Fic: LowLives part 11
New layout! :D
LowLives
Word Count: 3,731
in which there is DRAMA, violence, and we learn some new things about some old characters. EDITED to add another scene. :D
-
No one hears from O'Rourke for almost two days, and it's Friday when Clark comes in looking furious, with a bandage on his head, and a news report about a body found outside a bar, suspected to be the cause of several hate crimes - many of which have culminated in deaths - although police haven't released any statements about the victim's identity. Vincent doesn't even look at me twice, not remotely suspicious.
I'm surprised that Clark didn't see my face that night - he got much more up close and personal with it than O'Rourke did, even, and it's not like the bruises he left me with were subtle. I've still got the cut through my lip from it, and when Blake kissed me the day before, he did it so softly, so carefully, I didn't even feel it.
There's a strange sort of mourning ritual the men practise here, nothing like your average process with a funeral and an obituary. But we honour their memory in a way - I just stand back and pretend that it wasn't me that killed them. That there isn't anything to remember, because they had it coming - all it took was the right kind of person to see them for what they are, what they do, and have the courage, drug fuelled or not, to do something about it.
I take Clark that night when he's on his way home, when he's just left the warehouse.
The first time Clark killed someone he was sixteen. He had friends with him, and together with their baseball bats they broke into the home of a young man named John and his lover Chrissy, who wasn't born a girl. They made John watch as they beat her to death, and then they took it upon themselves to make sure he never went around corrupting anyone else in their good old-fashioned neighbourhood. Nobody caught them.
When he was twenty-three and strapped for cash, he killed a gas station attendant for the seventy-six dollars and ninety-four cents in the cash register. It wasn't enough, so he mugged a pretty young girl - Samantha, that's what her ID said - stuck her with a knife, and left her to bleed, while he made off with her purse.
He beat a man with a barstool because he spilled his beer. He later died from internal injuries, and Clark spent eighteen months in prison before getting out on good behaviour.
I touch his skin, and I hate him as I shoot him in the heart, one hand over his mouth so he can't scream out into the empty streets.
Vincent stops going anywhere without two bodyguards and Mickey with him, and I know I have to move faster, or I'll lose any opportunity. I don't know anything about the other guys - not even their names, but I watch them, and think about how I'm going to get to Vincent.
I bump into Salinger the next time I see him, putting my hand on his shoulder to steady him, and I see a woman, with short curly blonde hair, and a lovely smile. I see their marriage, I see them fighting, I see them loving, and I see their daughter - pretty and blonde like his wife. I see him make a mistake, and I see his house burning. I can't see their screams over the roar of the flames, but I know that they're there, and I almost drop him.
It's been six years since he got his family killed.
He drinks too much, and sometimes he gets into fights, but I know that he's nothing more than your average scumbag. He's not worth killing - not yet, at least.
I straighten him up, making some bullshit apologies, pat him on the shoulder, and move on.
Mivshek's been busted for dealing drugs eight times, as well as armed robbery, always getting out on bail. Sixteen people have died because of him - all indirectly, but all his fault - and he once bashed a man's head in while he was in jail, just for the sake of getting a room to himself.
I follow after Mivshek, when he and Rigger make a late night visit to a large house in the middle of the East Quarter, borrowing Jack's car so I don't lose them.
It's more difficult to tail someone in a car - they can tell when you're following, and it's not like you can duck into a discrete alley whenever the turn back to look, so I get a bit lost, turning off and travelling down a parallel street before catching up a few times.
It means I'm almost too late when we finally get there.
I park on the other side of the street from them in time to see them getting out of the car, Mivshek looking around at the surrounding houses, and Rigger adjusting something under his coat.
As soon as Mivshek looks the other way I leap from the car, leaving the door open behind me - it wouldn't do for them to hear me coming, because they would fucking kill me if they thought I was a threat to their plans. The glass bottle in my pocket clinks as I run. I come up behind Mivshek, drawing my gun, and smack him over the back of the head with the butt, sending him crashing to the ground.
I've got gloves on tonight, which makes fighting more difficult.
