Inside, Seconds Later

My first reaction is that this has been a setup.

There’s no one in sight as I creep into the gym through the unlocked front door. I’m waiting for someone to jump out and beat the living, breathing piss out of me. Or worse. I look cautiously around, at the machines, behind the counter, in the towel room, before standing completely still. My breath ceases altogether. There’s not a sound emanating from the weight room.

I wait.

If this is a setup, they would’ve dropped on me by now. They’re too fucking dumb to do anything else. I lower my gun to my side and cock my head. For a moment, there’s nothing. No sound at all. Then I hear it. Footsteps. Heels on hardwood. I follow the click-clacking sound through the weight room to the oversized aluminum door. I take a deep breath. There could be just about anything on the other side of this door. I don’t particularly want to walk into an ambush. I’ve seen what these guys can do. But there’s no time for thoughts, so I push them from my mind. I gotta move. I kick the door open and shield myself behind the wall.

No shots are fired. This is as safe as it’s gonna be. I walk through the doorway and enter the gymnasium. I keep my gun raised.

The first thing I notice is the bound-up girl on the chair in the middle of the gym. At this point, I can only assume that the dark figures flanking her on either side are Megan and Bruiser. The second thing I notice is the smell of stale sweat. It engulfs my nostrils. My lips curl up in disgust. I knew there was a reason I never went to any basketball games in high school.

The lights in the gym are dimmed. I feel like I’m at a high school dance. The lights cast long gray and black shadows across the scuffed wooden floor. It’s tough to differentiate between the shadows. I have no idea who could be standing in the wings. I do a sweep of the room, trying my damndest to see if there’s anyone waiting to pounce on me. When I’m mostly convinced that there’s no ambush, I return my full attention to Maise.

As I walk toward her, the three figures come into focus. I was right. It is Megan and Bruiser. I give Maise a brief but in-depth once-over. Aside from a few welts on her face and the ropes tied around her arms and legs, she looks otherwise okay. I watch her breasts in her low-cut hooker top. They’re moving up and down. She’s still breathing. That’s just about the best news all day. Now I just have to make sure I keep it that way. I’m hoping that will be the easy part, but I’m sure Megan and Bruiser have other plans.

As if on cue, Megan raises her hand to Maise’s temple and I hear the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked. She raises her other hand toward me. “Stop right there, Levi. That’s as close as you need to get. Slide your piece over here.”

As a rule, I don’t kill women. Looking back on all the shit I’ve gone through in the past few days, however, I consider making an exception. Unfortunately, as much as I’d like to fire off a couple rounds directly into Megan’s torso, I can’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t come this far to see Maise get shot. I set my piece on the ground and kick it in Megan’s direction. Megan motions for Bruiser to advance on me. As he starts lurching toward me, my wheels start churning. I have to do something.

“Nothing funny, Levi,” Bruiser warns me. I can tell that Megan has his testicles in her back pocket. He couldn’t give less of a crap about me. The only reason he pretends to care if I live or die is because of Megan. She’s the key. Bruiser moves up close to me. I can smell the sweat that he’s tried to mask with a heavy dose of Brut cologne. All the more reason I’m going to enjoy watching him die.

Bruiser grabs me by the lapels and lands a dirty but solid punch into my solar plexus. I try to withstand it, but I wind up doubling over in agony all the same. It’s like being hit by a meteor. I fall to my knees and Bruiser lands a secondary hit on my cheek.

“And a good evening to you too,” I say to him.

Megan lowers the gun from Maise’s head. “Levi, Levi, Levi,” she says, shaking her head and clicking her tongue at me.

I hold out my hands apologetically. “I’d call you by name, but I don’t have the slightest idea what that is,” I reply.

Megan smiles. “No, you don’t,” she tells me, so condescending that I have to fight standing up and punching her out. “And that is completely trivial at the present time.”

“Fair enough.” I’m trying to buy myself some time. I’m not sure what for yet. “What do you say we cut to the chase?”

Megan nods her head. “That’s a good idea.” she says. “The faster we cut to the chase, the faster I can go home and clean you off me once and for all.”

“All right, we’re in agreement on that. So, why don’t you tell me—” I start.

Megan aims the gun at Maise’s temple again. “No, Levi, I’m afraid you have the roles a bit reversed,” she coos. “I’ve got the gun, therefore, I ask the questions. Those are the rules.”

“Fair enough. Go ahead.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Because you’re too cheap to throw me a real surprise party?” I can tell by the knuckles against the right side of my forehead that this wasn’t the response she was she was looking for. Another sucker punch. I shake it off.

