meet me in the afterglow

Ellery Clarke pushes up her sunglasses and squints out at the fluorescent-blue sea. Her bathing suit is sticking to her back, a mixture of saltwater and sweat making her feel overall rather grimy. When she had decided to take her annual leave in Curacao after listening to Beth rave about the beaches there for months, she had neglected to remember how much she hated being hot. Sighing, she sets her margarita down and stands up, stretching to try and rid herself of some of the uncomfortable tightness the salt left on her skin, and gathers her towel and purse from the lounge chair. She needed a shower.

An hour later, she did leave the bathroom feeling more appropriately relaxed for a vacation. Admittedly, the water pressure at the resort was fantastic. It was 6 pm. She considers ordering room service. Then she considers her conversation with Beth, and decides that may be leaning into the apparent antisocial problem she had, so instead, she puts on her nicest dress that wasn’t business-casual, and a pair of heels that she knows she will regret later on, and swipes on some lip gloss after reapplying the SPF that promises a ‘soft, dewy glow.’ Looking in the mirror, she thinks she looks rather silly. Beth would probably say she looked hot.

There are no open tables at the restaurant, so Ellery sits at the bar, looking idly over the menu. She orders a bay breeze and a plate of calamari. The glass they give her is ridiculously small. Probably to increase reorders. She thanks the bartender with a polite smile and looks to her food, suddenly lost. It had been a long time since Ellery had just… sat. At a bar. Sometimes, if she was feeling like treating herself, she would take her case files to a nice restaurant and sit in a booth by herself and work as she ate and nursed a glass of wine. But this? She’s too old for this. She was… good god, only twenty-eight? She did need to get a life. How did people go to bars alone?

Ellery twists around in her seat, balancing her elbow on the edge of the bar, and stares out over the sea of vacationers. She likes people watching. Even if she gets the annoying itch to pull out her journal and take notes. There is a young couple at a small corner table, lit romantically by candles— on their honeymoon? An anniversary? Honeymoon, if she had to guess. The twelve-top on the far side holds a group of eight. Family vacation. Probably a holiday present. The rowdy twenty-something girls down the bar… bachelorette party, she’s sure of it. They all belonged here. Ellery did not. She's about to return— rather morosely— to her food, when she sees her. Dark curls tumbling over porcelain skin— almost translucent in the dim restaurant light— glitter smattered like constellations across aristocratic cheekbones, her lips merlot red… bodies pressed flush against the wall, maroon staining her collarbone in the perfect imprint of a kiss… Ellery can’t breathe, her fingers curling into suffocating fists in her lap, a deep, aching warm growing in her stomach.

Across the room, Florence Black’s dark eyes, lined with smokey coal, meet hers. And her face lights up. Really lights up, in every sense of the words. Ellery can’t decide if it is beautiful or terrifying. She reaches blindly for her glass and brings it shakily to her lips, draining it in one gulp. In that time, Florence had closed the distance between them and draped herself languidly against the bar— a tiger stalking her prey.

“Hi,” she smiles. That voice. Low and just slightly raspy, the barest hint of some untraceable accent in the way her tongue formed around the words.

Against her better judgment, Ellery leans in closer. “What are you doing here?” she hisses through gritted teeth.

Florence tilts her head. “You tell me,” she says. “Aren’t you following me?”

Ellery opens her mouth. She closes it again. She opens it. “No,” she settles on, if only to stop her impression of a fish. “I’m on vacation.”

“You didn’t know I would be here.” It isn’t a question.

“No,” says Ellery, finding herself distracted as her eyes attempted to follow the lines of a stray curl falling over Florence’s bare shoulder. It hangs just shy of the neckline of her silky dress, gossamer-thin straps made of tiny diamonds sparkling in the dim light. She tears her gaze away, distracted again by the heavy signet ring on the hand that reaches up to brush away the offending curl… she had felt its cold metal when bony fingers wrapped around her throat… Ellery forces herself to meet Florence’s gaze. “Does that bother you?”

Florence leans in far too close, her breath ghosting the shell of Ellery’s ear as she chuckles. “And they say fate isn’t real…” She smells of some sort of fruity, island drink. Odd, Ellery thinks idly. She doesn't seem the type. Ellery had only ever seen her drink whiskey.

“What?”

