A/N: I'm a big fan of the Kill Bill Movies as some of you are aware. Very shortly after first seeing the second one, I had a dream that inspired me to start this fanfic. It went up on the shelf for a very long time but last night, I again had a dream about it that got me digging it out and blowing the dust off of it.
It is still a work in progress, and it won't be published nearly as fast as DE (the bulk of my energies will always be on DE until it is completed) but…well, here you are. Below is the question I asked myself when I began to write, and a tad bit of an intro. Enjoy, and feedback is always welcome!
MWMWMW
We all know that Bill was the Snake Charmer, and head of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. We know that he, along with four members of the squad and the tagalong Sophie Fatale, spurred Beatrix Kiddo's mad rampage of revenge when they acted a bit unruly at that little wedding chapel in Texas.
What if those weren't the only members of the DiVAS? Stands to reason that there were more DiVAS who weren't involved in the little Texas chapel massacre, and therefore Bea didn't go after them.
How would the surviving DiVAS take Bea's little rampage? How would they react to the news of Bill's death? And what if one or more of them had their own little bones to pick with Ms. Kiddo?
The Boomslang is an arboreal snake with a venom that disrupts the clotting of blood and causes its victims to suffer and die from internal hemorrhaging, sometimes hours after being bitten. The females are a drab brown but the males develop very vivid colors.
The Saw Scaled viper is small but among the most deadly venomous snakes in the world. Aggressive and easily irritated, it easily blends into its surroundings and so is also easily stepped on. But beware to the one that does the stepping, as its venom can kill a grown man very quickly.
The Tiger Snake is a protected species. Killing one can result in fines and even jail time. But don't let its rarity fool you into being careless. Stick your hand in the wrong hole and you won't live to regret it...
The most venomous snake in the world is the Inland Taipan, also known in Australia as the Fierce Snake. A single bite has enough venom to kill 100 grown men...and very quickly. However it is shy and not easily provoked. Beware, however, if you are the one doing the provoking...
Before the Massacre
Pai Mei was insufferable. Utterly and wholly impossible to live with. Perhaps that's why Bea liked him so much- she enjoyed challenges.
It almost seemed, however, that the more she did to obey him and earn his respect, the harder and more vicious he drove her. His tongue may as well have been an iron barbed whip across her back, and many nights she not only retired exhausted but trembling in pain. More than once, tears fell to her mat and were backhanded away in shame.
She'd been up that morning since before dawn. She was expected to run ten buckets of water up from the well each morning before Pai Mei rose...and he rose early. Ten buckets- that was five trips up and down those impossible stairs, and if he travelled them later and found water splashed on them, he would make her run another five just to teach her to be more careful.
She had delivered the last bucket and paused to stretch her neck and shoulders when she heard the striking. Creeping around the edge of the house, she looked to see Pai Mei lift his hand and slap again.
Bea didn't know the recipient of the slap. She was a girl Bea's age, shorter and dark haired. Her cheeks were branded crimson from the Master's hand as it whipped and struck, then whipped and struck. Back and forth, palm and then knuckles.
"Girl, stop gazing like a harlot and bring me the bucket!" Pai Mei said suddenly. Though he hadn't glanced in her direction, that he knew she was there and what she was doing came of no surprise.
Grabbing the bucket- which was still full of water- she hurried over to his side, and set it at his feet.
"She is above you," he told the red-cheeked brunette gruffly. "See how quickly she obeys, even though she is still as slow as an old cow? She is above you and she is as dung! Strike her."
The last two words were directed at Bea. Her hand shot out to slap the brunette but just as swiftly, the strange girl caught her wrist. Green eyes bristled and glared at Bea.
Pai Mei grunted and slapped the brunette again, hard. She dropped Bea's wrist. Pai Mei pointed at the bucket and Bea lifted it. His eyes flashed like flint and he flipped his hand, then his beard, before turning and stalking away. Bea looked apologetically at the brunette before tightening her jaw and dumping the bucket of cold water over her head. The brunette did not move, made no attempt to halt her or step out of her way. She stood there in the dark morning air, drenched from head to toe, and stared at the ground. Beatrix awkwardly lowered the bucket, shifted her feet a moment, then murmured a soft 'sorry' before she trotted away.
