Be Gay Do Crime

Ashe’s arm throbbed as she forced herself to keep moving through the shadows cast deep from the sparse lighting that probably wasn’t up to code.  At least she wouldn’t be getting a new scar out of it, her current one would just get worse.  She seemed to instinctively protect her right side, which was something she needed to drill out of herself.  Maybe she needed to have a chat with Kyle and Eric about why that was, assuming they would even speak with her given her current standing with the Viuda. 

The AC pipes were rumbling like jet engines, the air being moved through them with such incredible force that it was almost deafening.  The passage was thin, with no room to maneuver, but if they hadn’t posted someone to watch the entrance she would eat her stupid fucking hat. 

Freaking out was a very apt description of what she was doing at the moment, and had been ever since the gun was pressed to her forehead.  She kept expecting to die, panicked as she shoved Jason out of the way hoping he would run, and deflected the gun in an attempt to save her own skin.

So, she needed to navigate things quickly, before the group of kidnappers managed to find their own way in and cornered them.  Three bullets remaining, she’d be lucky to drop two of them before they managed to return the favor.  

She was already going to have nightmares about how close of a call that had been.  The gun pressed to her head, then in a blink she jerked the gun away from her face, taking a bullet to the arm as she did so and used the dipshit as a meat shield against his buddies so she could get through the door.  

Her return fire did nothing but buy them seconds, then she recalled the tunnel access and took a gamble.  Now she just had to get out of them alive and whole.  She glanced at her bleeding and bandaged arm.  Well, mostly whole. 

She picked up her pace, moving through the halls that she hadn’t even considered memorizing because she hadn’t expected to go down into the depths in the first place.  Her burner phone didn’t even have the layout loaded on it just in case she left it behind for whatever reason. 

Worse, she didn’t have a signal anyway, which made the point moot.

A forked junction split the path, Ashe crept up to it, looking both ways for any signs of those hunting them.  Fortunately their pursuers would have to work around the Patriot security teams that were out and about, something she wouldn’t need to worry as much over.  She had a security badge and had talked to enough of them that someone would probably be able to vouch for her long enough to get away. 

At least, Ashe hoped it would work out like that. 

For all she knew, she would poke her head around a corner and that would be it, a bullet to the brain and her life snuffed out.  A part of her hoped that death would be so merciful, she didn’t want to imagine the sorts of torture some might cook up if they found out she was trans.  Those nightmares were unfortunately frequent, even in light of her actually taking the fight to the fucking fascist pricks. 

The coast was clear and Ashe chose the left path, deeper into the network of tunnels if her poor sense of direction was correct about things, but more likely to avoid the assholes hunting them.  They might have bugged out when the job was botched, but something told her that wasn’t the case at all.

They weren’t consummate professionals like she might expect from a contracted force, but they weren’t amateurs either.  They had some vested interests in the Patriots that prevented them from just executing her, and she abused that to get the drop on them.  They wouldn’t make that mistake again. 

She wouldn’t if she was in their shoes. 

Continuing along that line of thought, how would she go about hunting herself down in this situation?  Maybe she could anticipate her enemy’s actions that way…  Or, she would just be shooting herself in the foot because they thought too differently from her, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least use it as a distraction from the terror she was currently fighting to keep buried. 

She didn’t need Jason panicking right alongside her.  So, she was doing her best to present a calm front, to act like she knew what she was doing.  The scary thing?  She could almost believe it herself.  She was moving quickly, using the techniques that her mom had drilled into her from the moment she indicated an interest in SWAT tactics. 

Three junctions later, she repeated the corner check and her heart leapt into her throat.  Two of the men were approaching, and somehow hadn’t seen her.  She reached back, put a hand on Jason and started to step back. 

“Contacts, two,” she whispered, unsure if he could actually hear her or not, and backed them both into one of the shadowed recesses.

Then, she raised her gun and held her breath.

