Hunting Season, part three

[terrie]

Previously: Part Two.

--

It’s still nighttime when they emerge from the trap door in an abandoned cottage just outside Magadan. Brock begins to ask what they’re going to do next, but she shushes him. “I will tell you in the morning,” she says, letting the trap door fall closed.

They move through the half-abandoned village in silence and into Magadan proper.

Molotov stops at an inn and, for once, does not kick the door open. Brock is relatively sure it must be closed at this time of night, and is somewhat surprised when Molotov opens the door and simply strolls in.

“Ya bih khatyela zabraniravat’ nomir,” Molotov says to the man behind the desk. He is wrinkled almost beyond comprehension, and is intently watching a small black and white television set up on the desk. “Tol’ka sutki,” she adds as he gropes for a key from under the desk and blindly hands it over, still focussed on the television. She glances back at Brock. He shrugs. They leave to find their room.

The hotel is nothing like the Radisson, but there are working lights and running water and this is enough to placate them. Brock watches as Molotov sets her kit bag down at the foot of the bed and rifles through it. “You know, I was supposed to ask about the twelve grand you said you’d send to Dr Venture,” he says.

Molotov pulls a short dressing gown from the kit bag and looks at Brock over her shoulder. “Were you? Hm.”

“We’re in Siberia,” says Brock.

“Da, we are,” says Molotov. She turns toward him, folding the dressing gown over her arm and cocking her hip. “And?”

“And you said you’d send it,” says Brock, brow creasing.

“Hmm, did I?”

“Mol.”

Snorting derisively, Molotov brushes past him toward the small bathroom. “Do not worry, Samson. I will not go back on my word to your frail little employer. He will receive the twelve thousand in the morning.”

“Thanks,” says Brock.

Molotov waves dismissively. “The task should be complete by lunchtime at any rate, so perhaps he can afford to buy his children some decent tutelage. Now,” she says, “I am going to bathe; I smell of dust and your cigarette brand.”

“You smoke the same brand,” says Brock, but she has already closed the door. He looks around for a moment, trying to locate something to do. It is again too late to contact the Ventures, and there is nothing in the way of entertainment in the room. Hotels like these, out in the old Gulag towns, are there simply to cater to morbid tourists and historical buffs, who do not demand very much. The shower turns on and Brock moves to sit on the edge of the bed and wait.

He finds his thoughts drifting to Paris, 20 years ago, when the shower turns off. Molotov emerges shortly thereafter, hair damp, wrapped in the dressing gown. Brock squints and notices belatedly that it has the Venture Industries logo over the left breast. He manages to suppress rolling his eyes and stands to cross the room. It’s a small room, so it does not take very long.

“You may want to wait a bit,” says Molotov indifferently. “I used up all the hot water.”

Instead of answering, Brock abruptly grabs her by the shoulders and pushes her against the wall. She is caught off-guard and her reactions are delayed; by the time she lifts her hand to karate chop him in the neck, he’s already kissing her, and she’s already kissing him back. His mouth drops to her neck and his palms press against her ribcage, fingers kneading through the dressing gown. Molotov sighs his name, gripping the back of his head and rolling her eye to the ceiling, allowing it to flutter shut when he starts using his teeth.

Eventually she manages to push him away, pointing toward the door to the bathroom. “That should be enough time.” She grips the front of her dressing gown tightly closed with the other hand.

Brock regards her for a moment. “Y’know I’m just gonna shake that down in a minute,” he says coolly. She says nothing. He turns and heads into the bathroom. As soon as she hears the shower turn on, Molotov collapses against the wall and attempts to will her heart to get out of her throat and go back to where it belongs.

The shower curtain was thrown back.

“Maria, baby,” said Brock without turning around, “you gotta give me a minute.”

Something cylindrical and cold pressed against the small of his back. A woman’s voice hissed in his ear: “She’s dead, my little Samson.” The accent was Russian instead of Polish. This was not Maria. “Turn the water off.”