Pai Mei would still expect ten full buckets.
It wasn't until much later that Bea learned the brunette's name was Margo Tunsdale. She, too, was one of Bill's and had been there longer than Bea. The little display of slapping and dousing had been because Margo had accidentally stepped on the hem of Pai Mei's robe. She was lucky he was in a pleasant mood, and that she didn't get bones broken because of it.
Bea hadn't realized that another of Bill's would be there. He was oddly secretive about his other 'girls' though Beatrix of course knew they existed. You didn't have a 'squad' of one person, after all.
She and Margo didn't have much interaction during their two years with Pai Mei. Except occasional passing instances like the slapping, they never even saw each other. They were trained at different times, expected to do different chores, and moved in different areas of the temple complex.
It wasn't until Bill came to pick Beatrix up that she found out Margo had left six months earlier.
"You came to get her and I didn't even know you were there?" she said as he started the jeep.
"She'd been there longer than you. She was done with her training. You weren't."
"You could have come to say hi," she teased with a smirk. He smirked back.
Perhaps a bit jealously she prodded him. "So, who is she? Where did you get her from?"
"Margo?" he asked. "She was picking pockets in Mexico City."
"But she's American."
"You noticed that. Your keen mind never ceases to amaze me, Kiddo."
"Smart ass."
"Didn't Pai Mei teach you that you shouldn't ever call your Master a 'smart ass'?"
"I never did call him a smart ass," she replied sweetly. He laughed.
"Well, you'll be getting to know Margo soon enough. Then you can ask her all these questions."
Margo Tunsdale.
The young Miss Kiddo didn't know it at the time, but Margo Tunsdale would go by the name Fierce Snake in the DiVAS. Like all of the DiVAS, of course, she was very goodat what she did- and despite the bucket incident, Margo was one of the few DiVAS that Bea would actually count as a friend. She, O-Renn, and Bea got along decently well. They even had their little jokes. One, a take-off of Bea's name, O-Renn would later revive shortly before her death.
Silly Rabbit.
On the flip side of the coin, Bea couldn't stand Elle or Bud, and felt fairly neutral toward Vernita and the others. Margo shared her opinion of Elle but Bud…well.
Bud was a different matter altogether.
Time passes, as time always does, and even in the blank roar of pain encompassing her body moments before Bill pulled that trigger in a tiny Texas chapel, Bea was gratified. Unlike O-Renn, one of her friends had stayed true.
Margo was not there.
Then the gun shut out four years of her life.
That Woman
"That woman deserves her revenge," Bud said, eyes squinted in deep contemplation as if he could read the meaning of the universe on the dusty horizon. "And wedeserve to die. But then, so does she."
He sat on the steps of his trailer, talking with his brother. She could hear them out there as she sat in Bud's old chair. Her fingers tapped idly over tightly bound leather and violet cord, caressed the embossed silver fox head.
Bud's trailer smelled like rancid cigarette smoke and bachelor. It was decorated in bachelor as well. She wrinkled her nose as she glanced aside, listening to the conversation between Bud and his brother.
After a time, Bill's car drove off. Bud lingered on the steps long enough to finish his beer, belched, then stood and came in. He halted.
"How'd you get in here?"
She looked at him. "Bud, don't ask stupid questions," she said. "I've been sitting here almost an hour. I hear the Bride cometh..."
"Yeah, well..." He slipped his hat off and stuck it on the battered table, then ran a hand back in his long hair. "I'm far more interested in the pretty lady sitting in my chair."
"You were right, Bud," she said, uncrossing her legs. "You do deserve to die."
He smirked that lopsided, boyish smirk of his and tucked his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. "So does she," he said, then chuckled. "So do you for that matter."
Her Hanzo moved out and rested on his shoulder, the edge just lightly touching the side of his neck. He didn't move, only continued to smirk at her. She had gotten to her feet, and stepped closer, tilting the sword as she did, so that it scraped fine stubble off the side of his jaw without marking the skin.
"Perhaps I do," she replied.
"What do you want, Margo?"
"You called me."
"To ask for money," he said. "I didn't expect you to come all the way here."
