Chapter Text
V
The night air is thick with neon and cigarette smoke, the bass from the club behind her low enough to feel like a second heartbeat. Third.
V leans back against her bike, the metal still warm from the drive. She’s still got some time to kill before her appointment, which is rare, but this… this is important. Too important to fuck up.
She’s been nothing but restless for the entire day, ever since she’d finally gotten that damned scan to Vik, hoping that it was worth something at least, but apparently, all she’s getting for now is a lesson in patience.
Got your data, going to take some work. Don’t fry your brain in the meantime. —Vik
V smirks at the irony of the message. The one man in Night City who’s ever cared if she stayed breathing, and he still hasn’t figured out that telling her not to do something is the fastest way to guarantee she’ll do it.
Waiting has never been her strong suit, especially not when all she wants is something to do other than waiting for another of Vik’s messages. Or a message from So Mi, which she’d foolishly assumed would’ve happened by now after the note she’d left.
It’s been a day. Too short for something to feel like it’s consuming her from the inside out, but then again, the last few months had shown her that she barely knows anything about herself anymore.
Every time the world slows down a bit, whether she’s waiting for a fixer to call back or she’s taking a break from a drive, her mind slips right back to that night.
To So Mi, and to the way it all spiraled out of control, not with violence, but with something worse.
That bone-deep kind of hunger she’d been feeling for months now, but this time, it’s intense in a way that robs her of breath. This time, she knows exactly what So Mi’s lips feel like on hers, what she tastes like. Not a late-night fantasy anymore, but instead a memory.
She burns through another drag of her cigarette and exhales slowly, like maybe that would help clear her mind.
And it’s ridiculous—embarrassing, even—how often V finds herself replaying every damn second of it. The moment So Mi didn’t walk away, despite everything, but stepped closer instead.
V remembers the shock of it right before her brain shut off and her body took over.
She remembers the heat of So Mi’s hands, where they held her, how they pushed, guided, pinned.
She should’ve expected it, with how So Mi had seemed content being beneath V but nowhere close to shy and compliant.
There’d been a moment where she almost flipped them, almost took control out of pure habit and instinct. But then So Mi had kept straddling her, leaned in as if she owned the moment, whispered something low against her mouth, and V? V had gone still. Just undone and stupid, from a single fucking kiss.
She can still feel So Mi’s breath at her neck after that, the scrape of teeth, the little sounds she’d made while claiming V like territory. And after all of that, So Mi had somehow had the absolute nerve to blush all pretty when called out for it the next morning.
V grins, but the neon light catches on the faint tremor in her fingers. She’d never been one for trembling hands, not the best habit to have when handling rifles pretty regularly, but it had started a few hours after she’d left So Mi’s place. First tingling in her fingertips, morphing into more. Irritating.
She takes another drag, holds the smoke in her lungs until it burns.
The kiss had been one thing.
But perhaps more important than that is the fact that they’d actually talked, and So Mi had actually listened, despite V admitting that she’d grabbed that damned scan. Not that V could’ve blamed So Mi if she’d wanted to kick her right back out on the street and told her to get lost forever.
The fury in So Mi’s eyes had been paralyzing, and if that hadn’t done the trick of showing V just how much she’d fucked up, the pure, unfiltered hurt behind her eyes would’ve done it.
And all the words after that, though they’d stung, had been exactly what V had needed to hear, even if admitting it feels wrong.
For once, I wanted to be sure, she’d forced out, words trembling. Too fucking vulnerable. Still, telling herself she regrets it would be a lie, because that isn’t the full truth. Scared, maybe. Too terrified to stand by what she’d admitted.
After one last drag, she crushes the cigarette under her boot, then walks towards the club entrance.
The bouncer, dressed in a meticulously tailored black suit, looks her up and down for what feels like an eternity. She bites her tongue, swallowing down a snide comment. Gotta play nice.
"Here to see Hands," she says, searching for a gaze behind mirrored glasses. "Should be expectin’ me."
