Phoenix Rising

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Tony

  “Look, I’m really not sure how much clearer I can make this,” my manager, dickwad Jerry, said. “If the order is wrong, then they get it free. You can’t keep yelling at the customers and calling them incompetent when they show you a receipt.”

  “But they are incompetent. They all know the rule and they’re trying to find ways to get a free meal. You can’t let people walk all over you like this.”

  “This isn’t the military, Tony. This is Taco Bell, and our policy in this chain is that you get your food free if the order is wrong.”

  “Just go tell them to fuck themselves. You’re in charge here, Jerry. You make the rules and if people are trying to abuse you, smack them down and kick them out.”

  “But it’s bad for business.”

  “So is handing out free food,” I bit back. The rage was building inside me again and I gritted my teeth to hold back my anger.

  “Look, I know that I’m supposed to give you a chance because you’re supposedly some big bad-ass vet, but I still have a business to run.”

  “Wow, it’s amazing that someone like you is even able to run a business. No respect and sure as hell no finesse, you fucking dickhead.”

  “This is your last chance,” he said angrily. “Get it right or I’ll fire you, vet or not.”

  He walked away and I turned back to the counter at the local Taco Bell. Yeah, I had come home from war to find that I had no fucking place to go and not a single thing that I was qualified for, besides breaking someone’s neck. Now I was working in this shithole until I could figure something out. I was completely fucking lost. There was no more structure in my life. I had nowhere besides here that I had to be each day and it was never the same time.

  I woke up every day for PT, but there was no mess hall to go to and there were no drills that had to be performed. I was on my own, and worse than that, I had to work with people that were the complete opposite of what I was used to. These lazy fuckers only cared about a paycheck. There was no value to the work and no war cry that we all chanted. I needed to get out of here and find something that I could live for. I would never make it here with my life as messed up as it was.

  “Welcome to Taco Bell. Can I take your order?”

  The girl in front of me stood there twirling her hair as she stared at the menu, as if she didn’t have a fucking care in the world. I felt the slight whoosh of air as someone passed behind me and I spun around, grabbing the arm of one of my co-workers and slamming him into the counter behind me. My nostrils flared as my heart raced out of control. The kid pissed himself. I could smell it, and worse than that, I was pretty sure some of it got on me. I shook myself off and stepped back, releasing the kid and grunting an apology. He scrambled away from me and I sighed, snatching a towel and wiping up the piss from the floor. I washed my hands and stepped up to the counter, but the girl was gone.

  I wasn’t sure how long I would last here at this rate. I couldn’t stand having people behind me, doing shit with fire and knives. But I couldn’t stand to have my back to the door either. The rest of the night was more of the same, me getting angry at customers, and employees avoiding me like I was a disease. The kid obviously didn’t report me since I didn’t hear from Jerry again.

  I closed up with everyone else and walked home. I didn’t have a fucking truck. I had sold mine when I joined the military, figuring that I wouldn’t need one if I was overseas. My plan had been to go for the full twenty, but that plan had been shot out of the water. Now, I felt like a nomad. I had a cheap apartment that only had a bed and I walked everywhere I went. This really hadn’t been how I had seen life after the military going.

  I was just about to my apartment when I caught sight of a woman running down the street with three men on her tail. I hid in the shadows, waiting for the woman to pass and then stepped in the path of the men, slamming my fist into one man’s face and kicking another in the side, sending him careening. The third man attacked from behind, but I felt him coming, ducking just as he went to wrap me in a headlock. I slammed my elbow back into his face and kicked the other man in the nuts, spinning around and getting the first guy also. I felt like I was finally in my element. I kept fighting, kicking and punching until all the men were on the ground in bloody heaps. I was barely breathing hard. It felt fucking fantastic.

  “Ex-military?” the woman asked.

  I nodded. “Marines.”

  “You’re good,” she smiled. “Where are you working?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you working in a security field or something else?”

  “Taco Bell.”

  She laughed. “I bet that’s satisfying.”

  “Thrilling.”

  “You want a real job?”

  I looked at her funny. “Who meets someone on the street and offers them a job?”

  “Someone that knows a qualified person when she sees one.”

  “And why would you think I’m qualified for a job with…what are you offering exactly?”

  “A job in security.”

  “And what makes you qualified to make that decision?”

  “Let’s just say that I’m married to the owner.”

  I nodded and let out a little laugh. “So, you want to offer me a job because I saved the boss’s wife?”

  “I can hold my own.”

  “Against three men?”

  She shrugged playfully. “What I lack in brawn I make up for with my scrappiness.”

  “And what would you have done?”

  “Well,” she dug through her purse, pulling a knife. “I would try and avoid any noise. I’m not really looking to draw attention to myself.”

  “Hand to hand combat with three men would probably get you killed.”

  “Well, I also have a gun at the small of my back, one at my ankle, and another in my purse.”

  “That’s quite a load. Why would you need all those weapons, just walking down the street?”

