"He's taking too long." Aymeric Cassel murmured without taking his eyes off the rearview mirror, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in an increasingly frantic rhythm. Each band of light crossing the windshield seemed to sour his mood even more.
"It hasn't even been five minutes since we left, Aymeric," Aurore replied calmly, checking the polish on her own nails against the light of a streetlamp slipping through the window. Everything was even, no smudges. "Where did all that zen calm from your meditations go?"
Aymeric snorted. "Calm has its limits, sister. And mine is when people mess with several megacorporations at the same time. Accepting this was a terrible idea. Complete stupidity."
Aurore let out a sigh, turning her face toward the window. They had already had this conversation several times over the past few days. "Mon dieu, everything went exactly as planned. We left no traces. No one will even suspect I was at that parade." She said it with a simplicity only she could manage,, the same one that had irritated Aymeric ever since they were children.
"A residue, a single trace of data we forgot to erase, are enough to doom us!"
"Stop the drama, oui? We did everything parfaitement."
Aymeric opened his mouth to make his point clearer, but the sound of the rear door opening cut him short, making him glance back in alarm, only to see a hooded figure slide inside with the silent fluidity of a shadow.
"Sorry for the delay."
Aymeric relaxed when he recognized the voice. "Knock next time."
"There won't be a next time."
"I hope not." Aymeric started the car and floored the accelerator.
"You can activate the explosives, Aurore," the hooded figure ordered, wiping a drop of blood discreetly from his nose.
"Finally!" Her face lit up with an almost childlike delight as she happily pulled a detonator from the glove compartment. "I've always wanted to do something like this," Aurore said with a small smile before pressing the button.
In the distance, the discreet warehouse at the end of the street, the one the three of them had just left, was swallowed by a violent explosion.
BOOOOMMM!!!!
*******
[Two hours later]
"Finish this already, we need to be out of Spain today—"
"Yes, yes, little brother, we know." Aurore cut Aymeric off as she got out of the car, tired of his methodical nature, but her expression twisted in disgust as soon as the smell of the dump hit her nose. They were at a landfill on the outskirts of Madrid, the perfect place to dump and erase anything, from tech to… organic matter.
Aurore had never been to one in person, and after what she was seeing and smelling, she had no intention of coming back. "Urgh… fine, Aymeric is right. Let's get this over with quickly." She walked to the back of the vehicle, where the hooded figure was already waiting for her.
"Can you give my pistol back?" he asked, holding out his hand.
Aurore made an exaggerated pout. "I don't know… I liked it quite a lot. I think the silver finish suits me better."
"…"
"Wow, you're unbearably boring when you're like this," She complained, pulling a silenced pistol from her waist and placing it in his outstretched hand. Not before muttering, "I hate boring men."
"How many times are you going to tell me that?" He opened the trunk with his free hand. The compartment lit up, revealing the short, chubby netrunner who had been accompanying the Cassel siblings earlier. He was wearing nothing but his underwear, unconscious, with arms and legs tied and his mouth sealed with duct tape.
"Until you improve that wonderful personality of yours," Aurore replied, crossing her arms and stepping back to make room for what was about to happen.
The hooded man, with a motion that betrayed a strength far beyond his stature, pulled the netrunner out of the trunk with a single hand and let him drop onto a pile of trash.
With the other hand, he raised the pistol.
There was no hesitation. No speech. Only the mechanical efficiency of a task to be completed.
BANG!
The first shot went straight through the center of the forehead.
BANG!
The second shot went a little higher.
The hooded man lowered the weapon, leaning over the body in its final nervous spasms to confirm that the damage to the brain was enough to ensure no one could extract anything from it. It was. He stepped a few meters away from the corpse and brought a hand to his shard slot, pulling out a behavioral imprint.
'Goodbye, Jon Lee,' the hooded man thought without emotion, clenching his fist tightly. The shard shattered, reduced to several fragments. He looked around at the ground for a second before opening his hand over a food can, letting the pieces fall inside.
That was it…
It was over…
It was done…
"Haaah…" The sigh that escaped beneath the hood was deep, heavy with a weariness that went beyond the physical. He lifted his head, breathing in deeply several times the horrible air of the landfill, which at that moment, to him, smelled like only one thing: freedom.
*******
[Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, images or songs featured in this fic. Additionally, I do not claim ownership of any products or properties mentioned in this novel. This work is entirely fanfic.