Table of Contents

heartsways - Retribution

WAREHOUSE 13 - MYKA BERING/HG WELLS

Retribution

heartsways

Title: Retribution

Author: heartsways

Rating: NC–17

Fandom: Warehouse 13

Pairing: HG/Myka

Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for–profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

Summary: Set sometime after Season 3, Episode 1. Helena is permitted to visit Myka. “Stuff” ensues. It’s not pretty or fluffy, so fair warning.

Author’s Note: As always, feedback is welcome and encouraged. Of all kinds, heh…// You can find me on twitter: @heartsways or tumblr as uh…heartsways.

LJ Post: heartsways.livejournal.com/124664.html

Retribution

heartsways

Helena came to her that night. Not in holographic form; not in the fractured light and insubstantial haze that sometimes accompanied her visits. No; this was a flesh and blood incarnation. Myka knew it right away, from the moment her bedroom door opened and Helena stepped inside.

She’d been reading, glasses perched on her nose and book open on her knees, bent so that her heels were digging into the soft mattress of the bed. It was her nightly routine on those evenings she actually got to spend at home. The books piled on her bedside table had increased as she dipped in and out of genres, never quite satisfied with each enough to prolong her attention.

Because, when it came down to it, attention was difficult to maintain when her thoughts drifted to other things. Other people.

One person.

She’d never quite been able to rationalize HG’s betrayal, nor had she forgiven it. It sat in her gut, undigested and foreign. It was tender to the touch, flaring with half–forgotten pain every time she was reminded of it. And when she was, the pain always felt as acute as it had the first time she’d experienced it.

So as she looked up from her book and saw Helena standing inside her bedroom, Myka’s stomach ached with that hurt once more. It was quickly followed by shock, a cold chill working its way down her spine.

“What are you doing here?” she gasped, as Helena closed the bedroom door behind her and took two steps forwards further into the room. “How did you get here? What the hell?”

Helena flinched under the barrage of questions and clasped her hands together, squeezing them so hard that her knuckles turned white. She saw Myka’s hand falter slightly, then reach for the gun that was by her bed, curling her fingers around the handle and lifting it into sight.

“There’s…there’s no need for that,” Helena said hesitantly, one of her hands sweeping up into the air, palm out.

Myka pursed her lips and glared at HG. “I know you. There’s always a need for this.”

Helena half–smiled, taking a little breath of resignation. “Righty ho then,” she sighed. “The Regents said you might be somewhat…frosty.”

“Frosty?” Myka echoed, anger hardening her gaze. “Coming from the woman who tried to introduce a new ice age to humanity, I’m guessing that’s your idea of a sick joke.”

“No,” Helena said hastily, moving forwards again and then stopping, hands outstretched in a plea. “Myka, that wasn’t my intention at all. Please – ”

Shoving her book to one side, Myka scrambled from the bed and strode around the edge of it, pointing her gun at Helena.

“Please, what?” she snarled. “Please trust you? Please let myself get caught in your fucked up web of lies and revenge? Please make a fool of myself? Again?”

HG blinked, but didn’t back away. Instead, she faced Myka head on and looked the agent directly in the eye. She’d been warned about this; she’d been told that Myka had returned to the warehouse as anticipated following their encounter at Bering and Sons. But she’d also been informed that Myka was withdrawn, that, when she did talk about what had transpired between herself and HG Wells, that she used terms of hurt and bitterness in an effort to explain it.

The Regents were worried. And, Helena thought, casting a wary glance towards Myka, rightly so. The agent was wary, her features lined and contorted with a pain that HG had put there. It looked as though it had taken residence on Myka’s features for quite some time, re–living the past over and over.

So The Regents had turned to her again. Helena had been unsure as to whether they were asking for her help, or demanding it.

“They gave me a 24 hour reprieve,” she told Myka. “The Regents, I mean. They sent me here.” The corner of her mouth quirked up in a faint smile of satisfaction and she shrugged, her shoulders hitching ever so slightly. “It seemed to work the last time we spoke.”

Myka’s expression became impassive, but her eyes gleamed with suspicion and doubt. The gun, steady in her grip, remained pointed at Helena’s head.

“But I’m back now. And you were…you weren’t really there last time,” she said slowly.

