Chapter Text
The streets of San Francisco are cold at night even in the summer; thick blankets of dark fog roll in from the Bay with a bitter sea breeze, amassing over hilltops and snuffing out the low-hanging evening sun before it’s done setting.
Sage tugs her sweater tighter over herself, but refuses to find shelter somewhere warmer as she wanders down the sloping streets of Chinatown. In the bright lights of flashing, illuminating signs, her egg tart is awash in a glow, a small piece of home that she couldn’t help but pick up despite the rush she’s in.
She’s hunting someone. The all-elusive Reyna, a rogue agent from Mexico. Rumors have swirled around her for over three years now: that she’s a killer, a cold-blooded operative—yet also that anyone who’s dared to contract her has gotten what they wanted three-fold.
Protocol has never liked putting their future in the hands of the unknown. Rumors are rumors, after all; baseless, for the most part. Whispers passed around by the faceless, those with ulterior motives, with things to gain, or even those who simply don’t know what they’re saying.
Reyna sounds like someone straight out of a fairytale. Still, Protocol needs someone like that—a ruthless, mythical being, if they want to survive the next two years. It’ll be a full frontal assault against global governments, and they need someone exactly like Reyna—someone who will get the job done, and then some.
They’d decided it’d be worth the risk. That perhaps, it was time to start believing in fairytales, if only for the year.
Reyna hasn’t been easy to find. Over the years, Killjoy and Cypher have worked tirelessly to track her location; she’s often in Mexico, but there are months on end where she’s unaccounted for, seemingly having vanished into the desert air. She’s a fighter, but her resources are just as good as Protocol’s.
Today, though, is different: today is Reyna’s sister’s birthday. She’s a smaller kid going by the name of Lucia, in her second year of college at the University of San Francisco. Killjoy had said with absolute certainty that Reyna wouldn’t miss out on Lucia’s birthday, no matter what corner of the world she’d been in last, and Sage had agreed, subsequently setting out for San Francisco.
The lights of Chinatown fade into something softer and more faint as Sage slowly moves past small bakeries and foreign banks, into a quieter residential neighborhood. She’s slowly tracing her way to the university, taking note of the buildings around her, the sweetness of her half-eaten egg tart resting lightly on her tongue.
She doesn’t know quite what she’s looking for just yet. Would Lucia throw a party, music spilling out the windows and walls of her house? Or would her birthday be a quieter event, classy dark dresses in some corner of an upscale restaurant? They weren’t able to pull much information on Lucia. Even her existence was hard to uncover—Reyna had clearly gone to great lengths to hide her.
So, she waits, keeping her eyes and ears open for any signs as she sweeps her way towards campus. Tonight is critical; if she doesn’t find Reyna now, there’s no saying when she’d next see her.
Sage is halfway down the street connecting a small flower shop to main campus when she sees it: a tall, half-slanted building, with windows letting out strobe lighting and loud music indiscriminately. A party.
As good of a chance as any, she decides as she walks towards the house. Parties are the easiest to infiltrate of them all; and she certainly looks the part with her crisp winged liner and lip-gloss she never goes without.
She discards her sweater on the porch of the house, eyeing her cropped black tube-top critically before deeming it more than acceptable for the occasion. The door to the house is unlocked, and she swings it open quietly.
The heat of the room engulfs her immediately. The house is full of people, so much so that Sage grits her teeth as she squeezes by the mass of limbs by the door, feeling their sweat linger on her arms.
In the living room, she looks up to see hundreds of streamers and bright balloons crowding the ceiling in a messy fashion. In the dim lighting, it’s hard to make out the words, but Sage squints and tries her best.
Birthday girl , the first one spells out.
Another says, Happy-happy-birthday!
Then, on the wall, are large gold letters spelling L-U-C-I-A .
With satisfaction, Sage pushes further into the building.
Her eyes drift past the crowds of people—she’s in the right place, but that doesn’t mean finding Reyna or her sister will be easy. The building is large, and more importantly, it’s so dark that Sage can hardly see the faces of the people in front of her. It’s a blur, as if some grayscale filter had been passed over her eyes.
With a loose breath, Sage dives into the crowd, feeling bodies pressed up against bodies. People eye her with interest—they always do, Sage thinks slyly—and when their eyes linger on Sage for too long, she gives them a big, pretty smile before ducking out of the circle.
