or, The Plight of Demetrius.
Izzy closed her eyes as Helen's fingers sunk into her hair, scratching her scalp as she lay her head in the other woman's lap.
Helen had claimed the darkroom for herself before Izzy had even gotten to the safe house the first time, guided her there as a promised safe haven from the rest of the team, like a lighthouse, or a siren.
There was a mattress on the floor in there, and a sofa Helen was sat on, scanning some report or another in one hand whilst Izzy looked up at her from her lap, her other hand absently playing with Izzy's fine blonde hair.
Her skin crawled at the touch, even as she pushed her head into the hand like a cat towards her master, and she let out a quiet, embarrassing keening when Helen stopped her ministrations.
"Enjoying that, Bell?" Helen asked, her voice light and amused, "You always used to before."
She talked like this a lot. It didn't bother Izzy, not really. It felt correct - there was them before, and there was them now, in the safehouse.
"Do you remember before?" Helen asked with a sort of cruel amusement.
She should have remembered before. She knew that. Volkov's words from the day before echoed in her head. You are damaged goods.
What did he know about anything? She had beaten him, caught him. Helen had hugged her afterwards, smelling of tobacco and her perfume. It hadn't changed since she knew Helen before, heartsease and wildflowers.
Satisfaction radiated from the base of her skull down her spine at the memory, then sank through her skin like sunburn.
Nothing ever just felt good with Helen, Izzy had found. Even her satisfaction was tainted with guilt she didn't understand, with a discomfort that she couldn't shake.
But without Helen, she didn't feel anything at all.
"Come on back to me, Iz." Helen pulled her fingers abruptly out of Izzy's hair, snapping them impatiently by one ear and then the other. "I asked you if you remember Oxford."
"A little," Izzy said, her voice shaky as Helen threaded her fingers back into her hair. "It's… blurry?"
"Alright Bell, we'll go back to Oxford."
It was late 1976, the first time you noticed me.
The words squirmed and echoed, sank into her brain like a stone dropped into a lake, and Izzy opened her eyes, confused. Helen was looking at her with bright, interested eyes, scanning her face like she was a casefile. Her mouth twisted into a smirk when she saw Izzy looking at her.
Fingers traced along Izzy's jawline, burning like cigarettes pressed against her skin. She wanted to flinch away. She didn't.
"I was 16, almost as young starting at Oxford as you had been," Helen said softly, "That was what made you notice me at first - and I didn't drop out like you had. You and another agent - Madam Shell - were inserted into the University to recruit me."
Madam Shell was clear in Izzy's memory. A woman in her late sixties, whip thin, with steel-grey hair and a thin, hard mouth, but she had had kind eyes and soft hands.
Madam Shell - Professor Adela Helms, Bell reminds herself - blows a long exhale of smoke into Izzy's face, her cigarette-holder held loosely between two fingers. The tip glows orange in the darkness. Izzy looks away, flexes her hands on the steering wheel. The leather of her driving gloves creaks quietly. The professor had delighted in taking a long dinner with the lately deposed Prime Minister, which had left Izzy waiting in the car like a chauffeur, and the drive to Oxford to be under cover of darkness.
"Do you smoke?" Madam Shell asks. Her voice is as anachronistic as everything else - like cut-glass, more fitting to an heiress in an Agatha Christie novel than an MI5 agent posing as a Professor of History.
"No," Izzy replies, peering into the gloom, looking for a street sign, "I don't like the taste."
"Ah, a pity, truly," Shell says lightly, "It focuses the mind wonderfully. You're only a junior agent for now, give it time."
Izzy hums noncommittally, and Shell chuckles.
They lapse back into uneasy silence until Izzy pulls the car smoothly into the driveway of an unremarkable house on an unremarkable street in Oxford.
Officially it is a safe house, used by MI5 for burnt agents or high value defectors, but far more common is its use for this; a local base for agents assessing new recruits coming through at the university.
Izzy signals for Madam Shell to wait by the car, then draws her Hi-Power, draping her sleeve over it for concealment, then enters the house.
Her eyes take a moment to adjust to the gloom, then she sets out to sweep and clear.