Brock began to slowly reach for the water handle, but grabbed his knife instead, whirling around to knock the pistol out of the woman’s hand with the flat edge. She was startled enough to let it happen, but regained her composure quickly, throwing her fist toward his face. He caught her by the wrist and threw her into the shower where he pressed her against the wall, knife at her throat.

“Do you always bathe with your knife?” Molotov said, unimpressed.

“Yeah.”

“Does steel not rust?”

“Does titanium?”

Molotov scowled and kicked him in the shin, the blade in her heel piercing his flesh. He growled in pain, balance faltering for barely a second. This was more than enough time for Molotov to knock him backwards onto the linoleum floor. She calmly strode out of the still-running shower, water streaming from her hair and plastering her catsuit even more snugly against her body.

Brock stood quickly, favouring the leg she hadn’t stabbed, squinting through the wet hair in his eyes. “You changed your hair,” he said.

She stopped five feet short of him and slid into a kenpo stance. “Da. As did you.”

He countered with a jujitsu stance. “Yeah.”

“I like it.”

“Yours too.”

She launched a roundhouse kick at his head. Brock grabbed her ankle before the kick connected; she used this as an anchor and swung her other leg up, hitting him in the jaw with her heel. The blade slid up through his mandible, piercing through and filling his mouth immediately with blood. She hopped lightly away.

Brock made a strangled noise, part shock and part pain, and then lunged at her, catching her across the face with a closed fist. She reeled back, hand reaching backwards for the wall to steady herself. Brock grabbed her arm and twisted, wrenching it out of the socket; she swore loudly in Russian and swept his legs out from underneath him, pinning him to the ground by kneeling right in his solar plexus.

“You should thank me, kroshka,” she purred. “That woman was meant to kill you.”

“Yeah,” said Brock thickly. He was beginning to choke on his own blood as it poured down his throat. He needed to change his altitude, and fast. “Guess I owe you.”

Molotov smiled thinly, producing a second pistol. She pressed it to his temple. “I will collect payment now.”

Brock spat blood in her face. She lost her composure and moved to swipe her hand across her eye; Brock took the opening and flipped her onto her back. The momentum knocked the pistol out of her hand. It went sliding across the blood-slick floor. “Gonna have to take an IOU,” he said. As he spoke, more blood splattered onto her face.

She wrested her good arm free and groped blindly for her pistol. Instead, she found Brock’s knife and summarily swung it at his throat. He caught it and kissed her hard, blood pouring into her mouth as he thrust his tongue inside. Molotov growled and bit down; Brock slammed the hilt of his knife against her jaw, forcing her to release him. Instantly enraged, Molotov grabbed for his wrist to take the knife back, but he tilted it down and pressed it flush against her ribs.

Then he stopped.

Molotov sensed his hesitation. “Well? What are you waiting for?” she asked quietly, eye locking with his.

“What?” said Brock.

“Your knife,” she said. Her fingers dropped and looped lightly around his at the hilt. Brock’s fingers flexed involuntarily under hers. “Stop stalling.”

He just stared down at her, at a loss. Water dripped from his hair onto her, periodically falling alongside drops of blood as well. Brock was becoming acutely aware of how unfortunate it was that he happened to be naked when one of these drops splattered on Molotov’s upper lip. Keeping her eye locked with his, her tongue snaked out and slowly licked the blood away.

This was not fair.

“Penetrate me, Samson.”

Brock faltered.

Molotov took the opportunity in Brock’s moment of distraction to quickly adjust the angle of the knife and plunge it into his neck. Even as he lost consciousness, she kept eye contact.

The shower turns off and Molotov snaps back to reality. She pushes off the wall and moves quickly across the room, stopping dead to stare when she reaches the kit bag. Her hesitation takes too long; she can hear the door handle turning and swiftly grabs a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of the bag, darting to the window. She lights up and immediately sucks the cigarette halfway down to the filter. Brock emerges from the bathroom fully clothed with wet hair. He pauses in the doorframe for a moment before crossing over to Molotov. She pointedly ignores him.

