Chapter Text
The River Thames is trying to swallow her whole.
Eve Polastri thrashes in a circle, clothing waterlogged, lungs squeezing tight in her chest. Fireworks pop and fizzle above Tower Bridge, illuminating inky trails of blood that slowly flow away with the current. Someone else’s blood.
Villanelle.
Villanelle is gone.
Eve’s limbs are getting heavier, muscles aching with the effort to stay afloat. It’s time to either swim or drown. Drowning seems the more appealing option, but the stubborn instinct of self-preservation kicks in, and she moves to the river’s edge as if dragged by an invisible force. Her body collapses onto an ungodly mix of mud, garbage and lord knows what else, and she heaves, vomiting out streams of foul water. When it stops, she inhales the cold night air and twists back to the Thames.
Maybe Villanelle is only unconscious, maybe multiple bullet wounds haven’t killed her, maybe…
Her stomach rolls and eyesight blurs, but still she wonders if she can tap into some vein of superhuman strength and pull Villanelle to the surface. She tries to stand, but her knees buckle and send her crashing into the muck. Eve knows, then, it’s a lost cause.
The idea of letting herself sink underwater returns, whirling around, skipping and repeating like a scratched record. If Villanelle is dead, she thinks, she doesn’t deserve to die alone. She starts to crawl toward the water, but
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP
an army of bootsteps thunders in her ears.
Flashlights illuminate her from every conceivable angle. As her eyes adjust, she sees a squadron of armed police surround the embankment. They shout at her all at once, commands incoherent and guns at the ready, but Eve can only concentrate on one thing: Drifting in and out of focus at the front of the commotion, with arms crossed and the smug hint of a smile pulling at pencil-thin lips, stands Carolyn Martens.
“I did something different,” Carolyn says.
“I’m going to kill you,” Eve replies.
Her world fades to black.
// 2 MONTHS AFTER //
It’s over for Eve before it even starts.
She’s put on trial in secrecy. Who knew that ‘secret court’ was a real thing? Something about too much classified information being at stake. Or, more likely, the British intelligence community not wanting to face public scrutiny over a rogue ex-agent enabling mass murder on a paddle steamer in the middle of London.
Mostly, they want to bury her without fuss.
And they do.
x
While Eve is being erased, Villanelle is all over the news. Every program and paper showing her mugshot—the one with the bandana that Villanelle always despised. The ‘Russian Female Assassin’ who went on a murder spree on the River Thames, taken down by MI6’s finest. It is, unsurprisingly, quite the sensation. The tabloid headlines are particularly wild. (‘Lesbian Serial Killer Sinks Gay Wedding’ is Eve’s favorite.)
They never do find Villanelle’s body. Weeks of dredging the Thames lead to nothing. Even so, Eve has no doubt that Villanelle is dead—she was shot too many times, lost too much blood, was underwater for too long. She takes small comfort in knowing how the lack of a corpse will be a deeply frustrating thorn in Carolyn’s side.
But, as usual, Carolyn gets the last laugh. A television is rolled into the courtroom, and there on surveillance video, in perfect HD:
A hotel hallway in Rome.
Eve watches herself pick up an axe. Watches herself whack it into a man’s body, again and again. Listens as the few members present in the courtroom gasp and gag, her own solicitor included, the asshole. She sees Villanelle’s face flash as pixels, manic and full of crazed energy. Sees herself being shuffled down stairs, held tight in Villanelle’s embrace. Thinks her heart might implode.
There are crime scene photos of billionaire tech-god Aaron Peel on the ground in a puddle of blood, throat split wide and gory, the aftermath of Villanelle’s impulsivity.
No one mentions everything else that happened in Rome. How her supposed victim, Raymond, was strangling the life out of Villanelle before Eve attacked him with the axe. How Aaron Peel was a murderer himself, not to mention guilty of breaking hundreds of information data protection laws. Or how Carolyn was the one largely responsible for all of the mayhem, setting up Eve and Villanelle for a flurry of violence while they thought they were in Rome solely to gather intel. Eve doesn’t attempt to correct the record because, well… who would believe her?