There's nothing in the living room - a cold fireplace, two sagging sofas and an elderly television - or the dining room - a stained table with four rickety chairs around it, with a fruit basket perched jauntily on top. She nudges it suspiciously with the barrel of her pistol, then moves on. Left behind by the cleanup crew to seem natural, no doubt.
The kitchen is the last room on the ground floor, and she sweeps it carelessly - the cupboards have been left stocked, which is generous of the service, but not unexpectedly so. The fridge is bare, which is closer to the norm. The oven is off at the wall, but there's no trouble when she turns it on again.
She exhales, then steels herself for the upstairs. The steps creak as she climbs them, setting her teeth on edge. She flicks the laser sight on as she climbs, heart in her mouth.
There's two bedrooms, a small office and a bathroom upstairs. They're all empty - the beds are made in both rooms, and the water hasn't been shut off to the shower in the bathroom, but there's no sign that there have been any intruders between when the safe house was last checked over and now.
Izzy relaxes, slips her pistol under a pillow in the smaller bedroom, then heads downstairs to signal Madam Shell to come in.
"Oh, are you done?" Madam Shell calls from the kitchen, "Come on in, I've put the kettle on."
She has, Izzy notes with some annoyance. She's also fished a packet of rich tea biscuits from the cupboard, and is glaring into the fridge.
"Would it have killed them to get us some milk?" She complains tetchily, "We'll have to have our tea black, I'm afraid."
"You shouldn't have come in before I told you it was safe," Izzy says, "You're meant to wait outside."
"Oh pish," Madam Shell says dismissively, "The service had men sweep the house just before we left London. I didn't stop you because it seemed like you were having fun, but really, Miss Stone."
"You could've told me," Izzy complains, "It's standard operating procedure to clear safehouses on arrival."
"You did very well," Madam Shell says, "Now drink your tea and we'll head down to the briefing room."
There's a hatch in the cupboard under the stairs, with a slender wooden ladder disappearing into the dark. Whilst the rest of the house is the same as any other house on the street, this is unique. Fluorescent lights flicker on and off over a polished concrete basement, set with steel tables dotted around, whiteboards on two walls and gun lockers against a third.
It's a bolthole, a panic room, a last fallback. If things go unimaginably south, it is here they will hole up until the service can get them out again. It is also their briefing room. There are pictures plastering the walls - there's five or six prospective new recruits they are here to assess, though Izzy's already decided which one to favour.
"Agent," Madam Shell says crisply, once they're settled, "Cover name, if you would."
Izzy snaps to attention unconsciously.
"Penelope Florence, postgrad research assistant."
"Penelope from the Odyssey, Florence for the park. Acceptable, if a touch pat. Job description and history?"
"Russian literature and History. Working under Professor Adela Helms for the year, hoping for a placement elsewhere if I get good enough references from the Professor at the end of the year. Lonely and inclined to befriend students. Living in the Professor's spare room because I can't afford a flat."
"And how do you feel about that?" Madam Shell drawls.
"Irritated and embarrassed. I won't let anyone know."
"Unless?"
"Unless absolutely necessary, to show vulnerability to improve our bond."
"Or other methods of increasing intimacy. Relationship to the professor?"
"Surrogate daughter to a spinster Aunt," Izzy says acidly. "Allow them to infer impropriety, but never confirm it."
"Very good. People stop digging when they find dirty little secrets like that, and they think they're special when you reveal it to them, especially by accident. Makes our actual work easier."
"Our actual work, ma'am?" Izzy prompts. "Recruitment?"
"Have I made you uncomfortable, Miss Florence?" Madam Shell says, "Yes, recruitment. There's five recruits our assets at Oxford flagged for us - Henry Faber, reading German, Lucy Rose, reading Geography, Percy Godliman, reading Classics, William Parkin, reading English, and Helen Park, reading Russian and History. Your focus will be, of course-"
Helen Park is walking away from a lecture in the pouring rain when Bell eases onto the main road in the Professor's Rolls Royce estate.
Rain drips from the hem of her skirt, plasters her shirt translucent against her skin. Drops catch on her eyelashes. Her blonde hair is dark with moisture.