Brock tilts his head to one side, then reaches out and plucks the cigarette from her mouth. When she turns to glare at him, he leans down and kisses her. Molotov allows this for a brief stretch of time before she lifts her hand and gently takes the cigarette back. Then she puts it out into his neck, twisting the burning cherry into his flesh.

Brock swears unintelligibly against her mouth and slams her hard against the wall. The back of her head connects solidly and she smirks against his lips as her teeth rattle together from the force. He presses his hips against her to hold her in place when he drops his hands to undo her dressing gown’s belt. It is an unnecessary precaution as she would not attempt to escape, but it succeeds in making her heart jump up to her throat again so it isn’t completely without worth. One of his hands grips the back of her head, fingers curling into her hair, while the other presses against her abdomen and slides down. Molotov rolls her eye in anticipation.

Brock freezes, stops kissing her, and glances down. Grimacing, he withdraws and goes to sit on the bed, grabbing two cigarettes from his own pack. He lights them both.

Molotov remains near the window, head tilting at him. “Did you forget?”

“No,” says Brock, not looking at her. “Well. Kinda. Maybe.”

Dressing gown still partway open, Molotov sighs and moves to sit next to him. Neither speaks; Brock finishes his cigarettes and, after contemplating putting them out in Molotov’s back, allows himself to fall backwards to lie down. Molotov is still for some time, something Brock recognises as a sign she is thinking too much about something. He watches the ceiling. In time, Molotov lies down next to him on her side, arm crossing his chest, her fingers resting lightly on his clavicle. Brock feels like screaming or killing something or both, but instead he goes to sleep. He dreams of Paris, 20 years ago.

--

Brock is woken up by a punch to the face.

“Son of a -- what the hell, Mol!” he yelps, shooting upright so fast that his vision goes black for a second. Molotov watches him impassively from the other side of the bed as he clutches at his jaw.

“Wake up,” she says, pulling on her gloves.

“Yeah,” says Brock bitterly, “I got that part.”

Molotov says nothing, pushing herself up from off the bed and crouching down next to her kitbag. She searches through it for a moment, then zips it closed and stands.

After the pain mostly subsides, Brock stretches and stands up as well. “What time is it?”

“Before dawn,” says Molotov, securing the kitbag over her shoulder. “We must go.” She heads out the door and Brock follows.

The man behind the counter in the lobby is where they left him, still watching the black and white television. He doesn’t look up when Molotov slides the bills across to him, only takes them without checking the amount and deposits them somewhere under the counter. For some reason, Brock cannot bring himself to find this strange anymore.

When they step out of the hotel, it is still dark outside, and as such the temperature is somewhere below freezing. Brock pops his collar up and tries not to shiver too much; Molotov takes no notice of the cold and wordlessly leads him through the empty streets. They head in the opposite direction of the village from whence they exited the bullet tram. The buildings become sparser and eventually thin out to nothing, leaving flat land populated only by arctic vegetation.

As they continue walking, the blackness begins to gradually recede as the sun nears the horizon, blanketing everything in a quiet, claustrophobic fog. Eventually they come upon the ruins of an abandoned Gulag, its high gates equal parts covered in rust and graffiti. Molotov stops and drops the kit bag to the ground.

Brock glances sidelong at her. “Here?”

“Da. Soon.”

“The target?”

“Soon.”

Brock gets out his cigarettes. He pauses before lighting one, looking to Molotov again. “This okay?”

Molotov was focussing on something on the horizon, hands on her hips and brow furrowed. She glances briefly at Brock. “Snipers? Nyet, it does not matter.” Her eye moves back to the horizon.

Brock watches her for a moment, smoking. Now that he actually has a moment to think about it, he realises that Molotov had become more and more pensive the longer they were on this mission. Either she is having some sort of crisis of conscience, or there is something she isn’t telling him.

He breaks the silence. “Hey, you gonna send Dr Venture the money when we’re done?”

Molotov glares at him for a second before returning her gaze to the horizon. “Da. I will.”