There’s a final video of her and Villanelle boarding the Dixie Queen. Villanelle, walking through a pile of bodies in the boat’s underbelly. Photo after photo of their targets, members of a shadow criminal organization known as the Twelve, strewn across the floor, blood and guts shining strangely in a vibrant blue light.
Eve smiles at those.
x
Carolyn testifies against her.
The stage could not have been more perfectly set. While Carolyn looks impeccable—poised, confident, not to be trifled with or doubted—Eve looks unhinged, fidgety, curly hair unruly and prison uniform ill-fitting, her history of bloodshed already laid bare before the court.
Carolyn takes her time discussing Eve’s years-long obsession with Oksana Astankova, aka Villanelle. She speaks about Eve’s seemingly endless professional devotion to Villanelle, her willingness to commit any crime, to sacrifice anyone and anything for the assassin. She describes each and every law that Eve broke while serving both MI5 and MI6 (and there are many). She describes Eve point-blank executing a man, Lars Meier, in a cabin not far outside of Berlin. All technically true, and all conveniently explained by Carolyn in such a way as to avoid self-incrimination.
In the end, all parties arrive at the conclusion that Broadmoor is the best place to stash Eve away. And so, just like that, the rest of her life is to be spent in a high-security psychiatric hospital. With Carolyn Martens winning, again.
// 4 MONTHS AFTER //
The day Eve gets transferred to Broadmoor, she is promptly stripped-searched and forced into a pair of slippers and a gray jumpsuit that feels like nothing more than fragile paper. Two guards guide her down a hallway, restraints around her wrists and ankles making each footstep clumsy. They round one corner, then another, and there’s Martin, hands fiddling nervously at the hem of his sweater vest.
Dr. Martin Watson is one of Broadmoor’s head psychiatrists, with a specialty in psychopaths. Eve used his services professionally more than once in the past, in theory to discuss Villanelle, but really most often it would end up being a discussion about herself. Now all she can remember are his words of warning, given in that very building shortly before the ill-fated trip to Rome:
‘Be careful. You don’t want to end up in here.’
He looks at her for a long moment, then sighs with deep resignation.
“Oh, Eve.”
She can only shake her head and give him a rueful smile.
Martin gestures to the guards to remove her restraints, and they do so—awfully reluctantly, in her opinion. He gently touches her elbow and says, “Let’s give you the tour, then.”
x
They walk together through endless hallways, often needing to get buzzed through security checkpoints. The hospital has a penchant for accent colors of lime green and baby blue, which Eve finds repulsive. There are spaces for therapy, spaces for reading and crafts, but also scarier spaces with sealed doors and people yelling. She can feel herself falling inward, overwhelmed and sick with the weight of it all. A hand on her shoulder pulls her out of distraction, and she realizes Martin is saying something.
“Did you hear me, Eve?”
“Not really.”
He regards her carefully. “I said, Carolyn has…ahem…firmly suggested I take you on as one of my patients.”
Things click into place, and Eve buzzes with disdain. “That’s why I’m here and not in prison, isn’t it? Carolyn made some kind of deal. She can control things here, monitor me.”
Martin remains silent, which is confirmation enough.
“I assume you’ll be providing her with regular reports on my ‘progress’?" He squirms uncomfortably, but she just as quickly waves it off. “Whatever, do what she wants. It’s not worth the misery of fighting her. Trust me.”
x
Her personal living space looks dreary, no more than a blanketless metal bed bolted to the floor, a nightstand, and a small table with no chair. The walls are dingy white, and the one barred window provides a horrendous view of barbed-wire-laced fences.
Eve sighs as she flops onto the bed, grunting in pain when her tailbone crashes into the unforgiving hardness of the wafer-thin blue mattress pad. Her jumpsuit crinkles, and she pokes at it, annoyed. “I’ve seen patients wearing real clothes. Why am I stuck in… whatever this is? It feels like paper.”
“Yes, well.” Martin shuffles on his feet. “It’s meant to tear easily. You’ve been deemed a high suicide risk. That uniform is so you can’t-”
“Hang myself with it?”
“Err… correct.”
“Is that why I don’t get a blanket either?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
He frowns sympathetically. She feels a strong urge to change the topic.
“So, how does this place compare to a high-security prison?”
