Basin City [All night, Wednesday]

[lesssexthanmiho]

Yes, she knew the car was behind her.

It was after midnight in Old Town - long, long after her old shift, and Becky found herself walking her old alley. And yes, of course she knew the car was behind her.


"Baby," Jack Rafferty murmured to himself before he pulled up alongside the thin thing in leather. Becky gave him an immediate disdainful look before the words, "Hop in, sugar, we'll get y'there," were out of his mouth.

"Aw, sweetheart," she crooned, falling into old habits. "I work the day shift, and it's been a long day. Besides," she added with a little sniff, "I don't do group jobs."

"Get in the car, baby," Jack persisted, now growing irritated. "We'll just talk, it'll be nice."

"I don't do talk jobs, either," she replied poutily. She didn't speed up or reach for her gun. She knew what was overhead.

"Babydoll, I've had me one hell of a bad day."

Up on the roof, Miho sat, and waited, and hoped. She'd had her one hell of a bad day, too, and Becky was leading some amusement right to her.

She turned her head away from the unfolding drama of Dwight and Gail to watch as below her, Becky kept walking and the guy in the car kept talking.

"I been beat up every time I turned around," Jack was saying. "But the day I get turned down by a hooker when I got good, hard-earned cash to pay her with...well." He shot Becky a pitiful look. "There's only so much a man can take."

"Go try the Alamo over on Dylan street," Becky advised. "That's the Alamo, not the Amigo. The Amigo's a fag joint."

"Are you having a good time, humiliating me like this for no damn reason at all?"

Actually...yeah, she was.

Miho turned again as Dwight attempted to sneak around the corner. He wasn't doing too badly, until Gail put a semiautomatic to his head and told him, "That's far enough, Dwight. We've been on top of these peckerwoods since they first showed up with that cop behind them. Everything's under control. Enjoy the show." And then she took the gun away, which was kind of surprising considering half of Miho's bad day had been caused by Dwight being back with his barmaid and Gail's opinion of that. "So how's the barmaid?" Gail asked him. "You know, the one that never shuts up."

"Not right now, Gail," and he sounded serious.

"Ooh," Gail cooed. "Wound up a little tight, aren't we? That's your whole problem, Dwight. You worry too much. That and your lousy taste in women. These days, anyway."

Miho wished she had popcorn.

"Dammit, Gail, not right now."

"Those clowns down the way, they some of the barmaid's boyfriends?"

"One of them thinks he is. He's out of control. I followed him here to make sure he didn't hurt any of the girls."

And that was sweet and all, but pointless, as Gail pointed out as she pulled out one of those Russian cigarettes she was so fond of. "Us helpless little girls." She blew smoke in his face as he stared at her like he wanted to eat her up, then made some crack about Lancelot, then, "Those boys in that Chrysler about one mistake away from seeing what Miho can do. And she's been aching for some practice." Actually, she'd been aching for Gail to get over Dwight, but she'd take stabbing things.

Miho rose and started walking down the edge of the roof, following Becky and the Chrysler down the alley.

"You're running out of alley, cowboy," Becky pointed out, beginning to enjoy this. "Turn around. Save yourself and your buddies a ton of grief."

"You're a sassy little thing," Rafferty said in that tone that men always used with Becky - a mix of condescension and irritation. "You ain't hardly in any kind of position to be making threats."

Somewhere down the street, Becky heard the gate close. She almost smiled.

Miho could still hear Dwight, telling Gail the guys in the Chrysler hadn't killed anybody he knew about. Things had gotten pretty bad back at the barmaids, but they didn't kill anybody.

She could also hear the smile in Gail's voice as she said, "And they won't."

Didn't Dwight want her to have fun?

"Okay, okay, okay," Rafferty said, and Becky could almost taste the alcohol on his breath at this distance. "I'm on the edge."

"Over the edge," she countered. "It's not a woman you need, it's a good night's sleep. You couldn't handle a woman, the state you're in."

His friend laughed in the backseat. "She's saying you ain't got what it takes, Jack."

Jack grunted towards the other man, then eyed Becky. "You wanna see it? You wanna see what I got?"

Really, really, really no.

"I've seen all shapes. All sizes."

That was when he pulled out a gun and stuck it in her face. She hadn't quite anticipated that so soon. "You seen this?"

Her mouth moved wordlessly, and a distinct look of "Oh shit" passed over her face.

