"The secret of flight is this -- you have to do it immediately, before your body realizes it is defying the laws." 

― Michael Cunningham

M A K A Y L A

I was so tired of people putting Alex in danger.

I was tired of the manipulation. The lies and the power plays. In the moment I held that gun trained on Dazz I saw so much of what she had been trying to tell me. Power did not just happen–our safety didn't–you had to take it. Playing the royal in places like this got you no where but on the wrong end of a gun.

So I pulled the trigger.

The fusion round hummed as it flashed, searing into its mark in the middle of her chest. It was not the reaction I expected from her–

It was almost trained. She turned a growl into more of a frustrated groan as she dropped to a knee. But the more shocking part of it all was the trademark flash of black from a Vanguard piece of armour–armour only the Division had access to.

"We don't have time for this." Alex snapped behind me drawing up her comm, "–Proximo we're compromised, mid floor, chutes are still an option."

I tore my eyes off Proximo's growling sister and reached for Alex's cloaked arm. But she withdrew quickly with a hard and almost... nervous look. She drew her comm back to her lips and moved past me for Dazz of all people.

To my disbelief they clasped arms and she pulled her to her feet.

What the hell happened...

"Confirmed we–can make the jump." Dazz suddenly grunted into a comm I didn't notice. She flashed me another cool look that verged more towards amusement than irritation.

"Acknowledged–area hot in 5 minutes." Alex nodded back to Dazz as if they worked together and didn't despise each other on a soul crushing level.

"What do you say, Xavier?" Dazz quipped, drawing my frown deeper, "–want to take another shot or come with me this time?"

My strides became quick fuelled by anger and disbelief. I couldn't meet Alex's eyes who had been even more bizarre since she had been dragged in here. I dropped the gun as I paced to throw a hand in her face.

"Maybe you can explain something to me. Because I seem to be missing the part where you two became best friends and not a lying piece of shit!" I snarled.

"Two minutes!" Alex called behind me–like she reported to her.

Dazz's expression remained cool. Her hands dipped into the pockets of those cargos she always wore–those tattoos along her collarbone–my eyes froze for a moment. Something like slow and painful realisation creeping in. Her expression merely waited like she expected it. I moved my hand up carefully while she watched me. Slipping my fingers to the place behind her neck.

Dazz's face fell away and I shut my eyes with a sigh.

"Tell me who the hell I just kissed, Scorpion." I said low.

Her real eyes watched me back, the burning gold ones.

"I thought you would have realised... But then again you have explored more lips than mine before."

I didn't have time to slap her. 

She drew both guns off her hips and levelled them over my shoulders as the lift opened behind us. It sang around me in a bright hum. I didn't break her stare. Four guards dropped dead before her guard moved. Her eyes dropped to my lips a moment before she holstered the pistols and turned away from me in all her swagger.

"Get the window." She snapped as Mackenzie revealed herself. She had the sense to offer her crimson cloak back however. Alex threw it across her shoulders without breaking stride and commed Proximo while I stared.

She never did anything without making a Division 52 mark on it...

Charges lined the thick glass and in moments it shattered. The winds were instant and howling before them. Strands of Alex's dark hair caught on her face. She looked back to me and angled her head to her side. 

Still pissed off. Good so was I.

I strode towards her with my own glare as Mackenzie prepared herself. I didn't see a parachute anywhere...

"Do you want to ride with me or her?" Alex drawled. Mackenzie looked like she was unable to breathe properly.

"Would you just focus on getting us out!" I snapped, ignoring her dark smirk.

Alex nodded to her personal guard and she leapt out the window from the sky tower without delay. I watched in horror as she free fell with no parachute. It was only as she fell fifty feet through the night that I finally saw her arms and legs go wide and panels of concealed fabric drew taught and flung her into the air again. It was better than a squirrel suit... It maintained her altitude.

"Let's not keep Proximo waiting." She whispered close behind me, taking my waist tightly and my breath along with it.

Guards shouted at the other end of the lift as they saw us and levelled rifles. Alex mock saluted them with one hand before throwing us both off the edge.