“At the risk of sounding foolish,” Megan tells me, “I’m going to ask that you keep your smart-assed remarks locked away. Do you think you can handle that?”

“Locked away,” I respond, “like fucking Fort Knox.”

“Good,” Megan replies, coolly. “Now, I’ll ask you again: Do you know why you’re here?”

“Excluding my first guess, I have a couple other guesses.”

“Would you care to enlighten us?”

“I’m here because you had your pet gorilla knock Vincent into a graveyard,” I tell her, motioning my head toward Bruiser, “and you didn’t realize that there was an eyewitness to your expedition. You knew that someone was looking for Maise, you knew that I would be the one that they’d enlist to find her, and you rode my coattails. Now you’re going to kill the only two people who can point you out.” I raise my eyebrows in conclusion.

I can see from Megan’s expression that this answer wasn’t correct. I cast a glimpse at Bruiser as he tries to make sense of what I’ve just said. He looks like a monkey doing a math problem. I look back at Megan.

“I don’t know what kind of shit you’re trying to pull with your fantasy story,” she says slowly, “but whatever it is, it won’t work.”

“Maybe this would be easier if we stopped playing twenty fucking questions and you just told me why you brought me here.”

“I brought you here because you killed Vincent Bagliato.”

My mind comes to a grinding halt. I’m fairly certain that everyone in the room can hear the brakes squealing. I feel like I’m having déjà vu. “What are you talking about?”

“You heard what I said,” Megan retorts. I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts.

“Yeah, I heard you just fine but I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The gears start clicking forward again. “Where did you get your information?”

“I was asking around at the bars where Vincent hung out. I had a lead and I was contacted by an interested party.”

“Who?”

“A man who called himself Campbell.”

The name rolls into my eardrums like a hurricane. That dirty son of a bitch. I knew his disappearance was too good to be true. I can feel my rage rising as I think about Campbell. I have to push it from my head. I can’t think about him right now. There’s no point in delving into the past in the middle of the present situation. I’ll look him up if I can get myself out of this mess.

“So, you’re in a vendetta kind of mood because Campbell told you that I killed Vincent?” I ask. At this point, I can’t even pretend to hide my confusion. “Why do you even care? You were just another one of his girls. One that he slapped to the brink of death.”

Megan grits her teeth and taps Maise’s temple with the barrel of the gun. “I have no idea where your information is coming from, Levi, but it appears that a line was crossed somewhere.”

This is getting ridiculous. I can feel the blood pulsing inside my head. I start to get to my feet. Bruiser cracks me between the shoulder blades. I return to my knees. “What do you say you just come out with your story, lady? We could be here all night beating around the bush. You’ve obviously got something to say, so spit it out. What the hell is going on? Who are you?”

Megan takes a deep breath and glares at me so hard that I can feel her gaze slice through my skin like a bullet. “Vincent was my lover. We had been together for a long time, through all of the bullshit and through all of his fucking around behind my back, but I loved him more than you could ever imagine. He would have never laid a finger on me, you lousy piece of shit. Do you know why? Because I didn’t deserve it.” Megan begins tapping Maise’s head with the gun. Maise winces. Megan doesn’t even notice. Her eyes are burning through me as she continues on. “Everything was going decent until this stupid bitch showed up. She’s the one that Vincent knocked around. She dipped her hands where they didn’t belong. After that, things started going wrong. We were in a world of trouble. Draven left the business and went straight. He holed up and disappeared. That is, until you and your Mohawked friend led us right to him.”

I can barely wrap my head around what she’s spouting off, but somehow all of the pieces are forming together. Megan keeps right on trucking. “When our clientele got pissed, Vincent knew that shit was going sour so he moved me to a different locale, out of harm’s way, before he enlisted the services of an Asian and his crew to keep himself protected. The Asian, the fuck-up that he turned out to be, was doing a good job until you showed up, blowing in like the wind, to put a bullet in Vincent.” Megan pauses before moving the gun away from Maise’s head and training it on my face.

“Who hired you?” Her voice is so low that it’s barely audible. I can do nothing but stare at her. She takes a couple of steps toward me. Her anger rises through her body like a wall of fire before it erupts in a yell over her lips. “Who hired you, you rat bastard?”

“I didn’t kill Vincent,” I tell her in a poor attempt to keep her calm. She lunges at me with an animal roar, swinging her gun over her head and crashing it down onto my scalp. I feel the blood begin to pour out of the gash on my hairline. She reverses her momentum and slams the gun into my jaw. I haven’t been pistol-whipped in years. It still sucks as much as I remember.

