The debriefing room at the Agency smelled like ozone and stale coffee. Marilyn Thorne sat on the edge of the metal table, her fingers tracing the serrated edge of her combat knife. Her mind was a chaotic playback loop of the courtyard. The face. That violet glow. The voice in her head.
"You're quiet, Thorne," Kamila said, leaning against the doorframe.
Marilyn didn't look up. She couldn't. If she looked into Kamila's sharp, observant eyes, she'd spill the truth. "Just a glitch in the HUD," Marilyn lied, her voice as cold as the rain outside. "The Obsidian Prime... it's fast. Distorts the light. I thought I saw a reflection, that's all."
"A reflection?" Kamila walked closer, the scent of her expensive leather jacket filling the small room. She placed a hand on the table, inches from Marilyn's. "Or a ghost? You looked like you'd seen a dead woman walking."
Marilyn forced a dry laugh. "We hunt demons, Kamila. We see dead things every day."
But inside, Marilyn was screaming. She remembered the day her life shattered. She was eight years old, standing in a field of wildflowers that shouldn't have existed in the city. Her father, a man who always seemed to shimmer with a faint, golden light, had been screaming. Her mother—the woman who carried herself like a queen even while scrubbing floors—was weeping.
The Agency files said her parents were "insurgents" who abandoned her. But Marilyn remembered the truth. The truth she was told casually during family dinners
Her father wasn't a criminal; he was a Solar Fae, a prince of the light. He had been cursed, his wings turning to jagged obsidian, his light rotting into demonic shadow before her eyes. Her mother, the daughter of the High Fairy King, had sacrificed her crown to elope with a "monster."
"They didn't leave me", Marilyn thought, her grip tightening on the knife until her knuckles turned white. "They were hunted. And I was left behind to become the very thing that hunted them".
"I need to go," Marilyn said abruptly, sliding off the table.
"Wait," Kamila grabbed her arm. For a second, the professional mask slipped. There was a raw, desperate hunger in Kamila's gaze, a flash of the woman who didn't know how to be loved without hurting someone.
"Yup I'm definitely seeing things" though Marylin.
Before the moment could break, Kamila's phone buzzed. She looked at the screen and her face twisted into a mask of pure venom.
"Is that him?" Marilyn asked, nodding toward the phone.
"Julian," Kamila spat the name like it was poisonous. She answered the call, her voice shifting into something cruel and sharp. "I told you not to call me at the Agency, you pathetic loser. Did you cry the whole way home? Good. Stay in the apartment. If I find one dish in the sink when I get back, you'll wish the demons got to you first."
Marilyn watched in silence. She knew Kamila was a shark in the field, but at home, she was a hurricane. She treated Julian like a possession, a punching bag for the stress of their lives. It was toxic, it was twisted, and yet... Marilyn found herself wondering what it would feel like to be the target of that intensity.
"Fuck why do I find this hot" she groaned
"He's a weak man, Marilyn," Kamila said, hanging up and stepping closer, her breath warm against Marilyn's ear. "He doesn't understand what it's like to have blood on your hands. But you... you understand."
Marilyn's heart hammered against her ribs.
"Agent Kamila, are we still talking about our jobs or is this something else?" Marylin said.
Kamila clears her throat rather shyly "I..I will see you tomorrow" and with that she hurried out.
She's the enemy. She's my partner. She's a toxic and selfish bitch.
But I want her!.
"I saw the target, Kamila," Marilyn whispered to herself. Taking a deep breath she spoke again
"But I'm not sure if I'm the hunter anymore... or the prey."