Revenge Is A Dish Best Eaten

Standing alone in that clearing, gazing down at the man who lay dead at her feet and clutching the knife wound in her side, Isabella thought it would be different. Taking a life in exchange for her sister's was the easy part; grappling with the emptiness that's still gnawing away at her insides makes her feel like the punchline to a joke made at her expense.

Greasy hair, a thick mustache, the skin on his hands mottled from burns long healed -- she'd slit his throat from ear to ear, a stripe of crimson painting the ground beneath his head like a neckerchief, and she watched him take his last breath while the life drained from his body.

Sara's screams as she burns alive and suffocates on ash and smoke ring in Isabella's ears.

Choking on his own blood is a fate too good for him.

She spits on his corpse.

Jake's warning against taking on Kilgrave's Boys alone had been a sound one. She doesn't recognize the second man laying a few feet away -- a scar on his left cheek, a gold tooth, an underbite that reminds her of her father's ornery old appaloosa -- but nobody with a pure conscience takes orders from Alexander Kilgrave. Whoever he was, whoever's blood was on his hands, there isn't a doubt in Isabella's mind that he deserved to die, too.

He had manifested out of nowhere, and she'd felt the blade of his knife bite into her side before she saw him, slicing open her skin and staining her white shirt red. A swing of her rifle and the introduction of the grip to the side of his skull had knocked him to the ground; a bullet to his chest kept him there.

The gunfire had made the horses panic and scatter, including her own, and she only manages a handful of steps before the searing pain in her side commands her to stop and catch her breath. Staggering towards a nearby tree, she braces herself against it and greedily gulps down lungfuls of air, peeling her hand away from her waist with a wince. Her palm is red and trembling with adrenaline.

Jake will never let her hear the end of this. Never could pass up an opportunity to flaunt that he was right.

Isabella's head snaps to the right at the sound of hooves crunching through dead leaves. Each step is heavy and deliberate -- they don't belong to Paloma.

"Who's there!?" she snaps into the darkness.

A tall man on a large horse emerges through the treeline, clad in a dark denim vest and wearing an expression she can't decipher. Wariness, curiosity, maybe even a shred of empathy. He broadcasts them all in equal measure.

He hesitates before he dismounts, padding towards her with his palms splayed in defense. "The hell are you doin' out here all alone?" he questions.

"I could ask you the same question," she snarls, attempting to stand upright. The gash in her side protests and she drops to her knees, gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut.

When she opens them again, the stranger is crouched in front of her, pawing through the satchel slung around his torso and searching the treeline for silhouettes.

"Are you with them?" she asks, warily.

He frowns. "With who?"

Isabella doesn't answer.

"You're bleeding an awful lot," he points out.

"I hadn't noticed," she drawls, sarcastically.

He produces a small glass bottle from his cache of provisions. Isabella doesn't recognize the label on it, but she predicts that whatever it is, it's going to sting.

"Leon," the stranger says.

She frowns. "Pardon?"

"My name," he clarifies. "What's yours?"

She hesitates.

He smirks and douses a strip of cloth with the contents of the bottle. "That's all right. You got some place I can take you? You live nearby?"

Silence.

It makes him chuckle. "Not much of a talker, huh?" He gestures to the wound on her side. "May I...?"

Her gaze briefly flicking down to the laceration in her blouse, Isabella carefully gathers up the hem in her hands and rolls up the material with a wince.

The stranger is mindful of the discomfort the disinfectant will inflict and winces with her as she hisses in pain.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "What happened?"

She studies his face as he mops away the blood caked to her skin, skirting the question. "Isabella," she supplies. "My name is Isabella."

He pauses, his eyes bouncing around the features of her face for a moment before he returns to his task. "Well, Isabella, I hope whoever did this to you got what was comin' to them."

Despite the pain, the ghost of a smile curls up the corner of her lips. "You could say that."

Leon smiles, too. "In that case, I pray to the Lord above I never get on your bad side."

He's able to clean her up for the most part, but her blouse is beyond salvation and she makes peace with that. It would only be another memory if she hung onto it, anyway; another ghost to haunt her.

"I didn't expect to run into anyone decent this far outside Valentine," she comments, leaning back against the trunk of the tree behind her. "Do you make a habit of rescuing women from the middle of the woods?"

"Don't know that I'd phrase it like that," he clarifies, "but you're in the right neighborhood. I'm looking for my sister, Valerie."

Isabella freezes, her brows knitting together. "Valerie?"

He nods. "Ran off a while back and I've been turnin' over every rock I come across tryin' to track her down. Strange girl. I can only imagine the trouble she's gotten herself into."

"Young?" Isabella questions. "White hair, eyes that bore into your soul?"

Leon doesn't answer, but his silence telegraphs everything his lips don't say.

Reaching for him, he takes Isabella's hand and helps her to her feet.

"I know her," she explains, lifting her fingers to her lips and whistling for her horse. "And I know where you can find her."