As Megan revs up her arm for a third blow, Maise begins convulsing in the chair. Megan turns to look at her, eyes wide, on the brink of insanity, lips pulled back over her teeth in a demonic snarl. “What do you want, you fucking bitch?”

She lurches away from me, back to Maise’s side, and yanks the duct tape from her mouth. Maise lets out a piercing howl that is cut short by Megan’s fist. Maise recoils in her chair, inches from toppling over backward. The punch is enough to clear her mind, however, and she shakes her head and takes a gasping breath.

“He couldn’t have killed Vincent.”

Megan is shocked by this development. Unfortunately, she must think it’s a lie. She places the barrel of the gun against Maise’s forehead and pulls the hammer back. “Why’s that? And I better like the answer.” Megan looks over her shoulder at me. “You taking this all in, tough guy? Because you’re next in line. I’ve had just about enough of this bullshit.”

I wait for Maise to say something, anything at all, but with the gun barrel pressed against her forehead, Maise’s vocal chords tighten. All she can manage is the occasional squeak. Her lips are moving at warp speed. I’m surprised her throat doesn’t hemorrhage. I can see Megan’s finger starting to tighten on the trigger. It’s like watching a sociopathic version of The Gong Show. C’mon, Maise, say what you have to say before the timer runs out. You have a fraction of a second. I watch in horror as Maise tries as hard as she can to breathe, trying to make her voice come back and rise to the surface. There’s nothing there. Maise is a goner. That means that, by default, I’m a goner too. I start to lunge toward them, hoping that, in a last ditch effort, I can get the gun from Megan before she pulls the trigger. Bruiser knocks me back to the ground with a punch to the kidney. I grit my teeth and wait for the blast.

“He was in the backseat of his car on his way to a doctor.” Maise spits out a chain of pasted-together words. She gasps, breathing in a deep cleansing breath of air, waiting for the gun to be removed from her face. Megan has her jaw set and a look of pure hatred plastered all over her face. She’s itching to pull that trigger. She needs to put a name to the hate. Any name will do at this point. Maise’s is just in the wrong spot.

“Megan . . .” I start. Megan turns on her heels and once again aims the gun at me. At least it’s not on Maise anymore. Bruiser lands another hit on the side of my face. I’m starting to get tired of this.

“Shut your mouth, you murdering son of a bitch,” Bruiser growls. I keep my focus on the unblinking eye that is the barrel of the gun pointed at me.

“I didn’t kill him.” I’m talking to both parties now. Neither one seems thrilled with my response. Megan walks toward me, clenching her teeth. I can see the muscles in her jaw as they tighten.

“If you didn’t kill him, then who did?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.” I shake my head.

Megan motions with her head toward Maise. “Does that little bitch?” Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Bruiser getting ready to wind up again.

“Bruiser, you’re going to regret every single hit you’ve planted on me tonight.” I can tell that, for a second or two, he’s seriously considering this, but his thought process fades. He punches me anyway. Megan snaps her fingers at Bruiser and points at Maise.

“Find out what she knows.” A smile spreads across Bruiser’s face like cancer. He pops his knuckles. Megan keeps her piece leveled on me. She knows that if she moves it away for an instant, I’m going to act. She knows there’ll be bloodshed if she doesn’t keep tabs on me. She also knows that I can’t dodge a bullet.

I watch as Bruiser moves toward Maise. He stands before her and cocks his head. He’s sizing her up, the sick, twisted masochist. He’s like an artist looking at a block of marble. Maise looks up at him with her big blue eyes, wrought with all sorts of fear, whimpering from deep within her throat. Bruiser stands still for a moment, relaxing his shoulders, giving Maise a glimpse of hope that he’s not going to hurt her. I can feel my neck muscles tighten. He’s playing with her. I can see what’s coming next.

Without warning, Bruiser lashes out. He backhands Maise across her cheek. I can hear the sharp crack as his hand connects to her skin. It sounds like a gunshot. I watch as the blood and saliva arc across the gymnasium from her lips. Maise lets out a sharp scream. Bruiser doesn’t want to hear it. He wants to hear answers. He lands a fist in her stomach. The scream is cut short by an attempt to gasp for air.

“Do you know who killed Vincent?” Bruiser asks Maise. She gives no response. Bruiser moves in closer. His face is inches away from hers. “Answer me and this will all be over. If you don’t, this is going to get unpleasant.” Still no response. Bruiser shakes his head.