The bouncer nods, scanning her. "He is. No trouble, you hear?"
"Would never," V mutters, then walks past him, finally entering the club.
As soon as she does, she feels eyes on her but doesn’t pay them any mind. A few months ago, this place would’ve been her perfect playground. She would’ve already chosen one of the women with a shy smile and a sweet voice, someone who looked like they needed a night to forget.
Back then it was simple. Flash a grin, let the music get under her skin, find some pretty company, and let instinct take the lead. A private lounge if she felt fancy, a bathroom stall if she didn’t, names and faces forgettable. Casual.
But now? Now every time someone looks at her too long, she feels the ghost of a different touch, possessive, claiming. A hand in her hair, nails raking down her shoulders. Those damned sharp canines buried in the side of her neck.
So Mi’s ruined casual for her.
She shakes her head and passes a bar where the bartender flicks her a quick nod, then enters the elevator at the back of the club.
Upstairs, it’s much quieter, the music a mere dull thud at the back of her mind now.
She knocks on the door to the lounge she knows Mr. Hands is waiting behind, and it slides open before she’s even lowered her hand.
The man sits on a couch, one arm draped over the backrest, holding a cup of tea. His eyes, piercing and calculating as always, catch hers immediately.
"Good evening, V," he says, his voice low and smooth. "I hope my personnel didn’t give you too much trouble?"
"Nah, think we’re chooms already," V replies, dropping onto the couch next to him.
"Right," he says, lips twitching in what’s probably amusement. V can never really tell. "Would you like some tea?"
"No, thanks. Can keep your fancy leafy water to yourself."
This time, the man chuckles. "Suit yourself."
Hands lifts his gaze from the tea cup, eyes flicking briefly to the bruises blooming along her neck.
"New look?" he asks mildly. "You wouldn’t lose a fight that easily, I hope."
V glares. "None of your biz."
"Au contraire." He takes a sip of tea, regarding V over the rim of the mug. "The state of my mercenaries is my biz, as you so eloquently put it. But as you wish."
V’s eyes narrow, watching him closely, but she doesn’t volunteer anything. He knows why she’s here, wouldn’t come all this way for a simple gig.
"Black Lotus intel," he states. "Again."
"That a question?" Her voice stays flat and professional, she knows any hint of her real intentions could ruin everything.
"I’m not one to ask what I already know, think I’ll leave those theatrics to you." Hands taps ash from his cigarette, exhaling slowly. "A tricky web, that one. A lot of ghosts. A lot of… unfinished business."
"And yet I was the one who finished your last business for you."
V’s lips flatten into a line. Tanaka’s face flashes in her mind, the clean slice of execution. Blood upon ivory piano keys.
The fragment of a memory in her mind right after.
Betrayal, death.
There must be more. More memories, more truth, even if she has to claim it through pain.
Men are at their most honest then, faced with the inevitable unknown. Somehow, it had always been a mystery to her, but she’ll gladly take the slurred words, choked-out pleas for forgiveness, or, in Tanaka’s case, another piece of this messed-up puzzle.
So it’s revenge you want.
V’s jaw tightens. "He knew more. Heard it before he died. Knew stuff about me too, things he shouldn’t."
"He was a liability," Hands says. "A roach skittering too close to the wrong places. You put him down efficiently, and I appreciated that. But Black Lotus… trust me, that web runs deeper than a single assassination."
"As it happens, there is another… pesky roach that has been skittering around," he continues, taking a sip of tea. "You want intel? You can have it."
"And you expect me to believe you’re telling me this out of kindness?" she snorts. There’s always a catch, this city won’t spill its secrets for free, least of all Hands.
Hands’s smile falters. "You’re always too rash for your own good, but I’ll give you credit, you’ve got instincts."
"Got enough gonks that would put a bullet through my head given the chance," she scowls. "Know greed gets you killed."
He leans forward. "Pride is, in my experience, often the more lethal sin."
"And lemme guess," V says, a humorless smile tugging at her mouth, "you’re keepin’ your hands clean on this one."