Rigger turns, and I shoot him before he can move towards me - I didn't aim right, and my shot's off, but I catch him in the side, and he stumbles to a stop in shock, face going white.
Mivshek tries to get up, snagging the hem of my coat as he drags himself upright, almost pulling me down with him. I stumble, bracing my knees, and hit him across the face with a left hook. I'm not as good with my left as I am with my right, so it glances, and he jabs a fist into my knee - the one he knows is bad. I fall, landing on top of him, and pin him, my knees on either side of his chest. I level the gun at his forehead, and squeeze the trigger, and he's dead.
Rigger's in shock, gasping on his back, trying to get up again. I stand, painfully, and limp over to him.
"What - what the fuck -" Rigger wheezes at me, reaching out and grabbing at my ankle. I can feel how cold his fingers are through the cuff of my jeans.
"Hi, Rigger," I say, amiably. "How're you doing?" I shift my weight so I can put my foot on his chest. I lean in, squeezing the breath out of his lungs, and smile at him from under my hood. "Having a good night?"
And then I shoot him too.
This neighbourhood's too nice for people to not have noticed the sound of gunshots, but the neighbours are also too scared to come out on their own, so I still have time to finish the job before I get back to the car and get the fuck out of there.
It's hard work, because they're both bigger than me, dead weight and limp. I get my arms around them though, one at a time, and drag them back to their car, heaving and pulling until they're both inside with the doors closed. Stumbling back a few paces to get out of range, I light the wick of the bottle and hurl it so it smashes against the windshield of the car.
With a roar of noise, the car ignites into a fireball, a great burst of light that blinds me, making me throw my arm over my face. When the initial explosion dies down, the flames flashing and flickering as they consume metal and fabric and flesh.
I duck back into Jack's car and peel off the street, and no one's seen my face. No one who's gonna be talking about it anyway.
I go home, sit on the steps of the back porch, and watch the stars move across the sky for hours.
I feel like the world is mine, to do with as I please.
Arthur comes out after I've been there maybe two hours, and the high of the po has died down to just a low simmer in my bones, warm and comforting.
"Where've you been?" he asks quiet, like he's afraid of disturbing me.
"I was - working. How're you doing? Feeling better? I'm sorry I haven't been home much."
"I'm doing better," he says. He looks better too. He's wrapped up in a blanket from my bed, over one of my sweatshirts, and as he shuffles across the porch, I see he's got fleece socks on.
"C'mere," I mutter, tilting my head. He sits next to me on the step, and I wrap an arm around his shoulders. "Have you had any other - you know - things? With the -" I ruffle his hair, and poke him in the forehead.
"Nothing like that," he says, sounding exhausted. "I think I'm figuring it out though."
"Wanna show me?"
He straightens, squares his shoulders, and looks around the dark yard for something to affect. There's a pile of firewood in the far left corner, near the grill that Nate bought and keeps meaning to use, and Arthur focuses his attention on that.
Squinting, he scrunches his face up and presses his lips together in concentration.
There're a few false starts, where I can see the top log twitch, roll slightly to the side and fall back into place, before it comes hurling abruptly past us, and crashes with the fence on the opposite side of the yard with a loud clatter.
"Shit!"
Arthur immediately looks horrified, an embarrassed redness rising in his face. I know my mouth is open, and I'm silent for a long moment, before I start laughing out loud.
It's fucking amazing, he's fucking amazing, and I tell him so, wrestling him over into a hug that starts him laughing too, and it's like we're kids again, but now my brother's a mutant, and I am too, and we're both a bit damaged, and definitely a bit fucked in the head but fuck that.
My brother can be a fucking superhero if he wants to.
-
Ike takes more work. Like Rigger, I don't even need to touch him to know what he is, what he's done - I've seen it with my own two eyes, been there when it happened.
For God knows what reason, Ike lives in suburbia, quiet houses, with quaint families. There's plenty of green and trees, flower gardens and bushes along the edges of properties.
