She was a huntress, had been even before hell broke loose in her country and her city, and so she felt more comfortable in the wild wasteland north of the Bronx. Every so often she liked to remind the brainwashed that they were never safe, slipping through no-man's-land like the ghost she knew herself to be, leaving death as her calling card and shaking their serene oblivion at least for a while. She enjoyed the excuse to disappear into the woods, where she could pretend that there was nothing left out there, no heroes, no villains, no memories, no rage.

She held Meg tenderly as she made her way through the forest, one hand occasionally caressing the gun's barrel; she could do that now that the shotgun had cooled down. Fiver was at her belt in case she needed something a little smaller. A petite figure, she could slip between the trees where others would have had to step around. As she stroked the gun named for her lover, she let out a long breath that some might have interpreted as a sigh. "Just like old times," she whispered to Meg, quietly enough that no one else could have possibly heard. Had she had time, she would have stopped, but she had to time things precisely so that she would emerge from the wilds just at dusk; that would give her enough time to slip through the Bronx and upper Manhattan and claim her day's victim. She got antsy if she didn't kill at least one brainwashed a day; if she let them stay alive, they might reproduce. The last thing the world needed was more idiots, an opinion she had held since even before her flesh-and-blood Meg had died, since before a year had been cut out of her life and before she had fallen into the cold, steely madness that now claimed her.

"Gray Lady." The voice was quiet and raspy, certainly with no softness to it. The Gray Lady immediately brought Meg up, pointed in the direction of the voice. "I come under flag of truce, see?" Sure enough, the tall black woman who had spoken came out holding a white blouse on a long stick. After a long pause, the Gray Lady lowered Meg's barrel just slightly. "Thanks. I hear you take commissions?"

The Gray Lady nodded, her interest piqued by the vaguely familiar figure who stood before her. She indicated that the other woman should continue.

"Loose ends need to be tied up. It's really for the best. They're happy now, but it's not who they really are." The black woman took two creased pictures from the pocket of her navy blue sweatpants and extended them towards the Gray Lady. As the armed woman reached for the pictures, the black woman added, "I can't pay you for it..."

With that, the Gray Lady pulled back her hand as if she had thrust it into fire. Her lips pressed tightly together, she shook her head disapprovingly and turned to go. Her message was clear: no one approached her for a job without being able to pay for what they had requested.

"She can't, but I can." Once again, the gun was at the ready as a stranger entered the scene. Long dark hair fell loose nearly to her waist, framing large brown eyes and a face that was charming and memorable, if not beautiful; she looked like the kind of person that had a lot of fun with life, even if the glitter in her eyes suggested that other people might not agree with her definition of fun. She was naked, which gave her the opportunity to show off how she planned to pay the Gray Lady.

Despite herself, despite her memories, the Gray Lady was tempted. It had been a long time since she had thought to seek out another woman's arms. After what had happened to her in prison, she had shied away from sex and sexuality, blocking out those needs and desires until her heart had turned to stone and her soul to ice. Then again, it had been years since anyone had given her a choice in the matter, something she appreciated more than this other woman might know. Maybe this was the time when the walls would come down and she would be fully human again in her thoughts and emotions. On the other hand, it was the hatred and coldness that drove her to kill and kill again; would letting down her guard ruin her as a killer? Or would it assuage the need for the blood of the brainwashed? She took a half-step forward, still debating with herself, still looking the naked woman up and down as she took the pictures from the dark woman. For the first time in years, she felt heat, warmth, fire, piercing her shell.

And just like that, a scream pierced the still, heavy air. The Gray Lady's head jerked towards the sound, the gun rising in her hands like part of her body. She glared at the two women, silently demanding an answer from them. The dark woman glanced at her naked friend, whose face registered embarrassment and some anger. "Why couldn't she have kept the bitch quiet? Would that have been too much to ask?" she demanded.

The dark woman gritted her teeth. "Watch your mouth," she snapped. To drive her point home, she brandished the flag of truce in the other woman's face. As the blouse waved, the Gray Lady saw what she hadn't seen before- bloodstains along the front of the blouse, red handprints right on the spots where the blouse would fall over a woman's breasts, little droplets trailing down parallel to the buttons. Another scream suddenly echoed out from the trees, full of pain and suffering, so high-pitched that it nearly took out their eardrums.

A voice called out from the nearby place. "Come on, hon, aren't you done yet? She's not gonna last forever!"

The Gray Lady's eyes narrowed at the sound of a New York accent. The pieces fell into place. She held the pictures up to the light, then threw them at the dark woman's feet. Once her hands were free, she raised the gun to her shoulder, sighted carefully, and fired into the woods, towards the sound of the scream. The naked woman shrieked in fury. "How the fuck dare you? If you killed her, I swear, I'm gonna fuckin' kick your ass!"

"What the hell was that? Hon, have you been playing with guns again? I told you not to do that after the time you shot off the bitch's tits." Another brown-haired woman emerged from the woods, also naked, her fair skin splattered with glistening red blood. Sticky fingers brushed loose bits of hair out of her face. "What's takin' you so long, anyway? There's no use hanging around- we're all out of fun, that gunshot took out the idiot bitch." She caught sight of the Gray Lady, and the way the afternoon sunlight played across the older woman's face erased some of the stressful years, making her again the girlish beauty once admired across the land. "Ohhh, I see you found someone new to play with."

At those words, the Gray Lady flinched violently. She slammed a new round of shells into the shotgun and very deliberately took aim at the nude woman with the bright smile. The dark woman shook the blouse off the stick, revealing the heavy head of a sledgehammer, which she then handled with grace and deftness. From behind her back, the New Yorker produced a long, sharp knife, its edge still stained from its last session of use. "You might get her, but you won't get both of us too. You'd be dead. Do you really want that?" the dark woman challenged.

The Gray Lady paused, holding the gun up long enough to make everyone tense. Finally, with hatred simmering in her stormy eyes and the nearly invisible line of her pursed lips, she lowered the barrel of the gun and backed out of the scene. Before she departed completely, she spat at the three women. Then the shadows swallowed her. She would return to her city and vent her rage there upon the brainwashed who trespassed on her territory. Her city was the first priority, the most important thing left in her life.

But when it was cleansed, when no idiot dared set foot on any of the islands or in the Bronx, then she would return to these woods and take her revenge. Only then would she be able to dispose of the fiends who committed acts even she found abhorrent, and reveled in the misery they caused. She would wait them out coolly, calmly, with the patience of a true huntress.