“So what about her?” Lena said. “Vivika is the only card you have right now. If anything happens to her, plenty will happen to you.”
“I doubt that Dragon Lady feels the same.” Patrick laughed, knowingly.
“Do tell,” Lena said, unaffected.
“Let’s just say that when she gets a new plaything, she doesn’t let them go easily.”
Normally, what he just said would have bowled her over. But at this point, she not only doubted the validity of his confidence, but his supposed narrative in-and-of itself. Too much had happened at this point… she had too much experience to be cowed this easily with a threat that contained that little of substance.
“I’m sure that she doesn’t.” Lena said, “But I know you both work for Grandfather. So, it doesn’t matter what she wants, really.”
“You seem to put a lot of faith in the honorable nature of psychopaths.”
“I know a thing or two about them.” Lena sneered. “I’ve worked with you for this long.”
“Oh, I’m hardly of her ilk, but I understand you might think that. The truth is that I care very much what happens to you and Vivika—you are both my ticket out of here, if I play my cards right. Dragon Lady is my insurance against Vivika.”
“You seem to put a lot of faith in the honorable nature of psychopaths.”
“Fair enough.” Patrick conceded, before moving into a threat, “But remember, I don’t need either one of you alive. All that I need is to get the hell out of the GDR. I’m out of the GDR now.”
“Then why the hell are you meeting with Matt?” Lena growled, sensing another lie.
“Because I have a score to settle.”
“Then why the hell am I alive?”
“Because you are part of that score.”
Something about the situation just didn’t add up. Patrick wouldn’t have been here unless he had been told to be. Vivika only mattered to Lena and Matt—and for very different reasons. She wouldn’t have been that much of a bargaining chip against anyone else. Yet if Grandfather truly was the man Lena knew he was, well, then Vivika wasn’t all that important at all. Maybe she truly was some sort of insurance… but a bargaining chip?
“You know what I think?” Lena said, “I think that you are trying to play both sides. I think that you are here, doing exactly what Grandfather is telling you to do. I think that you think you are smarter than you are, and you are trying to make it look like you are playing a separate game all of your own. But I think the only people you are really playing against right now is Matt and me.”
“Playing against you?!” Patrick scoffed.
“I don’t think I matter in the least to any of these plans, and I don’t know anything that Grandfather doesn’t already know. I think instead of being your bargaining chip, I’m Grandfather’s act of good faith.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“And you know what else?” Lena ignoring him, “I think that you are trying to play a different game that you haven’t really thought through… and I think it’s a really stupid idea.”
“And why is that?”
“Because things don’t really seem to work out for you when you do that.”
“Oh, really? And why…”
“Because you’ve been trying for some time, and it hasn’t worked out thus far.”
“How do you…”
“I think that you raping my friend was less about you settling a score with her or Matt, and more about you and your fucking ego. You didn’t gain anything by raping her; all you did was take someone that probably already hated you and made them hate you more. But now I’d wager that a lot more people than you counted on hate you because of that. No, you didn’t do that for any reason other than something made you feel like less of a man, and you had to prove how big and bad you were by taking it out on the only person that you were able to.”
“Oh, she’s not the only one.” Patrick menaced.
“Stop it!” Lena spat. “Quit while you are behind, you moron!”
“Who the hell do you…”
“Stop it, Patrick! Just stop!” She was shouting louder as a few distant heads began to turn, “You kept trying to play a game you were never going to win. Instead of finding a game you could win, you tried to force things into place. Well, now you’ve gone too far. So far that admitting it won’t do a damn thing. Once Grandfather finds out what you did—if he doesn’t know already—you’re a dead man!”
“Fuck you!” Patrick screamed.
There it was: all the proof she needed. Lena didn’t know precisely how she knew it, but the fact that Patrick hadn’t offered anything in response other than a tired insult told her everything she needed to know about how correct her assumptions were. Patrick was already in deep trouble, and there was nothing he could do to get out of it. Moreover, she wagered that the only thing he could do to ensure a worse outcome for himself was to hurt her. It was time to take a page out of everyone else’s’ book and hammer it home.
“Right. ‘Fuck me’” Lena taunted, “I knew I was right. I knew you were weak and powerless. Look at you… weak, powerless little Patrick, with your weak little problems… raping a girl? What a piece of worthless shit you are.”
“I-I’m not worthless,” Patrick protested with his eyes beginning to glisten, “I’m not!”
“You are worthless, you idiot.” Lena stood tall, squaring her shoulders, “You aren’t going to do shit to Vivika ever again, and you aren’t going to do shit to me! I’m Grandfather’s asset… not yours. You are absolutely powerless.”
A bright flash of red and a sharp piercing whine filled what was left of Lena’s vision, and for a brief second, she forgot her name. She didn’t feel anything, aside from the sense that she was completely trapped inside of a head—a head that wobbled around freely on top of a body that was somewhat disconnected. Seconds later, her vision switched back on to inform her that she was still standing, punctuated with a bright pink pain on her left cheek that echoed throughout her jaw.
Instead of recoiling, however, she simply looked at that spot right between his legs and buried her foot in it, as if she was trying to split the earth in half with the sheer force of her hatred. She felt something shift out of the way before hitting what felt like a soft, thinly-packed seat cushion. Immediately, he hit the floor and curled up in the fetal position, clutching something Lena genuinely hoped was broken beyond repair.
“Fuck you, Patrick,” she said, before breaking out in a dead sprint towards the venue.
“Why are you going to hurt me?” Vivika asked the Dragon Lady.
It seemed a plain enough question—a perfectly reasonable response to a rather unreasonable statement. Vivika didn’t know the Dragon Lady by anything other than reputation, yet that reputation was more than enough to know she was fully capable of hurting anyone she wished. Yet Vivika attempted a rather dispassionate approach. Regardless of how this situation was going to turn out, at the very least, Vivika was resolved to deny her as much satisfaction as possible.
“Because I don’t like you,” the Dragon Lady responded plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Why don’t you like me?”