Chapter 87: Vesper 3

Chapter 87: Chapter 87: Vesper 3

Friday Morning: Acheron Deep

CLUNK. HISSSS.

The heavy titanium hatch rolled open, and Felix stepped into the vault. Vesper sat perched on the edge of her bed, hands resting loosely in her lap.

She looked up, took him in, and let her lips curl into that familiar, lazy smile.

"Well, well. Look who came back. The great Doctor Felix."

"That’s a pretty cheerful greeting for the guy holding your execution papers," Felix said.

"Good morning to you too, Doctor."

"Morning."

"No flowers today?" she teased. "How disappointing."

"I thought about it. Wasn’t sure if you liked roses or steel spikes."

She let out a soft, clear laugh that felt completely out of place in a concrete tomb.

"You’re getting better at this. Give it a week and you might actually be fun to talk to."

"I try my best."

Felix grabbed the metal chair by the frame.

SKRRR

And, sat down three steps from her bed, crossing one leg over the other.

Vesper watched him make himself comfortable. Yesterday he had hit her with a question that felt like a splinter under the skin:

Who do you want to be once the dampeners come off?

And she had spent half the night staring at the ceiling because of it. She hated questions she couldn’t slice through with an easy answer.

"So," she said, resting her back against the cold wall. "Did you decide?"

"About what?"

"Whether I get a second chance or a bullet."

Felix took a second to look at her. "Not yet."

Her smile hitched. "No?"

"Still thinking."

"You’re awfully indecisive for a man who runs around punching S-rank monsters."

"I don’t like making big calls without enough facts."

"What else do you need? My blood type? My favorite breakfast?"

"You’re a strange person, Vesper."

"And you’re a weird guy, Felix."

"Great. At least we agree on something."

They traded dry looks, neither giving an inch. Then Felix’s face settled into business, his forearms resting on the armrests, his blue eyes locked onto hers.

"Yesterday you admitted what you did was wrong."

"..."

"And you told me you did it because killing was the only thing you were good at."

"..."

"It wasn’t a confession," Felix said calmly. "It was an excuse."

Vesper rolled her eyes, leaning her head back.

"Here it comes."

"What?"

"The moral lecture. Do I get slides with this one?"

Her lips twitched with a tiny snort, and Felix let the joke breathe for a beat before his tone leveled out.

"Look, Vesper. I’m not waiting for you to wake up tomorrow crying over every name on your hit list. I don’t expect you to suddenly become warm, sweet, or pleasant."

"How generous of you."

"What I need to know," Felix said, his voice dropping, "is whether you have a line you won’t cross. Even when crossing it makes your life easier."

Her violet eyes narrowed, the lazy act vanishing. "And if I tell you I don’t have lines?"

"Then this visit ends early."

"And the executioners come down?"

"Eventually, yes."

She held his stare. There was no anger in his face, no smug moral high ground, and no disgust.

Most people who sat across from her wanted shame or begging, something they could point at to prove they were better than her.

Felix didn’t care about any of that. He just wanted the truth, and that made lying feel stupid.

"Fine," she said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "Test me."

"Let’s start simple," Felix said. "You’re hired to kill a corrupt businessman. He runs human trafficking, bribes cops, and silences witnesses. You have direct proof he’s scum. Your client doesn’t care about justice, he just wants his rival out of the market. Do you take the contract?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He’s trash, and the money is real."

"Those are two different reasons."

"They work fine together."

"What if you had another option?" Felix asked.

"Hand the evidence to honest inspectors, get him locked away for good, and bust up his entire ring without firing a needle?"

"That assumes the cops aren’t in his pocket."

"Assume they’re clean."

"Then you’re living in a fairytale."

"Play along."

She thought for three seconds. "I’d still take the hit."

"Even if exposing him protects more people?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because my job is putting a needle in his brain, not fixing the world."

"..."

"Fair," Felix said.

"Surprised?"

"Disappointed."

"Then stop asking questions when you don’t like the answers."

"I didn’t say I disliked it, Vesper. I said it was disappointing. There’s a difference."

She went quiet.

Felix kept going without missing a beat.

"Second scenario. A broker hands you a target who hasn’t hurt anyone. No criminal record, no dirty money. The client claims the guy might become dangerous down the road, but gives you zero proof. You get a name, an address, and a bag of cash."

Vesper tilted her head. "How big is the bag?"