“I would encourage you not to think of it like that. We take treatment very seriously here. Believe it or not, we actually will strive to help you during your time with us.”
‘Your time with us,’ aka, the rest of my miserable existence.
“Not a prison. So I can leave whenever I want?”
“No, but—”
“—and I won’t be under constant surveillance?”
“Eve, listen—”
“—and if I tell you to fuck off, I never have to see you again?”
Martin deflates. “I’m sorry. I did try to warn you.”
“I know.”
He squeezes her shoulder before straightening up to leave. “Might as well make the best of it.” She scoffs, but he just smiles in return. “Someone else will come by to explain the rest. Washrooms, cafeteria, daily schedule, that sort of thing. As for us, our first session will be tomorrow at 11AM. See you then, okay?”
“Sure.”
As soon as he exits the room, a guard shuts the door behind him and a heavy lock clunks into place. Eve lies back on the mattress pad and curls into herself. And for the first time, she knows with absolute certainty that her life is well and truly over.
// 6 MONTHS AFTER //
“How are you feeling today, Eve?”
Eve stares out the window of Martin’s office, watching a security gate open for an unmarked delivery van. She wonders where the van came from, who’s driving it, what’s inside of it, where it’s going next.
“Eve?”
“I feel like dogshit,” she answers, shifting her gaze over to him in a quick snap. “How are you feeling, Martin?”
He doesn’t take the bait. “Can you tell me why you feel like, uh, ‘dogshit’? Besides the obvious.”
“There is nothing left but the obvious.”
“Explain.”
She rolls her eyes. Her right leg bounces up and down with frenetic, anxious energy. She takes a deep breath, then unloads. “I am locked in a cage with violent and insane criminals, probably for the rest of my life. No one knows that I’m here. Or if they do know, they think I deserve it, which honestly, I probably do. And it’s all my fault anyway because I have systematically pushed everyone in my life away from me, except for, despite my best efforts, Villa—” She stops abruptly, the name lodging in her throat.
“Please continue,” Martin urges.
“She . . . she was all I had left, the only one, and then she was murdered brutally in front of my eyes. Which: Also my fault. My life has been reduced to a repeating loop of shitty cafeteria food, people stuffing pills down my throat, endless nightmares, and you asking me to describe feelings as if my feelings make any bit of fucking difference.”
He gives a low whistle. “That’s a lot to unpack.”
Eve shakes her head. “I’m only stating facts.”
“Why do you think it’s your fault that Villanelle died?”
Typical that’s what he focuses on. She twists her fingers painfully, stopping just short of snapping bones.
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“You have to talk about her, Eve.” He leans forward, giving his best encouraging face. “Why do you think it’s your fault?”
She swallows the bile flooding her mouth. “Because I tracked her down and convinced her to go to that boat. Because I was so dead-set on vengeance that I didn’t pause for a single second to consider the risks or strategize an escape plan. Because I let her sink to the bottom of that goddamn river.”
“Ah,” Martin interrupts. “That last thing. Think about it. How would you have gotten her out of the river? You told me that you barely got yourself out. You need to let yourself acknowledge that it was physically impossible for you to save her. And even if you had somehow pulled her out, the odds of her still being alive were infinitesimal. There are plenty of things you can justifiably feel guilt or regret about, but this is not one of them.”
She shrugs, a feigned attempt at nonchalance. “Agree to disagree.”
// 10 MONTHS AFTER //
The first time Eve sees her, she doesn’t react.
Of course
is the only thought that passes through her mind.
It’s the middle of the night, and she’s having the same nightmare. The painful splash of freezing water hitting her like a freight train. Villanelle frantically swimming toward her, eyes wide and scared. Then the THWACK-THWACK of bullets slicing into Villanelle’s body. Blood pools around them, and she watches Villanelle float away from her outstretched arm, sinking into infinite blackness—Eve always trying and always failing to reach her.
Heart racing, she springs up in the bed. As she struggles to catch her breath, she notices a shadow in her periphery. She slowly turns her head and finds Villanelle crouched in the corner, watching. Water and blood drip off of Villanelle onto the floor. She’s silent, and Eve instinctively knows that she will never speak. She’s a specter. A ghost. A figment born out of pain and anguish.