Izzy considers stopping for her, taps the steering wheel in thought, but something like fear runs through her. Flashes in her head - when she was at university, being picked up by her teaching assistant, being driven to her house, a hand on her inner thigh, an uncertain confused sort of terrified compliance. A house she didn't know her way home from, an older woman pouring her a drink with a smile.
She accelerates instead, pulls away.
Really, Bell? You're telling me you ignored the woman you were meant to recruit?
Helen Park is walking away from one of Professor Helms' lectures in the pouring rain when Bell eases onto the main road in the Professor's Rolls Royce estate.
Rain drips from the hem of her skirt, plasters her shirt translucent against her skin. Drops catch on her eyelashes. Her blonde hair is dark with moisture.
Izzy slows the car to walking pace, rolling down the passenger side window to call out to the girl.
"Helen, right?" She says, "From Professor Helms's history class? I'm her research assistant."
"Oh!" Helen says, "Gosh, Miss Florence, you startled me."
"It's raining cats and dogs," Izzy has to raise her voice over the patter of raindrops on the car roof, "Get in out of the weather, I'll drive you."
It isn't a question. She remembered that; it was never a question. If she'd been asked a question, she could've said no, but when it was a command, it was that much harder.
Helen doesn't hesitate to open the door and sink into the passenger seat, and Izzy feels herself consciously deciding to take this as meaning she is an equal party in whatever they're doing.
"Sorry about the upholstery," Helen says as Izzy pulls away, setting the engine purring back to life, "All the rainwater-"
"It isn't my car," Izzy replies easily, "It's my aunt's. Ruin away."
"Your aunt's?" Helen asks, "Why are you driving her car?"
"I'm halfway to a chauffeur," Izzy complains good-naturedly, "The great Professor Helms couldn't possibly drive herself to work, not when she has a live-in driver."
Helen's eyes are like saucers, "Professor Helms is your aunt? You live with her?"
"Yes," Izzy looks at Helen intently, "You won't tell anyone? It could get her in all sorts of trouble. Especially since-"
She cut herself off deliberately, turns back to the road. Starts counting in her head.
She gets up to ten before Helen says anything, and she wonders what held the girl's tongue - did she not recognise the meaning? Was she worried it was a trick to make her reveal more than she should? Or was she just scared?
"I understand," Helen breathes, "We - girls like us - we need to stick together."
It is a startling degree of vulnerability to show so early, and Izzy hears the jaws of the trap springing shut.
The naïveté is breathtaking. To reveal you are of such a persuasion in your first conversation with someone? She can't imagine it.
Terrified of her own feelings, isolated by her youth already, desperate for kindness, for someone to understand.
She's older but she gets it, she's so experienced, so interesting, so beautiful, and she hints at it, hints at more, at darker things. What harm?
Trapped between besotted and afraid. There's no escape there's no escape there's no-
Stay with me, Bell. You had a job to do.
Helen is biting her lip, fear and triumph at war in her eyes, like she can't quite believe what she's said.
"Yes," Izzy says briskly, "We do. What was your address? I'll drop you at Halls."
No, Bell, you had your target in the car, trusting you. Try again.
Helen is biting her lip, fear and triumph at war in her eyes, like she can't quite believe what she's said.
"Sorry," Izzy says blankly, "Please get out of the car."
Try again, Bell.
Helen is biting her lip, fear and triumph at war in her eyes, like she can't quite believe what she's said.
"Run," Izzy says desperately, "Get out and run. Run and never look back. Keep running. Get away from here. Get away from me. Before I eat you alive."
No. Again.
Helen is biting her lip, fear and triumph at war in her eyes, like she can't quite believe what she's said.
"Of course," Izzy says, "But you must be freezing in those clothes. I'll drive you to mine, you can shower, get a change of clothes."
Helen unbuckles her Mary-Janes in the entryway of the house, dripping water on the tiled porch. She's tall - taller than Izzy - with silky blonde hair stuck to her scalp and back by the rain. She's almost coltish; she's all knees and elbows for now, but when she matures, she'll be a willowy beauty. She's so pale she looks almost ghostly, but for a sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and the warmth in her luminously green eyes.