“I was,” Helena corrected her gently. “The part of me that counted, anyway. You always did like my brain better than…”

Her voice trailed away and she dared allow herself the luxury of a flirtatious glance at the agent. “Well,” HG finally rolled her eyes, “not that we ever had the opportunity to find out.”

“Stop that,” Myka demanded, the gun wavering ever so slightly. She padded around Helena, her pajamas brushing against the carpet. “Why are you here? Don’t lie.”

Drawing breath, Helena waited until Myka had completed a full circle and came to a halt directly in front of her. Their eyes met again, held. Helena almost shivered with the intensity of it. With how much she’d missed looking into Myka’s deep gaze; how much she’d wanted to have those eyes on her again. There weren’t many people who had ever been able to look HG Wells in the eye and see what lay beneath the carefully constructed layers.

Loath to admit it, Helena was forced to accept that Myka Bering might be one of a very small number of people. The only one who was still alive.

“I’m here to make amends,” Helena said slowly.

Myka let out a snort of derisory laughter. “You could have done that as a hologram. What’s the real story, Helena? I’m going to ask you one more time. Why are you here?”

“Perhaps if you removed the gun pointed at my head I might feel more inclined to be somewhat forthcoming,” Helena said bluntly. “It’s really very disconcerting, Myka.”

“So’s your tendency to fuck people over,” Myka shrugged. But she saw the glimmer of hurt that crossed Helena’s features, the shade of regret that entered her eyes.

And there was that pain again in her stomach; visceral and sudden, almost doubling her over.

“The Regents value you,” Helena began as Myka lowered the gun, letting it hang down by her side. “They used to value me,” she added softly in a near–whisper. Her teeth bit at her lower lip for a second and she shrugged off the memory, pushing at her black hair.

“Myka, what happened between us was…regrettable.” HG balked at the huff of dismissive air that came from the agent’s mouth, faltering slightly. “I told you that living with anger was unhealthy. I mean, look at me.”

Myka did. And she saw a woman bowed with the pain of it all. She saw a woman who, despite her better judgment – despite Pete’s long and rambling explanations as to why she shouldn’t – she cared for more than was advisable. Certainly more than she’d cared for anyone else.

“You’re still angry.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Helena knew. She always knew how Myka was feeling. It rankled in the agent’s chest and her jaw tightened as she stared at Helena.

“Yes.”

“With me.”

“Yes.”

Now Myka looked down at the ground, unable to look at the woman who had been her greatest triumph, her greatest failure.

“You know,” Helena threw up her hands and turned, pacing back towards the door a little before turning, “as a writer, we have an amazing capacity to change the way people view the world with our words. The way we use them can convince people of almost anything. We can expose them to untold wonders.”

“I don’t need a lecture on literature, thanks,” Myka growled, her fingers flexing around the handle of the gun.

“I know,” Helena smiled indulgently, shoving her hands into the pockets of her pants. “What I’m trying to say is that words can only do so much. That, ultimately, it’s our actions that speak for who we are.”

“And yours included trying to end the world. Hardly what I’d call a glowing personality profile.” The agent’s voice was laced with a bitterness that tugged the corners of Helena’s mouth downwards. Anger, she had expected. But the disappointment in Myka’s voice, in her stance and her refusal to listen was the true source of the shame and sorrow that flooded HG’s chest.

“You already said what you needed to. What else is there?” Myka glanced up, shaking her head a little, untidy curls falling from her loosely tied hair.

“This.” Helena darted forwards, curving her hand around Myka’s neck before the agent had time to react. As their lips met, the agent let out a noise of surprise, but didn’t pull away. It wasn’t how she’d anticipated their first kiss, Helena thought. She’d always planned a grand seduction of Myka Bering, almost from the first moment they’d met. Something befitting the way she felt about the agent; something appropriate to their tenuous flirtation and intense connection.

This wasn’t that. Not even close. But hope burgeoned in Helena’s chest as she felt the other woman respond, move under her mouth and part her lips until her tongue reached out to meet HG’s.

For a moment, it seemed that past became future. That time overtook them and obliterated all that had been, showing them instead all that could be. It was only when Helena’s arm slid around Myka’s waist that the agent resisted.

Planting her hands onto Helena’s shoulders, Myka pushed and the other woman staggered backwards a couple of paces. The gun was lifted once more and pointed at HG’s head, but this time it shook in the air.

Reaching up, Helena passed her fingertips over her lips. She could still taste Myka on them, glorious and impassioned and hurt. Oh yes, very hurt.