For the second time I was falling from the sky hundreds of feet above the ground. The exhilaration couldn't be denied. Especially when the stakes were this high. Fusion crafts sped through the skies at this height and the lights of the sky towers were nothing short of beautiful as we soared between them all. Sector 5 had never looked so good.

We glided through shard after shard of illuminated beauty in the upper sectors. Millions of souls oblivious as we flew on past them. A former life I had when I wasn't in the arms of Merridian's Underworld ruler.

A smile cracked me despite it all. Wrapped securely in her hold with her warmth surrounding me. Sure, Alex's life really put us through it but it really paid off spectacularly too. She never did almosts or halves... She was always all or nothing.

I saw the rooftop landing pad with the falcon jet before she drew us into a fast land, catching her feet before I did. As soon as the moment past she released me and strode forward, grabbing the side of Mackenzie's face. She tore off the small disk and crunched it beneath her boot. Her personal guard looked ready for her own execution. But Alex drew back and silently nodded her into the craft with a hard look. Mackenzie practically threw herself into it.

"Glad you've cleaned up one of our enemies–because we have a bigger one waiting." Proximo said by way of greeting crossing his arms around the jet.

Alex almost palmed him in the face with a, "Not now."

Proximo's expression landed quickly on me as she stormed past him to the Falcon. A vicious grin took hold of him. I watched his tattoos a moment before shaking my head and making to follow her. Proximo's voice shocked me over the wind of the engines.

"It's good to see you, Miss Xavier!"

I raised an eyebrow halfway up the ramp but he had already disappeared for the pilot's chair. I drew up his private comm to my mouth, "You too, you grumpy bastard."

His laugh was brief and the engines were louder.

* * * * *

"Do you know what it feels like being shot in the chest with a fusion round, Makayla?" Alex asked slowly taking her cloak off her shoulders.

Her room was dark but for the low blue floor lights in places.

I swallowed and bit my lip, "I thought you were Dazz."

Her cloak hit the ground heavily. She watched me as she pulled a lethal blade from her arm and took the Vanguard off much more efficiently with it. I stared at the scorched hole in the middle of it.

"I thought you wanted Dazz alive?" She said exasperated, "Proximo's one and only family–"

"You wore her damn face and stood beside Hades!" I retorted spreading my arms. Which reminded me of the state of my leg now covered in a nano seal. "–And stabbed me."

The armour dropped off her with a dull thud and she rolled her shoulders and neck before looking at me. "I couldn't attend the party as myself–Scorpion doesn't get a good reception." She did however look slightly pained when she regarded my injury, "–if I had any other choice I would have sent that blade through his face faster–"

"I know." I interrupted, shaking my head and stopping before her to remove various weapons of lethality from her body. She watched me as I unstrapped the knife that had ended a rebel leader.

"You know I can arrange dinner for you and my personal guard–"

I slapped her with a smirk despite it.

"Tell Mackenzie I already have plans."

"She'll be heartbroken. That was some kiss..." Alex ventured, watching my face as I took another blade and pointed it at her throat.

"I thought it was you. Asshole."

She raised her hands in surrender and I lowered the last blade. This time she took a step closer and scanned my body. She took hold of the gun holster at my hip and tugged it sharply making my body heat as she let it drop to the floor. But I didn't have as much on me–Hades men had taken most of  my lethality away.

It didn't stop her from running a blade along the seam of another doomed piece of clothing. It fell off my torso but her eyes remained holding my own.

"Should I remind you of how that feels?" She replied in a low voice.

My blood spiked in my veins. Hot and cold all at once. That look. That voice. All of it. The words weren't even necessary. I crashed my lips onto hers. The low sound from my throat made her hands grip my waist to her tighter.

My hands went into her hair and freed it from the ties so I could run my fingers through it. Her lips moved to the side of my cheek and brushed along my neck as we took in gulps of air.

"Not with your leg." She breathed.

"You've tried it on–half dead–there's not a chance I'm letting you go–"

She chuckled before I drew her jaw back to me and kissed her deeply. The groan in her throat made me smile. "Shower?" She asked breathless. 

The rest of me heated just at the thought alone–

"Actually. I've seen the size of that bath in there..." I murmured with a dark look.