"Get in the car."

But it wasn't for herself that Becky felt sorry.

"Oh, sugar. You just gone and done the dumbest thing in your whole life."

Miho's hand flicked off, and the moron's hand and gun fell to the ground as a throwing swastika pierced the pavement. She leapt down as the driver stumbled from the car, both swords drawn. They pierced the Chrysler's roof and the first two passengers' heads, then she pulled one free and took out the third. The fourth guy had time to say, "Oh, god, no," and try to follow the driver out of the car, so she decapitated him. His head went flying in a spray of white blood, and bounced by the driver as he crawled toward his severed hand.

"This is crazy!" he muttered. She kind of agreed. Who fucked with Old Town Girls like this? "Out of nowhere, for no reason at all!" he grumbled, and she wondered if they were in the same alley. He'd bothered Becky. He grabbed the gun in the hand he had left, peeled his fingers off it with his teeth, and she let him. No point in ending this too soon.

He stood and pointed the gun at her, and she began to circle, slow and patient. "Go ahead," he told her. "Go ahead, go ahead." The blood loss was getting to him, she figured.

"He's got the drop on her," Dwight said, and Dwight was kind of a moron sometimes.

"He's got squat," Gail snapped at him. "He's dead. He's just too damn dumb to know it."

Footsteps. Was that Dwight? Right now she couldn't afford to look to see. A few more slow footsteps around the idiot, and now she was swaying quickly, back and forth, back and forth, keeping him guessing. She didn't actually feel like getting shot.

"I got you right where I want you," he said. Her thoughts exactly. "This is a career-ending wound, whore." But she wasn't a whore, and what did he care about his career when his life expectancy could be measured in seconds? "And there's gonna be hell to pay." The gun was shaking hard, now. This would be over soon. Too soon.

"Watch your step, Jackie Boy," Dwight advised him, and now her prey had a name. And then he stepped on his own hand, slipped, and fell ass-first onto the swastika in the street. "Yeesh," said Dwight.

Miho thought it was pretty funny, herself.

"This isn't funny," Jackie Boy said, and again, they were in disagreement. He crawled toward his severed hand with the swastika sticking out of his behind. "Don't anyone laugh. I got friends you can't imagine." And she knew a pirate and a war god, so what? "Every one of you is gonna burn." He stood again, tucked the hand in his pocket and held up the gun.

"Hang it up," Dwight advised. She's just playing with you. You're only making it worse."

"You shut the hell up."

Yeah, Dwight, shut up. He was ruining her fun. She pulled a small cylinder of metal from her robe and tossed it with sharp precision, right into the barrel of Jackie Boy's gun.

"Don't pull the trigger," Dwight advised him. "She blocked the barrel. It'll backfire." And wasn't he just full of useful advice tonight.

"I told you to shut up," her prey snarled, turning toward Dwight and pulling the trigger, too far gone to see the truth. The magazine flew back and embedded itself in his forehead. Yeesh.

He fell back against the dumpster, but he was still alive. "I can't see. What's happening. I can't see. I can't hear anything."

"For God's sake, Miho," Dwight said in his dead voice, "finish him."

"Yeah," Gail said, and she sounded bored, too. "Make it quick, will you?"

She didn't quite chop his head off. In a fit of whimsy, she made a Pez dispenser out of him. Maybe she could tell Jarod about this when she got home.

As the rain began to fall, Becky emerged from her chosen shadow and set to work with the other girls. Business as usual - raiding the pockets and car of the fallen men. She frowned when she saw that Dwight had taken the man - Jack - who had propositioned her, but she engrossed herself in the roll of twenties she found in the headless guy's pocket.

Then Gail stood, and the others' attention turned with her. Dwight had something in his hand. He showed it to Gail, and the sickness showed on her face.

So naturally, Becky was right there, peering over Dwight's shoulder. They all knew what this meant. The shaky truce had existed between the cops and Old Town since long before Becky had begun to work there. They got free entertainment and the girls could rule their own turf.

Now all of that had fallen apart. They had a cop's blood on their hands.

Miho peered over Becky's shoulder at the badge.

...Oops?

Her eyes went to Dwight. She could tell he was thinking hard. What that meant, she wasn't sure yet.

Someone had to say something. "The cops," Becky said, chewing at a nail. "The mob. Things're going to go back to the way they used to be."

