Games of Chance

Twenty Two- I

Before Ravenna could see, she felt. She felt her brain's rhythmic throbbing against her skull and an unholy pain in her upper thigh, and it was this pain that forced her eyes open. Several pulsing, blurry shapes entered her field of view, but they were so sparsely distributed between dancing black spots that she couldn't even begin to make out what they were. She attempted to prop herself up, only to find that all the muscles in her arms had the combined contractile strength of two long strands of licorice. Defeated, she sunk back into the worn couch with a soft groan, burying her tired feet between the cushions.

A brown leather couch. The Eagle's couch. But that was impossible... she was supposed to be in America. In a river. Tossed between the rocks like a discarded piece of plastic. After a few moments of thought, she even remembered why she had been in the river. She remembered the Order operatives- no, these were no ordinary Order operatives. They had spikes and lasers to match her claws. They- mere humans- had nearly defeated her, a thing of metal. They'd driven her so near to revealing the truth about herself that she'd been forced to nearly end her life to escape them.

But that hadn't been all of them. That had only been her. Juliana VanderSchee. The haughty warrior princess whose 'skill' was nothing more than the product of twice her fair share of love and care. Why, if Ravenna had been raised as Juliana was, the world would long ago have been crushed under her big toe!

The very thought of Juliana was enough to bring Ravenna- somewhat- to her senses. Her vision came into focus and she looked around to find herself laying on a couch in the middle of the Eagle's workshop. The Eagle himself stood a few feet away from her, humming softly to himself as he examined something on the long table in front of him. Whatever it was, he was so focused on it that he didn't notice Ravenna was awake until she spoke. 

"How do I look?" she tipped her head backward, making a strained effort to close one eye. Her eyelids were much heavier than she remembered them being. All in all, she felt like she had been dipped in a vat of molasses, with each movement more painful and restricted than the last.

"You look terrible. And that was the saddest wink I've ever seen in my life," the Eagle said flatly, turning away from the table to look at a disappointed Ravenna. 

"Well then, E, that's not very nice." Her words came out slightly slurred, as if the muscles in her face were still in the process of waking up. 

"You were expecting me to be nice?" the Eagle nearly yelled. But only nearly. Ravenna had yet to see the stoic leader of the Jackers lose control of his emotions. "You just went and jumped into that river thinking 'oh, it's okay! E will rescue me! ' But I'll tell you what you didn't think about. You didn't think about what it would be like for me to get out of the helicopter and find you on that shore, little more than a lump of steel, skin, and bones. You didn't think about all the sleep I'd lose trying to find the right parts I'd need to put you back together- and the stress, all the damn stress of being so close to losing you. I could kill you right now, except I worked way too hard to save you." 

"Aww," Ravenna giggled, a little strength returning to her voice. "You do care." 

"...that's what you got from this?" the Eagle shook his head. "You're even farther gone than I thought." 

"Well, of course I am. You said yourself that normal is boring, and even dangerous- that the Order's power ultimately stems from normality and complacence. Why would I ever want to be normal?" 

"Can't argue with that," the Eagle chuckled, looking down at his calloused palms. An image of his first romantic interest, the skinny, blonde, picture-perfect daughter of the previous leader of the Jackers, crossed his mind. Dating her had been little more than a political ploy, designed to offer him some protection from her older brother Camden, his chief competition for the position of top Jacker. "Calia Eadley was normal. That's why I dumped her." 

If he had seen Calia floating facedown down a river, covered in blood, he doubted he would've had a very strong reaction. But with Ravenna... he would never admit it, but a small part of him almost wanted to jump into the river and drift into oblivion with her. They were both so broken, so unstable, that he wasn't certain that either of them was capable of surviving without the other. He wasn't certain that he would even want to try. 

"Calia Eadley was normal," Ravenna sniffed in disdain, bringing the Eagle's attention back to the real world. "That's why I killed her." 

"Okay, maybe that was going a little too far..." 

"She said she'd throw me and my wheelchair into the ocean and watch me drown!" Ravenna seethed. "And you didn't even try to stop her, so I had to do it myself. First thing I did when I could finally walk well enough was spill her brains on the compound wall, and I have absolutely no regrets. None of your exes are safe..." she trailed off ominously, even though she knew that Calia had been the only one. 

Something very few people knew about the Eagle was that he was young. Too young to have had a long and eventful love life, and certainly too young to have experienced the amount of death and suffering that he had. Too young to be slaving away his most productive years for a goal his predecessors had never dreamed of. Ravenna herself had been taken by surprise the first time she saw him take off his mask; she had been expecting a face hardened by physical and emotional scars, but instead, she saw youth. Life. Hope. Love. 

"Hey, that was before we knew each other-" the Eagle tried to defend himself, but was cut off by an indignant Ravenna.

"I still haven't forgiven you."

"Good," the Eagle nodded. "I would be disappointed if you had."