Oh, we were at bitch already.
It felt almost premature for bitch.
Then again, everything about this guy screamed premature.
"Yeah, JB. She got them blowjob lips," another of his buddies chimed in, bolstered up because they outnumbered us.
And, really, blowjob lips?
Were we in middle school?
"Look, JB. We have more important things to do tonight than stand here and listen to your adolescent bullshit. Do you have the gun or not?"
"Depends. You got the cash?"
I could feel Cam and Roderick's bodies tensing at my sides.
Because we all knew it.
They didn't have the gun.
But they knew we had the money.
"Gee, I must have left it in the car," I said, trying for snarky and unaffected even as I tried to count their ranks, as I tried to gauge how long it would take us to get behind some kind of shelter to protect us from bullets, how long it would take to get back to the car, how many shots we could potentially take by then.
It wasn't looking good for us.
And in this kind of situation, it was best to find a way to cut your losses to avoid bloodshed.
They could have the cash.
And we could walk out of there.
They knew my operation stood no chance of moving against them, as ragtag as they might be with their ridiculous tribal ink and gauged ears.
"Bullshit. I think the bitch has it under her shirt. Maybe we should check," another of his guys suggested, pursing his lips at me.
I took half a step forward toward JB, reaching down slowly to yank up the front of my shirt, showing the stacks shoved into the waistband of my jeans, making it clear he could take it.
"We just wanted the gun. We don't want any problems."
"Problems? We won't have no problems," JB said, moving a step closer and I could feel my men getting even more tense, but not wanting to be the ones to reach for weapons first if violence could be avoided still. "This looks like the right amount of cash to me," he said, reaching to grab the stacks, his fingers dipping a lot further into my pants than they needed to, making my skin start to crawl, my stomach twist. But I stayed still. I tried to keep this from escalating.
We were getting robbed.
It seemed almost like karma at this point.
"But," he said, making me stiffen as he shoved my money into his pocket. "I think we could sweeten the pot."
His hand was around my throat, twisting me to hold me against his body before I could even try to stop him.
And by the time my vision stopped whirring from the change of position, I saw guns.
Not just Roderick and Cam.
But ten or so others from JB's men.
It was easy to tell yourself to be smart, stay calm, that getting worked up would only make you slow and cause you to forget every self-defense skill you had ever learned in life.
But your body wasn't always willing to listen to reason.
Mine wasn't.
Not faced with the odds before us.
It didn't matter how trained the three of us were.
We were outnumbered and out armed.
Even if none of them knew how to shoot for shit, the chances of them getting lucky hits were pretty damn high.
So my blood pressure spiked.
My pulse thudded in my temples, throat, wrists, groin.
Sweat beaded into my hairline despite the cold, trickled down the back that was pinned to JB's body.
My breathing got faster, more frantic, the weight on my chest making it hard to pull in the proper amount of air to keep my brain from feeling fuzzy.
Fuzzy.
That was what I felt.
"Oh, I think your friends are going to want to put their guns down, don't you, Liv?" JB asked, and I felt the unmistakable cold of a muzzle pressing into my temple.
There was no way they were putting those guns down. I all but demanded it with my eyes even as their fingers slipped closer to the triggers, a movement noticed by some around them because it was met with cocking of their guns.
Somewhere to the side of the lot, a car door slammed, the noise echoing into the partially enclosed space, making everyone jolt, making everyone look around.
Well, not everyone.
Just his men.
Just his untrained group of street thugs.
We moved.
My adrenaline proved a gift, giving me the quick reflexes I needed to ram JB in the rib while twisting the gun away from my head, letting me duck down and away from his hold, running as fast as my legs could carry me as the shooting started, throwing myself behind the beam JB had first appeared from, praying Roderick and Cam had been able to find some kind of shelter too. That the bullets hitting, met with cries and curses were only JB's men, not mine.
"Yo stupid bitch, you're going to pay for that," JB screamed as he joined me behind the beam, gun raised as I squeezed the trigger of my own, my aim off thanks to a shaking hand, grazing his ear, taking just enough off of it to hurt, to piss him off further.
He was faster than I expected, his street fighting style more unpredictable to the martial arts I was used to, knocking my gun out of my hand, landing an uppercut to my chin that was just too far to one side to knock me out like it could have with full force, sending my body slamming back against the beam.
Pain ricocheted through my body as my leg kicked out, knocking his gun away as well.
When it came to upper hands, I had no idea who had it now that we were both unarmed.
All I knew was we were both hot.
Him with his hurt male ego, his pride that could never survive getting his ass kicked by a woman.
And me, well, it was all primal fear. Because I knew a bullet to my brain wasn't the worst thing that could happen to me in this parking garage.
No.
The worst thing would involve watching my men - and my only remaining form of protection - be brutally murdered, then have JB and his entire crew take turns with me before finally putting me out of my misery.
There were fates worse than death.