I go in the really early hours of the morning, before the sun is even considering rising any time soon. My gun sits heavy and oddly reassuring, given how long I've been using it, against the small of my back, and I check it again and again to see if it's loaded. The safety I flick on and off as I sit outside, watching Ike's house for movement, and my hands are warm inside the gloves I'm wearing.
I know he's not awake.
I've been watching all night.
Jack's car is parked eight blocks over, because this is a place where the neighbours will come out, and I can't let them connect him to what's going to happen.
It's been days since I went after Rigger and Mivshek, the hype has already died down - police couldn't identify their bodies for a long time, and I watched the news, keeping up with the story with baited breath, waiting to see if they found any evidence of their killer, but no such luck - which is great for me.
I've spent those days working up to Ike, building a plan that's a little more detailed than follow them home and hope I don't get caught when I shoot them in the head.
He lives with one other person - I think she might be his wife, her name is Rebecca - and I know she doesn't understand what he does when he's "working". She goes to sleep first, and Ike stays up later to go over papers, sitting still for hours, like a statue.
When he finally retires, it's usually in the small hours of the morning, and then he'll get up with his wife, apparently functioning on very few hours of sleep at all times.
The best time to get him - is now.
I sit outside their garage for a while, waiting for the lights across the street to go out. Some kid's awake in the kitchen, getting milk. I can see his shadow pass across the curtains, and then the blue flicker of a television.
Distracted then, not going to be looking out the window, as I let myself in through the garage.
I couldn't see if he had cameras or not - he's the type to bug his entire house, but I didn't find any traces of them, not anywhere I looked, so I just put it on faith that the hat I'm wearing is enough to shield my face. Besides, if the cops were ever to find any of the evidence in his home, well it's sufficiently self-incriminating for Ike, so I doubt it'd be easy to get to.
The alarm though, I've got that covered, through careful observation.
It annoys Ike when it blares, so there's a delay between when the door opens and when the siren starts going off - but the twelve digit number isn't an easy one to guess, let alone try to crack within the time frame. Rebecca was nice enough to provide me with that, via the one time I went out of my way to bump into her, and then help her pick up the groceries I accidentally made her drop.
The door slips open easy - I've gotten better at lock picking - and into the keypad, I type 8947-356-738-12, which is fucking ridiculous, but it flashes green at me in the darkness, and I'm in.
Ike and his wife sleep upstairs, in the same bed, which makes things slightly more difficult, but I'm not above shooting a man when he's asleep. There're two steps on the main staircase that creak when they're shifted, and I step over them as lightly as I can, weight focused on my heels and the sides of my feet.
Ike sleeps on his back, Rebecca curls up on her side facing away, her hands wrapped around a pillow. The door is only half-open, and it squeals ever so slightly when I push it open in tiny, hesitant increments, making me freeze and hold my breath, but neither of them stir.
It's dark, the light filtering in through the curtains casts dim, silver highlights over their sleeping forms. I walk slowly, and softly, gun aimed at Ike's chest, adjusting as I move, until I'm right beside the bed.
He's terrifying even when he's asleep, sharp angles and features as impassive as they are awake. Not having to fight him was one of my greatest motivators for not going after him earlier - the others I could handle, one last kick to send them off with adrenaline in their blood, but him.
He would tear me apart if I tried. Rip me limb from limb.
I squeeze the trigger, and the muzzle flash blinds me, too bright in the darkness of the room, that as Rebecca wakes up screaming, disoriented by the gunshot, I stumble over my feet racing out the door again.
I can't fucking see, green spots dancing across my vision, and I hit the stairs before I'm expecting them, tripping, and sliding halfway down before I get my feet back under me. I slam into the door, rip it open without bothering with the alarm, because why the hell would I?
I run blind down the street, arm over my face, gun still in my hand, and throw myself into a dense section of shrubbery as soon as I can, hunched over, curled up and shaking. I hear voices, shouting, Rebecca's screams from - what, two blocks away, probably - and hear the pound of feet on cement as people go running past me. I wait for a lull, wait for the dazzle in my eyes dies down, and I scoot backwards until I hit the side of a house with my back, buried in their hydrangeas, safe.
For now.
