Gun For Hire

I bounced the axe in my hand, gauging the weight, and then swung it, trying to determine just how deep it would plunge into someone's skull. I placed it back on the counter.

"Ma'am?"

I stared at the axe and the numerous other objects of carnage that the man spruced up in a too-tight suit, easily showing his own badly disguised weapon hidden inside his jacket, had brought out for me to examine. "Have you got anything…better?"

His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "B-better?" he spluttered, clearly offended. "This is the best you'll find for hundreds of miles! Unless you want to try the Ackermans-" His lip curled up in disgust. "-then you won't come across anything better until you knock on the pearly gates."

Ymir scoffed.

I glanced at my companion, a lanky mercenary a few years older than me with an attitude that bit and a shot that massacred.

She noticed my gaze, and gave me a shrug as if the whole affair was beneath her and that I should probably be feeling the same way. "We won't be knockin' on anyone's pearly gates with how many bastards we've gutted." A sinister smile spread across her face.

The man paled, his hands shaking slightly as he brought out another metal box and set it on the counter. He released the latch and let us peer inside at a revolver that severely needed a polish. I plucked it out.

".44 Magnum," Ymir mumbled beside me, although I already knew.

I put it back in the box before she or he could inform me about the gun any further. "No," I told the man behind the counter. "Better."

He slowly closed the lid and clicked the latch on. "What is it exactly that you're looking for?"

I pursed my lips. Then I pointed at the sniper rifle that Ymir carried. It was almost gleaming with how much care the mercenary gave it, her belt and pack heavy with ammo, the best scope along with any other upgrade that she could find attached to it.

The man's bushy eyebrows shot up again. "You want a sniper rifle?"

"No. I want something that's better - like that."

"Thanks, shorty," Ymir said, throwing me a smirk as she stuck a thumb underneath her shirt collar and wiped away the dusty sweat gathering beneath the material.

I ignored her. "The quality of the weaponry you've shown us so far has been subpar. Terrible, actually."

"She means it's a pile of shit."

I decided to ignore that as well. "You may cater to the travellers who know nothing more than the fact they need a quick weapon, but your business must be known as the 'best for hundreds of miles' for a reason, right?"

The man's eyes flicked back and forth between us, deliberating if he should offer us the wares that weren't close to breaking or jamming, with misaligned sights and a box of half-useless ammo.

"We could just go to the Ackermans," Ymir said, pretending to open up a discussion with me while her eyes remained firmly on the man. "It might take us a few days or so to get there, but it might be worth it."

I pretended to think it over. "Maybe…"

We started to turn as if we were edging towards the door.

I immediately felt a hand grip my arm. I looked back to see that the man had thrown himself across the counter to grab me, pushing dozens of things to the side, including the axe which now clattered to the ground, the wood splintering.

He looked uneasily at it, then at me. "You never got it from me."

I waited.

The man released my arm and waved us around to the other side of the counter. He pulled open a door that was hidden on the other side of a tower of boxes and descended the stairs it revealed. We followed him down.

"It will cost you extra," he warned.

I nodded, but the man didn't see it. He must have assumed my silence was a sign of agreement anyway, as he continued leading us down to the basement.

The basement was wall-to-wall guns, the floor stacks of crates and footlockers, drums of rifles and boxes of bullets. Everything was new. Too new.

My suspicion must have been obvious because the man tapped one of the crates to draw my attention and said, "Fresh from the Ackermans."

I forced myself not to share a look with Ymir, but I sensed the moment we both ticked the box for rumour proven. Only one of two things could happen now.

"Stolen?" I asked him, approaching the rows of pistols that were resting on nails bolted into the nearest wall.

He hesitated before replying, but when he did his voice oozed with pride. "They got ignorant with their shipments. Slip a few out in the dark of night over a long period of time and no one notices. Now I have a nice, good cache of weapons and ammunition at my feet for the…special kind of customer."

Ymir bristled at his tone, disliking the way his lips wrapped around the word 'special' as he watched me study the guns on offer. I gave her a look before she could slip out her knife and slit his throat. She looked away, jaw clenching.

"You never got it from me," he reminded us as he held out a carbine rifle. I walked over to him for a closer look and immediately saw the Ackerman seal on the grip. These were definitely all stolen Ackerman merchandise.