Women lived with their potential reality every time they stepped outside their homes. Hell, or even stayed inside them.
And I wasn't going to let that be my story.
I wasn't going to let them do that to me.
I would die first.
So when I went at JB it wasn't just with my ego, it was with my survival instinct, my unshakable determination to walk away from this with no new scars to speak of.
I barely registered each new pain - each hit, kick, slap, grab, graze sent through my body. I didn't know if my fingers or knuckles broke when they made contact.
I was in and out of my body at the same time, fighting for survival.
Blood flooded my mouth, sweat poured.
My body hit the hard cement ground, showing me the other side of the beam for the first time.
Bodies.
There were bodies.
And my eyes instinctively searched for those of my loved ones even as the sounds of bullets popping off flooded my ears and JB's shoe collided with my ribs.
And then something happened.
Something happened that - no matter how long I could be given to think up scenarios, I never could have predicted, never would have believed was possible.
A new figure moved into the scene.
A familiar one.
One with hair I knew.
Eyes I knew.
Hands I knew.
Except I had never seen like this.
With an AK slung around the chest, hands on the trigger, and bullets flying faster than an eye could keep track of.
Astrid.
But, no.
It couldn't have been Astrid.
Coming in.
Taking men down without even blinking.
Using a gun I had never trained her with.
Aiming better than even I could.
No.
It couldn't
be Astrid.
I was hallucinating.
Dying.
Seeing shit right before like most people did.
Even as I thought that, everything went black.
-
Roderick
Bullets flew fucking everywhere.
There was no way to even see Liv through it as Cam and I flew apart, sought shelter as we aimed as best we could, tried to take out whoever was nearby.
A few bodies fell quickly, but didn't stay down.
Adrenaline could practically reanimate a fucker on his deathbed.
And these men rose again, reloading, looking for targets even as they bled all over the ground.
I could hear her.
Over the bullets when they let off enough to reload or seek targets.
Liv.
Crying out.
Cursing.
It was killing me not knowing what was happening to her, not being able to get to her.
My stomach twisted in knots as I rose up, taking aim, taking down one more of JB's men even as Cam rolled to a new position, coming up behind another.
It felt like forever.
Like time sped forward.
It probably wasn't more than two minutes though.
And there was a new noise, a new commotion.
Astrid.
With a goddamn AK-47 strapped around her, and two extra belts of bullets over her shoulder just in case.
And she didn't pause, didn't think, didn't worry about the consequences. She just moved into the scene, pelleting multiple bullets into every man she saw.
Cam made his way around to her, trying to cover her though it was pretty clear she was handling herself just fine.
And me, my gaze sought out Liv.
Who was finally visible, on the ground beside the beam she had disappeared behind with JB.
Wrecked.
She was wrecked.
My stomach twisted at the blood in her eyes, her cheek, coming out from between her lips.
And even as her eyes seemed to be taking in Astrid, brows furrowed in disbelief, an equally wrecked JB came up behind her, cocked his leg back, and slammed it full force into the back of her head.
Out.
She was out.
And I didn't give a flying fuck about any of his men still possibly around.
My body flew upward, arm raising, finger going to the trigger.
And I fucking peppered his body with every bullet I had left, taking a sick sort of satisfaction in the whack of his dead body hitting the ground as I rushed forward, dropping down next to Liv's body, pulling her up into my arms, cradling her too still frame to my chest, taking a long moment to make sure she was breathing before lifting her up, turning.
It was only then that I realized there was silence all around.
That Astrid and Cam had laid waste to what was left of JB's men.
"We need to go," Astrid said, unnecessarily, as sirens drew closer.
I held Liv to my chest.
And we all ran.
It wasn't until we were in the car and out of the neighborhood that any of us seemed capable of drawing a breath.
"Is she okay?"
"I think she's alright. Just unconscious," I said, flicking on the overhead light, draping her body across my lap so I could lift her shirt, check for any other injuries. There was a smattering of red near her ribs, but not alarming enough to make me think anything was busted, pressing into a lung. There were bruises starting up her belly, her arms, her chest. Her hands were torn up. Her lip was split. And the blood in her mouth was likely from a knocked out tooth.
But okay.
She was going to be okay.
"We need to get her home," I said even though, clearly, that was what was on all our minds as Cam seemed to have to focus on doing the speed limit so we didn't get pulled over.
It felt like it took hours before we pulled up to their building, until we could get from the car to the loft, laying a slightly stirring Liv across the foot of her bed, pressing cold compresses to the back, mopping up the blood, swishing witch hazel over all the cuts.
It wasn't until her eyes opened, scanning us like she was seeing us for the first time that I even thought of anyone else in the room.
"You're hit," she said, voice croaking, making me turn to find Cam's shirt slowly soaking through near his side.
"Fuck," I hissed, moving to go toward him when he lifted his shirt to show the small chunk of flesh missing, seeming to try to make me see that it was clean-through, that it wasn't going to kill him.