Brock rolls his eyes and finishes smoking. He drops the spent cigarette on the permafrost and crushes it under his heel. “So.”

“Hm,” says Molotov. She drops to a knee and unzips her kitbag, waving vaguely in the direction of the Gulag. “Go see if you can find a way inside.”

Brock shrugs and moves toward the gates, inspecting it for any weak points. There are several, rusted through by years of disuse and general lack of upkeep. “Yeah, I just need a crowbar or something,” he says. “I’m sure you got something like that in ... your ...”

He stops. Something is wrong. Molotov and her kitbag; something is wrong about that.

There is a clicking noise behind him. “Turn around,” says Molotov.

Brock slowly turns, a lead weight settling in his throat.

Molotov has a Makarov PM trained on the dead centre of his chest. Brock recognises the pistol as the one she used to kill his partner. He briefly considers raising his hands in defeat, but decides it’s useless anyway. “On your knees,” she says.

“It was me?” says Brock lowly.

Molotov tilts her head to one side. “Da. Thankfully you are very trusting or this would have actually been a challenge. On your knees.”

He glares at her and holds his ground. “Why’d you take me this far? Just to fuck with my head or what? You could’ve done it anytime you wanted. What the fuck, Molotov?”

Tilting her head to the other side, Molotov rolls her eye dramatically, adjusts her aim, and fires. The bullet tears through Brock’s leg. The pain is incredible. He swears loudly as he collapses to his knees. “Drop down, baby,” Molotov says in sing-song.

Brock’s hands go out to steady himself. The snow is freezing cold but he barely feels it through the pain. He continues swearing incomprehensively, seeing the snow slowly turn red in his peripheral vision. Molotov crosses over to him, pressing the barrel into the middle of his forehead once she is near enough.

“My, this is familiar,” she says. “Isn’t it?”

He glares up at her but says nothing.

Molotov cocks the pistol. “Do you have any last words, Samson?”

Brock’s glare turns into a dark grin. “Yeah,” he says. His vision shifts to something at the horizon, just above Molotov’s shoulder. “But it’s private.”

Molotov whirls around and immediately fires. “Merde!” cries a man’s voice. Brock cranes his neck to see. It’s the bartender from the train to Cologne, now dressed all in black and clutching his hand. His sniper rifle lies on the snow several feet backwards; Molotov shot it out of his hand without looking.

“Leave now and I will not kill you,” says Molotov.

“Non,” says the bartender, pulling a knife from some sheath that Brock could not see from his vantage point. “He is mine.” He hurls the knife at Molotov, which she dodges easily. It lands in the snow very near to Brock.

Molotov shrugs and shoots the bartender in the head. He falls over. “You’re mistaken,” she says to his corpse.

“Oui, he is ours,” says a woman’s voice from nearby. Brock and Molotov both turn to look.

“Bozhe,” says Molotov, annoyed, “I thought we lost you in Berlin.”

The blonde and the redheaded girls from both trains are standing along the path to the Gulag, each holding a Kalashnikov. “Ah non,” says the blonde. “It was a nice try, though.”

“Samson,” says Molotov quietly. “Can you stand?”

Brock groans. “Maybe.”

“Do it,” she hisses. “And take the redhead; I do not like her shoes.”

“Women, I can’t kill women,” says Brock.

“Well you are just useless, aren’t you?” says Molotov.

“Hé,” interjects the blonde. “You may whisper loving caresses to one another when you are dead, d’accord?” She adjusts her rifle.

Molotov scoops up the bartender’s knife with her foot, kicking it into the air and catching it in her free hand in one swift movement. She then throws it at the blonde, who is too distracted by this to notice when Molotov raises her pistol and fires. The blonde catches the bullet in the shoulder, hisses a string of curses in French, then rolls to take cover behind a sheet of rusted metal propped up against a transformer.

The redhead just stands there. Molotov gives her a pitying look before aiming at her as well. Before she gets a shot off, the blonde stands up and opens fire. Brock immediately launches himself at her, tackling her to the ground. Molotov and the redhead observe this for a moment, then look up and point their respective firearms at each other in unison.