"The hell they will," Gail growled. "We've got guns. We'll fight the cops and the mob and anybody else who tries to move in on us. We'll go to war."

"Don't be stupid, Gail." Becky's attention snapped to Dwight, since that was what she had been thinking. "You wouldn't stand a chance. Get me a car. Make sure it's a hardtop with a decent engine. I'll hide the bodies."

Gail rounded on Dwight with her gun up. "Did you forget about the cop car that trailed them here? The cops know Rafferty came here. They'll check the river. They'll check the sewer. They'll find him and they'll come gunning for us."

"I'll haul the bodies to the pits. They won't check the pits. Get that gun out of my face or I'll smack ya," Dwight said calmly, staring Gail down. Becky watched with interest. So this was how a functional relationship worked.

"Who do you think you are, giving orders?" Gail demanded, getting up in Dwight's face, still pointing the gun at him. "You got what you wanted out of us."

"Shut up, Gail."

"You got what you wanted out of me! And you were gone, off playing with that barmaid." As the boss spoke, Miho quietly but noticeably began to move, to put herself at Dwight's back. Ready to kill him if Gail said the word. "Gone until you brought this unholy mess on us.

Dwight turned his head to acknowledge her, and she popped one of her swords an inch out of the sheath. Let him know what she was there for. Dwight at least deserved fair warning. "They'll be watching the roads," Gail continued. "They'll catch you. It'll be the bad old days all over again."

Becky's hair blew over her face in damp clumps, but she couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. Her mind was moving too quickly.

"The pimps," Gail went on, "the beatings, the drugs, the rapes - "

"They won't be watching the roads," Dwight interrupted. "Not yet they won't. Get me a damn hardtop. If I don't make it you can have your war." He grit his teeth - a dangerous move - and said, "Get that gun out of my face now."

Then he snatched the gun and pistol-whipped Gail. An even more dangerous move. Becky's gun was drawn before she'd realized it, along with the other dozen women around her.

"Bastard!" Gail yelled. She looked at him. "I forgot how quick you are."

And then she kissed him. Though, really, Becky thought as she lowered her gun, it was more like she was attempting to eat his entire face in a single bite.

Miho watched Dwight and Gail make out and figured she wasn't going to have to kill him tonight. Slowly, the other women lowered their guns, looking confused. Had they ever seen Gail not kill somebody for that before? But then, this was Dwight.

He tore away from her after a moment and turned to Miho. "A hard top," he told her, like she was actually going to do something about it. "With a decent engine. And make sure it's got a big trunk." Then he returned to gazing soulfully at Gail as Miho gestured for some of the girls to get on that. "I'll always love you, baby," he told Gail.

"Always," Gail said in a resigned voice. "And never."

Someone found a car. "Where'd you find that heap? Just look at that trunk. We'll never fit 'em all in," Dwight grumbled.

Becky wandered up, arms around herself. She saw nothing wrong with letting Dwight handle their problem. Wasn't her problem anymore, anyway. "Gail? Um, unless there's something else you need me to do, you think maybe I could go home?" Home, for the past few days, was her parents' house, where her mother had doted on her and listened to the fake, happy chatter Becky spoonfed her. "All this blood and stuff's got me kinda feeling like maybe I'm gonna hurl."

That was a lie. That was a big, big lie. But she knew what she had to do. They'd forgive her. And if they didn't, she'd be gone by then anyway.

"Sure, Becky, go home," Gail said, pulling her cap on. "But don't you talk to anybody." Becky shifted uncomfortably. "Not even your mom."

"They'll never fit in that trunk," Dwight said again. "Not like this, they won't." And then he looked to her. "Miho?" He grabbed for one of the bodies.

She knew what he was thinking. The sword came out once more. They'd fit them in in pieces.

"Dry your hair as soon as you get home!" Gail called after Becky. "You'll catch cold if you don't." And then her attention was drawn by the beginning of the chopping. Dwight didn't look, the wuss. He lifted the first guy's severed legs, tossed them aside, and Gail said, "Yeesh."

As soon as she'd rounded the corner, Becky found a pay phone. Typical, that she'd forget her cell tonight.

"Hey, Becky," Dallas said warningly as she passed by with a new girl, "Gail said no calls."

"I just wanna hear my mom's voice," Becky lied, adopting her baby voice. Everyone fell for the baby voice. "I won't tell her nothin'." A thought occurred, a fraction too late. "Please, don't say nothin' to Gail?"