"Oh, I am absolutely not involved," Hands replies with a chuckle. "With you, I don’t have to be."
"Must be nice, havin’ someone do all your dirty work."
"It is," he says, not even pretending otherwise.
He reaches for a data shard on the table, flicking it once between his fingers before holding it up where she can see it.
"There’s a man," he begins. "Koji Arai. High-ranking Black Lotus analyst. A scientist, but… not the harmless kind. He designed behavioral programs."
Behavioral programs, huh.
Hands offers the shard to her. He watches her face carefully as she takes it between two fingers, runs her thumb over the rough edges.
She remembers the lab. The audio log she’d found hidden among dusty terminals, proof of So Mi’s loyalty to her. And now… Hands’ shard hints at a man somehow tied to all of it. Could this Arai have been the voice she’d heard, the one to order her execution?
He sets the cup down with a soft clink.
"You did not get this from me. I don’t want to hear about your plans, and I don’t want to know your motives. I give you the thread, you follow it. That’s it. Keep it clean, V."
She snorts. "My plan is to get intel."
"Oh, delightful," Hands replies dryly. "A sentence that inevitably precedes murder."
"I do have self-control," she says, even though her pulse spikes at the idea of hunting again. Feeling alive again, more than just breathing. "Some, at least."
"Don’t sell me cheap lies," the man chuckles. "You’re a weapon."
A weapon. Not only to Black Lotus, but to him as well. Bloody hands and a nonexistent conscience to match, of course.
"Pays well," she says, voice steady but cold.
"And V…" Hands’s tone drops, a rare edge of sincerity. "You think answers will heal you, but sometimes the opposite is all they’ll ever do for you."
"You a therapist now?" She asks, tone flat and unimpressed. "Next you’ll tell me you’re losin’ sleep over my well-being."
"Like I said, I won’t pry. But do try to come back alive, you’re terribly inconvenient to replace."
His eyes never leave her as she walks to the door. She pauses only long enough to roll her eyes, because the bastard means it, in his own twisted way.
"Flatter me, why don’t you," she mutters.
"I like working with professionals," Hands replies. "It’s a shame they always end up the same way: six feet under because of their own arrogance."
The door shuts behind her with a click, and the noise of the city finally quiets, now muffled as she’s in her apartment.
V kicks off her shoes and throws her jacket in the direction of her closet, then walks towards the desk and sits down.
The shard clasped in her hand looks unassuming, no different than any other. Doesn’t seem like it holds the amounts of secrets V hopes it does, and somehow, she fears knowing what’s on it. She exhales slowly, tries to ease the tension out of her shoulders.
Finally, she opens it, and the projection hovers in front of her, so far only endless strings of encrypted code. V leans forward and taps a sequence she’s memorized from a dozen similar extractions. The shard resists at first, and her pulse quickens as the encryption fights back. It’s not surprising at all, Hands wasn’t one for simple answers.
She pauses, letting the glow of the holo-screen wash over her face. There’s a headache starting at her temples, a dull pain, but she’s gotta stay focused.
Finally, after layers of encryption, a small signature catches her attention, a timestamp from the previous night, paired with a set of coordinates. A small, highlighted map appears, displaying a Night Market in Japantown.
Awfully close to So Mi’s apartment is what she notices next.
There’s an attached text file too, along with Arai’s profile, for once not encrypted to the max.
Subject: Koji Arai
Objective: Secure archival data and assess whether former assets are still viable.
Retrieval must be done quietly, no attention, no loose ends.
Avoid external witnesses.
If confronted, neutralize if secrecy is compromised, otherwise disengage.
The mission’s dated to three days from now.
It all starts to slot together in her mind.
Archival data and former assets. Assets like So Mi and her, people who were used, discarded, or thought dead. Seems they want their little toys back, and Arai’s the one sent out by someone even higher to make sure the mission gets accomplished.
