RISK & REWARD ✔️

9 | 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦

Day after day, she doesn't come back. I expect her to, but I don't want her to — but as time goes on I do want her to — but she doesn't make a return.

One week. Then two.

I've been thinking. I've come to the conclusion that Slade is some sort of criminal-but-also-crime-fighting vigilante with a stereotypically normal brother and perhaps some dark, broody past.

Remember saying that she seemed like the protagonist jumped straight out of some kind of criminal cyberpunk film? I still think that, just in reverse. The morally gray antagonist.

Maybe? Or is Pierce the antagonist?

I don't know. And, seeing as she isn't coming back, I'll probably never find out.

It's been a little over three weeks when Shit Fit 2.0 goes down.

It's mid-November by now; we've got our first snow, a bit early in the season. Little watery flakes are still twirling down from a canopy of brownish black sky when I lock the restaurant door behind me and zip my coat up to my mouth.

I'm pulling on my gloves when I hear a single hard, hot crack.

I pause before I wiggle my fingers into the fleece, moving onto my next. Not uncommon to hear a gunshot in Chicago, but it sounds close. Maybe a few streets over.

Another crack, followed by the roar of an engine.

I stop moving, opting to stand in the shadow cast by the awning over the door. It's funny; I've lived here so long and yet I've never been near any real gun violence. Save for the Shit Fit, obviously.

Two more cracks, and then a whole chorus of them. It sounds like a stop-motion drill.

And it's closer.

I glance down the street, not yet salted and still veiled with a thin layer of early snow. No cars coming or going. It's usually pretty dead over here, I guess, but not...empty, usually.

Huh.

I straighten up when I begin to hear the hard purr of an engine being pushed to its limit and then some. There are a few more solitary cracks of gunshots, tailed by ricocheting echoes.

My heart skips a beat when I hear the squeal of tires coming down towards me, and I back up against the door. There's a little part of me that yells when I do.

Pussy.

I shouldn't be scared. It's probably just some stupid fight between some idiot kids who got into the guns and they're probably just storming down this way because it's away from home.

Then I hear a distant, echoing shout, and I think my heart stops beating.

It sounds like Pierce. It sounds exactly like Pierce. Maverick's words from who-knows-how-long-ago, and the tone he'd said them in, ring in my head: he's got a vendetta against my sister.

He's pissy. Not smart.

A smart guy with a gun wouldn't waste bullets on a random bystander. A stupid one might.

I can't tell if I can hear the guttural roar of a hot engine getting closer or the tremendous sound of blood rushing through my veins as I turn and fumble with the lock. I can't get the key in the door, I'm shaking so bad — and when did that start, when did I start shaking? — but oh my god, it's getting closer, the sound is getting closer.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. My bottled-up fear starts to leak into my motions; I'm alone and I can't get inside and there's a fucking idiot guy with a gun racing down towards me and I can't get away, and I need help, help, please, I need help, I need —