The police come before I can sneak away, and I watch their spinning red and blue lights for hours until the sun rises and the people go to work, and finally, finally, when no one's watching I make a break for Jack's car, and get away.
-
Before I go after Vincent, I make a plan.
It's not a great plan, but it's a plan, and the longer I wait the less chance I'm going to have to finish it.
I've checked, over the past several days, whether or not anyone ever goes up into that unused office on the second level of the warehouse - but every time I look it's the same, full of dust and abandoned. No one even looks twice at the metal staircase wrapping around the inside corner of the building.
Vincent's got a deal going down, a big important buyer or something, and I don't know all the details, but it's going to be huge. My heart's been racing all day, and I want to leave for long enough to calm the fuck down, before I come back and hole myself in, and wait.
Blake calls out to me as I leave that day. I turn, and he catches my elbow, pulling me out of the way and partway down the alley.
"What is it?" I ask. He's never really approached me this openly, with other people around. We've sat together, sure, but this is new.
"You going to be here tonight? On the deal?" he says instead of answering me. He's got a funny look in his eyes, and it's making me nervous.
"No, I've got other shit to do." I lean back against the wall and crossing my arms over my chest. "I won't be back until Thursday, I think."
He breathes a sigh, and cups my face in his hands. "Good - these assholes are more dangerous than we've dealt with before."
I can't help but smile. "Oh, are you worried about me?"
"Sure, why not?" He grins back and leans in, kissing me.
I pull back, because fuck, I hadn't even thought about that. "Will you be there?"
"Now who's worried?" he laughs.
He presses in, touching the seam of my lips with his tongue, and I open to him with a sigh. It's - dare I say it - sweet, slow wet licks over my palate, and his lips gently caressing mine. I pull him closer by the waist, and he wraps his hand farther behind my head, curling his fingers into the hair on my neck. It's big enough that it can span my entire jaw, and I shiver just thinking about what he does to me with those hands.
We separate with a soft wet noise. I lick my lips, and he licks them for me too, sneaking in for one last taste with a smile in his eyes.
-
I'm too late.
They're already there by the time I arrive, Vincent and his men, Mickey - and a group of angry looking Russians - big and muscled and wearing sharply tailored suits. I linger next to the side door, where there's a wide enough crack between it and the frame that I can peer through without being seen by anyone inside.
The two groups are organised like an old Western stand off, with the Russians on one side and Vincent's people on the other, both staring across the space between them like it's liable to catch fire.
The Russian standing just off centre is speaking - second in command, from the looks of him - and one of Vincent's men steps up, dragging Abi, the pretty black girl who breaths ice. I slip into the warehouse as quietly as possible, but they're all too distracted to notice me. Walking on the sides of my feet, I don't make any noise as I creep farther in.
Money exchanges hands, and the whole fucking warehouse explodes in noise and yelling and people.
"Freeze! Put your hands up where we can see them! You're surrounded! Police! Freeze!"
I look around, and almost swallow my tongue when I see the man at the front of the new crowd of people that just joined the party.
It's Blake.
He's got a gun in his hands, shouting orders, and he's wearing a Kevlar vest that perfect shade of navy blue. From this angle it looks like he's directing the flow of police officers through the warehouse, rounding up every criminal they lay their eyes on. He spins slowly, green-grey eyes alert and watching, and then they land on me and go wide in a way that would be fucking hilarious except that it's not.
"Arthur?" I see his lips move, read them, because I'm too far away to hear him over the din of people shouting and gunshots going off.
I turn as fast as I can and fucking run, past the men in blue, past their flashing lights and howling sirens. I'm skidding around a corner, almost to freedom, and then I practically fall into the open arms of another police car. The two officers inside are just waiting for someone to come this way, and when I try to wrestle away from the man, the female officer wails on me, hitting me across the face.
I'm stunned, I can barely hear them as they recite me my rights, and fold me into the back of their car. They sit there until the call comes in that they've collected everyone they could - but someone got away.
It all happened so fast.
Vincent got away. So did three other people, their identities unconfirmed.
Two casualties - Mickey, one of the Russians. Everyone else has been detained.