  “It’s Pittsburgh. It can be dangerous at night.”

  “Yeah, speaking of which, why are you walking through Pittsburgh alone at night?”

  “Last I checked, it’s not illegal.”

  I glanced around at the deserted streets and watched the men creeping down the alleys, most likely for drug deals. “So, why would a man that owns a security company allow his wife to walk around alone at night? Makes me wonder what kind of security company he runs.”

  “I don’t need his permission to do anything. Besides, I’m working on a story and it’s not exactly like I can take a bunch of gorillas with me to meet a contact.”

  “I still don’t-”

  “Look, I don’t really have a lot of time left before my husband will realize that I’m not where I said I would be. So, are you in or are you out?”

  “Just like that.”

  “It’s really that simple. Sebastian will go over benefits and all that when you meet him.”

  I looked around Pittsburgh and back toward where I had just walked from Taco Bell. Hell, I could find another job if this fell through. Anything would be better than Taco Bell, even if the tacos were fantastic.

  “Fine, but I don’t have a vehicle.”

  “No problem. My truck is just a few blocks away.”

  “Where exactly is this company located?”

  “About an hour from here.”

  “My apartment is just a block away. Do you mind if I grab a bag?”

  “Not at all, but we should probably hurry.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, considering that I broke into some guy’s office-”

  “I thought you said you were meeting a contact?”

  “Same difference. Anyway, I’m assuming that those three men were just the beginning of who’ll be chasing me.”

  I looked at her funny. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course,” she smiled. “I never joke about car chases, guns, grenades, or shooting people.”

  I mot
ioned toward my apartment, wondering what the fuck I was doing. I was going to my apartment to pack a bag and head off with some lunatic that was carting around weapons, for a job that I wasn’t even sure I would really have.

  “Nice place,” she said as we walked inside my apartment. It wasn’t nice. It was a shithole, but I didn’t need much.

  “Just give me a minute.” I headed for my bedroom and quickly shoved in the necessities. Anything else I needed I could come back for later. I heard a creak from the other room, but the distribution of weight as the footsteps moved across the room was all wrong. Grabbing my gun from my nightstand, I moved along the wall to the doorway. A large figure moved into my bedroom. When he was just inside, I slammed my gun into his face and then shoved his head into the wall. He dropped to the ground and laid on the floor unconscious.

  “Hey, lady,” I whispered, not knowing where she was. I moved into the living room quietly, but only made it two steps before bullets flooded the room. I dropped to the floor and crawled around to the other side of the couch. I had no fucking clue where the woman was, but I knew that she was fucking trouble. When the gunfire slowed, I peered over the top of the couch and counted out three more guys. What the fuck had she gotten herself into? I was just about to fire when she leapt out of a closet and slammed her knife into one man’s throat, killing him instantly. She spun and pulled her gun, firing three times into the second man’s chest and ducked just as she was about to be shot. I couldn’t help but stare at her in amazement. She wasn’t lying when she said she could take care of herself.

  Shaking those thoughts from my head, I fired once, hitting the man in the forehead. “Let’s move,” I shouted. I ran to the bedroom and grabbed my bag, flinging it over my shoulder and across my chest. The fire escape was outside my window. There was no way I was heading out the front door. I opened the rusty window and moved aside for her to crawl through. Just a few minutes later, we were running for her truck that was parked a few blocks from my apartment.

  We jumped in and she gunned the engine, tearing out of the parking space. It was clear that we still had company when three vehicles came tearing around the corner.

  “Whose office did you break into?”

  “Oh, just an old colleague turned politician.”

  “And why did you break in?”

  “To prove that he’s dirty. Like I said, I used to work with him. When I uncovered that my editor was basically a criminal working with the mayor, apparently it sent the whole paper into a tailspin. I didn’t realize until a few years later that many more people were involved than I knew about. Now, one of those people is running for the senate, and I’m going to stop him.”

  “Head out of town. We have to lose them.”

  “This isn’t my first time,” she grinned. “Trust me. I came prepared.”

  She took a hard right and crossed a bridge, leading us out of the city. The cars were gaining on us and then she started to fucking slow down.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Well, you want to get rid of them, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but I thought we were going to lose them. Do you always go around killing people?”

  “Hey, it’s kill or be killed.”

  “But only because you broke into their office. I bet they didn’t even know who the fuck you were until you stuck your nose in their business.”

  “You sound just like my husband. If I were you, I’d get in the back and pull up the seat.”

  I did as she said, though I wasn’t sure why. “Holy shit. You keep a fucking arsenal in your truck.”

  “It’s pretty awesome, right? You’ll have access to all this stuff when you sign the contract with Reed Security.”

  I pulled out a rifle and opened a small crack in the back window. “I sure as fuck hope I’m on the right side here.”

  “Not like you have a choice now.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  When we were clear of the city and all traffic, I started firing. It felt fucking awesome to fire a weapon again. A truck went flying past us in the opposite direction and then spun around, catching up to the cars and ramming them.