Reyna has dark-magenta highlights and a pair of large gold-hoop earrings that she never leaves without, Sage had gathered from the pictures in her folder. She keeps her eyes peeled for that kind of figure, for the glimmer of hoops along the nape of someone’s neck.
“What’s your name?” someone slurs in her ear, and Sage looks up to see a man with eyes lidded, staring at her with an interest that leaves Sage’s skin crawling.
“Do you know a Reyna?” Sage shouts up at him, in lieu of a response. He crinkles his nose, confused, before shaking his head.
“Wanna come to bed?” he persists, but Sage presses her lips in the semblance of a smile and pushes past him. He stumbles, but doesn’t follow.
In another corner of the room, this time by the staircase, there are plenty of gold-hooped girls sitting on each step, some slumped over each other, some puffing clouds of smoke into the already-hazy atmosphere of the party. Sage stands at the bottom, gazing up at each of them, but none of them seem to look like Reyna. The picture in her mind of bright, intense violet eyes doesn’t match any of them.
She mingles back into the crowd, pausing to dance with a group of cat-eyed girls because Please Don’t Stop The Music by Rihanna is on, and even if Sage is on a mission, she simply doesn’t have the heart to resist. She bumps to the music until the last notes fade out, before smiling prettily and ducking her head to exit the group.
She drifts, and drifts, until she’s by the drinks table. The floor around it is sticky with vodka and god-knows-what-else, but she lingers nonetheless. She shouldn’t drink tonight, but surely Reyna would?
“What is a pretty girl like you doing without a drink?” someone croons from beside her. It’s a woman, but Sage doesn’t like being hit on, regardless.
She turns to make quick conversation before taking her exit, but upon spinning around, she comes face-to-face with those bright violet eyes she’d been looking for.
Reyna. She’d come to Sage, in the end. And there’s no doubt it’s her: vibrant magenta highlights, framed by large gold hoops, sharp violet eyes, and a bright-red-lip. It’s her. And she’s hot . Sage lets her eyes linger on Reyna for far too long, confirming her target with the excuse of checking her out. (Or maybe it’s the other way around, but who’s to say?)
“I was waiting for someone like you to pour one for me,” Sage says with a smile. “If you wouldn’t mind?”
Reyna returns the smile with a slight tilt of the head, amused. “Sure,” she says. “What would you like?”
“A shot is good,” Sage returns. “Will you do one with me?”
“Anything for the pretty girl,” Reyna says with a wink. Sage reminds herself that she’s on a mission. She accepts the red-solo shot cup with a wide smile, one that stretches her glossy lips, and holds it up.
“Cheers,” she says, and downs the shot. From the corner of her eye, Reyna taps the shot on the table, before shooting it. The cheap vodka fills her nose and shoots like burning fire down her throat, but it’s a nice warmth in comparison to the chilly San Francisco evening.
“Another?” Reyna offers. She wants to get Sage drunk, Sage thinks.
“Another won’t hurt,” Sage acquiesces anyway.
Reyna pours another out with steady hands, even though there’s a cloud of alcohol on her breath that Sage can smell from right next to her.
They take the second shot, Sage swallowing gracefully despite the burning in her nose.
She stares up at Reyna, who murmurs, “Shall we dance?”
Sage lets herself get pulled into the crowd, flush against Reyna’s body. She’s in a loose mesh top that leaves nothing to the imagination, and Sage circles her arms around Reyna’s neck, playing at the string tying it all together. It’s partly because she doesn’t want to lose Reyna after having found her. It’s partly, because, well. Sage doesn’t really need to say.
“How old are you?” Reyna asks, lips pressed close to Sage’s ear.
“Twenty-one,” she answers.
Reyna nods, pleased. “Twenty-two,” she replies. Sage smiles up at her, and tightens her arms around Reyna. They sway to the beat—some newer song that Sage hasn’t kept up with, and neither has Reyna, clearly.
“What’s your name?” Sage asks in return, tip-toeing to talk in Reyna’s ear.
Reyna gazes down at her with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. “You know my name. You were looking for me.”
Sage feels a flush rising on her cheeks, which she quickly blames on the vodka. One shot isn’t enough to do much, but she does have Asian flush, which has to mean something . “Yes,” she answers shortly. “I was. Reyna.”