"Down on your luck then? Why do you always seem to call me when you're down on your luck?"
His hand snaked out and slipped around her waist, pulling her closer before it dropped lower and gripped soft flesh. "Maybe you make me feel...lucky?"
The tip of the Hanzo slipped down and then touched the underside of his chin. He froze.
"You used to like it when I did that," he said with hesitant amusement.
"You swore to me that you had nothing to do with what happened to Bea," she said coldly.
"Baby, I didn't! I didn't lay a finger on her."
The sword moved up a centimeter. He craned his head back further.
"I can tell when you're lying, Bud," she said. "You talk. If you didn't lay a finger on her, then why is Bill worried about you? Why is she coming here?"
"Brothers worry," he said. "And if she comes here, I'll either take care of her or she'll take care of me."
She lowered the sword angrily and pushed away from him, but he didn't let her go. He pulled her back with his arm still around her waist and kissed her hungrily. He tasted like his trailer smelled...like old cigarettes and beer.
"Now, how about we have a little care-taking of our own," he whispered with a grin against her mouth.
She lay on her belly, her fingers dangling and tracing light patterns on the floor. She could hear him in the shower. The thick steam was misting the air and making her skin sparkle.
The shower shut off, and a few moments later she heard him coming around the bed. Holding a towel around his waist, his hair still dripping, he bent and kissed her between the shoulder-blades. "I'm gonna be late for work," he said against her skin. "You gonna wait here until I come home?"
She rolled over onto her back, draping her arm across her belly and looking up at him. "I got business," she said. "I can come back tomorrow afternoon before I fly out."
He grinned. "Almost like old times," he said, and kissed her properly. She wound her arms around his neck and drew him down, and after a minute he grinned as he pulled his towel away. "What the hell. I can be late. Not like there's anyone there this time of night anyway..."
The sun was bright and long when Margo stopped her bike and lifted the screen on her helmet. She could see Bud's trailer in the distance but the door was open and swinging slightly. An unfamiliar car was parked outside. Squinting her eyes, she moved her bike off the dirt road, set her helmet atop it, and made a roundabout way to the trailer.
She could hear screaming and cursing inside- decidedly feminine screaming and cursing, hoarse and drastic.
She made sure no one was under the trailer before she climbed the steps and peeked in the front door. The place was in a shambles, and in the midst of the mess Bud lay limp, blue, and lifeless.
Margo's green eyes flickered once, her brows trembling a second before they steeled. She strode toward the cursing and thrashing sounds. Unnoticed, her heavy biking boots crushed the head of a small snake as it slithered out from under a nearby end table.
The thrasher was Elle. Blood ran down her face and curds of foam flecked from her lips. Her voice sounded as if it had been sandpapered. Clearly, she'd been yelling for a while.
"WHERE ARE YOU, YOU BITCH! I KNOW YOU'RE THERE!"
"Elle, shut the fuck up," Margo snarled, slapping her Hanzo back fully in its sheath. Elle stumbled around, half fell against Bud's dresser. She shrieked and leapt forward toward Margo, swinging a lamp like Mickey Mantle going for a double. Margo ducked, twisted, elbowed the air out of Elle's gut, and threw her. She crashed into the far wall hard enough to rock the trailer, the lamp smashing nearby.
Stalking forward Margo crouched and pinned Elle's head back with a forearm to her throat. She could see now that her other eye was gone, leaving a gaping, bloody hole. Tears of crimson wept down her cheek. Elle bore her teeth, still sucking furious sobs in and out. Then she hissed.
"Fierce Snake."
"I'm here, Cali Girl," Margo said, using the derogatory term she usually used in referring to Elle. "Who killed Bud?"
"She did, who do you think? She set a mamba loose in his trailer! I was coming to buy a sword off of him and found him. Then she came after me."
"You lie no better than you ever did. She wouldn't set a snake on anyone like that. She's not that cowardly."
"Fuck you, bitch!"
Elle gagged as the arm on her throat pressed tighter. Then Margo saw the tip of the notebook peeking out of Elle's pocket and plucked it out. Her look went dark as she looked at it.
"And I suppose she happened to write down this information about the mamba and the effects of its venom in your handwriting, sticking it in your pocket before she left you shrieking and blind on the ground?"