“You’re bringing this all on yourself,” he tells her as his monstrous hands engulf her head. I can’t see exactly what he’s doing, but I can hear a slow, small whimpering from Maise’s throat that abruptly changes into an explosion of shrieks of intense pain.

“Megan,” I say, “you better tell your monster to back the fuck off if he wants his death to be quick.” Megan raises an eyebrow at me.

“I have to hand it to you, Levi,” she tells me. “For a guy who is a step and a half away from being shot, you certainly are a cocky bastard.” Bruiser releases Maise from whatever grip he had on her. Her shrieks fade into sobs. Bruiser leans in toward her again, putting his lips directly next to hers.

“Do you know who killed Vincent?”

Maise nods her head. Bruiser nods along with her. “Who was it?” Maise immediately begins shaking her head in the negative. Goddammit. Bruiser straightens up and grabs Maise by the throat.

“I’m getting sick of this. You had better spill whatever information you have, right now,” Bruiser yells.

Maise shakes her head as best she can. “I . . . can’t,” she eeks out. I can’t tell if she’s trying to say something more. All that follows is a series of gurgles. He’s going to kill her. I no longer give a shit about my own well-being. Something has to be done. I have to stop this and I have to stop this now. Megan may be right in assuming that I can’t move faster than a bullet. That doesn’t matter so much. The real question is, can I move faster than she can get that bullet out of the gun? I certainly hope so. I’ve only got one chance.

I keep my eyes locked onto Megan’s. I can see the sweat standing out on her forehead. She overexerted herself when she was going to town on me. Good. All the better for me. I watch as a bead of sweat rolls down the side of her forehead. It lands in the corner of her eye. She blinks.

And away we go.

I shove my hand in my jacket pocket, grasping my .38. I pull it out and spin to my right. I’m on my feet, pushing away the pain from my beating. No time for that. Megan pulls the trigger once. The bullet grazes my side. The ball is back in my court. I lunge toward Megan and squeeze off a single round. It catches Bruiser in the back of the calf. He screams and releases Maise from his grasp. Maise falls to the floor. I connect with Megan. We recoil backward and land on the floor, hard. Megan’s gun clatters across the gym, coming to a halt somewhere in the shadows. Out of sight, out of mind. I catch Maise out of the corner of my eye. She’s still attached to the folding chair.

There’s only one problem.

As if in answer to my thoughts, I feel a set of hands clamp down on my shoulders. I’m yanked from the ground like a marionette and tossed to the side. I land hard. The wind is knocked out of me, but the gun is still in my hand. The limping Bruiser pulls Megan to her feet.

“You just locked in both of your deaths, Levi,” Megan says. She grabs Maise by the hair and pulls her head backward. “Now, you better tell me who killed Vincent, you fucking cunt.” There’s a sharp click. Megan is brandishing a blade. She moves it toward Maise’s throat. The gym doors are flung open and three shadows walk through the doorway.

“The far better idea is for you to drop that knife.”

I recognize the voice immediately. Megan hesitates, glaring at the newcomers. Her hesitation ruins her plans. Veronica doesn’t waste any time. She hasn’t stopped walking toward Megan and Maise since she entered the gym. Without missing a beat, she snaps her fingers at the man behind her. The man moves gracefully, a flash of light, a bang. Megan’s got a bullet in her arm. The blade is on the ground.

Veronica makes her way to Maise’s side. She gives me a courtesy nod as she passes, then she looks Megan in the eyes. Megan doesn’t know what to think. She stands, clutching her wounded arm. She and Veronica stare each other down. They look like welterweight boxers preparing for a championship bout. Veronica speaks first.

“I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Megan clutches her arm and scowls. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the name that you were willing to take my sister’s life for.”

No one in the room says anything. It feels like someone hit the mute button. It takes a moment or two for the words to filter their way into Megan’s mind so she can make sense of them. It’s visible when it happens. I can see the anger and confusion meld into some sort of stew of rage. Megan releases her arm and grabs Veronica by the jacket. “You killed him?”

Veronica doesn’t lose her cool. She leans in close to Megan so that she can hear every word. “You’re not the only one who was thirsty for revenge.” Megan looks as though she’s been slapped in the face. She raises her hand to retaliate by physically doing the same to Veronica. The sounds of guns being pulled from their holsters doesn’t sway Megan from her follow-through. Her hand connects with Veronica’s face. Now the guns are being cocked. Good-bye, Megan. See you in hell.