“Your little friend is getting strangled,” says Molotov, tilting her head to one side.

“C’est pas grave,” the redhead shrugs. “This means I will not need to split the bounty.”

The blonde manages to lift her head up from where Brock is shoving her face into the snow. “Hein?!” she shrieks. Brock growls and shoves her head back down again, pinning her wrists together with his other hand. The Kalashnikov is to their left; she squirms and tries to hook it with her foot. Brock puts his knee into the back of her leg to prevent it, his blood gushing out and staining her white leggings red as his muscles tense.

The redhead keeps her eyes and rifle trained on Molotov but addresses her partner. “Oh please, Adèle. You would do the same.”

Adèle screams something into the snow.

Molotov smiles. “She seems to disagree with you.”

The redhead rolls her eyes and rotates her Kalashnikov counter-clockwise. “I do not care.”

“Mm, this is not very compassionate,” says Molotov.

“Chut,” says the redhead. “I do not make it a point to listen to corpses talk.”

“I was about to say the same,” smiles Molotov.

“Jeez, Mol,” calls Brock, “would you hurry it up already!”

“Oh, stop complaining,” says Molotov, then considers for a moment. “You know, Samson, you could just let her go.”

“Yeah, and then she’ll shoot both of us,” says Brock.

“Mm, nyet. I would think she would prefer kill her partner first.”

The redhead’s eyes go wide. Molotov’s smile broadens.

“Really,” says Brock. Adèle continues to struggle underneath him. He is very close to just breaking her spine out of frustration.

“Da, really.”

“You wouldn’t,” says the redhead. Her voice is becoming progressively higher-pitched. “How do you know she will do what you say?”

“Because I know revenge,” says Molotov. Her eye flickers toward Brock and Adèle for just a second; the redhead whirls around, nerves completely frayed, ready to fire her Kalashnikov.

Brock is still holding Adèle to the ground. The redhead realises her mistake too late but is shot in the back of the head before she can correct it. The bullet exits cleanly through her forehead, splattering the snow with blood and brain and skull fragments. She slumps forward. Molotov steps over her, glancing back. “I also know inexperience.”

Adèle is looking on in shock, Brock having lifted his grip on the back of her head when he heard the gunshot. “Odette,” she says hoarsely.

Molotov stops near Brock and Adèle, expression slightly bemused. “Oh, really? She would have gladly allowed you to die without a thought.”

“N-non, she --”

Molotov shoots her in the forehead. Flecks of bloody tissue from Adèle's skull splatter against Brock's cheek. She falls face-first into the snow and Brock stands up, scowling. “You didn't need to kill both of them.” He wipes off the blood.

Molotov just shrugs.

Brock looks at her for a moment, hands on his hips, then turns and looks back out at the horizon from which both the bartender and the two girls had emerged. “What now? We wait to see if any other guys come to kill me?”

Molotov checks the rounds in her pistol. “Nyet.”

“What, you think there won't be any more?”

“There is still one,” says Molotov.

There is a click and a bang and Brock's vision goes black.

Molotov jammed the muzzle of her pistol under Brock's ribcage, pausing to turn her head and spit blood before speaking. “On your knees.”

Brock stared down at her as best he could with one eye swollen nearly shut. “No.”

“I am a traditionalist,” said Molotov, inflection bored. “I prefer to execute in the proper fashion. On your knees.”

Brock sneered, showing bloodstained teeth. “Thought you wore that thing. I'm not gonna chew through metal for you.”

Molotov kneed him in the groin. He made a strangled noise and went down. Molotov bent over and lifted his head up by his chin, placing the pistol in the centre of his forehead. Brock struggled to focus on it, gasping in pain. “Have I got your attention again? Good. Because you are going to die tonight, my Samson.”

Brock just coughed and squinted up at her.

“Unless,” said Molotov slowly, looking thoughtful.

“What ...?”

“Defect. Join me. I only kill those on my side for personal reasons.”

Brock sneered again. “This isn't personal?”

