Jennifer's fingers trembled as she pried the dead thug's wallet from his back pocket. The leather was warm from his body heat, sticky with drying blood. She didn't look at his face—didn't want to see the surprised hole where his eye used to be.
Four thousand nine hundred dollars. All of it still there, untouched. He'd never had time to spend a dime of her hard-stolen money. She shoved the bills into the only intact pocket she could find: the torn lining of her ruined jacket, now draped over her shoulders like a cape made of failure.
The body was heavier than it looked. She dragged him by the ankles, heels scraping across cracked asphalt, leaving a dark smear that would be obvious by morning.
The alley ended at a rusted manhole cover half-buried under trash bags. She wedged the pry bar she'd found leaning against a dumpster under the edge and heaved. The cover popped free with a metallic groan.
Sewer stink rolled up like bad breath. She didn't hesitate. One last pull and the corpse tumbled down, splashing into black water twenty feet below. The sound echoed for a long second, then nothing. No witnesses. No cameras in this part of East LA. Just another ghost in a city full of them.
Naked except for the shredded jacket, she crouched behind the dumpster and rummaged. Luck, for once. A black garbage bag stuffed in the corner held discarded clothes—probably from some runaway or junkie who'd upgraded and left the old stuff behind.
She pulled out a pair of faded gray sweatpants (too big, but she cinched them with a strip torn from her old jeans), a loose navy hoodie that swallowed her frame, and mismatched socks. No underwear, no shoes.
The sneakers she'd been wearing were shredded beyond use, so she went barefoot for now. The cold pavement bit her soles, but she welcomed the pain. It meant she was still moving.
She needed to erase what he'd done inside her.
The twenty-four-hour pharmacy three blocks away had flickering fluorescent lights and a bored cashier who didn't blink at her disheveled appearance. Jennifer kept her head down, hood up, voice low.
"The emergency one. And water."
The cashier slid the small blue box across the counter. Fifty dollars. She counted out the bills with shaking fingers, left a crumpled five as tip, and walked out without waiting for change or a bag.
Back in the same alley—now emptier, quieter—she tore open the package. One tablet. Levonorgestrel. She dry-swallowed it first, grimacing at the chalky bitterness that coated her tongue, then cracked the bottle of water and chugged half to wash it down properly.
The other half she used to rinse her mouth, spitting into the gutter. She didn't know if it would work—didn't know how far along any potential conception might be after 2 hours of relentless invasion—but she wasn't taking chances. She wanted no part of him living inside her. No anchor to that night.
She found a public restroom behind a closed laundromat, the door half off its hinges. The mirror was cracked, the sink brown with rust, but the lock still worked.
She barricaded herself in, stripped again, and used wads of toilet paper soaked in tap water to clean between her legs as best she could. The water ran pink at first, then clearer.
She scrubbed until her skin was raw, until the scent of him was mostly gone from her nostrils. When she finished, she stood naked under the flickering bulb and stared at her reflection. Bruises bloomed across her stomach like ugly flowers—finger marks, palm prints. They would fade. The memory wouldn't.
She dressed again, slower this time. Hood up. Hands in pockets. Gun tucked into the waistband of the sweatpants, safety off. Twenty-nine rounds left. Enough.
She stepped back into the night intending to disappear—find a new motel, maybe hit a library tomorrow to research Stark Industries stock patterns—but four shadows peeled themselves off the wall at the mouth of the alley.
"Yo, shorty," the leader drawled. Gold chain, backwards cap, pistol already in hand. "You look like you got money. Hand it over."
Three others flanked him. Knives, one baseball bat.
Jennifer didn't speak. Didn't beg. She just moved.
The first one lunged—bat raised. She sidestepped, drew the silenced Beretta in one smooth motion, and fired. The pop was soft, almost polite. The bullet punched through his forehead; he dropped like a marionette with cut strings.
The leader blinked, startled. "What the fu—"
Second shot. Center mass, but she adjusted mid-trigger pull and caught him through the eye instead. He collapsed backward, chain jingling once.
The third tried to run. She tracked him, exhaled, squeezed. The round entered the back of his skull and exited through his face. He pitched forward, skidding on concrete.
The last one raised his hands, knife clattering. "Wait, wait, I ain't—"
She didn't wait. One more suppressed crack. His head snapped back, body folding neatly.
Four bodies in under ten seconds. Blood pooling under the streetlight. The silencer had kept it quiet enough—no screams, no sirens yet.
She stepped over them without looking down, retrieved the cash she'd dropped during the draw (still intact), and kept walking.
Her bare feet left bloody prints for the first block. She didn't care. The city swallowed noise and evidence alike. By the time she reached a busier street, she'd wiped the gun on the hoodie sleeve and slipped it back into her waistband.
She hailed a late-night cab with a twenty from the recovered stack, gave the driver an address four miles away—a different cheap motel, one she'd scouted earlier.
In the backseat, she stared out the window at passing lights. The tablet was working its way through her system.
She could almost feel it—chemical soldiers sweeping through her womb, erasing any chance of his legacy taking root. Virgin again, in the only way that mattered to her now. No ties. No consequences she couldn't control.
The cab stopped. She paid cash, no tip, and walked into the new room without looking back. Door locked. Chain on. She collapsed onto the bed still clothed, gun on the nightstand.
Tomorrow was the day Tony Stark disappeared in Afghanistan.
She closed her eyes. Sleep didn't come easy, but when it did, it was dreamless.
Survival wasn't clean. Neither was revenge.
But both were necessary.