Runnin' on Empty

[Dante Sotari]

"Luck," she responded simply, reflexively.

The crowd was a problem. But it was her problem to deal with. As the pair peeled off from each other, she scanned, eyes flickering from potential to potential and back to the mark, always coming back, tracking his progress, the direction. She lost sight of Morgan, but part of her job was trusting him to do his.

It had been months. And yet it was just as easy as it had ever been. She fell into the habits hard, letting them be her focus.

There. Parked speeder. Enough to get the shorter woman a shot above the crowd.

Her muscles protested as she vaulted up onto the back of it. She was out of practice on this, and she cursed herself for not keeping in better shape. Dante hated feeling exposed, hated behind a head above the crowd now, but it was necessary. That spot in the middle of her back, between her shoulder blades, itched like mad- the feeling that she always had when she was bringing someone into her sights and had to focus her attention in that one direction. If the Atrisian had a partner in this....

She pushed the thought from her mind.

Sighting down the long barrel of the pistol, she lined up. It wasn't far, wouldn't be a difficult shot under normal circumstances. But the nature of the crowd and the dim, neon lights cast from the city around them made it less simple that she'd like. She breathed in deeply, letting out a low, low breath, deliberately slowing down her heart beat.

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Echoes"]

It was instinct that drove him.

No, it was deeper ingrained that instinct, it was like the check of your breath at the top of its momentum. There was nothing else, but that breath hitching up a ride through your lungs, in and out. This was the same. He moved and the crowd moved around him - not part of it, separate and yet inside of the moving beast.

This was too risky.

John should have taken him out before he got to the bar. There had been a window, a brief one and they had rehearsed it beforehand, just a split-second when the bar door opened and the artificial light forced itself into your eye. You were blinded and that is when the rookie would make his move and end the threat, before it had a chance to grow.

But John was dead and now they were here.

How to approach this?

Call him out to stop and there was a chance the Atrisian would simply run, making it more difficult to get a hit out, making it more likely they'd hit a civilian. Get too close and the terrorist might take the entire block out.

Not enough details, too many variables, it made his teeth itch.

...insert doubt. This was close enough that Morgan could shout and be overheard- "We got an ambush specially for you a block ahead, Shee-Ta, put your hands up and we can make all of this go away."

People around him quieted down, looking at him funny, but they didn't have a reason to take him seriously. Just an idiot, or a mad man, he wasn't swinging his blaster and these weren't the ones to go looking for trouble when there was none... for the moment. They kept on walking, but the Atrisian?

The Atrisian stopped.

"Oya? Ya want me to allow you to stick me in a hole, never to be seen again?"

 

[Dante Sotari]

She knelt on the hood of the speeder, keeping her head low but her eyes up. On one knee, she steadied her shot with one elbow on her thigh, that arm supporting her right that held the pistol.

There. Morgan made it.

She cursed softly, keeping her breathing even. They weren't partners. Didn't know each other's habits. He'd set himself up between the location she'd chosen and the target. It wasn't a direct line, not blocking her shot, but the line up brushed far closer to him than she liked. She could make the shot, that wasn't the issue. The issue was, as always, the crowd. If someone jostled him, pushed him, if there was a panick before -

The Atrisian turned around and she didn't hesitate. Letting out a low breath, she fired in the space between two heart beats.

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Echoes"]

The moment the Atrisian turned... the blaster rang and burned clean through his forehead.

Two beats.

The crowd reacted like an animal driving into a corner. First the screams, then the running, trying to get away from the blaster shot and the corpse suddenly amidst them. Morgan was calm, still somehow picking his way through the crowd as easy as breathing. Every step calculated and taken at the last moment to maximize the amount of space left for him.

Not a single time was he touched.

Once Morgan got to the trampled body he wrinkled his nose. Nothing to identify his face anymore, not after that many boots slamming into him. He went through his clothes - now an open space around him... people didn't want to be this close to a corpse, not even here. Before discovering a data-stick in one of the pockets.

He pocketed it and then once more slipped into the crowd, finding his way to Dante.

The car was safer with its height than trying to traverse the crowd. "Let's go." Head gestured to the side for a piece of the street that was now empty and where they could talk.

 

[Dante Sotari]

Training took over. She knew the shot was good even before it hit home, and she was already ducking down and scooting back out of her original position and dropping into the open speeder.

Pistol stayed out, and she confirmed the kill before putting it up, though again she didn't put it away. Crowds were fickle things and there was still a chance the Atrisian was working with someone who would sudden pop up and follow the line back to where the shot had come from. She wasn't half a kilometer or more out- she was a handful of meters away and it was a bad spot for someone like her to be.

She didn't know why, but instead of just slipping over the far side and disappearing into the crowd once he started heading back toward her, she waited. Scooting over, she shook her head, kicking open the door on his side as she went fiddling in the glove box. A triumphant grin and she dangled the key for a moment before starting it up.

"First rule, get away from the hit as fast as you can," she said as the engine powered up.

"You want to talk? Get in and buckle up."

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Echoes"]

He settled down next to her without considering a second option.

It wasn't necessary.

This was an Empire-sanctioned mission and law enforcement wouldn't hold him. A terrorist executed wasn't something that Imperial Intelligence would need to cover up, not when the Empire was already widely-known for glassing planets and more when someone stepped out of line, the execution of a terrorist was the last thing they had to worry about.

