Fresia 18 months later
“Hey, watch it!” An angry, dark hair human growled as his beer spilled over the counter of the bar in the Quiet Gem Hotel & Spa. The blonde woman who had bumped into him placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Oh my goodness, I am so sorry,” she gushed, reaching over him to grab some napkins to clean up the spill, brushing hefty breasts against his side in the process. “I so clumsy at times.”
Catching the embarrassed look on her face, and the
deep lunge leather panel dress she wore, he laughed nervously. “It’s okay, it was just an accident.” He helped her clean up the spill, noticing the deep valley of cleavage her dress afforded her.
“You have to let me buy you a drink,” she asserted, her other hand caressing his arm now as well.
“If you insist,” he agreed, swallowing hard. Her body was just lightly touching his, but it was enough to drain the blood from his brain. “As long as you drink with me. Zerck T’far.” He offered a hand.
“Shadi Hale.”
It wasn’t hard to get the man to invite her back to his room. She probably didn’t need to use a force suggestion, but Scarlet wasn’t taking any chances this evening. A couple of drinks and a round of unexceptional casual sex was enough to put Zerck to sleep, so Scarlet could begin her work.
Zerck wasn’t dead yet, but he would be in an hour. Inertia overdose, such a shame. It seemed the drug was everywhere now days. Even on good, honest core worlds. Addiction knows no bounds. Of course, it wasn’t an accidental overdose, but a calculated matter of death. One that was unlikely to attract much attention from law enforcement. Even less likely once she was on camera leaving his room before the time of death, and she spent an hour or so in the bar downstairs, cementing her alibi. There weren’t enough jobs on the small planet to make bribing the local law enforcement worthwhile, so Scarlet had to commit the murder, and slip away with no one the wiser. What the man had done to deserve death, Scarlet didn’t know. It’s wasn’t her job to know, only to kill him. Well, kill him, and retrieve a holodisk.
A brief perusal of his things revealed the target object. She picked up the holodisk, furrowing her brow at the roughly scribbled name on it.
Quinn. The name brought up…a lot. Memories, and hope and resentment, and love and loathing. But it didn’t mean anything, most likely. How many people in the galaxy were named Quinn? Sighing, she slipped the holodisk in the pocket of her jacket. It was certainly the disk her client want retrieved. Whatever it contained was worth Zerck’s death.
Covering her hand with a sheet, she measured out the dose, tied off the arm and filled his veins with drugs. Before they could be absorbed into his system she slowed his metabolism to a crawl, turning a process that would have taken less than 10 minutes into an hour or two. It’s wasn’t so different from what Quentin had down for her, when she tried to get clean. He accelerated her metabolism, dilating the blood vessels and capillaries, sending her liver and kidneys into overdrive, to flush the drugs faster. She just went the other direction. It should be enough to throw any inquisitive minds off her trail. Finishing up, she wrapped his own hand around the needle to leave only his own prints on it.
She spent an hour in the bar as Shadi, making sure to leave an impression. Mostly this involved flirting with the bartender in an attempt to get free drinks, obnoxiously enough to be ineffective. After all, she didn’t want to be drunk, just remembered in the bar at this time. Once she sensed that Zerck’s heartbeat finally stopped, she lingered over her last drink before signing the credit slip for her tab and heading up to her room for the evening.
Once she was alone, she pulled out the holodisk, tracing the letters with a finger. It
couldn’t be him. The odds were outrageous. She looked over at the data pad sitting on the bedside table. She wasn’t supposed to look at the data on the disk, but her curiosity gnawed at her. What if it was him? It could be dangerous for her, if she wasn’t expecting him. If he came looking for this disk. If a Jedi were going to hunt her down, she had a right to know. It was safer to know, for her, for Linora, for whoever the client was. With those justifications in mind, she loaded the holodisk into her date pad and examined the contents, hoping to find something that would reveal who the intended recipient was. If it was
that Quinn.
Invoices, schematics, part lists, receipts. All in reference to some ship, an interceptor. A corporation allied with the trade federation, names she didn’t immediately recognize. Scarlet browsed the files for twenty minutes become becoming frustrated. Corporate espionage, she decided. While it was a hell of a thing to kill a man over, talk of war made the situation tense, and tempers were hair-trigger. Not something Quentin would have been involved with. Relieved and disappointed, she exhaled.
She headed towards the bathroom, stripping out of Shadi for the evening. Quentin weighed heavily on her mind as she did, memories of his face and touch and scent flooding her senses. She turned on the shower to distract herself, but the hot water brought on more memories.
He said he loved me, and would never hurt me. And yet he choked me in a tub. He said he needed me, no matter what, and yet he abandoned me to my fate in Linora’s hands. I betrayed her for him, and he never came back for me. So much for his love, his need for her, his promises. What a fool she had been, to fall for it. To fall for him.
She stepped under the stream, hoping to cleanse the grief from her mind. Still, her body remembered him, craved him. Recalled the pleasure he had brought her, even if it was predicated on a lie. She brushed her fingers along her own breast, recollecting how he savored her, his lips wrapped around nipple, drawing the blood to them. Her hands following the trail of his kisses that was left in her memories, until her fingers filled her slit, just the way his tongue had. She leaned back against the wall of the shower, fingers moving within her soft folds, fantasizing about his body, his tattoo shimmering in vibrant blues and reds, glistening with sweat as he leaned over her. How he seemed to fit perfectly within in. How he completed her, how she felt whole when he moved within her. His breath on her lips as he called her name, each time he filled her with his seed, and his love. She was gasping now, louder that the water streaming from the showerhead, feeling him inside her once more, pumping her with all the passion he could muster. As her body clenched and convulsed, shuddering in the bliss only he could bring her, she could still hear his voice, speaking the words she cherished so much.
I love you, Kaydia.
A wordlessly cry filled the bathroom, as tears flooded her eyes as arousal flooded her thighs and rapture released her from it grasp, leaving her empty once more. She finished cleaning herself off and wrapped herself in a plush robe. Settling down in bed, while memories of his skin were still warm on her own, she located her needle amongst her things. He’d be gone once more, just like when they parted all those months ago.
I love you, Kaydia.
She pushed the tip into her vein, and let the numbness sweep away his face from her mind.