“Don’t.” Myka’s voice was guttural. “I don’t care what The Regents thought you could or couldn’t do. But don’t do that.”

“It was the only way I could think of – “

“No!” Myka advanced on HG, stretching out an arm and propelling the woman back towards the door. Hitting it with a thud, Helena let out a gust of air that was quickly strangled by the agent’s fingers on her neck. As they curled and pinched at her windpipe, HG didn’t struggle. Why would she? She deserved this, after all.

“You don’t get to think, Helena!” Fury raced through Myka’s eyes and she shoved the barrel of the gun to HG’s temple, pressing so hard that she knew it would leave a mark. “When you think, bad things happen. When you have time to come up with a plan, people get hurt. So no, you don’t get to think about how you’re going to screw me over this time, okay?”

“Myka…” Lights flickered behind Helena’s eyes and she felt her lungs screaming for oxygen. “Listen to me…”

“Shut up!” Myka hissed. “Just…shut up.” She pressed the gun harder against Helena’s skin, seeing how it indented the flesh and hating the unfamiliar sense of delight it brought her. But she’d repressed her rage for too long and it bubbled to the surface now, trembling her hand and pulling at her mouth.

Fingers scrabbled at her back; HG’s hands plucking at the tank top she wore and tracing lines down her body. At the back of her mind, Myka was sure that if Helena wanted to break her hold, she could do. The woman was prepossessed of almost unmatchable strength and skill, after all. But Helena seemed accepting of her fate; welcoming, even.

It was desperately confusing.

It was utterly disarming.

Myka drew back, looked into Helena’s eyes. Unfathomable depths of blackness stared back at her. And in them, a world of unexplored wonder that Myka had found so terrifyingly tempting that resistance had been her last bastion of defense against the woman, against a traitorous heart that ached for her.

Until now.

She dropped her hand from Helena’s throat. Dropped the gun, too. And even as Helena sucked in air and croaked out thanks, Myka’s fingers moved to plunge into black locks of hair. Pressing herself against HG, lips sought lips once more. But there was nothing tender about the kiss. It was fraught and hasty and careless.

It was only when Helena groaned that Myka pulled back, viewing the scene of her own destruction.

“Don’t talk,” she hissed. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Neither do I,” Helena growled, reaching for Myka once more. Their mouths met, tongues seeking each other and wrestling in a heightened moment. Clothes seemed superfluous, fingers ripping at them until Helena was half–naked against Myka, her jacket and shirt lying in pools of material around her feet.

Myka dragged Helena towards the bed, turning her around and shoving her back onto it. She stood over HG, chest heaving, eyes lit with a cold fire.

“I said, don’t talk,” she insisted firmly. “You didn’t come here for that, did you?”

Silent, breathing heavily, Helena shook her head. Strands of black hair whispered over her naked shoulders and she shifted slightly on the bed. She had come here for retribution. But not her own. The time for her revenge was over; this time was for Myka to take what she needed. What she’d always wanted.

Clambering onto the bed, Myka straddled Helena’s slim hips, planting her knees on either side of them. HG Wells was beautiful; there was no denying that. Her creamy skin and jet black hair made for a striking contrast that wound itself around Myka’s senses as she felt desire and anger run hand in hand through her body.

“You came here for me. For this.”

Helena nodded, but was wise enough not to speak. As Myka’s hands trailed a clumsy, burning path up over her breasts, it was all she could do to remember how to breathe. Perhaps The Regents had known what unfinished business existed between her and Myka; perhaps they had seen this happening all along. There did appear to be some sort of inevitability to it, as though they had both been falling towards this since the first moment they met.

Helena had stopped believing in fate a long time ago. Because what sort of fate could rip her daughter from her so cruelly and leave her so alone in the world? She had been determined to make her own fate, cutting a pathway through a life less ordinary.

But as she gazed up at Myka, leaning over her with fire and ice in unreadable eyes, HG Wells wasn’t so sure that fate hadn’t played a part in where she’d ended up, after all.

“Is this what you want?” Myka said in a low, pensive tone. Her fingers dug into Helena’s breasts with a hard, unrelenting touch. Gasping, HG’s teeth bit at her lower lip. She nodded, feeling an unmistakable urge swell her hips, moving them under Myka’s body. Desire. The lust for the other woman that she’d kept at bay for fear of what it might do to her – do to them both.

