She loved him, of course. That was the most tragic part of living a life like this. The best and worst thing about the whole dirty deed was the danger. A girl walked into a situation for a reason, with a purpose, with ill intent and a metal cage around her heart, but when it came time to pull away, the cage door was flapping in the wind and maybe it was a little harder to pull the trigger than it used to be. It was dangerous, living like this. And oh was it dirty. Idun knew he had to be a rat. She walked into that room with doe-eyed innocence and had to walk out with a shotgun out of necessity. He wasn't what he appeared to be, and his appearance was pretty foul to begin with. Bragi was worse than a crook. At least a crook had the decency to never bother with the crooked. But Idun knew there was something dirty about him. The wild madness behind his eyes had confirmed it. Nobody else would give away a three-barreled shotgun but a madman. Or...
Idun gasped. "You're a copper!*" she shouted, holding Terry closer. *This particular plot twist seemed reasonable, all things considered, but Idun decided she'd ask Bragi later. Breaking character to ask questions would have spoiled the whole performance. Despite the weapon's current location, it was there for Terry's protection, and she pressed the barrel securely against his temple to make that exact point. "You're a sneak! A rat! A dirty scoundrel! Tricking an innocent dame into loving you! And for what? I won't say nothin' about Terry the Jaw. You can't make me! I might be in the sewers and sniffing for cheese, mister, but I still ain't a rat!" Her accent thickened to match Bragi's, and she could hear the smoky mood music rising in the background.
Terry listened to all this curiously, and took a few more mental notes.
Copper or not, Bragi could still look at a kid like Terence and see innocence, and that was more dangerous than anything else. He could win her over again with a view like that. Idun hadn't seen the sunny rays of optimism in ages, since long before the kitchen. She was an overcast kind of girl, but Bragi didn't see the malicious way Terry sipped at his juice. He couldn't hear the insidious thump of the boy's cold, black heart. If Idun let Terry go, he'd be on Bragi faster than Hermod on a message, and he'd torture the wordy copper by pulling out his chin stubble one follicle at a time. Terence was a monster. He had the devil in his eyes, and you could hear that with every innocent slurp of apple juice.
But Bragi saw a harmless kid, a bystander, a victim. If Idun really had an empty hole where her heart should beat, she would've exploited that belief, but she loved him. He'd tricked her into it, and now she was torn in a bad, bad way.
"You've left me no choice," Idun sneered. She loved him so much she hated him, but that hatred was really just passion wrapped in desperation. Only one of them could walk away from this fight though. She was a cornered animal, and he was begging her to show her claws, but no matter what, someone was going to lose. "You know I can't just let him go. And you won't just let us walk away." Terry, feeling a sudden burst of inspired creativity, chose that moment to drop his recently-emptied cup. It clanged viciously to the ground, and the boy's chuckle echoed hauntingly through the hall. Idun almost broke character to applaud his brilliant use of props and natural acoustics.
She held it together just long enough to ask "So where's that leave us, mister? What's your move?" before her shoulders shook the tiniest bit.