Eve stares, transfixed, until she blinks and Villanelle is gone again.
// 14 MONTHS AFTER //
The interview room is ridiculously small. A detective paces back and forth in a pathetic display of intimidation, but because there’s no actual space, it ends up looking like he’s spinning in a circle. Eve tries not to smirk. She isn’t sure why he’s here to pester her so long after everything. Frankly, she’s surprised he knows about her at all. He’s fully bald, despite seeming young for the job, and wears a brown leather jacket with a button-up and tie underneath. He looks like a prick, in her humble opinion. Detective Prick, she decides to call him.
“Eve Polastri.”
Detective Prick waits. She stares at him and says nothing in return.
After an unfathomably long period of silence, he continues, “It took me a long time to track you down. You’re well hidden, aren’t you?”
She blinks.
“I have several questions, and it is in your best interest to cooperate. Do you understand?”
She picks at her fingernails.
“You and your girlfriend left quite a scene behind you on that boat.”
That gets her attention. Her head snaps up, and he seems very pleased to have finally provoked a reaction. Her hands clench into fists as he grins down at her, all yellow teeth.
“Who were you and Oksana Astankova working for?”
No response.
“Why were those people meeting on the boat?”
No response.
“How did you know they would be there?”
No response.
The questions become more rapid-fire and random. “Why did you murder Lars Meier? Did you pitchfork your ex-husband? Why did Oksana kill those people?”
After many minutes of this, she gives him one reply.
“Ask Carolyn Martens.”
“Ask what?”
“All of it. If you want answers, ask Carolyn Martens.”
He looks perplexed, then slaps the table dramatically, hulking over her in another sad attempt at intimidation. Eve laughs.
“Is this funny to you?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like a prick?”
His nostrils flare, and she wishes she had a pencil to shove through into the stem of his brain. She wonders if her increasingly violent fantasies and acidic retorts are things Villanelle left with her—gifts transferred over with Villanelle’s passing.
He is still talking, she realizes.
“Were you compromised? Was Oksana your Russian honeytrap? I wouldn’t blame you.” He puts his mouth next to her ear and whispers, “What’s love of country compared to a hot piece of ass?”
Eve yanks him down by his tie and slams his face onto the metal table between them. Once. Twice. On the third impact, with a CRACK, his nose splits horrifically. As he howls, a thrill of immense satisfaction shivers head to toe through her body.
The door opens, and Eve hears panicked movement behind her. She’s hoisted up by her armpits and carried away to another room. They hold her down, inject her with something that makes her body immediately go lax, and as her eyelids flutter shut, she whispers, “Worth it.”
// 15 MONTHS AFTER //
It’s day god-knows-what in the isolation room. Eve is certain she’s being held there for much longer than is normal. They keep sedating her, despite her one small act of aggression happening weeks ago at this point, and the constant grogginess bothers her more than the solitary. She’s on the tail-end of one of those doses now, so while she’s a bit out of it, she’s at least not drooling on herself. An improvement. This is all plainly illegal, not that she has any avenue of recourse. And it doesn’t seem like Martin’s style. For as much as he annoys her, he does take her care seriously. No, this punishment comes from the ‘powers-that-be,’ angry with her for stepping out of line.
Once contemplating that topic becomes boring, Eve reverts to her other favorite pastime—running through the list of every fuckup that led to her being in this exact position, lying on the floor, locked away and forgotten. It’s a long list.
She’s on fuckup #267 (having Villanelle arrested during one of her most vulnerable moments… perhaps there’s a karmic element at play here…) when the lock rattles and the door to the cell swings open. She winces at the flood of light and is gruffly lifted to her feet by two male guards. They shackle her, hands to waist to ankles. Once she’s restrained to their satisfaction, they shove her out into the corridor. They handle her much rougher than is typical, and she soon finds herself being pushed into another, nicer interview room.
When Eve sees who awaits her, she spins on her heels to leave. The guards grab her by the elbows and drag her in, feet skidding feebly across the floor. Unyielding hands slam down on her shoulders, and she collapses onto a plastic chair. They handcuff her restraints to the table and leave, slamming the door behind them with a definitive
BOOM.