“Do not think so highly of yourself,” said Molotov. “I assure you, this is business.”

Brock said nothing.

“Your answer?” said Molotov, voice slightly softer. But just slightly.

“No,” said Brock. Molotov sighed and pistol-whipped him across the face. Brock spit out a tooth, then turned back to face her, scowling. She pressed the muzzle into his forehead again. Brock glared.

Molotov cocked the pistol. “Do you have any last words, Samson?”

“Yeah,” said Brock, looking at her with pure hate. “I think I l --”

There was a bang and Brock's vision went black.

--

Everything is white, just bright and completely blinding. Brock flinches under the glare and starts to put up a hand to shield his eyes, but someone smacks it away and the brightness returns. He is dimly aware that he is lying supine on something cold, and is considerably more cognisant of the incredible pain in his back. Since he can’t see anything, he attempts to grope around for some idea of where he is, but a knee twists sharply in the back of his hand.

“Stop moving,” hisses a woman.

“Mol --”

Then everything starts swimming and Brock passes out again.

When he wakes up a second time, Brock’s vision is again assaulted by an intense brightness. This time, he reaches up and swats it away. The penlight flies out of Molotov’s hand and hits the wall. It takes a few seconds for his eyes to adjust; they are back in the hotel room in Magadan. Some plaster falls from the ceiling after the penlight drops to the floor. The pain in Brock’s back has lessened, but he’s still aware of it, just as he’s aware of Molotov sitting on the edge of the bed, peering at him curiously.

“You are still with us, Samson?”

Brock’s hand shoots out again and grabs her by the throat. He sits up with some difficulty and stares at her. “You shot me.”

Molotov just smiles, calmly grasping the hand around her neck.

Brock draws back his other fist and punches her right in the face, then lets her go. Her nose is spurting blood and she moves her hand to catch it, though some splatters on the bedspread anyway. Brock doesn’t suppose the hotel manager will mind much. “What the hell, Mol,” he finally says.

Molotov’s inflection is muffled and strange because of her hand and the blood. “Which part?”

“Start where you feel most comfortable,” Brock sneers. He’s pretty sure she sneers back under her hand.

“Simply put, those three bounty hunters were worth more than you,” she says, standing up and crossing the room to look out the window. It’s dark outside again.

Brock is incredulous. “That’s why you didn’t kill me?”

“Nyet, you just are terrible at dying.” Molotov turns around to look at him again, dropping her hands to her hips. Blood covers the entire lower half of her face. “I was not going to waste two bullets on you, Samson.”

Growling, Brock moves to stand up. His vision goes black for a second, but it returns before he collapses. Molotov remains standing impassively by the window. “You don’t need to kill me with a bullet.”

Molotov squints at him. “Do you have a death wish or something? Stop giving me ideas.”

“You could’ve done it anytime you wanted.”

“Da, you said that already on the permafrost. And we know how that conversation turned out.” She mimes a shooting gun motion with her hand.

Brock sets his jaw and goes around the bed to stand closer to her. He looks down at her, trying to find some kind of clue behind her eye. She stares defiantly back. He can’t find anything. “Molotov.”

“Samson.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

Brock is about to respond to this, but his body starts moving without consulting his brain, and he grabs her face and kisses her. Molotov bends under it, pressing her hands against his back. It’s only when she does this that Brock realises he’s bandaged in an efficient field dressing, and it’s only when he realises this that it dawns upon him why it took Molotov so long to pull the trigger. He didn’t note it at the time, because Molotov had always been prone to moodiness, but now that he thought about it, she’d been acting stranger than usual ever since she showed up at the Venture Compound.

The whole time, Brock realises, she was trying to figure out if she could actually go through with it.

Brock holds the back of her head and squeezes her hip with his other hand, kissing her harder and trying to let her know without words that he understands, that it’s okay, that he forgives her. She digs her fingers through the bandages into the hole in his back, and he isn’t sure what that means. He can feel her blood on his face and her nails in his wound and kisses her deeper.