And it was right then that I started to understand how his girls could decipher his silence. Because he did manage to get a lot across without saying anything.
"Come on, Cam," Astrid said, voice a little shaky as the adrenaline wore off. "Let's get you cleaned up. Roderick can take care of Liv."
With that, we were alone.
"No," I demanded softly when she tried to sit up. "Don't move. Just stay there for a minute. How is your vision?" I asked, watching as she looked around.
"I think it's okay. Why does my head hurt so bad?" she asked, pain clear in her eyes.
"That fuck kicked you in the back of the head, knocking you out."
"Was that before or after I hallucinated Astrid coming in with an AK-47?"
"That wasn't a hallucination, mami. But let's not think about that now, okay? She's okay. Cam's going to be okay. Let's focus on getting you okay."
So that was what we did.
NINE
Livianna
I was usually the one doing the nursing.
Sure, Cam had fished a bullet out of me, had helped me clean wounds when I hadn't been able to reach them myself. But he hadn't been the cold-compress-holding, hot-soup-delivering, check-on-you-every-five-minutes kind of person.
Roderick, it seemed, was that kind of person.
Every time I started awake that first night, he was right there, off the side of the bed, on the bed with me, soothing me back to sleep, handing me pain medicine, slathering on triple antibiotic.
I didn't remember much about that night.
The skull-splitting migraine had stolen all rational thought, all observation skills save but to notice the crippling pain of it, the way even the faint glow of my alarm clock was too bright to bear.
But the pain became a dull, throbbing ache by the next day when I woke up, unable to get any more rest.
And he was still there.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, voice a little sleep-rough.
"Like I had the piss beat out of me," I admitted, whimpering a little as I pushed myself up, feeling all the pains the migraine had blocked out the night before.
Everywhere hurt.
Places I didn't know could hurt if they got hit, hurt.
I felt like one giant bruise.
"I need to wash this all off of me," I said, gesturing to the dirt, gravel, sweat, blood all over me still. He had mopped up my face and hands, but that wasn't all there was.
"I'll help you to the bathroom," he offered.
"How is Cam?"
"Fine. He insisted Astrid do some stitching. Which she went green at, but pulled through and got it done. He will have a scar, but he will heal just fine. We can catch up with them once you clean up. And let me treat some of these cuts again."
"Okay," I agreed, letting him take care of me because, quite frankly, I didn't feel like I could do it myself, as much as that hurt my pride to admit.
I'd had my ass kicked a few times in the past. I didn't like admitting that, but it was the truth. I'd had ribs bruised and broken, black eyes, road burn, loose teeth, fat lips. You name it, I had been there.
But this beating, this might have taken the cake.
A situation had never gotten that out of control for me. I had never been that outnumbered, that outgunned. We had always managed to get out before things got that bad.
So this, this was maybe the worst I had gotten. And I was including the knife to my face and the bullet
to my shoulder.
This was easily worse.
The shower took me twice as long as it normally would, sapping all of the energy the sleep had given me.
So when Roderick let himself in when I was in nothing more than undies and a tee, I sat down on the closed toilet lid and let him take it from there, accepting the pain pills he handed to me without objection, let him clean, slather, and wrap any part of me he saw fit, then half-carry me into the living room, settling me onto the couch with three blankets and two pillows, leaving me only to fetch me coffee, water, and two old-fashioned donuts.
I didn't even think to tell him to move away when he came in beside me, wrapping an arm around me gently, holding me to his side, letting me drink and eat in silence waiting for the pain medicine to turn the shooting and throbbing pain into dull aching that didn't make thinking completely impossible.
"Okay," I said when Astrid and Cam came over, sitting down, looking at me with worried eyes. "I need to know what happened," I told them, attempting to put some authority into my voice, but I was pretty sure it just sounded weak and pleading.
"You guys were probably just getting there when I got a message from a virtual buddy of mine," Astrid started, reaching out to give my foot a small squeeze. "Telling me that JB was a con, just a street thug known for violence. That we shouldn't have anything to do with him. But... it was too late at that point. You left your cells in the car or they were off. I couldn't get in touch."
"So you went into the storage and just... got an AK?"
"I figured if the ship was going down, at least we would all go down together," she admitted. "I wouldn't have made it without you guys anyway."
"How did you get there?" Roderick asked, clearly a question he had been thinking on because it burst out of him.
"You know, it's crazy what New York City cab drivers will overlook," she admitted with a smile.
"How is this looking?" I asked. "On the news? What is the story?"
"Gang shooting," Astrid supplied. "No survivors, so there is no one to point fingers."
"None?" I asked, thinking of how many of them there had been.
"Cam and Roderick had gotten three of them by the time I got there. I got the rest. Well, all but JB."
"You said there was no one left," I objected, feeling my stomach plummet.
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