Carolyn Martens calmly folds her hands together and gives Eve a tight smile. She looks how she always looks—refined in a perfectly tailored coat, with perfectly unruffled short red hair, sitting with perfect posture, face held stoically in a perfectly unrevealing expression.
Eve wants to retch.
“I’d say you look well,” Carolyn starts, “but we both know that isn’t true. So let’s skip the pleasantries, shall we?”
“Fine.”
“Good. I hear you’ve been misbehaving. Poor Detective Sergeant Dempsie may never breathe through his nose again.” Eve barks out a laugh, but Carolyn continues, unperturbed. “More fascinatingly, our broken-nosed detective friend claims a certain Eve Polastri thinks it would be prudent of him to come to me for answers to his fun little questions.”
A clear threat lingers in the air. If Eve were a different person, she might feel chastised or frantic to appease Carolyn before things get even more out of hand. But Eve is Eve, so she sneers, “It’s about time you start answering for things.”
Carolyn looks unimpressed. “Are you under the misconception that you’re being clever, Eve?”
Tragically, breaking Carolyn’s nose doesn’t appear to be an option, so instead Eve spits—quite literally—across the table. The wet blob lands a few centimeters away from Carolyn’s still-folded hands, and Eve curses herself for missing the mark.
Carolyn simply smiles at the petulant act and gestures at the restraints. “Hoping to complete the ensemble with a Hannibal Lecter-style face guard?”
Eve grinds her teeth, molars near cracking. “Are you here to gloat or is there a point you’re failing to arrive at?”
“For someone who thinks so highly of her own intelligence, I should have thought you’d have figured it out by now.” Carolyn places her palms flat on the table. “How has your time been in isolation? Rewarding? Are you enjoying the sedation?” She leans forward a tick. Just enough for Eve’s pulse to quicken. “If you’d like for things to go back to the way they were—nice chats with Martin, living quarters that are more than a hole in the wall, perhaps the ability to use your brain cells to their full capacity—” She taps the side of her own forehead in condescension. “—I suggest you consider your words more carefully from here on. Keep my name out of your conversations, and I’ll keep my powers of influence out of your treatment. Do we have a deal?”
There’s a persistent tap-tap as Eve’s legs bounce more and more aggressively with pent-up rage. Driven by foolish instinct, she lurches forward, desperate to wring her hands around Carolyn’s stiff neck. But the handcuffed restraints yank her back, shackles digging painfully into wrists, and all her outburst achieves is Carolyn having an amused chuckle at her expense.
“I think, impossibly, you’ve become even more impetuous during your time here.” Carolyn stands, adjusting the lapels of her coat, and leans a hair’s breadth away from Eve’s face. “I can make this worse for you. For all practical purposes, you don’t exist. The quality of your life, whatever’s left of it, is completely at my discretion. So, Eve. Please tell me. Have you figured it out? Or do you need me to make it worse?”
Eve’s fingernails dig bloody crescents into her palms. She gives Carolyn a shit-eating grin and says, “Go for it.”
“Predictable as ever.”
Carolyn walks past Eve and knocks on the door. A guard dutifully enters the room, awaiting instruction.
“Eve has requested more time in isolation. Make sure she’s comfortable, won’t you?”
// 17 MONTHS AFTER //
Early spring has arrived, but Martin’s office is colder than usual. He’s bundled up in a winter jacket. Eve never did obtain the perk of regular clothes, so she’s left sitting there in the same thin papery jumpsuit as always, shivering and annoyed. She hasn’t been speaking much lately—and that’s apparently all Carolyn wanted, since Eve has been returned to her old routine for about a month now. Martin seems discouraged as he rubs at his scraggly beard and observes her. She’s alert, her eyes sharply focused on him. But she isn’t talking.
“Do you still see her?” he asks.
Her eye twitches.
“Villanelle,” he clarifies, not that any clarification was needed. When she doesn’t respond, he sighs. “Eve, I really need you to–”
“Yes,” she interrupts, voice raspy from lack of use. In fact, she’s been seeing the visions of Villanelle more frequently than ever. It’s the same as that first time, with the blood and the silence. Always the aftermath of her recurring night terror.
“And how do you feel when you see her?”
Martin gives her a small smile. She clears her throat and looks away.