Elle cursed again and tried to get loose. Margo dropped her arm then as Elle lunged at her, jammed her thumb into the newly blinded, raw eye socket. Elle shrieked in agony. Margo hauled her to her feet, thumb still planted, gripping the side of Elle's face as she turned and hauled her out into the hall and then into the small living room where Bud still lay, still and dead.
"LEMME GO! LEMMEGOLEMMEGOYOUSTUPIDBITCH !"Elle wailed, then nearly fell as Margo hauled her harder. With a thrust of her hand, Margo shoved Elle out the trailer door and down the steps. The blonde thumped into the dirt, rolled onto her back, and tried to scramble away. Margo unsheathed her Hanzo and pinned Elle to the ground by thrusting the blade through her thigh. Elle shrieked again, gripped the blade, and cut her fingers trying to pull it out again. Margo leaned on it.
"Kill me!" Elle demanded. "Just do it! Kill me over a stupid ignorant prick like Bud! Kill me just because you have to find someone new to- AHH!"
Margo had hauled the sword out of her leg and now nailed one of Elle's flailing hands with it. The hand thumped into the dirt.
Elle moaned and rocked, holding her gushing wrist, then froze as she felt the Hanzo touch the hollow of her throat.
"Death's too good for you," Margo said.
Then the sword shoved forward, cutting through Elle's neck as cleanly as if through butter. The blind woman urped once, then slowly went limp. Margo yanked the blade back.
"I hope you appreciate my generosity. Bitch."
Margo's Harley VRSC was black. Not because it looked cool (though it did), but because it made it harder to see at night. Moving up the winding drive to the villa just past four o'clock that morning, all that could be seen of it was the glow of the tail light and the occasional shine as the moon glinted off its tank.
She had turned the headlight off, though she shouldn't have bothered. The villa was grand and well lit, but it felt empty. Whatever drama had played out for the night was well over.
She switched the bike off and dismounted, setting her helmet over the bars and unzipping her thick leather jacket. A glock was tucked in a holster under her arm. Over her back she wore her Hanzo with its silver fox head. Bud's Hanzo was strapped to the bike. It was far too valuable to leave behind.
She drew the gun, peeked cautiously in the long windows flanking the door. She could see the sunken living room and the brilliantly lit kitchen, both very empty.
Twenty minutes later, and after climbing up to the second floor to enter the villa rather than using the front door, she had systematically established that the house was, indeed, completely empty of all life- except Bill's white cat. The cat, curled up on a bed in a room that looked like it belonged to a child, only glanced at her through slit eyes and dozed back to sleep.
She found Bill in the back garden, lying on his face in the grass as if he'd gotten drunk and simply passed out. She nudged him with a foot, then crouched and touched his neck. No pulse. Rolling him onto his back and seeing no mark of sword or pistol, she pressed his eyelids back.
The whites of his eyes had gone bright crimson. Pursing her lips, she closed his eyes again. Her fingers drummed thoughtfully on his chest and she wrinkled her nose faintly against the smell of cold urine.
Strains of Bohemian Rhapsody filled the air. Tucking her gun away, she drew out her cell and flipped it open.
"Margo. No, Bill's dead. No, Mike, I'm not shitting you. Bill's dead. I'm squatting next to him right now and I assure you he's deader than dead. He's even pissed his pants."
She straightened and headed back toward the house. "No, she took the kid with her. You think she's going to do all this, get all the way here, and just leave the kid? Jesus, Mike, think a moment. No. NO. Elle killed Bud and Elle's feeding the fucking vultures. That's all I care about. As far as all this shit is concerned, kudos on Bea, that's all I can say. They screwed her over and she screwed 'em back."
She set her Hanzo aside, then peeled off her jacket, switching the phone from one hand to the other, and cast it over the arm of the couch before flopping down. "I think you know what this means for the DiVAS, Mike. There's still me, you, Catie and Alanza. I've got all Bill's contacts and I suppose his fuckin' villa is mine now too. Business as usual. Shit happens and you roll with it. Yeah. I thought that was a good idea too. Toots."