Scarlett lips curl into some semblance of a smile. “Do you want to get out of here?”

Ellery’s stomach swoops, the warmth sliding lower. She reaches for her drink before remembering she’d rather unwisely drained it in preparation. Even more unwisely, she finds herself nodding.

As she follows Florence out of the restaurant, her calamari forgotten, she tries to tell herself it was to gather intel. That required a private conversation. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with how fucking gorgeous Florence Black looked. Or what had happened the last time they had seen each other. Or… Ellery pinches herself. It hurts. Not dreaming, then.

“What are you doing, Ellery?”

Her gaze snaps back to the woman in question. Heat floods her cheeks. “Making sure I’m awake.” she says loftily, determined not to let Florence get the upper hand this time. “Have you been watching me?”

“I had no idea you were here,” Florence says, matching her tone. “Like I said, fate…”

“It’s not fate.” Ellery huffs. “It's just a big coincidence.”

She grins, all teeth. “You’re right. I don’t believe in fate. Or coincidences.”

They had stopped. Without thinking, Ellery had walked straight back to her suite, and now Florence Black is looking at her expectantly, as if she is waiting for Ellery to just… open the door. Which she can’t. It was so, so very unprofessional. She can’t just… She unlocks the door. Florence follows her in. She pretends not to notice how her thumb subtly clicks the lock behind her.

In the harsh overhead light of the room, Ellery thinks she looked tired. Under all the glitz and glamor, her curls are frizzier and the shadows under her eyes darker. Certainly not the picture of vivacious— if not particularly vitriolic— youth she usually put out.

She had not turned the air conditioning on before she left, and the silence and heat are suddenly stifling. She’s distinctly aware of a trickle of sweat running down her back as Florence circles her, appraising, somehow taking in every intricacy of the suite and every breath Ellery takes all at once.

“Florence,” she says. Her voice cracks slightly. Her mouth is very dry.

“Hmm…?” It’s a throaty sound. Something between and growl and a purr that makes Ellery’s knees tremble far more than it should. Then she blinks and Florence is suddenly right there, inches— no, centimeters— away from her face. She can count every particle of glitter on her cheekbones, and notes vaguely that there’s a thin sheen of sweat on her skin, too. Her hand rests on her waist, and Ellery can feel the coldness of her ring through the too-thin material of her dress. All her senses are in overload, and she knows she’s going to make a very, very big mistake.

Florence Black kisses her. Or she kisses Florence. In retrospect she isn’t sure who leaned in first, but it doesn’t matter because her back is against the wall and Florence’s hips are pinning her there so that she couldn’t move even if she wanted to, and her hands slide through her hair, curling into her scalp and Florence hisses, breaking contact for a moment and then refocusing on her jaw, her throat, her collarbone… then her teeth sink into the soft base of her neck, so very reminiscent of that night, and Ellery’s eyes snap open.

Her body remembers how to move again. She shoves her as hard as she can. “Florence!”

The woman stumbles back, lipstick smudged to hell and pupils blown wide, her hair mussed from Ellery’s fingers. Ellery’s neck is throbbing. Her chest heaves.

“Are you here on a job? ” she demands.

Florence cackles. Actually cackles. Throws back her head, mouth open wide, and laughs brutally in Ellery’s face. She takes a few steps backwards and sinks into a chair, propping her chin up on one hand. “Is that really what you are going to ask me right now?”

Childishly, Ellery crosses her arms and glares. Resolute. “Yes. Florence. Or have you—”

“Do you really think I would just kiss and tell?”

“You already kissed,” the words just slip out, bringing with them a fresh wave of heat to her cheeks and… other places. “So tell.”

Slowly, the humor drains from her expression. Her eyes seem to glaze over. “No.” she says, turning her chin up. “I am on a… temporary leave of absence.”

Ellery can’t help herself. She scoffs. “Wow. Assassins get paid vacation leave. We’ve gotta up our game.”

“It’s not a vacation.” Florence spits. “It’s a punishment.”

“What are they punishing you for?”

“They do not think that I am…” her eyes focus on a spot somewhere around Ellery’s left foot. That tiredness is back again. She looks much older than twenty-three, and somehow much younger. “Psychologically fit to be in the field. It’s bullshit.”