Reyna smiles. “And you are?”
“Sage.” Before Sage can say much else, Reyna’s leaning forward, hot breath fanning out on Sage’s lips.
“We have much to talk about,” she says, as if long-expecting Sage. “But not here.” She leans forward even further, and Sage feels a heat rising in her lungs as she stares at the clusters of Reyna’s lashes.
Sage is the one who closes the distance, eyes sliding shut as their lips meet. It’s by no means a gentle kiss; it’s a testy one. Sage tastes the tang of lipstick, tastes her own melon-gloss, and savors it even as Reyna begins leading them out of the crowd.
“In the bedroom,” she breathes. “That will be a good place.” And then she leans down to kiss Sage again.
She’s a convincing performance , Sage thinks hazily. They slowly make their way out of the crowd, hands all over each other’s bodies, lips all over the other’s. The shot of vodka Sage had taken sits like a small fire in the back of her throat, igniting her, her desires.
Then, they’re going up the stairs. It’s a balance and a dance; Reyna leads her while Sage takes tentative steps backwards up the steps in the dark, hands and mouth busy all the while. She dodges limbs, fingers, and one girl passed out at the top of the stairs.
Before she knows it, the door is clicking behind Reyna, and finally, finally, there is a subdued silence about the room.
Sage gives her one last kiss, before breaking apart, hands pushing at Reyna’s mesh top so that she can look her right in the eyes.
“Reyna,” she says.
“You’re from Protocol,” she replies with a curl of her lips. There’s a thin sliver of moonlight peeking through the half-closed blinds in the room, and it falls gently over her magenta hair, highlighting them almost an ethereal lavender.
“I am,” Sage says with a nod.
Reyna rakes her eyes over Sage’s form, stepping a little bit closer. Sage’s breath catches in her throat as Reyna says, “I’ve heard about your group. Global resistance against organized government. Yes?”
“Among other things,” Sage replies dryly, though she’s torn between being proud of the organization she’d help found and being wary of the fact that Protocol’s secrecy was nothing but an illusion to those skilled enough to find it. Reyna would be very, very dangerous as an enemy. “I’m cutting the bullshit, Reyna: we want you to join us.”
Reyna extends a finger to point at herself with an amused smile. “Me? Why is that?”
“I just said ,” Sage huffs. “I’m cutting the bullshit. You know why we want you.”
Reyna barks out a sharp laugh, before gazing down at her nails. They’re perfectly sharp and filed, though there’s a chip in her index finger. Her trigger finger , Sage thinks grimly.
“If we’re cutting the bullshit,” Reyna says coldly. “Then I will say this upright—I want no part in your organization. Or any organization. I don’t subscribe to any of your silly ideals.”
This is a hint of the Reyna that Sage has read about in so many case files—cold, calculating, brusque. It makes Sage wonder if the Reyna leading her up the stairs had been closer to the real Reyna, or a caricature light years away. Sage grits her teeth, letting out a loose breath. She’d read Reyna wrong.
“Let me start over,” she says forcefully. “Allow me to give you the proper pitch.”
Reyna spreads her arms as if to say, I’m all ears.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of the invaders,” Sage starts. “The ones from Omega Earth.”
Reyna nods, and Sage does not expect much else. She’d been hunting them down in Mexico for ages.
“We already share the goal of eradicating them,” Sage says with a twisted smile. “They do not belong on our planet. They should not be collecting Radianite weapons to start a war.”
“Many people share that goal,” Reyna mutters.
“Protocol is a group of the brightest, deadliest people from all over the globe,” Sage says. “We’re united by the common goal of tearing down corruption by unorthodox means—methods that will actually make a difference. We’re not scared of a little blood, Reyna. Surely, you understand that,” Sage says with a wry smile.
This makes Reyna smile in return, canines gleaming even in the dark. “Yes.”
“We sought you out for several reasons,” Sage continues, holding up three fingers. “First, you fit a piece of our puzzle. You’re a strong, ruthless fighter. You have firepower that we need.”
“I cannot be the only one in the world who is a fighter,” Reyna laughs.
Sage dips her head in acquiescence. “Yes, but you share our ideals. From what we saw, you are strongly in opposition to many of the global forces that we work against. You understand our vision.”
