She always loved the desert. The sultry still heat of it, the warmth of the dirt beneath her toes as the sun beat down mercilessly against her skin, stroking burning fingertips of sun rays across her flesh.

The desert was vast and empty with a solitaire tree that braved the dust and the scorching heat to linger on. Perhaps it was a sibling of the Joshua Tree, Tempest imagined it was just a rebellious youth becoming defiant against Mother Nature.

Tempest could understand why, she had no love for the Green Mother.

In the desert she would have preferred to be alone with her thoughts, the savage blades and cruel edges of the past that would play over and over again, so many versions and lives lived. Like the layers of an onion peeled and shredded away to leave a new skin. Rebirth and redemption it was such a beautiful thing for Tempest to find.

The ones trusted were remembered, tucked away nice and save in the dark crevices of her mind. The ones she had come to lose faith in had been murdered over and over again in her nightmare soaked dreams. The stability of her mind had been lost leaving the insanity to corrupt and forge her into a more… adequate… adaption of the prior.

No family. No love.

These were the things that were not hers to find the storylines of, she preferred it that way. Merciless and Solo she was one better off working alone until exceptions were made.

A long time ago, another time so long ago she had made mistakes. Unforgiveable mistakes that she would not make again. This was a do over that she would not destroy. This was the life she was meant to possess.

Egypt was on her mind, a Machete buried in her heart, a Killer in her soul.

Those would be the only things she would carry with her, save for the dull shining rest of the dog tags resting at her chest.

Were there others she missed? Maybe so… but it was best to walk away before they followed her footsteps and became damned. Damnation was only hers to own. She was such a selfish b*tch.

For a moment she forgot where she was until the whimpering screams of the girl hanging from the tree by her feet brought her back to the present hour.

“Why…. Why are you doing this?”

Her whimpering pleading words of confusion and loss grated on the nerves of Tempest.

Ashes and wine were the voice that parted her lips.

“Why? It’s simple enough. I am doing this merely because your hair is red.”

“Only because of that?!?”

“There are other reasons…”

Softly, so distant as the borderline seething fury began to prick its claws through the calm of her insanity, leaving a hole to burn in the black sun of her eyes.

So many reasons, like the damnable catlike upturn of the redhead’s eyes. Her hands lifted as her fingertips pressed into her temples as Tempest looked flatly to the woman.

“Stop talking.”

Just like a woman, she never would shut up until someone made them shut up.

A faint sneer and before Tempest knew the reaction of her body, the instinct of her mind would coerce.

The blade’s serrated edge cut swift and smooth, ripping open the throat of the woman like it was butter.

She no longer would continue her senseless, foolish babble. No… oh no she wouldn’t.

“I know they are watching me. It’s only a matter of time before I give them all the more reason to… pursue… me.”

A faint pat of the dying redhead’s cheek as she overstepped the blood puddle spilling across the desert dust.

“Ta ta. Don’t worry. By the time they find you, you’ll long be gone… the carrion birds… are waiting.”