That didn't make any sense. Florence Black was The Mirage’s prized possession. She thought of that night. Of teary eyes and bruised cheeks. She thought of her last few jobs. She had thought they felt… off, hadn’t she? She turns her attention back to Florence. “...You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?”

“You wouldn’t like to be told you were not good at your job.” she says, petulantly.

“Why?” Ellery asks. “I mean, why… 'Psychologically unfit?' ”

“I didn’t come here for a therapy session, Ellery.”

“...Why did you come here?”

“I don’t know.” she says, and she looks and sounds just as at a loss as Ellery is. “You are the first… exciting thing on this stupid island. Maybe I missed you.”

“You didn’t miss me.” Ellery argues.

Florence leans forward, a bit of a spark in her eyes, now. In a way it's a relief. In another way it makes Ellery’s stomach clench. Her heart throbs in tandem with her throat. “Do you still think about it?”

“No,” she says. Lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” says Florence. “I can tell by how you kiss me.”

She reaches for Ellery’s hand. Just one tug, and Ellery is following— a perfect marionette. She stands. Nose to nose.

“I think about it all the time…”

“Florence…” she closes her eyes. Tries to ground herself. “What are we doing? I can’t do this. I could lose my job.”

“You are on vacation.”

“The Mirage wouldn’t appreciate you screwing the enemy, would they?” Ellery bites out.

Florence shrugs, “They already think I’m unstable.”

Is that what they think? Ellery wonders somewhere in the back of her mind, before Florence’s hands on her hips again pulls her back to reality. “I could lose my job.” she repeats. “It isn’t right.”

“Are you going to write field notes of your vacation?” Florence retorts. “You left the moral high ground a long time ago, Ellery.”

It stings, because Ellery knows she’s right. She has no high ground to stand on, anymore, her place at the agency already hanging precarious. If Florence Black is going to drive her mad, she may as well expedite the process.

She runs her fingers slowly over Florence’s cheek, dusting glitter. “Is it because of me?” she asks, suddenly feeling very bold. “That they benched you?”

“Shut up.” says Florence. And she kisses her again.

Ellery’s back hits the edge of the table and she stumbles, unable to right herself before Florence has lifted her onto it and is hitching up her skirt, sinking to her knees between her legs, and in those too-long seconds, her gasp is drawn out for an eternity.

Ellery wakes with the taste of salt on her lips. The sunlight coming through the open windows carried with it the warm, tangy seabreeze. She rolls over, squinting at the other side of the bed. Only rumpled linens meet her eyes. She is distinctly aware of the fact that she is naked.

She sits up, hugging the topsheet to her chest, and tries to gather her bearings.

“Hi.”

Florence. Sitting in the armchair on the other side of the room. She’s clearly been gone. Wearing a fresh baby-blue sundress and all glitter gone from her face. And she’s holding a postcard.

“What time is it?” Ellery asks.

“Eleven,” says Florence, her voice uncharacteristically soft. It doesn’t feel right.

Still clutching the sheet around her, Ellery slides out of bed and grabs a t-shirt— the baggy one she usually wears to bed— off the floor, and pulls it on. Florence watches her every move. Still clutching the postcard.

“They want me back, Ellery.” she says. And she sounds almost… sad.

The feeling of unrightness expands, wrapping like cords around her heart. Constricting. “What?”

Florence stands up. In the sun, the marks Ellery has made on her throat are thrown into sharp contrast. She knows she must not look much better. “They have a… a job for me.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ellery grasps that it must mean something that Florence is telling her this. That she didn’t just leave. “...When?” it comes out a whisper.

“My flight’s in an hour.”

“Where are they sending you?”

She smiles, sadly. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

Ellery feels dazed. Like she’s still asleep. She pinches herself again. It hurts. Florence Black leans in and kisses her cheek.

“I will see you soon, Ellery.”

She walks to the door. Her heels make a sharp clipping sound against the floor. The door swings shut behind her with a resounding thud.

Ellery stands there, bare feet cold on the marble, for a long time after she’s gone, her cheek still tingling from the last brush of her lips. It’s only when a peal of laughter sounds from the resort outside that she drags herself from catatonia and turns away from the door to assess the damage.

And it’s only after she’s showered and dressed and is picking her clothes up off the floor that the brightly colored square on the TV stand catches her eye.

She had left the postcard.