I took the gun from him, bouncing it in my hands as I did every other weapon he had given me. Going by the weight of it, he'd given me a loaded gun.

"I have a target through there," he said, pointing to a doorway off in the corner of room. It led into a long, wide corridor with all the other doors bricked up and inaccessible. At the far end a human-shaped cardboard cut out had been leant against the wall. "Do you know how to shoot?"

It felt like an insult of a question, and the way he looked at me as I raised the rifle was even more of an insult. I honoured him with a polite smile anyway, while Ymir scowled, her brown eyes burning with the savage desire to tear out his lungs.

"I know how to shoot," I told him, forcing myself to keep smiling and keep the words light.

He nodded and stepped back, nearly knocking into Ymir. The mercenary glared down at him, and he paled again, scrambling to stand elsewhere.

I made the first shot miss, the bullet thudding into the concrete brick. The man offered a few words of support, but it sounded more like mocking taunts.

The second shot barely clipped the cut out's shoulder. Ymir snorted, but it sounded bored – she hated the long game.

I tended to agree with her, so I made the third and final shot hit straight between the cut out's nonexistent eyes.

I lowered the rifle and spun around, grinning cheerfully as if I'd accomplished something amazing. The man approached me, his hands clapping together. Ymir positioned herself so she blocked the doorway.

"That was brilliant," he was saying, reaching out to clasp hold of my arm again, his mouth opening once more to splurge out all the grand features of a gun I already knew everything about and why I should totally buy it from him, right now.

I aimed the gun at his chest before he could touch me, whatever words he had planned to say now choking him.

"Ma'am?" he gasped, eyes wide at the barrel staring soullessly at his heart. He backed away a step, looking over his shoulder to see Ymir barring his exit. "W-what is this?"

"The Ackermans have a business proposition for you," I replied, my cheerful smile gone and replaced with a deadly glint.

"The Ackermans?" His jaw dropped. "You-you work for them?! Shit, I-"

"You can either sign a contract and reopen this store as an Ackerman store," I cleanly interrupted him. "You will work for the Ackermans - and only for the Ackermans - and you will live the rest of your sorry life serving them loyally."

I watched his throat bob as he swallowed, gathering the courage to speak up. "And what if I say no?"

I eyed him for a few seconds, letting the fear soak into every cell and the dread clasp every strangling heartbeat, then I lowered the rifle and flashed a warm smile. "We can make it like it never happened."

Ymir's boots scuffed on the concrete floor and the man jumped, seeing the mercenary as the next and the true threat to his safety compared to the short, fragile-looking blonde standing a few feet away despite the fact I'd be the one pointing a gun at him.

"Get the merchandise back to the boss and we can forget it," the mercenary said, her voice gruff, her eyes dim, her jaw tense. "Forget it all."

Hope glimmered in the man's eyes. "Yes, I'll pack it all up – right now – this very second. Then-then we can forget it!"

He turned to me, a slim chance of a smile on his lips, his life in reach – his life in the barrel of a badly disguised gun hidden in his jacket. I raised the rifle and shot a bullet into his skull before he could draw it.

"Contact Mikasa, tell her the job's done," I said to Ymir as I walked past her back into the room full of stolen goods and set the gun on top of a crate.

We resurfaced from the basement, standing behind the counter while Ymir struggled for reception on the crappy radio she carried. Mikasa's voice buzzed through and Ymir notified her of our progress. A few seconds later, the mercenary was returning the radio to her pack.

"She says to watch over the store while her lackeys come to pick everything up. They're close," she said, moving to stand beside me, our arms touching. "We'll get our payment then too."

I nodded, staring out of the store window. It had been given a rushed brush of white paint in an attempt to make it impossible for people to see inside, but it hardly achieved its purpose beyond making the glass look filthy and the store unkempt.

"Then we can travel to the next state," I whispered, smiling with the excitement that came with the life of a gun for hire that moved with the job and, at all other times, with the wind.

"Let's head for the coast this time," Ymir whispered back, sharing the same smile.

"We'll need to go north for that."

"Then let's go north."

"Oh, no, you are not going north," a voice declared, the store door slamming open as a brunette woman and a pack of uniformed men bustled through it. "You two are going west. Mikasa has another job for you."

I caught Ymir's look – the deadly look of a mercenary with a taste for blood – and I knew I had it too. I turned to the brunette now standing on the other side of the counter. "What's the job?"