She turned back to the phone, and as soon as the other voice picked up, she called a falsely bright, "Hey, Mom!"

Then she checked over her shoulder. The girls had left.

"Sorry about that," she murmured into the phone. "I got some information."

The second the phone went dead, Dallas went to get Miho and they went to make sure Gail was all right.She was gone by the time they got there. So, plan B.She all but dragged Dallas toward the car. They’d go get Dwight. Dwight would get Gail. All would be well.

When they got to the Pits, three goons were standing around and Dwight’s head was disappearing under the tar. Miho shot two of them dead leaning out the window of Dallas’s car, took the other one down on the run and did the fastest job she could of stringing him up from the fiberglass T-Rex’s head. They’d deal with him later.

Then she dashed back to the edge of the pit and peered at the spot where Dwight’s hair had been. Fuck. Too late. Her eyes went to the winch on the car’s bumper. Maybe...

“What are you doing?” Dallas demanded as Miho lashed the chain around her own ankles. She arched one eyebrow at her, and Dallas said, “Oh, no.”

Oh, yes.

Miho executed a form-perfect dive into the tar, right where Dwight had disappeared. And then it was down,down, down, until her skinny, steely fingers wrapped around someone’s wrist and big fingers wrapped around hers, and she could only hope it was the right hand,the right body in the muck, as Dallas pulled them to the surface.

Once they were back on dry land and she saw that it was him, she untied her ankles and set to wiping the tar from her mouth and eyes as Dallas dashed over to them. She blew tar out of her nose and thought to herself that she was so over whoever had sold them out. “Dwight, they got Gail!”

Dwight looked down, then looked over at Miho. “It’s a cinch, you got yourselves a spy in Old Town.” Yeah,she’d figured that one out all on her own. “A stoolie who sold you out to the mob. We gotta figure out who it is and rescue Gail.” Still, he was not telling her anything she didn’t know, but Dwight seemed to feel the need to talk, so she let him. “But first, we’ve gotta get our hands on Jackie Boy’s head before it gets to wherever it’s going and this whole situation blows wide open.”

What. What? The head was gone? Well, hell. Sheknew Dallas should have driven faster. He looked over at Dallas, then back at her. “Miho, I hope to hell you left one of them alive enough to talk.”

She nodded once, and pointed to contestant number three, dangling from the T-Rex’s mouth. She let him borrow one of his knives as he went to chat with him,and set to actually cleaning herself up. This being covered in tar was for the birds. Luckily, she had ninja secrets on her side.

And then they were rocketing down the road, after mercenaries with a head start and Jackie Boy’s head,
Miho sitting in the front seat between Dallas and Dwight. Dwight was smoking again. Miho’d thought he’d quit. She was calm, serene. This was the kind of thing she was meant for.

“There they are,” Dallas said. “What do we do?”

“We stop ‘em, Dallas,” Dwight told her, and Miho put her hand on the dashboard as Dallas hit the gas. They t-boned the mercs’ car, and Dwight went flying through
the windshield on a collision course with the head. But not quite. And then - hell - Dallas was cut down as she stepped out of the car with her guns drawn. Somebody was going to pay for that.

“Get the head, get the head!” a merc called, laying down covering fire on Dwight as his buddy crawled toward the head.

“I got it!” his friend yelled. Not for long. Miho leapt over the car and flipped a swastika toward the gunman that took off the top of his head. As he fell, his friend stood, pulled something off his vest. “Suck on this, you stupid slag!”

And he tossed a grenade at her feet. She had just enough time to adjust her stance before it went off and she went flying.

By the time she got back, Dwight and the mercenary were gone and the lid was off the manhole. Well, no guessing where they’d gone. The mercenary was monologuing. Spare her. She slipped up behind him and put her sword through him. They never felt a thing unless she wanted them to, and this bastard had killed Dallas and ruined her night. She twisted the blade. He felt it. And then she pulled it out and let him fall, food for the rats.

They climbed back up out of the sewers with the head and loaded Dallas into the backseat of her own damned car. Dwight told her what they were going to do and how they were going to do it, then grabbed Dallas’s car phone and made a very important call. The look on his face, she could almost have kissed him, if Gail wouldn’t have killed her when she got rescued and found out. Also, it would be kind of weird. “First,” Dwight said, “we gotta rescue Gail. Then comes the kill. The big fat kill.”