Counting down in her head, she aimed down her sights and watched the first figure step past the hall, barely paying it a passing glance as he moved on.  The second paused, then yelled something before turning down their hall.  He paused and knelt down, inspecting a drop of her blood on the ground.  Ashe muttered a curse under her breath, then she ended another life with just two bullets.  Even with a suppressor, gunshots in enclosed spaces were still loud.

Jason squealed in panic beside her, but she didn’t have time to waste, moving over to the fallen man, who wasn’t as dead as she had assumed.  Two bullets to the chest were likely fatal, but that didn’t make it an instant kill.  He glared up at her with raw hatred, mirroring the last actions of a man she had killed just weeks prior.  The vivid flash of memory almost stilled her, but she couldn’t afford to hesitate.  She put her gun to the man’s head and fired the last round. 

Ammunition expended, she shoved the pilfered gun into her pack, because she sure as hell wasn’t leaving something with her fingerprints all over it behind to be entered into evidence.  She sighed and picked up the fallen man’s own pistol before quickly checking him over.  No phone or wallet, unfortunately, but he did have a spare magazine which she happily shoved into her back pocket. 

Safety off, bullet chambered, full magazine and another suppressed weapon on top of that.  Maybe she could start a collection after this?  A mirthless chuckle followed, knowing full well she was about to go around that corner and kill another man.  Putting words to action, she did just that.  His back was still towards her, trusting his partner to communicate if he somehow fucked something up. 

He didn’t even hear her approach before she put a bullet through the base of his skull.  Christ, it was like cutting all the strings on a puppet the way he just…dropped.  An involuntary shudder ran down Ashe’s spine as she once again checked for additional ammunition, but this time she didn’t pick up the gun. 

Looking over her shoulder, Jason was watching the way they had come, though it was more likely that he was trying to ignore the dead man that was lying right there.  She really couldn’t blame him for that, being comfortable with death probably wasn’t a good thing.  Unfortunately, it seemed she was well on her way. 

“Jason,” she said sharply, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the pipes.  He startled, jumping in place as he turned around.  Ashe tried for a soft smile, but she probably failed horribly given her current pounding heart and burgeoning headache from the continued adrenaline high.   “Do you know how to shoot?” 

“Yeah, Preston taught me,” he said, glancing warily at the gun still held in the fallen man’s grip.  “Don’t think I can shoot someone though…  Not like you did.” 

She smiled weakly, hating herself for the necessity of it.  “That’s fine, I just need you to take the gun for now.  As a last resort.  I’ll try to keep you from having to get blood on your hands, but I’d feel better knowing you could protect yourself in the event I can’t.” 

He swallowed, looking again between Ashe and the gun she had indicated.  She didn’t want to say that the reason she wasn’t handing it to him directly was to prevent any fingerprints from ending up on it when he inevitably hands it over to law enforcement.  It was dirty, but she wasn’t actually lying to him. 

Hesitantly, Jason stepped over, trying to give the body a wide berth, and picked up the gun.  He held it like it might bite him, which was probably a good thing that he respected that it was a deadly weapon. 

“Check the safety,” she said, double checking the corridors for movement.  “Go ahead and engage it if you aren’t comfortable with a live weapon.”  She watched as he did just that and some of the tension left his body as he let out a shuddering breath.  “Okay, check the chamber and magazine, then take the suppressor off.  If you’re having to shoot, it’s already bad and you may as well alert everyone to where you are.” 

He nodded, doing just that, then handed the suppressor to her.  She slipped it into her pack right along with the empty gun.  So long as she didn’t fuck up and lose her current gun, she now had three suppressors that were very much against Federal law, not that Florida allowed them to enforce the reforms that were passed just a year prior. 

They weren’t even that sweeping, but they were swiftly proving to be a rallying cry for the coming elections.  Shaking her head, Ashe stood and turned back towards where the men had come from.  If they were doing sweeping searches, then her best bet should be to double back on them and hope that the others are off somewhere else. 

