Of Heroes And Villains: The Ties That Bind By Minikisa An assassin. A fallen hero. An unlikely meeting. The road to redemption is long and hard and filled with explosives.

Prologue


10 years ago


“Everything’s going to be fine.”

The blinking light on the camera went out, signaling the end of her performance.

Caroline’s smile faded and she looked down to her bound hands. She wondered if he believed her bravado, believed that she was not scared, that this wasn’t a big deal and that their parents would bail her out of this just like they bailed her out of those public indecency charges and that this was really no different.

Somehow, she doubted it. Ian was not a child anymore.

Rough hands grabbed her long black hair, pulling her head up. Hate-filled eyes glared down at her. “You think you can mock me, bitch?”

“I’d say your threats have all the sophistication of a drunken fratboy, but that’s an insult to drunken fratboys everywhere,” she drawled, seemingly bored. “There. I just did mock you, conclusively proving that I can. Isn’t observational science fun?”

He hit her again and she tasted blood in her mouth.

She really should stop antagonizing him, but she couldn’t help it. Caroline was angry. Angry at him. Angry at her life. Angry at her helplessness. Sniping back was all she had; if she didn’t do that she might as well roll over and be a good little victim forever.

She had never wanted to be a victim again.

“Learn to bite your tongue or I will cut it out.”

Caroline raised her head, meeting his gaze. Silence reigned. And then she smirked and he yelled in fury, kicking over a piece of his recording equipment.

She did not need her tongue to mock him.

The man was old and very much out of shape. The stench of desperation clung to him. She knew his type; he would rage and threaten those who couldn’t fight back, but had no real stomach for fighting. If her hands were not bound, she was certain she could kick his ass; she’d been taking self-defense classes for years now, ever since her first kidnapping.

She’d broken his nose already; he had a Band-Aid slapped over the crooked misshapen thing.

Maybe it would be wiser to wait for rescue, to just passively wait for the hostage exchange. But the hatred with which he treated her made her doubt he was planning to release her at all. He also made no efforts to conceal his face from her. Caroline knew with absolute certainty that she had to escape.

And…

There was the other one.

He stood in the back of the room, arms crossed. He was watching. Always watching. His mouth and nose were covered by a mask, but she could see his eyes and they were on her. Had been on her ever since her first escape attempt, when she broke the other guy’s nose.

He was Meta, she was sure of it.

It was him who stole her out of her campus dorm at night, subdued her as if she wasn’t a black belt but a goddamn child. Despite this, he had never hurt her, never raised his hand or his voice. When he talked to her, which was rarely, his voice was polite and gentle.

He terrified her.

She was not sure how the two men fit together. It seemed like the Meta followed the older guy’s orders, yet sometimes the old man also seemed scared of him. She thought he might be a mercenary, hired for this job.

It was an idiot move, really, to hire a dog you were not sure you could leash.

She turned her head away, nauseous, and gazed at the camera lens.

Caroline really hoped Ian would believe that she was fine. Maybe then she’d believe it, too.

Because she was about to try to leash that dog.


***


Caroline took one small step after the other on her way back to her ‘cell’, the shackles around her ankles always on the verge of tripping her. A warm hand rested on her lower back to give her stability, heat radiating even through the thick gloves.

As always, the masked man was silent as he escorted her. The old man used to be the one to do it, taunting and threatening her, until she’d head-butted him and leveraged her bound hands for a chokehold around his neck.

And for one glorious moment as she tightened her grip, she thought freedom might be within her reach. Until the mercenary had torn her away with barely any effort, having snuck up on her without Caroline even noticing. As he’d stared down at her there had been something in his eyes, something that had chilled Caroline to the bone.

“So vicious,” he’d rasped.

Lust.

And as much as it frightened Caroline to be the object of affection of a mercenary who had the air of having killed many, many people, she could use that.

“Whatever he’s paying you,” she said in a low voice, and he slightly cocked his head. She never initiated conversation with him. “I can pay you more if you free me right now.”

“I’m sure you could,” he said evenly, and kept walking her to her cell.

“I’ll double your fee.”

“We do not break contracts.”

She bit her lower lip, tasting blood. “What will it take for you to make an exception?”

“Nothing you have, girl.”

Caroline fluttered her eyelashes, gazing at him with big, helpless eyes and he grew still, coming to a halt in the middle of the dark hallway. And then he laughed. It was a chilling, mirthless sound that made a shiver run down her spine.

And suddenly she was brutally shoved against the wall, a hard sinewy body pressing up behind her.

“Do you think you can play me?” And yet, despite the violent outburst, his voice was still so very gentle. As was his touch. She could feel his breath on her neck.

“No.” She was proud of the steel in her voice. Show no weakness. “It’s hardly playing when I’m upfront about wanting you as a friend rather than an enemy, is it?”