She sees Izzy watching her and goes pink, then collects herself enough to smile coquettishly, stepping forwards to leave wet footprints through the house.
"There's a bathroom upstairs," Izzy says, "I'll leave you a change of clothes, then put the kettle on, alright?"
Helen's soaked to the bone even after a drive with the heating on full blast, and she sheds clothing as she climbs the stairs. She unbuttons her blouse, then drops her skirt. She has to stop on the landing to remove her pantyhose, and she still has her underwear on when she closes the bathroom door.
Izzy feels sick at herself. Disgusted by herself.
The girl's crush on her is as obvious as any she's seen. She has it bad, and she's too young and inexperienced to hide it.
She gathers a few things from her dresser to leave outside the bathroom. She can hear the shower running, and the door is only pulled to, not closed, not locked. It would be the work of mere moments to-
The bathroom door squeaking, turning to look. The shower curtain pushed aside. An apologetic smile but hungry eyes. Unbuttoning the older woman's shirt with trembling fingers, soaking the material. Heart in her mouth.
Soft words and harsh hands. A soiled sort of pleasure. She doesn't understand it. She wants to ask her to stop but she can't.
There's a white tiled hallway, with shining stainless steel handles on the doors that dot it every few metres. Large, greyed out windows break the monotony on her left, and Izzy walks down it in a haze.
Damn it, Izzy. Adrenaline spiking. Stay with me.
The hallway ends in a red door, thick and steel, with a heavy barred handle on one end. Izzy rests her head against the metal. It's hot, where it should be cold.
You're coming out in a sweat, Iz. It's a fear response. What's so scary about that shower, Izzy? Didn't we have fun? Remember that?
The whole hallway starts to shudder and roll, like the deck of a ship in a storm, and Izzy reaches out to steady herself on the wall, but her hand passes through it like rotten wood, showering her in tiny splinters of tile and cement.
Fuck. No, hey, Isobel, stay with me, don't throw up, you've got a breathing tube in, you'll- Fuck! Fuck! ADLER!
Izzy came to consciousness curled up on Helen's sofa, a thin blanket thrown over her. The other woman was standing over her, short and well built, her thick black hair cut in a bob around her face. She smiled when she saw Izzy's eyes were open.
"Back in the land of the living, sleeping beauty?" Helen asked, "Not going to drift off again whilst we talk about our history?"
"I don't think so," Izzy said, "I'm really sorry, I am."
"Ah, well, how far did you get in our chat?" Helen said, "I can catch you up on the important parts."
"I picked you up in the rain after a lecture," Izzy's voice faltered, "I shouldn't have done that."
"You had a job to do," Helen replied dismissively, "Then you took me back to Madam Shell's, right? I had a shower?"
Dread and nausea twinned in Izzy's stomach.
"What did I do?" Izzy asked.
"Oh, Iz." Helen said fondly, "You didn't do anything. I thought you came in to watch me, but I was wrong, remember?"
"So I didn't do anything then?" Izzy asked. It felt like a lie.
"We fucked for the first time at the end of Michelmas in my first year." Helen said. Her tone was blunt, matter-of-fact.
"Oh god," Izzy said faintly, "Oh god, what did I do to you?"
Sharp nails like talons dug into Izzy's scalp, and she winced.
"It wasn't like that," Helen said sharply, "You loved me, and you knew I was mature for my age, old enough to know, and I loved you too."
"You were a student," Izzy protested, "You weren't even an adult. Oh god."
"You sound like her," Helen said, accusingly, "Madam Shell was always jealous. She wanted me for herself, so she kept telling you things like this. She tried telling me, too, telling me you were grooming me. But it wasn't like that."
"I think it was," Izzy said uncertainly, "I'm so sorry, Helen, I-"
"It wasn't." Helen snapped. "You did what you had to do. And she was a traitor. She nearly killed us both, remember, Bell? You had a job to do."
Long, slender fingers curled gracefully over Bell's eyes, and darkness descended over her like a shroud.
