Hello chiiiiiiildren, this is Blue Watselander and I'd like to thank you for continuing to read my fanfiction "One Last Danse". I've gotten some very kind feedback on the story as well as a lot of great constructive criticism (you know, the great kind where people aren't little turds). Anyway, I do want to address the fact that spelling errors and such have been pointed out. I do a simple spell check after writing a chapter but do not really get super into editing. After I finish the entire fic I will really work to address the technical issues and try to polish it up. Thanks again, and as always, feedback is welcome. Just don't be a douche canoe.

Righteous Authority

White and red stars exploded through my vision as Gav's fist connected with my face for what felt like the hundredth time, "I can't believe you actually killed my girl, you little runt."

I struggled to stay on my knees while Gav was beating me. I had already learned that if I fell over when he hit me he would drag me back up to my knees by my hair. I lifted my chin after the most recent onslaught and tilted my head to the side so I could look at him through my eye that wasn't swollen shut and asked, "Well, if she hadn't have been so weak we wouldn't be in this situation would we?"

Gav's face turned red. He kicked me in the ribs, knocking the air out of me. I bent forward at the waist but refused to fall to the ground again. I watched as he turned to grab the dagger that was on the dilapidated old desktop that was littered with psycho and jet. He tossed it playfully from hand to hand and a twisted smile crossed his face, "I'm not quite done playing games with you, scavver, but I'm going to make sure we're ready when I decide to finish this. Mikey!"

Mikey seemed to materialize in the room behind him, but the illusion could have been easily caused by my vision blacking out again. It was disorienting when I couldn't remember half of the torture they were putting me through. There were times during the beating that I would regain my consciousness and have new aches and pains and gashes.

"What can I do for ya, boss?" The squirrely man groveled.

"Go get a pike. I'm going to show everyone in the Commonwealth what happens to people who steal shit from me and kill my people."

Mikey shut the crooked door behind him as he left. Gav pulled an old wooden office chair from behind the desk in the corner of the room so he could sit in front of me where I was kneeling. He studied my face and smirked evilly.

"You know, if you weren't so mouthy and hadn't have killed my girl, I would have been willing to take you on into the gang," He scratched at the stubble on his jaw. "I maybe woulda even fucked ya a couple of times."

"Like I'd let you," I spat at him. The thought that I should even remotely flattered by his crass assumption made me angry.

"Well, see," he said thoughtfully, inching towards the edge of his seat, "I woulda been able to make you do it anyway if your current predicament proves anything about you bein' able to prevent anything from happening to you. You wasn't even able to stop me from getting what I wanted here."

I rolled my eyes and tried to shift my weight off my aching knees. The raider didn't know anything about my time in the Commonwealth since I left the vault. If he did, he wouldn't be so confident, but I wanted to give Gav the impression that I had lost all hope. It was easy when I still hadn't constructed a plan on how to get out of the store yet.

Gav leaned forward in his chair, making it creak uncomfortably, and caught my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at up him, "I could still do what I want with you."

Knots formed in my stomach and I felt close to hurling at the idea of a forced coupling with the degenerate raider, "Over my dead body."

"Think that'll stop me, cupcake?" he barked out a laugh and hooked his hand around the back of my neck, pulling me into a hard kiss. His tongue covered my mouth with spit as he tried to force his way into my mouth and the urge to vomit resurfaced. I solved my nausea by biting down hard on his tongue when he finally shoved past my bruised lips into my mouth.

"You bitch!" He screamed, pressing his fingers to his tongue so he could inspect the damage.

I took the opportunity he'd presented for me to gain the upper hand and spit the blood from my mouth into his face. He jumped to his feet and ran out of the room to get my blood out of his eyes. I took that moment alone to assess the situation.

C'mon Evie, you've been in worse situations than this, I gave myself a pep talk but the fake positivity wasn't really helping. I had no clue where to go from here; my cloudy thoughts and blurred vision was anything but helpful.

I looked at the chair Gav had been sitting in and noticed the glint of the steel dagger he'd dropped on the floor before he'd left. I shuffled on my knees closer to it and turned to the side, leaning over so I could try to grab it. I almost knocked myself off balance when a wave of dizziness swept over me, but I grabbed the dagger and moved back to where I had been kneeling.

You've got this. Just cut through the ropes and you can fight your way out of this, I said, much more sure of my newly formed plan.

I started sawing at the ropes around my wrists when I heard the stomping of the angry raider returning to the room, "Thought you could pull one over on me didn't you, scavver?"