When Molotov and Brock, kit bag slung over his shoulder, leave the hotel, Brock notices that the manager has abandoned his constant post at the front desk. In fact, the lobby seems to be completely deserted. He inclines his head toward this in wordless query as Molotov pauses to light up a cigarette.

She shrugs and snaps the lighter closed, tucking it into Brock’s hip pocket. “I was ensuring no-one would attempt to take my job from me again,” she says simply and continues out the door into the streets.

Brock takes a few steps toward the counter, then catches the familiar smell of a decomposing body and follows Molotov out. He jogs to catch up with her. She continues at the same pace, not making any effort to slow for a man she had just shot in the back less than 24 hours prior. “Three bounty heads were more than me, huh?”

Molotov’s lips quirk, but she doesn’t turn to look at him. “Astute. It was four.”

“The guy in the hotel?”

“The man who wanted you killed.”

“Did I even know him?”

“From the old days,” said Molotov.

Brock is quiet for a moment, thinking this over. Molotov only killed people on her side for personal reasons. “So you killed him.”

“Da, he was the fourth.”

Brock grins. “So it took four to be more than me?”

Molotov stops walking and he follows suit. She turns to look at him, smile broad. “Da. But it was considerably more.”

--

When Molotov drives Brock back to the Compound, he is initially unsure what to expect from the Ventures. He had only contacted them once during the entire mission, as during the travel back to Colorado, he was consistently distracted by forgiving Molotov in the most appreciative ways she would allow.

Molotov pulls her Viper up to the open hangar, and Brock jumps out when she kills the engine. She opens the trunk and he removes his duffel bag, throwing it a cursory scowl before Molotov approaches him. “This is it, I suppose,” she says, lit cigarette dangling from her lips.

Brock rolls his shoulder in a shrug. “I guess. But hey, I meant to ask you somethin’.”

Molotov rolls her eye. “Da, what,” she says flatly.

Brock smirks at her impatience and leans down, leans closer, voice low. “Did you mean it when you said you trust me?”

For a fleeting second or two, Brock is sure he catches Molotov off guard. Eyebrow raised, she looks at him wide-eyed before her expression melts into that of a coquette and her fingers seek out his belt buckle. “Come with me and I will let you know exactly how I feel about you, my little Samson,” she says in a murmur.

Brock touches the side of her face, then plucks the cigarette from between her lips and places it between his own. “Sorry,” he says.

Molotov sighs and retreats to her car just as the Ventures burst into the hangar, calling his name excitedly. Brock turns to beam at them, waving.

“Are you okay? Did you solve any mysteries? Did you find ancient ruins?”

“Did you kill any guys? Were there ninjas? Did you bring me anything?”

“Did you get my money?”

Brock blinks at the last question, squinting down at Dr Venture. “Wait, what?”

Venture scowls impatiently, arms folded. “My money, the payment your little murder pal promised me.”

“She was supposed to --” Brock begins, turning around to motion toward Molotov.

Then the Viper peels out and she is gone.

Dr Venture throws his hands in the air. “Great! Super freaking peachy. Now we’re like, thirteen thousand dollars in the hole. Way to go, Brock. Nice negotiating skills.”

Brock turns back to the doctor. “I thought she said twelve.”

“Yeah. And?”

Brock has no words for this.

Dr Venture turns toward his sons, waving them back inside. “Looks like one of you won’t be going to college.”

“Aw, Pop!” says Dean. “We can find a way to raise money.”

“Could we fight for it?” says Hank. “It could be like Thunder Dome! Two men enter, one man gets to live in the dorm!”

“No, but right now your brother seems like a veritable brain trust compared to you, Hank, so don’t get your hopes up,” says Venture. Their voices fade as they leave the hangar.

Brock watches Molotov’s Viper recede into the distance. When he can’t see it anymore, he still keeps watching. After what he’s sure is far too long to be staring out at a desolate canyon, Brock turns around and follows the Ventures.

It’s only hours later when he’s unpacking his duffel bag that Brock realises Molotov stole his fucking toothbrush.