She slapped the phone shut and let her hand flop to her chest, sighing and then raising a brow when Bill's white cat leapt up onto her stomach with a hungry mewl. She stroked its head, smiling as it purred and narrowed its dichromatic eyes in pleasure.
"I guess you're mine now too, Sawa. Now, what are we going to do with Daddy, hmm?"
When the Charmer turns Fierce
Twelve Years Later
"Ryan…"
Margo shook her head as she unhooked the flannel from the handle of the bathroom door and dumped it in the hamper where it belonged. Walking down the hall she plucked up a set of his sneakers and opened the door of his room.
It looked like a tornado had hit. She tossed his sneakers in amongst the mess. "You got far too much of Bud in you," she said to no one, then closed the door on Hurricane Bedroom and headed downstairs and to the wide glass doors. Ryan, just days past his eleventh birthday, stood on the rolling lawn, dressed in his gi and doing forms with Bud's Hanzo. She slid the door open.
"No, no, no," she said, heading across the lawn. He paused in his form, blinking over at her.
He was tall for an eleven year old, gangly and skinny. He was often mistaken for at least thirteen, except when he smiled. He had Bud's lopsided smile and it made him look eight.
"Was I doing it wrong?" he asked as he lowered the sword. She grasped his arm lightly and adjusted his stance.
"There. Like that. That way, you get a smooth arc when you strike downward, like this."
She moved his arm, demonstrating the stroke, then removed the sword from his hand. "But- what's the rule young man? No practicing until your room is clean."
"Mom!"
"Don't 'Mom' me- that room looks like it's been through World War Three, and you left your sneakers in the hall again. Now move it, mister."
She slapped his butt lightly with the flat of the Hanzo, scooting him on his way. He grumbled and rubbed the seat of his trousers as he moped his way inside.
She watched him go with a smirk and a shake of his head, lifting the sword and regarding it. He knew it was his father's, and sometimes she thought he cherished it more than he cherished anything else in this life.
Picking up the sheath from the picnic table she slid the blade home, then paused.
Someone was sneaking up on her.
Badly.
In a single motion she whipped around, baring the blade again. It sang to a stop against the cheek of the girl standing there. Huge brown eyes reflected Margo's face.
She scowled. "What are you doing here?"
The girl straightened, a curly lock of dark hair breaking free of its tie and drifting across her cheek. "My name is-"
"I know who you are," Margo said, resheathing the Hanzo. "You're Nikita. What I asked is what you're doing here. I could have taken your head off. Still might, if I don't like your answer."
"I'm here because you're the best," Nikita said. Margo rolled her eyes and turned abruptly, slapping the sword the rest of the way home.
"Go away."
Nikita pursued her to the door. "No! I didn't come this far to let you walk away! I want you to teach me!"
"Teach you how to kill? No, thank you," Margo replied, opening the sliding door.
"She killed my mother!"
Margo fixed her with a steely look. "Yes, she did. And it was a shit thing that you had to see it- but your mother had it coming."
Nikita slammed her fist into the door and gave Margo a murderous look. Used to murderous looks, Margo didn't so much as blink.
"You know what your mother was?" Margo asked.
"I've heard," Nikita replied.
"From who?"
Niki's eyes danced to the side and Margo frowned.
"Mike told you. God damn that fucking idiot. Did she tell you what they did to Bea?"
"I don't care what she or 'they' or anyone did to that bitch! She killed my mother. Right in front of me. I spent four years practically institutionalized. My Dad drunk himself to death afterward. I still have nightmares. She ruined my entire life, stole everything away from me! I want her dead!"
"I'm not going to teach you, kid."
"You teach your son! You teach your son how to kill! I was watching!"
"How I raise my son, and what he chooses to do are no business of yours. I'm not going to teach you anything. Bea deserves her peace. I'm not going to take a sixteen year old girl and make her think she even stands a chance against Beatrix, just so said girl can get her head cut off in thirty seconds! You wanna learn, go to Pai Mei."
"He's dead!"
"Yeah, I know!" Margo replied.
"How would you feel? How would you feel if someone killed someone you loved right in front of you? How would you feel if someone killed your son in front of you?"
Margo slammed the door. Nikita glared through it with tears standing in her eyes, and screamed herself hoarse.