She scrolls until the next window opens, displaying surveillance logs, timestamps, arranged neatly. When she opens it and gets an overview, she notices a man on the screen, walking around as if searching for something. Then, a day later, the same thing again. Arai’s preparing for the mission, and he’s got a clear advantage for now.
V exhales and leans back in her chair, hand pressing to her forehead as the headache hums.
Arai moves among the shadows, testing cameras, scanning his surroundings. The man’s precise, almost obsessive, won’t leave her any room for mistakes or anything less than perfection.
So far, repetition—the very thing he’s probably certain will give him security—is his biggest weakness, and she’ll use it. Makes him predictable, can be exploited with good timing.
Her own plan is already forming, slotting into place with each passing second she watches the screen.
She can’t let him get to that data, she’s gotta get there first.
In theory, the plan’s pretty simple. Break into the vault, slip past Arai’s scheduled path, get into the archive before he does, and swipe the data. And maybe, if luck’s on her side, confront the bastard. She doesn’t know if she wants to question him or put a knife through his neck, probably both. Not worth risking anyone seeing, though. If someone does, she might as well jump face-first into her own grave.
For now, this is all she needs. Enough to get in, and enough to walk away from this with another fragment of her past clutched in her hands.
V leans back in her chair, eyes glinting in the flicker of holo-light. It’s been months since she felt this pulse, the one that comes before a kill, before last words and rattled breaths. Back then, she did it for So Mi, and now she’s doing it for them.
Her lips curl in a half-smile. She remembers the first kill for So Mi, god, she’d always remember it.
She pictures Arai moving through the vault with all precision and obsession, unaware that someone else has been watching, learning, waiting. And she feels that familiar heat, that pull she can’t resist of the anticipation and the hunt.
And it’s not just the kill she craves, it’s the control. She’s had so little of that lately, and knowing she’ll have an opportunity to claim it back for a moment? It makes her pulse race.
Later, V collapses onto the bed, curling herself into a tight ball as though that could shield her from the headache that had turned into an awful migraine over the last hour. But that’s not even the worst of it.
There’s a deep, suffocating pressure on her chest, making each breath feel like dragging knives right through her lungs. Her hands clutch at her sides, knuckles whitening, trembling with the effort to hold herself together while she presses her forehead into the pillow. Each heartbeat thuds painfully against her ribs, a relentless reminder that she is alive and afraid.
A soft padding sound draws her attention, and a second later, Nibbles jumps onto the bed, tail flicking nervously. V flinches at first, but the warmth of the small body pressed against her side offers a flicker of relief. She closes her eyes and allows a shaky breath to escape.
Afraid. But of what? Black Lotus? The past, the future?
There’s a flash in her mind, enough to recognize So Mi, a faint image followed by a breath so painful it makes her cough.
No, it’s not fear, it’s despair, and it hurts.
Fuck, she wants to call. She wants—needs—to make sure So Mi’s okay, that it’s just her mind playing tricks on her, just the stress finally taking its toll. But the thought of So Mi suffering without her, maybe because of her, unprotected in some way V can’t reach, makes her chest seize.
She tries to replace the agony with things she knows are, or were, real.
Deep brown eyes, a little grin tugging at full lips. A furrowed brow, words full of venom, V wants it all as long as it’s bursting with life.
It’s almost unbearable. It is unbearable. Every memory, every imagined detail, makes her ache worse. Damned sync.
And she hates it. The way she curls tighter into herself, as small as possible. She wants to scream, to fight, to kill, to feel something other than this. It’s too much, and she doesn’t know where to put it all, not when her hands are clasped into fists instead of trembling with adrenaline, dripping crimson.
The instinct to reach out to So Mi claws at her, feels like an itch she cannot scratch. But no—she can’t, not now. Not before she understands the threat, before she has anything solid to say. She forces her hand to remain still, clenched at her side.
That night, she drifts in and out of sleep, and through it all, the feeling stays. Painful, exhausting, and so unrelenting. And yet, somehow, she still breathes.
The next to bleed? Won’t be her.