Yeah. She could get behind that.

"Why do I have to be here?" she'd asked Manute with a frightened look at the room.

He hadn't answered, but she knew. Because she'd made the call. She'd been the one to give them up, and she was the coward.

She also was the one who was gonna get out of this okay. It wasn't a tough choice.

Becky had worked up the courage, as Manute was working on Gail, to hesitantly stand in the doorway.

"Just give them what they want, Gail," she finally said softly, wincing as she heard something cracking in her boss's neck.

Manute released her head, and Gail gained control of her breathing. "...Becky?" she gasped.

Becky walked over and bent so she was eye-to-eye with Gail. "There's no fighting them," she said, knowing she'd won and trying to hide that satisfaction. "Dwight's dead. They got what's left of that cop we killed. The mod's gonna turn us over to the police chief, the cops're gonna mow us down - we've gotta cut a deal."

She gave Gail a smile. She tried for hopeful. The result was triumphant.

Gail stared at her. "You little bitch," she finally said.

The smile cracked a little.

"You sold us out!"

Becky backed up, feeling the sting of her former boss's - her friend's words. Anger flooded her system. "I didn't have no choice," she protested, her voice coming out whinier than she'd have liked. But the baby voice always worked. "They was gonna hurt my mom." Another lie. "You've gotta cut a deal with these people. It's selfish, you holding out like this. You're gonna get a lot of girls killed for no good reason."

Oh, good, she mentally congratulated herself. A guilt trip. That'll work on Gail.

"It wasn't your mom," Gail ground out. "We could've protected her and you know it. It was the money, you stupid little bitch."

Becky tried to laugh it off, like Gail hadn't hit on anything. "Sure, there's money. Sure you could've moved my mom into Old Town - and let her know that her daughter's a goddamn whore."

"Breaks your heart, doesn't it?" the fat henchman muttered.

"They offered me what you couldn't never offer me," Becky pleaded. "A way out. I had to watch out for my own neck."

"Your neck," Gail murmured. "Your precious, scrawny little neck!"

She surged forward and took a big, hard bite out of Becky's neck. Somewhere, a version of herself last year was slightly turned on. But the Becky in the here and now shrieked as Gail ripped Becky's tendon out and splashed blood.

"You're crazy!" Becky screamed. "You could've ripped my throat out, you crazy whore." And some part of her was laughing hysterically at someone else being Crazy Hooker.

That was when Manute came along and hit Gail hard enough that she and the chair she was tied to flew across the room.

He told the short henchman to get his blades.

He told the tall one to kill Becky.

"No!" she yelled, "I was promised!"

"Stupid little bitch!" Gail chastised. "You deserve worse."

"I knew there was a reason I got out of bed this morning," the thin man in sunglasses said happily, his cigarette dangling from his mouth and his gun cocked in his hand.

And that was about when Miho finished up with the guards on the opposite roof and put their message--and an arrow--through his chest. Between lungs and heart, a perfectly nonfatal shot. Now all that was left to do was watch and wait.

"Hey," said Sunglasses.

"Nobody, I don't see nobody," said one of the others as they moved toward the windows. Of course they didn't. She didn't want them to.
"Will you look at that? It's right through me. Guys? Look."

"There's something wrapped around it." Well duh. "Some kind of note."

...was that Becky?

"Give it to me," Manute demanded, and Miho kind of regretted not killing him during that whole mess with Ava.
"It's poked right through me," Sunglasses said. "Guys, look. It's starting to really hurt."

Miho knew what the note said; she'd watched Dwight write it.

THE COP'S HEAD FOR THE WOMAN. OUT BACK. Your pal, Dwight

So it was no surprise at all when Manute ordered his men out back. All of them. And the women. Oh, goody.

Sunglasses asked, "Do you think somebody should call me a doctor or something?" No. No, she didn't.

And apparently Manute didn't, either, because he said, "McCarthy, you fool," instead of answering, and left, leaving Sunglasses standing there with one of her arrows sticking through him.

"Hey. Guys?"

She finished him off with a second arrow, this one straight through the swastika tattooed on his forehead, and went to join the party.

It was storming when Manute led them back where Dwight had directed. And there was Dwight, standing up on a crate and looking like the most melodramatic fool Becky'd ever seen.

She wondered if he'd arranged his coat to billow around him that way. She didn't think too hard on it; the short guy still had his gun pointed into her.