  “Who are these guys?” I shouted.

  “That’s probably my husband and Sinner. I knew they’d catch on eventually.”

  “And they just happened to find you in the middle of the country and know that the people behind you would need to be taken out?”

  “Yeah, it’s like a sixth sense thing. Well, that’s not true. He monitors all my actions like a crazy person.”

  “Lady?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re fucking crazy.”

  “That’s what everyone says,” she shouted back with a grin.

  I looked back out the window and saw that the truck was driving three wide with the other two cars. Each car was ramming the truck on either side. The driver stuck his arm out the window and fired at the car on his left while the passenger flung something into the car on the right. The truck surged forward and drove up alongside our truck just as the car on the right exploded. I ducked down, not expecting the explosion.

  “Maggie!” the passenger shouted. “Pull the fuck over!”

  “No, there’s still one more car,” she shouted back.

  I looked out the back window again, seeing the other car surging forward. The passenger was firing with a fucking machine gun at the truck next to us and the truck swerved, trying to avoid being shot.

  “Get as close as you can to that car and when I tell you, slam on the fucking breaks.”

  “Are you gonna break the door?”

  “Done this before?” I asked.

  “No, but I want you to know this is my husband’s truck.”

  “Fucking great,” I muttered.

  She pulled closer to where the car was pulling up on the other truck and I started to open the door. “Ready?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Now!” I yelled as I shoved the door open with my boot, just barely pulling my foot back in as the car tore the door off the truck. “Stay with him,” I yelled, gripping onto the ‘oh shit’ handles and flinging my body through the window of the car. I kicked the man in the face as I flew through the window, just barely hanging on as I hung half in, half out. The machine gun had fallen to the floor, but the driver had a gun in hand. I kicked, knocking the gun from his grip and kicked him repeatedly in the face. He started to pass out and I berated myself for not having thought through how I was going to get out of the fucking car once I killed them. I couldn’t grab the steering wheel and we were headed straight for the fucking ditch. With half my body hanging out, I didn’t have much choice but to try and push myself out and hope I rolled enough to keep from breaking any bones.

  “Grab my hand,” a man shouted as the second truck pulled up alongside me. He was leaning over the side of the bed of the truck and I reached out, grasping his hand just as the car started to slide down into the ditch. I shoved off the window with my boot as he pulled, slamming my stomach into the fucking side of the truck. He hauled me over the edge and I collapsed into the bed of the truck.

  “I saw that going differently in my mind,” he laughed.

  “Thanks for the save.”

  “Sinner,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “Tony.”

  I shook his hand as the truck slowed and sat up when the truck stopped and the driver got out.

  “What the fuck, Freckles? You said you were going to help the ladies out tonight.”

  “Technically, I did help some ladies out tonight. Think of all the women that could have been taken in by that scumbag if I hadn’t gotten the information I needed.”

  “That’s not…” He screamed in frustration at the sky. “You shot up Pittsburgh. Again!”

  “Again?” I asked Sinner.

  “Oh, there have been many times,” he chuckled. “It’s just the first time it’s happened in, oh, a little over a year. This is good. We’re making progress.”

&
nbsp; “And who the fuck is this? You just picked up a random stranger to take along for the ride?”

  “Oh, he’s ex-military. I met him on the street and he’s coming to work for you.”

  “You agreed to take a job from Freckles?” Sinner asked. “Bold. You must have balls of steel.”

  “Freckles, you don’t just invite people to come work for us. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “He took out some guys that were following me. I figured you’d appreciate it. The least you could do is say hello.”

  The man turned to me, hand extended. “Sebastian.”

  “Tony.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  Turning back to his wife, he sighed, obviously tired of doing this, from what I understood, for the millionth time. “Freckles, you could have just told me what you were doing. Why do I always have to chase you down?”

  “Why do you keep impregnating me?”

  “What?” Sebastian asked. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Yeah,” she said with thinly veiled anger. “Wonder how that happened when you already got a vasectomy.”

  “Told you that would backfire,” Sinner coughed out.

  “You knew?” Maggie shrieked.

  “Hey, I’m not getting involved in this.”

  “I think you already are,” I muttered.

  “That’s besides the point,” Sebastian growled. “You stole my fucking truck, picked up a stray, and got yourself shot at, again. While pregnant! Hell, I don’t even know what this guy’s experience is.”

  “I currently work at Taco Bell,” I interjected.

  “Fucking perfect. You hired on Tony Tacos without asking and dragged him into your mess and almost got him and yourself killed.”

  “You know, she’s actually pretty good,” I said, trying to be helpful.

  “I trained her,” Sinner said with pride. “She’s a hellcat, but watch her around grenades. She gets a little excited around them.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have had to go out and find a story if I didn’t just find out I was pregnant!”

  “Next, it’s going to be ‘liar, liar, pants on fire’,” Sinner said. “I’m exhausted. We’ll take this truck and let these two hash it out. Grab your bag from his truck. Trust me, you don’t want to ride home with those two.”