-
previous / next
LowLives
Word Count: 3,731
in which there is DRAMA, violence, and we learn some new things about some old characters. EDITED to add another scene. :D
-
No one hears from O'Rourke for almost two days, and it's Friday when Clark comes in looking furious, with a bandage on his head, and a news report about a body found outside a bar, suspected to be the cause of several hate crimes - many of which have culminated in deaths - although police haven't released any statements about the victim's identity. Vincent doesn't even look at me twice, not remotely suspicious.
I'm surprised that Clark didn't see my face that night - he got much more up close and personal with it than O'Rourke did, even, and it's not like the bruises he left me with were subtle. I've still got the cut through my lip from it, and when Blake kissed me the day before, he did it so softly, so carefully, I didn't even feel it.
There's a strange sort of mourning ritual the men practise here, nothing like your average process with a funeral and an obituary. But we honour their memory in a way - I just stand back and pretend that it wasn't me that killed them. That there isn't anything to remember, because they had it coming - all it took was the right kind of person to see them for what they are, what they do, and have the courage, drug fuelled or not, to do something about it.
I take Clark that night when he's on his way home, when he's just left the warehouse.
The first time Clark killed someone he was sixteen. He had friends with him, and together with their baseball bats they broke into the home of a young man named John and his lover Chrissy, who wasn't born a girl. They made John watch as they beat her to death, and then they took it upon themselves to make sure he never went around corrupting anyone else in their good old-fashioned neighbourhood. Nobody caught them.
When he was twenty-three and strapped for cash, he killed a gas station attendant for the seventy-six dollars and ninety-four cents in the cash register. It wasn't enough, so he mugged a pretty young girl - Samantha, that's what her ID said - stuck her with a knife, and left her to bleed, while he made off with her purse.
He beat a man with a barstool because he spilled his beer. He later died from internal injuries, and Clark spent eighteen months in prison before getting out on good behaviour.
I touch his skin, and I hate him as I shoot him in the heart, one hand over his mouth so he can't scream out into the empty streets.
Vincent stops going anywhere without two bodyguards and Mickey with him, and I know I have to move faster, or I'll lose any opportunity. I don't know anything about the other guys - not even their names, but I watch them, and think about how I'm going to get to Vincent.
I bump into Salinger the next time I see him, putting my hand on his shoulder to steady him, and I see a woman, with short curly blonde hair, and a lovely smile. I see their marriage, I see them fighting, I see them loving, and I see their daughter - pretty and blonde like his wife. I see him make a mistake, and I see his house burning. I can't see their screams over the roar of the flames, but I know that they're there, and I almost drop him.
It's been six years since he got his family killed.
He drinks too much, and sometimes he gets into fights, but I know that he's nothing more than your average scumbag. He's not worth killing - not yet, at least.
I straighten him up, making some bullshit apologies, pat him on the shoulder, and move on.
Mivshek's been busted for dealing drugs eight times, as well as armed robbery, always getting out on bail. Sixteen people have died because of him - all indirectly, but all his fault - and he once bashed a man's head in while he was in jail, just for the sake of getting a room to himself.
I follow after Mivshek, when he and Rigger make a late night visit to a large house in the middle of the East Quarter, borrowing Jack's car so I don't lose them.
It's more difficult to tail someone in a car - they can tell when you're following, and it's not like you can duck into a discrete alley whenever the turn back to look, so I get a bit lost, turning off and travelling down a parallel street before catching up a few times.
It means I'm almost too late when we finally get there.
I park on the other side of the street from them in time to see them getting out of the car, Mivshek looking around at the surrounding houses, and Rigger adjusting something under his coat.
As soon as Mivshek looks the other way I leap from the car, leaving the door open behind me - it wouldn't do for them to hear me coming, because they would fucking kill me if they thought I was a threat to their plans. The glass bottle in my pocket clinks as I run. I come up behind Mivshek, drawing my gun, and smack him over the back of the head with the butt, sending him crashing to the ground.
I've got gloves on tonight, which makes fighting more difficult.