“A friend,” he repeated silkily. “Are you usually so terrified of your friends?”

“I think one would have to be really stupid to not be terrified of you. Don’t hold my common sense against me.”

And then he laughed again, softly, this time. His lips pressed against the nape of her neck and she shivered, whether in fear or something else she could not tell.

“Stop playing with fire, stupid girl,” he murmured against her skin.

He let go off her, and they walked the rest of the way to her cell in silence.


***


Caroline stared at the wall of the small room they kept her locked in, willing herself to escape.

She’d done it before. When she was 15, during her first kidnapping, they’d kept her locked in a warehouse basement just like this one, except there had been a small barred window just below the ceiling. Far too small to slip through.

She’d slipped through.

Caroline had no idea how, but in her frenzied clawing at the bars, she’d blacked out, and somehow wound up on the other side. And then she’d run, toward freedom, toward home.

Toward parents who had still been debating whether to pay the ransom or rather wait for a hero to rescue her for free. Their already strained relationship had shattered, and never recovered.

Maybe they’d judge their daughter’s life worth it this time.

But Caroline had her doubts.

She closed her eyes and curled up on the little mat on the floor. She knew one thing – if she ever got out of here, she would run to her baby brother and tell him she loved him more than anything in the world. And then she’d hug him and never let go until he told her what had caused the recent rift between them.


***


Caroline woke up to a bag roughly sliding over her head, muffling her outraged yell.

Strong fingers dug into her upper arms and gently pulled her up, even as she kicked and struggled on instinct.

“Enough,” rasped a familiar voice, and she stopped. “Behave and you go free today.”

So Caroline cooperated, reluctantly. She let herself be bound and gagged and led outside, and then let the mercenary haul her into a van. Caroline tried to count the turns as they drove, which was kind of a pointless exercise since she had no fucking idea where they had held her to begin with.

The door slammed and she waited, not able to see a thing.

There were muffled voice outside, she could hear them. She thought… she thought one of them sounded a little like her father. Caroline’s heart was beating painfully against her ribcage. They’d come for her this time?

The door slid open and a hand was gently placed on her shoulder. “Come, girl.”

She followed, uncertainly placing one foot in front of the other in the darkness, while the mercenary guided her. But suddenly a sweaty hand gripped her tightly and threw her to the ground, yanking the bag off her head. Caroline blinked, dazed, against the sudden light, as she heard familiar voices cry her name.

They were in an empty warehouse, the kind Paragon offered in abundance. And just a few feet from her stood her parents, both looking at her with concern in their eyes.

She heard the click of a gun being cocked right next to her ear.

Her father strode forward, tightly clutching a briefcase. “We have the money,” he said with an edge to his voice. “Let her go.”

Caroline raised her head to see the old man nodding toward the mercenary, who strolled forward to casually take the briefcase.

“You’ve done your job well. There’s your payment,” the sweaty man said shrilly, his gaunt face twisted into a smile that Caroline thought entirely out of place. The mercenary merely tilted his head. “Now here is mine.”

The barrel touched Caroline’s forehead. Her eyes widened as fear threatened to suffocate her.

No, no, no.

Her father was yelling, but she couldn’t process the words. But she did hear the words of her kidnapper.

“Reynolds Industries took everything from me,” he spat. “And now I will take something from you!” He laughed, maniacal and triumphant, and Caroline squeezed her eyes shut.

A gunshot rang out.

There was no pain.

Instead there was sudden silence, and a sensation like her body was thrown into water and then tossed like a ragdoll in a vortex.

Sound returned. Screaming and yelling.

Caroline slowly opened her eyes.

She was on the other end of the hall. Her eyes widened when she saw her mother stagger and fall to the ground, clutching her stomach. The mercenary had his hand around the wrist of the other man, as if he’d tried to yank it away.

Her father roared, and she had never heard such anguish in his voice. He charged toward the man and another gunshot rang out.

Caroline’s father collapsed, too, and a sob tore from her throat.

The mercenary raised his head and met her gaze. Then he casually broke his former partner’s wrist. He screamed and dropped the gun, and the mercenary kicked it away. Then he kicked the elder man, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

And he did all this while looking directly at Caroline.

The mercenary calmly strode toward her and she madly tried to scramble away, but her bound hands and feet wouldn’t let her. He slowed his steps and came to a halt in front of her, slowly pulling his mask down.

He was smiling. And his eyes shone with admiration.

“Teleportation is such a useful gift in an assassin.”


Author's Note: Welcome to the sequel to Of Heroes And Villains! This story will stand on its own, but I strongly recommend reading the prequel first to have better insight into some of the characters who will appear within this story.

This story will, by nature of its subject matters, be less humorous than the previous one, though I hope it will remain just as entertaining. I look forward to hearing your opinion!