As she shifted, a tight smile pulled at Myka’s lips and her fingertips slid to Helena’s nipples, closing around them and pinching hard – so hard that another gasp escaped HG’s mouth. The sound sent a thrill up Myka’s spine, whirling around her brain and resonating back down towards the pit of her stomach where longing unfurled and billowed wildly. But it was anger that filled the void underneath that longing; anger and resentment that she just couldn’t push aside.

Emotions battling with one another, it was lust that emerged as victor. Throwing herself forwards, Myka fastened her mouth onto Helena’s, fisting handfuls of black hair. She could feel the heat of the other woman’s body against her own, searing through the thin tank top she wore. Helena moaned into her mouth, a sound of such longing and submission that it piqued Myka’s want, hardening it into a rougher touch.

Her mouth slid from Helena’s, along the refined jawline that was delicate, almost like porcelain under her lips. The tip of her tongue reached out and swirled into the hollow under Helena’s ear. She tasted sweet, intoxicating, like the honeyed texture of her accent. Myka breathed her in, devouring her. And under her thighs, Helena began to move, hips pushing upwards to where the agent was already wet.

Arms snaked around Myka’s slim form, hands splaying out across her shoulder blades. Fingertips dug into her flesh, pushing against bone for a brief moment before movement swept the agent up. She found herself being flipped onto her back, Helena half–kneeling, half–lying between her legs, a curtain of dark hair falling over her shoulder.

A faint panic chilled Myka’s throat and she swallowed over the cold lump it formed. The expression on Helena’s face was inscrutable. Her eyes were shadowed, heavy–lidded. Her mouth, lips parted, was red from Myka’s kisses. But the agent realized that she couldn’t discern Helena’s intentions. Even now, even locked in an intimate embrace, Myka couldn’t tell whether Helena meant to harm or love her.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology came in a whispered breath that was barely audible. It drifted over Myka’s pinked cheeks and she blinked under it. For a second, she believed it. For a second, she wanted to give herself over to the sincerity that she thought she could hear. A flood of emotion urged her to accept it, to indulge in it and allow Helena the grace of forgiveness.

She opened her mouth to respond and then stopped. A glimmer of a smile ghosted over Helena’s mouth; barely enough to curve her lips, but more than enough to obliterate repentance.

Hot anger pushed beyond reason and Myka clenched her teeth together. She hooked her leg around Helena, grabbing at the other woman and turning her onto her back once more. But this time there was no hesitation. Hoisting herself up over Helena, Myka locked her fingers around HG’s wrists and pinned them to the bed with one hand.

With the other, she roughly fumbled with Helena’s belt, undoing it and popping open the buttons on her pants. Nails scraping over a smooth, taut belly, Myka plunged her hand past the scrap of material masquerading as HG’s panties until she touched wisps of hair, already damp. A hiss of encouragement came from the woman trapped below her and Helena closed her eyes.

Myka couldn’t contain the breath of pleasure that fled from her mouth as she pushed her fingers inside Helena, right up to the knuckle. She’d dreamt of this, of the wanton abandon of the woman below her, thrusting her pelvis upwards. Of the swell of Helena’s breasts, nipples hardening to peaks and inviting Myka’s mouth downwards where she took one of them between her teeth. She bit down much harder than was necessary and was gratified by the moan of pain that opened Helena’s eyes wide.

She pulled her fingers out of Helena, almost to the tip. At the same time, she tugged on the nipple between her teeth, skin puckering. She flicked over the top of it with her tongue and Helena’s back arched, arms straining against the firm grip that held them. Myka’s fingers shoved back inside the other woman again, offering no recompense for the force she used. At the back of her mind, she knew that she must be hurting Helena.

But she found that she didn’t much care. That her lust came with anger and resentment and want…so much want that she’d nurtured for so long that it superseded anything else right now.

Her movements became rhythmic; she straddled Helena’s leg so that she could bear down on it. She could hear the other woman’s wetness around her fingers, feel it searing hot on her skin and her mouth moved to the fullness of HG’s breast, teeth closing on milky white skin and biting with a ferocity the agent didn’t know she possessed. She sucked at the skin in her mouth, drawing blood to the surface so that when she lifted her head, Myka could see the indentations her teeth had left; see the mottled patches of red that marred Helena’s flesh.