Reyna stands silently for a brief moment, before taking three swift steps and easing onto the bed behind Sage with an elegance. “You cannot say for sure,” she says.
“No, we can’t,” Sage says with a small laugh. “But either way, it seems you’re more inclined to our ideals than to the other side. And that is my third point: we would rather have you as an ally than our enemy. You’re deadly, Reyna. You know this.”
“I do not like taking orders,” Reyna states with a twisted scowl. “For either side. Your side has nothing to offer me, but I can say that I am not anymore inclined to join the other side. Is that enough for you?”
Sage thinks of leaving this woman behind in this San Francisco house, and finds that she greatly dislikes this idea. She persists: “We’re a team, but we’re very independent. Everyone has their side projects. None of the things you’d like to do have to stop once joining Protocol. All of your projects in Mexico—those can stay. We can even provide aid."
Reyna snorts. “In return for my life? That is not very convincing. Is that all?”
“I could tell you about all the insurance and tax benefits, but I doubt you’d care,” Sage says dryly.
Reyna raises an eyebrow, a hint of a smile perking the corners of her mouth. “You guys pay taxes?”
Sage grins. “No, we don’t. That’s the benefit.”
Reyna laughs loudly at that, leaning backwards onto the bed. There’s an amused glint to her eyes that captivates Sage, even as she smiles even wider. Like a cloud of smoke, the tension building in the room disperses, to Sage’s relief.
“I like you, Sage,” Reyna concedes with a crooked smile. “I do not like Protocol, but you’re interesting.”
“You can be pretty hot, I guess,” Sage returns with a shrug and a barely concealed smile. She’s not sure what game Reyna is playing with, but Sage would take it over a fight any day.
“I mean that genuinely,” Reyna says, as if reading her mind. Her smile fades, though, as she sits back up, hand resting gently on the bulge hooked to her belt that Sage had long cataloged as her pistol. “Still, to your offer, I must say no.”
As if unable to be serious for one second , Sage laughs, and says, “Did you mean my Protocol offer or the one to fuck you?” Then: “Fuck, sorry, I’m usually not—this way.”
Reyna seems taken aback for one second, before throwing back her head in laughter. “You are a lightweight, Sage. But yes—I was referring to your offer to join Protocol. The latter, I am more agreeable to.”
Sage shrugs. “I’m not looking for a fight. I’m sure you’ve long weighed your options for and against joining Protocol, if you’ve known I was coming for you. Just know, if you ever change your mind, there is a team of people looking to support you and your goals—with just a little bit of murder required.” She figures she should give the sales pitch anyway, in case Reyna suddenly changes her mind.
She doesn’t. She waves it all off with a dismissive hand, but Sage expects as much. There’s a real hunger in her gaze, though, as it rakes up and down Sage’s body. Sage shivers, but takes a small step forward, savoring as Reyna’s eyes follow her movement.
She takes another step forward, then another, then one last, until she’s standing in between Reyna’s legs. Despite the chill of the night, brought in by the open window, there’s a heat where their skin meets.
“Shall we?” Reyna murmurs, eyes boring into hers.
Sage leans forward until their lips meet, pushing them both onto the bed.
-
They fall asleep at some unknown hour of the morning, amongst wrinkled and ruined sheets. Sage hadn’t bothered to put a shirt on, so she sleeps with a chill racing up and down her spine until her arm meets the warmth of Reyna’s chest, which she then takes into stride, pulling Reyna’s arm to wrap around her body.
Their bodies are sticky with drying sweat. Sage’s hair is tied up into a loose bun that is falling apart, but Reyna’s hair is loose and wild, strands falling like little rivers across her pillow, all the way across Sage’s neck. Sage wakes up like this: Reyna’s body a steady heat on her back, her hair tickling Sage’s chin.
It’s still dark. For a moment, Sage isn’t entirely sure why she’s awake. Then, there’s a shrill scream in the night, one that has both her and the previously-asleep Reyna jumping out of bed.
Sage is furiously throwing her tube top over her head when Reyna whispers alertly, “You?” She’s ever-elegant despite the disheveled state that they were just in.
Sage shakes her head. “No,” she says softly. Before she can get another word in, there’s a loud crack , and Reyna is rushing out the door, pistol gleaming in the moonlight.