Margo snatched up her phone and dialled.
"Mike, you son of a bitch! I told you to keep your nose out of Nikita Green's life. Not fill her head with all this bullshit! What do you mean 'what are you talking about?' You hear that screaming? That's the little entitled Miss outside my door right now! You fill her head up and then you tell her where I live? I don't care, Mike! I'm not going to perpetuate this! She hasn't got a chance in hell of finding or standing up against Beatrix Kiddo without my help and I'm not helping!"
She slammed her phone shut and closed her eyes, listening to the furious screaming.
To call Boomslang- also known as Michelle 'Mike' Campbell among more normal circles- 'a bit odd' was understating matters. Though born of the feminine persuasion, she was mistaken as a guy more often than not. Possessing little in the way of curves, preferring the slouchy way of dress, and fond of short haircuts that were usually of some neon eye-wrenching hue, Mike looked more like a fifteen year old boy than an almost forty year old woman.
Hanging up her phone she leaned back in her battered recliner and flicked the fastener of her lip ring with her tongue. Though she was comfortably well off to anyone's standards, she also lived like a fifteen year old boy. A greasy game console stood atop her worn television. Packages of junk food and leaning cans of spaghetti-o's piled along the walls. A beer and an ashtray heaping with both cigarette and joint butts overflowed onto the milk-crate end-table.
Her walls were decorated with velvet Elvis art, posters of fast cars with women varying from half-naked to completely stark draping over them.
Like fifteen year old boys, Mike liked the ladies.
Though she had no real head for kung fu and no care at all for swords, just like the others, Mike had to go through those torturous years with Pai Mei. She had, in fact, been there at the same time as Elle. If she hadn't seen the blonde's eye plucked out, the same would inevitably have happened to her. She may have had no patience for that shit...but she did have a love of her baby browns.
That wasn't to say that Mike wasn't deadly. You didn't get through Pei Mei and into the DiVAS unless you were deadly. She just preferred more bang-bang ways to get her job done.
Fuming over Margo's call she snatched up a pack of her smokes, then set them down and grabbed a joint instead. Lighting it up she took a deep and angry draw. Unlike Margo, Mike hadn't gotten an invitation to Texas and turned it down. Fuck, Mike would have been there in a heartbeat if she wasn't halfway around the world on another job. She couldn't stand that skinny skank Beatrix to begin with.
Even if they'd been bosom pals, she still would have gone. What Bea had done was inexcusable. You didn't just do some shit like that. You didn't skip out on your family that way, pretend you were offed...shit. Once you were a DiVA you were a DiVA, no matter what happened. Look at Margo. She had a kid, and she was still a DiVA. Fuck, she was in charge. She didn't skip out like a fucking yellow coward.
Bill was right to do what he did. You couldn't get soft. His only mistake was in making sure the job wasn't finished.
Bea had come around, woken up from that coma, and she'd taken it all personally. It was business, that's all. You dump your job and skip out on your family, you paid what was due. Business.
Instead, she'd gone on some mental spree and offed not only Bill but everyone who'd been there. That was some screwed up shit right there. And Margo refused to do anything about it.
Niki...now there was a good kid. And if Bea 'deserved' her revenge, didn't Niki also deserve hers? She'd done nothing wrong, but her life had been turned into a nightmare nonetheless. She deserved to know the truth and she deserved the chance to have her own revenge. Mike would gladly have taught her but the thing was, Bea was better than Mike. Mike knew it and it was part of why she hated that skank. Bea, O-Renn, and Margo- they'd been Bill's top girls. The ones he sent on the hardest assignments. Well, O-Renn was dead now and Margo was refusing to help. If Niki was going to survive, if she was going to have any chance at all of killing Bea...she needed Margo's help.
The Fierce Snake was the only way.
Boomslang took another long draw on the joint and felt the old familiar buzz settling into her bones and cooling her mood.
Well, if Margo refused to help on her own, she'd just have to be...persuaded.
Peaceful Tiger
Harry Conners was a handsome guy. He'd never make the cover of Chippendale's of course but...well, maybe GQ, if his idea of fashion wasn't limited to jeans and buttoned flannels over white t-shirts.
