Chapter Text
Andy turned off the ceiling light in the living room, leaving only the wall lamp on the balcony. The brightness was just right. She turned her head, and Emily had already changed into a gauze nightgown, leaning against the bedroom doorway with two glasses of champagne, waiting for her.
"Coming right away, give me a minute." She fumbled her way to the shelf in the dim light, took a long time picking out a record, set the needle — it was Tinashe/Future's Faded Love. Then Andy swayed her body to the music as she groped her way toward the bedroom.
"What a bother," Emily complained with her words, but she was amused by Andy's dance moves and expression. "It's only a Friday night."
"May I have a dance? It seems Ms. Charlton only has a Friday once a month." Andy took the two glasses of champagne from her, set them casually on a nearby table, and gently slipped her arm around her wife's waist, drawing her close.
Emily was ticklish from the other's hair brushing against her and giggled. Andy's chin rested on her shoulder from behind. The week had indeed been exhausting — she had non‑stop finalised arrangements for the new season's fashion week, dashed across different cities to meet clients, and several troublesome Hollywood celebrities wanted to haggle with her over interests, asking for this haute couture piece, that custom order, wanting the cover but not the inside pages. She really wanted to throw the tea in her hand straightly in their faces. This was Dior — if you don't want it, forget it. Thank god, the Runway gave her some respect; even Miranda Priestly would be polite when she came — after all, the literary editor of Runway was her wife.
Emily turned around to face Andy, took a sip of champagne, and gently ran her other hand through the long hair on the woman's chest, curling it. "Then... what do I get in return?"
"A delicious dinner, a glass of champagne, a diamond, and a beautiful wife waiting for you at home." Andy smiled.
"Diamonds again! We already have too many diamonds at home." Emily set down her glass, slowly reached both hands forward, and hooked them around Andy's neck.
"Then how about an added kiss?"
Emily's eyes moved from her eyes down to her lips, then back up to Andy's eyes, and then she smiled and nodded. Their lips gently touched, their noses pressing against each other's cheeks. Andy could smell Emily's perfume mixed with champagne, like a drunken, sweet evening breeze. She cautiously stuck out the tip of her tongue, and Emily's teeth parted slightly, allowing her entry. Andy felt the hands clasped behind her neck slowly slide downward, so she pulled back a little to let Emily breathe, then slowly guided her to the bed and lay down together.
"Click--rustle... Bang! Click!"
The wall lamp on the balcony went out all at once, and the whole apartment plunged into darkness.
They both stopped immediately, lying under the covers without any movement. Only the dim moonlight filtered through the sheer curtains, just enough for them to barely see each other's faces. Suddenly, they heard the voices of several middle‑aged men talking, accompanied by the sound of smashing garden fixtures, growing closer and closer to the window. Several beams from flashlights swept in abruptly from outside, as if searching for something. Emily was the first to recognize it — it was Spanish, with an accent like the one she used to hear in El Paso, carrying the smell of marijuana and blood, the hot and gritty asphalt roads shimmering under the high heat. She closed her eyes, trying to listen more clearly — but it was too noisy; the record player in the apartment was still playing, so she couldn't understand the words. Her heartbeat quickened, and a chill shot up her spine.
At least not now, not while Andy was at home...
The dying face of a man flashed before her eyes. He had said viciously, "I'll wait for you in hell. Do you really think you can escape everything?" At that time, she had been poisoned; the veins on her forehead throbbed violently, and even her vision fluctuated, swelling and shrinking with the pulse. She raised her pistol with all her strength, fitted a silencer, and fired against his temple. The man in a suit and tie collapsed on the floor, his brains spilling onto the floorboards. She quickly stepped back, leaving no trace, avoiding blind spots, and stumbled her way to the toilet. She needed to induce vomiting, to expel as much of the poison as possible. Time was running out. The toxin had already begun to swell her throat, blocking her airway. At that very moment, someone knocked on the door, and a female voice asked, "Are you okay?"