He raised his hand and delivered a hard-backhand slap to the side of my face. I crumpled to the floor and laid with my eyes closed. Believing he'd rendered me unconscious, Gav turned his back to me and moved the jet and psycho around the desktop where the dagger had been until he found what he wanted. I doubled my efforts to slice through the ropes while he was distracted by his cache of drugs. Relief flooded through me when the pressure on my wrists released and I pulled my hands apart. I watched as Gav inhaled some jet. I raised myself up to my feet and stumbled a little.

"What the fuck?" Gav said when he saw me standing up, freed.

I held the dagger up in my shaking hand and circled around him towards the desk. He momentarily stood silent with a shocked look on his face. I slowly grabbed a syringe of psycho off the desk, but before I could inject it into my arm Gav's hand shot out and he caught me with a solid punch in the chest. I stumbled back and fell onto the floor.

"You're not going anywhere," he snarled at me.

I winced while sitting up and quickly injected the psycho into my thigh, "We'll see about that."

Almost immediately I felt adrenaline pumping through my veins. I felt a wave of uncontrollable anger wash down from my head until my whole body was enveloped in rage. I stood up, dodging another punch from Gav. I quickly hobbled around the desk and grabbed Righteous Authority from the corner where my things had been stashed by Mikey, slipping the dagger into my waistband.

I pointed my rifle at Gav's chest. He looked almost scared when he realized an energy weapon was pointed at his unarmored chest. The fear fled from his face when he observed my bruised and broken body, "You ain't gonna do nothing."

He dropped his hand to his side where a sawed-off shotgun dangled, but before he could grab it I shot his shoulder once with a laser.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked incredulously. "You're trying to fucking kill me after you've tortured me and you think I'm not going to do anything to you?"

He panicked and turned to the door. I shot him in the leg and watched him drop to the floor in pain before he could leave. Mikey opened the door at that point. He dropped the pike he was holding when I pointed the rifle at him and he held his hands up.

"Whoa, whoa there sister. I don't want any trouble," He said trying to weasel his way out of being shot.

Unfortunately for him I wasn't in a forgiving mood. I aimed at his head and pulled the trigger. A red beam exited my rifle and Mikey's head turned into a bloody, burned stump.

I turned my attention back to Gav who was trying to worm his way out of the room. He looked pathetic alternating between writhing in pain and squirming to get away from me. I stepped forward with more confidence than I felt and planted my feet on either side of his body. I pulled his head up by his hair like he'd done to me during his sadistic game and whispered in his ear, "You're done terrorizing the Commonwealth."

I pulled the dagger from my waistband and sliced it quickly across his throat. A gurgling sputtering sound came out of his mouth and neck as he bled out through the arteries I had cut through. I stood in the door way and looked over my shoulder as the last bit of life drained from his eyes, "Ad victoriam, asshole."

I limped down to the storage room and looked through a plethora of containers of food and medical supplies the raiders had before I found a stimpak. My head immediately felt clearer after using it. I hobbled out into the store front and picked up an overturned shopping cart and wheeled it back to where the hole in the floor was. I picked the cans of blue paint up one by one while clutching my ribs. I pushed the cart out the loading dock door and headed back to the house where Danse waited for me.

It was the middle of the night when I started getting close to the house. My endurance was shot from the ordeal at Hardware Town and I couldn't find any stimpaks on the way back. I sat down on the rusty bumper of an old shipping truck and rested my head on the cool metal. After a moment I looked at my Pip-Boy. The marker was at least half a mile away still.

"I should have just stayed home today," I murmured.

"Yes, you should have," Danse's rich, deep voice agreed.

I looked around and found him leaning against the end of the truck. He sauntered over towards me, but his face melted into an expression of worry when he saw my face covered with bruises and my blue shirt and yellow shorts covered with blood, "What happened to you?"

I shrugged and grimaced at the pain of it, "I went and got some paint." I lightly tapped the shopping cart full of paint cans proudly with my foot.

Danse scowled at me, "Looks like you ran into some trouble while you were getting that paint."

I hopped off the bumper and stumbled a little before Danse caught me. His strong arm held me around my waist as I steadied myself. "Just as few raiders. Nothing I can't handle."

Danse gave me a once over and opened his mouth to argue with me. I shot him a pitiful glare, so instead, he asked, "What are we going to do with this shopping cart of garbage?"

"It's not garbage!" I exclaimed indignantly. "It's home improvement supplies!"

Danse smirked and shook his head. He gently lifted me off the ground and placed me in the cart with the paint cans, "Take it easy, Evelyn. I'll take you home."

So there you have it kids. Another chapter in this fun little fanfiction. I hope you enjoyed it. In the last chapter I talked about another Fallout fic that combines New Vegas, 3, and 4. I'm not going to begin developing that story until after November because I enjoy participating in NaNoWriMo and I can't work on three stories at once. Sorry! Next update will be Friday. If you liked this chapter please click the little favorite button and don't forget to follow for more updates!