Bea had moved to Arizona after all was said and done. Little town called Haubert just about thirty miles outside Phoenix. Small town. Not so small as that town in Texas, of course, but small enough. She'd changed her name- Rachel Free. Gotten a tan. The sun bleached her hair blonder than it normally was. Life was balanced and at peace.
Well, except for that damned Harry Conners.
Harry was a mechanic. He worked at the Conoco station fixing cars. He was the kind of guy you liked to see bent over the hood, and to whom the application of grease and oil didn't make him seem dirty, it made him seem...lickable.
Bea had never before thought of a guy as 'lickable'.
He also lived two blocks away from her. His daughter Lisa was BB's best friend.
"Why won't you tell me where we're going?" BB asked as she sat shotgun in her mother's truck. The window was rolled down and her elbow was propped up, leaving her fingers to tap on the frame.
Beatrix looked over at the girl as they reached the stoplight. Though she supposed she was biased- okay, make that greatlybiased-she still thought that BB was one of the most beautiful young ladies she'd ever seen. She would be sixteen day after tomorrow. Like her mother, she wasn't going to grow into a buxom beauty- the genes for waifishness were apparently too strong- but her face had lost its baby roundness, her cheekbones had matured into a classic sweep, and she already turned far too many heads at her High School than Bea was very comfortable with.
Her dark eyes, however, were all Bill's, and more than once when her daughter was seriously intent on something, Beatrix could see her father's ghost lingering far too strongly on her features.
"Because then it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?" Bea asked. BB rolled her eyes and tapped her fingers.
"I'm supposed to meet Lisa after soccer practice in twenty minutes," she said. "We're not even going the right direction."
"You'll be in time to meet Lisa, I promise."
"You know, it would just be easier if Lisa lived closer," BB said slyly, peeking at her mother from the corner of her eye.
"Lisa lives two blocks away!"
"She could live down the hall-"
"BB, we've been over this..."
"Oh, c'mon Mom. Don't pretend you don't think Harry is hot. You practically end up standing in a puddle any time you talk to him."
Beatrix gasped in an incredulous laugh. "I do not!"
"Please, if you drooled any more you'd have to dog paddle home. You know he likes you too. Lisa says so. And he's swinging single."
"We're not discussing this today."
"You're so stubborn!" BB sighed dramatically, then blinked as Beatrix pulled off into the Conoco station. "This was the big surprise? Taking me to the gas station?"
"Well, they do have good sandwiches," Beatrix said tongue and cheek as she put the truck in park and switched off the engine. Leaning over her daughter she pointed out the window as the maintenance garage door started to lift. "And that. Happy birthday, sweetie."
BB squinted as the door finished lifting, then her eyes shot wide. "No way!"
Beatrix Kiddo slash Rachel Free closed the door of her truck and sauntered across the filling station toward the garage. BB, much less restrained, darted across the oil spotted tarmac and let out a squeal of joy.
"Oh, Mom! It's beautiful!"
Harry closed the hood of the 1969 Camaro convertible and grabbed a rag, wiping his hands off as he grinned and emerged from the shade. When Bea had bought for BB's 16th birthday, it had barely been in running condition. Though Bea could afford far more, BB had been plastering pictures of '69 Camaros on her wall since she turned nine. Beatrix had found this one by luck at a junk dealer's, paid for all the parts, and Harry had been working the last six months to get it to perfection.
Now it was a gleaming icon of art. It had been fully restored and shone a bright white, lined with thick orange stripes and an orange leather interior. The license plate read BB1 and a pair of fuzzy dice hung from the rear view mirror.
BB unabashedly flung her arms around Harry's neck and half throttled him in her excitement, then went in the garage to coo over the car. Bea laughed as she watched her daughter.
"I take it you like it."
"It's the best gift ever!" she said, then rushed over to Bea. "Can I take it and go pick Lisa up?"
"Keep it under light-speed," Bea warned. "Seatbelts. I mean it. Mom giveth and Mom can taketh away."
"I promise!"
Harry dug in his pocket and dangled the keys. BB snatched them, gave one of those half-throttle hugs to her mother, then ran to the car again.