Not that she trusted her luck to hold up like that.  No, she half expected to walk into the middle of a bloody convention.  Ironic, given she was essentially in a convention for fascist nutjobs, but they were somehow the safer option.  She was totally getting a drink when she made it back to Crystal’s, hangover for school be damned. 

Ashe wasn’t subtle with her movements, barely pausing long enough to check her corners before pressing on.  Jason was keeping up with her, gun gripped tight and pointed down at the ground.  Not the safest option, but at least he knew not to point it at her. 

She slowed at the next junction, seeing an exit up ahead, but one last fourway stood in her way.  Then she saw the glint of reflection from the metal canister soaring towards them.  

“Flashbang!”

She spun, grabbing the kid and pulled him to the ground as she landed atop him and screwed her eyes closed while shoving her hands over her ears, hoping he did the same.  The burst came and she was already rolling, her ears ringing from the barely muffled explosion, and she landed on her back, gun up. 

Two figures rounded into the passage from each side, and she opened fire.  She struck one, staggering him slightly as the second brought their rifle to bear on her and she knew her luck had completely run out. 

Then an ear shattering crack sounded beside her and the second man went down.  Barely processing the implication, she aimed back at the first man and put two more bullets into his downed form, then did the same with the second man, just to be safe. 

“Thanks kid,” she said, pushing herself up and silently lamenting her ruined hearing.

Still, better than dead.  She could only hope that in addition to alerting every asshole currently hunting for them, that at least some of the venue security also heard the flashbang and were on their way.  There she was again, putting faith in the fucking fascists to actually be competent.  

“Goddess help me,” she muttered, moving over to those that had just ambushed them.  

She approached cautiously, because either of them might be playing possum and she wasn’t going to take any chances, not when she was so close to the exit.  Another execution was administered, splattering a skull like a melon.  She grimaced, and started to turn, only for the downed man to sweep her feet out from under her. 

Fuck, she knew she should have finished Jason’s guy first. 

She hit the ground, rolling with the blow.  The crack of suppressed gunfire sounded, bits of concrete hitting her as she moved, then much louder shots rang out.  Ashe didn’t trust Jason to go for lethal hits after that first blunder, so she kept moving and rolled under a pipe before she brought her gun back forward.  The pipe was venting compressed air from where it had been hit in the crossfire, adding to the already high noise levels.

Their assailant had taken cover again behind the junction and she bit down on the first two curses to cross her mind as she lined up a shot, poor as the angle was, and took it, hitting him in the shoulder.  He fell back, and she hated that she couldn’t quickly take advantage of the opening that gave her. 

She crawled, the pipe rough against her back as she moved.  It wasn’t helped that she had to keep her gun oriented forward as she did, which was awkward as hell, but she managed.  If that had been her, she would have been moving away as quickly as possible, which meant she was letting him run. 

That was honestly fine by her if he did, she’d had her fill of fighting and bloodshed for the next few years if Ashe was being honest with herself.  Not that she would get that lucky, it seemed violence was now solidly entrenched in her life.  Crawling free, she kept her gun up as she got back to her feet, her whole body protesting the action with pops and raw nerves. 

She was going to be one massive bruise in the morning. 

“You alright kid?” she yelled, coughing from the mixture of gunpowder, cold air, and smoke from the flash grenade still lingering.  She risked a glance back, and saw Jason on his ass, back against the wall and practically hyperventilating as he clutched the gun close, eyes screwed shut.  She couldn’t see him bleeding from anything important, which meant the active shooter was the most important factor. 

A shooter that had fled, leaving drops of blood down the corridor.  

Fuck.

Pendragoon

Author's Notes: 

This really is one of those times I look at everything I'm putting Ashe through and just rethink how cruel I can be to someone who is wholly my creation...  Like, authors can be cruel monsters, and this whole segment is proof.

The entire second and third volume are up on my Patreon, covering up through chapter 99, for those eager to dig into the story as well as throwing some support my way!