The shots never come. Veronica has raised her hand, telling her boys to cease their initial plan. She wipes the small string of blood away from her lower lip.

“She was entitled to one,” Veronica says. Then her voice lowers a few degrees. “But only one. The next time, the bullets fly.”

“Why?” Megan snarls. Her voice is low and gravelly. It sounds like she’s the victim of a demonic possession. “Why did you do it?”

“I did it because there are certain vermin that don’t have any role whatsoever to play in society. This vermin needs to be wiped out,” Veronica explains. Megan clenches her jaw. She looks like a rabid wildcat and she’s ready to pounce. I wish she would so I can go home. Veronica looks at Megan. “Let me back up a bit.

“Maise was, for lack of a better term, employed by Vincent, and to put it as nicely as possible, she was mistreated. When word came around to me about what Vincent was doing to her, how he was treating her, I paid him a visit. The visit was strictly a cautionary one and it seemed to go well. We parted ways and I left him with a word of warning that the next time I had to visit him under those circumstances, I would see to it that mine was the last face he ever saw. Thinking that the matter was taken care of, I put it out of my head. You can understand that, when I found out, days later, that Vincent wasn’t pleased with my forced sit-down and took it out on my sister, I couldn’t leave my threat empty. I contacted a close friend of mine, who in turn contacted Mr. Maurice, to create a diversion so that I could fulfill my end of the bargain. Vincent had received his warning, and when he did not abide by it,” Veronica concludes, “I carried it out.”

The echoing silence in the room returns. Megan stands motionless, but you can see the tension emanating from her body. She is prepared to take bullets if need be, so long as she tears Veronica in half. Veronica is a hell of a tough cookie, but my money would be on Megan in her present state of mind. She has enough adrenaline coursing through her body to stop a grizzly bear. Couple that with the rage and you’ve got a Molotov cocktail that could take on any contender.

“It’s a good thing for Levi that his story checks out.” I spin my head toward the far wall and watch as the Asian emerges from the shadows. I didn’t see that one coming. The Irishman and the behemoth enter from the weight room door. The three converge toward the gathering in the center of the room. On the upside, the night’s getting more and more interesting with each passing second.

The Asian steps up to Veronica. Her henchmen raise their guns and train them on him. In turn, the mick and the ogre train their guns on the henchmen. I get the feeling that none of these guys are in the habit of playing nice. Someone’s bound to get hurt.

“I don’t suppose I need a formal introduction,” the Asian says. Veronica shakes her head. She’s already bored with the whole ordeal.

“No, you don’t,” she replies. “It was your duty to protect Vincent, and may I say, your boys didn’t do a terribly great job.” The Asian forces a smile that reads something along the lines of, “I’m going to tear your heart out and eat it.” I’m waiting to hear his verbal response when the door bursts open again. Chenille and Jacks run in, guns out.

Jesus Christ. When’s Monty Hall going to get here?

The Irishman and one of Veronica’s guys both turn in perfect unison to level their guns at Chenille and Jacks. No one so much as flinches.

“Everybody, drop your weapons!” Jacks yells. He wasn’t expecting such a crowd. Hell, I don’t think anyone here was expecting so many guests to show up. I know I sure as hell wasn’t. It’s a good thing that Jacks works well under pressure. I just hope he has backup en route. No matter how well Jacks works, I can’t see him bringing down eight armed people.

Car tires squeal outside in the parking lot. Jacks’s boys are here to clean up. I catch a glimpse of confusion on Jacks’s face. Maybe not. It dawns on me that Bruiser has been awfully quiet. I look at him. He has a cell phone in his hand. The doors slam open in the gymnasium.

The boys are back in town.

For a split second, nobody moves. Everything is perfectly still, perfectly serene. I wish I had a picture of this moment for posterity’s sake. The literal calm before the storm. Megan ruins the moment. She dives past Veronica, slides across the floor, and comes up with her gun in her hand. She fires the first shot. A wild one. All hell breaks loose. No more standoff. This is the real deal.

The wild bullet catches Chenille in the shoulder. I scramble to my feet, moving quickly to Maise to untie her. I glance at Chenille to make sure she’s still standing. She is and she looks pissed. A glimmer of pure evil has spread across her face. Jacks is by her side. Chenille can take care of herself. Hell, she lives for shit like this.