Andy squeezed Emily's shoulder with her hand, put her index finger to her lips, signalling for silence, and prepared to get out of bed to check.
Emily grabbed her wrist firmly at once. Andy froze — the hand that had been warm and soft just a moment ago was now cold and clammy. She looked at Emily's face, which looked pale under the moonlight. She had never seen her wife so alert, like a hound with ears pricked up and jaw tensed. But she knew Emily so well, that she could sense the slightest fear quietly growing beneath that tough exterior. They had been married for two years; only on the night they first met, when Emily couldn't breathe due to an allergy in the toilet and was taken away in an ambulance, had she ever seen that expression.
"It's okay, maybe it's just a few drunk guys who lost their way," she whispered to Emily. "I'll be right back."
"Don't go, Andy."
The smashing continued; now it sounded very close, as if right under their window. Emily quickly ran through options: wait quietly for them to leave and then leave the country overnight? Or lock Andy in the bathroom, take the gun from the safe, go out, and make them eat bullets? Before, when she was alone, she would tuck the gun under her pillow, because the cold, hard touch always reassured her. But now she shared a bed with Andy; she didn't want to scare her wife. The pistol held only five bullets — no time to reload — so she had to make every shot count. In the dark, she kept a grip on Andy's wrist while calculating routes and assessing the number of people...
If luck was on her side, she could explain everything to Andy slowly after killing them; if not, at least Andy would still be alive, she thought.
"Beep... beep..."
A text message alert sounded on Andy's phone. She glanced at Emily, opened it, and immediately snapped it shut.
We know you're home, Selina Kyle. Sorry for smashing your mailbox. If you don't want your wife to find out who you are, bring down the hundred thousand dollars we agreed on earlier.
"Honey, it's Tom and Ryan. They're drunk and can't find their way home, and they smashed our mailbox. They said they'll pay for it and treat us to dinner next week — at your favourite French restaurant on the corner." Andy gently rubbed the back of Emily's hand with her other hand, then kissed her forehead. "I'll go send them off, okay?"
She looked at Emily's doubtful expression, her face not flushing and her heart not racing — come on, her lying skills were world‑class.
After a standoff of more than ten seconds, Emily's expression finally relaxed, and she let go of Andy's hand.
"Send them straight to hell."
"Yes, ma'am."
Andy tiptoed downstairs, dug out a box from under the poplar tree in the garden, and tossed it to the two debt collectors across from her.
"Take it. Really, was that necessary? Look at what time it is, okay?" She wanted to light a cigarette, but she took it out and put it back — she didn't want Emily to smell smoke later.
One of the men opened the box to check, while the other kept his gun trained on Andy, afraid she might pull something again.
"We're just doing our job, Ms. Kyle," the man said, closing the box. His words were respectful, but a lecherous grin spread across his face, revealing a row of disgusting yellow teeth with some black marks on them for some reason. "Let's not make things difficult for each other."
"No problem."
Andy casually picked up the umbrella leaning against the wall and slowly approached. Then, with a sudden kick of her heel, she sent it flying up, knocking the gun out of the other man's hand with a slap, and then kicked him in the knee. He quickly went limp and fell forward, groaning in pain on the ground. The other man crouched to pick up the gun, but she grabbed him by the heel, lifted him up, and with a crack, crushed his ankle joint.
"But next time you come near my house, my mailbox — and most importantly, my wife — I'll eat you." She stood the long umbrella behind her like a sword. When she smiled, her eyes narrowed into slits, and a sharp canine tooth peeked out from the corner of her lips, like a cat.
The two men nodded obsequiously and quickly crawled away like rats.
Andy gathered her things and headed back. She took out her phone and sent a text to Ryan.
Sorry, dinner at the corner French restaurant next week — my treat. But don't let Emily know; just say it's on you. Also, tonight you and Tom got dead drunk, broke into our place, and smashed our mailbox.