Ownership. Possession. Taking what had been denied her for so long. And revenge; yes, revenge was in each thrust of her fingers and the swathe of her tongue over Helena’s chest. There was a saying that revenge was best served cold, but in the heat of this union and the sticky wetness bleeding over her hand, Myka couldn’t help but disagree. Because there had never been anything cold about what she and Helena shared. Only this blistering culmination of the slow burn between them.

HG was muttering something under her breath. Lifting her head from the other woman’s breast, Myka gazed down at her. HG’s lips were moving, stilted sounds emerging from between them. Her eyes were tight shut, twin lines furrowing her brow.

She’d never looked more beautiful. More anguished.

“Helena.” Myka’s voice was husked, graveled with the desire that ached between her legs and resounded in her chest.

HG opened her eyes. Looked up at Myka. Blinked incredulously.

“Helena,” Myka said again. Her fingers ceased their movement.

“No,” Helena whispered. “Don’t stop. Harder. Please, Myka. I want…”

“What?” Myka hissed. “What can you possibly want from me that you haven’t already taken?”

Helena swallowed as Myka’s fingers stirred inside her again, circling around her clitoris, wandering over the top of it and making her flinch, catch her breath.

“I want you to hurt me, Myka,” Helena said slowly. “Hurt me like I’ve hurt you. Please.”

A faint moue of disgust rolled over Myka’s mouth and she loosened her grip on Helena’s wrists. Pushing herself upwards, she glanced at the marks on Helena’s breasts and quickly looked away.

This wasn’t how she’d imagined it. Not even in her wildest dreams about HG. Dreams that had taunted and teased her with alarming regularity.

“I…” she began, horrified to see Helena’s eyes glisten with unshed tears. “I’m not like you, Helena. I don’t thrive on pain like you do.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t feel it,” Helena countered, pushing at Myka’s body with her hips. Hands free, albeit slightly numbed, she wound her fingers into Myka’s hair and tugged at it. “We’re more alike than you think. And that pain you feel…the pain I caused you? Get rid of it. Take it out on me. Please, Myka. You have to.”

Her throat closed over the words and she pressed her lips together, determined not to cry. She’d come here tonight determined not to give in to her own feelings. Only to bear witness to Myka’s. So as she swallowed hard, Helena cursed herself for the tear that slid from her eye.

“Please,” she begged, voice as broken and shattered as she was herself. Her fingers tightened and dragged against Myka’s scalp, bringing a hiss of displeasure from the agent. “Please,” she said again, one last entreaty, one last time.

Helena pulled Myka’s mouth down to meet her own, clinging to the other woman as if her life depended on it. She wanted to drown in the agent. If this was her last breath; her last chance, then she wanted to spend it with this woman. She wanted to give it to this woman. God knows, she’d taken everything else.

Now Myka was inside her again, thrusting and pushing, so far inside that Helena felt herself melting around the agent’s touch. She was becoming liquid heat, coating Myka’s fingers, her hand, her wrist. Panting, the agent’s bicep tensed, muscles becoming defined and hard. Her mouth left Helena’s and moved to a collarbone, nipping and biting.

A prescient shudder ran down Helena’s body and she gasped for air, finding none sufficient enough to fill her lungs. Myka shifted slightly, moving over Helena’s leg, spreading her own thighs. Her pajama pants were soaking; she knew that even without pressing down on HG’s knee. The impetus to take her own pleasure before bringing Helena to climax was almost irresistible, and she gulped in a deep lungful of air to steady herself. Her hand was cramping; she was uncomfortable and unsatisfied and angry. And yet, all she wanted was to lose herself in this, to indulge in the moment of exhilaration to which they had both been racing all this time.

“Harder,” Helena muttered. One of her hands left Myka’s head, closed around the agent’s wrist and guided it towards her throat. It was only when Myka’s fingers tensed around it that Helena allowed herself a tiny smile of gratitude.

It was almost a relief, HG thought, to feel Myka’s unerring strength around her windpipe. To know that the woman she loved could touch her this way and love her this way. She writhed under Myka’s hands in pleasure and pain, both coursing through her body in a glorious symphony of discordant sensation. Even as she felt blackness seep into the edges of her vision, Helena lifted her hips one last time and closed her eyes.

