The first time he'd retrieved her was in 2011, just inside of West Virginia at the southwest corner; coordinates 37.432973, -81.987671, a little fishing town curled in a bed of red and yellow trees. She'd run away from home for the first time-left in the middle of the night with a bus ticket and seven hundred dollars cash. She could have taken more, could have traveled farther, but she didn't know he existed, she had no idea how easily he would find her. He blew out the wheels on the van she was riding in, put bullets in the kids she'd been traveling with. When she was running away from the car he could hear jitterbug playing on the dying radio.

That was the first time he'd ever seen her in real life; smiling, laughing, bobbing up and down as she climbed into that van, fall and sunlight swimming around her. Just a kid. With all the wipes he couldn't remember if he'd actually looked at the pictures in Pierce's house. He couldn't recall if he'd stood in a main room, scanned a wall littered with photographs of a child; some towheaded and laughing in sports gear, some starched and stoic in a school uniform. Ice skating, ballet, smile. Thanksgiving, family portrait, scowl.

The first time she saw him her fear seemed to melt almost instantly, the dark of her eyes dilating and her fingers squeezing into a fist. He'd just lit the van aflame, stalking her down the abandoned highway as she limped and called for help. When he caught up to her she stopped yelling, turning to him with a face not unlike her father's; stanch, a guise of calm over fiery rage.

Back then she fought like a cat, screeching and scratching, fingers and teeth and heels frantic. He'd switched cars three times on the way back, and each time he opened the truck she'd burst out, biting and hollering with her fists white. He could feel the plush of her cheeks give under his knuckles as he beat her into compliance, feel the flush of her skin as his metal fingers gripped around her wrist, splintering the bone. He could almost hear the tearing sound as his knuckle split her lip. She was only eighteen.

Still she kept her eyes on him, refusing to cower, insisting that she would never go back. He had to knock her out, twice. She needed to be put in plaster casts when he got her home, her skin purpled and yellowed instead of flush pink. He delivered her back to her father in zip ties, crusty with blood and wearing a shit-eating grin. Pierce had half-heartedly introduced them, calling him "the Asset." The secret weapon of his parental control—the prized tool. He spoke her name like it was a bitter taste in his mouth; Ruby.

Pierce told his daughter he should thank the Asset, but his attempt at domination aborted when she promptly smiled, saccharine, and slipped up to him, the plastic ties making bulbous segments on her arms as she held her hands near his face. He was unmoving, and when given permission he looked at her, down at the red streaks the links in his prosthetic had made on her face. She'd probably had perfect skin before his hands touched her.

Blood formed crunchy mounds in her pale hair, and he could feel the plumose ends brush against the inside of his elbow when she leaned close. He noticed her eyes were hazel right before she spit in his face. "Till next time, Ass-hat." An agent restrained her, yanking her discolored body away and into the house to be mended and punished. He didn't move an inch, not until he was allowed.

Right before they cleared his head again Pierce looked down at him, the irises of his eyes starkly different from the child. "That may not be the last time you have to track her down, soldier." He said it irritatingly, like mentioning a chore. His teeth gritted inside his cheeks, the image of her being marred again by his hands flooding him with revulsion before it all went blank.