Rigger turns, and I shoot him before he can move towards me - I didn't aim right, and my shot's off, but I catch him in the side, and he stumbles to a stop in shock, face going white.
Mivshek tries to get up, snagging the hem of my coat as he drags himself upright, almost pulling me down with him. I stumble, bracing my knees, and hit him across the face with a left hook. I'm not as good with my left as I am with my right, so it glances, and he jabs a fist into my knee - the one he knows is bad. I fall, landing on top of him, and pin him, my knees on either side of his chest. I level the gun at his forehead, and squeeze the trigger, and he's dead.
Rigger's in shock, gasping on his back, trying to get up again. I stand, painfully, and limp over to him.
"What - what the fuck -" Rigger wheezes at me, reaching out and grabbing at my ankle. I can feel how cold his fingers are through the cuff of my jeans.
"Hi, Rigger," I say, amiably. "How're you doing?" I shift my weight so I can put my foot on his chest. I lean in, squeezing the breath out of his lungs, and smile at him from under my hood. "Having a good night?"
And then I shoot him too.
This neighbourhood's too nice for people to not have noticed the sound of gunshots, but the neighbours are also too scared to come out on their own, so I still have time to finish the job before I get back to the car and get the fuck out of there.
It's hard work, because they're both bigger than me, dead weight and limp. I get my arms around them though, one at a time, and drag them back to their car, heaving and pulling until they're both inside with the doors closed. Stumbling back a few paces to get out of range, I light the wick of the bottle and hurl it so it smashes against the windshield of the car.
With a roar of noise, the car ignites into a fireball, a great burst of light that blinds me, making me throw my arm over my face. When the initial explosion dies down, the flames flashing and flickering as they consume metal and fabric and flesh.
I duck back into Jack's car and peel off the street, and no one's seen my face. No one who's gonna be talking about it anyway.
I go home, sit on the steps of the back porch, and watch the stars move across the sky for hours.
I feel like the world is mine, to do with as I please.
Arthur comes out after I've been there maybe two hours, and the high of the po has died down to just a low simmer in my bones, warm and comforting.
"Where've you been?" he asks quiet, like he's afraid of disturbing me.
"I was - working. How're you doing? Feeling better? I'm sorry I haven't been home much."
"I'm doing better," he says. He looks better too. He's wrapped up in a blanket from my bed, over one of my sweatshirts, and as he shuffles across the porch, I see he's got fleece socks on.
"C'mere," I mutter, tilting my head. He sits next to me on the step, and I wrap an arm around his shoulders. "Have you had any other - you know - things? With the -" I ruffle his hair, and poke him in the forehead.
"Nothing like that," he says, sounding exhausted. "I think I'm figuring it out though."
"Wanna show me?"
He straightens, squares his shoulders, and looks around the dark yard for something to affect. There's a pile of firewood in the far left corner, near the grill that Nate bought and keeps meaning to use, and Arthur focuses his attention on that.
Squinting, he scrunches his face up and presses his lips together in concentration.
There're a few false starts, where I can see the top log twitch, roll slightly to the side and fall back into place, before it comes hurling abruptly past us, and crashes with the fence on the opposite side of the yard with a loud clatter.
"Shit!"
Arthur immediately looks horrified, an embarrassed redness rising in his face. I know my mouth is open, and I'm silent for a long moment, before I start laughing out loud.
It's fucking amazing, he's fucking amazing, and I tell him so, wrestling him over into a hug that starts him laughing too, and it's like we're kids again, but now my brother's a mutant, and I am too, and we're both a bit damaged, and definitely a bit fucked in the head but fuck that.
My brother can be a fucking superhero if he wants to.
-
Ike takes more work. Like Rigger, I don't even need to touch him to know what he is, what he's done - I've seen it with my own two eyes, been there when it happened.
For God knows what reason, Ike lives in suburbia, quiet houses, with quaint families. There's plenty of green and trees, flower gardens and bushes along the edges of properties.
