shut up i know how bad this title is 😭😭 i'll find smth else eventually--
i already have two oneshots just like this why am i doing this 😭 anyways here have dark!linh with a side of linhiana <3
word count: 3.5k
warnings: death and murder. kidnapping, betrayal, mentions of suicide. descriptive but not exactly gory?
THIS IS NOT EDITED AT ALL im too tired to look it over, maybe tomorrow (lying)
"Have you ever heard of me?"
Linh's voice is serene and detached, as if she couldn't care less about the man and this question is for her amusement. Which is in part the truth, but mostly she wants the man sitting in her house, bound tightly to a chair, to be silent. Maybe he was about to die, but he was so loud about it. There were plenty of other people who'd sat in that same wooden chair before, and they'd managed to cry in complete silence.
The man shudders even harder at her question. Trembles in his seat so hard he would've shaken right off if it weren't for the ropes binding him tightly. Tears run down his eyes, a flood working its way down raw cheeks and mingling with the constant stream of words he cries.
Why? Please. No!
They were words Linh has heard countless times in her life and will continue to hear countless times more. Words that no longer affect her as they should, as they once did. So many words, so many wrenching questions and desperate pleas that she grew numb after a while. It was all meaningless anyway. In the end, everyone had the same things to say.
What do you want? Have a heart. Please don't do this. I've got a family. I've got someone I love.
That love wouldn't last forever, Linh now knew. That love couldn't help death. Death made it all meaningless, in the end.
The man still hasn't answered her question, sobbing so hard he's incoherent. Linh clears her throat as a reminder, not even trying to be threatening, but fright still flashes across his face. He manages to calm himself enough to gasp, "What?"
Linh stares down at the weeping man sitting in her house, tied in place with no escape. He has a name, but Linh doesn't care to use it. He's so helpless, so weak. But just two days prior, he'd been sitting in his shiny office, swirling his signature on stiff-papered documents, waited on hand and foot. Just two days prior, he'd been at the top of the world, and now he was soon to be six feet under.
Though, really, she didn't much care about where he had been before. He could be anything, anyone, and it didn't matter. In the end, when her knife cut into him, he would bleed red. He would stop breathing. Her job would be done, she'd collect her pay, and then she'd disappear until a new job came up.
It was what it was. Linh couldn't act like she had no choice in the matter—it was her, every time, deciding to end another life—but she hadn't had much of a choice either—what is there to do, when life has robbed you of all you loved?
"Have you ever heard of me? My name? My reputation?" Her voice has the same smooth, razor edge as the knives she wields. She is calm. She is poised. She is in control.
"No. Yes? I—There are stories—"
"Stories, hm? Of what?"
Linh knows exactly what, but she wants to hear the words come out of the man himself.
He looks terrified, staring at her with wide eyes. His words are shaky and slow. "The Moonlark. Sophie Foster. She had a crew, a group of friends. But tragedies happened, and she—she trusted the wrong person."