“So fucking tired.”
x
Nighttime. Eve stands in the common bathroom brushing her teeth. She does it mechanically, one step in the long assembly line of another day. When she dares to glance in the mirror, what’s reflected back is nearly unrecognizable. She’s thin. The dark circles under her eyes are puffy and purple, giving the appearance of a boxer just out of the ring. And her hair, usually so dynamic, is listless. Grays have begun to creep in. She tugs on a curl and watches it halfheartedly spring back into place.
Villanelle would hate this, she thinks, then laughs.
x
The ward seems uncommonly quiet that night. Eve lies stiff on her back, awake but with eyes closed. She’s beginning to drift off when a warmth spreads across her body. She sighs and sinks down as far as the rock-hard mattress allows. This feeling only occurs in response to one thing—the extremely rare occasion when she lucks into a good dream.
Sweet flashes of a kiss in the middle of a country road; a hand slowly sliding up her thigh as the metal shell of a campervan leaves indentations on her back; laughter, smiles, stolen glances.
She thinks she hears a door open but ignores it, keeping her eyes clenched tight. Then, she feels the distinct sensation of a body hovering above her own…
…the exhale of a soft breath tickling her hair…
…and that scent.
“Eve.
Time to wake up.”
The voice is velvet, Russian accent thicker than she remembers yet desperately familiar. She grimaces and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. White spots explode behind the lids. Ghosts or visions are one thing, but a manifestation of an actual physical presence is something else entirely. She’s determined not to indulge in whatever this is. She despises herself for even imagining it.
She’s dead, you idiot. Dead. Dead dead dead—
She jolts as her hands are gently moved from her face, skin burning under the touch. But still, her eyelids remain firmly shut.
“Look at me.”
“No.” A small sob escapes her mouth. The grip holding her wrists relents, and she feels the soft skin of a palm cupping her cheek.
“Open your eyes, Eve.”
With sudden clarity, she understands there’s no resisting this. There never is when it comes to Villanelle. And anyway, she thinks, my impulse control has always been shit.
Eve opens her eyes.
White spots spark smaller before disappearing. She can make out the silhouette of a body cautiously leaning over her. As her pupils adjust, more details come into focus. The hair is darker than she expected, a deep shade of chestnut brown. What’s more confusing is the nose, somehow wider and longer, which makes no sense. But the eyes are exactly the same, hazel and penetrating and flashing with so much life. Her body vibrates in sickening pulses. Because this can’t be happening. It’s impossible. She has invented the worst possible torture for herself.
“Hey,” Villanelle whispers, and then, as if reading her mind, “It’s really me.”
Why does she look so strange?
“Prosthetic.” Villanelle smiles as she taps her bizarrely-shaped nose. “I am very good at disguises.”
Eve chokes out something caught between a laugh and a cry.
“Hi, Eve.”
That settles it.
She grabs Villanelle, pulling her down into a bone-crushing hug. It’s awkward angles and jutting elbows and chests rising and falling in rapid succession, but Eve doesn’t care about the clumsiness of it all because it’s her scent and her voice and her skin and her hands and her eyes and her body and it’s really her. She embraces Villanelle like she’s trying to absorb her.
After a beat, Villanelle carefully removes herself from Eve’s grasp. She looks down apologetically, but there is something else there too. An urgency.
“We have to go,” she breathes out, and everything becomes a blur of action.
Eve barely registers that Villanelle is wearing an orderly’s uniform before she’s being yanked into the hallway. Two guards lie unconscious on the ground not far from her room.
Each one of Villanelle’s movements is done with intense purpose, the escape route well planned. She seems to know the path of the guards, the angles of the security cameras, which key unlocks which door, when to run, when to hide. They go down several staircases to the basement levels, then down again through a grate that opens into an underground tunnel. Eve’s bare feet ache. Freezing puddles of some inscrutable liquid splatter against her soles. On they go, walking and walking, until they’re looking upward at a hole rend through the top of the tunnel. Villanelle pulls Eve up, grunting painfully with the struggle. The muscles of Eve’s arms burn like fire. There’s another grate, another staircase, and they burst out of a utility shed…
to a blast of fresh air,
and the starry shimmer of a perfect night sky.
x