Codename Villanelle

But the eyes that are gazing at FatPanda are not amber brown like Nurse Wu’s. They are the icy grey of the Russian midwinter.

“My cover name,” she said. “I’ve chosen it.”

We are their soldiers, Oxana. Our job is to shape the future.”
“Oxana is dead,” she murmurs.
“And Villanelle must survive.”

Her own eyes are the frozen grey of the Russian midwinter.

“You know she’s a fucking psycho,” said Frank.
“Nobody’s perfect,” said Konstantin.

And looking around her, with the dead men at her feet, she sees the city resolved into its essential colours. Black, white and red. Darkness, snow and blood. Perhaps it takes a Russian to understand the world in those terms.

Christ on a bike,” breathes Billy. “We’re in.”

Villanelle begins to answer, but feeling the slippery flutter of Lara’s fingers inside her, arches her back and sighs, her body’s pulse becoming one with the engine-note of the Learjet. She pictures the aircraft racing through the night, and the dark Russian forests far below. Taking Lara’s other hand in hers, she sucks the trigger finger into her mouth. It tastes metallic and sulphurous, like death.

takes Villanelle’s upper lip between her teeth, and explores it with her tongue. “I love your scar.

Yet again, Villanelle feels her bearings shift. Lara naked and supine beneath her is one thing, Lara hefting a high-precision rifle quite another