Felix gave her a flat, unamused stare.

She shrugged. "Hey, you asked the question. Numbers matter."

"Enough money to buy a house by the coast and never touch a weapon again."

"Very tempting."

"Do you take it?"

"Probably."

"Without checking if he’s actually guilty of anything?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because the client is paying for a corpse, not an investigation."

"And that’s good enough for you?"

"That was my job," she said, her smirk sharpening like a razor.

"And making excuses seems to be your second job," Felix said smoothly.

Vesper let out a dry, breathy laugh, but her shoulders tightened up again. He hadn’t asked if she could pull the trigger; he had asked whether she even cared to check who was on the other end of it.

"Alright, Doctor," she said, her voice dropping into a tighter edge. "Let’s flip it. Say I turn down the job. Say I act like a good little girl and say no. What happens next? The client doesn’t throw his hands up and go home. He hires someone sloppy. That someone kicks the front door down, butchers the guy, and kills his wife and kid just because they were in the kitchen eating breakfast."

Felix watched her without speaking.

"So tell me," she pressed, leaning in closer,

"what did my clean conscience accomplish? The guy is dead anyway. His family is dead too. And I’m sitting in an alley with empty pockets. If I take the job, at least it’s clean. One needle, instant, no mess, nobody else gets touched. I control the room."

"Can you, though?" Felix asked.

"Of course I can."

"Can you control what your client does the next morning?" Felix countered. "Can you guarantee he won’t send thugs to torch the house anyway to burn the files? Can you guarantee he won’t hire someone to put a needle in you to tie off the loose end?"

Her thin smirk flickered out. "...No."

"Then you aren’t controlling anything," Felix said, his voice steady and heavy. "You’re just handling the execution and lying to yourself so you don’t have to feel like a hired gun."

"And what am I supposed to do? Play superhero?"

"No," Felix said instantly. "I want you to stop acting like taking an order washes your hands of what happens when you pull the pin."

Vesper stared at him, the magic dampeners along the wall buzzing like an angry hornet in the silence.

She leaned back slowly against the bunk frame, looking away from him toward the blank corner of the cell.

"You talk like choices are free," she murmured.

"I talk like someone who knows everyone has them."

"That’s easy to say when you’ve never had to choose between starving in the cold or picking up a blade."

Her voice stayed light, almost casual, but the playful mask was completely gone.

"People from your side of the fence love that word," she said, staring at the grey concrete.

"’Choices.’ Don’t like your boss? Quit. Someone hurts you? Call the Association. Need help? Go to a clinic." She gave a quiet, bitter snort. "Must be lovely."

Felix didn’t interrupt.

"Where I grew up, saying ’no’ to the guy paying the bills didn’t mean you got a lecture," she said, her fingers curling tight into the rough prison blanket. "It meant your bread stopped coming. Your bed was gone. Sometimes you ended up in a ditch behind the docks."

She looked back at Felix, her violet eyes raw and dark.

"And if you were stupid enough to care about someone else... they made sure that person disappeared first, just so you could watch."

The cell went dead quiet.

Felix looked at her hands, how hard she was gripping the wool, her knuckles bone-white, the tiny tremor in her wrist she couldn’t completely hide.

"Who was it?" Felix asked, his voice softer this time.

Vesper stiffened. For a second, she looked like she wanted to spit at him, to put the mocking smirk back on and tell him to get bent. But the words caught in her throat.

"Doesn’t matter," she said, looking down. "A long time ago."

"It matters," Felix replied. "Because right now, you’re still acting like you’re nine years old, taking orders from monsters just to keep yourself breathing."

He stood up, the chair scraping once against the floor.

"The people who bought your contracts are either dead or behind bars, Vesper. Nobody is holding a knife to your neck anymore. The only person telling you that you’re just a weapon is you."

Vesper sat motionless, her jaw locked, refusing to look up at him.

Felix pulled his keycard from his pocket and stepped toward the heavy slab door.

"Think about it," he said, tapping the sensor.

BEEP.

CLUNK.

The heavy hydraulic bolts slid back.

Felix paused at the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder.

"I’ll see you tomorrow, Vesper. Don’t hide behind the contracts next time. Bring yourself."

SLAM.

The door locked shut, leaving the room in dim yellow light.

Vesper didn’t move. She sat on the hard mattress for a long time, the silence of the cell louder than it had ever been.

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