"Your wish..." She finished, grazing my lip with her thumb before turning for the bathroom and stepping through the doorway to run hot water into that colossal floor tub. I gazed after her with a faint smile before glancing down at my trousers and boots. I pulled off the rest of my clothing near silently and sprawled across her bed on my stomach.

"Now what am I going to do about that?" A slow response came from the bathroom door.

I glanced over my bare shoulder at the look written all over her face. I shrugged and recrossed my legs swaying my hips as I did. She shrugged off the wall without hesitation and materialised above me before slowly turning me over to face her.

There was something softer in her expression though. Despite my games she took the side of my face in her hand and met my eyes. "Next time I take you out, I'm allowed to be as dangerous as I want."

I grinned and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her down until she met my body on the bed.

"I thought I'd give you a challenge–you always love one."

"I love you too damn much to give our enemies a fair chance." She whispered, dropping down and stealing my lips before I could tell her just how mutual that was.

The way we were pressed together, made it impossible not to escalate. I made short work of Alex's clothing before she took me off my feet and in the direction of the bath. It was already overflowing by the time we arrived with foam and water everywhere. I laughed and she didn't even cast it a second look as she dropped us in amid a sea of steam and foam.

I couldn't even help myself. The Division's leader got a face full of foam many times before she could steal my wrists and sink my head under the water. I was barely given a few seconds breathing time before my lips found hers again and our heated skin pressed under the water. I felt her hands travel my sides and make me shudder before grazing my breasts in the heated intensity of it all.

That soon stopped my laughter. 

I'd die from those hands. Gladly. Her assault over my skin was ruthless. Pressed against the smooth side of the deep tub and trapped by her body and the feel of her legs between mine–my thoughts were lost–along with every other part of me.

I felt like I couldn't drag enough air in the thick steam as she ran circles around the most sensitive peaks of my chest. She kissed down my neck, unafraid to graze her teeth lower as my senses rushed me.

"Still think–you'd mistake my lips–for another?" She smiled around my skin.

I sucked in a breath when her teeth replaced her hand and moaned loudly.

"Alex–"

Her tongue started drawing circles against my skin and I soon forgot how to breathe properly at all. My nails dragged down her back as she continued the torture on both hard peaks of my chest. The heat was growing in a much more central part of me as her legs carelessly pressed me under the water.

She finally released me from her teeth and ran her tongue up my neck until she faced me with a much darker look in her eyes. I was dragging in oxygen as it was–

"I think I can hold my breath long enough."

"Long enough for wh–"

Her grin told me enough as I felt her hands pull my thighs apart. Despite all we were to each other and all we had been through... I blushed as crimson as the red flowers we had seen in that sky garden.

The next series of minutes felt like hours with what that woman did to me.

What each run of her tongue did to my body under that steaming water was more than anything I had imagined–why did it feel so much more heightened in water? She knew what she was doing to me even if my moans weren't indication enough. At this point she could likely hear me under the water.

When I reached a very enthusiastic end to that endless high I wanted nothing more than to do so much worse unto the crime lord herself. Alex's eyes seemed more darkness than gold at this point and my touch only drew more out of her. But I refused to give her the control she wanted so badly. I moved to sit on top of her in the water that splashed over the edge around us.

We were still breathing heavily as I shifted more deliberately on her lap. She sighed slowly through her nose trying and failing to control her breathing. I shook my head slowly, blonde hair running wet down my shoulder as I pressed my lips to hers.

"Always trying–to kill me." She mumbled around my lips.

"I'd say you–even the score lately." I returned, running my lips down her throat and causing a moan to follow it. 

I ran both my hands freely down the centre of her body and slowly over the muscles of her abs, appreciating every line. I let my hands roam lower and she tightened her own hold on me.

"You know..." I began, running my fingers along the inside of her legs. Alex groaned and shook her head.

"I have no idea."

I giggled, continuing my assault closer to the most sensitive part of her. "–I used to swim a lot in Sector 1." Alex nodded, still distracted with the way my fingers got dangerously closer to her every word. "–I think I can hold my breath for a lot longer than you, Scorpion."

Her eyes flashed open and my answering grin told her just how much I'd prove that point.