Izzy is in the backseat of the Rolls Royce, playing with the material of her tights nervously. Motorway lights flash past the windows at a prodigious rate.
She's in her first year with the Service after graduating from Oxford.
Madam Shell woke her in the night with a hand over her mouth, extracted her from Helen's arms, maybe two hours ago. She wonders if Helen is awake yet, wonders if Helen knows she's gone.
"Helen's going to be angry with me," She says quietly, "I shouldn't have told you."
Grey eyes flash in the rear view mirror as Madam Shell looks at her.
"It was good of you to tell me," The older woman says, "I should've realised sooner, she was always terribly possessive. You were a child when she met you. I'll get you out of here, don't worry."
"Where?" Izzy replies bitterly, "She knows people all over. What am I supposed to do?"
"She doesn't know people all over," Madam Shell says, "I've called in some favours with a friend I've not spoken to in some thirty years. You're going somewhere she can't follow, Isobel. You're crossing the Iron Curtain."
"You're sending me to the soviets?" Izzy says, "Why would they agree to that? What do you need me to do?"
"Gifted young agent, fluent in Russian… with a list of MI6 informants in the Kremlin." Madam Shell says, passing back a file from the front passenger seat, "Perseus'll snap you up like nobody's business. You asked me to help you get away from her. I have."
She sounds almost irritated, and Izzy wonders with a sting of guilt how much it has cost the older woman to set this up. Is she a patriot, she wonders suddenly. Has she had to choose Izzy over her country?
"You're right," Izzy says apologetically, "I'm grateful, I really am. I know-"
"Don't be," Madam Shell replies, "I brought her into your life, and since we recruited you… you're the closest thing I have to family. She was too, before…"
Izzy nods, looks away.
You still with us, Bell? We're about to make landfall.
"Still," Izzy says, "You're betraying a lot for me, and I'm grateful."
"Not much to betray," Madam Shell says with a derisive snort, "MI6? We're just another arm of the Americans, don't kid yourself."
Aw, would you look at that. Little freakshow's taking a nap. Ring a bloody ding, Bell, it's your alarm clock!
The dream faded away as Izzy opened bleary eyes to see Mason and Woods looming over her.
"Just got to Cuba, Bell." Woods said with a grunt, "End of the line."
Another dose. We'll keep rerunning scenario 1. Bell, we've got a job to do.
For God's sake, Adler, you're killing her and it isn't getting us anywhere. Just let me try this.
We have no leads left. You push until you get what we need or she dies.
Izzy wakes up with her hand already wrapped around the pistol under her pillow, and it takes her a half second to work out why. There's a shuffling on the roof, a muffled curse in Russian.
Two Spetsnaz come through her window, guns up, and she's moving before they are, throwing herself to the side as they light up the bed. She raises her pistol and puts a 9mm round through each of their balaclavas.
Helen isn't in her bed with her, and she grabs one of the fallen Spetsnaz's AK-74s before moving on.
Three more of them are at Madam Shell's door, preparing to breach. Izzy drops them all unsighted, a messy burst from the hip that near enough cuts them in half.
Madam Shell is also not in her bed. Something about this stinks. She reloads her rifle, stealing clips from the fallen.
At the top of the stairs, you headed down, to get to the bolthole in the basement.
Izzy peers down the stairs, jumping back as a torrent of gunfire tore apart the wall behind her, a bullet nicking her shoulder.
Where the wallpaper is blown away, she can see strange white tiles, which chip and shatter under the gunfire.
She shoulders the rifle and waits for a pause in the fusillade from downstairs.
You killed the three Spetsnaz in the foyer.
There's no Spetsnaz in the foyer, just three of Helen Park. Not the young Helen, tall, blonde and willowy, but the Helen from the safehouse. She shoots them all on instinct, a chatter of violence that leaves them all sprawled across the entryway.
Then you turned to go to the bolthole.
Izzy tries the front door. If she can get to the car, she can get out, maybe draw some of the attackers away from the documents they have in the bolthole.
It's locked, and there's no key on the hook.
Then you turned to go to the bolthole.