"You can have Old Town, I don't care!" Dwight yelled, holding up Jack Rafferty's head. "Just give me the woman!"

Becky frowned. Something seemed off here. Sure, that was very romantic, and if she survived this, she'd spend some time wondering if that idiot that had abandoned her in Fandom would ever do something like this for her. (The answer was no.)

"Shut up," Dwight told the head. Maybe he really was crazy.

"Dwight," Gail said bravely, "don't do this." Oh Gail. Becky had to admire her a little. But mostly she just thought that taking stands like that was as stupid as Jack pulling that gun on her.

But that was when she noticed something. "Hey, wait a minute, something's not right."

"Shut up, or I'll plug you." The short man pressed the gun to her neck.

"Of course, Mr. McCarthy," Manute said generously. "A fair trade. She's all yours."

Gail shoved forward and pressed herself to Dwight's side. A henchman came forth and took the head.

"Now, if you'll explain to me why we shouldn't blow both of you to pieces," Manute said, raising his gun at Dwight and Gail.

Gail murmured something to him, and he looked at her and said something soft back.

And then it clicked.

"NO!" Becky cried, squirming against the man's hold on her. "It isn't right! There wasn't no tape over his mouth! HOW COME THERE'S TAPE OVER HIS MOUTH?"

Then Dwight pushed the button.

HEAD GO BOOM. Rafferty's head exploded in a rain of flesh and parts.

Up on the roof, back in her natural habitat, Miho watched the goons fly backward. They all got up, slowly, and Manute said, "Cute trick, McCarthy, but it will do you no good." As he spoke, Dwight and Gail looked up, and Manute trailed off, following their gaze...

To Miho and the rest of the Old Town Girls, all armed to the teeth, lining the roofs of the narrow, crooked alley. They were boxed in like rats.
"No! McCarthy, you shit!" Manute roared, and Gail whipped her semi out of Dwight's coat as he pulled his own piece. There were dozens of clicks as a hammers cocked back, and then the real killing started. No escape, Dwight had said when he gave them their marching orders over the car phone. No surrender. No mercy.
Wallenquist was going to learn his lesson, never going to mess with the girls of Old Town again. Dwight and Gail were laughing with pure bloodthirsty joy as they fired again, and again, and again. And on the roof, Miho watched it all.

It happened too fast, and her neck hurt too much - Becky never drew her gun.

She got clipped in the arm by a bullet for her mistake.

She threw herself against a street-level window, and hide there until the gunfire died down enough for her to scramble away.

She had money. She could get back to Fandom, or maybe head to Mexico. No one would find her.

Miho was too busy watching Dwight and Gail make out--or try to eat one another's faces, one or the other, you could never tell with those two--to notice what happened with Becky.

She knew, as she strode through the hospital hallway, that she had to leave. Back to Fandom, maybe. Gail'd know she was there, though. She'd know where she was no matter what.

So Becky had pulled her cell phone from her pocket - she'd retrieved it earlier in a moment of clarity - with her good hand, and was patiently telling her mother sweet lies about her "broken" arm and the tax forms Gail had given her.

She pressed the button for the elevator, and when it came, she stepped in without paying the handsome doctor any notice.

At least, not at first.

A second too late to stop the inevitable, she glanced up, phone still pressed to her ear. She knew that face. She could be wrong, though. He was notorious, he was terrifying, he was probably not -

"Becky."

She turned back to look at him, a polite smile in place.

"Care for a smoke?"

He was.

Shit.

"...love you too, Mom," she lamely finished into the phone, her eyes wide as it clicked shut. She watched him press the button to trap them between floors as she accepted the cigarette.

Unlike most Customers, she knew what it signified, and fuck if she was going out without nicotine in her system.

Then something hard pressed against her abdomen before she had a chance to react, and there was a sharp, sudden pain. The silencer muffled the sound, and his hand muffled her cry.

Then there was only endless dizziness, and ache.

Her world went dark - well, darker - as he held her. She was aware both of the blood trickling from her mouth, and more importantly, of her tears. For once, did nothing to stop them.

Her last thought was that she was sorry.

Then there weren't any more thoughts.

[NFB for distance, natch. Preplayed with the wonderful deadly_little. Graphic violence including character death under the cut. Becky will not be returning to Fandom, obviously, but anyone who asks will not be told why. It's been a blast, guys. *misses Crazy Hooker already*]