I go in the really early hours of the morning, before the sun is even considering rising any time soon. My gun sits heavy and oddly reassuring, given how long I've been using it, against the small of my back, and I check it again and again to see if it's loaded. The safety I flick on and off as I sit outside, watching Ike's house for movement, and my hands are warm inside the gloves I'm wearing.
I know he's not awake.
I've been watching all night.
Jack's car is parked eight blocks over, because this is a place where the neighbours will come out, and I can't let them connect him to what's going to happen.
It's been days since I went after Rigger and Mivshek, the hype has already died down - police couldn't identify their bodies for a long time, and I watched the news, keeping up with the story with baited breath, waiting to see if they found any evidence of their killer, but no such luck - which is great for me.
I've spent those days working up to Ike, building a plan that's a little more detailed than follow them home and hope I don't get caught when I shoot them in the head.
He lives with one other person - I think she might be his wife, her name is Rebecca - and I know she doesn't understand what he does when he's "working". She goes to sleep first, and Ike stays up later to go over papers, sitting still for hours, like a statue.
When he finally retires, it's usually in the small hours of the morning, and then he'll get up with his wife, apparently functioning on very few hours of sleep at all times.
The best time to get him - is now.
I sit outside their garage for a while, waiting for the lights across the street to go out. Some kid's awake in the kitchen, getting milk. I can see his shadow pass across the curtains, and then the blue flicker of a television.
Distracted then, not going to be looking out the window, as I let myself in through the garage.
I couldn't see if he had cameras or not - he's the type to bug his entire house, but I didn't find any traces of them, not anywhere I looked, so I just put it on faith that the hat I'm wearing is enough to shield my face. Besides, if the cops were ever to find any of the evidence in his home, well it's sufficiently self-incriminating for Ike, so I doubt it'd be easy to get to.
The alarm though, I've got that covered, through careful observation.
It annoys Ike when it blares, so there's a delay between when the door opens and when the siren starts going off - but the twelve digit number isn't an easy one to guess, let alone try to crack within the time frame. Rebecca was nice enough to provide me with that, via the one time I went out of my way to bump into her, and then help her pick up the groceries I accidentally made her drop.
The door slips open easy - I've gotten better at lock picking - and into the keypad, I type 8947-356-738-12, which is fucking ridiculous, but it flashes green at me in the darkness, and I'm in.
Ike and his wife sleep upstairs, in the same bed, which makes things slightly more difficult, but I'm not above shooting a man when he's asleep. There're two steps on the main staircase that creak when they're shifted, and I step over them as lightly as I can, weight focused on my heels and the sides of my feet.
Ike sleeps on his back, Rebecca curls up on her side facing away, her hands wrapped around a pillow. The door is only half-open, and it squeals ever so slightly when I push it open in tiny, hesitant increments, making me freeze and hold my breath, but neither of them stir.
It's dark, the light filtering in through the curtains casts dim, silver highlights over their sleeping forms. I walk slowly, and softly, gun aimed at Ike's chest, adjusting as I move, until I'm right beside the bed.
He's terrifying even when he's asleep, sharp angles and features as impassive as they are awake. Not having to fight him was one of my greatest motivators for not going after him earlier - the others I could handle, one last kick to send them off with adrenaline in their blood, but him.
He would tear me apart if I tried. Rip me limb from limb.
I squeeze the trigger, and the muzzle flash blinds me, too bright in the darkness of the room, that as Rebecca wakes up screaming, disoriented by the gunshot, I stumble over my feet racing out the door again.
I can't fucking see, green spots dancing across my vision, and I hit the stairs before I'm expecting them, tripping, and sliding halfway down before I get my feet back under me. I slam into the door, rip it open without bothering with the alarm, because why the hell would I?
I run blind down the street, arm over my face, gun still in my hand, and throw myself into a dense section of shrubbery as soon as I can, hunched over, curled up and shaking. I hear voices, shouting, Rebecca's screams from - what, two blocks away, probably - and hear the pound of feet on cement as people go running past me. I wait for a lull, wait for the dazzle in my eyes dies down, and I scoot backwards until I hit the side of a house with my back, buried in their hydrangeas, safe.
For now.