She turns, ready to try the backdoor, out into the garden, but five more of Helen Park burst out of the kitchen, M16s blaring, and she's forced to dive into the living room for cover.
Then you turned to go to the bolthole.
As she rolls to her feet in the living room, she is in the bolthole under the stairs. A headache blooms behind her eyes.
Heartrate is spiking. I don't know how much more she can handle.
Madam Shell is nowhere to be seen, but she can see Helen. Young Helen, taller, blonde and slender. She's sprawled out across the table, not breathing or moving at all. She looks wrong, somehow, like someone has cut out a picture and stuck it down in the memory - the light on her face is wrong, and she looks somehow two dimensional.
She also - and Izzy cannot avoid this realisation now, feels it like an icicle through her brain - is not Helen. Has never been Helen.
Izzy tears her eyes from the corpse of her younger self to look around the bolthole. Every wall is blank, grey polished concrete. The door behind her disappears.
Very good, Bell. Now head through the bunker door, you have a job to do.
There is a door in front of her, now that she's looking for it. Red, thick and steel, with a heavy barred handle on one end. She steps towards it on faltering feet.
Hands appear in her peripheral vision, and then a sharp, agonising pain across her neck. She scrabbles helplessly.
Park, what the hell is happening. We're completely offscript here!
She can see, just barely, Madam Shell's face above her, soft and terribly pitying.
"You can't let her in again, Miss Stone." Madam Shell says, wiping a tear away from Izzy's eye with a thumb, "You'll never get her out."
Darkness claims her, and when she awakens, she is back in Vietnam, and the only voice in her head is Adler.
Isobel Stone woke with the taste of vomit in her mouth and a feeling in her left eye like she'd taken a punch in a barfight the night before. There were cotton pads soaked with her blood dotted around the room, and she pushed herself up from the gurney with a grunt of pain.
"Hastings said we had 72 hours," The voice was muffled and faint, but undeniably Helen's. Isobel felt another wave of nausea, "It took 24 to get Izzy back here and break her down, so we have 48 hours left. When can you get us there?"
"It's not simple, Park." This voice was louder, more agitated, and recognisably Sims. "Next window I found is in eighteen hours. We'll have to hold fast til then, if we don't want half the Warsaw Pact on our asses all the way there and back again."
"How confident was Hastings?" Adler's voice could never have been mistaken for anyone else. "No chance Perseus jumps the gun? Detonates the nukes early? He knows we're only a few hours behind him."
"Perseus trusts his people." Helen replied, "He'll assume we've hit an impasse. And regardless - it's a hardware limitation. He can't accelerate it."
Isobel staggered slightly as she tried to walk, then cursed herself as she upset a tray of used needles and little empty bottles of drugs.
"Sounds like the headcase is up," Adler said, "Park, you wanna babysit again?"
"Don't be such a beast, Adler." Helen said, exhaustion washing out the reproach in her voice. "She saved my life in Cuba."
"Course she did, Park. Didn't hardly leave enough space in the girl's head for anyone but you, didya?"
The door of the medical office wasn't locked, to Isobel's faint surprise, and the conversation stopped as they turned to face her.
If Helen's voice had inspired nausea, it was nothing to actually seeing her. Betrayal, revulsion and fear pulsed in her stomach, but her heart thrummed with desire, adoration and a broken sort of yearning.
"Helen." Her voice cracked from overuse, and she struggled to know what she wanted to mean. A plea? A greeting? An accusation?
Helen smiled at her, took her hand as delicately as a baby bird.
"Cmon Iz, I got you."
She tugged Isobel away, towards her darkroom at the back of the safe house, and no one said a word.
Isobel was still reeling from the drugs and the revelations when Helen took her somewhere private, or she would've resisted. Wouldn't she?
Helen was still smiling, her eyes fever bright and eager, when she released Isobel's hand and turned to face her, lit only by the dim red safelights in the darkroom.
"It's so good to have it in the open," Helen started, "I didn't want to lie to-"
Izzy struck her across the face, open-handed. Helen staggered, threw her hand out to prop herself up on the wall, cradling her cheek with her other hand.
"I suppose I deserved that," she said wryly, "Was that all you wanted to give me?"