Sage follows, heart beating wildly as she tries to make sense of their surroundings. They’re still in the house, but the party is long over. There are people passed out on the floors, but the house is silent, and the majority of the partygoers had long left.
That leaves a couple people who could possibly be in the house. One of whom in particular, Sage thinks, as Reyna pushes open a door down the hall, is—
“ Lucia! ” Reyna yells, rushing into the dimly-lit room.
There’s a figure crumpled on the floor of the room. While Reyna rushes to her side, Sage fervently scans the room around them. Lucia’s window is open, letting in chilly drafts of the San Francisco breeze, her lace curtain fluttering alongside it. Seeing as neither Reyna nor Sage had encountered anyone on their way to Lucia’s, the assailant must have left through the window.
Without a present danger, Sage falls to Lucia’s side. Reyna has shoved a wad of bedsheets against Lucia’s chest, but despite the darkness, Sage sees the blood blooming along the seams of it, seeping to the floor.
“Gunshot?” Sage asks sharply, assessing the scene.
It’s only then that Reyna remembers Sage is still with her. Her head snaps to Sage, a feral glint in her eyes. “Did you do this?”
“I was with you,” Sage reminds her gently. “Let me check on her. We can figure out the details later. She needs to stay alive, first and foremost.”
Reyna drops the bedsheets, grabbing her gun. She points it at Sage, who takes the chance and lifts the linen off of Lucia, examining her wound.
“You will save her,” Reyna orders. “If you save her, I will go with you. If she dies, I will kill you.”
It’s the kind of ultimatum that Sage would rather not have come to. She exhales loosely, and says, “You didn’t deserve this, Reyna. I’ll save her, but you don’t have to come with me. That decision is still for you to make.”
“I don’t care,” Reyna snarls. “ Save her .”
Sage reaches up towards the bedside table to flip on a lamp. In the warm glow of the light, Lucia’s face is pale, framed by a dark pixie cut that Sage recognizes from her student ID that Killjoy had sent to Sage weeks prior.
Applying pressure to the wound, Sage feels for Lucia’s pulse. It’s erratic yet weak, in the kind of way that is so atypical that Sage leans over to touch Lucia’s neck, finger glowing in the process.
“Fuck,” Sage says softly. “Poison.”
Sage leans back to search for Lucia’s pulse again, only to find it gone. “Fuck.”
She places both of her hands on Lucia’s chest, pushing her energy through with all her might. The jade beads on her wrist glow as her hands fill the room with a pale-green light. Despite it all, Lucia does not respond. Her pulse does not recover.
Sage sits back weakly. “Foxglove,” she says softly.
“What?” Reyna demands.
“Foxglove is a poison,” Sage says, staring blankly at Lucia’s ruffled bedsheets now soaked in blood. “Recently, it was discovered that foxglove inhibits the body from responding to Radianite in any way. If I were to take it, I wouldn’t be able to heal. If you were to take it—”
“My sister?” Reyna interrupts, a hard edge to her voice.
Sage presses her lips together, feeling the unrounded words in her mouth before speaking them: “She’s passed, Reyna. I can’t heal her. I’m sorry.”
She was gone so fast.
Reyna’s still holding the gun high. Sage half expects to die in the moment, only, she remembers the conversation they’d had earlier in the night, how Reyna had said with a curl of her lips, I like you.
“Who did this?” Reyna says softly. Sage stares directly at the barrel of the gun as she replies,
“I don’t know.” She wants to tell Reyna that she’d do everything to help her find the person who’d killed her sister, but she’s sure Reyna wouldn’t appreciate another sales pitch. “I’m sorry, Reyna,” she says instead, making sure her movements are slow as she draws the bloody bedsheets over Lucia’s body. “I’m so sorry.”
“Who did this?” Reyna repeats, more to herself than anything. Sage looks away, only to give her a semblance of privacy as tears trace her cheeks. Something tells her that Reyna doesn’t cry often. That she wouldn’t want Sage to see it, either.
“They must have known about you,” Sage says into the cold night. “Maybe even about me. The foxglove—that’s not a coincidence.”
Reyna laughs coldly at that. “Protocol was the only to ever know about my sister.”
“We would not have done this,” Sage says hotly, heart clenching at the scene. “This—this is just cruel, Reyna.”