As Helena began to shake, Myka didn’t stop. As cries filled her ears and the woman beneath her called out her name in a strangled tone, Myka didn’t stop. She didn’t stop until Helena arched from the bed once more, arms outstretched and eyes wide open in abject surrender. Only when HG sank onto the mattress, lurching and gasping for breath, did Myka pull her hand from the other woman’s pants and release her grip around a throat that now bore reddened imprints of angry desire.

She looked away, ashamed. Rolled off the other woman onto the bed so they were lying side by side. Turning her back on Helena, Myka closed her eyes as HG began to cry.

* * * * *

“They won’t let you come back again, will they?”

Myka looked across the room to where Helena was standing by the door, buttoning her shirt. HG didn’t turn around, but her fingers paused their quickened pace. She lifted her head, smoothing her palms down the wrinkled material over her chest.

“I would think not,” she said slowly.

Myka frowned. “Did they know…I mean, what would happen?” She almost laughed. Not even she could have predicted what had happened between them. It seemed unthinkable that The Regents would have anticipated this, let alone condoned it.

Helena shrugged on her jacket, tugging it over her shoulders. “No,” she said. “I was here to make amends. It was what they offered me. I took it.”

“What they offered you?” Myka echoed, rising from the bed and padding across the room. “What do you mean?”

Helena took a breath, shoulders hitching, composing herself before she turned to face Myka, looking at the agent for the first time since she had scrambled unsteadily from the bed. She ran a hand through her hair, still mussed from their aggressive union.

Her legs were still tingling. Her body, still aching. The spoils of a war she’d fought and lost.

“I’m going away, Myka,” Helena said softly. “And not to some prison limbo place,” she waved her hand in the air and rolled her eyes, laughing off the memory of a darker incarceration with the easy equivocal nature she threw on when necessary.

“This was a wish granted, if you like,” she said. Myka shook her head, mouth falling open in confusion. Helena almost reached out, wanting nothing more than to smooth it away with the simplicity of her touch. But she stayed her hand and instead lifted it to her throat, searching for the familiarity and comfort of her locket.

They’d taken that away from her, too. She’d forgotten, and her fingers touched her throat aimlessly seeking comfort that was no longer there. Instead it was tender from Myka’s grip. Helena smiled inwardly. Battle scars.

“The Regents, showing uncommon indulgence, asked me what I wanted more than anything.” Her eyes searched Myka’s and she smiled sadly. “I told them I wanted to see you. To apologize. To…”

Her hands flew up in the air and her cheeks puffed out a sigh. “I don’t know, Myka. Just to see you.”

“What happens now?” Myka asked breathlessly. Panic had begun to build in her chest, tightening her nerves, pulling her mouth into a hard line.

Helena smiled again. “I leave.”

“But – “

“Myka,” HG reached out and put her hand onto Myka’s cheek, laying her palm over the reddening skin there, still bearing vestiges of their heated lovemaking, “I leave. I have to. This is one promise I intend to keep.”

Sliding her hand from the agent’s face, Helena shoved it into her pants and nodded firmly. “You were the only thing that mattered, darling. You and the warehouse.” She glanced down at the floor and shook her head a little, dark locks tumbling over her shoulders. “Thank you for reminding me of that.”

As she turned for the door, Myka blinked, startling into life.

“Wait,” she said hastily, holding out her hand and taking a few steps backwards towards the bed. “Wait, Helena.”

The other woman paused, fingers wrapped around the door handle as Myka scurried across the room to her bedside table. Rifling through the stack of books there, she cast a few aside until she found what she was looking for. Lifting it up, she quirked a smile.

“I want you to have this,” she said. “I want you to…”

She let out a sad little laugh. It seemed right, after all; books were where she first fell in love with HG Wells.

“I want you to have this and…and think of me when you read it.” Her fingers traced the embossed title. It was one of her favorites; a novel about a better world. A world of hope that Helena herself had created. The embittered and angry woman Myka had known was a far cry from the world envisioned in the pages of this book, but it was a woman Myka desperately hoped could be found again. Somewhere in time.

“I don’t need any reminders of you, Myka.” Helena’s voice drifted across the bedroom. “You’re always with me. I do love you, you know.”

“And I – “

Myka spun around, heart pounding in her chest with the mere knowledge, not to mention the words that were on her lips.

The bedroom door was open. The room, empty save for the agent.

Helena was gone.

~ ~ ~