m wasting my time with an agent,” she mutters. “I told my guys that their target was a little blonde girl with a sniper rifle and they laughed.”

“You’re not much to look at either, to be honest,” Colby says. “The bangs, the almost-mullet, the shark teeth-- if trying to be subtle about your bounties, I don’t think it’s working.”

Another slap, this time a backhand across Colby’s face. Her head hangs and she swallows the blood sitting in her throat. “You intercepted me in the middle of a mission. I was about to cash out on hundreds of dollars by delivering those bionics. Tell me where that cargo is going.”

“I could ask the same thing of you. You weren’t just transporting enhancements, you were transporting weaponized enhancements. Arm cannons. Retractable knives. Fingerprint imitators. Keeping that stuff out of the wrong hands is kind of my job.”

“And you think your hands are the right ones to be holding it?” She scoffs and kicks a rock across the concrete. “Of course. The hand that feeds takes the food right out of people’s mouths.”

“Only when they start biting the hand, beautiful.”

Even through the swollen cheeks and weary eyes, she winks. Colby lets their eye contact linger, studying the shine in her vision that shows up when she steps away from the light. “Tell me about that eye.”

The woman’s gaze snaps to her captive, her fingers curling into two, tight fists. Colby huffs out a lazy chuckle. “What, you think I can’t see it? It gives you a nice little glow in your left eye. Ocular interfaces are awfully risky if you get caught with one. It’s not as easy to hide as you think.”

“What, are you gonna arrest me for it? I’d like to see you try.”

“I think they’re really cool, actually. Comlinks, access to the Internet, facial recognition-- all the bells and whistles. But because the technology is experimental, it’s also one of the easiest cybernetic enhancements to hack into.”

She produces a smirk at Colby’s halfhearted attempt to threaten her.

“You got a girlfriend, Agent? Someone to run home to?” the bounty hunter asks Colby, grabbing her collar. She can’t help but swallow another bit of blood seeping in from her cheek and laugh.

“So you did clock me when you brought me in! No, not currently. But I do have four partners. It’s just a matter of if I get to them first or if they get to me.” 

“If it’s the latter, I hope I get to take my pick.” She produces a pocket knife from her cargo pants and pushes a loose strand of Colby’s hair out of her face. “But I don’t really want to fight an agent today.”

“So then what does that make me?”

She chuckles, trailing the knife across her captive’s jaw. “You know how to handle an interrogation, you like to keep your distance as a sharpshooter, and you run your mouth way too fucking much. These tricks are old to you. I think you’ve been a bounty hunter before.”

Colby’s guard goes up. She tries to keep a straight face, but the woman can see a shift in her body and a chill crawling down her neck.

“Who did you work for?” she asks.

“Myself.”

“What guild?”

“Never joined one. Didn’t plan on staying long.”

“Clearly.” She crouches down. “I guess we’re both disappointments to the public, huh?” 

Although she’s usually good at not playing a captor’s game too well, she’s not perfect at it. Keeping them in control, letting them play the winning hand and get some fruitless answers in exchange for her freedom-- she’s done it almost a dozen times, at this point. With a lifetime of experience packed into under a decade, she knows how to play both sides. Sometimes, by the time she picks one, it’s too late.

“Bounty hunter turned agent,” the woman reiterates. The light catches her eye and the ocular display is almost fully visible when she’s sizing up Colby. “A Robin Hood becoming the person they once stole from. What a fall from grace."

She chooses not to comment on the theatrics, hoping it’ll help her avoid another blow that’ll surely break her nose. “If it’s any consolation, I was an agent, then a bounty hunter, then an agent again.”

“Any of those four partners join you?”

Another ounce of blood pooling in her mouth. She spits it onto the ground. “No.”

“Someone else, then?”

Her bound hands curl into fists behind the chair. She looks away and says, “That’s not relevant.”

“That tone tells a different story. Let me guess: you met a girl, you had some fun, and she wasn’t a fan when you decided to go back to being a narc. You wanted your career more than you wanted her. Sound about right?”

“I don’t need a merc who speaks in poetry to tell me who I am,” Colby responds. They’re wounds that have scarred over a dozen times, but each new one being ripped open still leaves an ache. There was no better option, Colby reminds herself. We wanted different things in life. We have no future together when we’re both dedicated to the work we do now.

Recently, it’s started getting harder for her to believe.

She grabs Colby’s jaw, forcing her captive to look into her ocular interface and keep her gaze fixed. She regrets wasting the blood in her mouth on the floor; when she spits in the bounty hunter’s face, it’s a pretty lousy display. The bounty hunter grits her teeth and shoves Colby back in her chair. 

A quiet clang from overhead, right beside the light. A warm calm settles over Colby. “Have you ever loved someone?” she asks her captor, who responds with a scoff.

“I’m gonna love leaving you in this room overnight and putting a price over your head. Your agency will pay me handsomely to make up for the profit I lost when you stole my cargo.”

“I hope you find someone worth quitting this gig over, like I did. You can’t be a bounty hunter forever. And I can’t be your captive forever, either.””

A louder clang. The cap of the fent falls to the floor with a cloud of dust. Still crouched in front of Colby, she swings her head around and sees the third body that’s dropped down from the vent only for a second; a sharp pain shoots through her left eye and she stumbles back into the wall.

“Oh, forgive me, is this a bad time?” he asks.

His hand tosses a slender baton across the room, which Colby barely manages to latch onto with her bound hands. She flicks out a serrated edge and jams it between her wrists, cutting through the bindings. The baton travels into her left hand and she drills it into the bounty hunter’s chest. The electric shock sends her crumbling onto the floor-- conscious, but immobile. 

Nate tosses Colby her rifle in exchange for his baton back. “Jesus,” he mutters, “you look--”

“I’ve looked worse.”

He chuckles. “You always have, huh?”

A hefty yank at her gun and a pull of the trigger, and she blows the handle right off the door. Cold, night air floods into the room. Nate makes for the doorway, while his colleague kneels in front of the bounty hunter. She almost growls through her jagged grimace. 

Colby rakes a lock of ragged, black hair from her face. “Be careful which hands you bite, sweetheart. You never know when they’ll be made of metal. Don’t wanna chip any teeth.”

She disappears into the nighttime with nothing more than a weak flurry of expletives from her captor. Nate rolls his eyes once they’re well down the alley. “Flirting with your captor? I will never understand you people.”

“What people? Bounty hunters or lesbians?” 

“Both.”

She hoists her rifle onto her shoulder and elbows Nate with a loud laugh. But she can’t help but let her thoughts circle back through their conversation. We wanted different things in life. But that was almost six years ago. Could it be possible to--

She shakes her head. The only thing she needs to be worrying about right now is icing these wounds and getting some sleep. In good company, Colby’s wounds already begin to heal.

Maybe company could be better, though. She’ll have to think on it a little more.