“Doll, this’ll only take a second,” I tell Maise. I pull my switchblade out of my pocket and start sawing at the ropes. I feel them give. I help Maise to her feet. When she’s standing, she turns to me with relief in her eyes. She starts to move in to give me a hug when the relief is erased and replaced by sheer terror. I wheel around just in time to catch Bruiser’s fist like a cannonball on my nose. I hear it crack and my head carries the rest of my body backward. I’m weightless for a good three seconds before gravity catches up with me. Then my back meets up with the hardwood floor.

I’ve had enough of this shit. I don’t even bother waiting for the wind that was knocked out of me to return. I’m back up on my feet in a heartbeat. Bruiser isn’t expecting me to be up off the mat so quick. I lunge at him and knock him backward. We commence to scuffling on the floor. I have him on his back and I’m pummeling his face like it’s meat in desperate need of tenderizing. He gets in a good jab to the kidney. I wince, just long enough for him to toss me like a rag doll. I hit the ground and I’m back on my feet again in no time at all. Round two. He lumbers to one knee, moves toward me like a big hairless bear. I back toward the weight room doors. People stagger and jump between us, guns bared. Bruiser doesn’t even seem to notice. He has only me in mind. He lurches toward me. He wants blood. My blood.

My ass hits the door. I back through it, into the dark room behind me, just as Bruiser throws a random vigilante aside. He’s like a juggernaut. As soon as I’m through the door, I spin and bolt over the nearest weight bench. Bruiser tears through the door a second later. He’s on top of me as soon as I hit the ground. He gets a handful of my shirt. My momentum throws us both off balance. We crash into a weight set. The free weights roll across the floor. Bruiser straddles me. My face starts taking the brunt end of a beating. I gotta get him off me quick. I think my nose is already broken, and if it isn’t, it’s going to be pretty damned soon. I don’t know any good reconstructive surgeons. I bring my knee up, catching him in his raisin-sized balls. He groans and slumps off of me, a look of anguish on his face. I grab hold of the overturned bench and pull myself up. I kick him in the forehead. Thankfully, no one said anything about a good clean fight.

He grabs my ankle and yanks me to the floor. I crack my head on the bench. A flash of light engulfs my vision. He pulls me toward his already poised free fist. I reach out to grab hold of something that will slow me down. All I can find is loose weights. That ought to do the trick.

I blink my eyes rapidly to beat away the fuzzy light. Bruiser is trying to get on top of me again. If he does, the last thing I’ll ever see is a set of knuckles barreling down on my windpipe. I gotta act fast.

I grip the weight in my hand, heave it to my chest as I sit up. My stomach burns. It has to be a twenty-five pounder. Doesn’t sound like much until you do a sit-up with it. I gotta start working out more. With my left hand, I bring the weight full force directly between Bruiser’s eyes. He blinks, the skin above his nose tears open. He falls over backward. I get to my feet and stand over him. He opens his eyes just in time to see me let go of the weight. He barely has time to register a surprised look before the weight crushes every bone in his face. He gurgles and spasms for a moment. Then he lays perfectly still.

“Asshole,” I mutter through my swollen lip. I turn to head back into the ensuing battle in the gym. Instead of seeing the gym doorway, I walk straight into the barrel of a gun. Megan holds the cold steel against my cheek. With the spatters of blood across her face and clothes, she looks something like a Dalmatian from hell. She curls back her lips in a menacing grin.

“Whatever else happens, Levi,” she snarls, “at least I’ll know that you got yours.” I hear the click as the hammer is pulled back.

Then comes the gunshot.

I’ve never been shot in the face before. I don’t know what to expect.

There’s no pain. My face doesn’t feel any different. I don’t have a headache. I assume that death was instantaneous. Thank God for small victories, I suppose.

Then I feel the gun barrel slip off of my cheek. It lands on the floor. Megan stares at me with wide eyes. Her smile starts to fade. Blood bubbles up on her lips and slowly trickles down the sides of her mouth. She tries to say something. I have no idea what it is. She slowly crumples to a heap on the floor at my feet. I look down at her, not quite sure what the hell just happened. My eyes meander back to the shadowy figure standing behind where Megan had been just seconds before. It’s clutching its shoulder. Smoke is still billowing from the gun.

“How’s that song go?” Chenille asks. “‘Little sister don’t miss when she aims her gun’?” I’m at a loss for words so I just nod. I hear the sounds of sirens coming from a distance. Apparently Jacks did call for backup. Nice of them to be on time.

“That was exciting.”

“I told you there was something rotten about her,” Chenille reminds me as I cross the floor and stand next to her. I place a cigarette between my battered lips and fire it up.

“We all gotta be right sometime,” I retort. “Let’s go see if one of those punctual cops can take a look at that shoulder.”