"You…" Izzy snarled, slamming Helen against her desk, her arm across her neck. "You made me relive what you did to me. You made me complicit."
"Complicit?" Helen echoed, her pupils dilating as Izzy pressed down on her neck, "I showed you what it meant to me. Showed you it was more than some crime or whatever else people told you."
"I hate you," Izzy said fiercely, "I should-"
"But you don't just hate me," Helen whispered, "If you did, you'd have left me on that roof in Cuba, or you'd kill me now."
"I have these memories now," Izzy said, "I remember doing to you what you did to me. Hating you feels like hating myself."
"I'm sorry, my little Izzybel," Helen said, gently guiding Izzy's arm from her neck, pulling the younger woman into her embrace. "I wish I hadn't had to do it for you to understand."
"You wouldn't let me stop," Izzy's voice was thickened with unshed tears, "You made me a predator. I can feel it in my skin."
"You aren't a predator if the prey wants to be caught." Helen murmured, then kissed her, sweet like poison.
Izzy wanted to bite, to catch her mouth between sharp teeth and tear her open. She opened her mouth instead, deepened the kiss.
Helen pushed her backwards until she collapsed onto the sofa, then climbed onto her lap as Izzy tried to stand.
"Missed this," Helen said as she unbuttoned Izzy's shirt, all of a hurry. "Missed you. Had to stop until you understood."
Izzy whimpered despite herself as Helen slipped a hand into her shirt, cupped her breast. Her nipple hardened at the touch.
"I wish-" Izzy faltered, then buried her face in Helen's neck instead with a sigh. What was there to wish? That she didn't love her? That she didn't hate her? That she had never been caught in her web, then or now?
They were all wishes she might have had, but not wholly. She didn't wish any different, not in her heart.
"My girl," Helen breathed, right in Izzy's ear as she trailed her hand down Izzy's body, under her jeans. "My beautiful girl. Always mine. You're so fucking wet. For me?"
It ached like someone had shot her and sewn the wound closed with the bullet still inside. She bit Helen on the neck, at the pulse point.
"Yes," She confessed bitterly, pulling away from Helen's neck to stare into the dim red light above them. "For you."
Helen huffed a quiet laugh, tracing her fingers along Izzy's cunt.
"God, Iz." Helen sounded almost reverent, "You're coming apart for me."
Izzy wrapped her arms around Helen's neck, pulling her in closer. "Please, please, please, don't stop, don't stop."
She slid two fingers inside with a quiet hum of satisfaction as Izzy gasped.
The disgust came earlier than she thought it would, came even as she ground against Helen's fingers, as she felt Helen's mouth on her neck, on her collar, on her nipple. As she climaxed with a shudder not as far removed from a sob as she wanted to pretend.
She was still caught on Helen. She had been caught on Helen since she was fifteen years old, and she would never be free of her. She ran across half the world and found herself back here, writhing underneath her again.
She felt the terrible urge to strike Helen again. To make Helen bleed like she'd bled. It didn't last. Even that had been stolen from her - her memories burnt inside her head, told her it was her fault, that she was the sinner here. She could find no satisfaction in hurting Helen, no more than she could in pleasuring her.
She raised a trembling hand to the zipper of Helen's jacket, her eyes trained on the other woman's face.
"I could…?" Izzy asked, and didn't know what answer she wanted.
"No," Helen said, "You can return the favour later, Izzybel, but we've got a mission tomorrow, remember?"
She kissed Izzy gently on the forehead, and Izzy let her. She'd liked the nickname once. It was sweet, a quiet little secret when they couldn't be together openly. It hurt all over again when she recognised it was the origin of her codename, that the nasty little trigger phrases Helen had helped the CIA put in her brain came from something she'd whispered to her in the quiet solitude of their bed.
It took twenty minutes or so for Helen to fall asleep, her breathing becoming slow and even, but Izzy waited another hour, just to be safe.
Helen couldn't quite shake her unease as she watched Izzy getting out of the truck by the gate, M16 slung lazily over one shoulder. She didn't look right, somehow. She hadn't looked right since they'd landed in Ukraine - or rather, she did look right. She looked at ease, unconcerned. A thousand miles into enemy territory, and Izzy had chosen now to stop checking sightlines.