The police come before I can sneak away, and I watch their spinning red and blue lights for hours until the sun rises and the people go to work, and finally, finally, when no one's watching I make a break for Jack's car, and get away.
-
Before I go after Vincent, I make a plan.
It's not a great plan, but it's a plan, and the longer I wait the less chance I'm going to have to finish it.
I've checked, over the past several days, whether or not anyone ever goes up into that unused office on the second level of the warehouse - but every time I look it's the same, full of dust and abandoned. No one even looks twice at the metal staircase wrapping around the inside corner of the building.
Vincent's got a deal going down, a big important buyer or something, and I don't know all the details, but it's going to be huge. My heart's been racing all day, and I want to leave for long enough to calm the fuck down, before I come back and hole myself in, and wait.
Blake calls out to me as I leave that day. I turn, and he catches my elbow, pulling me out of the way and partway down the alley.
"What is it?" I ask. He's never really approached me this openly, with other people around. We've sat together, sure, but this is new.
"You going to be here tonight? On the deal?" he says instead of answering me. He's got a funny look in his eyes, and it's making me nervous.
"No, I've got other shit to do." I lean back against the wall and crossing my arms over my chest. "I won't be back until Thursday, I think."
He breathes a sigh, and cups my face in his hands. "Good - these assholes are more dangerous than we've dealt with before."
I can't help but smile. "Oh, are you worried about me?"
"Sure, why not?" He grins back and leans in, kissing me.
I pull back, because fuck, I hadn't even thought about that. "Will you be there?"
"Now who's worried?" he laughs.
He presses in, touching the seam of my lips with his tongue, and I open to him with a sigh. It's - dare I say it - sweet, slow wet licks over my palate, and his lips gently caressing mine. I pull him closer by the waist, and he wraps his hand farther behind my head, curling his fingers into the hair on my neck. It's big enough that it can span my entire jaw, and I shiver just thinking about what he does to me with those hands.
We separate with a soft wet noise. I lick my lips, and he licks them for me too, sneaking in for one last taste with a smile in his eyes.
-
I'm too late.
They're already there by the time I arrive, Vincent and his men, Mickey - and a group of angry looking Russians - big and muscled and wearing sharply tailored suits. I linger next to the side door, where there's a wide enough crack between it and the frame that I can peer through without being seen by anyone inside.
The two groups are organised like an old Western stand off, with the Russians on one side and Vincent's people on the other, both staring across the space between them like it's liable to catch fire.
The Russian standing just off centre is speaking - second in command, from the looks of him - and one of Vincent's men steps up, dragging Abi, the pretty black girl who breaths ice. I slip into the warehouse as quietly as possible, but they're all too distracted to notice me. Walking on the sides of my feet, I don't make any noise as I creep farther in.
Money exchanges hands, and the whole fucking warehouse explodes in noise and yelling and people.
"Freeze! Put your hands up where we can see them! You're surrounded! Police! Freeze!"
I look around, and almost swallow my tongue when I see the man at the front of the new crowd of people that just joined the party.
It's Blake.
He's got a gun in his hands, shouting orders, and he's wearing a Kevlar vest that perfect shade of navy blue. From this angle it looks like he's directing the flow of police officers through the warehouse, rounding up every criminal they lay their eyes on. He spins slowly, green-grey eyes alert and watching, and then they land on me and go wide in a way that would be fucking hilarious except that it's not.
"Arthur?" I see his lips move, read them, because I'm too far away to hear him over the din of people shouting and gunshots going off.
I turn as fast as I can and fucking run, past the men in blue, past their flashing lights and howling sirens. I'm skidding around a corner, almost to freedom, and then I practically fall into the open arms of another police car. The two officers inside are just waiting for someone to come this way, and when I try to wrestle away from the man, the female officer wails on me, hitting me across the face.
I'm stunned, I can barely hear them as they recite me my rights, and fold me into the back of their car. They sit there until the call comes in that they've collected everyone they could - but someone got away.
It all happened so fast.
Vincent got away. So did three other people, their identities unconfirmed.
Two casualties - Mickey, one of the Russians. Everyone else has been detained.
-
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