Sage remembers burying her parents in Chaoyang, in an unmarked grave only a kilometer away from where she’d grown up. There are few things harder to swallow than the deaths of those you love. There are few things harder to get up from, and continue to live .
“Then who?” Reyna asks, her index finger swiping at the teardrop underneath her eye.
“They must have been very informed,” Sage says. “And very fast. Very precise with their gun despite their speed. Only a single bullet was fired.”
“And gone, so quickly,” Reyna says with her eyes trained on the open window.
“Reyna,” Sage says. Reyna’s eyes flick towards her, though her body remains unmoving, hands steady on her pistol pointing towards Sage despite it all. “I give you my word: this was not Protocol’s doing. We were trying to recruit you. Killing your sister would not have made you very sympathetic to our cause. Someone else must have taken advantage of this night. They must have known we were out to recruit you.”
Her glittering violet eyes sweep over Sage’s form, not quite analytically, but with a sharp, unfiltered interest. Sage had seen it last night, before they’d fallen into bed together. She supposes it’s better than a look that spells murder—she wouldn’t be walking away from that.
“I gathered as much,” she says. “You are not fools.” She lowers her gun slowly. Her tears are gone, replaced with a smooth, blank mask of a face. Reyna is a strong woman, Sage thinks. Someone who has had everything taken from her and lives, despite it all.
“No,” Sage agrees. She gets to her feet, head momentarily dizzy as she heads towards the open window. Dawn is starting to break on the horizon, and the sky is a shade of blue far softer than Sage has ever seen, all mist and fog. “If you’d accept, Protocol would be happy to help with any funeral service. No strings attached. I’m sorry this happened to you, Reyna.”
There’s a moment of silence as Reyna says nothing. Sage turns from the window to see her staring at the bedsheet over Lucia’s unmoving form, and looks away again, unwilling to intrude on Reyna’s private moment. Instead, she stares out at the city-scape, at the tendrils of light slowly filtering in with the rolling fog. The chill in the air hasn’t lessened in the slightest. She shivers.
“I did not expect your humanity,” Reyna says. “From someone in that kind of organization.”
Sage gazes back at Reyna, at her tear-tracks down her cheeks, and tries to reconcile it with the image of Reyna she’d come in with: a cold-blooded killer, an isolated maelstrom after nothing but death. They don’t quite fit.
“We’re human,” Sage settles on. “We do human things.”
Reyna’s lips curl at that. “Yes, I suppose.”
Sage looks back out towards the rising sun.
“You said,” Reyna starts. “That each member of Protocol has their own projects.”
“Yes,” Sage answers, closing the window gently before settling on the floor a few feet away from Reyna. “As long as the members are still working on our central goal, we assist them in achieving their personal ones, as well.”
“If I were to join Protocol, you would aid me in finding my sister’s murderer.”
“We could start right now,” Sage says. “I’d go outside with you and case the surroundings of this house, and see if any evidence was left behind.”
“Out of personal desire or contractual obligation?” Reyna asks, eyes staring down at the two golden rings on Lucia’s finger, sticking out from under the bed sheet.
“Both,” Sage replies. “If you were a part of Protocol—it would be both. But I would do that with you anyway, even if you decide not to join.”
Reyna’s eyes flash. “Why?”
“You’re like me,” Sage says, and then does not elaborate. Based on the way the corners of Reyna’s lips curl, though, she understands. “And besides,” she says wryly, “I think I like you.”
Reyna doesn’t reply. She reaches over the few feet between them, crossing a cavernous divide as she sticks her right hand out. Sage stares down at her perfectly manicured nails, at the ink and swirls encasing her palm, and smiles, widely.
Despite it all—despite the absolutely cruel circumstances—Reyna is offering Protocol her allegiance. Sage had succeeded, after all. Even if she’d rather never see that look on Reyna’s face again—one of terror and grief.
“Welcome to the team,” she says, encasing Reyna’s palm with her own as they shake on it. “Protocol will assist you in any way we can.”
“And I will assist Protocol, in any way I can,” Reyna returns. Her sharp smile isn’t the same as it was yesterday—it’s muted, a little softer in a way that spells grief. Given the circumstances, Sage can only return with a smile that spells kindness.
“We’re lucky to have you.”