But he settled down next to her regardless. Partially curiosity, partially because that was the end of his shift for this night and didn't really have anything else going on.

John's body would already have been extracted from site at this point.

The same would be done to the Atrisian and that would be the end of that. "Thank you for having my back." The acknowledgement came easy and without worry. He had asked for her help himself, had he not? And Morgan had been right to do so: the mission was a success, the terrorist was gone and the people were safe.

 

[Dante Sotari]

Dante didn't know what the op was. Didn't know who he worked for, who had sanctioned it. She didn't know if she'd just pissed off a government, helped a drug cartel settle a turf war, or taken out a dangerous terrorist. Honestly, she didn't care. It all looked the same from the outside, she'd decided sometime in the last six months. Didn't matter what side you fought for. Everyone had their reasons, their loyalties. But from the outside, to someone who didn't have an investment? It all looked the same. So she didn't ask. Just peeled away from the curb, leaving the scene behind them without a backwards glance.

"Your partner?"

He just shook his head and that was enough. She wouldn't have left his body if it had been her, but then.....

She hadn't gone back for Bee's.

When he thanked her, she glanced at him, weighted, sidelong and appraising before bringing her attention back to the road. Her original plans to grab a room in this district had been shot all to hell, so she made her way toward the bridge to the next district over. She'd passed a couple of places that looked inexpensive enough without being concerned about having her throat slit in her sleep.

"No one should be out there without back up," she said in response after a moment.

"So, got somewhere to be?"

Casual, no different from anything she'd said so far.

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Echoes"]

Just a small peak in her blood pressure, the heat under her skin warming up a fraction when she responded.

He didn't say anything though.

Wasn't his business. "Not really no." This time his attention was on the road. Morgan didn't notice anything off from the question, because his mind was still with the kill. Both of them- one murdered, another an execution and both of them ugly in their own ways. Two lives and in exchange they made sure another school wouldn't be bombed.

Fair trade?

But John had just been a kid still, beginner, but weren't they all when they first started out? "Why?"

His eyes left the window, from unseeing to seeing, looking over to her.

 

[Dante Sotari]

As always after a hit, Dante's mind was on anything but. And there were certain ways to keep it that way, she knew.

"Cause I can either drop you off somewhere or I'll stop for a six pack and you can come back to my room with me. "

She shrugged at the end. It was clearly stated but without any teeth to it. She wasn't inviting him to 'hang out', but it was also clear that she was perfectly comfortable with both the invitation and a potential declination. There was no weight to the question, but there was interest and curiosity. About if he'd say yes.

Dante kept her attention on the bridge, one hand on the steering and the other slung over the back of the seat. She was as relaxed now as he'd seen her. Once the question was out in the air, she didn't worry about it further.

Yes or no, she'd be okay.

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Echoes"]

Brow raised a fraction, before he shrugged.

"As long as its Metellosian Dark, I will follow you anywhere, Dani." Hint of a smirk at the edge now, before the inflection of her supposed name curled around his words. Morgan didn't care what she wanted to be called, if it was Dani.. it would be Dani, but he was giving her the opportunity to give him something else if they were going to do... this.

A blink.

He looked back to the streets and the memory washed over him, not one, multiple ones in tandem. Teeth brushing against skin, his? hers? Both while nails dug deep, pressure of her body against him, the kiss deeper as hunger took over, friction rising, deeper. The cry cut off by a squeeze and the soft growl at the end.

Morgan breathed softly out through his nose.

He hoped that this sort of thing wasn't going to follow him his entire life.

 

[Dante Sotari]

She chuckled, glancing over at him and making the first turn off the bridge. She'd seen a liquor store on her walk earlier, and there was a motel within walking distance from there.

"Metellosian Dark it is, Morgan," she said with a smirk.

She didn't correct her 'name' when it came from him. She had no intentions of ever seeing him again, after this. One night. Hit it and quit it. Since losing Bee she spent even less time with the occasional liaison than she spent on any single planet. Satisfy the itch. Move along.

"But careful," she said, turning her head to look at him. She was smiling, no, smirking, but there was a certain challenge in her eyes.

"Anywhere is very, very broad. Give me an inch I'll take a mile."

[member="Elliot Locke"]

 

[Kenth Typho]

[member="Echoes"]

The tension had left him once situated next to her.

No mission, purpose gone for the evening, there was simple time to relax and enjoy life. Because was it really worth fighting, if you couldn't find the things you were fighting for and enjoy them? Morgan didn't believe so and that was how 'Dani' got a glimpse of the real Morgan underneath the one she had seen the entire night.

Lips rose up as the challenge was offered.

"Oh, you will get some mileage out of me, that is for sure." The retort came as eyes gave her a brief once over before returning to their designated areas.

That was how the rest of the night went. One challenge after another, offered, raised, met and expanded by expressions of intent contrary to supposed promises made. At the liquor store they spend more time on each other than any of the beverages, sharing a taste, before breaking away to find the mythical Metellosian Dark.

She would find that he was as comfortable dancing with her as he had been dancing in the crowd.

The door shut behind them, him pressed against it, her pressed against him. Lips curled up once more after a second taste was offered, accepted, treated and experienced. "Think the Metellosian can wait a little, while you take me for a test drive,"

It devolved from there.