"That's one happy girl." Harry chuckled as he watched her drive off, honking the custom horn that played the Mexican Hat Dance enthusiastically as she left.
"She's a good girl," Beatrix replied. "She deserves it."
"That she is. Well, Rachel...care to join me in our fine waiting room for a singularly choice bottle of lukewarm root beer?"
Bea grinned at him and adopted a fake southern accent. "Why, Mr. Harry, Ah'd be delighted."
If you let me pour that root beer all over you and lick it off... she thought, but of course she didn't say it aloud.
The horn blared the Mexican Hat dance again, startling Lisa who was leaning on railing near the bike stands at Haubert Lanes High School. She looked around, then blinked, tucking some of her black hair behind her ear. BB grinned and waved.
"Oh my God," Lisa said, trotting over with her blue eyes wide. "Where did you get that?"
"Mom got it!" BB grinned. "Your Dad fixed it up. You didn't know?"
"No, I didn't know," she said. "He was spending a lot of time at the garage but I didn't think anything of it. God, it's gorgeous!"
"Come on, get in."
Lisa tossed her backpack in the back and slipped into shotgun. She caressed the leather dash with a wide grin. "This is so hot! It almost makes mewant to drive."
BB grinned and threw it in reverse, hitting the horn again. Lisa hooted and waved at the random kids who stopped to stare.
Lisa didn't drive. Though she was six months older than BB she had failed driving classes three times. Not because she was a hot-rodder or because she was a terrible driver...rather, because driving itself terrified her. She so much as sat behind the wheel and she began to hyperventilate.
Six years ago, when she was ten, her mother had been killed in a car accident. Drunk driver. Lisa had been the passenger. It was two years before she'd even get in a car again. Actually driving one she just couldn't do.
BB turned the radio up as they hit the highway, pushing the pedal down. The car surged forward with the eager purr of a puma kitten, blasting their hair back.
"Be careful!" Lisa shouted with a laugh. "You get pulled over and your Mom is going to take the car right back!"
BB smirked but slowed down. "Mall?"
Lisa grinned.
"Haubert, hmm? Sounds like a pisshole." Mike turned over the scrawled card in her hand. Niki tried to snatch it away but she whipped it out of the girl's reach. "None of that. What the fuck did I tell you, girl?"
"She wouldn't teach me!" Niki was fuming. "You said she would and she won't. She all but told me to fuck off!"
"Yeah, I know kid," Mike said, flopping back in her overstuffed chair and picking up a smouldering joint. She took a long draw, then offered it to Niki. The girl just glared at her.
"So you're not even going to tell me where she is? I can find this damned Haubert on my own and go door to door if I have to!"
"All right, listen to me." Mike leaned forward. "I told you I was going to help you and I am. So shut the fuck up. You go after Bea on your own, as you are, and she's going to kill you like swatting a fly. She won't even have to think about it."
"I am a black belt-"
Mike barked a laugh. "A black belt from some commercial kung fu dojo means nothing, kid. She'll strangle you with your black belt. She can kill you with nothing but her fingertips. Now fucking listen to me. I have a plan."
Niki settled into a fuming silence. Mike tapped the card thoughtfully against her thigh, letting the pot smoke coil about her head.
"Margo's going to help you. She may not teach you, she may not even talk to you again, but she's going to help you. When we're done with her, she's going to want to fuckin' fillet Bea and serve her her own intestines on a plate."
"I don't want Margo to kill her, I want to kill her!"
"You will, now listen! Margo can't beat Bea. She's good, damn good, but Bea was always just a little better. Oh, she'll give her a run for her money. She'll put a major hurt on her, but in the end...Bea will win. In the end, Bea will also be exhausted and injured. Margo will get her nice and tenderized for you and after that-"
She made a pistol out of her thumb and forefinger and feigned shooting.
"Shoot her," Niki said sarcastically. "You want me to shoot her."
"Fuck, you get to kill her! Who cares how it's done as long as it's done! Take what you can get! Jesus!"
Niki pouted and glared at the wall a moment, then looked back.
"So how do we get Margo to 'tenderize' her?"
"Easy. We take away the one thing in Margo's life that's more than guaranteed to set her off the edge...and we watch the fur fly."