Mostly Dead Girls

the woman with a gun

It is a truth universally acknowledged (or as least acknowledged among Kelly's close-knit circle of real friends, who were all funnier and more homicidal than the people she pretended to like day-to-day) that putting yourself within grabbing distance of a Newick was about as smart as poking a bear. This advice had come from Caterina, a drawling Russian poisoner with scars that made her first-hand experience with both bears and Newicks believable, so Kelly fought down her urge to put the gun against Faye's head and stayed by the door, out of her reach.

Not that the Newick girl was moving. She was staring at Kelly with blank confusion, just like the Safehouse agent was. They both looked as if they'd expected someone very different.

"Aren't you a horror writer?" Faye said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

"Aren't you a final girl?" the Safehouse agent said, almost at the same time. "That nightclub in the nineties—"

Her stomach twisted painfully at the memory of the Cameo. "I guess I'm considering a career change." She cocked the gun. "About the dead girls, Newick..."

"Are you working for Caine?" the Safehouse agent asked.

The name sounded mildly familiar, but she couldn't place it. "I'm a free agent. Dead girls, Newick. I'm getting impatient."

"What dead girls?" Faye asked, her eyes going innocently round. She shifted in her seat, planting her feet more firmly. "I don't know anything about that."

"Are you sure you're not working for Caine?" the agent asked, sounding painfully bewildered. "You might know him by another name—John Altime, Gregory Ch—"

He was breaking Kelly's concentration, and she was getting worried about the tensed muscles in Faye's arms. She spun, aiming to put a bullet in his head, but he twisted and threw himself out of the way; it might have caught his thigh, but she had to turn her attention back to Faye and even then it was too late. Faye moved the moment she saw Kelly's gaze flicker, springing out of her chair and forward, the innocently afraid expression dropping off her face like a shed skin. Kelly tried to get the gun between the two of them, but Faye crashed into her before she could.

She was scrawny, only a few inches taller than Kelly, and the first punch she threw Kelly was able to avoid, even as they fell in a tangle of limbs on the floor. Her technique was shit, the average bad moves of every teenager who's seen an action movie or two, with one or two actual punches thrown in.

But she backed it up with steel. The first bad punch that connected sent pain blossoming through Kelly's shoulder, the second bloodied her lip. Kelly kneed her savagely and it barely gave her time to crawl out from underneath Faye's pinning weight; Faye grunted, then shook off the pain and was on her feet in a moment, pupils blown wide and black and blood in her teeth from where she'd knocked her mouth against the floor. She didn't seem to notice it.

Kelly thought she heard the Safehouse agent say, "Don't." She had no idea who he was speaking to, and didn't care. Faye gave her a window, a moment of hesitation as she figured out what to do next, so Kelly shot her in the leg and ran.

Hand-to-hand had never been her strong suit, but if she could just make enough quick hits and then get away again—the girl wouldn't last long. She might take after her uncle, but it took a while to build up as much resilience as Nicolas had. Hopefully. Kelly paused at the front door, eying the way she'd came, and was relieved when Faye banged the door open and limped out. She was still moving, still dark-eyed with anger, but she clearly felt the pain in her leg.

"I don't want to hurt you," Kelly tried saying, lowering her gun a little. "I just need to know about the girls. They killed my boyfriend."

Faye hesitated, her eyes going to a place on the floor to Kelly's left. Kelly glanced at it quickly, but saw nothing—no shadow, even. But then, she'd never been the strongest in the supernatural senses department. That had been Mickey's area. A painful lump rose in her throat.