She wondered if the others had worked it out yet, but she doubted it. Adler didn't really think there was much left in Izzy's head but his orders, and the jarheads? If brains were gunpowder, they wouldn't have enough to blow their helmets off.
Izzy looked at her, green eyes dark and just a little wild, and Helen shivered.
"It's her!" One of the marines - Woods - shouted at that very moment, exceeding Helen's every expectation. "Bell fucking lied to us!"
"That true, Bell? You pull us out to the middle of nowhere Russia, so Perseus can detonate those nukes?" Adler sounded as baffled as Helen expected him to, and she adjusted her grip on her MP5, swung it forwards, subtle as she could manage.
"Yes," Izzy replied simply, "You violated me. Betrayed my trust and my mind, turned me into a fucking puppet, and expected me to keep dancing after you cut my strings?"
"What a fucking waste," Adler cursed, "You could've done something with your life, back on the side of angels."
"What," Izzy said, her tone mocking, "Help the Americans hide nuclear bombs under the capitals of their own allies? I'll pass."
Helen saw Adler move, saw the marines moving, and she raised her submachine gun, tightening her finger on the trigger.
She didn't see Izzy move. Somehow, even now, she didn't see Izzy as a threat. She couldn't.
Izzy clenched her fist, a Soviet soldier burst from the undergrowth, RPG aloft, and the world exploded, and Helen was flung to the floor like a ragdoll.
Helen didn't even have time to cast around for her submachine gun after the blast, before Izzy loomed into view above her, an AK-47 held aloft in her right hand, uncaring of the bullets whining past her.
She looked down at Helen with such cold eyes that Helen thought for a moment she was going to shoot her. Instead, a boot came down on her head, and everything went black.
She wakes up to the rhythmic, soporific sound of a train clattering along a long, straight track. Her nose hurts, and it takes a moment to remember why.
Helen Park sits up in bed and immediately sees Izzy, sat across from her in the most absurdly ostentatious train carriage she has ever been in. She's in the middle of a double bed that near enough spans the train's width, and Izzy is sprawled lazily in a chair halfway to a throne, an AK-74 cradled in her arms like a newborn babe.
She considers going for the weapon, briefly and not seriously. She tells herself it is because Izzy is too quick on the draw, but she knows it isn't.
"You're awake," Izzy says quietly, "I wasn't sure how long you'd be out. We're on the train out East. Perseus thinks it'll keep us safely out of sight whilst he massages your defection and my… refection? Through the KGB."
"My defection?" Helen echoes dumbly.
"Have you forgotten?" Izzy asks, her voice unkind, "If I were you, I could just say a magic little phrase and put the memories in, but alas, you'll just need to take my word for it - you betrayed the Americans to warn all of their European allies of their little nuclear surprises. I'm sure the French and Scandinavians want to pin medals on your chests, but the Americans I fear are less happy."
"I betrayed the Americans?" Helen says, feeling a headache threatening.
"Well," Izzy continues, "Someone using your MI5 credentials did, anyway. But who else knows those, Helen?"
"You?" Helen says, "Why? Wasn't the plan to detonate them?"
Izzy smiles, her mouth like a knife. "Perseus loves me like a daughter, but when do men ever listen to their daughters? I told him this way would work better, and he realised the wisdom of it. Why would the Americans detonate their nukes without reason?"
"You warned Europe so it would be more plausible for the Americans to detonate the ones they hadn't yet defused?" Helen asks. She can't help the admiration, behind the horror. "You're a monster."
"Well yes," Izzy says, "You made me, didn't you? You built a monster out of a girl, and then you fell in love with it. Don't feign revulsion now, Helen, we're all monsters here."
"You killed millions of people." Helen's voice doesn't falter.
"Yes," Izzy says, "But you were going to kill Adler and his boys to protect me, even knowing that."
"Because I love you." Helen replies, "Because I can't help but love you."
"I know," Izzy says bitterly, "We suffer very much the same plight. You made quite sure of that."
