Seph was lounging on her couch the next time someone knocked on her front door, a bowl of popcorn settled on her stomach and a slasher film playing on the TV. She was content to ignore the visitor, but then she received a text that had her seriously considering the tenuous friendship she had with a certain pain in the ass. It was a simple text, eight words in all with a little frowny face emoji to really pull it together—open the door or I kick it down.
"Break my door and I'll break your ankles, Grady!"
"Move your ass already!" Grumbling under her breath, she rolls onto her feet and strides across the room to the door, opening it a little rougher than it probably deserved. After all, it's not the door's fault that Grady had all the patience of a toddler. He barges inside without even bothering to ask, stealing her popcorn on the way.
"What the fuck, dude?"
"Get dressed, Seph, you and I are goin' on a little adventure."
"Fine, but I get to make the road trip playlist."
"Whatever, just hurry up." She moves down the hall to her bedroom, stripping along the way so that all she had to do once in her room was pull on real clothes. Seph yanks a black tank top over her head and wiggles into a pair of worn jeans before sliding her feet into a pair of boots. She didn't bother trying to brush her hair, just putting it in a messy braid as she shuffled into the kitchen to grab her kit.
"Any particular reason I'm coming with you this time around?"
"FBI are onto us. Apparently they've been following us around since I killed Pearl." She comes back into the living room, taking a couple of photos that Grady was holding up. The first was of Seph heading out of her building in her street clothes and the other was of Grady walking down some street or another.
"How come your hair still looks amazing in this picture? I look like I just crawled out of bed."
"Because, unlike you, I actually care about my appearance." She makes a disgruntled sound, tossing the pictures onto the coffee table. "You ready?"
"Almost." She shrugs into a plum-colored blazer (the only coat she actually owned), and grabbed her case of CDs off the entertainment center before turning to face Grady again, arms held out.
"You could always take advantage of some makeup."
"Too much effort and it comes off during sex anyway." He shrugs and gets to his feet, dropping the empty popcorn bowl on the table next to the pictures and turning off the TV. Goodbye killer dolls and hello killer CIPA patient. I think I'd prefer the doll.
They don't say anything until they're in one of the discreet cars Ezekiel kept stored in a warehouse, Seph flipping through her CDs until she finds one she'd made three years ago. "Seriously," Grady complains," this one again? It's not even that great of a song."
"The more you complain, the louder it goes." To prove her point she turns up the volume and sings along at the tops of her lungs. "It's really good to hear your voice sayin' my name, it sounds so sweet!" Grady turns the volume off with a scowl, slapping her hand away when she went to turn it back up again. "Where are we goin'?"
"We've got four men on our side that have decided to snitch, so we get to kill them. And by we, I mean that I get to kill them and you get to check their pulse to make sure they're actually dead so that Ezekiel doesn't fret. First target is Marky."
"Good, I hated that douchebag."
"He is a bit obnoxious."
"A bit?"
"Alright, a lot obnoxious. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't talk like a twelve year old gamer. At least this gets you out of Cali for a while."
"New Jersey isn't exactly a step up."
Four hours and three tiny bottles of vodka later, Seph was feeling pretty good about life. Another car was waiting for them at the airport, nondescript just like all the others and perfect for crime of any sort. Seph crawls into the passenger's seat, dropping her kit in the back floorboard as Grady slides in behind the wheel.
"Just for the record, I loathe airplanes of any kind."
"Noted," he says, handing her another small bottle. "Have another drink to soothe your nerves."
"Getting me drunk isn't a good thing if you get injured." But she downs it all the same, making a face as it burns its way down her throat. "Where to now?" Grady shrugs, turning on the radio as he pulls into the flow of traffic leaving the airport. It was slow going, but they eventually made it out on the highway. "You realize I can't mend broken bones on the road, right?"
"I'll be careful, Seph."
"That's all I'm asking." She turns to stare out her window at the city, lights going on in some buildings and off in others as twilight descended; night owls getting ready to pull all-nighters, either partying or studying or a mix of the two. Seph was a night owl, even when she was a kid, staying up till the wee hours of the morning just to finish an essay over Alzheimer's for a college she didn't even graduate from.
"We'll stop at gas station in a moment."
"'Kay." She wasn't paying much attention to the man beside her, gray-green eyes focused on the skyline past all the buildings as it slowly began to change into the hazy purple she loved. Twilight was the best time to be awake, it gave her a burst of energy like nothing else. Well, drugs helped sometimes, but it was never the same as staring out at the night beginning to descend over a busy city.
Fifteen minutes later found them walking into a convenience store that had seen better days, the woman behind the counter flipping through a magazine with a vague interest in some article about hairstyles. Seph had the same magazine in her bag, though she was more interested in the manicure tips it offered. She smiles a little at the thought, looking down at her nails and the bright pink polish the shone under the fluorescent lighting. They didn't look half bad, but they'd need a touch-up when she got back home tomorrow.
"Find you something to snack on," Grady advises as he heads for the medicine. "It's liable to be a long night."
"I'm not that hungry."
