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10. She was supposed to do three laps around the bridle path, and then it would be over.
All Frank gets to know about the girl is that she's important enough somebody wants her dead. He watches the surroundings, eyes flicking back and forth looking for the threat he knows is there. It's only a matter of time before they move. Frank has to move faster to save the girl. Bodyguards bracket her as they move toward the doorway. The movement is tiny but Frank sees it. He waits. The girl is almost to the door. It opens and Frank fires. The girl walks out unharmed. He doesn't bother to wonder who he killed. The job is done.
25. You turned a nice clean broken leg into a compound fracture.
She knows Perri is testing her - expecting she'll fail even though she's a Flatlander. It's the only reason he'd demand she set the example instead of his usual pain-artist to show the Families. Alicia's heart beats faster and she takes a deep breath before heading in. The short handled mini-sledge hammer is easy to swing. The man, a mid-level by the cut of his suit, screams when she slams the hammer into the fragile bones of his right hand. Connor watches impassively from the corner. His report to Perri must be good. She breaths out and swings. Blood blooms.
35. "Hey, fuck you, you don't want to listen! Money talks, right?"
On his own Mikey has learned to be talkative. He borrows Gerard, settling the idea of his brother around himself like a disguise, and talks like Gerard would. As he travels he modifies his persona until he's perfected the right mix to ease his way past people and collect a new job; just like he would a piece of code. But it's his asking price that speaks loudest to those who know. Every time his price rises a tier it shouts his expertise to anyone who cares to listen. With every increase he talks less and lets his price speak.
44. He wishes to speak with you, through me.
Bob gets the note requesting a meeting late in the evening. It's the first note he's gotten since he heeded Ray's frantic warning and fled. It chills him to think they've found him but he's tired. Running for more than a year exhausted him. He'll go and hope the promise of safety is true. Pete, no last name but dressed too much like lawyer not be one, has big white teeth when he smiles. He tells Bob his employer, who will remain nameless, has a proposition. Bob nods but leaves the water Pete offers untouched while Pete lays it out.
58. But they weren't looking outside the family.
It hits the news as an inside job and even the Corp believes it. Mikey spends fifteen hours on transits hop scotching his way across the continent while he listens to the news spreading through the system. It's his best take-down yet. It was only noticed because action had been taken on the data Mikey had transferred. He thinks even Ray would be impressed by his work. The urge to track him and Gerard down is overwhelming. Mikey forces himself to close his eyes and call up their memory instead. He can't risk it for something as trivia as this.
71. Those things take time, friend.
Gerard peers closely at the images; studying the brush strokes and making notes. This will be the biggest piece he's attempted so far. He peers in looking at the layers of color; counting them off and thinking about drying times. It will be more than month to do it if everything goes well. The curl of color on the wave that blurs purple looks tricky. It isn't a familiar color. He feels a flare of excitement at the idea of trying to mix a pigment for it. His last painting hangs in The Met and nobody knows he painted it.
83. The creep looked wiped out.
The bruise-faced kid with the pimp reminds Bob of Ro the little drifter who vanished right when everything went wrong. Bob knows it's not his fight but when he sees the guy backhand the kid hard enough to make him fall Bob can't look away. So he stands and speaks. The kid looks at him with wide frightened guys. The pimp laughs and pulls a knife. Bob moves. When it's over the kid runs into the night with the money Bob pulled from the Pimp's pocket. Blood trickles from the stab wound and Bob wonders where to find a medico.
107. He was ready to chop something - when he saw it was me, he settled for a slab of beef on the counter.
Alicia thinks about telling Pete about Perri. He knows her business, has been involved long enough he's watched her make examples, but it's different when it's her past. Pete doesn't sleep easily. She can't sleep with movement. They tried but it always ended with her knife at Pete's throat. So they sleep apart. If they weren't who they are maybe they'd work on it, maybe Pete would find the dosage to make his brain shut off and she'd get used to his body next to hers but they aren't. It's another sacrifice to be the Head; one she'd make again.
120. My hands were shaking.
Gerard watches Ray slowly fingering Bob open. Gerard licks his lips and shifts down to take Bob's cock in his mouth. He presses his tongue against the underside of the head just like Ray said Bob likes and Bob groans. He remembers Ray whispering into his ear all the things he and Bob had done and it gives Gerard a warm thrill to think of Ray telling about Bob about them. Bob gasps his name. Gerard looks up to see naked want in his face. Ray smiles wide. Gerard knows without a doubt the three of them will be okay.
149. She dropped him for twenty-five to fifty, but people still stuck close to the water's edge.
To get to their apartment Mikey must walk through one of the bad areas that hasn't been reclaimed by gentrification. For the first months he could feel predators lurking; drifters vanishing leaving behind whispers of a hunter-killer team. It's safer now. Mikey won't ask but he knows with the same certainty that he knows Gerard loves him that Frank took care of it; leaving unrecognizable broken bodies floating on the evening tide for the lurking carrion-eaters to take. The drifters are still nervous but they'll figure it out. Mikey walks through unharmed. He never glances up looking for his shadow.