"You've drank a lot and I'm not having you throw up in Zeke's car." She rolls her eyes and grabs a Twinkie off a shelf before moving over to a row of knickknacks, picking up a cheap bracelet that caught her eye. It was nothing fancy, the metal etched with scales and molded to form a dragon, three plastic gems embedded in its back. She slides it on all the same, not bothering to avoid the security camera as she tears the price sticker off and lets it flutter to the ground.
She continues down the short aisle, nodding at another shopper as she passes. The other woman was pretty, some pink highlights in her blonde hair, but she wasn't Seph's type and she was undeniably straight. Seph grabs up a can of Mountain Dew and makes her way back to the front of the store where Grady was already waiting, dropping her items on the counter next to the pills he'd picked up. Stay-Awake the box said in bold red letters, but Seph was wondering how they could possibly fuck Grady up more than he already was.
"Long night," the cashier asks with a lascivious smile.
"Hot date," Grady corrects, slapping Seph's ass for emphasis. The blonde gives a lazy smile in response, grabbing her things as soon as Grady handed over the cash.
"Protection?" The cashier, Candance, looks him up and down with no attempt to cover up her attraction. Seph couldn't really blame her, Grady was handsome in that rugged bad boy way most women found arousing. Even Seph could see the appeal, though she was just as likely to sleep with a man as she was to attack Russia in the dead of winter.
"We're covered. Isn't that right, babe?"
"Oh yeah," Seph plays along. "He won't be able to walk when I get through with him." She squeezes his shoulder tight enough that, had he been able to feel it, he would've dropped to his knees with a squeak of pain. As it is, she just imagines the scene playing out like that as she walks back out to the car. Sometimes it really sucked that he couldn't feel pain. "You broke that poor woman's heart when she realized you weren't taking her home," she says when Grady slides behind the wheel.
"I find it's best to do that quickly, sort of like ripping off a band aid." She snorts, taking a sip of her pop as he started the car. "Doesn't all that sugar make your ADHD worse?"
"You'd think that, but it actually helps keep me focused. It mimics some of the stimulants that my meds do just not as well. It's like when you have a migraine and take a nap instead of popping some ibuprofen." He makes an interested noise as he backs out of the parking lot, relying on Google Maps to find Marky's house. "Speaking of which, remind me to take my meds when we get home in the morning."
"Your memory failing in your old age, Seph?"
"Don't forget that I can kill you using only an empty syringe." She winks all the same and can see him fighting back a smile, the conversation a familiar one. It was just one of their things, he'd make fun of her for being so close to forty and she'd threaten to murder him if he kept it up.
Marky's house ends up being in a fairly decent neighborhood, the type of place with white picket fences and lawn ornaments stolen from gated communities. Literally stolen, Marky had a moss-covered fountain in his front yard that had another family's name carved into the base.
"Alright, d'you want to come in and say hi before I kill him?"
"Nah, I'll stay out here." Grady nods and heads up to the front door, rapping his knuckles against the white-painted wood. Seph watches on in amusement as he grows impatient and shoulders it open, a crack running up the frame from impact. "I'd shoot him if he did that to my door." She nods to herself, opening up the glove compartment to dig through it. She was bored and there was no better cure for that than to put her nose where it didn't belong.
When her door opens, she doesn't immediately respond to it. She figured it was just Grady trying to make her jump and that he'd go away if she ignored him long enough. It's not until her head is yanked back and a soaked rag is pressed over her nose and mouth that she realizes her attacker wasn't her partner in crime after all.
Seph struggles to break out of the person's hold, but the cloying scent of Chloroform was slowly making her arms feel like lead weights as they fell to her sides, vision going blurry and then dark barely a second later. She tries hard to fight against it, but the surprised breath she'd taken had let it in her system and it was too late. With one last groan, she fell into unconsciousness.
Her hearing is the first thing to come back, the sounds muffled and far away like she was swimming in the Gulf. She gives a tired smile, remembering how the sun had glittered when she looked up through the waves and the way her parents had yelled for her to surface long enough for lunch. But that memory seems swept away on a current as the voice grows clearer and she can recognize the accent.
The next sensation is her burning lungs, throat tight and the air she forces in sounding like a whistle. Seph forces her eyes to open, limbs sluggish and heavy as she sits bolt upright and dives for the bag in the floorboard, tearing it open and upending it until she can see her inhaler.
"Seph," Grady asks, pulling the door open so he could see her better. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," she gasps, massaging her chest as though she could force the burning to go away. "Well, actually, I'm not fine. I was fucking drugged and the bastards threw me in the backseat like a goddamn duffle bag." Her gaze lands on the skinny woman standing nearby, recognizing her from somewhere but unable to nail it down. "Who the fuck is that?"
"Doesn't matter. What do you remember?"
"Someone Chloroformed my ass."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I was Chloroformed and then this lady shot me up with Naloxone because she thought I'd overdosed on Heroin. I can feel things now, Seph! I don't like it!" Seph's brows furrow at the information dump, fingers twitching as she tried to map everything out. It couldn't have been that long since she was drugged considering Chloroform only lasted a few minutes at the most, but the Naloxone could be a problem.
"I was knocked out for ten minutes and everything's gone to shit."
"And it's not even my fault this time."